Conan caught the tavernkeeper’s tunic sleeve as he passed again. “I’ve never seen veiled strumpets before. Do they cover the marks of the pox?”
“New come to Aghrapur, are you?” the man said, a slight smile touching his thin mouth.
“A short time past. But these women?”
“’Tis rumored,” the other smirked, “that some women highly born, bored with husbands whose vigor has left them, amuse themselves by disporting as common trulls, wearing veils so those same husbands, who frequent the brothels as oft as any other men, will not recognize them. As I say, ’tis but a rumor, yet what man will pass the chance to have a lord’s wife beneath him for a silver piece?”
“Not likely,” Conan snorted. “There would be murder done when one of those lords discovered that the doxy he’d bought was his own wife.”
“Nay. Nay. The others flock about them, but not the lordlings. What man would risk the shame of knowing his wife had been bought?
It was true, Conan saw. Each veiled woman was the center of a knot of sailors or dockworkers or tradesmen, but the nobles ignored them, looking the other way rather than acknowledge their existence.
“Try one,” the snake-faced man urged. “One silver piece, and you can see for yourself if she moves beneath you like a noblewoman.”
Conan drank deeply, as if considering. Had he been interested in dalliance, it was in his mind that better value would come from an honest strumpet than from a nobly born woman pretending to be such. The tapster had none of the fripperies of the panderer about him—he did not sniff a perfumed pomander or wear more jewelry than any three wenches—but no doubt he took some part of what was earned on the mats above the common room. He might talk more easily if he thought Conan a potential patron. The Cimmerian lowered his mug.
“It’s a thing to think on,” he chuckled, eying a girl nearby. A true daughter of the mats, this one, in an orange-dyed wig with her face as bare as her wiggling buttocks. “But I seek a friend who was supposed to meet me. I understand he frequents this place betimes.”
The tavernkeeper drew back half a step, and his voice cooled noticeably. “Look around you. An he is here, you will see him. Otherwise … .” He shrugged and turned to walk away, but Conan reached across the bar and caught his arm, putting on a smile he hoped was friendly. “I do not see him, but I still must needs find him. He is called Emilio the Corinthian. For the man who can tell me where to find him, I could spare the price of one of these wenches for the night.” If Sharak was correct—and he always was—Conan had to find Emilio, and what word he had thus far garnered was neither copious nor good.
The tapster’s face became even more snake-like, but his lidded eyes had flickered at Emilio’s name. “Few men must pay for the whereabouts of a friend. Mayhap this fellow—Emilio, did you say his name is?—is no friend of yours. Mayhap he does not wish to meet you. Ashra! Come rid me of this pale-eyed fool!”
“I can prove to you that I know him. He is—”
A massive hand landed on the Cimmerian’s broad shoulder, and a guttural voice growled, “Out with you!”
Conan turned his head enough to look coldly at the wide hand, its knuckles sunken and scarred. His icy azure gaze traveled back along a hairy arm as big around as most men’s legs. And up. This Ashra stood head and shoulders taller even than Conan himself, and was half again as broad with no bit of fat on him. For all the scarring of his hands, the huge man’s broad-nosed face was unmarked. Conan thought few could reach high enough to strike it.
He attempted to keep his tone reasonable. Fighting seldom brought information. “I seek a man this skinny one knows, not trouble. Now unhand me and—”
For an answer the big man jerked at Conan’s shoulder. Sighing, the Cimmerian let himself be spun, but the smile on Ashra’s face lasted only until Conan’s fist hooked into his side with a loud crack of splintering ribs. Shouting drinkers scrambled out of the way of the two massive men. Conan’s other fist slammed into the tall man, and again he felt ribs break beneath his blow.
With a roar Ashra seized the Cimmerian’s head in both of his huge hands and lifted Conan clear of the floor, squeezing as if to crush the skull he held, but a wolfish battle-light shone in Conan’s eyes. He forced his arms between Ashra’s and gripped the other’s head in turn, one hand atop it, the other beneath the heavy chin. Slowly he twisted, and slowly the bull neck gave. Panting, Ashra suddenly loosed his hold, yet managed to seize Conan about the chest before he could fall. Hands locked, he strained to snap the Cimmerian’s spine.
The smile on Conan’s face was enough to chill the blood. In the time it took three grains of sand to fall in the glass, he knew, he could break Ashra’s neck, yet a killing would of a certainty gag the tapster’s mouth. Abruptly he released his grip. Ashra laughed, thinking he had the victory. Conan raised his hands high, then smashed them, palms flat, across the other’s ears.
Ashra screamed and staggered back, dropping the Cimmerian to clutch at his bleeding ears. Conan bored after him, slamming massive fists to the ribs he had already broken, then a third blow to the huge man’s heart. Ashra’s eyes glazed, and his knees bent, but he would not fall. Once more Conan struck. That never-struck nose fountained blood, and Ashra slowly turned, toppling into a table that splintered beneath him. Once the prostrate man stirred as if to rise, then was still.
A murmuring crowd gathered around the fallen man. Two men grabbed his ankles, grunting as they dragged the massive weight away. More than one wench eyed Conan warmly, licking her lips and putting an extra sway in her walk, among them those with veiled faces. He ignored them and turned back to the business at hand, to the tapster.
The snake-faced innkeeper stood behind the bar wearing an expression almost as stunned as Ashra’s. A bung-starter dangled forgotten in his hand.
Conan took the heavy mallet from the slack grip and held it up before the man’s eyes, fists touching in the middle of the thick handle. The muscles of his arms and shoulders knotted and bunched; there was a sharp crack, and he let the two pieces fall to the bar.
The tavernkeeper licked his thin lips. He stared at Conan as if at a wonderment. “Never before have I seen the man Ashra could not break in two wit his bare hands,” he said slowly. “But then, even he couldn’t have … .” His gaze dropped to the broken mallet, and he swallowed hard. “Have you a mind to employment? The job held by that sack of flesh they’re hauling off is open. A silver piece a day, plus a room, food, drink, and your choice of any wench who has not a customer. My name is Manilik. How are you called?”
“I am no hauler of tosspots,” Conan said flatly. “Now tell me what you know of Emilio.”
Manilik hesitated, then gave a strained laugh. “Mayhap you do know him. I’m careful of my tongue, you see. Talk when you shouldn’t, and you’re apt to lose your tongue. I don’t waggle mine.”
“Waggle it now. About Emilio.”
“But that is the problem, stranger. Oh, I know of Emilio,” he said quickly, as Conan’s massive fist knotted atop the bar, “but I know little. And I’ve not seen him these three days past.”
“Three days,” Conan muttered despondently. Thus far he had found many who knew Emilio, but none who had seen the Corinthian these three days past. “That boasting idiot is likely gazing into a mirror or rolling with that hot-blooded Davinia of his,” he growled.
“Davinia?” Tewfik sounded startled. “If you know of her, perhaps you truly do know … .” He trailed off with a nervous laugh under Conan’s icy eyes.
“What do you know of Davinia, Tewfik?”
The innkeeper shivered, so quietly was that question asked. It seemed to him the quiet of the tomb, mayhap of his tomb an he answered not quickly. Words bubbled from him as water from a spring.
“General Mundara Khan’s mistress, bar-, ah, stranger, and a dangerous woman for the likes of Emilio, not just for who it is that keeps her, but for her ambition. ’Tis said lemans have bodies, but not names. This Davinia’s name is known, though. Not two
years gone, she appeared in Aghrapur on the arm of an ivory trader from Punt. The trader left, and she remained. In the house of a minor gem merchant. Since then she’s managed to change her leash from one hand to another with great dexterity. A rug merchant of moderate wealth, the third richest ship owner in the city, and now Mundara Khan, a cousin of King Yildiz himself, who would be a prince had his mother not been a concubine.”
The flow of talk slowed, then stopped. Greed and fear warred on Manilik’s face, and his mouth was twisted with the pain of giving away what he might, another time, have sold.
Conan laughed disparagingly and lied. “Can you not tell me more than is known on every street corner? Why, I’ve heard strumpets resting their feet wager on whether the next bed Davinia graces will be that of Yildiz.” He searched for a way to erase the doubt that still creased the tavern-keeper’s face. “Next,” he said, “you’ll tell me that as she chooses her patrons only to improve herself, she must risk leaving her master’s bed for her own pleasures.” How else to explain Emilio, and this Davinia so clearly a woman intent on rising?
Manilik blinked. “I had no idea so much was so widely known. It being so, there are those who will want to collect what the Corinthian owes before Mundara Khan has him gelded and flayed. He had better have the gold he has bragged of, or he’ll not live to suffer the general’s mercies.”
“He mentioned gold, did he?” Conan prompted.
“Yes, he … .” The heavy-lidded eyes opened wide. “Mean you to say it’s a lie? Four or five days, he claimed, and he would have gold dripping from his fingers. An you are a friend of the Corinthian, warn him clear most particularly of one Narxes, a Zamoran. His patience with Emilio’s excuses is gone, and his way with a knife will leave your friend weeping that he is not dead. Narxes likes well to make examples for others who might fail to pay what they owe. Best you tell him to keep quiet about my warning, though. I’ve no wish for the Zamoran to come after me before Emilio finishes him.”
“I will tell him,” Conan said drily. Manilik was licking his narrow lips, avarice personified. As soon as he could, the tavernkeeper would have a messenger off to this Narxes. Whether it was Narxes or Emilio who survived, Manilik would claim it was his warning that tipped the balance. But Conan did not mean to add to the Corinthian thief’s troubles. “So far as I know, the gold will be his, as he claims.”
The innkeeper shrugged. “If you say it, then I believe it, stranger.” But his voice carried a total lack of conviction.
Conan left with a wry smile, but just outside he stopped and leaned against the doorjamb. The lowering sun was a bloody ball on the rooftops. Moments later a slender, dark-haired serving wench darted from the inn, pulling a cloak of coarse brown wool about her. He caught the girl’s arm, pulling her aside. The wench stared up at him, dark eyes wide and mouth hanging open.
“You are the one Manilik is sending to Narxes,” he said.
She straightened defiantly—she came no higher than Conan’s chest—and glared. “I’ll tell you naught. Loose me.”
Releasing his grip, he half pushed her toward the street. “Go then. Never before have I seen anyone run to have her throat slit.”
The girl hesitated, rubbing her arm and eying the passing carts rumbling over the cobblestones. Sailors and tradesmen thronged between the high-wheeled vehicles. A quick dash and she could be lost among them. Instead she said, “Why should Narxes wish to harm me? I’ve never had a copper to wager at his tables. The likes of me’d never get past the door.”
“You mean you don’t know?” Conan said incredulously. “That alters matters.”
“Know what? What matters?”
“I heard Manilik say he was sending a girl to Narxes for … .” He let his voice trail off, shaking his head. “No, it’s no use. Better you do not know. You couldn’t escape, anyway.”
She laughed shakily. “You’re trying to frighten me. I am just to tell Narxes that Manilik has word for him. What did you hear?” Conan was silent, frowning as if in thought, until she stepped closer and laid a trembling hand on his arm. “You must tell me! Please?”
“Not that it will do you any good,” Conan said, feigning reluctance. “Narxes will find you no matter how far you run.”
“My parents have a farm far from the city. He’d never find me there. Tell me!”
“Narxes has been selling young girls to the Cult of Doom for sacrifices,” he lied, and invented some detail. “You’ll be strapped to an altar, and when your throat is cut the blood will be gathered in a chalice, then—”
“No!” She staggered back, one hand to her mouth. Her face had a greenish cast, as if she were about to be sick. “I’ve never heard that the Cult of Doom makes such sacrifices. Besides, the use of freeborn for sacrifices is forbidden by law.”
“How will anyone ever know, once you’re safely dead and your body tossed to the sea?” He shrugged. “But if you do not believe me, then seek out Narxes. Perhaps he will explain it to you on your way to the compound of the Cult.”
“What am I to do?” she moaned, taking quick steps first in one direction then another. “I have no money, nothing but what I stand in. How am I to get to my parents’ farm?”
Sighing, Conan dug a fistful of coppers from his pouch. Emilio would repay him, or he would know the reason why. “Here, girl. This will see you there.”
“Thank you. Thank you.” Half-sobbing, she snatched the coins from his outstretched hand and ran.
Not even a kiss for gratitude, Conan thought grumpily as he watched her disappear down the teeming street. But with luck Manilik would not discover for at least a day that his plans had gone awry. A day to find Emilio without worrying about finding him dead. The story he had concocted for the girl had sounded even more convincing than he had hoped. With a satisfied smile he started down the street.
In the dimnesses that foreshadowed dusk he did not notice the shaven-headed man in saffron robes, standing in the mouth of an alley beside the inn he had just left, a man who watched his going with interest.
V
Night filled the ivory-walled compound of the Cult of Doom. No dimmest flicker of light showed, for those of the Cult rose, worked, ate and slept only by command. No coppers were wasted on tapers. In an inner room, though, where Jhandar met with those who followed him most faithfully, bronze lion lamps illumined walls of alabaster bas-relief and floors mosaicked in a thousand colors.
The forty saffron-robed men who waited beneath the high vaulted ceiling knelt as Jhandar entered, each touching a dagger to his forehead. “Blessed be Holy Chaos,” they intoned. “Blessed be disorder, confusion, and anarchy.”
“Blessed be Holy Chaos,” the mage replied perfunctorily. He was, as always, robed as they.
He eyed the lacquered tray of emerald and gold that had been placed on a small tripod table before the waiting men. His hands moved above the two-score small, stone bottles on the tray, fingers waving like questing snakes’ tongues, as if they could sense the freshness of the blood within those stoppered containers.
One of the men shifted. “The kills were all made within the specified hours, Great Lord.”
Jhandar acknowledged him only with an irritated flick of an eyelid. Of course those killed had died as he had commanded, at the hour he had commanded. Those who knelt before him did not know why the deaths must occur so, nor even why they must collect the blood while their victims’ hearts still beat. They believed that they knew a great deal, but what they knew was how to obey. For Jhandar’s purposes, that was enough.
“Go,” the necromancer commanded. “Food and drink await you. Then sleep. Go.”
“Blessed be Holy Chaos,” they chanted and, rising, filed slowly from the room.
Jhandar waited until the heavy bronze door had clanged shut behind them before speaking again. “Che Fan,” he said. “Suitai. Attend me.”
Two men, tall, lean, and robed in black, appeared as if materializing from air. It would have taken a quick eye to see the turning panel o
f stone in the wall from behind which they had stepped. But then, even a quick eye would have stared so at the men as to miss everything else. Even in Aghrapur, they were unusual. Their black eyes seemed to slant, and their skin was the color of parchment left in the sun till it yellowed, yet so smooth that it gave no hint of age. Like as twins they were, though, the man called Che Fan was perhaps a fingerbreadth the taller. By birth and training they were assassins, able to kill with no more than the touch of a hand.
Suitai took the tray, while Che Fan hurried to open a small wooden door, lacquered and polished to mirror brightness. Jhandar swept through, followed by the two men. The passage beyond was narrow, brightly lit by gold lamps dangling from wall sconces, and empty. The shaven-headed mage kept his tame killers out of sight, for there might be those who would know them for what they were. Even the Chosen saw them but rarely.
The narrow corridor led to a chamber, in the center of which was a large circle of bare dirt, with dead sterility. Great fluted columns supported the domed alabaster ceiling, and surrounding the barren earth were thirteen square pillars truncated at waist height.
As he had done many times before, Suitai began setting out the stone bottles on the hard-packed dirt. He made four groups of five, each group forming a cross.
“Great Lord.” Che Fan spoke in a hoarse whisper. “We follow as you command, yet our existence is empty.”
Jhandar looked at him in surprise. The two assassins never spoke unless spoken to. “Would you prefer to be where I found you?” he asked harshly.
Che Fan recoiled. He and Suitai had been walled up alive within the Khitan fortress where Jhandar had been imprisoned. Accidentally the necromancer had freed them in his own escape, and they had sworn to follow him. He was not certain they believed he could actually return them to their slow death in Khitai, but they seemed to.