Conan the Invincible Part 13

"You have muscles, Cimmerian," he grated, "but no brains. You think above yourself."

Conan's laugh was short and mirthless. "Do you think I intend to displace you as lieutenant? I'm a thief, not a raider of caravans. But you do as you think you must." His broadsword was a heavy weapon, but he made it sing in interlocked figure eights about his head and to either side.

"Put up your blades!" came Karela's voice from behind him.

Without taking his gaze totally from Hordo, Conan took two quick steps to his left, turning so he could see both the bearded bandit and the red-haired woman. She stood in the entrance of the pavilion, her emerald cape drawn close to cover her from her neck to the ground. Her green-eyed gaze regarded them imperiously.

"He sought your tent," Hordo muttered.

"As I commanded him," she replied coldly. "You, at least, Hordo, should know I don't allow men of my band to draw weapons on each other. I'd have killed Aberius and Talbor for it. You two are more valuable. Shall I let each of you consider it the night with his hands and feet bound in the small of his back?"

Hordo seemed shaken by her anger. He sheathed his sword. "I was but trying to protect you," he protested.

The muscles along her jaw tightened. "Think you I need protection? Go, Hordo, before I forget the years you've served me well." The one-eyed man hesitated, cast a sharp glance at Conan, then stalked off toward the fires.

"You talk more like a queen than a bandit," Conan said finally, replacing his sword in its worn s.h.a.green scabbard. She stared at him, but he met her gaze firmly.

"Others end at the headsman's block, or on the slave block, but none of mine has ever been taken, Conan. Because I demand discipline. Oh, not the foolishness soldiers call discipline, but any command I give must be obeyed at once. Any command. In this band the Red Hawk's word is law, and those who cannot accept that must leave or die."

"I am no hand at obedience," he said quietly.

"Come inside," she said, and disappeared through the entrance. Conan followed.

The ground inside the striped pavilion had been laid with fine, fringed Turanian carpets. A bed of glossy black furs, with silken pillows and soft, striped woolen blankets, lay against a side of the tent. A low, highly polished table was surrounded by large cus.h.i.+ons. Gilded oil lamps illumined all.

"Close the flap," she said. Her mouth worked, and she added with obvious effort, "Please."

Conan unfastened the flap and let it drop across the entrance. He was wary of this strange mood Karela seemed to be in. "You should be more careful with Hordo. He's the only one of this lot who's loyal to you instead of to your success."

"Hordo is more a faithful hound than a man," she said.

"The more fool you for thinking so. He's the best man out there."

"He is no man, as I mean a man." Abruptly she threw back the emerald cape, letting it fall to the rugs, and Conan could not stop the gasp that rose in his throat.

Karela stood before him naked, soft auburn hair falling about her shoulders. A single strand of matched pearls hung low around the curve of her hips, glowing against the ivory skin of her sweetly rounded belly. Her heavy, round b.r.e.a.s.t.s were rouged, and the musky scent of perfume drifted from her as she stood with one knee slightly bent, shoulders back, hands behind her, in a pose at once offering and defiant.

He took a step toward her, and there was suddenly a dagger in her hand, its needle blade no wider than her finger but long enough and more to reach his heart. Her tilted green eyes never left his face. "You walk among my rogues like a wolf among a pack of dogs, Cimmerian. Even Hordo is but half wolf beside you. No man has ever called me his, for men come to believe the calling. If a woman must be a man's slave, then I'll be no woman. I'll walk behind no man, fawning for his favor and leaping to his command. I am the Red Hawk. I command. I."

With great care he lifted the dagger from her fingers and tossed it aside. "You are a woman, Karela, whether you admit it or no. Does there have to be one to command between us? I knew the chains of slavery when I was but sixteen, and I have no desire to wish them on anyone." He lowered her to the furs.

"An you betray me," she whispered, "I'll put your head before my tent on a spear. I'll... ah, Derketo." For a time she made no sounds that came not unbidden to her lips.

Chapter XII.

The private thaumaturgical chambers of Amanar were in the very top of the tallest tower of the keep, as far from the room of sacrifice as they could be and still remain within that dark fortress. He knew that Morath-Aminee was in no way limited to the columned room in the heart of the mountain, but distance yet gave an illusion of safety.

The walls of the circular stone room were lined with books bound in the skins of virgins, and light came from gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s that hung from sconces glowing from a minor spell. There was no window, nor any opening save a single heavily barred, iron-bound door. The scent of incense hissing with colored flames on the coals of a bronze brazier warred with the odor of a noxious brew bubbling in a stone beaker above a fire stoked with human bones. On the tables, dried mummies waited to be powdered for philters, among carelessly scattered ewers of deadly venom and bundles of rare herbs and roots.

The necromancer himself stood watching the boiling brew, his attention rapt. The dark liquid began to froth higher. With but a moment's hesitation he removed the amulet from his neck. A chill climbed his backbone at being even so barely separated, but it was necessary.

Before the black froth reached the rim of the beaker, he lowered the amulet by its chain until serpent and eagle alike were covered. The silver chain grew colder, bitter metal ice searing his preternaturally long fingers. The froth sank, but the black liquid bubbled even more fiercely. The stone of the beaker began to glow red.

"Hand of a living man, powdered when dry Blood of an eagle, no more to fly Eye of the mongoose, tooth of the boar Heart of a virgin, soul of a wh.o.r.e Burn to their blackness, heat till they boil Dip in the periapt, confounding the roil."

Hands shaking with haste, Amanar removed the amulet. He wanted to wipe it dry on the instant and replace it about his neck, but this stage of the spell was critical. With long bronze tongs he lifted the stone beaker. Nearby, atop a white marble pedestal, was a small, clear crystal coffer, fragile seeming against even that smooth stone.

Deliberately the mage tilted the tongs, pouring the boiling liquid over the gleaming box.

The words he muttered then were arcane, known only to him among the living. The scalding mixture struck the small coffer. The crystal shrieked as if it would shatter in ten thousand pieces. The liquid seemed to gather itself to fly away in steam. As if from a great distance, screams echoed in the room. Mongoose and boar. Virgin and wh.o.r.e. Abruptly there was silence. The noxious mix was gone, no drop of it remaining. The crystal walls of the coffer now contained gray clouds, s.h.i.+fting and swirling as if before a great wind.

Breathing heavily, Amanar set the beaker and tongs aside. Confidence was flowing back into him. The haven, however temporary, was prepared.

He wiped the amulet clean, inspecting it minutely before placing it once more about his neck.

From below rose the dolorous tone of a great bronze gong. Smiling, the mage unbarred the door and took up the crystal coffer beneath his arm.

The gong echoed hollowly again.

Amanar made his way directly to the alabaster-walled audience chamber, its domed ceiling held aloft by carven ivory columns as thick as a man's trunk. Behind his throne reared a great serpent of gold. The arms of the throne were hooded vipers of Koth, the legs adders of Vendhya, all of gold. As he surveyed the a.s.semblage before him, the necromancer allowed no particle of his surprise to touch his face. The S'tarra he had expected knelt with heads bowed, while five young women he had definitely not expected, in gossamer silks, hands bound behind their backs, were forced to prostrate themselves before the throne.

Amanar sat, carefully holding the crystal coffer on his lap. "You have that which I sent you for?" he said.

Sitha stepped forward. "They brought this, master." The S'tarra Warden presented an ornate casket of worked gold, the lid set with gemstones.

The mage forced himself to move slowly, but still his fingers trembled as he opened the casket. One by one, four jewels the like of which no man had ever seen, mounted in pendants of silver or gold, were casually tossed on the mosaic floor. A blood-red pearl the size of a man's two thumbs. A diamond black as a raven's wing, and big as a hen's egg. A golden crystal heart that had come from the ground in that shape. A complex lattice of pale blue that could cut diamond. All were as nothing to him. His hand shook visibly as he removed the last, the most important. As long as the top joint of a man's finger, of midnight hue filled with red flecks that danced wildly as Amanar's palm cupped the stone, this was the pendant that must be kept from Morath-Aminee.

He waved the golden casket away. "Dispose of those trifles, Sitha." His S'tarra henchman bowed, and gathered the pendants.

Almost tenderly Amanar swathed the dark stone in silk, then laid it in the crystal coffer. When he replaced the lid, he breathed a sigh of relief. Safe, at last. Not even Morath-Aminee would be able to detect what was in there, for a time, at least. And before that could happen he would have found a new haven, far away, where the G.o.d-demon would never think to look.

Clutching the crystal box firmly, Amanar turned his attentions to the women lying before him with their faces pressed to the divers-colored tiles. They trembled, he noted with idle satisfaction.

"How came you by these women?" the mage demanded.

Sura.s.sa, who had led the foray, lifted a scaled head. The dark face was expressionless, the words sibilant. "Before Shadizar, master, we spoke the words you told us, and ate the powders, that the glamour might be on us, and none should see us enter."

"The women," Amanar said impatiently. "Not every last thing that happened." He sighed at the look of concentration that appeared in the S'tarra's red eyes. When they knew a thing by rote, it was difficult for them to separate one part.

"The palace, master," Sura.s.sa hissed finally. "We entered the palace of Tiridates unseen, but when we came to the place where that which you sent us to seek was to be, only the casket was to be found. Taking the casket, we searched then the palace. Questioning some, and slaying them for silence, we found the pendants about the necks of these women, and slew the men who were with them. Leaving then the palace, we found that, as you had warned us, the glamour had worn off. We donned the robes-"

"Silence," Amanar said, and the saurian creature's words ceased at once. For their limited intelligence he had commanded them to fetch the casket and all five pendants, fearing they might make a mistake in the pressure of the moment and bring the black diamond instead of that which he needed. Yet despite all his careful instructions they had managed to increase their risk of being caught by taking these women.

Rage bubbled in him, made all the worse for knowing that punis.h.i.+ng them would be like punis.h.i.+ng dogs. They would accept whatever he did, and understand not a whit of why. The S'tarra, sensing something of his mood, s.h.i.+fted uneasily.

"Bring the women before me," the necromancer commanded.

Hastily the five women were pulled to their knees and the bare covering of their silks ripped away. With fearful eyes the kneeling, naked women watched Amanar rise. He walked thoughtfully down the line of them.

Severally and together, they were beautiful, and just as important to him, their dread was palpable.