Authors: Poul Anderson
'I wormed my way in one night,' Falco continued. 'By a dark lantern I found and read a file of correspondence meant for very few eyes. Yes, it showed that King Mentuphera. has made secret allies of several city-states in Shem, as well as those tributary to him. They plan a joint invasion and conquest of Ophir. If that succeeds, they will be at the frontier of Aquilonia. Weakly and foolishly ruled, racked by civil strife, it will soon fall to them, isolating Argos for later attention. Vast will be the domains of Mentuphera. and the cold glee of Set.'
He winced, then shrugged in an effort to appear a self-possessed man of the world. 'Unfortunately, I was caught. Perhaps somebody noticed my lantern beam by sheer ill fortune, or perhaps a magician's familiar scuttled off to bear tidings – know not. I drew my rapier, killed one guard -' surely his first kill, Conan thought -'and wounded more, but their numbers overcame me.'
He stared out a window. His voice dropped. 'What followed was eldritch. I was not tortured or beheaded or anything like that. Instead, they soon took me by hidden ways to a dock where a priest-manned boat waited, a boat driven not by oars or sail but by demonic fires, spreading wings to skim the water so fast that we reached Khemi in two nights and a day. I heard it is the sole vessel of its kind, built in ancient Acheron by magical arts since lost. The chief priest aboard spoke little to me but did admit that seldom have prisoners been thus conveyed. He also told me that his government would make no complaint about my action, would not mention me at all, and leave Lord Zarus to wonder what had happened.
'At journey's end I was brought here and put in soft confinement. Here I have been since, a matter of weeks.'
'Have you any idea why you are so carefully handled?' Conan asked.
Falco nodded. A blush reddened his face. 'Yes, sir, I do, and that is the reason I wonder if our escape would necessarily be a good thing. Instead, perhaps we should hope for eventual release.'
Conan halted, folded his great arms, and scowled. 'Say on.'
Falco drank deep and avoided the Cimmerian's whetted gaze. 'Well, I have been having a frequent visitor. The most wondrous lady -'
Jehanan brought his head sharply up. He tensed.
Falco sighed. 'Yes, the lady Senufer is a dream of beauty and, well, love. I have, uh, some knowledge of women, but never had I
imagined there could be one like her. She is living proof that not Stygians are bad and, and in fact, peace is not a lost cause.'
'Never mind her body,' Conan said with a sardonic grin. 'Tell me! about her business.'
'Well,' Falco responded, 'she has explained to me that a strong party in favour of peace does exist among the nobility. They see no gain worth making in foreign adventures. Rather, many of them would like the country opened up, letting new ideas come in from abroad. They are striving to change the king's mind, and they do have considerable influence. One of them learned about my capture immediately afterward and thought I should be preserved as a – oh -a potential liaison. His associates could not get me freed, but they could arrange for my detention here. Senufer is... remarkable in every way. At first she simply came wanting to make my acquaintance, that she might report on me to her kinsmen, but soon -' Fiery red, he tossed off his wine.
Jehanan could endure no more. He sprang to his feet and croaked, 'Believe her not. She is another fiend, like her who sought me out. You will learn that to your sorrow, boy.' 'What do you mean?' Conan rapped.
Slowly, the shame of it often locking his tongue, Jehanan forced himself to relate his woes, and how a gorgeous wanton who called herself Heterka had restored his joy in life, only to dash it from him again for her sport.
Conan's expression grew stark. He did accomplish going over to Bêlit's brother, wringing the hand that trembled before him, and murmuring a few words of consolation. Thereafter he cast his glance at Daris. 'Best we hear her entire story,'he said. 'I think we are all in the same spider web.'
Falco translating her Stygian, the woman described her own experiences. At mention of the wingboat, the Ophirite was surprised, and surprised her in turn by relating his tale. Conan merely nodded. Jehanan had sunk back into misery.
'Well,' the barbarian said, 'time that I spun you my yarn. I am, you remember, an adventurer from the far North, who has knocked about the world for a number of years. I suppose the part of my life that matters to us here began when I met Bêlit.'
Jehanan seemed rather heartened by the account of his sister. 'She not herself a fine man, it seems,' he even said. Conan continued. The effort of putting words together, telling the basic story without giving away information that might be useful to possible eavesdroppers, took his mind away from overt anger. Down below, it seethed onward, white-hot. He poured himself a glass of wine to cool it a little.
At the end, the three who were seated looked up his height into his glacier-blue eyes and heard him say:
'Clear is to see, we are in a weird affair. I gather this Tothapis I heard mention of is a leading priest-magician, right?' Falco nodded confirmation. 'Now why should he go to such trouble to snare me, a plain buccaneer? That is the job of the royal navy. Why are the rest of you also so important to somebody – a spy, a slave, and a prisoner of war, albeit she is a princess of sorts? Why are we suddenly brought together and left alone like this? Who has profited from any of it?'
'Senufer's people must have been working on our behalf,' Falco suggested. 'Probably she can tell me more when next we meet.'
'Trust not a Stygian witch!' Jehanan rasped.
Falco bridled. 'You were unlucky,' he said, 'but of Senufer I will hear no evil spoken.'
Though Daris could not follow their Shemitish, she sensed the tension and spoke in Stygian. Falco relaxed and told Conan: 'The lady proposes that if we have no further questions, we spend the rest of the afternoon getting to know each other, swapping memories and tales and songs, over this wine.'
'You have the right idea there, lass,' Conan said -in Cimmerian, which he might as well. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
When the prisoners had been returned to their separate quarters, Tothapis obliterated the image. He sat pondering while Nehekba rose and stretched her supple form.
'Well, my lord?' she challenged. 'Do you agree this was worthwhile?'
'Perhaps,' he replied. 'We did get a heap of personal information about them. It remains to be seen how much can be used in the necromancy that traces out and cuts the skein of their fate.'
'Why, I think already I have learned what may suffice,' she said.
He peered at her through the gloom. 'Eh?'
She laughed, a clear and malicious sound. 'Conan may love his little Bêlit, but he has been parted from her for days, and he is plainly bull-virile. Did you not see how he ogled Daris? It may take a while, but I judge he is corruptible through this, if by no different means. And once he is corrupted, in the priggish eyes of Mitra...s-s-s-s... once he is enslaved to me, ah, then we have him, whether he recognizes it or not. His destiny will be lost, his soul rudderless – and yet, while he lives, none else can have the honour of being the god's warrior. For is it not written that 'The pledges of Mitra... s-s-s-s... are for eternity'? You can keep him alive a very long while, Tothapis.' Sharp fingernails combed flowing tresses. 'And I – I expect to enjoy myself unusually much.'
IX
A Warrior's Welcome
That evening a full moon rose out of the Styx. It would not be visible from Conan's balcony for some while, but he saw how the sky lightened to a deep purple over the battlemented walls across the courtyard. Stars were coming forth. The weather had turned milder, the night was balmy.
He picked out the North Star, by which he could steer home to his own people if he were free. Not that he would leave Bêlit, but she had said that someday she would like to visit the land that had bred him. He looked upward and found Jupiter, a silvery-golden brilliance. The same planet shone down on her where she waited at sea. Did she watch it at this moment, held wakeful by her yearning and fears for him?
Pain stabbed afresh. He drew a quick breath. It turned into an oath. He spun on his heel and stalked back inside. Hours of vigorous exercise every day had kept him fit, while somewhat assuaging his boredom. Well, he would do an extra round now, in hopes that that would enable him to sleep.
Candles glowed throughout the main room. He ignored its richness, peeled off his tunic, dropped the garment on the floor and, attired in nothing save a loincloth, started a set of deep knee bends.
A click and rattle sounded through the stillness. Conan crouched in immediate readiness for action. His heart galloped. That had been a key in the lock securing the outer door.
Its iron-bound massiveness swung wide. An armoured soldier stepped warily back, cocked crossbow aimed at the barbarian. Listening through a slightly opened trap, Conan had already ascertained that the night watch on this floor consisted of a single such turnkey. For an instant, hope flared in him. If he moved fast
enough and had rare good luck, he might elude the shaft and get his hands on the Stygian!
Even then he knew how desperate any such attempt would be against a fully alert bowman. He checked the impulse entirely when a second figure came in sight and passed through the entrance – a woman.
She addressed the guard, who genuflected without shifting his aim, then quickly shut, bolted, and relocked the door behind her. Conan stood motionless, though the blood coursed hot in his veins and every sense was heightened. He heard cat-soft footfalls as she crossed the carpet, he caught a musky breath of perfume, his gaze ranged up and down and around her. Never had he seen a woman more beautiful, and few to match this one. Well-nigh transparent, her gown floated and sheened above a form whose slenderness somehow made it all the more voluptuous. Her face was a perfection of the Stygian racial type. Amber skin and ebon hair were lustrous in the candlelight.
She flowed to a halt six or seven feet from him, gave him a slow smile full of promise, and raised her left palm as if to warn him against violence. He no longer kept any such intention. Besides an ingrained reluctance to harm a female, he had a realization that, as things were, it would be worse than useless – whereas if he bided his time, he might get answers to the riddles that encompassed him.
He wet his lips. 'Do – do you speak Shemitish?' he asked, feeling how inane that must sound.
She brought her right hand to a tiny mirror suspended beneath her throat. Conan tautened, suddenly uneasy. Her musical voice spoke, her left fingers gestured.
A beam of light sprang from the mirror to strike him in the eyes. It seemed to burn on into his brain. The whiteness filled him. It chanted in words unknown. His mind went under in a vortex of luminance and sound. Barely did he know that he stood paralysed, yet did not fall.
After a time that was not truly time, the light blinked out, the singing ended, and he heard, 'Conan, arouse!' Awareness returned in a rush. He stumbled backward from the stranger. 'What
witchcraft have you wrought on me?' he groaned.
She smiled again, held her arms wide in a gesture of benediction, and said gently, 'None to harm you, Conan. Only to help. I am your friend.'
He summoned the courage to stand fast. 'Then why did you do that thing?'
She trilled laughter. 'What language are we speaking?'
'Why – it's - ' Thunderstruck, Conan realized. 'Stygian!'
She nodded. 'Yes. I know Shemitish, and many tongues more, but I felt you would find it helpful if you could make yourself understood in that of the people around you. My spell did nothing but teach it to you in a matter of minutes.'
He shook his head, trying to clear out stupefaction. 'Really?' he mumbled, and ran through a number of words for a test. 'Man, woman, sword, ship, horse, battle -'
She sighed. 'Ah, I failed to rid you of a Cimmerian accent. Well, no matter. That burr sounds manly, exciting.' She moved toward him. 'Shall we pour wine, sit down, and talk?'
He mastered astonishment and quelled his dread of things uncanny. He actually felt enjoyment of her presence. Bêlit and, yes, the previous had a more wholesome kind of comeliness, but this exotic creature lured forth dreams he might be wise to dismiss – if he could. 'Who are you?' he demanded.
'Nehekba, high priestess of Derketa here in Khemi,' she answered, 'and, as I said before, your friend.'
If that was true, she would be a powerful ally. He was no worshipper of her deity, but was not repelled either, as he was by Set. The goddess of love and death had devotees throughout these parts, well beyond the borders of Stygia. Bêlit sometimes invoked her.
Nehekba reached him and offered her hand. He took it in his great paw, then, awkwardly, bent to kiss its delicacy. Her skin was like silk. When he straightened, she gave him a smile that was at once languorous and radiant. 'I will fetch the wine,' he said thickly, and sought the carafe set on a table for his use. Several goblets stood by, since he was also offered water, beer, and milk each day. He filled two and brought them to Nehekba, who had taken a seat
on his couch and leaned back against a cushion, legs curled trim beneath her. She took a glass and beckoned him to the same resting place. When he had joined her there, she raised the vessel and said – almost sang, 'To your happiness, Conan. May I aid you in regaining it.'
'Thank you,' he said lamely.
'Will you drink to me in turn – no, to us?'
He sipped without uttering any toast and plunged ahead: 'You must know I am completely in the dark about everything. Why am I here? Why are you? What is going on?'
'You must have learned a little from your fellow captives today,' she said. 'It was I who prevailed on Tothapis to give you those hours.'
Indeed he had made certain discoveries, the Cimmerian thought, and was now making more. 'We talked, yes,' he said, choosing each word. 'One among us believes he knows the reason he is confined on this floor, rather than a dungeon or grave. That is young Falco, who has also received a lady visitor.'