Stygian was not her mother tongue, but like most Taians, Daris had learned it well. She straightened herself, met his eyes, spoke her name, and added, 'I am a daughter of Ausar, rightful king of this country.'
'A-a-ah,' Shuat said. 'Very good. My scheme has paid better than I knew.' Sickened, Daris realized what she had given away.
On his orders, she was separated from her fellows. They bade her a stoic good-bye. They were bound for slavery. Her fate might prove worse.
She was not immediately mistreated. Her guards allowed her to wash – at the end of a leash around her neck. She hated their remarks when she stripped, but cleanliness felt good. She also rinsed her tunic and skirt; they soon dried. Her cuirass and weapons were booty, of course. She shared the men's lentils and walked among them on the march downriver. They tried once or twice to make conversation, but she spoke no word in reply, so they cursed her for a surly she-cur and explained at length what could happen to her later on.
She gave that small heed. The anguish of captivity drowned all else. She moved as in an evil dream.
Hard-driving, Shuat brought his troop back to Seyan in three days. This little town of whitewashed mud buildings, at the confluence of the Helu and the Styx, was yet the largest in today's Taia, and the seat of the governor. His palace stood grand on the outskirts, amidst its gardens, close to the military base. Daris was led there and locked in an offside room while Shuat went to report.
A pair of soldiers soon fetched her forth. 'When you enter the presence, be sure to fall prostrate on the floor,' one warned.
Daris bridled. 'What, has the governor given himself royal honours?'
'No, but he is with a wizard-priest of Set.' Dread freighted the man's voice.
During her journey, Daris had recovered her wits. With them had come resolution. There was no sense in dying for the sake of pride; that would not serve her father's cause. No, let her do herself to it. Let her bide her time, ever alert for a chance to escape or at least to kill a few Stygians. Thus when she was ushered into lie great chamber, she made the required abasement, flat on the iced matting.
'Rise,' came sibilant from the far end. 'Draw nigh.'
Meekly, Daris advanced between walls painted with beast-headed human figures. Before her Shuat and corpulent Wenamon sat on stools under the dais of the governor's throne. It was occupied by a shaven-skulled man in a black robe. She was chiefly conscious of his eyes. They smouldered upon her.
'Halt,' he commanded. She obeyed. Silence waxed in the dimness. She felt as if those eyes probed through garb and flesh to her soul.
'Aye,' he said at last, 'there is something dire about the destiny of this maiden. What it is, I cannot see. I must convey her to Khemi for my master to examine closer.'
'When do we suffer the loss of your company, holy Hakketh?' Wenamon asked unctuously
'At once.' The wizard got up. 'Guards, follow me with the girl. You others, have my servants meet me at the wingboat.'
Wenamon and Shuat bowed deeply as he swept past them.
Daris' heart stammered. Sweat broke forth, cold on her skin. To Khemi the Black – for...examination?
She mustered courage. By river, the forbidden city was two thousand or more miles distant, she knew. In weeks of travel, surely she could find a way to a clean death.
The path from the palace did not lead to the civilian docks, but to a closely guarded wharf for war craft. None were there at the moment. Instead, Daris beheld a vessel such as she had never heard of before. Almost fifty feet in length, the hull shimmered dull white, metallic. A high prow bore the image of the head and neck of a sword-beaked reptile, whose folded leathery wings seemed to be modelled along the sides. The hull was open except for a smoothly shaped deckhouse, and revealed no sign of mast or oars. In the stern, on an iron-clawed tripod, was a large crystal globe wherein flickered something like fire, red and blue.
A servile, muscular acolyte, one of several in attendance on way of a ladder moulded into the bulwark, leaving the soldiers to watch in awe. At a word from the magician, a servitor locked a fetter about Daris' ankle, attached to a light chain that in turn was shackled to a ring in the deck. She had reasonable scope for movement, but saw with horror that she would not be able to leap overboard.
Hakketh gestured. The guardsmen cast off. The boat drifted out on the current. Hakketh turned to one of the acolytes. 'Take the first watch,' he directed.
'Yes, my lord.' The man went to stand before the globe. He lifted his hands. 'Zayen,' he intoned, a word in no language that Daris recognised. The fires in the globe strengthened. The wings along the hull extended until they stood straight from it. Silently, the vessel gathered speed as the Stygian raised his arms higher.
Perhaps because he wanted to see how she would react, Hakketh told the woman: 'Know that you ride in the sacred wingboat of Set, the last of its kind in the world. The magical formula of its making was lost when Acheron perished, three thousand years ago.'
Faster the craft went and faster. Wind, deflected by the prow, began to whistle.
Hakketh nodded at the deckhouse. 'You will have a compartment in there, and will be unchained when you wish to use it. You will have food and drink. None will harm you, but if you attempt anything untoward, you will be bound.'
The boat no longer threw up a bow wave. It had risen on the wind it raised to skim the dark surface of the river. The acolyte let his arms drop and simply pointed when he wished a change of direction. Sometimes, spying a possible hazard such as a floating log, he reduced speed by raising his arms again skyward, saying the word 'Aaleth,' and lowering them to a degree commensurate with how fast he wanted to go. Then he would utter 'Memn' and be free to stand as he chose until time to hasten again.
'Three nights and three days will see us in Khemi,' Hakketh finished.
Daris fought not to cry out or weep. Westward, the sun sank behind the hills that had been her home.
V
The Work of the Witch
Near the Crocodile Gate stood the Keep of the Manticore. A huge, nearly cubical pile of dark stone around a central courtyard, it took its name from a figure chiselled above its iron-doored main entrance. Tenures, executions, and vindictive imprisonments had engaged its lower levels for centuries; common dwellers in Khemi shunned its neighbourhood as ill-omened. They did not know that on two higher floors were luxurious apartments, an elegant kitchen, secret access for entertainers who were brought there and back blindfolded, but were well paid for performing. Sometimes the hierarchy had. reasons to make a detention comfortable. They did not on that account leave it unguarded.
Clad in a silken robe, Jehanan, brother of Bêlit, lounged on a couch. Beside him, a door stood open on a balcony where flowering vines grew across trellises to give shade and fragrance. The chamber was large, lavishly furnished, beautifully decorated with gilt arabesques. Inner doors led to a bathroom that was almost as big, for it included a swimming pool, and a small but sybaritic bedroom.
His days here had fleshed him out, restored his full strength, removed the craziness from his eyes. His face was still scarred and battered; but washed, barbered, smiling, it was a face that some women would have found attractive.
Nehekba perched beside him. A film of gown and a few jewels only accentuated her utter femaleness. She smiled and stroked his cheek. 'What happened then, beloved?' she crooned.
'Why -' Jehanan looked puzzled. 'Why do you care? It is a trivial thing from my childhood. I stopped because of realizing I myself do not remember it well.'
'Oh, but I care about everything that ever concerned you,' she said.
He flushed in joy, reached out to lay a hand on her thigh, and said, 'Well, then, as I was telling you, Bêlit and I came back from our jungle venture safe, though muddy and out of breath. Our father was furious at the risk we had taken and was about to punish us. But our mother told him – now what were her words? - she told him he should not punish venturesomeness, for we got it from him and we would have need of it in later li
fe. Better to put us on our honour to be more careful in future. He agreed. Bêlit and I were glad to be spared a paddling... at first. Afterwards, though, having thought further, we joined in a secret wish that he had simply chastised us. For of course we could never break a promise given him.'
'You were a happy family in truth,' Nehekba observed.
'Aye. You should know that, dear Heterka, as much as you have gotten me to recall those years for you.' Jehanan sat straight. He took her by the slim waist with both hands, looked into her eyes, and said, 'I still cannot believe my fortune – from a slave, in such pain always that only exhaustion let me sleep, to beatific lover of the most wonderful woman that ever lived. Why?'
'I have explained. I glimpsed you, your steadfastness in misery, and was enchanted. I could not buy and manumit you, for the law here recognizes no foreign-born freedmen. But I could have you brought to this place, with the idea of making a better arrangement later.'
'Yes, yes, darling, of course. But you are so mysterious that – Oh, no more words for now.' Jehanan gathered her to him and began to kiss her.
Abruptly he winced, let go, dropped his glance, and muttered, 'I fear I need a fresh draught of the potion that frees me of pain. Else I – I will have no manhood in me.'
Nehekba rose. 'I brought some, dear.' She flowed across the room to a purse she had left by the entrance. He stood to watch as she took out a golden vial.
'I will fetch wine to mingle it in, and drink to my love for you, Heterka,' he said.
Her smile turned cruel. 'Trouble yourself not. You have no more need of this.' She unstoppered the vial and emptied it onto the wound.
He howled like a wolf when the jaws of a trap close on it.
'Oh, we will keep you here a while yet,' she taunted. 'We may get a little further use out of you, or amusement.'
'Are you a demon?' he screamed. His big form lurched toward her, fingers held talon-crooked. Those muscles had lost no power in anguish.
Nehekba touched a small mirror at her throat. From it sprang a ray, not of light but of dark. When that struck Jehanan, he crashed down and lay motionless, staring at her in overwhelming horror.
She opened a foot-square hinged panel in the massive outer door and called softly. The turnkey arrived to unlock it for her. 'Farewell, lover who was,' she said to Jehanan, and departed.
The paralysis left him eventually. He crawled to the threshold and tried to suck the spilled potion out of the carpet.
Nehekba went down a stair and through a tunnel that were both secret. She walked fast, the gauzy gown aflutter behind her in cresset-lighted gloom, for Tothapis required her presence and she was belated.
By further devious ways she entered his house. The slaves who had been mutilated into muteness brought her to the centrum. He ignored her at first, continuing his interview with a man who stood respectful before his chair.
Nehekba considered this person closely, for though she had heard of Amnun, they had not met before. He was slender, erect, good-looking in an alien fashion; he favoured his mother, who had been a Taian slave in Luxur. In spirit, however, he drew from his Stygian father. Long had he been among the many laymen in the service of the priest-magician.
'The pirate galley is prowling up our coast,' Tothapis said. His vulture countenance jutted forward. Shadows played in the wrinkles of it and in the hollows of his eyes, as they did among the objects of sorcery round about. 'You wondered why I have not raised a gale to sink her. I will tell you; but if you ever reveal it to anyone else, you will soon long for the torments of hell.'
'I am my lord's faithful servant,' Amnun replied boldly.
Tothapis' bald head nodded. 'So you have been. Well, then our
of Set.' He made a reverent sign; Amnun genuflected; Nehekba briefly covered her face as befitted a woman. 'There are other gods than Set,' Tothapis continued. 'They have their own dominions. He has none over the sea – not yet, not yet. Therefore I, his priest, can work only small magics above the deeps out yonder. For the most part we must use our human intelligence.'
He lifted a bony finger. 'Now. The freighter Ateniti sails out on tomorrow morning's tide. Her captain and crew believe they are conveying cargo south to Umr. That course is such that Bêlit's Tigress will soon intercept her – given the minor guidance that I am able to impose on winds of these shores. The matter is so vital that this is but a small sacrifice to make. You go aboard this evening, in the role I explained days ago.' He pointed to a scroll lying wrapped about its rollers on a table. 'There is the documentation you require. Is all clear to you?'
'No, lord,' Amnun admitted. 'I am supposed to pretend familiarity with a person I have never encountered. How?'
Tothapis beckoned to Nehekba. She came forward. Amnun regarded her with the strife between lust and fear that she ever found delectable. 'Know you who I am?' she asked.
He bent his knee. 'You are the lady Nehekba, high priestess of Derketa, and I am humble before you,' he answered.
'I am she who has gathered the knowledge you must have,' she told him, 'and who is about to impart it unto you. Look up.'
He lifted his eyes. She turned the mirror at her throat. A light-ray sprang from the side now exposed. He shivered and froze. His features went blank. She kept the beam in his eyes while her left hand gestured and her tongue whispered words.
After a few minutes, she let the talisman dangle free on its chain. 'Amnun, arouse!' she exclaimed.
He shivered again, blinked, returned to awareness. 'You now know what I have learned from Jehanan,' Nehekba said. 'Use it well, and great shall be your reward.'
Astonishment made the man stagger. 'I – I know, I know!' he cried. 'It is as if I myself heard -'
'Peace,' Tothapis said from beneath the carven cobra hood. 'You will have this evening, and tomorrow, and the night that follows, to consider what our lady of Derketa has imparted to you, and order it
in your mind. Thereafter... for a while, Amnun, you will be the embodiment of fate. Set prosper you, Amnun, who go forth in his place.'
There was a little more talk, before the agent bowed and was Conducted out. Silence lingered after him, while the wizard sat in deep reverie. Nehekba shifted restless from foot to foot. At last she asked, 'Have I your leave to go, lord?'
His attention locked onto her. 'Where?' he demanded. 'The hour draws nigh for us and for Conan. We must not rest idle meanwhile.'
'I will not,' she said. 'Rather, I think I should return to the Keep at once – to Falco.'
Tothapis frowned. 'The Ophirite spy? What more can you do with the ignorant boy?'
'Bind him closer to me. Remember, my lord, we ascertained he too is in some unfathomable way linked with Conan's future. Best he be our tool.'
'Have you not already made him your own, as you did Jehanan?'
The midnight tresses stirred as Nehekba shook her head. 'Not absolutely. He loves me, yes, but he nourishes still an idea of duty above self. Let me keep trying to undermine that. It must needs be done slowly, subtly.' She flashed an impudent grin. 'Not unpleasantly, though. For all his youth, he is an excellent lover.'
'No, let him wait,' Tothapis said in glacial anger. 'You spend too much of your vitality in carnal matters.'
'I serve Derketa, to whom they belong,' she challenged.
'You serve great Set before her – before all else in his universe, Nehekba. Have you dared forget?' Chilled, the witch fell silent. The wizard pursued: 'I have urgent need of your assistance. This day I received a message through the homunculus we sent to Luxur. It was from Hakketh. He is bound here with a prisoner of war, a daughter of the ringleader in the Taian revolt. He has sensed fate in her, danger. He knows not what, but he brings her to me. Surely she too is enwebbed with Conan. I stand aloof from the female mind and soul, Nehekba. You must help me prepare the plans and the spells that may also make of her an instrument for the thwarting of Mitra and the triumph of Set.'
VI
Pirate, Barbarian, Rescuer
'Sail ho!'
The shout from the masthead of Tigress wakened an answering roar on deck. Her crew bounded about like black panthers, to drag forth chests stowed under rowers' benches, open them, take out battle gear, spring to stations. In the prow, Bêlit laughed aloud and pointed into the starboard quarter. There was no necessity for that; teeth gleamed ivory-white in the faces of the two helmsmen as they changed course. Conan snatched his mate to him and kissed her briefly and fiercely, before he jumped down to equip himself.
A brisk wind filled the sail and sent the galley soaring across wrinkled, glittery green-and-blue whitecaps. Limber hull and taut rigging creaked, as if to add their voices to the war chant that rose among the buccaneers. The mainland lay below the eastern horizon, but a mile or so to port, surf beat on an islet whose rocks lifted bleached and barren toward the azure emptiness above.
Conan rejoined Bêlit. His great form now shone in hauberk and horned helmet; sword and dirk were sheathed at his waist and an elliptical Suba shield was on his left arm. For her part she had merely fetched a pair of slender blades, and otherwise wore the same tunic and headband as before. Her hair was braided and coiled for action.
He peered ahead. They were closing in rapidly on their prey, a big-bellied Stygian merchantman. He could see her crew scramble about, trying to coax more speed out of the square sail, then readying themselves for an encounter they realized was inevitable.
'Here continues my revenge,' Bêlit exulted.
'She ought to have a cargo worth taking,' Conan opined, 'and in frankness, dearest, I've gotten hungry for a good fight.' He scowled.
'I told you before, a woman lacks a man's sheer strength,' she explained. 'Armour would but weight me down, without fending off a hard-driven arrow or keeping a solid blow from breaking my neck. Hut when we come to close quarters, you have seen I am as agile as any and more so than most.'
He put uneasiness from him. Crom, chief god of the Cimmerians, gave might and heart to those he favoured, and nothing else, that they may be able to hew their own ways through the world. Had the land of Crom reached down to the Black Coast and touched Bêlit in her mother's womb? Conan could well believe that.
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