Ethram-Fal bandaged his forearm and thought dark thoughts.
When had his control over the lotus flagged? How long had he gone without taking any steps toward the completion of his grand design? He had done little but immerse himself in his newfound power when he should have been using it productively. He needed systematic harvesting so that he would have enough lotus to snare the wizards of Stygia into his service. He needed to prepare more traps in case the Lady Zelandra had found some way of locating him and came seeking vengeance.
"Thoughtless," he hissed to himself, jerking the bandage tight around his arm.
That was all over now, he thought. He had known that the lotus was powerful, but he had been incautious and allowed himself to indulge in it without control. It must be used like a tool, he reasoned. He was its master and not the other way around.
Now he must check on the health of the lotus in its chamber and muster his mercenaries. He would discretely ask Ath how long it had been since he had last seen him and warn the soldiers about possible intruders.
Snatching a blue velvet sack full of kaokao leaves from a nearby table, Ethram-Fal started for the door and then came to an uncertain stop. The ring of pain around his breast flickered into being once again, constricting his breathing. What was it? Had he contracted some disease while lying unconscious on the cold stone floor?
A memory came unbidden to the Stygian. It was the memory of Shakar the Keshanian standing wild-eyed in his chambers, making threats that he was too weak and foolish to back up, claiming that his chest was gripped in a vise of fire.
Ethram-Fal turned and looked back upon his ebony box of lotus powder.
He wondered how long he had remained unconscious and if it was possible that his body was already suffering for want of the drug. He squinted at the box, rubbing at his ribs with a cold hand. Surely a little dose would do him no harm. He need not overindulge.
"Milord!" Ath's voice came echoing hollowly down the stone corridor.
"Milord, we have cornered it!"
Footfalls thudded outside the room; then the tall mercenary pushed through the blanket that hung over the doorway and confronted his employer. He hesitated a moment, staring and obviously trying to find his voice. Ethram-Fal became aware of his wrinkled and dusty robes.
"Forgive me for disturbing you," said Ath finally, "but we have cornered the intruder in the room of the great statue. It attacked the guards, knocking one senseless and dragging the other into the temple.
He won free, crying out so loudly that he woke us all. Come quickly, I fear that it will try to escape and the men will be forced to slay it."
"It?" said Ethram-Fal. His captain nodded vigorously, starting to back out the door.
"It is not a man. Come quickly and see for yourself." The soldier waited in the doorway, holding the blanket to one side, looking to his motionless lord.
"Go," murmured the sorcerer. "I'll follow presently."
"But¦" began Ath.
"Go!" shouted Ethram-Fal, and his mercenary disappeared through the blanket and hurried away.
The Stygian turned and walked purposefully to the table with the ebony box. He used three fingers to scoop a mouthful of deep green power from the box to his lips. Shudders coursed through his thin body and the ring of pain around his chest evaporated. He threw back his head in pleasure, sucking the last of the lotus from his fingertips. A surge of bright energy radiated along every nerve. His mind raced, borne up on a crest of superhuman confidence. He passed through the door and down the corridors of the palace in a haze of ecstasy. He muttered a brief incantation and his feet lifted up and away from the floor so that he floated effortlessly along the hallway as quickly as a man could run. A slack grin spread across his wizened features. The spell of levitation usually took hours of preparation. With sudden, shocking clarity he realized what a fool he was to doubt himself or his lotus. He was in control and there was nothing that he could not do, no spell that he could not conjure, no foe that he could not overcome.
As he drew near to the temple of the great sphinx, he allowed himself to slow somewhat. Passing around a corner, the armored backs of four of his mercenaries came into view. The men were crowded into one of the doorways of the temple. They held naked swords and were intent upon whatever lay before them.
"Your pardon," he said with gentle sarcasm, and the little crowd parted in dumbstruck astonishment to let him pass.
Once inside the great chamber, he banished the spell of levitation, allowing himself to settle down to the floor. Each of the huge, circular room's three doors was filled with armed men and each group held aloft a number of brightly glowing light-globes so that the chamber was well illuminated despite its size. Only the high ceiling remained unlit, arching up into a darkness like that of a starless night.
Standing before the black bulk of the statue was a pale man-like form: It stood fidgeting in front, of the flat altar set between the extended paws of the faceless sphinx. Ethram-Fal walked a little closer, stopped, and marveled.
It was naked and shrunken, shorter even than he, but it had the appearance of animal strength. Tendons were wound like wires around its stark limbs. Hunched like a baboon, its skin was the color of the desert, hanging on its emaciated frame in reptilian folds. It twisted long, tapering fingers together, and the dirty talons clicked one against the other. Its brow receded sharply in bony furrows above the lambent yellow glow of its eyes. The nose was little more than two small pits above the lipless mouth, which opened and closed in quick, bestial pants, revealing a pointed, serpentine tongue.
"Id Nyarlathotep," it whined.
"Holy Set!" Ethram-Fal was amazed. "It speaks!"
The soldiers at the doors stirred, murmuring to one another. The creature flinched at this, drawing back toward the statue that loomed behind it, as if seeking protection. It spoke again, and though it sounded much as though a python or some other great reptile were attempting human speech, Ethram-Fal found that he understood the words.
It was speaking an archaic version of his own tongue. It was speaking in Old Stygian.
"You die for Nyarlathotep." Needle talons stroked the air and its eyes burned brighter.
Ethram-Fal spoke haltingly in Old Stygian. "You make sacrifice?" It bobbed its head, bird-like.
"Yes. Yes. Antelope. Scorpion. Man. Man best. You die for Nyarlathotep."
"Die for that?" The sorcerer gestured at the silent statue. The creature looked back and bobbed its head again, pressing long hands reverently to its ridged and reptilian breast.
"Yes! Id NyarlathotepV It took a hesitant, shuffling step toward Ethram-Fal, who seemed to pay it no heed.
"Why?"
"Live!" its thin voice rose. "So I live! So Cetriss lives! You die for Nyarlathotep!" Quivering, it lunged toward the sorcerer, claws reaching for his breast and the heart that beat within. A cry arose from the massed mercenaries and they started forward, but Ethram-Fal halted the creature by merely raising a hand. It lurched to a stop not two paces away from the wizard, who held one palm out toward the thing. He crooked his fingers as if gripping something transparent in the air before him. The creature writhed in invisible bonds, held in place by sorcery.
"This is your immortality?" cried Ethram-Fal. "O Cetriss, mighty necromancer, did you abandon all your powers to live forever as a beast enslaved to a statue?" The sorcerer's face twisted in transcendent rage and his fingers clenched in a loose fist. The desert ghoul that was the mage Cetriss snarled mindlessly as it was lifted, writhing, off the floor.
"I followed you! I thought you a hero! You are a disgrace! You die for Nyarlathotep!" Cetriss's body lifted farther into the air and moved slowly backward until it hovered above the altar that lay waiting between its god's paws.
"Tribute!" screamed Ethram-Fal. "Sacrifice!" He clenched his fist and crushed Cetriss. The bones of the last survivor of Old Stygia broke like dry kindling and his blood spilled down upon the altar in a dark rain. Ethram-Fal gave his fist a last convulsive shake and
let the broken body fall. It lay, twisted in upon itself, a discarded bit of offal that had once been one of the world's mightiest sorcerers. For the briefest instant the Stygian thought that he saw a ghostly tendril, a stream of pallid vapor, rising from the body of Cetriss and funneling into the black face of his god. He blinked. It was nothing.
The Stygian turned away from the corpse in disgust and saw that his soldiers were standing uncertainly about the doorways and regarding him with a mixture of astonishment and fear. This pleased the sorcerer.
"Ath," he called, bringing the captain jogging forward out of the cluster of men in the east door.
"Most impressive, milord," said Ath when he stood before his master.
The sorcerer pulled the blue velvet sack of kaokao leaves from his belt and tossed it to Ath, who caught it neatly in one hand.
"Excellent work, Ath. Distribute these among the men. Every man should get one. You may keep all that remain." The tall captain nodded in grateful enthusiasm as Ethram-Fal raised his hands above his head and addressed the rest of his mercenaries.
"I am most pleased with your efficiency. Captain Ath has a reward for each of you. However, I wish to encourage the sentries to even greater vigilance as I suspect that we may soon encounter other, more human, foes. I have reason to suspect that a sorceress may essay an attack on our palace. Capture her alive for me and I shall be greatly pleased."
The soldiers clapped naked swords against their shields and cheered in loyalty and anticipation of their reward of kaokao leaves. When Ethram-Fal turned away, they came forward and gathered swiftly around Ath, hands extended for their bounty. Ath, grinning widely, passed out the leaves as quickly as he could.
As the sorcerer reached the north doorway, a spontaneous cheer rose behind him. When he turned to acknowledge it, the cheer swelled twice more. He lifted a hand in a languid wave, smiling beneficently upon his men as he basked in their approval. The men were his. The Emerald Lotus was his. And now the mantle of Cetriss was his. How could anything stop him now?
A shout cut through the dwindling applause. A single soldier had run into the temple and now stood waving his arms and yelling for attention. Ethram-Fal frowned.
"Silence! Hear me!" The soldier's hands dropped to his sides as the gathering went silent and all eyes fell upon him.
"And where have you been, Phandoros? came a voice from among the milling mercenaries.
"Captain Ath sent me to sentry duty when the beast was cornered," began the man defensively. "I come to tell the master that I saw a column of smoke to the southwest. There are intruders in the canyons."
Chapter Thirty-One
When Heng Shih emerged into the clearing, he saw that Conan was already atop the hill. The Khitan broke into a sprint, his heavy-set form shooting over the ground with surprising speed. Chest heaving, he reached the little grouping of tents just in time to see the Cimmerian kicking dirt over a small fire. Zelandra stood to one side, clutching her teapot and scowling at Conan with exaggerated disgust. Neesa squatted in front of one of the tents, rubbing at her brow in a gesture at once weary and frustrated.
Conan finished burying the fire and commenced packing the soil down upon it with the heel of his boot.
"I trust that you're satisfied now?" Zelandra's voice was so strange that both Heng Shih and Neesa looked at her in surprise. It was thin and rasped in her throat like a file.
"You may have given away our position for a cup of tea," said Conan without expression.
"I need my strength," said Zelandra loudly. "I need the tea to help me rest." She brandished the teapot to emphasize her point. Her left arm was held rigidly across her stomach, gripping her ribs.
Conan looked up into the freshly dark evening sky. The air was strangely still, the sky pellucid and speckled with stars except where the swelling clouds massed to the west.
"We should move the camp," he turned to Heng Shih. "Those guards seemed inattentive, but the smoke would have been easily seen had they but looked around."
"Guards?" Zelandra looked from the Cimmerian to the Khitan and back again. "You found Ethram-Fal's hiding place?"
"Yes, my lady. It is less than two leagues distant. If your smoke was spotted, they could have an armed party here any time now."
"Heng Shih! Was it a palace?" The voice of the sorceress quavered with desperate energy. Her bodyguard's hands passed through a number of signs. The movements were concise and measured, his face betraying no emotion.
"Yes!" cried Zelandra exultantly. "Just as the legends would have it!
We attack first thing tomorrow morning. I'll teach that withered fool to trifle with me. I'll walk into his parlor and tear his bloody heart out!"
"This is madness," said Conan flatly. "We must move the camp. We could be set upon.at any time."
"Be silent, barbarian. The fire lasted only a moment. I must rest now.
Keep watch yourself if you are worried." Zelandra stepped forward and set her teapot down neatly in the center of the smothered fire, as though it might still be warmed thereon. "Awaken me if we are attacked, and I shall smite the fools with sorcery." With that she turned about and ducked into her tent. The flap swung shut behind her.
Conan looked to Neesa, who nodded, came to her feet and strode quickly across the camp. She followed Zelandra into her tent and immediately muted voices rose from it.
The Cimmerian strode to the hill's leading edge, looking down to the canyon that led to the Palace of Cetriss and Ethram-Fal. Heng Shih followed, watching the barbarian as he scanned the clearing below.
"Nothing yet," grumbled Conan. "We must find the swiftest route of escape." He turned and loped back through the camp and on to the hill's far side, where it fell away in a long, gravel slope that ended sharply, far below, in a cliff's edge. The barbarian made his way easily down the loose incline. Heng Shih followed more carefully. Night had fallen and the slope was even more treacherous than it appeared.
Sand and gravel seemed to grease the hillside as it grew ever more steep. Heng Shih staggered, his boots losing purchase as his footing gave way. He caught himself, but not before kicking up a cloud of acrid dust.
The slope finally petered out into a short expanse of level, gravel-strewn stone that was sheared off a few paces away by the sharp edge of the cliff. Conan reached the rim and peered over. There was an almost vertical drop of thirty feet ending in a dry, sandy runoff cluttered with rounded boulders, gleaming as pale as scattered bones in the light of the rising moon.
"Morrigan and Macha," cursed the Cimmerian. "This is no good. We'll be best off if we head back along the canyon that brought us here.
Listen." He turned abruptly and put a hand on Heng Shih's shoulder. "I know little about wizardry and wish that I knew even less, but your mistress seems in poor condition to engage Ethram-Fal in any kind of combat, sorcerous or otherwise. You must convince her to attack by stealth. A frontal attack would be suicide. Tomorrow I can scout along the top of the canyon walls and try to find a way to approach the Stygian's palace from above. If I can find a path, we might be able to lower ourselves down through the open windows of the upper floor and take our enemies by surprise. What do you think?"
Heng Shih lifted his hands as if to sign, then dropped them to his sides with a sigh. He nodded.
"And can you get Zelandra to agree to move the camp?" asked the barbarian. "Her madness could bring death to us all."
The Khitan bristled, his hands becoming fists. He shook his head violently from side to side, scowling darkly.
"Don't be a fool. If you care for your mistress, then save her from herself. Enough jabbering, let's¦"
The Cimmerian fell suddenly silent. A frigid finger traced a line along Heng Shih's spine.
"Did you hear something?" breathed Conan. Heng Shih shook his head and listened. The desert's ponderous silence filled his ears like thick cotton. The Khitan stepped carefully, turned his back to the cliff edge and stared up the slope, alert for any sound or sign of movement.
; Conan's body lowered into a fighting crouch, his eyes taking on a feral gleam in the darkness. Heng Shih's breath slowed and thickened, seeming to clog his lungs.
Then came the sharp scrape of a boot on stone.
Heng Shih spun around, heart in his throat, hand scrabbling for his hilt. A black figure shot up over the rim of the cliff, springing from the sheer face like a monstrous spider. The Khitan had his sword half drawn before a fist like a war-hammer slammed into the side of his head. The muscles of his neck screamed in protest as his bald skull was wrenched to one side. Heng Shih reeled, his senses swimming, and stumbled helplessly into Conan. The Cimmerian sidestepped his stricken friend, who crashed to the ground, sprawling and sliding in the gravel.
Conan's sword flashed into his fist, but the black figure moved even faster. He dove in through the Cimmerian's guard, his extended hands locking around Conan's throat. Fingers like blunt daggers sank deeply into flesh, choking off his breath.
"Death," rasped Gulbanda, thrusting his drawn and grimy face into Conan's. The Cimmerian reared back and drove the fist clutching his scimitar into the lich's forehead with all the strength of his arm. The metal pommel crunched on bone and ripped skin the consistency of desiccated leather. The impact tore Gulbanda's hands from Conan's throat and sent him staggering back and away. The barbarian gave his attacker no time to recover, lunging in with a blinding, two-handed cut to the ribs. It was like hewing an oak. The blade thudded into Gulbanda's torso, sank in an inch, and stuck fast.
"Crom!" swore Conan, jerking back on his sword. The blade remained lodged in the dead man's hardened flesh. Retreating a step, the Cimmerian tripped over the prone body of Heng Shih and staggered, ducking low. Gulbanda's bony hands clawed the air where he had stood.
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