"This is the Paradise Garden, such as was used by the Magi of old times," said Virata, closing the casement and turning back into the throne room. "Those who serve me well are drugged with the juice of the purple lotus. Awakening in this garden with the fairest women of the world to serve them, they think they are in truth in the heaven promised for those who die serving the Magus." The Kosalan smiled thinly. "I show you this because I will not have you 'Taste Paradise'
like these. You are not such a fool as to be duped so easily. It does no harm for you to know these secrets. If the Tiger does not approve of you, your knowledge will die with you; if he does, you have learned no more than you would in any event as one of the Sons of the Mountain.
"You can rise high in my empire. I shall become as mighty as my ancestor. Six years I prepared; then I began to strike. Within the last four years, my followers have gone forth with poisoned daggers as they went forth in the old days, knowing no law but my will, incorruptible, invincible, seeking death rather than life."
"And your ultimate ambition?"
"Have you not guessed it?" The Kosalan almost whispered it, his eyes wide and blank with fanaticism.
"Who wouldn't?" grunted Conan. "But I had rather hear it from you."
"I shall rule the world! Sitting here in Yanaidar, I shall control its destinies! Kings on their thrones shall be but puppets dancing on my strings. Those who disobey my commands shall die. Soon none will dare disobey. Power will be mine. Power! Yajur! What is greater?"
Conan silently compared the Magus' boasts of absolute power with the role of the mysterious Tiger who must decide Conan's fate. Virata's authority was evidently not supreme after all.
"Where is the girl, Nanaia?" he demanded. "Your Sabateans carried her away after they murdered my lieutenant Hattusas."
Virata's expression of surprise was overdone. "I know not to whom you refer. They brought back no captive."
Conan was sure he was lying but realized it would be useless to press the question further now. He thought of various reasons why Virata should deny knowledge of the girl, all disquieting.
The Magus motioned to the black, who again smote the gong. Again Khaza entered, bowing.
"Khaza will show you to your chamber," said Virata. There food and drink will be brought you. You are not a prisoner; no guard will be placed over you. But I must ask you not to leave your chamber unescorted. My men are suspicious of outsiders, and until you are initiated…" He let the sentence trail off into meaningful silence.
4. Whispering Swords
The impassive Stygian led Conan through the bronze doors, past the files of glittering guards, and along a narrow corridor, which branched off from the broad hallway. He conducted Conan into a chamber with a domed ceiling of ivory and sandalwood and one heavy, brass-bound, teakwood door. There were no windows; air and light came through apertures in the dome. The walls were hung with rich tapestries; the floor was hidden by cushion-strewn rugs.
Khaza bowed himself out without a word, shutting the door behind him.
Conan seated himself on a velvet divan. This was the most bizarre situation he had found himself in during a life packed with wild and bloody adventures. He brooded over the fate of Nanaia and wondered at his next step.
Sandaled feet padded in the corridor. Khaza entered, followed by a huge Negro bearing viands in golden dishes and a golden jug of wine. Before Khaza close the door, Conan had a glimpse of the spike of a helmet protruding from the tapestries before an alcove on the opposite side of the corridor. Virata had lied when he said no guard would be placed to watch him, which was no more than Conan expected.
"Wine of Kyros, my lord, and food," said the Stygian. "Presently a maiden beautiful as the dawn shall be sent to entertain you."
"Good," grunted Conan.
Khaza motioned the slave to set down the food. He himself tasted each dish and sipped liberally of the wine before bowing himself out. Conan, alert as a trapped wolf, noted that the Stygian tasted the wine last and stumbled a little as he left the chamber. When the door closed behind the men, Conan smelled of the wine. Mingled with the bouquet of the wine, so faint that only his keen barbarian nostrils could have detected it, was an aromatic odor he recognized. It was that of the purple lotus of the sullen swamps of southern Stygia, which induced a deep slumber for a short or a long time depending on the quantity. The taster had to hurry from the room before he was overcome. Conan wondered if Virata meant to convey him to the Paradise Garden after all.
Investigation convinced him that the food had not been tampered with, and he fell to with gusto.
He had scarcely finished the meal, and was staring at the tray hungrily as if in hope of finding something more to eat, when the door opened again. A slim, supple figure slipped in: a girl in golden breastplates, a jewel-crusted girdle, and filmy silk trousers.
"Who are you?" growled Conan.
The girl shrank back, her brown skin paling. "Oh, sire, do not hurt me!
I have done nothing!" Her dark eyes were dilated with fear and excitement; her words tumbled over one another, and her fingers fluttered childishly.
"Who said anything about hurting you? I asked who you were."
"I―I am called Parasati."
"How did you get here?"
"They stole me, my lord, the Hidden Ones, one night as I walked in my father's garden in Ayodhya. By secret, devious ways they brought me to this city of devils, to be a slave with the other girls they steal out of Vendhya and Iranistan and other lands." She hurried on. "I have d-dwelt here for a month. I have almost died of shame! I have been whipped! I have seen other girls die of torture. Oh, what shame for my father, that his daughter should be made a slave of devil worshipers!"
Conan said nothing, but the red glint in his blue eyes was eloquent Though his own career had been red-spattered with slaying and rapine, towards women he possessed a rough, barbaric code of chivalry. Up till now he had toyed with the idea of actually joining Virata's cult― in hope of working up and making himself master of it, if need be by killing those above him. Now his intentions crystallized on the destruction of this den of snakes and the conversion of their lair to his own uses. Parusati continued:
"Today the Master of the Girls came to send a girl to you to learn if you had any hidden weapon. She was to search you while you lay in drugged stupor. Then, when you awoke, she was to beguile you to learn if you were a spy or a true man. He chose me for the task. I was terrified, and when I found you awake all my resolution melted. Do not slay me!"
Conan grunted. He would not have hurt a hair of her head, but he did not choose to tell her so just yet Her terror could be useful.
"Parusati, do you know anything of a woman who was brought in earlier by a band of Sabateans?"
"Yes, my lord! They brought her here captive to make another pleasure girl like the rest of us. But she is strong, and after they reached the city and delivered her into the hands of the Hyrkanian guards, she broke free, snatched a dagger, and slew the brother of Zahak. Zahak demanded her life, and he is too powerful even for Virata to refuse in this matter."
"So that's why the Magus lied about Nanaia," muttered Conan.
"Aye, my lord. Nanaia lies in a dungeon below the palace, and tomorrow she is to be given to the Hyrkanian for torture and execution."
Conan's dark face became sinister. "Lead me tonight to Zahak's sleeping quarters," he demanded, his narrowed eyes betraying his deadly intention.
"Nay, he sleeps among his warriors, all proven swordsmen of the steppes, too many even for so mighty a fighter as you. But I can lead you to Nanaia."
"What of the guard in the corridor?"
"He will not see us, and he will not admit anyone else here until he has seen me depart."
"Well, then?" Conan rose to his feet like a tiger setting out on its hunt.
Parusati hesitated. "My lord―do I read your mind rightly, that you mean, not to join these devils, but to destroy them?"
Conan grinned wolfishly. "You m
ight say accidents have a way of happening to those I like not."
"Then will you promise not to harm me, and if you can to free me?"
"If I can. Now let's not waste more time in chatter. Lead on."
Parusati drew aside a tapestry on the wall opposite the door and pressed on the arabesqued design. A panel swung inward, revealing a narrow stair that slanted down into lightless depths.
"The masters think their slaves do not know their secrets," she muttered. "Come."
She led the way into the stair, closing the panel after them. Conan found himself in darkness that was almost complete, save for a few gleams of light through holes in the panel. They descended until Conan guessed that they were well beneath the palace and then struck a narrow, level tunnel, which ran away from the foot of the stair.
"A Kshatriya who planned to flee Yanaidar showed me this secret way,"
she said. "I planned to escape with him. We hid food and weapons here.
He was caught and tortured, but died without betraying me. Here is the sword he hid." She fumbled in a niche and drew out a blade, which she gave to Conan.
A few moments later they reached an iron-bound door, and Parusati, gesturing for caution, drew Conan to it arid showed him a tiny aperture to peer through. He looked down a wide corridor, flanked on one side by a blank wall in which showed a single ebon door, curiously ornate and heavily bolted, and on the other by a row of cells with barred doors.
The other end of the corridor was not far distant and was closed by another heavy door. Archaic hanging bronze lamps cast a mellow glow.
Before one of the cell doors stood a resplendent Hyrkanian in glittering corselet and plumed helmet, scimitar in hand. Parusati's fingers tightened on Conan's arm.
"Nanaia is in that cell," she whispered. "Can you slay the Hyrkanian?
He is a mighty swordsman."
With a grim smile, Conan tried the balance of the blade she had given him―a long Vendhyan steel, light but well nigh unbreakable. Conan did not stop to explain that he was master alike of the straight blades of the West and the curved blades of the East, of the double-curved Ilbarsi knife and the leaf-shaped broadsword of Shem. He opened the secret door.
As he stepped into the corridor, Conan glimpsed the face of Nanaia staring through the bars behind the Hyrkanian. The hinges creaked, and the guard whirled catlike, lips drawn back in a snarl, and then instantly came to the attack.
Conan met him halfway, and the two women witnessed a play of swords that would have burned the blood of kings. The only sounds were the quick soft shuffle and thud of feet, the slither and rasp of steel, and the breathing of the fighters. The long, light blades flickered lethally in the illusive light, like living things, parts of the men who wielded them.
The hairline balance shifted. The Hyrkanian's lip curled in ferocious recognition of defeat and desperate resolve to take his enemy into death with him. A louder ring of Blades, a flash of steel―and Conan's flickering blade seemed to caress his enemy's neck in passing. Then the Hyrkanian was stretched on the floor, his neck half severed. He had died without a cry.
Conan stood over him for an instant, the sword in his hand stained with a thread of crimson. His tunic had been torn open, and his muscular breast rose and fell easily. Only a film of sweat glistening there and on his brow betrayed the strain of his exertions. He tore a bunch of keys from the dead man's girdle, and the grate of steel in the lock seemed to awaken Nanaia from a trance.
"Conan! I had given up hope, but you came. What a fight! Would that I could have struck a blow in it!" The tall girl stepped forth lightly and picked up the Hyrkanian's sword. "What now?"
"We shan't have a chance if we make a break before dark," said Conan.
"Nanaia, how soon will another guard come to relieve the man I killed?"
"They change the guard every four hours. His watch had just begun."
Conan turned to Parusati. "What time of day is it? I have not seen the sun since early this morning."
The Vendhyan girl said: "It is well into the afternoon. Sundown should be within four hours."
Conan perceived he had been in Yanaidar longer than he had realized.
"As soon as it's dark, we'll try to get away. We'll go back to my chamber now. Nanaia shall hide on the secret stair, while Parusati goes out the door and back to the girls' apartments."
"But when the guard comes to relieve this one," said Nanaia, "he'll see I have escaped. You should leave me here till you're ready to go, Conan."
"I dare not risk it; I might not be able to get you out then. When they find you gone, maybe the confusion will help us. We'll hide this body."
He turned toward the curiously decorated door, but Parusati gasped: "Not that way, my lord! Would you open the door to Hell?"
"What mean you? What lies beyond that door?"
"I know not. The bodies of executed men and women, and wretches who have been tortured but still live, are carried through this door. What becomes of them I do not know, but I have heard them scream more terribly than they did under torture. The girls say a man-eating demon has his lair beyond that door."
"That may be," said Nanaia. "But some hours ago a slave came through here to hurl through that door something which was neither a man nor a woman, though what it was I could not see."
"It was doubtless an infant," said Parusati with a shudder.
I'll tell you," said Conan. "We'll dress this body in your clothes and lay it in the cell, with the face turned away from the door. You're a big girl, and they will fit him. When the other guard comes, maybe he'll think it is you, asleep or dead, and start looking for the guard instead of you. The longer before they find you've escaped, the more time we shall have."
Without hesitation, Nanaia slipped out of her jacket, whipped her shirt off over her head, and dropped her trousers while Conan pulled the clothes off the Hyrkanian. Parusati gave a gasp of shock.
"What's the matter, don't you know what a naked human being looks like?" snarled Conan. "Help me with this/'
In a few minutes Nanaia was dressed in the Hyrkanian's garments, all but the helmet and corselet She dabbed ineffectively at the blood that soaked the upper part of the longsleeved coat while Conan dragged the Hyrkanian, in Nanaia's clothes, into the cell. He turned the dead man's face down and toward the wall so that its wisp of beard and mustache should not show and pulled Nanaia's shirt up over the ghastly wound in the neck. Conan locked the cell-door behind him and handed the keys to Nanaia. He said:
"There's nothing we can do about the blood on the floor. I have no definite plan for escaping the city yet. If I can't get away I'll kill Virata―and the rest will be in Crom's hands. If you two get out and I don't, try to go back along the trail and meet the Kushafis as they come. I sent Tubal after them at dawn, so he should reach Kushaf after nightfall, and the Kushafis should get to the canyon below the plateau tomorrow morning."
They returned to the secret door, which, when closed, looked like part of the blank stone wall. They traversed the tunnel and groped their way up the stair.
"Here you must hide until the time comes," said Conan to Nanaia. "Keep the swords; they'll do me no good until then. If anything happens to me, open the panel-door and try to get away, with Parusati if she comes for you."
"As you will, Conan." Nanaia seated herself cross-legged on the topmost step.
When Conan and Parusati were back in the chamber, Conan said: "Go now; if you stay too long, they may get suspicious. Contrive to return to me here as soon as it is well dark. I think I'm to stay here till this fellow Tiger returns. When you come back, tell the guard the Magus sent you. I'll attend to him when we are ready to go. And tell them you saw me drink this drugged wine, and that you searched me without finding any arms."
"Aye, my lord! I will return after dark." The girl was trembling with fear and excitement as she left.
Conan took up the winejug and smeared just enough wine on his mouth to make a detectable scent Then he emptied the contents in a noo
k behind the tapestries and threw himself on his divan as if asleep.
In a few moments the door opened again and a girl entered. Conan did not open his eyes, but he knew it was a girl by the light rustle of her bare feet and the scent of her perfume, just as he knew by the same evidences that it was not Parusati returning. Evidently the Magus did not place too much trust in any one woman. Conan did not believe she had been sent there to slay him―poison in the wine would have been enough―so he did not risk peering through slitted lids.
That the girl was afraid was evident by the quick tremor of her breathing. Her nostrils all but touched his lips as she sniffed to detect the drugged wine on his breath. Her soft hands stole over him, searching for hidden weapons. Then with a sigh of relief she glided away.
Conan relaxed. It would be hours before be could make any move, so he might as well snatch sleep when he could.
His life and those of the girls depended on his being able to find or make a way out of the city that night. In the meantime, he slept as soundly as if he lay in the house of a friend.
5. The Mask Falls
Conan awoke the instant a hand touched the door to his room, and came to his feet, fully alert, as Khaza entered with a bow. The Stygian said:
"The Magus of the Sons of Yezm desires your presence, my lord. The Tiger has returned."
So the Tiger had returned sooner than the Magus had expected! Conan felt a premonitory tenseness as he followed the Stygian out of the chamber. Khaza did not lead him back to the chamber where the Magus had first received him. He was conducted through a winding corridor to a gilded door before which stood a Hyrkanian swordsman. This man opened the door, and Khaza hurried Conan across the threshold. The door closed behind them. Conan halted.
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