Every day he took an hour or so off from his smithery to exercise his horse. He sharpened his sword. He mended and polished his boots, saddlery, and other equipment. He laid in a supply of durable foodstuffs: salted meat, hard biscuits, and a bag of dates brought north by traders from the Zuagir country. He borrowed Parvez’s map of Zamora and studied it.
If he fled from Yezud with the Eyes of Zath, which way should he turn? To make his way back to Turan was out of the question so long as Tughril maintained his feud. He did not underestimate the sorcerous powers and lust for revenge of the High Priest of Erlik, whose son he had slain.
West of Yezud, the central ridge of the Karpash Mountains snaked north and south for many leagues. As a born hillman, Conan was sure he could cross the cliffsided main ridge on foot, but equally sure he would have to abandon any horses he brought. He did not care to flee beyond the mountains only to find himself afoot in a strange land. Besides, if Rudabeh decided to come with him, she also would need a mount.
He could go north to the end of the central ridge and strike west into upper Brythunia. From all he had heard, this was a poor, sparsely-settled land where, though he carried the wealth of ages, there would be nothing to spend it on. In that country he could only buy a farm and settle down to till it. To become a yeoman farmer was the least of Conan’s desires; he had seen enough of peasant drudgery in his native Cimmeria.
He could push south, to the other end of the Karpashes, and strike west into Corinthia or south into Khauran. That route would take him through Shadizar, where a friendly fence would give him a handsome sum for his loot. On the other hand, too many Zamorians, from King Mithridates down, remembering his former depredations in their land, were whetting their knives for a slice of Conan’s flesh. Zamora was a poor country to hide in, because Conan’s very size, a head taller than most Zamorians, made him all too visible to those who sought him.
A few days after his midnight run, following a three-day absence from his smithy, Conan rode up the valley below Yezud. He was returning from the village of Kharshoi with a coil of rope tied to his saddle.
He jogged peacefully along the narrow, winding route that snaked along the side of the narrow gulch below the wider valley in which Khesron lay. The rocky sides of the valley rose steeply on either hand, carved by erosion into a confused corrugation of pinnacles and detached blocks piled helter-skelter. A fine site for an ambush, he thought, sweeping the tumbled slopes with a wary glance; the stony chaos presented an infinitude of hiding places, while no horse could negotiate such a slope without a broken leg.
Even as this thought crossed his mind, he was jerked to full alertness by a sound that his services in the Turanian army had made all too familiar: the flat snap of a bowstring, followed instantly by the whistling hiss of an arrow in flight.
Instantly, Conan threw himself forward and to the off side of the horse, since the sound came from his left, across the ravine. Holding on with one leg over the saddle and one arm around Ymir’s neck, he presented but little target to the unknown archer. As he did so, the arrow sang past the place where his body had been, to shatter against the rocks on his right.
Furiously, Conan whipped back into his saddle and swept out his sword. He turned the horse, glaring at the stony slope as if by the very intensity of his blue-eyed stare he could melt the rocks that concealed his would-be assassin. His excitement communicated itself to Ymir, who danced and snorted. But nothing moved on the rocky incline before him.
He could force the horse down the short slope to the bottom of the valley and across the brook; but then he would have to dismount and climb the facing slope afoot. For a single man to charge uphill on foot, with neither shield nor armor, against a well-placed and competent archer, was equivalent to suicide. His own bow was back in its case in Yezud. For a few heartbeats he swept the rocks with his probing vision, but no sign of his attacker could he see.
At last he turned Ymir’s head northward and spurred the animal toward his original destination. If he could not bring his assailant to book, he must quickly get out of range.
Hardly had the horse broken into a canter when the bow twanged again. Again, Conan ducked; but this had no effect on the arrow, which buried itself with a meaty thump in Ymir’s side. The horse gave a great bound and collapsed on the edge of the roadway, rolling off and down the slope.
As his stricken steed fell, Conan flung himself clear. With catlike agility he landed on his feet; but so steep was the slope that he, too, fell and rolled. Halfway down the slope he scrambled to his feet, snatched up the scimitar he had dropped, and covered the rest of the slope in two bounds. At the bottom he jumped across the gurgling run and pounded up the other side, leaping from rock to rock. As rage was replaced by calculation, his ascent became more deliberate, taking cover behind boulders and pinnacles, scanning the slope above him, and then making a quick dash to the shelter of the next prominence.
Soon he had climbed to a level higher than that from which he had started on the other side. He could now look down upon the domes and towers of the craglets that had concealed his assailant. But no sign of his attacker could he discern, even when he had climbed to the top of the valley.
At the top, he reached a small, grassy plateau, which ran horizontally for a bowshot before rising into further slopes and peaks of the rugged Karpash foothills. He walked about the flat, frowning. Presently he sighted something that made his breath quicken: the print of a horse’s hoof in a patch of sandy soil. Casting about, he found more hoofprints and a stake driven into the ground. Evidently, someone had recently ridden up to this plateau, bringing the stake with him. At the top he had dismounted, driven the stake into the ground, and tethered his horse while he went about his business—probably trying to put an arrow through Conan. Failing to do so, he had returned to his mount, departing in too much haste to take the stake with him.
Conan cast about, like a hound on the scent, for a clue as to his murderer’s direction. But the plateau’s surface was either too grassy or too stony to hold the spoor of Conan’s unknown foe.
At length Conan gave up and returned down the slope to where, across the little stream, his horse lay dead. He unfastened the saddle and bridle and grimly set out afoot, up the slope to the road and then north toward Yezud, with rope and saddle slung over one shoulder. As he plodded, he wondered how the assassin could have reached the top of the slope without Conan’s seeing him, unless magic were involved.
This, Conan suspected, was indeed the explanation. It would not have been magic of the most fell and powerful kind, to strike Conan dead by force of a spell alone; rather it was the magic of a petty illusionist—a spell related to the hypnotic suggestions of the Vicar. For the actual killing, his attacker depended upon material weapons, using unnatural means only to keep himself hidden from Conan’s sight.
Back in Yezud that evening, Conan’s fury at the loss of his horse and his failure to exact payment from his attacker was mitigated by his pleasure in finding Rudabeh at her mother’s house.
But Rudabeh did not look happy. “Step out into the garden, Nial,” she said tensely. “I have tidings.”
“Well?” asked Conan as he followed her into the cabbage patch.
“You know the Vicar, Harpagus? He has learned of our visit to Khesron.”
“How so?”
“He called me in and told me that someone—he named no names, but spoke of his informant as ‘she’—had carried tales to him.”
“By Set!” growled Conan. “I’ll wager it was that tavern slut, Mandana.”
“Why should she do a thing like that? I have never harmed her.”
“I think she’s jealous of you, my girl; you know how women are. What does Harpagus intend?”
“He would have me yield to him that which I have denied to you. If I do not, he threatens to denounce me to Lord Feridun.”
Conan’s voice became the snarl of a hunting leopard. “One more score against the dog! If it wasn’t he behind that attempt to murde
r me on the road today, I’m a Stygian!”
“What’s this? Who tried to murder you?”
Briefly, Conan told the tale of his encounter on the road from Kharshoi. Rudabeh exclaimed:
“Oh, how sorry I am for the loss of your horse! But at least you survived, which is more important.”
“Never mind that. What will Harpagus do if you resist?”
“It would mean death by the spider-god,” said Rudabeh somberly, blanching in the ruddy light of the setting sun. “Or at least a flogging and reduction to the lowest rank in the temple service. As I see it, my choices are these: I can give in to Harpagus and, if that issues badly, end up in Zath’s belly anyway. I can defy the Vicar, threatening to tell the High Priest of his lubricity. Or I can go forthwith to Feridun with my tale. But it were my word against the Vicar’s, and I am sure his would prevail.”
“You haven’t mentioned a fourth choice: to run away with me,” rumbled Conan.
She shook her head. “We have been all over that. I had almost as lief face Zath as plunge into the life you envision. And you, too, are caught in this cleft stick; for if Feridun thought you had debauched a temple virgin, your fate would be as mine.”
“Debauched!” snorted Conan. “A pretty tame sort of debauchery! Your priests, like other rulers, are wont to lay down strict rules for their subjects but themselves to do as they please.”
“The rules had fallen into abeyance under Feridun’s predecessor, a gluttonous voluptuary; but Feridun is a man of such stern morality that the sight of another enjoying life offends him. But about Harpagus—have you decided whither your own future lies?”
She meant: Are you ready to become my prudent, unadventurous husband? Conan clenched his fists and ground his teeth with the passions that were tearing him apart. Then he had a thought that might put off the fatal decision. He said:
“Do you know of the Powder of Forgetfulness?”
“Nay. What is it?”
“A magical stuff; a witch of my acquaintance gave me some. Throw a pinch into your enemy’s face, she said, and it will make him forget all about you, as if he had never heard of you. If you will step around to my chamber—” He checked himself as she began to protest. “Nay, I understand; we cannot be seen entering my place together. Wait here.”
He soon returned with the pouch he had received from Nyssa. Handing it over, he sighed: “I truly love you, girl; I could show you such loving as these local clods never dreamed of.”
“And what of me when you gallop off to new loves and wilder adventurers, perchance leaving me with a fatherless child?”
Conan snorted. “You, mistress, should debate with philosophers in the temple courtyards and put them all to shame! I’m no match for you in argument.”
“You have a keener mind than you think; you do but lack for schooling.”
“I’m schooled in handling swords and bows and horses, not in polite arts like literature.”
“That can be remedied. Darius, the young priest, conducts a school for children, and he could teach you.”
Conan growled: “Crom’s devils, girl! Are you trying to make me over? I won’t have it!”
When they tired of argument, Conan escorted Rudabeh back to the temple door. Seeing that the nighted streets were deserted, Conan seized her, crushed her to him, and covered her with burning kisses. “Come with me!” he murmured in a voice thick with passion.
When he released her, she said gently: “I confess, Nial, that I could learn to love you—but only if you would, as you say, permit me to ‘make you over.’ That would mean giving up your wild ways to settle in Yezud as a proper householder and husband.”
Conan grunted. “I wouldn’t even consider such a thing for any other woman. But for you—I’ll think on it.”
At his smithy the following morning, Conan gave Lar the day off and began work on a new project, which he preferred not to have the boy know about. By afternoon he had a foot-long grapnel ending in three hooks. He was securing the grapnel to his new rope by threading the rope through the eye at the other end of the grapnel and making a splice, when a tense voice called: “Nial!”
A woman stood before the open front of the smithy; Conan recognized Rudabeh despite her heavy veiling. He dropped his work and threw open the door to his private room.
“Step in,” he said. “We cannot talk here where everybody can see us. Fear not for your cursed virtue.” When both were in the room, he closed the door. “Now what’s happened?”
“There is such confusion at the temple that I knew none would miss me.”
“Yes, yes; but what’s up?”
“Your powder worked—if anything, too well. Harpagus came to my cubicle today, bolted the door, and began his advances by threats and wheedling intermixed. When he laid lustful hands upon me, I raised the pouch and threw the contents in his face.”
“A pinch would have sufficed.”
The girl shrugged. “Doubtless; but in the excitement I could not measure out the dose with such nicety. He sneezed and coughed and wiped his eyes; and when he had finished he gazed upon me blankly, with no more guile in his face than a babe’s! Then he asked me who and where he was. Here’s your empty pouch.”
“Crom, the powder seems to have blasted his mind for fair! What then?”
“I pushed him out of the room, and he wandered off muttering. I heard that other priests found him thus and took him to the High Priest, who tried by his arcane arts to restore the Vicar’s memory. But at last accounts he had not succeeded. I am truly grateful, dear Nial—”
Conan interrupted: “Then there’s a favor you can do me in return—oh, not what you’re thinking,” he added as she shrank away, “although I hope we shall come to that, too. Right now I must know where the Turanian woman is kept captive.”
“I must not reveal the temple’s secrets—” began Rudabeh.
“Nonsense!” growled Conan. “Haven’t you learned that priests are as avid for their own selfish pleasure as other men? The lady is but a pawn in Feridun’s play for unlimited power, and I must learn where she abides. Besides, I’m not a stranger; I work for the temple just as you do. Now will you tell me, girl?”
“Well—ah—know you the second story at the north end of the temple?”
“Aye; from a distance I have seen windows high up all the way round the temple.”
“The lady is in a chamber on that level, betwixt the northernmost of the west wings and the wing next to it.”
“Like this?” Conan squatted on the floor and drew lines in the dust with his finger.
“Exactly! The wall runs from one wing to the other, enclosing a three-sided space below the chamber.”
“What’s behind that wall? A pleasure garden?”
“Nay; there Feridun keeps his pet Hyrkanian tiger, called Kirmizi. Therefore, when the priests wish to isolate a guest, they house him in that apartment.”
Conan grunted. “A tiger, eh? A nice tame kitty?”
“Nay; he’s a fierce creature, who can be governed only by the High Priest. Lord Feridun has magical powers over animals. It may be merely a coincidence, but when he and the priest Zariadris were competing for the post of High Priest, and Feridun was elected, Zariadris set out for Shadizar to protest to the King that the election had been fraudulent. He was dragged from his horse by wolves and devoured. Surely you do not plan—”
“Never mind what I plan,” grunted Conan. “You’d better start for your mother’s house; I’ll join you there.”
Late that night, the pale face of the full moon gazed down upon Conan of Cimmeria as he cautiously moved around the great wall of the temple. When he came to the section enclosing the area beneath Jamilah’s chamber, he uncoiled the rope he carried and tossed the grapnel over the top of the wall. On his second try, the hooks caught.
It was but the work of a moment for the Cimmerian to clamber up the rope and balance himself on the top of the wall. He glanced down into the thoroughfare; but the streets of Yezud were deserted. W
ith no alehouses or other places of public entertainment, most of the citizens retired early. The town watch had already made its nightly sweep of the streets, and had disbanded and gone home, while Catigern’s Brythunians on night duty were posted around the city wall or else inside the temple. Yezud had so little crime that no massive precautions against it were deemed necessary.
Conan then studied the triangular area bounded by the wall and the adjacent wings of the temple. Trees and shrubs cast velvety shadows, black pools in the moonlight. Conan’s keen vision roved the ground until it lighted upon a bulk lying stretched out beneath a tree.
As if sensing Conan’s gaze upon it, the beast heaved itself to its feet and took a step toward the wall, which Conan straddled. From the tiger’s throat issued a prolonged grunt—a sound like that of a saw cutting through a log.
An upward glance told Conan that the window of Jamilah’s room was thrice man-height above the ground of Kirmizi’s enclosure. As the tiger advanced, Conan wrenched his grapnel out of the masonry and leaped to the ground outside the wall. Coiling his rope again, he headed back toward the smithy.
chapter x
THE TIGER’S FANG
The following noon, Conan strode into Bartakes’s Inn. Seated at a small table, Parvez was bent over a board game with Psamitek, the Stygian scholar. Save for two of Parvez’s Turanian retainers and a trader from the South, the common room was otherwise deserted. As Conan approached, the diplomat and the scholar looked up.
“Greeting, friend Nial!” said Parvez. “You have been exercising your steed?”
“I would have been; but, two days since, some swine shot the poor beast dead under me. That’s not what I came to tell you, though.” He looked significantly at Psamitek.
Conan and the Spider God Page 12
