by Roland Green
"So I will trust you and your Afghuli comrades to make no attempt to escape," the captain continued. "And I will also trust you to contrive the return of my men, whole and fit to fight. Otherwise we have no agreement, and I will look under every rock and grain of sand in this desert to find you."
Conan knew when a man accustomed to commanding his temper was about to lose it. He made no protest at Khezal's terms, but began gathering his weapons and harness.
Captain Muhbaras's notion that he would hear bad news swiftly did not last long. He began to wish he had used some more prudent words to silence the spy. As it was, the man would either suspect a lie or fret himself into folly well before the captain returned.
There was, however, not one thing under the gods' sky that the captain could do about this problem, without paying the mortal price of offending the Lady of the Mists.
Nor would giving such offense please the spy. He had made it plainer than a fruit-seller in the bazaar crying his wares; his purpose here was to speed the work of the alliance with the Lady of the Mists to the peril of Turan and the profit of Khoraja.
It was therefore just barely possible that the spy needed the captain more than the captain needed him. The captain resolved to remember that as he followed his escort of Maidens into the valley.
Escort or guard? One walked ahead, and one on either side save where the path was too narrow for more than one pair of feet. Then the flankers stepped forward to join the leader.
No less than four Maidens walked behind the captain. He turned twice to stare at them, and each time their leader gave him a look that would have frozen the manhood of a god. The others lightly brushed their hands to the hilts of their swords.
After that the captain was entirely certain that he was going either to his own death or to something that he would doubtless protest almost as violently. It was some small consolation to know that the Lady thought she might need steel as well as spells to ward him off. Entering the Valley of the Mists, the captain did not feel nearly that formidable.
He felt still less so as they passed within the cleft, through the two great gates, and on to a trail that climbed the cliff to the left of the entrance. The trail was wide enough for two abreast, but it climbed so steeply that in places the rock was shaped into steps. In the twilight, and taking care not to stumble, the captain could not be sure what shapes were carved into those steps. He doubted that the knowledge was either necessary or wholesome.
In the twilight, the valley itself did nothing to ease a man's mind. Two walls of mountain stretched away into shadows whose blue and purple hues seemed against nature. Overhead the stars were coming out with a savage brightness, even as the last light drained from the western sky. Mist gathered here, there, and everywhere, according to no pattern the captain recognized, gray tendrils rising to dance and swirl with the sinuosity of living beings.
The captain had the sense of entering a vast temple, so long ruined that it was roofless and naked to the stars, but whose walls and altars of sacrifice were yet intact. Intact, and bound by great and dreadful magic to remain that way until some nameless purpose was fulfilled.
He shivered from more than the chill of the night air, and was glad when the trail turned into a cave and the cave into a tunnel carved from the wall of the valley. Torches lit the party's way, and twice they surprised the misshapen half-human slaves of the valley tending to the lights.
Again the captain rejoiced that the light was too dim to let him see every unwholesome detail of the half-men. Or women—he was sure that one of them was a woman, barely past girlhood, and he fought back the urge to spew or perform rites of aversion.
Neither was acceptable to the Lady.
Muhbaras's modest pleasure lasted only until his guards led him into a small, almost intimate chamber. Its rock walls hid behind tapestries woven with archaic figures of dragons and giant birds, and a brazier glowing in the middle of it further warmed the air beyond what the captain had expected.
There was, however, no warmth in the Lady's face as she sat in her habitual cross-legged position on a silk cushion, the cushion in turn elevated on a stool carved from a single piece of Vendhyan teak. To show that he was not afraid, the captain sought to make out the figures carved in the stool, but ended being more unsettled than before as he failed to make sense of the carvings.
They were animals, birds, and things that had the shape of men but also subtle differences. They were nothing as simple as the Serpent Men of Valusia, who would have been almost a relief.
Muhbaras knew that custom required him to wait for the Lady to speak, as if she were a queen or near-kin to one. He also knew that this custom allowed the Lady to sit and study those who came before her for as long as it pleased her, rather like a serpent studying a particularly succulent bird.
By sheer force of will, Muhbaras had not grown uneasy and was standing as still as the seven Maidens when the Lady at last spoke.
"One of your warriors has looked upon a Maiden with the desire of a man for a woman."
The captain inclined his head, as graciously as he could contrive. Unless the Lady was altogether a raving madwoman, there had to be more to the matter. And as he was not a raving madman, he would let her reveal that "more" before he opened his own mouth.
It seemed that half the night crawled by, in a silence rivaling that of the graveyard. The captain began to suspect that the Lady was testing his courage, and vowed to pass any test she might set him.
At last the Lady sighed. She was garbed in a robe made of a single thickness of silk, so thin that Muhbaras could see her breasts lift under it with the sigh. He cast his eyes and thoughts elsewhere, and inclined his head again.
"Do you not wish to know more, Khorajan?" the Lady asked. Her voice had the quality of a fine steel blade slicing equally fine silk. In another it might have seemed intended to arouse desire. In the Lady it seemed only intended to arouse slavish obedience.
"I wish to know all that my Lady of the Mists sees fit to tell me. I do venture to add that the more she tells me, the more likely we are to resolve this matter peaceably."
"Peace requires the death of the soldier who offended. Anything less will mean no peace."
The captain waited, until he realized that he was expected to reply to those bald words, as naked of mercy as the rocks of the mountains or the vultures circling above them. Common sense told him that negotiation was futile. Honor bound him to try.
"A lesser penalty will still suffice to keep the man—"
"No lesser penalty will suffice in any way, in the eyes of the gods."
Which gods? the captain wondered, not quite reverently. Although the Lady might be unwilling or unable to answer, having confused her own will with that of the gods—a vice not unknown among less powerful mortals, or the captain would not have been here in honorable if perilous exile from his native city.
"Honor to the gods and to you, my Lady," the captain said. "But if no deed of desire has been done—"
"The eyes give passage to the soul. Your soldier's soul has touched the Maiden."
Muhbaras had not heard that from any priest, but had long since ceased to expect the Lady to be bound by any common notions of priestcraft. He would have liked to know what did bind her, and still hoped to learn something of that, but did not expect that this night would be the time.
The Lady's wrath in the face of disobedience would doubtless be tempered by her need for himself and his men. Yet even her tempered wrath could leave him unfit for duty for some time, which Ermik could put to use to usurp the captain's authority.
Moreover, the Lady (who was seldom ill informed) might know of the spy's coming and his favor in Khoraja. She might think that he could be put into the captain's place as a more pliant tool.
That would be folly in the Lady. But the captain had never heard that witches were less foolish than common folk.
"Give me the name of the man, then, and I will have him straitly confined, questioned, and brought before y
ou."
"His name is Danar son of Araubas, and he has already been confined by my Maidens and their servants. His guilt is proven beyond need for further questioning. I summoned you here out of courtesy, that you might not wonder what had become of him. I only ask you: Do you wish to witness his passing or not?"
The moment the captain heard the name of the condemned man, he knew at least some truth without needing to ask questions the Lady would not answer. Danar was youthful, courteous, and by all reports, most pleasing to a woman's eye. If he had looked with desire on any woman, Maiden, crone, or a very goddess, it was because she had so looked upon him first!
That truth would not save Danar, however. It would most likely condemn the Maiden as well as Danar—and whatever hope the Maidens' womanliness might give to the captain would be flung off the cliff along with Danar.
That would be the method of execution—that or some other passing fit for a soldier. No more blackened and reeking tongues dealing a death that even the most hardened Stygian torturer would call harsh. The captain would save his man's soul, if he could not save his body.
"Very well. I will consent to all that you have asked, on one condition. I will speak alone with Danar son of Araubas, and bear any last wishes to his kin. Otherwise I will make no promises whatever in this matter."
Muhbaras ventured to look the Lady squarely in the eyes. He saw for the first time flecks of brown in their blazing gold, and faint shadows on the eyelids below the finely plucked eyebrows.
In another woman, he would have said those eyes would look very well widening on a pillow as she gave and took pleasure. With the Lady of the Mists, that was a thought to drive from one's mind as one drove a mad dog from the nursery.
"By my honor and my bond with the Mists, I pledge to grant you that, if the man be living when you come to him."
That left an opening for treachery through which one could have driven the elephants of the royal menagerie, but Muhbaras judged it wise to make no further argument. He bowed his head and made the ritual Khorajan gestures of binding himself with blood and steel to fulfill a vow.
Then he straightened. "The man is more likely to be living if I go straight to him. Is that permitted?"
The Lady nodded. Silently she raised a hand, and the Maidens gathered about the captain to lead him out of the chamber.
Conan rode north in the vanguard of fifty Green-cloaks. Farad and Sorbim rode beside him, their gazes making a complete circle around their chief every few moments.
Ten paces to the Cimmerian's right, Khezal rode with three picked Greencloaks. They kept a similar watch out for his safety.
"Conan," Khezal called, across the gap. "What would you have done if I had refused to let you ride north?"
"I remember a wise captain who said that 'if is a word for priests and scribes, not fighting men."
"I remember that when the wise captain said that, he was teaching a young Cimmerian who has since become a wise captain in his own right."
"Indeed, I would have owed the other captain an answer to such a question," the Cimmerian said, in a dangerously level voice. "Do I owe you as much?"
"He taught me also, and there is another reason for you to think carefully before you refuse. I do not teach. I lead men, who, like me, must know how far we can trust you."
Conan muttered a few oaths, but within he was rallying his thoughts. Indeed, Khezal was in a position wherein the trust of his men was life or death. Anything that could help strengthen that trust, and would not weaken Conan, was Khezal's right.
"So be it," Conan said. "Had you refused, I would still have gone north, with Farad and Sorbim. No Greencloak would have suffered, save those foolish enough to stand in our path. We might even have saved the captives."
"And if you could not?" one Greencloak said. Khezal shot the man a barbed look, but Conan held up a hand.
"No, the answer's his right as well as yours. If they had to die, they would have died as whole men, or at least not without rites."
The Greencloak looked more content than his captain. Conan spat into the sand. Khezal was wiser than the Cimmerian intended to tell him for some while, but there was much he needed to learn about Afghulis and those the tribesmen called chief.
Seven
Conan rode well to the fore, flanked by Farad and Sorbim. They were careful to keep their distance from the Greencloaks, without moving out of bowshot. That would smell of an attempt to escape, and no goodwill that Khezal bore the Cimmerian would stay the captain's command to his archers to shoot.
There also might be other men of warlike disposition roaming this patch of desert, besides Turanians and Afghulis. Among them, the three riders left no part of the horizon unwatched, nor the ranks of Turanian riders behind them.
Khezal had said the place where peacemaking was direly needed might be two hours away at a fast pace, as much as three at one that spared the horses. Conan stood silent as to which pace they should use, but gave the world a dusty grin as he saw the Turanians settle down to a pace that their mounts could keep up all day.
This was much as he had expected, Khezal being no fool. However, even wise men had been known to hasten unwisely, if they thought this would show loyalty and help keep their heads on their shoulders.
Conan had no quarrel with any such desire in Khezal. He only insisted that Khezal's head not survive at the price of his and his Afghulis'.
Everyone's head remained not only on his shoulders but clear and alert during that first hour. They were riding out from a well-supplied, well-watered camp, and even the newest to the ranks of the Greencloaks was a veteran of at least five years' service.
Watching the ranks of desert-wise riders behind him and remembering their gallant fight at the rocks, Conan felt a twinge of regret at his flight from Turanian service. The officer whose mistress he had "stolen" (a word he always resented, considering how willingly the lady had come to him) had been a friend of then-Prince Yezdigerd. Even if others had been able to patch up a truce between Conan and the officer, the lady would surely have suffered. The truce would also have ended the moment Yezdigerd felt himself secure enough on the throne to do such minor favors for his friends as handing them a Cimmerian's head…
No, it was as well to be out of Turanian service. It would have been better to be out of Turanian reach altogether, but Conan had small choice if he was to do his duty by the Afghulis who had exiled themselves out of loyalty to him. He could trust Khezal for everything the nobleman could control, and as for the rest, the Cimmerian trusted to his sword arm and steel—which had kept him above ground for a good many years and had not grown slack or dull in Afghulistan.
They were halfway through the second hour of their journey when Conan saw the horseman on a distant ridge to the north.
Danar son of Araubas looked rather better than his captain had expected when the two Khorajans met in the low rocky chamber where the younger man was confined awaiting execution. A second look told Muhbaras that the walls had once been bricked, more centuries ago than he cared to think about.
What he faced now was quite sufficiently disagreeable—and as nothing compared to what Danar might face if his luck were out.
Four Maidens had escorted the captain to the entrance of the chamber, so low that he had to stoop to enter—and he was not tall for a Khorajan. Four other Maidens were already on guard, which seemed none too few when the captain saw that the door itself was only a woven screen of rushes. A child with a toy dagger could have cut his way through that to a brief freedom, before the guards cut him down.
But none of the Maidens approached it, and on the floor the captain saw a dead mouse and more than a few dead insects. When a Maiden did open the screen, she did it with the bronze point of a spear whose shaft was carved into unpleasantly familiar if still incomprehensible runes. She also wore an amulet of feathers and small rose- and amethyst-hued stone beads, and moved as cautiously as if the floor might open up and swallow her at a misstep.
The captain had
seldom moved with such exquisite care as when he stooped and entered Danar's chamber. He would have gone down on his hands and knees to avoid touching the screen if it had been necessary.
To his mild surprise, the Maiden with the spear raised the screen high enough to spare him that humiliation. He said his thanks to her in his heart, knowing that even if she would keep the secret, her comrades would not. The Lady of the Mists kept her Maidens, if not at one another's throats, at least looking over one another's shoulders.
Doubtless the Lady knew that this could do harm in a battle against a serious foe. Comrades who had to fear one another's tongues as much as they did the enemy's steel could hardly be called comrades at all.
Just as certainly, the Lady was more concerned about keeping the Maidens loyal to her. A serious foe, she no doubt thought, would not enter the Valley of the Mists before her work was done.
It was no pleasure to Muhbaras to realize that the Lady of the Mists was quite probably right.
Even Conan's hawk-keen sight could make out little about the rider, other than that he rode a horse and wore dark robes.
"Which is the garb of half the tribes in this land," Khezal said when he rode up to move level with the Cimmerian. Otherwise they made no change of pace or formation, so that from a distance the watcher might think they had not seen him.
"Yes, and no doubt the garb of the other half when they go long enough without washing," Farad said.
"Speak for yourself, rock-crawler," Sergeant Barak muttered, before a glare from both Conan and Khezal silenced their followers.
The watcher seemed to have chosen a good post, overlooking the easiest march route but not actually on it. As they drew closer, the watcher drew back, and Conan saw that he was retreating toward a nightmarish tangle of ravines and rocks. A band half again the size of the Turanians could hide in that land, and seeking one man in it would take the rest of the day before they had to admit failure.
