"His head will adorn a pike before dawn," Vegentius said.
"No," Garian said softly. "I trusted this man." He wiped his hands on the edge of his cloak, as if ritually.
His eyes were cold on Conan's face. "Long has it been since the ancient penalty for plotting to slay he who wears the Dragon Crown was last invoked. Let it be invoked now" Drawing his cloak about him, he turned his face from the Cimmerian and strode from the chamber.
Vegentius stared after him, then down at Conan. Abruptly he laughed, throwing back his head. "The ancient penalty, barbar. Fitting. To the dungeons with him!"
One of those holding Conan shifted. The Cimmerian saw a descending sword hilt, then saw no more.
Chapter XIX
Albanus smiled to himself as his sedan chair was borne through the night, up the winding streets that led through the Temple District to the Royal Palace. So close now, he was, to his inevitable triumph. He savored each step the bearers took, carrying him nearer his goal.
Ahead two torchbearers strode, and twenty guards surrounded him, though the streets were as empty as a tomb millenia old. Those truly important to him marched on either side of his chair, heavily cloaked and hooded, the woman and the man-shape. So close.
As the procession approached the gate of the Palace, Albanus uttered a command. His sedan chair was lowered to the ground. Even as the hawkfaced man climbed out, Vegentius crossed the drawbridge.
Albanus looked at the guards and raised an inquiring brow.
"As planned," the soldier said quietly. "All men standing guard this night are loyal to me. My best."
"Good," Albanus said. "And Conan?"
"In the dungeons. Garian shouted so about invoking the ancient penalty that I could not kill him out of hand. The alarm had wakened others by then." His red-crested helmet bobbed as he spat disgustedly.
"But he can go to the same unmarked grave as Garian."
The hawk-faced lord laughed softly. "No, Vegentius. I find the ancient ways a fitting end for this barbarian."
"Better to kill him straight out," Vegentius grumbled, but pursued it no further. Stooping, he attempted to look under the hood of the man-shape behind Albanus. "Does he truly look like-"
"Let us go," Albanus said, and strode forward, Ariane and the simulacrum at his heels. Vegentius could do naught but follow.
The dark lord hurried over the drawbridge exultantly, and into the Palace. Often had his feet trod these halls, yet now it was tread of possessor, of conqueror. When a shadow moved and resolved into Sularia, he stared at her with imperious fury.
"Why are you here, woman? I commanded you to remain in your apartments until I sent for you."
Her gaze met his without flinching, and even in the dim light the eager glow of her eyes was apparent. "I want to see him fall before you."
Albanus nodded slowly. There would be pleasure in that. "But make no sound," he warned. Shoulders back and head high, as a king in his own palace, he moved on.
Before the door to Garian's chambers four guards stood, stiffening at the party's approach.
Vegentius stepped forward. "He sleeps?" One of the four nodded. "Who else is within?"
He who had nodded spoke. "Only the serving girl, to bring him wine if he wakes."
"Slay her," Albanus said, and Vegentius started.
"You said you could make her remember nothing, Albanus. Questions may be asked if the girl disappears."
"The method can only be used on one person at a time," Albanus replied, fingers absently stroking the pouch that held the white gem. "Slay her."
Vegentius nodded to the guard who had spoken. The man slipped inside, returning in moments with a bloody blade to resume his post.
Albanus led the others in, sparing not a glance for the crumpled form of a woman lying across an overturned stool. The second room, Garian's sleeping chamber itself, was dim, the lamp wicks trimmed low. Garian lay on his bed amid rumpled blankets.
"Turn up the lamps, Sularia," Albanus commanded quietly. Not taking her eyes from the man in the bed, the blonde hastened to obey. To the two hooded figures, the lord said, "Remove your cloaks."
Vegentius gasped as the simulacrum obeyed. "'Tis Garian's very image!"
Sularia turned from a golden lamp, but her exclamation at the sight of the King's double was cut short, as, with narrowing eyes, her gaze caught Ariane. "Who is she?" the blonde demanded.
Ariane looked straight ahead, unmoving, until another command was given. The simulacrum peered about him curiously.
On the bed, Garian suddenly sat bolt upright. Growing more amazed by the instant, his eye jumped from Albanus to Sularia to Vegentius. "What," he began, but the words died. Mouth open, he stared at the duplicate of himself. Unperturbed, the simulacrum gazed back inquisitively.
Albanus felt like laughing. "Garian," he said mockingly, "this is he who will sit on the Dragon Throne for the last days of your line. For your usurping lineage now ends."
"Guards!" Garian shouted. From beneath his pillows a dagger appeared in his hand, and he leaped from the bed. "Guards!"
"Take him," Albanus ordered the simulacrum, "as I told you." Growing more amazed by the instant, his eye jumped from Albanus to Sularia to Vegentius.
The duplicate moved forward, and Garian's dagger struck with a fighter's speed. To be caught easily by an inhumanly powerful grip on Garian's wrist. Astonishment was replaced on his face by pain as those fingers tightened. The dagger fell from nerveless forgers.
Before that blade clattered on the floor, the simulacrum's other hand seized the true King by the throat, lifting him until his toes kicked frantically above a handspan of air. No sign of strain was on the construct's face as it watched that other like its own turn slowly purple. Garian's struggles weakened, then ceased.
Casually the replica opened its hand and let the limp body fall.
Albanus hastened to bend over the King. Savage bruises empurpled his neck, and another darkened his cheek, though Albanus did not remember seeing the simulacrum strike. But the broad chest rose and fell, if faintly. Garian yet lived.
Vegentius, who had stood staring, sword half drawn, since the instant the duplicate moved, now slammed his blade home in its scabbard and cleared his throat. His eyes never left the simulacrum. "Should you not let him, it, kill him now?"
"I am King Garian," the creature said to Vegentius. The soldier muttered an oath.
"Be silent," Albanus commanded, straightening. "This," he prodded Garian's form with his foot, "will acknowledge my right to the throne before I let him die."
"But the danger," Vegentius protested. "He was to die now."
"Enough!" Albanus snapped. "Deliver him in chains to the dungeon beneath my palace. I'll hear no more on it."
Vegentius nodded reluctantly, and turned to go.
"And, Vegentius," the cruel-faced man added, "see that those who do this task are disposed of after.
Fewer tongues to waggle loosely."
The big soldier stood rigidly in the door, then left without speaking. But he would do it, Albanus knew, even to his beloved Golden Leopards.
"Who is this woman?" Sularia asked again.
Albanus looked at her in amusement, wondering if there were room for two thoughts at once in that pretty head. All that had happened before her eyes, and it was Ariane that concerned her.
"Do not worry," he told her. "In the morning you will be proclaimed Lady Sularia. This," he touched Ariane's expressionless face, "is naught but a tool to build a path to the Dragon Throne. And tools are made to be discarded once used."
His gaze swung to Sularia, a reassuring smile on his face. Tools, he repeated to himself, are made to be discarded once used.
Chapter XX
Conan awakened hanging spreadeagled in chains in the center of a dungeon. At least, he assumed it was the center. Two tall tripod lamps cast a yellow pool of light around him, but he could see no walls in any direction. The chains that held his wrists disappeared into the gloom above. Those holding hi
s ankles were fastened to massive ringbolts set in the rough stone blocks of the floor. His tunic was gone, he wore naught but a breechclout.
Without real hope of escape he tensed every muscle, straining until sweat popped out on his forehead, beaded his shoulders and rolled down his broad chest. There was not slightest give in the chains. Nor in himself. He had been stretched to the point of joints cracking.
Cloth rustled in the darkness, and he heard a man's voice.
"He is awake, my lady." There was a pause. "Very good, my lady."
Two men moved into the light, burly, shaven headed and bare chested. One bore a burn across his hairless chest as if some victim had managed to put hand to the hot iron intended for his own pain. The other was as heavily pelted as an ape from the shoulders down, and wore a smile on his incongruously pleasant round face. Each man carried a coiled whip.
As they wordlessly took positions to either side of the Cimmerian, he strained his eyes to penetrate the darkness. Who was this 'lady'? Who?
The first whip hissed through the air to crack against his chest. As it was drawn back the other struck his thigh. Then the first was back, wrapping around an ankle. There was no pattern to the blows, no way to anticipate where the next would land, no way to steel the soul against pain like lines of acid eating into the flesh.
The muscles of Conan's jaws were knots with the effort of not yelling. He would not even open his mouth to suck in the lungfuls of air his great body demanded in its agony. To open his mouth would be to make some noise, however slight, and from there it would be but a step to a yell, another to a scream. The woman watching from the darkness wanted him to scream. He would make no sound.
The two men continued until Conan hung as limply as the chains would allow, head down on his massive chest. Sweat turned to fire the welts that covered him from ankles to shoulders. Here and there blood oozed.
From the darkness he heard the clink of coins, and the same man's voice. "Very generous, my lady. We'll be just outside, an you need us." Then silence until hinges squealed rustily, stopping with the crash of a stout door closing.
Conan lifted his head.
Slowly a woman walked into the circle of light and stood watching him. The woman veiled in gray.
"You!" he rasped. "Are you the one who has been trying to kill me, then? Or are you the one who uses those fools at the Thestis, the one who put me here with lies?"
"I did try to have you killed," she said softly. Conan's eyes narrowed. That voice was so familiar. But whose? "I should have known there were no men in Nemedia capable of slaying you. Where you hang, though, is your own doing, though I joy to see it. I joy, Conan of Cimmeria."
"Who are you?" he demanded.
Her hand went to her face, pushed back the veils. No disease-ravaged skin was revealed, but creamy ivory beauty. Tilted emerald eyes regarded him above high cheekbones. An auburn mane framed her face in soft waves.
"Karela," he breathed. Almost he wondered if he saw a vision from pain. The Red Hawk, fierce bandit of the plain of Zamora and the Turanian steppes, in Belverus, masquerading as a woman of the nobility. It seemed impossible.
That beautiful face was impassive as she gazed at him, her voice tightly controlled. "Never again did I think to see you, Cimmerian. When I saw you that day in the Market District I thought I would die on the spot."
"And did you see Hordo?" he asked. "You must know he is here, still hoping to find you." He managed a wry smile. "Working with the smugglers you now command."
"So you have learned that much," she said wonderingly "None but a fool ever accounted you stupid.
Hordo surprised me almost as much as you did, turning up in Khorshemish while I was there. Still, I would not let him know who I am. He was the most faithful of my hounds, yet others were faithful, too, and even so remembered the gold on my head in Zamora and Turan. Think you I wear these veils for the pleasure of hiding?"
"It has been a long time, Karela," Conan said. "'Tis likely they've forgotten by now."
Her calm facade cracked. "The Red Hawk will never be forgotten!" Emerald eyes flaring, she faced him with fists on hips and feet apart. Almost he could see the jeweled tulwar at her hip as it had been.
"Now that you're no longer being the Lady Tiana," he said grimly, "why in Zandru's Nine Hells do you want me dead?"
"Why?" she screeched in furious astonishment. "Have you forgot so soon leaving me naked and chained, on my way to be sold to whatever man bid highest?"
"There was the matter of the oath you made me swear, Karela. Never lift a hand to save-"
"Derketo blast you and your oaths, Cimmerian!"
"Besides which, I had four coppers in my pouch. Think you to have gone for so paltry a price?"
"You lie!" she spat. "I would not heel at your command, so you let me be sold!"
"I tell you-"
"Liar! Liar!"
Conan snarled wordlessly and clenched his teeth on any further explanation. He would not argue with her. Neither would he plead. That last he had never learned to do.
Pacing angrily, Karela hurled her words as if they were daggers, never looking at him directly. "I want you to know my humiliations, Cimmerian. Know them, and remember them, so the memory will be a blade to prick you constantly when you are in the mines, ever reminding you that when the King proclaims pardons for all who have served a certain time, I will be then to place gold in the proper hands so that one prisoner will be forgotten."
"I knew you would escape," Conan muttered. "As you obviously did."
Her emerald eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and when she opened them her tone was flat. "I was bought by a merchant named Haffiz, and placed in his zenana with two score other women. That very day did I escape. And that very day was I brought back and given the bastinado, the cane across the soles of my feet. I would not cry, but for ten days I could only hobble. The second time I was free for three days. On being returned, I was put to scrubbing pots in the kitchens."
Despite his position Conan chuckled. "A fool he was, to think to tame you so."
She turned to face him, and if her words were soft her eyes held murder. "The third time I was taken while still climbing the wall. I spat in Haffiz' face, told him to slay me, for he could never break me. Haffiz laughed. I thought I was a man, he said. I must be taught differently. Henceforth I was to be allowed no waking hour that I was not dressed as if about to be presented to a master's bed, in the sheerest silks and the finest fragrances, kohl on my eyelids and rouge on my lips and cheeks. I must learn to dance, to play instruments, to recite poetry. Failure in any of these, failure to be pleasing at all times, would be punished immediately. But, as I was like a young girl learning to be a woman, no punishment would I receive not suitable for a child. How he roared with laughter."
Conan threw back his head and roared as well. "A child!"
Raising a fist as if she wished it had strength to knock him senseless, Karela raged. "What do you know of it, fool? Having my buttocks turned up for the switch ten times a day. Spoons of ca'teen oil forced down my throat. A hundred more too shaming even to think on. Laugh, you barbar oaf! For a year was I forced to endure, and how I wish I could make you live a year in the mines for every day of it."
With an effort he managed to control his mirth. "I thought you would escape in half a year, perhaps less.
But the Red Hawk turned to a thrush in a silver cage."
"Day and night was I watched," she protested. "And I did escape, with a sword in my hand."
"Because you tired of being sent to your bed with no supper?" Chuckles reverberated in his massive chest.
"Derketo blast your eyes!" Karela howled. She raced forward to pound her small fists against his great chest. "Erlik take you, you Cimmerian bastard! You... you...." Abruptly she sagged, clutching him to keep from falling. Her cheek was pressed against his chest; he was astounded to see a tear at the corner of her eye. "I loved you," she whispered. "I loved you."
The muscular Cimmerian shook his h
ead in wonderment. Did she act like this when she loved him, he could not imagine anyone surviving her hate.
Pushing herself away, she stepped back from him, refusing to acknowledge the tears that trembled on her long lashes. "There is no fear in you," she whispered. "You are not trembling. Nor will you think, 'if she suffered so, what will she make me suffer?'"
"I have no blame for what happened to you, Karela," he said quietly.
She did not seem to hear. "But if you have no fear, still you are a man." A strange smile played about her lips.
Abruptly her fingers went to the brooches that held her robes; in an instant the gray silk lay in a pool about her slender ankles. Gracefully she stepped from the robes. She was as he remembered, full breasts and rounded thighs, long legs and a tiny waist. Karela was a sensual delight for the male eye.
Slowly, on her toes, she spun, arms raised, head turning to let her silken tresses caress now creamy shoulders, now satin breasts. With a gentle sway to her hips she walked to him, stopping only when her breasts touched him, just below the ribs as he hung in the chains. Touching her full lower lip with her tongue and looking up at him through her lashes, she began in a sultry tone.
"When you are taken into the mines only death can bring you to the surface again. You will live your life in dank, foul air and the dim light of guttering torches. There are women there, if you want to call them women. Their hands are as calloused as any man's." Her fingers stroked across his iron-hard chest.
"Their hair and skin are filth encrusted, their stench foul; their kisses...."
Her slender arms stretched up, her hands hooked behind his neck, and she pulled herself up until her face was level with his.
"They have no sweet kisses such as this," she whispered, and pressed her lips to his. He met her kiss savagely, until at last she broke free with a whimper. Her emerald gaze was tremulous, his the blue of windswept northern skies. "You will never have a kiss like that again," she said breathlessly.
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