“You did,” she said grudgingly. “But a little glow is not the vision of the eagle. Still, it’s a beginning.”
Onward they went. With the moon down, they had only starlight, but in the desert, even that was enough to bestow tolerable vision to the Cimmerian. When the sun began to stain the horizon, he fashioned a blindfold for Achilea.
“I can see the dawnlight,” she said. “But of all the things I might see, the last thing I want to see is the sun!”
She gritted her teeth and walked on. This time, the Cimmerian rested a hand upon her shoulder to guide her. He walked to her left, trying to shelter her as much as possible in his shadow. Soon the confidence of her steps told him that she could now see tolerably well through the gauzy cloth. He also noted with wry amusement that she did not tell him to take his hand away.
“That sandstorm,” she said as they trudged. “Was that a natural thing?”
“Nay, it was wizardry. Even in this desert, the one thing sand cannot do naturally is to rise without wind. Did the desert demons not attack you in the blackness?”
“Desert demons?” Then he had to tell her of his desperate, blind fight against the unholy things. She seemed doubtful. “Two of the things that wiped out that caravan? And you slew one and drove the other off without even being able to see them?”
“I did not come away altogether unhurt. I will show you the marks when your eyes are better.”
Well before noon, Achilea began to stagger. She was going on heart alone and her heart was beginning to give out. When the sun was straight overhead, her legs gave out abruptly and she sat on the sand, gasping.
“It is no use,” she croaked, forcing the words past her swollen tongue and cracked lips. “You can still wield your blade. Finish me and go on.”
“Getting a little dry?” he asked, crouching beside her.
“Do not mock me,” she said. “Use your blade.”
“If that is the way you want it,” he said, “so be it,” He drew his dirk and she waited with her head high and proud.
He pulled off her blindfold and she glared at him, her sight fully restored. Conan stretched his heavy-muscled arm before her eyes and with the tip of his dirk, he opened a vein in his forearm.
“There,” he said. “Drink.”
“Do you think I am a vampire?” Her eyes held revulsion, and something like wonder.
“That is Cimmerian blood, woman, the strongest in the world. Don’t waste it” He grasped the back of her neck and pressed her mouth to his arm. She struggled weakly for a while; then she gave in and drank. When he released her, she sagged to the sand. His small wound was already healing, the blood clotting to seal it.
“You are a strange man, Conan,” she said, her strength even now beginning to return.
“And you are not like other women,” he said. “That is not something I do for just anyone.”
She looked at him and, abruptly, broke into laughter.
“What is so funny?” he asked, nonplussed.
“You look like a spotted cat!” she said, pointing to his chest, which was liberally splotched with small acid bums.
“It’s what comes of fighting demons in the dark. Now do you believe me?”
“Very well,” she said. “I agree to believe you this time. Shall we go on? I am feeling better.”
“We might as well. The sun burns you here whether you move or sit still.”
They rose and went on. By late afternoon, the strength lent by his blood was exhausted and she felt once more, too worn out even to speak. Conan was not in a speaking mood either. Without a word, he stooped, gathered her into his arms and hoisted her over his shoulder. Her substantial weight was a burden, but his strength was great and he strode no more slowly for the warm mass of her lying across his back. Each hour he shifted her from one shoulder to the other through the remainder of the day and all through the starry night.
He walked like an automaton, putting one foot in front of the other with perfect regularity, ignoring the pain of his burns and the soreness of his shoulders, aware only that he must live and get Achilea to water and shade, and that soon. She would not survive another full day of the desert sun. So stupefying was the mind-numbing labor that as dawn came, he did not at first notice the riders.
Conan’s head jerked up abruptly when he heard the high-pitched cries and saw four camels bearing down upon them. The sun was just above the horizon, and he laid the woman gently on the sand, drawing his sword as he straightened. Then he heard jubilant whoops and he was surrounded as the three wild women and the dwarf all but dived off their mounts to get to their queen. To his amazement, they carried fat water skins.
The women cradled their queen, kissing her face and pouring water over her in prodigal quantities, thrusting the neck of one of the skins into her mouth. Achilea drank thirstily, coughed, vomited water, then drank some more. Tears made black streaks down their faces.
“Easy there,” Conan said, barely able to force the words past his swollen tongue. “Too much water at once and you’ll kill her.” The women ignored him, spreading robes over Achilea, lifting her to one of the beasts.
The dwarf walked to Conan and handed him a water skin. “How far did you carry her?”
The Cimmerian took a mouthful of water, rinsed his mourn, then forced himself to spit the water out on the sand. He then took a small sip and swallowed it. The relief was as intense as anything he had ever felt in his life.
“All last night and most of yesterday. She was blind for a while.” He took another cautious sip and swallowed it.
To his amazement, the little man threw a pair of stubby arms around his waist and grasped him in a fierce hug. “You saved our queen! We are your slaves for life!”
“Where did you get this?” Conan asked, holding up the water skin.
“You will see. It is not far. Come.” The women had Achilea loaded on a camel, with Lombi holding her steady. Conan mounted one of the beasts, the dwarf behind him. As they rode, he continued to sip at the water. He could feel the blessed fluid making its way from his stomach to his parched tissues.
“Where are the others?” Conan asked.
“They wait for us,” said the dwarf. “Some of diem, anyway,” he amended. “Now, tell me what happened after you left the camp.” So Conan whiled away the time describing the spy mission, the fight and flight from the camp, the dust storm and his strange, blind combat with the desert demons.
Two hours after their rescue, Conan’s water skin was almost empty and he was feeling much restored. His hunger was returning as well. Then they crested a dune and he saw the city.
It lay in a perfect, circular depression, just as Amram had described it. It was not huge, but it seemed to consist almost entirely of elaborate buildings, with tittle open land inside the walls. Before the sparkling gate he saw the great water-trough Amram had mentioned, and near it were tethered some camels. Tents had been erected close by.
As they descended the dune, he noticed that the tall, white camels were missing. “Where are the twins?”
“We think they’re inside,” the dwarf admitted. “You’ll hear about it anon.”
The Hyrkanians rushed up to them, grinning. “We rejoice to see you, Conan!” Kye-Dee said.
The Cimmerian dismounted stiffly, his sunburned hide screaming with pain. “I notice you didn’t come looking for us,” he said sourly.
Kye-Dee grinned some more, shrugging. “It seemed that the gods of this place had stranded you. It is very unwise to provoke the gods.”
“Crom preserve me from those with religious scruples,” Conan groused, walking to the great trough.
He saw that water poured into it continuously from one end and flowed over a spillway in the opposite end. Much as he wanted to explore the place and find out what had occurred, the water drew him more strongly. Throwing off his weapon-belt, he crouched beneath the spillway and let the water flow over him, sluicing his hair, washing the remaining sand and grease from his body. The pain was
excruciating, but when he straightened, clean for the first time in days, he felt like a new man.
The women carried Achilea to the trough and gently lowered her into the water. Her eyes sprang open wide and she screamed while they dipped water over her head.
“Careful there!” Conan barked. “She’s been badly burned.”
“We know that!” snarled Payna. Then her fierce scowl was replaced by a flush of shame. The woman threw herself down and placed her forehead against his feet. “Forgive me, ray lord! You saved our queen and we worship you!”
The dwarf grinned up at him cockily. “It’s not easy for them to be civil to a man.”
“They are creatures of extremes, that is for certain,” Conan said. He helped the women rig an awning to shade Achilea while she soaked in the trough. Then he went to sit in the shade of a tent while he ate from their store of provisions, washing down every mouthful with a generous draught of water. The dwarf joined him and when Conan was done eating, the little man explained what had happened.
“After the two of you left upon your mission, we waited. The Hyrkanians slept, the twins were deep in converse with Amram―”
“Speaking of him, where is Amram?” Conan asked.
“You shall hear. We were awaiting Achilea’s return when the great cloud of dust darkened the moon. It was upon us before we knew what it was. Even as it struck, I saw Amram and the twins mount their camels and ride off south, disappearing into the darkening cloud.
“We sat out the uncanny storm in great misery, calling our queen’s name in hope that she would hear us and be guided, but she did not come. In the morning, the dust settled and we were alone. We saw nothing at all. The women wanted to search immediately, but I urged that we find water first, then search.”
Conan nodded. “That was the wisest policy.”
“Aye. I felt that she might have passed us in the darkness and that we were as likely to find her by riding south as by sweeping north. If the twins and Amram had deserted us, it had to be because the city, and its water, were near. Within half a day’s ride, we picked up the trail of the twins and Amram, and a few hours after that, we found this place. We gave the camels water and a little rest, filled our water
skins, and began to sweep the desert to the north.”
“And you saw nothing of the twins, nor of Amram?”
“We followed their tracks right up to that gate,” he said, pointing at the great doors in the city wall, “It was discourteous of them to take such unceremonious leave of us,” Conan said. “When Achilea is rested and well, we must go in there and rebuke them.” With that, the Cimmerian yawned, stretched out upon a blanket, and was fast asleep.
He slept through the rest of the day and all that night, waking at dawn the next morning. The first light stained the eastern horizon as he left the tent and walked past the somnolent camels to plunge his head into the water of the trough. He straightened, snorting, and shook his head, whipping his black hair around, spraying droplets of water for yards.
He went to Achilea’s tent and looked in. The three wild women were asleep, sitting upright with their legs stretched before them. Achilea, her skin too sensitive for the touch of a blanket, lay naked across their thighs with her head in Payna’s lap. Her heels rested upon the belly of Jeyba the dwarf, who snored lustily. They had rubbed her face and body with oil, and she gleamed softly in the morning light.
He backed out of the tent, satisfied that Achilea’s breathing was strong and regular. He knew that she would recover quickly now; she was the strongest woman he had ever encountered.
The Hyrkanians lay upon their blankets, sleeping as peacefully as dogs, with no care or thought.
Grass grew on the ground near the trough, nourished by the overflow. There was enough to provide the camels with forage for several days, although there were no trees or even so much as a bush. It was time to explore.
First, he surveyed his surroundings. Something about the perfect bowl of the depression disturbed him. It did not look like any natural formation of the desert, for the dunes marched inexorably, the sands blown from their crests to pile against their leeward slopes as more sand was blown from the windward side to the crest. Thus the dunes moved, like infinitely slow waves in a brown-white sea. They did not form perfectly round craters. It was as if a circular barrier had been erected around the dead city.
Then he remembered what it reminded him of: the barrier in me grass around the ruined temple where he had seen the twins communing silently with the bearded ancient. There, the unseen and uncanny barrier had been in the form of a great rectangle; here, it was a circle, but he sensed a sameness.
He walked to the tall gate and examined it. The story of the opals was true. They gleamed amid the carvings of an intricate geometric design, and the edges of the carvings were as crisp and clear as if they had been finished no more man a few days before, not exposed to many centuries of wear. Even stranger were the gates, for even the most massive of timbers should have perished long since in this climate. He felt sure dial this was not the last uncanniness he was to encounter at Janagar.
Slowly, he walked a full circuit of the walls, studying every stone, looking for low spots, cracks, hanging vines, anything that might provide easy access. But the walls were perfectly intact, and he saw no trace of greenery upon them. They were not so high that he could not cast a noose over them, but the parapets were smooth, lacking merlons or fin-als or any other projection that might give a noose purchase. It had never occurred to him or any of the others to bring along grapples, and they had no smithing tools with which to fashion grapples from their available metal.
The city was a spectacular apparition in the trackless desert, but it was not as large as many of the great cities Conan had seen in his travels. By the time he completed his circuit of the walls, it was still morning. The Hyrkanians and the dwarf sat eating their breakfast. Kye-Dee grinned at his approach.
“Did you find us a back door?” he asked.
“No, not that I had much help, with you rogues lying abed all morning. An enemy could have crept up and slit all your throats.”
“Some men are bom to rise early and work,” Kye-Dee said. “The rest of us know how to live well.
What did you find?”
So Conan described what he had found and the Hyrkanian nodded. “You Cimmerians are said to be first cousins to the mountain goat,” he said. “Did you try to scale the walls?”
“In a dozen places. The stones are too well fitted and they are not worn at all. With purchase for only the tips of my fingers, I could climb them, for they are not all that high, but I could not find even that.
It is not right for stones so ancient to remain so smooth.”
“It is a magick place,” the dwarf said, frowning. “No good will come to us here.”
“That’s to be seen,” Conan said. “I’ll not leave it without some answers.” He turned to Jeyba. “How fares your queen?”
“She rests. She wakened for a little this morning and we gave her some water. Now she sleeps again.”
“It is good that she sleeps,” said the Cimmerian. “Her body will heal the faster for it.” He got up.
‘Come, Jeyba, and look over this gate with me.”
They walked to the gate and the dwarf kicked at the heavy wood as if testing it for termites. “We could try burning it,” he suggested.
“Wood this dense does not take fire readily,” Conan said. “It could take days to smolder through.
But that is not why I called you away from the others.”
“Why, then?”
Conan fixed his burning-blue eyes on the dwarf. “How did she lose her queendom, Jeyba? How did she become a wanderer without a tribe?”
The dwarf frowned and would not look at him. “I know not. It is something she never speaks of, even to me, and I have followed her faithfully for years.”
“And the women, they have said nothing?”
Jeyba shuffled uncomfortably. “Once … just a
few words.”
“And those words were?” Conan persisted.
“Well …” he looked around as if to see whether anyone was listening “… I tell you this only because you have proven your loyalty to our queen.”
“I understand,” Conan said impatiently. “Go on!”
“Well, once, years ago, Lombi got drunk in the wineshop of a village we were sacking. She told me that when Achilea had been queen for less than two years, she sinned against her people so terribly that almost all turned against her, led by her younger sister. Her only supporters were her ‘wilderness sisters.’
Those were the young women who shared her year abandoned in the wilds. Such women share a special bond throughout life. They were driven from the tribe and her younger sister became queen. When Achilea took me in, there were still nearly a score of these wilderness sisters. Now she has only three left.”
“And Lombi told you no more?” Conan asked.
The dwarf shook his massive head. “She had no chance. Payna came in and overheard a few words. She beat Lombi half to death and swore to do far worse to me if I ever repeated what I had heard. There, Cimmerian, my life is in your hands, for she meant it.”
“You’ve nothing to fear,” Conan assured him. “Anyway, just now I’ve other things on my mind.”
“How to get into this city?” the dwarf asked.
“That is one of them. Then there is the pack of followers who were just behind us on the trail here.
Where are they? This was their destination, but they’ve not shown up. They should have passed me while I was afoot, yet they did not. What game are they playing?”
“Perhaps they suffocated in the sandstorm,” Jeyba hazarded. “Mitra knows, we almost did!”
“That I doubt,” Conan said somberly. “Would that wizard have summoned up a storm that would kill them all? Nay, from his words, he seemed like one who waits and watches, letting others run the risks so that he can sweep up the plunder afterward. I think he may be a few dunes distant, watching.”
All that day, they rested, mended damaged equipment and tended to the camels. In the evening, Achilea appeared, in pain but walking. “Tomorrow we go into that city,” she announced.
The Conan Compendium Page 509
