“I have never seen a woman such as you. Your land must lie even farther away than his.” The masked woman’s head barely reached Achilea’s shoulder.
‘In my own land, I am a queen,” Achilea said through clenched teeth, “I am not to be handled in such a fashion.”
The masked woman laughed shrilly, her tones echoed by the rest, “You are overdressed, slave!”
she said, hauling on Achilea’s cloak with all her strength. The cord that held the garment to Achilea’s neck snapped. Next, the woman tore off her belt and fox pelt, leaving her dressed only in her fur leggings.
“That is better,” the woman said with satisfaction. “You may be comely in your barbaric fashion, when you have done with shedding your skin.” She ignored the rest and turned to the bizarre warriors behind her.
“Below with them!” she barked. “We shall soon see what these odd creatures are made of.”
The warriors surged forward and began to hustle and the captives toward the immense idol. A wide bronze door creaked open beneath the crossed ankles and they were dragged and pushed within.
Ten
Conan gazed overhead. The gloomy interior of the idol was illuminated by only a few torches, and these revealed an internal bracing of heavy timbers and strong metal beams, held together with bolts as thick as a man’s leg. There were huge gears, ten paces across, and levers that must need five or ten men to move. Metal pipes led from no place to nowhere, and thick chains hung in great loops, their upper ends lost in the darkness. He felt a hard point prodding him in the back.
“Stop gaping,” the masked woman ordered. “The Great Goddess does not like profane eyes probing her holy interior.”
He could not tell whether the woman spoke ironically, for it was hard enough just making sense of her words, so thickly accented were they. Did she truly think this colossal thing to be a goddess, knowing that it was nothing but levers and gears and chains within? He shrugged off the question. If true, it would be far from the most unreasonable religion he had come across in his travels.
Beneath the center of the idol was a spiral ramp, wide enough for ten people to walk abreast. They began to descend. Achilea’s women walked close behind her to protect their queen from the indignity of the prodding spears. For this, they earned a number of small wounds in their backs, buttocks and thighs.
The dwarf strode ahead of her truculently, as if daring anyone to come too close.
The descent seemed interminable. The ramp was of smooth stone, its surface throwing back a reflection from the strange, smokeless torches that burned with a muted hiss every few paces along the wall. As they walked, the Cimmerian’s keen perceptions detected a slight relaxation among their captors.
Muscles that had tensed along backs and necks smoothed their knotted contours; their stiff-legged stalking eased-It was as if being above had set their nerves on edge and now they felt freer in more secure and familiar surroundings. Conan could hardly guess why this should be. Did these strange folk live down here all the time?
The spiral ramp ended in a wide corridor illuminated by more of the smokeless torches. The walls and ceilings of the corridor were richly decorated with the same designs they had seen so frequently in the town above: intertwining foliage, complex geometric patterns and obscenely coupling human and demonic figures.
They passed openings that gave onto huge rooms where shadowy forms went through incomprehensible rituals or activities, but they never paused long enough to get a good look. As they
continued along, the Cimmerian saw small, pale men and women who wore neck rings, wrist bands, and anklets connected by thin but sturdy chains; these seemed to have the duty of examining the torches and assuring that they remained lit. They passed one extinguished torch, which a man was cleaning with small instruments. As they approached, he finished his task, turned a circular knob and struck sparks above the torch’s-copper cup with flint and steel. Immediately, flames burst from the thing as the slave jerked his hands back.
“What is that noise?” Achilea asked, coming out of the melancholy that had gripped her since her capture and subsequent humiliation.
Conan had noticed it as well. It was an all-pervasive susurration, like wind whistling through the chambers of an underground cavern. “I don’t know,” he said, “It sounds like air moving.”
“Silence!” said the masked woman, idly backhanding him across the face. He scarcely felt the blow, but he vowed to make her pay for it someday.
The corridor gave onto huge rooms where some people sat on the floor around tables eating, onto other rooms where robed men, appearing to be alchemists, tended flasks of boiling liquids, glaring furnaces and pipes that took liquids and steam from one place to another. In what seemed to be a temple enclosure, men and women went through an extremely lascivious dance before an idol much like the colossus above, although far smaller. About a third of the population wore the chains and shackles of slaves. Of the free population, half were masked. They all eyed the newcomers curiously, but none sought to hinder the procession or to ask questions.
At one point, the corridor floor became a bridge that passed through an immense chamber full of creaking timbers and the groan of metal upon metal. Above them and below them and to each side were gigantic vertical wheels that turned incessantly, powered by hundreds of slaves who ceaselessly trod the interior rims, keeping the wheels turning. Here the rushing noise was loudest, and Conan understood that mis was the power source of the underground city’s ventilation system, hi civilized lands, he had seen great, slave-worked bellows performing the same service for deep mines, and one or two where the bellows were worked by waterwheels, but this was far more elaborate, “This is a foul place,” Achilea commented. Conan was not inclined to argue with her, but the man who seemed to share command with the woman swatted at her, and the wild women turned upon him, baring their teeth.
“Stop!” Achilea ordered. “You will die needlessly.”
“The big woman wants a flogging,” the man said.
“I will determine that,” the masked woman said sharply, establishing their relative rank.
At last they turned aside from the main corridor and ascended a broad flight of steps, corning into a spacious room with a high-vaulted ceiling from which depended several fixtures that resembled chandeliers. A swarm of interlaced copper pipes made wide baskets, and each pipe terminated in a diminutive flower from which sprang a single white flame, all of them together illuminating the room almost as if with daylight.
Besides the man and woman in charge, only a half-score of warriors entered the room to keep watch on the prisoners. The rest waited without in the hallway. The chamber was unfurnished except for a few large cushions, but several short chains hung from the walls. The chains ended in metal neck rings.
From a small stand, the woman took a flexible, tapering rod the length of her arm and settled its thong around her slender wrist. With the whip, she pointed at the three women, the dwarf and Kye-Dee.
“Chain these slaves here. Five warriors stay to guard them. Bring these two―” she pointed to Conan and Achilea “―to my reception chamber.”
The women wept at being separated from their queen, but there was nothing they could do. The pitiless iron rings were fastened around their throats.
“Abide here for a while,” Achilea told them confidently, as if this was by her choice. ‘We shall all be free anon.” The supple whip lashed out and sliced across her shoulders. She made no flicker of expression at this abuse of her already tormented skin.
Prodded by spears, the Cimmerian and the warrior-woman climbed another flight of stairs into a smaller chamber, illuminated in the same way as the one below and carpeted with what appeared to be silk cushions. There were low tables, furnished with beautiful glassware. Four slaves stood ready, all of them lovely young women, slender and as pale as albinos, their white hair cut short, their eyes downcast and their chained hands clasped before them.
Guards fitted Conan and Achilea wit
h neck rings and fastened them by chains to bronze rings set into the floor beneath the cushions. The chains were too short to allow mem to stand, so perforce they sat upon the cushions as the slave women tended to their mistress. The warriors retreated from the room, leaving the speaking man behind.
The slaves divested their mistress of her armor and replaced it with a brief robe of silvery cloth. She was perfectly unself-conscious about the display of her naked body, but she turned away from the viewers when the women took off her feather-trimmed metal mask and replaced it with another mask made of the same silvery material. Idly, Conan wondered where in this incredible underground city in the midst of the desert they found the splendid plumes. Whence, indeed, had come those immense timbers?
The woman turned around. The mask revealed only her rounded chin, her full-lipped mouth, and eyes with irises so pale that they could scarcely be distinguished from the surrounding whites. Her pupils were tiny and seemed to be red rather than black. Her hair, now unbound, fell in soft waves over her shoulders. A slave handed her a goblet of carved crystal and she sipped at its contents, studying her captives.
“We rarely have interesting strangers come to the Forbidden City,” she said, stepping lightly toward them, goblet poised in one hand, whip in the other. “Usually, only desert men stumble upon the city, wretched and dying from thirst and hunger and the blows of the accursed sun.” With her whip hand, she sketched an intricate sign in the air and it was copied by the masked man. It seemed to be an act of vilification at mention of the sun.
“Lately, far stranger people have arrived. Can this be the beginning of a fate long foretold?” She placed her whip beneath Achilea’s chin and forced the queen’s head up. “I never dreamed a woman such as you could exist; a great, powerful animal possessed of a certain beauty,” Suddenly she looked at the masked man. “Do you not find her so, Abbadas?”
“I think she is ugly,” the man said, but Conan caught the lie in his words. He was all but licking his lips behind his mask. “Surely these are not human beings, but some species of desert ape strayed from their native haunts.”
“I think not,” the woman said, chuckling. “And do not try to gull me. You lust for mis one―I do not blame you for it. So ripe and vital a body is far more than our pallid kin have to offer.” She turned to Conan. “And this brute has possibilities as well.” Then her face snapped toward the man. “But do not touch them for now! They are mine to do with as I please.”
The man bowed with ill-concealed hostility. “Never would I defy your wishes, Omia.”
“See that you do not. Go now. We will speak of this later.”
Reluctantly, the man turned and walked out of the chamber. The woman watched him go, a smile on her full lips. Then she sat on the cushions directly before her captives. Had their hands been unbound, they could easily have slain her. Conan wondered if the woman realized that he could effortlessly kill her with a kick from where he sat. Of course, that would leave him chained to the floor. Doubtless she took that into account,
“My guests need refreshment,” Omia said. In seconds, the four slave women crouched by Conan and Achilea, two to each of them. One held a cup, the other a tray of delicacies, Achilea turned her head away, but Conan stopped her.
“Eat,” he said. “Strength is important.” Reluctantly, she sipped from the cup the slave woman held for her, then she bit into the sweetmeat held to her mouth by the other. The Cimmerian did the same. He found the wine palatable, but it had a bitter undertaste. The food was bland, all but tasteless, and had the texture of mushroom.
“That is better,” said their captor “I want the two of you to be healthy.” She smiled warmly. “Now, tell me. What seek you in Janagar the Blessed?”
“As I said before.” Conan told her, “we seek our friends.”
“You lie!” she screeched, slashing him across the face with her whip. “No one ever came to Janagar seeking a friend!”
“Crom curse you, woman!” Conan shouted. ‘1 tell you the truth! We came hither with companions who sought something in Janagar, but they disappeared in the desert and came here alone, on their own.”
The woman smiled again. “That is better.” She turned to Achilea. “And what was it your friends sought here?”
Achilea shrugged her broad shoulders. “They said it was treasure, abandoned in this city thousands of years ago. Now I am not so sure.”
Omia laughed and clapped her hands, “Treasure! Indeed we have that, and in abundance! And we have much better than that!”
“What kind of place is this?” Achilea asked. “How can people live beneath the ground like ants, never seeing the sun?” She grimaced as the whip drew a scarlet stripe along her jawline.
“It is I who ask questions here, not you!” Omia’s eyes started in near-demented fury. Then she underwent another of her mercurial mood changes and caressed with her fingertips the flesh she had marked. “You of all people must understand the evil of the sun.” Again she made the mysterious gesture.
“I can see the mark of it all over you. Long, long ago, we escaped that evil. You must stay down here with us now. You will be the better for it, if you prove worthy.”
“What do you mean?” Achilea asked, then winced as the whip slashed along the other side of her jaw.
“You do not learn well, do you?” Omia stood. “Your oversized friend knows enough to keep his silence when he has to. Perhaps you are only what you appear a pair of brainless beasts.” She favored them with her warm smile again. “But I do not agree with Abbadas. I think you are both quite beautiful.”
She clapped her hands. “Guards!” Ten armed men and women came into the chamber. “Take them to the holding pens. Have them washed and secured.”
Their chains were unlocked from the floor rings and they were taken out of the room. A woman led each by the chain like a dog on a leash. Sharp spears at their backs kept them tractable.
From long habit, Conan made an inventory of every weapon. He wanted to know exactly what to grab should the opportunity for a break present itself. Besides spears, some had swords and daggers. A few had short-handled axes. The axes had light, crescent-shaped blades and looked strangely familiar.
Then the short sword worn by the woman who held his chain drew his attention. It was hooked so that its handle protruded just above her right hip, and the sheathed, twenty-inch blade slanted across her buttocks. By the distinctive shape of its handle, be knew it to be a Stygian weapon. As further proof, the sheath was decorated with Stygian hieroglyphics.
After a short walk along the main corridor, they came to a set of heavy doors flanked by guards.
The doors were opened to reveal a low-ceilinged tunnel and they were prodded inside. The tunnel was completely undecorated and here the rough tool-marks indicated that all had been hewn from solid rock.
Light was provided by more of the copper tubes, which produced flames only a little larger than those of candles. Fresh air hissed through grated openings near the floor.
They passed low doorways, and within the chambers, the Cimmerian could see persons of both sexes chained to the walls. Most of them had short-cropped hair. This is a place where they punish disobedient slaves,” he said.
They were taken to a room where water gushed from a wall into a wide basin before exiting through a drain beneath an overflow spout. The air in the room had a heavy, humid, fecund smell. “In!” barked a guard. It was the first word they had heard from these warriors. Hands divested them of what little remained of their clothing. They stepped into the basin, and slaves with pitchers and brushes indicated that they should duck beneath the water.
“I would swear this is river water, by its smell,” Conan announced before submerging himself.
“Stand,” said a slave when they came up for air. They complied. Standing, the water came to mid-thigh. The slaves waded in and poured fragrant oil over their heads and bodies, men worked the oil into a lather with their brushes. Achilea clenched her teeth at the touch of the br
ushes on her sensitive skin.
“Easy, there,” Conan said. “She’s been burned. I The slave woman who was scrubbing down Achilea nodded and began to use a cloth instead of a brush. At least, he concluded, the slaves could understand them, even if they would not, or could not, speak.
Thoroughly cleansed, they stepped from the basin and were dried with rough towels, then prodded deeper into the prison. They passed a room where the three women, the dwarf and Kye-Dee were chained to the walls. At sight of their queen, the women and the dwarf lunged as close as their binds would allow and cried out their joy in seeing her alive. The Hyrkanian remained morose.
As Achilea spoke a few low words of encouragement, Conan could not forbear to smile. Stripped and cleaned even of their paint, the wild viragoes proved to be three rather handsome young women, although lacking the soft contours of their more civilized sisters.
Conan and Achilea were taken to a somewhat larger room, where their chains were fastened to rings on opposite walls, Then the guards released their bound wrists and filed out. Rubbing their wrists and flexing their fingers, the two examined their surroundings. A flame outside their doorway provided the only illumination. At the greatest extent of their chains, they were still separated by two paces.
Having exhausted the possibilities of exploration, they sat upon the cold stone floor.
“Conan, have we fallen among madmen?” Achilea asked.
“It is hard to say. The first time I visited a city, I thought the people diere were mad, because they were so different from the tribesmen and villagers of my youth. Certainly, living in this anthill would make anyone mad.”
She tugged at her chains. “Never have I been bound before! I must get out of here!” Her voice betrayed the strain she had suppressed for so long.
“I have been chained up many times,” he told her. “And it does no good to fight steel chains if you’ve no tools. Just be calm and resolve to wait it out Be ever alert for any chance, any mistake by a guard. I have won my freedom uncounted times. Those who give way to despair, or who go mad with rage, are the ones who never escape.”
The Conan Compendium Page 512
