“Truly?” she said, seeming to take encouragement from his words. “Then I will try to do as you say.
It is hard, though. To be a queen, even one in exile, and then to be treated like this. It is harder on my pride man the sun was on my flesh.”
“That’s better,” Conan said with a faint grin, “It does little harm to have your pride tempered in cold water from time to time.”
“My queen!” called a voice Conan recognized as Payna’s. “Can you hear me?”
“Aye!” she called back. She described their situation and relayed Conan’s advice. As long as their queen was well, the women seemed to be satisfied, “What do you think that vicious woman meant about our proving our worth?”
“I do not know,” Conan said, amused to hear this fierce woman describe another woman as vicious.
“But I’ve little doubt we’ll learn all too soon. I am more interested in that water.”
“It did smell like river water,” she said, “not like water from a spring. How can there be river water in the middle of this awful desert?”
“It can be from only one place,” he assured her. “Underground. This may have possibilities. And there is another thing: The guardswoman who led me on a leash wore on her belt a Stygian sword. It means that these people have some sort of contact with the outside world. I think their axes were Stygian as well.”
“Perhaps the weapons are very old,” she said.
“That may be, but the sheath that carried the sword is not old. It is made of leather, and is decorated with Stygian picture-writing.”
She shrugged. “How does this help us? The woman said that sometimes heat-addled desert men find their way here and die. That may be how the sword got here.”
“Maybe,” Conan allowed. “But remember what I told you: Be on the lookout for every advantage.
Every bit of knowledge we gain may help us get away from this place. There is a river here someplace, and through Stygia flows the greatest river in the world.”
“If we get out of this dungeon,” she said, “do you think you can find your way back to the surface?”
“Aye,” he replied without hesitation. “I do not forget where my steps have taken me.”
She nodded. “I, too, was raised in a land without signposts and with few landmarks, where the only way to stay alive was to have a strong sense of direction and location. But I have never been in a warren such as this. Here, there is no sun, no moon, no stars. There are no prevailing winds.” He could tell that the catastrophic events of the past few days tad sapped her iron self-confidence.
“It helps,” Conan told her, “if you have spent much time in the dense forests of the Pictish Wilderness, or the jungles of the south. A city is another sort of jungle, even an underground city like this one.”
“What do you make of these torches, that bum without smoke? Is this sorcery?”
“I’ve never seen the like of them,” he admitted, “but somehow I do not feel that they are magickal.
As we were herded here, I saw a slave cleaning one, like a man cleaning an oil lamp. Perhaps they burn an invisible vapor. I have seen alchemists set such vapors afire in their laboratories, and everyone has seen me burning vapors that rush from the kilns of charcoal burners.”
“Well,” she said doubtfully, “so it may be. But still, I do not like it.” She was silent for a while, then: “How long is it since we rose? There is no way to judge the time in this ac- . cursed netherworld.”
“In this, I am in no better case than you,” Conan said, yawning, “but I think we would each be the better for some sleep.”
They both lay down and she said, “They were so careful to bathe us, you would think they would provide us with a little bedding.”
He laughed. “I think the bath was for their convenience, not ours. They seem to be a cleanly folk.
Beyond that, they’ve no interest in our comfort.” He stretched, then put his hands behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. “I doubt the lack of bedding is the worst thing in store for us here.”
His sleep was long and dreamless. He awoke to find Achilea examining her skin by the light of the strange torch. Lightly, she ran her fingertips over her arms and thighs, then over the rich contours of her torso.
“Is everything present and accounted for?” he asked.
She started slightly. “I thought you still asleep. Yes, all is here and better than I had hoped. That oil they used on us must have healing properties. My sunburn no longer pains me and most of the dead skin has peeled away. Even my lips are no longer cracked.”
“That is good,” he said, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. “You don’t want to be weak in any way when we break out How are your eyes?”
“I see as well as ever, though I could use more light.”
“Aye, you look well,” he said, meaning it heartily. His unimpeded view took in every perfect inch of her, “If only these chains were longer.”
She looked at him haughtily. “Just as well they are not, for then I would have to break your stiff Cimmerian neck.”
“Getting your pride back, I see,” he said sourly. Still, it seemed to him that there had been a teasing note in her voice.
A slave brought in a single large bowl of steaming liquid and a jug of water and set the vessels between them, then left. Conan took the jug and drank while Achilea raised the bowl to her mouth, then
made a face.
“More of the mushroom stuff,” she said, passing the bowl to Conan and accepting the jug in return.
“Have these people no proper meat?”
Conan took a mouthful of the bland gruel, thick with rubbery chunks of fungus. “It will keep us alive,” he said. “And even people well provided with flesh never waste it on prisoners. Stale, moldy bread and hard cheese is your portion in prison. At least this is hot.”
They finished their savorless meal and for a while, Achilea conversed with her followers. They seemed to need the sound of her voice.
“Do none of these other prisoners speak?” Conan asked.
“They’ll not answer us,” Jeyba said.
“They would have nothing to say, anyway,” Kye-Dee added, “They are worthless people; slaves to people who are themselves but insects who live like termites in a rotten log.”
“Still, they might be able to tell us something about our situation,” Conan said. But so far, he had not heard the slaves speak a single word, even among themselves. He determined to look into the question.
Not long after they had eaten, guards came to conduct them once more to the bathing facility. When their next meal was brought, Conan seized the slave woman by the shoulders while Achilea looked on curiously.
“Speak to me, woman,” Conan ordered. She said nothing, only stared at him with pale, frightened eyes. He took her lower jaw between thumb and forefinger and pried her mouth open. Then he released her.
“She is tongueless,” he reported. “Perhaps all the slaves have been so treated.”
Achilea snorted with disgust. “Civilized people call us barbarians because we are like beasts of prey. But it is a natural and a clean way to live. This is ugly and twisted.”
“I’ll give you no argument on that point,” Conan said.
A few hours later, a team of guards arrived. Their hands were bound, and they were taken from their cell. In a room near the bath, they found Achilea’s women and dwarf with Kye-Dee. Slaves dressed Conan in his wolfskin breechclout and studded belt, and Achilea in her fox pelt and leggings. Their desert robes were nowhere to be seen, but the Cimmerian noted with amusement that the returned garments had been scrupulously cleaned.
Payna went to her queen and said in a low voice, “Did the man seek to molest you?”
Achilea smiled. “He would have, but his chain was too short.”
“Hah!” Conan said. “She stretched hers a good foot trying to get to me!”
“Silence!” barked a woman of the guard. Jeyba butted her unarmored belly with his head, and
the breath went out of her with a whoosh. She fell on her backside, her spear clattering to the stone floor.
“Show respect to our queen, wench!” the dwarf shouted. Instantly, a half-score of spear-points were leveled at his throat.
“Easy, Jeyba,” Conan said approvingly. “There is no sense in getting killed too soon.” Spears at their backs, they left the dungeon.
Eleven
The procession entered a new part of the labyrinthine city. They discovered that not everything lay immediately adjacent to the main corridor, for there were many intersections and. branchings. One flight of stairs took them to an area where; the river smell was very strong. Here they passed through vast natural caverns where grotesquely overgrown mushrooms grew in obscene profusion. Some were like broad toadstools, some like branching coral; others hung from the ceiling in thin sheets, clusters, or twisted shapes tike the horns of rams.
At one point, there were none of the vapor torches. These were not necessary because the fungi of that area glowed: with their own cold light: purple and red and a sickly green, The ghastly illumination made the humans look like walking corpses.
“Have you been keeping track of where we are, Conan?™. Achilea asked when they were past the mushroom caverns.
“Aye,” he answered, “but I’d as lief discover a shortcut. I “Silence, there!” said a guard.
“Sit on your spear, dog,” Conan said disgustedly. “Your queen, or whatever she is, wants us alive for something, so make no idle threats.” Jeyba laughed to hear these words.
“She never said you were to be unhurt,” said the woman Jeyba had butted. She jabbed the little man sharply in the buttock, eliciting a yelp. Now it was the guards’ turn to laugh.
“At least they have a sense of humor,” Kye-Dee said.
As they walked down a side corridor, they approached an entrance from whence drifted a sound that seemed utterly out of place in these surroundings: the sound of sawing. As they passed the portal, Conan slowed and peered in. With long, two-man saws, a team of slaves was engaged in reducing dark, heavy logs to squared timbers and planks. The air was redolent of the pleasant smell of sap and sawdust.
“Mushrooms they can grow without sunlight,” Achilea commented as they passed on. “But trees?
How do they― A guard jabbed her on the spine, drawing blood.
“Enough!” Conan snarled. With bewildering speed, he kicked the man’s feet from beneath him, the movement made not at ail less effective by the chain connecting the Cimmerian’s leg-irons. A short kick to the man’s belly effectively paralyzed him before Conan’s heavy foot trod upon his neck. As cartilage began to give way, Conan stopped. The chief of the guards had drawn his sword and now held it beneath the dwarf’s chin.
“Kill him and this one dies,” the man said. “The queen is interested only in the big woman and you, black-haired one. One more incident from either of you, and the little man dies. After him, that one.” He jerked his head toward Kye-Dee. “After him, the three smaller women, one after another. Do you understand me?”
“Aye,” Conan said, removing his foot The man gasped and gargled as he rolled to his side and curled himself into a ball, “Just recall that I am a patient man, but even my patience has its limits.”
They said no more, but the way Achilea smiled at him put Conan in a better mood for the rest of their trek. This ended in a vast natural cavern that was almost circular in shape. Its floor had been hewn into multiple rows of seats surrounding a low, oval pit. The seats were richly covered with silken cushions. Overhead, the greatest chandelier they had yet seen provided light from hundreds of vapor jets.
The place was deserted.
They were marched to a rectangular cage overlooking the pit. It had a single bench and was enclosed by bars of iron. With leveled spears at their back, they entered and the chief guard locked the swinging gate behind them.
“What is this, my queen?” Payna asked.
“Have you never seen a fighting pit?” Conan said.
“I have,” said Achilea, “in some towns and villages and fair-sites. But those were rough enclosures of earth and timber. What sort of people would build a pit that is so large and permanent?”
“People who are fond of blood,” he answered her. “People who would rather watch others fight than do it themselves.”
It seemed that they had a wait in store for them. “Wood, leather, cloth,” Conan mused. “These things have to come from the surface, and I’ll wager they were not brought across the desert. Those were fresh logs the slaves were cutting, full of sap.”
“You’ve nothing to wager with,” Achilea answered, “but agree with you anyway.”
“Leather may be made from human skin,” Kye-Dee said. “In my tribe, we made our war drums from the skins of our enemies.”
“Silk is made by spiders,” said Jeyba, “and spiders live in dark, sunless places. Perhaps they weave cloth from spider silk.”
“That still leaves those logs,” Conan said remorselessly.
“These people are powerful magicians,” Kye-Dee said. “Perhaps they produce logs with their magickal arts.”
Conan could not agree. So far, he had seen virtually nothing of the sorcerous about these strange people. On the contrary, they seemed to be as prosaic as ants. It was only the place they chose to live in that was truly bizarre.
Further conversation was cut off when people began to file into the huge cavern through numerous entrances. They descended the aisles that divided the seats into wedge-shaped sections and seated themselves upon the cushions. Conan noted that they were strictly regulated, for the people in each separate wedge wore a single, distinctive garb that was different from that distinguishing those in the neighboring wedges. Here, he saw men in papery shoulder capes and shaven heads; there, a group of women who wore serpent masks. Yet another wedge was occupied by men and women, but all these wore masks covering the left side of the face only, and they carried long, crystal-tipped wands. Whether these insignia identified them by rank, status or occupation, he could not guess.
All stood when Omia entered, closely followed by Abbadas, who still wore the weapons and armor he’d borne when Conan’s party was captured. Behind Abbadas was a small, hairless man who wore a simple, floor-length cape of silk. His features were oddly familiar.
“Who is that man behind Abbadas?” Achilea asked. “He looks like one of them, yet it seems to me that I know him.”
“You do,” said Conan with grim satisfaction. “Darken his skin with a bit of paint, give him a false beard and swathe him in desert robes, and you have our old friend, Amram.”
“Amram!” she said. “He is one of them?”
Conan shook his head. “I think not. His Kothian accent was too convincing, and so was much of his story. He has been down here a long time, though; long enough to take on their look.”
Indeed, the man they knew as Amram was almost as pale as the underground inhabitants. But his eyes were brown, and the faint stubble that showed on his shaven pate was dark as well. The Cimmerian guessed that the man had shorn his scalp in order to blend with the populace, for those who had hair in this place were as white-tressed as albinos. Amram was a man who survived in a hard world with the chameleon’s talent for blending with its surroundings.
“Who next?” Achilea mused. “The twins, perhaps?”
But it seemed that the mysterious pair were not to make an appearance. There was a small platform next to the cave and just above the arena. Here Omia and Abbadas took their seats on heavily cushioned chairs. Amram stood behind them and a small crowd of slaves attended them. As they arranged themselves, a file of slaves standing above the tiers of seats began to play music on instruments of wood, string and metal. It was a harsh music, with much metallic clashing and shrill trilling. A group of young, comely slave women entered the pit and went through an intricate dance that featured much athletic leaping, contortion and other gymnastic feats.
“Perhaps this will not be so bad,” Kye-D
ee said, smiling nervously.
“I’ll believe that when all this is over,” Conan answered. He looked at Omia. ‘Why are we here?”
The mad light came into her eyes. “I told you that you ask no questions.”
He jerked his head toward the arena below. “From the look of this place, I’ve cursed little to lose by asking questions.”
Abbadas smirked and Omia looked furious, but Amram bent low and spoke in her ear. “My queen and my mistress, this great rogue is insolent, but is not his capacity for defiance among the very reasons you wanted him here?”
She subsided into her cushions. “Yes, so it was. I do hope he will not disappoint us.”
“Shall we begin with him?” Abbadas asked.
“No. He and the tawny woman are the best of the lot.” She looked over her captives with lazy maliciousness. “These two―” she indicated Kye-Dee and Jeyba “―look like inferior stock to me. Let
them go first”
“What?” Conan shouted. “This band stands together!”
“You defy me again!” Omia’s voice went up shockingly and her pale eyes burned. “You are no band! You are all my slaves, to do with as I please, individually or together! Guards, separate him from the others and secure him.”
Pole-arms were thrust through the bars, crowding the Cimmerian back into a comer, where his neck ring was fastened to a corner bar. When the weapons were withdrawn, he could move no more than a pace in any direction. He cursed with frustrated rage, but to no avail.
The gate swung open. “You two come out,” the guard chief said, pointing to the dwarf and the Hyrkanian.
“Jeyba!” Achilea said, grasping the little man’s shoulder, •
“Would you be chained up as well, my beautiful slave-queen?” Omia said imperiously.
The dwarf patted his queen’s hand. “Best I go. Avenge me if you may, but above all, get away from this place alive,” His voice was pitched low, so that only his companions in the cage could hear him. He quirked his eyebrows toward the Cimmerian. “Stick to this one, if possible,” he bade Achilea. “If anyone can get you away from here, it is he.” With these words, the dwarf exited the cage.
The Conan Compendium Page 513
