A low-pitched thrumming began, at first seeming remote, then drawing closer, as if men bore toward the cave a great drum on which they were beating softly. The sound swelled until one would have said there was more than one drum.
Then came soft footsteps and what might have been a muffled cough. Two of the Maidens entered, leading between them one of the captives. The captive was a man of middle years, a hard-faced peasant with the hooked nose of the Kezankian hill folk and little hair on his parchment-hued scalp.
The captive's hands were bound behind his back with a rough but stout cord of marsh grass. Otherwise he wore nothing”not even the aspect of one awake and aware. His eyes were as vacant as a newborn babe's, shifted about altogether at random, and showed no animation even when their gaze fell upon the splendid form of the Lady of the Mist.
The Maidens themselves had now cast off their warriors' garb and wore only white silk loin-guards and, draped over one shoulder, long cords of the same marsh grass. Woven among the grass were amber-hued vines and woolen thread in all the colors ever imagined in the rainbow, let alone seen.
The Lady of the Mists now flung up both hands. A waterfall of sparks poured from her fingertips, silver blazing amidst the crimson. The sigil of Kull on the lid of the cup drew the sparks as a lodestone draws iron. They poured down upon it and vanished into it.
Another gesture by long-fingered, slender hands. The lid rose from the cup. Within lay fire of a crimson yet brighter than the glow filling the chamber. It might have been a blacksmith's forge heated to the utmost, yet neither smoke, heat, nor flame rose from the cup.
The Maidens saw the cup's fire with waking eyes, and blinked. The captive saw nothing, and only the gods knew what passed through as much of a mind as the potion had left him.
If, that is, the gods had not altogether forsaken this cave, its invoking of ancient powers, and its tampering with the laws of both gods and men.
The sigil-marked lid rose higher, wafting toward the ceiling of the chamber as light as thistledown on the breeze, for all that it weighed more than a steel battle helm. A beckoning gesture from the Lady, and the captive took a step forward. Another gesture, another step.
Now he stood almost above the cup. The fire within it tinted his skin until he seemed a bronze statue. A third gesture, and the bindings unknotted themselves and fell to the floor. One of the Maidens stopped to pick them up.
As she straightened, the Lady made a final gesture. The captive bent over, and thrust both hands straight into the crimson fire blazing within the cup.
Still no smoke, still no flame, not the slightest reek of burning flesh. Yet the man stiffened as if he had been turned to stone. His eyes and mouth opened” and both blazed with the same crimson fire. His scant remaining hair rose on his scalp.
The Lady stood in glory and grace and rested both hands lightly on the captive's forehead. He shivered, as if responding to this last human touch”and then between one breath and the next, he was no more. For the space of another breath, a column of silver dust in the shape of a man stood before the Lady.
Then she flung her hands downward, fingers pointing at the cup. The dust leaped, losing human semblance. It rose to the ceiling, then poured down into the cup. The crimson fire within flickered briefly, seemed about to change color, then steadied at a gesture and two soft words from the Lady of the Mists.
The Lady resumed her seat, casting only a brief glance at the lid floating above, a briefer glance at the two Maidens. Her hands and lips moved briefly, in a silence wherein one might have imagined unwholesome beings from beyond the world listening” listening for the sound of prey, or the Lady's bidding.
If the Lady had ever held discourse with such, she did not do so now.
Instead her bidding was to the Maidens. They knelt briefly before her, and she rested a hand on each smooth, youthful brow. Each woman shivered as with a light fever at her mistress's touch, then each rose with almost as much grace as hers and stepped backward out of the chamber.
The Lady took a deep breath, and this time her words were five, none of them soft. They were a command, in the language of Shem, a command to the Maidens waiting outside the chamber's door.
"Bring in the next sacrifice!" was the command of the Lady of the Mists.
-
Two
Conan's band had borne a charmed life until now. But as the Afghulis breasted the slope, the first man went down. His name was Rastam, and he was old enough to have a son who had ridden beside him on a raid.
That was all the Cimmerian knew about the man, but it was enough that he would not die faceless and nameless among strangers. "Not even an enemy deserves such a fate, and ten times over not a man who has followed you," was a motto of Khadjar, once captain of Turanian irregular horse and giver of much wisdom to a certain young Cimmerian then new to the Turanian service.
Rastam's horse was dead, but the man himself only wounded. Through the dust Conan saw him roll clear of his stricken mount, leaving a trail of blood in the sand. Then he rose, casting aside a broken bow and drawing his tulwar.
The dust blinded the leading Turanian riders more than it did Conan, let alone Rastam. They were hard upon him before they saw him. A horse screamed and bucked convulsively as the Afghuli hamstrung it with the tulwar, then neatly slashed the falling rider's head from his shoulders.
A second Turanian rode up; Rastam leaped and dragged him from the saddle, and both men fell. Both stood, but Rastam had one arm around the other's neck and was holding him as a shield against Turanian arrows.
He cut two more foes out of the saddle and mutilated three horses before someone finally worked around behind him and put arrows into his back. Even then he had the strength to cut his living shield's throat before he died.
To the left Conan now saw a high but narrow gap in the rocks. The Afghulis had seen it, too, and were swerving hard in its direction. One mount lost its footing on a patch of loose stones. Its rider went down with it and did not move again after his mount lurched to its feet and hobbled off with its comrades.
Conan cursed in a fury at many things, not least of all himself. Had he parted with some of his jewels to buy camels for his band, they could have crossed the desert far to the south, well away from Turanian patrols.
But what might have been could never now be. Conan had learned that early and often, so it was not in him to spend much time repining over mistakes. Besides, showing some of the jewels could well have made more than camel dealers profoundly curious about the northern giant's wealth. Also, the desert might hold no Turanians, but it still held more than a few nomads, unless one ventured so far south beyond the last oases that one had to cross the Devil's Anvil or other places where more travelers left their bones than reached their destinations.
The Cimmerian kept the mare moving while his eyes searched the rocks for a better refuge than the cleft. Behind those eyes was a hillman's blood and a seasoned warrior's experience, but they did not find what they sought.
"Dismount!" Conan shouted. He used a dialect of Afghuli that all of his band understood but few Turanians were likely to know. The pursuing foe was reining in and holding their distance, but they were still within hearing.
"Dismount!" he repeated, and gestured at the cleft. "Drive your horses within, then climb to where you overlook them. Archers, on guard."
Nods said that some understood the Cimmerian's plan. If the horses could not be taken to safety, then their next best use was as bait.
Seeking to drive away their prey's mounts, the Turanians would be forced to come at them either up the steep slope or through the mouth of the cleft. If the first, then archers could play with them. If the second, then one man might bar the passage of a score.
Conan also knew who that one man must be. He flung himself out of the saddle, drawing his broadsword as he did. He snatched a short-handled axe from the saddle as he landed, then slapped the mare on the rump.
She trotted off after the other horses.
A
fool or two were still mounted, gaping about them so that Conan expected to see an arrow sprout from their throats at any moment. He opened his mouth to curse them, but Farad spoke first.
Or rather, he roared like an angry lion. "Sons of hornless rams and bald ewes, dismount and climb! We draw the Turanians in to their deaths. They are near-women, weaned on the vomit of diseased dogs. A few more dead and they will turn tail!"
Conan scarcely believed that himself and doubted that Farad did either.
But the words made the last Afghulis dismount and begin to climb. As they did, a bold Turanian rode toward the cleft”then pitched out of the saddle, dead before he struck the ground. A second arrow took his mount in the throat, and horse and would-be hero mingled their blood on the rocks.
At least one Afghuli archer had found a secure vantage and was using the height to give his shafts useful additional range. Conan saw the advancing Turanian line waver, then halt as if a ditch yawned fathoms deep before them. None wished to be the next to die; none doubted that there were enough archers ahead to bring death wherever they wished.
Perhaps the Turanians could be pricked by enough arrows into acting like the low creatures Farad had named them.
And perhaps whales might grow feathers.
More likely, the Turanians would surround the rocks at a safe distance and send messengers for aid. If they did not close in before the aid arrived”
Conan put the "ifs" firmly out of his mind as a score of Turanians dismounted and began to climb the slope on foot. Others shot from their saddles, aiming at the climbing Afghulis. Many arrows cracked and sparked on rocks. No Afghulis fell, and one man snatched up a double handful of arrows, then made a vulgar gesture with them at the archers below.
Sword in hand, Conan raced for the entrance to the cleft. Arrows now rose from the Turanian ranks, to whistle about his ears. None struck the swift-moving Cimmerian, and the arrows ended abruptly when two came down in the ranks of the Turanian foot. Curses now filled the air instead of arrows; and for a moment Conan dared hope that the Turanians would make war on one another.
The hope faded a moment later, but before it vanished, Conan had reached the mouth of the cleft and counted the horses within. Some bore wounds and all would need rest and, if possible, water before they could move on, but all lived. Then, moving swiftly, he sought a place to wait for the Turanians.
Conan did not have to wait for long.
The Lady of the Mists stared at the cup before her. It could only be a fanciful notion, or perhaps a sending of some hostile magic, that the cup was staring back at her.
Ten captives”ten vessels of the life essence was a better name for them here and now”had stood before the Lady. All ten had given their life essence into what lay within the cup”and even the Lady did not care to search too hard for a name for that.
In magic, a true name commonly gave one power over him whose name one knew. With what lay within the cup, the Lady judged”nay, to be truthful, feared”that knowing its name would give it power, to reach out and command her.
What might come of that, she did not know, nor did she have the slightest wish to find out.
The Lady knelt, bowed her head, twined her fingers across her breasts, and touched the sigil-bearing cup lid with her thoughts. It wavered, then floated, still lightly as thistledown, to resume its place atop the cup. No sound came, not even the faintest rattle.
A bubbling sigh, as of some vast and unwholesome creature in its last moment of life, loud enough to raise echoes although there were none to give ear to them. Then the last of the crimson glow seemed to drain into the stone floor of the chamber, as if a cup of wine had been flung down upon sand.
The chamber returned to its natural colors, but the mind of the Lady of the Mists did not return to the natural world. She could not allow that until the ritual was altogether complete.
As the Mist took life essences into itself, it gained more and more awareness. Soon it would be able to touch the Lady's mind, or at least seek to do so. She knew quite well what could happen if it succeeded, and had therefore no intention of allowing this to happen. She might in time bind the Mist so that a linking of flesh-mind and Mist-mind would be prudent, but that time was far away.
The Lady rose and held both hands before her in a beckoning gesture.
The two Maidens who had brought the cup entered the chamber, followed by two more, similarly clad.
The two newcomers brought long shoulder poles, from which hung a stout harness of leather that might have seemed gilded to an unknowing eye.
The "gilding" was in truth the trace of a spell so old that no one could say what folk had first cast it. It bound what lay within the cup, and likewise the life essences, so that they might travel safely through the natural world outside the chamber to their destination.
The Maidens stood, two before and two behind, resting the poles on their shoulders. Then they closed their eyes, as the Lady of the Mists raised her hands again, and this time chanted softly.
The cup lurched into the air, not light as thistledown now but more like a gorged vulture trying to find safety in the air as the hyenas approach. It lurched and wobbled from side to side as the Lady's magic commanded it across the spear's length of rock floor that separated it from the harness.
"Huk!" the Lady said. It was neither word, nor spell. It sounded more like the spitting of the king of all asps. The cup wavered once more, then settled into place in the harness.
Without anyone raising a hand, let alone setting it upon the leather, the harness wound itself tightly about the cup. In moments the contents could not have spilled had it been full to the brim with the finest Poitanian vintages.
There was no other way to deal with the cup when the life essences seethed within it. The Lady remembered one foolish Maiden, it seemed years ago, who had tried to steady the cup with her bare hand.
She drew back naught but a charred stump; and when she held the ruined limb close to her eyes, they smouldered and charred in their sockets too. She did not, however, die. There were in the end uses for her, even though she could not surrender her life essence to the Mist.
Her injuries had too greatly wounded her life essence, but she still had her life. Before it left her, many of the soldiers without had sated themselves so thoroughly that the mere thought of a woman was unknown to them for some days.
The four Maidens now bearing the cup seemed to have profited by their sister's fate. They stood as might temple images, waiting to come to life at a magical command.
The command came”once again, at the raised hand of the Lady of the Mists. The little procession strode out of the cave, the Maids falling swiftly into step as precisely as any soldiers, then turned right.
Before them lay the path along the side of the valley, to the cave known as the Eye of the Mist.
Arrows cracked on the rocks at the entrance to the cleft as Conan shifted his position. He sought a place where he could see and strike without being seen or attacked, and so far, none had come to hand.
Meanwhile, arrows continued to fly. Those he could reach without exposing himself, the Cimmerian gathered up. He and his Afghulis had begun this race for life with full quivers. They had reached the rocks with half-empty ones.
The Afghulis were returning the Turanian complements in kind. Some men and rather more horses fell on the slope. Riderless mounts careered about, tangling the ranks of those still mounted. The Afghulis might not be archers equal to the horsemen of Turan, but they held high ground that hid them while they shot down on men in the open.
No command made the Turanians withdraw, only the common consent of those at the forefront that they had fought enough for one day. The horsemen backed down the slope, like the tide ebbing from the harbor of Argos. They had the courage to keep their faces to the invisible enemy, for all that they left behind another half-score of comrades.
Some of the bolder spirits, who dismounted and took cover behind dead horses, paid for their courage within momen
ts. Three died in the space of as many breaths, and Conan recognized the wild cry of triumph from above as issuing from Farad's throat.
The Turanian tide receded somewhat farther, not quite out of bowshot but far enough so that the archers above ceased shooting. Conan considered using some of his captured arrows to urge the enemy back even farther, then decided that wisdom lay elsewhere.
Sooner or later the Turanians would see the horses and nerve themselves to strike for them. Their hope would be to snatch the beasts and hold their enemies in place while reinforcements arrived.
Their fate would be to run the gauntlet of more arrows from on high, then to face a surprise encounter with the Cimmerian on ground of his own choosing. There would be fewer and more cautious Turanians after such an affray.
Conan set a dozen arrows within easy reach, then removed his boots for more silent movement. On the bare rock outside it was hot enough to bake bread or even burn his leather-tough feet, but here in the cleft, shadows made the rock bearable. He drew a whetstone and a wad of moss soaked in oil from a pouch on his belt and honed from the blade of his broadsword a few nicks that none but a seasoned warrior who was also the son of a blacksmith could have seen.
He was wary of turning his gaze from the Turanians, but thought the risk worth running. The Afghulis higher up the rocks would give sufficient warning of any attack for the Cimmerian to make ready for it.
His weapons prepared, Conan crept to a spot between two boulders and crouched there, as silent as a leopard watching a baboon's water hole and as ready to strike. He saw the Turanians spreading out. He stood or squatted within bowshot, but behind such rocks and stunted trees as offered shelter.
The rest had drawn well back into the open. From the way they signaled by blasts of trumpets and wav-ings of banner, Conan judged that a good part of the band was out of sight, throwing a ring around the rocks”a ring their captain no doubt intended to hold the Afghulis as tightly as an iron collar held a slave.
With the back of his hand, Conan wiped sweat and dust from a scarred, muscle-corded neck that had in its time known a slave's collar as well as silken robes and the golden chains of honor. If fresh horsemen came up to replace the score or more dead or past fighting, the Turanians might do as they intended.
The Conan Compendium Page 546
