"I brought you this gift, Great Lord." The lashings of the sack came loose, and he spilled a girl out onto the mosaicked floor, wrists bound to elbows behind her back, legs doubled tightly against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the thin cords that held her cutting deeply into her naked flesh. She grunted angrily into her gag as she tumbled onto the floor, and attempted to fight her bonds, but only her toes and fingers wriggled. "The girl the barbarian stole from the compound, Great Lord," Suitai announced with satisfaction.

Jhandar snorted. "Don't think to make up for your short-comings. What is one girl more or less to -"

"Why, it's Esmira," Davinia broke in.

The necromancer scowled irritably. He had forgotten that she had followed him. "That's not her name. She is called ..." It took a moment, though he did remember marking the wench for his bed, long ago it seemed.

"...Yasbet. That's it. Now return to the garden, Davinia. I have matters to discuss here that do not concern you."

Instead the lithe blonde squatted on her heels by the bound girl, using both hands to twist the struggling wench's gagged face around for a better look. "I tell you this is the Princess Esmira, Prince Roshmanli's daughter."

Jhandar's mouth was suddenly dry. "Are you certain? The rumors say the princess is cloistered."

She gave him a withering look that would have elicited instant and painful punishment for anyone else. From her, at this moment, he ignored it.

The prince was Yildiz's closest advisor among the Attendants, of the nine, a man who seduced no woman with a husband and gambled only with his own gold.

Yet it was said his daughter was his weakness, that he would do anything to shelter her from the world. For the safety of his Esmira, would Roshmanli send Turan to war? He had had men slain for casting their eyes upon her. If handled carefully, it could be done.Then his eyes fell on Davinia, smiling smugly as he examined the bound girl, and a new thought came to him.

He pulled the blonde to her feet. "You say you want only to serve me. Do you speak the truth?"

"To you," she replied slowly, "I speak only truth."

"Then this night there will be a ceremony. In that ceremony you will plunge a dagger into the heart of this girl." He gazed deeply into her eyes, searching for hesitation, for vacillation. There was none.

"As my Great Lord commands me," Davinia said smoothly.

Jhandar felt the urge to throw back his head and laugh wildly. She had taken the first step. Once she had wielded the knife, she would be bound to him more firmly than with iron chains. And by the same stroke he would gain the ninth voice among the King's Attendants. All of his dreams were taking shape. Empire and the woman. He would have it all.

XXIV.

Dark seas rolled beneath the galley's ram, phosph.o.r.escence dancing on her bow wave, as the measured sweep of three score oars drew it on. Ahead in the night the darker ma.s.s of the Turanian coast was marked by white-breaking waves glinting beneath the pale, cloud-chased moon.

Echoes of those crashing breakers rolled across the waters to Conan. He stood in the stern of the galley, where he could keep close watch on both captain and steersman. Already they had attempted to take the ship other than as he directed - perhaps into the harbor at Aghrapur, so that he and the rest could be seized as pirates - and only the scanty knowledge he had gained with the smugglers had thus far thwarted them. The rest of the vessel's crew, sullen and disarmed, worked under the watchful eyes of Akeba, Tamur, and the nomads. Sharak clung to the lines that supported the foremast, and gazed on the heavens, seeking the configurations that would tell their fates that night.

Conan cared not what the stars foretold. Their destinies would be as they would be, for he would not alter what he intended by so much as a hair.

"There," he said, pointing ahead. "Beach there."

"There's nothing there," the captain protested.

"There," Conan repeated. "'Tis close enough to where we're going. I'd think you would be glad to see our backs, wherever we wanted to be put ash.o.r.e."

Grumbling, the slab-cheeked captain spoke to his steersman. and the galley shifted a point to larboard, toward the stretch of land at which the big Cimmerian had pointed.

With scanty information had Conan made his choice. The distant glow of lamps from Aghrapur to the south. A glimpse at the stars. Instinct. Perhaps, he thought, that last had played the most important part. He knew that on that sh.o.r.e stood the compound of the Cult of Doom, Yasbet's place of imprisonment, and Jhandar, the man he must kill even if he died himself.

Sand grated beneath the galley's keel. The vessel lurched, heeled, was driven further forward by the motion of long sweeps. Finally motion ceased; the deck tilted only slightly.

"It's done," the hook-nosed captain announced, anger warring with satisfaction on his face. "You can leave my vessel, now, and I'll give burnt offerings to Dagon when you're gone."

"Akeba!" Conan called. On receiving an answering hail he turned back to the captain. "I advise you to go south along the coast, you and your crew. I do not know what will happen here this night, but I fear powers will be unbound. One place I have seen where such bonds were cut; there nightmares walked, and some would count death a blessing.""Sorcery?" The word was a hiss of indrawn breath in the captain's mouth, changing to shaky, bl.u.s.tering laughter. "An sorceries are to be loosed, I have no fears of being caught in them. I will be clear of the beach before you, and I will go south as fast as whips can drive my oar-sl -" Hatch covers crashing open amidships cut him off, and the clatter of men scrambling on deck, whip-scarred, half-naked men falling over themselves in their eagerness to dash to the rail and drop to the surf below. The hook-nosed man's eyes bulged as he stared at them. "You've loosed the oar slaves! You fool! What-" He spun back to Conan, and found himself facing the Cimmerian's blade.

"Three score oars," Conan said quietly, "and two men chained to each. I have no love for chains on men, for I've worn them around my own neck.

Normally I do not concern myself with freeing slaves. I cannot strike off all the chains in the world, or in Turan, or even in a single city, and if I could, men would find ways to put them back again before they had a chance to grow dusty. Still, the world may end this night, and the men who have brought me to my fate deserve their freedom, as they and all the rest of us may be dead before dawn. You had best get over the side, captain. Your own life may depend on how fast you can leave this place."

The hook-nosed captain glared at him, face growing purple. "Steal my slaves, then order me off my own vessel? Rambis!" He bit it off as he stared at the vacant spot by the steering oar. Conan had seen the man slip quietly over the railing as he spoke.

Discovery of the defection took what was left of the captain's backbone.

With a strangled yelp he leaped into the sea.

Sheathing his sword, Conan turned to join his companions, and found himself facing some two dozen filthy galley slaves, gathered in a different knot amidships. Akeba and the Hyrkanians watched them warily.

A tall man with a long, tangled black beard and the scars of many floggings stepped forward, ducking his head. "Your pardon, lord. I am called Akman. It is you who has freed us? We would follow you."

"I'm no lord," Conan said. "Be off with you while you have time, and be grateful you do not follow me. I draw my sword against a powerful sorcerer, and there is dying to be done this night." A handful of the former slaves melted into the darkness, splashes sounding their departure.

"Still there are those of us who would follow you, lord," Akman said.

"For one who has lived as a dead man, to die as a free man is a greater boon than could be expected from the G.o.ds."

"Stop calling me lord," Conan growled. Akman bowed again, and the other rowers behind him. Shaking his head, Conan sighed. "Find weapons, then, and make peace with your G.o.ds. Akeba! Tamur! Sharak!"

Without waiting to see what the freed slaves would do, the big Cimmerian put a hand to the railing and vaulted into waist-deep seas that broke against his broad back and sent foam over his shoulders. The named men followed as he waded to sh.o.r.e, a stretch of driftwood-covered sand where moon-shadows stirred.

"They'll be more hindrance than help, those slaves," Sharak grumbled, attempting to wring seawater from his robes without dropping his staff. "This is a matter for fighting men."

"And you are the stoutest of them all," Akeba laughed, clapping the old astrologer on the shoulder and almost knocking him down. His laughter sounded wild and grim, the laughter of a man who would laugh in the face of the dark G.o.ds and was doing so now. "And you, Cimmerian. Why so somber? Even if we die we will drag Jhandar before Erlik's Black Throne behind us."

"And if Jhandar looses the magicks that he did when he was defeated before?" Conan said. "There are no shamans to contain them here."

They stared at him, Akeba's false mirth fading. Sharak held a corner of his robes in two hands, his dampness forgotten, and Conan thought he heard Tamur mutter a prayer.

Then the men from the galley were clambering up the beach, the half score who had not succ.u.mbed to fear or good sense, led by Akman with aboarding pike in his calloused hands. The Hyrkanian nomads came too, cursing at the wet as they waded through the surf. A strange army, the Cimmerian thought, with which to save the world.

He turned from the sea. They followed, a file of desperate men snaking into the Turanian night.

"Must I actually put a knife in her heart?"

Davinia's question jangled in Jhandar's mind, which had been almost settled for his period of meditation. "Do you regret your decision?" he demanded. In his thoughts, he commanded her: have no regrets. Murder a princess in sorcerous rites. Be bound to me by ties stronger than iron.

"No regrets, my Great Lord," she said slowly, toying with the feathers of her girdle. When she lifted her gaze to his her sapphire eyes were clear and untroubled. "She has lived a useless life. At least her death will be to some purpose."

Despite himself he could not stop the testing. "And if I said there was no purpose? Just her death?" Her frown almost stopped his heart.

"No purpose? I do not like getting blood on my hands." She tossed her blonde mane petulantly. "The feel of it will not wash away for days. I will not do it if there is no purpose."

"There is a purpose," he said hastily, "which I cannot tell you until the proper time." And to forestall questions he hurried from the room.

His nerves burned with how close he had come to dissuading her. Almost, he thought, there would be no joy in achieving all his ambitions without her.

Some rational corner of his mind told him the thought was l.u.s.t-soaked madness.

The fruition of his plans would hold her to him, for where would she then find one of greater power or wealth? With the taking of Yasbet - if she chose to call herself so, so he would think of her - all would be in place. His power in Turan would be complete. But Davinia...

He was still struggling with himself when he settled in the simple chamber, before the Pool of the Ultimate. That would not do. He must be empty of emotion for the Power to fill him. Carefully he focused on his dreams. War and turmoil would fill the nations, disorder hastened by his ever-growing band of the Chosen. Only he would be able to call a halt to it. Kings would kneel to him. Slowly the pool began to glow.

From the branches of the tree, Conan studied the compound of the Cult of Doom.

Ivory domes gleamed in the dappled moonlight, and purple spires thrust into the sky, but no hint of light showed within those high marble walls, and no one stirred. The Cimmerian climbed back down to the ground, to the men waiting there.

"Remember," he said, addressing himself mainly to the former galley slaves, "any man with a weapon must be slain, for they will not surrender."

The Hyrkanians nodded somberly; they knew this well.

"But the black-robed one with the yellow skin is mine," Akeba reminded them. Time and again on the short march he had reiterated his right to vengeance for his daughter.

"The black-robe is yours," Akman said nervously. "I but wish you could take the demons as well."

Sharak shook his staff, gripping it with both hands as if it were a lifeline. "I will handle the demons," he said. "Bring them to me." A wind from the sea moaned in the treetops as if in answer, and he subsided into mutters.

"Let us be on with it," Tamur said, fidgeting - whether with eagerness or nervousness, Conan could not tell.

"Stay together," the Cimmerian said by way of a last instruction. "Those who become separated will be easy prey." With that he led them down to the towering white wall.

Grapnels taken from the galley swung into the air, clattered atop the wall and took hold. Men swarmed up ropes like ants and dropped within.

Once inside the compound Conan barely noticed the men following him,weapons in hand, falling back on either side so that he was the point of an arrow. His own blade came into his hand. Jhandar. Ignoring other buildings, Conan strode toward the largest structure of the compound, an alabaster palace of golden onion-domes and columned porticos and towers of porphyry. Jhandar would be there in his palace. Jhandar and Yasbet, if she still lived. But first Jhandar, for there could be no true safety for Yasbet until the necromancer was dead.

Suddenly there was a saffron-robed man before him, staring in astonishment at the intruders. Producing a dagger, he screamed, "In the name of Holy Chaos, die!"

A fool to waste time with shouts, Conan thought, wrenching his blade free so the man's body could fall. And in Crom's name, what G.o.d was this Chaos?

But the noise produced another shaven-headed man, this with a spear that he thrust at Conan, sounding the same cry. The Cimmerian grasped the shaft to guide the point clear of his body; the point of his broadsword ended the strange shout in a gurgle of blood.

Then hundreds of saffron-robed men and women were rushing into the open.

At first they seemed only curious, then those nearest Conan saw the bodies and screamed. In an instant panic seized them by the throat, and they became a boiling ma.s.s, seeking only escape, yet almost overwhelming those they feared in a tide of numbers.

Forgetting his own instructions to stay together, Conan began to force his way through the pack of struggling flesh, toward the palace. Jhandar, was the only thought in his head. Jhandar.

"Great Lord, the compound is under attack."

Jhandar stirred fretfully in his communion with the Power. It took a moment for him to pull his eyes from the glowing pool and focus them on Suitai, standing ill at ease in the unnatural glow that filled the chamber.

"What? Why are you disturbing me here, Suitai? You know it is forbidden."

"Yes, Great Lord. But the attack..."

That time the word got through to Jhandar. "Attack? The army?" Had disaster come on him yet again?

"No, Great Lord. I know not who they are, or how many. The entire compound is in an uproar. It is impossible to count their numbers. I slew one; he was filthy and half-naked, and bore the welts of a lash."

"A slave?" Jhandar asked querulously. It was hard to think, with his mind attuned to the communion and that communion not fully completed. "Take the Chosen and dispose of these interlopers, whoever they are. Then restore order to the compound."

"All of the Chosen, Great Lord?"

"Yes, all of them," the necromancer replied irritably. Could the man not do as he was told? He must settle his mind, complete his absorption of the Power.

Then you will delay the ceremony, Great Lord?"

Jhandar blinked, found his gaze drifting to the Pool of the Ultimate, and jerked it back. "Delay? Of course not. Think you I need those fools'

rapturous gazes to perform the rite?" Desperately he fought to stop his head spinning, to think clearly. "Take the Chosen as I commanded you. I will myself bring the girl to the Chamber of Sacrifice and do what is necessary. Go!"

Bowing, the black-robed Khitan sped away, glad to be gone from the presence of that which was bound in that room.

Jhandar shook his head and peered into the pool. Glowing mists filled the limits of the wards, an unearthly dome that seemed to draw him into its depths. Angrily he pushed that feeling aside, though he could not rid himself of it. He was tired, that was all. There was no need to complete the communion, he decided. Disturbed as he was, completion might take until dawn, and he had no time to wait. The girl must be his tonight. As it was the Powerflowed along his bones, coursed in his veins. He would perform the rite now.

Gathering his robes about him, he left to fetch Yasbet and Davinia to the Chamber of Sacrifice.

XXV.

Warily, sword at the ready, Conan moved along one wall of a palace corridor, with no eye for rich tapestries or ancient vases of rare Khitan porcelain.

Akeba stalked along the other, tulwar in hand. As a pair of wolfhounds they hunted.

The Cimmerian did not know where the others were. From time to time the clash of steel and the cries of dying men sounded from outside, or echoed down the halls from other parts of the palace. Who won and who died he could not tell, and at that moment he did not care. He sought Jhandar, and instinct told him he drew closer with every step.

Silent as death three saffron-robed men hurtled from a side corridor, scimitars slashing.

Conan caught a blade on his broadsword, sweeping it toward the wall and up. As his own blade came parallel to the floor he slipped it off the other in a slashing blow that half-severed his opponent's head. Flashing swiftly on, his sword axed into the second man's head a heartbeat before Akeba's steel buried itself in the man's ribs. Twice-slain, the body fell atop that of he who had faced the Turanian at the first attack.

"You work well," Akeba grunted, wiping his blade on a corpse's robe.

"You should think of the army if we live to leave this..." His words trailed off as both men became aware of a new presence in the corridor. The black-robed Khitan a.s.sa.s.sin.

Unhurriedly he moved toward them, with the casual confidence of a great beast that knows its kill is a.s.sured. His hands were empty of weapons, but Conan remembered well the dead in Samarra's yurt, with no wound on any but looks of horror on every face, and Zorelle, dead from a touch.