The astrologer peered at Conan dimly as he approached the table where the old man sat; then a smile creased his thin features. The skin of his visage was stretched taut over his skull. "I thought I saw you, Conan, but these eyes ... I am no longer the man I was twenty years ago, or even ten.

Sit. I wish that I could offer you a goblet of wine, but my purse is as flat as was my wife's chest. May the G.o.ds guard her bones," he added in the careless way of a man who has said a thing so many times that he no longer hears the words.

"No matter, Sharak. I will buy the wine."

But as Conan turned to signal, one of the wenches bustled to the table and set a steaming bowl of lentil stew, a chunk of coa.r.s.e bread and a pannikin of wine before the astrologer. The food set out, she turned questioningly toward the muscular youth. Abruptly her dark, tilted eyes went wide with shock, and she leaped into the air, emitting a strangled squawk. Sharak began to cackle. The wench glared at the aged man then, rubbing one b.u.t.tock fitfully, darted away.

Sharak's crowing melded into a fit of coughing, which he controlled with difficulty. "It never does," he said when he could speak, "to let them start thinking you're too old to be dangerous."

Conan threw back his black-maned head and roared with laughter. "You'll never get old," he managed finally.

"I'm a dotard," Sharak said, digging a horn spoon into the stew. "Feriansays so, and I begin to think he is right. He gives me a bowl of stew twice a day, else I would eat only what I scavenge in the garbage, as many must in age. He is almost my only patron, as well. In return for the stew I read his stars. Every day I read them, and a more boring tale they could not tell."

"But why no patrons? You read the stars as a scribe reads marks on parchment. Never once did you tell me wrong, though your telling was at divers times none too clear to me."

"'Tis these Turanians," the old man snorted. "Ill was the day I journeyed here. Half the stars they name wrongly, and they make other errors.

Important errors. Those fools in this city who call themselves astrologers had the gall to charge me with unorthodoxy before the Guild. 'Twas no more than luck I did not end at the stake. The end result is the same, though. Without the Guild's imprimatur, I would be arrested if I opened a shop. The few who deal with me are outlanders, and they come merely because I will tell their stars for a mug of wine or a loaf of bread instead of the silver piece the others charge. Did I have a silver piece, I would return to Zamora on the instant." With a rueful grunt he returned to spooning the stew into his mouth.

Conan was silent a moment. Slowly he dug into his pouch and drew out a silver piece, sliding it across the rough boards. "Tell my horoscope, Sharak."

The gaunt old man froze with his spoon half-raised to his face. He peered at the coin, blinking, then at Conan. "Why?"

"I would know what this city holds for me," the young Cimmerian said gruffly. "I hold you better than any Guildsman of Aghrapur, and so worth at least the footing they demand. Besides," he lied, "my purse is heavy with coin."

Sharak hesitated, then nodded. Without touching the coin, he fumbled through his scrolls with his left hand, all the while absently licking traces of stew from the fingers of his right. When those scrolls he wanted were spread out atop the table, he produced a wax tablet from beneath his patched tunic. The side of a stylus sc.r.a.ped the wax smooth. Nose almost touching the parchments, he began to copy arcane symbols with deft strokes.

"Do you not need to know when I was born, and such?" Conan asked.

"I remember the details of your natal chart," the other replied with his eyes on the parchment, "as if it were drawn on the inside of my eyelids. A magnificent chart. Unbelievable. Hmm. Mitra's Chariot is in retrograde."

"Magnificent? You have never told me of any magnificence before."

Sighing, Sharak swiveled his head to gaze at the big youth.

"Unbelievable, I called it as well, and you would not believe did I tell you.

Then you would not believe anything else I told you, either, and I could do you no good. Therefore I do not tell you. Now, will you allow me to do what you have paid me for?" He did not wait for a reply before turning his eyes back to the scrolls. "Aha. The Bloodstar enters the House of the Scorpion this very night. Significant."

Conan shook his head and quaffed deeply on his dark ale. Was Sharak attempting to inflate his payment? Perhaps the habit of trying to do so was too deeply ingrained to lose.

He busied himself with drinking. The common room was beginning to fill, with queued sailors and half-naked trulls for the most part. The wenches were the most interesting, by far. One, short, round-breasted and large-eyed in her girdle of coins and gilded wristlets and torque, made him think of Yasbet. He wished he could be certain she was safe at home. No, in truth he wished her in his bed upstairs, but, failing that, it was best if she were at home, whatever her greeting from Fatima. Could he find her again, it would of a certainty brighten his days in Aghrapur. Let Emilio talk of his blonde - what was her name? Davinia? - as if she were the exotic these Turanians thought her. In his own opinion it was women with large eyes who had the fires smouldering within, even when they did not know it themselves. Why- "I am done," Sharak said.

Conan blinked, pulled from his reverie. "What?" He looked at the wax tablet, now covered with scribbled symbols. "What does it say?""It is unclear," the old astrologer replied, tugging at one of his thin mustaches with bony fingers. "There are aspects of great opportunity and great danger. See, the Horse and the Lion are in conjunction in the House of Dramath, while the Three Virgins are-"

"Sharak, I would not know the House of Dramath from the house of a rugmaker. What does it mean?"

"What does it mean?" Sharak mimicked. "Always "what does it mean?" No one wants to know the truly interesting part, the details of how ... Oh, very well. First of all: there is a need to go back in order to go forward. To become what you will become, you must become again what you once were."

"That's little help," Conan muttered. "I have been many things."

"But this is most important. This branching, here, indicates that if you fail to do so, you will never leave Aghrapur alive. You have already set events in motion."

The air in the tavern seemed suddenly chill. Conan wished the old man had not been right so often before. "How can I have set events in motion? I've been here barely a day."

"And spoken to no one? Done nothing?"

Conan breathed heavily. "Does it speak of gold?"

"Gold will come into your hands, but it does not seem to be important, and there is danger attached."

"Gold is always important, and there is always danger attached. What of women?"

"Ah, youth," Sharak murmured caustically. "You will soon be entangled with women - two, it seems here - but there is danger there as well."

"Women are always at least as dangerous as gold," Conan replied, laughing.

"One is dark of hair, and one pale-haired."

The Cimmerian's laughter faded abruptly. Pale-haired? Emilio's Davinia?

No! That would almost certainly mean aiding Emilio in his theft, and that had been left behind. But he was to 'become what he had been.' He forced the thought away. He was done with thieving. The astrologer's reading must mean something else.

"What more?" he asked harshly.

"'Tis not my fault if you like it not, Conan. I merely read what is writ in the stars."

"What more, I said!"

Sharak sighed heavily. "You cannot blame me if... There is danger here connected in some fashion to a journey. This configuration," he pointed to a row of strangely bent symbols scribed in the wax, "indicate a journey over water, but these over here indicate land. It is unclear."

"'Tis all unclear, an you ask me of it." Conan muttered.

"It becomes less clear. For instance, here the color yellow is indicated as of great importance."

"The gold-"

"- is of small import, no matter your feeling on it. And there is more danger tied to this than to the gold."

The big Cimmerian ground his teeth audibly. "There is danger to breathing, to hear you tell it."

"I can well believe it so, to look at this chart. As to the rest, the number thirteen and the color red are of some significance, and are linked.

Additionally, this alignment of the Monkey and the Viper indicates the need of acting quickly and decisively. Hesitate, and the moment will be lost to you.

And that will mean your death."

"What will come, will come, old man," Conan snapped. "I'll not be affrighted by stars, G.o.ds, or demons."

Sharak scowled, then pushed the silver piece back across the table. "If my reading is so distasteful to you, I cannot take payment."

The muscular youth's anger dropped to a simmer instantly. "'Tis no blame of yours whether I like the reading you give or no. You take the money, andI'll take your advice."

"I am four score and two years of age," the astrologer said, suddenly diffident, "and never in all that time have I had an adventure." He gripped his k.n.o.bbly staff, leaning against the table. "There is power in this, Cimmerian. I could be of aid."

Conan hid a smile. "I've no doubt of it, Sharak. An I need such help, I will call on you, have no fear. There is one thing you might do for me now.

Know you where I might find Emilio at this hour?"

"That cankerous boaster?" Sharak said disdainfully. "He frequents many places of ill repute, each worse than the last." He reeled off the names of a dozen taverns and as many brothels and gaming halls. "I could help you look for him, if you really think he's needed, though what use he could be I do not know."

"When you finish supping, you can search the h.e.l.ls."

"I would rather search the brothels," the old man leered.

"The h.e.l.ls," Conan laughed, getting to his feet. Sharak returned grumbling to his stew.

As he turned toward the door, the Cimmerian's eyes met those of a man just entering, hard black eyes in a hard black face beneath the turban-wrapped spiral helmet of the Turanian army. Of middling height, he moved with the confidence of a larger man. The striping on his tunic marked him as a sergeant. Ferian hurried, frowning, to meet the dark man. Soldiers were not usually habitues of the Blue Bull.

"I am seeking a man called Emilio the Corinthian," the sergeant said to Ferian.

Conan walked out without waiting for the innkeeper's reply. It had nothing to do with him. He hoped.

IV.

Conan entered the seventh tavern with never so much as a wobble of his step, despite the quant.i.ty of wine and ale he had ingested. The large number of wenches lolling about the dim, dank common room, rouged and be-ringed, their silks casually disarrayed, told him that a brothel occupied the upper floors of the squat stone building. Among the long tables and narrow trestle-boards crowding the slate floor, sailors rubbed shoulders with journeymen of the guilds. Scattered through the room were others whose languid countenances and oiled mustaches named them high-born no less than their silk tunics embroidered in gold and silver. Their smooth fingers played as free with the strumpets as did the sailors" calloused hands.

The Cimmerian elbowed a place at the bar and tossed two coppers on the boards. "Wine," he commanded.

The barkeeper gave him a rough clay mug, filled to the brim with sour-smelling liquid, and scooped up the coins. The man was wiry and snake-faced, with heavy-lidded, suspicious eyes and a tight, narrow mouth. He would not be one to answer questions freely. Another drinker called, and the tapster moved off, wiping his hands on a filthy ap.r.o.n that dangled about his spindly shanks.

Conan took a swallow from his mug and grimaced. The wine was thin, and tasted as sour as it smelled.

As he eyed the common room, a strangely garbed doxy caught his gaze.

Sleek and sinuous, she had climbed upon a trestle-board to dance for half a dozen sailors who pawed her with raucous shouts, running their hands up her long legs. Her oiled b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bare, and for garb she wore but a single strip of silk, no wider than a man's hand, run through a narrow gilded girdle worn low on the roundness of her hips, to fall to her ankles before and behind. The strangeness was that an opaque veil covered her from just belowher hot, dark eyes to her chin. The sisterhood of the streets might paint their faces heavily, but then never covered them, for few men would take well to the discovery that their purchase was less fair of visage than they had believed. But not only was this woman veiled, he now saw no less than three others so equipped.

Conan caught the tavern-keeper's tunic sleeve as he pa.s.sed again. "I've never seen veiled strumpets before. Do they cover the marks of the pox?"

"New come to Aghrapur, are you?" the man said, a slight smile touching his thin mouth.

"A short time past. But these women?"

"'Tis rumored," the other smirked, "that some women highly born, bored with husbands whose vigor has left them, amuse themselves by disporting as common trulls, wearing veils so those same husbands, who frequent the brothels as oft as any other men, will not recognize them. As I say, 'tis but a rumor, yet what man will pa.s.s the chance to have a lord's wife beneath him for a silver piece?"

"Not likely," Conan snorted. "There would be murder done when one of those lords discovered that the doxy he'd bought was his own wife."

"Nay. Nay. The others flock about them, but not the lordlings. What man would risk the shame of knowing his wife had been bought?"

It was true, Conan saw. Each veiled woman was the center of a knot of sailors or dockworkers or tradesmen, but the n.o.bles ignored them, looking the other way rather than acknowledge their existence.

"Try one," the snake-faced man urged. "One silver piece, and you can see for yourself if she moves beneath you like a n.o.blewoman."

Conan drank deeply, as if considering. Had he been interested in dalliance, it was in his mind that better value would come from an honest strumpet than from a n.o.bly born woman pretending to be such. The tapster had none of the fripperies of the panderer about him - he did not sniff a perfumed pomander or wear more jewelry than any three wenches - but no doubt he took some part of what was earned on the mats above the common room. He might talk more easily if he thought Conan a potential patron. The Cimmerian lowered his mug.

"It's a thing to think on," he chuckled, eying a girl nearby. A true daughter of the mats, this one, in an orange-dyed wig with her face as bare as her wiggling b.u.t.tocks. "But I seek a friend who was supposed to meet me. I understand he frequents this place betimes."

The tavern-keeper drew back half a step, and his voice cooled noticeably. "Look around you. An he is here, you will see him. Otherwise..."

He shrugged and turned to walk away, but Conan reached across the bar and caught his arm, putting on a smile he hoped was friendly. "I do not see him, but I still must needs find him. He is called Emilio the Corinthian. For the man who can tell me where to find him, I could spare the price of one of these wenches for the night." If Sharak was correct - and he always was - Conan had to find Emilio, and what word he had thus far garnered was neither copious nor good.

The tapster's face became even more snake-like, but his lidded eyes had flickered at Emilio's name. "Few men must pay for the whereabouts of a friend.

Mayhap this fellow - Emilio, did you say his name is? - is no friend of yours.

Mayhap he does not wish to meet you. Ashra! Come rid me of this pale-eyed fool!"

"I can prove to you that I know him. He is-"

A ma.s.sive hand landed on the Cimmerian's broad shoulder, and a guttural voice growled, "Out with you!"

Conan turned his head enough to look coldly at the wide hand, its knuckles sunken and scarred. His icy azure gaze traveled back along a hairy arm as big around as most men's legs. And up. This Ashra stood head and shoulders taller even than Conan himself, and was half again as broad with no bit of fat on him. For all the scarring of his hands, the huge man's broad-nosed face was unmarked. Conan thought few could reach high enough tostrike it.

He attempted to keep his tone reasonable. Fighting seldom brought information. "I seek a man this skinny one knows, not trouble. Now unhand me and -"

For an answer the big man jerked at Conan's shoulder. Sighing, the Cimmerian let himself be spun, but the smile on Ashra's face lasted only until Conan's fist hooked into his side with a loud crack of splintering ribs.

Shouting drinkers scrambled out of the way of the two ma.s.sive men. Conan's other fist slammed into the tall man, and again he felt ribs break beneath his blow.

With a roar Ashra seized the Cimmerian's head in both of his huge hands and lifted Conan clear of the floor, squeezing as if to crush the skull he held, but a wolfish battle-light shone in Conan's eyes. He forced his arms between Ashra's and gripped the other's head in turn, one hand atop it, the other beneath the heavy chin. Slowly he twisted, and slowly the bull neck gave. Panting, Ashra suddenly loosed his hold, yet managed to seize Conan about the chest before he could fall. Hands locked, he strained to snap the Cimmerian's spine.

The smile on Conan's face was enough to chill the blood. In the time it took three grains of sand to fall in the gla.s.s, he knew, he could break Ashra's neck, yet a killing would of a certainty gag the tapster's mouth.

Abruptly he released his grip. Ashra laughed, thinking he had the victory.

Conan raised his hands high, then smashed them, palms flat, across the other's ears.

Ashra screamed and staggered back, dropping the Cimmerian to clutch at his bleeding ears. Conan bored after him, slamming ma.s.sive fists to the ribs he had already broken, then a third blow to the huge man's heart. Ashra's eyes glazed, and his knees bent, but he would not fall. Once more Conan struck.

That never-struck nose fountained blood, and Ashra slowly turned, toppling into a table that splintered beneath him. Once the prostrate man stirred as if to rise, then was still.

A murmuring crowd gathered around the fallen man. Two men grabbed his ankles, grunting as they dragged the ma.s.sive weight away. More than one wench eyed Conan warmly, licking her lips and putting an extra sway in her walk, among them those with veiled faces. He ignored them and turned back to the business at hand, to the tapster.

The snake-faced innkeeper stood behind the bar wearing an expression almost as stunned as Ashra's. A bung-starter dangled forgotten in his hand.