The big man’s teeth ground audibly. “I told you not to think of such things.”
“He is bigger than any of the slaves. He’s almost as big as you, Bombatta. Do you think he is as strong as you? Perhaps that is why Taramis sent him with us, because he is as strong as you, and as brave as you, and as great a warrior.”
“Jehnna!”
She jumped in her saddle, and stared. He had never shouted at her before. Never.
Breathing hard, he rode with one fist on his hip. staring straight ahead. Finally he said, “This Conan is a thief, child. Only a thief, and no more. The Princess Taramis had her own reasons for sending him with us. It is not for me to question them, nor for you.”
Jehnna chewed at her lip as she mulled over what she had just learned. When Taramis told her the day for her journey had come, she had been overjoyed. It meant the fullfilling of her destiny. She would find the Horn of Dagoth and return it to her aunt, and great honor would be bestowed on her. But if Conan was a thief, and Taramis had sent him with them … .
“Bombatta, are we going to steal the Horn of Dagoth?”
He made a chopping motion with his hand, and looked quickly toward Conan. The blue-eyed young giant still rode before them, too far ahead to hear words that were not shouted. From the stiffness of his back Jehnna thought he was deliberately ignoring Bombatta and her. For some reason she did not quite understand, it annoyed her that he might ignore her. And on purpose.
“Child,” Bombatta said quietly, “Taramis told you not to mention that name in the hearing of anyone but her or me. You know that. It is our secret.”
“He cannot hear us,” she protested. “And are we going to—”
“No!” His tone became overly patient, the way it did when she had pushed him to a limit. “No, Jehnna, we do not steal. No one save you can touch the key. No one save you can touch the Horn. No one in the entire world. Is that not proof that your destiny is true? You cannot doubt your aunt, or me.”
“Of course not, Bombatta. It is just … oh, I’m sorry. I did not mean to make a bother.” The scar-faced warrior muttered something angrily under his breath; she stared at him. “What, Bombatta?”
Instead of answering, he galloped ahead of her, toward Conan.
She stared after him, and abruptly realized someone had ridden over a hill to the north of them and was fast approaching, leading another horse behind him on a rope. He was an ugly little man, she saw as he came closer, short and wiry, in a leather jerkin and dirty breeches. Suddenly her mind puzzled out what it was that Bombatta had muttered. Malak, he had said.
Conan permitted himself a grin when Malak appeared, riding across the hilltop, a saddled horse behind him on a lead rope. He shifted the smooth pebble he was using to bring moisture to his mouth from under his tongue to his cheek. “Ho, Malak!” he called.
“Ho, Conan!” A broad grin split the wiry thief’s face. “I had a hard time finding you, Cimmerian. I am no tracker, you know. I am a man of the cities, a civilized—”
Bombatta cut between the two of them, reining in with a spray of dust and rocks. He ignored Conan to glare at the small man, whose smile faded slowly under that murderous gaze.
“The Princess Taramis gave you your life,” Bombatta snarled. “You should have lost yourself in a pigsty while you had the chance.”
“I asked him to come,” Conan said.
Bombatta pulled his horse around, his scars livid lines across his face. “You asked him! What made you think you could decide who came on this journey, thief? The Princess Taramis—”
“Taramis wants me to accompany Jehnna,” Conan cut him off, “and I want Malak.”
“And I say no!”
Conan took a deep breath. He would remain calm. He would not kill this fool. “Then continue the quest without me,” he said with more coolness than he felt.
It was Bombatta’s turn to take a deep breath. His teeth grated, though, as he failed in showing the same outward equilibrium as the Cimmerian. “There are reasons, thief, that you cannot know. You and I and the Lady Jehnna must go on alone.”
“Taramis said the numbers were vague,” Conan said, and was pleased to see the other’s face go slack with surprise.
“She told you that?”
Conan nodded. “Taramis does not want us to fail. She told me everything.”
“Of course,” Bombatta said slowly, but there was that about his tone that suddenly made Conan doubt his own words. Yet surely she would not have kept anything back if that would hinder their chances for success.
“Well?” Conan said. “Does Malak ride with us, or do he and I go our own way?”
Bombatta’s hand tightened on his sword hilt until his knuckles paled. “Keep the little wretch, then,” he breathed hoarsely. “But make no mistake, thief. If we fail because of him, I’ll slice both of you for dog meat. And keep a proper respect about you for the Princess Taramis and the Lady Jehnna!” Sawing at his reins, he galloped back to Jehnna, who sat her horse watching worriedly.
“I do not think that man likes me,” Malak laughed weakly.
“You have survived other men who did not like you,” Conan replied. “You will survive Bombatta. A sorry beast,” he added, then gestured to Malak’s spare horse when the small man raised a questioning eyebrow.
Malak chuckled. “It was all I could steal. It’s for Akiro.”
“Is he close? I have no time to seek him very far.”
“Not far. The way you’re traveling, and to the south.”
“Then we must ride,” Conan said. “Time is lacking.”
Malak fell in beside him as he started forward again. The Cimmerian twisted in his high-pommeled saddle to make sure Bombatta and the girl were following. They were, but still at the distance they had maintained all morning. Conan was not sure if Bombatta simply wanted to avoid his dust, or if the other warrior simply did not want to ride with him. He suspected the latter, and did not care save for missing the opportunities to look at Jehnna.
As they rode, Malak continually glanced at him and muttered to himself. After a time he said, “Uh, Conan? What was all that about reasons why I shouldn’t be here, and Taramis telling you everything?”
“I wondered when you would ask,” Conan grinned, and detailed all that Taramis had said to him. At least, all that related to the seeking of the key and the treasure. Some things, said in his arms, the big youth would definitely not relate.
When he was done Malak shook his head dazedly. “And I thought all I had to worry about was this bringing Valeria back to life. Aiiee! Listen to me! All, I say, as if it was done by every street corner fakir in Shadizar. That’s what comes of being too close to too much sorcery, Cimmerian. You’re beginning taking it for granted. That is when it will kill you, or worse. Mark my words.” He mumbled something quickly, and Conan recognized a prayer to Bel, the Shemitish god of thieves.
“It is not so bad as it could be,” the Cimmerian said.
“Not so bad!” Malak all but squealed. “A girl with a map in her head. There is sorcery there, grant me? A magical key guarded by a wizard, and a sorcerous treasure no doubt under the protection of another mage, if not two or three. This is more than a prudent man should expose himself to. Listen. I know three sisters in Arenjun. Triplets, with bodies to make a man weep and a father who’s deaf. I’ll even let you have two of them. We put Shadizar from our minds, as if we have never been there, or even heard of it. Taramis would never find us in Arenjun, even if she thought to look. Nor would Amphrates. What do you think? We ride for Arenjun, right?”
“And Valeria?” Conan said quietly. “Do I put her from my mind also? Go to Arenjun, if you wish, Malak. I have been there, and have no reason to return.”
“You mean to go on, then?” Malak said. “No matter what I do?” Conan nodded grimly. The smaller man closed his eyes and murmured another prayer, this time to Kyala, the Iranistani goddess of luck. “Very well,” he said at last. “I will go with you, Cimmerian. But only because you’re gi
ving me your half of Amphrates’ gems. This is business.”
“Of course it is,” Conan said lightly. “I would never accuse you of doing anything out of friendship.”
“Of course not,” Malak said, then frowned suspiciously at the Cimmerian as if he suspected he had not gotten the straight of the exchange. “At least there is one good thing about all of this.”
“What is that?” Conan asked.
“Why, as we are the best thieves in Shadizar,” Malak laughed, “which is to say the best in the world, this Amon-Rama will not know we have entered his domain until long after we are gone.”
vi
Once the mountain had brought forth molten rock from the bowels of the earth. A millenium ago had come its final eruption, shaking the ground like the sea in storm for a thousand leagues in all directions, toppling cities and thrones and dynasties. It had blackened the skies with its ash, and in a final, deadly joke, the mountain of fire brought snows where the green of spring should have been and ice in place of the heat of summer for three years. The villagers of the Karpash Mountains no longer remembered why, but they knew it for a mountain of death, and knew their souls were forfeit should they set foot on it.
Half of the mountain had gone in that last, titanic explosion, leaving a long oblong crater with a deep lake, nearly half a league across, at its bottom. Two sides of the great pit were sheer walls, towering a hundred times the height of a man. The other two were gentler slopes, and at the foot of one, abutting the lake, sat a palace such as only one pair of human eyes had ever seen.
Like a gigantic, infinitely faceted gem, the palace was, with towers and turrets and domes of adamantine crystal. No join of stonework showed at any place in it. It seemed a monstrous carving from a single montainous diamond, glittering in the sun.
In the center of that jewel palace was a huge domed chamber, its mirrored walls hidden behind long golden draperies. In the center of the room stood a narrow, pellucid plinth supporting a gem redder than red, a stone glowing as if fire and heart’s blood had been compressed and solidified to form it.
Amon-Rama, once a thaumaturge of the Black Ring of Stygia, moved closer to the thin spire, his scarlet hooded robes flowing liquidly about his tall, lean form. His swarthy, narrow face was that of a predator; his nose had the raptor’s hook. Ten thousand soulless sorceries had extinguished the last light in his black eyes. Like claws his hands curled about the gem, but he was careful not to touch it. The Heart of Ahriman. Every time his eyes fell on it he exulted.
It was when his former compatriots discovered his possession of the Heart that they expelled him from the Black Circle. Some things even those dark mages feared to know. Some hidden powers they dared not risk unveiling. His thin lip curled contemptuously. He feared nothing, dared anything. Merely by gaining the gem he had gone beyond the fools. They would have slain him, had they managed to find the courage, but each one of them knew his powers, now that the Heart was his, and feared the counter-stroke should their attempt fail.
On either side of the Heart his long fingers set themselves in a precise fashion, and he began to chant in a language dead for a thousand years. “A’bath taa’bak, udamai mor’aas. A’bath taa’bak, endal cafa’ar. A’bath taa’bak, A’bath mor’aas, A’bath cafa’ar.”
The crystal walls of the palace chimed faintly with the words, and with each word the glow of the Heart of Ahriman deepened, deepened and clarified. Still more crimson than rubies and blood, it yet became clear as water, and within its depths figures moved across stony hills.
Amon-Rama’s eyes narrowed as he studied the shapes. Riders. One girl and three men, with two extra horses. The pattern formed by his fingers changed slightly, and the girl seemed suddenly to fill the gem.
The girl, he thought, and smiled cruelly. She was the One, the One he had sought these many years. She was attuned to the Heart of Ahriman, and the Heart to her. The woman in Shadizar thought to use her. This Taramis had courage, that she dared think of using the Heart for its ultimate purpose, and she possessed no small ability in the use of powers, yet she reckoned without Amon-Rama. There were many powers of the stone, many uses other than that one she intended. Once the girl, the One, was in his grasp, he would have access to all of those powers. And he would know which to use, and which not to. He would let this foolish Taramis live, he thought, as a naked bondmaid cowering at his feet. But that was for later.
“Come to me, girl,” he whispered. “Bring her to me, my brave warriors. Bring the One to me.”
Yet again his fingers formed a new shape about the stone, and he chanted, this time in words never meant to be uttered by a human throat, never meant to be heard by a human ear. They burned in the air like purest pain, and the crystal walls groaned with the agony of them. The Heart of Ahriman glowed redder, brighter, ever brighter. The fierce sanguine light split and coalesced and split again, casting his bloody shadow on every surface of the room till it seemed as if a score of men were there, fifty men, a hundred. And still he chanted, and brighter still grew the piercing light.
A sense of urgency built in Conan, intensifying with his horse’s every stride toward the towering Karpash range, so near, now. So near. He must turn aside to find Akiro, he told himself, but the rejoinder came that time was desperately short. Every hour spent seeking the rotund wizard was an hour less available to search out the key, somewhere in the mountains ahead, an hour less to find the treasure and return to Shadizar. Each hour’s delay was the risk of being an hour late, the risk that Valeria would not be reborn. The necessity of finding Akiro faded gradually to insignificance; the need to reach the mountains became paramount. Above all else, he must take Jehnna to the mountains.
“Here, Conan.”
The Cimmerian turned his head at Malak’s words, but he did not slow his mount.
“Akiro,” Malak said. He gestured with the hand holding the lead rope of the spare horse. “We must turn south here. That is, we were going to
… I thought we … .“With a shaky laugh, he shook his head.”Maybe it isn’t important after all.”
Doubtfully Conan reined in. Frowning, he gazed toward the mountains, then to the south, then once more to the mountains. Akiro was important; speed was of the essence, delay intolerable.
Bombatta and Jehnna drew their horses up beside the two mis-matched thieves. Strands of the girl’s raven hair stuck to her flushed face, and her gaze was fixed on the gray heights filling the horizon.
The black-armored warrior scowled through his sweat. “Why have you stopped, barbar?”
Conan’s jaw tightened, but he made no answer. Irritably he twitched the halter rope of the pack mule. Time, he thought. Time. He knew that he wasted time sitting his horse there, neither seeking out the old mage nor riding for the mountains. But which was the correct decision?
“Erlik curse you, barbar, we must keep moving. We are almost to the mountains. We must reach the Heart—the key, we must reach the key quickly!”
Malak broke in on Bombatta’s tirade. “What about Akiro, Cimmerian? Do we find him, or not? By Ogun’s Toenails, I no longer know what to do.”
A strangled curse erupted from the scarred man’s throat. “Another, barbar? You would add still another to our number? Taramis may say you are essential, but I say you endanger us all! One more in our party may be enough to rupture the prophecy! Or do you care for that at all? Do you just seek delay, fearing to face what lies before us? Do you, you stinking, northland coward?” He ended on a shout, with a handbreadth of sword bared and bloodlust eager on his face.
Conan stared back with glacial eyes. Rage, beyond his strength to control, burst into white heat. His words were flat and hard. “Draw your sword, Zamoran. Draw it and die. I can take Jehnna to the key just as easily without you.”
Abruptly Jehnna rode her horse between the two glaring men. To the surprise of both, her large brown eyes snapped with fire. “Cease this, both of you!” she commanded sharply. “You are to escort me to the key. How can you do that if
you squabble like two dogs in an alley?”
Conan blinked in disbelief. Had a mouse attacked a cat he could not have been more taken aback.
Bombatta’s jaw had dropped open as she spoke. Now he snapped it shut, but he sheathed his steel as well. “We go to the mountains,” he told her gruffly.
Ruthlessly Conan quenched the anger that threatened to flare again, controlled his emotions as tightly as the leather wrappings of his swordhilt. Outwardly calm, he turned his horse south.
“You cannot!” Jehnna protested. A small fist pounded on the pommel of her saddle in frustration. The imperious air was gone like gossamer on the wind. “Conan! You are supposed to go the way I show you. You are supposed to!”
With a sigh the big Cimmerian stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Jehnna, this is no game played in the gardens of your aunt’s palace. I do what I must, not what anyone thinks I am supposed to do.”
“I think it’s very much like a game,” Jehnna said sulkily. “Like a giant maze, only now you refuse to play.”
“In this maze,” Conan told her, “death may lie around any turning.”
“Of course not!” The slender girl’s face was a portrait of shock. “My aunt has raised me for this. It is my destiny. She would not have sent me if I might be harmed.”
Conan stared. “Of course not,” he said slowly. “Jehnna, I will take you to the key, and the treasure, and back to Shadizar, and I promise I will allow no harm to come to you. But you must come with me, now, for we may well need the abilities of the man I seek.”
Hesitantly, Jehnna nodded. “Very well. I will come with you.”