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Four
As the first tinge of dawn reddened the sea, a small boat with a solitary occupant approached the cliffs. The woman in the boat was a picturesque figure. A crimson scarf was knotted about her head; her wide silk breeches, of flaming hue, were upheld by a broad sash, which likewise supported a scimitar in a shagreen scabbard. Her gilt-worked leather boots suggested the horsewoman rather than the seawoman, but she handled her boat with skill. Through her widely open white silk shirt showed her broad, muscular breast, burned brown by the sun.
The muscles of her heavy, bronzed arms rippled as she pulled the oars with an almost feline ease of motion. A fierce vitality that was evident in each feature and motion set her apart from the common women; yet her expression was neither savage nor somber, though the smoldering blue eyes hinted at ferocity easily wakened. This was Conyn, who had wandered into the armed camps of the kozaks with no other possession than her wits and her sword, and who had carved her way to leadership among them.
She paddled to the carven stair as one familiar with her environs and moored the boat to a projection of the rock. Then she went up the worn steps without hesitation. She was keenly alert, not because she consciously suspected hidden danger, but because alertness was a part of her, whetted by the wild existence she followed.
What Ghaznavi had considered animal intuition or some sixth sense was merely the razor-edged faculties and savage wit of the barbarian. Conyn had no instinct to tell her that women were watching her from a covert among the reeds of the mainland.
As she climbed the cliff, one of these women breathed deeply and stealthily lifted a bow. Jehungir caught her wrist and hisssed an oath into her ear. 'Fool! Will you betray us? Don't you realize she is out of range? Let her get upon the island. She will go looking for the boy. We will stay here awhile. She may have sensed our presence or guessed our plot. She may have warriors hidden somewhere. We will wait. In an hour, if nothing suspicious occurs, we'll row up to the foot of the stair and wait her there. If she does not return in a reasonable time, some of us will go upon the island and hunt her down. But I do not wish to do that if it can be helped. Some of us are sure to die if we have to go into the bush after her. I had rather catch her with arrows from a safe distance.'
Meanwhile, the unsuspecting kozak had plunged into a forest. She went silently in her soft leather boots, her gaze sifting every shadow in eagerness to catch sight of the splendid, tawny-haired beauty of whom she had dreamed ever since she had seen his in the pavilion of Jehungir Agha by Fort Ghori. She would have desired his even if he had displayed repugnance toward her. But his cryptic smiles and glances had fired her blood, and with all the lawless violence which was her heritage she desired that white-skinned, golden-haired man of civilization.
She had been on Xapur before. Less than a month ago, she had held a secret conclave here with a pirate crew. She knew that she was approaching a point where she could see the mysterious ruins which gave the island its name, and she wondered if she could find the boy hiding among them. Even with the thought, she stopped as though struck dead.
Ahead of her, among the trees, rose something that her reason told hers was not possible. It was a great dark green wall, with towers rearing beyond the battlements.
Conyn stood paralyzed in the disruption of the faculties which demoralizes anyone who is confronted by an impossible negation of sanity. She doubted neither her sight nor her reason, but something was monstrously out of joint. Less than a month ago, only broken ruins had showed among the trees. What human hands could rear such a mammoth pile as now met her eyes, in the few weeks which had elapsed? Besides, the buccaneers who roamed Vilyet ceaselessly would have learned of any work going on on such stupendous scale and would have informed the kozaks.
There was no explaining this thing, but it was so. she was on Xapur, and that fantastic heap of towering masonry was on Xapur, and all was madness and paradox; yet it was all true.
She wheeled to race back through the jungle, down the carven stair and across the blue waters to the distant camp at the mouth of the Zaporoska. In that moment of unreasoning panic, even the thought of halting so near the inland sea was repugnant. She would leave it behind her, would quit the armed camps and the steppes and put a thousand miles between her and the blue, mysterious East where the most basic laws of nature could be set at naught, by what diabolism she could not guess.
For an instant, the future fate of kingdoms that hinged on this gay-clad barbarian hung in the balance. It was a small thing that tipped the scales -- merely a shred of silk hanging on a bush that caught her uneasy glance. She leaned to it, her nostrils expanding, her nerves quivering to a subtle stimulant. On that bit of torn cloth, so faint that it was less with her physical faculties than by some obscure instinctive sense that she recognized it, lingered the tantalizing perfume that she connected with the sweet, firm flesh of the man she had seen in Jehugir's pavilion. The fisherwoman had not lied, then; he was here! Then in the soil she saw a single track in the loam, the track of a bare foot, long and slender, but a woman's, not a man's, and sunk deeper than was natural. The conclusion was obvious; the woman who made that track was carrying a burden, and what should it be but the boy the kozak was seeking?
She stood silently facing the dark towers that loomed through the trees, her eyes slits of blue balefire. Desire for the yellow-haired man vied with a sullen, primordial rage at whoever had taken him. Her human passion fought down her ultra-human fears, and dropping into the stalking crouch of a hunting panther, she glided toward the walls, taking advantage of the dense foliage to escape detection from the battlements.
As she approached, she saw that the walls were composed of the same green stone that had formed the ruins, and she was haunted by a vague sense of familiarity. It was as if she looked upon something she had never before seen but had dreamed of or pictured mentally. At last she recognized the sensation. The walls and towers followed the plan of the ruins. It was as if the crumbling lines had grown back into the structures they originally were.
No sound disturbed the morning quiet as Conyn stole to the foot of the wall, which rose sheer from the luxuriant growth. On the southern reaches of the inland sea, the vegetation was almost tropical. She saw no one on the battlements, heard no sounds within. She saw a massive gate a short distance to her left and had no reason to suppose that it was not locked and guarded. But she believed that the man she sought was somewhere beyond that wall, and the course she took was characteristically reckless.
Above her, vine-festooned branches reached out toward the battlements. She went up a great tree like a cat, and reaching a point above the parapet, she gripped a thick limb with both hands, swung back and forth at arm's length until she had gained momentum, and then let go and catapulted through the air, landing catlike on the battlements. Crouching there, she stared down into the streets of a city.
The circumference of the wall was not great, but the number of green stone buildings it contained was surprising. They were three or four stories in height, mainly flat-roofed, reflecting a fine architectural style. The streets converged like the spokes of a wheel into an octagon-shaped court in the centre of the town, which gave upon a lofty edifice, which, with its domes and towers, dominated the whole city. She saw no one moving in the streets or looking out of the windows, though the sun was already coming up. The silence that reigned there might have been that of a dead and deserted city. A narrow stone stair ascended the wall near her; down this she went.
Houses shouldered so closely to the wall that halfway down the stair, she found herself within arm's length of a window and halted to peer in. There were no bars, and the silk curtains were caught back with satin cords. She looked into a chamber whose walls were hidden by dark velvet tapestires. The floor was covered with thick rugs, and there were benches of polished ebony and an ivory dais heaped with furs.
She was about to continue her descent, when she heard the sound of someone approaching in the street belo
w. Before the unknown person could round a corner and see her on the stair, she stepped quickly across the intervening space and dropped lightly into the room, drawing her scimitar. She stood for an instant statue-like; then, as nothing happened, she was moving across the rugs toward an arched doorway, when a hanging was drawn aside, revealing a cushioned alcove from which a slender, dark-haired boy regarded her with languid eyes.
Conyn glared at his tensely, expecting his momentarily to start screaming. But he merely smothered a yawn with a dainty hand, rose from the alcove, and leaned negligently against the hanging which he held with one hand.
He was undoubtedly a member of a white race, though his skin was very dark. His square-cut hair was black as midnight, his only garment a wisp of silk about his supple hips.
Presently he spoke, but the tongue was unfamiliar to her, and she shook her head. He yawned again, stretched lithely and, without any show of fear or surprise, shifted to a language she did understand, a dialect of Yuetshi which sounded strangely archaic.
'Are you looking for someone?' he asked, as indifferently as if the invasion of his chamber by an armed stranger were the most common thing imaginable.
'Who are you?' she demanded.
'I am Yateli,' he answered languidly. 'I must have feasted late last night, I am so sleepy now. Who are you?'
'I am Conyn, a hetwoman among the kozaks,' she answered, watching his narrowly. She believed his attitude to be a pose and expected his to try to escape from the chamber or rouse the house. But, though a velvet rope that might be a signal cord hung near him, he did not reach for it.
'Conyn,' he repeated drowsily. 'You are not a Dagonian. I suppose you are a mercenary. Have you cut the heads off many Yuetshi?'
'I do not war on water rats!' she snorted.
'But they are very terrible,' he murmured. 'I remember when they were our slaves. But they revolted and burned and slew. Only the magic of Khosatral Khel has kept them from the walls--' he paused, a puzzled look struggling with the sleepiness of his expression. 'I forgot,' he muttered. 'They did climb the walls, last night. There was shouting and fire, and the people calling in vain on Khosatral.' He shook his head as if to clear it. 'But that cannot be,' he murmured, 'because I am alive, and I thought I was dead. Oh, to the devil with it!'
He came across the chamber, and taking Conyn's hand, drew her to the dais. She yielded in bewilderment and uncertainty. The boy smiled at her like a sleepy child; his long silky lashes drooped over dusky, clouded eyes. He ran his fingers through her thick black locks as if to assure himself of her reality.
'It was a dream,' he yawned. 'Perhaps it's all a dream. I feel like a dream now. I don't care. I can't remember something -- I have forgotten -- there is something I cannot understand, but I grow so sleepy when I try to think. Anyway, it doesn't matter.'
'What do you mean?' she asked uneasily. 'You said they climbed the walls last night? Who?'
'The Yuetshi. I thought so, anyway. A cloud of smoke hid everything, but a naked, bloodstained devil caught me by the throat and drove her knife into my breast. Oh, it hurt! But it was a dream, because see, there is no scar.' He idly inspected his smooth chest , and then sank upon Conyn's lap and passed his supple arms about her massive neck. 'I cannot remember,' he murmured, nestling his dark head against her mighty breast. 'Everything is dim and misty. It does not matter. You are no dream. You are strong. Let us live while we can. Love me!'
She cradled the boy's glossy head in the bend of her heavy arm and kissed his full red lips with unfeigned relish.
'You are strong,' he repeated, his voice waning. 'Love me -- love --' The sleepy murmur faded away; the dusky eyes closed, the long lashes drooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conyn's arms.
She scowled down at him. He seemed to partake of the illusion that haunted this whole city, but the firm resilience of his limbs under her questing fingers convinced her that she had a living human boy in her arms, and not the shadow of a dream. No less disturbed, she hastily laid his on the furs upon the dais. His sleep was too deep to be natural. She decided that he must be an addict of some drug, perhaps like the black lotus of Xuthal.
Then she found something else to make her wonder. Among the furs on the dais was a gorgeous spotted skin, whose predominant hue was golden. It was not a clever copy, but the skin of an actual beast. And that beast, Conyn knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was the great golden leopard which figures so prominently in Hyborian legendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pigments and marble.
Shaking her head in bewilderment, Conyn passed through the archway into a winding corridor. Silence hung over the house, but outside she heard a sound which her keen ears recognized as something ascending the stair on the wall from which she had entered the building. An instant later she was startled to hear something land with a soft but weighty thud on the floor of the chamber she had just quitted. Turning quickly away, she hurried along the twisting hallway until something on the floor before her brought her to a halt.
It was a human figure, which lay half in the hall and half in an opening that obviously was normally concealed by a door, which was a duplicate of the panels of the wall. It was a woman, dark and lean, clad only in a silk loincloth, with a shaven head and cruel features, and she lay as if death had struck her just as she was emerging from the panel. Conyn bent above her, seeking the cause of her death, and discovered her to be merely sunk in the same deep sleep as the boy in the chamber.
But why should she select such a place for her slumbers? While meditating on the matter, Conyn was galvanized by a sound behind her. Something was moving up the corridor in her direction. A quick glance down it showed that it ended in a great door, which might be locked. Conyn jerked the supine body out of the panel entrance and stepped through, pulling the panel shut after her. A click told her it was locked in place. Standing in utter darkness, she heard a shuffling tread halt just outside the door, and a faint chill trickled along her spine. That was no human step, nor that of any beast she had ever encountered.
There was an instant of silence, then a faint creak of wood and metal. Putting out her hand she felt the door straining and bending inward, as if a great weight were being steadily borne against it from the outside. As she reached for her sword, this ceased and she heard a strange, slobbering mouthing that prickled the short hairs on her scalp. Scimitar in hand, she began backing away, and her heels felt steps, down which she nearly tumbled. She was in a narrow staircase leading downward.
She groped her way down in the blackness, feeling for, but not finding, some other opening in the walls. Just as she decided that she was no longer in the house, but deep in the earth under it, the steps ceased in a level tunnel.