“For devoid of life it was. No scent of smoke drifted over the walls, as no wisp of it ascended from the houses and temples. Most uncanny of all. no slightest sound came from the great city. Even in the sleepiest hour of an ordinary city, one will hear some sound, if just the snore of a sleeping sentry or the
stumbling of a drunk. Outside a city, there is always the sound and smell of livestock, but there was no such outside Janagar.
“And then, just as I began to believe that it had to be a dream or a mirage, I did hear a sound! And it was the most welcome sound I could have imagined!”
“Human voices?” Achilea asked.
“Nay, it was water! I heard the sound of water splashing into a pool! This lent wings to my sore feet and I fairly flew the last few-score paces to the city wall. There, just without the great gate, was a fine watering-trough such as many cities provide to give drink to camels and horses just arrived. It was ten paces long and two paces broad, and it brimmed with pure, clear water! At one end of the trough there stood a pedestal, upon which was carven the face of a fanciful beast, and water gushed in abundance from its fanged beak. I fell to my knees and plunged my face into the blessed liquid and did not come up until I had to breathe,
“Then I saw that Firagi, the fool, had walked right past the water as if he did not see it. Instead, he stood gaping at the splendid gate, and its carvings were indeed bright with inset opals. ‘Come drink!’ I cried, ‘You must perish else!’ But he heard me not, or else he ignored me. Instead, he crossed his arms upon his breast―” here Amram pantomimed the gesture, lowering his head somewhat “―and he spoke words.
Much aghast was I when the gates before him began to creak and groan!
“These valves, which stood fully ten paces high, were made of some dark, massy wood and were strapped with heavy bronze and studded with the same metal. Both metal and wood were carved with many intricate and fanciful designs, but at that moment I had no eyes for their beauty, for before my eyes, they began to move! Slowly and with great majesty, the ponderous doors swung outward, until they stood wide enough to admit a man walking. Without a further word, Firagi passed within.
“I was dazed, but only for a few moments. Then I scrambled to my feet and began to walk toward this mystical city that was the destination of all our suffering. But even as I approached, the gates began to swing shut. I ran toward them, but already the passage was too narrow to admit me. I grasped their edges, but my efforts were futile, for they merely slid from my grasp and shut with less noise than the door of an ordinary house. I called out to Firagi, but he heard me not, nor, I suspect, did he care.
“All that day, I sought entry into the city. I made a complete circuit of the wall and found other, lesser gates, but all of them were firmly shut. The wall was too smooth to climb, and I had neither grapple nor rope.” He fetched forth another deep sigh.
“At last, I walked away. I knew that I would not get in, and there was no point in dying of hunger, although i had water in abundance. I fully expected to die in the desert, but had the good fortune to fall in with you distinguished travelers.”
“You came up from the south,” Conan said. “Why did you walk north when you left?”
“I knew full well that I had no chance going back the way we had come. I knew that the desert was a bit less forbidding to the north and decided that I had some slightly better chance by setting my steps in that direction.”
“You seem to me a man who takes his opportunities when he sees them,” said Achilea. “Have you a few of those opals to show us?”
Amram grinned. “Had I been able, I would have stuffed my purse with them. But their inlay began some five or six paces up the wall. The builders of that marvelous city were not so foolish as to set the precious stones down where they could be easily reached.”
“You have had a long trek and great adventures,” Conan said. “But you do not sound like a thirsty man. You did not even ask us for a drink.”
Amram reached within his outer robe and drew forth a small water skin. It was almost flat, but when he shook it, a little liquid could be heard to slosh in the bottom. “I had the slashed skins patched and we brought some of them with us,” he explained. “For I knew that should we find water, we would need to bear some of it away with us, if we would live, I bore away all I could carry from the fountain
before the gateway of Janagar I was down to the bottom of this little belt-flask when I happened upon you. That was why I was singing a song of sadness, for I knew that I would probably die within a day or two.”
“Then this city lies not far from here?” Achilea asked.
“Only three days, for folk mounted upon camels. And, since we speak now of the useful beasts, would you happen to have a spare mount among your train, that I might ride with you? I have traveled afoot for far too long.”
“We are part of a small caravan,” Conan said. “And although we are not the leaders, I think that our employers will allow you to ride one of our pack beasts if your story pleases them. I cannot say whether it will. This you must determine for yourself.”
“Ah, surely they must take pity upon a poor wanderer, bereft of his goods and lost upon me vast bosom of the desert!”
“They are a strange pair,” Conan said. “Go back along our tracks and you will come upon the rest.
Find the two riding the very tall, foreign camels and tell them what you have told us. They may not be happy to hear about this Firagi, but I doubt they will hold it against you.”
Amram bowed deeply, “May the gods of the desert watch over you and keep you from harm.”
With that, he turned and walked away.
When the man was gone, Conan said, “No god of this place cares aught for man or his works.”
“What did you think of Amram and his story, Conan?” Achilea asked.
“I think it is very odd that we should chance upon him in this vast waste in the darkness.”
“Aye, and did you notice that he never asked why we were here or what we seek in the wilderness?
Of course, he seems half mad and that could account for it”
“It could,” Conan agreed, “And I think it is not the last strangeness we will encounter on this fool’s journey.”
Seven
The twins seemed almost jubilant. Amram’s story had pleased them well, and now the odd little man rode a camel just ahead of the others, guiding them toward his miraculous city. A short distance behind him rode the others: Achilea and her followers, Conan, Kye-Dee and the Hyrkanians. Theirs was a mixture of elation and confused foreboding. At least they were not chasing around aimlessly in the desert, but the sheer strangeness of Amram’s story cast a pall over them.
“Why are the twins so happy?” grumbled Jeyba the dwarf. “They seem relieved. Yet they said they knew where this city was. Why do they need a guide?” With the back of a wide, stubby-fingered hand, he wiped sweat from his brow. Provided with a guide to lead them quickly to their destination, the twins had decided to risk a daytime march.
“At a guess,” Conan said, “I would hazard that they knew the approximate area where it was to be found, but not its exact location.”
“And,” Achilea added, “they knew of it only from ancient texts and tales. This man’s account seems to affirm that it truly exists, and is truly as untouched as they had heard.”
Conan patted his camel’s neck and it released a restrained grunt. “The beasts are weakening and must have water soon, but they will hold out for a day or two yet. If there is anything to the fellow’s story.”
“And if there is not?” Achilea asked.
“Then, like him, we shall learn how long we can last on camels’ blood. After that, we shall almost surely perish, for we have chased this dream so far into the desert that we can neither turn around and go back nor continue through to the other side. From what Amram said, the desert to the south is even more barren than that through which we have come.”
Achilea spat in disgust. “I nev
er dreamed that any land could be so utterly without life or beauty or anything else that makes it worth seeing or crossing.”
“Aye,” said Kye-Dee sadly. “We have seen nothing worth shooting at save lizards for days. What good is a land without targets?”
Conan had more on his mind than the lack of wild game. Fresh meat was fine, but he could live a long time without it. He turned to Achilea. “Ride with me to that dune,” he said, pointing to a lofty heap of sand a quarter-mile to their left. “It is the highest point we have seen in days. We can survey in all directions from there.”
The two rode to the top of the dune. From its crest, they could survey the flat, monotonous landscape for miles, to every point of the compass. “You do not often ask that I accompany you on a scout.”
“I wished to speak with you out of hearing of the others.”
“I thought as much. What troubles you?”
“First we had the twins searching for Janagar. Now we have Firagi, and I do not like it”
“When they engaged us, they said that others might be on the same trail and we might incur danger thereby.”
“Aye, but does it not seem odd that people going after treasure should make so little provision for bearing it away with them? They seek a whole city of treasure, yet they bring naught save riding camels and a few pack beasts, and those must be burdened principally with water and forage for the return journey.”
She frowned with concern, but voiced her objection: “Yet do they not say that the purpose of this expedition is to establish the reality of the city and its treasure, and its precise location? Surely after this, they can mount a serious expedition with hundreds of camels to bear the treasure away.”
“So they say. But if we are to believe Amram, Firagi made no preparation for a return journey. It seemed of no account to him that all his men and all his camels died on the trip to the city. He had no hope of returning through the desert on his own, yet he ignored even fresh water to go within and shut the gate behind him.”
“Oh, he is probably mad, as the twins are mad,” she said, clearly irritated at this line of questioning.
“You worry too much, Cimmerian. I would never have thought you one to fret over danger.”
“I am no fool!” he said hotly. “And I’ll not be played for one!”
“Then how do you read these nines, Conan?” she demanded. “There was no sense to this journey when we undertook it, and I’ve looked for none along the way. It seems you are not so easily satisfied.”
“Indeed I am not,” he replied. “As to how I read these happenings, I tell you this: Whatever these madmen seek in Janagar, it is not treasure of jewels and precious metals. It is something that needs no beast to bear it away, and I strongly suspect that it is something that we cannot share.”
She scowled, fingering the hilt of her sword nervously. “Aye, you probably have the right of it,” she bit out at last. “But what can we do about it at this juncture?”
“Damned little,” he admitted. “We can only go on. But when we reach this fabulous city, I expect to have some answers out of our mysterious twins, and if they make those gates open. I will be right behind them when they enter, not sucking up water in a trough!”
To his surprise, she laughed. “I think few enemies catch you with your head in the water. But I fail to understand your bad mood. We undertook this commission to get out of Leng, did we not?”
“Aye,” he agreed sullenly.
“And are we not out of Leng?” She gestured to the vast expanse of sand all around them, “We are that,” he agreed, unable to suppress a grin of his own. “And just now, Leng does not seem such a bad―” He broke off abruptly.
“What is it?” Her head snapped around to see where he was gazing. Far to the northeast, there was a faint glitter.
“Riders following us,” he said.
“Aye, that is our back trail,” she agreed. “Are you sure it is riders? This sand is full of bits of crystal
and shiny minerals.”
“This is different. Steel makes a brighter flash. And you can see it move.”
She studied the phenomenon for a while. “Aye, I can see it moving. And there are more than one.
Armor, do you think?”
“Lance-points, more likely. It would take hardy warriors to wear armor in this heat. These care little if they are spotted, too, else they would tie rags around their points.”
“Who might they be, I wonder,” she mused.
“I cannot say, but I am minded of that man who was so curious about our doings at the last town.”
“You think it is he?”
“I intend to find out tonight.”
That evening, as they made their tireless camp, Conan reported the sighting to the twins.
“Well, we knew that others were on the same scent,” Monandas said philosophically.
I plan to scout them out,” Conan said. “When it is fully dark, I will go back along our trail and see who and how many they are. If I can work my way close enough, I will try to overhear them.”
“I will go with you,” said Achilea.
Conan preferred to undertake such missions alone, but he felt this was a poor time to dispute with her. “Very well.”
“Us, too!” said all three of her women simultaneously. Their pale eyes shone like those of wolves through their bands of black paint
“Nay,” Achilea said before Conan could protest. “This is a scouting mission, not a raid. The eyes and ears of the two of us will be sufficient. Another time, perhaps, we will want stealthy blades and nooses, but not now.”
The women submitted with ill grace, but they took great care in preparing their queen for her mission. They took out their pots of paint and removed her flowing desert robes. As she sat near-naked upon a small carpet, they camouflaged her body to blend with the moonlit desert, giving her a tawny color covered with dots, splotches and streaks of black.
Conan made simpler preparations. He stripped likewise, then rolled in the fine sand to dust himself thoroughly and kill any betraying shine from his glossy skin. After that, he streaked himself with black soot mixed with grease, purchased when they outfitted themselves for desert travel―a preparation employed by the people of the desert to blacken the pits of their eyes in order to cut the glare of the sun.
In the moonlight, the two of them looked like pieces of the desert floor come to life. Their weapons were muffled with rags to make no betraying noise and, at the same time, break up their distinctive outlines. The moon was nearing full and stood halfway to zenith when the two set out, moving at an easy trot, a pace they would maintain until they drew near the object of their mission.
Their tracks from earlier in the day could have easily guided them, but Conan did not want the people following them to see his and Achilea’s footprints the next day. Knowing that they had been under surveillance might put them in an undesirable state of caution. So the two sped lightly over the sand a half-mile to the east of their path, trusting to luck that the followers would not set out flankers that far from their own train.
Conan’s senses were alert for the slightest signs of activity, and he did not fail to find a few. Even in the deepest desert, there is life. The blazing sun keeps all life in hiding during the day, but at night, insects, lizards and small mammals come out to search for sustenance among the sands and rocks. Serpents and other predators come out likewise, to prey upon mem. The Cimmerian’s eyes caught the flicker of a lizard’s tail as the creature chased a beetle, and the slither of a snake side-winding its way up a dune.
Once he saw a diminutive fox with huge ears questing after desert mice. There were even occasional bats and ground-nesting owls that prowled the night air on silent wings.
They were away from their camp for less than an hour when they saw the glow of a fire ahead, and they stopped to confer.
“They have pack animals to spare if they have brought along their own firewood,” Achilea noted.
“It suggests t
hat they are serious about their expedition,” Conan said. “Although I’ll own that bearing firewood is unusual for this deep in the desert. Ordinarily, men wish to traverse this part as swiftly as possible and do without luxuries like fire. There is precious little to cook, and warm clothing will suffice for the chill of night. Let’s look closer.”
They stopped again when there was only a single dune between them and the other party, “I smell no smoke,” Conan said.
“There is no wind,” Achilea pointed out
“On a night like this, smoke should lie in a haze. We should smell it.”
“No good talking. Let’s look.”
They belly-crawled the last few paces up the dune. Then they slowly raised their heads until they were peering over the barrier of sand. What they saw beyond appeared ordinary enough at first: a score of men, half of them seated around a campfire, four standing guard a hundred paces out in each direction, the rest tending to a double score of camels or else taking supplies from packs or otherwise employed upon mundane errands. But still, something seemed wrong and after a quick survey, Conan realized what it was.
“The fire!” he whispered, his voice so quiet that a long-legged desert mouse crossing the dune ten feet in front of them did not hear him. Achilea said nothing in return, but he saw her fine eyes widen as she saw what he had seen.
The flames flickered like those of any ordinary fire, but their color was strangely wrong. The usual hues of red and yellow and orange were there, but beneath them was an undertone of purple, and from them rose no smoke. There was no crackle of burning wood. They seemed to spring from a heap of something that looked like shiny stones. That they gave forth heat was evident, for over the flames was suspended a small kettle such as the desert folk used for brewing herb-tea. Likewise, thin cakes of bread baked on flat stones were propped near the fire.
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