by Roland Green
Exposed to the air, the juice of the spiceberries stank like an untended midden. It certainly kept both flying and crawling creatures from her, though. It also stung like bees on her blistered feet, then swiftly soothed them.
By the time she had garbed herself as best she could and sat down, Conan was lying under the bush. There was barely room for him; his feet thrust into the open at one end and his shoulders brushed the lower branches.
A scream like that of some wretched soul being obscenely sacrificed brought Valeria to her feet. The loincloth nearly parted company; she ignored it and drew her sword.
The scream came again, but this time a faint chattering and squeaking followed it. Some night-prowler finding prey, or perhaps a mate? Neither was any peril to her… she had seen the Cimmerian come awake in an eye blink, ready to fight a moment later. Even now his hand was on the hilt of his sword, although he had the weapon sheathed to protect it from the dampness of the jungle night.
She gazed at that massive hand for some moments, until the dream of sun and a ship at sea gave way to an image of a silk-draped couch in a perfumed chamber, with wine ready to hand—except that both her hands and Conan's were more pleasantly occupied.
Her stomach twitched, and for a moment, she feared that the monkey meat was finally going to take its revenge for her hunger. Then the queasiness passed, and her former fierce pride took its place.
She was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood; she had eaten worse than raw monkey meat and kept it down in earning her name and fortune. She would not let this wretched jungle defeat her, not while that cursed Cimmerian was anywhere in sight to laugh at her!
Dobanpu Spirit-Speaker had for himself room enough for half a score of families of the Ichiribu. Few among the tribe grudged it to him, for all that the land was growing scarce on the island.
No one had sweated to build Dobanpu's house; it was a cave burrowing deep into the hill at the southern end of the island. None doubted that for much of his work with the spirits—and with other beings mentioned only in whispers, if at all—he needed more space than a basket-weaver or a trident-maker. None wished, either, to see or hear much of what Dobanpu did.
Nor did Seyganko, for all that bringing the prisoners to Dobanpu had meant a wearying journey for already tired men to the southern end of the island, then over the beach and uphill to the cave. It was as well that few knew how much of the art of Spirit-Speaking he was learning at Dobanpu's hands.
Already among the people there were mutterings that a woman such as Emwaya should not learn Spirit-Speaking, which they said was a man's wisdom. If she did, then she should not also wed a war chief, to give him her powers as any woman could if she lay with a man.
What would the wagging tongues say if they learned that Dobanpu himself was teaching Seyganko? The warrior knew it would be even harder then to avoid death-duels, or poison in his porridge.
Seyganko sat in the cave with Dobanpu and Emwaya. All three wore headdresses of feathers and crocodile teeth and amulets of fire-stones. The fire-stones pulsed like beating hearts, growing stronger each moment as Dobanpu and Emwaya chanted the spirits into them.
None of them wore other garb, save a coating of scented oil. To Seyganko's mind, such garb best suited Emwaya. She was of an age to have borne at least two children, and would doubtless bear many fine sons when she and the warrior at last wed. Now, however, her waist remained supple, her breasts high, her long legs well-muscled and strong to wrap about a man—
A thought entered Seyganko's mind.
Is this the time for such?
The thought held amusement and pleasure rather than anger. Even had Seyganko not seen the smile on Emwaya's face, he would have known from whence the thought came.
He replied as he had learned, without moving his lips save to return her smile.
It has been some while.
Dignity before the spirits!
None could mistake the source of that thought, although Dobanpu's face bore all the expression of a carved lodge mask. The two lovers instantly straightened backs and composed faces, then gave ear to Dobanpu's chant as it rose higher.
The chant was drawing echoes from deep within the nighted recesses of the cave, far beyond the lamplight, when Dobanpu snapped his fingers at his daughter. Lithe and gleaming in the light, she ran swiftly to a niche behind her father and brought out a basket of small clay pots. The basket was of reeds soaked in spiceberry juice, the odor intended to drive insects from the herbs, dried fruits, and oils in the pots. Seyganko had no doubt of its success; it nearly drove him away from the fire.
He drew on a warrior's courage to sit cross-legged and watch as Emwaya drew forth several of the small pots, including an empty one. With pinches of herbs and fruit and a few drops of oil, she concocted a potion and handed it to her father. He dipped a finger in, then licked it off, for all the world like a brew-sister testing her beer. Emwaya smiled, and this time Dobanpu returned the smile without missing a beat of the chant.
To the rest of the Ichiribu, Dobanpu was a figure of awe, even of terror. His daughter knew him too well for that—and he knew that she knew. It was one of many reasons that Seyganko blessed whatever had contrived that he and Emwaya be matched one with the other. He need have no fear of his wife's father.
Now Dobanpu stood and spread his arms wide, then raised them high over his head. Smoke began to curl from the pot, foul-smelling and filled with nightmare shapes dancing on the remote edge of Seyganko's vision. Emwaya lifted the pot, and the warrior wanted to cry out as the shapes seemed to surround her like a hedge of thorns around a cattle pen. For a moment, she was altogether lost to sight, and to Seyganko, it seemed that even her father's face went taut.
He told himself that the deadliest of the spirits had no visible forms, that these were only little spirits of the woods and waters that Dobanpu had conjured up to reach the captive's mind. He knew he might even believe this after he saw Emwaya safe and whole.
In the next moment, she darted from the smoke and knelt beside her father. Her breasts rose and fell with quick breathing as she gripped her father's shoulder and joined her strength to his. The shapes left the smoke; now they danced in the air above the prostrate form of the Kwanyi captive on the black stone.
The man was too near death to speak, but the other captive, who had not been so badly hurt, had said he served the God-Men. He also said that the God-Men had learned something that put even their servants in fear.
He had not said much of this without some persuasion, but the Ichiribu had men and women expert in such, means. The powers of Dobanpu and his daughter could be saved for times of greater need.
Thunder burst in the cave. The smoke vanished in a brief scream of wind. For a last moment, the smoke was so thick about Seyganko that he fought the urge to claw at it. He held his breath that he might not disturb the spirits by coughing, and his chest grew tight.
The smoke vanished before Seyganko had to breathe. So did the shapes. The warrior watched them whirl downward into the Kwanyi prisoner. Then he gripped one hand with the other so he might not make a gesture of aversion as the dying captive sat upright and began to speak.
With no voice of his own left, he spoke in the spirit-tongue, which Seyganko did not yet understand. Whatever the spirits were saying had Dobanpu's face twisting in horror, for all that he fought for self-command. Emwaya's eyes were wide, and her hand on her father's shoulder gripped so tight that her nails scored his flesh and her knuckles were pallid.
Thunder came again, this time a distant rumble. Seyganko gazed up at the ceiling of the cave because he could no longer bear to look at the captive. He saw a drop of water fall, to raise a puff of dust from the cave floor. Another drop followed it, then several more, then a steady stream.
No spirits were in that thunder. It was not the rainy season, but seldom did more than two or three nights pass about the Lake of Death without rain. Seyganko resisted the urge to leap forward and stand in the rain streaming down through the smoke hole.
It was as well that he did. Dobanpu's work was not done yet. Indeed, Seyganko could have stalked and slain a wild pig in the time the Spirit-Speaker needed to finish with the captive.
The warrior knew when the end came, though. The captive turned slowly toward Dobanpu. He took a single faltering step forward, then two surer ones before leaping at Dobanpu as would a leopard on its prey.
He never completed the leap. Dobanpu stood like the doorpole of a lodge, but Emwaya flung herself before her father. She moved so swiftly that Seyganko was barely on his feet before she and the dying, vengeance-driven Kwanyi grappled.
It was a short grapple, for all that the Kwanyi had in life been half again Emwaya's size and strength. He could not feel pain, but he could be knocked down. Emwaya sent him sprawling, then gripped one arm. He reached over with the other, groping for a handhold in her hair, meeting only the headdress.
He was still groping when Seyganko brought his club down on the Kwanyi's already battered head. The last spirit-given life fled, and the spirits followed. Thunder rolled again as they leaped from the body and fled up the smoke hole, defying the rain.
Seyganko saw what might have been a bird with four wings and the head of a snake, or something even more unnatural. Then he saw Emwaya turn, eyes widening—and was just in time to help her catch her father as he fell, to all appearances as lifeless as the Kwanyi.
They laid Dobanpu on a bed of rushes; a raised part of the cave floor kept him safe from the growing puddle of rainwater. Emwaya drew a bark-cloth blanket over her father and signed to Seyganko that he should leave them.
Seyganko desperately wished to ask why, but the answer came in the same moment as the question. In the Kwanyi warrior, there had been no common magic. Only arts that Seyganko did not yet have might heal Dobanpu and save his knowledge for his people. Seyganko's duties now lay among the warriors, to lead them if need be, or at least to keep them silent until Dobanpu spoke again.
Seyganko turned back to make sure that the Kwanyi warrior was dead, or to bind him if life was still in him. Then he fought the urge to make gestures of aversion, or even to flee wildly to the open air.
The Kwanyi warrior was gone. Only the outline of his body in the muddy dust remained. No footprints showed his passing; it was as if he had become dust himself.
Seyganko looked at Emwaya, and she glanced up from her father long enough to shrug. When I know, I will tell you was in that shrug, and also the pride he knew so well.
I will come when I am needed, Seyganko replied.
He thought he saw her smile as he backed out of the cave. He would rather not have gone at all. Leaving Emwaya there with what had stolen away the Kwanyi's body was harder than leaving her in the face of a hungry leopard.
He also knew that a warrior who courts a Spirit-Speaker's daughter must learn more than most men about the arts of keeping peace with his woman.
Conan awoke to find a sharp root jabbing him in the ribs. He thought he must have rolled over in the night.
Then he reached full wakefulness and knew that the root was warm, and not as sharp as he had thought. He shifted and looked up… from the strong, shapely ankle beside him all the way along the finely turned leg, to the shirt bound as a loincloth about well-rounded hips, and onward to the rest of Valeria.
She left off prodding him with a bare toe and seemed about to smile, Then she shrugged.
"If you think I woke you up for—"
Conan was tempted to grip that ankle and see if Valeria's loincloth survived a tumble to the ground. He set the temptation aside. Valeria had belted on both sword and dagger over her new garb and looked as ready as ever to repay such a rough jest with steel.
Now and for some days to come, Conan had more need of a trustworthy comrade at his back than a woman in his arms. "You woke me because it's dawn and time we were on the march. True?"
A jerk of the head might have been a nod.
"Any visitors?"
"None I could not face myself, Cimmerian."
"Ah, so you did not slay the seven warriors. You only drained them of their power with a woman's—"
The toe jabbed hard into his ribs, and for a moment, Conan was ready to roll clear of a downward slash of her sword. Then the hand left the sword-hilt, her mouth twisted, and a giggle escaped before turning into a laugh. She sat down and began combing leaves and the odd twig from her hair.
"I've killed men for lesser jests, Conan. Remember that."
"Oh, I shall. But if you kill men for small jests, then I may as well die for the bull as for the calf."
She made a small-girl's face at him and went on combing. In a few more moments, she had done as much as anyone could without a comb, or without hacking her hair off short at the neck.
"As you say, best we were on the march." She licked her lips. "Although I would not refuse some water—"
"We'll stop at the first clear stream we find and drink our fill. If there are gourds to be had, we can hollow out a few and fill them, too. But for now, we'd do better away from here."
"You think we're being followed?"
"I've no way to know, but why make ourselves easy prey? The jungle's much like the sea—he lives longest who's not to be found where his enemies expect him."
"So wise in war, Cimmerian?"
Conan was about to make some gruff reply when he realized that there had been less than the usual mockery in Valeria's voice. He looked at her; she flushed all the way to her breasts and then began muttering curses at the lack-witted, effete fools of Xuchotl, who kept jewels and finery in plenty but not a single decent water bottle!
THREE
Ge-qah!"
Seyganko cried the Ichiribu ritual word for death and flung his trident. It pierced the morning air, then the blue-green water of the Lake of Death.
The vine rope tying it to Seyganko's waist had run out perhaps twice a man's length when the trident also pierced the lionfish below the canoe. Instantly, ripples spread about the canoe; then bubbles and blood joined the ripples.
The lionfish rose, as long and thick as the canoe, with jaws that could, and sometimes did, swallow a child. Blood and body juices the hue of old gold gushed from the trident wound.
Those massive jaws still snapped, and teeth as long as a man's finger clanged together with a noise like a Kwanyi spear on a wooden shield. The scaly neck plates—with the look of a lion's mane, which gave the fish its name—flapped, as did the gills.
Seyganko waited until the fish's instinct to attack the first thing it saw was aroused. That first thing was the canoe, and the long teeth sank into the hard wood of the dugout. They so nearly met that the warrior knew the canoe would need patching after this day's work.
The wildly thrashing fish jerked at the rope and sent the trident handle whipping about. Seyganko ignored bruises as he raised his club, tossed it, caught it in both hands, and brought it down hard between the two plates over the fish's left eye.
"Ge-qah!"
He spoke the truth. The blow to its most vulnerable spot was death for the lionfish. A shudder went through it from teeth to tail, and its jaws let go their grip on the canoe. Had Seyganko been fool enough to pull the trident loose, it might have slipped away into the depths of the lake and been lost.
As it was, he would have a fine trophy, and a score of the Ichiribu would feast. Any lionfish this large was not the best delicacy, but it was a menace to men; eating it would bring some of its strength and fierceness to those who ate, and avenge any it had slain.
Seyganko tied the fish to the stern of his canoe with the trident cord, sat down, and began paddling toward shore. Even his strength was not equal to bringing the catch aboard, but in water too shallow for other lionfish, it would not be attacked before he could summon help.
Seyganko paddled directly for shore, although this meant landing not far from Dobanpu's cave. He had heard nothing of the man for three days, save that he yet lived and that spirits sent by the God-Men might yet be a danger to him. For these
reasons— and also, Seyganko thought, out of pride—Emwaya had nursed him herself and sent the curious about their affairs.
What she would not say to the curious, Seyganko decided, she might say to her future husband. And the lionfish was worth saving even if he learned nothing from Emwaya. Paddling around the point of the island would give other lionfish time to gather, scent the blood trail, and follow it. In strength, they had been known to attack a canoe.
It was as well that for the most part, lionfish were solitary creatures, each claiming its portion of the lake and driving off all comers save for females in the mating season. Had they commonly hunted in schools like the eunuch-makers did, they would have eaten the lake bare of all life, probably including human.
The canoe was heavy and clumsy with the lionfish trailing astern, but Seyganko's strong arms and well-balanced paddle drove it swiftly toward shore. As the sun rose, it burned off the morning mist, and soon he could see the hill rising from amid the last gray wisps. At last he saw the reed enclosure that let Emwaya draw water, safe from lionfish and crocodiles, and even allowed her to swim when the spirit took her.
Dobanpu must have healed; a dark head broke the water in the enclosure. Seyganko smiled. If Emwaya was in a good frame of mind, she might let him join her. After they swam together, the most common end was rolling together in the grass.
Then the head grew shoulders and arms, and Seyganko saw that it was the form of a woman, but not of Emwaya. The Kwanyi slave girl was making free with the swimming place, as bare as a babe. In the light of day, and not frightened half out of her wits, she was even a greater pleasure to see than on the night of the raid.
"Where is your mistress?" he called in the True Tongue. She might hate her old masters with a passion, but she could hardly have been among them for long without learning at least a little of their speech.
The girl stood up, shook herself like a dog, then pointed toward the cave. Drops of water silvered by the morning sun sparkled in her hair and trickled down her breasts as she moved about. Seyganko would have thought her unaware of how well she appeared had he not caught a sly look from the corner of one brown eye.