by Roland Green
Valeria tucked the mass of fungi under her arm and sheathed her sword. "Conan, you have too cursed many ways of making a woman wish to keep you alive!"
FIVE
Conan led the way down the tunnel. If danger should arise, it would most likely come from another beast, drawn by the din of the first one's death. It could also come with the Cimmerian's blessing, if it waited until he and Valeria were safely out of its path!
The tunnel sloped steadily downward, and the air grew damper. It was not as foul as one would have expected, though, as far underground as it lay, and with so much death and rottenness about.
Conan found small relief in that. Ancient magic must be all about them here, shedding light, cleansing the air, and giving life to who-knew-what monstrosities besides those they had already met. A sword and the untamed jungle before him would be his choice, but every step they took seemed to take them farther into the bowels of this warren.
Clearly, the beast and its kin had passed this way many times. Even the hardest rock of walls and floor was scored by claws and scales. Loose scales in half a score of hues had drifted like autumn leaves into crannies and windings of the tunnel. In one place, a bronze post the thickness of Conan's arm had bent almost double under the onrush of something swift, strong, and massive.
Once the tunnel branched, and Conan thought he saw a slight upward slope in the floor of the branch, at the very limits of his vision. This proved no trick of the light, but fifty paces farther on came a bend, and just beyond that, a dead end.
Nor was the dead end a natural rockfall. An enormous door of stone slabs set in what seemed to be a frame of gilded bronze blocked the way. Conan saw that it slid to and fro in bronze grooves that led into niches on either side of the tunnel.
The least of the slabs had to weigh more than the Cimmerian, and the thinnest metal rods of the frames were thicker than Valeria's legs. Some of the rods were wrought in the shape of serpents, and more serpents writhed across the slabs, some of them painted in tiny jewels, others cunningly carved.
Conan did not care to think what spells might be needed to move this door. Spells, or perhaps some device that would rival those of drowned Atlantis and make a siege-engine of Khitai seem a child's toy.
"Some of those serpents have green eyes," Valeria whispered. The awe of this place and its ancient works was in her, too. "Are they meant to be the Golden Serpents?"
Conan studied the shapes. The gilding was worn in places and tarnished in more, but, in truth, the eyes of all the serpents, carved or painted, were tiny green jewels. Studying them yet more closely, he saw that the jewels seemed to glow from within like the fire-stones they had seen in Xuchotl.
"Ha! Perhaps we've found where the Golden Serpents laired in ancient times," he said. "They would be cause enough for a door like this. It would stop a galley's ram."
"Then let us hope it does its work until we are out of these caves," Valeria said.
"Woman, where is a true pirate's heart?" Conan scoffed. He thrust a forefinger against Valeria's ribs.
She lightly batted his hand away. "Down in her boots, I confess, although I'll geld you if you breathe a word of it." She rubbed her stomach. "Her stomach's about to follow." She looked at the fungi under her arm. "Are these really fit to eat?"
"They haven't killed me yet."
"Just let me eat my fill, and no doubt you will writhe and die the moment afterward."
The bronze door would have guarded their backs nicely, but who could say what lay on the other side? Also, if one of the beasts should catch their scent and come down the branch tunnel, they would be trapped.
So they returned to the junction of the tunnels to eat. "Tastes like raw sea slugs," Valeria said after a few mouthfuls.
"And how are they? I've heard of them, but also that they're poison if not cooked."
"It's not the cooking that takes out the poison. There's a spot in the head that needs cutting out, or one slug can kill a ship's crew. A cunning hand with a knife can do the work, though, and then the slug's called a rare treat in some lands. Mostly farther south than we've sailed, but during one hot summer, the slugs spawned farther north than usual."
They finished as much fungus as seemed wise, in a silence that was almost companionable. Conan vowed that if he and Valeria lived to reach a land with civilized eating-houses, he would buy her a meal she would not soon forget.
Meanwhile, they had traveled long enough and far enough to be weary. They tossed a piece of fungus for who kept first watch, and Conan won the honor.
"Need we keep watches at all?" Valeria asked. She pressed a hand lightly against the Cimmerian's battered ribs. He drew a deep breath, but not from any pain her touch gave him.
"I've no wish to end up in the belly of one of those beasts, or to be trampled by one, either. And they may not be all that roam down here."
"Now you have made it certain that I will not sleep for the waking nightmares you just gave me!" Her pouting, though, was largely pretense.
Conan gripped Valeria's hand and gently thrust it away. "Lose no sleep over me, at least. I've had worse hurts as a boy, falling off a roof my father and I were thatching."
"As you wish, Conan," Valeria said. She turned and settled down from where she could watch in all directions. Conan allowed himself a moment to admire the fine, straight back that plunged down from the long neck to the well-rounded hips. Then he placed his steel ready to hand, kicked off his boots, and lay down to seek as much slumber as a man might win from a cold stone floor with magic all about him.
The hut where Dobanpu Spirit-Speaker slept when he visited the largest Ichiribu village was a place of shadows and subtle odors. It almost seemed to Seyganko that a tame spirit lurked in the grass of the roof, driving out the light.
The odors mingled grass, cooking smoke, the smoke of fires made with herbs, and the oil that Emwaya rubbed into her skin. Seyganko remembered the first time she had allowed him the honor of rubbing it in. His body tautened with remembered and anticipated desire.
In her corner of the hut, Emwaya sat like a carved image. She wore the plainest of waistcloths and only a single bone ornament in her hair, and her face was somber as she shifted her gaze from her father to her betrothed.
"You asked what we must do, Father?" she asked.
"In plain words," Dobanpu replied. His voice was the strongest part of him remaining, although he had not wholly lost the stout thews and broad shoulders of his youth. He had seen nearly sixty turns of the seasons and outlived all the children of his first wives, and all but Emwaya from his second family.
Some said he had suffered these losses as the price of all the time he had spent in the spirit world. Even those who said this whispered it. When they spoke aloud, they praised the courage with which he had borne his losses. They did doubt aloud the wisdom of his teaching his daughter the art of Spirit-Speaking, but only when Emwaya was not in hearing. Some called her tongue the deadliest weapon among the Ichiribu.
Dobanpu rose, stretching limbs cramped by long sitting. "Very surely, I want to know your thoughts as to what we must do," he said. "I did not go against all custom in teaching you my arts to have you sit as mute as the frog-queen in the tale of Myosta!"
"You asked, I answer," Emwaya said. "We must watch Aondo. Or better yet, find a way to take his weapons."
"Aondo is needed among the warriors," Seyganko said.
"Even at your back?"
"Properly watched, even at my back," the warrior asserted. "We can do nothing against him without dishonor and insult."
"If he feels insult, he can challenge you. That will be the end of him."
Dobanpu laughed softly. "Daughter, you have more faith in your betrothed's prowess than is wise. Aondo is so strong that it might not matter if he is as slow as a mired hippopotamus. Remember that when the great-jawed one reaches its victim, it is certain death."
"Indeed," Seyganko said. "Also, any man's foot may slip if his luck is out and the spirits not with him. They m
ight well desert me if I dishonored a proven warrior like Aondo by trapping him into a death-duel."
"You speak of what the spirits might do?" Emwaya snapped.
"Yes, and if it is not to your liking, you may ask your father to end his teaching of me!"
Warrior and woman glared at each other for a moment, while Dobanpu raised his eyes to the shadowed ceiling and seemed to be asking the spirits for a brief moment of deafness, that he might not hear two whom he loved making fools of themselves. At last it was Emwaya who lowered her eyes.
That, Seyganko knew, was as much of an apology as he was likely to receive. But Emwaya was now of a mind to listen, and he could speak more freely.
"Also, I do not think that Aondo is the first of our enemies among the warriors. The loudest, I grant you. But first? No, I think more danger comes from one whose name I do not know, but whose presence I can guess."
"A spy for Chabano?" Emwaya asked.
"For him, for the God-Men, or perhaps for both."
"A bold one, if he thinks to serve both," Dobanpu said almost meditatively. "One hears tales, and more than a few of them, that the friendship of Paramount Chief and God-Men is a frail thing."
"All the more reason, then, to keep the spy alive," Seyganko said. "A man who tells tales can be made to bear false ones, to set his masters at each other's throats."
"You play stickball with lives," Emwaya said, her voice brittle.
"How not, daughter?" Dobanpu asked. "Learn a little more of my art and you will understand why this must sometimes be so. Or else give over learning Spirit-Speaking, wed Seyganko, bear his sons, govern his house and lesser wives—"
"And die when the Kwanyi and the God-Men strike, plowing our ashes into the fields before they sail south to carry all before them!" Emwaya shouted. Seyganko thought her about to weep.
Her storms were violent but swift, like those of the Lake of Death. She blinked hard, then contrived a smile. "Father, Seyganko. I know the price of any choice other than the one I have made. It may be the price even if I walk the way you bade me. But I do not have to rejoice in what the gods have sent to the Ichiribu."
"No one but a fool would ask you to," Seyganko said gently. He wished to take her in his arms, but thought the moment unfit. "Do you see any fools here about you?"
Emwaya laughed aloud. "Not yet."
"Then we go on as we have begun," Dobanpu said. "Indeed, I think this spy gives us yet more cause to leave Aondo alive. He can hardly be the spy, but I would wager a hutful of mealies and a new canoe that he knows who that man is. Following the leopard's cub has been known to lead a hunter to the leopard's lair."
Valeria had lost all notion of how long they had been tramping these endless underground passages. It was not merely an underground city they had entered, it was near to an underground kingdom. Already they had traversed thrice the distance from one side of Xuchotl to the other.
At least they had done so had they traveled in anything like a straight line. Valeria had barely more notion of their direction than she had of the passage of time. For all she could say, they might be wandering in circles.
No, that could not be altogether true. Except where they found blind tunnels or stairs leading up to impassable barriers, they had yet to retrace their steps. They were moving onward, but toward what destination, only the gods knew.
This place of cunningly wrought rock, and both beasts and spells of incredible antiquity, seemed as remote from the sight of the gods as it was from the sight of the sun. If any answers were to be found, she and Conan would have to find them unaided.
As always when Valeria found her thoughts thrashing about thus, like a cat in a sack, she eased herself by taking the lead. The need to be keenly alert to hidden dangers cudgeled her wits into some sort of order. The Cimmerian doubtless knew her reasons, but courtesy to a battle-comrade had so far curbed his tongue.
Another cave opened before them. Or chamber, rather. It might have been a cave once, carved from the rock over the eons by oozing, then dripping, then gushing water. Now the underground stream that had done the work flowed through a channel carved in a floor of pale, rose-hued stone, polished until it was silken-smooth to the touch and lightly shining even in the pale magic-light.
Walls and ceiling were of the natural rock, but squared off, every corner a right angle as neat as any mason could have made. But then, masons had made them, even if they had doubtless worked with magic instead of mallets and chisels.
Conan knelt beside the channel and reached down to dip a finger in the water. "Fresh, as cold as a Hyperborean's arse, and flowing swiftly. Anyone for a bath before we drink our fill?"
Valeria had doffed her garments ere the Cimmerian had finished speaking. She no longer feared Co-nan's eyes upon her, but found them, rather, a trifle flattering. Since they had left Xuchotl, she had grown somewhat thin-flanked, yet Conan seemed not to notice. Or perhaps pretending not to notice such matters was another courtesy between battle-comrades ?
They both splashed merrily about in the channel, deep enough to sit in up to their necks had it not been too cold for sitting at all. Then they drank, until Valeria could feel her empty stomach filled at least with water.
Valeria knelt by the channel, clad only in goose-flesh and drops of water, to rinse out her garments as best she could. When she had wrung them dry enough to wear, she stretched and began retying her boot bindings.
"How long have we been down here?" she asked as she finished the left foot.
"If our sleeping's any guide, for three days, four at the outside."
"By Set's fangs, it feels longer!"
"That it might, but don't let yourself be careless of judging the time. That way lies madness."
"Tell me what I do not know, Conan! Have you ever been out of the sun so long?"
"Yes."
His tone did not encourage her to ask further. She let it pass. She knew by now that some of his adventures he would boast of in taverns, and others he would carry as secrets to his grave. She only prayed that neither his grave nor hers might be in this godless wilderness beneath the earth.
He stood up and for a moment held her at arm's length, his massive hands almost covering her shoulders. "We can take heart from this much: We've not gone in circles, and we've come far enough to be well beyond the river. Also, there are more worked and finished passages every day."
"We're closer to the heart of this city?"
"If city it be, I'd wager we are. And where the heart of any city lies, there will be the treasures and pleasures. Perhaps, in this city, even ways to the surface!"
His hands lifted from her shoulders, and Valeria knew a moment's urge to grab them and pull them back to where they had been, or even to other places. She laughed at this picture of herself and Conan tumbling on the hard stone until they rolled into the channel again and cooled their ardor!
"If you can find that much to laugh about in our case, woman, I'll take you anywhere!"
Valeria almost replied, "And I will follow." But those would be ill-omened words, a promise she could hardly expect to keep. She was of the Red Brotherhood, and she had acknowledged no master for too long to change now.
"Let us see where we have to go to leave this place first, Conan," she said. Then she sat and began binding her other foot.
"On them!"
Chabano, Paramount Chief of the Kwanyi, stood at the edge of the platform in the tree and shouted to the hundred warriors below. The underchiefs raised their hands in salute, while the warriors clashed their spears against their shields.
Then the Kwanyi warriors leaped forward at the enemy. The "enemy" was only a field of stumps, but the charge was not without peril. Chabano had seen to that.
The first warrior fell even before the charge reached the stumps. The grass covering a pit gave under his pounding feet. He did not fall all the way in to impale himself on the dung-poisoned stake at the bottom, however. He flung himself forward desperately, reached the far edge of the pit, and rolled cl
ear. A moment later, he was on his feet and running to rejoin his comrades. They were now well ahead of him, but Chabano found no fatal fault in that.
The warrior's eyes had not been as keen as they might have been, but his limbs and wits had come to his rescue. He had not even dropped his spear or shield, a dereliction that would have earned him a beating.
Two more warriors fell at the tangle of vines stretched among the stumps. One of them did not rise swiftly enough. Chabano watched the warrior's underchief run up behind him and slash him fiercely across the shoulder with the snakeskin mboqa. The warrior leaped up, made the briefest gesture of supplication, and ran on.
The other fallen warrior did not rise at all, but there was reason for his lying among the vines. Trying desperately to keep his feet, he had rammed his head into one of the stumps. Doubtless he was senseless; he might even be dying, and small loss if he were. Had he thought less of the shame of the mboqa and more of how his tribe needed all of its warriors, he might have done otherwise and still be running.
The remaining warriors reached the far side of the field of stumps in a double line more ragged than Chabano cared to see. The underchiefs, he decided, would face one of the lesser ordeals tonight.
Now the warriors went furiously through the rite of shield and spear, throwing the small spear, hooking an opponent with the shield, then lunging with the great spear as the shield-hooking exposed the other and drew him close. They knew it meant more than pleasing the gods, or even Chabano, who was closer than the gods and therefore perhaps more to be feared. It meant victory, on the day when the Lake of Death was no longer closed to the Kwanyi by the Ichiribu. Victory, over every tribe in their path for as far as they chose to march.
All the Kwanyi would then have their pick of slaves and food, huts worthy of a chief, and honor among gods and men alike. They would also have honor in the eyes of Chabano, who had made them what they were and would lead them when they became still greater.