“You must excuse us,” said Parvez to the Stygian. “Let Chagor take my side of the game.”
Psamitek rose, bowed, murmured an apology, and carried the game board away, holding it carefully level so that the pieces should not slide off. Presently he and Chagor had their heads close together over the board, scowling at the pieces and occasionally making a move.
Conan sat down on the vacant stool and in a low voice said: “I have found out about your captive princess.” He told the Turanian of his cursory investigation of the night before.
“A tiger, eh?” mused the Turanian. “To one of your thews, slaying such a beast were not impossible.”
“No, thank you!” growled Conan. “I once slew a lion under similar circumstance, in the grounds of a sorcerer who used such cats as watchdogs. But my success was more one of luck than of skill. I came closer to entering the land of the shades at that moment than in any of my brawls and battles.”
“What, then, do you propose?” asked Parvez. “To seek the lady’s chamber through the interior of the temple?”
“Not with the corridors crawling with guards, as they are day and night. Have you some magical means to slay this tiger, or at least cast it into a deep slumber?”
“Alas, no! I do not traffic in magic, save for that silver arrow you extorted from me. Now that I think, I do have a means for immobilizing Feridun’s striped pet.” He fumbled in his scrip and brought out a phial containing a greenish liquid. “An accessory of my trade; three drops of this in a man’s drink will waft him to dreamland for hours. But I know not how we shall persuade the tiger to consume the stuff—”
“That’s easy,” said Conan. “Wait here.”
He pushed through the door of the kitchen, where he found Bartakes laboring over provisions for the evening’s cookery. When the innkeeper looked up, Conan asked: “Mine host, have you a stout roast of beef, uncooked, that you will sell?”
“What—ah—what in the nine hells do you want with—” began Bartakes, but under Conan’s baleful glare he changed his tune. “Well, yes I have. It will cost—”
“The lord Parvez will pay,” said Conan, jerking his thumb toward the door to the common room. “Fetch it; he and I are planning a surprise party for a friend.”
Bartakes disappeared and shortly returned bearing a platter, on which reposed a haunch of beef large enough to feed a score of warriors. He set it on a vacant table and went out to collect the price from Parvez.
Drawing his scimitar, Conan made a series of cuts into the beef, as deep as the width of his blade. Then he sprinkled the contents of the phial into the cuts. While he was doing this, Bartakes returned.
“What is that?” asked the taverner. “Some kind of seasoning?”
“Aye; a rare condiment from a far land. Now, have you some sacking in which to wrap this thing?”
When the beef had been packaged; Conan returned to the common room with the bundle on his shoulder, pausing at Parvez’s table. The diplomat whispered: “When do you plan your attempt?”
“Tonight. We have no time to dawdle; the priests are suspicious of me already. Have you something I can show the lady, to prove I am not merely one more abductor?”
“Take this,” said Parvez, pulling off a seal ring and handing it to Conan. “It will identify you.”
Conan slipped the ring over his little finger and, carrying the raw beef swathed in sacking over his shoulder, marched out.
The moon, barely past full, thrust its silvern beams through rents in the cloud-crowded sky. It had not yet reached the meridian when Conan, moving quietly down the deserted street, reached the wall that bounded Kirmizi’s domain. Halting, he grasped the raw meat with both hands and, whirling it twice about, with a mighty heave sent it soaring across the barrier. It landed inside with a moist thump. Instantly came the grunt of an aroused tiger, and then rending and slobbering sounds told of the beast’s enjoyment of the unexpected meal.
Conan squatted in the angle of the wall that furnished the deepest shadow against the light of the fickle moon. With the patience of a hunter in the wild, there he remained, immobile and scarcely breathing, while the moon pursued her cloud-enshrouded path toward the western horizon.
When Conan’s ears at last picked up the wheezy sounds of a colossal yawn, he took off his boots and hitched his baldric around so that his sword hung down between his massive shoulders. Pausing no longer, he uncoiled his rope, flung the grapnel over the wall, and swarmed up to the top.
For a moment he could make out nothing in the night-drenched darkness below, for a large, dense cloud had cast the temple and its environs into shadow. When the moon peeped through again, she showed the tiger stretched out peacefully, head on paws and eyes closed. Glancing up at the broken sky, Conan was unpleasantly reminded of the night he had scaled the wall to Narkia’s apartment. He wondered if there were some omen in this celestial aspect.
At last he whistled softly, then waited. When the beast still did not stir, Conan loosened his grapnel, lowered himself down the inner side of the wall until he hung by his huge hands, then dropped the remaining distance. Kirmizi slumbered on.
Warily, Conan surveyed the occupant of the pen. The tiger lay motionless save for the slow rise and fall of its ribs. While Conan could clearly discern its black stripes, the orange-red of its fur was faded to tarnished silver by the uncertain moonlight.
Beyond the sleeping cat rose the narrow expanse of masonry that separated the inner ends of the two adjacent wings of the temple. An iron gate, set in this wall at ground level, permitted entry and egress for him who tended to the tiger’s needs; while, directly above this gate, the window of Jamilah’s chamber, the shutters of which were open to the warm summer breezes, formed a black rectangular patch in the dimly reflective marble of the temple wall. No lights were to be seen.
A gliding shadow, Conan stole past the sleeping tiger to the apex of the enclosure. Again he uncoiled his rope and, whirling the trefoil grapnel round and round, sent it flying toward the dark aperture above. At the first throw, the grapnel struck the wall with a metallic clank, loud in the stillness, and fell back to earth. A second throw accomplished no more.
As he coiled the rope for another try, Conan cursed himself for not having practiced this maneuver before attempting it in earnest. A third throw sent the grapnel into the window, but the hooks failed to catch when Conan pulled on the free end. His fourth attempt succeeded.
Conan hoisted himself up, hand over hand, while the bulging muscles of his arms writhed like pythons. He clambered over the sill and landed on the uncarpeted floor with a faint slap of bare feet.
The vagrant moon shot a narrow beam of silver slantwise through the window, where it cast an oblong of argent upon the silken hangings of the chamber. The faint illumination outlined a bedstead on which lay a slender form. The night being warm, the sleeper had thrown back the coverlet, disclosing to the Cimmerian’s probing gaze the graceful body of a woman, whose dark hair fell loosely across her opalescent shoulders and parted to reveal the pale moons of her splendid breasts.
Conan glided to the bed and whispered: “Lady Jamilah!”
The woman slept on. Conan grasped the curve of her soft shoulder and gently shook her, whereupon Jamilah’s eyes slowly opened. Then her eyelids fluttered, and her lips parted with a sharp intake of breath. Conan clapped a broad hand over her mouth to smother her scream; all that emerged was a faint gurgle.
“Hush, lady!” he hissed. “I’m here to rescue you!”
He raised his hand from the pale oval of her face, holding it close enough to clap it down again.
“Who—who are you?” she whispered at last.
“Call me Nial,” growled Conan. “King Yildiz’s ambassador, Lord Parvez, has sent me to get you out of here. He waits nearby.”
“How know I that you speak true?”
Conan pulled off the seal ring and thrust it at her. “He gave me this to show you. It’s too dark to see the design on the seal, but you can feel it with your thumb.”
She fondled the ring. “How did you enter here?”
“Through the window.”
“But the tiger?”
“Kirmizi sleeps with a drug in his belly. Come! You’ll have to trust me, unless you’d liefer remain a prisoner here.”
Suddenly conscious of her nudity, Jamilah reached for the coverlet. “I cannot rise, with you staring down at me! Turn your back at least.”
“Women!” grunted Conan disgustedly. “With our lives hanging on one thread, this is no time for your civilized niceties.” But he went to the window and stared out, listening alertly lest Jamilah, moved by doubts about the truth of his tale, attempt to stab him in the back. There he heard nothing but the rustle of rich attire hastily donned. At last Jamilah murmured:
“You may turn, Master Nial. What would you now?”
Conan hauled in his rope; and when it was neatly coiled upon the chamber floor, he tied a loop in the free end and lowered this oval an arm’s length down the wall outside.
“Wait,” he said. “Have you a proper cloak, besides those frilly garments? If you’re seen in the street …”
“I understand.” She went to a chest and brought out a black velvet cloak with a hood. She handed the bundle to Conan, who tossed it out the window, taking care that it should not strike the sleeping tiger.
“Come here,” he said. “Sit on the casement sill, and I’ll support you while you place your feet in the loop. Do not look down, but hold my arm while you feel for the rope. There! Now grasp the rope with both hands.”
“The rough rope pricks my fingers,” complained Jamilah as she lowered herself into position. “And heights do terrify me.”
“That cannot be helped, lady. Steady, now; here we go!”
Hand over hand, Conan paid out the rope until the princess reached the ground. Then he examined the hook of the grapnel, which was firmly embedded in the wood of the windowsill. If he lowered himself by the way he had come up, Conan realized that he would be unable to dislodge the rope by jerking it from below, and he needed the rope to get himself and Jamilah over the outer wall of the enclosure.
At last he pulled the entire rope back into the chamber, wrenched the hook out of the sill, and dragged the massive bed across the floor to the window. He passed one end of the rope around the nearest bedpost and hauled briskly until the bight of the rope was at the center of its length.
Dropping the two free ends over the windowsill and firmly gripping the two strands together, he lowered himself over the sill and rappelled down until he hung just above the ground. Then he released the looped end and dropped, as lithely as a pouncing panther, to the ground, and pulled on the grapnel end of the rope until the entire rope tumbled down upon him.
He found a terrified Jamilah pressed back against the wall, gazing wide-eyed at the tiger, whose heavy odor filled his nostrils. Hastily coiling the rope and picking up the woman’s cloak, Conan threw a protective arm around the fear-frozen woman and, shadow-silent on the greensward, walked her past the slumbering Kirmizi.
At the outer wall, Conan whirled his grapnel once again and again caught it in the masonry. As he prepared to ascend, a sudden intake of Jamilah’s breath warned him of impending danger. Whirling, he saw the tiger rise on unsteady paws and stalk toward him. Evidently the soporific dose had not been adequate, even though he had emptied Parvez’s flask into the cloven meat.
Conan swept out his scimitar as the beast, with a rumbling snarl, broke into a lope and, like a coiled spring released, leaped straight at him, its great jaws open and slavering. As the giant cat, fangs bared and talons unsheathed, hurtled toward him, Conan whipped his scimitar up over his head and, with legs braced and both powerful hands gripping the hilt, brought the heavy curved blade whistling down between the glowing emerald eyes. The tiger’s body slammed into him and hurled him back against the wall, so that man and tiger fell in a tangled heap at the foot of the enclosure.
As Conan’s body disappeared beneath the striped form, Jamilah stifled a little shriek, clapping a jeweled hand over her mouth. “Are you dead, Nial?” she breathed.
“Not quite,” grumbled Conan, crawling out from under the limp carcass like an insect emerging from under a stone. Rising, he looked down upon the animal, which lay prone with Conan’s scimitar still fixed in its cloven skull. With one bare foot planted on the tiger’s head, Conan tugged with all his might to wrench the weapon free.
“Damn!” he muttered. “I swore that never again would I be caught in such a fix; so much for mortal plans. At least this good Kothian steel survived the blow.”
“Are you hurt?” inquired Jamilah, her low-pitched voice vibrant with concern.
“I think no bones are broken, albeit I have scratches and bruises aplenty. I feel like a man who has run the gauntlet between lines of foes with clubs.”
He wiped his sword on the tiger’s fur and sheathed it. Then, climbing the rope to the top of the wall, he sat astride it to haul the princess up and lower her down the other side. At last he released the rope from its attachment in the masonry and dropped down himself. He pulled on his boots, saying:
“Put on the cloak, and pull the hood well down. There will be guards at the city gate, so you’ll have to play the part of my sweetheart—one of the village girls from Khesron. Do you understand?”
“I trust, Master Nial,” she said, “that you do not plan some improper liberty. After all, I am of royal rank.”
“Fear not; but you’ll have to forget your royal rank if you want to get away from Yezud!”
“But—”
“But me no buts, lady! Your choice is between staying here and doing what I tell you. Make up your mind.”
“Oh, very well,” she said. Limping from his bruises, Conan hustled the noblewoman away.
As they passed another of the walls connecting the end of adjacent wings of the temple, Conan suddenly halted, also stopping Jamilah.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Listen!” He put his ear against the stone, motioning her to silence.
From the enclosure on the other side of this wall came two voices in grave discussion. Conan picked out the deep, bell-like tones of High Priest Feridun; the other voice he could not identify but assumed to be that of a lesser priest. The High Priest said:
“ … fear me the Children will not have reached their full growth for several months.”
“But, Holiness!” said the other voice. “We cannot continue to put off the King with bootless threats. He thinks we do but try to frighten him with imaginary bogles.”
“But my dear Mirzes, it is not we but he who is bluffing. Well he knows that let his raggle-taggle army but sight one of the Children of Zath, they will dissolve in panic flight. We have the most terrible weapon since the invention of the sword.”
“How shall we convince him?”
“Another embassy will soon arrive. If all else fails, I shall take Mithridates’s envoy below and show him.”
“Suppose he still rejects our just demands?”
“Then we shall set the Great Plan in motion. Even if not fully grown, the Children will perform their duty.”
“Zath grant that all work as planned, master,” murmured the priest Mirzes.
“Fear not,” replied Feridun’s tolling voice. “I can govern the Children, as I can beasts of all kinds. As my new Vicar, you must trust me to know best … .”
The voices faded away, as if the speakers were withdrawing into the temple. Conan motioned to Jamilah to resume their progress. But the delicate, highborn Turanian woman found it hard to keep up with Conan’s lengthy stride, and her thin slippers slipped on the rounded cobblestones.
“Here, let me carry you!” muttered Conan. When she uttered some faint protest, he swept her off her feet and pounded toward the city gate.
Soon afterward, as the moon hung low over the Karpashes, Conan astonished the Brythunians at the front gate by appearing, carrying the cloak-wrapped form of a woman. He set her on her feet but k
ept one brawny arm around her waist. He whispered in her ear:
“Now play your part, damn it; but don’t speak! They’d catch your accent.”
“Nial the lady-killer, at it again!” smirked one of the guards.
“Keep it quiet, lads,” said Conan. “I’m taking her home; but her people are narrow-minded.”
He tightened his grip on Jamilah’s waist with a little jerk. She forced a giggle and leaned her head on Conan’s shoulder. At a ribald remark from the other guard about what she and Conan had been doing, he felt her stiffen with indignation. But then they were through the small door and moving swiftly down the long incline to the bottom of the crag.
A thunderous knocking on the front door of his inn aroused Bartakes. He dragged himself out of bed to shout imprecations down from his bedroom window, adding: “Any fool can see we are closed for the night!”
Conan roared back: “I don’t want you; I want Lord Parvez. Rouse him, unless you wish me to tear down your pigsty board by board! Tell him there’s a noble traveler here.”
Moments later, the yawning Turanian appeared at the door, clutching his flowered night-robe about him.
“Here she is,” said Conan’s rough voice, “sound but weary.”
Parvez dropped to one knee. “My lady Jamilah!” he exclaimed. “Come in at once!” A tear glistened on his cheek in the moonlight, so strong was his emotion. Rising, he said to Conan: “You have done the miraculous, young man. May I have my seal ring back, pray?”
“Oh, I forgot about it,” said Conan, slipping off the ring and handing it over.
“And one more thing. Have you seen my servant Chagor?”
“No, I have not. What of him?”
“The fellow has vanished, with his horse. No explanation. Ah, well; I must now bid you a hasty farewell, for it would not do to be here when the priests discover their captive has been enlarged. Bartakes, be so good as to rouse my retainers; we must be on the road ere dawn.”
“Permit me to thank you, Master Nial,” said Jamilah. “If ever you come to Turan, feel free to ask a boon of me, and if possible I will persuade the King to grant it. Farewell!” She disappeared into the inn.
Conan and the Spider God Page 13