'Jehanan, brother of Bêlit,' he vowed under his breath, 'you shall be avenged. In your name will I yet tread the Snake beneath my heel.'
After a passage which seemed endless, the stairs gave on a corridor, also wanly lit, full of shadows and echoes. Occasional doorways broke the parade of sinister murals. The first two that Conan found belonged to chambers for enormous sarcophagi; he wondered if the mummies within were of human beings. The third spilled forth some light of its own. Entering, the pair discovered a room furnished as a shrine. At its far end was an altar whereon a great bronze lamp burned before a full-sized golden eidolon of a cobra, coiled, neck raised, wise wicked eyes staring at any who might enter to do homage. Below the altar stood a crystal bowl of milk. On the side walls, rich hangings framed pictures of men whose heads were ophidian.
Daris considered the hieroglyphs at the rear. They were not the writing of Taia, which had an alphabet of Hyborian origin; but she had studied the Stygian symbols as part of her education. 'The Sanctuary of Set the Hooded, the Venom-fanged,' she translated,
adding: 'Dedicated to him in this of his many aspects. That milk is for a sacred cobra which lives somewhere near.' She paused. 'We may not be alone.'
Conan inspected the artefacts. 'This lamp was filled with oil and its wick trimmed a few hours ago,' he declared, 'and it is too big to need further attention until tomorrow. Likewise, the milk is fresh. I daresay an attendant takes care of such things each morning before he retires. We will be gone earlier than that. I do not think any rite will take place hereabouts during the night; the crypts are for special, sorcerous use, are they not? As for the cobra, if he comes by, the worse for him.'
He unslung the axe beneath his kaftan. Stretching, he seized first one velvet hanging, then the other, ripped them loose, and spread them on the stone floor. 'It is chilly here,' he laughed, 'but we have drunk and dined, and now we have light, blankets, good company -' He broke off. 'Why, Daris, you weep.'
'I may, may I not, if we are safe?' she sobbed between the fingers that hid her face. 'For Jehanan, dead in an alien land.'
He went to embrace her. She laid her head against his breast, held him tight in her turn, and cried onward, but quietly, almost stoically. He stroked her hair and back as once he had done to console Bêlit, and murmured into the fragrance of her tresses:
'Do you wonder how I can jest when the brother of my love lies slain? Daris, dear, you are born of a warrior folk. Surely you understand. Death comes to us all when fate wills it, whether we spoil our lives by skulking in fear of the end or enjoy the world while it is ours and depart it uncowed. Jehanan died in glory, in joy. He had had his revenge and he was giving his comrades back their own lives. If his belief was true, at this moment he, made hale again, rides a unicorn through the queendom of Ishtar, toward a tower where a beautiful woman waits to become the mother of his children. If his belief was wrong, well, then he has forgotten, he is at peace. He wanted us to remember him, Daris, but I do not think he ever wanted us to mourn for him.'
She lifted her eyes to his and breathed, 'Conan, here at the gates of hell you give me heart.'
Passionately, defiantly, before the altar of Set, they kissed. But when at last she said in her ardour, 'Oh, beloved, I am yours, take me -' he drew back.
She stared at him. 'I mean it,' she avowed shakenly. 'I love you, Conan.'
'And I am more than fond of you,' he answered. 'Too fond to make you my mate when I shall leave you as soon as may be for Bêlit.'
'She would understand!'
Conan smiled sadly, wryly. 'All too well would she understand, and upbraid me for such treachery to a battle comrade. Be my sister, Daris, and I will be honoured.'
She wept again for a while, and he gave her what chaste comfort he was able. Seldom had he required a greater effort of himself.
The wingboat slipped free of the marsh and turned down the canal toward the Styx. Though noonday blazed, there was no further reason for stealth; she could outrun anything on water or land.
Daris stood lookout in the bow. Wind sent her midnight locks flying and pressed a tunic around each graceful curve of her body, but the face was saddened that should have been triumphant. Astern, Falco steered and Conan finished an account in his laconic fashion:
'- So a little before sunrise, as well as I could gauge by the oil in the lamp, we went hunting. First we came on an acolyte. I killed him, tucked the body into a closet, and donned his garb. It was small on me, and of course my scalp is unshaven, but a cowled cloak hid that. Next we met a slave. That poor devil I only stunned and hid away bound and gagged with pieces of Daris' kaftan, while she put on his livery. It disguised the absence of an iron collar on her. We walked right out the main door - few were yet astir - and on to the gate. I doubt anybody would have challenged a pair of temple servants, even without the usual dawn-tide chaos. And we walked overland to you, and now the three of us are bound for Taia.'
Adoration filled the glance which the youth gave him. 'Never did such a warrior bestride this earth,' Falco said. 'Someday, Conan, you will win a kingdom of your own; but first you will redeem mine and hers.'
'Maybe,' the Cimmerian replied curtly. 'We shall have a deal of lighting before any of that can happen.'
The Ophirite gave him a closer regard. 'Yes, our plan failed and we lost Jehanan. Yet he got what must have been nearly his dearest wish; you two mocked Set once more, in his very house; we here are free again.' Falco's tone grew worried. 'You and Daris are more subdued than I would have looked for. Did something happen that you have not told me about?'
'We talked about some private matters that are not of the happiest,' Conan said gruffly. 'Listen, we have a couple of days and nights ahead of us with nothing much to do but travel. You are young and lusty, and she is fair to behold and may be just a bit distraught. Take no advantage of any moods she may fall into, do you hear? We will bring her home in honour.'
'Oh, certainly, certainly.' Falco's expression changed from surprised to dreamy. He stared aloft and sighed, 'I have my Senufer. Her day and mine will come.'
Conan looked grim but said naught.
High above the boat, on wings that shone golden in the sun, an eagle kept pace.
XIV
Wayfarers in Taia
Heaven was moonless but crowded with stars when the wanderers reached the mouth of the Helu. That river flowed swifter, louder, and brighter than the Styx into which it emptied. Eastward of the latter, which here ran north, mountains walled off countries still more arid, where nomads roamed. West of it, Taia rose steeply on either side of the Helu Valley, silver-grey in starlight, toward rugged highlands - Taia, which the Stygians called a rebellious province but which the dwellers therein called a nation at war for its liberty. Where the two streams met, on the left bank of the lesser, the white walls of little Seyan town stood amidst slumber and shadow.
'We will go up this tributary,' Daris said, pointing, 'past the cultivated sections, to a grotto I know where we can safely hide the boat. Thence it should be no long stretch afoot to Thuran. If my father is not there now, he will return there in due course, and meanwhile the priests of Mitra will give us hospitality.'
Eagerness tinged her voice, which pleased Conan. She had not done or said anything foolish on the way, as he had feared she might. Far from sulking or crying, she was quietly friendly to both her companions. But the good cheer while bound for Luxur had vanished. He hoped very much that she would get it back.
Having gauged they could pass under a bridge across the Helu, he gave the vessel his command. He had overcome his repugnance for this craft. While he still reckoned such a means of travel unmanly, he must admit its usefulness in a situation like this. The boat swung about. From the bows, Falco signalled everything clear. The force of the mountain river, eddying out into the sullen Styx, vibrated through the hull.
Abruptly the demon-fires sank low. The boat lost speed, her wings began to retract, she drifted back helpless. When well away
from the
confluence, she regained force.
'What the devil!' Conan exclaimed. Bleak as the upland night, alarm struck through him. What sorcery was at work? He set his teeth and made a second try. Again he failed.
Falco came aft. 'I fear our launch refuses to leave her native waters,' the Ophirite said. 'Rather, I suppose the enchantment rises somehow from the Styx itself. If we want to take her up any other river, we must tow her.'
Conan nodded. A glance upward, at the clean blaze of stars and silvery cataract of Milky Way, drove out his fears. 'Aye, that makes sense,' he replied. 'A good thing we did not try heading out to sea, eh? Well, what shall we do?'
'Let us go on south for a few miles,' Daris proposed. 'I recall a place where we can also conceal the boat fairly well - in these troublous times, when nobody wanders freely about. We will have more of an overland journey than we hoped, but nothing beyond our power.'
Her companions agreed. Seyan disappeared behind. The spot Daris meant proved to be a cleft in a stone bluff, so narrow that they could barely manoeuvre through, so deep that the anchored hull would not be visible from the river. They decided they might as well get a night's rest aboard before setting off.
At dawn they scrambled to the heights. From stores in the boat they had equipped themselves well. Their garb was a tunic and rolled-up blanket for each; in addition, the men bore footgear, and kaftans and burnooses against the midday sun. They had dried rations for several days and a waterskin that would see them through to springs and streams which Daris could find. Besides their knives, Conan had his axe, the best weapon for him that had been available; Falco had found a sabre and small round shield made in Iranistan; Daris carried bow, full quiver, and the belt that had served her before.
Throughout that day they strode westward. The country rose fast, hills shouldering toward blue-hazed mountains, cliffs, hollows, ravines, ruddy crags, strewn boulders. It was a stern country, dry, treeless save for tamarisk or acacia growing far apart, mostly decked with waist-high tawny grass which whispered and
rustled in the wind, often snatching at legs with the cruel hooks of thorn bushes. That wind boomed warm across distances which stood sharp to vision in the utterly clear air. It smelled like hay and thunder. Sometimes the travellers passed a stone shelter or saw traces of kine, but herders had fled. Wild animals remained, or had drifted back after man departed - antelope of various kinds, giraffe, zebra, quagga, baboon, lion, seen afar. Butterflies danced gaudy, finches and cranes and francolins flew by, vultures wheeled aloft. Beyond them soared a lone golden eagle.
As she fared, Daris grew ever more happy. 'This is my land,' she exulted. 'I was born to these steep reaches, this huge sky, I am of those who range yonder heights, I have come home!'
Conan made no response. He was a child of Cimmeria in the North, snowy peaks, gloomy forests, chill rains, fugitive sun. Though he might never return there, and though the austere domain around him spoke to something in his spirit, he knew he could not long stay content in this parched brilliance.
Unless he left his bones here, he thought sardonically.
Toward evening of the second day, trouble sprang once again at their throats.
It happened suddenly. With a tor for landmark, Daris had been guiding her party toward a watercourse they could follow for much of the way. Long yellow light-rays in their faces, long shadows at their backs, they climbed a root of the hill and started down its other side. That slope was sharp, into a winding gulch. At the bottom the brook ran fast, noisy, bright in the shade, over smooth-worn rocks. Grass, herbs, rushes, dwarf trees along its banks were startlingly green after mile upon mile of the veldt above. Coolness welled upward.
'Hold!' Conan barked.
His gaze flew ahead. Beside the stream, some two score men had been pitching camp for the night. Large burdens lay stacked beside several pack mules. Cut thorn bush did not actually make a defensive zareba in the manner of the Black Coast, but a low ring of it would discourage intruders and give warning of them. Animal chips burned in small flames; chopped deadwood ought to provide
a larger fire after dark. The men were variously clad in hides or tattered cloth garments or grass skirts, but they were all of the same breed, and it was not Taian. They were purely Negro.
'Travellers from Keshan?' wondered Daris in a tautened voice. She shaded her eyes against glare from the west and squinted into the early dusk below. 'No, they have not quite that appearance.'
'They look like dwellers along the sea coast of southern Kush,' said Conan. 'What might have brought them this far?'
The strangers had likewise seen his group. Yelps rose from them. They grabbed weapons and elliptical shields. Leaping over the thorn-ring, a few bounded uphill, well to right and left of the newcomers. The intent of these was clearly to see if there was anyone else. The majority drew into combat formation and advanced directly, at a slow walk.
'I like this not,' Conan growled.
'You cannot blame them for being suspicious,' Falco said.
'Well, no. We will try for peace, but keep ready to fight.' Conan lifted both hands, widespread. 'We are friends,' he called in Stygian.
A man who must be the leader stepped a little forth from the line of shields. Unlike the rest, who were young and lean, he was grizzled on his woolly pate and had a substantial paunch above his leopardskin kilt. His frame was big enough to carry it easily. Brass bracelets sheened on his thick arms; a golden torque coiled under his double chin and the wide-nosed, full-mouthed visage above. 'Who you?' he demanded. The almost unintelligible accent made clear that his knowledge of the language was slight. 'You from where? Why for?'
'We will go,' Conan offered. 'Now.'
Above him, the scouts waved and called. The leader paused for a moment, then his laugh rolled. 'Ho, ho, ho!' He bawled orders in his own tongue.
The blacks deployed, carnivore-swift. Half sprinted right and left, to reinforce the scouts or to move directly inward at Conan's band. The rest came straight on. 'You drop weapons,' the leader cried in Stygian. 'You be nice, we no kill.'
'No,' Conan sneered, 'you will only take us for the slave market.
And first Daris -' He unslung his axe. His tone became a roar. 'Better men than you have tried!'
Within, he thought that be-like this was the end, for his comrades and himself. It was bitter to be destroyed by nothing more than blind chance; but what else did a soldier of fortune have any right to await? He brought his lips close to the woman's ear and said, 'Whatever happens, they will not get you alive. I swear.'
Her bowstring twanged. Immediately she snatched a fresh arrow. 'Thank you, dearest man,' she said, never looking from her targets. 'If my last kiss is of your axe, I will still know it is given in -in love, and bless you. May we meet again in the halls of Mitra.'
He had no such faith, but her calm eased the anguish in him, and he grinned as he took stance for battle.
'Yaah!' screamed Falco, and started to dash ahead. Conan clapped hold of his shoulder and jerked him to a halt. 'No, you fool,' the Cimmerian snapped. 'We stand back to back. Thus we will slay more of them.'
Daris' arrows caused two or three flesh wounds, but otherwise stuck in shields or missed. As the foe closed in, she dropped the bow, unbuckled her belt, and drew her dirk. Falco's sabre glittered through arcs of challenge. Conan stood ominously poised.
The first man came against him, knobkerrie raised. Conan's axe leaped, smashed through a wood-and-leather shield, clove the neck behind. Blood fountained, a head fell and rolled, a body collapsed. 'Bêlit, Bêlit!' Conan shouted. He battered a shortsword from the owner's grasp. At the corners of his eyes he saw Daris drive her knife into an arm, Falco slice open a leg. A Suba war cry he had heard on the pirate galley ripped out of him. 'Wakonga mutusi! Bêlit, Bêlit!'
The leader jumped backward. He ululated. At that signal, his followers withdrew. Headless corpse at his feet and weapon red in his grip, Conan thought wildly that a faint hope of his might have been realised. His group was still s
urrounded by armed men who glowered, but at a distance of two or three yards. Maybe the chief had decided three slaves were not worth casualties which might prove high, and would let his intended victims go.
The big-bellied Negro trod closer to confront the Cimmerian.
He uttered something. 'I do not know that language,' Conan told him in Stygian, though it sounded familiar.
'Do you know this?' the stranger asked in the lingua franca of the seaboard.
Conan's pulse fluttered. 'Yes, I do,' he responded likewise. 'See here, we are willing to let bygones be bygones if you are, and betake ourselves hence.'
'You cried a name,' said the black slowly. 'And words of the Suba. Do you know what those words mean?'
'Not really.'
The other's chuckle and grin were engaging, in a rascally fashion. 'I would render them as, 'Death be damned; charge!'' He sobered. 'You cried a name. Say it anew, and tell me who bears it.'
For a moment, Conan bristled. However, he knew of no harm his obedience could do; and maybe it would help, if he had indeed stumbled upon members of that one tribe.
Pride rang in his answer. 'I called on Bêlit, because I am her man. She is daughter to Hoiakim of Shem, he whom the Suba entitled Bangulu.'
Awe and delight made the gross countenance almost comely. 'And I am Sakumbe, who knew Bangulu of old and dandled infant Bêlit on my knee,' the Negro said. 'Welcome, welcome!' He dropped his assegai and lumbered forward to enfold Conan in a smelly embrace.
The uncountable stars of Taia wheeled in majesty above its loneliness. Down where a brook chimed, a fire snapped high. Red and yellow light glowed in its pungent smoke and on the men who sat cross-legged around.
As had been the case at sea, the Suba held no grudge for a fellow slain or for injuries, none very serious, that others had sustained. In riotous cordiality, they offered shelter, food, what sour wine was left to them after their trek. They crowded close to listen, albeit none but their chief had a proper command of the lingua franca. From time to time he summarized for them, evidently in phrases more flamboyant than those he had heard.
The Conan Chronology Page 246