'Today the Master of the Girls came to send a girl to you to learn if you had any hidden weapon. She was to search you while you lay in drugged stupor. Then, when you awoke, she was to beguile you to learn if you were a spy or a true man. He chose me for the task. I was terrified, and when I found you awake all my resolution melted. Do not slay me!'
Conan grunted. He would not have hurt a hair of her head, but he did not choose to tell her so just yet. Her terror could be useful.
'Parusati, do you know anything of a woman who was brought in earlier by a band of Sabateans?'
'Yes, my lord! They brought her here captive to make another pleasure girl like the rest of us. But she is strong, and after they reached the city and delivered her into the hands of the Hyrkanian guards, she broke free, snatched a dagger, and slew the brother of Zahak. Zahak demanded her life, and he is too powerful even for Virata to refuse in this matter.'
'So that's why the Magus lied about Nanaia,' muttered Conan.
'Aye, my lord. Nanaia lies in a dungeon below the palace, and tomorrow she is to be given to the Hyrkanian for torture and execution.'
Conan's dark face became sinister. 'Lead me tonight to Zahak's sleeping quarters,' he demanded, his narrowed eyes betraying his deadly intention.
'Nay, he sleeps among his warriors, all proven swordsmen of the steppes, too many even for so mighty a fighter as you. But I can lead you to Nanaia.'
'What of the guard in the corridor?'
'He will not see us, and he will not admit anyone else here until he has seen me depart.'
'Well, then?' Conan rose to his feet like a tiger setting out on its hunt.
Parusati hesitated. 'My lord―do I read your mind rightly, that you mean, not to join these devils, but to destroy them?'
Conan grinned wolfishly. 'You might say accidents have a way of happening to those I like not.'
'Then will you promise not to harm me, and if you can to free me?'
'If I can. Now let's not waste more time in chatter. Lead on.'
Parusati drew aside a tapestry on the wall opposite the door and pressed on the arabesqued design. A panel swung inward, revealing a narrow stair that slanted down into lightless depths.
'The masters think their slaves do not know their secrets,' she muttered. 'Come.'
She led the way into the stair, closing the panel after them. Conan found himself in darkness that was almost complete, save for a few gleams of light through holes in the panel. They descended until Conan guessed that they were well beneath the palace and then struck a narrow, level tunnel, which ran away from the foot of the stair.
'A Kshatriya who planned to flee Yanaidar showed me this secret way,'
she said. 'I planned to escape with him. We hid food and weapons here.
He was caught and tortured, but died without betraying me. Here is the sword he hid.' She fumbled in a niche and drew out a blade, which she gave to Conan.
A few moments later they reached an iron-bound door, and Parusati, gesturing for caution, drew Conan to it arid showed him a tiny aperture to peer through. He looked down a wide corridor, flanked on one side by a blank wall in which showed a single ebon door, curiously ornate and heavily bolted, and on the other by a row of cells with barred doors.
The other end of the corridor was not far distant and was closed by another heavy door. Archaic hanging bronze lamps cast a mellow glow.
Before one of the cell doors stood a resplendent Hyrkanian in glittering corselet and plumed helmet, scimitar in hand. Parusati's fingers tightened on Conan's arm.
'Nanaia is in that cell,' she whispered. 'Can you slay the Hyrkanian?
He is a mighty swordsman.'
With a grim smile, Conan tried the balance of the blade she had given him―a long Vendhyan steel, light but well nigh unbreakable. Conan did not stop to explain that he was master alike of the straight blades of the West and the curved blades of the East, of the double-curved Ilbarsi knife and the leaf-shaped broadsword of Shem. He opened the secret door.
As he stepped into the corridor, Conan glimpsed the face of Nanaia staring through the bars behind the Hyrkanian. The hinges creaked, and the guard whirled catlike, lips drawn back in a snarl, and then instantly came to the attack.
Conan met him halfway, and the two women witnessed a play of swords that would have burned the blood of kings. The only sounds were the quick soft shuffle and thud of feet, the slither and rasp of steel, and the breathing of the fighters. The long, light blades flickered lethally in the illusive light, like living things, parts of the men who wielded them.
The hairline balance shifted. The Hyrkanian's lip curled in ferocious recognition of defeat and desperate resolve to take his enemy into death with him. A louder ring of Blades, a flash of steel―and Conan's flickering blade seemed to caress his enemy's neck in passing. Then the Hyrkanian was stretched on the floor, his neck half severed. He had died without a cry.
Conan stood over him for an instant, the sword in his hand stained with a thread of crimson. His tunic had been torn open, and his muscular breast rose and fell easily. Only a film of sweat glistening there and on his brow betrayed the strain of his exertions. He tore a bunch of keys from the dead man's girdle, and the grate of steel in the lock seemed to awaken Nanaia from a trance.
'Conan! I had given up hope, but you came. What a fight! Would that I could have struck a blow in it!' The tall girl stepped forth lightly and picked up the Hyrkanian's sword. 'What now?'
'We shan't have a chance if we make a break before dark,' said Conan.
'Nanaia, how soon will another guard come to relieve the man I killed?'
'They change the guard every four hours. His watch had just begun.'
Conan turned to Parusati. 'What time of day is it? I have not seen the sun since early this morning.'
The Vendhyan girl said: 'It is well into the afternoon. Sundown should be within four hours.'
Conan perceived he had been in Yanaidar longer than he had realised.
'As soon as it's dark, we'll try to get away. We'll go back to my chamber now. Nanaia shall hide on the secret stair, while Parusati goes out the door and back to the girls' apartments.'
'But when the guard comes to relieve this one,' said Nanaia, 'he'll see I have escaped. You should leave me here till you're ready to go, Conan.'
'I dare not risk it; I might not be able to get you out then. When they find you gone, maybe the confusion will help us. We'll hide this body.'
He turned toward the curiously decorated door, but Parusati gasped: 'Not that way, my lord! Would you open the door to Hell?'
'What mean you? What lies beyond that door?'
'I know not. The bodies of executed men and women, and wretches who have been tortured but still live, are carried through this door. What becomes of them I do not know, but I have heard them scream more terribly than they did under torture. The girls say a man-eating demon has his lair beyond that door.'
'That may be,' said Nanaia. 'But some hours ago a slave came through here to hurl through that door something which was neither a man nor a woman, though what it was I could not see.'
'It was doubtless an infant,' said Parusati with a shudder.
I'll tell you,' said Conan. 'We'll dress this body in your clothes and lay it in the cell, with the face turned away from the door. You're a big girl, and they will fit him. When the other guard comes, maybe he'll think it is you, asleep or dead, and start looking for the guard instead of you. The longer before they find you've escaped, the more time we shall have.'
Without hesitation, Nanaia slipped out of her jacket, whipped her shirt off over her head, and dropped her trousers while Conan pulled the clothes off the Hyrkanian. Parusati gave a gasp of shock.
'What's the matter, don't you know what a naked human being looks like?' snarled Conan. 'Help me with this'
In a few minutes Nanaia was dressed in the Hyrkanian's garments, all but the helmet and corselet She dabbed ineffectively at the blood that soaked the upper part of the lo
ngsleeved coat while Conan dragged the Hyrkanian, in Nanaia's clothes, into the cell. He turned the dead man's face down and toward the wall so that its wisp of beard and moustache should not show and pulled Nanaia's shirt up over the ghastly wound in the neck. Conan locked the cell-door behind him and handed the keys to Nanaia. He said:
'There's nothing we can do about the blood on the floor. I have no definite plan for escaping the city yet. If I can't get away I'll kill Virata―and the rest will be in Crom's hands. If you two get out and I don't, try to go back along the trail and meet the Kushafis as they come. I sent Tubal after them at dawn, so he should reach Kushaf after nightfall, and the Kushafis should get to the canyon below the plateau tomorrow morning.'
They returned to the secret door, which, when closed, looked like part of the blank stone wall. They traversed the tunnel and groped their way up the stair.
'Here you must hide until the time comes,' said Conan to Nanaia. 'Keep the swords; they'll do me no good until then. If anything happens to me, open the panel-door and try to get away, with Parusati if she comes for you.'
'As you will, Conan.' Nanaia seated herself cross-legged on the topmost step.
When Conan and Parusati were back in the chamber, Conan said: 'Go now; if you stay too long, they may get suspicious. Contrive to return to me here as soon as it is well dark. I think I'm to stay here till this fellow Tiger returns. When you come back, tell the guard the Magus sent you. I'll attend to him when we are ready to go. And tell them you saw me drink this drugged wine, and that you searched me without finding any arms.'
'Aye, my lord! I will return after dark.' The girl was trembling with fear and excitement as she left.
Conan took up the winejug and smeared just enough wine on his mouth to make a detectable scent Then he emptied the contents in a nook behind the tapestries and threw himself on his divan as if asleep.
In a few moments the door opened again and a girl entered. Conan did not open his eyes, but he knew it was a girl by the light rustle of her bare feet and the scent of her perfume, just as he knew by the same evidences that it was not Parusati returning. Evidently the Magus did not place too much trust in any one woman. Conan did not believe she had been sent there to slay him―poison in the wine would have been enough―so he did not risk peering through slitted lids.
That the girl was afraid was evident by the quick tremor of her breathing. Her nostrils all but touched his lips as she sniffed to detect the drugged wine on his breath. Her soft hands stole over him, searching for hidden weapons. Then with a sigh of relief she glided away.
Conan relaxed. It would be hours before be could make any move, so he might as well snatch sleep when he could.
His life and those of the girls depended on his being able to find or make a way out of the city that night. In the meantime, he slept as soundly as if he lay in the house of a friend.
V
The Mask Falls
Conan awoke the instant a hand touched the door to his room, and came to his feet, fully alert, as Khaza entered with a bow. The Stygian said:
'The Magus of the Sons of Yezm desires your presence, my lord. The Tiger has returned.'
So the Tiger had returned sooner than the Magus had expected! Conan felt a premonitory tenseness as he followed the Stygian out of the chamber. Khaza did not lead him back to the chamber where the Magus had first received him. He was conducted through a winding corridor to a gilded door before which stood a Hyrkanian swordsman. This man opened the door, and Khaza hurried Conan across the threshold. The door closed behind them. Conan halted.
He stood in a broad room without windows but with several doors. Across the chamber, the Magus lounged on a divan with his black slaves behind him. Clustered about him were a dozen armed men of various races: Zuagirs, Hyrkanians, Iranistanis, Shemites, and even a villainous-looking Kothian, the first Hyborian that Conan had seen in Yanaidar.
But the Cimmerian spared these men only the briefest glance. His attention was fixed on the man who dominated the scene. This man stood between him and the Magus' divan, with the wide-legged stance of a horseman. He was as tall as Conan, though not so massive. His shoulders were broad; his supple figure hard as steel and springy as whalebone. A short black beard failed to hide the aggressive jut of his lean jaw, and grey eyes cold and piercing gleamed under his tall Zaporoskan fur cap. Tight breeches emphasized his leanness. One hand caressed the hilt of his jewelled saber; the other stroked his thin moustache.
Conan knew the game was up. For this was Olgerd Vladislav, a Zaporoskan adventurer, who knew Conan too well to be deceived. He would hardly have forgotten how Conan had forced him out of the leadership of a band of Zuagirs and given him a broken arm as a farewell gift, less than three years previously.
'This man desires to join us,' said Virata.
The man they called the Tiger smiled thinly. 'It would be safer to bed with a leopard. I know Conan of old. He'll worm his way into your band, turn the men against you, and run you through when you least expect it.'
The eyes fixed on the Cimmerian grew murderous. No more than the Tiger's word was needed to convince his men.
Conan laughed. He had done what he could with guile and subtlety, and now the game was up. He could drop the mask from the untamed soul of the berserk barbarian and plunge into the bright madness of battle without doubts or regrets.
The Magus made a gesture of repudiation. 'I defer to your judgement in these matters, Tiger. Do what you will; he is unarmed.'
At the assurance of the helplessness of their prey, wolfish cruelty sharpened the faces of the warriors. Edged steel slid into view. Olgerd said:
'Your end will be interesting. Let us see if you are still as stoical as when you hung on the cross in Khauran. Bind him, men―'
As he spoke, the Zaporoskan reached for his saber in a leisurely manner, as if he had forgotten just how dangerous the black-haired barbarian could be, what savage quickness lurked in Conan's massive thews. Before Olgerd could draw his sword, Conan sprang and struck as a panther slashes. The impact of his clenched fist was like that of a sledge hammer. Olgerd went down, blood spurring from his jaw.
Before Conan could snatch the Zaporoskan's sword, the Kothian was upon him. Only he had realised Conan's deadly quickness and ferocity, and even he had not been swift enough to save Olgerd. But he kept Conan from securing the saber, for he had to whirl and grapple as the three-foot Ilbarsi knife rose above him. Conan caught the knife wrist as it fell, checking the stroke in mid-air, the iron sinews springing out on his own wrist in the effort. His right hand ripped a dagger from the Kothian's girdle and sank it to the hilt under his ribs almost with the same motion. The Kothian groaned and sank down dying, and Conan wrenched away the long knife as he crumpled.
All this had happened in a stunning explosion of speed, embracing a mere tick of time. Olgerd was down and the Kothian dying before the others could get into action. When they did, they were met by the yard-long knife in the hand of the most terrible knife fighter of the Hyborian Age.
Even as Conan whirled to meet the rush, the long blade licked out and a Zuagir went down, choking out his life through a severed jugular. A Hyrkanian shrieked, disemboweled. A Stygian overreached with a ferocious dagger lunge and reeled away, clutching the crimson-gushing stump of a wrist.
Conan did not put his back to the wall this time. He sprang into the thick of his foes, wielding his dripping knife murderously. They swirled and milled about hint' He was the centre of a whirlwind of blades that flickered and lunged and slashed, and yet somehow missed their mark again and again as he shifted his position constantly and so swiftly that he baffled the eye which sought to follow him. Their numbers hindered them; they cut thin air and gashed one another, confused by his speed and demoralized by the wolfish ferocity of his onslaught.
At such deadly close quarters, the long knife was more effective than the scimitars and tulwars. Conan had mastered its every use, whether the downward swing that splits a skull or the upward rip that spi
lls out a man's entrails.
It was butcher's work, but Conan made no false motion. He waded through that melee of straining bodies and lashing blades like a typhoon, leaving a red wake behind him.
The melee lasted only a moment. Then the survivors gave back, stunned and appalled by the havoc wrought among them. Conan wheeled and located the Magus against the farther wall between the stolid Kushites. Then, even as his leg-muscles tensed for a leap, a shout brought him around.
A group of Hyrkanian guardsmen appeared at the door opening into the corridor, drawing thick, double-curved bows to the chin, while those in the room scurried out of the way. Conan's hesitation lasted no longer than an eyeblink, while the archers' right arms, bulging with taut muscles, drew back their bowstrings. In that flash of consciousness he weighed his chances of reaching the Magus and killing him before he himself died. He knew he would be struck in mid-leap by a half-dozen shafts, driven by the powerful compound bows of the Hyrkanian deserts, which slay at five hundred paces. Their force would tear through his light mail shirt, and their impact alone would be enough to knock him down.
As the commander of the squad of archers opened his mouth to cry 'Loose!', Conan threw himself flat on the floor. He struck just as the archers' ringers released their bowstrings. The arrows whipped through the air inches above his back, criss-crossing in their flight with a simultaneous whistling screech.
As the archers reached back for the arrows in their quivers, Conan drove his fists, still holding the knife and the dagger, downward with such force that his body flew into the air and landed on its feet again. Before the Hyrkanians would nock their second flight of arrows, Conan was among them. His tigerish rush and darting blades left a trail of writhing figures behind him. Then he was through the milling mob and racing down the corridor. He dodged through rooms and slammed doors behind him, while the uproar in the palace grew. Then he found himself racing down a narrow corridor, which ended in a cul-de-sac with a barred window.
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