"Pretty wench," Hordo commented, staring after the galloping Vyndra.
"Rides well, too." He looked around to see if anyone was close by, then dropped his voice. "Did you find the chests?"
Conan shook his head. "But they are here. Someone tried to kill me."
"Always a good way to begin a day," Hordo said dryly. "Did you discover anything at all?"
"Three men tried to hire me as a spy and that 'pretty wench' wants to add me to her menagerie."
"Your humor is beyond me, Cimmerian."
"I also found out that my eyes are demonspawned, and beyond that I learned that Vendhya is a madhouse."
The one-eyed man grunted as he swung into the saddle. "The first I've told you before myself. And the second is known to all. It looks as if we were finally moving."
The wazam's party-Conan remembered Torio saying it had to be first in the line of march-was beginning to stretch out in a line somewhat east of due south, with Vendhyan lancers in two columns to either side.
Karim Singh himself was in an ornate litter of ebony and gold, borne between four horses. An arched canopy of gleaming white silk stretched above the palanquin and hangings of golden gossamer draped the sides.
Kandar rode beside the litter, bending low out of his saddle to speak urgently to the man within.
"If they tried to kill you," Hordo went on, "at least you have stirred them up."
"Perhaps I have," Conan said. He pulled his gaze away from the wazam's litter. "Let us join Kang Hou and the others, Hordo. There are hours of light left for traveling yet today."
Chapter XIII
Night and the depths of the earth were necessary for some things. Some doings could not bear the light of day or exposure to witness of the open sky. As it did so often of late, night found Naipal in the gray-domed chamber far below his palace. The air had the very smell of necromancy, a faint, sickly-sweet taint of decay blended with the indefinable yet unmistakable hellish odor of evil. The smell hung about Naipal, a thing it had not done before his last deeds in that chamber, but he did not notice nor would he have cared had he.
He swung from contemplation of the resurrected warrior, standing as still as stone against the canescent wall in the same spot to which Naipal had at last commanded him on the previous night. The wizard's eyes went to his worktable, skipping quickly over the chest of carved ivory. There, in crystal-stoppered flasks, were the five ingredients necessary for the transfer of life, the total quantity of them that he possessed. In King Orissa's tomb beneath the lost city of Maharashtra stood twenty thousand deathless warriors. An undying, ever-conquering army. And he could give life to perhaps twenty.
With a wordless snarl, he began to pace. The ancient mages who prepared Orissa's tomb had complied with the King's commands to set him an ever-lasting bodyguard. But those thaumaturges feared the uses to which that bodyguard could be put if ever it were wakened, and they planned well. Only one of the five ingredients could be obtained in Vendhya.
The others, chosen partly because they were little-used in sorceries, could be found only in lands little more than legend in Vendhya even two thousand years later. He had made arrangements, of course, but of what use were they when disaster loomed over his head? Forcing his eyes to the ornate ivory chest, he clenched his fists and glared as though he wished to smash it, and he was not sure that he did not. When finally he had dragged himself from the chamber on the night before, it had been as one fleeing. Creeping through the corridors of his own palace like a thief, he told himself that this was not the paralysis returning, not the fear. He had conquered that. Merely he needed to rest, to refresh himself. Musicians were summoned, and food and wine, but all tasted like sawdust, and the flutes and citherns clawed at his nerves. He ordered cooks and musicians both to be flogged. By twos and threes the women of his purdhana were brought to him and returned, weeping and welted for their failures to please. Five times in the course of the day he had commanded that ten thousand pice be distributed to the poor in his name, but even that produced no uplifting of his spirits. Now he was back in his sorcery-carved chambers in the earth's bowels. Here he would deal at last with the source of his danger, whatever or wherever it was.
His hands reached toward the flat ivory box ... and stopped at the chime of a bell. Quizzically his head swiveled toward the sound. On one corner of the rosewood table, crowded amidst crystal beakers filled with noxious substances and oddly glowing vials sealed with lead, was another flat chest, this of polished satinwood with a silver bell, scribed about with arcane symbols, mounted atop it. Even as he looked, the bell sounded once more.
"So the fool finally found the courage to use it," Naipal muttered. He hesitated, wanting to see to his own problems, but the bell rang again.
Breathing heavily, he moved around the table to the satinwood chest.
Its lid came off, and he set it aside to stare down at a mirror that showed his image and that of the chamber in quite ordinary fashion. The mirror slid within the box on rails and props so that it could be set at any angle. He raised it almost upright. Eight tiny bone trays came next, atop silver pegs that fitted into holes on the edge of the box, one at each corner, one in the precise middle of each side.
Again the bell chimed, and he cursed. Powders prepared long in advance and stored with the mirror were carefully ladled onto the tiny trays with a bone spatula. Last to come from the box was a small silver mallet, graven with miniscule renderings of the symbols on the bell.
"Sa'ar-el!" Naipal intoned. A blue spark leaped from mallet to bell, and the bell rang. As it did, the powders at the four cardinal points flared in blue flame. Before those tiny berylline fires died in wisps of smoke, he spoke again. "Ka'arel!" Once more the bell sounded untouched, and blue flame leaped at the minor points. "Ma'ar-el!
Diendar!" For the third time the chime came and in the mirror Naipal's reflection swirled and dissolved into a maelstrom of color.
Slowly the polychrome whirling coalesced into the image of a narrowfaced man in turban of cloth-of-gold wrapped about with golden chains set with rubies. "Naipal?" the man said. "Asura be praised that it is you."
"Excellency," Naipal said, suppressing his irritation, "how may I serve the Adviser to the Elephant, soon to be the Elephant?"
Karim Singh started and stared about him as though fearing who might be behind him. The man could not be fool enough, Naipal thought, to have someone with him while he used the scrying mirror. Could he?
"You should not say such things," the wazam said. "Asura alone knows who might overhear. Another wizard perhaps, listening. And now, of all times."
"Excellency, I have explained that only those in the actual presence of these two mirrors . . ." Naipal stopped and drew a deep breath.
Explaining to the fool for the hundredth time was useless. "I am Naipal, court wizard to King Bhandarkar of Vendhya. I plot the death of Bhandarkar and spit on his memory. I plot to place His Excellency Karim Singh on the throne of Vendhya. Your Excellency sees. I would not say these things if anyone could overhear."
Karim Singh nodded, though his face was pasty. "I suppose I must ...
trust you, Naipal. After all, you serve me faithfully. I also trust that you know it would be well to give more faithfulness to me than you have given Bhandarkar."
"I am Your Excellency's servant." Naipal wondered if the man had any inkling of how much of his rise to power was the wizard's doing. "And how may I serve Your Excellency now?"
"I ... do not know exactly," the wazam said. "It could be disaster. The treaty is destroyed, without doubt. Our heads may roll. I warn you, Naipal, I will not go to the block alone."
Naipal sighed irritably. The treaty with Turan followed the simple principles he had led Karim Singh to believe were his own. To seize the throne at Bhandarkar's death required a land in turmoil. Outside enemies tended to unify a country. Therefore all nations that might threaten Vendhya-Turan, Iranistan, the nations and city-states of Khitai and Uttara Koru and Kambuja-must be placated,
made to feel neither threatened by nor threatening toward Vendhya. The wizard's preferred method was the manipulation of people in key positions, supplemented by sorcery where needed. It was Karim Singh who thought in terms of treaties. Still, the journey to Turan had kept him safely out of Naipal's way for a time.
"Excellency, if Yildiz would not sign, it is of no import. Assuredly, even if Bhandarkar holds the failure against Your Excellency, he has no time to-"
"Listen to me, fool!" Karim Singh's eyes bulged hysterically. "The treaty was signed! And perhaps within hours of that signing the High Admiral of Turan was dead! At the hands of Vendhyan assassins! Who else but Bhandarkar himself would dare such a thing? And if it is indeed him, then what game does he play? Do we move against him unseen, or does he merely toy with us?"
Sweat dampened Naipal's palms as he listened, but he would not wipe them while the other could see. His eyes flickered to the ivory chest.
An army? With wizards perhaps? But how could such be mobilized without his knowing? "Bhandarkar cannot know," he said at last. "Is Your Excellency sure of all of the facts? Stories often become distorted."
"Kandar was convinced. And this Patil, who told him, is no man for intrigue. Why, he is as devious as a newborn infant."
"Describe . . . this Patil to me," the wizard said softly. Karim Singh frowned. "A barbarian. A pale-skinned giant with the eyes of a pan-kur-. Where are you going? Naipal!"
Before the description was finished, the wizard leaped to the ivory chest. He threw back the lid, brushed aside the silken coverings and stared at exactly what he had seen the night before, a vast array of fires in the night. Not an army. A huge caravan. So many pieces suddenly fell into place, yet for every answer there was a new question. He became aware again of Karim Singh's shouting.
"Naipal! Karat take you! Where are you? Return instantly or by Asura .
. ." The wizard moved again in front of the mirror that contained Karim Singh's now-apoplectic visage. "Just in time to save your head! How dare you leave like that, without so much as craving permission or a word of explanation? I will not tolerate such-"
"Excellency. Please. Your Excellency must listen. This man calling himself Patil, this barbarian giant with the eyes of a pan-kur-"-in spite of himself, Naipal shuddered at that; could it be an omen, or worse?-"he must die, and everyone with him. Tonight, Excellency."
"Why?" Karim Singh demanded.
"His description," the mage improvised. "Various divinations have brought it to me that a man of that description can bring ruin to all our plans. And as well there is another threat to us in the same caravan with Your Excellency, a threat of which I learned only a short time ago. There is a party of Vendhyan merchants. Their leader is a man called Sabah, though he may use another name. They have pack mules rather than camels, bearing what will appear to be bales of silk."
"I suppose these men must die as well," Karim Singh said and Naipal nodded.
"Your Excellency understands well." Commands had been given and apparently not obeyed. Naipal did not tolerate failure.
"Again, why?"
"The arts of divination are uncertain as to details, Excellency. All that I can say for certain is that every day, every hour that these men live, is a threat to Your Excellency's ascension to the throne." The wizard paused, choosing his words. "There is one other matter, Excellency. Within what appear to be the bales of silk of the Vendhyan merchants will be chests sealed with lead seals. These chests must be brought to me with the seals unbroken. And I must add that the last is more important to Your Excellency's gaining the throne than all the rest, than all we have done so far. The chests must be brought to me with the seals unbroken."
"My gaining the throne," Karim Singh said flatly, "depends on chests being brought to you? Chests that are with the very caravan in which I travel? Chests of which you knew nothing until a short time ago?"
"Before Asura, it is so," Naipal replied. "May my soul be forfeit." It was an easy oath to make; that forfeit had been made long since.
"Very well then. The men will be dead before the sun rises. And the chests will be brought to you. Peace be with you." The silver bell chimed in sympathy with the silver bell in the wazam's tent so far away, and the image in the mirror leaped and was that of Naipal.
"And peace be with you, most excellent of fools," the wizard muttered.
He looked at his palms. The sweat was still there. So many new questions, but death would provide all the answers he needed. Smiling, he wiped his hands on his robes.
Chapter XIV
Absolute darkness was pushed back from the night-swathed encampment by hundreds of campfires scattered among a thousand tents. Many of those tents glowed with the light of lamps within, casting moving, mysterious shadows on walls, whether silk or cotton, made less than opaque. The thrum of citherns floated in the air, and the smell of cinnamon and saffron from meals not long consumed.
Conan approached Vyndra's tent with an uncertainty he was not used to.
All during the day's march he had avoided her, and if that consisted mainly in staying with Kang Hou's camels rather than seeking her out, it had not been so easily done as it sounded. It was possible she wanted him only as an oddity for her noble friends in Ayodhya, a strange-eyed barbarian at which to gawk, but on the other hand, a woman did not look at an oddity coquettishly through lowered lashes. In any case, she was beautiful, he was young, and therefore he had come as she asked.
Ducking through the tent's entrance flap, he found himself staring Alyna in the eyes, which was still all he could see of her for thick veils and heavy robes. "Your mistress," he began and cut off as a flash of murderous rage flickered through the woman's eyes.
As quickly as it appeared, though, it was gone, and she bowed him deeper into the tent, which, though smaller than Karim Singh's was divided within in much the same fashion by silken hangings.
In a central chamber floored with exquisite Vendhyan carpets and lit by golden lamps, Vyndra stood awaiting him. "You came, Patil. I am glad."
Conan clamped his teeth firmly to keep from gaping. Gold and rubies and emeralds still bedecked her, but the robes she had worn earlier were now replaced by layers of purest gossamer. She was covered from ankles to neck, yet her position in front of a lamp cast shadows of tantalizing mystery on rounded surfaces, and the scent of jasmine floating from her seemed the very distillation of wickedness.
"If this were Turan," he said when he found his tongue, "or Zamora or Nemedia, and there were two women in a room dressed as the two of you, it would be Alyna who was free, and you who were slave. To a man, without doubt, and the delight of his eye."
Vyndra smiled, touching a finger to her lips. "How foolish of those women to let their slaves outshine them. But if you wish to see Alyna, I will have her dance for you. I have no other dancing girls with me, I fear. Unlike Karim Singh and the other men, I do not find them a necessity."
"I would much rather see you dance," he told her, and she laughed low in her throat.
"That is something no man will ever see." Yet she twined her arms above her head and stretched in a motion so supple it cried dancer, and one that dried Conan's throat. That fabric was more than merely sheer when drawn tight.
"If I could have some wine," he asked hoarsely.
"Of course. Wine, Alyna, and dates. But sit, Patil. Rest yourself." She pressed him down onto piled cushions of silk and velvet. He was not sure of exactly how she managed this since she had to reach up to put her small hands on his shoulders, but he suspected the perfume had something to do with it.
He tried to put his arms around her then, while she bent over him so enticingly, but she slipped away like an eel and reclined on the cushions just an arm's length away. He settled for accepting a goblet of perfumed wine from Alyna. The cup was as heavy as the one in which the wazam had given him wine, though instead of amethysts, it was studded with coral beads.
"Vendhya seems to be a rich land," he said after he had drunk, "though I've not been th
ere yet to see it."
"It is," Vyndra said. "And what else do you know of Vendhya before you have been there?"
"Vendhyans make carpets," he said, slapping the one beneath the cushions, "and they perfume their wine and their women alike."
"What else?" she giggled.
"Women from the purdhana are shamed by baring their faces but not by baring anything else." That brought an outright laugh, though the edges of a blush showed about Alyna's veil. Conan liked Vyndra's laughter, but he was already tired of the sport. "Beyond that, Vendhya seems to be famous for spies and assassins."
Both women gasped as one, and Vyndra's face paled. "I lost my father to the Katari. As did Alyna."
"The Katari?"
"The assassins for which Vendhya is so famous. You mean you did not even know the name?" Vyndra shook her head and shuddered. "They kill, sometimes for gold, sometimes for whim it seems, but always the death is dedicated to the vile goddess Katar."
"That name I have heard," he said, "somewhere."
Vyndra sniffed. "No doubt on the lips of a man. It is a favorite oath of Vendhyan men. No woman would be so foolish as to call on one dedicated to endless death and carnage."
She was clearly shaken, and he could sense her withdrawing into herself. Frantically he sought another topic, one fit for a woman's ears. One of her poets would no doubt compose a verse on the spot, he thought bitterly, but all the verse he knew was set to music, and most of it would made a trull blush.
"A man of your country did say something out of the ordinary to me today," he said slowly, and latched on to the one remark out of several that would bear repeating. "He thought my eyes marked me as demonspawn.
A pan-kur, he called it. You obviously do not believe it, else you'd have run screaming rather than inviting me to drink your wine."
"I might believe it," she said, "if I had not talked to learned men who told me of far-off lands where the men are all giants with eyes like sapphires. And I rarely run screaming from anything." A small smile had returned to play on her lips. "Of course, if you actually claim to be a pan-kur, I would never doubt the man who calls himself Patil."
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