At least the bird that accompanied the men he had sent against the soldiers had reported victory. No, not merely victory. Annihilation. But even with that came burdens. The warriors he had sent forth camped now, so said the raven. Squabbling among themselves over the looting of the dead, no doubt. But they would return. They had to. He had given them a victory, a sign from the old gods.
Unbidden the true source of his worries rushed back to mock him, though he tried as he had so often in days past to force it from him. A sign from the old gods. The sign of the ancient gods’ favor. Seven times, now, he had tried to summon the drake, each attempt carefully hidden from the eyes even of his own acolytes, and seven times he had failed. Unrest grew in the camps for the lack of the showing. And those he had sent after the Eyes of Fire had not returned. Could the old gods have withdrawn their grace from him?
Wrapping his arms around him, he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Am I worthy, O gods of my forefathers?” he moaned. “Am I truly worthy?”
“Our question exactly, Imalla,” a voice growled.
Basrakan spun, and blinked to find three hillmen confronting him. He struggled to recover his equilibrium. As he drew himself up, two of the bearded men shrank back. “You dare disturb me?” he rasped. “How did you pass my guards?”
The man who had stood his ground, his mustaches curled like the horns of a bull, spoke. “Even among your guards there are doubts, Imalla.”
“You are called Walid,” Basrakan said, and a flicker of fear appeared in the other’s black eyes.
There were no sorceries involved, though. This Walid had been reported to him as one of the troublemakers, the questioners. It had taken him a moment to remember the man’s description. He had not thought the troublemaking had gone so far as this, however. But he had prepared for every eventuality.
With false calmness he tucked his hands into the long sleeves of his crimson robe. “What doubts do you have, Walid?”
The man’s thick mustache twitched at the repetition of his name, and he half turned his head as if looking for support from his companions. They remained well behind him, meeting neither his eyes nor Basrakan’s. Walid drew a deep breath. “We came here, many of us, because we heard the old gods favored you. Those who came before us speak of a fabulous beast, a sign of that favor, but I have seen no such creature. What I bave seen is thousands of hillmen sent to battle Zamoran soldiers, who have ever before slaughtered us when we fought them in numbers. And I have seen none of those warriors return.”
“That is all?” Basrakan asked.
His suddenly mild tone seemed to startle Walid. “Is it not enough?” the mustached man demanded.
“More than enough,” Basrakan replied. Within his sleeves his hands clasped small pouches he had prepared only a day past, when the unrest among the gathered tribes first truly began to worry him. Now he praised his foresight. “Much more than enough, Walid.”
Basrakan’s hands came out of his sleeves, and in a continuous motion he scattered the powder from one pouch across Walid. As the powder struck, the Imalla’s right hand made ircane gestures, and he chanted in a tongue dead a thousand years.
Walid stared down at his chest in horror for a moment as the chilling incantation went on, then, with a shout of rage and fear, he grabbed for his tulwar. Even as his hand touched the hilt, though, fire spurted from his every pore. Flame surrounded him as clothes and hair turned to ash. His roar of anger became a shrill shriek of agony, then the hiss of boiling grease. A plume of oily black smoke rose from the collapsing sack that had been a man.
The other two men had stood, eyes bulging with terror, but now one burst for the door, and the other fell to his knees crying, “Forgiveness, Imalla! Forgiveness!”
In two quick strides Basrakan was on them, throwing the powder over the fleeing man and the kneeling one alike. His long-fingered hands gestured, and the chant rose once more. The running man made it to the door before fire engulfed him. The other fell on his face, wriggling toward Basrakan, then he, too, was a living pyre. Their screams lasted only moments, blending into a shrill whistle as flame consumed their bones.
At last even the black smoke guttered out. Only small heaps of dark, oily ash were left on the floor, and sooty smudges on the ceiling. The fierce-eyed Imalla viewed the residues of his accusers with satisfaction, but it faded quickly to grim anger. These men would have brothers, cousins, and nephews, scores of male relatives who, while they might fear to confront. Basrakan openly, would most certainly now be a source of further dissension. Some might even go beyond words. The tribesmen lived and died by the blood feud, and nothing could turn them from it save death.
“So be it,” he pronounced intently.
Dark face as cold and calm as if he had a lifetime for the task, Basrakan gathered a sampling from each pile of ash, scraping them into folded scraps of parchment with a bone knife four times blessed in rites before the ancient gods of the Kezankians. Ash from each dead man went into a thick-walled mortar of plain, unworked gold. The sorcerer’s movements quickened as he added further ingredients, for speed now was essential. Powdered virgin’s eye and ground firefly. Salamanders’ hearts and the dried blood of infants. Potions and powders, the ingredients of which he dared not even think of. With the thigh bone of a woman strangled by her own daughter he ground the mixture, twelve times widdershins, intoning the hidden names of the ancient gods, names that chilled the marrow and made vapors of frost hang in the air. Twelve times the other way. Then it was done, this first step, leaving the golden vessel filled almost to the brim with black powder that seemed to swirl like smoke in its depths.
Gingerly, for the blending was deadly to the touch now, Basrakan carried the mortar to a cleared space on the pale stone floor. There, dipping a brush tipped with virgins’ eyelashes into the moist mixture, he carefully scribed a precise pattern on the smooth stone. It was a cross, its arms of equal length exactly aligned to north and south, east and west. Tipping each arm was a circle, within which he drew the four ideograms of the ancient gods, the secret signs of earth, air, water, and fire. Next a triangle, its apex at the meeting of the arms of the cross, enclosed the symbol for the spirits of fire, and that same character was placed on each point of the triangle.
Basrakan paused, staring at what he had wrought, and his breath came fast. He would not admit to fear despite a tightening in his bowels, but this was more dangerous than anything he had yet attempted. An error in any phase, one completed or one to come, and the rite would rebound on him. Yet he knew there was no turning back.
Deftly he tipped the last of the powder into a silver censer on the end of a silver chain. Ordinary flint and steel provided the spark and set it smouldering. Aligning his feet carefully on the broad base of the triangle, he swung the censer in an intricate pattern. Wisps of smoke wafted upward from the silver ball, and Basrakan’s incantation rose with the odoriferous vapors. With each swing of the censer one crystalline word rang in the air, words that even the fiery-eyed Imalla could not hear, for they were not meant for human ears, and the human mind could not comprehend them.
Around him the very air seemed to glisten darkly. Smoke from the censer thickened and fell to the stone floor, aligning itself unnaturally with the pattern drawn there. Basrakan’s chant came faster, and more loudly. The words pealed hollowly, like funereal tolling from the depths of a cavern. Within the ropes of smoke now covering the configuration came a glow, ever fiercer and hotter, till it seemed as if all the fires of the earth’s bowels were bound in those roiling thongs of black. Sweat rolled down Basrakan’s thin cheeks from the heat. The glow became blinding, and his words rose higher and higher, the walls shivering under their impact.
Suddenly Basrakan ceased his cry. Silence came, and in that instant, glow and smoke and drawn pattern all vanished. Even the smoke from the censer failed.
Done, Basrakan thought. Weariness filled him. Even his bones felt weak. But what had had to be done, had been done.
A tremor s
hook him as his eye fell on the remains of his accusers. On each pile of ash, from which all that could be burned had been burned, danced pale flames. Even as he watched they licked into extinction. He drew a deep breath. This was no cause for fear, but rather for exaltation.
Jbeil burst into the chamber, panting, with one hand pressed hard to his side. “The bless … the bless … the blessings …”
“An Imalla must be dignified,” Basrakan snapped. Returning confidence, returning faith, washed away the dregs of his fear. “An Imalla does not run.”
“But the camps, Imalla,” Jbeil managed past gulps of air. “Fire. Men are burning. Burning, Imalla! Warriors, old men, boys. Even babes unweaned, Imalla! They simply burst into flame, and not water or dirt can extinguish them. Hundreds upon hundreds of them!”
“Not so many, I think,” Basrakan replied coolly. “A hundred, perhaps, or even two, but not so many as you say.”
“But, Imalla, there is panic.”
“I will speak to the people, Jbeil, and calm them. Those who died were of tainted blood. Did the means of their dying tell you nothing?”
“The fire, Imalla?” Jbeil said uncertainly. “They offended the spirits of fire?”
Basrakan smiled as if at a pupil who had learned his lesson well. “More than offended, Jbeil. Much more. And all males of their blood shared their atonement.” A thought struck him, a memory of words that seemed to have been spoken days in the past. “My guards, Jbeil. Did you see them as you came in?”
“Yes, Imalla. As I came to you. The two who were at your door accompanied Ruhallah Imalla on some errand.” His eyes took on a sly cast. “They ran, Imalla. Ruhallah knows little of dignity. Only the urgency of my message brought me to such haste.”
“Ruhallah had his own urgency,” Basrakan said so softly he might have been speaking to himself. He fixed the other man with an eye like a dagger. “Ruhallah is to blame for the fiery deaths this day. He and those false guards who flee with him. Ruhallah led those men of the blood that perished this day into false beliefs and tainted ways.” It could be so, he thought. It must be so. Assuredly, it was so. “Ruhallah and the guards who flee with him must be brought back to face payment for what they have done.” Few things amused Basrakan, but the next thought to visit him brought a smile to his thin lips. “They are to be given to the women of the men who died by fire this day. Let those who lost kith and kin exact their vengeance.”
“As you command, Imalla, so will it be.” Jbeil froze in a half-bow, and his eyes went wide. “Aaiee! Imalla, it had been driven from my mind by the burnings and …” Basrakan glared at him, and he swallowed and went on. “Sharmal has returned, Imalla. One of those you sent after the Eyes of Fire, Imalla,” he added when the tall holy man raised a questioning eyebrow.
“They have returned?” Basrakan said, excitement rising in his voice. “The Eyes of Fire are mine! All praise to the old gods!” Abruptly he was coldly calm, only an intensity of tone remaining of the emotion that had filled his speech. “Bring the gems to me. Immediately, fool! Nothing should have kept you from that Nothing! And bring the men, as well. They will not find their rewards small.”
“Imalla,” Jbeil said hesitantly, “Sharmal is alone, and empty handed. He babbles that the rest are dead, and other things, as well. But there is little of sense in any of it. He … he is mad, Imalla.”
Basrakan ground his teeth, and tugged at his forked beard as if he wanted to pull it out by the roots. “Empty handed,” he breathed at last, hoarse and icy. He could not be cheated of his desires now. He would not be. “What occurred, Jbeil? Where are the Eyes of Fire? I will know these things. Put this Sharmal to the question. Strip him of his skin. Sear him to the bone. I will have answers!”
“But, Imalla,” Jbeil whispered, “the man is mad. The protection of the old gods is on him.”
“Do as I command!” Basrakan roared, and his acolyte flinched.
“As … as you command, Imalla, so will it be.” Jbeil bowed deeply, and moved backwards toward the door.
So much had happened, Basrakan thought, in such a short time. There was something he was forgetting. Something … “Jbeil!” The other man jerked to a halt. “There are strangers in the mountains, Jbeil. They are to be found, and any survivors brought to me for offering to the true gods. Let it be done!” He gestured, and Jbeil nearly ran from the room.
XV
“We will make camp now,” Jondra announced while the sun still rose. Arvaneus’ voice rose, echoing her command, and obediently her hunters dismounted and began seeing to the pack animals and their own mounts.
Conan caught her eye questioningly, and she favored him with a smile. “When hunting a rare animal,” she said, “care must be taken not to bypass its feeding grounds. We will spend days in each camp, searching.”
“Let us hope this animal is not also searching,” Conan replied. The noblewoman frowned, but before she could speak Arvaneus came to stand at her stirrup.
“Do you wish the trackers out now, my lady?” he asked.
Jondra nodded, and a shiver of excitement produced effects to draw male eyes. “It would be wonderful to get a shot at my quarry on the first day. Yes, Arvaneus. Put out your best trackers.”
She looked expectantly at Conan, but he pretended not to notice. His tracking skill was the equal of any of the hunters’, but he had no interest in finding the creature Jondra sought. He wanted only to see the two women returned to the safety of Shadizar, and he could offer them no protection if he was out tracking.
Jondra’s face fell when Conan did not speak, but the dark-eyed huntsman smiled maliciously. “It takes a great special skill to be a tracker,” he said to no one in particular. “My lady.” He made an elegant bow to Jondra, then backed away, calling as he straightened. “Trackers out! Telades! Zurat! Abu!” His list ran on, and soon he and nine others were trotting out of the camp in ten different directions. They went afoot, for the slight spoor that a tracker must read as a scribe read words on parchment could be missed entirely from the back of a horse.
With the trackers gone, the beauteous noblewoman began ordering the placement of the camp, and Conan found a place to settle with a honing stone, a bit of rag and a vial of olive oil. A sword must be tended to, especially if it would soon find use, and Conan was sure his blade would not be idle long. The mountains seemed to overhang them with a sense of foreboding, and something permeated the very stones that made him uneasy. The honing stone slid along his blade with quiet sussuration. Morning grew into afternoon.
The camp, Conan decided after a time, was placed as well as it could be under the circumstances. The stunted trees that were scattered so sparsely through the Kezankians were in this spot gathered into what might pass for a grove, though an exceedingly thin one. At least they added some modicum to the hiding of the camp.
Jondra’s scarlet tent, which she had never considered leaving behind, stood between two massive granite boulders and was screened from behind by the brown rock of a sheer cliff. No other tents had been brought—for which small favor the Cimmerian was grateful—and the hunters’ blankets were scattered in twos and threes in a score of well-hidden depressions. The horses were picketed in a long, narrow hollow that could be missed even by a man looking for it. To one unfamiliar with the land the encampment would be all but invisible. The trouble, he thought sourly, was that the hillmen were more than familiar with their mountains. There would be trouble.
As though his thought of trouble had been a signal, a sound sliced through the cool mountain air, and Conan’s hand stopped in the act of oiling his sword blade. Through the jagged peaks echoed a shrill, ululating cry, piercing to the bone and the heart. He had never heard the like of that sound, not from the throat of any man or any creature.
The big Cimmerian was not alone in being disturbed by the hunting call—for such he was sure it was. Hunters sat up in their blankets, exchanging worried glances. Some rose to walk a few paces, eyes searching the steep, encircling slopes. Jondra cam
e to the flap of her tent, head tilted questioningly, listening. She wore leather now, jerkin and breeches, as always fitting her curves like a second skin, but plain brown, suitable for the hunt. When the sound was not repeated she retreated inside once more.
“What in Mitra’s thrice-blessed name was that?” Tamira said, dropping into a crouch near Conan. She adjusted her short white robe to provide a modicum of decency, and wrapped slim arms about her knees. “Can it be the creature Jondra hunts?”
“I would not be surprised if it was,” Conan said. He returned to the oiling of his blade. “Little good those rubies will do you if you end in the belly of that beast.”
“You try to talk me into fleeing,” she retorted, “leaving you with a clear path to the gems.”
“I have told you,” he began, but she cut him off.
“A clear path to Jondra’s sleeping furs, then.”
Conan sighed and slid his broadsword into his sheath. “You were in my arms this night past, and she not for two days. And I said that. I came into these thrice-accursed mountains for you. Do you now call me liar?”
Her eyes slid away from his, to the rugged spires of granite surrounding them. “Do you think the trackers will find it? This beast, I mean? Perhaps, if they do not, we will leave these mountains. I would as well steal the rubies while returning to Shadizar.”
“I would as soon they found naught but sore feet,” Conan said. He remembered the half-charred fragment of skull and horn. “This beast will not be so easy to slay as Jondra believes, I fear. And you will not steal the rubies.”
“So you do mean to take them yourself.”
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