“Most effective,” Akiro said with a smile, as the others joined her. Malak studiously avoided looking at her bosom even after she was covered.
Conan did not wait for talk. The coming of night weighed him like massive stones on his shoulders. Sword in hand, he raced up the stairs, barely hearing the clatter as the rest followed behind.
“You sent for me, my aunt?” Jehnna said from the door.
Taramis put on a smile, pleasant and, she believed, familial. One more role the girl had to fill, she thought, and for that Jehnna had been prepared well. Thin black silk covered her to the floor, hugging her slender curves. Her black hair, dressed simply, flowed about her shoulders, and her face was bare of any trace of kohl or rouge. A scrubbed face for innocence, and black silk for the Night And the girl’s black contrasted well with her own scarlet silk, slashed to show her voluptuous curves to best advantage before the god.
“Yes, child,” Taramis answered. “This is your natal day, and tonight you fulfill your destiny. Come, drink a celebration cup with me.” She filled the second goblet, then held out the first to the girl. “You are a woman, now, and old enough for wine.”
Jehnna took the goblet hesitantly, peering at the dark ruby liquid within. “I have often wondered about wine,” she said.
“Drink,” Taramis told her. “Drink deeply. It is best so.” She held her breath while Jehnna hesitated further, then let it out when the slender girl raised the goblet, drinking as commanded, deeply.
Jehnna gave a little laugh as she lowered the almost empty goblet. “It warms so, swirling all through me it seems.”
“Do you feel lightheaded? That happens, sometimes.”
“I feel … I feel …” Jehnna trailed off with a slight giggle.
Tarmis took the golden cup from unresisting fingers and studied the girl’s large eyes. Wine would not act so fast, even on one so unfamiliar with it as Jehnna, but the powder should. It had to have taken effect. “Kneel, child,” she said.
Smiling as if it were the most ordinary thing to be told to do, Jehnna knelt.
The powder worked quite as well as a spell, Taramis thought. There would be no hesitation at a fatal moment Aloud, she said, “Stand up, child.” Even as Jehnna rose she went on. “Xanteres! She is ready.”
The mild-faced high priest hurried into the room with the golden casket in his hands. He reached to open it himself, but Taramis brushed his thin hand aside. It was her place to do this. When the casket lid was lifted, she barely saw the glowing Heart of Ahriman. On the morrow, when it was safe for her to touch the stone, many wonders of great power could she do with the Heart Tonight, only the Horn of Dagoth had importance.
“Take up the Horn, child,” Taramis said, then watched jealously as Jehnna’s fingers curled around its curving golden length.
In the courtyard four brazen gongs sounded their rolling tones. Full night drew nigh.
“Come, child,” Taramis said. And, bearing the Horn of Dagoth before her, Jehnna followed toward her destiny.
Treading carefully, silently, Conan made his way down a palace corridor, unheeding of rare Vendhyan carpets on the marble floor or ancient Iranistani tapestries lining the walls where golden lamps flickered. Warily his companions followed him. Taramis’ guards were everywhere. Twice already they had been forced to hide in a crossing hall, Conan gritting his teeth in frustration, while half a score of the black-armored men marched past As much as urgency spurred him, it would be impossible to engage such a squad without an alarm being given. And Jehnna must be found before any alarm, if there was to be a hope of getting her out alive.
The Cimmerian stepped into the intersection of two corridors, and the creak of leather gave him a chance to live. On either side of him, leaning against the wall where he could not see them before, was a guard in ebon breastplate and nasaled helm. Their hands streaked for their swords as he appeared. There was no time to think of what to do; he must act.
With a two-handed grip on his hilt Conan pivoted to the left, driving his blade through the guard’s breastplate while the other’s sword was yet half-drawn. In one motion he pulled his steel free and continued his spin. The other man had his tulwar drawn, and was making the mistake of raising it to slash rather than thrusting. The tip of Conan’s streaking blade slashed across the undersides of the man’s upraised arms. As the guard jerked his arms down in reflex at the agony, Conan completed his turn, taking a step closer as his sword twisted in a narrow loop and bit deeply into the black helmet. The second corpse struck the marble floor within a heartbeat of the first.
Malak whistled in admiration, and Zula stared in awe. “You are fast,” she breathed. “Never have I seen—”
“These men,” Conan cut her off, “will be found soon, or missed, whether we hide them or not.”
“You mean the tenscore guards are going to know we’re here?” Malak’s voice was shrill. “Danh’s Bony Rump!”
“Go back to the dungeon,” Zula said scornfully. “The way out is yet open.”
Malak grimaced, then drew his daggers. “I always wanted to be a hero,” he said weakly.
Conan growled them all to silence. “I mean there is no more time for caution. We must find Jehnna. Quickly.” Like a hunting leopard he sped on, driven by the darkness that thickened the sky outside.
A gasp of awe rose from the assembled priests—all of them were there, now—when the small procession entered the courtyard, and Taramis basked in it. She knew it was for the girl behind her, for the One and the golden Horn of Dagoth that she bore, but she, Taramis, had brought it to be.
The voluptuous noblewoman stepped aside, revealing Jehnna and her burden clearly, and the golden-robed priests fell to their knees. Xanteres, who had exchanged the casket for his tall staff of gold tipped with its azure diamond eye, moved to the other side of the girl, stroking his full white beard in self-satisfaction, to gain his share of the adulation.
“The Sleeping God will never die,” Taramis intoned.
“Where there is faith,” came the response from the kneeling priests, “there is no death.”
She flung wide her arms. “This is the Night of Awakening,” she cried, “for the One has come!” The reply echoed from the walls.
“All glory to the One, who serves the Sleeping God!”
The half score black-armored guards, their spears precisely slanted, but standing well back so as to be out of the way, shifted uneasily. From the colonnade came the piping of flutes, beginning their litany of coming sacrifice and anointment The velvet black sky arched above, glittering stars set in a pattern they would not attain again for another thousand years. The moment had come.
Power, Taramis thought while the echos still shivered the air. Power and immortality were hers.
Conan slid to a halt as a man stepped into the corridor ahead of him, a man black-armored and even more massive than he, with a naked tulwar in his hand.
“I knew you must come this way, thief,” Bombatta said softly. His scarred face was grimmer than ever before behind the nasal of his sable helm. “When I found the bodies, I knew then that you lived. And I knew you would run to the great court to save her. But if I cannot have Jehnna, no mortal man will have her.” His blade came up, gleaming in the lamplight. “She goes to the god, thief.”
Motioning the others to hang back, Conan moved closer. In the confines of the tapestried hall they could only hinder, not help. The Cimmerian gripped his sword with both hands, holding it erect before him.
“Have you lost your tongue?” Bombatta demanded. “In moments the girl dies in the very center of this palace, I tell you. Rage at your loss, thief. Let me know your despair and lose my own in the slaying of you.”
“This is no time for talking,” Conan replied. “It is a time for dying.”
The two blades moved, then, as one. The clanging of steel on steel filled the hall as they wove a deadly lace between the two big men. Attack and counterattack, thrust and riposte, followed so closely one on the other that it seeme
d as though lightning flashed and danced.
Abruptly Conan’s broadsword was torn from his grasp. Triumph flared in Bombatta’s face, but even as the blow struck Conan’s foot lashed out, sending the giant Zamoran’s blade spinning. The two men crashed together, grappling. For an instant each strove to reach his dagger, then Bombatta’s huge hands closed on Conan’s head and twisted, and the Cimmerian gripped the black helm, one hand on its bottom edge, the other above the dark nasal. Feet shifted and scuffled for balance, and hard-drawn breath was the sound of battle, now. Massive thews bulged, and joints popped with the strain.
A grinding crack sounded, not loud, yet seeming to drown all else, and Conan found that he supported a boneless mass. For an instant he stared into those black eyes, as death filmed them, then let Bombatta fall.
“Time is running out,” Zula said, “and we still do not know where to find her.”
Working his neck, Conan retrieved his sword. “But we do. He told us. The great court in the center of the palace.”
“He also said she was to die in moments,” Malak reminded him.
“Then there is no time to stand here talking,” Conan said. “Come.”
“O great Dagoth,” Taramis intoned, “on the Night of Awakening we, thy servants, come to thee.”
The flutes shrilled madly as she took Jehnna’s arm. Xanteres took the other, and between them they led the girl to the head of the great reclining form of the god, its noble forehead marred by the dark, circular depression. Holding the Horn before her, Jehnna moved unresistingly.
“O great Dagoth,” the tall princess chanted, “on the Night of Awakening, they servants call to thee.” In a whisper she spoke to Jehnna. “The Horn, child. Place the Horn as you were told.”
Jehnna blinked, hesitated, and Taramis’ breath caught at the fear that the potion’s effect might have worn off. Then slowly the slender girl set the base of the golden Horn into the depression in Dagoth’s forehead.
A tremor passed through the huge, alabastrine form. Marble hardness softened, and took on the hue of human skin. The eyelids fluttered.
Relief flooded through Taramis. Nothing could halt it, now. The Sleeping God was awaking. And the Horn was no longer sacrosanct to Dagoth and the One, alone. But it all had to be finished, and quickly now.
“O great Dagoth,” she called, “accept this, our offering and pledge to thee. Accept thy third anointing, the Anointing of the One.”
Jehnna did not even start as Xanteres tangled his left hand in her hair and bent her forward over the recumbent god’s head. A gilded dagger flashed in his hand as he raised it.
Bursting into the great courtyard, Conan took in the scene before him, the black-armored guards, the kneeling priests in gold, the huge, horned form that seemed to be just beginning to stir. And Jehnna, throat arched for the knife in the hands of the white-bearded man.
An instant it took him to see, and in that same instant he was moving. His sword was tossed from right hand to left, the fisted pommel smashed into the ebon helmet of a guard, his right hand tore the spear from the guard’s grasp. As the dagger moved toward Jehnna he threw. The spear lanced a dark streak across the courtyard, and the dagger dropped to the marble tiles as the white-bearded man, a wavering shriek rising from his throat, clutched at the thick black shaft that pierced him.
An instant, and in that instant the courtyard swirled into chaos. Black-armored guards turned to battle Conan, who suddenly found Malak fighting at his side. Zula dashed across the court, beating golden-robed priests from her path with her staff, to seize Jehnna’s arm and drag her away from the huge, now-quivering form.
“There is yet time,” Taramis screamed. “It must be done! It must be!” On hand and knees she scrambled for the fallen dagger.
And the huge form of Dagoth sat up, the shape of a gigantic man, too handsome for humankind, with a golden horn standing out from his forehead. The air in the court turned chill as it moved, and no man or woman there but froze. The noble head turned, great golden eyes surveying the courtyard. Then suddenly the head was thrown back, and Dagoth howled. Staggering to his feet, he howled such agony as had never been known on the face of the earth.
As if the terrible sound had freed him from paralysis, Conan found he could move again. He gripped his sword and set himself, but the guards before him threw down their spears and fled, brushing past him as if what else was in that courtyard made the steel in his hands no longer worth fearing.
Dagoth’s form rippled, now, as though knots grew beneath the skin. Bulging, writhing, it grew and changed. In the twinkling of an eye its skin became coarse. The brow sloped back, and the jaw grew forward, fangs thrusting past lips. Arms and legs thickened, and claws sprouted on the ends of fingers. The skin of the back split, and leathery wings as of a monstrous bat came forth. Grotesquely male, hunched and twisted, yet three times the height of a man, Dagoth stood, and only the huge golden eyes were unchanged.
Those eyes came to rest on Taramis, kneeling with the dagger clutched to her breasts and her face slack with horror. “You!” It was as if thunder had spoken, and with the tongue of thunder. “Out of your own mouth, Taramis, are you promised to me!”
Hope dawned on Taramis’ face. “Yes,” she breathed. Leaping to her feet she ran toward the god. “I am promised to thee,” she cried. “And thou wilt gift me with power and immortality. Thou wilt—”
Clawed hands pulled the noblewoman to Dagoth, and the huge wings folded around them, hiding her. From beneath those wings came a crystalline wail of purest pain and disbelief. The wings opened, and Dagoth tossed aside a robe of scarlet silk.
“Thus it is,” the thunder roared, “to know a god, and be known by a god!”
Zula had stopped to stare in horror at the garment that was all that remained of Taramis, and Jehnna stood beside her, seemingly unaware of what occurred about her.
Dashing forward, Conan grabbed each woman in turn, pushing them toward the shelter of the palace. “Run!” he commanded, and they ran.
“No, mortal!” came the thunder. “She is the One, and the One is mine!”
Conan felt the ground tremble as Dagoth took a step. The women could never outdistance that monstrous form. Time would have to be bought for them. Certain for the first time in his life that he faced something he could not defeat, Conan turned to confront the god.
Suddenly a fireball streaked over his head to strike Dagoth’s chest. It bounced away like a pebble from a mountain, yet even as it did another struck, and another. “Run, Cimmerian!” Akiro shouted. “Erlik take you, run! I cannot hold such as this forever!”
Dagoth’s wings stiffened, then snapped together behind his back like a thunderclap. And as if that sound had called invisible lightning Akiro was flung into the air and hurled backwards.
“And you, mortal!” Dagoth thundered at Conan. “Would you oppose a god? Know the fear of what you do.”
Then did Conan feel fear rolling over him, fear primordial, fear so strong that it felt as though his very bones would split asunder. Overpowering waves of it crashed on him, pushing that which called itself Conan of Cimmeria back, back beyond knowledge of civilization or fire or speech, back to the ancient creature that knew no gods, the creature that survived its lack of claws and fangs because it was more deadly than leopard or bear. That creature knew but one response to fear. With a roar the cave sloth knew and feared, Conan attacked.
His broadsword slashed deep, and Dagoth laughed like a storm at sea as bloodless wounds healed even as they were made. Claw-tipped hands seized the Cimmerian, lifted him toward gaping fangs, and still Conan hacked with a mad fury that would not quit till death overtook him.
Yet as he fought, dim words penetrated Conan’s brain. “The horn!” Part of him struggled to listen, while the greater part raged to kill. Akiro, that small part thought. “He is only vulnerable through the horn!” the wizard shouted.
Conan was raised before the golden eyes, and he returned their gaze unafraid. Fear had been purged fro
m him by the blood-red madness that screamed to slay or die.
The Cimmerian laughed as he let his sword fall and seized the horn; it was like seizing lightning, yet he voiced his deathly grim laughter. Massive shoulders knotted, he tore the golden horn from that monstrous head. Pain flared in the god’s xanthic eyes, and the fanged mouth opened wider to rip at the human who had wounded him. But the insane rage of the attacker had not left Conan. As he ripped the horn free, he reversed it, thrust it point first into one of the golden globes that stared at him, shoved it deep with all his might.
The howl that Dagoth had loosed before was a whisper to the scream that came from him now. Conan was flung through the air, spinning end over end, to crash to the marble tiles. Higher and higher the shriek rose. Suddenly it could not be heard at all, but now the Cimmerian’s skull vibrated, and white-hot daggers bored at his ears. Clawing at his head, he struggled to rise. He must fight. He must kill. He must …
A measure of sanity returned to him amid the pain as he realized that he was seeing stars. Through Dagoth. The gigantic shape still loomed in the center of the courtyard, clawed hands clutching its face, blood like rubies welling between the taloned fingers, the blood of a god dropping to shatter like crystal on the marble beneath his feet, but even as the Cimmerian watched the form grew dimmer, less distinct In gossamer outline Dagoth hung against the night sky. Abruptly he was gone, and with him the pain from Conan’s head.
Unsteadily the Cimmerian surveyed the courtyard. The priests were fled, and of the black-armored guards none remained save those he and Malak had slain. Zula crouched beside Jehnna, cradling the slender girl in her arms. “She collapsed,” the black woman told Conan, “when you tore out that horn. But it is only a sleep, I think. She will be well.”
“Hey, Conan,” Malak called. The small thief was propped against the marble pillar of the colonnade. Akiro, who moved as if he were one bruise from head to foot, was binding a cloth about Malak’s bloody thigh. “I took a spear, but we won. Hannuman’s Stones, man, we won!”
“Perhaps,” Conan said tiredly. He grasped the dragon amulet on his chest as if he would crush it.
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