Part 12 (1/2)

”Keep watch here,” Conan commanded one of the Zuagirs. He threw open the door and strode out into the garden, now empty in the starlight, its blossoms glimmering whitely, its dense trees and shrubbery ma.s.ses of dusky mystery. The Zuagirs, now armed with the swords of the blacks, swaggered after him.

Conan headed for the balcony, which he knew overhung the garden, cleverly masked by the branches of trees. Three Zuagirs bent their backs for him to stand upon. In an instant he had found the window from which he and Virata had looked. The next instant he was through it, making no more noise than a cat.

Sounds came from beyond the curtain that masked the balcony alcove: a woman sobbing in terror and the voice of Virata.

Peering through the hanging, Conan saw the Magus lolling on the throne under the pearl-sewn canopy. The guards no longer stood like ebon images on either side of him. They were squatting before the dais in the middle of the floor, whetting daggers and heating irons in a glowing brazier. Nanaia was stretched out between them, naked, spread-eagled on the floor with her wrists and ankles lashed to pegs driven into holes in the floor. No one else was in the room, and the bronze doors were closed and bolted.

”Tell me how you escaped from the cell,” commanded Virata.

”No! Never!” She bit her lip in her struggle to keep her self-control.

”Was it Conan?”

”Did you ask for me?” said Conan as he stepped from the alcove, a grim smile on his dark, scarred face.

Virata sprang up with a cry. The Kus.h.i.+tes straightened, snarling and reaching for weapons.

Conan sprang forward and drove his knife through the throat of one before he could get his sword clear. The other lunged toward the girl, lifting his scimitar to slay the victim before he died. Conan caught the descending blow on his knife and, with a lightning riposte, drove the knife to the hilt in the man's midriff. The Kus.h.i.+te's momentum carried him forward against Conan, who crouched, placed his free hand on the black's belly, and straightened, raising the Kus.h.i.+te over his head. The Kus.h.i.+te squirmed and groaned. Conan threw him to one side to fall with a heavy thump and expire.

Conan turned again to the Magus, who, instead of trying to flee, was advancing upon him with a fixed, wide-eyed stare. His eyes developed a peculiar luminous quality, which caught and held Conan's gaze like a magnet.

Conan, straining forward to reach the wizard with his knife, felt as if he were suddenly laden with chains, or as if he were wading through the slimy swamps of Stygia where the black lotus grows. His muscles stood out like lumps of iron. Sweat beaded his skin as he strained at the invisible bonds.

Virata stalked slowly toward the Cimmerian, hands outspread before him, making little rhythmic gestures with his fingers and never taking his weird gaze from Conan's eyes. The hands neared Conan's throat. Conan had a flash of foreboding that, with the help of his arcane arts, this frail-looking man could snap even the Cimmerian's bullneck like a rotten stick.

Nearer came the spreading hands. Conan strained harder than ever, but the resistance seemed to increase with every inch the Magus advanced toward him.

And then Nanaia screamed a long, high, piercing shriek, as of a soul being flayed in h.e.l.l.

The Magus half-turned, and in that instant his eyes left Conan's. It was as if a ton had been lifted instantly from Conan's back. Virata snapped his gaze back to Conan, but the Cimmerian knew better than to meet his eyes again. Peering through narrowed lids at the Magus' chest, Conan made a disembowelling thrust with his knife. The attack met only air as the Kosalan avoided it with a backward bound of superhuman litheness, then turned and ran toward the door, crying:

”Help! Guard! To me!”

Men were yelling and hammering against the door on the far side. Conan waited until the Magus' fingers were clawing at the bolts. Then he threw the knife so that the point struck Virata in the middle of his back and drove through his body, pinning him to the door like an insect to a board.

8. Wolves at Bay

Conan strode to the door and wrenched out his knife, letting the body of the Magus slip to the floor. Beyond the door the clamor grew, and out in the garden the Zuagirs were bawling to know if he was safe and loudly demanding permission to join him. He shouted to them to wait and hurriedly freed the girl, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a piece of silk from a divan to wrap around her. She clasped his neck with a hysterical sob, crying:

”Oh, Conan, I knew you would come! They told me you were dead, but I knew they could not slay you-”

”Save that till later,” he said gruffly. Carrying the Kus.h.i.+tes' swords, he strode back to the balcony and handed Nanaia down through the window to the Zuagirs, then swung down beside her.

”And now, lord?” said the Zuagirs, eager for more desperate work.

”Back the way we came, through the secret pa.s.sage and out the door to h.e.l.l.”

They started at a run across the garden, Conan leading Nanaia by the hand. They had not gone a dozen paces when ahead of them a clang of steel vied with the din in the palace behind them. l.u.s.ty curses mingled with the clangor, a door slammed like a clap of thunder, and a figure came headlong through the shrubbery. It was the Zuagir they had left on guard at the gilded door. He was swearing and wringing blood from a slashed forearm.

”Hyrkanian dog? at the door!” he yelled. ”Someone saw us kill the Kus.h.i.+tes and ran for Zahak. I sworded one in the belly and slammed the door, but they'll soon have it down!”