Part 8 (1/2)

He brushed aside the implication with an impatient hand.

'Scratches that wouldn't hurt a baby. Your skewer came in handy, though.

But for it Tarascus' monkey would be cracking my s.h.i.+n-bones for the marrow right now. But what now?'

'Follow me,' she whispered. 'I will lead you outside the city wall. I have a horse concealed there.'

She turned to lead the way down the corridor, but he laid a heavy hand on her naked shoulder.

'Walk beside me,' he instructed her softly, pa.s.sing his ma.s.sive arm about her lithe waist. 'You've played me fair so far, and I'm inclined to believe in you; but I've lived this long only because I've trusted no one too far, man or woman. So! Now if you play me false you won't live to enjoy the jest.'

She did not flinch at sight of the reddened poniard or the contact of his hard muscles about her supple body.

'Cut me down without mercy if I play you false,' she answered. 'The very feel of your arm about me, even in menace, is as the fulfillment of a dream.'

The vaulted corridor ended at a door, which she opened. Outside lay another black man, a giant in turban and silk loin-cloth, with a curved sword lying on the flags near his hand. He did not move.

'I drugged his wine,' she whispered, swerving to avoid the rec.u.mbent figure. 'He is the last, and outer, guard of the pits. None ever escaped from them before, and none has ever wished to seek them; so only these black men guard them. Only these of all the servants knew it was King Conan that Xaltotun brought a prisoner in his chariot. I was watching, sleepless, from an upper cas.e.m.e.nt that opened into the court, while the other girls slept; for I knew that a battle was being fought, or had been fought, in the west, and I feared for you....

'I saw the blacks carry you up the stair, and I recognized you in the torchlight. I slipped into this wing of the palace tonight, in time to see them carry you to the pits. I had not dared come here before nightfall. You must have lain in drugged senselessness all day in Xaltotun's chamber.

'Oh, let us be wary! Strange things are afoot in the palace tonight. The slaves said that Xaltotun slept as he often sleeps, drugged by the lotus of Stygia, but Tarascus is in the palace. He entered secretly, through the postern, wrapped in his cloak which was dusty as with long travel, and attended only by his squire, the lean silent Arideus. I cannot understand, but I am afraid.'

They came out at the foot of a narrow, winding stair, and mounting it, pa.s.sed through a narrow panel which she slid aside. When they had pa.s.sed through, she slipped it back in place, and it became merely a portion of the ornate wall. They were in a more s.p.a.cious corridor, carpeted and tapestried, over which hanging lamps shed a golden glow.

Conan listened intently, but he heard no sound throughout the palace. He did not know in what part of the palace he was, or in which direction lay the chamber of Xaltotun. The girl was trembling as she drew him along the corridor, to halt presently beside an alcove masked with satin tapestry. Drawing this aside, she motioned for him to step into the niche, and whispered: 'Wait here! Beyond that door at the end of the corridor we are likely to meet slaves or eunuchs at any time of the day or night. I will go and see if the way is clear, before we essay it.'

Instantly his hair-trigger suspicions were aroused.

'Are you leading me into a trap?'

Tears sprang into her dark eyes. She sank to her knees and seized his muscular hand.

'Oh, my king, do not mistrust me now!' Her voice shook with desperate urgency. 'If you doubt and hesitate, we are lost! Why should I bring you up out of the pits to betray you now?'

'All right,' he muttered. 'I'll trust you; though, by Crom, the habits of a lifetime are not easily put aside. Yet I wouldn't harm you now, if you brought all the swordsmen in Nemedia upon me. But for you Tarascus'

cursed ape would have come upon me in chains and unarmed. Do as you wish, girl.'

Kissing his hands, she sprang lithely up and ran down the corridor, to vanish through a heavy double door.

He glanced after her, wondering if he was a fool to trust her; then he shrugged his mighty shoulders and pulled the satin hangings together, masking his refuge. It was not strange that a pa.s.sionate young beauty should be risking her life to aid him; such things had happened often enough in his life. Many women had looked on him with favor, in the days of his wanderings, and in the time of his kings.h.i.+p.

Yet he did not remain motionless in the alcove, waiting for her return.

Following his instincts, he explored the niche for another exit, and presently found one--the opening of a narrow pa.s.sage, masked by the tapestries, that ran to an ornately carved door, barely visible in the dim light that filtered in from the outer corridor. And as he stared into it, somewhere beyond that carven door he heard the sound of another door opening and shutting, and then a low mumble of voices. The familiar sound of one of those voices caused a sinister expression to cross his dark face. Without hesitation he glided down the pa.s.sage, and crouched like a stalking panther beside the door. It was not locked, and manipulating it delicately, he pushed it open a crack, with a reckless disregard for possible consequences that only he could have explained or defended.

It was masked on the other side by tapestries, but through a thin slit in the velvet he looked into a chamber lit by a candle on an ebony table. There were two men in that chamber. One was a scarred, sinister-looking ruffian in leather breeks and ragged cloak; the other was Tarascus, king of Nemedia.

Tarascus seemed ill at ease. He was slightly pale, and he kept starting and glancing about him, as if expecting and fearing to hear some sound or footstep.

'Go swiftly and at once,' he was saying. 'He is deep in drugged slumber, but I know not when he may awaken.'

'Strange to hear words of fear issuing from the lips of Tarascus,'