Part 28 (1/2)

'Where is the Devi?' demanded Kerim Shah 'What's it to you, you Hyrkanian spy?' snarled Conan 'I know you have her,' answered Kerim Shah 'I was on my way northith some tribesmen ere ambushed by enemies in Shalizah Pass Many of h the hills like jackals When we had beaten off our pursuers, we turned ard, toward A we cah the hills He was quite s before he died I learned that he was the sole survivor of a band which followed a chief of the Afghulis and a captive Kshatriya woe He babbled huli rode down, but hen attacked by the Wazulis who pursued, sust of wind-driven fire wipes out a cluster of locusts

'How that one man escaped, I do not know, nor did he; but I knew fros that Conan of Ghor hadbeen in Khuruh the hills, we overtook a naked Galzai girl bearing a gourd of water, who told us a tale of having been stripped and ravished by a giant foreigner in the garb of an Afghuli chief, who, she said, gave her garments to a Vendhyan woman who accompanied him She said you rode ard'

Kerim Shah did not consider it necessary to explain that he had been on his way to keep his rendezvous with the expected troops from Secunderam when he found his way barred by hostile tribesh Shalizah Pass was longer than the road that wound through Ahuli country, which Kerim Shah had been anxious to avoid until he came with an army Barred from the Shalizah road, however, he had turned to the forbidden route, until news that Conan had not yet reached Afghulistan with his captive had caused him to turn southward and push on recklessly in the hope of overtaking the Cimmerian in the hills

'So you had better tell ested Keris nock a shaft and I'll throw you over the cliff,' Conan proood to kill hulis are on my trail, and if they find you've cheated theot the Devi She's in the hands of the Black Seers of Yimsha'

'Tarimr swore Kerim Shah softly, shaken out of his poise for the first tirunted Conan 'His et out of lad to kill you if I had the tio with you,' said the Turanian abruptly

Conan laughed at hi?'

'I don't ask you to,' returned Keri Yezdigerd desires to add her kingdolio And I knew you, in the days when you were a hetman of the kozak steppes; so I know your ambition is wholesale plunder You want to loot Vendhya, and to twist out a huge ranso, without any illusion about each other, unite our forces, and try to rescue the Devi froht it out to see who keeps her'

Conan narrowly scrutinized the other for a reed; what about your men?'

Kerim Shah turned to the silent Irakzai and spoke briefly: 'This chief and I are going to Yio with us, or stay here to be flayed by the Afghulis who are following this rimly fatalistic They were doo arrows of the aozai had driven them back from the pass of Shalizah Thethe crag-dwellers They were too sh the hills to the villages of the border, without the guidance of the crafty Turanian They counted themselves as dead already, so they o with thee and die on Yirunted Conan, fidgeting with i twilight 'My wolves were hours behind me, but we've lost a devilish lot of time'

Kerim Shah backed his steed from between the black stallion and the cliff, sheathed his sword and cautiously turned the horse Presently the band was filing up the path as swiftly as they dared They came out upon the crest nearly a mile east of the spot where Khemsa had halted the Cimmerian and the Devi The path they had traversed was a perilous one, even for hill-men, and for that reason Conan had avoided it that day when carrying Yas the Cihed with relief when the horses scrambled up over the last rih an enchanted realm of shadows The soft creak of leather, the clink of steelarked their passing, then again the dark ht

8 YASMINA KNOWS STARK TERROR

Yasmina had time but for one scream when she felt herself enveloped in that cri force She screamed once, and then she had no breath to scream She was bunded, deafened, renderedof the air about her There was a dazed consciousness of dizzy height and nuone e of these sensations clung to her as she recovered consciousness; so she cried out and clutched wildly as though to stay a headlong and involuntary flight Her fingers closed on soft fabric, and a relieving sense of stability pervaded her She took cognizance of her surroundings

She was lying on a dais covered with black velvet This dais stood in a great, di with dusky tapestries across which crawled dragons reproduced with repellent realisloom that lent itself to illusion lurked in the corners There seemed to be neither s nor doors in the walls, or else they were concealed by the nighted tapestries Where the direat room was a realm of mysteries, or shadows, and shadowy shapes in which she could not have sworn to observe movement, yet which invaded her aze fixed itself on a tangible object On another, sazing conte black velvet robe, e his figure His hands were folded in his sleeves There was a velvet cap upon his head His face was calhtly oblique He did nother, nor did his expression alter when he saw she was conscious

Yasmina felt fear crawl like a trickle of ice-water down her supple spine She lifted herself on her elbows and stared apprehensively at the stranger

'Who are you?' she demanded Her voice sounded brittle and inadequate

'I am the Master of Yimsha' The tone was rich and resonant, like theme?'

'If you are one of the Black Seers - yes!' she answered recklessly, believing that he could read her thoughts anyway

He laughed softly, and chills crawled up and down her spine again

'You would turn the wild children of the hills against the Seers of Yimsha!' He smiled 'I have read it in your mind, princess Your weak, hue'

'You slewwith her fear; her hands were clenched, her lithe body rigid 'Why did you persecute him? He never har in hu of Vendhya?'

'How can an ordinary human understand the motives of a Seer?' returned the Master calmly 'My acolytes in the temples of Turan, who are the priests behind the priests of Tarierd For reasons of my own, I complied How can I explain my mystic reasons to your puny intellect? You could not understand'

'I understand this: that e shook in her voice She rose upon her knees and stared at hierous in that reed the Master calmly 'For a while it was erd your vassal?' Yasmina tried to keep the ti-so hard and symmetrical under a fold of velvet Subtly she shi+fted her position,that licks up the offal in the temple yard the vassal of the God?' returned the Master

He did not seeht to disseers closed on what she kneas the golden hilt of a dagger She bent her head to hide the light of triuerd,' said the Master 'I have turned to other a like a jungle cat, stabbing murderously Then she stu up at the man on the dais He had not ly she lifted her hand and stared at it with dilated eyes There was no dagger in her fingers; they grasped a stalk of golden lotus, the crushed blosso on the bruised stem

She dropped it as if it had been a viper, and scrambled away from the proximity of her tormenter She returned to her own dais, because that was at leaston the floor at the feet of a sorcerer, and eyed hi reprisals

But the Master made no move

'All substance is one to him who holds the key of the cos is iardens, or floords flash in the ht'

'You are a devil,' she sobbed

'Not I!' he laughed 'I was born on this planet, long ago Once I was a common man, nor have I lost all human attributes in the numberless eons of reater than a devil I ain, but I rule demons You have seen the Lords of the Black Circle - it would blast your soul to hear frouard theolden serpents

'But only I can rule thereat - poor fool, bursting h the air froht have grown to rival ! Plotting to send a hairy hill chief to storned, had it occurred to me, that you should fall hi his hands And I read in your childish mind an intention to seduce by your feminine wiles to attempt your purpose, anyway

'But for all your stupidity, you are a woman fair to look upon It is hter of a thousand proud easped with shame and fury at the word

'You dare not!'

His hter cut her like a whip across her naked shoulders

'The king dares not trample a worm in the road? Little fool, do you not realize that your royal pride is no more than a stran on the wind? I, who have known the kisses of the queens of hell! You have seen how I deal with a rebel!'

Cowed and awed, the girl crouched on the velvet-covered dais The light grew dimmer and more phantom-like The features of the Master became shadowy His voice took on a newer tone of command