The Sword of Skelos (17 page)

Here and there about the room towered great columns of wood or painted stone designed to resemble trees. Conan’s long arms could not have encompassed any of them. Just as stolidly, a resplendently attired guard stood at either end of the dais. Those two men stared at nothing. Up on the dais, at either side of the throne, stood a man. Advisers, Conan assumed; vizirs. He on the khan’s right wore robe and brocaded surcoat of brown and scarlet. A silver chain rested on his breast below his chin, which was cleanshaven though the rest of his face was bearded and mustached. He was balding.
A man of no great happiness
, Conan mused.

The man to the khan’s left was surely but little past a score years of age, and not unhandsome under his tall, odd cap of brown. His slim legs were encased in snug red leggings, under a plain white tunic on whose breast glittered a fine medallion of gold and pearls and sunny topazes.
Eyes like a snake
, Conan thought,
and full of both pride and intelligence
.

At the felt-shod feet of each of the presumed advisers sat a scribe; one quite old and one surprisingly young, and large; between them Akter Khan was enthroned. He was hardly hideous though perhaps a bit dissipated, and he did show a bit of stomach.

His eyes shifted their bright dark gaze from the Cimmerian to Isparana, glanced back at Conan, and came to rest on the woman.

“Isparana of Zamboula returns to her khan,” a voice called from behind Conan, “and with her Conan, a Cimmerian from far to the north.”

“Report to Vizir Hafar, Prefect,” Akter Khan said, and Conan heard the undertone of excitement in his voice.

Prefect Jhabiz, the balding man, and the old scribe converged at the door to Conan’s left. They passed through the portal and closed it behind them. That quickly, Conan had noted the paneled door’s considerable thickness.

Again Akter Khan spoke. “Why is the man from the far north with our servant Isparana?”

At that moment Conan realized how vulnerable he was, and he felt a chill as he recalled Isparana’s unpredictability—and the several reasons she had to feel enjoyment and exhilaration at seeing him crushed, tortured… slain.

“He has aided me,” Isparana said, and only a little of Conan’s tenseness eased. “Conan of Cimmeria bears that which I went to fetch.”

From either side of the falcate nose the khan’s eyes stared at Conan. “Conan of Cimmeria, you are in the presence of Akter Khan, ruler of Zamboula and the land roundabout in the name of and as Satrap of Yildiz Great, King of Turan and Lord of Empire. There must be no danger to me or to you in this hall. Your weapons will be returned to you just outside the doors behind you.”

Conan’s armpits prickled. The lance-armed guards flanking the first step of the dais stared at nothing while appearing ready for anything. Conan glanced around to see four corseleted, helmeted soldiers. They stared at him.

He swallowed and his skin seemed to crawl as though ants walked up his spine. Disarm himself! Place himself at the mercy of this satrap, of these armed men —of Isparana’s whim! It went very much against the grain. Yet he considered the alternative, in those few seconds. A ruler enthroned had bade him disarm. He could acquiesce and hand the man the amulet he prized so highly, or be arrested, or try to fight his way out—of a place crowded with armed guards, and then a hostile city that debouched on desert?

I do not have a choice, he thought, and his gaze shifted briefly to the sword mounted on the wall. How swiftly could he get to it, if need be; how swiftly could he whip it from its sheath and whirl to try to fight?
While walking to that door to follow Hafar and Jhabiz
, he thought, for he was incapable of not considering such action. He found impressive words:

“No foreigner should approach a king in his chamber under arms,” he said, and unbuckled the belt that supported the sheaths of both sword and dagger. He held the two ends of the belt out from his hips without turning, and hands took them from him, from behind. Conan stood unarmed, at the whim of Isparana and Akter Khan.

“Leave us,” Akter Khan said. “Zafra and Uruj will remain, with me and these our two returned servants.”

Like animated statues, the two throne guards paced the width of the hall, past Conan and Isparana, and out of the hall. Conan heard the big doors close behind him. On the dais remained the standing man in the cap, and the seated scribe, who was both young and large.

Why, Conan asked himself, would a scribe remain during the private report of a khan’s agent? And he replied at once, judging from the man’s size:
Uruj is a bodyguard. That slim fellow in the silly hat, then… what is his purpose
? He wished that he had asked more questions of Isparana. The throneroom was now empty save for the five. Conan and four Zamboulans. Enemies?

“Isparana: You have brought me the Eye of Erlik?”

“Aye, my lord Khan.”

“Bring it to me, excellent servant.”

She glanced at Conan.

“I have it,” he said, and noted that the big scribe rearranged himself and watched keenly while the Cimmerian lifted both hands to his own neck. From under his clothing he drew the thong trailing the glass-set blob of fired clay. Lifting it off over his head, he held it before him. The oblate hemisphere swung and turned slowly in the air, obviously worthless.

Even while Akter Khan frowned at an object obviously not his valued amulet, Conan squatted. With some care, he rapped the thing on the floor of alternating red and pink tiles, then again. The clay cracked, split, fell away in bits. Isparana stared as entrancedly as the man on the throne.

Conan rose. Again he held his arm before him, and again an object turned slowly at the end of the leather cord.

The sword-shaped pendant was about the length of the Cimmerian’s least finger. An unfaceted ruby formed the pommel. At each end of the crossbar of the guard twinkled a large yellow stone barred vertically with a single black stripe. The stones, set about an inch apart, seemed to stare like eerie xanthic eyes from either side of a long and pointed nose of silver.

Akter Khan’s voice emerged with fervor though little above a whisper. He sat tensely forward in his chair of state. His two hands gripped the curled forward edges of its arms, and the knuckles were pale. His dark eyes stared no less glassily than the “eyes” of the amulet.

Conan thought the satrap was about to rise. Akter did not. One hand parted itself from the throne’s arm, and was extended, palm up.

“
To me
,” Akter said in the same breathless voice of intensity.

After three months of perilous adventure and seemingly endless travel and travail because of this bauble, Conan was almost loath to part with it. Almost. Yet he did not carry it forward to that waiting royal hand. Instead he caught up Isparana’s hand, and pressed the Eye of Erlik into her palm.

“It has ever been your mission and your emprise, ‘sparana,” he said, loudly enough to be heard on the dais. “Complete it.”

In her Shanki sirwal, tunic, sleeved surcoat—and black cosmetics—Isparana paced the width of the hall to her ruler. Conan saw that the man’s outstretched hand trembled.
Was
his life force caught up in that little bauble? Was he now about to become invincible, unslayable? Conan watched, and the thought came extraneously that only tall women should wear ballooning leggings.

Into the waiting, tremorous hand Isparana placed the Eye of Erlik, and the satrap’s fist closed on it. Nothing sorcerous or dramatic occurred, after all this time and horror and the cost in lives. The Khan of Zamboula had his Eye of Erlik. The thief he had hired went to one knee, her head bowed, while he leaned back with a long sigh.

“Up, Isparana, excellent servant,” he said, and she rose.

On the breast of his multi-hued robe of silk lay a medallion, slung on a chain of finely wrought gold. The pendant was a winged square of the same metal, beaten and indited. In its center was a large ballflower design, with a smaller one decorating each corner. The silver leaves folded in to hold the ball, which was a ruby the size of a hummingbird’s eye.

Soon that pendant lay on Isparana’s breast, while her khan wore a less ornate one, a sword-shape slung on a strip of hide.

“You have both done well,” Akter Khan said, “and I am more than pleased. Conan of Cimmeria: Approach.”

Conan moved forward, thinking he had been most clever in handing the amulet to Isparana with the courtly words he’d spoken for both her benefit and the satrap’s. He was weaponless. Without his belt’s weight he felt both naked and uncomfortable—and most vulnerable, at the mercy of a woman who bore an ugly scar because of him; who but for him would have returned the amulet, alone, two months ago. (Would she? He wondered. The Khawarizmi might have got her, alone—and without him, she would still be slave, doubtless sold up in Arenjun or Shadizar.) The woman’s good will had become important to him, in this throneroom of a foreign city. Nor was he certain of it. Reaching her side, he halted. His nod served as an abbreviated bow.

“What part had you,” Akter asked, “in this emprise that has taken Isparana so many months?”

More aware of the emotionless eyes of the cap-wearer at the khan’s side than of Akter’s, Conan elected to tell the truth. “It is in part because of me that so many months have passed, Khan of Zamboula. We began as rivals and enemies, though now she knows that I was a helpless servant of Hisarr Zul.”

All four Zamboulans showed surprise at that open admission, which the Cimmerian had been careful to ameliorate by mentioning his thralldom to Hisarr.

“And Hisarr Zul?”

“He who was driven from Zamboula ten years ago,” Conan said, “and who on the desert murdered his brother Tosya who thereafter haunted the Dragon Hills as the Sand-lich; who stole the amulet of Akter Khan and the very
soul
of Conan of Cimmeria… is dead, lord Khan.”

For the first time, the man beside the satrap spoke. “You slew him?”

“I did, and destroyed him with fire. His manse burned as well.”

“His—knowledge?” Zafra asked, his voice intense. “His scrolls, his devices?”

“All.” Conan shrugged. “Burned with him. I would touch none of it.”

“Well done!” Akter Khan exclaimed, and Conan saw his teeth.

He was aware that Zafra’s expression had become one of disappointment and some disgust, and Conan knew that the man was not pleased. It was then he realized that this Zafra must be a wizard, despite his lack of years. Aye, he was older than Conan and Isparana as well. But Conan had assumed that mages, to be full of knowledge, must be old men. Now he realized that was ridiculous. One grew old only by having been young, and any master could die so that his apprentice succeeded. Or, the Cimmerian supposed, a man could be as adept and clever at wizardry as Conan was with weapons.

He knew that he was not only in the presence of a mage, but probably the foremost in this vicinity— and a man he had better respect and be wary of.

He was right; Akter introduced Zafra as Wizard of Zamboula, mentioning that the fellow had not been here when Isparana had departed. Isparana inclined her head. Having recognized the medallion he word, she knew the man in the Ferygian cap stood high. Such a change, in the third of a year since she and Karamek had ridden out of this city of her birth! With her little bow, her own pendant moved restlessly on her breast. It was a reminder: Aye, such a change indeed! She would not need to go back to Squatter’s Alley now! It had produced her and trained her; now her career as thief and liar and sometime streetgirl was making her wealthy. She glanced at Conan.

“Hisarr Zul said that the Eye is magickal,” he said. “Zafra has been in magickal contact with it? You knew we approached Zamboula, wizard?”

Zafra’s mouth smiled, but it was Akter who spoke. “Shall the Wizard of Zamboula tell you where the Eye of Erlik has been, Conan of Cimmeria?”

“I shall tell you,” Conan said, though he certainly had not intended to do. “Isparana and I planned no secrets from the Satrap of the Empire of Turan.”

“You and Isparana have been antagonists, even sought to slay one another. Yet you are now friends.”

“Together,” Conan said, “we restored your amulet. I had to serve Hisarr Zul, for a time. He had my soul, literally.”

“He
had
gained that ability!” Zafra said excitedly, and looked immediately unhappy that he had showed emotion.

“Aye. He wanted, yours of course, Khan of Zamboula. I
had
to gain the amulet, and return it to him. That I did, killing horses and nearly myself to overtake Isparana on the desert. I returned it to Hisarr, who then sought to slay me. I was able to kill him, and—”

“At one time,” Akter Khan said, looking thoughtfully at the foreigner, “both of you, with the Eye, turned and started back northward.”

Isparana was tight-mouthed as she said, “We were enslaved, by Khawarizmi. We were able to gain free.”

“But then you came on for Zamboula, whilst the Eye went north.” The satrap nodded at the Cimmerian. “With this man, I now assume.”

“It is true,” Conan said, before Isparana could speak; he was egregiously uncomfortable, reminding Isparana of this part of their past. “I had tricked her, or rather Hisarr Zul had, with a duplicate of the Eye.”
I should not have brought
that
up
! “She thought she had the real one.”