“Oh, I know that.”
“I meant—”
The fellow broke off rather than state the obvious. Each man understood the other. Perhaps unwisely accepting a summons by an unknown into the unknown—and the darkness of the Zamboulan street of midtown—Conan reminded his guide that he was armed, and just as subtly reminded him that he feared nothing. The two men crossed the street. On the other side, the light was sparse and the shadows deeper. Conan accompanied his guide toward an intersection. Abruptly he made an untoward move.
“Do you feel that?”
Just ahead of him, the man said, “Yes. It is your dagger?”
“No, yours. Just above your backside. If I push, you will be dead or paralyzed. Which would be worse?”
“It is doubtless a wise precaution of a careful man, but unnecessary. Mystery does not always mean danger.”
“And an unsheathed dagger is not always used— though that is not a saying in Cimmeria. You can understand that I have no reason to trust you.”
“Yes.”
Conan snapped away the apricot seed as they turned a corner. He was led into a doorway. A short hall ended in a choice of door or steps; his guide led him upward, in darkness. Unobtrusively Conan wiped a juice-smeared hand on the other man’s cloak. They reached a landing and the man rapped at a door, thrice. At the same time he whistled a trio of notes. The door was opened from within and Conan narrowed his eyes against a plentitude of light. Here were two lamps, a table and three chairs, a worn oval rug, desert-woven, an ewer and two pottery mugs, and only one man. He was dressed as dully as his messenger, in a fulvous color. The guide entered. Conan followed. The waiting man closed the door.
Conan heard a noise just outside and met the man’s eyes.
“A lookout,” the man said; he had the look of a merchant and was past twoscore years of age.
Conan nodded. “I am armed.”
“Unless you mean murder, Conan of Cimmeria, that is not important.”
Conan continued looking at him. The fellow’s hair had decamped to leave his forehead high and shiny and bulgy. Gray lay in his beard like a sprinkling of frost. His long tunic or short fulvous robe was broidered with green embroidery and his eyes were squinty, propped by grayish pouches and flanked by a multitude of wrinkles. His nose was big though not accipitral.
“I must trust you, Conan of Cimmeria. I hope that I can.”
“I hear silly words,” Conan said, stepping away from his guide to display the long blade jutting from his big fist. He noted a narrow window to his right; there was no other window or door save that by which they had entered. “
You
trust? It’s I who acts trusting. I came, and I know neither of your names.”
The man smiled. “Will you have wine?”
“No. I have left a comfortable inn, and good companionship. I will soon return to drink with her.”
The two men exchanged a look. “You are direct.”
“You are not. I am here. Speak.”
“Do you know the name Balad, Conan?”
“Your guide stated that it was not Balad he was taking me to.”
“You do know of him, then.”
“He would like to be Khan over Zamboula.”
“You continue direct.”
“You continue stating the unnecessary.”
“We are not enemies, Conan. You have no reason to be hostile. Is that all you know of Balad?”
“Evidently I am here to learn more. Speak.”
“You will listen to words about Balad, O friend of Akter Khan?”
Conan shrugged. “Favored, not friend. Akter Khan owes me. I do not owe him. Indeed, his damned amulet has cost me considerable. To listen costs little and implies nothing.” That was true—and also, he thought, sounded good. Very good. Approached by plotters! Aye, he would hear what they had to say. Would they dare try to treat with one so favored of Akter? In that case, they were either passing foolish or brave indeed, and Conan would like to know which. Silently, his face showing nothing, he waited.
“Balad believes that Akter Khan is not the best ruler for Zamboula, and certainly not best for its people.”
The man paused to observe the effect on Conan of that statement; Conan showed him nothing. The two plotters exchanged a look. “Best you return to the inn.”
Conan’s guide left them. “My name is Jelal, Conan. He who brought you here does not know it.”
Conan knew that he was to be impressed that Jelal gave him his name. He was cynically aware that “Jelal” might not be this wight’s name at all. Besides, he did not believe the man. The guide surely had some name by which to call his superior in the organization of Balad, and why would the man give Conan a different name? He remained silent. His face remained immobile.
“Akter Khan is fearful of his shadow,” Jelal said. “He is becoming a drunken sot and doing nothing that a ruler should. His vizir is a good and wise man, but he’s been supplanted by that youthful wizard, Zafra. He murdered the mage to whom he was apprenticed, did you know that?”
No
, Conan thought,
and I didn’t know there was aught wrong with being a youth, either
.
“In the dungeons of Zamboula’s palace,” Jelal said on, “people die to no purpose, for no reason.”
The fellow’s eyes showed surprise when Conan came alive with a question. “How did the Shanki girl meet her death?”
“You do know considerable,” Jelal said and, when Conan made no comment, went on: “She was slain. Akter Khan’s pride was sore hurt by her; what woman does not wish to lie with a man of power? Yet he did not slay her in rage. One day two spies from Iranistan were slain in the dungeon, by Zafra and Akter alone, after Zafra had performed some… strange rite, over a sword. The Shanki was sent for, and conveyed to the dungeon. Not under arrest, you understand; merely to her lord, who was there. She was left there. Only she and Akter and Zafra were present. Soon Akter left, alone. Zafra and the girl remained. She was never seen again. No one saw her corpse. What I have just said is fact, Conan. Of what I say now we cannot be sure: some believe that she was butchered and that her body was the one that caused such excitement down in Squatters Alley, where it was found. The dismembered corpse of a young woman or girl, neatly packed in several containers, is so shocking a discovery that it was noteworthy even in such a hole as Squatter’s Alley —which Balad would clean up, by the way.”
Conan ignored the campaign phrase. “You say that her murder is fact.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know this?”
“I cannot tell you, Conan. That is, I will not.”
“You have a spy in the palace.”
“Balad has, of course. Many and many are those who believe Akter Khan no fit ruler, Conan—and see Zafra as a terrible danger to us all.”
“Why Balad, then? Plot, for so men do, and no ruler but slays, and has dungeons. Slay Akter, and put his son Jungir on the throne. With strong advisors— even Balad, perhaps.”
“Jungir is only a boy, Conan, but he would know what happened to his father and eventually, with age and the strength of power, he would seek his vengeance.
Balad is a strong man, a scion of an old and noble house, and a liberal. Too, he has a sense of Zamboulan destiny. We cannot merely remain here, to stagnate and rot under a ‘ruler’ who does nothing save drink himself to sleep each night.”
After a time, the Cimmerian realized that this time Jelal intended to say nothing until Conan had spoken. He spoke.
“I have heard your words, Jelal. They are interesting. I doubt there is anything new in them; there are always bad rulers and those who plot against them. Even good rulers—I have heard that some exist—have those who plot against them. I will not tell Akter Khan of this meeting, or anyone else. Remember that I am no Zamboulan, and do not plan to remain here. The affairs of Zamboula are of little concern to me.”
“You could be of aid to us, Conan.”
“Doubtless. As I could be of aid to Akter Khan. Isparana and his Captain Jhabiz feel that he may well offer me some sort of position as what I am: a man of weapons.”
“Those who serve under Akter Khan are seldom respected and never loved, Conan. You are a man of prowess, and young, without wealth. Were Balad to become ruler of Zamboula, you would assuredly receive a command.”
“At my age?”
Jelal cocked his head. “What is your age?”
“Never mind. That is interesting, Jelal. Yet at present I find myself rewarded, favored by Akter Khan. In Cimmeria people say that in winter when one has an empty belly and slays a good elk, one should not long for spices and wine.”
As if reminded—or perhaps symbolically—Jelal turned away to pour wine. After offering some to Conan with a gesture, he drank, looking at the foreigner across the cup’s rim. “In Zamboula, people say that the man who aspires but does not take action is an unburied corpse.”
Conan shrugged.
“Conan: Akter Khan will fall. Balad will rule. Turan will accept him, for the Emperor-king wants only a strong man on the throne here, and those things Zamboula sends to Aghrapur as revenues. We have friends in Aghrapur—”
“Agents?”
“Friends, let us say. Those who oppose Akter are assumed to be friends of Balad. Those who aid him will be favored. Strong men of prowess are needed.”
“To fight. Your Balad means to bathe Zamboula in blood?”
“Hardly. None in Zamboula will fight for Akter Khan! The palace may have to be fought for,” Jelal replied evenly. “His own guards, I mean; the Khan’s Thorns.”
Conan nodded. “I have not said nay, Jelal. I have said that you have not convinced me that I should throw in my lot with Balad, a name. I do not know him, or much of him.”
“You could meet Balad, Conan. Those who know of him and are not with him are assumed to be against him.”
Conan’s stomach tightened; so did his lips. This was the second time he had heard such words, and in a way he had heard them three times. They were an implied threat.
Join us or we assume you’re against us, and you will take the consequences when we succeed
. He had the feeling that such words were common throughout the world, and that he’d hear them again ere he died.
While he reflected on his reply—and kept note of Jelal’s weapon hand, for the man was a plotter, and a big man, disguised in that brownish-yellowish robe, and a plotter was devious, and Jelal held his wine cup in his left hand—be heard something other than words. Someone was ascending the steps outside the door, and with no care for stealth. Now excited words were exchanged just without, in two voices. Conan saw Jelal’s face change, saw his hand reach behind his right hip for the dagger he wore there, out of casual sight. Conan took a few paces to his left before turning; he placed himself thus in position to see both Jelal and the door. Even in his apprehension that doubtless had his heartbeat speeded, Jelal noted the clever fighter’s maneuver.
The door was thrust violently inward; Conan and Jelal drew weapons; the guide entered, alone.
“No less than twenty guardsmen from the palace have just left the Royal Turan. They sought you, Conan, and Isparana. They are taking her away right now.”
Conan stared at the man, and the Cimmerian’s face showed that he was truly surprised and shocked. With his sword still naked in his hand, he whirled to peer from the window.
Across and down the dark street the Royal Turan’s doorway splashed light outward. On its step, a little clot of patrons stood gazing up the street. He could not see what they stared after.
Watching them take her away
, Conan thought, in a mind gone terribly grim. Nor, because of the angle, could he have seen had he slashed through the scraped sheet of pig’s intestine that covered the window-slit.
He swung from it, and two men saw how a youth’s face could go ugly and feral and the eyes from slices of sky to chips of ice.
“Treachery,” he snarled, and napes prickled at the sound; not the word, but the animalistic sound of the northerner’s voice. “That treacherous dog—I’ll show him that he ca—twenty. You said twenty men.”
“Aye. Armored guardsmen. Akter Khan’s best. The Thorns.”
Conan still looked indecisive, as though he might rush on out, to attempt to wrest Isparana from her custodians. The sword jutting from his fist made his arm a killing instrument nearly six feet long.
“Conan,” Jelal said quietly. He had sheathed his long wedge of a dagger. “You may well be a match for five men. I have heard things of you and your prowess, and you are bigger than any man in Zamboula, sure. But you cannot succeed against twenty. They would only kill you—or put wounds on you and then have both you and the woman, rather than only her. With you alive and free, she has hope. And you—you have friends in Zamboula, Conan.”
That brought a questioning look from icy blue eyes beneath hovering black brows.
“Those who have reason to be enemies of Akter Khan,” Jelal told him, “have reason to be friends of one another.”
Conan blinked; stared in revelation. He had just heard a restatement of Jelal’s earlier words, and yet how much better they sounded, put this way! Gone was threat; now was only comforting promise!
With his lips moving tightly over clenched teeth, Conan said, “I would like to meet Balad.” And he reached for the wine.
“Give him the cloak,” Jelal said.
When his former guide began immediately to remove that long, dun-hued garment, Conan realized that they had planned well. They could not have known that men were coming for him and Isparana, surely; they had merely hoped to be successful in piquing his interest this night. Aye, and they had planned better than that:
“Turth!” Jelal called.
Through the open doorway came a third man; the lookout, Conan realized. Beneath his big nose bushed a black mustache that dangled down past both corners of his mouth. As he approached Conan, he lifted his hand to that mustache—and, with a wince of his facial muscles, he tugged it off.
“What held it on?” Conan asked, while Turth extended the mustache to him; it was indeed hair, he saw, and seemed human, not coarse enough to have been drawn from a horse’s mane or tail.
“The same wax that will hold it beneath your nose, Conan,” Jelal said. “Wearing it and the cloak, and with the blue of your eyes not noticeable in the darkness outside, you will not be recognized. You can lay wager that Akter’s men will be searching for you, armed with your description. Here, let me.”