“Did you indeed follow us, then? I would not have done it save for that.”
“I followed you,” Haranides replied bitterly. “Rather, I followed the Red Hawk and the trinkets she took from Tiridates. Or was it you, thief, who entered the palace and slew like a demon?”
“Not I,” Conan said, “nor the Red Hawk. ‘Twas S’tarra, the scaled ones, who did it, and we followed them as you followed us. But how came you to this pass, chained to the wall in Amanar’s dungeon?”
“From continuing my pursuit of the red-haired wench when a wiser man would have returned to Shadizar and surrendered his head,” the captain said. “Half a mountain of rock poured into the gorge by those things—S’tarra, you call them? No more than twenty of my men escaped. We had a hillman for a guide, but whether he led us into a trap, or perished beneath the stone, or even got away entirely, I know not.”
“You got not those burns from falling rock.”
Haranides examined his blisters ruefully. “Our jailor, a fellow named Ort, likes to entertain himself with a hot iron. He’s surprisingly agile for one of his bulk. He’d strike and leap away, and in these,” he rattled his chains, “neither could I attack nor escape him.”
“If he comes again with his irons,” Conan said eagerly, “perhaps in dodging from the one he will come close enough for the other to seize.”
He pulled one of his chains to its fullest extent and measure with his eye. With a disgusted grunt he again slumped against the stone wall. There was room enough and more between him and the other man for Ort to leap and dodge as he would. The fat torturer could stand within a finger’s breadth of either man with impunity. He realized the other man was frowning at him.
“It comes to me,” Haranides said slowly, “that already I have told you more than I told Ort. How came you to be chained like an ox, Conan?”
“I misjudged the wiliness of a sorcerer,” Conan replied curtly.
It rankled still, the ease with which he had been taken. He seemed to remember once calling himself a bane of wizards, yet Amanar had snared him like a three-years child. While Karela watched, too.
“Then you were in his service?” Haranides said.
Conan shook his head irritably. “No!”
“Perhaps you are in his service still, put in here to extract information more easily than good Ort.”
“Are your brains moon-struck?” Conan bellowed, lunging to his feet. His chains left him paces short of the other man. At least, though, he had regained enough strength to stand. With a short laugh he sank back. “A cell is no place for a duel, and we can’t reach each other besides. I’ll ask you to watch your speaking, though. I serve no sorcerer.”
“Perhaps,” Haranides said, and he would say no more.
Conan made himself as comfortable as the bare stone floor and rough wall would permit. He had slept in worse conditions in the mountains as a boy, and of his own free will. This time he did not sleep, though, but rather set his mind to escape, and to the killing of Amanar, for that last he would do if his own life were extinguished in the same moment. But how to kill a man who could take a yard of steel through his chest and not even bleed? That was a weighty question, indeed.
Some men, he knew, had amulets which were atuned to them by magicks, so that the amulet could be used for good or ill against that man. The Eye of Erlik came to mind, which bauble had at last brought down the Khan of Zamboula, though not by its sorceries. That the pendant which Velita had worn nestled between her small breasts was a watch for Amanar’s evil eyes was to the Cimmerian proof that it too was such an amulet. It could be used to kill Amanar, he was sure, if he but knew the way.
But first must come escape. He reviewed what he had seen since being carried to the dungeon, what Ort had said, what Haranides had told him, and a plan slowly formed. He settled to wait. The patience of the hunting leopard was in him. He was a mountain warrior of Cimmeria. At fifteen he had been one of the fierce Cimmerian horde that stormed the walls of Venarium and sacked that border city of Aquilonia. Even before that had he been allowed his place at the warriors’ council fires, and since then he had traveled far, seen kingdoms and thrones totter, helped to steady some and topple others. He knew that nine parts of fighting was knowing when to wait, the tenth knowing when to strike. He would wait. For now. The hours passed.
At the rattle of a key in the massive iron lock Conan’s muscles tensed. He forced them to relax. His full strength was returned, but care must be taken.
The door swung outward, and two S’tarra entered, dragging Hordo unconscious between them. Straight to the third set of chains they took him, and manacled him there. Without looking at either of the other two men they left, but the door did not close. Instead, Amanar came to stand in the opening. The golden robe had been replaced by one of dead black, encircled with embroidered golden serpents. The mage fingered something on his chest through the robe as he surveyed the cell with cold blac
k eyes.
“A pity,” he murmured, almost under his breath. “You three could be more use to me than all of the rest together, with the sole exception of Karela herself, yet you all must die.”
“Will you imprison us all, then?” Conan said, jerking his head at Hordo. The one-eyed bandit stirred, and groaned.
Amanar looked at him as if truly realizing he were present for the first time. “No, Cimmerian. He meddled where he should not, as you did, as the man Talbor did. The others remain free. Until their usefulness ends.”
Haranides’ chains clinked as he shifted. “Mitra blast your filth-soaked soul,” the captain grated.
The ebon-clad sorcerer seemed not to hear. His strange eyes remained on Conan’s face. “Velita,” he said in a near whisper, “the slave girl you came to free, awaits in my chamber of magicks. When I have used her one last time, she will die, and worse than die. For if death is horrible, Cimmerian, how much more horrible when no soul is left to survive beyond?”
The big Cimmerian could not stop his muscles from tensing.
Amanar’s laugh curdled marrow in the bone. “Interesting, Cimmerian. You fear more for another than for yourself. Yes, interesting. That may prove useful.” His hellborn laugh came again, and he was gone.
Haranides stared at the closed door. “He fouls the air by breathing,” he spat.