“Before,” Conan said, “when Bombatta and I all but came to blows, you changed, for a space of moments at least. You sounded much like Taramis.”
“For a few moments I was Taramis.” His eyes widened, and she giggled. “Oh, not in truth. I did not want the two of you fight, so I pretended that I was my aunt, and that two of the servants were squabbling.”
“I am no servant,” Conan said sharply.
Jehnna seemed taken aback. “Why do you sound offended? You serve my aunt, and me. Bombatta is not offended that he is my aunt’s servant.”
The sussuration of wetstone on steel stopped, unnoticed by the two at the fire.
“He can bend his knee if he wishes,” Conan said. “I hire my sword and my skill for a day, or for ten, but I am servant to no man, woman or god.”
“All the same,” she replied, “I am glad that you accompany me. I cannot remember ever speaking more than two words together to anyone other than my aunt, or Bombatta, or my dressing maids. You are very different, and interesting. It is all different and interesting. The sky and the stars and so many leagues and leagues of open space.”
He stared into her big brown eyes and felt a hundred years older than she. As lovely a maiden as he had ever seen, he thought, and so very truly the innocent indeed, unknowing of the feelings she could raise in a man. “It is a dangerous land,” he muttered, “and the mountains are more so, even without a Stygian sorcerer. This is no place for you.”
“It is my destiny,” she said simply, and he grunted.
“Why? Because it is written in the Scrolls of Skelos?”
“Because I was marked at birth. Look.”
Before his astonished eyes Jehnna tugged down the neck of her robes, shrugging, until her satiny olive-skinned breasts were bared almost to the nipples. Sweet mounds made to nestle in a man’s palms, the Cimmerian thought, his throat suddenly tight.
“See?” Jehnna said. “Here. This mark I bore at birth, naming my destiny. It is described in the scrolls, but it was the gods who chose me.”
There was a birthmark, he saw, in the valley between her breasts. A red eight-pointed star, no bigger than a man’s thumbnail and as precisely formed as if drawn by a craftsman.
Abruptly curved steel slashed down to shine in the firelight between them.
“Do not touch her, thief,” Bombatta grated.
“Not ever!”
Conan opened his mouth for an angry reply, then realized that he had indeed been stretching a hand toward the girl. The gleaming blade hung before his fingertips as if it was the tulwar he had meant to stroke. Furious with himself, Cimmerian straightened, returning Bombatta’s glare.
Jehnna’s eyes traveled from one man to the other, a strange expression crossing her face as if thoughts new and disturbing had come to her.
“It is late,” Conan said harshly. “Best we all sleep, for we must travel early.”
Bombatta held out his free hand to help Jehnna rise, still holding his blade before her as if it were a shield. Conan’s eyes did not leave those of the scarred warrior while the huge Zamoran backed away, leading Jehnna. The girl glanced once at the tall Cimmerian youth, her eyes troubled, but she allowed herself to be bundled into her blankets without speaking. As on the previous night Bombatta set himself before her as a guard.
Muttering curses under his breath, Conan wrapped himself in his own blankets. This was foolishness, he told himself. There were women enough in the world that he did not let himself be entangled by a girl who likely did not even know what she did. She was a child, no matter her age. He slept, and his sleep was filled with dreams of lush-bodied Taramis and the night of lust they had shared. Yet often, in those dreams, he would look, and it would be not Taramis he held, but Jehnna. His sleep was not a restful one.
Blackness hung thickly over Shadizar, and the tapestried halls of Taramis’ palace were empty as she made her way from her sleeping chamber. The only sound was the brushing of her long silken robe on the polished marble tiles of the corridors. Her astrologers and the priests of the ancient worship she revived came often to the great hall she entered, but the nocturnal visits that she made with increasing frequency, she made alone.
About the edges of the room cunningly hooded golden lamps gave off a soft glow that could have been moonlight, so pale was it. The floor was black marble, polished to a mirror sheen, and fluted alabaster columns supported the high, arched ceiling, tiled with onyx and set with sapphires and diamonds to represent the night sky, the sky as it would be on one night in each thousand years.
Centered beneath that false sky was a couch carved of crimson marble, polished with the hair of virgins, and on it lay what seemed to be the alabaster statue of a man with his eyes closed, nude and half again as large as any living man, more handsome than any mortal man could ever be. But a single thing marred the perfection. Sunk to the depth of half a finger joint in the broad forehead was a black depression, a circle as wide as man’s hand. There was about the figure a sense of timeless waiting.
Slowly Taramis approached the marble couch, stopping at its foot. Her gaze roamed the alabaster form, and her breath quickened. Many men had she had in her life, choosing the first most carefully at sixteen, choosing each since with as great a care. Men she knew as well as she knew the rooms of her own palace. But what would it be like to be the lover of … a god?
She slipped her robe from her shoulders and sank naked to her knees at the feet of the figure. No word i
n the Scrolls of Skelos required this of her, but she wanted more than even they promised.
Pressing her face to those cold, alabaster soles she whispered, “I am thine, O great Dagoth.”
A compulsion to go further than ever before seized her, and she rained moaning kisses on those feet. Slowly she worked her way upwards, leaving no portion of that pale surface undampened by her ardent lips, caressing it with her lush roundness, until she writhed atop the great form as she would atop a man. Trembling fingers reached up to softly stroke the face.