“We go to Shadizar, not Aghrapur. And I will not leave the others without horses so long as there is any chance one of them remains alive. If you wish to take the horses, then you must take me back into the temple and show me their bodies.”
Bombatta shook his head. “It is too dangerous for you.”
“Dangerous or not,” she insisted, “I will not leave him so.”
The fury that clouded the massive warrior’s face made her want to cower. It took all of her will to keep her back straight, to look him in the eye with outward calm.
Dropping the reins of the other horses, he moved his own closer to hers. “Him! Him, and again him! We could have gone anywhere.” Every word came from him like a piece of iron. “Anywhere, child.” Abruptly his scarred visage twisted in pain. Jehnna stared; she had never before seen Bombatta show pain. The agonized grimace lasted but a moment, then his face was normal again, save that in going from his eyes the burning seemed to have left them dull and flat. “We go to Shadizar,” he said hoarsely and, taking the reins from her hands, began to lead her through the maze.
Jehnna clutched the bundle, containing all she had come so far to find, tightly against her breast, and would not allow herself to look back. Conan or her destiny. One at the cost of the other. She wondered how there could be such pain. How could the gods allow it? Slumping, no longer able to find the strength to sit straight, she wept softly and let herself be led.
xx
Through thick clouds of smothering darkness Conan clawed his way back to consciousness and scrambled to his feet with sword in hand. Akiro and Zula stared at him in amazement. Malak tossed a fist-sized rock into the shadows between the columns and dusted his hands.
“About time you were awake,” the small thief said. “By Mehen’s Scales, I was beginning to think you were going to sleep until we were all dead.”
“How long?” Conan said. He felt the side of his head. It was tender, and a fan of dried blood descended from his hair
Malak shrugged, but Akiro said, “Perhaps two turns of the glass, perhaps a little longer. It is difficult to tell exactly. We found you lying like a stunned ox. I did what I could, but it is best with head injuries to let wakefulness come naturally.”
“I have a few herbs that help blows to the head,” Zula said, “but there is no water to steep them in.”
The Cimmerian nodded, and immediately wished he had not as the chamber seemed to spin around. Desperately he fought off the dizziness. He could allow no weakness now.
The far end of the dim chamber was now a mass of stone, fragments of fluted columns mixed with chunks of the mountain above in sizes from that Malak had held to boulders larger than a man. Three of the rusted metal stands Conan had thought made to hold torches had been set upright. Their torches burned atop them, casting a pale yellow pool about the four, a pool that quickly faded into shadows among the columns. Not all the light came from the torches, however. From down the unblocked passage came a flickering azure glow that was painful to the eye.
“What is that blue light?” Conan asked
“A ward,” Akiro told him. “I managed to lay nine sets before those tall fellows got the door open. Then I had to trigger the first and could lay no more. It is dangerous to place one of those while another burns close by.”
“How long,” Conan began, and got his answer before he could complete the question.
The azure flickering increased in speed, and Akiro bent to draw symbols in the dust with a finger and mouth his silent incantations. With a last flash of brilliant blue the light was gone. In an instant it began again, and a shriek echoed down the corridor as it did.
Akiro tilted his head as if listening, then sighed. “One was very fast, but not their wizard, worse luck. If Bombatta had to slay one of them, he could as well have killed the one with the red crest. He is their mage, and without him they would never even have gotten that door open, much less reached my wards. And I must fight him with little more than my bare hands.”
“I do not see why he had to kill any of them,” Zula said angrily. “They offered no violence toward us, only speaking to … .” Her words trailed off with a sympathetic look at Conan, but he ignored it.
“I doubt they would have let us go without a fight,” he said. “Not with Jehnna. In any case, I’ll not let them spear me like a wild pig just because Bombatta started it.”
“That’s it,” Malak said. “Ogon’s Toenails, if a man attacks you, you carve him, and if it’s all a mistake you can burn a little incense in the temples for his spirit.”
“Not always the best way,” Akiro said drily. “But those men are foul.”
“I saw no foulness in them,” Zula protested, and the wizard snorted.
“That is because you are not a mage, nor did you read the plaques, as I did. The unease we felt as we entered was put there by those men, and by those who came before them, over centuries. Human sacrifice was the least of it. They make the shamans you res—ah, assisted me with, seem as babes at play.”
“I care not if they’re cannibals,” Conan said. “It is past time for us to be getting out of here. Bombatta and Jehnna get closer to Shadizar with every moment, and I do not doubt he’ll do his best to leave us out of what has happened when he tells Taramis of it. I do not intend to be cheated of my promised reward.”
Akiro looked at him pityingly, and Zula gaped. “But I thought … we thought … Jehnna … .” She gestured helplessly at the jumbled stone filling the other end of the chamber.
“Bombatta pulled that down,” Conan said. “He could not wait to face me in Shadizar. But I cannot think he pulled it down on his own head, nor on Jehnna’s. We will dig our way out, and follow. There is but a night and a day left before we must be back in Shadizar.”
“You intend to dig through the mountain?” Malak said incredulously. The other two looked at the Cimmerian as if he had gone mad.
“I saw this chamber when it was whole,” Conan told them as he strode to the mass of rock. “I know how much of it is gone.” He seized a torso-sized piece of a column and heaved it loose; smaller stones slid free and bounced around his feet. “The passage Bombatta followed is no more than three or four paces from us. And we have only to clear a way wide enough to squeeze through.” He carried the stone well into the columns before dropping it. There was room there for all they had to move and more. When he returned, the others remained where they had been, still staring at him. “Well?” he demanded. “Would you rather d