ie here?” Without a word Zula came to dig at the stone.
Malak came more slowly, and not without a look over his shoulder at the old wizard. “Aren’t you going to help, Akiro? You could wave your arms, and make all this disappear.”
“You display your ignorance openly,” Akiro snorted. “In any case, I must watch to trigger the next ward when this one fails. Unless you want your first warning of those spearmen to be when one spits you like a lamb.”
“You trigger all of them now, old man. Then you could help.”
The gray-haired wizard laughed derisively. “Do I teach you how to steal, my small thief? Be about something you know how to do.”
Conan labored like an automaton, fixing his mind on the goal of freedom, refusing to allow the immensity of the task to daunt him. Two stones he moved for every one moved by Zula and Malak together. Sweat oiled him till he glistened in the torchlight, and there was always more sweat to wash away the dust. When, with a loud rumble, rock cascaded from above to replace all they had done, he chivied the others back to work without ceasing himself. He must reach Jehnna. He must repay his debt to Valeria. Jehnna. Valeria. The two swirled in his mind till he could not tell which drove him most.
When another ward failed and Akiro chanted to replace it, Malak stopped to watch, knuckling the small of his back. “You really read those plaques, Akiro?” he asked.
“Work,” Conan said, and after one glance at the Cimmerian’s grim face Malak bent back to the stones.
Akiro, however, seemed to want to talk. He settled himself against a column and began. “Yes, I read them. Enough of them, at least. The golden horn that … .” He frowned at Conan, then went on. “It is the Horn of Dagoth.”
“The black warrior called it that,” Malak panted.
“Do not interrupt,” the wizard replied acerbically. “Millennia ago there was a war between the gods, which was not a rare thing in those times. In a great battle Dagoth was defeated by having the Horn ripped from his head and carried far away. The Horn carried what might be called his life-force, and without it he slowly turned to stone. According to the plaques, he sleeps, and when the Horn is placed again on his head he will wake.”
“So that is why Taramis wants it,” Conan said, still laboring. “To wake a god. Surely a god could bring Valeria back to life.”
“Yes,” Akiro sighed, “I suppose Dagoth could restore her to the living.”
“So Taramis did not lie,” Conan said with satisfaction.
As if he had received rest and cool water the Cimmerian increased his efforts. As the others slowed, he carried stones with greater speed. Zula fell trying to keep up with him, and could not stand. Conan paused to carry her back to Akiro, then rushed back to his labor. Later, when Malak dropped, the Cimmerian merely dragged him clear of the path he must follow from the stony blockage to where he threw the rocks.
He knew vaguely that they had dug past the end of the chamber, into the corridor, and still rock was piled before him. He knew it in a dim recess of his mind, but to acknowledge it might be the beginning of defeat, and he suppressed it ruthlessly without even being aware that he did so. Time lost all meaning to him. Effort lost all meaning. As if he were himself made of stone, incapable of tiring, he attacked the barrier relentlessly. Twin images drew him on. Valeria. Jehnna. He would not stop while life remained.
He tugged at a stone jammed into the tangle, tugged harder. It came free, and as it did the wall of rocks fell toward him. He stumbled back, cursing, barely avoiding being buried to the waist. Starting to turn away with the stone, he stopped abruptly with the realization that he had been looking over piled stone at a pale spot of light in the distance. He looked again, just to be sure he was not imagining it. The glow was still there. Letting the stone he had fall, he moved back to the chamber of columns.
Akiro sat cross-legged, staring gravely at the azure light from the corridor. Zula barely looked up, but Malak said tiredly from where he lay, “So you’re finished, too, eh, Cimmerian? Well, we gave it a good try. Erlik take us, if we didn’t.”
“I am through,” Conan said. “There is light. Sunlight, maybe.” Malak made a strange sound, and quivered. It took Conan a moment to realize the small thief was laughing.
“We made it,” Malak wheezed. “By Zandru’s Darkest Hell and Mitra’s Bones, they cannot stop us, Cimmerian.”
“You are certain, Conan?” Akiro said worriedly.
“It could be torches in another chamber,” Conan replied, “but there would have to be scores of them. The passage slopes upward. It must break ground.” Or it could rise into the mountain, he thought, but would not say it. The light could be from sorcery or Zandru’s Seventh Hell, but he needed to reach the surface above, and he would not admit it could be anything else.
“We must hope for sunlight,” Akiro said finally. “The seventh ward yet holds, though not for much longer, and two more wait. You must get Zula and Malak out of here as quickly as possible. I will follow as soon as I can.” He scurried back to his post at the mouth of the corridor. “Go man, or you may yet kill us all.”
Conan helped Zula to her feet, and turned to find Malak already wavering erect. The black woman tried to walk on her own, too, but the big Cimmerian found himself helping the pair to scramble over the last mound of stones and stagger upward toward the light. That glow seemed to have a restorative quality, for by the time Akiro caught up to them, both Zula and Malak were climbing without support and making good speed.
Even so, the old wizard called out, “Hurry! Hurry!” And there was that in his voice that made them move even faster.
The corridor ended in a rectangular opening, and the four stumbled out into the temple courtyard and the light of a sun not-yet fully risen in the east. Malak and Zula stared at it as if they had not believed they would ever see a sunrise again.
Conan had eyes only for the temple, with its huge columns and fallen statues. Unless the tall warriors were fools, he thought, there would be sentries. Yet as he hastened them all across the carven stones of the courtyard nothing moved from the temple save rock doves, flapping out from their nests high behind the columns. Then he realized there was no need to put sentries above when all of your enemies were trapped like rats beneath the mountain.
In the maze the thirsty whickering of the horses drew them quickly to the animals. Conan noted the missing hobbles and the tied reins, then the four of them were hurrying for the waterskins. Despite a throat that felt like gravel Conan first poured water into his horse’s mouth. When it was his turn he tipped back his head and drank until forced to breath, let the water splash over his face while he gulped air, then drank more. He finished by giving his horse another drink. The animal would have more need to be refreshed than he, for he intended to ride it hard.
Suddenly the ground quivered beneath their feet. Conan grabbed the reins, but before he could soothe his mount another tremor shook the earth, followed by a rumbling boom from the direction of the temple.
Malak, clinging to a trembling horse, muttered, “What in the Nine-Fold Names of Khepra was that?”