Though I will admit I did not know it was you who followed us.”
“Not you,” Conan said. “Hillmen. And you can tell the rest of your men to come out. Unless you think they really have need to watch my back.”
Grinning, Eldran sat up. “So we both know what we are about.” He waved his arm, and one by one seven men in fur-leggings and embroidered tunics appeared on the slope, trotting to join them. “Do you, too, seek to rescue Jondra, then, Cimmerian?”
Conan drew a long breath. “So she is in the hands of the hillmen. Yes, I seek her, though it was another woman, also a captive, I first set out to find. But you speak as if you also wish to rescue Jondra. This puzzles me, considering the warmth of your last meeting with her.”
“We have met since, she and I,” Eldran said ruefully, “and there was even less warmth on her part. Some time after, I found where she had fallen captive to hillmen.” He fingered his rough gray woolen cloak, dirty and torn; it was a hillman’s cloak, Conan saw, stained and dirty. “There are matters I must discuss sharply with that woman.”
One of the other Brythunians, a bony man with a pointed nose, spat. “I still say forget the woman. We came to slay the beast of fire, and we must do it if we all die. We have no time for foreign women.”
Eldran did not reply, though his face tightened. Another of them murmured, “Peace, Frydan,” and the bony man subsided, albeit with an ill grace.
“So you hunt the beast as Jondra did,” Conan said. “She learned better after twenty of her hunters died, torn apart or burned alive. Only she, myself and one other survived that enounter, and we barely. I would see the thing dead, too, Brythunian, but there are easier ways to kill yourself.”
“The Zamoran wench finds the beast,” Frydan muttered disgustedly, “while we find only tracks. Mayhap we do need her.”
Again Eldran ignored him. “Jondra hunted for a trophy,” he said. “We hunt to avenge dead kin, and to prevent more deaths. Your steel could not prevail against the beast of fire, Conan, nor any mortal-wrought metal. But this,” he laid a hand on the hilt of his broadsword, “was forged by mages for that very purpose.”
The big Cimmerian eyed the weapon with sudden interest. Objects of sorcery were not beyond his experience. Betimes he could feel the aura of their power in his hands. If this weapon was indeed as Eldran said, then his debt to Telades could yet be repaid. “I would heft the weapon that could slay that creature,” he said, but the gray-eyed Brythunian shook his head.
“Once it leaves my possession, Cimmerian, it will journey, Wiccana alone knows how, back to the place where it was given me, and I shall never regain it in this life. Such is the way of its ensorcelment.”
“I understand,” Conan said. Perhaps it was as the Brythunian said, and perhaps not, but did Eldran fall, he vowed, he would see that wherever the blade journeyed, it came first to his hand. One way or another, if he lived, the debt to Telades would be paid. “But before the beast, the women. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Eldran replied. “As our trails have converged, perhaps we will find both women together. Haral continued after the hillmen who have Jondra, and he will mark the way so we may follow quickly.”
Conan got to his feet. “Then let us tarry no longer if we would save them before they are harmed.” Yet as they filed down the slope his heart was grim. Women captives did not receive kind treatment from hillmen. Let them only have courage, he thought. Let them only survive till he could find them.
For the twentieth time Tamira examined her bonds, and for the twentieth time knew the futility of such study. Leather cuffs about her wrists and ankles were attached to stout chains fastened in the ceiling and floor of the windowless, stone-walled chamber, holding her rigidly spread-eagled in mid-air. The slender thief’s sweat-slick nudity glistened in the light from bronze lamps. The air was chill; the sweat came from fear, fear more of something half-sensed in the room than of her captivity.
Jondra hung suspended as she was, facing her, and Tamira exchanged glances with the noblewoman. The taller woman’s body also gleamed, every curve of breast and hip and thigh highlighted. Tamira hoped she also shared the other woman’s calmness of face, though it was slightly spoiled by Jondra’s constant wetting of her lips.
“I am the Lady Jondra of the House Perashanid of Zamora,” Jondra said, her voice quaking. “A generous ransom will be paid for my safe return, and that of my serving woman. But we must be clothed and well-treated. Did you hear me? I will give our weight in gold!”
The crimson-robed man who labored at their feet, drawing a strange pattern on the floor with powders poured from small clay bowls, did not glance up. He gave no sign at all that he had heard, as he had given no sign since they were brought to him. He murmured constantly as he drew, words that Tamira could barely hear, and could not understand at all.
Tamira tried not to listen, but the steady drone bored into her ears. She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. Basrakan Imalla, the men who had thrown her at his feet had called him. She would have wept for her belief that a holy man would protect her, but she feared that if she began she might never stop.
“I am the Lady Jondra of the House … .” Jondra licked her lips nervously. Her head tossed as she attempted to jerk at her bonds; a quiver ran down the length of her, but no more. “I will give you twice our weight in gold.” Her voice was fringed with panic, and the tone of panic grew with every word. “Three times! Four! Any amount you wish! Anything! But whatever you intend, do not do it! Do not! Oh, Mitra protect me, do not!”
The beautiful noble sobbed and struggled wildly, and her fear sparked Tamira’s own to flame. The thief knew now what she sensed in the chamber, what she had not allowed herself to even think of. Sorcery. The very walls reeked of sorcery. And something else, now that she let herself feel it. A malevolent hatred of women. Sobs wracked her, and tears streamed from beneath eyelids squeezed shut as if she could hide behind them.
“You are vessels of iniquity!” The harsh voice cut through Tamira’s weeping. Unwillingly she looked. Basrakan stood stroking his forked beard, and his black eyes glittered despite at them. “All women of the cities are unclean vessels of lust. The old gods themselves will prove it on your bodies. Then I will chastise you of your vileness, that you may go to the ancient gods of these mountains in purity.”
Shuddering, Tamira tore her eyes from him, and found herself looking down at the design he had drawn, an elongated diamond with concave sides. A short, black candle on one of the points flickered beneath her, another beneath Jondra. The configuration of lines within the diamond pulled at her gaze, drew it hypnotically. Her thoughts fragmented, became a maze, and unrecognizable images came into her mind, images that brought terror. Shrieking in the depths of her mind she tried to flee, to find a refuge, but all was chaos and horror.
Suddenly the maze itself shattered. Gasping, she found that she could look away from the diamond. The stern-faced Imalla had seated himself cross-legged at one end of the unholy pattern. He struck a small gong of burnished brass that stood by his side, and she realized it had been that sound which had released her from the maze. Again the gong sounded, and he began a new chant. Once more the gong chimed. And again. Again.
She told herself that she would not listen, but her bones seemed to vibrate with his words, with the reverberations of the brass. The air within the chamber grew chill; it thickened and stirred. Its caress on her body was palpable, like the feathery stroking of soft hands that touched her everywhere at once. And the heat, rising.
In disbelief she stared down at the candle beneath her. The flame stood firm, untroubled by the breezes she felt stirring, yet it could not possibly be the source of the waves of heat that seemed to rise from it. But the heat came, from somewhere, licking through her limbs, making her belly roll and heave, changing. She tried to shake her head, tried to deny the desire that curled and coiled within her. Dimly she heard a groan of negation from Jondra. Vaguely she saw the noblewoman, head thrown back, hips jerking uncontrollably, and she knew that she writhed as well.
Her lips parted; a moan was wrenched from her. “Conan!” With the tattered shreds of reason left to her, she recognized an answering cry from Jondra. “Eldran!” It would not stop. Her blood boiled.
With a crash the doors of the chamber flew open. Tamira gasped as if plunged into icy water; all sensation of desire fled from her in an instant. Weeping replaced it, tears for the uncleanness that seemed to cover her.
Basrakan leaped to his feet. “Do you desire death, Jbeil?” he snarled. “Do you desire to join Sharmal?”