Conan and the Emerald Lotus Part 13

The best that most anyone else could hope for would be robbery and a quick kick back across the border. At worst, they'd be crucified at the roadside."

Neesa shivered despite the bright sun, then spat into the ditch.

"And here we come as uninvited visitors," she said. Conan laughed, shaking back his black mane.

"Don't fret, woman. The patrols are few and the land is large. And besides, I'm going with you!"

Laughing, Neesa leaned from her saddle and pressed a swift kiss upon the barbarian's cheek. Then she put her heels to her mount, sending the beast trotting forward and away to Lady Zelandra's side, leaving Conan rubbing his cheek and grinning in bemused fascination. Neither the Cimmerian nor Neesa took notice of Heng Shih, who rode a short distance behind them. His incredulous expression attested that he had missed nothing of their exchange. The Khitan pa.s.sed a wide hand over his smooth pate and shook his head in wonder.

Lady Zelandra led her band of travelers along the river's flank.

Sweating workers clad only in breechclouts hoisted water from the darkly flowing body of the Styx with the aid of simple mechanisms made of lashed lengths of rough wood. A crude tripod supported an irregular pole with a heavy counterweight on one end, and a large bucket dangled from a rope on the other. The bucket was lowered until it was submerged, then the workers would add their bodies to the counterweight, lifting the full bucket from the river. Finally, the pole would be turned atop the tripod, swinging the bucket over the sh.o.r.e and dumping it into a waiting irrigation ca.n.a.l. To Conan it seemed a tedious way of making one's living.

Once among the white buildings of Aswana, the travelers became objects of much interest. Although the cobbled streets of the city were bustling with activity, Conan's band was conspicuous and exotic enough to draw the attention of the townsfolk. Naked children ran in the dust beside their horses' hooves, crying out to one another in shrill voices. A woman clad only in a diaphanous veil leaned from a second-story window and winked a kohl-darkened eye at the Cimmerian, who raised a hand in salutation, smiling until he felt the sharp and indignant eyes of Neesa upon him. When he turned his smile upon her she looked away, flushing.

Conan slowed in front of a low, windowless building with a crude sign proclaiming it to be a tavern. As he reined in his mount, a lean man in a faded, sweat-stained tunic emerged from the curtained doorway and stood blinking in the afternoon sun.

"Ho, friend," called the barbarian. "Where can I find an honest ferryman in this town?" The man he addressed took on a sour expression as he fingered the dirty headband that confined his tousled, graying hair.

"Well, you won't find one now because Pesouris, may Set gnaw his cod, just took a load of acolytes across this morning. If I know that lazy cur, he shan't be back before nightfall."

"Isn't there another ferryman?"

"No, by the G.o.ds. I was a ferryman until the d.a.m.ned Stygians decided that one ferry was enough for Aswana and gave a royal seal to that pig Pesouris. Now he waxes rich, and I am left to test my luck fishing from a ferryboat."

Conan leaned toward the man conspiratorially, fixing him with a knowing gaze.

"What's your name, my friend?"

The fellow peered back at him with faded eyes touched with the bleariness of drink.

"I am Temoten. If you wish to speak further with me, ye'd best buy me a drink."

"Temoten, if you still have your ferryboat, why not take us across the Styx? You'll be plucking enough money from the purse of Pesouris to buy yourself a week's worth of wine."

Temoten drew back at the suggestion, his weathered face creased further by a skeptical frown. He shook his s.h.a.ggy head.

"Nay. Pesouris would report me to the authorities of Bel-Phar, or even to the border patrol if he could. And if any Stygian soldiers were about when we made landfall, they'd want to see my ferryman's seal. As I have none, they'd behead me there on the docks. No thank you, stranger."

Temoten turned to walk off and almost collided with the Lady Zelandra, who had dismounted and now stood before him dangling a leather pouch from one delicate hand.

"My people and I need to cross the Styx without delay, Temoten," she said, "and I'm willing to pay well for the trip. Would you want this pouch to pa.s.s into the hands of Pesouris?"

The ferryman reached for the proffered pouch and poured a glittering stream of golden coins into a grimy palm. At once his eyes grew wider and more sober.

"Sweet Ishtar!" Temoten licked lips that had gone suddenly dry and wished mightily for a drink.

"Besides," continued Zelandra, "what fool in his right mind would contest the pa.s.sage of my friends Heng Shih and Conan?"

Temoten spared a brief glance at the lady's hulking escorts before returning his gaze to enough gold to keep him living in comfort for the better part of a year.

"Only a very great fool, indeed," he breathed. "To nine h.e.l.ls with it.

Let's go. What right do the stinking Stygians have to command a free Shemite anyway?"

"None at all, I should think," smiled Zelandra. "Now where can we find your ferryboat?"

The boat was moored to a rotting dock behind Temoten's one-room hut on the outskirts of Aswana. It was a once-elegant vessel of st.u.r.dy cedar about twenty-four feet from stem to stern. A single, slim mast rose above the deck, bearing a furled sail of faded yellow. A tattered ox-hide canopy mounted just ahead of the long steering oar offered the craft's only shelter from the sun. When Heng Shih came around the corner of Temoten's hut and saw the boat for the first time, he touched Zelandra's shoulder and communicated with her in a swift pa.s.sage of sign language.

"My friends," called Lady Zelandra, "Heng Shih points out that there is no room in the ferry for our mounts."

Conan, pulling the saddle and saddlebags from his horse, spoke up: "That's just as well, milady. Camels are a superior mount for desert travel, anyway. Perhaps you and Heng Shih would take the horses into the city and sell them."

Zelandra raised dark eyebrows. "Are you leading this company now, barbarian?"

"No offense intended, milady, but we could use the gold earned from their sale to purchase camels in Bel-Phar."

"That sounds suitable," said the sorceress reluctantly, "but I am scarcely a bargain-mongering trader."

"You bargained me into this expedition easily enough. Just have Heng Shih stare at them if they try to swindle you. I'll wager that you'll get an excellent price."

"Very well. Temoten, is there a worthy dealer in horseflesh in the city?"

The ferryman, standing on the dock, nodded vigorously.

"Yes, mistress, my late wife's cousin, Nephtah, deals in horses and mules. You will find him at the northeast corner of the market square.

Tell him that I sent you and he will treat you as his family."

The remaining saddles and packs were removed from the horses. Zelandra and Heng Shih mounted up, leading the string of riderless animals behind them. The Khitan looked back over his heavy shoulder and fixed his narrowed eyes upon the Cimmerian, who was busily loading saddlebags and provisions onto the boat. Conan heaped the stuff on the worn, red-painted planks of the deck beneath the ox-hide canopy as Zelandra and her bodyguard rode slowly out of sight.

Temoten leaned on one of the dock's cracked pilings, studiously examining the dirty fingernails of his left hand and making no effort to a.s.sist the Cimmerian.

"So, Outlander, you seem to know your way around a boat."

Conan stacked a packed saddlebag atop the pile he had built beneath the canopy. "I have some acquaintance with such things," he said quietly.

"Then you can steer, raise a sail, and the like?"

"I see that this craft would be difficult to run single-handed, Temoten. Do not fear, I shall help you get us across the river."

The ferryman looked disgruntled, but kept his silence, staring off into the reedy shallows. Neesa struggled down the sagging dock under the weight of a double waterskin, which Conan took from her and heaved into the boat. She then leapt nimbly onto the rear deck, catching the haft of the steering oar. Clinging to it for support, she leaned out over the vessel's side, gazing across the Styx with the wind in her thick, black hair.

In a moment Conan joined her. The broad, sunstruck river stretched away, flecked with distant skiffs full of fishermen plying their trade.

The air blowing in off the water was fresh and invigorating.

"It's beautiful," said Neesa dreamily. "I've never seen the Styx before. I haven't even been out of Akkharia since I was a child."

"Crom," said Conan in a strangely gentle tone, "that's no way to live.

You have but one life and one world to live it in. Surely you should experience both as well as you are able. Ymir's beard, I'd go mad if I were cooped up in a single city all my life."

Neesa looked up at him, her black eyes afire with honesty. "I know it's wrong to say it, Conan, but this journey seems the finest thing I have ever done. All of my life I have been grateful to Lady Zelandra for her shelter from the world, and now I find that I am enjoying myself on a voyage made in the shadow of her death."