Conan the Invincible Part 24

Amanar forestalled her by s.n.a.t.c.hing the crystal cup from under her very fingers. "As your friend still mistrusts...." Swiftly he sipped from each of the three goblets. "You see," he said as he set the last one back on the silver tray, "I do not die. Why should I bring you here to kill you, when I could have had the S'tarra bury you beneath boulders in the valley where we met?"

With an angry glare at Conan, Karela grabbed a goblet and drank, throwing her head back. Conan picked up another slowly, as Amanar took his. The fruity taste was a surprise. It was one of the heady wines of Aquilonia, costly so far from that western land.

"Besides," Amanar said quietly, "why should I wish harm to Conan, the thief of Cimmeria, and Karela, the Red Hawk?"

A scream burst from Karela. Conan bounded to his feet with a roar, crystal cup falling to the carpet as he drew his broadsword. Amanar made no move except to sway toward Karela, standing with her jeweled tulwar in hand, her head turning wildly as if seeking attackers. The dark man's heavylidded eyes half closed, and he inhaled deeply as if breathing in her perfume. The musicians played on unconcerned, eyes never lifting.

"Yes," Amanar murmured, leaning back in his chair. He appeared surprised to see Conan's sword. "Do you need that? There is only me, and I can hardly fight you with my staff." He extended the staff to tap Conan's blade. "Put it away and sit. You are in no danger."

"I'll stand," Conan said grimly, "until a few questions are answered."

"Conan was right," Karela whispered. "You're a sorcerer."

Amanar spread his hands. "I am what some men call a sorcerer, yes. I prefer to think of myself as a seeker of wisdom, wanting to bring the world a better way." He seemed pleased with that. "Yes. A better way."

"What do you want with us?" she said, taking a firmer grip on her curved sword. "Why did you bring us here?"

"I have a proposal to make to you. Both of you." The mage fingered his golden staff and smiled. Karela hesitated, then abruptly sheathed her blade and sat down.

"Before I put my sword up," Conan said, "tell me this. You know our names. What else do you know?"

Amanar seemed to consider before answering. "Quite incidentally to discovering your names, I discovered that you seek five dancing girls and five pendants. Searching further told me these were stolen from the palace of King Tiridates of Zamora. Why you seek them, most particularly why you seek them in the Kezankian Mountains, I do not know, however." His smile was bland, and Conan could see doubt spreading on Karela's face.

So much had already been revealed that the Cimmerian decided it could do little further harm to reveal a trifle more. "We came because the women and the gems were taken by S'tarra." He bridled at Amanar's answering laugh.

"Forgive me, Conan of Cimmerian, but the mere thought that S'tarra could enter Shadizar is ludicrous. The City Guard would kill them at sight, before they as much as reached the gates. Besides, my muscular friend, the S'tarra never leave the mountains. Never."

Conan answered in a flat voice. "Those who entered Tiridates' palace wore the boots the S'tarra wear, the boots worked with a serpent."

Amanar's laughter cut off abruptly, and his eyes lidded. Conan had the sudden impression of being regarded by a viper. "The boots," the sorcerer said at last, "are often taken by hillmen when they strip the S'tarra they have killed. I should imagine a caravan guard who killed a hillman during an attack and found a good pair of boots on him might take them. Who can say how far a pair of those boots might travel, or how many might be worn outside the mountains?" His voice was reasonable in the extreme, if devoid of color, but his black eyes challenged Conan to reject the explanation if he dared. The only sound in the room came from the musicians.

Karela abruptly broke the impa.s.se. "Hannuman's stones, Conan. Would he have mentioned the gems in the first place if he had them?"

The young Cimmerian was suddenly aware of how foolish he must look. The musicians played their flutes and harps. Karela had retrieved her goblet from the carpet and poured more wine. Amanar sat with the long fingers of one hand casually caressing his golden staff. In the midst of this peaceful scene Conan stood sword in hand, balanced to fight on the instant.

"Crom!" he muttered, and slammed his blade into its sheath. He resumed his chair, ostentatiously sprawling back. "You spoke of a proposal, Amanar," he said sharply.

The mage nodded. "I offer you both... haven. When the City Watch searches too diligently for Conan the thief, when the Army of Zamora presses too hard against the Red Hawk, let them come here, where the hillmen keep the army away, and my fortress grants safety from the hillmen."

"From the kindness of your heart," Conan granted.

Karela gave him a pointed look. "What would you require in return, Amanar? We have neither knowledge nor skills to be of use to a sorcerer."

"On the contrary," the mage replied. "The Red Hawk's fame is known from the Vilayet Sea to the Karpashian Mountains, and beyond. It is said that she would march her band into Gehanna, if she gave her word to do so, and that her rogues would follow. Conan is a thief of great skill, I am sure. From, time to time I would ask you to perform certain...

commissions for me." He smiled expansively. "There would, of course, be payment in gold, and I would in no way interfere with your, ah, professions."

Karela grinned wolfishly. "The caravan route to Sultanapur lies less than half a day to the south, does it not?"

"It does," Amanar laughed quietly. "And I'll not object if you should do business there. I may even have some for you myself. But make not your decision now. Rest, eat and drink. Tomorrow will be time enough, or the next day." He got to his feet, gesturing like a gracious host.

"Come. Let me show you my keep."

Karela rose with alacrity. "Yes, I'd like very much to see it." Conan remained where he was.

"You may keep your sword," the mage said derisively, "if you yet feel the need of protection."

Conan sprang angrily to his feet. "Lead on, sorcerer."

Amanar looked at him searchingly, and the Cimmerian suddenly thought that he and Karela had been placed on the two ends of a merchant's balance scale. Finally the necromancer nodded and, using his golden rod as a walking staff, led them from the room. The musicians played on.

First the red-robed mage took them to the heights of the outer curtain wall, its sheer scarp dropping fifty feet to the mountain slope.

Pike-bearing S'tarra sentries in chain-mail hauberks fell to their knees at Amanar's approach, but he did not deign to acknowledge the obeisance. From thence they went to the ebon parapet of the inner rampart, where S'tarra crossbowmen in bartizans could cut down any who managed to gain the outer wall. From the banquette catapults could hurl great stones. Atop the towers of the inner wall were ballistae, the arrows of which, as long as a man, could pierce through horse and rider together on the valley floor. Ma.s.sive blocks of pitch-black stone had been piled to build barracks where dwelt S'tarra in their hundreds. The scaled ones knelt for the mage, and followed Conan and Karela with hungering rubiate eyes.

In the donjon itself, Amanar led them through floor after floor of many-columned rooms hung with cloth-of-gold and costly tapestries. Rare carpets covered mosaicked floors, and bore furnishings inlaid with nacreous mother-of-pearl and deep blue lapis-lazuli. Carven bowls of jasper and amber from far Khitai, great golden vases from Vendhya, set with glittering rubies and sapphires, silver ornaments adorned with golden chrysoberyl and crimson carnelian, all were scattered in profusion as if they were the merest of trinkets.

Human servants were few, and none that the Cimmerian saw ever raised his or her eyes from the floor as they sped by on their tasks. Amanar paid them less heed even than he did the S'tarra.

On the ground level of the donjon, as Amanar began to lead them to the door, Conan noticed an archway, its plain stonework at odds with the ornateness of all else they had seen within. The pa.s.sage beyond seemed to slope down, leading back toward the mountain.

Conan nodded toward it. "That leads to your dungeons?"

"No!" Amanar said sharply. The black-eyed mage recovered his smile with an obvious effort. "That leads to the chambers where I carry out my...

researches. None but myself may enter there." The smile remained, but the eyes with the strange red flecks became flat and dangerous. "There are wards set which would be most deadly to one who made the attempt."

Karela laughed awkwardly. "I, for one, have no interest in seeing a magician's chambers."

Amanar shifted his dark gaze to the red-haired woman. "Perhaps, someday, I will take you down that pa.s.sage. But not for a time yet, I think. Sitha will show you out."

Conan had to control a desire to reach for his sword as a S'tarra fully as large as he suddenly stepped from a side pa.s.sage. He wondered if the mage had some means of communicating with his servants without words.

Such a thing could be dangerous to a thief.

The big S'tarra gestured with a long, claw-tipped hand. "This way," it hissed. There was no subservience in its manner toward them, but rather a touch of arrogance in those red eyes.

Conan could feel the eyes of the sorcerer on his back as he followed the dark-eyed man's minion. At the portcullis Sitha gestured without speaking for the heavy iron grate to be raised. From within the barbican came the creak of the windla.s.s. Clanking chains pulled the grate to chest height on Karela. Sitha gestured abruptly, and the creak of the windla.s.s ceased. The S'tarra's fanged mouth cracked in a mocking smile as it gestured for them to go.

"Do you not realize we are your master's guests?" Karela demanded hotly. "I'll-"

Conan grabbed her arm in his huge hand and pulled her protesting under the grate after him. It began to clank down at the very instant they were clear.

"Let's just be thankful to be out," Conan said, starting down the ramp.

He saw Hordo waiting at the foot of it.

Karela strode angrily beside him, rubbing her arm. "You muscle-bound oaf! I'll not take much more of this from you. I intend to see that Amanar punishes that big lizard. These S'tarra must learn proper respect for us, else my hounds will constantly be goaded into fighting them. I might even carve that Sitha myself."

Conan looked at her in surprise. "You intend to accept this offer? The Red Hawk will wear this sorcerer's jesses and stoop at his command?"

"Have you no eyes, Conan? Five hundred of the scaled ones he commands, perhaps more. My hounds could not take this keep were they ten times their number, and I will not waste them against its walls in vain. On the other hand, if all the gold that you and I and all my pack have ever seen in our lives were heaped in one pile it would not equal the hundredth part of what I saw within."

"I've seen a lot of gold," Conan snorted. "How much of it stuck to my fingers, and how much of this would, is another matter. This Amanar prates of a better way for mankind, but I've never met a sorcerer who did not tread a black path. Think you what he will ask you to do for his payment."