Conan the Invincible Part 33

"Where is your master, girl?"

"I do not know, mistress."

Karela frowned. There had been a slight hesitation before that answer.

"Then show me to the dungeons. I want to speak to Hordo."

"Mistress, I... I cannot... my master...." The girl stood staring at the floor.

Karela grabbed the girl's chin, twisting her face up. "Look at me...."

Her breath caught in her throat. The girl might have been called beautiful, except that there was no single line of expression or emotion on her face. And her brown eyes were... empty was the only word Karela could think of. She pulled her hand away, and had to resist the desire to wipe it on something. The girl dropped her eyes again immediately on being released. She had made no slightest resistance then, and she stood waiting now.

"Girl," Karela said, making her tone threatening, "I am here, and your master is elsewhere. Now show me to the dungeons!"

The girl nodded hesitantly, and led the way from the room.

She had been on the topmost level of the keep, Karela discovered as they took curving marble stairs, seeming to hang suspended in air, down to the ground floor. In a small side corridor the girl stopped before a plain stone archway that led onto rough stone steps. She had not raised her eyes in the entire journey, and Karela did not really want her to.

"There, mistress," the girl said. "Down there. I am not permitted to descend."

Karela nodded. "Very well, girl. If trouble comes of this for you, I'll intercede with your master."

"The master will do as he will do," the girl replied in her toneless voice. Before Karela could speak again, she had scurried away and was gone around a corner.

Taking a deep breath, and with a firm grip on her sword, the red-haired bandit descended the stairs until she came to an iron-strapped door. On this she pounded with her sword hilt.

The door was opened by a huge, fat man in a stained yellow tunic. She presented her blade to his face before he could speak. At least this one did not stare at the ground, she thought, though perhaps he should to hide his face.

"The man, Hordo," she said. "Take me to where he is confined."

"But Amanar," the fat man began. Her sword point indented his neck and his piggy eyes bulged. "I'll take you to him," he stammered in a highpitched voice, and added, "Mistress."

Blade against his backbone, she followed him down the crudely cut corridor. He fumbled with the keys at his belt, and unlocked one of the solid wooden doors.

"Over there," she ordered, gesturing with her sword. "Where I can see you. And do you move, I'll make a capon of you, if you're not one already."

Anger twisted his suety face, but he moved as she directed. She pulled open the door and stared at the three men inside. Conan, Hordo, and one who looked vaguely familiar to her. All three looked up as the door swung open.

"You came!" Hordo cried. "I knew you would!"

Her green eyes rested on the broad-shouldered Cimmerian. His gaze, like twinned blue agates, regarded her impa.s.sively. She was relieved to see he still lived, and angry that she was relieved. The hard planes of his unlined face were handsome, it was true, and he was virile-her cheeks colored-but he was a fool. Why did he have to oppose Amanar? Why could he not forget that girl, Velita? Why?

"Why?" she said, and immediately pulled her gaze to Hordo. "Why did you do it, Hordo?"

The one-eyed bandit blinked at her in bewilderment. "Do what?"

"Steal from Amanar. Try to free this other fool." She jerked her head at Conan without looking at him again.

"I stole nothing," Hordo protested. "And I knew not that Conan was imprisoned until I was chained beside him."

"Then you were brought here for no reason?" she said derisively. Hordo was silent.

"He," Conan began, but Hordo cut him off with a shout.

"No, Cimmerian!" He added, "Please?" and the word sounded as if it were carved from his vitals.

Karela looked at the two men in consternation. Their eyes met, and Conan nodded. "Well?" she demanded. Neither man spoke. Hordo would not meet her gaze. "Derketo take you, Hordo. I should have you flogged. Can I talk Amanar into releasing you, I may yet."

"Release us now," Hordo said quickly. "Ort has the keys. You can-"

"You!" she said sharply. "It's you I'll try to free. I have no interest in these others." She felt Conan's eyes on her, and could not look at him. "Besides, it may do you good to sit here and worry as whether or not I can talk Amanar into releasing you to me." She gestured to the fat jailer with her sword. "You! Close the door." She stepped back to keep him under her eye and blade as he moved to do so.

"Karela," Hordo shouted, "leave this place! Leave me! Take horse and-"

The door banged shut to cut him off.

As the fat man turned from locking the ma.s.sive door, she laid her curved blade against his fat neck. Her eyes were glittering emerald ice. "If I find you have not taken good care of him," she said coldly, "I'll carve that bulk away to see if there's a man inside."

Contemptuously she turned her back and stalked from the dungeon.

By the time she reached the top of the rude stone stairs her brain was burning. Amanar had no right. Conan was one thing. Hordo quite another.

She would maintain the discipline of her hounds, and she had no intention of letting the mage usurp her authority in this fashion. She strode through the ornate halls of the black donjon, still clutching her sword in her anger.

One of the S'tarra appeared before her, blinking in surprise at the weapon in her hand. "Where is Amanar?" she demanded.

It did not speak, but its red eyes twitched toward a plain arch. She remembered Amanar saying that the pa.s.sage beyond led to his thaumaturgical chambers. In her present mood, bearding the sorcerer there was just what she sought. She turned for the arch.

With a hissed shout, the mailed S'tarra leaped for her, and jumped back just in time, so that her blade drew sparks across the chest of its hauberk.

"Follow," she growled, "and you'll never follow anything again."

Its rubiate eyes remained on her face, but it stood still as she backed down the sloping pa.s.sage, lined with flickering torches set in plain iron sconces. The corridor was longer than she had suspected. The archway, and the S'tarra still standing there, had dwindled to mere specks by the time her back came up against a pair of tall wooden doors.

The doors were carved with a profusion of serpents in endless arabesques, as were the stone walls of the corridor, though this had not been so high up. She thought she might be under the very heart of the mountain. Pushing open one of the doors, she went in.

The room was a great circle, surrounded by shadowed columns. The floor was a mosaic of a strange golden serpent. On the far side of the room, Amanar whirled at her entrance. Sitha, crouching near the mage, half rose.

"You dare to enter here!" Amanar thundered.

"I dare anything," she snapped, "while you have Hordo chained..." What was beyond the black-robed sorcerer finally impressed itself on her.

The red-streaked black marble altar. The slim blonde girl bound naked to it, rigid with terror. "By the black heart of Ahriman," Karela swore, "what is it you do here, mage?"

Instead of answering, the cold-eyed man traced a figure in the air, and the figure seemed to stand glowing as he traced, stirring some buried memory deep inside her. Behind her eyes she felt something break, like a twig snapping. She would teach him to play his magical tricks with her. She started for the dark man... and stared down in amazement at feet that would not move. They did not feel held, they had full sensation, but they would not move.

"What wizardry is this?" she demanded hoa.r.s.ely. "Release me, Amanar, or-"

"Throw the sword aside," he commanded.

She stifled a scream as her arm obeyed, sending the jewel-hilted tulwar skittering across the mosaicked floor to ring against a column.

Amanar nodded in satisfaction. "Remove your garments, Karela."