The sorcerer looked at the sword as if he had forgotten it pierced his chest. Grasping the hilt he drew it from his body. The blade was unbloodied. He seemed pleased with her shock. “You see, my dear Karela? No mortal weapon can harm me.” Contemptuously he dropped the sword almost touching Conan’s hand.
The Cimmerian strained to reach the leather-wrapped hilt, but his arms responded only with drug-induced tremors.
Amanar emitted a blood-chilling laugh and casually moved the sword even closer with his foot, until the hilt touched Conan’s twitching hand. “Even before Aberius betrayed you, Cimmerian, I suspected you in the slaying, though two of the dead displayed certain anomalies. You see, Velita betrayed you also.” His dark laugh was like a saw on bone. “The geas I placed on her commanded her to tell me if you saw her, and she did, though she wept and begged me to kill her rather than let her speak.” He laughed again.
Conan tried to curse, but produced only a grunt. The man would die, he vowed, if he had to return as a shade to do the deed.
The sorcerer’s cold, lidded eyes regarded him thoughtfully. The red flecks in their black depths seemed to dance. “You rage, but do not yet fear,” he said softly. “Still, where there is such great resistance, there must be great fear once the resistance is shattered. And you will be shattered, Cimmerian.”
“Please,” Karela said, “if he must die, then kill him, but do not torture him.”
“As you wish,” Amanar said smoothly. He returned to the throne and struck the crystal bell once more.
This time Sitha appeared from the small door through which Aberius had left. Four more S’tarra followed, bearing a litter. Roughly they lifted Conan onto the bare wood and fastened him with broad leather straps across his massive chest and thighs. As they were carrying him out Conan heard Amanar speak.
“There is much we must speak of, my dear Karela. Come closer.”
The door swung shut.
XXV
As the litter was carried through the donjon, one mailed S’tarra at each corner and Sitha leading, Conan lay seemingly quiescent. For the moment struggle was futile, but he constantly attempted to clench his right hand. If he could make even that beginning … . The hand twitched of its own volition, but no more. He fought to keep breathing.
The litter was carried from a resplendent corridor through an archway and down rough stone stairs. The walls, at first worked smooth, became raw stone, a passage hacked from the living rock beneath the dark fortress. Those who went thither no longer had a care for mosaics or tapestries.
The crude corridor leveled. Sitha pounded a huge fist against an iron-strapped door of rough wood. The door opened, and to Conan’s surprise, a human appeared, the first he had seen in the keep who did not keep his eyes on the ground.
The man was even shorter than Conan, but even more massive, heavy sloping muscles covered with thick layers of fat. Piggish eyes set deep in a round, bald head regarded Conan. “So, Sitha,” he said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, “you’ve brought Ort another guest.”
“Stand aside, Ort,” Sitha hissed. “You know what is to be done here. You waste time.”
> Shockingly, the fat man giggled. “You’d like to cut Ort’s head off, wouldn’t you, Sitha, with that ax of yours? But Amanar needs Ort for his torturing. You S’tarra get carried away and leave dead meat when there’s questions yet to be asked.”
“This one is already meat,” Sitha said contemptuously. Casually the S’tarra turned to smash a backhand blow to Conan’s face. Ort giggled again.
Blood welled in Conan’s mouth. Chest heaving, he fought to get painful words out. “Kill—you—Sitha,” he gasped.
Ort blinked his tiny eyes in surprise. “He speaks? After the vapor? This one is strong.”
“Strong,” Sitha snarled. “Not as strong as I!” Its fist crashed into Conan’s face, splitting his cheek. For a moment the S’tarra stood with fist upraised, fangs bared, then lowered its claw-tipped hand with an obvious effort. “Put him in his cell, Ort, before I forget the master’s commands.”
Giggling, Ort led the procession into the dungeons. Grim ironbound doors lined the rough stone walls. Before one Ort stopped, undoing a heavy iron lock with a key from his broad leather belt. “In here,” he said. “There’s another in there already, but I’m filling up.”
Quickly, under Sitha’s direction, the other S’tarra unstrapped Conan from the litter and carried him into the cell, a cubicle cut in the rock as crudely as the rest of the dungeon. As chains were being fastened to the Cimmerian’s wrists and ankles he saw his fellow prisoner, chained in the same fashion to the far wall, and knew a second of shock. It was the Zamoran captain he had tricked into combat with the hillmen.
As the other S’tarra left, Sitha came to stand over Conan. “Were it left to me,” it hissed angrily, “you would die now. But the master has use of you yet.” From a pouch at its belt it took a vial and forced it between the Cimmerian’s teeth. Bitter liquid flowed across his tongue. “Perhaps, Cimmerian, when the master has your soul, this time he will let me have what remains.” With a sibilant laugh Sitha shoved the empty vial back into his pouch and strode from the cell. The thick door banged shut.
Conan could feel strength flowing slowly back into his limbs. Weakly he pushed himself to a sitting position and leaned against the cool stone of the cell wall.
The hook-nosed Zamoran captain watched him thoughtfully with dark eyes. There were long blisters on his arms, and others were visible on his chest where his tunic was ripped. “I am Haranides,” he said finally. “Whom do I share these … accommodations with?”
“I am called Conan,” the Cimmerian replied. He tested the chains that fastened his manacles to the wall. Three feet and more in length, the links of them were too thick for him to have burst even had he his full strength, and he was far from that as yet.
“Conan,” Haranides murmured. “I’ve heard that name in Shadizar, thief. Would I had known you when we met last.”
Conan shifted his full attention to the Zamoran. “You remember me, then, do you?”
“I’m not likely to forget a man with shoulders like a bull, especially when he brought me near ten score hillmen for a present.”