Conan the Destroyer (Robert Jordan's Conan Novels 6)

Akiro coughed smugly. “I changed the incantation slightly. When they broke through the seventh ward, the last two were triggered together. Those spearman will not wake from this sleep, nor rise from this tomb to slaughter innocents for Dagoth.” He smiled suddenly at Malak. “Do you see now why I could not invoke all the wards at once?”

“’Tis good they will not trouble us further,” Conan said, climbing into his saddle, “but we must ride if we are to reach Shadizar by the ceremony tonight. I will not let Bombatta cheat me of Valeria’s life.”

The smile disappeared from Akiro’s face. “I did not tell you, Conan, when I thought we would die, for a man should not be burdened at his death with matters he cannot change. In truth, even now I fear it is too late. I tried to stop it when it could have been stopped, before she entered the furnace, but I was too slow.”

“You babble, Akiro,” Conan growled. “Speak what is on your mi

nd, or let me ride for Shadizar.”

“It was all on the plaques,” Akiro said. “The Rite of Awakening takes three nights, and on each night a girl is sacrificed. On the Third Night, the sacrifice is the One who Bears the Horn, the innocent. It will be Jehnna.”

“Perhaps it is not her,” Zula said pleadingly. “Not even Bombatta would take her back to that.”

“Bombatta called her the One,” the old wizard sighed. “He knows she is to die.”

Conan touched the dragon amulet on his chest. Pain filled him, and he wanted to howl it aloud as he had never given voice to pain before. Valeria. “Jehnna will not die,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I like the girl, too,” Malak protested, ignoring Zula’s glare, “but, Badb’s Holy Buttocks, we’re all exhausted, and we could not reach Shadizar before nightfall if we killed the horses trying.”

“Then when my horse dies,” Conan replied grimly, “I will run, then crawl. But before all the gods I vow, Jehnna will survive this night if I must die for it.” Without waiting to see if the others followed, he kicked his horse into motion, into a race with the rising sun.

xxi

From a balcony Taramis looked down on the marble-tiled courtyard where rested the Sleeping God, a canopy of fringed golden silk raised to shield him from the blazing sun. In a circle about the canopy, unprotected and perspiring, knelt half a score of priests in their robes and crowns of gold, chanting their prayers. Since the First Anointing there had continually been a circle of priests offering their devotions to Dagoth, with only a pause the night before for the Second Anointing.

Taramis ran her eyes over the other balconies overlooking this court, yet she knew there would be no one there to observe who should not see. For three days this part of her palace had been all but sealed from the rest. No slave or servant would come near to it without her express command, even if guards had not been posted with orders to slay any who tried. It was not that that cut at her like a whip’s lash. She knew very well what it was that truly preyed on her mind, what it was she did not want to think about.

Hesitantly she looked at the sun, then jerked her gaze away. Already that distended yellow ball was past the zenith. Well past the zenith. And tonight came a configuration of the stars that would not come again for a thousand years. If Bombatta did not bring the girl in the next few hours, if the girl did not have what she had been sent for … . Taramis bit at her lip, heedless of the blood that came. It could not be so. It would not be so. She refused to die knowing that power and immortality would come to someone else a thousand years hence.

A deferential cough made her whirl, ready to flay whomever had dared to disturb her.

Xanteres stood in the doorway, his face as deceptively gentle as ever, but a gleam of exultation in his dark eyes. “She is come,” he said grandly. “Bombatta has brought her.”

Taramis abandoned dignity. She pushed past the white-bearded high priest and ran, speeding down corridors and stairs till she came to the great alabaster-columned entry hall of the palace, with its high, vaulted ceiling. And there, dusty, bedraggled and travel-stained, stood Bombatta, with his helmet under his arm, and Jehnna, clutching a dusty bundle, barely recognizable as once-white wool, to her bosom. Taramis hardly even noticed the massive black-armored warrior. Her eyes were all for the girl.

“Do you have it?” she whispered, approaching slowly. “By all that is sacred and holy, child, do you have it?”

Hesitantly, Jehnna held out the bundle she had clasped to her breasts. She swayed, and Taramis saw that she was exhausted. But the time for rest was not yet. Other, more important matters came first.

The tall Zamoran noblewoman looked around frantically for the high priest, ready to shout for him, but he was there. Reverently Xanteres held forward an elaborate golden casket within which were crystal supports wrought with all of Taramis’ sorcerous skill and cunning.

“Place them there, child,” Taramis said.

From the bundle Jehnna produced the Heart of Ahriman, sanguinely glowing, and placed it in the casket. Taramis held her breath. The dirty white wool dropped to the marble floor, and Jehnna was cradling the golden Horn of Dagoth in her hands.

As that, too, was laid on crystal supports within the casket, Taramis’ hand twitched with the desire to touch it. Not yet, she reminded herself. Now it was death for any hand but Jehnna’s. Later it would be hers alone to know.

With great reluctance Taramis closed the golden casket. “Take it,” she commanded the high priest. “Guard it with your life.” Xanteres bowed himself from her presence, and she turned her attention back to Jehnna and Bombatta. The girl swayed again. “Where are the bath girls?” Taramis demanded. “Must I have the fool wenches flayed?”

Two white-robed young women, black hair pinned in curls close to their heads, sped into the hall and fell to their knees before Taramis.

“The Lady Jehnna is travel weary,” the beauteous princess told them. “She must be bathed and massaged. She must be properly garbed.”

Jehnna smiled warmly, if tiredly, at the woman as they hurried to her. “It is so good to see you again,” she said. “It seems years since I have had a proper bath. But where are Aniya and Lyella?”

The white-robed women’s faces went blank, and Taramis hastened to fill the silence. “They are ill, child. You will see them later. Take her away! Can you not see she is near collapse?” She watched them lead Jehnna from the hall, then turned smiling to Bombatta. “It is done, then,” she sighed.

“It is done,” he said, but something in his eyes made her frown.