The woman had no need of sorcery for distraction, Conan thought. The musk of her perfume seemed to snare his brain. With no more than what was known to every woman she had his blood inflamed, his throat thick with desire. “Why did you send for me?” he rasped.
Her dark eyes caressed his face more sensuously than hands might have done, slid lingergly across his broad shoulders and massive chest. Her nostrils flared. “You washed the scent away,” she said, a touch of mocking disappointment in her tone. “Hyrkanian women are used to men who smell of sweat and horse and grease. That scent would have gained you many favorable looks. But even so you are an exotic, with your muscles and your size and that pale skin. And those eyes.” Her slender fingers stopped a hair’s breath from his face, tracing along his cheek. “The color of the sky,” she whispered, “and as changeable. The spring sky after a rain, the sky of a fall morning. And when you are angry, a sky of thunder and storms. An exotic giant. You could have your pick of half the women in this encampment, perhaps three or four at a time, if such is your taste.”
Angrily he wrapped an arm about her, lifting her from the ground, crushing her softness against his chest. His free hand tangled in her hair, and the blue eyes that stared into hers did indeed have much of the storm in them. “Taunting me is a dangerous game,” he said, “even for a sorceress.”
She stared back unperturbed, a secretive smile dancing on her lips. “When do you mean to enter the Blasted Lands, outlander?”
Involuntarily his grip tightened, wringing a gasp from her. There was naught of the sky in his gaze now, but rather ice and steel. “It is a foolish time to reveal your sorceries, woman.”
“I am at your mercy.” With a sigh that smacked of contentment she wriggled to a more comfortable position, shifting her breasts disturbingly against his hard chest. “You could break my neck merely by flexing your arm, or snap my spine like a twig. I can certainly perform no magic held as I am. Perhaps I have made myself helpless before your strength to prove that I mean you no harm.”
“I think you are as helpless as a tigress,” he said wryly. Abruptly he set her heels on the carpets; there was a tinge of disappointment in her eyes as she patted her hair back into place. “Speak on, woman. What suspicions caused you to bend your magic to the reason of my coming?”
“No magic except that of the mind,” she laughed. “You came in company with Tamur and others who I know crossed the Vilayet to find and slay Baalsham. I know well the horror of those days, for I was one of those who laid the wards that contain what lies within the Blasted Lands.”
Conan realized why Tamur had been agitated at hearing her name. “Perhaps I, wishing to trade in Hyrkania, merely took Tamur into service.”
“No, Conan. Tamur has many faults, but he, and the others, swore oaths to defy the ban on Baalsham’s memory and avenge their blood. That they returned with you merely means that they think to find success in the Blasted Lands. Though their oaths led them to defiance, they know that violating the taboo means death for one of Hyrkanian blood, and so sought another to do the deed.”
“Then why am I not fighting for my life against your warriors?”
She answered slowly, her voice tense, as if her words held import below the surface. As if there was danger in them for her, danger that she must carefully avoid. “When the barriers were erected, I alone among the shamans believed that they were not enough. I spoke for pursuing Baalsham and destroying him, for surely if he managed to establish his evil elsewhere it would eventually return to haunt us. The others, fearing another confrontation with him, forced me—” She stopped abruptly.
“Forced you to what?” he growled. “Swear oaths? What?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding eagerly. “Both oath and geas. Do I break that oath, I will find myself the next dawn scrubbing pots in the yurt of a most repulsive man, unable to magic the pain from a sore tooth or think beyond a desire to obey. Many take it ill that there is a line of women who use the powers, and they would as soon see it end with me.” Again her words halted, but her eyes begged him to question further.
“What holds your tongue, woman? What oath did you swear?”
“It took long enough to bring you to it,” she sighed, tightness draining visibly from her face. “Firstly, I can speak to no one of the oaths unless asked, and no Hyrkanian but another who, like me, sits Guardian on the Blasted Lands would ask. Betimes one or another of them likes to taunt me with it.”
“So you must trick me into asking,” Conan muttered.
“Exactly. For the rest, I can aid no Hyrkanian to enter the Blasted Lands or act against Baalsham, nor can I seek out any man to do those things.”
A broad smile spread over his features. “But if a man who is not a Hyrkanian seeks you out … .”
“ …Then I can help him. But he must be the right man, outlander. I will not risk failure.” Her mouth twisted as at a foul taste. “Anator, the repulsive toad of whom I spoke, waits for me to fall into his hands. Death I would risk, but not a life with him till I am old and shriveled.”
“But you will help me?” he asked, frowning.
“If you are the right man. I must consult the Fire that Burns Backwards in Time. And I must have a lock of your hair for that.”
In spite of himself, he took a step back. Hair, spittle, nail parings, anything that came from the body could be used in thaumaturgies that bound the one from whom they came.
“Do you think I need magicks to bind you?” Samarra laughed, and swayed her hips exaggeratedly.
“Take it, then,” he said. But a grimace crossed his face as she deftly cut a few strands from his temple with a small golden knife.
Swiftly then she opened a series of small chests against a hanging, removing her paraphernalia. The hair was ground in a small hand-mill, then mixed in an unadorned ivory bowl with the contents of half a score of vials—powders of violent hue and powerful stench, liquids that seethed and bubbled—and stirred with a rod of bone. Setting up a small golden brazier on a tripod, Samarra filled it with ashes, smoothing them with the bone rod. Chanting words unintelligible to Conan, she poured the contents of the bowl onto the dead ash, and set the bowl aside.
Her voice rose, not in volume, but in pitch, till it pierced his ears like red-hot needles. Strange flames rose from the ash, blue flames, not flickering like ordinary fire, but rolling slowly like waves of a lazy sea. Higher that unnatural fire rose with Samarra’s words, to the reach of a man’s arm. Unblinking she stared into its depths as she spoke the incantations. A rime of frost formed on the outside of the golden dish that held the flames.
The other fires in the chamber, the flickering lamps and blazing charcoal, sank low, as if overawed, or drained. The Cimmerian realized that his fingernails were digging into his palms. With an oath he unclenched his fists. He had seen sorcery before, sorcery directed at him with deadly intent. He would not be affrighted by this.
Abruptly Samarra’s chanting stopped. Conan blinked as he looked into the golden dish; half-burned pieces of wood now nestled among ash that was less than it had been. Then Samarra set a golden lid atop the brazier, closing off the blue fire.
For a long time she stared at the brazier before turning to him. “An you enter the Blasted Lands, scores will die,” she said bleakly, “among them perhaps Baalsham. And perhaps you, as well. Your bones may feed the twisted beasts that dwell trapped in that accursed place.”