Conan the Magnificent (Robert Jordan's Conan Novels 5)

She laid her fingers against his lips. “You are a better man than you try to pretend, Cimmerian.” With that she slipped by him.

Wondering if women were made by the same gods as men, he watched her approach Laeta. The two spoke quietly, looked at him, then moved toward an empty table together. As they sat, he suddenly recalled his own needs. He strode back to the bar and caught the tavernkeeper’s arm as the fat man passed.

“About this horse, Abuletes … .”

Chapter 6

Dark hung silently over Shadizar, at least in the quarter where lay the Perashanid palace. A hatchet-faced man in a filthy turban and stained leather jerkin, his beard divided into three braids, moved from the shadows, freezing when the barking of a dog rent the night. Then quiet came again.

“Farouz,” the bearded man called softly. “Jhal. Tirjas.”

The three men named appeared from the dark, each followed by half a score other turbanned Kezankian hillmen.

“The true gods guide our blades, Djinar,” one man murmured as he passed hatchet-face.

Booted feet thudding on the paving stones, each small column hurried toward its appointed goal. Farouz would take his men over the garden’s west wall, Jhal over the north. Tirjas was to watch the front of the palace and assure that no one left … alive.

“Come,” Djinar commanded, and ten grim hillmen hurried after him to the east wall of the palace garden.

At the base of the wall two of his men bent to present cupped hands for his booted feet. Boosted thus, Djinar caught the top of the wall and scrambled over to drop inside. Moonlight put a silver glow on the trees and flowers of the garden. He wondered briefly at the labor involved. So much sweat, and for plants. Truly the men of the cities were mad.

Soft thuds announced the arrival of his companions. Swords were drawn with the susurration of steel on leather, and from one man came a fierce mutter. “Death to the unbelievers!”

Djinar hissed for silence, unwilling to speak lest his feelings at being within a city became plain in his voice. So many people gathered in one place. So many buildings. So many walls, closing him in. He motioned the hillmen to follow.

Silently the stony-eyed column slipped through the garden. No doors barred their entrance to the palace. It was going well, Djinar thought. The others would be entering the palace at other places. No alarm had been given. The blessings of the old gods must be on them, as Basrakan Imalla had said.

Abruptly a man in the white tunic of a servant appeared before him, mouth opening to shout. Djinar’s tulwar moved before he could think, the tip of the curved blade slicing open the other man’s throat.

As the corpse twitched in a pool of crimson, spreading across the marble floor, Djinar found his nervousness gone. “Spread out,” he commanded. “None must live to give an alarm. Go!”

Growling deep in their throats, his men scattered with ready blades. Djinar ran as well, seeking the chamber that had been described to him by a sweating Akkadan beneath the iron gaze of Basrakan Imalla. Three more servants, roused by pounding boots, fell beneath his bloody steel. All were unarmed, one was a woman, but all were unbelievers, and he gave them no chance to cry out.

Then he was at his goal, and it was as the plump man had said. Large square tiles of red, black and gold covered the floor in geometric patterns. The walls were red and black brick to the height of a man’s waist. Furnishings he did not notice. That lamps were lit so that he could see them was all that was important.

Still gripping his sanguine sword, Djinar hurried to the nearest corner and pushed against a black brick four down from the top row and four out from the corner. He gave a satisfied grunt when it sank beneath his pressure. Quickly he moved to the other three corners in turn; three more black bricks sank into the wall.

A clatter of boots in the corridor brought him to his feet, tulwar raised. Farouz and other hillmen burst into the room.

“We must hurry,” Farouz snarled. “A bald-headed old man broke Karim’s skull with a vase and escaped into the garden. We’ll never find him before he raises an alarm.”

Djinar bit back an oath. Hurriedly he positioned four men on their knees, forming the corners of a square beside widely separated golden tiles. “Press all together,” he ordered. “Together, mind you. Now!”

With sharp clicks the four tiles were depressed as one. A grinding noise rose from beneath their feet. Slowly, two thick sections of the floor swung up to reveal stairs leading down.

Djinar darted down those stairs, and found himself in a small chamber carved from the stone beneath the palace. Dim

light filtered from above, revealing casketladen shelves lining the walls. In haste he opened a casket, then another. Emeralds and sapphires on golden chains. Opals and pearls mounted in silver brooches. Carved ivories and amber. But not what he sought. Careless of the treasures he handled, the hillman spilled the contents of caskets on the floor. Gems and precious metals poured to the marble. His feet kicked wealth enough for a king, but he gave it not a second glance. With a curse he threw aside the last empty casket and ran back up the stairs.

More hillmen had come, crowding the room. Now some pushed past him to the chamber below. Squabbling, they stuffed their tunics with gems and gold.

‘‘The Eyes of Fire are not here,” Djinar announced. The men below, panting with greed, paid no mind, but those in the chamber with him grew long faces.

“Perhaps the woman took them with her,” suggested a man with a scar where his left ear had been.

Farouz spat loudly. “It was you, Djinar, who said wait. The strumpet goes to hunt, you said. She will take her guards, and we shall have an easier time of it.”

Djinar’s thin lips curled back from his teeth. “And you, Farouz,” he snarled. “Did you cry for us to press on? Did you spend no time in the places where women barter their flesh for coin?” He clamped his teeth on his rage. The feeling of walls trapping him returned. What was to be done? To return to Basrakan Imalla empty-handed after being commanded to bring the Eyes of Fire … . He shuddered at the thought. If the Zamoran jade had the Eyes of Fire, then she must be found. “Does none of these vermin still live?”