Conan got to his feet as Taramis entered the bedchamber. “Your niece?” he asked.
“She is better. She sleeps.” The voluptuous noblewoman raised a hand, and the ebon-clad guards marched from the room without a word. “Do you sleep, thief, or are you awake? It is late, and you would talk of my niece.” Folds of diaphanous silk moved as she walked, showing flashes of bare skin beneath.
The Cimmerian eyed her doubtfully. With a serving girl or even a rich merchant’s daughter, he would have been certain what she meant. With a princess he was unsure.
“Are you still a man?” she laughed. “Has mourning for your beloved Valeria unmanned you?”
Conan growled. He knew he could not explain to Taramis what had stood and did stand between Valeria and himself. He was not sure he had it entirely clear in his own mind. But of one thing he was sure. “I am a man,” he said.
Taramis’ hands went to her neck. Black silk cascaded to pool about her feet. There was challenge in her dark eyes, and her rounded nudity. “Prove it,” she taunted.
Disdaining the bed, Conan bore her to the floor and gave the proofs she asked.
v
Conan stared into the fire of dried dung—small, so as to attract no unwanted attention from others who might
be spending the night on the Zamoran plain—and thought briefly of other, sorcerous flames on a crude stone altar. A full day’s ride from Shadizar, and still Malak had not appeared. The Cimmerian did not like admitting to a need for anyone’s aid, but he was more certain than ever that he would need Akiro before this journey was done. And after, if Taramis delivered what she promised. Where in Zandru’s Nine Hells was Malak?
Scowling, he pulled himself from the useless reverie and found himself studying his companions. Or rather, one of them.
Bombatta solicitously filled a silver cup from one of their goatskin waterbags and offered it to Jehnna. With a thankful smile she reached one hand from under her cloak of the palest white wool, pulled tight about her against the chill of the night. The girl was not at all what Conan expected, and he still had not accustomed himself to the difference. Taramis had spoken of her niece as a child, and he had formed an image of a girl of nine or ten years, not one of his own age, with a slender body that moved beneath her concealing robes with the unconscious grace of a gazelle.
“Our direction,” the Cimmerian said abruptly. “Do we continue the same way on the morn, Jehnna?”
“The Lady Jehnna, thief,” Bombatta corrected in a growl.
Jehnna blinked, as if startled at being addressed. Her brown eyes, as large and tremulous as those of a newborn fawn, stared at him for a moment, then turned to Bombatta. She addressed her answer to the black-armored warrior. “I will know more later, but for now, I know only that we must ride to the west.”
Toward the Karpash Mountains, Conan thought. They were a rugged, towering range where a man could easily become lost if he had neither a familiarity with the region nor a guide with the same. Maps showed only the major passes, used as trade routes. And the people, if not so fierce as Kezankian hillmen, were yet far from friendly toward strangers. They had a way of smiling in welcome until they put the knife into your ribs.
The Cimmerian was not surprised that she had not answered him directly. Since leaving Taramis’ palace before dawn she had spoken no word to him, only to Bombatta. But he was skilled in his chosen profession, and knowledge was as life’s blood to a thief. “How do you know the way?” he asked. “Does the key draw you to it?”
“She is not to be questioned, thief,” Bombatta growled.
A wolf howled in the night, the long, mournful sound seeming to blend with the crescent-mooned darkness.
“What was that, Bombatta?” Jehnna asked curiously.
The scar-faced man gave a last glare to Conan before replying. “Only an animal, child. Like a dog.”
Her brown eyes turned eager. “Will we see one?”
“Perhaps, child.”
Conan shook his head. The girl seemed to delight in everything, and to know of nothing. The empty streets of Shadizar as they rode from the city, the tents and sleeping camels of a caravan outside the city gates, the pack of hyenas that had followed them at a distance for half the day without ever quite gathering the nerve to attack, all fascinated her equally, bringing bright-eyed stares and questions to Bombatta.
“What I do not know can kill us,” Conan said.
“Do not frighten her, thief!” Bombatta snapped.
Jehnna laid a hand on the tall warrior’s chainmailed arm. “I am not frightened, Bombatta. My good Bombatta.”
“Then tell me how you know where to find the key,” Conan insisted. “Or tell Bombatta, if you still will not speak to me.”
Her eyes flickered to Conan, then settled on a space halfway between the Cimmerian and the black-armored warrior. “I do not know exactly how I know the way, only that I do. It is as if I remember having been this way before.” She shook her head and gave a small laugh. “Of course, it cannot be that. I do not in truth remember ever having left the palace of my aunt until this day.”
“If you can tell me where we are to go,” Conan said, “even if only vaguely, I may be able to take us by a shorter route than the one you know.” Thinking of the configuration of stars Taramis had said was necessary for restoring Valeria to life, he touched the golden amulet hanging at his neck and added, “Time is short.”