Conan took the rear guard until they reached a place where the tunnel divided; there were no sounds of pursuit behind or of life ahead. That this was no natural tunnel was by now made plainer than ever by the remains of incredibly ancient tool marks and patches of stain and corrosion that might once have been bronze or iron.
At the dividing point, Conan examined Valeria"s ankle. It showed an ugly dark mark, like the worst sort of burn, but the pain was fading and the ankle would support her weight. Like his ribs, it would slow neither weapons nor feet, depending on what seemed the best way of meeting any danger.
"Now, you will take the shirt off my back, or I"ll know why," he said.
"Garbed as you are, you"d adorn a royal palace, but I doubt we"ll be finding many palaces down here. Their dungeons, perhaps, and the bones of those held in them, but little else."
"You need not soothe me, you son of a he-goat."
"Ha! You"ve your spirits back. Perhaps you need no clothes then, since without them, you"re double-armed, steel and womanhood!"
"Give me that shirt," she snapped, then laughed loud enough to raise echoes. She looked about her while the echoes died, then almost s.n.a.t.c.hed the garment the Cimmerian held out to her.
It came down to mid-thigh. Conan cut the sleeves into strips and bound them around Valeria"s feet to protect the blisters until further walking toughened the skin. So clad, with her hair a tangle any honest bird would have disdained to nest in, and her boots dangling from a thong about her neck, Valeria would have been flung into the street from the cheapest waterfront tavern.
Or she would have been but for her sword and daggers-and also for the look in her eyes that said any hand touching her against her will would not return to its owner intact, if at all.
Conan needed no further warnings in that matter. Indeed, he was grateful for the skill and luck that had allowed her to keep her weapons. They would be fighting again before they ever saw daylight, even if the battle was against foes where steel could do no more than give man or woman a clean death.
Valeria found little pleasure in her present situation save being alive. Also, the Cimmerian"s presence might well keep her so longer than otherwise. He had been as formidable against natural foes as against magical ones, and for rather more years than she had followed the warrior"s path.
Where the tunnel divided, one way sloped upward, the other down. They halted, Valeria set her back against the wall and looked to the rear, and Conan briefly explored in both directions.
Valeria did not enjoy being even briefly alone here in the bowels of the earth. But she could master her fancies now; she would wait for real monsters to leap from the shadows before she let herself fear. She pa.s.sed the brief time of waiting by unrolling the sword-thong from about her waist and linking sword and wrist securely. She hoped she would have no call for more climbing, and likewise that the damp air would keep the vine supple and strong should she need it.
Conan returned swiftly. "The way down leads to water, deeper than I"d care to try. And that"s leaving out what might be in the water."
Valeria held her nose. "Something that reeks like a days-old battlefield, from what"s on you."
"That, and more. I saw statues, kin to the oldest idols I saw in the Black Kingdoms. I"m more than ever certain that someone built this warren."
"But why?"
"Like as not, to save a trek through the jungle. Let"s hope it"s fit to do the same for us." He looked at the upward-sloping way. "If I"m not altogether turned about, that leads back the way we came."
"Better the jungle we know than what might be down here," Valeria said fervently. "That beast in the pit sounded like something that could have eaten Xuchotl"s Crawler for lunch and the dragon in the forest for dinner."
Conan said nothing, but took the lead. For three hundred paces, the tunnel sloped upward. Valeria began to hope that it might rise so close to the surface that they could make a way for themselves. If another tree had thrust a root down-
Disappointment came swiftly. Not only were the tunnel walls intact, save for one place where a niche had crumbled, but the floor began to slope downward as steeply as it had risen. It also grew as slick as if it had been oiled.
The light did not fade, and Valeria now began to make out paintings on the wall. Or at least they might have been paintings. They also might have been patterns of tiny jewels set into the stone; they seemed to sparkle. Trying to see which, Valeria looked closely at one pattern-and found that it changed before her eyes, from one beast to another, and then to yet others.
One beast was a lion, another a great fish, and she hoped that the third was a dragon. The rest were things that she decided she would not care to look at too closely, let alone meet.
Although the light did not fade, Valeria began to feel moving air brush against her skin. Her nose wrinkled at the growing reek of something long dead and thoroughly rotten. She tore another strip from Conan"s shirt and bound it over her nose, and the Cimmerian did likewise.
Past a curve where a slab of wall had fallen to half block the tunnel, they came to a cavern the size of a royal hall. The light seemed to cling to the floor, so that the roof of the cavern was lost in shadow.
The far wall, a good bowshot away, was likewise dimmed.
The floor of the cavern was almost lost under a carpet of fungi. They grew in great slabs, rising as high as Valeria"s waist; for the most part, they were pale and flabby but with streaks of a more wholesome brown color running through them. From their stems dripped a greasy fluid that turned the soil beneath to a noisome muck, and more than a few of them had the appearance of being half-eaten.
This time the two explored together. Unspoken but plain was the agreement that no one should go with unguarded back in this cavern.
As they circled the walls, they found more fungi that looked as if they had been gnawed at. One entire patch of soil had been eaten bare, with fresh fungi already sprouting among the rotting fragments of the old ones.
"These things grow fast," Conan observed. "Fast enough, I wager, for something to browse on them."
Halfway around the cavern, they found the fungi growing thicker than ever, and the smell of decay the strongest. Valeria stepped forward and slashed at the largest slab with her sword. It fell apart in a crumbling ma.s.s of dust and spores, revealing a ma.s.sive rib-part of the remains of some unearthly creature.
"Something did browse on them, Conan," she said.
She could not help looking about the cavern. "Now they"re eating it."
"If beasts can eat them-" he said.
Valeria"s stomach twisted, and the last of the monkey nearly left her.
"Birds and monkeys are a good test. Whatever that creature was, it might have been born of magic, left over from the days of the tunnel-builders. Who knows what it could stomach that would kill us?"
"True enough, but we"ve found nothing else to eat, and no water fit to drink. These look like they might have water inside."
"Ah..."
"I"ll try a bit first. If my fingers and toes don"t turn green and fall off-"
"Ha! A Cimmerian"s no better than this beast for testing what common folk can eat. I"ve seen you eating what they served at the soldiers"
taverns in Sukhmet!"
"Better fare than the rations, I"d say."
Valeria threw up her hands in mock disgust. "If you"ve a belly and bowels of iron, perhaps. I"d rather eat salt beef three years in the cask. By Erlik, I"d rather eat the cask!"
"A trifle hard on the teeth, for my taste," Conan said.
Valeria noted with amus.e.m.e.nt that he still approached the fungus as if it were a venomous snake, probing with his dagger, and only then slicing. He was also careful to catch the slice before it struck the ground. When he put it to his mouth, he bit off a portion that might have fit in a thimble with room to spare.
After a moment"s chewing, he swallowed. "Greasy as a Stygian harlot"s hair," he said. "Otherwise, I"ve eaten worse."
"How long would it take you to remember when and where?"
"Oh, give me a year or so-" He broke off and cupped a hand to one ear.
Valeria imitated him, her other hand on her sword, but heard nothing.
"Could be a trick of the echoes in this tomb," Conan said at last.
Valeria wished he had not used that word.
The Cimmerian cut off another, slightly larger piece of the fungus and disposed of it as he had the first. When it went down, he licked his lips.
"Greasier than the first, but nothing else against it," he said. "Wait a bit, to see how it sits in my stomach-"