Conan pa.s.sed through the hall quickly enough, traversed the outer chamber, and approached the door that let upon the gallery. Then he saw the floor sprinkled with tiny, glittering shards. The crystal sheet that had covered the doorway had been shivered to bits, and he remembered the crash that had accompanied the shattering of the crystal globe. He believed that every piece of crystal in the castle had broken at that instant, and some dim instinct or memory of esoteric lore vaguely suggested the truth of the monstrous connection between the Lords of the Black Circle and the golden pomegranates. He felt the short hair bristle chilly at the back of his neck and put the matter hastily out of his mind.
He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he stepped out upon the green jade gallery. There was still the gorge to cross, but at least he could see the white peaks glistening in the sun, and the long slopes falling away into the distant blue hazes.
The Irakzai lay where he had fallen, an ugly blotch on the gla.s.sy smoothness. As Conan strode down the winding path, he was surprised to note the position of the sun. It had not yet pa.s.sed its zenith; and yet it seemed to him that hours had pa.s.sed since he plunged into the castle of the Black Seers.
He felt an urge to hasten, not a mere blind panic, but an instinct of peril growing behind his back. He said nothing to Yasmina, and she seemed content to nestle her dark head against his arching breast and find security in the clasp of his iron arms. He paused an instant on the brink of the chasm, frowning down. The haze which danced in the gorge was no longer rose-hued and sparkling. It was smoky, dim, ghostly, like the life-tide that flickered thinly in a wounded man. The thought came vaguely to Conan that the spells of magicians were more closely bound to their personal beings than were the actions of common men to the actors.
But far below, the floor shone like tarnished silver, and the gold thread sparkled undimmed. Conan shifted Yasmina across his shoulder, where she lay docilely, and began the descent. Hurriedly he descended the ramp, and hurriedly he fled across the echoing floor. He had a conviction that they were racing with time, that their chances of survival depended upon crossing that gorge of horrors before the wounded Master of the castle should regain enough power to loose some other doom upon them.
When he toiled op the farther ramp and came oat upon the crest, he breathed a gusty sigh of relief and stood Yasmina upon her feet.
"You walk from here," he told her, "ifs downhill all the way."
She stole a glance at the gleaming pyramid across the chasm; it reared up against the snowy slope like the citadel of silence and immemorial evil.
"Are you a magician, that you have conquered the Black Seers of Yimsha, Conan of Ghor?" she asked, as they went down the path, with his heavy arm about her supple waist.
"It was a girdle Khemsa gave me before he died," Conan answered. "Yes, I found him on the trail. It is a curious one, which I"ll show you when I have time. Against some spells it was weak, but against others it was strong, and a good knife is always a hearty incantation."
"But if the girdle aided you in conquering the Master," she argued, "why did it not aid Khemsa?"
He shook his head. "Who knows? But Khemsa had been the Master"s slave; perhaps that weakened its magic. He had no hold on me as he had on Khemsa. Yet I can"t say that I conquered him. He retreated, but I have a feeling that we haven"t seen the last of him. I want to put as many miles between us and his lair as we can."
He was further relieved to find horses tethered among the tamarisks as he had left them. He loosed them swiftly and mounted the black stallion, swinging the girl up before him. The others followed, freshened by their rest.
And what now?" she asked. "To Afghulistan?"
"Not just now!" He grinned hardly. "Somebody- maybe the governor-killed my seven headmen. My idiotic followers think I had something to do with it, and unless I am able to convince them otherwise, they"ll hunt me like a wounded jackal."
Then what of me? If the headmen axe dead, I am useless to you as a hostage. Will you slay me to avenge them?"
He looked down at her, with eyes fiercely aglow, and laughed at the suggestion.
"Then let us ride to the border," she said.. "You"ll be safe from the Afghulis there---"
"Yes, on a Vindhyan gibbet."
"I am. queen of Vendhya," she reminded him with a touch of her old imperiousness. "You have saved my life. You shall be rewarded."
She did not intend it as it sounded, but he growled in his throat, ill pleased.
"Keep your bounty for your city-bred dogs, princess! If you"re a queen of the plains, I"m chief of the hills, and not one foot toward the border will I take you!"
"But you would be safe---" she began bewilderedly.
"And you"d be the Devi again," he broke in. "No, girl; I prefer you as you are now-a woman of flesh and blood, riding on my saddle bow."
"But you can"t keep me!" she cried. "You can"t---"
"Watch and see!" he advised grimly.
"But I will pay you a vast ransom---"
"Devil take your ransom!" he answered roughly, his arms hardening about her supple figure. "The kingdom of Vendhya could give me nothing I desire half so much as I desire you. I took you at the risk of my neck; if your courtiers want you back, let them come up the Zhaibar and fight for you."
"But you have no followers now!" she protested. "You are hunted! How can you preserve your own life, much less mine?"
"I still have friends in the hills," he answered. "There is a chief of the Khurakzai who will keep you safely while I bicker with the Afghulis. If they will have none of me, by Crom! I will ride northward with you to the steppes of the kozaki. I was a hetman among the Free Companions before I rode southward. I"ll make you a queen on the Zaporoska River!"
"But I can not!" she objected. "You must not hold me--
"If the idea"s so repulsive," he demanded, "why did you yield your lips to me so willingly?"
"Even a queen is human," she answered, coloring. "But because I am a queen, I must consider my kingdom. Do not carry me away into some foreign country. Come back to Vendhya with me!"
"Would you make me your king?" he asked sardonically.
"Well, there are customs---" she stammered, and he interrupted her with a hard laugh.
"Yes, civilized customs that won"t let you do as you wish. You"ll marry some withered old king of the plains, and I can go my way with only the memory of a few kisses s.n.a.t.c.hed from your lips. Ha!"
"But I must return to my kingdom!" she repeated helplessly.
"Why?" he demanded angrily. "To chafe your rump on gold thrones, and listen to the plaudits of smirking, velvet-skirted fools? Where is the gain? Listen: I was born in the Cimmerian hills where the people are all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a kozak, and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought the battles, loved the women, and won the plunder that I have?
"I came into Ghulistan to raise a horde and plunder the kingdoms to the south-your own among them. Being chief of the Afghulis was only a start If I can conciliate them, I"ll have a dozen tribes following me within a year. But if I can"t, I"ll ride back to the steppes and loot the Turanian borders with the kozaki. And you"ll go with me. To the devil with your kingdom; they fended for themselves before you were born."
She lay in his arms looking up at him, and she felt a tug at her spirit, a lawless, reckless urge that matched his own and was by it called into being. But a thousand generations of sovereignship rode heavy upon her. "I can"t! I can"t!" she repeated helplessly.
"You haven"t any choice," he a.s.sured her. "You-what the devil!"
They had left Yimsha some miles behind them, and were riding along a high ridge that separate two deep valleys. They had just topped a steep crest where they could gaze down into the valley on their right hand.
And there a running fight was in progress. A strong wind was blowing away from them, carrying the sound from their ears, but even so the clashing of steel and thunder of hoofs welled up from far below.
They saw the glint of the sun on lancetip and spired helmet. Three thousand. mailed hors.e.m.e.n were driving before them a ragged band of turbaned riders, who fled snarling and striking like fleeing wolves.
"Turanians!" muttered Conan. "Squadrons from Secunderam. What the devil are they doing here?"
"Who are the men they pursue?" asked Yasmina. "And why do they fall back so stubbornly? They can not stand against such odds."
"Five hundred of my mad Afghulis," he growled, scowling down into the vale. "They"re in a trap, and they know it."
The valley was indeed a curl-de-sac at the end. It narrowed to a high-walled gorge, opening out further into a round bowl, completely rimmed with lofty, unscalable walls.
The turbaned riders were being forced into this gorge, because there was nowhere else for them to go, and they went reluctantly, in a shower of arrows and a whirl of swords. The helmeted riders harried them, but did not press in too rashly. They knew the desperate fury of the tribes, and they knew too that they had their prey in a trap from which there was no escape. They had recognized the hillmen as Afghulis, and they wished to hem them in and force a surrender. They needed hostages for the purpose they had in mind.
Their emir was a man of decision and initiative. When he reached Curashah valley, and found neither guides nor emissary waiting for him, he pushed on, trusting to his own knowledge of the country. All the way from Secunderam there had been fighting, and tribesmen were licking their wounds in many a crag-perched village. He knew there was a good chance that neither he nor any of his helmeted spearmen would ever ride through the gates of Secunderam again, for the tribes would all be up behind him now, but he was determined to carry oat his orders- which were to take Yasmina Devi from the Afghulis at all costs, and to bring her captive to Secunderam or, if confronted by impossibility, to strike off her head before he himself died.