Eying Conan doubtfully, Malak took a hesitant step toward their horses.
“We must part for a time,” Conan told him, “even as we did after the fight in the Inn of the Three Crowns. Go, and fare you well.”
With a last, helpless look at the surrounding guards, the small man darted for his mount.
When Malak had galloped out of sight over the hill—laying his quirt to his horse and staring back over his shoulder as if he still did not believe he was actually free to go—Conan turned back to Taramis. “What is it you wish me to do?” he asked.
“In good time, you will be told,” the beauteous woman replied. The smile that played on her lips was tinged with triumph. “For now, there are words I would hear from you.”
Conan did not hesitate. “I would enter your service, Taramis.” A debt must be repaid, whatever the cost.
iii
Shadizar was a city of golden domes and alabaster spires thrusting toward the cerulean sky from the dust and stones of the Zamoran plain. Crystal pure fountains splashed among fig trees in shaded courtyards, and a glaring sun was reflected from gleaming white walls that sheltered dark cool within. Shadizar the Wicked was the city called, and a score more of names, each less complimentary than the last and all well-earned.
Within the great granite city walls pleasure was sought as avidly as gold, and one was oft exchanged for the other. Sleek lords licked their lips over quivering maidens as over pastries. Hot-eyed ladies stalked their prey like sinuous, sensuous cats. One nobly-born husband and wife, each committed to a life of fleshy delights not encompassing the other, were currently the butt of many jokes, for after intrigues and machinations too involved for recounting they discovered too late that each had managed to arrange an assignation with the other.
Yet if perversion and debauchery were the soul of Shadizar, it was trade that provided the gold to purchase them. From the far reaches of the world they knew came the caravans, from Turan and Corinthia, from Iranistan and Khoraja, from Koth and Shem. Pearls, silks and gold, ivory, perfumes and spices, all provided the music for the licentious pavane of the City of Ten Thousand Sins.
The streets of the city were crowded with commerce as Conan rode into the city with Taramis’ party of black-armored warriors. Rough-tunicked men carrying baskets of fruit dodged the whips of muleteers who drove their trains of braying beasts down streets lined with brightly striped shop awnings and tables displaying samples of the goods to be found within. Haughty, silk-clad nobles and fat merchants in somber velvets, leather-aproned apprentices and harlots wearing little but jingling girdles of coin, all dodged between the long-striding camels of caravans driven by dusty men of foreign mien and greedy eyes. From building to building the air was solid with the bleats and squawks of sheep and chickens bound for sale, the cries of peddlers and strumpets hawking their wares, beggars pleading and merchants bargaining. Over all hung a stench compounded of equal parts of spices, offal, perfume and sweat.
Taramis did not allow herself to be slowed by the congestion of the narrow streets. Half of her warriors drove a wedge before her, using the long clubs they still carried to beat aside those who were too slow to clear the way. The rest of the ebon-armored guards brought up the rear, with Conan and Taramis in the middle. And guards they were, the big Cimmerian thought, for all the talk that he had entered the noblewoman’s service. He bent from the saddle to scoop a fat pear from a fruitmonger’s cart and forced himself to sink into a lazy slouch as he rode, seemingly with no thought but eating the succulent fruit and staring at the crowds.
The teeming throngs of people were driven to the sides of the street, merchants and trulls, nobles and beggars crowded together, trampling blankets of trinkets displayed there, overturning tables before shops. Sullen faces stared at the procession. Bloody faces marked those who had been slow of foot. Most were silent, but the guards just ahead of Taramis shook their clubs at the onlookers and scattered shouts rose of “All hail to the Princess Taramis!” or “The gods’ blessings on Princess Taramis!”
Conan’s eye fell on a caravan forced into a side-street ahead. The lead camel, people jammed about its feet, jerked continually at the halter-rope held by a slim, dark-skinned man in a dirty turban. The camels behind, catching its feelings, grunted and shifted nervously.
As Conan rode past the caravan, he tossed aside the core of the pear. Right into the lead camel’s nose. With a wild bray the dusty gray beast reared, pulling its halter-rope from the turbanned man’s hand. For an instant it seemed not to realize that it was free. Then it bolted, with half a score more camels on its heels, straight through the column of black-armored warriors. The Cimmerian gave his horse its head, and it joined the stampede.
Shouts rose behind him, but Conan bent low over his saddle and let his horse gallop. Scattering peddlers and marketers, the knot of camels, with Conan in its center, rounded a slight bend in the street. The pursuit—there would certainly be pursuit—could not see him, but that shelter could last only moments. He threw himself from the saddle. A heavy blow caught him in the ribs as he rolled beneath the feet of the galloping camels. Then he was springing to his feet, leaping past a staring, open-mouthed tradesman to crouch behind a pile of tight-woven baskets. Hooves pounding the paving stones cleared the street again, and a score of grim-faced warriors in ebon armor thundered by, Bombatta at their head.
Slowly Conan straightened, hitching his swordbelt back into place as the horsemen disappeared down the street. He rubbed at the spot where the camel had kicked him. Camels were malicious beasts, he thought. Not like horses. He had never been able to get along with camels. Abruptly he realized the basket weaver yet stared at him.
“Good baskets,” Conan told the man, “but not what I want.” The open-mouthed tradesman was still staring when he hurriedly crossed the street and ducked into a narrow alley that stank of urine and rotting garbage.
Down the pinched, twisting alleys the Cimmerian sped, cursing when his feet slid in the slick filth. Whenever he came to a street he paused only long enough to look for men in black nasaled helmets before darting across and into another alley. In a zig-zag pattern he made his way the breadth of Shadizar until, in the shadow of the southern wall of the city, he slipped through the back door of the tavern of Manetes.
The hall inside was dark and cool, though heavy with the smells of bad cooking. Serving girls gave the big Cimmerian startled glances as they hurried to and from the kitchens, for patrons did not ordinarily enter the tavern from the crooked alley behind. Nor did the tall young man with sword and dagger at his belt and blue ice in his eyes look like the usual patron.
In the common room muleteers and camel drivers and carters, outlanders for the most part
, filled the tables, the odor of sweat and animals dueling with the smell of sour wine. Supple-hipped doxies in narrow strips of thin, brightly colored silk or less paraded their offerings between the tables scattered across the sand-covered floor. More than one jade eyed the broad-shouldered Cimmerian warmly; some, on the laps of men who had already crossed their palms with silver, earned growls and even cuffs, but the men saved their anger for the wenches. Even those who thought themselves fierce as mastiffs recognized the wolf in the massively muscled youth and directed their thoughts, and their anger, to others than him.
Conan was unaware of the stir he left behind him. Once he was sure the common room held no black-armored warriors he had no interest in who else was there. Swiftly he approached the bar where Manetes held sway.
Tall and thin to the point of boniness, the tavernkeeper’s dark eyes were set deep in a cadaverous face. The man’s starveling looks did not seem to hurt his custom, however, though Conan had never been able discern why.
“Is Malak here?” Conan asked the innkeeper quietly.
“Top of the stairs,” Manetes replied. “Third door on the right.” He wiped thin hands on a dirty apron and cast his eyes suspiciously behind the Cimmerian as if looking for pursuit. “Is there trouble in this?”
“Not for you,” Conan told him, and headed for the stairs. He had no worries concerning the gauntfaced man’s discretion. There was the matter of saving Manetes’ daughter from the clutches of two Iranistanis who had intended her for sale in Aghrapur. Manetes would keep silent if there were hot irons at his feet.
On the second floor Conan slapped open the indicated door, and jerked back as a slashing dagger barely missed his throat. “’Tis me, you fool!” he growled.
Grinning nervously, Malak sheathed his blade and backed into the room. Conan slammed the door behind him as he entered.
“Sorry,” the wiry thief laughed shakily. “It’s just … well … Mitra’s Mercies, Conan, Taramis herself out there hunting us, and that fire—that was sorcery, was it not?—and I did not know what had happened to you, and … . How did you get free? I’d almost forgotten the fight at the Inn of the Three Crowns, and meeting here after. Do we leave the city now? Did they dig up the gems? We’ll go there first thing and dig them up ourselves. Those stones will keep us—”