“You also,” Masrok growled, and Conan realized the demon’s eyes were now on him. Keeping his face to the creature, he began to follow the women, but slowly. If the worst happened, there must be distance between him and them. “You thought to slay me, puny mortal,” the demon said. “You, also, will know—”
A sound like all the winds of the world crying through the maze of passages filled the great room, but no breath of air stirred. The rushing howl died abruptly, and at its ending a mirror image of Masrok stood at either end of the chamber.
“Betrayer!” they shouted with one voice, and it was as though a thunderhead had spoken. “The way that was to open at the end of time is opened beforehand!”
Masrok shifted slightly, that monstrous ebon head swiveling from one form to the other.
“Slayer!” they cried as one. “One of the Sivani is dead, by the deeds of a Sivani!”
Masrok raised its weapons. No particle of the demon’s attention remained on Conan. The Cimmerian spun to hasten after the women, and he found them halted before the passage entrance, Kandar confronting them with the curved blade of his tulwar.
The Prince’s face was pale and sweaty, and his eyes rolled to the tensing obsidian giants with barely controlled terror. “You can keep the Khitan wench,” he rasped, “but Vyndra is mine. Decide quickly, barbarian. If we are still here when their battle begins, none of us will survive.”
“I have decided already,” Conan said, and his broadsword struck. Twice steel rang on steel and then the Vendhyan Prince was falling with a crimson gash where his throat had been. “Run!” Conan commanded the women. He did not look back as they darted into the tunnel. The ground rumbled beneath his feet. The battle of demons was beginning.
Sound pursued them in their flight through the subterranean passages. The crash of lightnings confined and the roar of thunder imprisoned. The earth heaved, and dirt and rock showered from above.
Sheathing his sword, Conan scooped up the women, one over each shoulder, and redoubled his speed, fleeing from the pool of light into the debris-filled darkness. The flames on distantly spaced torches wavered as the walls on which they hung danced.
Then the stairs were before him. He took them three at a time. In the vast-domed temple chamber, massive columns shivered and the towering statue swayed. Without slowing, Conan ran past the tall bronze doors and into the night.
Outside, the circle of torches remained, swaying as the ground heaved in swells like the sea, but the soldiers were fled. Trees a hundred and fifty feet high cracked like whips.
Conan ran into the forest until a root caught his foot and sent him sprawling with his burdens. He could not rise again, only cling as the earth shook and rippled in waves, but at last he looked back.
Bolts of lightning burst toward the sky from the temple, hurling great blocks of stone into the air, casting a blue illumination over the frenzied forest. And dome by dome, columned terrace by columned terrace, the huge temple fell, collapsing inward, ever sinking as it leaped like a thing alive. Lightning flashes revealed the ruin no higher than the flailing trees surrounding it, then half their height, then only a mound of rubble.
Abruptly there was no more lightning. The ground gave one final tortured heave and was still.
Conan rose unsteadily to his feet. He could no longer see even the mound. In truth he did not believe it was any longer there. “Swallowed by the earth,” he said softly, “and the entrance sealed once more.”
His arms filled suddenly with naked, weeping women, but his mind was on other matters. Horses. Whether or not the demons had been buried with the tomb, he did not intend to remain long enough to find out.
EPILOGUE
Conan rode through the dawn with his jaw set grimly, wondering if perhaps he could not find just a few Vendhyan soldiers who would try to contest his passage or perhaps question the Vendhyan cavalry saddle on his horse. It would be better than the icy daggers of silence being hurled against his back by Vyndra and Chin Kou. Of necessity he gripped the reins of their horses in one hand; the fool women would not have left the forest otherwise.
“You must find us garments,” Vyndra said suddenly. “I will not be seen like this.”
“It is not seemly,” Chin Kou added.
Conan sighed. It was not the first time they had made the demand, though they had no idea as to where he might obtain the clothes. The past hour of silence had come from his retort that they had already been seen by half the populace of Gwandiakan. He twisted in the saddle to look back at them. The two women still wore the veils, if nothing else. He had asked why, since they obviously hated the small squares of silk, but they had babbled incomprehensively at him about not being recognized, and both had gone into such a frenzy that someone might be watching, for all it had been pitch dark in the middle of the forest at the time, that he did not mention it again. They stared at him now with dark, furious eyes peeping over the top of their veils, yet each sat straight in her saddle, seemingly unaware of the nudity of which she complained.
“We are almost to the old well,” he told them. “Kuie Hsi should be there with garb for you both.”
“The well!” Vyndra exclaimed, suddenly trying to hide behind the high pommel of her saddle. “Oh, no!”
“There might be people!” Chin Kou moaned as she, too, contorted.
Before they could slip from the saddles and hide—they had done that once already—Conan kicked his horse to a gallop, pulling theirs along behind, heedless of their wails of protest.
The wall of the old well remained, surrounded by trees much smaller than those of the forest. The well itself had long collapsed. A portion of a stone wall still stood nearby, perhaps once part of a caravansary. There were people there as well. Conan grinned as he ran his eye over them. Hordo and Enam tossing dice. Hasan and Shamil seated with their backs against the wall. Kang Hou sipping from a tiny cup held delicately in his fingers, while Kuie Hsi crouched by a fire where a kettle steamed. The men looked the worse for wear, sprouting bandages and poultices, but they sprang to their feet with glad shouts at his appearance.
Kuie Hsi did not shout but rather came running with bundles in her arms. The other two women, Conan saw, had slid from the saddles and were hiding behind their horses. He dismounted, leaving them to their flurry of silks, and went to meet the men.
“I thought you were dead for certain this time,” the one-eyed man muttered gruffly.
“Not I,” Conan laughed, “nor any of the rest of us it seems. Our luck has not been so bad after all.” The smiles faded fro