Shakar came into his chamber just as the vaporous haze of colored light finished weaving itself together and faded to white. He stood unsteadily before the supernatural projection as the ebony figure coalesced within its wall of witchfire and regarded him in inscrutable silence. Shakar's teeth ground together in the stillness.

"Speak, Jullah rend your soul! You are Eldred the Trader, are you not?"

The veils of light masking the dark form drew back, exposing a short, bearded Shemite in a merchant's silken garb. The image blurred almost immediately, wavering like a desert mirage.

"Fool," said a voice that was not a voice, "do you imagine that a trader would visit you thus?"

The Shemite merchant faded from view, becoming a hunched Stygian with a bald, misshapen skull. Bulging eyes afire with contempt seemed to sear into Shakar's body.

"Who are you?" cried the Keshanian. "Why do you torment me?"

"I am called Ethram-Fal and I do not torment you. I study you. From your aspect I would hazard that your supply of lotus is gone."

Shakar's mind reeled in a rush of dizzy nausea. A hysterical laugh came through lips drawn back from teeth clenched in a death-like rictus.

"Study?" shouted the Keshanian. "Are you mad? Where is the lotus? I'll give you all I have for more of it!"

"Yes," said Ethram-Fal, "of course you would. Tell me, when did you use the last of it?"

Shakar forcibly calmed himself, drawing in a long, shuddering breath.

The hand that gripped the silver box clung to its burden so tightly that pain rippled through the knuckles.

"Yesterday morning I used it in a feat of great sorcery. I need more to-"

"Yesterday morning? You are stronger than I had thought. Has the pain begun yet?" The voice of Ethram-Fal was clinical and expressionless.

Shakar could scarcely contain his rage and need.

"Yes!" he cried. "My chest is gripped in a vise of fire. Now give me the lotus!"

"Silence!" Ethram-Fal's command rang in the Keshanian's brain like a struck gong, driving him to his knees with its force.

A roiling cloud of inky blackness poured over the Stygian's scornful features, transforming him once again into an anonymous black figure suspended in a curtain of misty light.

"Who are you to command me, dog? You are too weak and witless to even make a good slave. Take solace in the fact that you have provided a lesson to Ethram-Fal of Stygia and thus aided him in his grand design."

With an inarticulate howl of hate, Shakar opened the silver box and brought it to his face. Thrusting out his tongue, he licked the polished inner surface clean. He hurled the box aside and staggered drunkenly to his feet.

"I'll kill you!" he railed, moving both hands in a swift, arcane series of motions that ceased with both fists extended toward the dark form of Ethram-Fal. A crystalline sphere of azure light shimmered into being before them. It hovered a brief moment, then fell in upon itself, extinguished like a torch in a downpour as Shakar cried out in anguish.

"Your powers fade," said the voice that was not a voice. "You might want to cut your own throat. That would" be both quicker and easier than the death which now awaits you. Goodbye, Shakar."

The Keshanian lunged at the apparition with flailing fists, pa.s.sed into it without resistance and rebounded from the marble wall. He sprawled on the floor, stunned, with Ethram-Fal's frigid, metallic laughter sounding in his skull. p.r.o.ne and helpless, Shakar watched the eldritch projection flow into itself and fade until all that remained was an afterimage etched upon his retina.

The Keshanian tried to get up, but his legs felt paralyzed. The tortured nerves of his body jerked spasmodically as pain screwed tightly back around his chest. The effect was spreading, flickering up the sides of his neck to drive nails of agony into his temples. A desperate sanity surfaced in the black warlock's br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes.

Crawling from the room, Shakar dragged himself down the hallway to his study. The labored rasp of his breathing was the only sound in the dim and silent house. His legs were useless and the bands around his chest constricted until he grew dizzy and held to conscious action only through sheer force of will.

In the study he used his arms to draw himself up the front of his desk and jerk open a drawer. It fell from the desk, spilling its contents upon the floor. The black-crystal vial broke with a liquid crunch, spattering the marble with translucent syrup. Shakar let himself fall down beside it, his hands seeking and finding the bamboo spike. He held the bloodstained weapon before rheumy eyes that strained to focus on its razor edge. Both hands gripped the spike firmly by the hilt as he placed its keen length against the flesh of his throat.

Then Shakar the Keshanian took Ethram-Fal's advice.

Chapter Sixteen.

Evening slumbered over the darkened mansion of Lady Zelandra. The single iron gate set in the encircling wall was chained and locked against the oncoming night. The two guards lounged in the kitchen, eating little and drinking much, swearing that they would take at least one more turn around the grounds before abandoning themselves to their cups. In time they did this, shuffling off along the garden's paths, pa.s.sing their wineskin back and forth and speaking in hushed voices.

The stillness of dusky twilight filled the emptied mansion. The halls were dark, the windows curtained and the tapers all unlit. The manse seemed to lie tranquilly in wait for the return of its mistress. Yet amid the darkness and silence came a visitor unsuspected by the besotted guards.

The wall of Lady Zelandra's bedchamber was alight with blazing color.

Wild shadows leapt and capered over the book-lined walls and the opulent, unmade bed. Then a white glare shone from the wall, driving the shadows from every corner of the room.

Ethram-Fal's ebon outline floated in its fog of illumination and regarded an empty chamber. The black, featureless head turned this way and that, as though reluctant to believe that no one was there.

Frustrated, the Stygian sent an emphatic, wordless call through the still mansion.

"Zelandra! I have come for you!"

The sorcerer sensed no response, no activity at all. The dark form hesitated, standing motionless for a time, then moved tenebrous fingers in quick, precise patterns and lifted both arms above its head. Rays of brilliant green light bloomed around Ethram-Fal's image in a dazzling corona. Then with the slow, unnatural movements of a man walking underwater, the black figure stepped down from the wall and stood within the room. It walked across the floor to the doorway and into the hall beyond.

Ethram-Fal pa.s.sed through the deserted chambers of Lady Zelandra's mansion like a restless ghost, leaving behind him footprints of palely flickering witchfire. After a time he returned to the lady's bedchamber, ascended into his haze of sorcerous light and vanished.

Zelandra's house was empty; its mistress had departed.

Ethram-Fal wondered if he might soon have visitors of his own.

Chapter Seventeen.

The travelers crested the summit of a red clay ridge and viewed the broad expanse of the Styx River valley spread out before them. The trail zigzagged down a rolling slope through a thickening welter of vegetation. The land had grown more arid as they moved south and drew closer to Stygia, but the sh.o.r.es of the mighty Styx were anything but desert. Green brush crowded the path as they wended their way through cl.u.s.ters of swaying palms and plush meadows rippling in the slow breeze. Ahead, the land lowered further into irrigated fields that reached to the edge of the river itself. Yellow-brown along its sh.o.r.e and a rich, opalescent blue at its rolling median, the mother of all rivers stretched from horizon to horizon like a jeweled and sorcerous girdle bestowing a luxuriant fertility upon the grateful earth.

Though cultivated along much of its vast length, the sh.o.r.es of the Styx were but spa.r.s.ely populated this far to the east. Scattered cl.u.s.ters of huts, raised upon stilts, were visible in the distance off to the west.

Directly before them, the party beheld a small, unwalled city squatting upon a low, artificial plateau that lifted gently from the ca.n.a.l-crossed fields. A similarly raised road ran amongst the glittering irrigation ditches and broad, cultivated expanses like a sand-colored snake writhing across a bed of lush emerald moss. The road connected the raised city with the drier uplands, where it merged with the Caravan Road that stretched uninterrupted along the length of the River Styx.

As the four descended the trail into the river valley, they began to encounter the natives of this long-inhabited land. They waited at a crossroads while a herd of lowing cattle was ushered past by herdsmen brandishing stout sticks that they applied vigorously to the flanks of their charges. Farmers toiled in the irrigated fields of emmer wheat and barley that sprang in abundance from the land's black and silty breast.

The trail became an elevated road that soon afforded them a closer view of the white mud buildings of the city. Neesa waved a slender hand in the humid air, fanning herself. At the moment they rode single file, with the Lady Zelandra leading the way. Neesa knit her dark brows in thought, then edged her mount forward until she rode beside the Cimmerian.

"What city is this?" she asked of Conan. The barbarian grinned at her in open admiration, clearly pleased that she had overcome her unwillingness to speak with him. She continued to study the city ahead of them intently, apparently unnoticing of his attention, though her complexion began to grow rosy.

"It is called Aswana. It has a sister city just across the Styx called Bel-Phar. Aswana is a quiet village and should give us a fine place to cross the river without drawing too much attention."

"The Stygians are said to be unfond of visitors."

"Aye, the snake worshippers would deny every foreigner the right to enter their cursed country if they could. Their border patrols are few, but authorized by King Ctesphon to collar any intruder they wish and judge on the spot if he is worthy to stand on Stygian soil."

"And if he is judged unworthy?"

"Well, any merchant whose trade would fatten the land or a fawning scholar come to pay homage to Father Set would be left to his own ends.