Shadowy shapes now danced furiously within the clear globe, which was turning an angry crimson, with hardly a tint of sapphire. Some of the shapes might have been called human, others were serpents, still others things for which there was no name outside of nightmares... where Ryku most earnestly hoped they would remain.

But even if they came forth from the globe as living flesh, he must face them open-eyed and unflinching. How otherwise could he hope for the power of a Speaker, that would gain him what he most craved?

The smoke was rising from the bowl, and from the eight legs. The legs seemed to glow as if they had been heated over a forge, and Ryku thought he saw one of them bending. Had the weight of the globe suddenly increased out of all measure, because of the Living Wind entering it?

The eight Speakers certainly saw the smoke, and from their looks, it was obvious they knew that it meant something fearful. Or perhaps it was only the smell; when a whiff blew past Ryku, he nearly spewed. He had barely commanded his stomach when all eight legs of the bowl seemed to melt at once. Smoke disgorged from the dissolving supports, from the bowl, and, as it seemed, from the globe itself.

Courage worthy of front-rank warriors and a lifetime of dedication held the Speakers to their task about the globe. Neither availed them against the Living Wind run wild.

The smoke vanished as if a giant mouth had sucked it all in at one gulp. The bowl and the eight legs became a bubbling pool of molten bronze, searing the eyes as would the mouth of a volcano. The globe wavered, impossibly enough held in midair by powers Ryku dared not imagine.

Then the Speakers or their powers, or both, failed, and the globe fell. It splashed into the molten metal, and gobs of liquid bronze flew about. The Speakers' discipline could not hold against such pain. They screamed and leaped like monkeys beset by bees, or like warthogs attacked by driver ants.

The globe wavered again. The shadow shapes within took a more solid form-two humans, a man and a woman-and then vanished. By this time, the substance of the globe was melting down into the searing metal and feeding a great tongue of liquid fire that reached out toward the circle of Speakers.

The Speakers' silence had broken; now their courage faltered. Yet still they did not run. They opened their circle wider and held their staves with both hands at waist level. Their chanting grew louder, for all that it came from throats raw with pain and fear.

The tongue of fire gathered itself and leaped. Crimson flames as thin as the air wrapped themselves about one of the Speakers' staves. The Speaker dropped it with a cry, but it did not fall. Instead, the flames whirled the stave up to the ceiling of the cave and held it there while they consumed it. Not even an ash drifted to the floor-but when the flames fell back, they seemed sated, like a well-fed animal.

Far worse was the feeding of the liquid metal. It, too, leaped, to land in a spreading pool about the feet of another Speaker. In a moment, the man had no feet; in another moment, no legs.

In the moment after that, knowledge of what was happening reached the Speaker's brain, as did the agony of being burned alive. Burned? Ryku wished that so innocent a word could describe what was happening to the Speaker.

The Living Wind had this much mercy: the Speaker did not take long to die.

Before he began to scream, the fire had already eaten him almost to the waist.

Then it swept up past his belly and to his chest, and when it ate his lungs, he fell silent.

His head bobbed briefly on the surface of the liquid fire, now shot with streaks of black as well as crimson. Then it vanished, too, and smoke in a dozen colors swirled over the metal, hiding any bubbles.

Like the flames, the liquid fire made Ryku think of a sated animal as it withdrew toward the tunnel. The crimson flames followed, and as both elements vanished from the cave, the wind died.

The seven living Speakers stumbled out the way they had come. Some seemed blinded; they gripped the shoulders of those ahead to guide their stumbling feet. Others coughed as if mortally sick in the lungs.

Half-blinded, stifled, his own eyes and lungs a.s.saulted by inconceivable stenches and smoke, Ryku clung to his perch until the last Speaker was gone. It would have been much simpler to let go, fall to the floor of the cave, and die a clean and natural death by breaking his head. Simpler, and very foolish. Now there was something he had not dared to hope for: a vacant place among the Speakers. Add to this the loss of the scrying globe, with little knowledge gained from its use, and even the First Speaker would know that peril unseen in years faced the G.o.d-Men of Thunder Mountain.

If Ryku came forward to show how he might prevent Chabano from using this peril against the Speakers, he might receive a hearing. He might even receive initiation as a Speaker. Then it would be his right to wield the power of the Living Wind.

He barred his mind to the thought that in spite of all the forbidden lore he had studied, he might do no better than the Speaker who had died so brutally. If he let himself dwell on that, he would fall from his perch and die!

Valeria was as fine a woman as the Cimmerian had ever held this close. But he did not hold her out of pa.s.sion, and what he whispered in her ear was most likely not going to make her warm for him.

"We've been guested with food and shelter," he said. "That means we're not likely to be slain by treachery."

"You leave much unsaid," Valeria replied.

"So do the Ichiribu. I know more of their speech than I have let on, so there've been wagging tongues where I could hear. They're none too happy about where we came from, or the magic in our coming."

"What magic? Neither of us could cast a spell to so much as trim a babe's nails."

"We broke the guardian spells on the entrance to the tunnel under the hearthstone. Then we broke the hearthstone-we, or the spells as they went awry. There's too much power about us for their peace of mind."

"Sea demons drown their peace of mind! We're no danger to them. Unless they turn us into one by trying to kill us-"

She broke off as Conan's grip tightened like iron, and he laid a finger across her full lips. "Don't even think that for long. There's a smell of their having a Spirit-Speaker among them."

"A what?"

Conan explained. Spirit-Speakers were no more to his taste than any other sort of magic-wielder. During his time in the Black Kingdoms, he had learned something of them, as he had learned something of every other kind of man who could be friend or foe. He owed it to this as much as to anything else that he had survived being a ruler in the Black Kingdoms, an occupation that often killed men born and bred in these lands.

"Now," he finished, at last relinquishing his grip on her, "this man's not yet our enemy. He may hope to make us friends, to him, to his tribe, or even to both. The way they talk of him, he seems to be a shrewd old fellow."

"Let him be shrewd enough to learn that we mean him no harm, and I'll praise his wisdom in songs."

"Valeria, I've heard you sing. Do you want us at blood feud with these folk, after all their cattle fall dead?"

Valeria growled. It sounded like a she-badger defending her young. Conan laughed softly. "If I said you shame the nightingale, you'd call me astray in my wits.

But the truth is, our Spirit-Speaker will surely want us to help him or his folk against some foe they call the Kwanyi. I'd wager these Kwanyi hold the sh.o.r.es of this... Lake of Death, or so it's called."

"Do you know why?" "No, and I'd be easier in my mind if I did. But if I start asking questions outright, I'll make these folk believe we're spies. If I tell them about where we came from, they'll think we're the ones who overthrew Xuchotl."

"We are, and not ashamed of it! Or are these folk fool enough to think that city of madmen was so great a loss?"

"Who said a word about their missing it? No, they'd no use for it, and shunned it as we might have. But they can't help wondering what magic cast it down. We speak of what we did, and... Do you want to learn what they do to witches in this land?"

Valeria's mouth opened without letting out a sound, but she shook her head.

Conan wrapped his arm around her shoulders again. She eased herself back against his chest and closed her eyes.

"Most likely we'll be put to some kind of test. It could be as simple as my bedding you before all the tribe-"

"Another jest like that and you'll be bedding no woman anywhere!"

"-or something like dancing on a drum."

"There's not a drum in the world stout enough to bear you, Conan. Surely you mean a drum-smashing contest?"

"In these lands, they make their drums large enough and stout enough for me and another to dance upon. Each man tries to make the other fall, and the one who falls dies."

Conan felt Valeria go limp in his arms, and he cursed his wagging tongue for finally scaring her into a faint. Then he heard her breathing steadily, and gently he shifted her to one arm so he could see her face.

Her eyes had drifted shut, and her mouth was slack. A moment later, the Cimmerian heard a soft burble from the full lips. He lifted the sleeping Valeria and laid her on the sleeping mat to the right of the hut's door. Then he lay down on the mat opposite, kicked off his boots, and stretched like a cat.

The Spirit-Speaker would keep his own counsel until a time of his own choosing.

Valeria had the right notion about what to do until that time.

EIGHT.

Valeria did not know what a Spirit-Speaker commonly looked like. Nor was this the time and place to ask, even if Conan knew. Not when the Cimmerian was talking with Dobanpu, Spirit-Speaker to the Ichiribu.

Dobanpu was no longer young, but his presence almost made Valeria forget that he dealt in potent magic. Even more, he made her unaware that she was in a cave, when she had thought she would rather be impaled than again plunge beneath the earth!

Flanking Dobanpu were a young woman with the look of blood kin-a daughter, likely enough-and an Ichiribu warrior. Even one unfamiliar with the Black Kingdoms could tell that here was a man of rank. Iridescent feathers flowed from his spear and headdress, and he wore a necklace' of what seemed to be mother-of-pearl and what were most certainly leopard's teeth.

He was not of the same towering stature as the Cimmerian, but he did not need to be. Indeed, by the way he stood and moved, he made Conan seem almost uncouthly large. He also made Valeria aware, as she had not been before, that the Black Kingdoms produced some very comely folk.

The talk now seemed to be between Conan and the young chief-Seyganko, his name was, and the daughter was named Emwaya. Valeria glimpsed another figure in the shadows of the cave and recognized the girl who had attended them and who had thought Valeria was with child.

Conan had been right about their being spied on. But then, this hardly surprised Valeria. The folk of the Black Kingdoms might live a simple life compared to Aquilonians, but they were hardly simpletons!

She turned her attention back to the two warriors. As much as she could judge, when she understood perhaps one word in ten, a challenge was being offered. It seemed that it was from Conan to Seyganko, but was Seyganko accepting or refusing?

No, he was looking at Dobanpu. The woman Emwaya was trying to catch her father's eye and Seyganko's at once-and Valeria knew that she was betrothed, wed, or at least in love with Seyganko.

Dobanpu was not returning all the looks cast at him. Indeed, he sat as silent as if he had himself become a spirit. Then he said one word, which to Valeria seemed to be a name.

"Aondo."

Seyganko's face held what had to be displeasure. Emwaya, on the other hand, appeared to be struggling to hide her joy. Valeria looked away, to make the woman's task easier. Once in her life had she felt that way toward a man, but he was dead, his bones beneath a distant reef, with the surf and the starfish alone to mourn him.

The parley seemed to be done. Then Conan half turned and whispered to Valeria, "Bow, and stretch out your arms."

Mystified but trusting, .Valeria obeyed. She kept her eyes on the cave's floor long enough to count the trails left by snakes. They were the trails of small snakes, such as seers and wise-women in Aquilonia often kept about the house to give auguries and eat insects.

Seeing that bit of home in this distant land made Valeria easier in her mind, for all that she also remembered how long she had been gone from Aquilonia. She had been some years a woman and a wanderer even before she had met the man who now lay beneath the reef-and that was enough years ago that she needed two hands to count them.

Now as she knelt there with her arms stretched out, her sword-toughened muscles began to burn and her hands began to shake. Her knees also reminded her that the sand was harsh and that beneath it was hard, cold stone.

Then she felt a gentle touch at the back of her neck, draping something about her shoulders. She smelled what might have been a mixture of violets and ripe apples, if this land grew either.

"Rise," Conan said.

She rose, stretching as she did so as to ease her cramped muscles. She was proud to see that she did not tremble, let alone stagger. She also felt another kind of pride when she noticed that Seyganko was eyeing her rather as she had eyed him-and then she observed the frown on Emwaya's face as the woman saw where her man's gaze had wandered.

Dobanpu spoke again, this time calling another name-"Mokossa." The girl came from the back of the cave, and Dobanpu pointed at the cave's mouth. The girl ran to it, then seemed to halt and wait.

Conan put a hand at the small of Valeria's back and eased her along. Outside, they found that it was raining. They stopped under the overhang of the cliff to watch the rain beating the water of the lake into a vast gray expanse of tiny dancing splashes.

Valeria examined the wreath hanging around her neck. The flowers seemed dried and living at the same time, and even had it not come from Dobanpu, she would have smelled magic about it. She started to lift it over her head, but the girl Mokossa frowned and Conan put a hand on his companion's shoulder.

"Easy there, Valeria. It's safe enough, and better for you even if I lose."

"I might believe you if I knew what it was."

"It marks you as vowed to me, as this marks me the same to you."

"This" was a stout band of what appeared to be snakeskin about the Cimmerian's left wrist. By some quirk of the light, or perhaps of magic, it was in the same colors as Valeria's wreath.

"I see. Or at least I see what you are wearing. Will you tell me what you might win or lose, or leave me to guess it for myself ?"

Conan frowned. "It's not easy to tell it quickly-"

"Then take as much time as you need, and half the night besides. I have nothing better to do, of course, than listen to a Cimmerian's tales."

"No, you don't," Conan agreed with infuriating cheerfulness. Again the urge to geld him warred with the urge to laugh, and laughter won.

They sat on a fallen log that seemed to have once been roughly carved but was now half-rotted and altogether covered with moss and ferns. Conan drew a borrowed whetstone from a borrowed pouch at his borrowed belt and began to work on the edge of his sword. The blade, at least, was not borrowed.

It seemed that Conan was to submit to the G.o.ds' judgment of him by challenging an Ichiribu warrior to various contests. They would throw spears and tridents, duel with club and shield, run, jump, climb, swim, paddle canoes- "No bedding wenches?"

"I doubt they could find enough, and a G.o.dless man is taboo to the women about here anyway."

"Is a G.o.dless woman taboo to the men?"

"You're not as G.o.dless as I am, it seems."

Valeria could think of no sufficient reply, so let the Cimmerian continue.

"I need not win every contest, but I must meet a picked warrior in every one and show skill in all. Otherwise, they may name me a man lacking the G.o.ds' favor, or even a coward."

"Small fear of that." Valeria had a sense of much left unsaid, and perhaps to remain so.

But the Cimmerian was honest, she would give him that. He frowned.

"If the G.o.ds favor me through the other contests, we end on the dance-drum.

There the winner has the final blessing of the G.o.ds. The loser dies. If I win, all is well. If I lose-" he shrugged "-I suppose I'll not be king of a Hyborian realm, but that's not so great a loss."

"Not to be a king?" Had Dobanpu conjured away the Cimmerian's wits?

"A throne, woman, is something a man sits on.

You're an archer. You know how easy it is to shoot a sitting bird-or a sitting king."

"I've not been in the habit of shooting at kings, but you may have the right of it." Then her light tone broke. "So, Conan-if you lose-"

"I die. You live. If you don't fight to save me or avenge me-"