"Watch where you put your feet. Hold your tongue and send messages with your hands. Drink lightly of your water, and eat sparingly. Do not wander off, even if you think you see a whole kingdom down that side tunnel.

"Remember above all that surprising the enemy doubles your strength. We'll be surprising the Kwanyi by coming from a place they don't even know exists.

Imagine what that will do for our strength!"

The warriors imagined it, and the thought seemed pleasant. They were still looking above and to their rear as they formed their line of march, but they were also smiling. All except Emwaya.

The Golden Serpent set its teeth into the first of the stones in its path and began dragging it to one side. It sought to do this quietly, knowing that most of the prey beneath the earth were keen of hearing.

Except for the two-legs, of course. Its memories of those were not as sharp as of beasts who had shared the burrows with it more recently. It did remember that the two-legs were nearly blind without light, and almost deaf under any circ.u.mstance.

If the flesh and life-force it sensed belonged to two-legs, it could work swiftly. The stones could be moved about until, at the right moment, the serpent could strike even more swiftly. Again, the thoughts of the Golden Serpent did not take those exact words, but one such as Emwaya would have interpreted them so.

One such as Emwaya would also have discerned that the work of the Golden Serpent was agitating the spells in the tunnels beneath the lake. The agitation spread out like ripples around a thrown stone, to reach far along the tunnels in all directions, even to the sh.o.r.es of the Lake of Death.

Chabano was entangled with one of his slave women when the messenger entered. He intended to finish with the woman; then he saw the messenger's face. The man was a proven warrior, a leopard-tooth wearer, and what could give him such a countenance could not be a light matter.

He slapped the woman on the rump. "Go, and swiftly."

The woman looked stricken, perhaps with disappointment, and certainly with fear.

Displeasing Chabano had meant death to slave women, even in the past year.

"Go!" he shouted and raised a hand for a less gentle slap. "It is not your fault that the G.o.ds have sent bad news!"

The woman could not depart swiftly enough. Even her necklace of beads and her waistcloth remained behind. Chabano sat up and glowered at the warrior. As befitted one of his rank, the man did not flinch.

"The earth has cracked in two places along the sh.o.r.e."

"I felt no earth-trembling."

"Nor did anyone else, my chief. I have sent for your princ.i.p.al warriors-"

"Wobeku?"

"No."

"Send for him at once!" The man turned to flee, now at last frightened. "Wait!"

Chabano commanded. "How wide are the cracks?"

"One might be natural. It is no deeper than a man's height and no wider than a boy's arm. The other is wide enough to swallow an ox, and no one can see the bottom.' Yet..."

The man licked his lips. Chabano felt the urge to strike him but knew that would only make him more fearful.

"If they cannot see the bottom, what can they see?"

"Worked stone, perhaps-perhaps stairs." "Stairs," echoed Chabano. He stood and girded on his loinguard, then pointed to his headdress. The warrior handed it to him, likewise spear and war club.

Accoutering himself gave Chabano time to think. There were legends of cities beneath the lake, or even below the jungle... and there was Dobanpu's power, no legend. Yet if the legends held a grain of truth, the magic of those old cities had made Dobanpu's magic seem that of a child.

This was not the Spirit-Speaker's work, likely enough. But it smelled of magic, and in matters of magic- "Go and summon Wobeku to the council. Then you yourself go to Thunder Mountain and bear the news to Ryku. Take warriors you trust when you go to the mountain, so that if Ryku wishes to come among us, he will have proper guarding."

And so that any treachery he may be devising can be seen at once.

The messenger thumped his head five times on the floor, then ran as if all his kin would be impaled if he slowed.

Alone, Chabano took down his finest shield, the one with strips of gold and ivory woven into the ox hide. It soothed him to feel the richness under his hands, and his thoughts now came swiftly and clearly.

G.o.ds or men might have opened these cracks. Both fissures would bear watching, and he would set warriors to that task. Meanwhile, the greater part of his warriors, as well as Ryku, would draw back to the slopes of the mountain. Then when the enemy showed himself, it would be time to strike-with Ryku's command of the Living Wind, or with the spears of the warriors, as might seem best.

A battle was certain, and in Kwanyi lands, which Chabano had hoped to avoid. But there was this to ease his mind: the lion bites more easily one who thrusts his head into the lion's jaws.

FOURTEEN.

Beyond where the light began again, the tunnel broadened so much that Conan's band could trot four or five abreast. A spear held upright would hardly touch the ceiling, and the floor was of the familiar sullen, grayish rock, without beauty but as smooth as marble.

Conan cared for none of this. Such s.p.a.ciousness hinted that they were coming to the heart of whatever lay beneath the Lake of Death. That also had to be the heart of whatever magic had for centuries kept the earth from taking back this underground maze.

The Cimmerian dropped back to speak to Emwaya, who was keeping up with the warriors, for all that she seemed to be sleepwalking for long stretches. She was so when Conan fell in beside her. He matched his stride to hers and left her in peace; no good ever came of disturbing even the most benign sorcerer at work.

After time enough to consume a small joint of mutton, Emwaya shook herself like a wet dog and looked at Conan with waking eyes. Then she nodded her head.

"It lives, and it is ahead of us. I think it has grown stronger than it was."

No need to ask what "it" was, or if it was dangerous. The life-force eater was about the only living thing that Emwaya would be sensing, and likely enough the thing most to be feared. But to forty warriors, a Golden Serpent-or one of those beasts that were kin to both dragon and rhinoceros-would be only healthy exercise.

Conan hurried back to the head of the line. Seeing him hasten thus, some of the warriors quickened their pace. He drew his sword and held it at arm's length across the front rank of Ichiribu.

"Pa.s.s that and you may get the flat of it across your thick skull!" he said, pitching his voice to carry without being loud. Even so, it raised echoes that made a few men look uneasily about them. It also caused the eager ones to slow their pace.

"Well and good," Conan said. "This tunnel may go straight under the lake to bring us out in the quarters of Chabano's women. It may also wind like the trail of a drunken crocodile. Reckon that we've a good way to go, and guard your wind!"

After that, Conan had no problem with the over-eager and was able to follow his own advice, stalking along in silence. Nothing seemed to hint of danger, but his eyes were never still and his hand never far from the hilt of his sword. From time to time, he also looked back to see if Emwaya had sensed anything else untoward.

The band's pace was that of the Ichiribu warrior when the ground was level and endurance rather than great speed was most urgently required. Conan judged that they must have covered a good two leagues before they halted for a brief rest.

The Cimmerian set guards and put those warriors carrying gear-ropes, hooks, torches, and heavy hunting spears-to inspecting their burdens. The others he allowed to sprawl at their ease. A black look or two discouraged broaching water gourds, and no one as yet was hungry.

"We must be a good halfway to the Kwanyi sh.o.r.e," Valeria whispered. "If we are marching in the direction I think we are."

"I think we're on that route myself," Conan said. "Of course, we could both be-"

He broke off as a sound that was neither sob nor scream but had something of both in it reached him. He whirled to see two warriors drop weapons and shields and leap to support Emwaya. Her legs were trembling, unable to hold her upright, her eyes were closed, and as Conan watched, she clapped both hands over her ears.

What she was hearing might have been heard with the ears of her magic. The next moment, everyone heard it with the ears of his body.

Stones cracked and crumbled, then fell with crashes that filled the tunnel with thundering echoes. Emwaya was not the only one now with hands held over ears.

Conan's bellow rose above the stone-noise and raised echoes of its own. "The next man who drops a weapon, I'll give it back sideways!" Warriors hastily slung shields and raised spears.

Then, without orders, they began taking battle formation. The baggage bearers dropped their loads and formed a circle around the gear. Emwaya was half carried, half dragged into that circle and deposited with little ceremony on a rolled-up rope ladder.

"See to Emwaya," Conan said. That was his last order for a time. None of his words could have been heard, and indeed, none were needed. Something far too close and far too large was slithering over rock, hissing as it came.

The messenger ran up to Seyganko as if his loin-guard had caught fire or a leopard swam the lake to pursue him. Before the man could speak, Seyganko saw what none among the Ichiribu had seen in many years-Dobanpu Spirit-Speaker running.

He ran up to Seyganko at a fine pace for a man his age and waited only long enough to catch his breath before speaking. "We must launch the canoes at once.

There is more danger than I had thought." "You do not think, father of Emwaya, if you believe we can launch the canoes now. Hardly half of them are loaded, and more than a third of the warriors are not yet on the sh.o.r.e."

"Then we set out with what is ready to hand."

Seyganko realized the depth of his anger only when he felt the shaft of the trident in his hand crack. He forced himself to speak more calmly.

"Who is in danger?"

"Those who have gone below. I must be closer to them than I am here, to aid Emwaya against the peril."

"What peril?" Seyganko did not have it in him to call his betrothed's father a liar, as Dobanpu did not have it in him to lie. But he would be cursed if he would fling the tribe half-ready into battle without knowing whither he flung it!

"What lives beneath the lake-where Emwaya found no life-it lives, wakes, and moves upon those who have gone below. Emwaya will need my aid if the warrior's weapons are to slay it."

Seyganko knew that these near riddles were as much as he would hear without forfeiting time he and his warriors might not have. Still- "Dobanpu, take a canoe and six of the strongest paddlers ready to hand. Guide them where you wish. I will order the others to gather as swiftly as possible, then come after you with two more canoes."

Dobanpu also seemed to realize that he could expect no more. He departed at a brisk trot.

Seyganko raised his voice, calling the messengers and drummers of the fanda to him. As he ran down to the sh.o.r.e, Dobanpu's canoe was already pushing out into the lake, and the drummers were hard at work. The rattle and boom of the talking drums rolled across sh.o.r.e and water as Seyganko leaped into a canoe and seized the nearest paddle.

Twenty or thirty picked warriors would be enough to guard Dobanpu against any human foe. It was drawing on toward sunset, and the Kwanyi feared the lake even more by night than by day.

As for other foes-if Dobanpu was not their equal, then the fewer warriors the Ichiribu lost, the better. The tribe would not long outlive their Spirit-Speaker, but the warriors could still take a good toll of Chabano's men.

That would give them honor among the G.o.ds, and the thanks of those tribes downriver whom the Kwanyi might then be too weak to conquer.

Seyganko's paddle dipped deep as he raised his voice in the oldest and most potent of the Ichiribu war chants.

Ryku heard the signal drums from the lookout post on what the Kwanyi called Great Gourd Hill. It neither grew large gourds nor had the shape of one, so Ryku had always wondered how it came by its name.

It was, however, the perfect spot for a keen-eyed watcher to look all the way to the island of the Ichiribu. With a trifle of aid from Ryku, some of the watchers had gained more than human sight; they could even see canoes putting out from the island.

This, the drums told him, was just what was happening. Ryku placed the wooden tablet he had been studying in the herb-steeped deer hide that protected it from both damp and magic alike. He wrapped the hide about the tablet and put it in the carved chest that stood in one corner of his chamber. That chest was the one thing he had brought with him when he came to Thunder Mountain. It was a gift from the man whom he had called Father, and always made him feel less clanless and kinless.

Now the very G.o.ds could not do that. He was First Speaker to the Living Wind, for all that he seldom used the t.i.tle. His clan and his kin were alike not of this earth, and thus it must be. Had he risen to the rank of Speaker by other means, he might have felt some kinship with the other Speakers, but as matters stood, they also were alien and untrustworthy.

Ryku stepped out of his chamber, touched the pouch at his belt for good luck, and unbound the reed curtain over his door. The hanging fell back across the door as he turned and walked away, toward the Cave of the Living Wind.

The slithering ended in a crash that sounded like a battering ram striking a stone wall. In the next moment, Conan knew that his ears had not lied.

From a side tunnel to their rear, stones larger than a man rolled in dust and thunder. Smaller stones flew as if hurled from a siege-engine. Some crashed against the far wall, spraying shards in all directions. Others struck flesh.

Shards and stones together left three warriors lifeless and two more limping or holding useless arms.

Those two were the first prey of the Golden Serpent as it lunged from its lair into the tunnel.

Its teeth sank into one, and the man howled in agony for a dreadful moment before going limp. The teeth were as long as Conan's fingers, set in a jaw the length of a horse's head, and it hardly mattered if they were venomous or not.

The other man died as a tail thicker than his own body swept him against the wall. He did not scream, but the cracking of skull and crunching of bones were loud enough to tell plainly of his fate.

Other men did cry out, though, at what they saw then. Around the two bodies a sickly green light flickered. It was what one might have seen over a noisome swamp, the sort said to be haunted, one to which wise men gave a wide berth. It was the color of the sc.u.m on the most stagnant water of such a swamp. If he had ever seen a less wholesome color in his life, Conan could not remember it.

What he did remember was that Emwaya was in the rear, and that her fate and that of all of them were entwined. He turned back, to reach her just as she leaped from the arms of the men holding her. She ran at the Golden Serpent, raising high overhead one hand and clutching the amulet about her neck with the other.

The creature hissed loudly enough to cause echoes, and its toothed jaws gaped so that Conan had much too clear a view of its mouth. The mouth was green and ridged, except where it was smeared with the blood of the serpent's first victim. Far back in the mouth, the swamp-glow flickered.

A brighter light blazed from the Golden Serpent's many-jeweled eyes. At another time and place, the jewel-light might have been lovely. Now it was only one more horror.

At Emwaya's gesture, the serpent reared half its length from the floor. Its horned muzzle crashed against the ceiling, shaking loose dust and pebbles. Its tail thrashed about, nearly striking down one man bolder than the rest in retrieving his baggage.

From nose to tail, the creature seemed longer than a small galley, and thicker around the middle than a good-sized tree. The golden scales were as large as good pewter serving platters and overlapped as cunningly as was the best Aquilonian plate armor. Some were faded to a pale yellow, even to a near white.

Conan saw that many had been cracked, or had even broken clear across, then healed.

The boldest warrior of all ran past Emwaya, shield slung, spear in both hands.

He leaped and thrust in a single fluid motion, and his spearhead vanished between two pallid scales.

The Golden Serpent shook like a tree in a gale. Still gripping his spear, the warrior flew into the air, legs waving. The serpent's head dipped, and the jaws closed on one of the man's feet. The warrior did not cry out. Instead, he mustered all his strength to drive the spear in deeper.

He succeeded, in the moment that the serpent's teeth severed his leg halfway up the calf. He screamed then, but did not fall. He remained suspended in the air, held up by nothing anyone could see, while the too-familiar greenish light played about the blood spraying from the stump of his leg.

At last he fell, still gripping the spear. His fall jerked the weapon from the serpent's neck, and greenish blood spurted forth. Where it struck the floor, smoke rose, and where it fell on the corpse of the man crushed by the tail, the flesh charred to ashes and crumbled from the bone.

If Conan had ever doubted the stark horror of the magic lurking in these depths, he doubted no longer. He also doubted that he would ever again put himself in danger for fire-stones.