"If we come up and help, can you keep order?"

"Men within the valley! This cannot be-" 'There have been men not only within the valley but within its Maidens and even the Lady of its Mists!" Muhbaras roared. His voice would have started a landslide had there been any loose rocks about.

The Maiden cringed. Then she nodded. "Good," Muhbaras concluded. "And when we have helped you, you will help us against the raiders who are enemies to both of us."

He hoped he was not overestimating the prowess of the Maidens in a real battle against a plainly formidable foe. He did not want to simply throw their lives away; the Lady would not thank him for that (and how wonderful it was, to think that she would be so concerned).

But he would disdain no help and no allies, as this night Muhbaras needed all of both that the G.o.ds would send him!

The rosy crimson hue was brighter and also melting into the blue so that the sky was turning an eye-searing shade of purple.

"It looks like a gigantic bed of violets, diseased and then set aflame," Bethina murmured. Or was it Omyela? The two women were talking again across the hillside, and Conan would have given a chest of silver to learn what they were saying that did not reach bodily ears.

Farad pretended to spew. Bethina grinned. "Men are so delicate of stomach. It is as well that women bear the babes. Men would die of the morning sickness even before the babe reached its term."

Farad stared. "You are not-"

"Plagues take you," Bethina said. "No. You need not fear for the blood of any sons you may see from me."

"I would not quarrel with any son of the Cimmerian's blood," Farad said, musingly. "Of course, I would still have to kill Conan before I could raise the lad with a clear conscience-ekkkhh!" he broke off, as Bethina kicked him smartly in the shin.

Then the young woman stiffened, and when she spoke, her voice had Omyela's gravity and even some of its cracked quality.

"You must go up to the gate to the valley. Follow the men you defeated. They will lead you. They will not be your enemies, for what is unleashed within the valley is the enemy to all."

Farad looked at the Cimmerian. "A child of five could understand that. But he'd be too young to be frightened witless!"

"What, an Afghuli fearful? A warrior of the folk who use sharp stones-"

"Cimmerian, I may kill you after this even if my sons are all of my own getting.

Or will you save your breath for climbing?"

Ermik came upon the Lady of the Mists quite suddenly. He had no warning and she showed no sign of hearing or seeing him.

Indeed, it was unlikely that she could sense anything in the normal world. She was clad for casting a spell, her staff was glowing with a light that seemed black, if such a thing could be, and her eyes glowed golden.

Very lovely, she was, too, for all that she was frightening. Ermik no longer wondered at Muhbaras's desire for her, and rather regretted that he would have to put an end to the Lady without amusing himself with that beauty as well.

However, a wise man struck quickly when dealing with a witch. Ermik strode forward, tossed the dagger with the chaos stone in the hilt, caught it by the point, and threw it. He threw it directly at the Lady, so that if the chaos stone did not do its work, it still might do enough physical harm to break the Lady's concentration.

There are moments in the creation of even the most potent spell by the most adept sorcerer, when a child sneezing at the wrong moment can bring everything to ruin. The chaos stone was not worth a tenth of what Ermik had paid for it, but it was more potent than that child's sneeze, and it entered the sphere of the Lady's spell at the worst possible moment.

The point of the dagger also entered the Lady's flesh, and drove through to a lung. The combination of chaos, broken concentration, and pain snapped her control over the death-elemental. It raved and shrieked in her mind, clutching at her with incorporeal tendrils that produced still more very corporeal pain.

The Lady died in agony of both mind and body. As she died, the death-elemental leaped free of all control. In the moments before its leap, its aura had stunned Ermik, and he lay so completely senseless that a death-elemental in haste could have mistaken him for one already dead.

This one was in haste, to flee the area where the Lady's magic lingered and had much the same effect on it as a smoke-filled room on a human being with delicate lungs. As it fled it screamed in triumph, and this scream reached human ears already half-deaf with the terror of the Mist.

Where panic had not reigned in the valley, it reigned now.

Seventeen.

It went much against Conan's instinctive suspicion of sorcery for him to climb the slope, let alone urge his men on. But there was no other road to the secret of the Valley of the Mists, and for the moment that road lay undefended.

The Cimmerian still did not lead a wild, scrambling rush up the mountain. Those wounded who were coming along had time to bind their wounds. Every surviving archer also collected as many arrows as he could from the quivers of the fallen, both friend and foe.

Conan himself stepped aside to speak with the prisoner, who gave his name as Bamshir.

"If I leave you unbound, will you come with us as a guide?"

Bamshir looked ready to spit on the ground, or perhaps in Conan's face. Then he shrugged.

"My life is forfeit anyhow."

"Not certainly. Besides, your men may need you to lead them, and we need all the help we can find against what is loose in the valley. If that is not the greatest enemy now, may I be gelded!"

Bamshir frowned. "You may well be right."

"I am right. And you've been living cheek by jowl with the Lady's wizardry long enough to know that without my telling you!" After that Bamshir acceded, and Conan was even willing to give him back his eating knife. But he kept the prisoner-guide away from Bethina. Indeed, the man showed no easy mind about approaching the young woman, and made a gesture of aversion when he thought Conan was not looking.

Bethina seemed to be in a trance, and it was a miracle that she could put one foot in front of another in the darkness over this ground without falling. But her body seemed to work now without the guidance of a mind altogether bound up with Omyela's.

She would not be stabbing anyone until the battle of spellcasting was over; that was plain to see. Fortunately Farad could see that for himself, and what anyone could do to guard the woman, he would do.

Muhbaras's men reached the gate to the valley gasping and winded, but in fair order. He thought some might have fled, but of those who had remained with him, all still bore their weapons. As well, seeing that their fighting was more likely to be against hu-man foes-or humans so maddened by fear that they could not tell friend from foe.

The gate opened swiftly, cranked by two menservants with the beardless faces of eunuchs and stark terror written all over those faces. A Maiden stood by them, keeping them at their posts as she remained at hers, although her own face told of fear commanded by brute force of will.

Muhbaras did not blame any of the three. He was here for his Lady, his men, and his honor-in that order. Khoraja was but a name that would have had no power to prevent his flight but for the other three bonds that had brought him here in this dire hour.

The men filed in through the gate behind Muhbaras. Some called bawdy greetings to the Maiden, or stared around these once-forbidden precincts.

All lightness of heart vanished, however, as they marched down the path and saw the far end of the cleft in the rock. There the pa.s.sage from the gate gave on the valley itself, and there purple light blazed like the forge of some mad blacksmith of the G.o.ds.

Purple light, and worse. Muhbaras saw (or at least thought he saw, and would ask no other for their opinion) patches of sky where a blackness that was not the night seemed to eat the light.

He could hope that this was the magic by which the Lady sought to subdue her own creation. Hope, perhaps pray, but no more.

"Pair off," he shouted. "Stay together, and don't let anyone get between you and your mate! Any Maidens who come up, if they're armed, have them pair off and fall into line with us. Anyone armed who is not a Maiden, disarm them."

"Then what?" someone called. "Send them out or keep them here?"

"If they won't stay, send them out. When the valley is empty, we'll take its folk down to find water and shelter until the Lady has matters in hand."

Some of the laughter that drew was bawdy, but not much of it unfriendly. So far Muhbaras still commanded his men's loyalty.

Lady, for all our sakes, put things to rights before my men flee like your people.

Even as they moved uphill, Conan kept his men reined in.

"Run on a slope like this, and you're likely to fall on your face. If somebody doesn't skewer you before you get up, you'll roll back down and knock out what brains you have!" Farad added his mite to the profane cajoling, and the men mounted the slope in a compact formation, with archers well out to the flanks where they had clear shooting. Thus far they had no targets, and Conan would be quite happy if there was no more fighting on sloping ground. His Afghulis were as at home on it as he was, but Bethina's tribesfolk were accustomed to the more level desert.

Nonetheless, they and their young chieftess kept pace with the Cimmerian.

Bethina no longer seemed entranced by her magical bond with Omyela, but she strode on in silence, looking neither to right or left.

She spoke first when Conan called for a short halt to realign the formation and let everyone take a few unhurried breaths.

"Omyela and I were talking."

"So I judged," Conan said. "Is it permitted to speak of what she said?"

"Oh, it is permitted, or at least I will take her permission for granted. But you do not want to hear all of it. Omyela can no more utter two words of meaning without ten words of speech than any other old woman or sorcerer."

Conan grimaced in mock-horror. "And she is both. How does she ever speak clearly?"

"Not often," Bethina said. "But I can tell you what she meant. She says there is death and life battling in the valley."

"How does that make the valley different from any other place where life exists?

Death comes to every living thing, or it seems to me."

"Yes, but-how to say it?"

"Plainly and shortly. We must move on soon."

"Do you wish to wed me also, so you may command me?"

"Do you wish two husbands?"

"If they were you and Farad-" "I'm flattered. We're in haste. Speak."

"Death and life each has-being-in the valley. Left alone, they will between them destroy it and go on to seek destruction elsewhere. Brought together, they will destroy each other."

"So all we need is to introduce the death being to the life being and stand well clear?"

"I suppose so. She did not explain."

"Just as long as she does it when it's needed," Conan said. "Otherwise there'll be no one alive here to listen to her explanation."

Bethina heard those words without flinching, which was more than some of the men did.

Muhbaras's men barely had time to order their slender ranks before the fleeing Maidens were on them. No, that did an injustice to some of the Maidens, and indeed some of the other women, Muhbaras decided. They were retreating, not fleeing, trying to stay ahead of the mob of fugitives but keeping themselves in fair order, and those with weapons holding on to them.

The mob behind was another matter. At intervals the sky itself seemed to howl like a living thing gone mad, and in those moments Muhbaras wanted to clap his hands over his ears. He could not have heard the cries of the fugitives if they'd been shouting in his ear-and he kept his distance from them with great care.

They were of all ages from babes to graybeards and of both s.e.xes, as well as more than a few fresh eunuchs. Most seemed to be wearing what they could s.n.a.t.c.h up when the urge to flee struck them, which was often little or nothing. Few had anything more than their scanty garments, or at most a loaf of flat-bread or a bunch of onions.

Feeding these without the croplands of the valley is going to be no easy task, my Lady. But they are yours, and for your sake I will do what I must.

Hardly any of the fugitives were the misshapen half-men, conjured into deformed existence by the Lady to do the harshest work before their time came to yield up their life essences. Whether the Mist had overtaken them, their true human neighbors slain them, or their own weakness brought them down, they would not live out the night.

Muhbaras could not find it in his heart to regret their pa.s.sing, and only hoped their deaths would be for the most part merciful.

Less agreeable was the sight of several bands of well-thewed and armed men or eunuchs. These swaggered along, and Muhbaras knew that they would prey like jackals on the fugitives if they were given the slightest chance. He had encountered their breed before, and found no answer to it save sharp orders enforced by sharper steel.

Muhbaras stepped forward to meet the first three.

"Halt and disarm!" he said, not quite shouting but raising his voice loud enough to be heard over the fugitives' gabble. The sky screamed at that moment, so he had to repeat the command.

"Who are you to be giving orders?" the biggest man snapped.

"Captain Muhbaras of the Khorajan service," was the reply.

The man drew his sword. Muhbaras drew his faster. Its point was at the man's throat before the other's blade could rise into fighting position.

The man stared at the point just barely p.r.i.c.king his skin and swallowed. "Ah-can I have my blade back afterward?" "When we're-" Another howl from the sky, and something vast and black seemed to fly low overhead, like a cloud that was a window into the Abyss and cried with the voice of a mad dragon.

"That's a Maiden's sword!" screamed a voice from behind Muhbaras. He turned, taking his eye off the man, who jerked his blade up and nearly laid Muhbaras's cheek open.

Then Muhbaras was trying to fight at the same time the man and a wild-eyed Maiden determined to avenge her unknown comrade. The fugitives had broken into a run now, all who could move that fast, and both the unarmed and the armed were streaming past, jostling the fighters without regard to the flying steel.

In the confusion the Maiden tried to watch her back, Muhbaras, and the man at the same time. She could not quite contrive this, and the man laid open the side of her neck with a wild slash. The next moment Muhbaras pierced him through the throat, and he fell beside the woman.

Muhbaras looked at the fallen Maiden, cursed everything save the Lady herself, and even allowed himself a few unkind thoughts about her. He would not be able to forget this night of madness, and it would always lie between them even when they lay in each other's arms.

Then the greatest cry of all rose from the valley, as if the mountains themselves were in mortal agony, likewise the stars, the air, the water, and every living thing within reach of the unleashed magic. It was the sound of madness, and Muhbaras saw that on the faces of his men and the Maidens who had stood thus far.

He closed his eyes, to shut out the nightmare vision. When he opened them he still lived, and only the echoes of that cry remained pealing about the valley. But he was alone, except for the dead and those too spent to run.

Alone, with no further duties to anyone but the Lady. Alone, and free to go to her, to hold her, to carry her out of this antechamber of h.e.l.l.