Vegentius gasped as the simulacrum obeyed. "'Tis Garian's very image!"

Sularia turned from a golden lamp, but her exclamation at the sight of the King's double was cut short, as, with narrowing eyes, her gaze caught Ariane. "Who is she?" the blonde demanded.

Ariane looked straight ahead, unmoving, until another command was given. The simulacrum peered about him curiously.

On the bed, Garian suddenly sat bolt upright. Growing more amazed by the instant, his eye jumped from Alba.n.u.s to Sularia to Vegentius.

"What," he began, but the words died. Mouth open, he stared at the duplicate of himself. Unperturbed, the simulacrum gazed back inquisitively.

Alba.n.u.s felt like laughing. "Garian," he said mockingly, "this is he who will sit on the Dragon Throne for the last days of your line. For your usurping lineage now ends."

"Guards!" Garian shouted. From beneath his pillows a dagger appeared in his hand, and he leaped from the bed. "Guards!"

"Take him," Alba.n.u.s ordered the simulacrum, "as I told you." Growing more amazed by the instant, his eye jumped from Alba.n.u.s to Sularia to Vegentius.

The duplicate moved forward, and Garian's dagger struck with a fighter's speed. To be caught easily by an inhumanly powerful grip on Garian's wrist. Astonishment was replaced on his face by pain as those fingers tightened. The dagger fell from nerveless forgers.

Before that blade clattered on the floor, the simulacrum's other hand seized the true King by the throat, lifting him until his toes kicked frantically above a handspan of air. No sign of strain was on the construct's face as it watched that other like its own turn slowly purple. Garian's struggles weakened, then ceased. Casually the replica opened its hand and let the limp body fall.

Alba.n.u.s hastened to bend over the King. Savage bruises empurpled his neck, and another darkened his cheek, though Alba.n.u.s did not remember seeing the simulacrum strike. But the broad chest rose and fell, if faintly. Garian yet lived.

Vegentius, who had stood staring, sword half drawn, since the instant the duplicate moved, now slammed his blade home in its scabbard and cleared his throat. His eyes never left the simulacrum. "Should you not let him, it, kill him now?"

"I am King Garian," the creature said to Vegentius. The soldier muttered an oath.

"Be silent," Alba.n.u.s commanded, straightening. "This," he prodded Garian's form with his foot, "will acknowledge my right to the throne before I let him die."

"But the danger," Vegentius protested. "He was to die now."

"Enough!" Alba.n.u.s snapped. "Deliver him in chains to the dungeon beneath my palace. I'll hear no more on it."

Vegentius nodded reluctantly, and turned to go.

"And, Vegentius," the cruel-faced man added, "see that those who do this task are disposed of after. Fewer tongues to waggle loosely."

The big soldier stood rigidly in the door, then left without speaking.

But he would do it, Alba.n.u.s knew, even to his beloved Golden Leopards.

"Who is this woman?" Sularia asked again.

Alba.n.u.s looked at her in amus.e.m.e.nt, wondering if there were room for two thoughts at once in that pretty head. All that had happened before her eyes, and it was Ariane that concerned her.

"Do not worry," he told her. "In the morning you will be proclaimed Lady Sularia. This," he touched Ariane's expressionless face, "is naught but a tool to build a path to the Dragon Throne. And tools are made to be discarded once used."

His gaze swung to Sularia, a rea.s.suring smile on his face. Tools, he repeated to himself, are made to be discarded once used.

Chapter XX.

Conan awakened hanging spreadeagled in chains in the center of a dungeon. At least, he a.s.sumed it was the center. Two tall tripod lamps cast a yellow pool of light around him, but he could see no walls in any direction. The chains that held his wrists disappeared into the gloom above. Those holding his ankles were fastened to ma.s.sive ringbolts set in the rough stone blocks of the floor. His tunic was gone, he wore naught but a breechclout.

Without real hope of escape he tensed every muscle, straining until sweat popped out on his forehead, beaded his shoulders and rolled down his broad chest. There was not slightest give in the chains. Nor in himself. He had been stretched to the point of joints cracking.

Cloth rustled in the darkness, and he heard a man's voice.

"He is awake, my lady." There was a pause. "Very good, my lady."

Two men moved into the light, burly, shaven headed and bare chested.

One bore a burn across his hairless chest as if some victim had managed to put hand to the hot iron intended for his own pain. The other was as heavily pelted as an ape from the shoulders down, and wore a smile on his incongruously pleasant round face. Each man carried a coiled whip.

As they wordlessly took positions to either side of the Cimmerian, he strained his eyes to penetrate the darkness. Who was this 'lady'? Who?

The first whip hissed through the air to crack against his chest. As it was drawn back the other struck his thigh. Then the first was back, wrapping around an ankle. There was no pattern to the blows, no way to antic.i.p.ate where the next would land, no way to steel the soul against pain like lines of acid eating into the flesh.

The muscles of Conan's jaws were knots with the effort of not yelling.

He would not even open his mouth to suck in the lungfuls of air his great body demanded in its agony. To open his mouth would be to make some noise, however slight, and from there it would be but a step to a yell, another to a scream. The woman watching from the darkness wanted him to scream. He would make no sound.

The two men continued until Conan hung as limply as the chains would allow, head down on his ma.s.sive chest. Sweat turned to fire the welts that covered him from ankles to shoulders. Here and there blood oozed.

From the darkness he heard the clink of coins, and the same man's voice. "Very generous, my lady. We'll be just outside, an you need us."

Then silence until hinges squealed rustily, stopping with the crash of a stout door closing.

Conan lifted his head.

Slowly a woman walked into the circle of light and stood watching him.

The woman veiled in gray.

"You!" he rasped. "Are you the one who has been trying to kill me, then? Or are you the one who uses those fools at the Thestis, the one who put me here with lies?"

"I did try to have you killed," she said softly. Conan's eyes narrowed.

That voice was so familiar. But whose? "I should have known there were no men in Nemedia capable of slaying you. Where you hang, though, is your own doing, though I joy to see it. I joy, Conan of Cimmeria."

"Who are you?" he demanded.

Her hand went to her face, pushed back the veils. No disease-ravaged skin was revealed, but creamy ivory beauty. Tilted emerald eyes regarded him above high cheekbones. An auburn mane framed her face in soft waves.

"Karela," he breathed. Almost he wondered if he saw a vision from pain.

The Red Hawk, fierce bandit of the plain of Zamora and the Turanian steppes, in Belverus, masquerading as a woman of the n.o.bility. It seemed impossible.

That beautiful face was impa.s.sive as she gazed at him, her voice tightly controlled. "Never again did I think to see you, Cimmerian.

When I saw you that day in the Market District I thought I would die on the spot."

"And did you see Hordo?" he asked. "You must know he is here, still hoping to find you." He managed a wry smile. "Working with the smugglers you now command."

"So you have learned that much," she said wonderingly "None but a fool ever accounted you stupid. Hordo surprised me almost as much as you did, turning up in Khorshemish while I was there. Still, I would not let him know who I am. He was the most faithful of my hounds, yet others were faithful, too, and even so remembered the gold on my head in Zamora and Turan. Think you I wear these veils for the pleasure of hiding?"

"It has been a long time, Karela," Conan said. "'Tis likely they've forgotten by now."