Admittedly, there was no guarantee that this idea would positively work, but certainly it was a better idea than awaiting the certain end that would befall Wikkell and Deek whenever their respective masters finally got around to wondering about them. A small chance, they thought, was better than none at all.

Several times as they neared the witch's chambers, Deek and Wikkell pa.s.sed other worms in the main corridor, and each time those other worms readily accepted Deek's fabricated story. It looked as if this plan might work, and as the two kept reminding each other and themselves, they had nothing to lose.

Something, Chuntha realized, was amiss. She had seeded each opening she had pa.s.sed along the edge of the Sunless Sea with a search hornet. If there was even a suspicion of an exit, she had sent one of her magical insects to check it. So far, each that reported back had failed to detect her prey. Some had not yet returned, but Chuntha began to grow restless. Unless this barbarian could somehow grow wings of his own, it was impossible for him to have traveled this far. Her boat's speed far exceeded that of a walking man, and even a runner would have trouble in maintaining such a pace for long. But... if it were not possible for the man and his companions to have pa.s.sed where she now floated, it could mean only one thing: her quarry had gone the other way.

Chuntha slapped her bare thigh, sending a quiver through the taut muscle. Of course! Why had she not thought of that before? She had a.s.sumed that they would flee from pursuit back the way they had come.That a.s.sumption could be, she realized now, a mistake.

She wondered if the wizard had also been taken in by the ploy. Had he done so, he would be approaching her even as she sat bestilled thinking of it.

Chuntha sighed deeply. If that were the case, she would have to prepare to battle him now, even without the powerful essence of the barbarian. There was no way to slip past Rey did he come this way, and while she would have preferred to fight him on her own ground, this place was as good as any.

Chuntha bent over her a.s.semblage of magical paraphernalia and began to lay out her most potent items.

At least she had surprise on her side, She would find a quiet cove shrouded in shadow and await the wizard's arrival. With luck, she could strike him down before he became aware of her.

Rey reached the conclusion that he moved in the wrong direction before he had dispatched his third wasp seeker. It was not a logical and reasoned decision, but a deeply felt reaction from his gut. Heknew , by some manner that he could not precisely say, that the one called Conan and the others had gone in the opposite way.

The wizard lost no time in rectifying his error. Immediately he circled on the dock and urged his cyclopian mounts to a run. He was worried. His chambers were guarded, of course, but these newly arrived troublemakers had proved rather resourceful thus far, and the nagging dread brought on by the crystal's prophesy sprang to the fore of his thoughts. What mischief might they do should his guards be overcome? Not a pleasant thought. There were spells in his inventory that could do great damage in untrained hands. In fact, maybe the best solution to this entire affair would be to scurry home as fast as possible and barricade himself into his chambers, backed by the full powers he kept there.

The more he thought about it, the surer he became. If only it was not yet too late!

"Faster!" Rey commanded the cyclopes.

But they were already at their highest speed, and he was jolted back and forth in the sedan by the cadence of their running steps. Of a moment Rey had a dark premonition about all this... and he liked it not in the least.

Eighteen At the turning of the corridor approaching the witch's chambers, Conan and Tull suddenly leaped into view of the four large worms standing guard.

"Yaah!" Conan screamed, whirling his sword overhead.

Tull also hopped about, making meaningless noises and waving his arms.

The worms got the point. The four of them moved as one, scooting across the rocky floor with a speed Conan found rather amazing.

At the first sign of movement, Conan and Tull ran, drawing the worms after them. As they pounded along the rocky floor of the corridor, Conan said, "They move faster than you led me to believe." "Faster than I believed myself," Tull panted.

Indeed, as Conan and Tull rounded another turning of the corridor, the worms cleared the first turning in pursuit. Conan said, "It appears that we won't have to slow to avoid losing them."

Tull glanced over his shoulder as the worms slithered into view behind them. "Mitra! Who would have expected them to be able to slide along so quickly?"

Both men increased their speed and saved their breath for running. They managed to maintain their lead, but just barely, and a slip or slowing now would allow their pursuers to catch them all too quickly.

Elashi and Lalo waited until the guard worms were out of sight, then quickly darted to the entrance of the witch's chambers. Lalo took the lead and in a moment they were inside an antechamber. Glow-fungus covered the walls and the way was easy to discern.

"I hope that the witch did not think to leave magical wards in place," Lalo said, his voice a whisper.

"Nowyou think of this!"

"I did not hearyou voice such a concern earlier, Elashi dear. Perhaps you have been with Conan too long... some of his lack of wit may have tainted you."

"I have not the time to properly educate you, you grinning fool," she said. "We have a job to do."

They made their way through the antechamber and into a large and high-ceilinged room. In the center of it lay a,large bed of silken cushions, and various items of furniture stood against the walls: chests, dressers, trunks, and an a.s.sortment of boxes, large and small.

"This must be the place," Elashi said.

"As always, your perception amazes me. Certainly this is the place."

"Shut up and look for jewels!"

Quickly, the pair of them moved forward.

The Harskeel did not plan to be thwarted this time. Regardless of the cost, it intended to have Conan and his blade. Its idea was not overly complex. When Conan was spotted, the Harskeel intended to launch all of the fifteen or so bats still in its command at the barbarian lout. That Conan would die and be drained of blood quickly was a given, but before he was completely desanguineous, the Harskeel would dart in and seize the barbarian's sword and blood it. A few drops would suffice; it was, after all, not the quant.i.ty but the quality of the fluid that mattered. True, the Harskeel would not have the pleasure of watching Conan die slowly, suffering for the grief he had caused, but at this stage of the game, the end was paramount. One sometimes had to forgo the lesser pleasures for the greater. All that the Harskeel desired at this point was to achieve its main goal... and then depart these cursed caves forever. It hurried along the path, eager for the finish to its quest.

Time dragged, and Chuntha began to worry anew. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d should have arrived by now. That the wizard had not marched into her trap bothered the witch greatly. She saw two possibilities: one, that he had somehow been made aware of her and held back, or two, he had also discerned that the quarry he and Chuntha mutually sought had taken another route.

The witch decided that she must know which was the case, and quickly. She plucked one of the red hornets from its prison, enlarged it, and dispatched it with instructions: "Go along this waterway until you see Katamay Rey the wizard. Do not allow him to see you, and return immediately and report."

In an eyeblink the enchanted hornet was gone.

Chuntha sat back down upon the raft and waited.

Rey's thralls made good time. The wizard's trip toward his own chambers progressed rapidly. At one point, over the clop-clop of his Cyclopes' heavy tread upon the never-ending dock, he thought he heard a buzzing sound, but when looked around, he saw nothing. It did not matter. That b.i.t.c.h was still in the area somewhere, but likely far behind him and going in the wrong direction. Surely she had made the same mistake as he, and that was her problem and not his own.

Slowly the guard worms gained upon the two running men. Conan glanced over his shoulder and realized that it would be only a matter of time before the giant beasts overtook him and Tull, an unpleasant thought. They had to do something fairly soon; the older man's labored breathing told the Cimmerian that Tull neared exhaustion.

"Can... they... climb?" Conan managed.

"Not... well," Tull said, his voice almost a gasp.

"Good. Turn to the right."

This last phrase came as the two reached a fork in the tunnel. If Conan's memory served, they had already taken that tunnel once and circled back, and there was a rather sheer wall leading up to a narrow ledge not far ahead. Several boulders lay upon that ledge, itself four or five times the height of a tall man.

True to his recall, the steep wall loomed ahead. Conan, who had long since sheathed his blade for more efficient running, pointed at the wall. "There! Climb!"

Tull needed no clarification, and neither did he waste his breath on answering. He merely nodded once.

The pair reached'the wall and began to ascend. Conan, whose early years had been spent in the cold clime and jagged peaks of Cimmeria, could climb anything that offered even the smallest of grip for his fingers. Within a few heartbeats he was to the ledge. Tull, for all his advanced age and lack of practice, arrived upon the ledge not far behind Conan. Climb or die seemed to bestow a certain skill upon the older man that Conan had not suspected. "Now... what?" Tull managed between labored breaths. "We are trapped, even though they cannot reach us."

Conan, already moving toward a boulder twice the size of his head, said, "Perhaps not. A hard enough rain might persuade them to leave."

Tull took Conan's intent quickly and moved toward a slightly smaller rock.

Below, the four squirming guards rattled against the cliff's face. One of them began sc.r.a.ping part of his underbelly over a flat patch of rock. In a moment Conan realized that the sound thus produced was a fair counterfeit for speech.

"C-c-come d-d-down!" the sc.r.a.ping seemed to say. The language was one Conan had heard in Hyperborea several years past, and its meaning was clear enough.

Lifting the rock over his head, Conan leaned over the edge of the shelf upon which he and Tull stood, and hurled the rock down upon the worms.

The boulder hit the worm nearest the cliff, and the sound of the rock smashing the worm was most satisfying. Dark icteroid fluid sprayed and oozed from the crushed flesh, and the beast flailed about in its death throes.

Tull's rock also found its mark, bouncing from a second worm and doing less damage but enough to ensure the worm's demise. This one jittered madly to and fro before slowing to a post-death nervous quiver halfway across the width of the cave.

The remaining pair of worms withdrew to what they must have considered a safe distance. Conan found another rock nearly as large as the first he had thrown, and hurled it at them. The rock missed, but its path was beyond where they lay, and both worms hastily retreated past the point where the rock had impacted.

After appearing to confer for a moment, one of the worms wiggled back and forth ever the rocky floor, sending another message to Conan and Tull.

"W-e-we'll b-b-be b-back!"

With that, the two turned and slithered away.

"What do you think?" Tull asked, watching as the worms vanished into the tunnel.

Conan shrugged. "Gone for help, perhaps. Or they have remembered their primary duty is to guard the witch's chambers. It matters not. Come, let us depart."

With that, Conan descended, Tull standing guard with an uplifted rock until the younger man was down.

Conan drew his sword and watched while Tull clambered down the rock face. The worms did not reappear.

"I hope the girl and the idiot have had sufficient time," Tull said.

"Aye. They have had all we can supply. Let us get to the meeting place."

The main problem for Elashi and Lalo proved to be an embarra.s.sment of riches: had they a pack animal, they could have loaded it with booty until it staggered from the weight. The witch's tenure in the caves had produced quite an acc.u.mulation of precious stones. Though it was difficult to tell precisely in the greenish light, there appeared to be rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, fire agates, opals, and pearls, according to Lalo, who claimed to have knowledge of such things.

As they gathered the valuable gems, the pair divided them into four leather sacks for easier distribution and carrying once they rejoined Conan and Tull.

Finally Elashi said, "Enough."

"But there is so much more!"

"The leather of the bags is soggy and partially rotted," she said, "and if we overfill them, we are apt to burst the sacks."

"A valid point, for a woman. Let us depart, then."

Each of them picked up two head-sized sacks of gems and moved toward the exit. Not a moment too soon, they discovered, for as they left the witch's chambers and hurried along the corridor, a pair of worms approached from the opposite direction. Fortunately, the worms did not appear to see Elashi and Lalo as the latter pair ducked around the corner.

"This adventure is turning out much better than I expected," Lalo observed.

"Perhaps," Elashi said, "but we are not finished yet. Best you save your self-congratulations until they are more justified."

Lalo looked at Elashi with his ubiquitous smile. "Could it be that you have been cursed in the same manner as I, lady dear?"

"Listen, fool-wait! What's that?"

There came the sounds of someone approaching.

"Quick, over there!" Lalo pointed to a cleft in the rock, darkened by the lack of glow-fungus. The two of them scurried to the small opening and squatted to enter it. Once inside, they turned to observe the corridor.

A moment later a giant worm entered their view, holding by some means a rope, the other end of which was attached to a cyclops' wrists. It appeared that the worm had made a captive of the one-eyed giant.

Elashi watched the odd pair pa.s.s, but she kept part of her attention on Lalo. Sure enough, the smiling man took a deep breath and began to open his lips as if to call out an insult. Quickly the desert woman dropped one bag and clamped her hand over Lalo's mouth. Whatever sound he might have made was lost in his startle men t.

The worm and the cyclops pa.s.sed and moved out of sight. Elashi removed her hand from Lalo's mouth.

"For an incredibly a.s.sertive, nay-apushy woman-you have some virtue," he said.

That was as close to a compliment as Elashi had ever heard him make. She grinned in return.

"Come on. We must find Conan and Tull."

Deek and Wikkell arrived at the entrance to the witch's chambers to be met by a pair of very agitated guard worms. Wikkell stood silently by while the three worms communicated with each other in a language almost inaudible to the cyclops. After a short while Deek tugged on the rope, and he and Wikkell went into the chambers.

Once far enough away that the guards could not hear, Wikkell spoke. "What was that all about?"

"T-t-trouble f-for th-the w-w-witch. T-two of th-the m-m-men ap-appeared h-here. F-four g-g-guards g-g-gave ch-chase."

"Four guards? I only say the two."

"Th-the o-others a-are d-d-dead. Th-the m-m-men d-dropped r-r-rocks on th-them."

"How grisly." Wikkell pondered it for a moment. "Then again, this serves our purposes. Sorry about your brothers, but certainly this will not add to the witch's stature."

"T-t-true."

Wikkell looked around. "You know this place better than I. What shall we steal?"

"O-o-over h-here."

Wikkell followed the worm toward a chest of drawers. As he did, the cyclops stepped on an object sharp enough to p.r.i.c.k even his calloused foot. He stopped and kicked the offending item from the floor.

"Hmm. This is a cut gemstone. Look." He held the precious rock out for Deek to see. "Does the witch normally leave such things just laying around?"

"N-no."