"Without missing the foul thing," Conan grunted. "Come. I could eat a dozen of those pigeons. Let us get to them before they are gone." There were two large windowless rooms at the back of the temple, one without a roof. In that room was the fire; the other was used as a stable. Enam and Shamil squatted by the fire, wolfing down pigeon. The Khitan ate more delicately, while Hasan sat against a wall, clasping his knees and scowling at the world.

"Where is Kuie Hsi?" Conan wanted to know.

"She left before first light," Hordo told him around mouthfuls of roast pigeon, "to see what she could discover."

"I have returned," the Khitan woman said from the door, "again learning much and little. I was slow in returning because the mood of the city is ugly. Angry crowds roam the streets and ruffians take advantage. A woman alone, I was twice almost a.s.saulted."

"You have a light step," Conan complimented her. He would wager that the men who had "almost" a.s.saulted her rued the incident if they still lived. "What is this much and little you have learned?"

Still in her Vendhyan garb, Kuie Hsi looked hesitantly at Kang Hou, who merely wiped his lips with a cloth and waited. "At dawn," she began slowly, "Karim Singh entered the city. The wizard, Naipal, was with him, and Prince Kandar. They took soldiers from the fortress, increasing the number of their escort to perhaps one thousand lances, and left the city, heading west. I heard a soldier say they rode to the Forests of Ghelai. The chests in which you are so interested went with them on mules."

For an instant Conan teetered on the horns of decision. Karim Singh and Naipal might escape him. There was no way to tell how much time he had left before the poison overtook him completely. Yet he knew there was only one way to decide. "If they took so many soldiers," he said, "few can remain at Kandar's palace to guard Vyndra and Chin Kou."

Kuie Hsi let her eyes drop to the floor, and her voice became a whisper. "There were two women with them, veiled but unclothed, and bound to their saddles. One was Chin Kou, the other the Vendhyan woman.

Forgive me, uncle. I could see her but could do nothing."

"There is nothing to forgive," Kang Hou said, "for you have in no way failed. Any failure is mine alone."

"Perhaps it is," Conan said quietly, "but I cannot feel but that neither woman would be where she is except for me. And that means it is on me to see them safe. I will not ask any of you to accompany me.

Beyond the matter of a thousand soldiers, you know there is a wizard involved, and he will be where I am going."

"Be not a fool," Hordo growled, and Enam added, "The Brotherhood of the Coast does not desert its own. Prytanis never understood that but I do."

"He has Chin Kou," Hasan burst out. "Do you expect me to sit here while he does Mitra alone knows what to her?" He seemed ready to fight Conan if need be.

"As for me," Kang Hou said with an amused smile for Hasan, "she is only my niece, of course." The young Turanian's face colored. "This is a matter of family honor."

Shamil gave a shaky laugh. "Well, I'll not be the only one to stay here. I wanted adventure, and none can say this is not it."

"Then let us ride," Conan said, "before they escape us."

"Patience," Kang Hou counseled. "The Forests of Ghelai are ten leagues distant, and a thousand men ride more slowly than six may. Let us not fail for a lack of preparation. There are stinging flies in the forests, but I know of an ointment that may abate their attack."

"Flies?" Hordo muttered. "Stinging flies; wizards are not enough, Cimmerian? When we are out of this, you will owe me for the flies."

"And returning to Gwandiakan may not be wise," Kuie Hsi offered. "Soon there may be riots. A league this side of the forests there is said to be a well, thought to be a stopping place for caravans in ancient times but long abandoned. There I will await you with food and clothing for Chin Kou and Vyndra. And word if the city is safe. I will draw maps."

Conan knew they were right. How many times in his days as a thief had he sneered at others for their lack of preparation and the lack of success that went with it? But now he could only grind his teeth with the frustration of waiting an instant. Time and the knowledge of the poison in his veins pressed heavily on him. But he would see Vyndra and Chin Kou free-and Karim Singh and Naipal dead-before he died. By Crom, he vowed it.

Chapter XXII.

Riding beneath the tall trees of the Forest of Ghelai, Conan was unsure whether Kang Hou's ointment was not worse than the flies it was meant to discourage. There was no smell to it, but the feel on the skin was much like that after wading in a cesspool. The horses had liked having it smeared on them no more than had the men. He slapped a tiny fly that would not be discouraged-the bite was like a red-hot needle stabbing his arm-and grimaced at the glittering-winged swarms that surrounded the meager column. Then again, perhaps the ointment was not so bad.

The forest canopy was far above their heads, many of the trees towering more than a hundred and fifty feet. The high branches were thickly woven, letting little light through, and that seeming tinged with green. Streams of long-tailed monkeys flowed from limb to limb, a hundred rivers of brown fur rolling in a hundred different directions.

Flocks of multicolored birds, some with strange bills or elaborate tail feathers, screamed from high branches while others in a thousand varied hues made brilliant streaks against the green as they darted back and forth.

"There are no such flies on the plains of Zamora," Hordo grumbled, slapping. "I could be there instead of here had I a brain in my head.

There are no such flies on the steppes of Turan. I could be there-"

"If you do not shut your teeth," Conan muttered, "the only place you will be is dead, and likely left to rot where you fall. Or do you think Kandar's soldiers are deaf?"

"They could not hear themselves pa.s.s wind for those Mitra-accursed birds," the one-eyed man replied, but he subsided into silence.

In truth Conan did not know how close or how far the Vendhyans might be. A thousand men left a plain trail, but the ground was soft and springy with a thousand years of continuous decay, and the chopping that pa.s.sed for hoofprints could have been five hours old or the hundredth part of that. The Cimmerian did know the day was almost gone though, for all he could not see the sun. The amount of time they had been riding made that plain, and the dim greenish light was fading. He did not believe the soldiers would continue on in the dark.

Abruptly he reined in, forcing the others behind to do so as well, and peered in consternation at what lay ahead. Huge blocks of stone, overgrown with vines as thick as a man's arm, formed a wide wall fifty feet high that stretched north and south as far as the eye could make out in the dim verdant light. Directly before him was a towered gateway, though the gates that once had blocked it had been gone for centuries by the evidence of a great tree rising in its center. Beyond he could make out other shapes among the forest growth, ma.s.sive ruins among the trees. And the trail they followed pa.s.sed through that gateway.

"Would they pa.s.s the night in there?" Hordo asked. "Even the G.o.ds do not know what might be in a place like that."

"I think," Kang Hou said slowly, "that this might be where they were going." Conan looked at him curiously, but the slight merchant said no more.

"Then we follow," the Cimmerian said, swinging down from his saddle.

"But we leave the horses here." He went on as mouths opened in protest.

"A man hides better afoot, and we must be like ferrets scurrying through a thicket. There are a thousand Vendhyan lancers in this place, remember." That brought them down.

Leaving someone with the animals, Conan decided, was worse than useless. It would reduce their number by one and the man left behind could do nothing if a Vendhyan patrol came on him. All would enter the city together. Conan, sword in hand, was first through the ancient gateway, with Hordo close behind. Enam and Shamil brought up the rear with arrows nocked to their bowstrings. Alone of the small column, Kang Hou seemed unarmed, but the Cimmerian was ready to wager the merchant's throwing knives resided in his sleeves.

Conan had seen ruined cities before, some abandoned for centuries, or even millennia. Some would stand on mountain peaks until the earth shook and buried them. Others endured the sand-laden desert winds, slowly wearing away stone so that in another thousand years or two, unknowing eyes would see only formations of rock and believe chance alone made them resemble an abode of men. This city was different, however, as though some malevolent G.o.d, unwilling to wait for the slow wearing away by rain and wind, had commanded the forest to attack and consume all marks of man.

If they crept over the remains of a street, it was impossible to tell, for dirt and a thousand small plants covered all, and everywhere the trees. Much of the city was no more, with no sign that it had ever been. Only the most ma.s.sive of structures remained-the palaces and the temples. Yet even they fought a losing battle against the forest.

Temple columns were so wreathed in vines that only the regularity of their s.p.a.cing betrayed their existence. Here the marble tiles of a palace portico bulged with the roots of a giant tree, and there a wall of alabaster, now green with mold, buckled before the onslaught of another huge trunk. Toppled spires lay shrouded by conquering roots and monkeys gamboled on no-longer gleaming domes that might once have sheltered potentates.

The others seemed to feel the oppressiveness of the ruins, but neither Conan nor Kang Hou allowed themselves to be affected, outwardly at least. The Cimmerian would allow no such distractions from whatever time he had left. He ghosted through the fading light with a deadly intensity, eyes striving to pierce the layers of green and shadow ahead. And then there was something to see. Lights. Hundreds of scattered lights, flickering like giant fireflies.

Conan could see little from the ground, but nearby vines like hawsers trailed down from a balcony of what might have once been a palace.

Sheathing his sword and shifting the silk-wrapped sorcerous weapon to a place behind his back, the Cimmerian climbed one of the thick vines hand over hand. The others followed as agilely as the monkeys of the forest.

Crouching behind a green-swathed stone bal.u.s.trade, Conan studied the lights. They were torches atop poles stuck in the ground, forming a great circle. A knot of Vendhyan cavalrymen cl.u.s.tered around each torch, dismounted and fingering their swords nervously as they peered at the wall of growth surrounding them. Oddly, no insects fluttered in the light of the torches.

"Their ointment is better than yours, Khitan," Enam muttered, crushing one of the stinging flies. No one else spoke for the moment. It was clear enough what the soldiers guarded. The great circle of torches surrounded a building more ma.s.sive than any Conan had yet seen in the ruined city. Columned terraces and great domes rose more than twice as high as the tallest tree on the forest floor, yet others of the giant trunks rose in turn from those terraces, turning the huge structure into a small mountain.

"If they are in that," Hordo said softly, "how in Zandru's Nine h.e.l.ls do we find them? It must have a hundred leagues of corridor and more chambers than a man could count."

"They are in there," Kang Hou said. "And I fear we must find them for more than their lives."

Conan eyed the merchant sharply. "What is it you know that I do not?"

"I know nothing," Kang Hou replied, "but I fear much." With that he scurried to the vines and began to climb back down. There was nothing Conan could do but follow.

Once on the ground again, the Cimmerian took the lead. The two women would be with Kandar, and Kandar would certainly be with Karim Singh and Naipal. In the huge building, Kang Hou said, and for all the denials, Conan was sure the man knew something. So be it, he thought.

It was a file of wraiths that flitted through the Vendhyan lines, easily avoiding the few soldiers who rode patrol among the cl.u.s.ters at the torches. Bushes and creepers grew from c.h.i.n.ks between the marble blocks of the great structure's broad stairs and lifted tiles on the wide portico at their head. Tall bronze doors stood open, a thick wreathing of vines speaking of the centuries since they had been shifted from their present position. With his sword in advance, Conan entered.

Behind him he heard the gasps of the others as they followed but he knew what caused the sounds of astonishment and so did not look back.

His eyes were all for the way ahead. From the huge portal a wide aisle of grit-covered tiles led between thick columns, layered with gold leaf, to a vast central chamber beneath a dome that towered hundreds of feet above. In the middle of that chamber stood a marble statue of a man, more than half the height of the dome and untouched by time.

Conan's skin p.r.i.c.kled at the armor on the figure, stone-carved to represent studded leather. Instead of a nasaled helm, however, a gleaming crown topped the ma.s.sive head.

"Can that be gold?" Shamil gasped, staring up at the statue.