Conan and the Emerald Lotus Part 14

Conan turned his grim face to the wind. "All journeys are made in the shadow of death," he said simply. "Live now, and know that you will struggle with death when it comes."

The woman stepped into Conan's arms, pressing her lush body against him with feverish intensity. The barbarian, taken aback by her fervency, cupped a hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. Tears glimmered in her dark eyes.

"Kiss me," she whispered, and Conan crushed her mouth beneath his own, drawing her into an even closer embrace. After a moment one iron arm encircled her waist as the other swept under her knees and lifted her free of the deck. The kiss broke as the Cimmerian carried her to the canopy that covered their belongings. Neesa saw that he had built a hollow in the center of the pile and spread a blanket therein.

"Oh," she said huskily, "you think of everything." Conan ducked beneath the canopy and gently placed her in the hidden nest of blankets.

"Why do you think I sent those two to town?" he asked, but he gave her no chance to answer.

Out on the dock, Temoten looked from the boat back to his dirty fingernails. With a wistful sigh he turned toward his hut and went inside, looking for a drink.

Chapter Eighteen.

The boat surged through the water, foam purling along its prow. The Styx shone a rich blue beneath the clear sky of afternoon. Small fis.h.i.+ng boats made from bundles of papyrus reeds traveled in pairs, trolling nets between them. The busy fishermen paid little heed to Temoten's ferry; yet the ferryman seemed to grow markedly less nervous once they left the fis.h.i.+ng boats behind and sailed out beyond the river's midpoint. The patched sail bellied full as Temoten leaned into the steering oar. Beside him, on the rear deck, Conan and Heng s.h.i.+h relaxed, the barbarian sprawling along the gunwale and the Khitan sitting cross-legged, his face to the sun. Beneath the flapping ox-hide canopy, Lady Zelandra and Neesa sat in, the shade and conversed in low tones.

The trio on the rear deck traveled in silence for some time. Temoten's curious gaze returned repeatedly to Heng s.h.i.+h, sitting s.h.i.+rtless beside him, his yellow skin gleaming with perspiration.

"Does your friend speak at all?" the ferryman finally asked Conan, who grinned and stretched like a cat in the suns.h.i.+ne. Heng s.h.i.+h did not open his eyes.

"He is a mute, though he speaks to Lady Zelandra with hand-language."

"What..." Temoten paused, then screwed up his courage. "What manner of man is he?"

Conan thought that he saw Heng s.h.i.+h's eyes glimmer beneath slitted lids. "A Khitan from the distant east."

"I have never seen his like. Are all men of that country so big and fat?"

Now Conan was certain that Heng s.h.i.+h's eyes drew open a crack. "Not at all," said the Cimmerian dryly. "He is truly exceptional in that regard."

Temoten said nothing for a time, clinging to the steering oar and looking off to the hazy outline of the far sh.o.r.e. Conan could sense further questions troubling the ferryman and was not surprised when a few moments later Temoten spoke again.

"Why are you in such a hurry to cross the Styx, Conan? And why pay me so much to take you? Are you fugitives? Does the Lady Zelandra flee enemies, perhaps?" The words came quickly until Temoten bit them off.

"Not that it is any of my concern," he added, shamefaced.

"Temoten," said Conan seriously, "Heng s.h.i.+h is a Khitan and Khitans are cannibals. They eat the curious."

At this Heng s.h.i.+h opened his eyes and squinted at the barbarian; then he turned to the ferryman. Looking up at him, the Khitan slowly and ominously licked his lips.

"My apologies, friends," stammered Temoten.

The remainder of the crossing was made in silence. Conan napped, a bronzed arm thrown over his eyes, until he was prodded awake by Temoten, who needed help to furl the sail.

The city of Bel-Phar was even smaller than Aswana. Its waterfront lay somnolently along a raised foundation of mammoth stone blocks. The Stygians were fond of cyclopean architecture; and it was a rare city of Stygia that did not show some evidence of this fondness. The stained and eroded stone docks of Bel-Phar thrust out into the eternally pa.s.sing Styx. Papyrus boats of all sizes, and even a few luxurious wooden dhows, were moored in cl.u.s.ters about them. The center of the waterfront appeared to be an open bazaar full of milling people and animals. Temoten wrenched the tiller about, steering his ferry left and to the east.

"Fewer people around the eastern docks," he said half to himself.

"Conan, can you..."

But the big Cimmerian was already moving toward the prow of the boat, bending to catch up a long, wooden pole that lay along the starboard gunwale. Heng s.h.i.+h lifted the pole on the boat's port side and Temoten nodded his disheveled gray head in approval.

The sun had begun its slow fall to the west and shadows appeared in the white city before them. The rolling Styx had gradually dimmed from transparent blue to a murky violet. The docks hove closer as the ferryman steered his vessel to their eastern extremity.

Conan and Heng s.h.i.+h drove their poles against the oncoming dock, slowing their progress and letting the ferry slide smoothly into place beside a worn stair carved into a solid block of stone. Temoten scrambled forward, s.n.a.t.c.hing a looped line and casting it neatly over a bronze stay set in the dock. The man was suddenly very animated.

"All right, then. Let's move. I've fulfilled my part of the bargain.

Let's see you off." He dragged a bulky pack from beneath the canopy and heaved it over a bony shoulder. With his eager a.s.sistance, Conan and Heng s.h.i.+h soon had all their provisions piled upon the dock.

"We'll have to leave this here and go into the market for camels and water," said Conan. "Temoten, will you stay and watch over our belongings?"

"Stay?" burst out the ferryman incredulously. "I'm leaving as swiftly as I can push off."

"I'll stay," volunteered Neesa. "I feel somewhat poorly after the crossing anyway."

Lady Zelandra, Conan, and Heng s.h.i.+h headed down the dock, leaving Neesa perched atop the heap of baggage. Temoten hesitated at the top of the stone stair.

"Farewell, mistress," he called hesitantly. "Farewell, Conan and Heng s.h.i.+h." Zelandra turned without breaking stride and waved.

"A good wind to you," shouted Conan, raising a hand. Heng s.h.i.+h did not even look back.

Bel-Phar's entire waterfront was paved with wide plates of stone.

Though the buildings were almost identical to those of Aswana, the atmosphere of the city was much more subdued. The quiet warehouses at the base of the dock were soon replaced by open shops and then the central market itself. The market was busy, if not overly crowded; but its customers seemed warier and less outgoing than their counterparts across the Styx. A stable of camels was located shortly, and Lady Zelandra was immediately joined in friendly argument with its wizened, one-eyed proprietor. Conan, who had been prepared to do the bartering, found himself standing to one side while the sorceress examined the proffered beasts and made derisive comments about each one in turn in fluent Stygian. The little proprietor rose to the occasion, rubbing his hands together with unconcealed delight and chattering pained protests of her harsh judgments. It seemed to Conan that this was set to go on for some time, so he cast his eyes about for a likely tavern.

Out of the moving throng of the marketplace Neesa came running. There was such urgency in her movements that Conan froze. She stumbled to a halt before him, her bosom rising and falling as she panted.

"Temoten," she gasped. "Stygian soldiers hailed him just as he was casting off. I walked right past them as they came down the dock. They didn't seem angry, but called out that they needed to see his ferryman's seal. Conan, their captain has a kind of bow-"

"How many?" said the barbarian in a low voice. His blue eyes kindled with a dangerous light.

"Five, I think. Six?" She lifted ivory hands helplessly. The Cimmerian pushed past her, stepping swiftly into the crowd. A voice rose behind him.

"Conan, no!" It was Lady Zelandra. But he was already running heedlessly through the market toward the docks. People either dodged or were thrust from the path of the tall outlander, who leapt over a vegetable cart in his headlong haste. Protesting outcries rang out in his wake but slowed him not at all.

At the foot of the dock six saddled camels waited restlessly. Out on the dock itself stood six Stygian soldiers of the border patrol, arrayed in gray silk and burnished mail. A pair were at the dock's far end, appraising Temoten's ferry. One of these rubbed a stubbled chin thoughtfully, as if gauging the craft's value. Two other soldiers were closer, bent over and arrogantly rummaging in the pile of provisions on the dock. The last two were closest, accosting Temoten. The taller of this pair wore the gilded gorget of an officer and was berating the ferryman scornfully. A small crossbow hung at the officer's belt. The other was a s.h.i.+rtless hulk of a man who brandished a heavy-bladed sword before Temoten's terrified eyes with s.a.d.i.s.tic relish.

Temoten made feeble protests, his lean frame trembling visibly. The tall officer seized the front of the ferryman's scruffy tunic in a mailed fist and jerked him forcibly to his knees. Temoten struggled to rise, and the captain abruptly drove a knee into his unprotected midsection, doubling the ferryman up in agony.

The officer stepped back and nodded perfunctorily to the s.h.i.+rtless soldier with the naked sword. The executioner flexed the thick muscles of his arms, raised the blade above his head and heard the sound of rapid footfalls behind him.

A length of silver steel sprang from the center of his bare breast. It caught the sun, throwing it back into his goggling eyes, then disappeared in a gout of bright blood. As the executioner sank down dying, Conan vaulted the body, whirling his stained broadsword, about his head.

The officer scrabbled desperately for his belted scimitar as the Cimmerian bore down upon him with terrible swiftness. He drove a booted foot into the captain's belly with lithe savagery, knocking the man from his feet and sending him skidding over the stones to the dock's edge.

The remaining soldiers scarcely had time to perceive the fate of their companions before the barbarian was among them like a wind hot from the mouth of h.e.l.l. The first of the two men riffling through the heap of baggage managed to turn and get his sword half drawn before being cut down by a blow that split helmet and head. The other soldier among the packs got his blade free and lunged at Conan as the Cimmerian wheeled from his second kill. The Stygian's hasty, vicious thrust was hammered aside with such force that the sword was nearly torn from his grip.

Conan's return stroke was a blur of speed, bursting his foe's mail at the shoulder, shearing through the collarbone and lodging in the spine.

The barbarian yanked on the hilt, but found that his blade was stuck fast in the sagging body.