When Thoth-Amon had sent his ka to the akashic plane, Conan and Chabela had still been in Kulalo; Bwatu had not yet stolen the Cobra Crown. At that time, the future was too clouded by possible alternatives for the wizard to discern.
After his minions had departed on their expedition to recapture the princess, Thoth-Amon had recourse to his scry-stone again. He wished to locate the Cobra Crown accurately before undertaking the powerful spell that should transport him thither. Since he could remain at the far end of his journey only for a limited time, he could not afford to materialize at some point leagues distant from the thing that he sought. In the meantime, however, Bwatu had stolen the Crown and had been slain by the slavers. Zuru had hidden the Crown and taken it with him to Gamburu, where Queen Nzinga had paid him enough quills of gold dust to make him wealthy for life. Hence, when Thoth-Amon sought to locate the Crown by crystallomancy, he had —somewhat to his surprise— discovered that it was no longer in Kulalo but in Gamburu.
About Conan and Chabela he did not concern himself. Chabela he assumed to be still in Kulalo, whence Zarono and Menkara would in due course remove her. In any case, the spell that transported him to Gamburu would not have enabled him to fetch another human being back to his lair with him.
As for Conan, Thoth-Amon regarded the Cimmerian buccaneer as but a minor annoyance, as one would a buzzing mosquito. If Conan got in his way, Thoth-Amon would swat him as one would an insect; but he would not go out of his way to pursue him. He was playing for bigger stakes than the life of a mere barbarian adventurer.
Had Thoth-Amon focused his occult vision on Chabela, he would soon have divined her identity. Just now, however, his whole attention was bent upon the Cobra Crown. A flicker of delight lit up his harsh features as he recognized the object on its taboret. Quickly he strode across the senseless body of the Amazon queen to where the Crown rested. With reverently caressing hands, he raised the Crown and examined it in the torchlight, running his strong brown fingers delicately over the curving coils and the great white jewels that studded them.
"At last!" he breathed, the fires of insatiable ambition leaping up in his dark eyes. "With this, the empire of the world is within my grasp! And the holy rule of Father Set shall be restored over lands near and far!"
As a grim smile lit his normally impassive features, Thoth-Amon spoke a word of power and made a peculiar gesture. A whirling web of green light enshrouded his figure and hit it. The light faded, shrank to a mere spindle of green phosphorescence, and flickered out.
Left alone in the chamber with the recumbent body of the queen, Chabela roused herself from her stupor of horror and terror. By standing on tiptoe, she found, she could ease the pressure of the straps that bound her wrists to the ring overhead. Although the straps had been drawn tightly, her hands and wrists were now so covered with sweat that the bonds could be slid along them. She struggled, first with one arm and then the other. After an eternity of effort, one hand at last slipped free from its strap. The other quickly followed.
Exhausted, Chabela collapsed to the floor. Her hands were so numb that she could not even flex her fingers. Soon, however, red-hot needles of returning circulation began to stab into them. She whimpered with the pain but choked back the sound lest it rouse her enemy, the queen.
Little by little, sensation and control returned to Chabela's hands. She rose, staggering a little, and bent over the form of Nzinga. The queen's superb breasts rose and fell in regular breathing, as if she were in a normal sleep.
Chabela limped across the room to where stood the ewer of wine from which Nzinga had refreshed herself. The princess drank the sweetish, bland liquid in thirsty gulps. New strength flowed into her limbs.
Then she turned her attention back to the unconscious queen. Chabela's eyes sought the dagger at Nzinga's girdle. Should she snatch it from its sheath and bury it in the queen's bosom? She trembled with hatred of the queen. She longed to slay her with a passion that she had never felt against any human being.
But she hesitated. For one thing, she had no way of knowing in how profound a slumber Nzinga lay. Suppose she drew the dagger. The motion might arouse the queen, who, being far larger and stronger than the sturdy little princess, would seize her arms and either slay her herself or shout for her guards to come and seize her. Even if Chabela possessed herself of the weapon without arousing her foe, her first stab must needs be instantly fatal. Otherwise the queen, at the very least, would cry out for help before she expired.
Another consideration also held her back. The code of chivalry of Zingara, with which she had been imbued since childhood, absolutely forbade the slaying of a sleeping foe. True, Zingarans violated their own rules quite as often as men of other nations did theirs; but Chabela had always tried to live up to the highest ideals of her race. If she could have slain the queen without danger to herself, she might have overcome her instinctive repugnance to such a treacherous act. As things were, however…
She quickly stole across the chamber and drew aside the hanging cloth that masked the doorway. Summoning up her courage, the girl stepped forward into the darkness.
In the chamber, the torches burned low, their ruddy light flickering on the empty ring that dangled from the ceiling, on the bloodstained whip, and on the sprawled black body of the queen.
Chapter Fifteen: THE BLACK LABYRINTH
As she left the disciplinary chamber, Chabela hesitated. Never having been in this part of the palace, she did not know which way to go. She was, however, fiercely determined to avoid recapture at any cost.
Peering down the empty, stone-lined corridor, she decided that she must be in the crypts rumored to lie beneath the palace of the Amazon queen. These chambers, she understood, were jealously guarded against intruders; she might well, therefore, run into a guard at any moment. Choosing a corridor that seemed to slope upward, she set out at a rapid pace.
The silence was complete, save for the distant drip of water and occasional y the scuttle of tiny claws. At long intervals, a torch of oil-soaked wood, set in a bracket of greened bronze, illumined the corridor with a fitful yellow light But so far apart were these torches that between them the darkness thickened almost to utter blackness. In these dark stretches, Chabela glimpsed a pair of eyes like ruby chips at ground level, as scurrying rodents paused to stare at her.
In the sinister silence, the naked girl glided like a white phantom through the gloom, her nerves stretched taut with terror. She felt the pressure of unseen eyes … or was it only her own nerves?
The corridor curved and angled and forked. Forced to guess which way to take, Chabela soon realized that she was lost and wandering at random. She could no doubt retrace her steps, but that would only bring her back into Nzinga's dreaded clutches. There was nothing to do but keep on, praying to Mitra to lead her back into the open air.
After more wanderings, Chabela saw that she had reached the dungeon area. On either hand stood copper-barred cell doors. In the gloom of the cells behind lay half-seen captive things, some of which moaned or sobbed but most of which were silent.
The girl peered into the first few cells she passed, but the sights she glimpsed were so repulsive that thereafter she averted her eyes and kept them on the path before her. Some of the prisoners were emaciated to skeletons, as by years of starvation. Some stared blankly from mad eyes out of matted hair. Bodies were scabrous with sores and coated with filth. Some had died, and the scavenger rats had stripped the scrawny flesh from their bones, leaving only skeletons.