Hurrying into the narrow space, she bent and removed the gag from the man's mouth. She at once recognized Ardashir of Akif, half suffocated by the smoke of nearby fires but otherwise very much alive.
She cut his bonds and motioned him to rise and follow her. With the habits of an old soldier, he accepted her leadership without argument.
The journey back to the governor's palace was uneventful. The drunken bands seemed satisfied with their spoils and were drawing back out of the fort. Once, however, the Turanians were confronted by a pair of leering, drunken desert raiders, but the Zuagirs could not match the swift strokes of Ardashir's scimitar by clumsy motions with their curved knives. Leaving their bloodied bodies behind, the couple won unscathed to the tower. They slipped into the secret entrance. Ardashir followed unwillingly as Thanara led the way up the stairs to where Conan lay.
Recognizing his foe, Ardashir snatched at his scimitar with an oath. Thanara caught his arm. "Calm yourself! Know you not that the king will shower us with gold if we bring the barbarian to him alive?"
Ardashir made a pungent suggestion as to what King Yezdigerd could do with his gold. "The swine has smirched my honor!" he shouted. "I will—"
"Hold your tongue, fool! What will happen to you when the king learns you have lost a whole company of his precious Imperials but escaped without a scratch yourself?"
"Hm," said Ardashir, his fury abating and giving way to calculation. Thanara continued:
"The king's most skilled executioners will have to meet in conclave to invent sufferings hellish enough to atone for the trouble he has given Turan. Take hold of your senses! Will you forsake wealth and a generalship for a moment of personal vengeance?"
Growling but quieted, Ardashir sheathed his sword and helped the girl to tie the barbarian's hands and feet. She whispered:
"We shall wait until dawn. By then the Zuagir bands will have left, and we shall take horses from some stable. The drunken raiders must have overlooked some. If we spur hard, we can be out of danger in half a day. Provisions can be found in this house. We shall ride straight for the capital and drug our prisoner anew during the journey to keep him quiet. In five days he shall lie in the king's deepest dungeon in Aghrapur!"
3. The Palace on the Cliff
With head whirling, stomach knotted with nausea, and throat parched, Conan the Cimmerian slowly regained his senses. His last memory was of sitting on the sumptuous couch of Veziz Shah, governor of Fort Wakla. Now he found himself gazing at dank, dripping walls, with the squeak of scuttling rats in his ears as he turned heavily over to sit up on a bed of moldy straw. As he moved, there was a jingle of chains linking the fetters on his wrists and ankles with a massive bronze staple set in the wall. He was naked but for a loincloth.
His head felt as if it were going to split. His tongue stuck to his palate with thirst, and intense pangs of hunger assailed him. In spite of the shooting pains in his skull, he raised his voice in a mighty bellow.
"Ho, guards! Would you let a man perish of hunger and thirst? Fetch food and drink! What cursed nook of Hell is this?"
With a patter of footsteps and a jingle of keys, a paunchy, bearded jailer appeared on the other side of the iron grille that barred the door of the cell. "So the Western dog has awakened! Know that these are the dungeons of King Yezdigerd's palace at Aghrapur. Here is food and water. You will need to fill your belly to appreciate the cordial reception the king has prepared for you."
Thrusting a loaf and a small jug through the bars, the jailer went away, his cackling laughter resounding hollowly in the corridor. The famished Cimmerian flung himself on the food and drink. He munched great hunks of the stale loaf and washed them down with gulps of water.
He pondered his predicament. He was in the hands of his most implacable enemy. In the olden days King Yezdigerd had offered fabulous rewards for Conan's head. Many had been the attempts on Conan. But the tenacious hatred in Yezdigerd's heart had not slackened even when his foe had won power as king of far Aquilonia. Now, by a woman's devious schemes, Conan was at last at the mercy of his merciless antagonist. Any ordinary man would have been daunted by the terrible prospect.
Not so Conan! Accepting things as they were, his fertile mind was already trying and discarding plans of winning to freedom and turning the tables on his vengeful captor. His eyes narrowed as the clank of footsteps sounded in die corridor.
At a harsh word of command the steps halted. Through the grille Conan could discern a half-score of guardsmen, gilt-worked mail a-shimmer in the torchlight, curved swords in their hands. Two bore heavy bows at the ready. A tall, massive officer stood forward. Conan recognized Ardashir, who spoke in a sharp, cutting voice.
"Shapur and Vardan! Truss the barbarian securely and sling a noose about his neck! Archers! Stand by to prevent any trick!"
The two soldiers stepped forward to carry out the order. One bore a log of wood six feet long and several inches thick, while the other carried a stout rope. Ardashir addressed himself to the Cimmerian. His eyes glowed with malevolence and his fingers twitched with eagerness to attack Conan, but he held himself in check with the iron self-control of a well-trained officer. He hissed:
"One false move, barbarian dog, and your heart shall know the marksmanship of my archers! I should dearly love to slay you myself, but you are the king's own meat."
Conan's chill blue eyes regarded the maddened officer without emotion as the soldiers placed the log across his shoulders and bound his arms to it. Without apparent effort, Conan tensed his huge arm muscles, so that the rope was stretched to its greatest tautness at the moment of tying. The jailer then unlocked Conan's fetters. Conan rumbled:
"You Turanian dogs will get what you deserve sooner or later. You will see."
Ardashir's face twitched in fury as he spat back: "And you will get yours, you red-handed rogue! No torture devised by human brains will be too cruel when the royal executioners set to work upon you. But enough of this gabble. Follow me, your majesty of maggoty Aquilonia!"
At a gesture to the guardsmen, the little company marched along the dark corridors. The bound barbarian walked in their midst, bearing the log across his shoulders. Conan was quite unruffled. He was like a trapped wolf, alert and constantly looking for a chance to reverse the situation. He did not waste thought on the terrible odds against him, or on futile recriminations against his foes, or on self-reproach for the moment's lapse in vigilance that resulted in his capture. His whole mind and nervous system were concentrated on what to do next.
Winding stone staircases led upward. As nobody had blindfolded Conan, his keen eyes took in every detail. The dungeons of the royal palace were far below ground level. There were several floors to pass.
Twice Conan glimpsed the outside world as they passed window slits. The darkling sky showed that the time was either dawn or dusk. Now he understood the mystifying murmur of surf which had reached his ears. The palace was built on the outskirts of Aghrapur, on a crag overlooking the Sea of Vilayet. The dungeons were carved out of the heart of the rock whose sheer face ended in the lapping waves below. That was why Conan could see the sky through the window slits, though they had not yet reached the lower floors of the palace itself. Conan stored the knowledge in his mind.
The size of the palace was amazing. The party passed through endless rooms with fountains and jeweled vases. Now their steps echoed from arching walls; now they were muffled by rich rugs and hangings. Corseleted soldiers stood like statues everywhere.
The party halted before two gigantic, gold-worked doors. Fully fifty feet high they towered, their upper parts disappearing in the gloom. Mysterious arabesques curled their snaky course across the surfaces of the doors, on which the dragons, heroes, and wizards of Hyrkanian legend were depicted. Ardashir stepped forward and struck the golden plates a ringing blow with the hilt of his scimitar.