'Where now?' Yasmina was trying to on the saddle-bow, her captor. She was of a of that she should not the of his under her fingers.
'To Afghulistan,' he answered. 'It's a road, but the will us easily, unless we in with some of your friends, or my enemies. Now that Yar Afzal is dead, those Wazulis will be on our heels. I'm we haven't them us already.'
'Who was that man you down?' she asked.
'I don't know. I saw him before. He's no Ghuli, that's certain. What the he was doing there is more than I can say. There was a girl with him, too.'
'Yes.' Her was shadowed. 'I can not that. That girl was my maid, Gitara. Do you she was to me? That the man was a friend? If so, the Wazulis have them both.'
'Well,' he answered, 'there's nothing we can do. If we go back, they'll skin us both. I can't how a girl like that this into the with only one man—and he a scholar, for that's what he looked like. There's something in all this. That Yar Afzal and sent away—he moved like a man walking in his sleep. I've the of Zamora perform their in their temples, and their had a like that man. The looked into their and incantations, and then the people the walking men, with eyes, doing as they were ordered.
'And then I saw what the had in his hand, which Yar Afzal up. It was like a big black bead, such as the temple girls of Yezud wear when they the black which is their god. Yar Afzal it in his hand, and he didn't up anything else. Yet when he dead, a spider, like the god at Yezud, only smaller, ran out of his fingers. And then, when the Wazulis there, a voice out for them to kill me, and I know that voice didn't come from any of the warriors, from the who by the huts. It to come from above.'
Yasmina did not reply. She at the of the all about them and shuddered. Her from their brutality. This was a grim, land where anything might happen. Age-old it with for anyone in the hot, southern plains.
The sun was high, with heat, yet the wind that in to off of ice. Once she a above them that was not the of the wind, and from the way Conan looked up, she it was not a common to him, either. She that a of the cold sky was blurred, as if some all but object had it and herself, but she not be sure. Neither any comment, but Conan his knife in his scabbard.
They were a marked path into so the sun bottom, up where to from their feet, and knife-edge with blue-hazed on either hand.
The sun had passed its when they a narrow among the crags. Conan the and it southward, going almost at right to their course.
'A Galzai village is at one end of this trail,' he explained. 'Their it to a well, for water. You need new garments.'
Glancing at her attire, Yasmina with him. Her cloth-of-gold were in tatters, her and under-garments to that together decently. Garments meant for the of Peshkhauri were for the of the Himelians.
Coming to a in the trail, Conan dismounted, helped Yasmina and waited. Presently he nodded, though she nothing.
'A woman along the trail,' he remarked. In panic she his arm.
'You will not—not kill her?'
'I don't kill ordinarily,' he grunted; 'though some of the hill-women are she-wolves. No,' he as at a jest. 'By Crom, I'll pay for her clothes! How is that?' He a large of gold coins, and replaced all but the largest. She nodded, much relieved. It was natural for men to and die; her at the of the of a woman.
Presently a woman appeared around the of the trail—a tall, Galzai girl, as a sapling, a great empty gourd. She stopped and the from her hands when she saw them; she as though to run, then that Conan was too close to her to allow her to escape, and so still, at them with a mixed of and curiosity.
Conan the gold coin.
'If you will give this woman your garments,' he said, 'I will give you this money.'
The response was instant. The girl with and delight, and, with the of a hill-woman for conventions, off her vest, her wide and out of them, off her wide-sleeved shirt, and off her sandals. Bundling them all in a bunch, she them to Conan, who them to the Devi.
'Get that and put these on,' he directed, himself no native hillman. 'Fold your up into a and them to me when you come out.'
'The money!' the hill-girl, out her hands eagerly. 'The gold you promised me!'
Conan the coin to her, she it, bit, then it into her hair, and up the and on the path, as of self-consciousness as of garments. Conan waited with some while the Devi, for the time in her life, herself. When she from the he in surprize, and she a of at the in his eyes. She shame, embarrassment, yet a of she had experienced, and a when meeting the impact of his eyes. He a hand on her and her about, at her from all angles.
'By Crom!' said he. 'In those smoky, you were and cold and off as a star! Now you are a woman of warm and blood! You that as the Devi of Vendhya; you come out as a hill-girl—though a thousand times more than any of the Zhaibar! You were a goddess—now you are real!'
He her resoundingly, and she, this as another of admiration, did not outraged. It was as if the of her had a in her personality. The and she had rose to in her now, as if the she had off had been material and inhibitions.
But Conan, in his admiration, did not that all about them. The they away from the region of the Zhaibar, the less likely he was to any Kshatriya troops. On the other hand he had been all their for that would tell him the Wazulis of Khurum were on their heels.
Swinging the Devi up, he her into the and again the westward. The of she had him, he over a cliff, to into the of a thousand-foot gorge.
'Why did you do that?' she asked. 'Why did you not give them to the girl?'
'The from Peshkhauri are these hills,' he said. 'They'll be and at every turn, and by way of they'll every village they can take. They may turn any time. If they a girl your garments, they'd her into talking, and she might put them on my trail.'
'What will she do?' asked Yasmina.
'Go to her village and tell her people that a her,' he answered. 'She'll have them on our track, all right. But she had to go on and the water first; if she go without it, they'd the skin off her. That us a long start. They'll catch us. By we'll the Afghuli border.'
'There are no paths or of in these parts,' she commented. 'Even for the Himelians this region deserted. We have not a since we left the one where we met the Galzai woman.'
For answer he pointed to the northwest, where she a in a of the crags.
'Yimsha,' Conan. 'The their villages as from the as they can.'
She was with attention.
'Yimsha!' she whispered. 'The of the Black Seers!'
'So they say,' he answered. 'This is as near as I approached it. I have north to avoid any Kshatriya that might be through the hills. The regular from Khurum to Afghulistan south. This is an one, and used.'
She was at the peak. Her into her pink palms.
'How long would it take to Yimsha from this point?'
'All the of the day, and all night,' he answered, and grinned. 'Do you want to go there? By Crom, it's no place for an ordinary human, from what the hill-people say.'
'Why do they not and the that it?' she demanded.
'Wipe out with swords? Anyway, they with people, unless the people with them. I saw one of them, though I've talked with men who they had. They say they've people from the tower among the at or sunrise—tall, men in black robes.'
'Would you be to attack them?'
'I?' The idea a new one to him. 'Why, if they upon me, it would be my life or theirs. But I have nothing to do with them. I came to these to a of beings, not to with wizards.'
Yasmina did not at once reply. She at the as at a enemy, all her anger and in her anew. And another to take shape. She had plotted to against the masters of Yimsha the man in arms she was now carried. Perhaps there was another way, the method she had planned, to her purpose. She not mistake the look that was to in this wild man's as they rested on her. Kingdoms have when a woman's white hands the of destiny. Suddenly she stiffened, pointing.
'Look!'
Just visible on the there a cloud of aspect. It was a in color, with gold. This cloud was in motion; it rotated, and as it it contracted. It to a that in the sun. And it itself from the snow-tipped peak, out over the like a gay-hued feather, and against the sky.
'What that have been?' asked the girl uneasily, as a of the from view; the had been disturbing, in its beauty.
'The hill-men call it Yimsha's Carpet, that means,' answered Conan. 'I've five hundred of them as if the were at their heels, to themselves in and crags, they saw that cloud up from the peak. What in—'
They had through a narrow, knife-cut and upon a ledge, by a series of on one hand, and a on the other. The this ledge, around a and at below, a way downward. And from the cut that opened upon the ledge, the black short, snorting. Conan him on impatiently, and the and his up and down, and as if against an barrier.
Conan and off, Yasmina with him. He forward, with a hand out him as if to resistance, but there was nothing to him, though when he to lead the horse, it and back. Then Yasmina out, and Conan wheeled, hand starting to knife-hilt.
Neither of them had him come, but he there, with his arms folded, a man in a camel-hair and a green turban. Conan with to the man the had in the the Wazuli village.
'Who the are you?' he demanded.
The man did not answer. Conan noticed that his were wide, fixed, and of a quality. And those his like a magnet.
Khemsa's was on hypnotism, as is the case with most Eastern magic. The way has been prepared for the for centuries of who have and died in the of the and power of hypnotism, up, by and practise, a though against which the individual, in the of the land, himself helpless.
But Conan was not a son of the East. Its were meaningless to him; he was the product of an atmosphere. Hypnotism was not a in Cimmeria. The that prepared a native of the East for to the was not his.
He was aware of what Khemsa was trying to do to him; but he the impact of the man's power only as a impulsion, a and that he shake off as a man from his garments.
Aware of and black magic, he out his long knife and lunged, as quick on his as a lion.
But was not all of Khemsa's magic. Yasmina, watching, did not see by what of movement or the man in the green the terrible thrust. But the and arm, and to Yasmina it that Khemsa his open against Conan's bull-neck. But the Cimmerian like a ox.
Yet Conan was not dead; his with his left hand, he at Khemsa's as he down, and the Rakhsha the scythe-like only by a most backward. Then Yasmina out as she saw a woman she as Gitara out from among the and come up to the man. The died in the Devi's as she saw the in the girl's face.
Conan was slowly, and by the of that which, delivered with an art of men Atlantis sank, would have like a the of a man. Khemsa at him and a uncertainly. The Rakhsha had learned the full of his own power when he at the of the Wazulis in the Khurum village; but the Cimmerian's had his new-found a trifle. Sorcery on success, not on failure.
He forward, his hand—then as if frozen, back, wide open, hand raised. In of himself Conan his gaze, and so did the women—the girl by the stallion, and the girl Khemsa.
Down the slopes, like a of the wind, a crimson, cloud came dancing. Khemsa's dark ashen; his hand to tremble, then to his side. The girl him, the in him, at him inquiringly.
The shape left the and came in a long sweep. It the Conan and Khemsa, and the Rakhsha gave with a cry. He away, pushing the girl Gitara with groping, hands.
The cloud like a top for an instant, in a on its point. Then without it was gone, as a when burst. There on the four men. It was miraculous, incredible, impossible, yet it was true. They were not or phantoms. They were four tall men, with shaven, vulture-like heads, and black that their feet. Their hands were by their wide sleeves. They in silence, their in unison. They were Khemsa, but them Conan his own blood to ice in his veins. Rising, he away, until he the stallion's against his back, and the Devi into the of his arm. There was no word spoken. Silence like a pall.
All four of the men in black at Khemsa. Their vulture-like were immobile, their and contemplative. But Khemsa like a man in an ague. His were on the rock, his as if in physical combat. Sweat ran in his dark face. His right hand locked on something under his so that the blood from that hand and left it white. His left hand on the of Gitara and in like the of a man. She did not or whimper, though his like into her flesh.
Conan had hundreds of in his wild life, but one like this, four to one but will that them. But he only the quality of that struggle. With his to the wall, to by his masters, Khemsa was for his life with all the dark power, all the knowledge they had him through long, years of and vassalage.
He was than he had guessed, and the free of his powers in his own had of forces. And he was to super-energy by and desperation. He the impact of those eyes, but he his ground. His were into a of agony, and his were as on a rack. It was a of souls, of in to men for a years, of which had the and the dark where the shadows.
Yasmina this than did Conan. And she why Khemsa the impact of those four which might have into the very on which he stood. The was the girl that he with the of his despair. She was like an to his soul, by the of those emanations. His was now his strength. His love for the girl, and though it might be, was yet a tie that him to the of humanity, providing an for his will, a that his not break; at least not through Khemsa.
They that he did. And one of them his from the Rakhsha full upon Gitara. There was no there. The girl and like a in the drought. Irresistibly impelled, she herself from her lover's arms he what was happening. Then a thing came to pass. She to toward the precipice, her tormentors, her wide and blank as dark from which a lamp has been out. Khemsa and toward her, into the set for him. A mind not maintain the battle. He was beaten, a in their hands. The girl backward, walking like an automaton, and Khemsa after her, hands outstretched, groaning, in his pain, his moving like things.
On the very she paused, stiffly, her on the edge, and he on his and toward her, for her, to her from destruction. And just his touched her, one of the laughed, like the sudden, note of a in hell. The girl and, of cruelty, and into her eyes, which with fear. She screamed, at her lover's hand, and then, unable to save herself, with a cry.
Khemsa himself to the and over, haggardly, his as he to himself. Then he and for a long minute at his torturers, with wide that no light. And then with a that almost the rocks, he up and came toward them, a knife in his hand.
One of the Rakhshas and his foot, and as he stamped, there came a that to a roar. Where his struck, a opened in the solid that instantly. Then, with a crash, a whole of the gave way. There was a last of Khemsa, with arms upflung, and then he the of the that into the abyss.
The four looked at the of that the new of the precipice, and then suddenly. Conan, off his by the of the mountain, was rising, Yasmina. He to move as slowly as his brain was working. He was and stupid. He that there was a need for him to the Devi on the black and like the wind, but an his every and action.
And now the had toward him; they their arms, and to his sight, he saw their fading, dimming, and nebulous, as a around their and rose about them. They were out by a cloud—and then he that he too was in a mist—he Yasmina scream, and the out like a woman in pain. The Devi was from his arm, and as he out with his knife blindly, a like a of wind him against a rock. Dazedly he saw a cloud up and over the slopes. Yasmina was gone, and so were the four men in black. Only the the with him.
