The slave could hardly have abased himself more, or more swiftly promised good behavior in the future.
The Vendhyan was quickly but deftly putting a fresh dressing on Farad's battered ribs when tramping feet thudded outside the tent. Before anyone could give warning, Captain Khezal pushed his way into the tent.
Neither his sudden coming nor the look on his face made Khezal seem the bearer of good news. When with one look he sent the slave fleeing as if scorpions were nesting in his breeches, he made Conan certain of this.
He did not even venture to guess what the bad news might be; Khezal's scheme was one likely to go awry at half a dozen points before they even sighted the peaks of the Kezankians. Nor was the Cimmerian's knowledge of Turan's intrigues or the nomads' feuds what it had been. The bad news might be something altogether unconnected with the quest for the Valley of the Mists.
At least Conan thought he could trust Khezal to tell him all of the truth that any man not of Turan could be trusted to know. That was more than could be said of more than a few leaders Conan had followed.
"We have found the remaining Afghulis," Khezal said.
"Rejoice," Farad replied. Conan trusted that Khezal did not hear the ironic note in the Afghuli's voice.
"Or rather, they have found those who sought them," Khezal went on. "They laid an ambush even more cunning than I had expected from such skilled warriors."
"Flattery may raise hearts," Conan said. "It also uses time, of which I suspect we have but little, unless there is no more to your tale."
"Forgive me, Conan. I forgot that you were never a courtier."
"Improve your memory, then, my friend. Nor will I become a courtier soon enough to let you babble to no purpose."
Khezal took a deep breath. "It is to some purpose to know that the Afghulis who fled are unharmed. They unhorsed a half-score Greencloaks and took three as hostages to a cave. They have threatened the hostages with gelding and other harsh fates if Conan and any living Afghulis in Turanian hands are not freed at once."
Farad saved Conan the trouble of a swift reply by bursting into laughter that could doubtless be heard all over the camp. Khezal's face colored, and he looked at the ceiling of the tent, as if he wished the sky would fall on the Afghulis or him or both, to end this shameful moment.
At last both Farad and Khezal gained command of themselves, and into the silence Conan thrust a few words. "Then we must ride out at once, to prove that we are alive and free before they begin working on your men."
"What if I refuse to let you go?" Khezal asked. His eyes searched Conan's face, rather as if he were judging the temper of a horse he wished to buy. "This could be a scheme to escape. The nomads would doubtless pay you much for your knowledge of our camp."
"The nomads would pay us in slit throats after torturing the knowledge out of us, unless we contrived to die fighting them," Conan snapped. "Do not waste time or breath by testing me, Khezal. Not if you wish to keep your men whole."
"One must admit that there are fewer posts for eunuchs than there once were," Khezal said. He might almost have been meditating. Conan had to respect the inward courage that let the captain command himself in matters like this.
"So I will trust you and your Afghuli comrades to make no attempt to escape," the captain continued. "And I will also trust you to contrive the return of my men, whole and fit to fight. Otherwise we have no agreement, and I will look under every rock and grain of sand in this desert to find you."
Conan knew when a man accustomed to commanding his temper was about to lose it. He made no protest at Khezal's terms, but began gathering his weapons and harness.
Captain Muhbaras's notion that he would hear bad news swiftly did not last long. He began to wish he had used some more prudent words to silence the spy. As it was, the man would either suspect a lie or fret himself into folly well before the captain returned.
There was, however, not one thing under the gods' sky that the captain could do about this problem, without paying the mortal price of offending the Lady of the Mists.
Nor would giving such offense please the spy. He had made it plainer than a fruit-seller in the bazaar crying his wares; his purpose here was to speed the work of the alliance with the Lady of the Mists to the peril of Turan and the profit of Khoraja.
It was therefore just barely possible that the spy needed the captain more than the captain needed him. The captain resolved to remember that as he followed his escort of Maidens into the valley.
Escort or guard? One walked ahead, and one on either side save where the path was too narrow for more than one pair of feet. Then the flankers stepped forward to join the leader.
No less than four Maidens walked behind the captain. He turned twice to stare at them, and each time their leader gave him a look that would have frozen the manhood of a god. The others lightly brushed their hands to the hilts of their swords.
After that the captain was entirely certain that he was going either to his own death or to something that he would doubtless protest almost as violently. It was some small consolation to know that the Lady thought she might need steel as well as spells to ward him off. Entering the Valley of the Mists, the captain did not feel nearly that formidable.
He felt still less so as they passed within the cleft, through the two great gates, and on to a trail that climbed the cliff to the left of the entrance. The trail was wide enough for two abreast, but it climbed so steeply that in places the rock was shaped into steps. In the twilight, and taking care not to stumble, the captain could not be sure what shapes were carved into those steps. He doubted that the knowledge was either necessary or wholesome.
In the twilight, the valley itself did nothing to ease a man's mind. Two walls of mountain stretched away into shadows whose blue and purple hues seemed against nature. Overhead the stars were coming out with a savage brightness, even as the last light drained from the western sky. Mist gathered here, there, and everywhere, according to no pattern the captain recognized, gray tendrils rising to dance and swirl with the sinuosity of living beings.
The captain had the sense of entering a vast temple, so long ruined that it was roofless and naked to the stars, but whose walls and altars of sacrifice were yet intact. Intact, and bound by great and dreadful magic to remain that way until some nameless purpose was fulfilled.
He shivered from more than the chill of the night air, and was glad when the trail turned into a cave and the cave into a tunnel carved from the wall of the valley. Torches lit the party's way, and twice they surprised the misshapen half-human slaves of the valley tending to the lights.
Again the captain rejoiced that the light was too dim to let him see every unwholesome detail of the half-men. Or women—he was sure that one of them was a woman, barely past girlhood, and he fought back the urge to spew or perform rites of aversion.
Neither was acceptable to the Lady.
Muhbaras's modest pleasure lasted only until his guards led him into a small, almost intimate chamber. Its rock walls hid behind tapestries woven with archaic figures of dragons and giant birds, and a brazier glowing in the middle of it further warmed the air beyond what the captain had expected.
There was, however, no warmth in the Lady's face as she sat in her habitual cross-legged position on a silk cushion, the cushion in turn elevated on a stool carved from a single piece of Vendhyan teak. To show that he was not afraid, the captain sought to make out the figures carved in the stool, but ended being more unsettled than before as he failed to make sense of the carvings.