"Fair and noble captain, there is nothing to fear."
"Perhaps I have nothing to fear," Muhbaras said. "But what of you? Am I worthy to treat you as you deserve?"
The Lady bit her lip, and Muhbaras was astonished to see that she was holding back laughter. The Khorajan felt a sudden urge to step forward and take her in his arms while she laughed against his shoulder.
He reminded himself that laughter was part of being human, not all. The Lady might laugh like a girl, and still torment those about her like the maddest of despots grown old in vice and corruption. Both were in her. Both would be in his embrace. Muhbaras felt his temples throbbing.
"You are worthy," the Lady said softly. "You are worthy of a better setting for our—" she hesitated and seemed to be flushing '—our meeting."
She carried no staff and wore no amulets or other magical devices that Muhbaras could see. All he saw was three passes of those long-fingered hands, exquisite fingers with nails the color of the desert sky at dawn, fingers that seemed very ready to be kissed—
Golden light flooded the chamber, dazzling Muhbaras for a moment. He felt heat on his face, then on his feet, then all around him. It faded, but did not entirely disappear.
"You may open your eyes," the Lady's voice came.
Muhbaras did. The walls and roof of the chamber were now a vaulting of fine blue tile. The floor was the finest of golden sand. In one corner—where the smelly furs had been piled—rose a pavilion, a crimson and blue silk canopy supported by four rosewood posts, each carved in the form of a different marvelous beast. Muhbaras thought he recognized a leopard, a serpent, an otter, and a dragon.
Under the canopy lay a pile of silk cushions, and beside the cushions a low table, plain ebony on ivory legs. Golden dishes of cakes and sweetmeats covered it, making a circle around a silver jug of wine.
On the cushions lay the Lady of the Mists. She wore nothing except her bracelets, and her hair flowing like silken threads over her bare shoulders and down across her breasts. All the beauties Muhbaras had expected were there for him to see—and now to touch.
He felt his blood race and realized that he, too, wore nothing. The first step toward the pavilion was as hard as if he wore iron boots, but the second was easier, the third easier still.
Before long, he was sitting beside the Lady. Her head was on his shoulder, and he was nibbling a honey cake that she held up to him. The last of the cake vanished, and he found himself licking her fingers.
"The honey tastes real," he said. "You taste real."
"It is. I am," she said. Her voice was unsteady. "All that is here, all that will come to us here, is real."
"It seems too beautiful."
"You doubt my beauty?" she said, sitting up so that he could see everything. He looked—and saw in her eyes what could only be fear.
Desire and tenderness swept through Muhbaras. Here was the Lady of the Mists, sorceress with mighty magic at her command and mistress of life and death over all the valley. Here also was a frightened maiden, tasting desire for the first time, offering herself to a man that she might fulfill that desire— and finding that all her magic was no help whatever. If she had schemed for weeks to make Muhbaras ready to greet her as man to willing woman, she could not have found a better way.
Muhbaras closed the gap between them and lifted her fingers to his lips. He licked off the rest of the honey, then turned her hand over and kissed the palm of the hand. Presently his lips crept up past the brace-let, and it was not long after that before she opened her arms and all the rest of her to Muhbaras.
He thought that he had never heard a sweeter sound in his life, than the first time she cried out in delight.
It was almost enough to make him forget the cries of Danar in his last agony at the Lady's hands.
"Omyela will not be pleased at waiting," Bethina said. She was walking beside Conan, bow in hand and quiver over her back. They were together on pretense of going hunting, close enough to the camp not to be in danger, far enough that no unwanted ears might hear their talk.
"I was not thinking that she would have to," Conan replied. "If she is ready to ride out tonight—"
"You would go against Khezal?" Bethina asked.
Conan grinned. "Quick to see, aren't you?" he asked.
"I am not a green girl, and my father allowed me to sit in the council meetings of the tribe from my fourteenth year," Bethina said, with dignity.
"Pardon," Conan said. "I would go against Khezal if I had to. But I'm not sure that riding north is as much against his orders as he said."
"If it is not, he could be making a puppet of you," the woman said. "If you succeed, he can claim the glory. If you fail, he can say you disobeyed him, and your enemies in Turan will rejoice at your death."
"Khezal will have to change more than most men before he intrigues that way," Conan said. "The most I think is that he's trying to guard his back from his enemies in the Great City.
"But you're right. He may be trusted, but no doubt there are royal spies among the Greencloaks. I need my Afghulis, and they need to be out of Khezal's reach, so we need to find a path for them."
"Let me talk to Omyela," Bethina said. "Giving her a chance to trick a Turanian is better than offering her a sack of gold."
The Lady of the Mists was a clean maiden, but either magick or good fortune made her first union all pleasure and no pain. Or so it seemed to Muhbaras.
Of his own pleasure, he could not speak, for there were no words in any tongue he knew that would do it justice. Indeed, he wondered if there were words in any of the tongues of men.
Presently she conjured a pool of sparkling water into the middle of the chamber, and led Muhbaras to it. They bathed old passion from them, but kindled new, and soon were locked together on the sand at the edge of the pool.
"I am beginning to believe this is all real," Muhbaras said. He rested a hand on a part of the Lady of whose reality he had become wholly certain.
She imprisoned his hand with hers, then kissed his fingers. "It is all real. What I had put in the chamber was the stuff of earth, as is my magic. It is easier to transform what exists into something else, that to create something out of nothing."
It occurred to Muhbaras that the transformation might as easily go the other way. The Lady seemed to read his thoughts.
"No. You will be gone from here before the cham-her is as it was. You need have no fear of waking up alone amid balding furs and reeking hides."
"Do I need to fear walking out of this chamber in the garb I wore at birth?"
"If I do not, why should you? We will not be cold." She proved her warmth all over again, and it was some while before Muhbaras could again think about clothes.
Again, it seemed that his thoughts were written upon his face. Suddenly he was garbed as he had been, although he thought his blades had been polished and sharpened since he last saw them.
"You see? All that I hold in my memory, I can restore as needed. But is soldier's garb needed now? I think not." She snapped her fingers, and Muhbaras was unclothed again.
The Lady grinned. "I am not done with you, nor I think you with me. Come to me, captain. If it was in me to beg, I would. But with you, I will never have to."
As Muhbaras took the Lady of the Mists in his arms again, he could not help wishing that this might be true. The Lady might have come to him with blood on her hands that the gods themselves could not wash off. Yet he would not begrudge her what little happiness he might be able to give her.
Fourteen
Old Omyela might be hardly larger than a ten-year-old Cimmerian girl, with a black-eyed gaze that neither Conan nor anyone else could meet for long. She was also as shrewd as any descendant of so many generations of hard-living desert folk could be, however, and she seemed to know her spells.