The girl drew a sobbing breath. "I have been eight days on the road, scarce halting to snatch a cat nap and a bite to eat.”
“Ah, so! And wherefore?”
“I came to say—to tell you—that Amulius Procas is dead— "
”Good!” said Thulandra Thuu, pinwheels of light dancing in his hooded eyes.
"—but Conan lives!”
At this astounding information, the sorcerer for the second time that day lost his composure. “Set and Kali!" he cried. “How did that happen? Out with it, girl; out with it!"
Before answering, Alcina paused to sip from the cup of saffron wine that Hsiao handed her. Then, haltingly, she recounted her adventures in the camp of the Border Legion—how she stabbed Procas; how she learned that Conan lived; and how she escaped the guard.
“And so,” she concluded, “fearing that you knew not of the barbarian's miraculous survival, I deemed it my duty to report to you forthwith.”
Brows drawn in a ferocious frown, the sorcerer contemplated Alcina with his hypnotic gaze. Then he purred with the controlled rage of an angry feline: “Instead of undertaking this weary journey, why did you not withdraw a prudent distance from the Legion’s camp, and commune with me at the appropriate hour by means of your fragment of yonder mirror?”
“I could not. Master.” Alcina wrung her hands distractedly.
“Wherefore not?” Thulandra Thuu’s voice suddenly jabbed like a thrown knife. “Have you mislaid the table of positions of the planets, with which I did supply you?”
“Nay, my lord; it’s worse than that. I lost my fragment of the mirror—I lost my talisman!”
Lips drawn back in a snarl, Thulandra uttered an ophidian hiss. “By Nergal’s demons!” he grated. “You little fool! What devil of carelessness possessed you? Are you mad? Or did you set your silly heart on some lusty lout, like unto a she-cat in heat? For this I will punish you in ways unknown to mortal men! I will not only flog your body but flay your very soul! You shall live the pains of all your previous lives, from the first bit of protoplasmal slime up through the worm, the fish, and the ape! You shall beg me for death, but—”
“Pray, Master, do but listenI” cried Alcina, falling to her knees. "You know men’s lusts mean naught to me, save as I rouse them in your service.” Weeping, she told of the death struggle in the dark with Amuhus Procas and of her later discovery of the loss of the talisman.
Thulandra Thuu bit his lip to master his rising wrath. “I see,” he said at length. “But when striking for great prizes, one cannot afford mistakes. Had your dagger traveled true, Procas would not have lingered long enough to seize your amulet.”
"I knew not that he wore a shirt of mail beneath his tunic. Can you not cut another fragment from the master mirror?^
"I could, but the enchantment of the fragment for transmitting distant messages is such a tedious process that the war were over ere it was completed.” Thulandra Thuu stroked his sharp chin. “Did you make certain of Procas’s death?”
“Yes. I felt his pulse and listened for his heart beat”
“Aye. But you did not so with the Cimmerian! That was the greater error.”
Alcina made a gesture of despair. "I served him with sufficient poison to have slain two ordinary men; but betwixt his great size and the unnatural vitality that propelled him… .” She drooped abjectly at her master's feet and let her voice trail off.
Thulandra Thuu rose; and towering above the trembling girl, pointed a skinny forefinger toward heaven. “Father Set, can none of my servants carry out my simplest demand?” Then, turning his sudden anger on the huddled girl, he added; “Little idiot, would you feed a boarhound on a lapdog’s rations?”
“Master, you warned me not, and who am I to calculate the grains of lotus venom needed for a giant?” Alcina’s voice rose and fury rode upon it. “You sit in comfort in your palace, whilst this poor servant courses the countryside in good and evil weather, risking her skin to do your desperate deeds. And not a kindly word have you to offer her!”
Thulandra Thuu spread his arms wide, palms upturned in a gesture of forgiveness. ‘'Now, now, my dear Alcina, let us speak no ill of one another. When allies part, the enemy wins the battle by default. If I ask you to poison another of my foes, I'll send along a clerk skilled in reckoning to calculate the dose."
He seated himself with a thin and rueful smile. “Truly, the gods must laugh like fiends at the irony of it. Having sent Amulius Procas to whatever nether world the Fates decreed, I earnestly wish that the old ruffian were alive again; for on none but him can I rely to defeat the barbarian and his rebel following.
"I thought that Ascalante and Gromel could together thwart the insurgents’ efforts to cross the Alimane; and so they could have, were not Conan in command. Now I must find an abler general for the Border Legion. This needs some thinking on. Count Ulric of Raman has the Army of the North in Gunderland, watching the Cimmerians. An able conmiander, he; but the moon must wax and wane ere he receives an order and rides the length of Aquilonia. Prince Numitor lies closer on the Pictish frontier, but— "
Hsiao’s tactful knock echoed like a tiny brazen bell. Entering, he said: “A pigeon-borne dispatch from Messantia, Master, newly received by Vibius Latro." Bowing, he handed the small scroll to the wizard.
Thulandra Thuu rose and held the scroll close to one of the huge candles, and reading, pressed his lips together until his mouth became a thin slit in his dusky face. At last he said:
“Well, Mistress Alcina, it seems the gods of my far distant island are careless of the welfare of their favored child.”
“What has befallen now?” asked Alcina, rising to her feet.
“Prince Cassio, quoth Fadius, has sent a messenger from the Rabirian Mountains back to his sire in Messantia. Conan, it seems, fully recovered from an illness that struck him down, has crossed the Alimane and, with the aid of Poitanian lords and peasants, has utterly destroyed the Border Legion. Senior Captain Gromel and his men have deserted to the rebels; Ascalante may have fled, for neither he nor his exanimate body can be found.”
The wizard crumpled the missive and glared at Alcina; and the eyes he fixed upon her burned red with a rage such as she had never seen in any living eyes. He snarled: “Betimes you tempt me, wench, to snuff out your miserable life, as a man extinguishes a lighted candle. I have a silent spell that turns mine enemy into a petty pile of ashes, with never a flame nor a plume of smoke— “
Alcina shrank away and crossed her arms upon her breast, but there was no escape from the sorcerers hypnotic stare. Her body burned as from the licking tongues of flame that lapped the open door of a furnace. The magical emanations pierced her inmost being, and she closed her eyes as if to shut out the cruel radiations. When she opened them once more, she threw up her hands to ward off a blow and shrieked hysterically.
Where the sorcerer had stood, now reared a monstrous serpent. From its upraised head, swaying on a level with her own, slit-pupiled eyes poured maleficent rays into her soul, while a reptilian stench inflamed her nostrils. The scaly jaws gaped wide, revealing a pair of dagger-pointed fangs as the great head lunged toward her. Flinching, she blinked again; and when she ventured to open her eyes, it was Thulandra Thuu who stood before her.
With a crooked smile on his narrow face, the wizard said: “Fear not, girl; I do not wantonly blunt my tools whilst they still possess a cutting edge.”
Still shuddering, Alcina recovered herself enough to ask: “Did—did you in truth take the form of a serpent, Master, or did you but cast an image of reality upon me?”