CONAN FLICKED BLOOD from his blade and stalked across the platform toward the man who would be a god. One of the acolytes let loose with a blast on his ivory horn—a blast Conan aborted with a harsh glance. The other acolyte pulled back, and his retreat spurred the ritual’s observers to join him, giving the fighters ample room to engage each other.
Khalar Zym raised the Cimmerian great sword and struck a guard, as if he were once again a minor Nemedian prince dueling at court. Conan came at him directly, both hands on his long sword’s hilt. He did not feint or waver; he came on directly. When Khalar Zym lunged, hoping to spit him, Conan battered aside the blade his father had made and struck. He caught Khalar Zym above the right ear, striking sparks from the mask and drawing blood that the mask greedily drank in.
Foul green energy pulsed forth, sending a cold wave of numbness down Conan’s arm. Khalar Zym fell back and the very earth itself shook. Planks snapped. The platform sagged, spilling half the visitors off into the fiery abyss. Stones crumbled and began to fall, then a loud crack sounded from behind the Cimmerian.
“Conan!”
The Cimmerian turned and leaped toward the ceremonial wheel. The wooden collar around it had broken. His gaze met Tamara’s for a heartbeat, then the wheel dropped down, as if falling down a chimney, taking her with it. Conan ran to the edge, fearing all he would see was her body dwindling in the distance, a blackened shadow against the molten river below.
But there, twenty feet down, the wheel’s pins caught. On either side of the crevasse two statues faced each other, kneeling, arms spread. The black basalt figures, one male, the other female, regarded Tamara with blind, pitiless eyes. The wheel slowly spun in the space between the statues, Tamara’s fate resting in the laps of forgotten gods.
Conan leaped down and landed with feline precision, one foot on a god and the other on the wheel. He hammered a manacle with his sword’s pommel, popping it open, then slashed the chain binding Tamara in half.
“I will have you out in a heartbeat.”
She smiled at him. “And then for getting us out of here, you have a plan?”
Before he could reply or reach her other manacle, the Cimmerian looked up. Khalar Zym landed across from him and stomped on the wheel. It came up and over, spilling Conan back against the basalt goddess’s breasts. “Tamara!”
A chain slithered through a bolt. “I’m free, Conan. There’s a ledge.”
“Find a way out.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“I won’t be far behind.”
Khalar Zym shouted back up the chimney. “Marique, find her. She cannot escape.” He then reached down and pressed his left hand to the wheel. His hand glowed, not the green emanating from the mask, but the dark violet glow that pulsed from deep within some of the ruins’ recesses. Purple witchfire spread over the wheel, consuming nothing. Instead it appeared to stabilize the platform.
Khalar Zym straightened, then stepped onto the wheel. “Come, Cimmerian. You shall be the first sacrificed to my glory. Forever shall be remembered your name.”
Conan joined him, contempt in the grin he wore. “I don’t want to be remembered—just to make certain you’re forgotten for all time.”
TAMARA RAN ALONG the ledge and onto a broader avenue of soot-blackened ruins. To the right and downstream of the fiery river was the platform from which she’d fallen. She wasn’t certain she could get back out that way, and was positive that people would try to stop her. To the left, the avenue paralleled the river, and slowly curved off to the right before making a broader sweep back to the left and inland. Below and before her, ancient bridges crossed the burning flow.
She saw footprints in the dust near her feet, so she ran along left. Since everything at her right hand was on the coastal side of the ruin, she peered through doorways, hoping to see the night sky through a crack, or perhaps catch a hint of a breeze from the sea. She ran along quickly and then, toward the back of a long, dark space, she caught a flicker of light. Carrying the length of chain still bound to her right wrist, she made for it.
Halfway along, the room exploded with light. Tamara found herself in a forest of obscene statues—graven images that mocked and blasphemed. They’d been gathered together in tableaux which defied description and could only have amused a very sick mind.
And down through the aisle between them strode Marique, her head held proudly high. She spread her hands, Stygian talons bright on the right, a sharp poniard in the left. “Welcome to my realm. Do you like it?”
“Not in the least.” Tamara dropped the chain and slowly started looping it around her forearm. “Show me the way out of here.”
The witch smiled coldly. “If I do not?”
“I’m not drugged. I’m not in chains, and you don’t have a cadre of guards to restrain me.” Tamara’s eyes became slits. “You can’t stop me, and if I need to prove I’m not lying, you’ll pay the price in pain.”
THE TWO MEN moved around the wheel, swords occasionally licking out like serpents’ tongues, to contest the space at the wheel’s heart. The blades rang together, the Cimmerian steel all the sweeter for its masterful construction. The peal and the echoes brought back memories of Conan’s father wielding that same blade, and a slow fury at Khalar Zym’s unworthiness to use it began to rise in Conan.
Conan came around the wheel, knees bent, shoulders forward, always keeping his weight even and his balance under control. He pushed forward, poking low with the long sword, then withdrawing the blade before Khalar Zym could parry. He blocked the man’s return cuts with ease.
Khalar Zym’s frustration grew. The mask writhed impatiently on his face. Conan did not wonder if the mask remembered the barbarians who had come to destroy it before. It would be enough that Khalar Zym did. It would get him thinking about insignificant things, about Conan being from Cimmeria and being the only man who’d drawn his blood in duels.
“Damn you, Cimmerian!” Khalar Zym’s face twisted in a demoniacal snarl. “You have troubled me too long. It is time for you to die.”
The man-god advanced quickly, stabbing low and coming high. Conan retreated before him, working his way back around the wheel. They’d come all the way around, Khalar Zym quickening his pace, when Conan stopped. The Nemedian lunged, but Conan leaned left. The Cimmerian great sword passed between Conan’s body and arm. He clamped down on Khalar Zym’s wrist, binding it tight to his side, then hit him twice with a fist, hammering that bleeding ear.
Khalar Zym pulled back. Conan stripped the sword from the man-god’s hand, letting his own long sword fall away, and reared back. He planted a front kick against Khalar Zym’s breastplate that slammed the man-god back against the ebon idol’s chest. Khalar Zym rebounded onto his knees and caught himself before he could pitch headlong into the abyss.
“Damn you, Cimmerian.” Khalar Zym raised a fist wreathed with arcane flames. “Damn you to
The man-god’s fist fell.
The wheel exploded.
MARIQUE REGARDED THE monk with new eyes. “Should I be amused by you, or angered?”
“If those are your only choices, you’re an idiot.” Tamara drifted forward more quickly than Maliva’s gown should have allowed. She let a foot or so of chain slip into her hand. Then she whipped it around, lashing out. Before Marique could move, the chain tore the dagger out of her hand. The blade ricocheted off into the darkness below the cruel gods. Then Tamara’s fist came around and Marique saw stars. She found herself flat on the ground with the monk heading out the side passage.
Marique tasted blood.
