Conan the Rebel Read Free Page A

not bespeak Taia as such. Perhaps he would have later. The spells I cast afterward concerned chiefly a certain female pirate named Bêlit -'
    Ramwas started.
    '- and her present companion, a barbarian from the Northlands,' Tothapis continued. 'About him I could learn virtually nothing, though it is him rather than her that I was warned against. She, however, has been in these parts ere now. As always, the stones and the ghosts remember. Thus I got your name, Ramwas. My mundane agents learned more about you, and that fortunately you were at present in Khemi, inspecting your property nearby. They tell me you are an able and reliable man.'
    Ramwas bowed his head over folded hands.
    'Perhaps, my lord,' Nehekba suggested, 'you could begin by describing your vision to us.'
    Tothapis gave her a look more whetted than he cast on the officer. The high priestess of Derketa was subordinate to the hierarchy of Set. Nevertheless this goddess of carnality, who was also a goddess of the dead, and believed to lead them through the sky on midnight winds, was no minor deity. Her cult reached far beyond Stygia; and in that kingdom, the common people probably invoked her oftener, more fervently, than they did remote and terrible Set. As mistress of her mysteries, the high priestess in Khemi was always an accomplished witch, and the sole woman who sat in the Council of Sacerdotes.
    'Have a care, Nehekba,' Tothapis said low. 'You and I have worked together before, yes, but you are apt to skirt insolence.'
    'I pray pardon, lord.' Her tone was unrepentant. 'I thought we should not dawdle in the business of the Serpent.'
    His gaze lingered a moment longer. Ramwas' did, too. Nehekba had come to office young, amidst rumours of poison, by insinuating herself with the right faction in one of Khemi's hidden struggles for power. She retained the beauty of her youth. Slightly taller than most Stygian noblewomen, she had their slenderness, but she made it altogether sensual. Her countenance was an oval, bearing straight nose, exquisitely moulded lips, huge eyes of lustrous bronze hue beneath high-arched brows. Flawless, her skin was the colour of smoky amber. Strings of faïence beads confined the jet flow of her hair, down to just above bosom and shoulder blades. At present she wore her crown, shaped like an unfolding lotus, and a gauzy white undergown; she had left her robe outside. The rings that glittered on her fingers and the pectoral on her breast were mere ornament. Her amulet was a tiny mirror on a silver chain at her throat.
    'Well,' Tothapis said. 'I will relate that with which Our Master of Night favoured me.'
    His account was straightforward, simply omitting mention of any terror he might have felt. He finished: 'We can do nothing about winds until that ship is much closer, and then very little. But to judge from her present location, she will take a fortnight to work this far north; the current being against her, she must needs stands well out to sea if she would make any real speed. Thus we have time to think and prepare.'
    'What can a lone buccaneer vessel mean, lord?' Ramwas wondered. 'Seaborne commerce is not vital to the wealth of Stygia – supposing our war-craft cannot hunt her down.'
    Tothapis stared into shadow. 'He who has come aboard her is, in some unknown way, a torch that fate may kindle.'
    The soldier shivered and signed himself.
    'If this be true,' Nehekba reminded, 'then our actions to thwart him could prove to be the very sparks that light the flame.'
    Tothapis nodded. 'Indeed. But if we sit passive, then surely something else will set it ablaze; and we shall not be near to seize it and quench it in the Styx. He Who Is would not reveal himself to me in vain.'
    He addressed Ramwas: 'Hear why I have sent for you. The necromancy disclosed your name, enough else about you that my servants could readily learn more, and the fact that you have formerly had to do with Bêlit, and still keep what can lure her. This ought to give us a