Conan the Rebel Read Free Page B

hold on Conan.' Contempt twisted his mouth. 'I saw how lost in her he already is. A half month's cruise will utterly besot him.'
    Nehekba drooped long lashes. 'He sounds interesting, though,' she breathed. 'Could you describe him more closely, my lord?'
    'And Bêlit, I beg you,' Ramwas added.
    Tothapis did. When he had finished, the nobleman tugged his chin and said slowly, 'Aye, no mistake, no forgetting her. She is a former slave of mine, captured with her brother and a load of tribesmen in a blackbirding expedition to the south that I commissioned about three years ago. I sold most of the Negroes, but kept those two whites, and lived to regret it. Hell-spawn she was, and before long escaped, leaving good servants of mine dead behind her. The brother is no better.'
    'Yes, the spell told me a little of him, wherefore I ordered you to have him led here,' Tothapis answered. 'Now tell me more.'
    Ramwas shrugged. 'He is a Shemite, the name, um-m, Jehanan. Strong, intelligent, and intractable – the dangerous kind. He kept trying to break loose himself, but in his case he failed. Repeated lashings and stays in the Black Box wrought no cure. When at last, bare-handed, he killed an overseer who was punishing him, I decided he would never be of use on any farm of mine. I had him clubbed before the eyes of his fellow slaves by an expert who knows how to do it so the pain will last a lifetime. Then I rented him out to the quarry master below the Pyramid. They are accustomed to hard cases there.'
    Nehekba stroked her cheek. 'Could we bring him here for an interview?' she asked.
    'Pointless, my lady,' Ramwas assured her. 'By report, not even the endless pain has tamed him. He works steadily these days, but simply because chains are never off quarry slaves. I have a notion he would enjoy resisting us, no matter how he was tortured.'
    'Torture would be stupid in any event,' the priestess said impatiently. 'I want to know him.'
    'That is why I sent for my lady of Derketa,' Tothapis explained. 'She has arts no male will ever attain. Still, no need to bring a stinking stone chopper to this place. I will give you a sight of him where he is, Nehekba.'
    He traced a symbol and muttered a few words. In the gloom of the corner, an invisible door seemed to open, and the three looked into a guardroom. Armed men lounged at ease, talking or dicing. Yet they were never entirely relaxed, and two of them stayed afoot,
    pikes grounded, free hands near short swords.
    He of whom they were wary sat on a bench under a decorated wall. Lamplight showed a young man of medium height but huge breadth of shoulder and depth of chest, the muscles in limbs and belly like ship's cables. He wore nothing but a dirty loincloth, his bonds, crusted grime and sweat-salt. The Stygian sun had burned his skin leathery. His matted hair and beard were brown, but filth blackened them, too. A smashed nose sprawled across a once comely face now turned into lumps and jaggednesses; numerous teeth were missing; scars criss-crossed the entire body, a broken left collarbone had been deliberately missed. Nonetheless his eyes, almost golden, were akin to a hawk's.
    Sound came through the portal, click of dice, grumble of a warder: 'How long must we stay here? I go on duty at dawn, I do.'
    'Hush,' cautioned another. 'We serve great lords tonight.'
    'On his account, plain to see,' the first guard snapped, and jerked a thumb at the slave. 'Hey-ah, why couldn't you have died before, fellow? Most don't last as long as you have.' He spat on his charge's bare foot.
    Jehanan sprang erect. The links clanked between his ankles. He swung his arms up, as if to bring their fetters down on the skull of his tormentor. Pike points were instantly at his throat. Snarling, he eased his stance. 'The revenge I will take, when my hour comes, keeps me alive,' he said, in harshly accented Stygian, through ragged gulps of air. 'But you are not worth spitting back at.'
    He turned. The fresco behind him depicted Set