Free The Sword of Skelos by Andrew Offutt

them?”
    “No! By Tarim, no! I have no mind to spend the rest of my life on this desert, or keep you here. We have the stolen goods we were sent after… most of them… and I do not look forward to telling that girl of Sarid’s what happened to him.” Captain Arsil groaned. “Or his mother…
or
the Commander!”
    “Uh… mayhap they were all better off—and we too—did we claim that Sarid was slain. Heroically. Then…”
    “And have him somehow turn up in Samara next day or next month or next year? Oh no, Kambur, and you will never make sergeant with that kind of muddy thinking. No! And—Kambur.” Arsil’s good-looking dark face took on an expression of thoughtfulness. “Best we make absolutely no mention of either Conan of Cimmeria or the accursed Isparana whilst we are passing through Zamboulan territory.”
    Kambur, an Iranistani in the employ of Samara, nodded. Arsil was right, thinking wisely—though Kambur would bet his boots that big straight-nosed man with the sky-colored eyes had tricked them all. Kambur would not miss Sarid all that much… though he was sorry that Isparana was gone. He had been happy to leave her in Sarid’s care, knowing that Sarid had a girl at home, and their betrothal announced and registered. Kambur had cherished a few notions and hopes himself, about the Zamboulan witch they had found with Conan in the Khawarizmi slave caravan.
    So Arsil fears for Sarid, does he
? Kambur gave his helmeted head a jerk. Sarid be damned! Let that big barbarian look out! Isparana was woman enough, temptress enough, to bring even him to his knees! And how she hated the Cimmerian!
* * * * * * *
    The paraphernalia cluttering the spacious room ranged from the commonplace to strange, through exotic to weird and truly horrid. The young mage in the room was strange only in that he was young. He was scrying, and he smiled as he studied his glass. His brown cap was of a strange tall design; otherwise he wore a plain white tunic, long, over tan leggings. A pendant swung on his chest with his movements. The pendant was a large wheel bordered with pearls; in its center flashed a many-faceted ruby surrounded by twelve sunny topazes forming a six-pointed star. The pendant was a gift of his khan. So was one of the two rings he wore.
    Smiling without showing his teeth or softening his eyes, he turned from his scrying glass. On shoes of soft red felt he crossed the chamber to a tall paneled door. He thumped on it twice with a single knuckle, and returned, whistling, to his glass.
    Within minutes the door was opened and another man appeared. He was balding, and though hair ran down his cheeks and jawline on both sides, it was shaved down the center to bare his cleft chin. A design of tangled vines, wrought in scarlet stitchery, decorated his dark brown robe at hem, cuffs and neck. A silver chain rustled on his breast and he too was shod in red felt. His wrist was encircled by a bracelet of copper.
    Neither he nor the mage spoke. While he held the door, the mage paced past without glancing at him from those cold, hard brown stones of eyes.
    The youthful wizard entered a sprawling, lofty hall under a sky-painted ceiling supported by columns carved to represent acacia trees. The hall was dominated by the dais at its rear wall; the dais by the great fruitwood chair there, etched with silver. The man seated in the chair was neither handsome nor ugly, neither fat nor thin, though he had a paunch. His long yellow robe was topped by one of figured blue silk obviously imported at expense from far Khitai. It was interestingly cut and slashed to display the saffron-hued garment beneath.
    As he approached the throne, the young mage made a tight gesture.
    The enthroned man responded instantly to the signal: “Leave us, Hafar.”
    Leaving open the door to the chamber of the mage, the older man crossed, brown robe whispering, the sprawling throneroom. He passed through a small door in the wall opposite, and closed it behind