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into the darkened corridor.
    “You no longer even hide it, do you?” she said with deceptive quiet. “You desire my niece. Do not attempt to deny it.”
    He towered over her, but he shifted from foot to foot like a boy awaiting chastisement. “I cannot help myself,” he muttered finally. “You are fire and passion. She is innocence and purity. I cannot help myself.”
    “And she must remain innocent. It is written in the Scrolls of Skelos.”
    In truth, the scrolls did not require Jehnna to be virgin, merely innocent of the slightest seed of evil, a pure soul incapable of thinking wrong or harm toward anyone or of believing that anyone might mean such toward her. Her carefully cloistered life had assured that. But Taramis had seen what was happening in Bombatta long before he had become aware of it himself, and nurtured his belief.
    “Even were it not,” she told him, “you are mine, and I will not share what is mine.”
    “I like it not that you are alone with the thief,” he growled.
    “Alone?” Taramis laughed. “The four best of your guards stand ready to seize him or cut him down should he threaten me.” The huge warrior spoke under his breath, and she frowned. “Speak loudly enough for me to hear, Bombatta. I do not like things hidden from me.”
    For a long moment he stared at her, black eyes burning, then said, “I cannot bear the thought of the thief looking at you, wanting you, touching you … .”
    “You forget yourself.” Each word slashed like an icy razor. Bombatta took a step back, then slowly sank to his knees, head bent.
    “Forgive me,” he muttered. “But this Conan cannot be trusted. He is an outlander, a thief.”
    “Fool! The scrolls say that Jehnna must be accompanied by a thief with eyes the color of the sky. There is not another such in Shadizar, perhaps not in all of Zamora. You will do as I have commanded you. You will follow the instruction of the scrolls exactly. Exactly, Bombatta.”
    “As you command,” he murmured, “so do I obey.”
    Taramis touched his head, much as she might fondle the head of one of her wolfhounds. “Of course, Bombatta.” She felt flushed with victory, for it certainly would come now. The Horn of Dagoth would be hers. Immortality and power would be hers. The knowledge sent sparks through her, and flashes of heat that coiled in her belly. Her hand trembled on Bombatta’s black hair. She took a deep breath. “Rest assured that all will occur as I have planned, Bombatta. Now return to your chambers and sleep. Sleep, and dream of our triumph.”
    Unmoving on his knees, Bombatta watched her go, his obsidian eyes glittering in the dark.

    Conan got to his feet as Taramis entered the bedchamber. “Your niece?” he asked.
    “She is better. She sleeps.” The voluptuous noblewoman raised a hand, and the ebon-clad guards marched from the room without a word. “Do you sleep, thief, or are you awake? It is late, and you would talk of my niece.” Folds of diaphanous silk moved as she walked, showing flashes of bare skin beneath.
    The Cimmerian eyed her doubtfully. With a serving girl or even a rich merchant’s daughter, he would have been certain what she meant. With a princess he was unsure.
    “Are you still a man?” she laughed. “Has mourning for your beloved Valeria unmanned you?”
    Conan growled. He knew he could not explain to Taramis what had stood and did stand between Valeria and himself. He was not sure he had it entirely clear in his own mind. But of one thing he was sure. “I am a man,” he said.
    Taramis’ hands went to her neck. Black silk cascaded to pool about her feet. There was challenge in her dark eyes, and her rounded nudity. “Prove it,” she taunted.
    Disdaining the bed, Conan bore her to the floor and gave the proofs she asked.

v
     
    C onan stared into the fire of dried dung—small, so as to attract no unwanted attention from others who might be spending the night on the Zamoran plain—and thought briefly of