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mourned, “twenty pieces of gold!”
    “Look at it this way, Conan: I saved you from durance vile and doubtless a lot worse.”
    “Both of which still loom,” Conan said in a low growl, “if we don’t get ourselves out of this city—and this kingdom!”
    The two men stood alone on a darkened street, at their feet an overturned keg and a jumbled assortment of weaponry. The dark eyes of Khassek gazed into the sullen blue ones of the barbarian. Khassek said, “We?”
    Conan turned and began walking; Khassek swung along at his side.
    “Damn,” Conan said quietly, thoughtfully. “Ajhindar was a good man, one I liked at once. He was devoted to his khan and his mission, to the point of risking his life: he tried to slay me even after he had seen my skill and strength! Also after I had just saved his skin. A bit treacherous, but all for his ruler. Now you too have risked your life to aid me, Khassek of Iranistan… because, of course, you don’t know where that amulet is. All for your khan! I think that I would meet a khan who has such loyalty from two such good men.”
    “He will be interested in meeting you too, my friend with hands the size of hams! Good, then. Two such men as we can get out of Shadizar, surely, even though all three gates will be watched. Let us to it.”
    They walked deeper into Shadizar’s Desert.
    “Oh—Conan. Do you have the amulet?”
    Conan chuckled. “I know where it is. I buried it between here and Zamboula, on the desert.”
    “Damn,” Khassek said, and took his hand off his dagger.
* * * * * * *
    Hours later, the three men in charge of Shadizar’s Gate of the Black Throne watched the approach of a mounted pair. Astride two handsome horses, the woman and her young son led two others, well laden. She reined in to stare down at the uniformed man beside the wheel; it turned the cable and heavy chain that raised the enormous bar across the two gates.
    “Well, open up. No use guarding on this side; I want out, not in.”
    “My dear,” a voice said, and she looked up at another uniform. Its owner peered down at her from the arched, narrow doorway of the watchtower. “I am a man of feeling and sensibilities, and would not sleep well did I not warn you against leaving the city at this hour.”
    “Thank you. You are a good man. We are going. It is a holy mission.”
    “A pilgrimage?”
    “Aye. My son and I serve the temple of Holy Khosatra Khel Rehabilitated and Twice Established, Lord of All, the Father of Mitra, Ishtar, and Bel.”
    “A busy and doubtless venerable god, my dear, but… surely the sensible person waits until dawn, at least. Mayhap then you could join other such dedicated pilgrims, peradventure even a caravan, the ultimate protection. Here you are in the bosom of the capital of mighty Zamora.
Out there
…” He trailed off with a gesture to indicate that naught but peril and travail lay outside the Gate of the Black Throne of Erlik, in Shadizar.
    The cloaked woman, who was hardly ill-formed, spoke up stoutly. “I fear the world outside, even the desert, far less than I do this city of thieves and woman-beaters and wicked wicked cults dedicated to gods no one ever heard of or wants to! Let us through, please. We depart.”
    “Would that I had the power to prevent your taking so peril-fraught a step,” the gate commander said.
    “Well, I appreciate it. But you have not, and I am going and my son with me, and my neck is getting stiff looking up at you. If you are not going to open the gate, would you please tell me where I go to complain?”
    “It lacks only a bit more than two glasses until dawn…”
    The woman burst out, “What do I have to do or say to get
out of here
?”
    The man in the tower sighed. “Open the gate.”
    A man grunted, chain rattled, and the bar rose. The gate creaked. A strong-willed woman, her silent son, and four horses passed out of Shadizar. She never kicked her mount or so much as jiggled the reins. The horses only plodded, steadily