Stepping alluringly from behind one of the numerous stone outcroppings proceeded one of the most beautiful women either man had ever beheld. Her eyes sparkled as sun beams from beneath a mass of hair that was a veritable forest fire of red locks. Scantily clad, her white limbs were as purest marble for whiteness while her breasts were revealed to rosy tips which looked as firm as fresh picked berries.
"Gods, girl, where did you come from?" Conan asked.
But Yrdihz, although his eyes helplessly devoured her with the same relish his mouth might have a freshly grilled deer haunch, took umbrage at her comment. "I am no more a vagabond. He asked you a question, girl: what do you here?"
Her eyes were a vivid green, as green as fresh spring fields. They never left Conan's as her lips parted to make answer. "I saw horsemen taking the trail from my hut near the foot of the mountain; I followed. No one comes here. Arriving, I saw no one, but then I heard your voices just now, proceeding from yon cave. Did you find that for which you ventured to this barren place?"
Conan nodded his head. "I did, indeed. Come, girl, we'll accompany you to your hut. Mayhap we'll have a bite to eat to warm our marrow bones before we ride for Greshahla."
The girl seemed to have eyes only for the barbarian. Approaching, she laid a hand upon his broad chest. "And what is in Greshahla for one of such repute as thou?"
Yrdihz was staring at the girl's beauty, which was mesmerizing. Yet, for all her allure, to find a woman of such beauty wandering icy mountain tops in such a state was peculiar. A second-story man and a cutthroat, his suspicions were aroused. "I recall no hut. And where's your horse, girl?"
As though with great reluctance, the girl slowly turned her gaze upon the thief. Yrdihz found himself gazing into twin pools of spellbinding, liquid jade. For pure beauty he had never seen their equal. Across their fluid surface tiny gray clouds raced in entrancing reflection of the tumultuous sky. Her lips, redder than a thousand setting suns, parted to reveal teeth so white they were nearly translucent along the edges.
"You are one with a curious nature, Yrdihz of Hyrkania, Son of Zhaidak," she purred. "Many years have passed since you stole the bow for the theft of which your father lost his hand. Yet, still you wear that gauntlet covering your left wrist—as a reminder."
After she finished speaking, Yrdihz glanced at Conan. Her words were icy, barbed hooks in the Hyrkanian's heart. His chest rose and fell rapidly, crimson raced up his neck into his face. To further his guilt, Conan, his eyes hard as adamantine, heaped further condemnation upon him.
"You allowed your father be punished for your theft? I thought you a brave man, Yrdihz; it seems I find myself in the company of a thief and a coward."
Yrdihz stammered when he started to speak. His mind was suddenly a jumble of confusion and shame. "No! She lies!" he denied.
"Does she, Yrdihz? Your face is flushed, yet it's cold enough on this mountain top to freeze blood into ice." The Cimmerian placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Get out of my sight. I've kept company with thieves and slayers, but I'll not abide a gutless coward."
Mumbling, unable to speak, Yrdihz staggered away, tears streaming down his flushed face, tears that froze in his beard.
"We're better off without that fainthearted weakling, King Conan," the girl said silkily once he was gone. She stood at his side, one hand upon one of his massive arms while with the other she turned his face toward hers. "Let us descend the mountain, my king; my hut awaits! Have you the stone?"
"I'd give my kingdom to spend a single minute in your hut!" the barbarian cried passionately, his eyes staring. "Yes, I have the stone, although the taking of it was more difficult that I'd imagined. If it hadn't been for Yrdihz—a shame the man turned out to be a spineless twit."
"Fortunate it was, then, you discovered it before he could inveigle himself in your good graces—"
The arrow, sped from the rocky path taken by Yrdihz, embedded itself deeply in the girl's left breast, the quarrel sped with such force it protruded a hand's breadth out her back. She cried out. Conan caught her, easing her failing form to the icy ground.
"What—" he exclaimed. Turning, he espied the Hyrkanian approaching. "Yrdihz! Son of a mongrel! Your father's won't be the only hand lopped off at the wrist. I'll dismember you until you're nothing more than a torso, which grisly thing I'll then topple off this mountain with a kick of my foot. Now draw steel!"
"Conan—wait!" the man cried. He held a hand up to forestall the enraged barbarian. But Conan was not to be stopped. Lunging forward, he executed a vicious swipe that, had it connected, would have cut the Hyrkanian in-half.
"Enough words," he yelled. "Fight!"
"Conan, listen to me!" Yrdihz deflected two blows from the Cimmerian's blade, grunting as he did so from the sheer force behind the blade of the King of Aquilonia. He didn't return the strokes but only parried to guard himself. "You're bewitched, you great, lumbering fool! I only told that story to one man and I was drunk or I wouldn't have done so. I warned him if he ever mentioned it, I'd kill him . . . and I now have. That man was Forba. Look for yourself!"
"You're crazy!" Conan shouted, staggering. He shut his eyes, blinking hard. Something seemed important that he was forgetting, something he could not recall. The point of his sword fell to the frozen stone with a clink. "What in hell, Yrdihz? Why am I so dizzy of a sudden?"
Warily, the Hyrkanian approached, sheathing his scimitar as he did so. "Don't strike me," he said. Stepping to just in front of Conan, he looked up at the massive tower of flesh and bone that was this mighty man of myth. "Gods, you're a hothead. I believe it now when they say the bigger they are, the harder they fall. You fell for her hook, line and sinker, you big oaf."
"Careful," Conan said, opening his eyes which were beginning to clear. "I'm still king."
Together they walked to the crumpled form. Rolling it over, they beheld a blurring image, somewhere between the mountain girl and—Forba! Slowly it resolved until it took the form of a serpent man. Conan and Yrdihz each cursed.
"It seems we were both fooled," the thief ripped. "This man has rode with me for months!"
The eyes of the serpent man opened. "For the first time in centuries your kind looks upon me as I really am."
"Who are you?" Conan asked. "Why have you done this? Why the masquerade?"
His eyes half-closed, the serpent allowed a sneer to cross his face. "You could not pronounce my name if I told you. Suffice to say, I was a servant in the household of the mage who founded this place. But ancient I have become. So old, I felt my death creeping upon me. For centuries I sought the green gem to restore youth and vitality. Years ago, I heard rumors of the missing atlas that showed the location where Xotaolaianx secreted the hoard, that selfish fiend—the same map your Gallardo discovered and sought to bring to you. I didn't count on him discovering the dagger, as well."
"Why didn't you steal the map and come here yourself?" Conan wondered.
"I was a servant, not a warrior. I feared the wardens. Only a sorcerer may command them. I only joined a band of thieves out of desperation. You saw what the outer guardian did to the man. And the ghosts of the mirror—summoned with ancient sorcery, they guard the talismans of power of which mankind knows naught. I had hoped to sneak in and plunder the gem while the guardians were busy with Yrdihz and his men. But I became fearful at the last and couldn't make myself enter, so I slipped into a side passage."
Yrdihz squatted beside the dying snake man. He gestured toward the dark entrance that led into the bowels of the mountain. "Whence came the hoard, Forba?"
"Xotaolaianx, after a century of compiling tokens of power from our dwindling kingdom, smuggled those items he collected to this place. Together with two others who were his equals in the dark arts, they cast powerful spells to fashion guardians to defend the lore until such time as our kind gained supremacy over mankind."
"One of the three must have taken the dagger of the green stone when they left this place, the dagger being a token of power in and of itself. Xotaolaianx retained the map–the chart your wizard, Melkronias, called the Atlas of the Serpent Men. It was this which was to lead our kind back into power after humanity had forgotten us."
The two men stood there, watching as the serpent man's life ebbed out. Each knew it was within Conan's power, with the use of the stone, to save him. Yet each knew he would not. At the last his face grew gruesome, indeed, his slitted eyes at last rolling upward beneath his scaly, wrinkled brow.
"Crom," Conan muttered. "They're a strange race—nearly as strange in death as they are in life."
"Who can understand the serpent people? They were sent here by angry gods in the long ago to destroy us," claimed Yrdihz. "Come, my king, let us leave this place."
They left Forba where he lay and started down the stony path. Not far distant they came upon the Hyrkanian's roan. It was from his mount that Yrdihz had retrieved his bow after discovering the horse alone on the path when he fled, ensorcelled by Forba's accusations. Further down the mountain they found Forba's mount, grazing from grass protruding out of freshly fallen snow. Tying the horse to a lead they resumed the trail south.