Conan the Barbarian by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter Page B

dragon? There are no windows on the lower floors.”
    “I have my means,” said Subotai, “though my friend is less prepared. And who, good wench, are you?”
    “I am Valeria,” she answered shortly.
    Subotai gasped. “Not the Valeria?”
    As the girl nodded, Conan shot a puzzled glance at his companion.
    “This is a famous lady, Conan. A very queen of thieves, they say. But tell me, lady, where is your band of brigands? You could not mean to dare the serpent’s tower alone.”
    The girl shrugged. “They’re fools and cowards all! Some scared of snakebite; others afraid of the demon Set; all dreading the man called Doom.”
    Conan started at the mention of that name; and sharp-eyed Valeria noticed the tensing of his massive frame.
    “You do not fear that name, Cimmerian. But it means something to you, 1 do think. Those in the tower worship strange gods; are you among them?”
    “They are not my gods, girl,” growled Conan.
    She shrugged and turned her attention to the tower. “Horrors lurk behind those dark walls,” she murmured.
    “And wealth as well,” said Subotai.
    Valeria smiled. “Then you shall go first, little man.”
    In the end it was Conan who first climbed the Tower of the Black Serpent. It took three throws of the grapnel to lodge it securely in the masonry at the tower’s upper rim. Conan tried the slender silken rope and found that it held his weight. Subotai ignored these preparations; he was occupied hooking talon-like steel spikes to his footwear and binding a pair of bronzen hooks about his wrists and lower arms. Then he sank the blades into the mortar between the smooth stones and grinned.
    “I do not trust myself to ropes,” he said. “I will climb my own way.”
    “Suit yourself,” said Conan with a shrug.
    “Less talk,” snapped Valeria. “The wealth of half the world is at our fingertips, and you waste time in useless chatter.”
    With a grunt, Conan began the ascent. Valeria clambered after him, her slender body moving up the wall with effortless agility. Laughing, she looked over her shoulder at the labouring Hyrkanian and asked, “Do you want to live forever?”
    “I’m coming as fast as I can,” panted Subotai, his quiver and bow case bulking like a hump on his back. And muttering to himself, he added, “This woman climbs like a cat, and spits like one, too.”
    Below the climbers, the darkness deepened, but they seldom looked down. Above, the cloud cover was breaking, as fresh winds awoke in the East. The moon glared down at them with its great white eye, as if to expose them for all the world to see. Conan cursed and glanced at the sleeping city stretched below, wearing its lights from bonfire and hearth like a necklace of topaz, gold, and luminescent pearls. He was as high above the empty thoroughfares as any sentinel pacing the towers of the nearby royal palace. The thought made him uneasy, and he quickened his pace.
    Soon he came upon a narrow window, whence shone a pulsating light. Within he heard strange, discordant music and a muffled drumbeat. There came to his ears a faint chorus of hissing voices that did not sound like human whisperings, as sickly-sweet incense made its way to his nostrils. Suddenly, an enormous head reared up in the embrasure. Cold, slit-pupiled eyes stared into Conan’s, while a forked tongue flickered out to taste the air. Conan started back, almost losing his grip upon the rope, until he perceived that a pane of glass separated him from the giant reptile.
    Resuming his climb, Conan reached the parapet. Here the merlons rose from the rim like the points of a crown, and embedded in the mortar were myriads of bright-hued gems that glimmered like frost under the moon’s magnificence and, in the shifting rays, fractured into a thousand tiny rainbows.
    With a sigh, Conan levered himself over the parapet; but as he dropped to the walkway inside the battlement, a huge figure, roughly human in shape but with an apelike length of arm, rushed