Swords From the West by Harold Lamb Page A

housetops and cried out. High on the palace height a white ball of light shone.
    "The great lantern is lighted. And Barka Khan has come. Akh! He is here now." She clapped her hands eagerly, and the shaggy heads of the Armenians turned toward her fearfully. "0 ye People of the Book," she cried at them, "now there will truly be fighting."
    They looked at her, voiceless with new fear, but Nial made up his mind.
    "Take me to this khan of thine," he said.
    "Aye, what else?" Shedda was aglow with hope, and he wondered a little at that. "Now thou art a Tatar, Ni-al, and the khan loves a good swordsman. Come!" And they put their horses to a gallop, for speed was the best safeguard. She explained, "The light is over the dome of the House of Gold, and there the noyons of the Horde will gather at the signal. I know a way into the dome that leads not through any gate. This way!"
    No one tried to halt them because the girl chose narrow streets where only men on foot were seen, and these gave way readily to two galloping horses. When they passed the cemetery, the girl reined in her horse and entered a garden.
    They tied the tired animals in a clump of cypress, and Shedda slipped through the cypresses to the hillside beyond, where white marble appeared in the dark earth.
    "This is a door known to few, only to those who bear the Lion or the Falcon. But that is a thing beyond thy knowing, my lordling." She laughed and pressed against one side of the marble with her hands. "Why, it is open. One has gone in before us. Come, thou."
    Impatiently she caught his hand and led him into darkness, until she paused to feel about the wall on one side.
    "Here should be a lantern. What art thou doing?"
    Nial was cutting the cord that secured the paizah about his neck. He cast the bronze tablet into the mouth of the passage behind him.
    "I threw away a cord that might have strangled me."
    The girl's soft fingers touched his face and felt for his arm.
    "We must be quick. Here is dry flax and steel and flint. Canst thou make it light?"
    Sheathing his sword, Nial took the implements and began to strike sparks. He was rid of the paizah, and his Tatar dress could cause no harm now if he were brought into the House of Gold by this girl who knew the secret of the hill passage. When the flax broke into flame, she held out a hand lamp, shaking it to make sure there was oil in it, and lighted the wick.
    "Now we will find the khan," she promised, smiling.
    And when Shedda smiled, with her veil thrown back over the red-gold mass of her hair, she was lovely beyond belief. Excitement brightened her clear eyes and brought the color into her cheeks.
    "Aye, lead the way."
    But Shedda laughed, running ahead, the scent of flowers hanging in the air behind her. Nial had to quicken his pace to keep up with her.
    The passage ascended steadily, turning often. Its stone walls rumbled faintly with echoes of trampling feet outside. Nial noticed that wet tracks of a man's riding boots went before them. A Tatar wearing high heels had passed that way within the hour.
    "Now are we in the House of Gold," Shedda called to him, "but none can see us. Those who are trusted by the khan come in this way, and only the watchers under the dome know of its inner door. They do not speak."
    Lifting the lamp, she nodded at the massive foundation walls of a square chamber into which the tunnel had led them. From one corner a spiral stair led up, winding into a passage so narrow that Nial had to turn his shoulders to enter. Shedda tripped ahead of him, around turn after turn, until she stopped at a door of heavy wood.
    "We are under the dome," she whispered. "I can hear the noyons talking, so we are safe, 0 my lord of battles."
    Setting down the lamp, she turned to Nial, so close that her fragrant hair brushed his cheek, and her eyes caressed his. Swiftly her parted lips brushed his cheek, and she smiled as if rewarding a child. Then she lifted her hand and struck the bronze knocker upon the door four