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The white shamans, father and daughter alike, were abandoning the Picts. There would be no
blood-sacrifice of the Cimmerian Conan and the demon-men, nor even of one of the Picts, to bring the
statue to invincible life. Scyra intended that she and her father should flee, deserting the Picts, leaving the
Owls at war with the Snakes as well as with the demon-men.
The demon-men were few, but they might have powers Sutharo did not know of, and he did know
that the Cimmerian was even more formidable than most of his folk.
. "So what is your command, Vurag Yan?" Sutharo asked. He did not know if the chakan could
send a message to the shaman as well as bear one from him, but he thought it best to discover that for
himself.
After a moment, a reply passed through the chakan into Sutharo's mind: "See that the
blood-sacrifice is Conan and his band. With enough of such strong blood, even I can bring the
statue to life and command it!."
It was the first hint of modesty that Sutharo had ever heard in the shaman. He resisted laughter. He
also considered the wisdom of bargaining, and decided that it was necessary, if not wise.
"Scyra remains with me."
"You still wish to wed her? Your sons will have tainted "
"I will have more sons of purer blood than you ever will, you old woodsrat! I wish to
command her father and Conan through holding her. Much they might do against me could put
her in danger, as long as I hold her. Or can you protect me against Lysenius, Conan, and the
Snakes all at once?"
"You are defiant and disobedient, Sutharo."
"I lead the warriors who are here now, and whom you will need to finish your work. You
need me as much as I need you, Vurag Yan."
The chakan moaned in outright pain; apparently the shaman's wrath at this reply hurt. Sutharo
waited, but the night returned to silence, both within his mind and outside his body.
He looked up the hill. It would not be an easy matter, breaking into the cave against the Cimmerian
and the demon-men. It would cost warriors' lives. Sutharo hoped it would not cost so many that the
Snakes came and finished off those left before Vurag Yan or the warriors left behind could help him.
If it could be done, though& the praise-songs would be without end for the warrior who gave the
Picts vengeance for their wrongs, and raised the Owls to the highest place among all the folk of the
wilderness. Vurag Yan would no doubt try to seize all the glory himself, but there would be enough who
knew about Sutharo to give him his share, too many for the shaman to silence.
He sent messengers to summon his underchiefs. They had best move swiftly, before the enemy had
time to regain strength, or worse, to summon any magick from within the cave.
***
The captured Snake Pict was dead when Conan dragged him into the cave mouth. The Owl Pict
was senseless and never awoke enough to speak. Before long, he too died. The Bamulas began to
mutter among themselves, fearing the spirits of the dead might walk if the Picts' bodies remained among
them.
After all that the band had survived on its journey thus far, Conan thought Pictish ghosts were hardly
worth a child's concern. He did not say so, however. Instead, he nodded.
"Let us take them far back into the cave, so its magick will bind the ghosts."
"What if it makes them stronger?" Kubwande asked. To do him justice, he now seemed less
calculating than half witless from fear. Conan did not altogether find fault in that here they were close to
treading on the shadows of the gods, or even of less friendly beings& as Conan had sworn to Belit he
would not do.
But what a man did for himself was one thing, and what he was ready to do for those who had
followed him so far and so bravely was another.
"If the magick of the cave was our enemy, it would have struck us down by now. It cannot be a
friend to Pictish ghosts. But if you wish, someone can come with me to perform the Bamula spirit-binding
on these Picts. It should at least give their spirits too much of a headache for them to come bothering us."
It was Bowenu who stepped forward, even before Govindue, about the last man Conan had
expected to volunteer. This was as well. The two lesser chiefs could watch each other, and Bowenu
could hardly be a danger to him. Each of the two lifted a body and set out down the tunnel into the hill.
The corridor ran level for some distance, perhaps fifty paces. Then it sloped gently downward,
widening as it did. Conan thought he saw weathered reliefs of serpentine shapes on the walls, like
decorations in a temple of Set, but not quite the same. Or mayhap they were just natural patterns in the
rock and he was seeing what was not there. Too much magick and not enough wine for too long could
set a man's fancies in a whirl.
At last they rounded a corner and reached a point where the tunnel both widened and rose into a
domed chamber. The rock of the walls, a grayish-purple under the witchlight, was too smooth to be
wholly natural, but quite undecorated. Dust lay thick, except for a circle about a spear-length wide in the
middle of the chamber, which might have been swept and sponged only moments before.
In the middle of the circle rose a statue. If it was life-size, its subject had been taller and broader
even than the giant Cimmerian. It also seemed to have just been thoroughly and lovingly cleaned, and
Conan saw a faint pattern of scales on the skin.
There was something vaguely reptilian about the eyes, and memory chilled Conan. Was this one of
the legendary serpent-men of Valusia? So ancient they had fought with the Atlanteans, they had been
gone even before the long-dead Empire of Acheron rose to wreak its black havoc. But some of their
magick had survived; it was said to lie at the heart of the cult of Set, the Great Serpent.
Conan stepped closer, without venturing into the clean circle. Magick had to be alive here, to make
that circle; he would not tempt fate. He walked around the statue, quieting his own cold doubts, and
wishing that Bowenu would either command his quaking limbs or fall down in a faint. Ancient magick, like
old predators, could scent fear, or so Conan's experience had led him to believe.
Was this a serpent-man? The scales and the eyes said yes. More spoke otherwise. The statue had
the air of an aging mercenary, weary from long and thankless service in liege to succession of close-fisted
masters, yet faithful to his trust and those who followed him. If this was a serpent-man, then there had
been some virtue in at least one of that kind or else a sculptor able to imagine it, which was far from the
same thing. (Once, in Argos, Conan had sat for his portrait. When he saw what the painter had done, he
threw the painting out the window and nearly hurled the painter after it.)
What unsettled Conan most was not what the statue showed. It was the statues very existence. Had
Scyra been treacherous all along, using her mind-touch to guide him and his band to the cave of the
statue her father planned to reanimate? Reanimate as a champion of the Picts, by a blood-sacrifice of
Conan and his band?
The thought made the cave seem even colder than the night outside, and the witchlight harsher.
Conan felt the urge to step into the circle and push the statue from its base. If it toppled and shattered, all
the spells at Lysenius's command could hardly bring it to life
Conan leapt into the circle and threw his full weight against the statue. He might as well have flung
himself against the walls of the cavern. Three times he tried to topple the image, three times he felt nothing
unnatural but gained plenty of natural bruises and scrapes, and three times the statue did not so much as
quiver.
"Conan," Bowenu said at last, "how long will you tempt the gods?"
"Until they're tired of being tempted and either strike me dead or topple this misshapen stone!" the
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