She’d stripped wall hangings to stuff even the tiniest light leak, and took it as an omen that the only ray which pierced the darkness pinned the Cimmerian sword to the wall. The dark hilt and pale blade reminded her of her mother, bound to the giant wheel before it had been set ablaze. She stared at it through half-lidded eyes, not daring to catch a full reflection of her face in the metal.

Marique hated herself for thinking it, but she was coming to pity her father. Not that he had become old and infirm, not that he was any less glorious than he had been on the day he completed the mask, but in that his obsession nibbled away at his reason. It blinded him to other possibilities, other realities, and to the potential for destruction that lurked in the world.

She could not imagine how he missed that truth. Her mother had been just as certain of the validity of her path, and look where it had led her. In retrospect, he had fashioned her death into a necessary trial he’d had to endure. He’d reshaped their life together into some sort of mythic journey that forced Maliva to endure time in the grave. It was a challenge that she alone had embraced because it was the only means by which she could grant Khalar Zym the power for which he had been born. He would resurrect Acheron as he would resurrect her.

But he had completely forgotten that this was not the way it had begun. Was he of Acheronian blood? Perhaps. Her mother’s records had been vague on that point. True, he was a princeling—a minor one, and a renegade at that—of Nemedia, and some Acheronian blood did run in his veins. But only so much as a single scratch with one of my talons would drain it. Still, from her mother’s perspective, that had been enough to make him worthy of elevation. The Acheronian heritage truly ran through her, as she sprang from the loins of those who had long inhabited a distant Acheronian outpost. Maliva’s parents had been cast out for doing something so foul that even the Acheronians could not sanction it, and the child they had borne had found in Khalar Zym an ambitious man with a taste for tales dark and arcane.

Though Marique had not been there when the quest began, more than once her mother had confided in her their plans. She and Khalar Zym would piece together the Mask of Acheron. They would use blood to further invigorate it. Through the mask, Maliva would lay claim to the full panoply of eldritch Acheronian sorceries—and her mother imagined that even things long forgotten would be revealed to her in full once she wore the mask. She would have the power. She would be the goddess-empress, and Khalar Zym would rule as her mortal consort.

Yet, when death claimed her, her father had reimagined their plan. Or remembered it as it had been told to him, his beloved wife having never confided the truth to him.

Marique decided that this latter circumstance was the case, lest she be forced to imagine her father a complete fool. While his obsession did delude him, it had not rendered him wholly without genius. He had destroyed the monastery in the Red Wastes, a feat unimaginable to those who knew of its existence. Its sister in Hyrkania would fall to him, too—before or after he found the girl and brought his beloved back to life.

She started down the dark road of imagining her mother’s return—an arduous journey she had often taken and never enjoyed—but a sudden crash from above saved her from such dark thoughts. Something had slammed into the land ship. She bolted from her cabin and up a companionway, slipping past Ukafa’s bulk and into her father’s cabin.

Full sunlight poured through the gaping hole in the deck above. Her father sat on a barbaric-looking throne, clad only in breeches and boots, staring at the stone that had snapped oak planking, but failed to pierce the cabin’s deck. A rope had been wrapped around it, then tied to a man’s ankles, much as a corpse might have been bound before being tossed into the sea. The man’s broken body lay twisted on the deck.

Marique knelt by his head. Death had not made him any more handsome; nor could it have made him any more repellent.

Khalar Zym lifted a finger. “Do not bother, Marique. I know who it is.”

She teased a slender strip of cloth from between Remo’s lips and drew it out slowly, like a fakir producing a silk for wide-eyed children. It matched the color of the female monks’ robes, save where blood had been used to write upon it. Even before she recognized the first word, Marique could feel the power. She wanted to taste the writing, just to be able to savor it, even though that act would tell her nothing new.

“It’s her, Father, the one you seek.”

It took a moment for him to tear his gaze away from the mask and focus upon Marique. He showed no enthusiasm, no haste; more a languid sense of ennui than anything else. “Of course.”

The girl stood, stretching the cloth out between her hands. “There is a message, in her blood.”

His eyes closed and his head tilted back, his face a serene mask. “Yes.”

“ ‘I have the woman. The Shaipur outpost. You have two days. Come alone.’ ”

Nothing in her recitation had mattered until those last two words. Khalar Zym’s eyes snapped open. “ ‘Come alone’ ?”

“Yes, Father.” She held the strip of cloth in the sunlight so he could read it.

Khalar Zym sat forward, elbows on knees, hands on chin, and for the first time in too long, his eyes sharpened as if he had awakened from a dream. “ ‘Come alone.’ She has a protector. Not one of the monks, but a new player. Remo must have told him how I valued her, yet he demands no ransom. Who, Marique, would dare? One of the Hyrkanian monks would have whisked her away and left Remo tacked to a tree as a warning. And if it were those who slew your mother, they would have killed her, then fallen upon us to destroy the mask.”

Khalar Zym looked up past her to Ukafa. “Stop our advance. I wish to see the place from which this stone was hurled.”

The Kushite bowed his head in a salute. “As you desire, Master.”

Khalar Zym smiled. “Prepare yourself, daughter. What we shall find will be unique.”

“Yes, Father?”

“Yes. A very foolish man has injected himself into a game fit for gods.” Khalar Zym’s eyes narrowed. “A bold move, but his last, and one certain to end in pain.”

The Cimmerian shook his head. “I am not simple, Tamara. Had I wanted gold, I could have sold you to Khalar Zym and saved myself a long ride with a chittering companion.”

She hissed at his rebuke. “But you cannot believe he will come to the outpost alone. Even if you are able . . .”

Conan shot her a hot glance.

“Your pardon . . . even when you slay him, that will not stop his subordinates or cause his raiders to disband. From the pass, you saw the troops who travel with him.”

The Cimmerian shook his head. “I care not about his minions, though I have had the measure of two of them. They are cowards who only grow bold in his shadow. When he is dead, their courage will drain with his blood. My desire is to stop him.”

She cocked her head and pressed a hand between her breasts. “You could do that by killing me.”

Conan reined back, stopping, and fixed her with a harsh stare. “A civilized man might consider that course. I will not. I do not know if you are the last person of the Acheronian line. I do not care. Khalar Zym’s ambition resides in his breast. When I split his skull, when I still his heart, when I smash that mask . . . then it will be over.”

“Until then, I am but bait?”

Conan laughed and started riding forward again. “I saw you fight, woman. Khalar Zym sees you as bait. Your master made you more than that.”

“And how do you see me, Conan?”

“As more.” The Cimmerian smiled in a manner which irritated her. “I have a plan. In it, you are my silent ally.”

Her father studied the footprint keenly, a hunter assessing spoor. It had been forever since she had seen that in him, and it pleased Marique no end. Khalar Zym glanced down and back at the much broader shelf a dozen feet below where she waited with the others. A trail led back around the promontory to a small valley in which they’d already discovered traces of a campsite and more footprints. Her father nodded slowly, then stood.

“He is a tall man, and heavy. Very strong.” Khalar Zym pointed at the path he’d taken to ascend to the ledge. “He climbed up here with Remo over his shoulder. I imagine he broke Remo’s neck before carrying him, but he’s a very good climber. Born in the mountains, no doubt.”

A thrill ran through her. Cimmeria is full of mountains. She bent, finding another of the footprints, but a swirling zephyr vanished it before she could touch the track. She listened for whispers, but caught only the hiss of the wind.

Khalar Zym opened his arms and raised his face to the sun. “I wish, Marique, your mother was here. I shall bring her, once she is back. From here I can look down to see the instrument of our victory, and out to see the world that will be ours.”

“Yes, Father.”

He looked down at her. “Have you more sense of the woman, Marique?”

“Yes, Father.” Marique pointed toward the hidden camp. “She slept there. Remo, too, and apart. Their essence yet resides where they bedded down.”

“And what of her protector?”

“You read more in his tracks than I can read in his essence, Father. She has powerful blood. Remo reeked of hedge wizardry meant to cure his many ills; but the man, nothing. Other than lingering impressions of hot curses uttered in the name of a cold, uncaring god, nothing.”

Khalar Zym leaped down to her level—a dangerous maneuver, but one he dared, certain as he was of his destiny. “What would your mother tell me of him, Marique?”

She would miss even the tracks in the dust, Father. The girl shook her head. “Far more than I could, Father. She would express caution.”

Khalar Zym’s expression shifted to an impassive mask. “She would not doubt me, Marique . . . as you apparently do.”

“No, Father, no.” Marique immediately dropped to her knees and kissed his boots. “She loved you as do I. Caution is only that you should not waste your valuable energies to capture the girl. Please, let me do it for you, to prove my love. I will bring her to you, I will.”

“I am certain you would, Marique. And I do love you for that.” Her father chuckled lightly. “But the challenge was issued to me. I have no intention of going alone, but I will go. I must see with my own eyes the man who would presume to command me. But fear not, daughter mine, for your love endears you to me; and for that reason, I grant you the honor of being at my side.”