Roland Green - Conan The Valiant

"Oh, you will find little to complain of in my companion," Conan said. "Perhaps the flux he had last year is returning. We shall doubtless learn soon enough. If you have any potions—"

"Oh, we know how to ease the flux," Achmai said. His smile did not reach his eyes. "We also know how to cure liars and fools."

"You will not need those cures tonight," Conan said, with an ease he did not altogether feel. Erlik take the woman, what is she planning? Or have the wits to plan deserted her now, of all times ?

"I hope not," Achmai said. "Dessa has given us all too much pleasure, to have the evening end in a quarrel."

Dessa had indeed given pleasure. Conan began to doubt that returning the girl to her betrothed was going to be half as simple as he'd expected.

Dessa knew the power her dancing gave her over men. Knew it and savored it like fine wine. Conan could not imagine her putting all that behind her to settle down as the wife of a clerk and the mother of a pack of squalling brats.

Well, that was Massouf's problem. Conan had his own, a well-formed one named Illyana. Where had that magic-wielding wench taken herself, and how long would it take before Achmai sent his men in search of her?

At least Dessa was still dancing. If Achmai ordered his men out of the hall before she stopped, he'd have a mutiny on his hands!

Dessa's dancing now grew slower, as her strength at last began to flag. She knelt, swaying her torso back and forth until it was almost level and her breasts rose almost straight up. Her belly rippled, her arms curved and recurved, her bells made wicked music, and the light gleamed still brighter as sweat joined the oil on her skin.

At last she found the strength to execute a final somersault. She landed on her back, feet resting on the high table. Achmai pushed a cup of wine between them. The long toes curled, then gripped. Slowly, without spilling a drop, Dessa rocked back on her haunches. Still more slowly, using her hands only for_ balance, she brought the cup to her lips. Silence as thick as a fog on the Vilayet Sea filled the room.

Then the silence shattered, as the door guards sprang aside and Illyana returned.

She returned with the glamour upon her, so that she seemed as she had when first Conan saw it. He was proof against the surprise that stunned every man in the room.

He was not proof against the sensuality wafting like perfume from Illyana's magical image. No woman he had ever bedded had so heated his blood. He gulped wine, and found it odd that the wine did not boil in his throat!

All this, with Illyana only standing in the doorway. To be sure, she was clad only in a gilded loinguard and a silver ring about her red hair, from which flowed a long red veil. Firm young breasts with rouged nipples, a faintly curved belly, legs that seemed to go on without end—all lay bare to the eye, all glowed with oil or magic or both.

"You rogue!" Achmai growled. He seemed to be having difficulty breathing, for it was some moments before he could say more. Then he added, "Were you traveling with that ?"

"Kindly refer to the woman as her ," Conan said with a broad grin. "Or do you think she is some wizard's creation?"

"Ah—well, there's magic in her, more than in most women. But—to think of hiding her!"

"Does a wise man show a purse of gold to a band of robbers?"

Achmai was too bemused by Illyana to reply for a moment. Conan used that moment to study the room. If Illyana truly needed her maidenhood to work her magic, she'd best have ready to hand either mighty spells or a fleet pair of heels.

"Such a woman—it's an insult to compare her to gold," Achmai said at last. Something seemed to be stuck in his throat. He was trying to clear it with wine when Illyana began dancing.

Clearly there was only Illyana's own suppleness and skill under the glamouring. She did not vie with Dessa in somersaults and other feats. Nor did any music follow her, except the beat of the drum when the drummer stopped gaping like a thirsty camel.

Instead she whirled across the floor, her feet moving too fast for even Conan's eye to follow. She wove a complex path among the rugs, over and around the piles, swaying from head to toe like a blade of grass in a spring breeze. Her head swung from side to side, tossing the veil. Not that it concealed anything even in those rare moments when it hung straight.

Conan felt his head pounding with more than the fire in his blood and the beat of the drum. He turned his wine cup mouth down and searched for Dessa. She stood by the doorway, ignoring one of the guards' arms resting lightly across her shoulders. She stared at Illyana with the look of a barely-fledged journeyman watching a master display her art.

Now Illyana bent down, one leg thrust out gracefully for balance, swaying as she gripped a rug. A howl of outrage rose as she lifted the rug and wrapped it around herself from neck to knees. Then it died as she whirled across the room again.

Far from concealing her movements, the thick rug seemed to make them more provocative. Crimson and wine patches leaped like flames under the thrust of hips and breasts.

A spearlike thrust of Illyana's head cast the veil aside. It floated across the hall as if a breeze blew it. Conan knew magic lifted it. No one else knew or cared. Tables tilted, spilling their loads, or toppled entirely as men leaped for the veil. A half-score reached it in the same moment. Without drawing steel, they rent it into a piece for each man.

Or had the veil rent itself, before the men reached it? Conan could not have sworn one way or the other.

Illyana now essayed a somersault. The rug stayed almost in place. Magic, of a certainty. Again Conan saw none who seemed to either understand or care.

The headring leaped free of Illyana's flame-hued hair. It rolled across the floor, chiming with an insistent, maddening music, avoiding all the rugs. It rolled almost to Achmai's feet before anyone thought to catch it.

Before any could move, Achmai's hand snatched up the ring. Conan noted the sureness and grace of the man's movement. He would still be clear of wit and swift of sword if matters came to a fight.

Then everyone surged to his feet as Illyana cast off the rug and the loinguard in the same movement. The rug rolled itself up as it crossed the floor. The loinguard flew like an arrow to Conan's outthrust hand.

"Cimmerian, my friend," Achmai said. "I offer you and your—friend—a place in my service. Now, next year, five years from now. What me gods allow me to give you, you shall have!

"Only—that woman..I want her for a night. Just one night. By all that either of us holds sacred, I will not force her or hurt her. No other shall so much as give her an unseemly look—"

"I call you friend too," Conan said, laughing. "But I also call you mad, if you think your men will cast no longing looks. Indeed, the lady would be much offended if they did otherwise. Only promise what the gods will allow you to do, and one thing more."

"Anything—if the gods allow it," Achmai said, without taking his eyes from Illyana's sinuous writhings.

She now lay on the rugs, describing a serpentine path toward the high table.

"Dessa, for tonight."

For a moment both wine and desire left Achmai's eyes and a shrewd bargainer looked out at Conan. Then the man nodded.

"As you wish." He clapped his hands. The guard removed his arm from Dessa's shoulder, patted her, and gave her a little shove. She strode across the room, head high, too proud to show that she knew every man's eye was on Illyana.

"Tonight, be a friend to this new friend of mine," Achmai said. "I did not think you found him unpleas-ing, and certainly no man ever found you so."

"As you wish, my lord," Dessa said, with a smile that widened as she saw Conan now had eyes only for her. "Since it is no secret that this is my wish too…"