Men were dying outside the hall, and not dying silently. Faolan's skin
was greasy with sweat. He made a sudden, darting grab toward Romna.
Romna dodged him. There were tears in his pale eyes. He said brutally,
"You'd only be in the way. Sit down."
"I can find the point," Faolan said, "to fall on it."
Romna's voice went up to a harsh scream. "Shut up. Shut up and sit
down."
Faolan caught the edge of the table and bent over it. He shivered and
closed his eyes, and the tears ran out hot under the lids. The bard
turned away, and his harp cried out like a woman.
Faolan drew a long sighing breath. He straightened slowly, came round
the carved high seat, and walked steadily toward Starke.
"You're very quiet, Conan," he said. "What's the matter? You ought to
be happy, Conan. You ought to laugh and rattle your chain. You're going
to get what you wanted. Are you sad because you haven't a mind any
more, to understand that with?"
He stopped and felt with one sandaled foot across the straw until he
touched Starke's thigh. Starke lay motionless.
"Conan," said the blind man gently, pressing Starke's belly with his
foot. "Conan the dog, the betrayer, the butcher, the knife in the back.
Remember what you did at Falga, Conan? No, you don't remember now. I've
been a little rough with you, and you don't remember any more. But I
remember, Conan. As long as I live in darkness, I'll remember."
* * * * *
Romna stroked the harp strings and they wept, savage tears for strong
men dead of treachery. Low music, distant but not soft. Faolan began to
tremble, a shallow animal twitching of the muscles. The flesh of his
face was drawn, iron shaping under the hammer. Quite suddenly he went
down on his knees. His hands struck Starke's shoulders, slid inward to
the throat, and locked there.
Outside, the sound of fighting had died away.
Starke moved, very quickly. As though he had seen it and knew it was
there, his hand swept out and gathered in the slack of the heavy chain
and swung it.
It started out to be a killing blow. Starke wanted with all his heart
to beat Faolan's brains out. But at the last second he pulled it,
slapping the big man with exquisite judgment across the back of the
head. Faolan grunted and fell sideways, and by that time Romna had come
up. He had dropped his harp and drawn a knife. His eyes were startled.
Starke sprang up. He backed off, swinging the slack of the chain
warningly. His new body moved magnificently. Outside everything was
fine, but inside his psycho-neural setup had exploded into civil war.
He was furious with himself for not having killed Faolan. He was
furious with himself for losing control enough to want to kill a man
without reason. He hated Faolan. He did not hate Faolan because he
didn't know him well enough. Starke's trained, calculating, unemotional
brain was at grips with a tidal wave of baseless emotion.
He hadn't realized it was baseless until his mental monitor,
conditioned through years of bitter control, had stopped him from
killing. Now he remembered the woman's voice saying, _My mind will be
with yours, I'll guide you...._
Catspaw, huh? Just a hired hand, paid off with a new body in return for
two lives. Yeah, two. This Beudag, whoever he was. Starke knew now what
that cold alien emotion had been leading up to.
"Hold it," said Starke hoarsely. "Hold everything. _Catspaw! You
green-eyed she-devil! You picked the wrong guy this time._"
Just for a fleeting instant he saw her again, leaning forward with her
hair like running water across the soft foam-sparkle of her shoulders.
Her sea-pale eyes were full of mocking laughter, and a direct,
provocative admiration. Starke heard her quite plainly:
"You may not have any choice, Hugh Starke. They know Conan, even if
you don't. Besides, it's of no great importance. The end will be the
same for them--it's just a matter of time. You can save your new body
or not, as you wish." She smiled. "I'd like it if you did. It's a good
body. I knew it, before Conan's mind broke and left it empty."