"Yes."
He didn't like the way she said that. "Listen, my name is Hugh Starke.
I'm an Earthman. This isn't Conan's brain come back. This is a new
deal. I got shoved into this body. What it did before I got it I don't
know, and I'm not responsible."
Faolan said, "He doesn't remember Falga. He doesn't remember the
longships at the bottom of the sea." Faolan laughed.
Romna said quietly, "He didn't kill you, though. He could have, easily.
Would Conan have spared you?"
Beudag said, "Yes, if he had a better plan. Conan's mind was like a
snake. It crawled in the dark, and you never knew where it was going to
strike."
Starke began to tell them how it happened, the chain swinging idly in
his hand. While he was talking he saw a face reflected in a polished
shield hung on a pillar. Mostly it was just a tangled black mass of
hair, mounted on a frame of long, harsh, jutting bone. The mouth was
sensuous, with a dark sort of laughter on it. The eyes were yellow. The
cruel, brilliant yellow of a killer hawk.
Starke realized with a shock that the face belonged to him.
"A woman with pale green hair," said Beudag softly. "Rann," said
Faolan, and Romna's harp made a sound like a high-priest's curse.
"Her people have that power," Romna said. "They can think a man's soul
into a spider, and step on it."
"They have many powers. Maybe Rann followed Conan's mind, wherever it
went, and told it what to say, and brought it back again."
"Listen," said Starke angrily. "I didn't ask...."
Suddenly, without warning, Romna drew Beudag's sword and threw it at
Starke.
Starke dodged it. He looked at Romna with ugly yellow eyes. "That's
fine. Chain me up so I can't fight and kill me from a distance." He
did not pick up the sword. He'd never used one. The chain felt better,
not being too different from a heavy belt or a length of cable, or the
other chains he'd swung on occasion.