Conan the Barbarian Page 10

  “Get out on the parapet,” said Conan, nodding toward the star-decked doorway. “I’ll lop off their heads, one by one, as they reach this platform.”

  “No!” replied Valeria. “Too risky! Let’s go down the tower wall before they cut my rope. But hurry!”

  Soon the three, like flies upon a wall, were holding the rope and backing down the tower’s face, grateful that the setting moon no longer marked their hasty passage.

  All but the Cimmerian had reached the safety of the ground when a hideous face appeared above the battlements, and a knife-wielding, hairy hand slashed at the slender rope that had supported the fugitives’ descent. Seeing the strands begin to part, Conan glanced briefly downward to locate the black surface of the reflecting pool. Reassured, he planted both feet firmly on the tower wall, gave a mighty heave with his strongly muscled legs, and launched himself in mid-air just as the rope gave way. Twisting his lithe body like a falling cat, he plunged, unharmed, into the dark water.

  Valeria laughed as Conan emerged unscathed; and her laughter echoed the angry cries from a growing number of observers on the battlements.

  “Fools!” she explained. “They’ve aided our escape! Now none can descend to hinder our flight from these most foul confines!”

  Chuckling, Subotai coiled the rope and slung it over his shoulder, then followed Conan and Valeria over the garden wall to the anonymity of the darkling city streets.

  VIII

  The Mission

  Fire roared on the stone hearth of a dingy tavern in the Thieves’ Quarter of Shadizar. The pungent smoke that curled, like a lazy cat, against soot-blackened rafters did not dim the rainbow brilliance refracted by the hundred polished facets of the Serpent’s Eye. Three cloaked figures, hunched conspiratorially around the rubiate gem as it lay on the rough oak table, shielded it with their bodies from the casual observation of strangers.

  “By Nergal, but it’s beautiful!” sighed Subotai, as his greedy eyes feasted on the glittering jewel.

  “That it is,” drawled Valeria. She raised her wine goblet to her lips without diverting her attention from the object of her admiration.

  “It had better be beautiful,” growled Conan. “It all but cost the lot of us our lives.”

  Subotai grimaced fastidiously. “Must you awaken sleeping memories?” he asked. “A peril past is a danger best forgotten, as we say in Hyrkania.”

  Nevertheless, the little man began to recount the events which followed their discovery in the temple of the Tower of the Black Serpent. He recalled how they had clambered over the temple garden wall, while others of the cultists, alerted by their brethren upon the battlements, poured forth in a torrent of fury from an unseen door of the obscene place of worship. He reminded his companions of their day of hiding, too fearful of pursuit even to seek food in the local shops, and of how, at last, they made their way, gawking like newcomers to the city, to the lawless quarter whither few honest men or officers of the peace dared to seek out thieves and murderers. Sighing, Subotai squeezed shut his eyes to banish the painful memories. Then opening them, he feasted on the gorgeous gem as on a royal banquet.

  “It was worth it,” he murmured. “Think, Cimmerian, shall we have two dukedoms in Aquilonia, two emirates in Turan, or a pair of adjacent satrapies down in Vendhya? And on what, Lady Valeria, do you expect to spend your share of the fortune from the gem?”

  “First we have to find a buyer for so valuable a jewel,” murmured Valeria, glancing warily about. The tavern was a beehive of red-faced, sweating men, bawling out hoarse songs and thumping their mugs on the rude table-tops, while a naked dancer, her oiled body gleaming in the firelight, undulated to the barbaric rhythm of the music.

  “You had no trouble disposing of the stones you prised from the tower battlements,” observed the little thief, with a meaningful nod at Valeria’s wallet, abulge with gold coinage stamped with the bearded profile of Osric, King of Zamora. The girl, pressing the purse closer to her side, mistrustfully eyed the merrymakers, a crowd of whores, highwaymen, pimps, mercenaries, and off-duty guardsmen.

  “Lower your voice, idiot, before you attract attention,” she snapped, the pupils of her eyes glinting like a pair of daggers.

  Subotai shrugged. A lean-shanked serving boy sidled over, gathering up empty flagons; and the Hyrkanian, nudging the Cimmerian’s knee, caught the boy’s arm.

  “Find us girls, lad, sleek girls with round hips and pointed teats! Having explored the horizons of the world, I now intend to explore the limits of the fleshly pleasures, for which I have waited long—too long.”

  The youth, with a knowing leer, bent to whisper directions in the Hyrkanian’s ear. Conan and Valeria exchanged a long and meaningful look.

  “Well, comrade. I’m off to Madame Ilga’s house for a night of well-earned revelry. What are your plans? And yours, Lady Valeria?”

  “As for the two of us, we have—other plans,” said Conan, gruffly. Subotai grinned, eyeing two pairs of hooded eyes.

  “So, it’s like that, is it? I thought as much! Well, joy to you both, my friends; I now bid you a fond goodnight. Every man has his weakness; I intend to exercise mine assiduously. I leave you to practice your own.”

  Valeria caught his sleeve, as the Hyrkanian lurched unsteadily to his feet, prepared to venture forth into the night. She handed him a portion of the wealth contained in the plump pouch.

  “Be wary, little man! Remember: a man of means has many boon companions, but few true friends.”

  Subotai scoffed at her temerity. “I have killed men before this—men who have had eyes in the backs of their heads, like that monstrosity atop the tower, young Conan! Besides, this gold was far too dearly bought for me to squander it on others’ satisfactions. I intend to spend it entirely on myself!”

  With a careless wave of his hand, the bow-legged man strutted off through the crowd toward the nighted street beyond the tavern door. Conan met Valeria’s thoughtful stare with eyes that burned a volcanic blue. “Let’s seek the comfort of our room, girl.”

  Valeria smiled at the intensity of the barbarian’s desire, for it was every bit as ardent as her own. For a long moment, she fondled the roseate gem in a sensual way, then slipped it into her bosom and followed Conan from the inn.

  A crippled hag led Conan and Valeria into the candlelit interior of a hut, leering at them with a toothless grin. Conan flicked her a small coin, and, bowing, she scurried from the room. The barbarian doffed his tunic as the she-thief unbuckled her belt and body armour.

  Kneeling, Valeria ran her hungry hands over Conan’s naked body. “Tell me,” she breathed, “one thing—only one. When first I saw you, in the shadows, you moved so beautifully—where did you learn to move that way?”

  Conan touched her breasts and ran a hand across her tight stomach and mobile hips.

  Valeria gasped in ecstasy, holding herself taut as his seeking hands slid over her quivering body. “Where did you learn to move like that?”

  For a moment, Conan studied the eager girl, his face impassive; then, putting his hands to his scarred neck, revealed the marks of the cruel collar he had worn. Valeria kissed the scars with frenzied kisses and threw herself upon him in a convulsion of sexual pleasure. Then undulating in his embrace, she tossed back her long hair and showed him identical scars. She, too, had endured long nights as a Pit fighter. Then the candle flickered out, and the darkness echoed with small sounds of happiness.

  Dawn found the lovers in the low-ceilinged common room of the poor tavern, eating hungrily. Conan carved a steaming slab of meat from the spit and proffered it to Valeria on the point of his dirk. The girl gnawed the fragment with enthusiasm, as grease trickled down her chin; while Conan carved off a larger piece of meat to sate his rapacious appetite.

  Conan never forgot this tender encounter. Many years later, he told his scribe: “If the gods do practice love, can it be greater? No woman before her or since could be her equal—but of this I had no knowledge at the time.”

 
They washed the meat down with wine, cooled in snow carried from the mountaintop—a beverage for lordlings. Drunk with loving as much as with strong drink, Valeria leaned against the rough settle, and watched Conan as he ate, admiring the coiled springs of his muscles as they moved beneath his skin like the musculature of a splendid animal.

  He, for his part, admired the woman’s sensuous beauty, as she sat in repose before the embers of the fire, her garments, disarrayed, revealing her fair neck and shoulders. Conan had discovered a small hole drilled in the upper end of the great jewel, the Serpent’s Eye, and through it he had threaded a narrow thong so that, wearing it, she would minimize the chance of losing it. Now its unearthly fires sparkled against the rondure of her breasts, doubling their beauty.

  As the morning waned, Subotai, who had been carried back to the inn by Madame Ilga’s grinning slaves, recovered from his debauch, amid groans and protestations of repentance. Before the sun had set, the three thieves once more embarked on a fresh round of pleasure and diversion. Their shabby garments had been replaced by leather jerkins and fine furs; their crude ornaments of iron had been exchanged for rings and armlets of polished bronze and gleaming silver, wrought by skilled craftsmen; good boots of fine leather had taken the place of their outworn buskins; and, with the aid of the Hyrkanian, Conan had selected knives and swords from the booth of a master smith.

  This finery, together with the hearty meals and evenings’ entertainments, were bought with monies from the jewels Valeria had purloined from the battlements of the tower. The circumspect conspirators did not, as yet, attempt to sell the snake stone, for they knew that spies and informers of the snake cult would be aprowl through the bazaars of Shadizar, eager to claim their holy talisman. In Turan, perhaps, or down in Vendhya, they hoped to find a merchant with sufficient means to buy the jewel and sufficient caution to say nothing of his purchase.

  Despite their unaccustomed wealth, the three companions soon tired of their life of leisure. Wrestlers, dancing girls, and feasts—all became stale and vitiated pleasures to survivors of a life wherein danger honed an edge of zest to every moment snatched for comfort or amusement. All too soon came their deliverance from boredom; and it caught them unprepared.

  One evening, as the three lolled, half-drunk and half-asleep, over their cups in the darkened tavern to which they had repaired once they found they could afford better accommodations, Valeria was roused from her stupor by the glint of a spear blade reflected in the firelight. Her half-uttered cry galvanized the others into action. They saw their table rimmed about by grim-faced soldiers arrayed in breastplates of gilt and bronze, and heavy, polished helmets set low on their brows.

  Conan, instantly awake, half-rose from his chair.

  Thinking these intruders guardsmen from the serpent-temple who had tracked their thievery down, he sought a means of escape. But no, the soldiers bore on helm-crest and cuirass the royal sigil of Zamora; these were legionnaires of the King.

  “What do you want with us?” Conan grunted, eyeing the men with dour suspicion. “We have been carousing, true, but surely that is not against the Royal Law....”

  “Up and come with us, the three of you!” snapped an officer. “All questions will be answered by those who have dispatched us to seek you out. Let’s have no trouble now!”

  Subotai, still plunged in drunken stupor, looked at the levelled spear blades. Twisting his features into an obsequious smile, he muttered, “Aye, no trouble... no trouble at all...” Clinging to the table for support, he reeled to unsteady feet.

  Perforce they accompanied the armed men; to draw a sword would have been suicide, despite their fighting skills. Alone, Conan might have chanced the odds of one man against twelve; but his burgeoning love for Valeria disarmed him. He would not risk her harm, though freedom itself hung in the balance.

  Under a moonless sky, they trudged through silent streets, deserted at this hour even by footpads and other creatures of the night. At last they came to a wide avenue, at the end of which the spired bulk of the royal palace rose black against the brilliance of the stars. At the officer’s command, a gate in the peripheral wall swung open. The squad of soldiery marched the three adventurers beneath pillared arcades and along gravelled walks set amid smooth velvet lawns and marble fountains, whose opulence of water filled the night with music.

  As the group reached the main portal of the palace, Subotai—a travelled man—eyed the architecture with appreciation. The abode of the Zamoran king was reputed to be one of the most exotic edifices east of Aquilonia, built as it was on the profits of trade with the Far East. But, as they passed the guards, standing stiffly before the doorway, his sharp eyes spotted vestiges of decay—cracks in the masonry and marks of dampness. He shrewdly guessed that all the vast wealth of this monarchy could not combat some crawling inner rot, some cancer gnawing at the guts of the state, even as the insidious tendrils of the serpent cult sapped the courage and resolve of the citizenry.

  Conan, less given to philosophy, shot keen glances to the left and right as they were led along a maze of halls and curving marble stairs. Seeking to orient himself in case they might need to battle their way to freedom, he little heeded the carven balustrades of ivory and alabaster, the rich wall hangings, the silk-upholstered benches and curiously-wrought torcheres, which spelled a luxury of living beyond his wildest imaginings. And yet at length it was borne in upon him, even in the subdued light of the lamps and candles, that these fine furnishings were not in pristine condition. There were tears in the tapestries, stains on the carpets, and gilding peeling from the ornate furniture, as though from long neglect.

  The grand hall of the palace, for all its sculptured surfaces, echoed as emptily as a burial vault. Footsteps reverberated through the gloom; dust lay heavy on the floor tiles. As the adventurers and their escort approached the throne of Zamora, they perceived a figure shadowed by the canopy, brooding hand on chin, whose eyes bespoke a warrior long lost to wine and decadence and sloth. Beside the lone figure stood a single servant, who conversed in whispers with his superior.

  Conan saw that King Osric, for such the manner and address of the captain of the guard proved him to be, was a man sapped of vigour and devoid of hope. His age rested heavily on his sagging shoulders. His lined face testified to a life of care and disappointment.

  A soldier laid the weapons of the captured adventurers below the king’s feet as the captain, dropping to one knee, said, “The thieves whom you requested, Sire.”

  Subotai and Valeria, knowledgeable in the ways of royalty, bowed low; Conan faced the king impassively.

  A guardsman, poking the barbarian in the ribs, hissed, “Bow, oaf!” Conan shot the man a slit-eyed scowl, but he managed a jerky nod.

  The monarch looked at the prisoners with an absent eye, his mind elsewhere. At last he roused himself, and with a flip of a finger, indicated that his officer should rise.

  To clothe the stark silence, the man endeavoured to jog the royal memory. “These are the thieves who robbed the Tower of the Serpent.”

  Then, in a hoarse voice, quivering with emotion, the monarch spoke: “Know you what you have done, thieves? You have caused him to come before me, before my very throne—Yaro, the black priest—to intimidate me, nay, to threaten Osric, High King of all Zamora! What insolence! What arrogance! These priests of the Black Serpent who set themselves above the monarchs of the world! And it is you, three thieves, gutter scum, who have brought this to pass!” Conan shot a sidewise glance at his companions. Valeria wet her lips in nervous apprehension. Subotai’s keen eyes darted like those of a cornered rat, seeking for an exit. The barbarian tensed, gathering his strength for an explosion of violence. Unarmed, he harboured no illusions about the outcome; but better to sell his life dearly than to present a willing neck to axe or knotted rope. He might take a guard or two with him into the black beyond.

  The King continued staring at the thieves; but now a smile tugged at the comers of his bearded lips. Brushing aside his velvet
robe, he rose to his feet, crying: “Thieves, I salute you! It was a noble deed you did!” The king barked a short laugh. “You should have seen the black priest’s face! So furious was he that foam dribbled from his lips! I have not more enjoyed a sight since the night when I was wed!” Then, turning to his bodyguards, he added: “Fetch stools for my larcenous friends, Captain Kobades. You shall remain, but as for you others, back to your duties! And bring some wine—wine of the best vintage.”

  A page brought silver goblets and a beaker of fine red wine; and there, standing before the throne of Zamora, they drank to the King’s health, and he raised his cup to theirs. Subotai, bewildered at this sudden turn of fate, greedily imbibed his potion; Valeria and Conan, more accustomed to adulation after Pit-fighting successes, responded with better grace.

  “You may be seated,” said the King at last. He stared into his wine cup, brooding. When he spoke, his words were disjointed, his voice querulous.

  “This man Thulsa Doom—long have I chafed at the presence of this demigod in my poor kingdom. Snakes in my beautiful capital! To the west, to the south, in Brythunia, Corinthia, everywhere snakes! Everywhere these black towers with their black-hearted priests! They steal away our children and turn them into monsters—into reptiles like the snakes they worship. Our corrupted young raise their envenomed fangs against their very parents....”

  Trembling, Osric buried his face in his hands. The three companions looked at one another, then turned to stare at Captain Kobades. The king perceived their glances.

  “My own guards dare not stand against them. My bravest warriors, my fiercest fighting men shrink from their duty, fail in their sworn allegiance. You alone, you gutter-sweepings, have dared to beard Yaro in his citadel!

  “All who stand against the serpent priests are set upon and slain. Death in the night... have you seen aught of this?”