Conan the Barbarian Page 13

  Rexor growled, his voice thick with hidden anger, “I’ll kill him for you, Master.”

  Doom shook his head, then turned back to the crouched and bloody form before him. In a voice devoid of anger, he said: “You broke into the house of my god, stole my property, murdered my servants, and slew my pets. You disrupted a ritual of importance to my followers; this grieves me most of all.”

  A spasm of some strange emotion briefly contorted the dark face of Doom, and the weird light of a nameless sorrow flickered within the depths of his burning eyes.

  “You slew the great serpent coiled about my altar. Yaro and I are desolated by his loss; for we, ourselves, nurtured him from the egg. Why? Why did you steal my possessions and rob me of living things so precious to me? Why did you violate the sanctity of my temple and tamper with a ceremony your brutish mind could never grasp? Why have you invaded my very stronghold, and taken the life of a priest whom I called brother?”

  “Had Crom granted me a few more minutes, I would have taken your life, too!” growled Conan through cracked and swollen lips.

  “Why such hatred? Why?”

  “You murdered my father and my mother. You slaughtered my people,” muttered the barbarian. “You stole my father’s sword of finely tempered steel....”

  “Ah, steel,” Doom nodded, deep in meditation. “Many years ago I searched the world over for steel, for the secret of steel, which then I thought more precious than gold or jewels. Yes, I was obsessed by the mystery of steel.”

  “The riddle of steel,” murmured Conan, remembering the words of his father, the Cimmerian smith.

  “Yes, you know that riddle, do you not?” The cult leader’s voice was intimate, persuasive. Speaking as to a friend, Doom’s words continued emotionless, hypnotic, brimming with deceit. “In those days, I deemed steel stronger than all things, even than human flesh and spirit. Hut I was wrong, boy! I was wrong! The soul of man or woman can master everything, even steel! Look you,

  hoy—”

  Doom pointed to the walk along the top of the garden wall, whereon a lovely golden-haired girl held hands with a handsome youth.

  “Fair, is she not, that beautiful creature? And the splendid boy beside her is her lover. Do you know what it is to love a girl, barbarian? Or to be truly loved by one?”

  Remembering Valeria, from whom he had parted with such pain so many days ago, Conan’s lips tightened, and he growled an assent deep within his throat.

  “Perhaps you do,” said Doom with the ghost of a smile. “Perhaps you think that love conquers all. But I will show you a force stronger than steel, or even than love. Watch closely now—”

  Raising his hypnotic eyes, he fixed them upon the sweet face of the smiling girl above them on the wall.

  “Come to me, child,” he hissed, his sibilant voice scarcely above a whisper.

  The childish face became suffused with joy. She poised for a moment at the edge of the embankment; then, without ii glance at the youth beside her, she leaped from the wall and fell with a heavy thud on the tiles of the garden walk below.

  Conan averted his eyes from the doll-like broken body near their feet. Doom laughed, the music of his laughter spun through with a note of triumph. Then he said: “That is strength, boy—that is power! It is strength against which l he hardness of steel or the resilience of human flesh are as naught. What is steel, compared to the hand that wields it; what is the hand, without a mind to command it? There is the secret of strength. Steel, bah!”

  Thulsa Doom paused and stared at Conan’s impassive lace. The barbarian’s closed countenance, the set of his bruised shoulders seemed to the cult leader to diminish his power, to offer an unspoken insult to one unused to insults. I le made one more attempt to reassert his authority and to impress the stubborn youth, whose body was in chains but whose soul remained free.

  Doom raised a hand and caught the attention of the weeping lad who stood immobile, looking down at the broken body of the girl he loved. Doom’s cruel lips curled, a movement noticed only by the keen-eyed Cimmerian, and a false smile lit his dark visage, as he whispered a command.

  “Join her in Paradise, my son.”

  Without hesitation, moving like one walking in a dream, the boy unsheathed a small, jewelled dagger and plunged the sharp blade into his heart. The sun sparkled on the fountaining blood that poured from the wound, as the boy posed, statue-like, atop the wall. Then suddenly he crumpled and, pitching forward, fell dying on the body of the girl.

  There was a look of triumph on the face of Thulsa Doom as he turned to regard the barbarian. “I have,” he smiled, “a thousand more like them.”

  Conan, unimpressed, stared at him dourly. “What is it to me that you have power over fools and weaklings? You have never met a real man on equal terms and fought him face to face or hand to hand.”

  Fires of hate glowed in Doom’s eyes, and something akin to shame flared for an instant and subsided under almost superhuman control. Conan, unheeding, continued: “You slaughtered my people. You chained me to the Wheel of Pain, under the lash of the Vanir. You doomed me to be a slave fighting in the Pit, wondering whether each day would be my last....”

  Doom raised his dark head proudly. “Aye! And see what I have made of you, how life has toughened your flesh and hardened your spirit! Look at the strength of your will, your courage, your resolve to slay me to revenge your kin. You have followed me across the world, here to my innermost citadel of power, to avenge wrongs you fancy I have done you; whereas in reality I have made you a champion, a hero, a veritable demigod. And now, this gift of mine—this strength and courage and will, which I bestowed upon you through pain and suffering—you wish to waste on mere revenge. Such a waste! Such a pity!”

  Doom, seeming truly grieved, chewed his underlip before continuing. “I will vouchsafe you one last chance for life and liberty. Answer two questions: Whence got you the plaque of the twin snakes? Where is the Eye of the Serpent?

  Speak.”

  Conan silently shook his tousled head.

  “Very well,” Doom said at last. “You shall contemplate the fruits of your insolence on the Tree of Woe.”

  Turning abruptly on his heel, he started to leave the garden, while Rexor reappeared to take charge of the prisoner. Reaching the gate, Thulsa Doom turned once more to fling a command at his faithful lieutenant in his low, melodious voice.

  “Crucify him,” he said casually.

  XI

  The Tree

  A red sun glared down upon a scene of desolation. A level plain of chalky soil, as white as new-fallen snow, stretched away in all directions. Above the ground, like sheeted ghosts, waves of heat danced a dance of death, shimmering in the motionless air; while from the barren soil, the traveller—had any ventured along this trackless waste—would have found his natural repugnance reinforced by the metallic smell of unfamiliar compounds.

  Above this stark wasteland towered the Tree of Woe, a twisted, black monstrosity, with leafless branches clawing at the sky. Once, perhaps, it has been a noble shade tree, gentle to man and beast. Now it was a gaunt and spiny skeleton, a thing of evil.

  High on the black trunk hung Conan the Barbarian. His naked body bore a powdering of chalk dust and dried blood, through which runnels of sweat carved their way. His tangled hair fell rope-like around his battered face, a cracked and sunburnt mask in which only the eyes lived. They were the angry, burning eyes of a trapped and dying beast.

  Ropes, tightly bound, confined his arms to a pair of widespread boughs. Other ropes held his legs and thighs firmly against the rough bark of the tree. Cruel as were these thongs, far crueller were the pair of slender nails, whose square-cut heads pinioned the palms of his hands to the branches against which his arms were bound.

  How many hours had passed since Doom’s guards had inflicted this savage punishment upon him, Conan did not know. His mind was numbed by pain; his periods of rational consciousness intermittent. Thirst tormented him without respite; and the relentless rays
of the sun tore at his burning flesh. Nothing broke the monotony of his agony save the shadows of vultures, drifting on lazy wings against the merciless sun, as they waited for him to die and furnish them a feast. These birds of prey seemed to be the only other living creatures in all the chalky waste.

  One vulture floated near on slow-beating wings, and settled on a branch above the Cimmerian’s head. It stretched its wattled neck to peer at the crucified man, whose head had sagged upon his broad breast. To the scavenger, the man’s battered carcass seemed devoid of life. The vulture peered more closely, swivelling its head from side to side to bring first one, then the other eye to bear upon its prey.

  Conan remained motionless. In a lucid moment, he had become aware that, without a sip of liquid, death would snatch him up before the sun had set. And there was only one thing he might drink on all the burning plain.

  The vulture left its perch; and a solitary figure in a windless sky, it dipped, then gained altitude for its attack. As it swept in, its hooked beak poised for a stab at Conan’s eyes, the bird’s shadow fell across the Cimmerian’s face. Summoning all his waning strength, Conan raised his head. He remained motionless when the vulture raked his chest, us, wings beating the air, the scavenger braced itself to lunge.

  At that moment, Conan’s head shot forward. His jaws snapped, wolf-like, as his strong teeth sank into the bird’s slender neck and choked off its squawk of surprise and pain. Black wings buffeted the barbarian’s sun-baked face; claws inked his reddened flesh. But Conan’s grip held fast, as he sink his teeth ever deeper into the wrinkled, featherless neck. There was a final crunch of breaking bone, and the vulture’s wings hung limp. Keeping his jaws clenched, Conan sucked the vulture’s blood. Warm and salty though it was, the moisture rivalled a cup of the finest wine.

  Somewhat revived, Conan raised his head once more. He saw that the sun, now declining in the west, had streaked the dreary plain with crimson. Suddenly, something about the scene brought the barbarian’s dulled wits into focus. Was it a plume of dust, shot through with red from the setting sun, or was it a column of smoke? Whatever it might be, it was growing larger, moving closer.

  For a long time, Conan could not make out the nature of the approaching object, which swam through ripples of heat like a swimmer breasting a wind-tossed sea. At length its irregular form coalesced into the figure of a man on horseback, riding at an easy canter. Abruptly, the horseman, riding as only a Hyrkanian could ride, urged his mount into a gallop. Despite his cracked and swollen lips, Conan grinned.

  “Erlik! What have they done to you?” cried Subotai, leaping from his horse and tying the reins to a low branch of the blasted tree. Conan growled a reply, but so dry was his throat that no articulate sound issued forth.

  With shaking hands, Subotai fumbled in his saddle bag and found an implement, a tweezer of the sort used to pull stones from the hooves of horses. Tucking it into his belt, he clambered up the tree trunk to the place where the Cimmerian hung. In frantic haste, he struggled to extract the nails from Conan’s hands, hands that were swollen to twice their normal size. While the barbarian bit his lip to stifle his groans, Subotai wrenched and strained, until the nails came free.

  Then, dropping the tweezer, the Hyrkanian sawed with his dagger at the ropes that bound Conan’s legs; and, when those bonds were loosened, he slashed at the binding around his friend’s arms.

  “Hook an elbow over the branch, if you can,” he advised. “You don’t want to fall to the ground.”

  At length the last rope was severed: and Conan, supported by the small thief, slid limply down. Propped against the tree trunk, the injured man silently endured the torment as Subotai rubbed his bruised and sunburned limbs to restore the circulation. Proffering a leathern flask of water, he said: “Rinse your mouth out first and spit. Then make a few small sips. If you drink as much as you’d like to, it will sicken you or worse. I’ve seen men die that way.”

  “I know,” grunted the Cimmerian. “Have you aught to eat?”

  “First let me start a signal fire, to fetch Valeria. We’ve been hunting for you. A fortune-teller said that you would be south of the Mountain of Power, but he could not tell us

  more.”

  The Hyrkanian gathered twigs from the litter at the foot of the dead tree, broke off a couple of small branches, and with flint and steel soon had a brisk fire going. Then, searching the neighbourhood, he discovered a few faded blades of grass that, added to the blaze, caused a billowing cloud of smoke. That done, Subotai picked up the dead vulture and, squatting down, began to pluck the bird.

  “What in Crom’s name are you doing?” muttered Conan.

  “Taking the feathers off,” replied the small thief.

  “You do not mean to cook that thing!”

  “Why not? Flesh is flesh, and we’re both hungry.”

  Conan controlled his desire to retch, and grumbled: “If I am to sup, you will have to feed me. My hands are useless.”

  Subotai nodded and bent over his small fire. Soon pieces of broiling vulture meat impaled on a sharpened stick were merrily spattering fat into the fire, and the delicious smell of cooking filled the air. After his spare but welcome meal, Conan sighed. Then, with his back against the Tree of Woe, he fell asleep.

  Conan awoke to find himself among the burial mounds of the dead kings, near the shores of the Sea of Vilayet. Valeria was bending over him, bathing and salving his wounds. He had a faint memory—or was it a dream—of sitting Valeria’s horse while she rode behind him, guiding the beast, and steadying him each time he began to topple from the saddle.

  He stared at his hands, stiff, swollen, and inflamed. To move a finger was sheer agony. “Never to bear a sword again,” he muttered. “I might as well be dead!”

  Then consciousness again flickered out, and reality existed no more. The endless hours on the Tree of Woe had so sapped the Cimmerian’s store of animal vitality that those who tended him feared that he might not recover from his wounds. He burned with a raging fever; his faith in his own strength was gone.

  “Does he yet live?” inquired the old shaman, shuffling to the doorway of the hut, beyond which lay the dying man.

  “Aye, but barely,” replied the girl. “Old man, he called you a wizard. Have you any magic that can help him now? Or do your gods owe you a favour?”

  The shaman eyed her silently. Taking his sombre stare as a confession that he did indeed have otherworldly powers, Valeria cried: “Then work your spells! Put strength back into the hands that must wield the sword of vengeance!”

  The old man looked weary but resigned. “For such a spell, there is a heavy price. There always is for such a rite of magic. The spirits that haunt this sacred place and guard the tombs of kings exact their toll.”

  “Whatever the price, I will gladly pay it!” said Valeria. “To work, sorcerer!”

  A strange wind moaned, and shadows prowled amongst the tombs. Above the quicksilver surface of the Vilayet Sea, a gibbous moon showed the pallid face of a restless ghost, whose dark radiance illumined the barren earth between two of the larger monuments. In this uncouth place, while Valeria and Subotai watched with rapt attention, the shaman bound Conan’s limbs with strips of sable cloth and veiled his inert body with a shroud-like material of the same funereal hue. With another strip he encircled the barbarian’s head, carefully covering his bruised and sunburned eyelids. Upon this bandage, with deft strokes of a small brush, the old man painted a row of cryptic glyphs.

  The wizard next dispatched Subotai to the seashore, bidding him to fetch a bucket of clear water; and when the water was brought, the shaman squatted on a piece of carpeting to meditate and gather up his powers. Valeria, alert to every move the old man made, sensed that he was reaching deep into his soul to tap a dormant source of inner strength.

  Finally, the shaman roused himself from his mystic trance. He ceremoniously sprinkled the water over all of Conan’s body, as he mumbled potent names beneath his breath. This done, he bid the Hyrkanian
bind Conan’s limbs securely to four stakes, driven deeply into the ground.

  “Why so?” demanded Valeria.

  Sombrely, the shaman watched Subotai at work. "During the night,” he said, “the spirits of this place, angered by my magic, will try to take the young man hence.

  II they succeed...” His voice trailed off.

  Valeria unsheathed her dagger and turned its blade until it glinted in the moonlight. “If your spirits bear him off, old man, you will soon follow.” In the hushed darkness, the girl’s fierce words assailed the moon with all the venom of a cornered cougar.

  The shaman merely shrugged; but a faint smile, at youthful ardour long forgotten, trembled on his lips. Slowly the night dragged on, while the three held vigil among the ancient tombs. The uncaring moon climbed high in the velvet sky and picked her way among the stars. Southward, the Mountain of Power thrust up an ominous cone, black against the luminous darkness of the star-strewn sky. No cricket chirped. The silence was complete.

  Suddenly, Valeria gripped the Hyrkanian’s wrist. Subotai, who had been dozing, swore as the girl’s nails pierced his skin. Then he, too, stared at Conan.

  The huge Cimmerian’s shrouded form was heaving moving uncannily, without volition, as if seized by giant, invisible hands. The ropes that held him tensed and groaned; the stakes creaked under the strain of enormous unseen forces.

  “They’ll tear him apart!” wailed Valeria, as Conan’s body twitched and thrashed about so violently that one stake was ripped from the ground. The shaman made no answer, but he began a strange chant pitched to a silent scream and moved his bony hands in mystical gestures.

  Valeria leaped to her feet and threw herself on Conan’s body, shouting imprecations at the night. As the frantic girl wrestled with unseen powers, snarling like a lioness protecting her cub, Subotai fumbled for his scimitar. Then, bounding forward, he slashed through the empty air above the Cimmerian’s unconscious body and the girl who strove to weigh it down.