'You lack the means of communicating mind to mind,' he objected.
'What of that?' she replied. 'Do I lack intelligence to do whatever proves needful,' her fingers crooked talon-like, 'for bringing Conan
XII
The City of Kings
Luxur lay about a hundred miles south of the Styx. Once it had been the oasis lair of wild nomads. After their chieftains had conquered widely around and established the First Dynasty, its central location made it a good choice for a royal seat. With the growth of civilization, the city had engulfed the oasis. However, irrigation made agriculture possible nearby, and a ship canal was dug to connect it with the river. Trade flourished, for while the comings and goings of foreigners were regulated, they were not virtually forbidden as at Khemi. Besides visitors from every part of vast Stygia, Luxur saw Shemites, Kushites, Keshanians, and more exotic folk. Occasional vessels brought goods from far Argos or Zingara, rowing the long way upstream for the sake of prices that even made the dismal inns endurable to their crews.
The wingboat slipped up the canal by night, not to attract notice. As if to aid her wayfarers, a wind off the desert blew dust, which stung their eyes and gritted in their nostrils but obscured the moon. It died down toward morning. By then they were not far from the capital, in an area Falco remembered from excursions of limited range that the embassy staff had had permission to make. Here a gradual slope of ground to the water and below created a marsh full of reeds and wildfowl. The boat nudged into that whispery thickness until she lay well hidden against a bank.
'Let us get going,' said Conan impatiently. 'Remember, lad, if you have not heard from us after three days, do not try to be a hero on the spot. Hasten on to Taia, find Daris' father Ausar, tell him what you know, give and take what help from him you may.'
'Y – yes,' the Ophirite said unsteadily. 'But oh, do return! Mitra and Varuna guard you!' On the journey, he had not only rested and recuperated like his comrades, he had acquired worshipfulness for the mighty Cimmerian. Daris likewise often found her gaze drifting toward the leader, and herself unwontedly shy when he spoke to her. Jehanan was mostly sunk in silence, though he did his share of work and tried hard not to inflict his suffering on the rest. It had been a strange trip, through landscape sometimes barren, sometimes intensely green. No pilot of ship, barge, felucca, or canoe but sheered well off from the eldritch craft and dared not hail her. Serfs abandoned flocks, hoes, shadoofs to pelt inland at the sight. Yet those aboard were peaceful, and three of them were sometimes merry, with wine and song and tales and hopes for the future.
Now, though, action was again upon them. Falco had best stay behind, as caretaker and because he might be recognized on his way to the embassy. If all went well, his countrymen could fetch him after sundown, bringing a forged pass to get him by the night time pickets at every city gate; darkness ought to obscure his features. For this first contact, Conan wanted Daris and Jehanan along. Despite cowl and kaftan, he would be fairly conspicuous in the streets. It should lull suspicion if he was accompanied by an obvious Shemite and Taian; then people could assume they were three of mixed race in the service of a caravanner, as was common. Not all Taians were in revolt. Some, descendants of slaves or hirelings, had never seen their ancestral hills. In garb like his and Jehanan's, Daris might be a beardless youth.
They had scrubbed their faces, and Conan had shaved. Otherwise they depended on clothes to hide grime, since they dared not draw wash water from the Styx and felt it best to conserve what they had that was potable. They were not unduly gamy, having been outdoors nearly the whole time, in dry air.
Conan took Falco by the hand. 'Thank you,' he said. 'Fare you also well. But do not fret more than you can help. That which will be, will be. Our pride is to meet it boldly.'
He swung himself onto the rail and sprang ashore. His two way mates followed. On firm ground, they struck across a paddock to a dirt road. Running parallel to the canal, it pointed at towers which bulked on the southern horizon. False dawn became sunrise.
A flock of ducks beat clamorous up from the marsh. Mud hamlets dotted a terrain of crop lands, date groves, and ditches. South-west and south-east, the desert that stretched beyond it thrust ruddy wedges into its green. Air was still cool, but rapidly warming.
After a while, Conan reminded: 'Falco described well how to find Zarus' place. But we should not seem too eager or purposeful, 'f Best we loaf through the streets like newcomers off duty, sightseeing, keeping an eye out for a pleasant way to spend some of our pay. A town like this must know many such drifters each year.' 'Be not so sure how the Stygians will take to us,' Jehanan said harshly. 'Those grovellers before snakes are unlike any people anywhere else. Are they even human?'
'Oh, yes,' Daris replied. She touched his cheek in compassion. 'Some of them have misused you and yours, as some of them have misused my folk. But I have met a number of ordinary ones, and heard tell of many more – decent persons little different from you or me, simply concerned to make a living for their families paying their extortionate taxes – and what harm have these poor toilers we see coming forth ever done to anybody? The common Stygians are the first victims of their own overbearing nobles and fanatical priests.'
Conan grunted. He cared nothing for such fine distinctions. In his world view, apart from fierce immediate loyalties, the hand of every man was against every other man. At best there was truce, for practical reasons and always fragile. That did not mean that individuals could not share work, trade, enjoyment, liking, respect. He had been sorry to kill certain men in the past, though he lost no sleep afterward. Strife was the natural order of things.
Luxur grew in sight. The outer defences were yellow sandstone, formidable but not forbidding in the way that Khemi's were. Banners on cross-poles hung arrogant above battlements. Gates stood wide, and while sentinels were present, they did not check the traffic, which by now had become dense – foot, cart, litter, chariot, horse, ox, donkey, camel. Labourers in loincloths, drovers in ragged tunics, desert nomads in white and black robes, merchants in garb more colourful, courtesans in gossamer, soldiers, hawkers, strolling performers, housewives, children, foreigners, a bewildering variety of individuals surged to and fro. They crowded, jostled, chattered, quarrelled, screamed curses, yelped, importuned, haggled, intrigued, shouted, wailed, moaned, made a maelstrom of sound between high, drab walls whose balconies were festooned with garments hung out to dry. I he streets, mostly cobbled, littered and dirty as was usual in cities, were redolent of smoke, grease, dung, roast meat, oils, perfumes, drugs, humankind, beast-kind.
Conan's party entered and pushed a slow way through. A monument – on a pillar the statue of an ancient king trampled a Shemite and a Kushite underfoot – marked their turn into the Street of Weavers. Here, cross-legged in booths, sellers held out fabrics and chanted their virtues to every passer-by. It was less jammed than the main artery, and the newcomers could walk somewhat faster. According to plan, they pretended to marvel at the spectacle as they sauntered.
'Allo, allo!' cried a voice. Conan glanced behind him and saw a man in a shabby kaftan running to catch up. He carried a load of trinkets: crudely whittled toy camels in his hands, strings of bone beads hung on his arms. Drawing close, he said in Argossean, 'Welcome to Luxur. You are from Argos?'
'No,' Conan replied, annoyed.
'Ah, Zingara!' The man slipped into an accented version of the tongue of that country. 'Beautiful Zingara. You take home souvenir.'
'No,' Conan said in Stygian, 'I do not want to buy anything.'
'You speak this language!' exclaimed the vendor likewise. He smiled across his entire weathered face. The effect was somewhat diminished by his few snags of teeth. 'You are a world traveller, then. You know fine wares when you see them. Here, look at this camel. Beautiful workmanship.' He thrust one of the little models into the Cimmerian's palm. 'Only five lunars.' His reference was to a small copper coin of the realm.
'I don't want it.' Conan sought to give it back. The ha
wker's fingers were not there to receive.
'Four lunars,' the Stygian offered.
'No, by Crom!' Conan suppressed a desire to bring out the ax concealed beneath his robe. That would be madness.
'For four lunars, I will give you two camels,' the man said. 'Take them home to your children.'
'I tell you, no!'
'Three camels.'
'No!'
'Three camels and a necklace.'
Conan strode on. The vendor kept pace. 'You must not steal a poor man's stock in trade, sir,' he scolded in a loud singsong designed to draw attention. 'Think of my babies at home.'
'Take the damned thing,' Conan snarled, tried again to return it, and failed again.
Suddenly he noticed Jehanan and Daris were not beside him. He stopped and looked behind. The owner of a real, if rather moth-eaten camel had cornered the maiden and was insisting that she wanted a ride on it, and he would take her to all the interesting parts of town. 'Here,' he said, and made the animal kneel. He pushed her toward the saddle. 'It is easy. It is fun. You pay me only what you wish.'
Jehanan sought to deny a fellow who proffered grubby confections off a tray. 'Ah,' that Stygian leered. 'I know. You want numi.' From a flowing sleeve, he produced a packet. 'Finest numi. Burn it, breathe the smoke, get lovely dreams and feel wonderful. Just two silver stellars.' Jehanan whitened.
'Three lunars,' proposed Conan's pest. The barbarian was about to cast the gimcrack he had onto the street, when he realized what a scene that would bring on. Already, curious denizens had paused to watch. They included a mounted guardsman a few yards off. Somehow Daris had been eased onto the live camel. It lurched to its feet. The owner grabbed the bridle and trotted off, tongue clacking.
'For three lunars, three camels and two necklaces,' Conan heard. The seller of sweetmeats and drugs beamed and suggested, 'You would like to meet my sister. Young, beautiful, very, very good. Take numi, feel fine, make love to her, be happy. Come.' He plucked at the Shemite's robe. Jehanan's breath rasped, his fists doubled.
'Hold!' Conan roared. 'We must go on. No time. Here, I will take your toy for three lunars. Daris, Jehanan, for everything's sake, give those scoundrels a ransom and let us get out of here!'
'You are buying three camels and two necklaces,' the vendor told him. 'One more necklace for one more lunar will bring you luck.'
Conan opened his purse and shuffled forth money. The wingboat was well supplied with Stygian coinage. Daris terminated her ride by paying over what she guessed the camel driver would have expected for an entire day. Jehanan's hand shook as he bought himself free; even that Stygian was subdued by the look he got and bowed before he slipped off.
More of the kind converged on the travellers.' See, behold what I offer!... You are my father and my mother!... Alms, baksheesh, for the love of the gods!'
'I have heard about this, but never quite believed it,' Daris said, breathless.
'And I have met something of the sort before, but naught to match,' Conan answered.
'We were mistaken,' Jehanan said. 'We must stride straight forward, fast, scowling, fists closed and at our sides, looking neither to right nor to left.'
Conan gripped his shoulder. 'You can speak so well, now?' the Cimmerian murmured. 'O brother of Bêlit, you are unwounded in your heart!'
The peddlers and beggars presently quit and disappeared into the ruck. Conan wondered how to get rid of the gewgaws that had been thrust upon him. If he gave them to any of the naked children who scampered and scrambled around, that would bring a fresh horde. In the Street of Jars, he managed surreptitiously to drop them into a large specimen.
Soon afterward, his party entered quite a different sort of thoroughfare. At the middle of Luxur, royal generations had built a grandiose complex reserved for the great and their attendants. The palace, the fane of Set, the barracks and parade grounds of the king's household troops, the archives, the office buildings for his counsellors and their staffs, surrounded a broad plaza. Across the way from the latter stood a row of aristocratic mansions, some of which held foreign embassies. Toward this row, as Conan's band approached from the north, led the Avenue of Kings. Broad and smoothly paved, it displayed a double line of olden monarchs in stone; inscriptions on bases reiterated the haughtiness on images. Behind them reared buildings whose walls were of granite, not clay, and painted in symbols of the gods. Here traffic was scant and dignified – a lord or lady borne in her litter, a couple of well-born boys off to school under ward of their pedagogue, a scribe bearing the apparatus of his trade, an occasional priest, official, wealthy merchant, military officer, liveried servant, veiled wife, delivery-man bringing wares that had been ordered. These cast sidelong glances at three plebeian strangers, but raised no inquiry. Falco had said, 'Behave as if you have a proper errand there, and everybody will take for granted you do. Who would dare carry defiance into the citadel of Stygia?' Conan's pulse knocked. He was almost at his goal. The avenue ended at a cross street, less imposing though also clean, quiet, flagged. This was flanked by town houses on whose flat roofs blossomed gardens. Narrow lanes went between them. Beyond, above, Conan saw higher structures, those that surrounded the royal plaza, rise massive. Here there were just a few people. Stillness hung heavy as the gathering warmth. Shadows lay blue.
He turned right. Several entrances down, one façade displayed a lion in gold, rampant, blinding bright. That was the Ophirite embassy, he knew. He hastened his stride.
A Stygian who had been slowly pacing by suddenly halted and stared. He snatched a whistle hung at his neck and blew. The noise whined loud.
Doors to either side of the lion's flew open. Armed soldiers stormed out. 'Halt!' boomed a voice. 'Conan and your companions, halt or be slain!'
'Mitra aid us,' Daris gasped. 'We are betrayed.' 'By witchcraft – Nehekba's, Tothapis' -' Jehanan lifted the he of his kaftan and drew his shorts word. 'Ishtar,' he prayed in his mother tongue, 'let me go bravely, guide me home to you, make me well again that I may abide in your love.'
Conan unslung the ax he had chosen off the boat. It was a Taian weapon, straight-shafted, beaked as well as edged, lively in his hands for all its weight. He spent but an instant feeling sick at the knowledge that he had lost, that he would never again embrace Bêlit and gallant Daris must die beside him, slain by him if that was needful to forestall her capture – Then he was warrior and naught else. His glance flickered. The Stygians had his party boxed between two long house fronts. They were thirty, half of them closing in from either side, four bearing cocked crossbows, the rest blade and shield. Behind the eastern rank, their commander shouted orders: a burly, grizzled man, equipped with sword but otherwise wearing simply a tunic.
'We will charge toward their officer and try to cut through,' the Cimmerian told his friends. 'Back to back after we have closed.'
In Daris' right hand gleamed a dirk, in her left hung the belt she had borne from Khemi. 'If only my father could know whom I fight beside,' she said low. 'He would be almost as honoured as I am.'
XIII
Death and Honour
The wanderers attacked. They did not rush together in a straight line. Separately, crouched down, they bounded in zigzags. Bolts whirred at them but missed targets so swift and unpredictable.
Before the archers could reload, Conan had gotten to the infantry.
Skilled in the use of a battle ax, he held his with left hand near the end of the haft, right near the middle. The Stygian whom he confronted stabbed at him from around a shield-rim. Conan's helve struck the blade downward. Immediately his own weapon swung slantwise above his right shoulder. As it swept back to smite, he shifted his grip at the middle, which had given him close control, down to join the other hand at the end for fullest leverage and driving force. The Stygian brought shield higher to meet that blow. The Cimmerian's whole huge mass and strength were behind it. Metal rang, framework buckled, the swordsman tottered backward. His shield dangled by the straps from a broken arm.
Cona
n whipped the ax right and struck its pointed beak into the exposed thigh of the foe on that side. The wound was not mortal, but surprise and shock momentarily disabled the man. In that time, Conan turned on the one to his left. Again he parried a sword thrust with his haft. Then, twisting it about in mid-air, he brought it under this man's shield. Weight and his might forced the shield aside. He hewed into a now unprotected knee. The Stygian screamed and sank down to the pavement. Conan whirled his ax aloft and down to ring on the helmet of the other leg-injured man.
Half-stunned, that Stygian also stumbled and fell.
Daris and Jehanan were beside their captain. She snapped her belt at a soldier's hand. The buckle struck so painfully that he dropped his weapon. Jehanan let the Cimmerian ward him for the moment he needed to kill that foeman and take his shield for himself. Rising, the Shemite in turn blocked an assault on Conan.
Though their line had been broken, the Stygians were trained and courageous fighters. Those on the wings dashed to the melee at the centre. Their quarry was surrounded before getting a chance to run onward. The second rank of troopers reached the battle and joined in.
Back to back the three stood. Conan's ax roared, Jehanan's sword stabbed and sliced, Daris' belt flailed and her knife darted. Blood flew, dripped off metal, spread in a scarlet lake over the street. Men yelled, iron clanged. Householders looked out in terror. Among them, above the heads of his enemies, Conan glimpsed a greybeard in flowing Ophirite blouse and trousers, beneath the sign of the golden lion. Lord Zarus, no doubt – mere yards away, but the ambassador might as well have been on the moon.
The Cimmerian thought he was at the end of his own career. Well, he had lived more in his two dozen years on earth than most men could in a century. Let him only first slay so many Stygians that afterward the survivors would never sleep soundly. Then let him be sure that he and his comrades were not dragged back to the vile attentions of sorcerers, but died a clean death here.
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