by Roland Green
Why attack a bear in his den, when you knew he would soon have to leave it?
"Sleep well, Raihna." She turned to unlock her door. As always, Conan's blood stirred at the swell of breasts and hips, the long graceful lines of back and leg. Well, the inn did not ask a man to sleep alone—
Raihna gripped his hand and led him through the door. She kicked the door shut, and before he could speak had lifted her tunic over her head. The upper slopes of her breasts were lightly freckled; their firm fullness seemed to cry out for a man's hand.
Conan's blood no longer stirred. It seethed, on the verge of boiling over.
"You wished me a sound sleep, Conan. Well, come here and let us both find it. Or must I disrobe you as well as myself? I warn you, if I must do that I may be too weary for bedsport—"
"Hah!" Conan said. His arms went around her, lifting her off her feet. Desire thundered in him, and he felt the same in her. "If it's weary you want to be, Raihna, then I can give you the soundest sleep of your life!"
Five
"ENTER IN MITRA'S name," Ivram said. Hinges long unoiled screamed as the priest opened the door for Bora. Bora followed Ivram inside. In the center of the chamber a hearth of bricks was at work on Ivram's dinner. Pungent smoke tickled Bora's nostrils, as did the more appetizing odors of baking bread and bubbling stew. They reminded Bora that he had eaten not a bite since morning.
Around the hearth lay dyed fleeces and rugs of simple design but exquisite workmanship. More rugs hung on the wall above a richly-carved chest. The figure of Mitra on the lid had eyes of amber and coral.
From beyond the door to an inner chamber floated the soft murmur of a flute. The priest's "niece" Maryam was playing for the night's devotions and for whatever else might be expected of her during this night. Few in Crimson Springs could name her "niece" without smiling, at least when Ivram was elsewhere. Most suspected that she had learned the art of the flute in the taverns of Aghrapur.
"Sit, son of Rhafi," Ivram said. He clapped his hands and the flute was silent. "Maryam, we have a guest."
The woman who emerged from the inner room was barely half the priest's size or age. She bore a brass tray covered with a piece of embroidered linen. On the linen rested honeycakes and bits of smoked lamb. She knelt gracefully before Bora, contriving to let her robe fall away from her neck and throat. The neck was slender and the dark-rose throat firm and unlined. Bora knew other sensations than hunger.
"Wine?" Maryam asked. Her voice was rich and soothing. Bora wondered if this was another art of pleasing she had learned in taverns. If so, she had learned it well.
"Forgive me if I seem ungrateful for your hospitality," Bora said uneasily. "I need wise counsel more than anything else."
"My ears are open and my heart at your service," Ivram said. In another priest's mouth the ritual words might have rung hollow. In Ivram's, they could hardly be doubted. The villages around his shrine forgave him gluttony and a "niece" and would have forgiven him far more, because he listened. Sometimes he also gave wise counsel, but as often, the mere knowledge that he listened eased those who came to him.
"I know the secret of the mountain demons," Bora said. "Yet none will believe me. Some call me mad, some a liar. A few have sworn to have my blood if I do not cease to put them in fear.
"They say it is their women and children they do not wish frightened, but I have seen their faces. They think that if they do not know what the danger is, it will not come near them!"
"They are fools," Ivram said. He laughed, so that his jowls danced. "They also do not care to have a boy be more of a man than they are."
"Do you believe me, ihen?"
"Something stalks these mountains, something reeking of uncleanness and evil magic. Any knowledge of that is more than we have had before." He took a honeycake between thumb and forefinger. It vanished in two bites.
Bora looked at the plate, to discover it half-empty already. "Maryam, I will be grateful for that wine."
"It is our pleasure," she replied. Her smile made Bora's head spin as though he had already emptied a cup.
Now that he had found someone of the hills ready to believe him, Bora could hardly credit his good fortune. Nor could he muster the courage to speak, without strengthening himself with drink.
Ivram scanted neither his guests nor himself in the matter of wine. By the time the second cup was half-empty, Bora had done more than tell his story. He had begun to wonder why he had ever been reluctant to tell it. Maryam was looking at him with wide, worshipful eyes. He had never dreamed of having such a woman look at him so.
"If you saw half what you describe, we are in more peril than I had dared imagine," Ivram said at last. "I almost understand those who did not care to hear you. Have you told anyone outside the village? This is not our secret, I think."
"I—well, there is one. Not quite outside the village, although he has gone to Aghrapur—" The wine now tangled Bora's tongue rather than freeing it. Also, he did not much care to talk of his sister Caraya's unmaidenly passion for Yakoub.
"It is Yakoub the herdsman, is it not?" Ivram said gently. Bora nodded without raising his eyes, from the floor.
"You do not trust him?" Bora shook his head. "Who else do you know who would both listen to you and bear your tale to Aghrapur? Mughra Khan's soldiers have arrested your father. They will be slow to listen to you.
"The friends of Yakoub may not be in high places. Yet they will not be the men of Mughra Khan. Yakoub is your best hope."
"He may be our only one!" Bora almost shouted. The wine on a nearly empty stomach was making him light-headed. "Besides the gods, of course," he added hastily, as he remembered that he was guest to a priest of Mitra.
"The gods will not thank us for sitting like stones upon the hillside and waiting for them to rescue us," Ivram said. "Yakoub seems a better man than those who seek only rebels when they should seek wizardry. Perhaps he will not be good enough, but—"
"Ivram! Quickly! To the south! The demon fire burns!"
Maryam's voice was half a scream and wholly filled with terror. She stood in the outer doorway, staring into the night. Bora took his place beside her, seeing that her dark-rose face was now pale as goat's milk.
Emerald fire climbed the slopes of the Lord of the Winds. The whole mighty peak might have been sinking in a lake of that fire. At any moment Bora expected to see the snowcap melt and waft away into the night as green-hued steam.
Ivram embraced Maryam and murmured to her. At last she rested her head on his shoulder in silence. He looked beyond her, to the demon light. To Bora he seemed to be looking even farther, into another world.
When he spoke, his voice had the ring of prophecy. In spite of his wine-given courage, Bora shuddered at the priest's words.
"That is the light of our doom. Bora, I will join my words to yours. We must prepare ourselves, for what is about to come upon us."
"I cannot lead the villages!"
"Cannot, or will not?"
"I would if they listened to me. But I am a boy!"
"You are more of a man than those who will not hear you: Remember that, speak as you have spoken to me tonight, and the wise will listen."
A witling's thought passed through Bora's mind. Did Ivram mean that he should stay drunk until the demons had passed? The idea tempted him, but he doubted that there was so much wine in all the villages!
Eremius flung his arms toward the night sky, as if seeking to conjure the stars down from the heavens. No stars were to be seen from the valley, not through the emerald mist around the Lord of the Winds.
Again and again his arms leaped high. Again and again he felt the power of the Jewel pour from them like flames. Ah, if he could unleash such power with one Jewel, what might he do with both?
Tonight he would take a step toward possessing both. A long step, for tonight the Transformed would pour out of the mountains to strike far and wide.
Thunder rolled down the sky and echoed from the valley walls. The ground shu
ddered beneath Eremius's feet.
He took a deep breath and with the utmost reluctance reined in the power he had conjured. With his senses enhanced by the Jewel, he had seen the flaws and faults in the walls of the valley. One day he would cast it all down in rubble and ruin to show the world his power, but not tonight.
"Master! Master! Hear me!" It was the captain of the sentries.
"Silence!" A peremptory gesture held menace.
"Master! You put the men in fear! If they are to follow the Transformed—"
"Fear? Fear? I will show you fear!" Another gesture. Eremius's staff leaped into his hand. He raised it, to smite the captain to the ground in a pile of ashes.
Again he took a deep breath. Again he reined in the power he would have gloried in unleashing. Near witless as they were, his human fighters had their part in everything he did until he regained the second Jewel.
The Transformed could be unleashed only when Eremius was. awake to command them. When he slept, so did they. Then the spellbound humans must do the work of guarding and foraging, however badly.
With both Jewels, one like Eremius could command the loyalty of the finest soldiers while leaving their wits intact. With only one, he could command only those he had made near-kin to simpletons.
The thousandth curse on Illyana shrieked through his mind. His staff danced in the air, painting a picture between him and the captain. Illyana appeared, naked, with nothing of the sorceress about her. Rather, it was her younger self, ready to receive a man as the real Illyana never had (though not for want of effort by Eremius).
The staff twitched. Illyana's image opened its mouth and closed its eyes. Its hands curved into claws, and those claws began to twist in search of the man who had to be near.
At Eremius's command, the image did all that he had ever seen or imagined a woman doing in the grip of lust. Then the image surpassed lust, entering realms of blood and obscenity beyond the powers of most men even to imagine.
They were also beyond the powers of the captain to endure. He began by licking his lips at the display of lust. Then sweat glazed his face, except for dry lips. Under the sweat the face turned pale.
At last his eyes rolled up in his head and he crashed to the ground. He lay as senseless as if Eremius truly had smitten him with the staff. Eremius waved the staff, now to conjure sense back into the captain instead of out of him. The man lurched to his knees, vomited, looked wildly about him for the image, then knelt and kissed the ground at Eremius's feet.
For the moment, it seemed to Eremius that the man had learned enough of fear.
"Go and send your men up to the valley mouth," Eremius said. "They are to hold it until the last of the Transformed are past. Then they are to fall in with the pack animals."
The human fighters were not as the Transformed, able to endure for days between their meals of flesh. They would need rations until the raiders reached inhabited farms. Pack horses would serve, their scents altered by magic so that they would not rouse the hunger of the Transformed.
"I go in obedience to the Master of the Jewel," the captain said. In spite of his fear, he vanished swiftly into the darkness. Or perhaps his fear gave wings to his feet. Eremius hardly cared, as long as he was obeyed.
Oh, for the day when he would hear "I go in obedience to the Master of the Jewels" from a soldier worthy of the name! A soldier such as High Captain Khadjar or even his obedient son Yakoub.
The thought that this day drew closer hardly consoled Eremius. To punish only an image of Illyana instead of the real woman reminded him of how far he had to go.
So be it. Only a fool feared to unroll the parchment, lest he miscast the spell!
Eremius cast his thoughts up and down the valley, in a silence more complete than the tomb's.
Come forth. Come forth at your Master's command. Come forth and seek prey.
The Transformed came forth. A carrion reek rode the wind ahead of them, thickening until the stench seemed a living, palpable entity. Eremius conjured a bubble of clean air around himself. As an afterthought he added the scent of Illyana's favorite bath oil to the air.
The Transformed filed past. They shambled, lurched, and seemed perpetually about to stumble. This was as Eremius wished it, when they were close to him. Unleashed and ranging free, the Transformed could overtake a galloping horse.
Emerald light glowed on scales and red eyes. Here and there it shone on the spikes of a club slung from a crude rope belt or on a brass-bound cestus encasing a clawed hand. Even after the Transformation, the Transformed were not wholly alike. Some had the wits to chose and wield weapons. Others lacked the wits, or perhaps were too proud of their vast new strength.
At last the Transformed were gone into the night. Eremius chanted the words that would bind the spell of control into the staff. For some days to come, he would need no other magic, unless matters went awry. Even if they did, a single Jewel of Kurag was no mean weapon in the hands of a sorcerer such as Eremius. Those who doubted this might find themselves learning otherwise before long, although they would hardly live to profit by this lesson.
Six
To THE EAST, the foothills of the Ibars Mountains crept upward toward the blue sky. Somewhere among them the Shimak River had its birth. In those hills it swelled from a freshet to a stream. Flowing onward, it turned from a stream to a river before it reached the plains of Turan. Here it was halfway to its junction with the Ilbars River. Already its width and depth demanded a ferry rather than a ford.
The ferry herald blew the signal on a brass-bound ivory horn the length of Conan's arm. Three times the harsh blast rolled across the turbid waters. Three times the pack animals rolled their eyes and pecked uneasily.
Raihna dismounted to gentle them, leaving Conan to tend to her mount. Illyana remained mounted, eyes cast on something only she could see. Without looking closely, a man might have thought her half-witted. After looking closely, no man would care to do so again.
She rode as well as Raihna had promised and made little extra work, for all that she did less than her share of what there was. No one called sorcerer was easy company for Conan, but Illyana was more endurable than most.
It did not hurt that she was comelier than most sorcerers Conan had met! She dressed as though unaware of it, but a handsome woman lay under those baggy traveling gowns and embroidered trousers.
A handsome woman, whose magic required that she remain a maiden even though of an age to have marriageable daughters. It was wisdom for her to be companioned by another woman—who was no maiden.
Indeed, Raihna was enough woman for any man. After a single night with Raihna, Conan could hardly think of Illyana as a woman without some effort. Doubtless this was Raihna's intent, but Conan hardly cared.
Three hundred paces away, the ferry left the far bank and began its return across the Shimak. To describe the craft as bargelike would have insulted any barge Conan had ever seen in Aghrapur's teeming port. Amidships a platform allowed human passengers to stand clear of their beasts and baggage. On either side slaves manned long sweeps, two on each.
Behind Conan other travelers assembled—a peasant family loaded with baskets, a solitary peddler with his mule and slave" boy, a half-dozen soldiers under a scar-faced sergeant. The peasants hardly looked able to buy a loaf of bread, let alone ferry passage, but perhaps they would trade some of their baskets.
The ferry crept across the river until what passed for its bow scrunched into the gravel by the pier. Conan sprang on to the pier, which creaked under his weight.
"Come along, ladies. We were first at the landing, but that won't count for much if we're slow off the mark!"
Raihna needed little urging. She helped her mistress dismount, then led the three riding mounts on to the ferry. It had two gangplanks, and the one for beasts was stout enough to support elephants, let alone horses.
Conan stood on the pier until Raihna had loaded and tethered all five animals. No one sought to push past him, nor did he need to draw his sword
to accomplish this. The thickness of the arms crossed on the broad chest and the unblinking stare of the ice-blue eyes under the black brows were enough to daunt even the soldiers.
Illyana sat down on the platform under the canopy. Conan and Raihna stood in the open. The soldiers and the peddler watched Raihna appreciatively.
Conan hoped they would confine themselves to watching. He and the women were traveling in the guise of a merchant's widow, her younger sister, and the merchant's former captain of caravan guards. That deception would hardly survive Raihna's shedding the blood of even the most importunate fellow-traveler.
The peasants and the peddler joined Conan's party aboard the ferry. Two deckhands heaved the animals' gangplank aboard. Then the soldiers tramped onto the pier, leading their mounts. The ferrymaster gasped in horror and turned paler than the muddy river.
"By the gods, no! Not all of you! The ferry cannot bear the weight. The gangplank still less. Sergeant, I beg you!"
"I give no ear to beggars," the sergeant growled. "Forward, men!"
Conan sprang off the platform. The planks of the deck groaned as if a catapult stone had struck. He strode to the edge of the deck and put his foot on one end of the passenger gangplank. The sergeant put his foot on the other end. He was only a trifle shorter than Conan, and quite as broad.
"Sergeant, the ferrymaster knows what he can carry and what he can't."
"Well and good. You can get off. Just you and the livestock, though. Not the ladies. My men and I will take care of them. Won't we, lads?"
A robust, lewd chorus of agreement drowned out sulphurous Cimmerian curses. Conan spread his arms wide.
"Sergeant, how well can you swim?"
"Eh?"
"Perhaps you should take a swimming lesson or two, before you try overloading a ferry."
Conan leaped, soaring half his own height into the air. He came down on the gangplank. He was out of swordreach of the sergeant, but that mattered not at all.
The gangplank writhed like a serpent. The sergeant staggered, fighting for balance, then lost the fight. With a mighty splash he plunged headfirst into the river. It was shallow enough that he landed with his legs waving frantically in the air.