Red-faced and red-eyed, Vulso dug his thumbs into Conan’s windpipe and held on, though he trembled in agony. Moments later, wild convulsions shook the Shemite’s body. Bloody foam frothed at his lips and dripped from his beard. His eyes rolled up and he slumped forward, lifeless.
But the venom had frozen Vulso’s muscles. Stiff fingers still clenched Conan’s neck in an unyielding grip of death.
The Cimmerian willed himself to move, assembling every fibre of vitality that yet lingered in his body. He succeeded only in releasing his grip on the viper’s head. He was dimly aware of the approach of many horses. Was it the other asshuri, so soon? He decided that he cared not. A grey mist obscured his vision, and numbness settled into his leaden limbs. Even his tom calf had ceased to throb. Before all went dark, he managed to smile grimly.
His foe had passed first through Hell’s gate.
IV
The Death Mage
A strange caravan proceeded quietly through the amber dusk that heralded the coming of night in the northern Stygian desert. The sky’s rich hue was the only thing of beauty in the desolate dunes that stretched from the Taian Mountains at Stygia’s north-east border to Harakht, the Hawk-God’s accursed and ancient city. Sane men shunned this region of the desert, for between Stygia and Shem flowed the murkiest currents of the great River Styx.
Where life sprang from rivers in other lands, naught but death floated in this stretch of the broad, black Styx. Beasts too blasphemous to name swam beneath her dark currents; madness and death lingered in her watery bosom. Along her banks dwelt denizens both vile and voracious—crocodiles large enough to swallow a man whole, serpents of all sizes whose bites brought fever and disease, and every other sort of reptile that slithered or crawled. Jackals and carrion-birds lurked nearby, preying upon the weak, the sick, and the dying.
Yet the caravan travelled at a leisurely pace along the dread river’s southern edge—the Stygian side—as if indifferent to the perils of the poisonous river. Twelve tall horses led the retinue in two files of six, adorned with chanfrons of gold and poitrals of heavy, gilt-edged cloth. They moved in unison, though they bore no riders and wore neither bit nor bridle. Their harnesses fixed them to a large, window-less carriage of a height sufficient for a man to stand upright within. Its black wooden sides, bedecked with elaborate symbols, bulged and curved in a shape not unlike that of a sarcophagus. The carriage rolled slowly on black wooden wheels that dug deeply into the sandy soil.
Behind this curious conveyance marched thirty-nine men-at-arms, equidistantly spaced in three files of thirteen. The glow of the sunset reddened their full suits of burnished plate armour. Great helms rested upon their elaborate gorgets, and the etchings in their palettes, breastplates, and shields matched the symbols on the black carriage. Their swords were the sort typically wielded in two-handed fashion, but they carried these formidable weapons single-handedly, points raised in readiness. Above them, eleven archers stood atop the carriage, massive crossbows loaded and cocked. The mail and coifs of these arbalesters were fashioned from a burnished metal like that of the footmen below.
An ordinary cavalcade outfitted thusly would have perished within a day in the inhospitable desert clime, but this one had plodded along for seven days without stopping.
Anyone who witnessed the caravan’s procession would have shut his eyes and blinked before he looked again. A wise man would then have shaken his head and departed hastily, deeming the sight to be a trick of the waning dusk or a bizarre mirage. A man of more courage than prudence, if he watched for too long, would see that which would blast his soul and plague him with nightmares until his dying day.
Beneath their gaudy barding, the horses lacked flesh. Like the archers, they were skeletons, devoid of skin, muscle, sinew or organs. Yet their bones moved in a hideous parody of life, blasphemously defying the laws of nature. The slow, methodical march of the escort belied its state as well. Beneath the helms were not faces of living men, but those of fleshless cadavers, with shadowy sockets for eyes.
The symbols on the carriage and the armour had not been seen this far west in seven hundred years. In a different era they had adorned the palaces, tapestries, and other trappings of the god-kings of Amentet. That evil empire’s last king, Dumahk, had fallen in a great battle at Khyfa centuries hence. The angry Khyfans, loyal Mitra-worshippers all, had descended from their mountainous realm in a fervous avalanche, to cross Shem’s southernmost border and decimate Dumahk’s people. Amentet’s defenders fought with fury; long and bitter was the holy war. But Dumahk and his people succumbed. Now only dust and lizards inhabited the scattered stones of Amentet’s ruined cities, and the wail of desert wind was the only sound that echoed within her crumbling ruins.
But Dumahk’s daughter had survived the devastation by fleeing eastward to Nebthu, taking with her a great many scrolls from Amentet’s vast vault of lore. She read them to her sons, and they to their sons. Yet many of Dumahk’s descendants cared little about the past and drifted to other cities, forgetting their heritage. The scrolls became a burden and were placed in the care of Set’s priests at the great temple in Nebthu.
But not everyone had turned his back to his heritage. Though centuries had passed since Dumahk’s fall, one descendant still lived who dreamed of Amentet as it was of old.
His name: Tevek Thul—the last keeper of Dumahk’s faith. He lay now within his black carriage, stirring restlessly in a half-slumber.
In his dreams, Tevek beheld a thriving Amentet in its most glorious days, when blood had flowed from her cities’ sacrificial altars in red rivers, and the god-kings had commanded absolute power. Tevek had read many accounts of Amentet—at first he had only studied the illustrations in these crumbling tomes, but curiosity had driven him to learn how to understand the runes that accompanied the drawings.
The priests of Nebthu had taught Tevek basic rune-lore when he was but six years old; they were impressed by his precocious grasp of their hieroglyphs. Tevek had consumed written words like a starving man at a banquet. Within two years, his skills had surpassed those of his elders.
As he dozed uneasily, Tevek’s mind wandered back to the days of his youth, before he had discovered the Tablets of Epithur—keys to a power that had spurred him to attempt the restoration of Amentet’s empire. In those days, he knew not of the clay tablets, only of the scrolls that comprised the richest treasure of his ancestors.
He had haunted the catacombs where those ancient scrolls of Amentet lay, and he had read them voraciously. For years he stayed underground, steeping himself in the history of his ancestors. Nebthu’s musty tombs and dank crypts became his home, and he began to loathe the feel of the sun on his skin. The only light he could bear was that of his dim reading-lamp. He shunned contact with people, for it took away from his reading. The priests left him food and water, but even they avoided him. His relatives disowned him, but he cared not. In his mind, they were traitors who should be stripped of their claim to Dumahk’s lineage.
It was the last few scrolls that finally disgorged him from the bowels of Nebthu. These had been the most difficult to peruse, as if deliberately obscured by their scrivener. Not even Dumahk's wife had read them—they had lain apart from the others, wax seals intact.
Their contents had sent Tevek’s pulse racing. They indicated that Dumahk, uncertain of victory over the Khyfans, had hidden the clay tablets containing Amentet’s sorcerous knowledge. The scrolls, though diverting, contained no secret store of wizardry. They were naught but accounts of events long past.
No, the more valuable lore was cached in Dumahk’s vanquished capital, hidden in the deepest of sepulchres beneath the crumbling temple.
Tevek abandoned his haunts at Nebthu and undertook the trip to the ruins, following the maps and directions inscribed on the scrolls. He travelled at night and hid himself from the sun by day. The physical demands of his trek fatigued him not. Tevek was accustomed to long intervals between meals; he had fasted for days at Nebthu while losing
himself in a particularly fascinating scroll. And though he was rangy of build, he had inherited the iron constitution of his forefathers.
A lesser man would not have survived the wracking endured by Tevek in retrieving the clay tablets. Tevek had entered the ruins of Amentet as a smooth-skinned, black-haired youth. He had emerged as withered and wrinkled as a centenarian, with but a few wisps of black hair remaining in his long white mane. He cared not that his youthful appearance was lost forever. Had he not unearthed the arcane tablets from those ruins, he would never have risen to the position of power he held today.
Stirring, Tevek evoked his nether vision. His eyes remained shut as he transferred his sight to the hollow sockets of his undead subjects, one by one. A clear vista presented itself; only yellow-leafed palms, sickly shrubs, and camel-thorn weeds inhabited the region.
At the horizon, he could see the walls of Harakht.
Nether vision was one of many gifts bestowed only upon those who achieved mastery of Tevek’s dark calling: necromancy. Stygian priests, as well as wizards of diverse lands, claimed cognizance of this darkest of sorcerous pursuits, but Tevek deemed these charlatans ignorant of true necromancy. The formidable Seers of Mount Yimsha and the mightiest mages of Stygia would never wield even a tithe of the power commanded by Tevek. For he had memorized the immense Tablets of Epithur—the assemblage of arcane spells that spanned the centuries from Python’s fall to Acheron’s rise. After committing these to his infallible memory, he had destroyed all but three of them so that no other could benefit from their potent contents.
In his ebony carriage, Tevek smiled thinly. Not even the self- ' proclaimed prince of Stygian sorcerers, whom he was about to call. upon, would ever be privy to the lost lore recorded by scores of long-dead archmages. Nay, great Thoth-amon would lay his serpent-like eyes upon only three tablets. This trio Tevek had not reduced to rubble, for they contained annals copied from the Codices of Eibon—works whose very origins were deeply buried in time’s vast cemetery.
Works that the prince of sorcerers had sought for decades.
Tevek had met Thoth-amon once, years hence in Nebthu, and that meeting had left a lasting impression. The raw essence of evil had pervaded the very air about Thoth-amon, whose mere presence had cowed the haughty priests of Nebthu. Tevek himself had felt the cold fire of Thoth-amon's gaze, for the Stygian mage had questioned everyone at Nebthu regarding an ancient tome for which he searched.
Thoth-amon believed that one codex among Eibon’s eleven contained the key to the downfall of the accursed god Mitra, nemesis of Set. Tevek had read Eibon’s verses twice, gleaning little from them. Though quaintly poetic, the writings delved into naught but the making and unmaking of idols, with specific references to icons that time had long since turned to dust. Spurious prose indeed, to have accrued such renown. Thoth-amon had clearly been misinformed, to have wasted time and effort in search of those worthless writings. The fall of Mitra would please Tevek, but Thoth-amon sought also to turn away that god’s worshippers, to force them to swear fealty to Set.
Tevek would rather inflict an agonizing death upon them, to avenge the murder of his ancestors.
To this end, gladly would Tevek give the tablets to Thoth-amon.
So he had slain a vulture and animated it to serve as his messenger to the Stygian sorcerer. Bearing a scrap of parchment, the bird had departed five days hence to bear news of Tevek’s coming. Tomorrow, Tevek himself would reach the Oasis of Khajar, where the powerful but fatuous Thoth-amon stirred his bubbling crocks of sorcerous stew. The need to seek assistance—-especially from this pompous mage—irked Tevek considerably. But dominion of the dead did not, of itself, make one liege of the living. And it was against the living whom Tevek plotted... against the Mitra-worshipping scum who infested Khyfa.
Too long had the spawn of King Dumahk’s murderers gone unpunished for their destruction of once-mighty Amentet. Tevek would see justice meted out.
To the last man, woman, and child, the Khyfans would suffer and die.
V
Dungeon of Despair
An all-too-familiar reek assailed Conan’s nostrils as he awakened. Most of the diverse dungeons in which the Cimmerian had been shackled were musty, filth-ridden pits that stank of death. Sighing, the barbarian lifted his head from the hard stone floor and vowed to commit crimes only in those kingdoms civilized enough to build their prisons aboveground and clean them up at least once every few years.
A distant groan echoed in the darkness, followed by an agonized scream that drowned out the squeaking and scurrying of rats. Conan brushed an enormous cockroach from his hair and squashed it against the floor. Irritated, he tried vainly to reach his stiff, aching calf. Heavy chains clanked against the manacles that bound his wrists, ankles, and neck. The links made only slow, shuffling movement possible, but they were surprisingly unattached to wall or floor. He was free to stumble around in the begrimed confines of his cell.
However, his calf protested when he stood. Conan’s knee simply refused to unbend, forcing him to hop one-legged like a circus buffoon. His fingers encountered thick iron bars in two walls of the cage and stone at the other two—a comer cell.
The screams abated, giving way to agonized sobs. A soft but tell-tale hiss preceded each cry. That sound, accompanied by the faint, repugnant stink of roasting flesh, told of the goings-on in the torturer’s chamber.
“Had enough, dog?” a harsh voice barked.
The only reply was loud, laboured breathing and a low moan.
“We’ll have it, sooner or later, fool! Better sooner, while you’ve lost only half your sight. Now tell us where you hid Her Majesty’s tiara, or by Set, I’ll shove this iron through your other eye!”
“Please... no. She wore it not... no! Mitra, mercy!”
Conan shuddered at the loud hiss that issued from die blackness, a rush of anger coursing through his blood as the poor wretch screamed like a damned soul in Hell. Though no stranger to torture, the Cimmerian was repulsed by its cruel cowardice. The torturer’s malevolent chuckles fanned the flames of his ire, and he clenched his fists in helpless frustration.
The screams ended abruptly. The poor devil had either passed out or died—the latter might have been more merciful.
Conan wasted no time wondering why the asshuri had not simply run him through. No doubt he himself was in for it, too, either torture, execution, or both. Yet he was alive—wounded, but far from dead. A crude, blood-encrusted bandage encircled his swollen leg. His captors valued him more alive than dead, and that gave him an advantage.
A heavy door slammed, and booted feet approached. A dim, bobbing torch revealed a long corridor of cells, with Conan’s at the end. The torch’s bearer had an ugly face and a torso more hairy than a yak. These features, and his long arms, suggested closer kinship to an ape than to a Shemite. Of course, some maintained that there was little difference between any Shemite and an ape.
This repulsive brute’s fingers clenched the thick hair of a man who was either dead or unconscious. A glimpse at the ruined eyes and gore-smeared face revealed the torturer’s gruesome handiwork. Dragging the limp-bodied man by his reddish hair, the apelike Shemite lumbered halfway down the corridor before he stopped and tossed his charge into an open cell. He slammed its heavy door and slid its iron bar into place. The sound echoed as he stamped back out, and darkness again obscured the dismal dungeon.
Conan nearly jumped at the sound of a whisper from the cell opposite his, across the corridor.
“Crom!” he muttered, unnerved that he had neither seen nor heard this fellow prisoner.
“A cold god of bleak Cimmeria. And you—a Cimmerian, in Shem?” The woman’s husky voice had an amused tone, strange in the bleak surroundings. Though the speaker’s tongue was that of ' Shem, the accent was foreign—Zamorian, most probably.
“Aye—Conan. And have you a birthplace and a name?”
“I am Kylanna—from Zamora,” she added with a sigh.
Conan’s brow fu
rrowed. Kylanna—royalty of Zamora, as he knew from his travels in that kingdom. She was the catch of a lifetime for these black-bearded jackals! But they were mad to throw her into this slime-hole. He snorted in outrage. “Rarer than a Cimmerian in Shem is a Zamorian princess, stuck in an asshuri dungeon!”
“My father—Tiridates—sent me to Shem with an escort of one hundred men,” she explained. “Rumours of an alliance between Shem and Koth reached his ears; he fears that these kingdoms will band together and attack him. I was to marry the prince in Shushan and formalize the alliance between Zamora and Shem. But these Shemite brigands waylaid us at the feet of the Mountains of Fire.”
“A mere hundred guards?” Conan blurted in disbelief. “Tiridates was ever a drunken dullard... and old age has left him with the wits of a village idiot!”
Kylanna did not respond.
“Crom, girl,” the barbarian growled sheepishly. “I meant ho insult. Anyway, his hundred men would have fared better against mere brigands. It was asshuri who captured you—elite troops. No doubt some kinglet in these parts seeks to prevent the alliance of Zamora with Shem. Niggling nobles infest this land like flies on a dung heap. The whole lot of them should just fight it out on a field of battle, like men, and settle the matter once and for all. Only a cowardly swine would abduct a girl and pitch her into this slimy warren.”
“He could not spare many soldiers,” she replied indignantly. “Already he had moved most of our family from the palace at Shadizar to the keep in Arenjun, fearing that assassins might strike at his daughters. Koth’s nobles will do anything to prevent a royal marriage between the houses of Shem and Zamora. Many men he sent as a garrison, to protect his family. And with the threat from Koth itself—”
“No matter,” Conan interrupted. Politics wearied him faster than the most arduous physical exertion. In Cimmeria, the best politician was a keen-edged blade. “The man they tortured here—was he among your escort?”
Conan and the Grim Grey God Page 4