“Where do you go, Cimmerian?” she demanded.
Conan shrugged. “To the south.”
“Why?” she persisted, smiling, a touch of cruelty in her expression.
Conan threw her a brief glance. “They say it is warmer there, and they ask few questions of strangers. Besides, there is gold to be earned by a man who can use a sword.”
The woman bent over the fire and threw a powder into the hot coals. Suddenly the flames roared up, then fell away. She studied the surge of flame, her lips curling, then said:
“Gold, women, thievery—that’s civilization! What would a savage like you know of civilized life? But it matters not. In a short time your spine will be nailed to a tree.”
The woman poured the barbarian a cup of wine, then stood staring at him with rising sexual interest. Under her soft robe, her voluptuous breasts rose and fell, as her breathing quickened. A strange light shone in the depths of her dark eyes, and the firelight glistened on her firm, oiled limbs as she rubbed her hands against her thighs with rising excitement.
Acutely aware of the woman’s desires, Conan looked into his wine cup. The surface of the liquid gleamed like polished silver. Then, as Conan drank deeply of the dark wine, his manhood responded to the lust she radiated. Still, he distrusted her. He could not have told why, save that there were strange things about her and about the place in which she lived. He noted the smile, which suddenly became a frozen mask, drained of all entrancing warmth. And the eyes, which lost, for a moment only, all humanity.
“They said you would come.. She spoke in a sibilant whisper, while her eyes, phosphorescent in the firelight, were fixed upon him. “From the north, they said.. a man of great strength. A conqueror, a humbler of kings, who would one day seize a throne for himself and hold it against the red tides of war and treachery. One who would crush the serpents of the earth beneath his sandalled feet...
“Serpents? Did you say serpents?” Conan’s voice was razor-sharp, and his glance was keen upon her.
She returned look for look. “What seek you in the south, barbarian? Speak truth, now.”
“A standard... on a shield, perhaps, or on a banner. There are two serpents, face to face; yet they are one, joined at the tail.” He clenched his fists, remembering.
“Upholding a black sun, with ebon rays,” the woman added, nodding.
“You know whereof I speak?” Conan moved forward, grasping the woman by her upper arms. She slid out of his grasp, her shadow not quite keeping up with her.
“I know. But there is a price, barbarian.”
“Name it,” growled the Cimmerian.
A smile curved her full lips as, arms spread wide, she moved towards him. Conan’s blood surged within him as he took her into the circle of his arms and felt her breasts and thighs pressed against him. She fumbled in her excitement to loosen her garments and his; and, all thoughts of resistance vanquished, he gave himself over to the ecstasy of her passion.
Their naked bodies glistened in the firelight, as she writhed against him, her breath hot with desire; Conan responded in an impassioned blend of need and pain. All thought vanished in the intensity of his emotion. He felt her fingers clawing at his back and stroking his unruly hair, but his passion absorbed him utterly. As he neared his climax, a faint moan sounded in the woman’s throat. She whispered a message, no less ferocious than her love-making.
“In Shadizar of Zamora, the crossroads of the world, you will find that which you seek. But you would be a fool to go.... Only fools seek their own death....”
Then, convulsed in a violent orgasm, she took her ultimate pleasure of him, and he of her.
Something, he did not know what, caused him to open his eyes a heartbeat later. A revulsion of horror replaced the passion of the earlier moment.
“Crom!” he breathed.
For, even as he watched the woman in his arms, her white teeth lengthened into fangs, like those of a wolf. Her lips and nipples turned an iridescent blue, and the fingers that clutched his shoulders became flesh-searing claws, like the talons of some monstrous, predatory bird. A dark smoke rose in serpentine wisps from nostrils set in a burgeoning snout, and the tongue that darted out was the forked tongue of a serpent.
Conan, still locked in an embrace of love, found himself enveloped in the unrelenting arms of death. He struggled to free himself from the hideous thing that wound limbs of iron about him, like the coils of a giant snake. And when her eyelids lifted, he found himself confronting the slit-pupiled orbs of no earthly woman. All his strength, he realized, could not free him from the fate that awaited him.
Then he remembered his training in the Pit and the wrestling tricks Uldin had taught him. While the demon-woman clutched him closer, Conan ceased to struggle. Suddenly, he twisted and rolled with her toward the fire, thrusting her scaled, inhuman back against the burning coals. Her long locks, which seemed to have developed a serpentine life of their own, hissed as they burst into flame.
Shrieking, the monster strove to rise from the dancing flames; then it shrank and blackened while jets of coloured lire exploded into whirling sparks. From the incinerated body, a weightless fireball arose and spun around the chamber, shedding a momentary radiance on the hanging hides and skulls of animals. The door burst open, as if from the pressure of an unseen hand, and the fireball careened out into the darkness. A dwindling spark, like a shooting star, quickly vanished into the distance. With it a lingering cry of agony faded into nothingness.
Bathed in cold sweat and weak from the release of tension, the young Cimmerian sank to his knees and began groping for his clothing.
“Crom!” he exclaimed, and followed the word with a curse.
The stench of burning flesh was swept from the room by the night wind that poured in through the open door. The hearth fire sank to a bed of smouldering coals.
As Conan went to close the door against the chill wind and the evil things that infest the dark hours, his eye fell upon the huddled being whose alert gaze reflected the red glow of the fire. Enscorcelled by the witch-woman, Conan had completely forgotten the miserable creature, who now regarded him inscrutably.
“Food!” the prisoner croaked. “I starve, barbarian! I've had no food for days.”
“Who says you’ll have some now?” scowled Conan. "What are you doing here?”
“I’m dinner for the wolves, pets of the witch-woman. She put a spell on me and bound me here. Just leave me food, so I may have the strength, when the wolves come, to die fighting like a man.”
“Who are you?” rumbled Conan.
The small man rose and faced Conan with a dignity that belied his misery and his rags. “I am Subotai, a Hyrkanian of the Kerlait tribe. In happier days, an archer, an assassin, and a thief.”
Conan studied the Hyrkanian. He was small and as lean as a ferret. His set of head and shoulders reflected stealth and cunning, hard-bitten courage, and an honesty that Conan found to his liking. Here, he thought, is a man who might throw a lie in your face but would never stab you in the back.
As beady black eyes watched hopefully, Conan searched the hut, located the keys and, by the light of the rising moon, unlocked the shackles. The little man grinned crookedly as he staggered toward the open door, rubbing his unshackled limbs.
Conan waved him in. “Eat and drink,” he growled.
While Subotai gnawed on the remains of Conan’s supper and guzzled the wine, the Cimmerian prowled around the hut, selecting things that he might need and things that pleased him: a silver-mounted belt, a sheath for his sword, gem-studded wristlets, a pendant carved in a strange design, and a hooded cloak of heavy fur to replace the untanned wolf skins, which had begun to stink.
Dawn was a pale gleam across the vast reaches of the treeless plain, as Conan threw open the door of the witch’s cabin to watch the break of day. Silver light glinted on a thin blanket of new-fallen snow, snow that would melt in the sun’s warmth but now wrapped the bare earth in the shell-pink mantle of a queen. The barbarian y
outh, breathing the clear air, was eager to be gone from this place of vile enchantments. He turned to his companion who sat, hugging his knees, beside the embers.
“Now that you are free, whither do you go?” he asked.
“To Zamora,” the Hyrkanian replied, grinning. “The capital, Shadizar, is a city of thieves, and thievery is my business.”
“You told me that you were a man of war,” said Conan, looking at the small man keenly.
“I come from a race of generals. The essence of warfare is deception; so I learn the way by practising the art of theft.” Subotai, black eyes sparkling, looked up at Conan with his crooked smile.
“An unhealthy profession, so they say.”
“And what do you do, Cimmerian?”
“I am a slayer of men.”
Subotai’s laugh rang against the stone walls of the hut. “More sanguine than thievery, to be sure. But of a more limited future. Thieves seldom get caught and, if they are, get beaten; but murderers are crucified.”
“Then why were you trussed up out here for wolf bait?” “I did not know it was a witch from whom I tried to steal. She caught me in the web of her enchantments, as she did you. Now, thanks to you, I have no need to steal.” Conan, restive, lingered at the door, while Subotai rummaged among the witch’s things, plucking a fur garment from a chest, choosing a bow and quiver of arrows to his liking, and strapping a scabbarded curved sword to his belt. Conan watched with approval as the Mongol swept the remaining food into a sack and slung the bag across his shoulder.
They left the hut together. Ahead of them lay rolling hills, bright-crested with dawn’s liquid gold, and smudged, here and there, where scrub oaks, black and gaunt, broke through the thin blanket of snow.
“I, too, am bound southwards for Zamora,” Conan said briefly.
“Then shall we go together?” suggested Subotai. “It is good to have a friend at your back when trouble comes.” Conan looked down at the small man at his side and shrugged. “Do you know the road to Zamora?”
Subotai nodded.
Conan shouldered his gear. “Then let’s be on our way.”
V
The Priestess
The journey to Shadizar of Zamora was long and weary. Above the travellers stretched the vast emptiness of the firmament, deep blue by day, and cloudless, in these climes; by night a canopy of black velvet upon which the prodigal gods had stitched handfuls of diamonds.
Below their feet lay a seldom-travelled track, which snaked across the flat prairie and the rondure of patient hills. Here the naked black soil flaunted its shabby finery of withered grasses, like some swarthy strumpet, past her prime. Scrub vegetation alone broke the eternal monotony of the steppe, that source of man’s wide migration.
Conan and Subotai strode through this empty land with a measured pace that devoured the leagues, the small man often trotting to keep up with the limber strides of the giant Cimmerian. Sometimes they ran. Conan would lope along, with the Hyrkanian pounding at his side.
Once, as they rested, Conan growled, “You have strong legs for one so small, and lungs like a smith’s bellows.”
Subotai grinned. “To follow the profession of a thief, a man must learn to outrun his enemies.”
During the fortnight on the road, they came to rich forest lands where stands of trees stood tall beside lakes and ponds gouged aeons before by the feet of glaciers. They crossed a low pass and descended to the banks of the Nezvaya River. The stream ran south before turning east at the Zamorian border; and the adventurers followed its banks.
When the provisions brought from the witch’s house gave out, they had to spend part of each day foraging for food. Conan speared fish in the river with a crude spear whittled from a sapling, while Subotai prowled the forest with his arrow nocked. One day he would bring in a hare; the next, a badger. Some days they went to sleep hungry.
In time the forest lands thinned out, save for a gallery of trees along the Nezvaya. Wide meadows lay before them, splashed with the amber, vermilion, and cornflower blue of early spring flowers. Smiling skies, sun-flecked, announced the unmourned passing of the winter cold.
When Subotai’s arrow brought down a wild ass, the companions spent the day smoking the meat, so that they could go forward for several days without further stops. As they lounged by the crackling fire, over which hung strips and slabs of drying flesh, Conan put aside his natural curiosity to learn more about the steppe-dweller and his people.
“To what gods do your people pray?” he asked.
The Hyrkanian shrugged. “I pray to the Four Winds, which rule the land. The Winds of Heaven bring the snow, the rain, the odour of the beasts we hunt, and the sound of approaching enemies. Tell me, Cimmerian, what gods are in the prayers of your people?”
“Crom, father of stars, king of gods and men,” answered Conan gruffly; for he little liked to dwell on such matters. “But my people seldom pray to him; I, never. Crom is aloof in his high heaven, indifferent to the needs mid prayers of mortals.”
“Does this god of yours reward your sins with punishments?”
Conan chuckled. “He cares not about the sins of puny men.”
“What good, then, is a god who pays no heed to prayers and fails to punish errors?”
“When I go down the long road that leads to Crom’s great throne, he’ll ask one question of me: Have I solved the riddle of my life? And if I cannot answer, he will drive me forth to wander the empty heavens, a homeless ghost. For Crom is hard and strong and will endure forever.”
Subotai said eagerly, “My gods serve men. They help us in our hour of need.”
Conan glowered. “Crom is master of your Four Winds,” he growled as if to give himself conviction. “He drives them as a man drives the horses of a chariot.”
The small man shrugged, too sleepy, or perhaps too wise, to continue a fruitless argument.
Some days later, as stars began to wink in the twilight, Conan and Subotai reached the border of Zamora. In that darkling land of shadowed secrets, furtive spies, profound philosophers, depraved kings, and sloe-eyed women, each traveller hoped to find that which he sought: Conan, the meaning of the twisted snakes upholding a black sun; Subotai, wealth that could be his for the taking.
“Zamora!” sighed Subotai, gesturing broadly. “South lies Zamora. The land to the west is Brythunia, while if you follow the river eastward a few leagues, you enter the territory of Turan. In Zamora cross all the caravans of the world, laden with the riches of distant kingdoms: superb carpets from Iranistan, spiced fruits from Turan, the famed pearls of Khosala, gems from the iron hills of Vendhya, and the heady wines of Shem.
“Ah, my barbarian friend, here is civilization— ancient, wicked, steeped in splendid sin. Have you tasted the pleasures of civilization, Conan of Cimmeria, or seen its lofty towers and teeming bazaars?”
“Not yet,” said Conan curtly. “Let us get to that border town before nightfall and waste no further time on words.” Subotai shrugged. “Rhetoric, I see, is an art unknown to the folk of Cimmeria.”
The frontier town of Yazdir presented a façade of stone houses with thatched roofs, surrounded by a wall two man-heights high. Outside the wall, a clutter of barns, sties, pens, and corrals housed a multitude of livestock. A pair of mail-clad guards at the gate were too engrossed in a game of dice to look up as the two adventurers passed them.
Although the streets were little more than noisome, muddy alleys, to the young barbarian they seemed far more impressive than the crooked lanes of his native village, or even than the thoroughfares of the little towns of Nordheim and Hyperborea. The centre square of Yazdir was paved with flagstones, and around it were set several larger buildings. As Conan gawked, Subotai pointed out the temple, the barracks, the courthouse, the inn, and large houses which he guessed to be the mansions of local magnates.
In the square, merchants of a score of nations hawked exotic wares. Some were packing up their merchandise to dose their stalls for the night; others were still i
n full cry. Conan bought a round loaf and a sausage and munched them as he strolled about, eyeing the dazzling assortment of weapons, garments, jewellery, slaves, and such humble goods as farm implements and cooking pots.
Everywhere he looked, Conan saw marvels: gaudy mountebanks with trained monkeys and dancing bears; painted courtesans, both male and female; a troupe of slant-eyed acrobats from some unknown sunrise land; a bookseller who swore his codices contained the wisdom of the ages. Magicians in wooden booths performed miracles for pence. Solemn astrologers offered horoscopes and forecasts of things to come. Stout merchants displayed fine woollen rugs, lustrous fabrics, and trays of rings and bracelets, while deformed beggars thrust wooden bowls beneath the noses of the travellers, and starveling boys capered in mock merriment for pennies.
Entranced, Conan and his companion meandered past pens and cages housing strange animals: yaks, camels, and a snow leopard. They continued on into a street where, with musical clangour, smiths worked copper, brass, silver, and iron. Around a corner, they found workers tooling leather, and offering displays of shoes, boots, belts, scabbards, saddles, harness, and leather-bound coffers.
From time to time, Conan paused before one stall or another to ask, “Do you know aught of a design of two serpents intertwined and facing each other, with a black sun between?”
Sometimes the merchant addressed had no knowledge of the Hyrkanian tongue, and the Cimmerian had not yet learned the language of Zamora. Sometimes the reply was obsequious. “Nay, young master, I have not. But I have goblets of true Shemitish glass, made from the pure sands of the river Sulk...,” or describing whatever other commodity the merchant had for sale.
On they went, from the frontier town of Yazdir to the inner cities of Zamora. Conan and Subotai kept up their tireless pace, walk, jog-trot for an hour, and walk again; but the pace seemed slow to the barbarian. With his longer legs, he could easily have left his bow-legged companion far behind. The little man, moreover, grumbled about having to walk like a mere peasant instead of riding like a proper Hyrkanian warrior. Whenever they passed horses grazing in a field, Subotai suggested stealing a couple; but Conan, who had never ridden any animal, turned the idea aside.
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