The clawed hand, faintly glowing, still lay where he had severed it. Glowing slime oozed from it like blood. He was relieved, after the sendings in Aghrapur, to see that it did not so much as twitch by itself.
With the tip of his sword he flipped it into the vapors below.
Even through the clouded gloom Conan could yet see the broken pillars of Jhandar's palace; from his vantage point they were outlined in the fiery glow from the pit. No use could he see in returning there, however. His search must lead elsewhere. He started down the steep slope that backed the cliff, leaping to cross the fissures that slashed and re-slashed the terrain, dodging among boulders, crazed with a thousand lines like ill-mended pottery, abruptly lost in fetid gray curtains of drifting mist then as suddenly revealed again.
Stone clattered against stone behind him, toward the top of the precipitous slope. Weighing the broadsword in his hand, Conan peered back, attempting in vain to pierce the sheets of fog. He could have missed seeing some small creature on the clifftop in the mists. A thud, as of heavy body falling, drifted down to him. He could not have missed something large enough to .... Then the one-eyed beast was rushing at him out of the vapors, clawed hand and the stump of its severed wrist both raised to strike.
Conan leaped back. And found himself falling into a gaping fissure. Twisting like a great cat he caught the rock rim, slammed against it supported only by a forearm. Dislodged stone rattled into the depths of the broad crack, the sound dwindling away without striking bottom, as if the drop went on forever.
The beast was moving too fast to stop. With a roar of frustrated rage it leaped for the far side of the fissure, its lone red eye glaring at the big Cimmerian. Awkwardly Conan thrust up at the creature with his broadsword as it passed over him. Snarling, the beast curled into a ball to avoid the blade, hit heavily on the other side of the wide crack, and went rolling down the steep slope, its cries of fury ripping through the fog.
Hurriedly Conan pulled himself out of the fissure. Silence descended abruptly, but he took that for no sign of the beast's demise. Not now.
As if to confirm his dire suspicions came the sound of scrabbling claws and hungry panting. The creature yet survived, and was climbing toward him.
Being above on the slope might give him slight advantage-perhaps-but the young Cimmerian had not come to this hellish place to slay monsters. He began to run down the length of the crevice, cursing under his breath at every stone that turned beneath his boot and clattered downhill. Sheer distance from where the thing had last seen him would be his safeguard. At least, it would be so long as the beast did not hear him and follow. Had he half the luck of those ill-begotten heroes of the thrice-accursed sagas, the creature would make bootless search of the hill while he completed his own quest.
Halting, he pricked his ears for sounds of the one-eyed beast... and heard it still directly below him, but nearer now. Black Erlik's Bowels and Bladder! He wished he had half a score of those feckless spinners of tales there with him, to see what trials men of flesh and bone faced when confronted with the monsters so easily despatched with words in a market square. He would have fed two or three of them to the beast, feet first.
An he was forced to face the creature-and he could see no other way-the time and the place were as any others. Did he continue to run, the facing would merely be at another place, perhaps when he had run himself to exhaustion. Mayhap it would be off balance for a moment, leaping across the fissure from down slope. If he attacked then .... At that moment he noticed that the fissure he had followed had dwindled to a handspan crack.
For a moment the Cimmerian was too angry even to curse. For a simple lack of keeping his eyes open he had placed himself in worse danger. The great beast was no more than fifty paces straight down the slope, with only the steepness to slow it and naught between it and .... Straight down the slope. He peered toward the climbing beast. Its red eye was visible, glowing, as was the pale, leprous phosphorescence of its body; and it was making better going of the shattered hillside than any human could have. It seemed to move with the speed and tenacity of a leopard.
Conan knew he needed a long headstart on the creature if he was to escape it long enough to carry out his search; still, the merest breath of a chance had come to his brain, as fresh air in the foulness about him.
He cast about hurriedly for what he needed, and found it but ten paces away, a shadowy bulk near as tall as he, but seeming squat for its thickness, obscured by a curtain of fog that clung rather than drifted.
Quickly his eyes sought the beast. Some forty paces below, the glowing mass edged sideways until it was once more directly below the Cimmerian. Forty paces. Conan waited.
The slavering beast clawed its way nearer, nearer. Thirty-five paces. Thirty. Conan could hear its rasping pant now. Ravenous hunger was in it as well, and in that sanguinary eye was something else, a pure desire to kill divorced from the need for meat. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred. Twenty-five paces. Twenty. Conan drifted back, through the sheet of filthy gray mist behind him. Screaming with rage, not to be denied, the creature quickened its climb.
Knees bent, Conan set his broad back to the uphill side of the boulder he had chosen and heaved.
Shrieks of primordial rage echoed over the hills. The Cimmerian's every thew strained, great muscles corded and knotted till they seemed carved from some more obdurate substance than the stone with which he fought. The boulder shifted a fingerwidth. The howls came closer. In moments the foul creature would be upon him. The sweat of effort at the limits of human ability rolled down Conan's face and chest.
The great stone moved again. And then it was rolling free.
Conan spun in time to see the boulder strike the now narrow crack in the hillside, bound into the air, and catch the monstrous creature full in the chest. Even as the beast was borne backward down the slope, screaming and clawing at the massive stone as if it were a living enemy, Conan set off at a dead run diagonally down the hill, leaping crevices with reckless disregard for the dangers of falling, racing toward the barrier.
He did not intend to leave the Inner Circle yet, but neither did he believe the boulder would slay the one-eyed beast. He would not believe that being could die until he had seen it dead. Or perhaps it already was; he had seen stranger things. But in the Outer Circle, the unseen things with claws had feared to approach the barrier. Could he reach those deadly wards before the one-eyed creature freed itself, it was possible the monstrous being would not search for him there.
Through curtains of noxious mist Conan ran like a ghostly panther past pools of bubbling, steaming mud and geysers that sprayed boiling fountain' into the night. The columns marking the barrier appeared ahead in the sickly sallow moonlight.
In a silent rush the one-eyed beast hurtled from the fog, lunging for Conan. Desperately the Cimmerian threw himself aside; scythe-like claws ripped across the front of his tunic, slashing it to tatters. He rolled to his feet, broadsword at the ready, facing the towering creature. Rumbling growls sounded deep in the beast's throat as it edged toward him. It had learned respect for the steel that had taken its hand.
Blood trickled down Conan's chest from four deep gashes, but that was not what concerned him at the moment, nor even the fangs that hungered for his flesh. Fumbling at his belt with his free hand, he swallowed hard.
The pouch was gone, torn away by those dagger claws, and with it the powder he needed to cross the barrier. With the thought his eyes drifted toward the marking columns... and there, at the base of a rough-hewn monolith, lay the pouch and his hope of escape.
Slowly, keeping the point of his sword directed at the glowing beast, Conan began to edge sideways toward the crude pillar. The creature hesitated, and a twisted intelligence shone in its eye as it, too, saw the pouch. As if divining the importance of what lay within, the slime-covered giant dared to stand over the small leather sack, almost touching the deadly barrier. Its fanged mouth twisted in what seemed almost a mocking smile.
&
nbsp; Thus for the beast fearing the barrier, Conan thought. An it could reason so, it would not leave the pouch for him to find, even did he manage to lead it away. It seemed that Erlik was enfolding his Cloak of Unending Night about him, yet a man was not meant to accept his own death meekly.
"Crom!" Conan roared and attacked. "Crom and steel!"
Fangs bared in a snarl the creature dashed to meet him, but Conan did not mean to come to grips with the foul beast. At the last instant he dropped into a crouch, still moving, blade slashing across a belly of deathly argentine flesh covered with glowing slime, and ducked beneath slicing claws that struck only his cloak. For an instant Conan was snubbed short, then cloth ripped, and he was beyond the beast with the tatters of the garment dangling down his back.
Barely slowing, Conan bent to snatch his pouch from the ground, pivoted on one foot, and raced down the line of barrier stones. Stones grated close behind, and the Cimmerian whirled, broadsword striking at a clawed hand descending toward his head. Three cruel-tipped fingers fell, severed, but the mutilated hand slammed into Conan, driving him dazed to his knees.
Then he was enveloped in adamantine arms, being drawn toward the great flesh-rending teeth. Only Conan's sword arm was free of the unyielding grip, and with it he thrust his blade into that fanged mouth, the point knifing through flesh, grating on bone, bursting through the back of the beast's great head.
The creature snarled and snapped at the blade, trying with unabated fury to reach the Cimmerian, the stench of its breath flowing into Conan's nostrils. Like the iron bands of a torture device those huge arms tightened, till Conan thought his spine would snap. No longer could he feel his legs, or his trapped hand.
He did not even know if he still held the pouch that contained his sole hope of leaving the Blasted Lands.
All he could do was fight with his last measure of strength to keep that ravenous mouth from his throat.
Suddenly there was a greater worry than the beast in Conan's mind. Over the creature's shoulder he could see the marking pillars; its struggles were carrying them closer to that deadly shield. And closer. At least he would die with sword in hand, and not alone. Uncertainty flickered in the beast's blood-red eye as grim laughter burst from Conan's mouth. Contact with the barrier.
Pain ripped through the Cimmerian, pain such as he had never known. Skin flayed from muscle, muscle torn from bone, bone ground to powder and the whole thrown into molten metal, then the torturous cycle began again. And again. And....
Conan found himself on the ground, on hands and knees, every muscle quivering with the effort of not falling flat on his face. Through blurred eyes he saw that he still clutched his pouch in a death-grip. He still had his means of escape from the Inner Circle, and in some fashion he had survived touching the barrier, but one thought dominated his swirling brain, the desperate need to regain his feet, to be ready to face the monster's next attack. His broadsword lay before him. Lurching forward, he grabbed the worn leather hilt, and almost let the blade fall. The leather was cracked and blistering hot.
Abruptly sound crashed in on him, crackling and hissing like a thousand chained lightning bolts, and Conan realized that he had been deaf. Shakily he scrambled to his feet... and stood staring.
The beast lay across the barrier, twitching as scintillating arcs of power rose from one part of its body to strike another. Flames in a hundred hues lanced from the already blacking hulk.
A grin began on the Cimmerians face, and died as he stared at the barrier. He was no longer within the Inner Circle. How he had survived crossing the barrier-perhaps the monstrous vitality of the beast had absorbed the greater part of the deadly force, partially shielding him-did not matter. What mattered was that he had but enough of the required powder to cross that boundary once. Did he enter again, he would never leave.
In silence he turned his back on the still-jerking body of the beast, on the Inner Circle, a dark light in his eyes that boded ill.
Chapter XXI
Akeba and the others were huddled around a tiny fire when Conan strode out of the Blasted Lands, wiping glittering black blood from his blade with the shredded remnants of his cloak. The Cimmerian announced his presence by tossing the bloody rag into the fire, where it flared and gave off thick, acrid smoke.
All three men leaped, and Sharak wrinkled his nose. "Phhaw! What Erlik-begotten stench is that?"
"We will return to the yurts," Conan said, slamming his sword home in its shagreen sheath, "but only briefly, I must get Samarra's help to reenter the Inner Circle."
"Then you found nothing," Akeba said thoughtfully. He eyed the dried blood on Conan's tattered tunic, the pouch crudely tied to his swordbelt, as he added, "Are you certain you want to go back, Cimmerian?
What occurred in there?"
Tamur spoke. "No!" Everyone looked at him; he scrubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand before speaking further. "It is a taboo place. Do not speak of what happened within the barriers. It is taboo."
"Nonsense," Sharak snorted. "No harm can there be merely in the hearing. Speak on, Conan."
But the Cimmerian was of no mind to waste time in talk. The night was half gone. With a curt, "Follow me," he started off into the night. The others kicked dirt over the fire and hurried after.
As soon as they arrived at Samarra's yurt, Conan motioned the rest to wait and ducked inside.
The interior was dark; not so much as a single lamp was lit, and the big charcoal fire was coal ash.
Strange, Conan thought. Samarra, at least, would have remained awake to hear what he had found. Then the unnatural silence of the yurt struck him. There was a hollow emptiness that denied the presence of life.
His broadsword eased into his hand almost of its own accord.
He started across the carpets, picking his way among the scattered cushions. Suddenly his foot struck something firmer than a cushion, yet yielding. With a sinking of his stomach, he knelt; his fingers felt along a woman's contours, the skin clammily cold.
"Conan! Look out!" Akeba shouted from the entrance.
Conan threw himself into a diving roll, striking something that bounced away with a clatter of brass, and came up in a wary crouch with his sword at the ready. Just as he picked out the shadow of what could have been a man, something hummed from the entrance and struck it. Stiffly the dim shape toppled to the ground with a thud.
"It's a man," Akeba said uncertainly. "At least, I think it's a man. But it did not fall as a man falls."
Conan felt around him for what he had knocked over. It was a lamp, with only half the oil spilled.
Fumbling flint and steel from his pouch, he lit the wick. The lamp cast its light on the body he had stumbled over.
Samarra lay on her back, dead eyes staring up at the roof of the yurt. Blended determination and resignation were frozen on her features.
"She knew," Conan murmured. "She said if I entered the Blasted Lands many would die."
With a sigh he moved the light to the shape that had fallen so strangely. Akeba's arrow stood out from the neck of a yellow-skinned man in black robes, his almond eyes wide with disbelief. Conan prodded the body with his sword, and started in surprise. The corpse was as hard as stone.
"At least she took her murderer with her," Conan growled. "And avenged your Zorelle."
"'Tis not he, though he is very like," Akeba said. "I will remember to my tomb the face of the man who killed my daughter, and this is not he."
Conan shifted the light again, back to Samarra. "I could have saved her," he said sadly, though he had no idea of how. "Had she told me... Yasbet!"
Leaping to his feet, he searched furiously through the other curtained compartments of the yurt. The structure was a charnel house. Slaves, male and female alike, lay in tangled heaps of cold flesh. None bore a wound, any more than did Samarra, but the face of each was twisted in horror. Nowhere did he find Yasbet.
When he returned to Akeba, Conan was sick to his stomach. Many would die if he entered the Blasted
Lands. Samarra had said there were many branchings of the future. Could she not have found one to avoid this?
"Jhandar sent more than this one to follow us," he told the Turanian. "Yasbet is gone, and the others are dead. All of them."
Before Akeba could speak, Tamur stuck his head into the yurt. "There are stirrings...." His eyes lit on Samarra's body in the pool of lamp light. "Kaavan One-Father protect us! This is the cause! We will all be gelded, flayed alive, impaled-"
"What are you talking about?" Conan demanded. "The cause of what?"
"The yurts of the other shamans," Tamur replied excitedly. "Men are gathering there, even though none like to venture into the night this close to the Blasted Lands."
Akeba grunted. "They must have sensed the death of one of their own."
"But they'll not find us standing over the bodies," Conan said, pinching the lamp wick between his fingers.
The dark seemed deeper once that small light was gone. He started for the door flap.
Outside, Sharak leaned on his staff and peered toward the distant torches that were beginning to move toward Samarra's yurt. The mutters of the men carrying those lights made a constant, angry hum. The old astrologer jumped when Conan touched his shoulder. "Do we return to the Blasted Lands, Conan, we must do it now. This lot will take it unkindly, our wandering their camp at night."
"Yasbet is gone," Conan told him quietly, "taken or slain. Samarra is dead." Sharak gasped. Conan turned away, and Sharak, after one quick glance at the approaching torches, fell silently in behind the others.
As four shadows they made they made between the dark yurts, out onto the plain, and hurried toward their camp, ignoring as best they could the rising tumult behind them. Then a great shout rose, a cry of rage from a hundred throats.
Akeba quickened his pace to come abreast of Conan. "They have found her," the Turanian said, "but may not think we slew her."
"We are strangers," Conan laughed mirthlessly. "What would your soldiers do if a princess of Aghrapur were murdered, and there were outlanders close to hand?"
The Conan Compendium Page 252