The Conan Compendium

by Various Authors

  The message appeared to have been months upon the road."

  "I am much reassured," said the priestess. It was the kind of thing great sorcerers traded only when they were not discussing their greatest lore.

  "Reward our spy. And, SenMut―"

  "Yes, mistress?"

  She gave him a look that might have killed a cobra. "Better you had never been born than that I should find such a spy in my own household."

  The priest folded his hands across his breast and bowed deeply. "You need have no fear, mistress. The security of your secrets is ever my dearest concern, as the safety of your blessed person is looked after by Moulay."

  Hathor-Ka, trailed closely by Moulay, walked around the altar and through the square doorway into the living quarters beyond. A small group of slave girls greeted her and conducted their mistress to her bath.

  The hot water had been conveyed hither the instant Hathor-Ka's standard was seen from the landing, the event relayed to the palace by burnished bronze shields flashing in the Stygian sun, the same signal that had brought her litter to the shore.

  Moulay followed even into the bathing room. The slave girls aided their mistress in undressing, and she stepped into the steaming water, fragrant with exotic oils.

  Unlike many of Hathor-Ka's house servants, Moulay was not a eunuch.

  He watched the slave girls in their steam-dampened shifts with interest, but no lewd thoughts crossed his mind at the sight of his naked mistress, beautiful as she was. To Moulay she was an object of fear and adoration, in whose service and protection he would gladly lay down his life, but he could never look upon her as a man looking upon a woman. To any who might suggest to him that Hathor-Ka was a beautiful and desirable female, Moulay would have accorded an instant's incredulous wonder at

  such unprecedented insanity before slaughtering the man without mercy.

  To consider his mistress as an ordinary mortal was to Moulay little more than sacrilege.

  "This business of Jaganath disturbs me, Moulay," Hathor-Ka said. "The communication with Thoth-Amon seems innocent enough, and I am satisfied that Thoth-Amon knows nothing of my plans. If such a one so nearby were planning anything, I should feel it. Jaganath, though, is subtle. It would be just like him to send prattling letters to his sorcerous colleagues to distract suspicion from his true activities. You are sure that there was a party of Vendhyans in Khorshemish while we were there?"

  "Just two of them," Moulay said. "The fabric merchant I spoke to said he knew Vendhyans by sight, especially by the cloth they wore upon their bodies. There was a fat, middle-aged man, and a small, slender youth.

  There may be no connection. They might have been merchants."

  "Trading what?" demanded Hathor-Ka. With a sponge and scented oil she was cleansing her body with the dispassionate deliberation of a man washing a chariot. "Did these men have goods to offer? Were they scenting out trade routes? Had they approached city officials with bribes to receive favorable treatment in the markets?"

  "As you know, my lady," Moulay protested, "there was neither time nor opportunity to carry out an investigation of these itinerant Vendhyans."

  "I know, Moulay," Hathor-Ka said. "And I may be exercising myself over nothing. However, with the stakes of this game so high, I cannot but be suspicious. Vendhyans are most rare so far west, and to find two of them in the same city where we are carrying out a crucial task smacks of more coincidence than I am prepared to swallow. I would not know Jaganath by appearance, as I have never seen him, although there are ways that those of us who practice the Art have of recognizing one another. It seems, though, that this Vendhyan 'merchant' was careful to keep out of sight, something unique among merchants, to my experience."

  "But if it was your rival," Moulay said, "what was his purpose? He did nothing to interfere with our actions that I could detect."

  "He might have been spying," Hathor-Ka posited. "He might have been spying on me, tracking me to find out what I was doing. He might have been trying to hire the Cimmerian himself. If so, he was unsuccessful, for I

  would have known any such subversion from that unsubtle savage. I suppose it might have been coincidence. That is the most untrustworthy of propositions, but Khorshemish is one of the crossroads of the world, and two persons on similar missions may meet at such places. Whatever the reason, however, I do not like it. Of all my sorcerous rivals, after Thoth-Amon this man Jaganath is the most dangerous, and the one I would least like to see in possession of the Skelos fragment."

  "How could he have come across it?" Moulay asked. These subtleties of the sorcerous arts repelled him, for he was a desert man of direct action, yet he would not criticize his lady's doings.

  "These things do not go by the common rules of chance," Hathor-Ka said. She stepped from the bath, the steaming water cascading from her shapely body and her thick hair. As her maids began toweling her, she explained: "Many times, a document or artifact will seem to thrust itself under a mage's nose, as if by a will of its own. This means that there are higher powers involved, and that they seek to play us like pawns. If Jaganath has stumbled across the fragment, and Thoth-Amon has not, it is because those powers have wished it so."

  "But, my lady," Moulay said unhappily, "if these powers have taken a hand, how may you and your rivals and colleagues hope to prevail? Surely you will not wish to compete against the gods?"

  "Fool!" Hathor-Ka barked. Then, more gently: "No, you are just ignorant in these things. If I were content to acquiesce to the will of the gods, I would be a mere priestess. Instead, I have chosen to be a sorceress, to control events and even to compel the very gods to my will! If these gods or powers seek to play a deep game with me, then I shall seek to play better."

  Moulay was willing to obey his mistress no matter what happened, but the thought of crossing swords with the gods brought forth sweat on his usually undampened brow. "And what of this northland god, this Crom, of which the barbarian spoke? Has Crom any power?"

  "I have read somewhat of these northern deities," Hathor-Ka said as she donned the light robes held out by her chamber slaves. "They are real gods, if minor ones, but nothing to compare with our Father Set." She made the Sign of the Serpent, which was echoed by the others in the room.

  "Ymir of the Northlanders and Crom of the Cimmerians are little more than giants who have attained godhood through millennia of being the strongest beings in their cold northern wastelands. They have no sorcerous secrets, and they take little interest in the doings of men. They pay scant attention even to their worshippers. The true gods, the gods of the South, connive and plot ceaselessly to gain yet more power over the Earth. It is through manipulation of this power lust among the great gods that we sorcerers gain our power."

  Talk like this made Moulay uncomfortable. "But," he said, "if these northland gods are weak, why is this most important of events to take place upon Crom's mountain?"

  Hathor-Ka was silent for a while. Then: "I have wondered that myself.

  There are many more fitting locations here in the South. However, the gods no doubt have some reason for choosing this place. There must have been a good cause for that chapter of Skelos to be lost even from the few known volumes thought to be complete. It is as if the gods wish that only sorcerers of the first rank could find the writings, then make their way to the remote corner of the Earth, where they could try their skill at gaining ultimate power."

  "Then why not Thoth-Amon?" said Moulay, greatly daring. "He is held by all to be a wizard of the first rank."

  To his relief, instead of growing wroth, Hathor-Ka merely wrinkled her brow in thought. "It may be that the powers have some other fate planned for Thoth-Amon."

  Eight

  The Gathering of the Clans

  For the first time since he was a boy, Conan drove the cattle down to the wintering place. Instead of a sword he bore a wand in his hand to whip the recalcitrant kine down from the high pastures, where the lowering clouds promised snow. With his kin, Milach and Dietra an
d Chulainn, he carried his portion of the roof poles on a brawny shoulder down to their new quarters.

  Strangely, these things he had chaffed under and hated as a youth felt

  proper and even reassuring now, and he did not even resent it when his elders from time to time treated him like a child. This, too, was Cimmerian custom. If a fight portended, then he and Milach and Chulainn would draw their weapons and be fellow warriors together. Otherwise Milach and Dietra might treat Conan and Chulainn like youths.

  Conversely, Conan and Milach might behave like contemporaries while Chulainn became the inept child. And always, within the household Dietra would treat all the menfolk as infants, whereas on the battlefield she would be sent back to the high glens while the men, from striplings to oldsters, plied their weapons among the foemen.

  They found themselves to be among the last clansmen who had gathered to make up the winter village. This wintering's gather of the clan was as large as any Conan could remember, some three or four hundred clansmen all in one place. The Cimmerians were not a numerous folk as the southerners reckoned such things, but they made up in quality what they lacked in numbers. Every man was a fighting man, even the one-handed artisan who was quite willing to use that hand to wield a weapon. The women were tall and strong; their children were active and grew up young.

  Despite the Nordheimer appelation of "blackhairs," not all Cimmerians had hair of that somber hue, though dark hair predominated. While most had eyes of gray or blue, brown eyes were not completely unknown. What distinguished the Cimmerians from their neighbor tribes was their strength, their sturdy physique, their language, and, above all, their relentless willingness to fight to the last drop of blood.

  Conan and his kin drove their cattle into the common ground among the other livestock and closed the gate poles behind them. There they would graze all winter, if the snows were not too severe. In the spring they would be sorted out according to their brands. This had been Cimmerian custom from time out of mind.

  When the cattle had been attended to, Conan and his kinsmen picked up the roof poles from where they had stacked them and found the hut shell Dietra had staked out. For the rest of the day they put up the poles, cut turf for the roof, and stacked peat and dried cow dung outside the door for fuel. Compared to the life Conan had grown accustomed to in the South, this was primitive beyond belief, but he could feel himself gaining strength from it. Milach was right; this was the proper life for a man, even

  if a steady diet of it would be too much for one with Conan's wanderlust.

  As he set the last of the turves on the roof, Conan looked down and saw a group of men assembling before the door of the stone hut. Some of them he recognized. After unhurriedly packing the last turf into place, Conan slid to the ground. His weapons he had left piled with those of his kinsmen inside the hut, but for the first time in years, in the presence of fierce armed men, he did not feel threatened when unarmed. These were, after all, his kinsmen, even if they did not approve of him.

  Conan brushed the dirt from his hands as he walked up to the tall, graying, bearded man who stood before the others. This man looked very much like Conan himself, except for his long, dark beard. His weapons were plain but of the very best quality. In dress he looked like an ordinary clansman, but something set this man apart.

  "Greeting, Canach," Conan said. While he and all the others belonged to the Clan Canach, this man was the Canach, the Canach of Canach, chieftain of the clan.

  "Greeting, Conan," said Canach. "It has been many winters since we have seen you. Your sept has almost died out. Have you returned to join us once more?"

  "For a while, at any rate," Conan answered him. "I've a mission to accomplish here in these hills, and I must speak of it before the chiefs."

  "That you shall," said Canach. "But you must wait your turn, for there is much to be spoken of when all are gathered. I rejoice to see you, Conan, though there have been hard words between us in the past. This winter we may need all of the clan's best fighting men."

  "Is it to be a spear-wetting, then?" Conan asked. "It seems a strange season for it."

  "Everything about this business is strange," Canach said. "You will hear about it at the gathering this evening." The chieftain and his sidemen turned and left.

  Conan resumed his weapons and walked about the little village, renewing old acquaintances and inquiring after friends and kinsfolk.

  Without surprise he found that most of his old friends were dead.

  Mortality was always high in the mountains, and Conan's companions had been wild youths like himself, inviting an end to their careers ere they had fairly begun.

  Fires were being built all about, for here in the lowland near the Pictish Wilderness, wood was relatively plentiful in this glen that had not been occupied for ten years. Not until late winter would they have to resort to peat for fuel. Around the fires, pots of beer brewed in the lowlands were passed around, and people sang the eerie, dirgelike songs born of this wild land.

  As the sun set, its afterglow shone luridly upon the snowcapped crests of the higher elevations. Down in the valley, though, the usual autumn mist and drizzle prevailed, and it would be the passing of another moon before snow blanketed the lowlands. Hunting parties had brought in a few wild boar and stags from the nearby wood-clothed hills, and now the sharp odor of the roasting meat filled the air of the village. Among the men impromptu contests were in progress in leaping, foot-racing and stone-throwing. Unlike their Nordheimer or Pictish neighbors, the Cimmerians did not contend among themselves in swordplay or even in stick-fighting, for fighting was a serious matter among them. Cimmerians drew their weapons against another man only with intent to kill.

  Before the bonfire in the center of the village the chiefs and elders sat on the ground, gnawing on beef bones and passing beer jars among themselves. A place was made for Conan at this fire, and a joint of stag was thrust into his hand by a shock-headed girl of fifteen or so, whose fierce gray eyes took in his massive frame from scalp to toes with the unmistakable calculation of a woman sizing up a prospective husband.

  Word had gone out that Conan was back, and that he was yet unmarried.

  Cimmerian males in their prime were always in short supply.

  Conan wrapped a chunk of smoking stag flesh in a flat oatcake and bit into it, chewing the tough but delicious meat and reliving a hundred other highland feastings, when he had fought with the other boys over the leavings of their elders. He washed the good food down with a long draught of Pictish barley beer.

  A gray-haired elder sitting next to him said, "Greetings kinsman. I knew your father and grandfather."

  "And I remember you, Anga," Conan said.

  The old man frowned slightly. "You've picked up an odd accent, living in foreign places."

  "They say much the same of me in the South," said Conan with a shrug.

  "It seems I'm destined to speak no tongue to perfection!"

  Unlike their Aesir and Vanir neighbors, who were boisterous to the point of insanity in their feastings, the Cimmerians remained solemn even on the most joyous occasions. The warriors did not stand up and boast, nor did they fight, no matter how freely the beer flowed.

  As soon as his immediate appetite was satisfied, Conan found himself longing for a good brawl, but no blood flowed. "At an Aesir feasting," he told his neighbors, "there would be steel drawn by now, and the songs would shake the rafters, and the fighting men would be proclaiming the names of chiefs they had slain."

  Unimpressed, Anga said, "It is good, then, that you have come back to a place where men know how to comport themselves."

  "Yes," said a man with a long, sad face, who sat on Conan's other side, "who but a fool or a coward boasts of the men he has slain? What boots it that the dead foeman be a chief? Friend or foe, the measure of a fighter is in his arm and heart. I have engaged many a lowland swineherd who wounded me sorely, and I have seen chiefs fall to the sword of a youth on his first bloodletting." Others nodded and comp
limented the wisdom of these words.

  "Still," Conan persisted, "in other lands they know the value of merriment. There is song and the music of harp and flute. There are dancing girls and jugglers and beast trainers. Here, our songs sound as if we were mourning the dead."

  The others looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign tongue.

  "Never mind," he said disgustedly, "you would never understand."

  Conan saw Chulainn walking about at the edge of the firelight, and he excused himself, taking a pot of beer from the circle. He walked to the young man and thrust the pot into his hand.

  "Here, cousin," Conan said, "drink some of this. A man should not be

  long-faced on the first night in winter quarters."

  Chulainn took a brief drink and handed the vessel back. "My thanks, cousin," he said shortly.

  "Look, kinsman," Conan said, "I have heard somewhat about the lass.

  You are not the first to lose one. Gather your friends together, and we'll go get you another."

  "I want only Bronwith," Chulainn said levelly. "We plighted our troth."

  "Well," Conan grumbled uncomfortably, "from what I heard, your vow is canceled. Even Crom will not hold you to a pledge made to the dead."

  "I do not know that she is dead," Chulainn insisted. "Her body was not among those at the steading."

  "Are you certain?" Conan asked. "They say the bodies were in no condition―"

  "She was not there!" Chulainn said vehemently. "I would have known!"

  "Still, she is lost to you. You might as well give her up."

  "Never," said the young man. "I swore to her by Crom that I would come for her, and neither her kinsmen nor the demons of the sky or the mountains can keep me from bringing her home."

  Conan was about to comment on the unwisdom of lightly making oaths in the name of Crom, but the memory of his own recent indiscretion stayed him. "How will you find her? Once they have been led to the coast in chains, captives never come back; you know that well."

  "They were not led to the coast this time. This was no slave raid of the Vanir. It was some work of demons or madmen. The captives were herded northeast."