The Conan Compendium

by Various Authors

  Chapter Seven

  Conan never quite knew how he reached the exit. The writhing agony from the thing of the snows shook the glacier. Ice cracked thunderously all around him. The draft of interstellar cold no longer wafted out of the tunnel; instead, a blinding, swirling fog of steam choked the air.

  Stumbling, slipping, and falling on the slick, uneven surface of the ice, banging into one side wall of the tunnel and then the other, Conan at last reached the outer air. The glacier trembled beneath his feet with the titanic convulsions of the dying monster within. Plumes of steam wafted from a score of crevasses and caverns on either side of Conan, who, slipping and skidding, ran down the snowy slope. He angled off to one side to get free of the ice. But, before he reached the solid ground of the mountainside, with its jagged boulders and stunted trees, the glacier exploded. When the white-hot steel of the ax head met the frigid interior of the monster, something had to give way.

  With a crashing roar, the ice quivered, broke up, hurled glassy fragments into the air, and collapsed into a chaotic mass of ice and pouring water, soon hidden by a vast cloud of vapor. Conan lost his footing, fell, tumbled, rolled, slid, and fetched up with bruising force against a boulder on the edge of the ice flow. Snow stuffed his mouth and blinded his eyes. A big piece of ice up-ended toppled, and struck his boulder, nearly burying him in fragments of ice.

  Half stunned, Conan dragged himself out from under the mass of broken ice. Although cautious moving of his limbs showed no bones to be broken, he bore enough bruises to have been in a battle. Above him, a tremendous cloud of vapor and glittering ice crystals whirled upward from the site of the ice worm's cavern, now a black crater. Fragments of ice and slush poured into this crater from all sides. The whole level of the glacier in the area had sunk.

  Little by little the scene returned to normal. The biting mountain breeze blew away the clouds of vapor. The water from the melting of the ice froze again. The glacier returned to its usual near-immobility.

  Battered and weary, Conan limped down into the pass.

  Lamed as he was, he must now walk all the way to far Nemedia or Ophir, unless he could buy, beg, borrow, or steal another horse. But he went with a high heart, turning his bruised face southward―to the golden South, where shining cities lifted tall towers to a balmy sun, and where a strong man with courage and luck could win gold, wine, and soft, full-breasted women.

  Conan The Relentless

  PROLOGUE

  Night in the wilderness of the Border Kingdom was not only the absence of light. Darkness was a presence in itself, which reached out to suck a man in until he could never return to the world of light.

  In that darkness, the man who called himself Lord Aybas awoke slowly and reluctantly. In another life, under another name, he had been fit to drink and wench until dawn tinted the sky, then rise to do a day's work.

  Now he was older. His name was different. The chief he obeyed was likewise different, and was harsher than any Aybas had served back in Aquilonia. Also, it was more often than not an uneasy sleep Aybas had here in the wilderness, on beds of cut branches or piled reeds, or even of leaves strewn on the sullen rock of the mountains.

  Yet the true reason for Aybas's slow awakening lay elsewhere. It was a sound that he heard, riding the night wind as harshly as a troop of cavalry in a stone courtyard. He knew what followed on the heels of this sound. If he could sleep, he would not hear it and memories of what he heard would not trouble his dreams.

  The sound grew louder. It was not a roar, or a growl, or a hiss, or a rumble like that of a great grindstone hard at work. It had something of all of these in it, but more that was its own.

  It also had much in it that was not of the lawful earth or of any of its gods. Called on to put a name to these unearthly sounds, Aybas might have called them slobberings, or suckings.

  He would also have prayed not to be asked to tell more. He could not, without revealing that he knew what those sounds meant. That was knowledge cursed alike by gods and men, neither of whom seemed to care much what happened in this wilderness.

  At last Aybas threw off his sheepskin and stood. He would not sleep again tonight, unless the cause of the sounds did. The wizards might send it back to sleep, or at least silence it before dawn. They might also keep it awake and at its work until the sun shone even into the deepest parts of the gorge and the valley.

  Even if he could sleep through the grisly uproar, it would not be an untroubled sleep. He had seen too much of what those sounds meant to ever forget any of it. Aybas's memories of what he had seen since he came among the Pougoi tribe would die only with him.

  Even if it would cleanse his mind, death was not something he sought.

  To avoid it, he had fled his native Aquilonia, changed his name, sold sword, honor, and everything else for which he could find a buyer, to end here in the Border Kingdom.

  In tales told to Aquilonian children, the Border Kingdom was next to Stygia as a place where anything might happen, little of it clean or lawful. Aybas had long since learned that too much truth lay behind the tales told of Stygia. He was now learning the same about of those told of the Border Kingdom.

  Boards creaked as Aybas walked to the door of his hut. Like most of the huts in the village, it was built on a slope so steep that one side had to be braced by entire tree trunks. Otherwise, anything left on the hut floor would roll merrily down to the low side. One fine night the hut itself might even leap wildly down the hill to its ruin.

  The door also creaked as it opened on leather hinges, letting Aybas into the main street of the village. The street was actually a flight of steps, some carved from the rock itself, others rough-hewn planks pegged in place. What level ground the tribe called its own lay on the valley floor at the foot of the slope. Such rich bottomland was too precious to use for huts and storehouses.

  Aybas had long since decided that if he stayed much longer with the Pougoi, he would find himself growing a tail for the better climbing of hills and trees. Then, if he survived the service of his present master, he could find work as a performing ape such as the Kushite merchants showed at fairs!

  The village was lit only by the odd torch burning before a hut here and there. Clouds had veiled the moon since Aybas had retired. The wizards who called themselves Star Brothers did their work in darkness, save when they wanted to sow even more terror by showing what they did.

  Aybas's breath caught in his throat as he saw the door open in a hut just downhill. A girl stood there, the shadowy figure of a man behind her. The girl wore nothing above the waist and only a leather skirt from supple waist to dimpled knees. The hut's torch spilled harsh yellow light on coppery hair and firm young breasts, and on muscular legs that Aybas had often imagined locked around him¦

  As if Aybas's thoughts had been an unwanted touch, the girl turned.

  Green eyes met his brown ones, and it was the Aquilonian who finally looked down. He was still staring when he heard a gruff voice say, "Come within, Wylla. There is naught to do, standing here to be gawped at."

  "It was not that which I came for, Father. I thought”I hoped that if I was out here, the¦ the folk up yonder might know it. Even take comfort from it."

  "Hsshht! No gabbling about that where he can hear!" The "he" was as plain as a pointing finger in meaning Aybas.

  The Aquilonian waited until the door thumped shut behind Wylla, then let his breath out in a long, gusty sigh. So Wylla was losing her fear of the Star Brothers, at least enough to show pity for their victims?

  This was more common among the Pougoi than either the wizards or Aybas's master cared to admit. Indeed, if all who had doubted the Star Brothers' virtue”if not their power”had been sacrificed, the Vale of the Pougoi would be very scant of inhabitants.

  Perhaps it was time to make another example? If it was Wylla, could Aybas come forward and make a great show of asking for mercy? In return for certain long-craved favors, of course¦

  The thought made the chill mountain night sudde
nly seem warm. Aybas felt sweat on his brow and wiped it away with a greasy hand. A gust of wind blew down the street, and sparks flew away into the darkness from the torch outside Wylla's hut.

  As if the sparks had kindled it, a light shone forth from across the valley. A pinpoint at first, it swelled until it was a harsh blue glow, reaching out to strip the softness of night from the rocky bones of this mountain land.

  It came from beyond a high dam of rocks, logs, and rammed earth. The dam blocked the entrance to the gorge across the valley and held within it a deep lake. On one side of the gorge's mouth, the cliffs leaped upward, to form themselves into a jutting crest shaped like a dragon's head.

  On the dragon's head, two human figures stood, one tall and one short.

  The blue wizard-fire glowed on their oiled skins and on the chains that bound them. Bound them for what would soon be climbing up from the lake, to seize them at the Star Brothers' command.

  Aybas decided that it was time for him also to be inside his hut. His stomach was not always fit to endure seeing the wizards' pet feed, and the Star Brothers might see this weakness as enmity.

  Then, to let Aybas keep the wizards' favor, it would take more gold than his master could afford. With no friends and many foes in this land, it would be time to journey again. Otherwise, he might end up on that dragon-headed rock, waiting for the mouth-studded tentacles to claim his blood and his marrow”

  Aybas gagged at the thought and all but spewed. He staggered into his hut and collapsed on his pallet without closing the door. So he heard on the wind the splashing as the Star Brothers' pet heaved itself out of the water, heard the sucking and slobbering as it gripped the rock face and began to climb.

  He had stuffed rawhide scraps into his ears before he heard the faint high call of pipes.

  The fisherman and his son atop the dragon's head were more fortunate.

  The pipes came to their ears with a sound clear and exciting, like war trumpets summoning cavalry to the charge.

  The fisherman knew that the pipes could not really be making such a sound. Marr the Piper had magic at his command, as much as the Pougoi wizards had.

  This did not surprise the fisherman. He had known that he risked much when he and his son went beyond Three Oaks Hill into a land where the man-hunting Pougoi warriors roamed. He had also known that in this land lay pools and streams rich in fat fish; salmon, trout, pike, even fresh-water oysters.

  Nothing was ever won without danger in this life. Such was the gods'

  will. The greater the victory, the greater the danger a man had to face to win it. The fisherman did not mourn his own shortened days. He would have given much to have refused his son's pleas to accompany him.

  Now the boy stood in chains beside him, his days about to end before he had seen his fourteenth year. He bore himself like a man in spite of the weight of the chains and the agony of the raw welts across his back. He had been plain-spoken to the wizards, and they did not care for that. Or perhaps they thought to frighten the father by flogging the son.

  No matter. That and all other questions would go forever unanswered as soon as what was climbing the cliff reached them.

  It was hard to see it clearly. The wizards' magical light had turned the water of the gorge into blue fire, the mist swirling above it into blue smoke. The creature was larger than any riverboat that the fisherman had ever seen. It had tentacles where no creature outside a madman's dream would have them, and neither legs nor eyes.

  Its color was that of a fish rotting on a sand spit in the sun; its sounds would have made the fisherman empty his stomach had it not already been empty.

  It was then that the magic of the piping joined battle with the spells of the Star Brothers. The chains that bound father and son writhed like snakes. Then they snapped in the middle, leaving lengths dangling from wrists and ankles.

  The piping also seemed to give the wizards' creature pause. It halted halfway up the cliff. Its call turned to a rumbling hiss, and its tentacles also writhed.

  The fisherman looked about. There was no way down from the rock; a crevice”too wide to jump” sundered it from the hill. The Pougoi warriors had brought the sacrifices to their rock across a bridge of reeds and branches. Now the warriors had drawn the bridge back, and they stood beside the crevice, bows and spears ready.

  Down was the only way, and death the only fate, for father and son. The fisherman still called the blessing of his people's gods and the rivers' spirits on Marr the Piper. His spell had given them the choice of a clean death.

  "My son, it will be upon us soon. Will you come with me?"

  The boy saw his fate in his father's eyes. The father saw knowledge, obedience, and love in his son's.

  "Where you lead, I follow."

  "I knew your mother and I had made a man."

  The fisherman gripped his son's hand and they turned toward the valley.

  Two short steps, a long third one, and then the final leap out into space.

  The fisherman heard the wind in his ears. Its call seemed to him the river spirits welcoming him and his son home. He heard the outcry from the wizards. It seemed that his balking their pet of its prey was not to their liking.

  Then the rock of the valley leaped up to smash him from the world, and he heard nothing more.

  Aybas heard a great deal during the remaining watches of the night. He did not even try to sleep. Indeed, it seemed likely that the din must be waking babies and distracting lovers in Iranistan! Between the howling of the creature, the gabbling of the Star Brothers, the murmur of the Pougoi, and the uproar of stock from cattle down to cats, the valley echoed until past dawn.

  The one sound that Aybas”and, he judged, others as well”were listening for did not come. It seemed that the piper had done his night's work and taken his leave.

  This did not surprise Aybas. Marr the Piper had been a legend in the Border Kingdom for a generation, even before Aybas had left his native land. It was only in the last year or so that Marr had seemed ready to contend with the Star Brothers of the Pougoi. There had to be limits to the piper's magic, although Aybas did not imagine that he himself would be the lucky man to reap the reward for discovering them¦

  As the sun rose, the Pougoi drifted away to their huts and pallets or to their day's labors. The first among the Star Brothers, the man Aybas called Forkbeard, climbed the street to accost the Aquilonian.

  "This is the third time that Marr has befouled our rites," the wizard said.

  "The other times must have been before I came among you," Aybas replied.

  "You doubt my word?" Forkbeard asked sharply.

  "You put words in my mouth," Aybas said, seeking to mix humility with firmness. "I only wish to remind you that I am newly come among the Pougoi. For what happened more than three moons ago. I must trust to you and your brothers."

  "Our folk still will not speak to you?"

  Aybas shook his head. "About many matters, such as hunting and ale, they are hospitality itself. About your work Aybas nodded toward the dam and the gorge "”they are less forthcoming."

  Aybas waited, praying that the next question would be, "Do these silent ones seem to have a leader?" Instead, the Star Brother only twisted the brass wires that bound his graying beard into its three plaits.

  The man seemed genuinely uneasy in mind and weary in body. Perhaps there was more to Marr the Piper than Aybas thought. Certainly it was not the time to enlist Forkbeard in his quest for Wylla. Aybas prayed that the time would come, before he forgot what to do with a woman when he had one in his bed!

  When Forkbeard spoke again, it was not as Aybas had expected. "We must beat the hills and forests about the valley to find the piper or his lair," the Star Brother said.

  "That will take many men."

  "I see that you have eyes in your head to know the lay of our land. If your master can send more soldiers, archers above all, it will aid us greatly."

  Aybas was torn between surprise and fear. Surprise that one of th
e hill tribes would gladly invite strangers into their homeland. Fear of what Forkbeard would say or do if Aybas confessed that the men were not to be had.

  His master did not lack fighting men, but for the work he had in hand, he needed every one of them. He would have none to spare for chasing magical pipers up hill and down valley this far into the wilderness.

  Forkbeard was frowning when inspiration touched Aybas. "My master would gladly send every man he can spare. But what use is even the best warrior when he does not know your land? I have been among you for three moons, and your children still know the land better than I do!"

  "There is truth in what you say," Forkbeard conceded. "But our young men who know the land have other work. If they must leave it¦" He seemed to reach a decision. "Can your master send gold, so that we may fill our needs that way? Then our young men will be free to hunt the piper."

  They would also be free to join with the men of Aybas's master when his master's plans came to full bloom. That plain truth might open coffers, if they were not already empty.

  If the coffers were empty, Aybas knew that his time in the Border Kingdom was drawing to a close. He had served lords who tried to make fair words and silken promises serve in place of gold and silver. It was poor service, and more often than not, it led unwary folk to unwelcome meetings with the headsman.

  If that lay in his future, Aybas would wait among the Pougoi until whatever his masters sent reached him. Then he would be sure that enough of somebody's gold found its way into his own purse, to buy him a safe passage out of the Border Kingdom.