When they came to a circle of stones gleaming in the moonlight the thing seemed to sense that Conan was near. It stopped and turned, and at that second Conan grasped Alcuina. Half of the queen's robes were left in the lich's hands as Conan wrenched her from the thing's grasp. He, hurriedly set her upon the ground, half-conscious, and whirled to face the creature he had pursued. It made the others look normal, for its head was divided into two parts, with clotted, frozen brains hanging from the division. Its eyeballs lay frozen upon its cheeks, started from their sockets by the blow that had slain it.
"Agilulf!" Conan breathed.
The thing attacked. Conan had no weapon, and he saw no stone within reach small enough for him to lift but large enough to do any damage. A claw-fingered hand reached for him and he grasped the wrist, seeking to bend the arm back. The fiend's other arm wrapped around his back, and his own sought a grip near his other hand. The hard, frozen flesh made a firm grip all
but impossible. It was a good thing, he thought, that the ruined jaws could not get a teeth-lock upon him.
They swayed and tottered, each trying to get a deadly hold, the lich wrestling as cleverly as any living man. Its strength was abnormal, and it rushed Conan back to slam him against a standing stone. The Cimmerian shook stars from before his eyes, but it had given him an idea. If he could not cast a great stone at this thing, perhaps the opposite could be arranged.
Grappling and staggering, the two forms tottered toward a huge slab of stone, one of the rock sentinels that had toppled in ages past. Conan forced an arm away from him and stepped back, giving himself an instant to get his other hand free and grasp the thing's leg. With a sinew-cracking effort, he raised it above his head and brought it smashing down upon the stone. There was a sound of many small fractures, and the thing lay still for a moment. Then it began to move.
Once again he raised it and brought it down, with an incoherent scream. This time the internal crunching was much louder. Still, the thing moved. A third time, Conan, with a superhuman straining of muscles, heaved it above his head. It was like lifting a sack of stones, only its relatively intact skin holding its sundered fragments together.
"Die for good, Crom curse you!" he shouted as he smashed the ruins once again upon the unyielding stone.
This time it lay still. Even a physician would have difficulty in recognizing that this had once been a man.
"Well, Agilulf," Conan said when he once again had breath, "you could not slay me when you were alive. Did you think you would have a better chance dead?"
"You have slain him twice," Alcuina said. "Must you insult him as well?"
Conan turned to see her standing shakily by one of the standing stones. "Of all the masters I have served," he said, "you are the hardest to please. Are you hurt?"
"I am sore all over, but think bear no serious hurts." Her hands clutched together gaps in her tattered robes, which exposed far more of full breast and rounded thigh than was her wont. Even so, she stood pridefully, seeming to ignore the cold. "I came to my senses just as you caught up with that thing. saw the whole fight. I think I did well in taking you into my service."
"I never thought I would live long enough to hear that," he answered.
"Your work is not over, swordsman. I fear that this is merely the opening affray of this war."
"Come, lady," Conan urged, "let us go back to the garth and see what damage is done and who is dead. Even with these things out of the way, it is still possible to freeze."
"You are right," she said. She tottered slightly, ripped garments gaping to expose pale, trembling flesh, and he put a strong arm about her shoulders. She did not object.
As they crossed the moonlit plain they could see the light of small fires coming from the garth, but there were no major blazes to be seen. At least they would have a roof that night.
A cheer went up as they came in under the gate-lintel. "We had thought you lost," Rerin said. "So busy was everyone, nobody noticed you had been borne away until all these creatures were finished." The old man chattered in nervousness and relief. "Then we sought you but could not find you. A boy said he saw a monster run through the gate with someone over his shoulder and the Cimmerian chasing both. We were about to send a party in search."
"Are all done for?" Alcuina asked.
"Yes, it took some time and the efforts of several men for each lich, but they are all dead. Again."
"There is one more out in the great circle of stones. The outlander killed it with his bare hands." Murmurs of admiration arose. "Go send a party to fetch it," Alcuina continued. "Build a great pyre without the wall. We must burn all the dead. How many did we lose this night?"
"Two warriors, lady," said Siggeir. "And three thralls. Had the Cimmerian not taken a hand when he did, the toll would have been far higher."
"Yes," she said distractedly, "he did well. Get plenty of fuel together. I want all the dead reduced to ashes; and the ashes scattered."
"It grows warmer," Conan noted. A wind had sprung up that would have been cold at any other time, but that seemed warm after the last two days.
"So it does," Alcuina said. She turned to her wiz-ard. "What make you of this?"
"It is plain now what lilma has been up to. He brought the great cold upon us to freeze the ground so we could not bury our dead. He used them against us, both to attack us and to let in Odoac's men, or, rather, ihe liches who were once men."
"Let's go pay King Totila a visit," Conan suggested. "I would very much like to kill this lilma."
"First we must put this place aright," Alcuina said. "With the door repaired and the dead safely disposed of, then we can discuss action. To work."
All the rest of the night they toiled to set the house in
order. While the women saw to the hall, the warriors and thrall-men went to the woods and cut trees to build a pyre. They could not spare seasoned firewood, but the winter pine would burn fiercely, even though it was still green. With teams of oxen and horses, they dragged logs back to the garth. Just outside the wall they stacked them into a great heap, upon which was poured all the grease from the kitchen-midden.
The bodies of the freshly slain were cast upon the pyre, along with those of friend and enemy. Even a few beasts that had perished were tossed on. The sun was high in the east when the pyre was set alight. The arms of the slain warriors were thrown into the blaze, since they could not be buried together.
"Look," said Rerin as the flames ascended into the clear sky. He pointed a gnarled finger straight upward. Far overhead a pair of magpies circled.
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Wizard-Craft
Jilma," said Totila ominously, "you have failed."
The wizard shrugged beneath his reindeer skins. "It was not I who failed you, Totila, but the dead."
"I ask little of the dead, wizard," said the king, barely able to restrain his temper. "From my wizard I expect results, not excuses. First you bring an unnatural cold upon us, costing me dear in livestock and thralls, then your army of dead men fails of its mission." The two men sat in the hall arguing while the men all wound made merry, celebrating the passing of the un-*atural spell of cold weather.
lilma rose to his feet haughtily. "If my lord has no further use for my services, perhaps another king may kc fit to engage me."
The king turned conciliatory. "Oh, sit down, lilma. I spoke overhastily. We must devise a better plan, it is dor. It must be nothing that can devastate the whole eooBtryside, though. Like it or not, a king lives by plows as well as by swords. I would not have thought it
when I was merely a chieftain over a dozen men, but the loss of oxen can hurt a ruler as severely as the loss of fighting men., Even thralls have value." He ran beringed fingers through his luxuriant, red-gold beard. "How may we set this matter aright?"
"Master," lilma said, "let me meditate upon this. There are mysteries I am privy to that might provide the answer for us. Certain powers commune with me. Let me summon them and take counsel with them. Have I your leave
to go to my spirit-hut?"
"You have my leave," said Totila graciously.
The men quieted as the wizard rattled from the hall, then fell once more to dicing and wrestling. King Totila himself sat brooding, from time to time running his fingers through the scalps of dead chieftains and champions.
At that same time Alcuina was taking counsel with her warriors and her wizard. "What may we do to counter this threat from Totila? It is plain that he will destroy us all if we do not do something."
"How many warriors has King Odoac?" Conan asked.
"Several hundred, if he calls them all up," she answered. "More than I have. Why do you ask?"
"Why not ally yourself with him? With your combined armies, you could destroy Totila. It would be of profit to you both." He drained his tankard and held it out for more. Since the passing of the freakish cold Alcuina had lifted the rationing.
"I know well what the price for his alliance would be!" she said hotly. "I'll not lie in that pig's bed for a score of kingdoms!"
"So much for that, then," Conan muttered.
"I fear," Rerin said, "that his next attack will be magical as well. After all, why should he risk his men when he has the evil lilma to do his work for him?"
"Is there no way we can kill this wizard?" said Siggeir.
"Aye, I'm for that," Conan said. "Just tell me where to find this spell-caster, and I'll take care of him. He must sleep sometime. Ordinarily I'll not kill a man who has no chance to fight, but one who raises dead men to fight the living has no claim on any man's mercy or justice."
Alcuina turned to her own wizard. "What of it, Rerin? Could Conan steal upon lilma and kill him? That ts an order for murder I'd not hesitate to give."
The old man shook his head. "No wizard has wrought k lilma has without seeing to his defenses. He will be **rounded with traps and warnings. Most especially, Acre are his magpie-familiars. They could be perched in ak eaves, watching us even now." Many heads jerked around, eyes wide with fear and searching the surround-*g shadows. "No, they or some other agency would wn him of an approaching killer, be the man ever so eakhy and crafty."
"Oom take.it!" Conan said, slamming down his . "These are mortal men. There must be some m to deal with them." But none there had an answer 'tarn.
the wizard strode through the forests and across His. Above him flew his magpies, spying out his i. their eyes bright and keen for the sight of ene-l Lima gave no notice to the cold or the snow, t tcun those of a normal winter. The pouch at his tnaaiinrd a little food, which was all he needed.
To a magician, the needs of the flesh were the pettiest of concerns.
Ten years before, he had come to these strange lands, driven from his native Hyperborea by jealous rivals. He might have gone south, to the rich kingdoms he knew were there. He had communed with southern mages in his spirit-trances. But his magic, of which he was a matchless practitioner, was the magic of the snows and the forests. His was the magic of the North, the land of frost giants and fog giants, of the spirits that lived in stone and wood and water. To the south was the magic of other gods, equally ancient, and dominated by the serpent cult of Set. In those lands his power might not be great, and he was too old to learn a new art.
Thus, he had come to this land of squabbling kinglets arid chose one such to bend to his will. Totila was strong and fierce, but he was also crafty and saw no reason to use men and treasure when magic would do his work. He was the perfect instrument for lilma's plans. The wizard would make Totila the greatest king of the North, and lilma would in turn become the greatest of wizards. Lesser mages such as Rerin would be no stop to him, since they feared to traffic with the truly great powers.
On his third day of travel lilma came to a dead heath. Such vegetation as it supported was stunted and withered, and it took strange shapes not pleasant to look upon. lilma journeyed there two or three times each year to find plants that grew nowhere else in the North. Almost everything that grew there had powers and properties that were valuable to him. This time, however, he was not in search of magical plants.
As he progressed into the heath the plants grew fewer, until there were none at all. Here the ground was
frozen and cracked, like a dried lake-bottom in the midst of a drought. In the center of the wasteland towered a mound, curiously regular in shape and crowned with an encircling wail, much like those that dotted the plain where Alcuina had built her hall. Leaning upon his staff, lilma trudged to the top of the mound.
From its crest he surveyed his surroundings. He could see the cracked plain he had crossed, but neither hills nor forests were visible in the distance. Only a waver-ing haze was to be seen. The laws of the ordinary world did not always apply to this demon-haunted place.
The wall was breached by a narrow doorway, and within the top of the mound was empty save for a beehive-shaped hut made of stones piled crudely, without mortar. Ordering his familiars to keep watch outside, lilma ducked through the low doorway into the hut. The inside was dark and smelled of damp, and the wizard quickly kindled a fire from the bundle of sticks he had gathered on the way. As it blazed high the fire revealed a conical chamber with walls of rough stone and a floor of packed earth, nothing more.
Onto the fire lilma cast small objects from his pouch: bones, feathers, clots of dried blood, and certain plants plucked from the withered heath. A thick smoke of many colors arose and gathered thickly in the chamber, for there was no smoke hole at its peak. For reasons peculiar to this place, no smoke found its way out through the door. lilma breathed deep of the murky fumes. Rocking back and forth, he began to chant, occasionally stirring the embers of the fire with his staff. In time with his chant, lilma shook a gourd rattle in a monotonous rhythm. Gradually he lost all sense of where he was. The hut and the smoke disappeared from his senses, and he entered the spirit world.
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He was never sure at what point he would enter that strange realm. The spirit world and the world of men were not like nations, whose borders remain in the same juxtaposition. He had many times entered the spirit realm through this gate, and never had he twice entered the same place. This time he found himself sitting in the midst of a limitless plain, twilit, its sky beginning to display stars that were not those to be seen from the world of men. In the far distance he could just descry the hulking shapes of mountains, which seemed to move subtly, in a disturbing fashion. Sitting in the middle of this plain, lilma continued to rattle and chant. The flames of his fire were still before him, but of the fuel and the smoke there was no sign.
From time to time strange creatures drew nigh him, their forms gaunt and hideous. Great, glowing eyes and long teeth shone in the dim light, and many-jointed fingers were tipped with claws. Bloodlust burned in their eyes, but none ventured within the circle of light cast by the little fire. In time they departed, at the approach of something far larger.
The thing that came to the wizard lilma upon the darkling plain of the spirit world was evil to behold, bloated of body and with a face like that of a toad, if a toad's face were capable of expression and malice. Wartlike growths covered its leprous skin, which hung in loose folds about its repulsive body. It squatted before the wizard and waited with an air of intelligent expectation.
"What would you?" it asked in a hissing voice. The tongue it spoke was one known only to wizards and demons.
"I have an enemy," lilma said, "and I desire that my king should have a certain woman. It is my desire that you attend to my enemy and procure this woman that I may present her to the king."
"The woman is a queen?" the thing hissed.
"Yes, but you may not hav
e her! You must deliver her to me at this place, alive and unharmed. I invoke the pact we made many years ago."
The thing glared at him with hideous amusement, tben said, "I abide by the pact. Now, show me."
Lima's flames flattened and spread into a broad whorl, tike his forest pool. Pictures began to take form. First dry were looking down through a bird's eye upon -ma's garth, the hall looking tiny within its sur-Kwnding wall in the midst of the plain dotted with its aims and stone circles.
"She wrought foolishly in her choice of a dwelling ec." said the demon with obscene glee. "For many s of the gyre we have felt strange vibrations ema-from our point of contact with that place." Tie flames swirled again, and then the form of Alcuina The queen of the Cambres sat in her her robe pooled around her hips, baring the perfection of her upper body, a handmaiden her luxuriant hair. The red-gold tresses fanned over her shapely, white shoulders. The queen pensive, but what thoughts lay behind her level a mystery. She spoke, but they heard is fair, as men judge such things," lilma e flames brought forth the image of Rerin The old man stood upon the walk that ran "This is my enemy. He is a wiz-
"This is where they live," lilma said. "Since mid-has the queen dwelt among the stones of the
ard, but his skill is small compared to mine, and he has no pact with you."
"A trivial business," the demon said in boredom. Then another man joined the wizard, a tall, powerfully-built man, with flowing black hair. "Who is this?"
"That is Alcuina's new champion," lilma said. "A mere adventurer, and of no consequence."
The demon looked upon lilma with a smile so terrible that even the hardened wizard was frightened for a moment. It pointed toward the Cimmerian with a taloned finger. "This one has the aura of destiny about him."
The Conan Compendium Page 466