Conan and The Gods of The Mountains
Page 10
Nothing except muck and foul odors impeded their passage, although they were black and dripping from thighs to feet when they reached dry stone. Conan climbed the first few steps, reached a spot where the wall had cracked and now sagged across his path, and went to his hands and knees.
He could barely creep under the stone. Ten paces farther along, he could barely move at all—but the sight ahead made his heart leap with hope.
The stairs wound up into natural darkness that reeked of fish oil, animal fat, and burned grain. In places, the steps had crumbled and would offer precarious footing, even without the darkness. In one place, the stairs seemed to rise up a vertical chimney that would need to be climbed with back against one wall and feet against the other.
Far above, like a single star shining on a rainy night, a dim yellow light glowed. Firelight, to Conan's eyes, with no magic about it. Rather, it told of human presence.
The only problem was that he was just a finger's breadth too large to pass through the gap and begin the ascent. Even his strength might not be equal to shifting the fallen slab, and could well bring the mass down on top of them if he succeeded.
Thank Mitra, there was another way, or at least another hope. Groping into the open, Conan's hand touched a puddle of congealed grease. Clearly, it had dripped down from above, where what must be a cook fire burned cheerfully.
Conan started retracing his steps. For a moment, he feared he would become wedged; then he felt Valeria tugging at his ankles. Her lithe strength made the difference. Conan slid free, coughed dust from his throat, and stood up.
"You'll have to go first. Slip through the gap, then pass all the grease you'll find—"
"Grease?"
"Somebody's done years of cooking up above. The grease must have been dripping—"
"Grease?"
"If I want an echo, woman, I'll shout! Go up and see for yourself if you doubt me."
Valeria shook her head hastily, then grinned. "In truth, why should I be surprised? This is the maddest quest I've ever been on. It would disappoint me if it did not stay so to the end."
Conan kept to himself the thought that the quest might be far from over. They could not be out of the jungle yet, or even into the borderlands of the Black Kingdoms, where the name of Amra carried some weight. The people above might be friendly and welcoming; they might also greet him and Valeria with spears, or even with that cook fire that now seemed so merry. There were not as many cannibals in this land as legend had it, but there were enough.
"Well, then. Let's not stand about scratching each other's fleas like a pair of apes. Up!"
Valeria scrambled up the stairs and vanished ahead. Conan followed, to see Valeria's boots and sole garment lying on the stone. She herself was nowhere to be seen, but from the far side of the gap came the sound of someone desperately trying not to spew.
"You mean to smear yourself with this to pass through the gap?"
"Do you see any perfumed oil about?"
"Ask a foolish question…" Valeria muttered. Then Conan saw her, nude and pale in the darkness, kneeling to smear grease on the stone at the narrowest passage. Only when she had finished that work did she begin tossing handfuls of the grease through the passage to the Cimmerian.
The stuff reeked like a kitchen-midden, and its touch made Conan's flesh crawl. Still, he went to work vigorously, smearing the grease on his skin as fast as Valeria passed it through to him.
"What happens if you still can't make your way past?" Valeria asked.
"Then you climb up yourself and ask the folk above to come down and chip away a passage for me. I'm no more than a finger's breadth too large. It will be no great matter."
He thought he heard Valeria mutter again. "If they don't think I'm a witch or a madwoman, no doubt it will." Then the Cimmerian tossed his weapons and garments through the gap, lay down, and began his passage. The grease helped. He was almost through this time before he became wedged firmly in place. He stretched out both arms for Valeria to grip, and she added her strength and weight to his. He did not budge.
Conan groped with his feet, seeking a stout rest that would let him use the full power of his massive legs. One foot flailed in the air; the other found the wall. Conan willed all the strength of his body into the muscles of that leg, felt himself moving even as the rock flayed skin from his back and shoulders, then felt the rock itself move.
If he had summoned all his strength before, he now summoned that and half again as much. He heaved upward and forward, ignoring the wrenching of muscles and the creaking of bones. More skin vanished, and his lungs seemed filled with red-hot sand as he fought for the breath not merely to live by, but that he might fight and prevail.
The Cimmerian's strength was equal to the task. The stone did not slip and crush him. Instead, it held firm for a moment—then, incredibly, it opened wider.
Conan thought he heard Valeria utter what might have been either a prayer or an oath. He knew he felt her long fingers gripping his wrists again, and as the grip tightened, she flung herself backward.
For one more moment, the rock held Conan, and he was not sure which would happen first—his pulling free, or his arms wrenching out of their sockets. Then the tiny widening of the opening, the grease on skin and rock, his own strength, and Valeria's desperate efforts all joined to send him flying out of the gap-He landed almost on top of Valeria, and it was a while before either of them caught their breath enough to notice it. Even then, the woman did not protest. She only smiled and threw an arm around Conan's neck.
He returned the smile and rolled off, then fought breath back into his lungs and stood up. He felt as if he had been wrestling one of the Golden Serpents. His skin was scraped from flesh in half a score of places, and muscles and joints were cursing him roundly. The filth from the tunnel itched and stung wherever it fell on raw places, and altogether he had hardly felt worse during some of the times he had escaped from slavery.
But he had ignored pain even then because he was free, and now he did the same for much the same reason. That magic-haunted maze and its monsters had done their best to make an end of him, or at least to make the maze his and Valeria's tomb. Now they were free of it, even if to do no more than to die on their feet, their blades in hand.
Conan judged that all of his limbs were still attached and could perform their duties. Then he resumed his garments, except for his boots, which he hung about his neck as Valeria carried hers.
Valeria meanwhile had propped her head on one elbow and was contemplating him with what appeared to be amusement. Conan returned her contemplation, although with more than amusement as she had not yet donned even her one scanty garment.
"If you've done looking at me like a buyer at a donkey—" Conan said at last.
"I'd have you bathed before I bought you," Valeria replied. She held her nose. "Or maybe boiled."
"You could put a he-goat to flight yourself," Conan said. He reached down. "Up, woman. We're not done yet."
While standing in the open on the far side of the gap, he had seen at least two more tunnels leading off from the chamber. The magic light seemed to glow dimly far down one of them; the other was dark and no higher than Conan's waist. The stone at its mouth also seemed curiously worked, not so much carved as eaten, as if by the acids that the sword-makers of Khitai were said to use upon fine blades to etch cunning patterns upon them.
He thought of acids that could eat stone, and he remembered what had nearly taken Valeria, leaving its mark on her ankle. The mark was still there, beneath the filth. The thing that had made it might have also made the tunnel. No, he and Valeria were not done with this ancient maze until they stood in the sunlight again.
The first sign that Seyganko had of anything amiss was Emwaya's stumbling. That would not have told another man much, for Emwaya was dancing in a circle in the center of Seyganko's hut. It was, moreover, a dance so swift and complex that her feet seemed to spurn the earth; even the warrior's keen eye could hardly follow their moveme
nts.
She leaped—and instead of landing on her toes, she went to hands and knees. Seyganko sprang forward to help her rise. She shook off his hand and remained kneeling, then stretched her full length on the reed-strewn floor of the hut.
Again Seyganko offered aid; again Emwaya spurned it. Then she turned her head so that one ear was against the floor, and stretched out both arms. Her fingers writhed in gestures the warrior knew came from the Spirit-Speaking rituals.
Emwaya was not sick or hurt, it seemed. But if she had sensed some threat to the Ichiribu from deep within the spirit world, this was small consolation. Seyganko gripped his club and measured the distance to his spears, although reason told him that mere wood and iron could do nothing against such menaces as Emwaya might have heard.
At last she stood, brushing dried reeds from her breasts. Now she allowed Seyganko to support her, lead her to a sleeping mat, pour beer from a jug and offer it. But she sat with the wooden cup in her hand, licking her lips, eyes staring beyond Seyganko into places where he knew he could not follow.
"From below," she said. "It comes from below."
"What is it?"
"Have you never heard of the Stone City?"
"That legend?"
"I begin to think it is no legend. It could lie beneath this very village, with spirits from before men were men guarding it."
"It could. But then, it might not—" The wish to banter left Seyganko as he saw Emwaya's face harden.
"Something has made the spirits uneasy. I cannot say which spirits, or where, but I feel danger to the Ichiribu."
"I shall call out the fanda," Seyganko said. The fanda consisted of six warriors of each clan, who took turns being armed, girded, and painted for war. Seyganko was not painted, but his war luck was so proverbial that no one thought he needed the adornment except in great battles.
"Send a messenger," Emwaya said. "You must stay here while I paint you."
"There is need for haste more than for paint."
"Not when the enemy is unknown spirits."
"If the spirits are coming, then you and your father are needed, not the fanda."
"We will be needed before long, but the fanda has work, too. They must guide folk away from danger, keep them from panic, watch for thieves who might find untended huts a temptation—"
"Perhaps I should do your work and you mine, since you know it so well."
Emwaya looked hurt, as she seldom did when reminded of the sharpness of her tongue. Then she actually clung to him. "We each have our duties, I fear. Now, have you your war paint about here?"
"Yes. You are going to paint all of me?"
Emwaya lowered her eyes. "All. Do not hope that we will have time, though."
Seyganko grinned and began undoing his loincloth. The full ritual battle-paint included a warrior's loins and manhood. In times past, Emwaya's painting him had ended with much pleasure to both.
Yet something told him that this would not be one of those times. Emwaya spoke of spirits she had not encountered; Seyganko had little doubt that she spoke the truth.
"Hold on, Conan. My grip is slipping."
Valeria felt the Cimmerian's massive shoulders tighten under her feet. Free to move one hand without falling, she groped for a better purchase on the stone. It was slick with her own blood, issuing from where her first grip had gashed the hand.
At last she thought she had found what she sought. Many years of swordplay and climbing rigging had given her long arms more strength than commonly found in a woman. She did not fear falling as long as she had a good grip.
She had judged correctly, but she was dripping sweat by the time she rolled onto the ledge above. For the tenth time since they had begun their climb, she had to brush her hair out of her eyes. Yet she was perched on the ledge as securely as its crumbling stone allowed. Beyond her lay only the chimney, which both of them could climb with little trouble, and then solid stairs began again.
She tore a strip from her garment and bound her hair with it. This reduced the already tattered covering to hardly more than a shred of cloth about her loins. She had, however, quite ceased to care about her garb as long as it included a sword-belt and her steel.
Having done with Valeria, Conan handed up his boots and weapons, then sprang high and found purchase for both fingers and toes. A moment later, he was beside the woman on the ledge.
"We'd do better with a thong or a rope to tie to all this," he said, waving a bruised and filthy hand at their scanty gear and the boots holding a lord's ran-som in each toe. "Then we could draw it up afterward."
"There's not enough left of my garment for that," Valeria said. "Of course you could always sacrifice the rest of your breeches—"
"Or we could forget about those—"
Valeria put one hand protectively over the boots and the other on the hilt of her heavy dagger. Conan drew back in mock fear.
"By Erlik's untiring tool, woman, don't you know a jest when you hear one?"
"When I hear one, I do. I know not what I heard from you just now."
Conan shrugged and said no more. Valeria hoped he had heard her true meaning—that she would leave those fire-stones only to save her life. That a dead pirate had no use for loot, she would gladly admit, but she was not dead yet. Dusty-throated from thirst, hollow-bellied from hunger, filthy, all but naked, and far from home, or even from safety, she surely was— but not dead.
Then from above they heard a sound, familiar to anyone who had traveled this far south, yet strange, even unearthly in these surrounds.
Close to the cook fire, someone was beating a war drum. As another drum joined the first, the warm yellow glow of the cook fire died and darkness engulfed the voyagers in the depths.
One drum began the call to the Ichiribu of the Great Village. A second joined it, then a third.
Seyganko stood by the hearthstone as the cook-women emptied pots, gourds, and jugs of water onto the flames. They did this with sour looks at him. Not only was quenching the cook fire a dirty task, it was an evil omen. The women feared the spirits… as well as what their kin would say to cold meals.
Fortunately, they also feared Seyganko and his warriors of the fanda too much to disobey. Or was it Emwaya they feared? She stood by a hut on the edge of the hearthfield, arms crossed over her breasts, watching the work with an unsmiling face.
Indeed, she had not smiled since she had stumbled. Since she had told Seyganko that the hearth-field was the heart of the danger, she had looked almost an evil spirit herself. Fine work it would be if her face drove folk into the panic she feared and made more enemies for Seyganko.
Do you then think unknown spirits are nothing to be feared?
He heard the question in his mind, but used his body to reply, shaking his head. He did not wish to reply mind-to-mind when so many other folk might suddenly demand his attention. Aondo, for one.
Aondo was a warrior in the fanda, and beside him stood another—what was his name? Oh, Wobeku the Swift, one who had gone with Seyganko on the raid that brought back those Kwanyi captives, who told such dire tales. Wobeku was one of the fastest runners among the Ichiribu, as well as a friend of Aondo.
Today Wobeku was not running. He stood lightly on his long legs, and it seemed to Seyganko that his eyes roved about more than was customary. Now he looked at Seyganko, now at the hearthstone— especially the lower end, where the channel fed melted fat into the earth to nourish the spirits there—and now at Emwaya. «A man could not be blamed for wondering what Wobeku was seeking.
Seyganko realized that he was about to do what he had just thought unwise in Emwaya. Nonetheless—
Have you warned your father?
He needed no warning. He knows what the spirits do, as much as any man.
Seyganko's reply was a broad smile. Then he waved at Wobeku.
"Your wish, Honored One?"
"A messenger has gone to Dobanpu Spirit-Speaker. Yet he was not as swift on his feet as you. Will you take another message?"
It was part of the price for the title of Honored One among the warriors of the Ichiribu. Baring one's back to treachery lest one do injustice to loyal warriors was a sacred duty. Spirits, as well as wronged kin, might avenge neglecting it.
"Good. Emwaya, daughter of Dobanpu, will tell you what to say."
Emwaya's message was short—just long enough, Seyganko judged, not to make Wobeku suspicious. The warrior saw the messenger nod, then unbind his feet, set aside all garb and girding save for his headdress, loinguard, and paint, then run. He was beyond the huts in a few breaths, outside the village wall in a few more, and out of sight before the drumming stopped.
By then, the hearthfield was empty of all but the fanda, Seyganko, and Emwaya. From cracks in the nearest huts, children peered, too curious to be frightened even if the earth was spewing spirit-serpents. More young ones seemed to be perched in trees and on the wall, and Seyganko heard their mothers calling them down.
Then he heard nothing more, save a swelling rumble from underfoot as the earth trembled and the hearthstone that had stood for five men's lives began to crack apart.
Even Conan's eyes took a moment to respond to the sudden darkness. For a moment, he could hear only Valeria's breathing, coming in quick pants like those of a thirsty dog. She was commanding herself well in the face of this new menace, but could not hide all of her disquiet.
Crom did not love the fearful, nor did they live long in Cimmeria. Otherwise, Conan himself might have volleyed oaths. It seemed that someone or something was toying with them, snatching away each promise of escape the moment they had come to trust themselves to it.