He would have preferred a few jacks of ale or a pitcher of wine, but he welcomed the prospect of drinking his fill and dunking his head. The Ganaks had no waterskins, and the day had been long and sweaty.
Picking up his sword, Conan walked with Sajara to the spring. It was not far from where he had lain. He noticed that the blood and dirt had already been washed from his face and body, though he must have somehow slept through it. His skull had probably been knocked on the way down.
Kneeling at the spring, he scooped handfuls of water to his mouth until he could hold no more. It was better than ale or wine, after all. He took a bite from one of the leaves. “Pah!” he gagged, spitting the pulpy leaf-chunk onto the ground. An alley rat’s rotting carcass would probably have been more palatable. To humour Sajara, he choked down as much as he could, gulping water to rinse the rancid taste from his mouth. Then he dipped his head into the spring and shook it dry, a process that seemed to amuse Sajara.
“Do all Cimmerians have hair like yours?” she asked, fingering her braid.
“Many, but not all. Some crop it shorter.” He made a cutting motion, then asked question he had meant to pose earlier. “How do your people shave their heads?”
She blinked, confused. “Shave? I do not understand.” He pointed to her shell-knife. “Do you not have some tool that you use on your head?”
She raised her eyebrows in bafflement, shaking her head. “Our hair grows however it will. We do nothing but twist it as you see.”
Conan pursued the matter no further, seating himself cross-legged by the pool and gulping a few more handfuls of water. Sajara lowered herself the ground beside him, and they surveyed the shadowy ruins that sprawled around them. Unblocked by trees or clouds, the moon bathed the ancient village in pale light, shadowing more than it revealed.
Much of the Rahaman stonework was intact. Y’Taba had understated that race’s mastery of stone. Rarely had the Cimmerian seen such elaborately sculpted buildings as those in the long-deserted village. The style defied comparison with any that Conan had seen in the lands he had travelled. Brickwork blended fluidly with expanses of smooth, seamless stone in rounded, asymmetrical shapes. The effect differed most from that prevalent in Aquilonia and Nemedia, where evenly spaced columns, arches, and angular features dominated most cities. And yet it was not any more like the architecture of Turan, Iranistan, or Vendhya, which for centuries had favoured rounded towers with tapering spires.
He admired the craftsmanship, but its strangeness made him feel unwelcome. He was in a crypt—the final resting place of an ancient people and their gods, who were now but a fading memory. The darkness and desolation lent the place a sinister aspect that would eventually tie his shoulder muscles into knots of tension.
He was surprised to see vines clinging to some of the buildings. A number of strands had taken a liking to the tower in the centre. Nothing green seemed to grow in the clearing outside. At first he had thought these vines to be decorative, cunning likenesses carved from the stones. But closer examination proved his assumption wrong. He would examine them more closely in the daylight, and study the buildings themselves for other clues about the Rahamans and Jhaora’s people.
Sajara seemed nervous, her eyes constantly flickering from shadow to shadow, her shoulders hunched tensely. “Do you feel it, Conan?”
Hesitating to consider his answer, Conan shifted his position, extending his bruised legs and leaning back on his elbows. “It is only the fading footprint of a past civilization. Some say that such places are haunted by the spectres of dwellers long dead, their ghosts forever roaming the ruins. Often that is true, but I have no feel of it here. What do you sense here?”
“Eyes, that hide behind shadows. They glower at us unseen but unwilling to strike, like serpents without fangs who lurk in the bushes. I shall welcome the face of Asusa when he awakens!”
Conan could sympathize with Sajara’s discomfort. He would be glad when the sun rose. Yet he was not afraid of the place, just wary. This Rahaman settlement intrigued him. On the morrow he would uncover the secrets of this place and discover what treasures it might hold. The rubies on the outer wall had whetted his appetite for loot. But the thing of most value would be the atnalga. It would buy him what a vault of gems could not: freedom from the shaman’s curse. In spite of his aches and bruises, Conan was more ready than ever to complete his part of the bargain he had struck with Y’Taba.
Sajara moved closer to him, her smooth skin brushing his arm. “Now you must eat more yagneb leaves and rest until sunrise. I do not think that I can sleep among these shadows... and if I could, my dreams would be dark and disturbing. I shall watch for anything that stirs and rouse you if there is danger.”
“We could pass the night in the clearing. I have had enough rest and can take watch.” He squinted at the tall but narrow doorway that led to the clearing outside.
She shook her head. “Another stalker could strike, and even Makiela may not see it in the dark of night. I do not like the feel of this place, but from here we can see a stalker if one should approach. They are too large to enter as we did, and they could only attack from above. The light of Anamobi Moon Goddess is feeble compared to that of Asusa, but it is enough for us to see danger from above.” She leaned against him, her body surprisingly soft considering her muscular build.
“You need not watch over me, girl,” Conan snorted. “Even if I dozed, my senses would rouse me if something were amiss. And I slumber with sword at hand, ready for anything that may come near. Besides, this yagneb of yours is powerful stuff. Already I feel invigorated.” In truth, something had begun to restore his vigour. It was either the draughts of fresh water, the leaves... or it might have been Sajara’s nearness. Her curvaceous body and stunning face were enough to bestir a greybeard from his deathbed. He longed to seize her in his arms and crush her lips to his.
Sajara’s breathing had become deep and regular, and Conan grinned. She was sleeping as soundly as a kitten, her head nestled against his shoulder.
He spent the night beside her in a half-doze, listening to her breathe softly. When the moon’s reflection faded from the mirror-like surface of the pool, Conan slipped into a light doze.
XV
Scent of Evil
Yawning, Sajara lifted her head from Conan’s shoulder. She squinted from the brightness of the sky, feeling a momentary surge of panic before realizing that she had fallen asleep beside Conan. As far as she could tell, he had not moved from where they had been sitting the night before. His eyes were half-shut, but they snapped open when she stirred as if he had not been sleeping at all. He did not blink as she had; he seemed as alert as he had been when leading them through the Deadlands.
Makiela and the others had not risen. Sajara shifted, feigning sluggishness. She wanted to enjoy this moment of peace before they began their search for the atnalga. Asusa’s face had only just risen into the sky; of this she was certain for the air still felt cool on her skin. She stretched, looking sideways at him. His eyes were strange, a blue more intense than any she had ever seen. His skin, hair... well, nearly everything about his appearance was different. But it was his eyes that captured her now, that and the powerful muscles that bulged everywhere on his body. She stood up, stretching her arms and legs.
Conan splashed water on his face, letting some drip onto his shoulders and chest. “How was the night watch?” he asked, grinning.
“I saw nothing but a beast with long hair. He sat by this very pool.”
The Cimmerian rose swiftly, lifting his sword from where it had lain. If he felt any soreness from his encounter with the stalker, he did not show it.
They joined the others, for Makiela had stirred, then jumped to her feet at the sound of their voices. They looked as alert as Conan; Kanitra and Avrana stood ready with spears in hand, and Makiela was surveying the sprawling structures around them.
“The sooner we leave, the better,” Conan said, inspecting his sword. He was annoyed to note that the stalk
er’s foreleg had put a notch in the otherwise unblemished blade.
Makiela seemed surprised, if not upset, to find that Conan had risen before she had. “The leaves of the yagneb have restored you, then?”
Conan made a face. “They may have helped, but I could not finish even one without choking on it.”
Avrana smiled, the first time Conan had seen her do so. “What a sight you were atop the stalker, choking it as it bore you into the air. When we found it, I could see that your hand had crushed its throat. By Asusa, the elders will be telling this tale for many generations!”
Of all the Ganaks, only Kanitra seemed withdrawn. She averted her eyes from Conan until he finally spoke directly to her. “It was all I could do to keep my grip on the blasted insect. It was your spears that kept it from getting away.”
“Mine nearly pinned you to the stalker,” Kanitra said bitterly.
Conan was wondering which of them had made the errant cast. “Do not concern yourself,” he said. “Such things happen in the heat of battle, and I bear you no grudge for it.”
Her gloomy expression mellowed somewhat. “You are kind, Conan of Cimmeria. My next cast will be true.”
He let the matter drop, turning his attention to the layout of the walled village. Its architecture seemed even stranger in the daylight than it had in the moonlight night. Near the spring were several segments of barren ground divided by a pathway fashioned from flat stones. The stone pathway extended in a perfectly straight line from the doorway in the outer wall to the tower in the centre. On either side of the pathway, the empty areas extended to the outer wall. Conan surmised that the Rahamans may have used this space to grow crops.
In fact, the soil looked dark and rich, though not a single leaf sprouted from it. He could not fathom how this could be; in these conditions, the ground should have been overrun with vegetation. The gods had indeed forsaken this place, he concluded. Out of curiosity, he pried up one of the slabs of stone that formed the path, tilting it up onto its edge.
In the moist earth beneath it, no worms or beetles wriggled. Crom, the lowliest bugs shunned this ruin! Conan did not doubt that the vile visage of the she-devil, engraved into the brick outside, discouraged all forms of living things from entering. He was already rethinking his plan to pluck the rubies from her eye sockets.
Brushing clumps of loam from the stone’s underside, he stared at its surface in fascination.
The Ganak women—save Sajara—took a step backward.
Etched in the rock was a long string of elaborate symbols, spiralling outward from the centre of the slab to its elliptical edge. Some of them represented familiar objects: the sun was depicted in the spiral’s centre; trees appeared at intervals in the string of glyphs; a crescent moon, half-moon, and full moon each appeared once; men and women, depicted as stick-like figures, were easily distinguished from the myriad of mysterious shapes that linked them together.
The style was completely foreign to Conan. It bore no likeness to the cuneiform characters he had seen arranged in neat vertical rows on Khitan scrolls. Nor did it resemble the hieroglyphs of Stygia, the runic inscriptions of past or present Aquilonia, or the crude cave-paintings of the Bear and Wolf Pict clans.
He let the stone drop back into place. Whatever meaning those runes held was submerged in a sea of time.
“Those were praises to the gods of the Rahamans, of which Y’Taba spoke,” Sajara concluded.
Conan, recalling the spirit-leader’s words, supposed that her assumption was near the mark. Doubtless Jhaora’s people had overturned these to hide them. Possibly they had tried to desecrate the works of the Rahaman people. As enigmatic as the etchings were the means by which they had been inscribed. Without metal, which Conan had yet to find here, what methods had the Rahamans employed?
It was a riddle which he had neither the time nor the inclination to solve. Their quest lay before them, not beneath them. Ahead, the desolate patches of dirt gave way to diverse buildings. These appeared to have been fashioned from solid masses of rock, as if immense white or grey boulders had been chiselled and shaped by means as cunning as they were mystifying. Conan had observed earlier that the outer wall was dark-hued, composed of brick, and clearly lacked the resilience of the structures within. This fit Y’Taba’s explanation of the village’s history.
Makiela pointed to the nearest building, a cylinder of speckled white-grey stone with a domed roof. It lay between them and the tower. “Kulunga may have met his doom inside one of these things. If you wish it, Sajara, we can begin our search there.”
“We must start somewhere.” A trace of discouragement was evident in Sajara’s tone. “There are so many of them... may Asusa guide us to what we seek. If he does not, we may pass more than one night within these walls. Had I known what we would encounter, I would have told Y’Taba to wait four or five nights for our return.”
They followed the path for a while, stepping off its gradually widening stones only when they neared their destination. When they drew close to the building, Conan saw that its sides had been crudely chipped. More of Jhaora’s work, it seemed. The spiral script may once have adorned that cylindrical wall.
Circling, Conan looked for a door but found no way at all to enter. Other than a few coconut-sized chunks of stone that had crumbled away from the roof, the stonework looked quite solid. Lifting the largest rock he could find, Conan pounded on the wall. It gave off a hollow-sounding thud, confirming that this was not simply a monument of some kind. He pressed hard against various sections, hoping to find a secret door of some kind, but his efforts were fruitless.
“Set take these stonemasons,” he growled. “If I find a boulder of adequate bulk, I’ll make my own doorway!” His voice echoed through the ruins as they moved on, approaching a similar edifice. A series of them rose from the path, their height and diameter varying but the shape remaining fairly consistent. Many of the roofs sloped asymmetrically, as he had noted the night before. Every surface had been defaced in what must have been exhausting efforts of vandalism. Only the topmost decorative embellishments remained intact.
They moved methodically among the odd constructs, eventually reaching the halfway point between the wall and the tall tower. Conan’s temper was hotter than the midday sun. Sajara and the others wore expressions of helpless frustration, but they continued to comb the area.
Presently the Cimmerian came across a rock twice the size of his head. “Ha!” he grunted with satisfaction, hefting it. Taking aim on a spot near that from which the stone had fallen, he hurled it, his pent-up fury lending him force that would have rivalled a siege engine’s.
The boulder struck with an ear-splitting crack, splintering into fist-sized stones. To his red-faced dismay, only a few slivers fell from the sturdy wall. “Crom, Hanuman, and Ishtar!” he bellowed, adding other expressions to a string of curses that would have shrivelled the ears of a jaded sailor. The stones rang with names of a dozen pantheons before his tirade trailed off. Sajara and the others merely stared at the shattered rock.
“We have wasted half the day on these thrice-cursed pillars,” he muttered. “Methinks your Kulunga would have made straight for the tower, anyway.”
“I would have led us there long ago,” Makiela snorted, giving Sajara an accusatory look. “But you decided that the stranger should lead, so I have held my tongue.” “And it wags falsely now, wench!” Conan said hotly. “It was at your suggestion that we start our search among these wretched buildings, not mine. Crom!” he shook his head, his teeth grinding in irritation.
Makiela backhanded him with a blow that would have knocked a pit-fighter on his arse.
Conan, however, possessed considerably more stamina and far better balance than any pit-fighter. He took an awkward step backward, recovering his balance and rubbing at his stinging cheek. He clenched a fist, blue eyes blazing with fury. Conan would have pummelled a man for striking him thusly, but he stayed his hand. Though a barbarian to the core, it was not in Conan to strike a wo
man.
Of course, Sajara had no way of knowing this. Stepping between them, she shoved Makiela away with a display of incredible strength and speed, sending the taller woman sprawling to the hard pathway. In the same motion, she swung around to face Conan in case he showed the inclination to brawl. “Enough, by Asusa! Are you warrior and huntress, or are you brats whose backsides need a switching? Makiela, we shall never finish our task if you cannot respect Conan. And you,” she turned to the Cimmerian, her eyes now sparkling with some amusement, “you must do likewise.”
Releasing the air from his lungs, Conan nodded, extending a hand toward Makiela. She looked at it reluctantly, then grabbed it, hoisting herself up. Conan flexed his fingers when she released them, grudgingly impressed by the raw power in her fingers and hands. She could win a king’s ransom arm-wrestling challengers in taverns. Women were never favoured in such contests, but then no ordinary wench—not even the Amazons of the southern jungles—could match the prowess of these Ganak women.
Kanitra and Avrana whispered to each other, chuckling in amusement until Sajara threw them a withering look. With the tension among them easing, the band continued along the path, heading straight for the tower. Sajara walked beside Conan; Makiela trailed a step or two behind, followed in turn by the two spear-bearers.
“You swear by many strange gods, Conan of Cimmeria,” Sajara commented.
“Aye, and none of them listen—at least not to me,” he said gruffly. “Of course, in truth I would not want their attention. The gods will do as the gods wish. Only priests and fools believe otherwise, and I do not always distinguish between those two.” He smiled thinly at his own jest.
“Who, then, is this Crom? Often do you name this god.” “He is the god of my people. Crom lives in a great, icy mountain of grey stone, Ben Morgh. When a Cimmerian is born, Crom breathes into him the strength to strive and to slay. We ask naught else from him or any other god, and Crom would not hear our prayers anyway.”
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