Conan the Invincible

by Robert Jordan

  Hordo groaned again, and sat up, sagging his broad back against the stone wall. At the clank of his chains he stared at his manacles, then closed his eye.

  “What happened, Hordo?” Conan asked. “Amanar had you brought hence by S’tarra, saying you meddled. In what?”

  Hordo’s scarred face contracted as if he wished to cry. “She was gone so long from the camp,” he said finally, “and you, that I became concerned. It was near dark, and the thought that she must either remain the night in this place or find her way to camp through that blackness … . At the gate they let me in, but reluctantly, and one of the scaled ones ran calling for Sitha. I found the chamber where thrice-accursed Amanar, may the worms feast long on him, sat on his throne of golden serpents.” His one eye closed again, but he spoke on, more slowly. “Musicians played, men, though their eyes never left the floor. Those snakeskinned demon-spawn came, and beat me down with clubbed spears. The mage shouted for them to take me alive. Two of them I killed, before my senses went. Two, at least, I know.”

  He fell silent, and Conan prodded him. “Surely Amanar didn’t have you imprisoned merely for entering his throne room?”

  The bearded face contorted in a grimace of pain, and Hordo moaned through clenched teeth. “Karela!” he howled. “She danced for him, naked as any girl in a zenana, and with as wild an abandon! Karela danced naked for the pleasure of that … .” Sobs wracked his burly form, choking off his words.

  The hackles stood on Conan’s neck. “He will die, Hordo,” he promised. “He will die.”

  “This Karela,” Haranides said incredulously, “she is the Red Hawk?”

  Redfaced, Hordo lunged to the full extent of his chains. “She was ensorceled!” he shouted. “She knew me not. Never once did she look at me, or cease her dancing. She was spell-caught.”

  “We know it,” Conan said soothingly.

  The one-eyed man glared at Haranides. “Who is this man, Conan?”

  “Don’t you recognize him?” The Cimmerian laughed. “Haranides, the Zamoran captain we introduced to the hillmen.”

  “A Zamoran officer!” Hordo snarled. “Can I get my hands free, at least I’ll rid the world of one more soldier before I die.”

  “Think you so, rogue?” Haranides sneered. “I’ve killed five like you before breaking fast in the morning.” The bandit and the captain locked murderous gazes.

  “Forgetting your chains for the moment,” Conan said conversationally, “do you intend to do Amanar’s work for him?”

  The glares shifted to him. “We’re going to die anyway,” Hordo growled.

  “Die if you want,” Conan said. “I intend to escape, and let Amanar do the dying.”

  “How?” Haranides demanded.

  The Cimmerian smiled wolfishly. “Wait,” he said. “Rest.” And despite their protests he settled down to sleep. His dreams were of strangling Amanar with the black pendant’s chain.

  XXVI

  Karela woke and looked about her in confusion. She lay on a silk-draped couch, not in her pavilion, but in an opulent room hung with scarlet silken gauze. Silver bowls and ewers stood on a gilded table, and the finest Turanian carpet covered the floor. Sunlight streamed in through a narrow window. She was in Amanar’s keep, she realized, and at the same moment realized she was naked.

  “Derketo!” she muttered, sitting up quickly.

  Her head spun. Had she taken too much wine the night before? For some reason she was sure she had spent a night inside the fortress. There was a vague memory of wild music, and a girl’s sensual dancing. She put a hand to her forehead as if to wipe away perspiration, and jerked it back down with another oath. The room was cool; she was cool. Quickly she rose to search for her clothing.

  Her golden breastplates and emerald girdle were carefully laid out on her scarlet cloak, atop a chest at the foot of the couch. Her crimson thigh-boots stood before the chest, and her jeweled tulwar leaned against it. She dressed swiftly.

  “Who was that girl?” she muttered beneath her breath as she tugged the last boot on, pulling the soft red leather almost to the top of her thigh. The dance had been shamelessly abandoned, almost voraciously carnal.

  But why should that be important, she wondered. More important was to see that she watched her drinking in the future. She did not trust Amanar enough to spend another night in that keep. Her cheeks flamed, only partly with anger. She was lucky she had not wakened in his bed. Not that he was not handsome, in a cruel fashion, and powerful, which had its own attractions, but that would be a matter of her own choosing.

  The door opened, and Karela was on her feet, tulwar in hand, before she realized it. She looked in consternation at the girl who entered, head down, not looking at her, with a tall, wooden-handled silver pitcher on a tray. Why was she so jumpy, she thought, resheathing the curved blade. “I’m sorry, girl. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Hot water, mistress,” the girl said in a toneless voice, “for your morning ablutions.” Still without raising her eyes she set the tray on the table and turned to go. She seemed unaffected by being greeted with a sword.

  “A minute,” Karela said. The girl stopped. “Has anyone come asking for me at the portcullis? Hordo? A bearded man with an eye-patch?”

  “Such a man was taken to the dungeons, mistress, this night past.”

  “The dungeons!” Karela yelped. “By the tits of Derketo, why?”

  “It was said, mistress, that he was discovered attempting to free the man Conan, and also that he had many golden ornaments in a sack.”

  The red-haired woman drew a shuddering breath. She should have expected something of the kind, should have guarded against it. Hordo and Conan had become close-sword-brothers, the hillmen called it-and men, never truly sane in her opinion, were at their maddest in such relationships. Still, for her most loyal hound, she must do something.

  “Where is your master, girl?”

  “I do not know, mistress.”

  Karela frowned. There had been a slight hesitation before that answer. “Then show me to the dungeons. I want to speak to Hordo.”

  “Mistress, I … I cannot … my master … .” The girl stood staring at the floor.

  Karela grabbed the girl’s chin, twisting her face up. “Look at me … .”

  Her breath caught in her throat. The girl might have been called beautiful, except that there was no single line of expression or emotion on her face. And her brown eyes were … empty was the only word Karela could think of. She pulled her hand away, and had to resist the desire to wipe it on something. The girl dropped her eyes again immediately on being released. She had made no slightest resistance then, and she stood waiting now.

  “Girl,” Karela said, making her tone threatening, “I am here, and your master is elsewhere. Now show me to the dungeons!”

  The girl nodded hesitantly, and led the way from the room.

  She had been on the topmost level of the keep, Karela discovered as they took curving marble stairs, seeming to hang suspended in air, down to the ground floor. In a small side corridor the girl stopped before a plain stone archway that led onto rough stone steps. She had not raised her eyes in the entire journey, and Karela did not really want her to.

  “There, mistress,” the girl said. “Down there. I am not permitted to descend.”

  Karela nodded. “Very well, girl. If trouble comes of this for you, I’ll intercede with your master.”

  “The master will do as he will do,” the girl replied in her toneless voice. Before Karela could speak again, she had scurried away and was gone around a corner.

  Taking a deep breath, and with a firm grip on her sword, the red-haired bandit descended the stairs until she came to an iron-strapped door. On this she pounded with her sword hilt.

  The door was opened by a huge, fat man in a stained yellow tunic. She presented her blade to his face before he could speak. At least this one did not stare at the ground, she thought, though perhaps he should to hide his face.

  “The
man Hordo,” she said. “Take me to where he is confined.”

  “But Amanar,” the fat man began. Her sword point indented his neck, and his piggy eyes bulged. “I’ll take you to him,” he stammered in a high-pitched voice, and added, “Mistress.”

  Blade against his backbone, she followed him down the crudely cut corridor. He fumbled with the keys at his belt, and unlocked one of the solid wooden doors.

  “Over there,” she ordered, gesturing with her sword. “Where I can see you. And do you move, I’ll make a capon of you, if you’re not one already.”

  Anger twisted his suety face, but he moved as she directed. She pulled open the door and stared at the three men inside. Conan, Hordo, and one who looked vaguely familiar to her. All three looked up as the door swung open.

  “You came!” Hordo cried. “I knew you would!”

  Her green eyes rested on the broad-shouldered Cimmerian. His gaze, like twinned blue agates, regarded her impassively. She was relieved to see he still lived, and angry that she was relieved. The hard planes of his unlined face were handsome, it was true, and he was virile—her cheeks colored—but he was a fool. Why did he have to oppose Amanar? Why could he not forget that girl, Velita? Why?

  “Why?” she said, and immediately pulled her gaze to Hordo. “Why did you do it, Hordo?”

  The one-eyed bandit blinked at her in bewilderment. “Do what?”

  “Steal from Amanar. Try to free this other fool.” She jerked her head at Conan without looking at him again.

  “I stole nothing,” Hordo protested. “And I knew not that Conan was imprisoned until I was chained beside him.”

  “Then you were brought here for no reason?” she said derisively. Hordo was silent.

  “He,” Conan began, but Hordo cut him off with a shout.

  “No, Cimmerian!” He added, “Please?” and the word sounded as if it were carved from his vitals.

  Karela looked at the two men in consternation. Their eyes met, and Conan nodded. “Well?” she demanded. Neither man spoke. Hordo would not meet her gaze. “Derketo take you, Hordo. I should have you flogged. Can I talk Amanar into releasing you, I may yet.”

  “Release us now,” Hordo said quickly. “Ort has the keys. You can—”

  “You!” she said sharply. “It’s you I’ll try to free. I have no interest in these others.” She felt Conan’s eyes on her, and could not look at him. “Besides, it may do you good to sit here and worry as whether or not I can talk Amanar into releasing you to me.” She gestured to the fat jailer with her sword. “You! Close the door.” She stepped back to keep him under her eye and blade as he moved to do so.

  “Karela,” Hordo shouted, “leave this place! Leave me! Take horse and—” The door banged shut to cut him off.

  As the fat man turned from locking the massive door, she laid her curved blade against his fat neck. Her eyes were glittering emerald ice. “If I find you have not taken good care of him,” she said coldly, “I’ll carve that bulk away to see if there’s a man inside.” Contemptuously she turned her back and stalked from the dungeon.

  By the time she reached the top of the rude stone stairs her brain was burning. Amanar had no right. Conan was one thing, Hordo quite another. She would maintain the discipline of her hounds, and she had no intention of letting the mage usurp her authority in this fashion. She strode through the ornate halls of the black donjon, still clutching her sword in her anger.

  One of the S’tarra appeared before her, blinking in surprise at the weapon in her hand. “Where is Amanar?” she demanded.

  It did not speak, but its red eyes twitched toward a plain arch. She remembered Amanar saying that the passage beyond led to his thaumaturgical chambers. In her present mood, bearding the sorcerer there was just what she sought. She turned for the arch.

  With a hissed shout, the mailed S’tarra leaped for her, and jumped back just in time, so that her blade drew sparks across the chest of its hauberk.

  “Follow,” she growled, “and you’ll never follow anything again.”

  Its rubiate eyes remained on her face, but it stood still as she backed down the sloping passage, lined with flickering torches set in plain iron sconces. The corridor was longer than she had suspected. The archway, and the S’tarra still standing there, had dwindled to mere specks by the time her back came up against a pair of tall wooden doors.

  The doors were carved with a profusion of serpents in endless arabesques, as were the stone walls of the corridor, though this had not been so high up. She thought she might be under the very heart of the mountain. Pushing open one of the doors, she went in.

  The room was a great circle, surrounded by shadowed columns. The floor was a mosaic of a strange golden serpent. On the far side of the room, Amanar whirled at her entrance. Sitha, crouching near the mage, half rose.

  “You dare to enter here!” Amanar thundered.

  “I dare anything,” she snapped, “while you have Hordo chained …” What was beyond the black-robed sorcerer finally impressed itself on her. The red-streaked black marble altar. The slim blonde girl bound naked to it, rigid with terror. “By the black heart of Ahriman,” Karela swore, “what is it you do here, mage?”

  Instead of answering, the cold-eyed man traced a figure in the air, and the figure seemed to stand glowing as he traced, stirring some buried memory deep inside her. Behind her eyes she felt something break, like a twig snapping. She would teach him to play his magical tricks with her. She started for the dark man … and stared down in amazement at feet that would not move. They did not feel held, they had full sensation, but they would not move.

  “What wizardry is this?” she demanded hoarsely. “Release me, Amanar, or—”

  “Throw the sword aside,” he commanded.

  She stifled a scream as her arm obeyed, sending the jewel-hilted tulwar skittering across the mosaicked floor to ring against a column.

  Amanar nodded in satisfactio. “Remove your garments, Karela.”

  “Fool,” she began, and her green eyes started with horror as her slim fingers rose to the golden pin that held her scarlet cloak and undid it. The cloak slid from her shoulders to the floor. “I am the Red Hawk,” she said. It was little more than a whisper, but her voice rose to a scream. “I am the Red Hawk!”

  She could not stop watching with bulging eyes as her hands removed the golden breastplates from her heavy round breasts and casually dropped them, unfastened the emerald girdle that rode low on her flaring hips.

  “Enough,” Amanar said. “Leave the boots. I like the picture they present.” She wanted to weep as her hands returned quiescent to her sides. “Beyond these walls,” the black-robed man went on, “you are the Red Hawk. Inside them, you are … whatever I want you to be. I think from now on I will keep you thus when you are with me, aware of what is happening. Your fear is like the rarest of wines.”

  “Think you I’ll return once I am free?” she spat. “Let me get a sword in my hand and my hounds about me, and I will tear this keep down about your head.”

  His laughter sent shivers along her bones. “When you leave these walls, you will remember what I tell you to remember. You will go believing that we conferred, on this matter or that. But when once again within this donjon, you will remember the true nature of things. The Red Hawk will grovel at my feet and crawl to serve my pleasure. You will hate it, but you will obey.”

  “I’ll die first!” she shouted defiantly.

  “That will not be permitted,” he smiled coldly. “Now be silent.” The words she was about to speak froze on her tongue. Amanar produced a knife with a gilded blade from beneath his robe and tested its edge with his thumb. “You will watch what occurs here. I do not think Susa will mind.” The girl on the altar moaned. The sorcerer’s red-flecked black eyes suddenly held Karela’s gaze as a viper holds the gaze of a bird. She could feel those eyes reaching into the very depths of her. “You will watch,” Amanar said softly, “and you will begin to learn the true meaning of fear.” He turned back
to the altar; his chant rose, cutting into her mind like a knife. Flaming mists began to form.

  Karela’s green eyes bulged as if they would start from her head. She would not scream, she told herself. Even if she had a voice she would not scream. But her flanks and the rounded slopes of her breasts were of a sudden slick with sweat, and in her mind there was gibbering terror.

  XXVII

  “Conan!” Haranides shouted. “Conan!” The three men still lay chained to the walls of the cell beneath Amanar’s keep.

  Conan opened one eye, where he lay curled as comfortably as he could manage on the stone. “I’m sleeping,” he said, and closed it again.

  The Cimmerian estimated that a full day and more had passed since Karela had come to their cell, though there had been no food and but threee pannikins of stale water brought to their cell.

  “Sleeping,” Haranides grumbled. “When do we hear of this escape plan of yours?”

  “The Red Hawk,” Hordo said hopefully. “When she sets me free, I’ll get the rest of you out. Even you, Zamoran.”

  Conan sat up, stretching until his shoulder joints cracked. “If she were coming, Hordo,” he said, “she’d have been here long since.”

  “She may yet come,” the one-eyed man muttered. “Mayhap she took my advice and rode away.”

  Conan said nothing. His best hope for Karela was that she had accepted Amanar’s word for Hordo’s crimes and was even then in the bandit camp, surrounded by the men she called her hounds.

  “In any case,” Haranides said, “we cannot put our hopes on her. Even if she gets you free, bearded one, you heard her say she’d do nothing for the Cimmerian and myself. I think me she is a woman of her word.”

  “Wait,” Conan said. “The time will come.”

  A key rattled in the lock.

  “’Tis Ort who’s come,” Haranides growled. “With his irons, no doubt.”