“Hasten, grandmother,” he growled, cocking an ear toward the ever-rising tumult of the pursuit. “They’ll be upon us any time, now.”
“Interrupt me not, boy!” she snapped. It had been years since anyone had dared thus to address Conan, but he meekly submitted to the affront.
From where he sat on a boulder, Conan could sight the end of the gorge, where it opened out into the broader valley up which they had ascended. As his eyes caught a flash of motion, he sprang to his feet and swept out his scimitar. In so narrow a cleft, his foes could come at him only one or two at a time—provided they did not scale the cliff to attack him above, or to get behind him, and provided they had no bows and arrows. Conan was wearing no armor, and he knew that not even his pantherlike agility would enable him to dodge arrows loosed at close range.
Nyssa was still muttering over the fire, when Conan snarled: “Here they come!”
“Speak not, and put away that sword,” quavered the witch. “Now look again!” she said with a note of triumph in her shrill old voice.
Conan stared. The peasants and their dogs were streaming past the mouth of the gully.
“Hold your tongue, boy, and they’ll not hear us!” she hissed.
Soon the rush of dogs, men, and horses had swept past the mouth of the gorge, and the clatter of their passing died away.
“How did you do that, grandmother?” asked Conan in wonderment.
“I cast a glamour, so to those folk the mouth of this ravine appeared as solid rock. If you had shouted, or if the flash of the sun on your blade had reached them, or if one of them had thrust a tool against that seeming wall of rock, the illusion would have been destroyed like a fog beneath the morning sun.” She leaned back wearily against the wall of the gorge. “Help me back into the cave, I pray. I am fordone.”
Conan assisted the old woman into the cavern, in which provisions, bundles of herbs, and other possessions were piled haphazardly. As she sank down, she said: “Young man, I must ask you for one more boon. Can you cook? I am too feeble even to get your supper.”
“Aye, I can cook in my own fashion,” said Conan. “It will be no banquet royal, I assure you; but I’ve camped alone in the wilds often enough to know the rudiments.” He rummaged among the witch’s supplies, then built up the smoldering fire. As he worked, he asked: “Tell me, grandmother, what befell between you and the village?”
She coughed, caught her breath, and spoke: “I am Nyssa of Komath. For many years I have earned a scanty living as the white witch of Zamindi, curing ills of man and beast, foretelling the prospects of young lovers seeking to wed, and predicting the changing seasons. But, as I have told the folk many a time and oft, naught is certain in occult matters, and the final decisions rest ever with the gods.
“Then a disease struck Zamindi. Many were sick, and one night three bairns died. I did what I could, but neither my simples nor my spells availed them. Then voices rose against me, saying that I had cast a malignant spell.
“’T was naught but a rumor set in motion by the headman, Babur, who long had coveted the little patch of land on which my poor hut stood. I enraged him by refusing to sell it to him, even at a reasonable price; so this is his revenge.” A spasm of coughing shook her. “I cast my horoscope yestereve and saw that it portended peril. This morn I was gathering my last supplies to bring to this shelter, which I had prepared for emergencies long ago. But the villeins were too quick for me; they came and dragged me to the village.” She cackled. “But you and I have cheated the omens, at least for the nonce. Now what of you, young man?”
Conan told Nyssa as much of his recent history as he thought expedient, adding: “What of my future?”
Her faded old eyes took on a faraway look. “Some things about you I already sense. You are a man of blood. Strife follows you and seeks you out, even when you would fain avoid it. There is great force about you. Nor am I the last old woman whom you will come upon in dire need and rescue.” After a pause, she added: “Beware to whom or what you give your heart. Many times you will believe that you have attained your heart’s desire, only to have it slip through your fingers and vanish like a puff of morning mist.
“But more of that anon. My poor old heart has been sorely strained this day, and I must needs have rest. I am not one of those who have added to their mortal span by the practice of arcane arts.
“Tomorrow I shall work a powerful conjuration for you, to try to part the veil that enshrouds the future. But meanwhile I will give you a token of my gratitude.”
“You need not, grandmother—” began Conan, but she silenced him with a gesture.
“None shall say that Nyssa fails to pay her debts,” she said. “’T is but a small thing I give you, yet it is all I have to give this night, what with the hazards and confusion of this turbulent day.”
She fumbled among her disorderly piles of belongings and turned again to Conan, holding a small pouch, which she pressed upon him. “This,” she explained, “is a spoonful of the powder of Forgetfulness. If an enemy close in upon you, thinking he has you at his mercy, throw a pinch into his face. When he breathes this dust, ’twill be as if he had never beheld you or had knowledge of you.”
“What should I do with the fellow then?” asked Conan. “If he’d wronged me, my natural wont would be to slay him; but it would seem cowardly to strike him down, and him not knowing the reason for the quarrel.”
“I would say to let him go and think no more about the matter. To slay him under such conditions were like killing a babe because you quarreled with his father. A heartless sort of revenge, indeed.”
Conan grunted a puzzled assent, although in fact he had never before thought about the rights and wrongs of the matter. Among his fellow Cimmerians, it was customary to seek revenge upon a member of another clan by slaying the offender’s kin.
Conan was tempted to refuse the proffered pouch, claiming that he had only contempt for magic and wanted nothing to do with it. But the old woman seemed so eager for him to have her gift that he accepted it with a growl of thanks rather than hurt her feelings.
When Conan awoke the next morning, he found Nyssa’s body stiff and cold. She had not cheated the omens after all.
chapter v
THE CITY ON THE CRAG
The sun had slipped behind the humped backs of the Karpash Mountains when Conan guided Ymir into the narrow valley that led to Yezud, city of the spider-god. The deepening shadows cast a black pall over the defile. Here little vegetation clothed the rocky soil; for the central, snowcapped ridge of the Karpashes, stretching from north to south for a hundred leagues without a single pass, had wrung the moisture from the western winds before they swept on east to Zamora. Ymir’s shod hooves rang a metallic tattoo on the stones, save when the horse picked his way through slippery seepages of liquid bitumen. Below the path, a shrunken remnant of a stream gurgled as it played hide-and-seek among the boulders.
For the most part, the ever-rising path was wide enough to accommodate only a single horseman. Whenever it spread itself more generously, Conan passed knots of people waiting to resume their downward passage. One trader, delayed at such a turnout, led four asses, each laden with two bulky casks of bitumen. In the lowlands of southern Zamora, this dark mineral oil was put to sundry uses; it served as a purgative for people, a lubricant for wagon wheels, a base for paint, a fuel for lamps, and a cure for mange.
Conan caught up with a plodding procession of cattle, shambling upward on the path to Yezud. When the curvature of the slope revealed the serpentine path ahead, Conan marveled at the size of the herd. There must, he thought, be eighty to a hundred animals, pulled or prodded along by a dozen neatherds. The sloth of the cumbersome beasts irritated the Cimmerian, since nowhere could he pass them while the narrow track continued its winding way.
Although the departure of the sun had cast black gloom within the gorge, the sky above was still a bright cerulean blue when the ravine at last opened out into a narrow plain. Here a hamlet huddled at t
he roadside. Beyond it, where the canyon split in twain, a walled city or acropolis perched upon the shoulder of a crag formed by the divergent gorges; and like a monarch’s crown, the marble temple of Zath reared up to tower above the roseate roofs of the fortified city. This lofty citadel bore the name of Yezud, whereas the lower village or suburb was known as Khesron.
As soon as the widened path permitted, Conan cantered past the herd of cattle and trotted briskly through the huddled village, where dirty children scampered from the road and barking dogs ran out to worry Ymir’s hooves. The lone public building in Khesron, rising a story above the score of other dingy structures of the community, proclaimed itself an inn by means of a branch nailed to a board above the lintel of the front door.
The Cimmerian continued onward toward the rocky shoulder on which stood the walled city of Yezud, along a steeply sloping roadway cut into the stone of the hillside. Conan perceived that the only means of entry into the citadel was this same roadway and that Yezud, if resolutely defended, would be virtually impregnable. The steep sides of the eminence, which bore the citadel aloft and which merged into Mount Ghaf behind, were so nearly vertical that only a party of Cimmerian hillmen, unencumbered by armor, could hope to scale this formidable bastion.
Ymir balked on the hillside path. Although Conan spurred him forward, the animal refused to move. At last the Cimmerian dismounted and plodded up the incline, pulling Ymir along by his bridle. All the climbing way, the horse rolled his eyes, pricked up his ears, and behaved as if he sensed some evil beyond the comprehension of his human companion.
Man and unwilling horse at last reached the small stone platform before the city portal, a dizzy height above the plain. A pair of armed men, of greater stature than most Zamorians, stood guard before the open valves of the imposing bronze-studded gates.
“Your name and business?” snapped one of the guards, eyeing Conan hardily.
“Nial, a mercenary soldier,” replied Conan. “I heard that such as I are being hired.”
“They were,” replied the soldier, his lip curling slightly with the shadow of a sneer. “But no more. You have tardy come.”
“You mean the places are all filled?”
“And you have had your journey all for naught.” The man spoke Zamorian with an unfamiliar accent.
“Are you two amongst those lately hired, then?” asked Conan.
“Aye; we are men of Captain Catigern’s Free Company.”
Although nettled by the soldier’s surly manner, Conan kept his outward calm. “Well then, friend, whence hail you?”
“We are Brythunians.”
“Indeed? I’ve traveled many lands, but never yet Brythunia. I crave a word with the man who hired you, whoever he may be.”
“Too late for that today. Try again in the morning.”
Conan grunted. “Well, is there an inn in Yezud where I can take lodging and stable my horse?”
The soldier laughed scornfully. “Any fool knows that only the priests and those who work for them may rest their heads overnight within the walls of Yezud!”
The quick flame of Conan’s anger flared up. He had been in no pleasant mood as a result of the delay occasioned by the herd of cattle and the balkiness of his mount, and now the man’s insolence raised his hot temper to the boiling point. With an effort he choked off a sharp retort, but he memorized the man’s face should the future provide him with a chance for retaliation. As calmly as he could, the barbarian asked:
“Where, then, do travelers lie of nights?”
“Try Bartakes’s Inn in Khesron. If that be full of pilgrims, the stars must be your roof.”
“They’ve served me thus ere now,” growled Conan. He turned to find the downward path blocked by the same scrambling herd of cattle that he had passed on his upward climb to Yezud. Mooing and groaning, the animals were being prodded up the slope in single file by cursing herdsmen.
“Stand aside, lout, and let the cattle in!” barked the soldier.
Conan lips tightened and his hand itched for his sword hilt, but he remembered the flatness of his purse and held his peace. Unable to descend the path while the cattle occupied it, he waited, fuming, on the flat as the beasts were driven through the gate, one after another. Before the last animal had stumbled into the citadel and the gate slammed shut, stars had begun to twinkle in a darkling sky. Leading Ymir, Conan picked his way down the path, peering into the gloaming lest a misstep send him or his mount over the edge and down the cliffside.
Bartakes’s Inn had plenty of room, because the flux of pilgrims swelled only at certain seasons of year, during the great festivals in the temple of Zath. The spring festival had come and gone, while the Festival of All Gods still lay ahead. So there were empty beds in the sleeping rooms and empty stalls in the stable.
Conan shouldered in the front door and glanced about the common room, where a few patrons sat at tables, eating, drinking, or gaming. Several were men of goodly size, with brown or tawny hair; from their garb, Conan guessed them to be members of the company of Brythunian mercenaries. Others were nondescript locals, save for one slender, swarthy fellow with a shaven head, wrapped in a monkish robe that fell below his ankles. Conan had seen such men before, in Corinthia and Nemedia, where he had been informed that they were Stygian priests, or acolytes, or simply students. This one was absorbed in his sheaf of writing material—a mixture of sheets of parchment, rolls of papyrus, and thin slabs of wood—spread out on the table before him.
Behind the counter stood a plump, wavy-haired young woman, pouring ale from a dipper into the leathern drinking jack of a patron. As Conan approached, she turned her head and called: “Father!”
A fat taverner, wiping his hands on his apron, strolled out from the kitchen. “Yes, sir?” he said invitingly.
Conan arranged for dinner and bed for himself and a bucket of grain and a stall for Ymir. He bought a stoup of ale with his meal and retired early.
The rising sun saw him again before the gates of Yezud. When the portals swung apart, Conan found himself confronting two unfamiliar guards and a man who, from his bearing and handsome equipment, appeared to be an officer. This man was massive, almost as tall as Conan, and his bristling red mustache curled upward at the ends. Seeing the Cimmerian, he said:
“Ho! You must be the fellow who came here at closing time last night, asking about a post in Yezud. There is naught here for a fighting man; my boys have taken over the protection of the citadel.”
“You must be Captain Catigern,” said Conan dourly.
“Aye. So?”
“Captain, I still desire to speak with the man who does the hiring. I can do a few things other than splitting skulls.”
The captain studied Conan carefully, with a frown born of suspicion. “It is not likely he’ll have aught for you. Are you friendly to the worship of Zath?”
“I’m friendly to all who buy my services and pay that which they promise,” grunted Conan.
Lips pursed, Catigern contemplated the huge Cimmerian. Then he turned to one of the guards, saying: “Morcant! Take this man to the Vicar. Let him decide whether the fellow is to be trusted within. And you, stranger, leave your sword with us until these matters are resolved.”
Conan silently handed over his scimitar and followed Morcant into the city. The buildings were of severely plain design—row upon row of neat, whitewashed, red-roofed shops and dwellings, hardly to be distinguished one from another. The streets were swept cleaner than any Conan had come upon in other cities; the main thoroughfare appeared impeccable despite the drove of cattle that had plodded along it but a few hours before. Conan asked Morcant:
“Yestereve I saw above eighty head of cattle entering the city. Would the folk have need of so much beef? Judging from the size of the town, it would require a month for the citizens to eat it all.”
“No questions, stranger,” snapped the Brythunian.
Conan darted discreet glances to right and left from beneath his heavy brows, looking for signs
of a stockyard in which the cattle might be confined. But although they passed stables and workshops of all descriptions, he saw no sign of a pen or corral.
At last they reached the precinct of the temple of Zath. Conan craned his neck and stared like a yokel at the largest building he had ever beheld—an edifice even more imposing than the temples and palaces of Shadizar and Aghrapur. The structure was built of great blocks of opalescent marble, gleaming golden in the sun-washed light of morning. From the huge central nucleus projected eight wings, each bedight with mosaic-inlaid columns and pilasters. Except where broad steps led up to the main entrance, lengths of polished granite wall joined the outer end of each wing to that of its neighbors. A vast central dome towered over all, and the early morning sun reflected with blinding intensity the gold leaf that covered the dome.
Before the main portal—an enormous pair of doors embellished with bronzen reliefs—two Brythunian guards stood rigidly at attention, their crimson uniforms spotless, their mailshirts agleam, and their halberds grounded at their sides. Morcant announced:
“A man to see the Vicar.”
One guard pushed open a small door let into one of the huge bronze valves of the main portal. Conan ducked under the lintel and found himself in a spacious carpeted vestibule, whence passages led off to either side. Facing the wide entranceway, another pair of giant doors, these ornamented with exquisite gilded reliefs, towered above the visitors. Before the inner doors were stationed another pair of halberd-bearing guards.
Morcant nodded to these sentinels and led Conan down one of the side passages. As they proceeded, Conan became conscious of a faint odor of carrion. This, he knew, was not uncommon in temples where animals were either sacrificed to the god or eviscerated for purposes of divination. So he paid scant attention to the disagreeable smell.
After conducting the Cimmerian through a bewildering maze of corridors, Morcant stopped at an oaken door, before which stood another Brythunian mercenary, and knocked. When a voice called: “Enter!” he opened the door and waved Conan in.
Conan and the Spider God Page 6