Conan - Conan 106

by Conan the Avenger # L. Sprague De Camp [ed]

  The corridor into which Conan stepped was short and straight. In the distance he saw a door of stone. Cryptic signs of Khitan origin covered its surface. This must be the Tunnel of Death that led to Yah Chieng’s private chambers. Beyond that door he would find his foe. Conan’s eyes glowed ferally in the darkness, and his hand gripped his hilt with vengeful force.

  Suddenly the darkness changed to bright illumination. Red licking flames arose from the floor in a hellish wall.

  Their writhing tongues reached up to the ceiling, and they burst toward Conan in hungry spouts of burning death.

  He could feel their terrible heat on his face and arms, and his clothes began to smolder. Sweat ran down his face.

  As he wiped his brow with the back of his hand, a piece of metal rasped his skin.

  The ring of Rakhamon again! He had forgotten it in his single-minded determination. Would it prove potent against the strength of the yellow wizard?

  He swept his hand through the licking flames. A crash, like the beating of a thousand cymbals, reverberated in the corridor. The flames fell tinkling to the floor, like shards of glass. The remainder of the fire was immobile as a frozen image of Hell.

  The Cimmerian transposed of a powerful leap the wall of fire, and then advanced toward the door of stone. He felt armed of an overwhelming force. He knew that in his hand carried a ring with which all was possible.

  The cold stone-altar chilled the tepid meat of the body of Zenobia. She twisted her hands vainly, for her arms and legs were chained to a ring anchored to the floor. Her splendid body was laid out on the stone. Close by her tormentor was preoccupied in front of a dark and long table, packed with strange objects as flasks, boxes and rolls of dusty parchments. Under the hood of the cloak appeared the beard of the sorcerer.

  The ceiling of the extensive room was so high that Zenobia could not see it. The woman was full of desperation, only the self-control she had shown in those months of captivity permitted her to control her emotions.

  Thinking about Conan, her husband, Zenobia’s heart seemed that was going to explode of grief and nostalgia.

  Yah Chieng had told her that Conan had left alone in his search. Zenobia did not know by what arts the sorcerer knew that, but right now her beloved Conan could lay down dead in the Turanian steppes, or he could have been captured and killed by the himellian hillmen tribes. They were many powerful men of East that hated him.

  That same noon, the henchmen of the yellow sorcerer had removed Zenobia of the cell and carried her to that room, where they chained her on the frightening altar. Since then she had remained alone with the khitanian sorcerer. Nevertheless, he seemed to ignore her and was limited to manipulate his apparatuses, while murmuring enchantments that he read in his old books.

  But now the devilish old man approached Zenobia. The light was reflected in the leaf of the strange dagger he wielded. In the steel there could be seen engraved some cabalistic signs. The face of the sorcerer was tense with the evil expectation that animated it.

  Full of despair, Zenobia entrusted her soul to Mitra.

  Just then, the heavy door was violently opened toward the inside of the room, and fell with a terrible rumble to the floor, blowing up fragments of slabs and a great cloud of dust. A tall and strong man appeared in the vain of the door. He was a muscular giant of black long hair and vehement blue eyes that launched sparkles of ire. The torches reflected their light in the leaf of the sword he wielded.

  The heart of Zenobia almost burst out of happiness. At last Conan, her champion, had arrived!

  With a terrible and silent ferocity, the Cimmerian attacked the oriental necromancer. In a glance he took charge of the situation. The view of Zenobia’s body, prepared for the sacrifice, indicated to Conan that he had arrived in a timely fashion. Suddenly Zenobia raised herself of the altar, free of her chains. Then Conan saw that there no longer was his wife, but an enormous tiger. His roar echoed in the room while he jumped on Conan with claws extended and open jaws. When the Cimmerian raised his sword to behead to the enormous cat, it transformed to a green hooded skeleton. Its bony hand grasped the wrist of Conan with incredible strength.

  With a fierce growl, the Cimmerian freed his weapon from the green folds of the robe, in which it had entangled itself, with a titanic blow fragmented the smiling skull in a thousand pieces. Then he noted a burning sensation in his ring finger. As if it was in flames. He saw that the magical ring shone with a reddish otherworldly brilliance that made his head ache. Conan removed the smoldering ring and dropped it to the floor. Upon doing it, he heard an evil laughter that stemmed from the sorcerer.

  The khitanian remained standing, his arms extended above his head. Murmuring enchantments continuously, while dime flames shone in the lanterns. Conan, dazed, shook his head. Not yet recovered from the strong impression.

  With a strange apathy he saw, all around him, a blue mist raising from the floor; with deadly slowness it wrapped him in weak spirals. Shortly after, he was completely surrounded by vapors. He tried to move, but it was like walking on cold molasses. He could barely raise his feet of the floor. He began to pant, and sweat covered his face.

  The mist continued thickening. Suddenly he could see images reflected in the blue spirals. He saw old friends and beautiful women, riding knights and kings in purple mantles. Then the silhouettes transformed in old enemies, which in turn became blurry shadows. All the monsters men had feared since crawling from the sea appeared in an endless succession before his eyes, drawing closer and closer to him. Their extended claws reaching for his neck, as if to strangle him, and their burning eyes seemed to remove his soul to carry it to hell.

  Conan trembled, horror growing deep within him. His muscles garroted with tremendous tension. He tried to break the spell, but his members refused to obey him. The effort of the fight developing in his mind, deep in his awareness, seemed almost unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a feeling of rout. A premonition that evil and darkness were going to succeed, and that in spite of his efforts; his bewitched soul would forever remain chained in the black abysses of hell.

  Conan felt himself slowly falling unconscious, unable to avoid it.

  Then, above the harmful and derisive spawns of darkness, he saw a scene that represented a great parlor.

  Gigantic trunks constituted its walls, and the beams of the ceiling were so thick as four strong men together.

  Under a dim light he saw some men in grey mail, who stood somberly around a throne …a throne in which a king or God of black hairs was sitting, tall, of dark eyes and severe and implacable face. The voice of the sovereign echoed in the conscience of the barbarian.

  “Cimmerian!” He said “You are a son of Crom, and he will not consent you to suffer eternal damnation. Your God has always seen you with good eyes, and because of this the oriental’s black magic has no hold over your spirit.”

  The God’s dark eyes shone brightly. Raising his powerful hand a light arose from it. Conan felt the strength returning to his body. The blue mist dissipated slowly, until it disappeared completely. Among murmurs of frantic terror the devils fled.

  Fear reflected in the eyes of Yah Chieng. But the sorcerer raised again raised the knife of sacrifice above the figure of Zenobia. Then a heavy body fell on the sorcerer, in a confusion of moving members and folds of wide clothes.

  With a powerful tigerish impulse the Cimmerian jumped on the altar. A cold, terrible whisper escaping between clenched teeth.

  “Yellow dog! We meet at last!” He said in sibilant voice “The Gods have condemned you, and your black powers are gone!”

  Then the barbarian pressed with deadly force the body of his enemy, Yah Chieng gave an inhuman shrill of fright.

  “Do not you hear the laments of the injured and the crash of the weapons?” Continued Conan “Do not you see the flames of the fires? Witness how your evil soldiers are annihilated by the prisoners you held on the dungeons below the city, and by the people of Paikang! Your bloody empire decays, becomes ruins!
And now I send you to the blackest hell, so you may rot for all eternity!”

  The muscles of the Cimmerian swelled with vindictive angry strength. A horrifying click was heard, and Conan stood panting, while a corpse, fell limply to the floor.

  The cimmerio had the doublet burned and torn; its back was covered with injuries and bruises and their eyebrows were scorched. But in spite of all advanced to the altar and, after being inclined, applied all the titanic force that was capable. The chains that held the woman clinked upon falling broken on the floor.

  When the winners crossed the door chanting the Cimmerian’s name, they found him embracing his beloved queen with the ardor of a man that loves for the first time.

  That night, for the first time in twenty-five years Conan carried out a sacrifice to Crom, the God of the Cimmerians, the men of dark scalp.

  EPILOGUE

  Two riders stopped their horses in the endless and dry steppe. One was a giant covered with coat of mail and helmet, and armed with a great straight sword that hung of its side. The other was a slender woman, dressed with the attire of horseback riding of the oriental nomadic women. In the right hand he seized a double curved khitanian arch. On the ground, beforet them, two inert figures lay down , around which crimson puddles of blood grew. They wore tiped helmets and dusty turbans. Toward the east a cloud of dust indicated the route their scared horses fled riderless.

  “Beaters of a Turanian troop, Zenobia” said the giant in the mail-coat “Our bad fortune we should cross paths with them when our horses are tired, and still we should travel many miles to be safe. Even worse luck that one of them escaped.”

  “Then we shouldn’t tarry” said the woman’s harmonious voice “We should ride so far toward the west as possible. Who knows? Perhaps we can escape still.

  Conan shrank his shoulders and made his horse turn around. The short rest had revived the animals, that initiated the gallop toward the western horizon, where the mountains were barely visible, in spite of the clear air and the brilliant sun.

  “Your unfamiliarity with the Hyrkanians shows” growled Conan “They are like a pack of wild dogs. Never will they give up prey, unless you kill the whole pack.”

  “Perhaps the main contingent is still far away. We could reach the forests before they catch us.”

  “I doubt it. The Turanian beaters are never too far of the main column. I learned their customs while serving in their rows. They ride in single-column by the steppe; they form a line when they approach their prey and, after charging with their sturdier horses, the wings advance and, after surrounding them they capture their victims.

  Damned luck! We’ve been traveling without incident up till now, and they are going to overtake us on the verge of reaching freedom!”

  Their horses began to breathe laboriously. Conan pulled on the reins to maintain high the head of his steed.

  After a while he pulled the reins again until the animal arrested to a halt, and looked to the east protecting his eyes with a hand.

  A great cloud of dust covered the horizon. In the middle an occasional metallic shine could be seen, and the land echoed with a distant rumor under the helmets of the horses. Conan, his sword whistling in the air gritted his teeth. A grim smile curving his lips, Zenobia looked at him with loving devotion. “If this should be my last battle” Conan thought “then so be it” He would fight until more than one heroic demigod felt ashamed. His blue eyes shone with anticipation of the battle, and his mighty fingers grasped the hilt of his sword.

  The extensive cloud of dust approached them more and more. Now they could see the long line of riders extending right and left. In the center rode a man of gaudy red and gold attire, next to him a smaller figure dressed in silk. Seeing this, Conan shuddered lightly and sharpened his eagle-like eyes. Then he cursed mightily between his teeth.

  Zenobia, an arrow noked in her arch, watched the Cimmerian with questioning eyes.

  “That infernal Thanara!” Exclaimed the king of Aquilonia “Our bat-winged friend saved her from the zhurazi, and now she returns to capture me again!”

  The riders were now so close that their prolonged war cries could be heard. The tips of the spears were already low, as a shining wave; the floor trembled under the thundering helmets of their horses. Conan, his muscles tense, was ready to face his assailants with a somber air.

  Suddenly their enemies slowed down. Some horses turned around and the order of the line of attack was broken.

  Conan raised himself in his mount to see what had caused the sudden change.

  The sun shone blindingly on the polished armors, the helmets, the sharp spears and the swords of a strong contingent fort that appeared on the opposite side. In an irresistible charge, some four thousand Aquilonian riders, their flag waving in the wind, rushed the Turanians.

  The hyborean rows parted around Conan and his queen, leaving them in the middle, then with the blinding speed of a ray they attacked the Turanians. Conan, inflamed of combative anxiety, launched himself to the battle. His sword broke on the helmet of a corpulent Turanian lancer making him fell of his mount. The Aquilonian king quickly dismounted from his exhausted horse, and mounted in the Turanian’s steed. Then he advanced directly toward the center of the enemy force, cutting a bloody road ahead of him.

  Later Conan launched a powerful blow on the side of an archer that aimed almost point-blank at him, and sent the man to the floor as if the man was a broken doll. Then he faced the leader of the hostile troops, who was none other than Ardashir.

  “We meet again, barbaric dog! Exclaimed the tall man in red and gold “Your head will rot on the walls of the castle of lady Thanara!”

  “I see you have lost your mind” the Cimmerian roared, exchanging blows with the controlled ferocity of the natural-born fighter “Surely because you have become the henchman of that treacherous bitch. It wont be I, but you who dies. You will rot in hell!”

  His brilliant sword redoubled the force and speed of the attacks. The defensive movements of Ardashir failed in the end, and the implacable leaf cut chain-mail, meat and bone. The Turanian officer fell dead to the floor.

  Conan paused and looked at around him. The floor was sown with corpses of sharp helmets and wide pants. The Aquilonians had suffered few casualties, but most of the five thousand Turanians lay down lifeless on the steppe.

  The brilliant lines of the western knights converged toward where the fight still raged on. Then asking for quarter the remainder of the Turanians threw down their weapons. A few fled for the horizon, pursued by the winners.

  Conan smiled somberly, and looked all around him, seeking Zenobia.

  Only the extraordinary reflexes of the barbarian saved him from a whistling arrow. A second before he glimpsed in the corner of his eye the threatening movements of an archer, and bent down in time. Some thirty feet away was, Thanara, she was the archer the Cimmerian had seen, his face contorted with rage he noked an arrow in his arch. He tensed the cord, and in that instant an arrow pierced Thanara’s chest. The woman collapsed to the sandy floor. Next to Conan, Zenobia contemplated from her horse the fruits of her skill in archery.

  “No man has had better wife, and no king a better queen!” Exclaimed the barbarian, raising Zenobia off her horse and placing her on his.

  “Próspero! Trocero!” The Cimmerian shouted, and a cloud of dust raised when Conan’s fist struck lovingly the shoulders of his faithful followers “Had you not arrived at the just moment, like you did it, those dogs would have killed us. How have you come here? I can barely believe it!”

  Prosperous, slender, straightened up and lively responded:

  “Pelias guided us. Since you went, I visited him oft. Through his hidden arts he guessed the success of your business and your return. Prior that you would be attacked here, in the border, and he put us on the way to avoid it. Nevertheless, we lost us in the Corinthian mountains and by sheer luck we were in time to save you.”

  “What of our kingdom, Trocero?”

  “The p
eople longs for your return my Lord. As we rode away from Tarantia, they directed us as many blessings as few Poitainians would dream of. We are in peace, and nobody has dared to attack us. The crops bear fruit, and never has the country been so prosperous. Only the presence of our beloved king and of his queen lacked us so that the cup of our happiness and fortune be brimmed.”

  “Well said, friend” Conan said with a satisfied air “But, who comes there? I’ll be damned if its not Pelias!”

  And yes it was the sorcerer. Tall, thin and gray, he arrived with his extensive gowns rippling to the wind and a smile in the lips.

  “Welcome, king Conan” he said honestly “Many moons have passed since we meet in my tower. You have freed the world of an insatiable monster, and before us a promising future is presented.”

  “Its I who should thank you, Pelias, so much for the opportune aid as for giving me the talisman that I now return to you.”

  So said the Cimmerian extracting from his purse the ring of Rakhamon.

  “You should keep it” he added “It served me well a couple of times, but I hope to never need it again by similar motives.”

  Conan looked a last time over the bloody battlefield. Then spurring his horse directed it to the west, to the head of his knights. Then in a low voice he said to Prosperous, who rode by his side: “By Crom, after all this chat my throat is drier than the Stygian deserts. Do you not bring a flagon of wine in your chair?”

  The end.