by Roland Green
Conan’s fist slammed on the table, making the wine cups dance. “Mitra drown the Guardians in dung! How long does it take to join them?”
“That does not matter, Conan,” Reza said. “Captain Conan,” the Cimmerian growled. “And I asked you a question.”
“One I can answer,” Livia said smoothly. “One must be an Argossean citizen or nominated for citizenship. One must have no crimes to one’s name, and be able to post a bond of fifteen drachmas.”
Conan had for the moment exhausted his store of curses. He had not exhausted his wits. He drained half his wine cup, seeing Reza frown and Livia hold back a smile. Then he wiped his mouth with the cloth and grinned.
“Very well. My lady, have the archons or the Guardians or the gods or anyone else said what we are to do with our captives?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. Then why not send them up to that lumber camp where a certain merchant prince found me? I’m sure the lumber merchants won’t mind having a few new hands to haul logs. After a month of that, our captives may have less strength for climbing other people’s walls.”
“Akimos will surely buy them out,” Reza pointed out.
Conan shrugged. “Let him. That’s fewer drachmas he’ll have for hiring more, or bribing the archons, or any other tricks.”
“Cimmerian, you go far, questioning the archons!” Reza snapped.
“Not as far as the archons do, throwing our lady’s honour into the chamberpot!” Conan replied, in a level voice. “I’ve never met or heard of a man who couldn’t be bribed!”
“Peace,” Livia said. “Reza, I want you to command our men, escorting the captives to the mountains. Take good men, but be sure that all who stay behind will obey Conan.”
The Cimmerian decided that one man who would not obey him if matters went on this way might be the steward himself. If the big Iranistani was not jealous of the new captain’s influence over his mistress, then Conan had never in his life seen jealousy.
It was no jealousy over a woman as bedmate, either. Reza knew his “place”—Argos had made him a good servant. Even the best servant could be jealous of anyone besides himself who might win his mistress’s ear as Conan had done.
That sort of jealousy could lead to daggers in the dark as surely as any quarrel over a tavern trull. Quarrels over tavern trulls did not commonly have an Akimos waiting to play jackal, either.
“My lady,” Conan said. “Sending the captives to the mountains was only an idea. If it means dividing our forces when we don’t know what we’re facing, perhaps it wasn’t my best idea.”
“That’s as certain as—” Reza began.
Again Livia cut through her steward’s grumblings. “Surely the timber merchant must have an agent in Messantia? And surely that agent must have the power to hire men and guards for them, if they need?”
Reza knew when he had been outflanked on both sides. He bowed. “Most certainly, my lady. I will make inquiries. Have I your permission—?”
“By all means. The sooner the better, before he who sent the captives decides to try rescuing them.”
“The rescuers will only join their friends,” Reza said. He was smiling at Conan as he bowed himself out, but the smile did not reach his eyes.
At Lady Livia’s bidding, Conan sat down and poured himself more wine. No doubt about it—Argos’s vintages were almost worth enduring Argos’s laws!
VIII
The foothills of the mountains had long since swallowed the grain fields of the plains. Now they were swallowing the road under the hooves of Lord Akimos’s mount.
A league behind, the road was hard, dry, and broad enough for a troop of mounted Guardians to ride four abreast. Now the firm surface was barely wide enough for two horses to pass. On either side lay mud, marsh, thickets, orchards, rank second growth, or sometimes all of these at once.
It was perfect ground for the bandits reported in the area. Meanwhile, the hour was late and the last daylight was draining from the western sky.
“Are we going to ride all night?” Akimos grumbled. “If we are, best we see about lanterns while we can still find our flint and steel!”
In the fading light, Akimos could not be sure of Lord Skiron’s expression. It seemed to be a smile, but perhaps less tainted than usual with a sneer at Akimos’s caution.
“We have less than a quarter league to travel,” Skiron said. “I do not forget landmarks.”
“Can you see them in the dark?”
“Those we need, yes. So do not light the lanterns. They may reveal the road to us. They may also reveal us to any bandit within a league.”
From the grunts around him, Akimos knew that his guards were of Skiron’s mind. None of them cared for this groping in the dark. None of them cared to fight bandits, either, not with only a dozen men.
To the west, the crimson was fading from the sky, the gold following it. Overhead the sky was already a rich purple, with early stars winking.
It seemed to Akimos that they might be mocking him for being so far from Messantia on a fool’s errand. Or at least the errand of a man who would rather appear a fool than a coward.
He was also a man who would not let it seem that he trusted his tame sorcerer too much. Skiron was like a leopard on a chain. The chain might break, and even if it held, it gave the beast rather too much freedom for a leap at your throat.
Akimos had to see what Skiron had prepared, here in the hills, and that was an end to it. He could only pray to Mitra that it was worth the journey, and that neither gods nor men would throw his affairs in Messantia into chaos while he was away.
By now the leading guards were dismounting to lead their horses on foot. The sergeant of the guards had drawn his sword and was using it to tap the road ahead of him, like a blind beggar’s cane.
Akimos thought of dismounting. He felt a painfully large and naked target on horseback, for all that he wore mail under his silk riding coat. He also knew that he could never hope to turn his mount and ride clear of any ambush. Not on a road that now seemed as narrow as any back alley in Aghrapur, and as close-pressed by foul stenches—
A faint slithering was Akimos’s only warning. He had his sword drawn, ready to hack at the serpent, when the weighted net plummeted down to block the road. One of the weights struck the sergeant, smashing his skull like a melon flung from a temple roof.
As the sergeant’s sword clattered to the road, Akimos opened his mouth to shout orders. His tongue seemed as stiff as a dead branch, and a sour-tasting dryness filled his mouth. Words welled up in his throat, but refused to pass his lips.
In a moment, Akimos knew that he would vomit. He was not only going to end his life here on this dark road, at the hands of bandits. He was going to end it with all men who saw him knowing that he was a coward.
That thought was blacker than the road. It so engulfed Akimos’s mind that he did not see the dark shapes leaping down from the moss-hung trees to either side of the road.
He also did not see Lord Skiron strike sparks, or the sparks fall into tinder ready in a brazen bowl. The tinder caught, glowing with a sinister vermilion hue like a serpent’s eye.
Skiron raised the staff, and the bowl rose with it on the end of a silver chain. Smoke curled from the bowl, and Skiron’s free hand danced through the curls. The smoke danced in time to the sorcerer’s hand. For a moment it seemed to those who watched with clear eyes and wits that the smoke formed runes. Runes higher than a man, stretching across the road and vanishing on either side into the trees.
Akimos’s vision cleared in time to see the vermilion light flowing from the bowl as though it were a liquid. It streamed out on to the road, engulfing the legs of men and horses. A horse screamed, another reared, and its rider clung desperately to his saddle, his mouth working as he prayed frantically not to be cast down into that demon light.
The light flowed onward, reaching the bandits. They also seemed to be praying or cursing, but no sound reached Akimos’s ears. Then he realized that the
horse still had its mouth open, but its screams were also mute.
Akimos could not make a gesture of aversion without taking one hand off the reins. Instead he prayed as if by the sheer torrent of vows he could fling his words free of that awful light, up to the gods.
Except that tonight, on this road, in the presence of that light, it seemed that the gods might not exist.
The bandit leader was a brave man, who had fought well in all of the armies from which he had deserted. He held his ground as the demon light crept toward him. He saw one of his men thrust a spear down into it, and the spear shiver and remain fixed as if the light had been a crocodile’s jaws.
Then the light reached him. He felt a burning that might have been from heat, or cold, or both together. It was not painful, and when he looked down he saw his feet in their muddy boots and his legs in their ragged trousers as they had always been.
He drew his sword and shouted a rallying cry. Only the nearest man seemed to hear; he was turning, trying to unsling his mace, when a slimy grey mass plunged from above onto his shoulder.
It was a strand of moss from the trees above, but a strand animated with demonic life. It had already gathered itself into a clump the size of a man’s head. Now it writhed like a nest of serpents, creeping over the man’s face. He opened his mouth to scream—and the moss curled over lips and teeth to fill his mouth.
The bandit leader’s eyes bulged as he watched, and his hand tightened convulsively on his sword hilt.
Dropping his mace, clawing at the moss with both hands, the man went mad. He accomplished nothing, for the moss suddenly seemed to have the strength of brass wire. He also did nothing to block the fresh moss that crept over his nose and into it, blocking off his last hope of breath. Face already darkening, his body arched and he fell on his back into the light. He kicked and writhed briefly, then lay still. With unearthly life, the moss flowed off the dead man’s face and began creeping toward the bandit leader.
He had held onto his courage until that moment. Now it took flight, and so did he. If the light had held his feet motionless, he would have gone mad in the next moment. As it was, it was like pulling his feet out of knee-deep mud. He could move, but only just fast enough to keep ahead of the moss. If any more fell down he was doomed.
Yet the edge of the light crept closer and closer, faster than the moss, and no fresh moss fell. The mud-like suction eased, then vanished. The bandit leader lunged for the edge of the light, crossed it, and felt his boots strike wholesome ground.
He ran, not caring where he went nor looking even for a moment behind him. He could not save any of his men caught in that demon light. As for his enemies, an arrow in the back might be merciful, compared with his fate if any more sorcery was abroad tonight.
Neither arrows nor spells pursued the bandit leader down the road. A hundred paces from the edge of the light, he stopped in the shadow of a tree, after making sure that no moss hung from it.
Those of his men who had followed him on to the road all seemed to be down. But they were not all who followed him. Another half score of men waited on either flank. He had given no orders, but if they had eyes in their heads they would see their comrades’ fate and hold back. Hold back, beyond the limits of the spell— but not, perhaps, beyond bowshot.
Archery by night was always a chancy business, likely to skewer friend and foe alike. But the sorcerer’s demon light had revealed him and all his company as plainly as daylight. The flankers had some good archers among them, and a sorcerer bristling with arrows was a poor spell-caster.
The bandit leader turned and headed uphill. Another fifty paces, and he rounded a bend in the road. Now he was out of sight of the sorcerer and his party. He stopped, looking for the young cedar that marked the beginning of a dry route back to his men.
With his night sight destroyed, he was some time finding it. At every moment, he expected to hear the rattle of hooves and the war cries of the sorcerer’s comrades—or even some words that neither gods nor men should know, as the sorcerer cast another spell.
So it was no surprise that when the bandit leader found the cedar, he dashed toward it. It was also no surprise that he failed to notice the crack in the ground, a hand’s-breadth wide and stretching entirely across the road.
He stumbled and caught his foot in the crack, bruising knees and hands as he fell. He cursed, raised himself, and felt something grip his feet. Something that burned, but not the mild burning of the demon light. Something that seemed to sear away his flesh to the bone in one moment, and dissolve the bones in the next.
When he felt the burning eating its way up his legs, he screamed. He screamed louder still when he felt himself being dragged into the crack. He went on screaming, until the burning ate its way up to his chest and dissolved his lungs.
Only the bandit leader’s left hand remained whole when the ground shuddered. Smoke in colours for which there were no names billowed up from the crack in the ground. Then the two sides of the crack lurched toward each other, and the crack closed. Only the bandit leader’s hand remained, lying palm upward on the blackened gravel, fingers curled into a claw and the nails a peculiarly foul shade of grey.
Akimos could not stop shuddering for some time after the scream died. Then it was even longer before he could shape words with his dry lips and tongue.
“What was that?"
Skiron shrugged. “The gods only know, and they send me no messengers.”
“This is no time for jests!”
“Forgive me, my lord,” the sorcerer said smoothly. Too smoothly, Akimos thought. He knows more than he will tell me.
“I doubt not that the bandits had men on either flank, ready to move in once their comrades on the road had engaged us. Even a sorcerer can see the wisdom of such tactics.”
“Skiron-”
“Your pardon. I only wished to remind you that I am no soldier.”
“No, and I am no temple image, to wait patiently for an age. What screamed?”
“I would wager on one of the flankers stepping into quicksand, or perhaps onto a snake. The marsh vipers here are deadly, and their poison not only slays but bums like fire while it does so.”
This was the truth, as far as Akimos knew. So why was he sure that it was not the truth he sought?
No reason, except knowing Skiron too long and too well. Also, tonight, on this road, there might be no such thing as truth, as men commonly understood it.
Lord Akimos rallied his men, so that they slung the sergeant’s body over his mount and moved on. While he was doing this, a curious weasel scrambled onto the road, scented the bandit leader’s fallen hand, and lunged for it.
The weasel died in agony only moments later, but before it died it was clear of the road, along with its intended meal. Lord Akimos’s courage was never tested by seeing the severed hand. Where the road had cracked, nothing remained except a softer patch of blackened gravel, hard to find unless one studied the road on hands and knees.
Akimos, Skiron, and the rest rode over it Without noticing, although a pungent smell in the air did make some of the horses skittish for a few paces.
* * *
Far beneath the hills, the Great Watcher achieved awareness. It cannot be said that it awoke for many reasons, foremost being that it had no senses as men understand such.
But it had been unknowing, and now it had knowledge.
Knowledge that a part of itself far away and long apart from it had also achieved awareness. Indeed, it had reached farther than that, opening a path to the sky-world and its food supply. It had even found a morsel of the sky-food, and was now assimilating it.
Awareness of the isolated part’s feeding and the contentment that came from that feeding rose in the Great Watcher. If one could use human terms for the Great Watcher, one might almost say that it felt envious of the isolated part.
In what for the Great Watcher did the work of a brain, an idea took form. It would reach out to the isolate and learn from it exactly what happened.
It might even find other isolates, and tell them all that had happened. It would give pleasure, as the Great Watcher understood it, to learn that a time for feeding might be coming again.
To the Great Watcher, a century and a minute were not so very different. Yet it also remembered that it had never been so long between feedings. What had brought awareness to the isolate and allowed it to feed might be moving about. It might even reach the Great Watcher and its companion.
Then there would be a mighty feeding. After that neither would need any aid from the sky-world to be aware, to seek and ingest food, move where they might wish, and multiply as they pleased.
The Great Watcher rippled with pleasure, and the ripple passed into the rocks about it.
The damp rock of the cave floor quivered under Lord Skiron’s feet. From a vast distance he heard the rumble of falling rock. From closer to hand, sand hissed from crevices and a stalactite crunched to the floor. The guard it had nearly impaled leaped back, hand on sword hilt, eyes showing only whites.
“Easy, you—everyone,” Skiron said. “The rock of these hills has stood since before men lived on the earth. But there are underground springs in plenty. Those springs wear away the hardest rock, and sometimes it falls.”
“If it falls on me, I don’t care what pushed it!” someone muttered.
Skiron cursed under his breath, wishing that Akimos had half the wits and courage of his forebears. Then he would not leave calming his shaken men to a sorcerer who had more important matters at hand!
What Akimos finally said, Skiron did not remember clearly. He did remember that the merchant prince’s voice began as high-pitched as a woman’s, which did little to ease his men’s minds.
Somehow, Akimos found the right words. He was not, after all, a fool. No one who had not only upheld but advanced the House of Peram so well could be such. The guards turned to with a will, unloading the pack animals and carrying the loads up winding tunnels to drier caves above.