Conan and the Sorcerer

by Andrew J Offutt

  The Cimmerian grinned. Then surely, he thought, after all his troubles he was indeed ahead of the fleeing Isparana. He drank, and gazed out on the sun-baked desert, and lie thought on Hisarr Zul and on his brother. How sweet it would be to accommodate the latter! To exact his own vengeance, and Tosya's, and at the same time heroically lay the lich of the haunted gulch that so slowed travel! lint... how? Conan turned over in his mind those means Tosya had detailed for ending Hisarr's life, and for the regaining of the Cimmerian's soul. He liked none of them. None sounded possible. How, then? Hisarr was a dangerous mage. He had but to break the mirror. And into that damned little tube of his, he need puff a single breath to accomplish Conan's doom.

  Conan sat beneath a palm, his back against its slim, sturdy trunk, and stared at nothing. He waited, and he thought. An old man came to the oasis that afternoon, with his daughter and son and three camels. The son watched the Cimmerian with the dark, suspicious gaze of one ready tu fight if necessary though too young to know that he dare not essay against such a man. The daughter looked upon him with fear, and something else that would not allow her to meet his gaze but, when it was directed elsewhere, would not let her look away from him. The father spoke quietly to the quiet, very big young man with blue eyes and a shock of raven hair, who had keenly watched his method of handling the camels.

  Yes, the Dragon Hills and the Gorge of the sand-lich were just two days north of here. No, they had seen no one. Aye, they were bound for Zamboula; would he care to ride with them?

  No, but Conan accepted the food that to him was a huge gift, from these poor folk with so far to go. And while the old man saw to his camels Conan pressed on the skittish boy the sheathed dagger he had of a dead thief of Samara.

  'I would not insult you by offering aught for the food you gave in friendship,' Conan told the father, 'but in friendship I have given your son a small gift of good metal.'

  'It is well,' the old man said, 'and may Mitra hurry the steps of him you await, friend. Oh – beware. Some caravans leave ever at the same times, and last night's moon indicate to me that a caravan from Khawarizm should have been here yesterday. We have not seen it. Perhaps it will arrive this night, or on the morrow.'

  When Conan continued to gaze at him, the old man said, 'Khawarizm is the southernmost port of Turan, the Vilayet Sea. Slaves are traded for in Khawarizm, am carried north-eastward to such places as Khauran am Zamora.'

  'How does this concern me?'

  'Sometimes slavers are not altogether careful as to where they acquire their goods, or how, my young friend from Cimmeria.' Where is your protection?'

  Conan touched the pommel of his sword.

  'Nevertheless,' the old man said, 'beware.'

  And he and the boy and girl mounted two of their camels, and the other followed as they rode away southward.

  The younger pilgrims looked back. Conan made no sign. He sat, and for a time he thought about how kind and good it was possible for people to be, and how few behaved so. Then he relaxed, and with the deadly insouciant patience of a stalking panther-or a northern barbarian-he gazed northward. Conan waited for Isparana, and plotted against Hisarr Zul.

  While the sun wallowed low amid the deep gold of its setting, Conan watched the slow approach of a single rider and two animals, a mile and more away. While the sun went orange and then red that shot a spray of yellow gold up into the darkening sky, he saw that the rider was sagging, lurching, nigh asleep in the high-cantled saddle of a plodding camel. Another camel followed. The rider wore a dune-coloured djellaba over white robes, and was slim and narrow of shoulder.

  Smiling, Conan belly-crawled through excellent grass, only muttering a curse when he put his hand down in camel dung. He reached his goal: the cluster of large russet-shot grey boulders just at the edge of the oasis; from them swelled the spring that created it. The sound of camel-bells grew steadily in volume.

  From there he watched while, just at dusk, Isparana reached the oasis... and fell off her dromedary.

  She had pushed herself far too hard, Conan thought. rood! Perhaps she'd glanced back to see him when he saw her, from the far side of Dragon hills. Good! She was Certain he was behind her, then, and she was weary unto collapse. Her mount plodded on, carefully avoiding her with its big padded feet. It took a sip or two of water, seemed to consider, and began to crop grass. Its companion followed its lead. Conan watched.

  For a long while Isparana lay, a bundle of white and neutral tan-grey.

  Then she rose on to her elbows and wormed to the pool as if rising were far too much effort for her drained organism. Slipping back her sand-hood so that glossy black hair fell about her face, she let her head plop into the water.

  Conan watched. He noted that she wore a long sword.

  He watched while she at last rose wearily, and doffed the djellaba as if every movement was a great effort. Moving listlessly as one who had forgone sleep to gain her supposed lead, she hobbled her camels. Conan watched. Strands of hair like blackest night were water-plastered to her cheek and forehead, not unattractively.

  Muffled in the loose white burnoos and yet distinctly feminine, she dragged her feet as she paced to the southern edge of the oasis. He saw her yawn. Once she stumbled and fell headlong, and with an ugly grin Conan heard her curse, by Erlik and by Yog. At the edge of the greenery, she stood and stared southward. It was obvious to Conan that she was striving to pierce the thickening dark with her gaze. The rising moon lit her face with soft white, and Conan saw that her features were soft-planed; a pretty face.

  Conan watched. Never had he seen anyone so weary, so in need of sleep. He would wait. Surely good fortune was' again with him.

  Kneeling, the camels belched and chewed. Now and; again one of the ugly creatures would stretch a leathery' neck to tear off a few tendrils of grass to sweeten its cud. Isparana was unable to see aught but the darkness, nor. did the night bring any sound to her ears or the keener ones of the Cimmerian. She returned, like a shuffling ghost' in her fluttering white garments, to the water-hole. Conan stared, just able to discern her in the moonlight softened and diluted by tall palm-trees. Then he saw what she was doing, and his stomach and throat tightened.

  Unable to look away – he tried — he watched Isparana strip, a woman very alone in the nighted oasis. The languor of exhaustion added sensuousness to her movements and I sight of her moonlit form made the Cimmerian covet more than the Eye of Erlik. The soft boots of red felt, yellow trousers and flowing white robes had concealed a most attractive female body, and Conan clenched his teeth.

  Temptation rose in the youthful Cimmerian like a mountain freshet and he was unable not to consider wresting from this woman more than the amulet he must have.

  Aye —the amulet. As she turned and slipped into the pool, he saw what she wore around her neck, on a rude leather thong that had been slung under her voluminous clothing. A bauble dangled, winking, between the moving lulls of her bare bosom, and two yellow stones gleamed I mm the pendant's abbreviated arms...

  The camels, kneeling after the manner of their kind, chewed more and more listlessly, and slept. Soon one was snoring.

  Isparana splashed about in the pool, no less listlessly. Conan swallowed again and again. His concealed proximity in so lovely a nude woman was torment for one of his years. He waited without patience, and sought glimpses that only added to his torture.

  Nevertheless he entertained the thought that perhaps he was so weary she'd drown and save him a lot of trouble...

  At last, a pale vision of loveliness in the moon's silver glow, she emerged from the water. Conan saw that even thus bathed and refreshed, she still dragged wearily. She shook out her long hair, black as the sky itself. Her standing with her weight on one foot unconsciously flouted her haunch in a way that made him close his eyes against the sight. She took her hair in her hands and wrung it. Water fell noisily at her feet and glistened on the grass like moonstones.

  Conan ground his teeth and shifted restlessly. He had to work
consciously to be mindful of making noise. That she was eight or ten years older than he was of no consequence, lie was male, and young, and she was very very female.

  With otiose movements she squeezed the moon-flashing midnight of her tresses in the hem of her burnoos. The robe she shedded on the ground. Slipping into her djellaba then, she let it open and lay wearily down. Conan continued to hold his rock-bound position, and continued to watch.

  Now there was nothing to watch. She must have fallen asleep instantly, not refreshed but relaxed by her bathing.

  Both camels snored.

  Conan kept his vigil. He was aroused, tempted. He was aware of the beat of his pulse before his ears, a strong hot surge. He waited. The moon lofted higher, a silvery three-quarter like a cradle suspended in the sky. Somewhere, Picts worshipped beneath it, as had women for long and long,

  for they knew their kinship with the sky-hung Lady of the Night and were monthly reminded of it.

  Conan waited, closing his eyes to rest them from their staring into the dark. The camels slept noisily. Conan wan sure the woman slept. He waited.

  Then a thief of Arenjun rose silently and crept upon the camels, who took but little note while, with great care for silence, he daggered away the bells of their harness. Squatting, he opened a large pack of provisions and transferred some of its contents. And a thief of Arenjun crept then upon Isparana of Zamboula; a thief, who had plucked up costly ear-rings from a little table beside the bed on which their owner slept; who had robbed another woman while she lay with her lover less than ten paces distant; who had plucked a cloak off a sleeping man without so much as disturbing his snoring.

  Only a skittish animal would have heard the whisper of the grass through which the thief of Arenjun made his way, without ever taking his eyes off the sleeping woman he approached.

  He looked down at her. She lay on her back, the djellaba open to the ribcage and moulded to her womanly form. Conan's tongue touched his lips as, noiselessly, he slipped his dagger from its hide-covered sheath of oiled wood. Very slowly, mindful of any sound and without taking his gaze off her sweetly reposed face, he let himself slip down to his knees beside the sleeping woman.

  The long dagger caught the moonlight in a metallic glint as the big hand that held it approached her throat. There pulsed her jugular, slowly, with her heart at rest.

  And there lay a slim length of brown leather. Knotted behind her neck, it vanished into the bosom of the V-necked, pullover robe whose hood cradled her hair.

  Conan used both hands.

  She stirred while he sliced through the thong about her neck, and he went rock-still for long, long moments. She sighed; she did not waken. The camels' snoring did not interfere with her sleep, and neither did the feather-light touch of an experienced thief. After a time he took away the thong and, ever so slowly and with frequent pauses J the pendant it held.

  Without moving from her side he cut away the knot, which he stowed in his mouth and tasted its salt. On the thong he strung the pendant he had already removed from about his own neck. It was identical... save that this substitution was without true value to her lord, the Turanian Umpire's satrap in Zamboula.

  Isparana stirred when he slipped the thong about her neck, and knotted it. He but tucked the pendant into the lop of her garment; he would not torture himself and risk waking her by trying to tuck it deeper, into the warmth of her bosom.

  His face tensed and he stared down at her while his eyes burned like blue lava. For a moment he was tempted to draw the leathern cord as tightly as he could and hold it until she thrashed and lapsed into a new sleep from which she'd never awaken.

  He did not. He succumbed neither to the urge to enjoy nor to slay her. Barbarian he might be, and was called, often with scorn; he was nevertheless neither a rapist nor a murderer. Murder was sensible, under the circumstances; the Cimmerian, who was more animal than most men, was this time more human than sensible.

  With a flex of his knees he pushed himself fluidly to his feet, Isparana slept the deep sleep of complete exhaustion, while a superb thief worked on. He turned and left as silently as he had ghosted to her side, and now Conan wore around his neck not Hisarr's copy but the real Eye of Erlik.

  It felt no different.

  For some reason known only to cameldom, Isparana's animals awoke without raising a clamour of ugly voices. Both even deigned to rise in response to his silent urging in which he copied the old man who'd tarried here earlier this day. The bells from their harness lay in the grass, well to one side. He had separated the contents of the main provisions-pack; he would not take all her food.

  Conan sought to lead the humpbacked animals, the strange ships of the desert. They stood fast. He circled and sought to drive them before him, even slapping the flank of one with the flat of his new, curved sword. Its flying foot only just missed him.

  Conan made his kick count, and the dromedary grunted and staggered on that leg. It turned to stare from beneath the long lashes given it by the gods to protect its eyes from the naming desert sun. Conan returned the stare, not sullenly or icily but with the great malice he sought to convey to the beast so pridefully unlike a horse.

  'I am going to lead you out of here,' he murmured to the camel Isparana had used as sumpter-beast, 'or drag your strangled carcass. Choose, old supercilious-head.'

  The other dromedary, him Isparana had ridden, turned to stare. The Cimmerian gave it an evil look and showed the beast his teeth. The camel regarded him ruminatively. Conan moved back to its head and reached for its halter. The beast sought to bite and big, yellowed teeth grazed his wrist. Conan slapped its nose, hard. The animal made a throaty noise.

  'Come.'

  The Cimmerian took hold of its halter, rather than the rein. Beside its large head, the man paced forward. The camel plodded beside him! The other followed!

  Don't know camels, eh? Conan mused in high triumph. They understand mastery like any other, man or beast. They just have to have it proven to them differently, and they've more pride than horses —or less sense. Very well then, camels; I've more pride, and you feel it, don't you!

  The verdant grass of the oasis ended as he and the animals walked on, with Conan's face to the north. Farewell, Isparana, he thought. I probably hope the slaver caravan comes-but for your sake I hope they have all the human goods they want!

  Conan had evidence that he possessed some sort of sixth sense, which had saved his life more than once. Whether he did or no was not at point; whether Isparana did was also unimportant; for whatever reason, at that moment the woman awoke. She sat straight up as if she'd slept for hours.

  'Thief! STOP, thief!'

  And she came racing around the water-hole, naked swore in hand.

  Conan tried to spring on to her riding-camel, failed tried to get it to kneel. Failing, he knew he was out of time. He turned grimly to face Isparana. He heaved a great sigh.

  Around the pool she charged. One hand waved her sword so that it flashed in the moonlight; the other held her djellabah’s skirt well up. Bare legs and feet flashed and she was muttering and cursing all the while.

  Wait!' Conan called. 'Stop!'

  'Stop!' she cried, and her voice rose into a screech. While you steal my camels and leave me here to DIE?'

  He was forced to let go the camel's halter and draw his sword. She came on, running with the new energy of adrenaline, both angry and as if mad. On the run, she swung a sweeping slashing stroke. He easily used his sword to deflect it, at the same time swiftly sidestepping. The ' charging woman's momentum carried her on and she slammed into the riding-camel. As she rebounded to fall asprawl on her backside, the beast decided it had enough of yells and now this untoward impact. It emitted a grunting, bubbling roar and bucked, kicking in a most un-camelish display. One splayed soft foot caught the other camel in the foreleg. Both beasts complained. Then the second dromedary reacted to the shouts of Isparana's high-voiced screams and this sudden explosion of its companion into vicious action.

 
The pack-camel fled.

  'No!' Conan bawled. 'Stop!'

  The riding-camel then proved it was not wedded to the role of leader; it followed the sumpter beast. Never mind that camels were the most stupid and unarousably placid of animals; they were aroused. They made off into the night.

  Yelling, Conan leaped after them. The rearward camel was frightened anew and speeded its gait. Conan lunged and missed; he fell sprawling in the harder-packed sand at the oasis's edge. The dromedaries lurched away into the darkness; ungainly or no, they showed speed.

  As he started to" push himself to his feet Conan heard Isparana's enraged cry – coming at him. He rolled as swiftly as he could impart the sideward motion. Her sword, already descending in a cleaving stroke, dug into the sand where he'd lain. Conan, on his back, hoisted himself on his elbows.

  'Damn you, woman!' he snarled, and his sideward-swishing feet knocked both her legs from beneath her.

  Then the Cimmerian scrambled up and raced northward to the night, after the camels.

  He returned from the darkness on foot, not striding and looking thoroughly disgusted. He led no camels. Isparana stood waiting, glowering from a half-crouch. Her sword was and quiveringly poised for a spitting lunge. 'Now you've done it,' he said. 'You frightened off the camels.'

  'Frightened?'

  'Aye. I think they're still running.'

  '... you filthy dog of a THIEF, you've trapped us here! I'll KILL you!' And she lunged in a rustle enveloping djellaba.

  Conan had to dive aside. He rolled. When he came up, his sword was out. 'Stop it, woman! We are trapped here, you said. Better there were two of us than one.' 'But you-you... my camels! The food! The water!' 'Plenty of water a few steps away,' the Cimmerian minded her equably. 'And I unpacked and left some d-what sort of man do you think I am!' 'What sort —dog! Mangy dog!'

  'This is a big oasis and travellers are many, this time year. We'll not starve before someone comes.' 'You-my cam-rotten filthy dog! Viper! How can you stand there and talk so-aarrghh!' And she charged him. Conan appeared to brace to meet her inexpert assault head-on. At the last moment he faded aside, simultaneously ripping his sword out and down to intersect hers. The blades met with a ringing clash and metal scraped along with a shrieking sound. She was on the run, and lunged on unable to stop; her sword was carried out of hand.