The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'If those two with you are Isparana of Zamboula and her companion, we are sent to escort them.'

  'I am Isparana!'

  Conan kicked forward the horse he had named Dunestrider, as he had promised the beast. 'I am Conan, a Cimmerian. I ride with Isparana of Zamboula. How knew your khan that we were approaching?'

  'I do not know, uh, Conan. He said you were, though we weren't given your name, only hers. He sent us to conduct you to the city and the palace.'

  'Kind of your khan,' Conan said with some amusement. 'We are escorted by these Shanki, too. Do you have a name?'

  'I am Jhabiz, Prefect. That is Isparana of Zamboula with you?'

  'I said I was, Jhabiz, and I know you,' she called. 'We bring that which Akter Khan desires.'

  'Good. There is no need for your people, Hajimen Shanki, to ride all the way to Zamboula.' The big-beaked wight had a face like an accipitrine.

  'Oh well, we will,' Hajimen said, glancing around. 'So many horse-soldiers to escort two! Conan and Isparana are our friends, and we are charged by our khan to see them into the camp of the Zamboulans. And we came to trade horses, remember?'

  The Zamboulan prefect lifted a ringer to scratch in the fork of his beard. He sat forward a bit, revealing the beginnings of a belly. Thus he sat his big chestnut horse, chewing his moustache while he reflected. 'I suppose we must all ride together, then. We have the same charge from our khan.'

  'We will be happy for the warriors of the Khan of the Zamboulans to join us,' Hajimen said, with no enthusiasm whatever.

  Conan grinned. A couple of Shanki chuckled— and so did at least one of the men in the bright double sash and helmet streamers of Zamboula. The Cimmerian looked up at Hajimen, perched atop his single-humped camel. The Shanki leader nodded. Shanki camels began to pace forward. The two they escorted rode amid them, and Prefect Jhabiz had to move. Seizing on opportunity, he wheeled his chestnut about and set off at the walk, toward Zamboula. This way Jhabiz seemed to be leading the entire group of eleven camels, fifty-eight horses, one woman, and thirty-one, men in addition to his uncomfortable self. His men drew in slowly, bracing the clot of camels and lead-horses in the midst of which rode the two objects of this massive escort.

  Conan looked over at Isparana and grinned. 'Does the size of our retinue meet my lady's satisfaction?'

  'Aye, Lord Conan,' she said, and they laughed together.

  Though the Zamboulans were as aware of their mission and conscientiously proprietary of their two charges as the Shanki, all managed to avoid incidents during the next few days. At last Conan watched the desert sprout the towers and domes of a city. Next he saw its walls, a glaring white. The whole grew larger, and he was able to make out trees; palms and twisty olives. Eventually Jhabiz called two of his men to him and issued quiet instructions. First directing a dual trumpet blast at those slowly nearing walls, both men set off for them at the gallop. Little coils of yellowish dust curled up behind them so that they seemed pursued by sand demons.

  The gates stood wide by the time the company reached them. All rode in on a broad thoroughfare that Conan saw was well defended by walls on two sides. The temperature within the walls was higher though the city proper began a bit farther on. Some horse- and camelmanship allowed Jhabiz to wait while Hajimen came alongside.

  'You know the way to the market,' the Zamboulan said.

  'Aye. We will ride with my friends as far as the palace, and thence to the market.'

  'Hajimen Shanki son of a khan—camels are not allowed on the Royal Way! Nor may more than twenty riders approach the palace in a body.'

  Hajimen stared impassively down from his camelish perch. Silence rose like mist, and tension rode it.

  'Prefect,' Conan said, and Jhabiz, gone all uncomfortable again, looked at him. 'Best suspend one rule for today, and bend the other. There are thirteen of us; it seems wise that you and six of your men ride with us, while the rest of your command hurries ahead, or follows at a goodly interval, or takes a different route.'

  'No one is going to like this…'

  'I am one with them,' Conan assured the poor man. 'And I but suggested a remedy to a problem. It would seem to save some feelings and some face. Any other attempt at solution might endanger Zamboula's relationship with the Shanki.'

  The eagle-nosed prefect glanced around. His lips moved silently and now he looked unhappy in addition to uncomfortable. At last he nodded. He ordered his second to choose a dozen men and start to follow, at walk, once Jhabiz and company had turned onto the Royal Way, a little way down this thoroughfare.

  Thus the thief Isparana returned to Zamboula of the orchards and mulberry groves and dome-topped buildings and scarlet towers, surrounded by an escort that attracted as many stares as a royal delegation.

  Thus did Conan first enter Zamboula; trousered, wearing a white kaffia and flowing Shanki robe over his mailvest, escorted by helmeted soldiers and camel-mounted tribesmen as he paced his horse up the Royal Way toward the onion-like dome of the palace of a high Turanian satrap—who had never heard of him. Nor could any staring citizen guess who might be this obviously important man who was so tall that his legs hung down on a horse as other men's did when they bestrode ponies.

  Prefect Jhabiz, maintaining the semblance of being in charge, rode solemnly, stolidly ahead of them all. He stared straight ahead and his left hand lay decoratively on his thigh.

  Behind that strange procession plodded sixteen riderless horses; Conan's and Isparana's four sumpter beasts, their packs now much shrunken, and the trained desert riding horses captured from the Yoggite raiders. Akhimen Khan had made his choices from among Conan's five and Conan gave Hajimen one, so that only two were the property of the Cimmerian. He had not mentioned to Isparana that he also considered both Sarid's and Khassek's former mounts his property.

  Riding beside him, she looked anything but a woman of Zamboula. They, Conan noted, wore not so much makeup around the eyes, and their lips, when painted, were red or a purplish pink. Nor were these women given overmuch to clothing, he saw, which was unfortunate for those with jiggly bellies.

  Closer and higher loomed the palace. It rose up in a jumble of additions of grey and white stone faced by yellow-painted columns, and a broad flight of sand-hued steps topped by a crenellated defence wall before the great carven doorway. About it lofted the palace proper, in multiple towers, walls of painted mud-brick, and the great dark dome that was like unto a gigantic onion pulled fresh from the ground. Robed and trousered, tunicked and tabarded, courtiers and bureaucrats on their varied business paused to stare at the mass of approachers.

  Camels on the Royal Way! This giant of a man with his painted, Shanki-dressed woman must be important indeed!

  At the foot of the broad palace steps, Conan turned to Hajimen.

  'Do the Shanki bargain well?'

  Hajimen allowed his lips to widen and show a small flash of teeth. 'The Shanki bargain better than the Zamboulans!'

  'Good,' Conan said, 'as we are in Zamboula. Do you then trade for all six of my horses with yours, for pearls or necklace of Zamboulan coinage, or some such that I can carry easily. And the swords in that bay's pack, as well.'

  'We will be pleased and honored to trade for Conan of Cimmeria.'

  'Will the khan's son name a place where we shall meet some hours hence? Say at sunset?'

  'At the camel stables in the Quarter called Bronze will be the Shanki, or one to meet and guide Conan.'

  Conan nodded and dismounted. Atop the steps, Zamboulans watched, in rich garments. Rounding his horse, Conan put up his hands for Isparana. After a moment's hesitation, her face relaxed. With a smile, she allowed herself to be lifted down as if she were a lady. Since she was the khan's agent, Conan had decided to be kind; he would let her seem knowledgeable before her employer. Once her feet were on the ground, he held her long enough to mutter into her hair.

  'I wear the amulet under my clothes. You may tell him so.'

  'But you—when did you put it there?' She
stepped back only a little, frowning, trying to decide whether to believe.

  'Months ago, in Arenjun.'

  'But—'

  'But you did not find it when you searched me in 'our' Shanki tent a few nights ago!' he said, with a chary smile. 'It was there. I hung it around my neck the day after I slew Hisarr Zul and burned his manse.'

  'But… no! You mean it is that ugly… thing?'

  Conan smiled benignly at her.

  Doubtless some of the openly curious watchers wondered why the blacklipped woman in the white Shanki robe over red Shanki sirwal was cursing while she and Conan ascended the palace steps.

  Conan's query of the man beside him was casual; 'Someone will take care of our mounts, won't he?'

  'Aye,' Jhabiz said, and turned to give that order. He hurried after Conan and Isparana, who had not paused.

  'In the event you are dismissed while we are still with the khan, Jhabiz,' Conan said, returning the glare of a silk-robed courtier who might outweigh a horse, 'I'll be looking for an inn later. You know that I will be starting from the stables in the Bronze Quarter no later than sundown.'

  'And if the khan wishes to keep you longer?'

  Conan swaggered; a superbly robed man stepped aside. 'He won't.'

  'I—'

  'I will be buying,' the Cimmerian said. 'Won't I, 'sparana. '

  '—whelp of a camel-molesting rot-crotched viper —yes—son and heir of a Khitan yellow mongrel bitch…'

  'I will try to be there,' Jhabiz said. 'What is the matter with her, man of Cimmeria? Have you two had a falling out?'

  'She is insanely in love with me and fears that Akter Khan will separate us to get at her beautiful mouth,' Conan said, and they passed into the palace with Isparana still running through her vocabulary of invective.

  XIV

  The Eye of Erlik

  Conan looked first for means of defence and exit, in Akter Khan's broad hall of state.

  He and Isparana were escorted through an entry closed by two heavy doors that Conan saw secured from within by means of an enormous bar of iron-bound wood. It was counterbalanced in a pivot for easy raising and lowering. Thirty paces to his left the cream-painted wall was split by a single portal, tall and paneled. An identical door cut the wall forty paces to rightward. Both doors were closed and he saw no others.

  The high-backed fruitwood chair with its carvings picked out in silver rested on a dais projecting from the wall opposite the main entry. The throne rested in its centre, twenty paces from Conan. Four slim tall niches slitted the wall behind it, to let in air and light. By their depth Conan was made aware of the great thickness of the palace's outside walls. Each of the shoulder-high windows was framed by yellow hangings broidered with a vermiform pattern of antirrhinum in green and scarlet and white. A large copper-bound pot of unglazed stone rested below each archery-and-light-slit, bravely thrusting up some waxy-leafed plant. That long, long wall was braced and embellished by five half-columns or pilasters with carven lions' heads, and by a single decoration.

  Conan assumed that the latter was not purely for decor. Only an ell or so to the left of the throne, which was nearly the same distance forward of the wall, two spikes had been forced into the stone. Each held in place a bracket that seemed to be of gold and was more likely a gilded lesser metal. The brackets supported, perhaps five feet above the floor, a curved sword sheath banded about with silver and red leather. From the mouth of the sheath thrust the gem-set hilt of a sword.

  That of Zamboula's founder, perhaps, Conan mused. Or Akter’s Sword of State, a symbol of rule he doesn't care to wear while sitting his throne. A gift from Turan's king, perhaps. It didn't matter.

  Here and there about the room towered great columns of wood or painted stone designed to resemble trees. Conan's long arms could not have encompassed any of them. Just as stolidly, a resplendently attired guard stood at either end of the dais. Those two men stared at nothing. Up on the dais, at either side of the throne, stood a man. Advisers, Conan assumed; vizirs. He on the khan's right wore robe and brocaded surcoat of brown and scarlet. A silver chain rested on his breast below his chin, which was cleanshaven though the rest of his face was bearded and mustached. He was balding. A man of no great happiness, Conan mused.

  The man to the khan's left was surely but little past a score years of age, and not unhandsome under his tall, odd cap of brown. His slim legs were encased in snug red leggings, under a plain white tunic on whose breast glittered a fine medallion of gold and pearls and sunny topazes. Eyes like a snake, Conan thought, and full of both pride and intelligence.

  At the felt-shod feet of each of the presumed advisers sat a scribe; one quite old and one surprisingly young, and large; between them Akter Khan was enthroned. He was hardly hideous though perhaps a bit dissipated, and he did show a bit of stomach.

  His eyes shifted their bright dark gaze from the Cimmerian to Isparana, glanced back at Conan, and came to rest on the woman.

  'Isparana of Zamboula returns to her khan,' a voice called from behind Conan, 'and with her Conan, a Cimmerian from far to the north.'

  'Report to Vizir Hafar, Prefect,' Akter Khan said, and Conan heard the undertone of excitement in his voice.

  Prefect Jhabiz, the balding man, and the old scribe converged at the door to Conan's left. They passed through the portal and closed it behind them. That quickly, Conan had noted the paneled door's considerable thickness.

  Again Akter Khan spoke. 'Why is the man from the far north with our servant Isparana?'

  At that moment Conan realised how vulnerable he was, and he felt a chill as he recalled Isparana's unpredictability—and the several reasons she had to feel enjoyment and exhilaration at seeing him crushed, tortured… slain.

  'He has aided me,' Isparana said, and only a little of Conan's tenseness eased. 'Conan of Cimmeria bears that which I went to fetch.'

  From either side of the falcate nose the khan's eyes stared at Conan. 'Conan of Cimmeria, you are in the presence of Akter Khan, ruler of Zamboula and the land roundabout in the name of and as Satrap of Yildiz Great, King of Turan and Lord of Empire. There must be no danger to me or to you in this hall. Your weapons will be returned to you just outside the doors behind you.'

  Conan's armpits prickled. The lance-armed guards flanking the first step of the dais stared at nothing while appearing ready for anything. Conan glanced around to see four corseleted, helmeted soldiers. They stared at him.

  He swallowed and his skin seemed to crawl as though ants walked up his spine. Disarm himself! Place himself at the mercy of this satrap, of these armed men —of Isparana's whim! It went very much against the grain. Yet he considered the alternative, in those few seconds. A ruler enthroned had bade him disarm. He could acquiesce and hand the man the amulet he prized so highly, or be arrested, or try to fight his way out—of a place crowded with armed guards, and then a hostile city that debouched on desert?

  I do not have a choice, he thought, and his gaze shifted briefly to the sword mounted on the wall. How swiftly could he get to it, if need be; how swiftly could he whip it from its sheath and whirl to try to fight? While walking to that door to follow Hafar and Jhabiz, he thought, for he was incapable of not considering such action. He found impressive words:

  'No foreigner should approach a king in his chamber under arms,' he said, and unbuckled the belt that supported the sheaths of both sword and dagger. He held the two ends of the belt out from his hips without turning, and hands took them from him, from behind. Conan stood unarmed, at the whim of Isparana and Akter Khan.

  'Leave us,' Akter Khan said. 'Zafra and Uruj will remain, with me and these our two returned servants.'

  Like animated statues, the two throne guards paced the width of the hall, past Conan and Isparana, and out of the hall. Conan heard the big doors close behind him. On the dais remained the standing man in the cap, and the seated scribe, who was both young and large.

  Why, Conan asked himself, would a scribe remain during the private report of
a khan's agent? And he replied at once, judging from the man's size: Uruj is a bodyguard. That slim fellow in the silly hat, then… what is his purpose? He wished that he had asked more questions of Isparana. The throneroom was now empty save for the five. Conan and four Zamboulans. Enemies?

  'Isparana: You have brought me the Eye of Erlik?'

  'Aye, my lord Khan.'

  'Bring it to me, excellent servant.'

  She glanced at Conan.

  'I have it,' he said, and noted that the big scribe rearranged himself and watched keenly while the Cimmerian lifted both hands to his own neck. From under his clothing he drew the thong trailing the glass-set blob of fired clay. Lifting it off over his head, he held it before him. The oblate hemisphere swung and turned slowly in the air, obviously worthless.

  Even while Akter Khan frowned at an object obviously not his valued amulet, Conan squatted. With some care, he rapped the thing on the floor of alternating red and pink tiles, then again. The clay cracked, split, fell away in bits. Isparana stared as entrancedly as the man on the throne.

  Conan rose. Again he held his arm before him, and again an object turned slowly at the end of the leather cord.

  The sword-shaped pendant was about the length of the Cimmerian's least finger. An unfaceted ruby formed the pommel. At each end of the crossbar of the guard twinkled a large yellow stone barred vertically with a single black stripe. The stones, set about an inch apart, seemed to stare like eerie xanthic eyes from either side of a long and pointed nose of silver.

  Akter Khan's voice emerged with fervour though little above a whisper. He sat tensely forward in his chair of state. His two hands gripped the curled forward edges of its arms, and the knuckles were pale. His dark eyes stared no less glassily than the 'eyes' of the amulet.

  Conan thought the satrap was about to rise. Akter did not. One hand parted itself from the throne's arm, and was extended, palm up.

  'To me,' Akter said in the same breathless voice of intensity.

  After three months of perilous adventure and seemingly endless travel and travail because of this bauble, Conan was almost loath to part with it. Almost. Yet he did not carry it forward to that waiting royal hand. Instead he caught up Isparana's hand, and pressed the Eye of Erlik into her palm.