He knew that on that shore stood the compound of the Cult of Doom, Yasbet's place of imprisonment, and Jhandar, the man he must kill even if he died himself.
Sand grated beneath the galley's keel. The vessel lurched, heeled, was driven further forward by the motion of long sweeps. Finally motion ceased; the deck tilted only slightly.
'It's done,' the hook-nosed captain announced, anger warring with satisfaction on his face. 'You can leave my vessel, now, and I'll give burnt offerings to Dagon when you're gone.'
'Akeba!' Conan called. On receiving an answering hail he turned back to the captain. 'I advise you to go south along the coast, you and your crew. I do not know what will happen here this night, but I fear powers will be unbound. One place I have seen where such bonds were cut; there nightmare walked, and some would count death a blessing.'
'Sorcery?' The word was a hiss of indrawn breath in the captain's mouth, changing to shaky, blustering laughter. 'An sorceries are to be loosed, I have no fears of being caught in them. I will be clear of the beach before you, and I will go south as fast as whips can drive my oar-sl-' Hatch covers crashing open amidships cut him off, and the clatter of men scrambling on deck, whip-scarred, half-naked men falling over themselves in their eagerness to dash to the rail and drop to the surf below. The hook-nosed man's eyes bulged as he stared at them. 'You've loosed the oar slaves! You fool! What-' He spun back to Conan, and found himself facing the Cimmerian's blade.
'Three score oars,' Conan said quietly, 'and two men chained to each. I have no love for chains on men, for I've worn them around my own neck. Normally I do not concern myself with freeing slaves. I cannot strike off all the chains in the world, or in Turan, or even in a single city, and if I could, men would find ways to put them back again before they had a chance to grow dusty. Still, the world may end this night, and the men who have brought me to my fate deserve their freedom, as they and all the rest of us may be dead before dawn. You had best get over the side, captain. Your own life may depend on how fast you can leave this place.'
The hook-nosed captain glared at him, face growing purple. 'Steal my slaves, then order me off my own vessel? Rambis!' He bit it off as he stared at the vacant spot by the steering oar. Conan had seen the man slip quietly over the railing as he spoke.
Discovery of the defection took what was left of the captain's backbone. With a strangled yelp he leaped into the sea.
Sheathing his sword, Conan turned to join his companions, and found himself facing some two dozen filthy galley slaves, gathered in a different knot amidships. Akeba and the Hyrkanians watched them warily.
A tall man with a long, tangled black beard and the scars of many floggings stepped forward, ducking his head. 'Your pardon, lord. I am called Akman. It is you who has freed us? We would follow you.'
'I'm no lord,' Conan said. 'Be off with you while you have time, and be grateful you do not follow me. I draw my sword against a powerful sorcerer, and there is dying to be done this night.' A handful of the former slaves melted into the darkness, splashes sounding their departure.
'Still there are those of us who would follow you, lord,' Akman said. 'For one who has lived as a dead man, to die as a free man is a greater boon than could be expected from the gods.'
'Stop calling me lord,' Conan growled. Akman bowed again, and the other rowers behind him. Shaking his head, Conan sighed. 'Find weapons, then, and make peace with your gods. Akeba! Tamur!
Sharak!'
Without waiting to see what the freed slaves would do, the big Cimmerian put a hand to the railing and vaulted into waist-deep seas that broke against his broad back and sent foam over his shoulders. The named men followed as he waded to shore, a stretch of driftwood-covered sand where moon-shadows stirred.
'They'll be more hindrance than help, those slaves,' Sharak grumbled, attempting to wring seawater from his robes without dropping his staff. 'This is a matter for fighting men.'
'And you are the stoutest of them all,' Akeba laughed, clapping the old astrologer on the shoulder and almost knocking him down. His laughter sounded wild and grim, the laughter of a man who would laugh in the face of the dark gods and was doing so now: 'And you, Cimmerian. Why so somber? Even if we die we will drag Jhandar before Erlik's Black Throne behind us.'
'And if Jhandar looses the magicks that he did when he was defeated before?' Conan said. 'There are no shamans to contain them here.'
They stared at him, Akeba's false mirth fading. Sharak held a corner of his robes in two hands, his dampness forgotten, and Conan thought he heard Tamur mutter a prayer.
Then the men from the galley were clambering up the beach, the half score who had not succumbed to fear or good sense, led by Akman with a boarding pike in his calloused hands. The Hyrkanian nomads came too, cursing at the wet as they waded through the surf. A strange army, the Cimmerian thought, with which to save the world.
He turned from the sea. They followed, a file of desperate men snaking into the Turanian night.
'Must I actually put a knife in her heart?'
Davinia's question jangled in Jhandar's mind, which had been almost settled for his period of meditation.
'Do you regret your decision?' he demanded. In his thoughts, he commanded her: have no regrets.
Murder a princess in sorcerous rites. Be bound to me by ties stronger than iron.
'No regrets, my Great Lord,' she said slowly, toying with the feathers of her girdle. When she lifted her gaze to his her sapphire eyes were clear and untroubled. 'She has lived a useless life. At least her death will be to some purpose.'
Despite himself he could not stop the testing. 'And if I said there was no purpose? Just her death?' Her frown almost stopped his heart.
'No purpose? I do not like getting blood on my hands.' She tossed her blonde mane petulantly. 'The feel of it will not wash away for days. I will not do it if there is no purpose.'
'There is a purpose,' he said hastily, 'which I cannot tell you until the proper time.' And to forestall questions he hurried from the room.
His nerves burned with how close he had come to dissuading her. Almost, he thought, there would be no joy in achieving all his ambitions without her. Some rational corner of his mind told him the thought was lust-soaked madness. The fruition of his plans would hold her to him, for where would she then find one of greater power or wealth? With the taking of Yasbet-if she chose to call herself so, so he would think of her-all would be in place. His power in Turan would be complete. But Davinia....
He was still struggling with himself when he settled in the simple chamber, before the Pool of the Ultimate.
That would not do. He must be empty of emotion for the Power to fill him. Carefully he focused on his dreams. War and turmoil would fill the nations, disorder hastened by his overgrowing band of the Chosen. Only he would be able to call a halt to it. Kings would kneel to him. Slowly the pool began to glow.
From the branches of the tree, Conan studied the compound of the Cult of Doom. Ivory domes gleamed in the dappled moonlight, and purple spires thrust into the sky, but no hint of light showed within those high marble walls, and no one stirred. The Cimmerian climbed back down to the ground, to the men waiting there.
'Remember,' he said, addressing himself mainly to the former galley slaves, 'any man with a weapon must be slain, for they will not surrender.' The Hyrkanians nodded somberly; they knew this well.
'But the black-robed one with the yellow skin is mine,' Akeba reminded them. Time and again on the short march he had reiterated his right to vengeance for his daughter.
'The black-robe is yours,' Akman said nervously. 'I but wish you could take the demons as well.'
Sharak shook his staff, gripping it with both hands as if it were a lifeline. 'I will handle the demons,' he said. 'Bring them to me.' A wind from the sea moaned in the treetops as if in answer, and he subsided into mutters.
'Let us be on with it,' Tamur said, fidgeting whether with eagerness or nervousness, Conan could not tell.
&n
bsp; 'Stay together,' the Cimmerian said by way of a last instruction. 'Those who become separated will be easy prey' With that he led them down to the towering white wall.
Grapnels taken from the galley swung into the air, clattered atop the wall and took hold. Men swarmed up ropes like ants and dropped within.
Once inside the compound Conan barely noticed the men following him, weapons in hand, falling back on either side so that he was the point of an arrow. His own blade came into his hand. Jhandar. Ignoring other buildings, Conan strode toward the largest structure of the compound, an alabaster palace of golden onion-domes and columned porticos and towers of porphyry. Jhandar would be there in his palace. Jhandar and Yasbet, if she still lived. But first Jhandar, for there could be no true safety for Yasbet until the necromancer was dead.
Suddenly there was a saffron-robed man before him, staring in astonishment at the intruders. Producing a dagger, he screamed, 'In the name of Holy Chaos, die!'
A fool to waste time with shouts, Conan thought, wrenching his blade free so the man's body could fall.
And in Crom's name, what god was this Chaos?
But the noise produced another shaven-headed man, this with a spear that he thrust at Conan, sounding the same cry. The Cimmerian grasped the shaft to guide the point clear of his body; the point of his broadsword ended the strange shout in a gurgle of blood.
Then hundreds of saffron-robed men and women were rushing into the open. At first they seemed only curious, then those nearest Conan saw the bodies and screamed. In an instant panic seized them by the throat, and they became a boiling mass, seeking only escape, yet almost overwhelming those they feared in a tide of numbers.
Forgetting his own instructions to stay together, Conan began to force his way through the pack of struggling flesh, toward the palace. Jhandar, was the only thought in his head. Jhandar.
'Great Lord, the compound is under attack.'
Jhandar stirred fretfully in his communion with the Power. It took a moment for him to pull his eyes from the glowing pool and focus them on Suitai, standing ill at ease in the unnatural glow that filled the chamber.
'What? Why are you disturbing me here, Suitai? You know it is forbidden.'
'Yes, Great Lord. But the attack....'
That time the word got through to Jhandar. 'Attack? The army?' Had disaster come on him yet again?
'No, Great Lord. I know not who they are, or how many. The entire compound is in an uproar. It is impossible to count their numbers. I slew one; he was filthy and half-naked, and bore the welts of a lash.'
'A slave?' Jhandar asked querulously. It was hard to think, with his mind attuned to the communion and that communion not fully completed. 'Take the Chosen and dispose of these interlopers, whoever they are. Then restore order to the compound.'
'All of the Chosen, Great Lord?'
'Yes, all of them,' the necromancer replied irritably. Could the man not do as he was told? He must settle his mind, complete his absorption of the Power.
'Then you will delay the ceremony, Great Lord?'
Jhandar blinked, found his gaze drifting to the Pool of the Ultimate, and jerked it back. 'Delay? Of course not. Think you I need those fools' rapturous gazes to perform the rite?' Desperately he fought to stop his head spinning, to think clearly. 'Take the Chosen as I commanded you. I will myself bring the girl to the Chamber of Sacrifice and do what is necessary. Go!'
Bowing, the black-robed Khitan sped away, glad to be gone from the presence of that which was bound in that room.
Jhandar shook his head and peered into the pool. Glowing mists filled the limits of the wards, an unearthly dome that seemed to draw him into its depths. Angrily he pushed that feeling aside, though he could not rid himself of it. He was tired, that was all. There was no need to complete the communion, he decided.
Disturbed as he was, completion might take until dawn, and he had no time to wait. The girl must be his tonight. As it was the Power flowed along his bones, coursed in his veins. He would perform the rite now.
Gathering his robes about him, he left to fetch Yasbet and Davinia to the Chamber of Sacrifice.
XXV
Warily, sword at the ready, Conan moved along one wall of a palace corridor, with no eye for rich tapestries or ancient vases of rare Khitan porcelain. Akeba stalked along the other, tulwar in hand. As a pair of wolfhounds they hunted.
The Cimmerian did not know where the others were. From time to time the clash of steel and the cries of dying men sounded from outside, or echoed down the halls from other parts of the palace. Who won and who died he could not tell, and at that moment he did not care. He sought Jhandar, and instinct told him he drew closer with every step.
Silent as death three saffron-robed men hurtled from a side corridor, scimitars slashing.
Conan caught a blade on his broadsword, sweeping it toward the wall and up. As his own blade came parallel to the floor he slipped it off the other in a slashing blow that half-severed his opponent's head.
Flashing swiftly on, his sword axed into the second man's head a heartbeat before Akeba's steel buried itself in the man's ribs. Twice-slain, the body fell atop that of he who had faced the Turanian at the first attack.
'You work well,' Akeba grunted, wiping his blade on a corpse's robe. 'You should think of the army if we live to leave this. . .' His words trailed off as both men became aware of a new presence in the corridor. The blackrobed Khitan assassin.
Unhurriedly he moved toward them, with the casual confidence of a great beast that knows its kill is assured. His hands were empty of weapons, but Conan remembered well the dead in Samarra's yurt, with no wound on any but looks of horror on every face, and Zorelle, dead from a touch.
Conan firmed his grip on the worn leather hilt of his broadsword, but as he stepped forward Akeba laid a hand on his arm. The soldier's voice was as cold as frozen iron. 'He is mine. By right of blood, he is mine.'
Reluctantly Conan gave way, and the Turanian moved forward alone. Of necessity the big Cimmerian waited to watch his friend do battle. Jhandar was still uppermost in his mind, but the way to him led deeper into the palace, past the murderously maneuvering pair before him.
The Khitan smiled; his hand struck like a serpent, and, like a mongoose, Akeba was not there. The assassin flowed from the path of the soldier's flashing steel, yet the smile was gone from his face. Like malefic dancers the two men moved, lightning blade against fatal touch, each aware of the other's deadliness, each intent on slaying. Abruptly the Khitan deciphered the pattern of Akeba's moves; the malevolent hand darted for the soldier's throat. Desperately Akeba blocked the blow, and it struck instead his sword arm. Crying out, the Turanian staggered back, tulwar falling, arm dangling, clawing with his good hand for his dagger. The assassin paused to laugh before closing for the kill.
'Crom!' Conan roared, and leapt.
Only the Khitan's unnatural suppleness saved him from the blade that struck where he had been. Smiling again, he motioned the Cimmerian to come to him, if he dared.
'I promised to let you kill him,' Conan said to Akeba, without taking his eyes from the black-robed man,
'not the other way around.'
The Turanian barked a painful laugh. He clutched his dagger in one hand, but the other twitched helplessly at his side and only the tapestry-covered wall kept him from falling. 'As you've interfered,' he said between clenched teeth, 'then you must kill him for me, Cimmerian.'
'Yes,' the assassin hissed. 'Kill me, barbarian.'
Without warning, Conan lunged, blade thrusting for the black-robed one's belly, but the killer seemed to glide backward, stopping just beyond the sword's point.
'You must do better, barbar. Che Fan was wrong. You are just another man. I do not think you truly entered the Blasted Lands, but even if you did, you survived only by luck. I, Suitai, will put an end to you here. Come to me and find your death.'
As the tall man spoke Conan moved slowly forward, sliding his feet along the marble floor so that
he was at no time unbalanced. His sword he held low before him, point flickering from side to side like the tongue of a viper, light from the burnished brass lamps. on the walls glittering along the steel, and though the Khitan spoke confidently, he kept an eye on that blade.
Abruptly, as the assassin finished his speech, Conan tossed his sword from right hand to left, and Suitai's gaze followed involuntarily. In that instant the Cimmerian jerked a tapestry from the wall to envelop the other man. Even as the hanging tangled about the Khitan's head and chest Conan lunged after, steel ripping through cloth and flesh, grating on bone.
Slowly the assassin heaved aside the portion of the tapestry that covered his head. With glazing eyes he stared in disbelief at the blade standing out from his chest, the dark blood that spread to stain his robes.
'Not my death,' Conan told him. 'Yours.'
The Khitan tried to speak, but blood welled from his mouth, and he toppled, dead as he struck the marble floor. Conan tugged his blade free, cleaning it on the tapestry as he might had it been thrust into offal.
'I give you thanks, my friend,' Akeba said, pushing unsteadily away from the wall. His face gleamed with the sweat of pain, and his arm still dangled at his side, but he managed to stand erect as he looked on the corpse of his daughter's murderer. 'But now you have hunting of your own to do.'
'Jhandar,' Conan said, and without another word he was moving forward again.
Like a great hunting cat he strode through halls lit by glittering brass lamps, but bare of life. The gods smiled on those who did not meet him in those passages, for he would not now have slowed to see if they bore weapons or not. His blood burned for Jhandar's death. Any who hindered or slowed him now would perish in a pool of their own blood.
Then great bronze doors stood before him, doors scribed with a pattern that seemed to have no pattern, that rejected the eye's attempt to focus on it. Setting hands against those massive metal slabs, muscles cording with strain, he forced the portals open. Sword at the ready, he went through.
The Conan Chronology Page 142