The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'I cannot free the woman until I know where she is kept!' expostulated Conan.

  'Then you must redouble your efforts to find out,' said Parvez. 'Rumour tells me that the doom wherewith the High Priest threatens us may be unleashed within a fortnight.'

  Conan grunted. 'Perhaps you are right. I'll do what I can.'

  The next day, Conan attended another service in the temple of Zath, partly to keep on the good side of the priests and partly to familiarize himself with the layout. He stood through Feridun's harangue predicting the great, purifying evolution. When the dancing girls came on, he stared eagerly to see Rudabeh. At her appearance, he trembled with desire at the sight of her gyrating in nothing but a sparse cobweb of black beads. He tossed a larger coin than before into the acolytes' offering bowl, to give the impression that he was leaning toward the cult of Zath.

  He also stared at the great gems that ornamented the statue of the spider-god - eight great opals, each as large as a fist; four in a row across the front, one on each side, and two on top. If he could steal them and get away whole, he could go to some far country, buy an estate and a title of nobility, or a high rank in the army, and be secure for life. Not that he would ever cease wandering in search of adventure and danger; but it would be pleasant to know that he had a secure base to return to, where he could rest and enjoy life between bouts of derring-do. He turned over and discarded one plan after another for getting the jewels into his possession.

  After the service, he lingered in the vestibule, pretending to get a stone out of his shoe. When the rest of the Congregation had streamed out, instead of following them, he entered the corridor leading off from the vestibule to the right as one entered the temple - the side opposite that into which Morcant had led him on his first arrival. He prowled through the hallway, glancing keenly to right and left to orient himself and to find clues as to what lay behind the massive oaken doors.

  The corridor made a bend, and as Conan came around the corner he found himself facing one of the Brythunian guards. The man stood at the junction of the corridor with another passage, which led off into semi-darkness to the right. From his knowledge of the temple's exterior, Conan was sure that this passage occupied the first of the four wings on that side.

  The immediate problem was to allay the suspicions of the guard. Casually, Conan said: 'Hail Urien! Have you lost your pay gaming again?'

  The guardsman frowned. 'I hold my own. But what do you here, Corin? A layman like you should be accompanied by a priest or an acolyte.'

  'I do but work in the temple's interest...' began Conan but stopped as he saw Urien's eyes look past him. He spun around, to find that Harpagus the Vicar, in black robe and white turban, had come up softly behind him. Conan said:

  'It occurred to me, Vicar, that some of the metal furnishings in the temple may need repairs. If I could inspect the place, examining every hinge and fitting, I might save trouble anon.'

  Harpagus gave a cold little smile. 'It is good of you to think of our welfare, Corin. The servants of Zath watch vigilantly for such defects. When they find one, they will inform you in due course. How goes your smithery?'

  'Well, I thank you,' grumbled Conan. 'It keeps me occupied.'

  'Good! One of your customers complained that your craftsmanship was rough compared with your predecessor's. I explained that you had been soldiering and thus were out of practice. I trust we shall see an improvement.'

  Conan resisted an impulse to tell the Vicar what the dissatisfied customer could do with the piece Conan had made for him. 'I'll do my best, sir. I am now on my way to finish an iron ornament for someone's door.'

  'One moment, Master Corin. I wish speech with you in my closet; but meanwhile I have a small task to perform. Pray walk with me.'

  Wondering, Conan followed the priest back to the vestibule and out the front doors of the temple. There Conan found that the worshippers, instead of dispersing to their homes and workshops, were kept on the temple steps by the Brythunian guards, holding pikes parallel to the ground to form a barrier. The reason, Conan saw, was that a flock of sheep was being driven in from the city gate. The animals flowed past the front of the temple and around to the west side, chivvied on their way by two skin-clad shepherds and a dog.

  When at last the Brythunians raised their pikes, the Vicar strode around the corner after the sheep, while Conan followed the Vicar. They found the flock huddled near the door at the end of the first wing of the temple they came to on that side. This wing, like its fellow on the opposite side, had a massive door set in its end wall.

  The dog raced around the flock, chasing animals back into the mass whenever one started to stray. The shepherds leaned on their crooks and watched. The Vicar pushed through the sheep to the door at the end of the wing. Here he thrust back the massive bolt that secured the door from the outside, unlocked the door with a key, and heaved it open. Stepping back, he waved to indicate that the shepherds should drive their flock in.

  With the noisy help of their dog, the shepherds forced the sheep into the opening. When the animals were nearly all inside, the dog behaved strangely, backing away from the opening with its hair bristling and snarling, as if it had encountered a strange and menacing smell. The shepherds drove the remaining beasts into the passage by blows of their crooks.

  Harpagus closed the door, locked it, and slammed the big bolt across. He turned, put away his key, and from his robe brought out a small purse, which he handed to the older shepherd. The shepherds bowed, mumbled thanks in their dialect, and walked off with their dog.

  'Now, Master Corin,' said the Vicar, 'we shall repair to my cabinet.'

  Unable to think of a reason to gainsay the command, Conan followed Harpagus into the chamber where he had received his appointment as blacksmith. Harpagus sat down behind his flat-topped writing table, saying: 'Look at me, Corin!'

  The priest raised the hand that bore the ring set with the huge gemstone. His piercing eyes caught Conan's and held them as he began to wave the ring-decked fingers back and forth. In a low monotone he intoned:

  'You are becoming drowsy - drowsy - drowsy. You are losing your will to think for yourself. You shall tell me, truthfully, all that which I am fain to know...'

  The priest's eyes seemed to expand to inhuman size; the room faded away, and Conan stood as in a dense fog, seeing nothing save the priest's huge eyes.

  Just in time, Conan recalled the lessons he had received from Kushad, the blind seer of Sultanapur. With a mighty effort, he tore his gaze away and concentrated on his mental picture of the room in which he stood, reciting to himself: 'Two threes are six; three threes are nine...'

  Little by little the fog cleared, and the Vicar's study swam into view. Conan silently faced the Vicar, who said: 'Now! tell me Corin, what were you truly doing, loitering in the temple after the service, instead of issuing forth with the others?'

  'I had a stone in my shoe, my lord. Then the thought struck me that I could better fulfil my duties as smith to the temple by examining the metalwork in this building for defects.'

  Harpagus frowned in a puzzled manner and repeated th question, receiving the same reply.

  'Are you truly under my influence?' asked the Vicar, 'or are you shamming?'

  'Ask what you will, sir, and I will answer truly.'

  'Foolish question,' muttered Harpagus. 'But let us try another. Tell me of your feelings for and relations with the dancer Rudabeh - everything, even the intimate details.'

  'Mistress Rudabeh is the daughter of the woman at whose house I take my meals,' said Conan. 'I once supped with the lass when she visited her home; that is all.'

  'You have never escorted her out - say, to Bartakes's Inn in Khesron?'

  'Nay, sir; she said it was against the temple's rules.'

  'What did you and she discuss when you met her at her mother's house?'

  'We talked of local gossip, and I told of my adventures.'

  'Have you had carnal knowledge of the wench?'

  'Na
y, sir; I understand that to be forbidden.'

  Harpagus sat for a moment, tapping an index finger softly on his desk top. At last he said: 'Very well. When I snap my lingers, you shall awaken; but you shall remember none of this discourse. Then you may go.'

  The priest snapped his fingers. Conan drew a long breath, squared his enormous shoulders, and said: 'What did you wish to ask me about, my lord Vicar?'

  'Oh, I have forgotten,' snapped Harpagus testily. 'Go on about your business.'

  Conan nodded, turned, and started to stride out; but the Vicar called: 'Eldoc!'

  The Brythunian standing guard before Harpagus' door thrust his head in. 'Aye, Vicar?'

  'Show Master Corin out. And you, Corin,' he added severely, 'seem prone to forget that we do not allow laymen to wander the temple unescorted. Do not give me occasion to mention this rule again.'

  Out in the corridor, Conan wiped his sleeve across his sweat-beaded brow and ground his teeth in suppressed rage. At least, he hoped that his impersonation of a hypnotic subject had taken in the Vicar.

  When Conan reached Amytis's house that day, he again found Rudabeh there before him. Since the time was close to midsummer and the light lingered late, they went out after supper into the garden behind the house. Rudabeh said: 'Have a care that you step not on our cabbages!'

  When Conan had boasted of his adventures, he asked: 'What's this doom the High Priest is ever threatening to loose?'

  'I know not,' she replied. 'The inner circle keep their secrets.'

  'It sounds like some plague. I've heard of sorcerous pestilences.'

  She shrugged. 'All will become clear in time, I see.'

  'Sorcery oft-times escapes the sorcerer's control,' mused Conan. 'We might well be among the victims.'

  'You can always flee.'

  'But what of you?'

  She shrugged again. 'I must take my chances. Yezud is my home; I am not a wanderer like you, to whom all places are as one.'

  'If the plague gets loose in Yezud, you may have no kith or kin left.'

  'If so,' she murmured, 'that is my fate.'

  'Oh, curse your Eastern fatalism! Why not flee with me?'

  She gave him a level look. 'I wondered how soon you, would come to that. Know, Corin, that I am no man's plaything. When my term ends, I will settle down with some likely lad, to keep his house and rear his children.'

  Conan made a wry face. 'It sounds as dull as life in my native village. I could show you some real living.'

  'Doubtless; but to be the drab of a footloose adventurer is not to my taste.'

  'How do you know, girl, if you've never tried it?'

  'If I found housewifery intolerable, I suppose I could flea with a man like you. But if I went with you, I could never' return to Yezud; the priests would feed me to Zath.'

  Conan threw up his hands. 'Mitra save me from intelligent women, who plan their lives like a general setting up a battle! Half the spice of life is not knowing what the morrow will bring - or even if you will be alive. But still, I like you better than any other woman I have known, even though you be as cold as ice to me.'

  'I like you, too, Corin; but not to the point of folly. Of course if you changed your ways - if you settled down, as they say - but I must not make rash promises. I pray you to escort me back to the temple.'

  After saying good-night to Rudabeh, Conan returned to his smithy. Finding himself bored and restless, he went down to Khesron, where in the inn he found Parvez studying a map of Zamora. To him Conan said:

  'Meseems our enterprise must be done, if done it be, from the outside. The interior is too well guarded.' He told of his attempt to prowl the temple corridors and his subsequent interrogation by Harpagus. 'For this,' he concluded, 'I shall need a good length of rope - perhaps forty or fifty cubits. Do you know where I could get one?'

  'Not I,' said the diplomat; 'but our host may. Oh, Bartakes!'

  The innkeeper informed them that the nearest rope-walk was in the village of Kharshoi, a couple of leagues down the valley.

  'Good,' said Conan. 'What would be the local price of fifty cubits thereof?' When Bartakes, after a moment of thought, named a sum, Conan held out a hand to Parvez. 'Money for the rope, my lord.'

  'You are a hard man,' said the diplomat, fumbling in his wallet. 'Now you must excuse me.'

  With a sour glance, Parvez rose and withdrew. Left alone, Conan glanced around the common room. Captain Catigern came in, and Conan beckoned him. He and Conan ordered wine - the cheap local vintage, for Conan saw no reason to pauperize himself by buying Kyrian when he had no fair companion to savour it with. He and Catigern flipped coins for small sums.

  Although Conan drank more wine than usual, Bartakes's liquor seemed to have no effect. After an hour, he and I Catigern were almost where they had started, and Conan found himself more bored and restless than ever.

  The taverner's daughter wandered over to watch the game. Conan yawned and said: 'I've had enough, Captain. Methinks I'll to bed.'

  'All alone?' said Mandana archly. As Conan looked up, she met his eye and gave a little wriggle.

  Conan looked at her without interest. 'Smithery is hard work,' he grunted. 'Hammering out a sword blade is no less laborious than wielding that sword in battle. My trade has sapped my strength.'

  'Pooh!' retorted Mandana. 'It would take more than that to tire a man of your thews! Your head is turned by that dancing girl from the temple. Think not that I did not know her when you brought her hither, for all her mummy-wrappings. At least, I do not prance indecently around naked but for a string of beads!'

  A choking sound came from across the table, where Catigern was valiantly trying to restrain his mirth. Conan glowered at the captain, then at Bartakes' daughter, growled a curt good-night, and departed.

  After Conan sought his pallet late that night, he could not; sleep. All he could think of was Rudabeh; her image utterly possessed him. Although he told himself time and again that she should have nothing more to do with her - that she posed a dire threat to the freedom and independence he prized above all - still her face floated before him.

  She would, he reflected, ruin him as a fighting man. She would trap him in a sticky web of domesticity, whence he could never honourably escape. Was not the spider-web the very symbol of Yezud? He would be tied to one place and some dull trade all his life, until he was old and grey, living on soup for want of teeth to chew with. And all this when there were so many places he had not seen, and so many adventures yet untried!

  But, though he recoiled with horror from the thought of spending the rest of his life as Yezud's blacksmith, an even stronger urge impelled him - a fiercely burning desire to see Rudabeh again, to gaze on her handsome face, to hear her gentle voice, to admire her proud dancer's carriage, to hold her hand. It was not mere lust, albeit he had a plenty of that.

  Nor was his obsession merely a hunger for a woman - any woman. He could have enjoyed a night with the silly wench Mandana any time he chose to pay her father's toll. But he wanted just one woman, no other.

  This need, this dependence, was new to Conan's experience, and he did not altogether like it. Time and again he told himself to break out of this invisible web before it was too late. But every time he thought thus, he felt himself weakening, knowing that he could no more brusquely cast Rudabeh aside than he could bring himself to rob an old beggar.

  Furthermore, he had agreed with Parvez to rescue Jamilah in return for access to the temple, where he hoped to steal the Eyes of Zath. But, if he took the Eyes, he would have to flee from Yezud as fast as a horse could carry him. If Rudabeh would flee with him - but suppose she refused? Would he give up his quest for the Eyes to settle permanently in Yezud? If he did, would either he or the girl survive Feridun's doom? It would be absurd to undertake he toil and risk of freeing Jamilah and then make no use of the Clavis of Gazrik.

  His thoughts whirled round and round, like milk in a butter churn, without coming to a conclusion. At last he gave up trying to sleep and got
up.

  Some time after midnight, Captain Catigern inspected his Brythunian sentries. As he walked the wall of Yezud, his eye caught a distant movement on the Shadizar road. Then he sighted a man running through Khesron and up the plain to the hilltop stronghold. Catigern turned sharply to the lieutenant in command of the watch, saying:

  'Who's that? A messenger from the King?'

  'Nay,' replied the lieutenant. 'Unless I mistake me, it's none but Corin the blacksmith. He went forth an hour since, saying he needed a good, hard run.'

  Conan, gasping, waited for the door in the gate valve to open. Then, still panting, he trotted through the gap, flung a surly greeting to the Brythunians, and disappeared.

  'I wonder,' mused the lieutenant, 'has our blacksmith gone mad? Never have I seen a man run so save to escape enemies.'

  Catigern chuckled. 'Aye, he's mad right enough - mad for a wench. Love has made men do stranger things than ruin league by the light of the stars!'

  IX

  The Powder of Forgetfulness

  In hiring his courtship of Rudabeh, if such it could be called, Conan made preparations for sudden flight, despite the fact that he had not yet fully decided to flee. He, long grown accustomed to making his mind up quickly and following through his decision, right or wrong, found himself vexatiously balanced on a knife-edge of indecision.

  Every day he took an hour or so off from his smithery to exercise his horse. He sharpened his sword. He mended and polished his boots, saddlery, and other equipment. He laid a supply of durable foodstuffs: salted meat, hard biscuits, and a bag of dates brought north by traders from the Zuagir. He borrowed Parvez's map of Zamora and studied it.

  If he fled from Yezud with the Eyes of Zath, which way should he turn? To make his way back to Turan was out of the question so long as Tughril maintained his feud. He did not underestimate the sorcerous powers and lust for revenge of the High Priest of Erlik, whose son he had slain.

  West of Yezud, the central ridge of the Karpash Mountains snaked north and south for many leagues. As a born hill man, Conan was sure he could cross the cliff-sided ruin ridge on foot, but equally sure he would have to abandon any horses he brought. He did not care to go beyond the mountains only to find himself afoot in a strange land. Besides, if Rudabeh decided to come with him, also would need a mount.