The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  The wagon swayed, drawing closer to the wall. Its wheels scraped the stone curb and the man jumped, hurling himself into the air with all the strength of his mighty frame. Like a quarrel from' a crossbow, the man shot up and against the wall. His body met it with bruising impact, hands clapping against the cold stone with the fingertips alone finding purchase and digging in atop the wall. He dangled, breath hissing between clenched teeth. Then he chinned himself, threw over a muscular leg and pulled himself up so that he was lying along the top of the wall. He lay motionless for a moment, waiting for the surging vertigo to pass. It seemed that Shakar's Keshanian drug had not entirely left him. He shook his head like a troubled lion, trying to rid himself of the persistent dizziness and see into the darkness below.

  An elaborate garden lay spread out in the shadows beneath him. Dim, tangled outlines of trees and undergrowth led up a gentle, landscaped slope to an expansive villa that loomed as an unlit and angular silhouette against the stars. The perfume of night-blooming flowers floated on the slow breeze.

  Conan stood on the narrow top of the wall. Heedless of the height, he ran swiftly along it to where a tall tree thrust leafy branches toward the wall. He squatted, peering intently into the tree, then leapt abruptly from his perch, dropping down and forward to capture a sturdy limb in iron fingers. Leaves shook and rustled as the branch bent and then rebounded, holding his weight. The Cimmerian glanced down, then released the limb. He dropped, hit the ground, and rolled in the dewy grass. Conan came to his feet in a fighting crouch, hand on hilt and eyes raking the darkness for sign of a foe.

  He was alone on a well-trimmed greensward. In front of him two dense clumps of shrubbery framed a white gravel path that shone dully in the starlight. The path wound up the hill toward the dark mass of Lady Zelandra's mansion. The barbarian moved parallel with the trail, skulking in the shadows as silently as a prowling wolf. Skirting a tiled courtyard adjacent to the manse, Conan approached a darkened window and froze in midstride.

  Footfalls rattled gravel along the path. Conan ducked into the shadow of a manicured hedge, hand once again gripping his hilt. Two uniformed men walked into view along the trail. They conversed softly, voices carrying on the night air. The Cimmerian crouched motionless as the pair came to a halt not ten paces away. The men wore light armour with shortswords belted at the waist, and the larger of the two bore a long, barbed pike on one shoulder. Conan's body tensed, preparing for instant violence. The pike bearer produced a wineskin from beneath his cloak, drank deeply and passed it to his companion. The other took a swallow and returned the skin, clapping his comrade on the back with crude good humour. The pair continued down the path, blithely unaware of how close they had stood to death.

  Conan relaxed, once again feeling a slight stirring of vertigo. He cursed vehemently under his breath until it passed, calling down a plague upon all dabblers in the dark arts. Then he stole silently across me grass to the waiting window. The stout shutters were thrown wide to allow the cool air of evening to ease the day's accumulated heat.

  There were bars, but they were slender. Inevitably there was some noise, but Conan worked slowly and with great deliberation, bending the bars rather than tearing them from their settings. Soon he had a space wide enough to squeeze through. With a last look behind, he pulled himself through the window and into the mansion of Lady Zelandra.

  He dropped into a long hall lit by a single taper. The floor was thickly carpeted, and rich Vendhyan tapestries graced the walls. The faint odor of sandalwood hung on the still air. Silence lay over the house in a heavy shroud.

  Recalling the map that Shakar had shown him, Conan took his bearings and then paced soundlessly down the dim hall. He drew his sword, and the taper's soft light glimmered liquidly along its burnished length.

  Ahead, the corridor turned right. At the corner a short pedestal held an elegantly fluted vase of Khitan porcelain. Conan rounded the corner and stared down a wood-paneled hall that stretched into the heart of the manse. Another lonely taper lit the corridor with a diffuse amber glow.

  A woman stood stiffly in the hallway, looking at him.

  'Hush!' Conan lowered his sword and lifted a finger to his lips. 'I mean you no

  The woman quickly reached a hand behind her dark nimbus of hair, then whipped the hand forward with all the strength of her arm and shoulders. A dagger shot toward Conan as swiftly and directly as a hurled dart.

  'Crom!' The barbarian twisted his upper body so that the blade nicked his flapping sleeve in passing rather than burying itself between his ribs. The dagger sank almost half its length into the wooden wall five paces behind him.

  Conan lunged forward, covering the distance between himself and the woman in two great bounds. An outstretched forearm struck her across the collarbone, knocking her from her feet and sending her sprawling gracelessly on her back. The Cimmerian's sword made a short, blurred arc that stopped a hairsbreadth from her exposed neck. Cold, sharpened steel lay upon her pulsing throat.

  'Hush,' said Conan grimly.

  'Miserable thief!' hissed the woman. 'Damned assassin! Kill me and be done with it!'

  The barbarian raised his brows. Here was a beautiful woman. And unafraid. Her thick hair spilled upon the carpet, an ebony cloud surrounding a fine-boned face now sneering in defiance. Her pale eyes shone in the gloom like polished opals.

  'I have no wish to harm you or anyone else in this house.' Conan stepped back, keeping his sword leveled at the prone woman, but removing it from her throat. She sat up, twisting full lips with disdain.

  'You're mad, then.'

  'No. I am not here of my own choosing. My life is in the balance. If you will aid me, I will be swiftly gone.' Conan's hand went to the eldritch amulet wired at his throat. The dark-haired woman drew long legs up beneath her and regarded him steadily.

  'I should scream. I am not afraid to die.'

  'Then why are you whispering?'

  She was silent a moment.

  'What is it that you seek?' she asked suddenly, her voice slightly louder and more animated than before. 'Are you alone? How can I help you?' Her gaze flickered from Conan's face to a point somewhere over his right shoulder. From behind him came the almost inaudible creaking of a floorboard.

  Conan spun about and received a blow to the head so savage that it tore off his helmet and sent him reeling blindly across the hall. His shoulder hit the wall with a crash that seemed to shake the building.

  Stinging blood sluiced hotly into his left eye. Snarling, the barbarian lashed his sword to the left and right, but the blade met no resistance. He blinked, shaking the blood from his face.

  Across the hall stood a giant of a man, naked to the waist. The taper's light gleamed upon his skin, casting yellow highlights over heavy arms and a wide, hairless chest that descended into a broad, firm paunch.

  The man's head was shaved and his features were those of a pure-blooded KM tan. In his hands was a short wooden club, its head adorned with iron studs. The man was silent, but he brandished the club with casual purpose, slanted eyes glittering coldly.

  Conan struck with furious speed, taking the offensive with such suddenness that the giant Khitan was nearly impaled upon his sword.

  With an agile twist of his brawny body, the Khitan battered the barbarian's blade aside so that it scraped its length along the wooden bludgeon, throwing splinters. Unable to halt his headlong thrust, Conan's body slammed into that of his foe. They grappled, and the Khitan sought to seize his sword arm. With an explosive grunt, Conan tore free of the powerful grip and drove his mallet-like left fist home against the side of his enemy's face. Despite the unexpectedness of the move, the Khitan managed to react, attempting to roll with the blow. If he had not, it might well have broken his neck. Even the reduced impact drove him to one knee and started blood streaming from his lips.

  As the Cimmerian's sword shot up for the death stroke, a tremendous blow struck the back of his skull. Vision ablaze with flying yellow sparks, Conan went down, his
blade thumping on the carpet. In an exhibition of almost superhuman vitality, the barbarian writhed painfully onto his back. Through a thickening haze he saw the dark-haired woman, gaping at him, clutching a sturdy chair. Two of its legs were splintered stumps. The stinging sweet taste of Shakar's potion crept into the back of his throat like bile. Conan tried to rise and felt a sick vertigo, a drugged dizziness that' rose from within to smother him in cloying darkness. He reached for his sword, put his hand on the hilt, and passed out.

  VI

  There was stale straw in his mouth. The floor where he lay was strewn with the mildewed stuff. With effort, Conan spat, pushed himself into a sitting position, spat again, and leaned back against a dank stone wall. Though his head throbbed like a blacksmith's anvil, he put his hands first to his throat.

  Shakar's lethal amulet was still in place, still promising searing, lingering death. Conan probed his battered skull with tentative fingers. Drying blood matted his hair over two conspicuously swollen lumps. He pressed his fingertips around them and winced, but found no evidence of serious damage. Satisfied, he cast his eyes about his prison.

  It was a narrow, windowless slot of a cell, a little longer than the prone body of a tall man and barely wide enough for two men to stand abreast. The door was a heavily barred iron grate, scaled with flakes of red rust.

  Conan wondered how long he had until morning. A hollowness opened deep in his belly. To be incinerated by magic while locked in a cage like a helpless animal was no way for a warrior to die.

  He saw that the iron bars of the grate were far too thick for bending and that the hinges were set too deeply in stone to be wrenched free.

  The barbarian rose slowly to his feet, staring at the bars and clenching his fists until the tendons stood out across the backs of his hands. Conan's will for freedom was as elemental as that of a penned wolf. No matter if it would avail him nothing, he would tear at the bars of his prison until the amulet burnt through his throat.

  The Cimmerian's nostrils flared as he stepped to the door of his prison, peering through the holes in the encrusted grate into the dimness beyond.

  'Who's there?' he growled.

  Scarcely visible in the darkened corridor outside his cell was the lissome figure of the woman he had encountered in the halls of the mansion above. She shrank away from the grate, one pale hand at her throat.

  'How did you know I was here?' she stammered.

  'You wear a scent in your hair. It is out of place in this pit.'

  The woman fumbled awkwardly at her belt for a moment, then there was a bright spark of flint on steel. A small, golden flame began guttering from an oil lamp that she thrust forward with one hand.

  'What is your name?' she asked in a stronger voice.

  'Conan,' he replied.

  The mellow light revealed the woman in full, her skin gleaming dusky ivory. Dark leggings clung to shapely legs.

  A simple brown tunic was belted tightly around her trim waist and fell open at her throat.

  'Let me out,' rumbled the Cimmerian. In spite of the situation, his eyes were drawn to her beauty, captured by the loose fall of her lush black hair and the elegant oval of her face.

  'A curious name.' Her gaze seemed to pierce the cell's iron door, moving over the Cimmerian with a restless curiosity.

  'If you do not set me free before dawn, it will be the name of a dead man,' Conan said.

  'Then you have a few hours of life remaining. Who are you, thief?' The barbarian heaved an exasperated sigh and gripped the bars of his prison with both hands.

  'I am Conan, a Cimmerian.'

  'What kind of a thief breaks into the home of an accomplished sorceress and yet scruples to kill one who discovers him therein?' The tiny flame of the oil lamp was mirrored in her eyes.

  'Listen to me, woman. This amulet around my neck was placed there by Shakar the Keshanian. He charged me with breaking into this house and stealing a small silver chest. If I do not return with the chest by sunrise, his amulet will slay me with hellfire. Set me free and I swear by Crom to do nothing to harm anyone in this house. I will return to Shakar without your silver box and seek to persuade him to remove the amulet at sword's point.'

  The woman's brow furrowed with interest and skepticism. She held the oil lamp aloft to better study Shakar's amulet, while Conan, dappled by the grate's shadow, stared back intently and awaited a response.

  'Silver box,' she murmured. 'And what does Shakar the Keshanian want with milady's silver box?'

  'Hanuman devour all silver boxes!' exploded the Cimmerian. 'I neither know nor care what mad designs the Keshanian has upon Zelandra's belongings. I only know that the bastard's sorcerous toy will spell my death unless I can make him take it off. Set me free! Did I not spare you when you lay at my feet with a blade at your throat?'

  The woman was silent, staring at him expressionlessly through the iron door. Conan wondered how long she had been standing outside his cell before he noticed her.

  The woman reached a hand behind her head and pulled a throwing dagger from its sheath at her nape. She hefted it, flipping the knife in a glittering pinwheel and catching it again by the hilt.

  'I am Neesa, scribe and bodyguard to Lady Zelandra. I can throw this dagger with some skill.'

  'I am well aware of that,' growled Conan, feeling the faint stirring of hope.

  'Heng Shih wanted to keep you shut up until the morning so as not to disturb milady. But I am of a mind to take you to Lady Zelandra and have you tell her your story. Do you swear by your gods that you will neither attempt to harm me nor escape if I free you from the cell?'

  'You have the word of a Cimmerian.'

  Replacing the throwing dagger in its sheath, Neesa turned and pulled a stout set of manacles from a peg on the wall behind her. She pushed them through a hole in the grate, and Conan received them without comment. The manacles were of oiled steel and separated by a mere three links of heavy chain. The Cimmerian closed the manacles about his thick wrists one at a time. Each fastened with a metallic snap that rang disproportionately loud in the narrow stone cell. When he looked up, his gaze locked with the woman's for a long moment.

  What Neesa saw in the barbarian's eyes she could not name, but she produced a jingling ring of keys from another wall peg. The key turned in the lock with a rust-choked rasp and the door swung wide, keening in protest. The hulking Cimmerian paused briefly in the open stone portal, then stepped free into the corridor. Neesa felt a surge of fear that dissipated when she saw Conan's face. He was grinning broadly.

  'Lead on,' he said. 'By Crom, it's good to see I still have some luck left this ill-favoured night.'

  VII

  Shakar the Keshanian paced restlessly within the vaulted marble walls of his bedchamber from the side of his canopied bed, laden with silks and exotic furs, across the exposed marble floor, to a circular table of carved and polished oak. The tabletop was bare except for a small, intricately chased silver cask that sat alone at its centre. The black sorcerer halted before the table, staring fixedly at the box. This time he could not wrench himself away to continue his nervous pacing.

  Instead, he extended a gloveless hand, webbed with veins as prominent as those of a man twice his age, and laid it reverently upon the lid of the silver casket. A trembling coursed through his body as he opened the box. The inner lining of the cask was seamless and polished to a mirror surface. In one corner was a small pile of powder as deeply green as the needles of a northern pine. Beside it lay a tiny silver spoon of the' kind used to feed infants. Shakar gazed hungrily at the emerald powder, his lips drawing back from yellowed teeth set in receding gums.

  'So little left,' he breathed. He snapped the box's lid shut with a convulsive movement and turned forcibly away to resume his pacing. He reached the bed and turned, robes hissing on the smooth floor, and felt his resolve crumble. The silver box on the table drew him forward until he found himself standing over it, opening the lid and seizing the spoon in a desperately eager hand.

&
nbsp; At that moment, just beyond the circular table, a silent ripple of roseate light danced across the naked wall. Shakar stiffened, fearful that his craving for the emerald dust had addled his mind. Slow streams of multicolored light were running fluidly over the wall of his bedchamber. As he watched, they began lacing themselves together, weaving their glowing fabric into a luminous haze. Soon a rainbow-hued expanse of churning fog covered the full breadth of the wall. Shakar watched in mute astonishment as the colours dimmed, giving way to a brilliant white light. The dark silhouette of a man solidified there, suspended motionless in the pale blaze of phosphorescent mist. The head, as dark and featureless as a shadow, turned toward Shakar and regarded him.

  'Sweet Set!' The black sorcerer took a faltering step backward, bringing a spoonful of the green powder to his open mouth and thrusting it beneath his tongue. His body jerked as though struck by a heavy blow, and the spoon dropped to jingle merrily on the marble floor. An incoherent cry of rage burst from his lips and resounded in the still room. Savage strength radiated through his wasted limbs, and his face lit with an unholy glee.

  'Invade my chambers and die, fool!' howled Shakar, spittle flying from his lips. His hands described a swift sequence of complex signs in the air before him. At their conclusion, his left hand shot up and twisted into a crooked talon. He extended it toward the figure floating in its luminous cloud and barked a series of guttural syllables, words in a language that was ancient before the oceans drank Atlantis.

  An ethereal ring of rolling darkness solidified around his left wrist.

  Sharp pinpoints of white light winked in the black coil and a bone-numbing chill radiated from it, turning Shakar's panting breath into plumes of steam. The Keshanian's hand drew back and then lashed forward, casting the black ring as a man might throw a stone. It moved toward the suspended silhouette with easy speed.