'So help me, Master, I know not. I watched the lady's house as you instructed and, when they departed, I followed them to the caravan gate. Then I came directly to you.'
Facing the window, Shakar's arms dropped limply to his sides. He turned back to his bodyguard, face haggard but calmed.
'Arise, Gulbanda' he said quietly. 'Forgive me for threatening my finest servant and most loyal friend.' As Gulbanda faltered to his feet, Shakar took him by the arm and led him to the window seat.
'Here, sit down. You must be tired after your long vigil.'
'I slept not a moment last night, master.' Heavy lids half veiling his eyes attested to his honesty.
'Nor did I,' said the mage. 'Come, let me take your breastplate and helmet. We shall relax, eat, drink, and plan what is to be done.' The Keshanian helped Gulbanda out of his breastplate, mail shirt, and helmet, setting them on a table across the room. He brought a split loaf of bread and a crystal decanter of wine from a cupboard against the far wall, and set them before Gulbanda as though he were the master and Shakar the servant. The bodyguard hid a grin of bemusement. A surprise until Shakar had turned away again. He reflected that, if his master was losing his mind, then he had certainly picked the right way to go about it.
'Is the wine to your liking?' asked the Keshanian, slipping into the chair behind his desk and silently drawing open a drawer. Gulbanda sipped thirstily from the bottle, finding the wine's taste odd but quite agreeable.
'It is sweet,' said the warrior, tearing off a bit of bread. 'I've never had its like.'
'It is brewed from Brythunian apples and is a bit stronger than it may seem.' Shakar's hands were busy in the drawer of his desk. 'Tell me, my friend, how shall we avenge ourselves upon the barbarian and claim the cask from Lady Zelandra?' Gulbanda took another swallow of the sweet wine and found that it snaked a path of heat down into his belly.
'Well, if we move swiftly we could follow them to whatever their destination might be, then ambush and kill them. I would say that we could do it alone if not for my wounded hand and your¦' he faltered, '¦
your sickness.'
'Ah,' said the Keshanian, 'you suggest that I hire more men?' His hand drew the silver-chased casket from the velvet-lined interior of a drawer, set it on the desktop, and flipped open the lid.
'Yes, two or three bravos with ready daggers would even the odds.'
Gulbanda washed down a bite of bread with another swallow of wine and found that the sweet stuff was going to his head. Behind him, Shakar lifted a tiny spoon to his mouth twice in rapid succession. 'Of course,' added the bodyguard, 'I would duel the barbarian alone if it were not for my wound.'
The sorcerer tensed his body against the shudders that racked it. He blinked back tears and drew a deep breath, shaking off the pain.
'Do you know where such men can be hired?' Shakar's voice had gone hoarse, but his bodyguard paid no heed. Gulbanda was taking another pull on the jug and relishing the warmth blossoming through his body.
'Yes, yes,' he said. 'I have a few men in mind right now.'
'Tell me about them,' said Shakar, though he wasn't listening. He was removing a number of distinctive items from the drawer of his desk and setting them before him. First was an eight-inch length of hollow bamboo, cut diagonally so that its base was an enclosed cup and its top a long tapering blade as sharp as broken glass. He stood it on its base. Next was a small vial of black crystal, which he uncorked, pouring a honey-thick, translucent fluid into the base of the bamboo spike. Last was a lace handkerchief baring a darkly crusted stain of dried blood. With a thumbnail Shakar scraped flakes of coagulated blood from the fabric, dropping them into the bamboo receptacle. He then clutched the spike with both hands and muttered a word in a dialect sacred to the priests of Keshia. A thin, almost invisible, curl of smoke arose from the bamboo spike. He palmed it as though it were a dagger and rose from behind his desk.
'Worthy cutthroats all,' finished Gulbanda. 'A few gold coins will secure their loyalty unto death, Shakar.' His voice had taken on a barely noticeable slur.
The Keshanian showed nothing but calm interest, but he bristled inwardly as he advanced upon his bodyguard. The dog had addressed him by name rather than as master. That would make his task easier. He laid a cold hand on Gulbanda's shoulder, studying the thin leather jerkin that was now the only barrier protecting the warrior's full-muscled torso. The bodyguard shifted in his seat to face his employer. His bleary eyes focused on Shakar's expressionless countenance.
'But you, Gulbanda,' said Shakar almost tenderly, 'you will be loyal to me far, far beyond death.' And he slammed the bamboo spike into the centre of Gulbanda's chest with all of his strength. The bodyguard cried out, lurching to his feet with Shakar clinging to him like a leech. The Keshanian jammed the length of bamboo into Gulbanda's body, pouring the weapon's contents into the wound. A wild scream tore from the bodyguard's throat and his body spasmed, falling to the floor with Shakar still holding tight.
'Ayah Damballah!' chanted the sorcerer. 'Kill Zelandra, bring me the casket, kill the barbarian, bring me the casket! Zereth Yog Ayah Damballah!'
Gulbanda thrashed convulsively on the floor, screaming like a man being flayed alive. His cries and Shakar's chanting mingled in an unholy chorus, each fighting for prominence until the screams died away and Shakar's voice rang alone in triumph.
XII
Ethram-Fal sat alone in a room carved from living rock and toasted his good fortune. His goblet was fashioned of gleaming silver set with lozenges of polished black onyx. It was brimming with an unwholesome-looking greenish liquid: wine blended with a heavy portion of Emerald Lotus powder. The Stygian swirled the thick mixture in the goblet, then tossed it back. He clamped his eyes shut, his thin throat working as he swallowed, guzzling the goblet's full contents. Pulling the emptied vessel from his lips, he gave a soft, shuddering cry. His gaunt, hunched body shivered within its grey robes.
'Hah! Yes, by Set!' Ethram-Fal's lips writhed away from his green-stained teeth, and his eyes blazed with a terrible light. He released the goblet, which remained suspended in mid-air before him.
The Stygian's pupils rolled back and his emaciated frame stiffened with effort. The floating goblet crumpled in upon itself as though in the grip of an invisible vise. A chip of onyx popped free of its setting and fell to the floor, while the rest of the vessel was slowly crushed together into a shapeless lump of metal. Ethram-Fal laughed with delight and allowed the rough ball of crumpled silver to drop.
He had become stronger than he had ever allowed himself to dream. Let Zelandra try to resist him now. The sorcerer sprawled back in the room's only chair, bulbous head lolling on narrow shoulders. Drugged ecstasy pulsed through him, fueling his fantasies. He remembered standing before her in the sorcerous disguise of Eldred the Trader. He remembered the way that her silver-threaded hair fell upon her slim, white neck. How beautiful she was! And a sorceress as well, by Derketo!
Surely here was a woman who could appreciate the true scope of his ambitions. Here was a mature sorceress worthy to stand at his side.
Yet she had rejected him. The memory lashed Ethram-Fal and his eyes flew wide, rolling as he gazed unseeing about the chamber. How could she be such a fool? It was all too obvious that she still had much to learn about him and his Emerald Lotus. But she would doubtless learn her lessons quickly as her supply of the drug dwindled away and her newfound power faded, replaced by the all-consuming hunger that presaged madness and an agonizing death.
The Stygian deliberately slowed his breathing and calmed himself. He needed only to wait and she would be his, crawling and begging for that which she had scorned.
All things that he desired would soon be his. Was he not master of the Emerald Lotus?
The sorcerer rose abruptly and picked his way with exaggerated care through the cluster of tables that stood about the stone room. Each held its own distinctive collection of sorcerous paraphernalia. He shuffled past the large central table whereon sat a glass bo
x enclosing a small bush thickly covered with fat, ruddy leaves. The table he sought bore a darkly stained mortar and pestle, a collection of fluid-filled vials in a metal rack, and a long box of glossy ebony sealed with a small, golden clasp. With shaking hands, Ethram-Fal twisted the clasp. He opened the box and stared within with reverent eyes.
The black box was a little longer than a man's forearm and as wide and tall as a man's hand. It was about half full of deep green powder.
'Half gone,' whispered the Stygian, unaware that he spoke aloud. He pursed dry lips as a frown wrinkled his protruding brow. The exuberant confidence that had lifted his spirit a moment ago now seemed a long-dead memory, distant and useless. A chill anxiety tightened his guts. He had been spending too much time experimenting with his new power and not enough tending to that which enabled him to exercise the power in the first place. He must see to the Emerald Lotus, and perhaps harvest more for his personal stock.
He swept aside the blanket that hung over the doorway'there were no doors in the Palace of Cetriss. The dark hall was a smooth shaft cut through solid stone. Ethram-Fal hastened along its length, his sandaled feet raising the dust of centuries. He passed down a spiral stair that coiled through the ancient rock and entered a short,
vaulted room that ended in another hanging blanket. Beyond the blanket stood the Great Chamber, doubtless used as an audience hall by Cetriss in the days of Old Stygia. Now it served as an impromptu barracks for Ethram-Fal's twenty men-at-arms.
The three warriors lounging in the Great Chamber leapt to their feet when Ethram-Fal entered, slapping their right palms over their hearts.
The sorcerer smiled thinly, nodding his approval of their attentive devotion. When he had left Kheshatta in search of the Palace of Cetriss and his dreams, he had taken pains to hire the finest and most expensive squad of free lances that he could find. His riches and the fat, red leaves of the Vendhyan kaokao plant had fostered a powerful loyalty in them.
Threading his way among the cots in the Great Chamber, Ethram-Fal smiled. The wizards of the Black Ring had belittled him for devoting himself to the magics of plants and growing things. Such arrogance!
They had likened him to a Pictish druid, as if he had anything at all in common with those meek and feeble tree-worshippers. Those ignorant savages feared to so much as disturb the delicate balance of nature, much less to seize it and bend it to their will. Surely the pompous fools of the Black Ring would think differently of him now. He, a wizard whom they had mocked and rejected for his youth and unlikely fields of study, had truly come into his own. The specialized researches that they had disdained had finally led him to the lost palace of the mage Cetriss, creator of the mythical Emerald Lotus. Soon enough the Black Ring would learn that the lotus was no mere myth, but an ancient reality that he, Ethram-Fal, had personally resurrected. How they would marvel at his power! How they would beg to sample it! From the dust of three thousand years, he would breed a vengeance such as the world had never known.
Lost in his drugged reverie, Ethram-Fal moved down another hallway into a vast, unlit chamber. The Stygian started when he realised where he was and hastened his stride. To his left towered a sable shadow, a deeper darkness amid the dark. It was a great crouching statue of black stone, a sphinx-like, hulking god-thing whose name and nature were unknown to Ethram-Fal. When he had first found the palace and wandered through its deserted halls'the only visitor in many lifetimes'he had found something in this room as disturbing as the black and nameless idol itself. On the stone altar that lay between the proffered talons of the god was a dusty pile of offal. The tiny, desiccated corpses of dozens of rodents, lizards, scorpions and other even smaller vermin lay in a neat mound before the silent and implacable avatar. Now he hurried through the darkened temple and did not look upon the featureless face of the god of Cetriss where it loomed in the murk, staring blindly into the darkness as it had ever since the distant days of purple-towered Acheron.
Down a final length of hall and around a corner, the sorcerer came upon his captain, Ath, standing guard beside a doorway. A luminous sphere of crystal filled a niche in the wall. It gave off a steady yellow-green glow that painted the soldier's polished armour with warm light.
'My Lord,' said Ath, bowing low.
'Light,' commanded Ethram-Fal, striding past his tall captain and into the circular chamber. The small room remained as it had ever been, save that light globes had been placed in niches set to either side of the doorway. Ath touched these with his own globe, and they brightened so that the cylindrical room blazed with light.
Above their heads the band of writhing hieroglyphics that encircled the walls was clearly visible. Above that a circular balcony of black metal spanning the room's circumference could now be seen. Higher still arched the chamber's domed roof. But the two men's eyes rose no higher than the floor.
In the centre of the room lay the leathery husk of a human body wrapped in a tangle of dry, thorny growths. The withered corpse of Ethram-Fal's luckless apprentice, still clad in yellow tatters, was embedded in the tight embrace of dozens of crooked and browning branches. There were no flowers to be seen.
'Blood of Mordiggian!' Ethram-Fal cursed as fear swelled in his voice.
'It is dying!' A sick horror swept through his body, weakening his limbs and closing his throat. Had he killed his dreams even as they were being born, and done so with stupid negligence? The thought was too much to bear. The little sorcerer swayed on his feet.
'Ath,' he rasped, 'fetch a pack pony.' The soldier turned to the door.
'Hurry!' cried his master, as Ath ran from the room.
The captain was gone long enough for Ethram-Fal to scourge himself a thousand times over because of the foolish and unnecessary nature of his predicament. When he finally heard the scuff of boots and hooves in the outer hall, he felt the relief that comes with action.
Ath led the party's smallest pack pony into the circular room. The horse was dun-coloured and long-maned. Saddleless, it stood blinking in the unnatural yellow-green illumination as the soldier bent and hobbled its legs with lengths of rawhide.
'Here,' said Ethram-Fal, 'bring it here.'
Ath cooed softly to the beast, drawing it forward. Suddenly, the pony seemed to notice the overgrown corpse and shied away, eyes rolling whitely.
'Here, Ath!' insisted the sorcerer. The tall soldier pulled helplessly at the horse's reins.
'He's afraid, My Lord.'
Ethram-Fal snatched out his irregularly shaped dagger and moved toward the hobbled pony with the abrupt swiftness of a pouncing spider.
Ath drew back involuntarily at the sight of his master advancing with clenched teeth, wild eyes, and bared steel. The sorcerer seized the pony's forelock and slashed its throat with a single quick, brutal stroke. The beast gave a pathetic whinnying cry as its blood splashed on the stone floor. It reared, then fell forward on its knees as Ethram-Fal staggered back, crimsoned knife in one rigid fist.
There was a sound like the dry crumpling of aged parchment, and the fungus-riddled corpse moved. Barbed growths beneath the body stirred, rasping on rock, and the Emerald Lotus scuttled across the floor like a gargantuan crab. It battened onto the pony, climbing the animal's breast to sink thorned branches into its gaping throat.
'Holy Mitra!' Ath stumbled backward out of the room, his face pale as ash; but Ethram-Fal stood his ground, held by an astonished fascination that was stronger than fear.
The horse collapsed heavily with the nightmarish growth clutching it in a loathsome embrace, whipping suddenly animate branches around its body as it fell. The barbed and hooked limbs extended impossibly, lashing the air like the tentacles of an octopus.
Realizing his danger, Ethram-Fal tried to dodge past the monstrosity and out the door. A spiked branch flailed against his right leg in passing, laying open the flesh of his calf and drawing a cry of pain.
The sorcerer reeled, but Ath lunged back into the room, seizing his master's shoulders and dragging him bodily out into
the hall. The two fell against the wall opposite the doorway and would have fled had not the Emerald Lotus suddenly ceased to move. The room went silent and the pony's body lay still, half blanketed by the grotesque bulk of the vampiric fungus.
Ethram-Fal bent to nurse the wound in his calf, but Ath could only stare into the circular room with wide eyes.
'That was well done, Ath. There will be an extra leaf for you tonight.'
The sorcerer's voice held a satisfaction and pleasure that were lost on his captain, who said nothing.
'I imagined that it might react more swiftly to nourishment since it did not have to revive itself from spores,' said Ethram-Fal absently as he tightened a torn strip of his robe around his wounded calf.
'I did not expect it to seek nourishment on its own. I see now why the room was designed as it is. We must feed it from the balcony above or its blood madness, like that of a shark of the Vilayet Sea, may lead it to attack us. You must have the men build some sort of door for the room as well, Ath.'
The tall captain wiped his brow and nodded mutely. Then Ethram-Fal caught his breath as the Emerald Lotus and its prey, shuddered briefly and broke into bloom.
XIII
A horseman rode through Akkharia's market square. A voluminous caftan swathed his rangy body, as though he and his mount had already traversed the desert wastelands far to the east. The rider sat his horse stiffly, looking neither to the right nor left at the teeming activity of the open-air market around him.
Beneath gaudy canopies, merchants hawked their wares to the interested and the disinterested alike, crying out the merits of their products in lilting, sing-song cadence. Stalls packed with richly woven clothing, worked metals, and medicines crowded others heaped high with Shem's bountiful harvest of dates, figs, grapes, pomegranates, and almonds.
All drew customers willing to haggle for what they sought, filling the dusty afternoon air with the clamor of a thousand disputing voices.
The Conan Chronology Page 283