They found the Emerald Lotus in its chamber, as if in death it had sought out the place of its birth. It had burnt down to its twisted core. The lotus was reduced to a clenched coil of blackened, thorny branches gripping a ghastly collection of contorted skeletons. The incinerated corpses of its victims were crushed together in its death embrace, wound and woven into its shrunken fabric so that Conan and Zelandra found it impossible to tell one body from another. All, human and animal, master and slave, were joined in death. The smoke and intense heat had seared and darkened the chamber, staining the walls as far as the pair could see. The high band of hieroglyphics that encircled the room was obscured by soot.
Conan took the sword that had been Ath's and struck at a curled limb of the lotus. Though it looked as solid as black stone, the burnt branch broke apart more easily than coal, crumbling into loose ash and releasing the skull it gripped to fall and rattle hollowly on the scarred stone floor.
Tearing free a shred of his tattered shirt, the barbarian distastefully wiped the dark ash from his blade. He noticed that Zelandra was staring emptily at the corpse of the Emerald Lotus. She stood still and silent, one arm crooked across her midsection. The sorceress breathed shallowly and did not seem to blink. Conan took her arm and led her away.
The palace's lowest levels seemed to have escaped the insensate fury of the dying lotus. In a crude series of rooms carved out below the desert floor, they found both the stables where the mercenaries kept their camels and ponies and a room full of supplies. There were sacks of provisions, grain for the beasts, and a large collection of tall ceramic jugs of water. They led the animals into the light, where Heng Shih and Neesa anxiously awaited their return.
The Stygian captives were astonished when Conan gave each water and a camel and told them to be gone. The taller of the two stared mutely at the Cimmerian, while the other bowed low, as though he stood before a king. They wasted no time in taking the barbarian's advice and departing down the narrow canyon.
While Conan, Heng Shih, and Neesa prepared to leave by bathing in the plentiful water and eating freely of the mercenaries' provisions, Zelandra quietly disappeared into the palace. When all was in readiness, the three looked about for her. They found Lady Zelandra in the pillar-flanked doorway, her face glimmering as pale as a mask of alabaster against the darkness of the portal. When Zelandra emerged into the morning light, they saw that her body was bent forward and that she used one arm to clutch her ribs. .
'Conan, Neesa,' she called, and then more tenderly, 'Heng Shih.'
'Come along, milady,' said Neesa, a faint quaver in her voice. 'We've far to go.'
'No,' answered Zelandra. 'I have scoured every inch of this ruin and can find none of the Emerald Lotus. The entire plant has been burnt to useless ash. You must leave me here; I would not burden you with my madness and my death. I have failed and, despite his doom, Ethram-Fal has triumphed.'
'Nay,' said Conan as he swung his long legs over his camel's back and dismounted. 'I must be getting old if a little fighting makes me so forgetful.' The Cimmerian bounded up the stone steps of the palace toward the Lady Zelandra, and drew his backpack from beneath a bronzed arm. 'I snatched this from the wizard's room of magics when Heng Shih and I hid from his guards.'
A long, slender box of polished ebony emerged from the scruffy backpack and gleamed dully in the morning light. Conan twisted the golden clasp, lifted the lid, and held out the open box for Zelandra to see.
The sorceress could not restrain a gasp as she gazed upon a glittering drift of emerald dust.
'The Stygian's private stock, I'll warrant,' grunted Conan. 'I hope, lady, that this is enough to serve your need.'
Zelandra took the box, closed it, and held it to her breast.
'Yes, barbarian, I will make it so.'
Together they walked from the shadow of the Palace of Cetriss into the bright sun of Stygia. The Cimmerian lifted the weary sorceress to her camel's back, and the little group moved as one down the canyon that led to the west and away. Conan took the lead, the desert wind tossing his black mane. He did not look back.
Behind them, the Palace of Cetriss returned to the silence in which it had slept for thirty centuries. Its weathered pillars warmed in the rising sun and cooled with the coming of night. Deep within, alone in its high and vaulted temple, the faceless statue of black stone stared into the darkness that it knew so well.
Hawks over Shem
L. Sprague de Camp & Lin Carter
The tall figure in the white cloak wheeled, cursing softly, hand at scimitar hilt. Not lightly did men walk the nighted streets of Asgalun, capital of Shemitish Pelishtia. In this dark, winding alley of the unsavory river quarter, anything might happen.
'Why do you follow me, dog?' The voice was harsh, slurring the Shemitic gutturals with the accents of Hyrkania.
Another tall figure emerged from the shadows, clad, like the first, in a cloak of white silk but lacking the other's spired helmet.
'Did you say, 'dog'?' The accent differed from the Hyrkanian's.
'Aye, dog. I have been followed―'
Before the Hyrkanian could get further, the other rushed with the sudden blinding speed of a pouncing tiger. The Hyrkanian snatched at his sword. Before the blade cleared the scabbard, a huge fist smote the side of his head. But for the Hyrkanian's powerful build and the protection of the camail of ring mail that hung down from his helmet, his neck might have been broken. As it was, he was hurled sprawling to the pavement, his sword clattering out of his grasp.
As the Hyrkanian shook his head and groped back to consciousness, he saw the other standing over him with drawn saber. The stranger rumbled: 'I follow nobody, and I let nobody call me dog! Do you understand that; dog?'
The Hyrkanian glanced about for his sword and saw that the other had already kicked it out of reach. Thinking to gain time until he could spring for his weapon, he said: 'Your pardon if I wronged you, but I have been followed since nightfall. I heard stealthy footsteps along the dark alleys. Then you came unexpectedly into view, in a place most suited for murder.'
'Ishtar confound you! Why should I follow you? I have lost my way. I've never seen you before, and I hope never to―'
A stealthy pad of feet brought the stranger round, springing back and wheeling to keep both the Hyrkanian and the newcomers before him.
Four huge figures loomed menacingly in the shadows, the dim starlight glinting on curved blades. There was also a glimmer of white teeth and eyeballs against dark skins.
For an instant there was tense stillness. Then one muttered in the liquid accepts of the black kingdoms: 'Which is our dog? Here be two clad alike, and the darkness makes them twins.'
'Cut down both,' replied another, who towered half a head above his tall companions. 'We shall then make no mistake and leave no witness.'
So saying, the four Negroes came on in deadly silence.
The stranger took two long strides to where the Hyrkanian's sword lay.
With a growl of 'Here! he kicked the weapon at the Hyrkanian, who snatched it up; then rushed upon the advancing blacks with a snarling oath.
The giant Kushite and one other closed with the stranger while the other two ran at the Hyrkanian. The stranger, with that same feline speed he had shown earlier, leaped in without awaiting attack. A quick feint, a clang of steel, and a lightning slash sheared the head of the smaller black from his shoulders. As the stranger struck, so did the giant, with a long forehand sweep that should have cut the stranger in two at the waist.
But, despite his size, the stranger moved even faster than the blade as it hissed through the night air. He dropped to the ground in a crouch so that the scimitar passed over him. As he squatted in front of his antagonist, he struck at the black's legs. The blade bit into muscle and bone. As the black reeled on his wounded leg and swung his sword up for another slash, the stranger sprang up and in, under the lifted arm, and drove his blade to the hilt in the Negro's chest. Blood spurted along the stranger's wrist. The
scimitar fell waveringly, to cut through the silken kaffia and glance from the steel cap beneath. The giant sank down dying.
The stranger tore out his blade and whirled. The Hyrkanian had met the attack of his two Negroes coolly, retreating slowly to keep them in front of him. He suddenly slashed one across the chest and shoulder so that he dropped his sword and fell to his knees with a moan. As he fell he gripped his foe's knees and hung on like a leech. The Hyrkanian kicked and struggled in vain. Those black arms, bulging with iron muscles, held him fast, while the remaining Negro redoubled the fury of his strokes.
Even as the Kushite swordsman drew breath for a stroke that the hampered Hyrkanian could not have parried, he heard the rush of feet behind him. Before he could turn, the stranger's saber drove through him with such fury that the blade sprang half its length out of his chest, while the hilt smote him fiercely between the shoulders. Life went out of him with a cry.
The Hyrkanian caved in the skull of his other antagonist with his hilt and shook himself free of the corpse. He turned to the stranger, who was pulling his saber out of the body it transfixed.
'Why did you come to my aid after nearly knocking my head off?' he asked.
The other shrugged. 'We were two men beset by rogues. Fate made us allies. Now, if you like, we'll take up our quarrel again. You said I spied upon you.'
'I see my mistake and crave your pardon,' answered the Hyrkanian promptly. 'I know now who has been skulking after me.'
He wiped and sheathed his scimitar and bent over each corpse in turn.
When he came to the body of the giant, he paused and murmured:
'Soho! Keluka the Sworder! Of high rank the archer whose shaft is paneled with pearls!' He wrenched from the limp black finger a heavy, ornate ring, slipped the ring into his sash, and laid hold of the garments of the dead man. 'Help me to dispose of this carrion, brother, so that no questions shall be asked.'
Tlie stranger grasped a bloodstained jacket in each hand and dragged the bodies after the Hyrkanian down a reeking black alley, in which rose the broken curb of a ruined and forgotten well. The corpses plunged into the abyss and struck far below with sullen splashes. With a light laugh the Hyrkanian turned.
'The gods have made us allies,' he said. 'I owe you a debt.'
'You owe me naught,' answered the other in a surly tone.
'Words cannot level a mountain. I am Farouz, an archer of Mazdak's Hyrkanian horse. Come with me to a more seemly spot, where we can converse in comfort. I hold no grudge for the buffet you dealt me, though, by Tarim! my head still rings from it'
The stranger grudgingly sheathed his saber and followed the Hyrkanian.
Their way led through the gloom of reeking alleys and along narrow, winding streets. Asgalun was a contrast of splendor and decay, where opulent palaces rose among the smoke-stained ruins of buildings of forgotten ages. A swarm of suburbs clustered about the walls of the forbidden inner city where dwelt King Akhirom and his nobles.
The two men came to a newer and more respectable quarter, where the latticed windows of overhanging balconies almost touched one another across the street.
'All the shops are dark,' grunted the stranger. 'A few days ago the city was lighted like day, from dusk to sunrise.'
'One of Akhirom's whims. Now he has another, that no lights shall burn in Asgalun. What his mood will be tomorrow, Pteor only knows.'
They halted before an iron-bound door in a heavy stone arch, and the Hyrkanian rapped cautiously. A voice challenged from within and was answered by a password. The door opened, and the Hyrkanian pushed into thick darkness, drawing his companion with him. The door closed behind them. A heavy leather curtain was pulled back, revealing a lamplit corridor and a scarred old Shemite.
'An old soldier turned to wine-selling,' said the Hyrkanian. 'Lead us to a chamber where we can be alone, Khannon.'
'Most of the chambers are empty,' grumbled Khannon, limping before them. 'I'm a ruined man. Men fear to touch the cup, since the king banned wine. Pteor smite him with gout!'
The stranger glanced curiously into the larger chambers that they passed, where men sat at food and drink. Most of Khannon's customers were typical Pelishtim: stocky, swarthy men with hooked noses and curly blue-black beards. Occasionally one saw men of the more slender type that roamed the deserts of eastern Shem, or Hyrkanians or black Kushites from the mercenary army of Pelishtda.
Khannon bowed the two men into a small room, where he spread mats for them. He set before them a great dish of fruits and nuts, poured wine from a bulging skin, and limped away muttering.
'Pelishtia has come upon evil days, brother,' drawled the Hyrkanian, quaffing the wine of Kyros. He was a tall man, leanly but strong built.
Keen black eyes, slightly aslant, danced restlessly in a face with a yellowish tinge. His hawk nose overhung a thin, black, drooping moustache. His plain cloak was of costly fabric, his spired helmet was chased with silver, and jewels glittered in the hilt of his scimitar.
He looked at a man as tall as himself, but who contrasted with him in many ways. The other had thicker limbs and greater depth of chest: the build of a mountaineer. Under his white kaffia his broad brown face, youthful but already seamed with the scars of brawls and battles, showed smooth-shaven. His natural complexion was lighter than that of the Hyrkanian, the darkness of his features being more of the sun than of nature. A hint of stormy fires smoldered in his cold blue eyes. He gulped his wine and smacked his lips.
Farouz grinned and refilled his goblet. 'You fight well, brother. If Mazdak's Hyrkanians were not so infernally jealous of outsiders, you'd make a good trooper.'
The other merely grunted.
'Who arc you, anyway?' persisted Farouz. 'I've told you who I am.'
'I am Ishbak, a Zuagir from the eastern deserts.'
The Hyrkanian threw back his head and laughed loudly, bringing a scowl to the face of the other, who said: 'What's so funny?'
'Do you expect me to believe that?'
'Do you say I lie?' snarled the stranger.
Farouz grinned. 'No Zuagir ever spoke Pelishtic with an accent like yours, for the Zuagir tongue is but a dialect of Shemitish. Moreover, during our fight with the Kushites, you called upon strange gods―Crom and Manannan―whose names I have heard before from barbarians of the far North. Fear not; I am in your debt and can keep a secret.'
The stranger half started up, grasping his hilt. Farouz merely took a sip of wine. After an instant of tension the stranger sank back. With an air of discomfiture he said:
'Very well. I am Conan, a Cimmerian, late of the army of King Sumuabi of Akkharia.'
The Hyrkanian grinned and stuffed grapes into his mouth. Between chews he said: 'You could never be a spy, friend Conan. You are too quick and open in your anger. What brings you to Asgalun?'
'A little matter of revenge.'
'Who is your enemy?'
'An Anaki named Othbaal, may the dogs gnaw his bones!'
Farouz whistled. 'By Pteor, you aim at a lofty target! Know you that this man is the general of all King Akhirom's Anakian troops?'
'Crom! It matters as little to me as if he were a collector of offal.'
'What has Othbaal done to you?'
Conan said: 'The people of Anakia revolted against their king, who's an even bigger fool than Akhirom. They asked help of Akkharia. Sumuabi hoped they would succeed and choose a friendlier king than the one in power, so he called for volunteers. Five hundred of us marched to help the Anakim. But this damned Othbaal had been playing both sides. He led the revolt to encourage the king's enemies to come out into the open, and then betrayed the rebels into the arms of this king, who butchered the lot.
'Othbaal also knew we were coming, so he set a trap for us. Not knowing what had happened, we fell into it. Only I escaped with my life, and that by shamming death. The rest of us either fell on the field or were put to death with the fanciest tortures the king's Sabatean torturer could devise.' The moody blue eyes narrowed. 'I've fought men befo
re this and thought no more of them afterwards, but in this case I swore I'd pay back Othbaal for some of my dead friends. When I got back to Akkharia I learned that Othbaal had fled from Anakia for fear of the people and had come here. How has he risen so high so fast?'
'He's a cousin of King Akhirom,' said Farouz. 'Akhirom, though a Pelishti, is also a cousin of the king of Anakia and was reared at that court. The kings of these little Shemitish city-states are all more or less related, which makes their wars all quarrels within the family and all the bitterer in consequence. How long have you been in Asgalun?'
'Only a few days. Long enough to learn that the king is mad. No wine indeed!' Conan spat.
'There is more to learn. Akhirom is indeed mad, and the people murmur under his heel. He holds his power by means of three bodies of mercenary troops, with whose aid he overthrew and slew his brother, the previous king. First, the Anakim, whom he recruited while an exile at the court of Anakia. Secondly, the black Kushites, who under their general, Imbalayo, yearly gain more power. And thirdly, the Hyrkanian horse, like myself. Their general is Mazdak, and among him and Imbalayo and Othbaal there is enough hatred and jealousy to have started a dozen wars. You saw some of it in this evening's encounter.
'Othbaal came here last year as a penniless adventurer. He has risen partly by his relationship to Akhirom, and partly by the intrigues of an Ophirean slave-woman named Rufia, whom he won at gaming from Mazdak and then refused to return when the Hyrkanian had sobered up. That's another reason for there being little love between them. There is a woman behind Akhirom, too: Zeriti the Stygian, a witch. Men say she has driven him mad by the potions she has fed him to keep him under her government. If that's true, then she defeated her own ends, for now nobody can control him.'
Conan set down his goblet and looked straight at Farouz. 'Well, what now? Will you betray me, or did you speak truth when you said you would not?'
Turning in his fingers the ring he had taken from Keluka, Farouz mused.
The Conan Chronology Page 299