Bats. A score of them suddenly. Attacking the head and face of the stone warrior. Their teeth and claws could not tear its invulnerable flesh, but the sudden frenzy of their attack drew the creature's attention for an instant.
Conan seized that instant. The creature's back was to the crenel, as he had stood a moment before. Conan lunged forward, thrust the point of his broadsword into the jet-armoured chest with all his strength. The heavy blade bent under the impact.
The stone devil was driven backward by the blow. Overbalanced, it rocked back through the crenel. Arms clawed for support, as it toppled backward from the parapet. It fell silently.
From the street a hundred feet below, a jarring crash seemed to vibrate through the tower itself.
Conan glanced over the parapet, but could see nothing in the darkness far below. 'If that didn't kill the devil, let's hope he takes his time climbing back. Crom! That's drawn their attention! It won't be
long before they wonder how the thing came to fall off the tower.'
He hastened to the steps that led below. 'Those bats,' he wondered. 'They came in answer to your call.'
'It was fortunate they did,' Destandasi said. 'Not many animals remember. There were these in reach of my cry who still do.'
'This must be what we seek,' Conan considered. 'Callidios wouldn't trust human guardians-they might pry into his secret. Instead he left one of his devils to stand guard here.'
'I pray there are no others.'
'Callidios may have figured that one would be enough to guard his chamber. If there are others, I think they would have attacked together.'
Conan had been cautiously examining the darkened chamber beyond the landing. With a curse he abruptly threw himself across the chamber, racing for the door that opened to the steps below. The Cimmerian's keen ears had caught the scuff of booted feet ascending from below.
He stationed himself beside the door. It was certain to be locked, and Callidios would entrust the key to no one, Conan felt certain. If the door opened, then the person who entered would be Callidios-and Conan would kill him in that instant.
Instead there came a cautious knock. This was repeated, then was a soft call: 'Callidios? Are you within?' When there came no answer, a hand tentatively tried the bolt. It was locked. The footfalls retreated quickly.
'Bad luck,' Conan growled. 'They'll fetch Callidios now. He won't be fool enough to come through that door by himself. When they find that rope on the rampart, the trail will lead straight to here.'
In addition to the lock, the tower door might be secured from inside by means of a heavy timber. Conan set the bar into the iron brackets. It would hold for a while; the tower was designed to withstand a siege.
The shadows that spilled from the steps onto the landing were growing pale now. Conan squinted through a balistraria, saw that daylight was at hand. Santiddio would be on the march by now. Marching to his doom, it they failed him here.
'Well, what are we looking for?' Conan wanted to know. He groped for an oil lamp, struck fire and got it alight. He held the lamp high and examined the chamber they had gone to such pains to break into.
Conan had seen more than he cared of the inside of sorcerer's secret chambers, so that he knew what to expect to some extent. Withal, the interior of Callidios' chamber went counter to anything he had envisioned. The room was a shambles, a charnel house.
Strewn throughout the chamber with no more order than a child scatters her dolls about were human cadavers in every stage of decomposition. A mummy sprawled stiffly in a pile of tattered wrappings; its case was filled with a tangle of dried bones-some mineralized, others with shreds of red flesh. A shelf held a number of human foetuses, floating in preserving fluid. A beautifully articulated skeleton hung from a hook against the wall. Beside it hung some desiccated horror that desert winds had seared. A mass of charred bones had been dumped in a pile on the floor. Next to it lay something that Conan first thought was a life-like doll, then saw that it wasn't a doll.
Conan shook his head in disbelief. The air was heavy with the taint of decay and the spices and perfumes and oils that had preserved these dead with varying success. Intricate pentagrams were chalked upon the floor, then carelessly obliterated by spills and footprints. Charts and scrolls were spread amidst a litter of books upon a low table.
'A necromancer's den,' Destandasi broke their stunned silence. 'But is Kalenius among these?'
'Crom's devils! What madness is this!'
'It may be that Callidios seeks knowledge of hidden treasures. Perhaps he seeks to unveil the future.
Necromancer's Den
I think the Stygian told no lie when he said he had walked far down his chosen path.'
Footsteps again climbed the steps from below. It was the tread of many men. The key turned the lock, drawing back the bolt. Conan, sword ready, waited.
The door pressed against the heavy timber bar, nudging it against the iron brackets. Cautiously at first, then forcefully when the door refused to open. The door, Conan judged, would hold against a battering ram for as long as they needed.
'Open the door and come out,' Callidios cajoled. 'If you do so immediately, you'll not be harmed. I respect resourceful men; I promise you a helmet of gold coins and safe passage to our borders.'
The Stygian must have thought it was worth the try. When Conan made no reply, Callidios spoke in a different tone: 'I think you are going to be very sorry now.'
Confident that the door was secure, Conan turned to help Destandasi search. He would have to stand guard on the parapet, as well as watch the door; others could follow where they had scaled the tower. 'Kalenius might be any of these,' he swore.
'But he must be here. Callidios wouldn't have given us his attention just now otherwise. The necromancer should be at his task even now-he knows the Final Guard must be ready to repel our attack.'
Impatient, the Cimmerian wrenched the lid from a coffin and dumped a pile of earth onto the floor. A stone sarcophagus resisted his efforts for a moment, then slid open to reveal a drifting layer of rotted dust. Angrily Conan ripped the dry wrappings from the mummy he had seen at first glance, glared into the leathery face.
It had been too quiet on the other side of the door. Conan had heard men depart, assumed they had gone for a ram and axes. He kept a wary eye on the door while he searched through the necrotorium. He could hear faint scraping sounds at one point, but nothing further. Its mystery worried him; Callidios was devious.
Then, in a powerful voice he had not thought the Stygian possessed: 'Kalenius! Step forth to your master and harken to my commands!'
Conan whirled. A sudden rattle of dry bones pattered to the floor. It came from the mummy case.
Rising stiffly from beneath the litter of bones that had hidden him, a naked man climbed out of the mummy case. He might have been a sleeper rising from his bed, but for the chill stiffness of his flesh. King Kalenius, his physique imposing for all his advanced age at the time of his death, glared at them with eyes that flamed with a mockery of life.
'Kalenius!' the necromancer commanded. 'I require the two warriors who bar passage to the entrance of my tower to break down this door and to slay the intruders within!'
The dead king uttered no sound, but Conan heard the sudden pounding of stone tread upon stone stair, rising swiftly from below.
'Hurry, Destandasi,' he advised grimly. She was facing the walking dead thing, her back to Conan. 'Watch the door!' Destandasi commanded.
'On your life, don't turn to watch me! Only a few are permitted to enter the mysteries of Jhebbal Sag; it is dangerous for others even to look upon the secret symbols of power!'
Conan turned his head. As he did so, in the corner of his eye he saw Destandasi start to draw a figure in the air. Blue flame hovered where her finger passed. Conan wrenched his eyes away, as the priestess of a forgotten god began to chant in the unknown tongue that seemed to stir memories within him.
The door shuddered under a massive blow. Co-nan gripped
his useless sword and waited. A second blow shook the stout iron brackets. Timbers groaned inward.
'So .. . much ... power ...' Destandasi dragged the words out. 'Must... try ... again ...'
Dust sifted down from the stones of the doorway under the tremendous force of the blows that struck it. The timbers of the door were starting to buckle under the enormous stress. Conan saw a crack appear in one of them, then splinters popped out. A ripping of wood and iron bolts, and a stone fist smashed through the thick timbers. Fingers gripped the edges of the opening, tore out great hunks of splinters.
Another fist rammed through another timber. Stone hands clawed at the wood, wrenched away the entire space between. The door was disintegrating before his eyes. Conan looked for something to barricade the crumbling door-knowing it could only buy a few moments for them.
Behind him, a rattling sigh gushed forth, then the hollow jumbled sound that an unconscious body makes as it collapses unchecked. Destandasi moaned.
And Conan could hear these sounds because the thunderous destruction of the door had abruptly ceased.
An arm of black stone thrust motionlessly past the aperture. As Conan watched, it began to bend downward. He expected the attack to renew, but the arm slopped over like a jointless thing. The stone flesh
began to crack and flow, dropping away to expose crumbling bone. Pieces struck the floor, melted, dried into dust.
Conan gagged at the overpowering scent of decay. He tore his eyes from the hideous disintegration, gaped anew. On the floor where King Kalenius had fallen, a mass of crawling decay ran in a pool from collapsing loops of bone.
Conan caught up the half-conscious girl and staggered for fresh air on the tower roof.
Pandemonium reigned in the fortress spread out below them. Where the Final Guard had been stationed along the walls, pools of black liquescence boiled in a frenzy of ages-pent decay. Soldiers milled in gibbering panic, as their invincible allies rotted into masses of horror before their eyes. Through the main gate, soldiers fled in mindless fear.
The situation along the walls of Kordava, where the main force of the Final Guard had been posted to meet the rebel army, was a repetition of what was happening in the fortress below. The hideous demise of their invulnerable warriors was totally demoralizing to Kordava's human defenders-most of whom had expected to watch a day of massacre from a safe vantage.
From the tower Conan could see his army marching into positions for the near hopeless battle they had been prepared to fight. Advance scouts were riding headlong back to their commanders-carrying the report that Mordermi's sorcerous army had been annihilated by a greater sorcery. Santiddio would lose no tune in launching his attack now-nor would he likely meet with any resistance. Kordava saw the destruction of the Final Guard at the moment the rebel army approached as a clear sign from the gods that Mordermi's rule was doomed.
A shuffling step from behind him brought the Cimmerian around. The door had been torn apart. An arm could reach through the gap and release the bar.
Callidios' eyes had the glare of madness as they
regarded Conan with hatred. The Stygian's lips writhed
like snakes.
'So it was you, Cimmerian,' he said in jerking syllables. 'The pawn returns to the king. It's wrong that way, you know. You've killed me now. Mordermi only used me to control the Final Guard. Now they're gone, and Mordermi will kill me too.'
'I mean to spare Mordermi the trouble,' Conan snarled, raising his sword.
Callidios' mad eyes blazed, as he put his hand to his rapier hilt. Conan gave him time to draw his blade-the Cimmerian would have cut the Stygian down like a mad dog, but it was better that the sorcerer face him man to man. He wondered if Callidios could even fence; he had never seen him draw his weapon.
The Stygian's rapier cleared its scabbard. It seemed far too long a blade. Callidios lunged. His blade shot out for Conan's throat. No blade of steel, but a living serpent. From its tip, dripping fangs struck at his flesh.
Conan flung himself away, bringing up his own blade just in time to sever the serpent head. The head flew away. Callidios laughed crazily, bringing his serpent-blade behind him, then flicking it forward like a ' whip. Another snake's head snapped venomously for
his flesh.
Conan slashed at the uncanny weapon, again severed its serpent body. The whiplike speed was more than any swordsman could parry for long.
'Keep your guard up, barbarian!' Callidios shrilled. 'How long can you escape? The head returns with each blow, and its fangs are deadly. Keep dancing for me!'
Conan knew he could not keep this up very long. Again the serpent-blade lashed out, while the sorcerer pranced beyond the Cimmerian's reach. Co-nan cut through the blade even as its fangs brushed his chest.
Conan glanced quickly to see if there was a wound, saw the roll of their cloaks he had thrust in his swordbelt. His free hand tore the roll loose. He threw it as Callidios lunged.
The cloaks unfurled with a snap of black silk, billowing to ensnare the serpent-blade. Callidios howled, as the coiling blade tangled hi the silk folds. Conan's broadsword struck in that moment, and the necromancer departed on the road from which he had recalled his slaves.
Beneath the cloaks, a reptilian frenzy heaved the folds. Conan smashed down with his boot. Kept smashing long after all movement had ceased.
Destandasi was arousing herself from her semi-consciousness. Slowly she came to her feet, regarded the Stygian's body. 'So, it is ended.' Her eyes held the shadow of the stresses she had endured in her struggle.
'There's still Mordermi,' Conan said.
Mordermi was finished, he knew. Santiddio's entrance into Kordava had been more of a hero's welcome than an assault. It was no longer any question of defending the city against the rebels-Kordava belonged to the rebels. Few of Mordermi's soldiers put up any resistance; some fled, some managed to surrender. The mob was massacring the rest.
Conan turned away in disgust. He had seen this spectacle and had not liked it better then.
'There's still Mordermi,' he said.
They descended from the tower. At the threshold of the smashed door, Conan noted an indistinct patch of dust, almost impalpable, and a few bits of corroded metal that crumbled when he stepped on them.
The soldiers had virtually deserted the fortress. The few who remained were looting. The rumble of the mob was drawing near, and hi a moment they would stream through the open gate.
They entered the palace unchallenged. Conan's blade was naked in his fist, but there were none here
to stand and fight. The Final Guard had failed them, leaving them at the mercy of those whom they had oppressed; knowing what mercy to expect, they deserted Mordermi and fled.
Conan knew the way to Mordermi's private chambers. He kicked in the locked door and entered.
Mordermi was stuffing jewels from a large chest into an almoner, clearly disturbed that he must leave some choice gems behind. The king of Zingara wore dirty labourers' garments and a patched cloak. His hair had been powdered to a mouldy grey, and when he pulled the bloody bandage back down over his face, he would blend into the crowd well enough.
'You should have deserted with the rest of the rats,' Conan told him. 'Or does the rat-captain go down with his ship?'
Mordermi recovered nicely. 'Well, Conan. Here already? I'd thought the press of well-wishers would delay your triumphal procession somewhat longer than this.'
'Your well-wishers are about to start a new coronation revel just outside. You remember the last one? Of course, first there's the abdication ceremony.'
Mordermi swept off his masquerade bandages. 'That's why I'm relieved that you're here to take my surrender, Conan. I know I can count on you to deal fairly with me. You're a man of honour.'
'What makes you think you have anything to hope for hi a fair deal, Mordermi? There's not rope enough to hang you for all of your crimes.'
'And this from the felon I saved from the gallows?' Mordermi's voice was pained. '
I'd thought better of your gratitude than that, Conan. After all, we both have committed crimes which would hang us a hundred tunes over, if we were caught.'
'I've never betrayed a friend,' Conan sneered.
'Mitra, if I could only undo all those tragic errors of judgement! You were right, Conan. I should have let you slay Callidios the night he sought us out. That Stygian poisoned my brain with his schemes and
lies. I know now that he had some sort of hold over my thoughts-some spell or drug.'
'The only drug that poisoned your brain was your lust for power, Mordermi. You used Callidios just like you used all of us. The more power you had in your hands, the more you wanted to grasp, and when you had it all, you still kept reaching. I liked you, Mordermi, and I'd like to think that you were somebody worth liking once, before power poisoned you. But maybe you were poisoned all along, just waiting for the right moment to use your friends because their backs were all the easier to thrust your knife into when you were through with them.'
'That's quite a speech for you, Conan,' Mordermi said with his easy grace. 'Santiddio was right, also: you are an altruist. All right then, call in your men and arrest me. I'll plead my case to the people.'
'What men?' Conan jeered. 'The palace is deserted but for us! Santiddio is leading the army into Kordava. Destandasi and I climbed over your wall this morning, so she could break Callidios' control over the Final Guard. You can thank what you did to Sandokazi for Destandasi's taking a hand. Did she trust you all the time that the noose was closing on her throat, Mordermi? Did you know she made the two of us promise not to kill you before she'd unlock our cell?'
But Conan in his rage had already said too much. The Cimmerian saw Mordermi's face change, his hand thrust against something beneath his ornate desk. Acting without thought, Conan yelled and lunged for Mordermi.
Behind him, the floor dropped open an instant after his feet left the tiles.
Destandasi, still dazed from her exorcism, had no chance to react to Conan's shout. Her outcry as she fell downward through the trap was abruptly stilled.
The Conan Chronology Page 327