The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  continued along, the Cimmerian saw small, pale men and women who wore neck rings, wrist bands, and anklets connected by thin but sturdy chains; these seemed to have the duty of examining the torches and assuring that they remained lit. They passed one extinguished torch, which a man was cleaning with small instruments. As they approached, he finished his task, turned a circular knob and struck sparks above the torch’s-copper cup with flint and steel. Immediately, flames burst from the thing as the slave jerked his hands back.

  'What is that noise?' Achilea asked, coming out of the melancholy that had gripped her since her capture and subsequent humiliation.

  Conan had noticed it as well. It was an all-pervasive susurration, like wind whistling through the chambers of an underground cavern. 'I don’t know,' he said, 'It sounds like air moving.'

  'Silence!' said the masked woman, idly backhanding him across the face. He scarcely felt the blow, but he vowed to make her pay for it someday.

  The corridor gave onto huge rooms where some people sat on the floor around tables eating, onto other rooms where robed men, appearing to be alchemists, tended flasks of boiling liquids, glaring furnaces and pipes that took liquids and steam from one place to another. In what seemed to be a temple enclosure, men and women went through an extremely lascivious dance before an idol much like the colossus above, although far smaller. About a third of the population wore the chains and shackles of slaves. Of the free population, half were masked. They all eyed the newcomers curiously, but none sought to hinder the procession or to ask questions.

  At one point, the corridor floor became a bridge that passed through an immense chamber full of creaking timbers and the groan of metal upon metal. Above them and below them and to each side were gigantic vertical wheels that turned incessantly, powered by hundreds of slaves who ceaselessly trod the interior rims, keeping the wheels turning. Here the rushing noise was loudest, and Conan understood that mis was the power source of the underground city’s ventilation system, hi civilised lands, he had seen great, slave-worked bellows performing the same service for deep mines, and one or two where the bellows were worked by waterwheels, but this was far more elaborate, 'This is a foul place,' Achilea commented. Conan was not inclined to argue with her, but the man who seemed to share command with the woman swatted at her, and the wild women turned upon him, baring their teeth.

  'Stop!' Achilea ordered. 'You will die needlessly.'

  'The big woman wants a flogging,' the man said.

  'I will determine that,' the masked woman said sharply, establishing their relative rank.

  At last they turned aside from the main corridor and ascended a broad flight of steps, corning into a spacious room with a high-vaulted ceiling from which depended several fixtures that resembled chandeliers. A swarm of interlaced copper pipes made wide baskets, and each pipe terminated in a diminutive flower from which sprang a single white flame, all of them together illuminating the room almost as if with daylight.

  Besides the man and woman in charge, only a half-score of warriors entered the room to keep watch on the prisoners. The rest waited without in the hallway. The chamber was unfurnished except for a few large cushions, but several short chains hung from the walls. The chains ended in metal neck rings.

  From a small stand, the woman took a flexible, tapering rod the length of her arm and settled its thong around her slender wrist. With the whip, she pointed at the three women, the dwarf and Kye-Dee.

  'Chain these slaves here. Five warriors stay to guard them. Bring these two―' she pointed to Conan and Achilea '―to my reception chamber.'

  The women wept at being separated from their queen, but there was nothing they could do. The pitiless iron rings were fastened around their throats.

  'Abide here for a while,' Achilea told them confidently, as if this was by her choice. ‘We shall all be free anon.' The supple whip lashed out and sliced across her shoulders. She made no flicker of expression at this abuse of her already tormented skin.

  Prodded by spears, the Cimmerian and the warrior-woman climbed another flight of stairs into a smaller chamber, illuminated in the same way as the one below and carpeted with what appeared to be silk cushions. There were low tables, furnished with beautiful glassware. Four slaves stood ready, all of them lovely young women, slender and as pale as albinos, their white hair cut short, their eyes downcast and their chained hands clasped before them.

  Guards fitted Conan and Achilea with neck rings and fastened them by chains to bronze rings set into the floor beneath the cushions. The chains were too short to allow mem to stand, so perforce they sat upon the cushions as the slave women tended to their mistress. The warriors retreated from the room, leaving the speaking man behind.

  The slaves divested their mistress of her armour and replaced it with a brief robe of silvery cloth. She was perfectly unself-conscious about the display of her naked body, but she turned away from the viewers when the women took off her feather-trimmed metal mask and replaced it with another mask made of the same silvery material. Idly, Conan wondered where in this incredible underground city in the midst of the desert they found the splendid plumes. Whence, indeed, had come those immense timbers?

  The woman turned around. The mask revealed only her rounded chin, her full-lipped mouth, and eyes with irises so pale that they could scarcely be distinguished from the surrounding whites. Her pupils were tiny and seemed to be red rather than black. Her hair, now unbound, fell in soft waves over her shoulders. A slave handed her a goblet of carved crystal and she sipped at its contents, studying her captives.

  'We rarely have interesting strangers come to the Forbidden City,' she said, stepping lightly toward them, goblet poised in one hand, whip in the other. 'Usually, only desert men stumble upon the city, wretched and dying from thirst and hunger and the blows of the accursed sun.' With her whip hand, she sketched an intricate sign in the air and it was copied by the masked man. It seemed to be an act of vilification at mention of the sun.

  'Lately, far stranger people have arrived. Can this be the beginning of a fate long foretold?' She placed her whip beneath Achilea’s chin and forced the queen’s head up. 'I never dreamed a woman such as you could exist; a great, powerful animal possessed of a certain beauty,' Suddenly she looked at the masked man. 'Do you not find her so, Abbadas?'

  'I think she is ugly,' the man said, but Conan caught the lie in his words. He was all but licking his lips behind his mask. 'Surely these are not human beings, but some species of desert ape strayed from their native haunts.'

  'I think not,' the woman said, chuckling. 'And do not try to gull me. You lust for mis one―I do not blame you for it. So ripe and vital a body is far more than our pallid kin have to offer.' She turned to Conan. 'And this brute has possibilities as well.' Then her face snapped toward the man. 'But do not touch them for now! They are mine to do with as I please.'

  The man bowed with ill-concealed hostility. 'Never would I defy your wishes, Omia.'

  'See that you do not. Go now. We will speak of this later.'

  Reluctantly, the man turned and walked out of the chamber. The woman watched him go, a smile on her full lips. Then she sat on the cushions directly before her captives. Had their hands been unbound, they could easily have slain her. Conan wondered if the woman realised that he could effortlessly kill her with a kick from where he sat. Of course, that would leave him chained to the floor. Doubtless she took that into account,

  'My guests need refreshment,' Omia said. In seconds, the four slave women crouched by Conan and Achilea, two to each of them. One held a cup, the other a tray of delicacies, Achilea turned her head away, but Conan stopped her.

  'Eat,' he said. 'Strength is important.' Reluctantly, she sipped from the cup the slave woman held for her, then she bit into the sweetmeat held to her mouth by the other. The Cimmerian did the same. He found the wine palatable, but it had a bitter undertaste. The food was bland, all but tasteless, and had the texture of mushroom.

  'That is better,'
said their captor 'I want the two of you to be healthy.' She smiled warmly. 'Now, tell me. What seek you in Janagar the Blessed?'

  'As I said before.' Conan told her, 'we seek our friends.'

  'You lie!' she screeched, slashing him across the face with her whip. 'No one ever came to Janagar seeking a friend!'

  'Crom curse you, woman!' Conan shouted. ‘1 tell you the truth! We came hither with companions who sought something in Janagar, but they disappeared in the desert and came here alone, on their own.'

  The woman smiled again. 'That is better.' She turned to Achilea. 'And what was it your friends sought here?'

  Achilea shrugged her broad shoulders. 'They said it was treasure, abandoned in this city thousands of years ago. Now I am not so sure.'

  Omia laughed and clapped her hands, 'Treasure! Indeed we have that, and in abundance! And we have much better than that!'

  'What kind of place is this?' Achilea asked. 'How can people live beneath the ground like ants, never seeing the sun?' She grimaced as the whip drew a scarlet stripe along her jawline.

  'It is I who ask questions here, not you!' Omia’s eyes started in near-demented fury. Then she underwent another of her mercurial mood changes and caressed with her fingertips the flesh she had marked. 'You of all people must understand the evil of the sun.' Again she made the mysterious gesture.

  'I can see the mark of it all over you. Long, long ago, we escaped that evil. You must stay down here with us now. You will be the better for it, if you prove worthy.'

  'What do you mean?' Achilea asked, then winced as the whip slashed along the other side of her jaw.

  'You do not learn well, do you?' Omia stood. 'Your oversized friend knows enough to keep his silence when he has to. Perhaps you are only what you appear a pair of brainless beasts.' She favoured them with her warm smile again. 'But I do not agree with Abbadas. I think you are both quite beautiful.'

  She clapped her hands. 'Guards!' Ten armed men and women came into the chamber. 'Take them to the holding pens. Have them washed and secured.'

  Their chains were unlocked from the floor rings and they were taken out of the room. A woman led each by the chain like a dog on a leash. Sharp spears at their backs kept them tractable.

  From long habit, Conan made an inventory of every weapon. He wanted to know exactly what to grab should the opportunity for a break present itself. Besides spears, some had swords and daggers. A few had short-handled axes. The axes had light, crescent-shaped blades and looked strangely familiar.

  Then the short sword worn by the woman who held his chain drew his attention. It was hooked so that its handle protruded just above her right hip, and the sheathed, twenty-inch blade slanted across her buttocks. By the distinctive shape of its handle, be knew it to be a Stygian weapon. As further proof, the sheath was decorated with Stygian hieroglyphics.

  After a short walk along the main corridor, they came to a set of heavy doors flanked by guards.

  The doors were opened to reveal a low-ceilinged tunnel and they were prodded inside. The tunnel was completely undecorated and here the rough tool-marks indicated that all had been hewn from solid rock.

  Light was provided by more of the copper tubes, which produced flames only a little larger than those of candles. Fresh air hissed through grated openings near the floor.

  They passed low doorways, and within the chambers, the Cimmerian could see persons of both sexes chained to the walls. Most of them had short-cropped hair. This is a place where they punish disobedient slaves,' he said.

  They were taken to a room where water gushed from a wall into a wide basin before exiting through a drain beneath an overflow spout. The air in the room had a heavy, humid, fecund smell. 'In!' barked a guard. It was the first word they had heard from these warriors. Hands divested them of what little remained of their clothing. They stepped into the basin, and slaves with pitchers and brushes indicated that they should duck beneath the water.

  'I would swear this is river water, by its smell,' Conan announced before submerging himself.

  'Stand,' said a slave when they came up for air. They complied. Standing, the water came to mid-thigh. The slaves waded in and poured fragrant oil over their heads and bodies, men worked the oil into a lather with their brushes. Achilea clenched her teeth at the touch of the brushes on her sensitive skin.

  'Easy, there,' Conan said. 'She’s been burned. I The slave woman who was scrubbing down Achilea nodded and began to use a cloth instead of a brush. At least, he concluded, the slaves could understand them, even if they would not, or could not, speak.

  Thoroughly cleansed, they stepped from the basin and were dried with rough towels, then prodded deeper into the prison. They passed a room where the three women, the dwarf and Kye-Dee were chained to the walls. At sight of their queen, the women and the dwarf lunged as close as their binds would allow and cried out their joy in seeing her alive. The Hyrkanian remained morose.

  As Achilea spoke a few low words of encouragement, Conan could not forbear to smile. Stripped and cleaned even of their paint, the wild viragoes proved to be three rather handsome young women, although lacking the soft contours of their more civilised sisters.

  Conan and Achilea were taken to a somewhat larger room, where their chains were fastened to rings on opposite walls, Then the guards released their bound wrists and filed out. Rubbing their wrists and flexing their fingers, the two examined their surroundings. A flame outside their doorway provided the only illumination. At the greatest extent of their chains, they were still separated by two paces.

  Having exhausted the possibilities of exploration, they sat upon the cold stone floor.

  'Conan, have we fallen among madmen?' Achilea asked.

  'It is hard to say. The first time I visited a city, I thought the people diere were mad, because they were so different from the tribesmen and villagers of my youth. Certainly, living in this anthill would make anyone mad.'

  She tugged at her chains. 'Never have I been bound before! I must get out of here!' Her voice betrayed the strain she had suppressed for so long.

  'I have been chained up many times,' he told her. 'And it does no good to fight steel chains if you’ve no tools. Just be calm and resolve to wait it out Be ever alert for any chance, any mistake by a guard. I have won my freedom uncounted times. Those who give way to despair, or who go mad with rage, are the ones who never escape.'

  'Truly?' she said, seeming to take encouragement from his words. 'Then I will try to do as you say.

  It is hard, though. To be a queen, even one in exile, and then to be treated like this. It is harder on my pride man the sun was on my flesh.'

  'That’s better,' Conan said with a faint grin, 'It does little harm to have your pride tempered in cold water from time to time.'

  'My queen!' called a voice Conan recognised as Payna’s. 'Can you hear me?'

  'Aye!' she called back. She described their situation and relayed Conan’s advice. As long as their queen was well, the women seemed to be satisfied, 'What do you think that vicious woman meant about our proving our worth?'

  'I do not know,' Conan said, amused to hear this fierce woman describe another woman as vicious.

  'But I’ve little doubt we’ll learn all too soon. I am more interested in that water.'

  'It did smell like river water,' she said, 'not like water from a spring. How can there be river water in the middle of this awful desert?'

  'It can be from only one place,' he assured her. 'Underground. This may have possibilities. And there is another thing: The guardswoman who led me on a leash wore on her belt a Stygian sword. It means that these people have some sort of contact with the outside world. I think their axes were Stygian as well.'

  'Perhaps the weapons are very old,' she said.

  'That may be, but the sheath that carried the sword is not old. It is made of leather, and is decorated with Stygian picture-writing.'

  She shrugged. 'How does this help us? The woman said that sometimes heat-addled desert men f
ind their way here and die. That may be how the sword got here.'

  'Maybe,' Conan allowed. 'But remember what I told you: Be on the lookout for every advantage.

  Every bit of knowledge we gain may help us get away from this place. There is a river here someplace, and through Stygia flows the greatest river in the world.'

  'If we get out of this dungeon,' she said, 'do you think you can find your way back to the surface?'

  'Aye,' he replied without hesitation. 'I do not forget where my steps have taken me.'

  She nodded. 'I, too, was raised in a land without signposts and with few landmarks, where the only way to stay alive was to have a strong sense of direction and location. But I have never been in a warren such as this. Here, there is no sun, no moon, no stars. There are no prevailing winds.' He could tell that the catastrophic events of the past few days tad sapped her iron self-confidence.

  'It helps,' Conan told her, 'if you have spent much time in the dense forests of the Pictish Wilderness, or the jungles of the south. A city is another sort of jungle, even an underground city like this one.'

  'What do you make of these torches, that bum without smoke? Is this sorcery?'

  'I’ve never seen the like of them,' he admitted, 'but somehow I do not feel that they are magickal.

  As we were herded here, I saw a slave cleaning one, like a man cleaning an oil lamp. Perhaps they burn an invisible vapor. I have seen alchemists set such vapors afire in their laboratories, and everyone has seen me burning vapors that rush from the kilns of charcoal burners.'

  'Well,' she said doubtfully, 'so it may be. But still, I do not like it.' She was silent for a while, then: 'How long is it since we rose? There is no way to judge the time in this ac- . cursed netherworld.'

  'In this, I am in no better case than you,' Conan said, yawning, 'but I think we would each be the better for some sleep.'

  They both lay down and she said, 'They were so careful to bathe us, you would think they would provide us with a little bedding.'

  He laughed. 'I think the bath was for their convenience, not ours. They seem to be a cleanly folk.