The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'He fears me because he knows that I am his doom,' said Conan. 'As I shall be yours, unless you take me to my son.'

  Her wrinkled face froze, and eyes of lambent green glared coldly into Conan's. He glowered at her, his gaze of smouldering volcanic blue blazing under black, scowling brows. Her gaze intensified, cold and piercing. His glare did not falter, and it was the green eyes that fell at last and looked away.

  Inhumanly tall, impossibly slim, a lantern-jawed, milk-faced man with flaxen hair, clothed in glove-tight black, appeared at Conan's side as if in response to an unspoken call. The Witchwoman did not look up, and some of the calm strength had left her rasping voice when she spoke.

  'Take him to his son,' she said.

  They had immured Prince Conn at the bottom of a stone-lined pit sunk deep in the floor of the vast, echoing hall. It was like a dry well, built of the same unmortared stone as the rest of the keep, and it was an effective cell for a prisoner. They lowered Conan into the depths of the hole by a rope which was drawn up after he reached the bottom.

  The boy was huddled at one side, against the wall of the shaft, on a pile of damp sacking. He sprang to his feet and flung himself into his father's arms as soon as he recognised the half-naked giant. Conan crushed the boy to him in a fierce hug, growling sulfurous curses to disguise the unmanly tenderness he felt. Ending the embrace, he seized the boy by the shoulders and shook him, promising him a caning he would never forget if ever again he acted so stupidly. The words were threatening and their tone was gruff, but tears were running down his scarred face.

  Then he held the boy at arm's length, looking him over carefully. The boy's raiment was torn and dirtied, his face pale and hollow-cheeked, but the king could see that his son was unharmed. He had come through an experience that would have left most other children of his years hysterical. Conan grinned and gave him an affectionate hug.

  'Father, Thoth-Amon is in this,' Conn whispered excitedly.

  'I know,' grunted Conan.

  'Last night the old witch conjured him up,' Conn went on eagerly. 'They hung a savage by his heels over the fire and cut his throat and let the blood run down on the coals!! Then she conjured Thoth-Amon's spirit out of the smoke!'

  'What did they talk about?'

  'When Thoth-Amon heard that you were crossing the Border Kingdom alone, he wanted her to kill you with her magic! She asked why do that, and he said you were too dangerous to live. They argued for a long time about that.'

  Conan rubbed a big hand over his stubbled jaw. 'Any idea why the witch refused to kill me?'

  'I think she wants to keep you and me alive as a sort of way of keeping Thoth-Amon under her control,' the boy confided. 'They are in some sort of plot together, with a lot of other magicians all over the world. Thoth-Amon is a lot stronger and more important than the old witch, but so long as she has you he doesn't dare try to boss her too much.'

  'You may well be right, son,' Conan mused. 'Did you overhear anything more about this plot? Plot against what?'

  'Against the kingdoms of the West,' Conn said. 'Thoth-Amon is the chief of ail the wicked magicians in the South, Khem and Stygia and Kush and Zembabwei, and the jungle countries. There's a sort of wizard's guild or something down there called the Black Ring—'

  Conan started, voicing an involuntary grunt.

  'What about the Black Ring?' he demanded.

  The boy's voice rose with excitement. 'Thoth-Amon is the high chief of the Black Ring, and he's trying to league with the White Hand here in the north, and with something way out in the Far East called the Scarlet Circle!'

  Conan groaned. He knew of the Black Ring, that ancient brotherhood of evil. He knew of the abominable sorceries practiced by the votaries of the Ring in the shadow-haunted crypts of accursed Stygia. Years ago Thoth-Amon had been a powerful prince of that order, but he had fallen from power and his place had been taken by another, one Thutothmes.Thutothmes was dead, and now it seemed that Thoth-Amon had arised to supremacy at last, at the head of the age-old fraternity of black magicians. That boded ill for the bright young kingdoms of the West.

  They talked until Conn had told his father all he knew. Then, worn out by his adventures, the boy fell asleep, pillowed against Conan's brawny torso. His arm about the shoulders of his son in a gently protective embrace, Conan did not sleep. He stared grimly into the darkness, wondering what the future would bring.

  VIII

  Adepts of the Black Ring

  Three men and a woman sat in thronelike chairs of black wood atop the huge stone dais which rose amidst the great hall of Pohiola. The chairs were ranged in a half-circle about a vast copper bowl filled with glowing coals.

  Beyond the walls of the cavernous keep, a thunderous storm raged wildly. Lightning slashed through boiling black clouds like knives of flame. Sleety rain whipped against the looming stone pile. The earth shuddered to the peals of thunder, which exploded amidst the storm clouds.

  Within the hall, however, the din of the storm was stilled to a murmur. Gloom shrouded the vastness of the mighty keep. The air was dank and cold. The four sat silently, and between them was stretched an ominous tension. They watched one another out of the corners of their eyes.

  From far off in the echoing darkness, a double file of the black-clad servants of the White Hand approached. Among them the majestic figure of Conan towered. His dark face was impassive, and firelight gleamed on his naked chest. At his side strode his son, head high. The Witchmen brought them to the foot of the dais.

  Conan lifted his glowering gaze to stare directly into the cold black eyes of a powerfully built man in a dark-green robe, with a shaven pate and flesh of dark copper.

  'We meet again, dog of a Cimmerian,' said Thoth-Amon in gutturally accented Aquilonian.

  Conan grunted and spat. Father and son had slept and waked, been fed, and slept again. Disdaining to reply, Conan turned his gaze on the others who sat enthroned. The Hyperborean Witchwoman he knew, but the other two were strangers to him. The first was a dimunitive, effeminate little man in fantastic jewelled robes, with amber skin, fleshy arms covered with glittering rings, and the cold, bright, soulless eyes of a snake.

  'This is the divine Pra-Eun, the Lord of the Scarlet Circle, the sacred god-king of jungle-girdled Angkhor in the remote east of the world,' said Thoth-Amon. Conan made no response, but the plump little Kambujan smiled suavely.

  'The so-great king of Aquilonia and I are old friends—although he knows me not. He once did me the kindest of favors,' he said in a high-pitched, lisping voice.

  'I fear I know not this tale,' Thoth-Amon confessed. Pra-Eun smiled brilliantly.

  'But yes! Some years ago he did to death the formidable Yah Chieng—perhaps he recalls the occasion? That person was a most powerful sorcerer of Khitai. He was my rival and my superior, as head of the Scarlet Circle. I am beholden to the brave monarch of Aquilonia, for had he not slain the miserable Yah Chieng, I should not today be the supreme master of my order !'

  Again, Pra-Eun smiled brilliantly, but Conan noticed that his smile did not reach as far as his eyes. They remained as hard and cold as the eyes of a viper.

  Beyond the little god-king sat Louhi in her robes of white; and beyond her a savage black towered. He was a magnificent specimen of manhood, his oiled arms sleek with gliding thews, his woolly head crowned with nodding plumes. About his muscular torso was flung a cloak of leopard skins. Rings of raw gold clasped his wrists and upper arms. His stolid features were immobile. Only the eyes moved and lived, and they burned with feral red flames.

  'And this is the great boccor or shaman, Nenaunir, prophet and high priest of Damballah—as his people call Father Set—in far Zembabwei,' continued Thoth-Amon. 'Three million naked blacks will arise to sweep all the world below Kush with flame and blood at one word from Nenaunir.'

  Conan said nothing. The magnificent black grunted. 'He does not look so dangerous to me, Stygian,' he said in a cold, deep, heavy voice. 'Why do you fear him so?'

  A dar
ker hue stained the features of Thoth-Amon. His lips parted but, before he could speak, the old woman uttered a harsh laugh.

  'I agree with the Lord of Zembabwei!' Louhi rasped.

  'And I have planned a small entertainment for the pleasure of my guests. Kamoinen!' She clapped her hands.

  The circle of Witchmen parted, permitting one of their number to step forth. He had a long, whey-coloured face and pale blue eyes. In the thin fingers of one white, bony hand he held a slim black rod less than one pace-in length. It was tipped at each end with a ball of dully gleaming metal, slightly smaller than a fowl's egg.

  He saluted his queen. 'Command me, Avatar,' he said in a toneless voice. The cat-green eyes flashed in the stern, wrinkled mask. They burned upon Conan with malignant fires.

  'Beat the Cimmerian to his knees before us,' she rasped, 'so that my colleagues can see they have little to fear from this man Conan!'

  The slim, black-clad man bowed low. Then he swung upon Conan, ball-tipped rod blurring through the air. But the wary Cimmerian took a great leap backwards to avoid the strange wooden rod whose purpose he did not understand. It hissed past his face, ruffling his grey-shot mane as it flew.

  The two circled in a half-crouch. Conan clenched and unclenched his heavy hands. His savage instinct was to spring upon the gaunt Hyperborean and crush him to earth with one sledgehammer blow. But something warned him to be wary of that slender, harmless-looking baton that swung so agilely from the long white fingers.

  Standing back among the Witchmen, young Conn chewed his knuckles. Suddenly he took his hand away and shrilled out a rapid sentence in Cimmerian. It was a harsh, uncouth tongue, full of singsong vowels and crashing, guttural consonants. None in the room, save his sire, knew it.

  Conan's eyes narrowed. The boy had warned him that the Witchmen plied their rods against sensitive nerve clusters. Suddenly Conan lunged like a striking tiger at his opponent, clumsily lifting a balled fist as if to sweep him off his feet with a wide blow. The weighted rod flicked out at his elbow.

  As the rod flashed for the joint of Conan's right arm, whose fist was lifted above his head, the Cimmerian swiveled suddenly and smashed the rod aside with his left.

  The blow only grazed Conan's left forearm, but it sent a bolt of pain lancing from wrist to shoulder. This, however, did not really matter. Conan gritted his teeth against the pain and smashed the man flat with a crushing blow of his balled right fist.

  In the same blur of furious action, Conan bent, snatched the Witchman up before he hit the floor, whirled on the balls of his feet, and sent his antagonist frying through the air.

  The flailing black-clad figure flew and hit the huge copper bowl atop the dais. The bowl was filled to the brim with blazing, red-hot coals. It went over with a noisy clang, bathing the four astounded adepts in a fiery shower.

  Louhi screamed as her white robes burst aflame. Thoth-Amon roared, shielding his face with his arms as blazing, blistering coals spewed over them. In his clumsy haste to avoid the flying shower of flame, the little Kambujan knocked over his throne. He tripped across its legs and fell into the puddle of flame.

  The hall exploded in chaos. The circle of black-clad guards had broken their immobility, but they were too late. For Conan was among them in an instant, knocking them about like tenpins. His big scarred fists smashed left and right, and with every blow he dealt a cracked skull, a broken jaw, or a mouthful of shattered teeth.'

  Young Conn, too, burst into action. Not for nothing had Conan tutored the boy in the art of rough-and-tumble. The instant his father closed with his first opponent, Conn whirled and kicked the nearest Witchman on the kneecap. The man staggered and fell. Conn kicked him in the head, snatched up a wooden stool, and swung it with both hands at the nearest Witchmen. In the first ten seconds, he felled four men with it.

  On the dais, the god-king of Angkhor flopped and squealed, his face a seared and blackened mask of pain. Booming his war cry, the gigantic black snatched up a wooden throne-chair and hurled it an Conan.

  Conan fell prone, and the heavy chair smashed into the circle of his foes, knocking them sprawling. In a flash, the giant Cimmerian sprang over the tangle of men and leaped upon the dais. His hands lunged at the throat of Thoth-Amon.

  But the old witch blundered into his path. Her white robes were a mass of flames, and her screeching rose above the clamor. Conan stumbled aside as she hurtled down the steps of the dais, wrapped in fire. In that instant, Thoth-Amon made his move.

  A sudden flash of green flame brightened the hall in a soundless puff of emerald brilliance. The uncanny radiance swirled about the Stygian as Conan stopped to snatch up Louhi's throne as a weapon.

  But even Conan's blurring speed was too late. As he hurled the chair, Thoth-Amon, wrapped in green luminescence, faded from sight.

  Conan turned. The room was chaos. Scattered coals had set the straw on the floor aflame; maimed and broken men were strewn about the cavernous hall. Afar he spied his son valiantly swinging the stool. The boy had already injured half a dozen Witchmen, but others closed about him, swinging their deadly rods. A score of the Witchmen were leaping up the steps of the dais for Conan, faces grim and cold, deadly black rods flicking.

  IX

  Night of Blood and Fire

  Conan snatched up the copper bowl. The heat remaining in it seared his fingers, but he flung the huge vessel into the first rank of the charging Witchmen. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Conan whirled in time to see the mighty black fade from view in a second flare of soundless green fire. That magic, it seemed, could bridge the vast distances of space between frigid Hyperborea and far, jungled Zembabwei. It was obvious that the adepts had used much the same method to travel here in the first place.

  'Cimmerian!'

  Something in the tone of that lisping voice froze Conan. He turned his head.

  The Kambujan was a sorry sight. His fantastic jewel-covered robes were black with soot, ripped and torn. His gem-encrusted crown had fallen away, revealing his shaven skull. His face was hideously blackened and blistered. But through the seared mask his eyes blazed with deadly power into Conan's.

  One hand, covered with burns, blisters, and glittering rings, was extended. But a weird force flashed from the tense, quivering fingers to bathe the mighty Cimmerian.

  Conan gasped. His flesh numbed as if he had been suddenly plunged into the depths of an icy river. Paralysis seized his limbs.

  Setting his teeth, he struggled against the spell with all his might. His face blackened with effort; his eyes bulged in their sockets. Then the tension drained from him. He was frozen into immobility, and all his giant strength could not break the spell.

  Crouched amidst the coals, the little Kambujan smiled, although his burned face winced at the movement of seared lips. Unholy glee blazed in his cold, ophidian eyes.

  Slowly he extended his arm to its full length, mumbling strange words of power.

  Pain ripped through Conan's mighty heart. Darkness swept about him, sucking him down.

  And then, with a sharp thud, the vaned butt of a crossbow bolt appeared, protruding from the side of Pra-Eun's shaven skull. The rest of the missile was buried in the Kambujan's brain. The cold black eyes glazed and went dull.

  A shudder swept through the crouched figure. Then the dead thing wobbled and fell forward. The spell snapped, and Conan was free.

  He staggered, caught himself, and stood gasping as strength and vitality flooded back into his benumbed flesh.

  He raised his eyes and looked over the corpse of Pra-Eun. At the far extremity of the hall, Euric the huntsman lowered his massive crossbow. It had been the riskiest shot of his career, hitting the crouching sorcerer across the length of the gloom-drenched hall.

  Behind him, crowding into the hall, came a dozen mail-clad knights and a hundred stout guardsmen in the livery of Tanasul. Prospero had come at last.

  As dawn lit the east with pink flame, Conan wrapped a warm wool cloak about the shoulders of his son. Alth
ough his hands were bandaged over the burns inflicted by the copper cauldron, he lifted the weary boy astride one of the guardsmen's horses. The long, terrible night of blood and fire was over, and the ending was a happy one. Prospero's knights had swept the keep from end to end, slaughtering every last member of the Witchwoman's following. A good night's work, the crushing of the cult of death-worshipers which had ruled the north with the cold hand of terror.

  Conan looked back. Flames shot through the arrow slits of the fortress of Pohiola. Already the roof of the keep had fallen in. Buried in the rubble, under tons of crushed stone, lay the corpses of Pra-Eun and Louhi. Had he not warned Louhi that he would be her doom?

  Prospero had ridden like the wind back to Tanasul, had pulled together a fighting force in hours, and had plunged back on the long trail across Gunderland and the Border Kingdom as if a thousand devils were at his back.

  By day and by night, he and his grim-faced levy had flogged their horses on, haunted by the fear that they might arrive too late. But they had come, as it chanced, at just the right time. Even as they rode within bowshot of the great keep, no eye had been at battlement or loophole to observe their approach. And the reason was that Conan was holding at bay half a hundred Witchmen and the four most deadly magicians on earth.

  The portcullis was up and the great iron-studded door had swung open at a touch. The servants of the White Hand were too contemptuous of lesser men and too confident in the powers of their cat-eyed queen to bother with bolting the door.

  Thunder shook the earth. Flames shot up to the heavens. Behind them the great keep came crashing down in ruins. Pohiola was no more, but its evil would linger in myth and fable for thousands of years.

  Weary and travel stained, but with heart-deep content shining in his eyes, Prospero came up to where Conan stood, leaning upon the horse that bore the sleepy boy. Conan's eyes flashed.

  'You even remembered to bring my Black Wodan!' he grinned, slapping the great stallion on the flanks. It nosed him affectionately.