The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'Blood of Dagon!' he growled. 'If Nenaunir can tame those winged horrors, no wonder he holds a grip on his folk. Look yonder!'

  The reptile fluttered down to one of the doorless towers and vanished out of sight over its lofty rim.

  'So that's the secret of the towers!' muttered Trocero. 'That is where the wyverns go to roost, like bats in a cave!'

  'To Moloch's flames with the devils,' grunted Pallantides. 'We have a king and a prince to rescue.'

  'How can you be sure they are within those walls?'

  'Fangs of Nergal, 'tis as plain as a mole on a dancing girl's arse!' retorted Pallantides. 'Thoth-Amon's only ally is this Nenaunir, who kings it yonder, and the wizard's flying devils pluck king and prince from our midst. Whither should they take them but to the capital?'

  'Alive?'

  'That we shall find out once we are within those walls.'

  Trocero sighed. 'You've had more experience with sieges than I; but to me those walls look impregnable.'

  'To an army, yes; but not to a lone man.'

  Trocero eyed the general. 'You have a plan?'

  The general ran a muddy hand over his stubbled jaw. 'D'ye recall the Zingaran noble, Murzio?'

  'That sly little turncoat? What of him?'

  'Sly as a weasel in truth, but a good poniard-man and a faithful Aquilonian knight, for all that I misdoubt his patent of nobility. I think he was spawned in the gutters of Kordava; but no matter. Conan favors him because of a good turn his father did Conan in his buccaneering days. You recall that, three years since, the king invited to court his old friend Ninus—'

  'The priest of Mitra? Aye! Our king, forsooth, has some rascally old-time comrades, but none so iniquitous as that spindle-shanked old tosspot!'

  Pallantides chuckled. 'True enough! You know how Ninus swaggered about the court by day, as pious as a patriarch, and how by night he wallowed in the wineshops and stews. Well, he and Murzio became thick as thieves. Conan wished to employ Murzio on a spying mission and persuaded Ninus to teach him his thievish tricks. Murzio proved an apt pupil. Conan sent him to Shem, where he uncovered a budding conspiracy among the king of Ophir and some of the Shemitish kinglets. Moreover, he brought back documents and other evidence that enabled Conan to crush the plot ere it got started.

  'For this, Conan knighted Murzio. These Zingarans are a treacherous lot, but whole-hearted. Win one to you, and he's your man to the last drop of his blood; and thus it is, I pray, with this Murzio.'

  'Well, what has this to do with getting into Zembabwei?'

  Pallantides winked. 'There's one unguarded gate to every great city: the sewers.'

  'Sewers? The jungles have addled your wits, man! A barbarous place like this would not have sewers.'

  'Ah, but it has; belike they date back to prehuman times. Do you see that trickle of ooze emerging from the grill along the southwest wall?' Pallantides pointed.

  'Aye.'

  'To judge from the stench wafted hither on the breeze, that is the outlet for the sewers of Zembabwei. For their jakes to empty thereinto, the blacks must have built underground tunnels connecting with that underground stream—or, mayhap, used a system already there; for I suspect that this city is built on the ruins of an older one. Now, if there be one man in our army who can worm his way through that grille, it were Murzio, who is slim as an eel and thrice as slippery.'

  Trocero scratched his imperial—once neatly trimmed, now shaggy and muddy—and said: 'I perceive your scheme, my friend. He'll worm his way in, knife or sandbag the guards, and unbar the gate for us in the dark of the night.'

  'You have my plan in full, noble Count. And the best part of it is the sewers. It does my heart good to think of that fastidious, long-nosed Zingaran up to his nostrils in foulness. Never have I had much heart for Zingarans, since I caught a troubadour of that persuasion in bed with my wife! My late wife, I mean.'

  Trocero grinned. 'Let's return to camp and inform the noble Murzio how fate has chosen him to be the saviour of his king,' he chuckled.

  'Oh, no you don't!' said Pallantides. 'I am fain to be the one to tell him!'

  Hours later, as purple darkness spread across the walls and towers of Zembabwei, a slim, graceful figure in black slipped from the edge of the jungle and swam noiselessly across the river. At the other side, it sought the reeking rivulet that flowed from the grille beneath the frowning walls. A few strokes more brought it to that obstacle. For a moment it lingered, seeking an entrance. Then it slid within and vanished from sight.

  Murzio may or may not have possessed the noble blood he claimed. But when he swore fealty to a king, he was that king's man to the end.

  IX

  Red Moon

  The ghostly light of the full moon shone down slantwise into the streets of Old Zembabwei. None slept in the city, for this was the Night of the Red Moon. When the ominous change passed over the heavenly orb, King Nenaunir would invoke his sinister god whose altar would run scarlet with the gore of human sacrifice even as the moon reflected that same sanguinary hue.

  Torchlit processions moved through the narrow, winding streets of the ancient city. The thud of drums throbbed through the hot, black night. Weird chants arose.

  In the pits of Zembabwei, Conan prowled his cell alertly, like a great cat. Prince Conn watched. He, too, had counted the days and the nights by keeping track of the number of times the prisoners were fed. The night they had broken the hosts of Stygia before the outstretched paws of the Black Sphinx of Nebthu, there had been a new moon in the sky. Nearly a month and a half—forty-one days, to be exact—had elapsed since then. Conn's tutors had seen to it that he well knew the moon's phases, since he would some day rule a mighty kingdom of farmers. So tonight the moon would rise full, and his father had told him that an eclipse of the moon never occurred save on the night of the full moon.

  So tonight, unless some unknown force intervened, he and his sire would die a hideous death on Damballah's black altars.

  Even at this depth, the eerie throb of jungle drums came to their ears in a slow, maddening rhythm. Far above their cell, thousands of Nenaunir's savage followers were working themselves into a pitch of blood-lust for the rites that would attend the coming of the Red Moon.

  Conan had more than once tested his strength against the bars of their cell, until his palms were raw. Each time, however, he had relaxed his grip, panting. His ears rang and his face was crimson with the effort. But the bars were too thick for even his superhuman strength. The builders of the cell had calculated well. Old and corroded though they were, these bars, more than an inch thick, were beyond the strength of mortal man to wrench askew.

  At that instant, Conan's keen eye caught a moving shadow, it was but a glimpse—a clot of gliding darkness scarcely more substantial than a mere shadow. Conan froze, staring out into the gloomy corridor. A narrow, sallow face floated against the darkness—a familiar face.

  'Sir Murzio, is't you, or do I dream?' whispered Conan.

  'Tis I indeed, my liege,' replied a soft whisper.

  'How in Crom's name came you here? What of the host? Are they camped nearby? And how came you by that stink?'

  The Zingaran smiled wearily, his lean, fine-boned face tense with excitement. In a swift, low tone he narrated his adventures.

  'But, he added in tones of despair, 'the sewers leading to the streets above were mere tubes, too narrow even for me to enter. I discovered this system of passages and followed it hither; but the exits are heavily guarded. I have found you, sire; but I have failed of my mission. I cannot get to the gates to open them for the army.'

  Conan digested this news. 'Mayhap all is not lost,' he growled. 'Have you a pick-lock? Once out of this cage, we should have at least a fighting chance.'

  Murzio produced a length of bent wire and began working on the mechanism of the lock. The distant torches made the beads of perspiration of the Zingaran knight's forehead shine. For a time there was no sound save that of human breath and the faint click of metal on metal
.

  At last Murzio looked up, despair again overlying his features. 'Father Ninus himself could not spring this lock, sire! I think it accursed.'

  Conan grunted. 'That may well be true. Trust the jackal of Stygia to have enchanted the lock of my cell! That crafty devil knows that I have escaped from more than one lockup. What of the lock on the cell to my left? The prisoner therein is a friend.'

  The black-clad figure set to work on the lock of Mbega's cell. The chained black watched in silence with impassive features. Presently the lock clicked open. Conan released a long-pent breath in a sigh of relief.

  Murzio entered Mbega's cell and soon released the dethroned king of Zembabwei from his chains. The knight helped the majestic Negro to limp out into the corridor, his slim form bent under Mbega's great weight. Conan watched in grim silence as the kingly black massaged life back into his numb extremities.

  Again Murzio tried, in vain, to open the lock on Conan's cell. Again Conan essayed, with the help of the other three, to bend the bars of his cell, but without success.

  'You Zembabwans build a stout cell door,' he gasped. 'No matter. What cannot be cured must be endured.'

  'But you face death,' said Mbega heavily.

  Conan shrugged with a wolfish grin. 'Not for the first time, my friend.'

  'What can I do?' asked Murzio.

  'First, slip me yon poniard at your belt. The blacks have stripped me nigh naked, but at least they left me my boots.' Conan slid the long blade into his right boot.

  'Now help Mbega out of here. Perchance he knows a route through this maze to the surface. Help him to find haven with such of his supporters as still live. Mbega, this is your last chance. If your friends can rise before the hour of sacrifice and open the south gate to my army, we may yet outlive the dawn.

  'Murzio, whether we succeed or fail, you have my thanks. You are a brave and loyal man. If we survive tonight's perils, ask me for the barony of Castria. Fare you well! Go swiftly, and Crom and Mitrago with you.'

  The two dark figures merged with the denser shadows beyond the lighted area and were gone. Conan clapped Conn's shoulder.

  'Be of good cheer, son,' he growled. 'A friend within the walls is worth ten thousand locked outside them.'

  He fell silent again as he heard the pad of naked feet approaching long the corridor from the other direction. He knew then that their hour was upon them—the hour that would mean either the fulfillment of Thoth-Amon's revenge, or the fall of a kingdom.

  X

  The Slithering One

  Conan and his son were bound with massive leathern thongs and escorted from the pits by a party of black warriors. They came out into the great plaza between the palace and the temple. The silver buckler of the full moon already rode high in the sky, its brilliant light rendering the stars few and wan.

  The plaza was ringed with standing stones crudely chiseled with strange glyphs in an unknown symbology. Whether this had been done by Zembabwan wizards or by their prehuman predecessors, Conan could not say.

  To one side, before the temple of Damballah, a sinister idol rose against the sky. Carven of black basalt, it rose to thrice the height of a man, as tall as the sinister ring of monoliths. As Conan was led towards this eidolon, he perceived that it had been fashioned into the likeness of a tremendous serpent coiled into a conical shape. The wedge-shaped ophidian head stared down from the top of the cone. For an instant the thing seemed to live, as its scarlet eyes gleamed with cold malignancy. But then Conan saw that the eyes of the Serpent God were merely gigantic rubies, and that their lifelikeness was due to the reflection of the flickering torchlight.

  Conan repressed a shudder. The idol of Set—or Damballah, as the Zembabwans called it—had from time immemorial represented the forces of darkness and evil on earth. He muttered a prayer to Crom. That aloof Cimmerian god meddled but seldom in the ways of men and cared little for worship by men. But when the demon of the Ultimate Abyss glares down with eyes of lambent scarlet flame from its height, any god ,s better than none.

  The altar of Damballah was like a great bowl of black marble set into the pavement before the idol. Bronze rings were sunk into the marble. Conan and Conn were bound at the bottom of the depression by chains in such a fashion that they were helpless but standing upright. Their leathern thongs were removed.

  Conan studied the situation. His chains and wristcuffs were of new bronze and presumably unbreakable. But the rings set in the marble looked to be centuries old and deeply eaten by corrosion.

  When the captives had been tethered, the black priests of Set withdrew. Silence fell. The night wind from the jungle moaned through the circle of standing stones and made the torches flutter. The red eyes of the statue burned through the gloom with an uncanny semblance of life.

  Across the square, the bowed, wasted figure of Thoth-Amon stood beside King Nenaunir. The black monarch was in full regalia, with a purple robe to his feet and his face concealed by a serpent mask. His right hand, flashing with talismanic rings, grasped his serpent-headed staff of conjuration.

  The silence lengthened. Then thousands of heads turned upwards, and a long-drawn 'Ah-h-h!' came from the throats of the massed Zembabwans. Conan looked up, too. A red shadow with a curved leading edge had begun to creep across the face of the moon.

  The drums, which had been silent, began again, beating a complex, febrile rhythm. They thudded like a giant's pulse. The jungle mists, curling overhead, seemed to writhe and coil in time with the beat. The jewelled eyes of the Serpent God appeared to blink and flash in time with the same throbbing. The red shadow spread further. It was time to act.

  Locking his hands about the chain that secured his right wrist, Conan whipped about and threw all his weight against the chain. Ten thousand blacks watched him with bleak, indifferent eyes. Bands of muscle stood out along his shoulders, back, and arms in one great effort. The chain held, but the old ring sunk in the marble elongated and snapped.

  One hand free, Conan spun, slamming his full weight against the other chain. His brows congested, knotting with effort. His eyes seemed ready to burst from their sockets; his lips drew back in a bestial snarl. The second ring, distorted, broke with a ringing crack.

  At any instant now, Conan expected to feel the thudding blow of an arrow or a javelin in his back. But naught occurred. The blacks watched him free himself with stolidly indifferent faces.

  With his pulse pounding in his ears, Conan turned to Conn. The red shadow crept further, the drumming changed its beat, and a booming chant arose from the massed thousands.

  Emulating his father, young Conn strained at his shackles—but without effect. Conan bent to his son's aid, conscious of a sudden arctic chill. A breath of icy wind blew against his nape. So cold was it that the sheen of perspiration on his back froze on the instant into icy granules.

  Conscious of this uncanny icy breath upon him, Conan saw a strange sight. The scarlet shadow had now overspread much of the moon's disk. But above the plaza the steamy vapors swirled, congealing from the breath of interstellar cold that blew down from the sky where the Red Moon blazed like a cyclopean eye. The vapors thickened, taking on shape and substance—the shape and substance of a tremendous, writhing serpent.

  Fear clawed at Conan's vitals. Now he knew the meaning of the bowl-shaped altar, and why they had been chained upright. As the first cold coil of the semi-solid vapor settled about him, he realised the full horror of the doom that Nenaunir had planned for them.

  For Damballah himself was materializing on this earthly plane, and the coils of the Father of Evil would soon fully condense from empty air, first to crush them both to pulp and then to feed on their shuddering souls.

  XI

  Moon of Blood

  Ignoring the cold that bit through him, the giant Cimmerian threw his full strength against the last chain that bound his son to the altar. The brazen ring broke with a crack.

  The insubstantial coils were heavy about Conan now. They weighed down his brawny limbs, and t
heir interstellar cold struck deep into his hot core of vitality. With effort he bent and drew from his boot the poniard that Murzio had given him. He sank the weapon to the hilt in the thickening coils that encumbered his body.

  'Father!' cried Conn, glimpsing the demonic thing that Nenaunir had conjured from transgalactic hells.

  'Run, boy!' gasped Conan. 'The gates! Save yourself and try to let the army in!'

  Again and again, Conan drove the dagger into the massive coils. Although his stabs bit deep, they did not seem to hurt the apparition slowly solidifying about him. Scales like saucers rasped against his hide. He staggered under the incredible weight of the monstrous serpent. Far above, Damballah's wedge-shaped head swayed against the burning moon while eyes of scarlet flame locked into his own.

  A cruel, cunning, malignant intelligence lay behind those reptilian eyes; a vast weariness, an endless despair, and a bottomless hunger. Conan's soul quailed as he stared into the eyes of the demon that for a million years had striven to trample his race back into the mud from which it had slowly and painfully emerged.

  The cold was bone-deep now. The weight of the shifting coils was crushing. Slowly the first coil tightened about his chest, squeezing heart and lungs as in a vise. The hand that held the poniard went numb, and the dagger fell to tinkle on the marble.

  Conan fought on, but no longer was it a mere struggle of flesh with flesh. Now it was a battle of indomitable wills, pitted in a struggle of the spirit alone, on some plane of consciousness alien to Conan. It seemed to Conan that his mind, will, and soul formed an extension of his body. He threw the vigor of his unbroken will against the spiritual negativity of the serpent-demon, as he might hurl a javelin against a foe of flesh and blood.

  He was no longer conscious of his body, which was benumbed from head to heel. In a dim way, he knew that he still stood upright, tangled in the tightening coils of the Great Serpent. His heart was slowing, his muscles were locked in the rigour of approaching death, and the very blood was congealing in his veins. But deep within him lay an untapped core of strength on which he drew. Into the shadowy battle of wills he threw his courage, his manhood, and his very lust for life. Against this last, the demon had no weapon, for it was a thing of death and decay; its compelling lust was to destroy all life.