Although the purses of the slain mountain bandits yielded only a few coppers, Conan was not the least averse to collecting the coins and sharing them equally with Elashi. Certainly the bandits had no further need for money where they were bound.
As the Cimmerian and the desert woman made their way down the mountain road, they saw in the distance a small village; thanks to the bandits, they could now buy food and a room for the night. Only a few days past, Conan had carried two silver coins, the last of his profit from the pelt of a dire-wolf he had slain. Unfortunately, as he had raced through the halls of the necromancer's castle, he had somehow dislodged the silver from his purse. After the aggravation of the bandit's attack, providing supper and shelter was the least the dead men could do.
As evening sought to claim the day, stormy purple and gray clouds gathered on the horizon. The wind grew colder, carrying in its chilly teeth the promise of snow. Conan knew the signs: a blizzard was building. It would be most uncomfortable to be caught out in the open in the coming weather. The village lay less than an hour ahead by his reckoning, and the two of them should arrive there at about the time the storm did. If they hurried.
The village was like a dozen others Conan had Seen in his travels. Perhaps a score of structures, most of them small houses of stone with sod roofing, sprawled along the sides of the road, now somewhat wider than it had been in the mountains. The largest of the buildings was, naturally, the village inn. The wordless sign over the doorway bore merely a carved picture of a sheep, doubtless detailing the mainstay of local industry. The building was also of stone, weathered and in disrepair, with oiled but torn lambskin over the windows, showing a fitful yellow glow from within.
As Conan and Elashi approached the inn, the snow began to flurry about them. In a moment the swirling winds had the powdery whiteness dancing thickly in the evening air. The combination of snow and gathering darkness quickly reduced visibility to a few spans.
"Not a very appealing place," Elashi observed.
"Our choices are somewhat limited," Conan said.
"True."
He swung the heavy wooden door inward and took in the interior of the inn. The ceiling was low, hardly an arm's length taller than Conan himself, and the central room into which they stared was occupied by perhaps twenty people, most of them men. They sat at rude tables or stood near the large fireplace within which a fat log burned brightly. An archway at the end of the room led, Conan surmised, to sleeping rooms and storage for food and drink.
Stepping into the room, Conan shut the door behind Elashi, never taking his gaze from the occupants. Most of them were obviously locals: dark-complected, older men dressed in shepherd garb. There were a few women who matched the men in age and clothes, also likely local folk.
At the far end of the communal eating and drinking room sat a thin man dressed as though for summer in thigh-length trousers and a short tunic. He had hair the color of straw and a foolish grin upon his face. Likely drunk or slack-witted, Conan thought.
Behind this summery fool sat two men who looked very much like the five who had assaulted Conan upon the trail. There were no pikes in evidence, but each man wore a sword and long dagger ensheathed upon his belt, and their features looked hard in the light of guttering tapers mounted at odd intervals upon the stone walls.
Conan finished his scan of the room just as a tall and spindly man whose face seemed buried within the shroud of a gray beard approached. The innkeeper, no doubt.
"Ah, welcome, travelers. Would ye be desirin' food 'n' drink, then?"
Conan nodded. "Aye. And a room for the night."
Graybeard bobbed his head in an enthusiastic nod. "Done, done. Ye made it just in time, I warrant. "Tis a howler startin' up out there." As if to punctuate his words, the wind whistled and blew a blast of snow through one of the torn shades. Graybeard said, "Lalo, cover that hole!"
The thin blond man stood and moved to the window, where he began to repair the window cover with a patch and string that he pulled from a pocket on his tunic. The man continued smiling all the while, and he hummed a strange little tune as.he worked.
Conan and Elashi, meanwhile, moved to an empty table not far from the fire as Graybeard went to fetch wine and whatever passed for supper.
The meal, as it turned out, was not altogether bad. The meat was mutton, somewhat greasy, but edible. Hard brown bread accompanied the meat, and the wine was red and sharp but better than some that Conan had tasted. Elashi produced a small knife from her belt and sliced the meat into strips; Conan draped pieces of these over chunks of bread and washed them down with the wine. Certainly it bested foraging along the trail for roots and ground squirrels, as they had been doing for several days.
Graybeard accepted half a dozen coppers for the meal and asked another four for the room. Conan would have bargained but he was tired, and what did it matter anyway? The money had been his for only a few hours; he had not grown particularly attached to it. He paid for the meal and room, causing a smile to grow in the midst of Graybeard's hairy visage.
Over his third cup of wine, Conan began to feel somewhat relaxed. The journey along the mountains had been relatively uneventful―save for the inept bandits―but even so, it had been a long walk. With food and wine in his belly and shelter against the winter's rages, he felt most comfortable.
He should have known that meant trouble. Every time he felt at ease of late, something always seemed to come along to spoil it.
"Watch it, fool!"
Conan looked up from his warm feeling, to see the straw-haired man, the one Graybeard had called "Lalo," backing away from the table at which the two swordsmen sat. Apparently Lalo had jostled the table in passing and the occupants had taken umbrage at his clumsiness. One of the swordsmen was missing most of an ear. The other had a nose that had been broken more than once, and was decidedly bent to one side.
"Sorry, m'lord," Lalo said.
Bent Nose half-stood. "Are you making sport of me, fool? Calling me lord?"
"Why, no, m'lor―I mean, no, sir. 'Twould be hard to make sport of one such as yourself."
"That's better."
Lalo's grin never faltered. "I mean, there's so little to work with."
Bent Nose blinked, obviously not understanding.
At his table, Conan smiled. He might be called a barbarian for his looks, but he knew humor when he heard it.
Unfortunately for Lalo, One Ear's wits were at least a bit sharper than his companion's. "Fool," he said. "He has insulted you!"
Bent Nose looked at him quizzically. "What are you talking about?"
"Ah," Lalo said. "I see that you are indeed a wit." He paused for a second, then continued: "No, on second pass, I think that is probably only half-true."
Conan chuckled into his wine. Judging from Bent Nose's reaction, it seemed true enough.
"Why are you laughing?" Elashi asked. "Those two will cut that poor man into bloody ribbons!"
Conan shrugged. "That's his problem. A sharp tongue is no match for a sharp blade."
One Ear said, "Idiot! He insults you again."
This was enough for Bent Nose. He cleared his blade. "I shall have your laughing head for a soup bowl!" he bellowed, advancing slowly toward Lalo.
Elashi jumped to her feet, drawing her own sword.
Conan said, "What are you doing?"
"Since there are no men in here to protect a harmless, unarmed soul from such brutes, I shall do so myself!"
Conan sighed. Always something came to disturb his peace. He stood. "Be seated. I shall handle this."
"I would not want you to strain yourself," she said.
Conan merely shook his head. Is this a test, Crom? Perhaps I should have remained at the monastery with the late Cengh and given up women. They are certainly more trouble than they are worth, at times.
Bent Nose looked up to see Conan looming. He paused in his pursuit of Lalo. "What is your business here, outlander?"
Conan decided to try reason. "I have had
a long day," he said, "and I would not see it ended by being blood-spattered. Why not allow Lalo here to live?"
Bent Nose shifted the point of his sword in Conan's direction. "I care less than mouse turd for how your day has gone. This fool insulted me and he shall pay for it!"
Conan, whose sword remained sheathed, spared a glance at Elashi, then at Lalo. "Perhaps," he told Lalo, "if you apologized to Bent Nose here, this matter could be resolved peacefully."
"Bent Nose? Who are you calling Bent Nose?"
Conan said, "Have you never used a looking glass?"
"I suspect the last one he gazed upon shattered when forced to reflect such a heinous image," Lalo observed.
"You help matters not at all," Conan told the grinning man.
"Yaahh!" With that exclamation, Bent Nose charged, sword uplifted to split Lalo like a stick of kindling.
Conan had plenty of time to draw his own weapon and block the attack, but as he pulled his sword free of the sheath, One Ear stood and threw his wine bottle at Conan's head.
While the Cimmerian's reflexes were fast, even he could not slap the bottle from the air with the flat of his sword and then have sufficient time to block Bent Nose's strike at Lalo. As the glass bottle shattered against Conan's sword, Bent Nose's blade came down upon the hapless Lalo…
No! He missed! Lalo danced to one side, and the sword that would have cleaved him hit a thick table top instead, burying the blade to half its width in the wood. Bent Nose jerked on the handle, but the sword was stuck fast.
What Lalo did then was quite amazing. He danced back toward Bent Nose, grabbed his wrist and underwent some kind of contortion, twisting and turning as he dropped to his knees on the floor. Bent Nose screamed and flew over Lalo's head to dive face first into the nearest wall.
Conan had no more time to marvel over this maneuver, however, as One Ear charged, brandishing his sword and howling like a demented wolf. He sought to run Conan down, a mistake most costly. Conan merely extended his sword to arm's length and One Ear spitted himself on the point. Half of the sword's length emerged from the man's back, carrying upon its tip blood from his lanced heart. One Ear fell, and Conan managed to jerk his blade free as the man went down. He bent and wiped the gore from the iron on One Ear's tunic, not doubting for a moment that the man was dead.
So much for a peaceful evening by the fire.
Conan turned, to see Lalo and Elashi examining Bent Nose. From the angle of the downed man's head, it was clear that his neck was broken; and from his impact against the wall, likely his skull was broken as well.
Such proved to be the case. Elashi stood and said, "He is dead."
Conan moved toward Elashi and Lalo. Around them, the inn's other patrons sat frozen―so many figures in a painting―afraid to move.
"I have never seen that type of wrestling before," Conan said. "Very efficient."
Lalo's grin never wavered. "I learned it from the little yellow men of Khitai," he said. "I spent several years there. It is called jit-jit. By its use, a practiced small man may best a larger one, or even one armed."
"Interesting," Conan said. "Perhaps a man who tempered his mirth might not have to use it at all."
"Ah," Lalo said, "but you see, that is my curse." He paused to glance at the two dead men. "I appreciate your help, though I could have handled these two myself. Perhaps you will allow me to buy you a bottle of wine and explain?"
Conan glanced at Elashi, who nodded. Of course. And, he had to admit, he was more than a little curious himself.
"When I was a boy in the mountains of eastern Zamora," Lalo began, "my father ran afoul of the local wizard. A very subtle being, this wizard was. He could have caused my father's crops to fail or our cows to dry up, or perhaps visited a plague upon our family. But the magician was, as I have said, very subtle; and his magics were no less effective for this. He laid his geas upon the sons of my father."
Lalo paused to sip at his wine. His smile remained constant.
"My brothers―I had three―all perished from the effects of the wizard's curse within two years of its placement. In an effort to escape, I fled across the vast Eastern Desert to Khitai. To no avail, in that the curse stayed with me."
Elashi was leaning forward, fascinated. As for himself, Conan felt less interest now than dread. This tended to happen whenever the subject of magic was broached. Such unnatural doings were not to his taste. Still, the story was somewhat intriguing.
"It was there," Lalo continued, "in Khitai that I learned the fighting art of jit-jit. The Khitains are quite adept at such things. Eventually my curse caused me to leave there as well. I cannot stay in one place too long; even the most sympathetic souls cannot stand against the wizard's magic for more than a few weeks."
"What exactly is this curse?" Conan asked.
"I cannot stop smiling," Lalo replied. "And I cannot prevent myself from making sport of those around me. You, for instance, Conan, have so much muscle that it is doubtful you can stretch enough to scratch an itch on your backside."
"What?" Conan started to rise from his seat.
Elashi touched his forearm. "The curse, Conan."
Conan relaxed, understanding. "I take your meaning, Lalo."
The smiling man sighed. "Indeed. Imagine if you can what it would be like to be with a woman and be unable to avoid insulting comments even as you are joined together."
"How awful!" Elashi murmured.
"Here you have come to my aid against two of the Harskeel's thugs, and even so, I cannot help myself from haranguing you."
"Who exactly is this Harskeel?" Conan asked.
"Not 'who' precisely, but more of 'what,' " Lalo said. "Its full name is Harskeel of Loplain, and it is an hermaphrodite―half man, half woman."
Elashi inhaled sharply.
"You know of it?" Lalo asked. ,
"Aye," Conan answered. "We had an encounter with it along the trail earlier this very day. Is it perhaps mad?"
"Mad? What makes you ask, you apelike buffoon?"
Conan's anger stirred, but he forced it down. The man was cursed, after all. "This Harskeel thing lost five of its men in an attempt to steal nothing more than my sword."
"Ah, I can see why you would think it crazed. No, there is method in this madness. The Harskeel of Loplain is also cursed, but by its own actions. Once it was two separate people, a man and a woman. These two were lovers, and desired more intensity and closeness―not that a barbarian like yourself could possibly understand such a thing―so they stole a book of spells from a witch. Unfortunately for them, they bespoke the spell incorrectly. It left them considerably closer than was their intent."
"Ugh," Elashi said. "But what has that to do with Conan's sword?"
"Actually, it collects swords from anyone who shows the slightest sign of bravery. There is supposed to be a counterspell, some mantologic process that will return the Harskeel to its former state of two people. The spell involves the use of a sword dipped in the blood of its owner. If the owner is―or was―brave enough, it will trigger the magic. So far, more than a few men have died without providing the needed weapon."
"I thought this creature wished more than merely my sword," Conan said.
"Certainly it did not seek your brain," Lalo said. "Forgive me."
Conan merely nodded. He had heard worse from Elashi, and she was under no particular curse.
Lalo told them his time at the local inn was about up and that he would be leaving soon. Conan and Elashi also planned to leave as soon as the snowstorm ended, likely on the morrow. The three of them finished the bottle of wine and then parted, Lalo warning Conan to take care on his journey. Now that the outlander had slain so many of the Harskeel's men, the hermaphrodite would certainly consider him a candidate for the spell it needed.
As Conan and Elashi started for their room, she said, "A shame, to be cursed so."
"I notice he did not insult you during our conversation," Conan said.
"Why should he, when you made such a
likely target?"
"The two of you would do well together," Conan said. "You have so much in common."
Elashi chose to be offended by this, which surprised Conan not at all. Hardly anything she did surprised him of late. When they arrived in their room, for instance, she lay against him under the inn's rough blanket, touching him and laughing softly… as if they had been newly wed that same morning. He shook his head, not understanding, but not minding this in the least.
* * *
Three
Deep in the twisted bowels of the Grotterium Negrotus, Katamay Rey once again called upon the slab of enchanted quartz. Under the dank-green fungal glow, the wizard scried, searching the depths of crystal stone for the future.
The clear rock became milky, then slowly cleared near one end, and the face of a man appeared. Strong featured, with black hair and fiery blue eyes, the man's face peered unseeingly back at Rey, unaware of being observed.
Rey made mystical passes over the quartz, but the remainder of the crystal refused to lose its milky hue. He tried several times, but nothing more than the face of the young man appeared.
"Set blast you, you cursed stone!"
The quartz did not seemed, frightened by this threat; indeed, as if in response to the curse, even the face pictured therein faded, leaving the crystal once again blank.
Cursing further, Rey turned away from the obstinate crystal. Well, he thought, at least he had something: the danger to his domain seemed to be centered in that youthful face. Now he could prepare to deal with it.
"Wikkell!"
At the sound of the wizard's voice, something shuffled ponderously across the damp stone floor. Half again the size of a large man, the figure shambled into the eerie green light. It bore a single pink eye set in the middle of its sloping forehead, and upon its back, a hump, much like those worn by the desert-roaming beasts of the Southern Wastes bordering Punt and Stygia. Bald it was, but bearded, and dense muscle corded its arms and legs. The hunchback was naked save for a groin cloth; the knuckles of its hands nearly touched the stone under its splayed feet as it shuffled into sight.
The Conan Compendium Page 72