“She’s right about the good grazing,” Conan said, squinting at the village. “And I wonder why. Look over there.” He pointed to the land beyond the village, where tiny watchfires dotted the rolling slopes.
“There are shepherds and cattle herders watching over their beasts. Why are they not here, where there is water and the grazing is so good? It looks as if this grass has not been cropped in years.”
Achilea shrugged. “Perhaps it was overgrazed and they have given the soil time to recover. What do
you care about shepherds and townsmen? They are just prey for people of spirit.”
“I care nothing for them. It is just …” he paused, unable to articulate his foreboding “… just a part of what I don’t like about this journey.” There was a sudden flutter of wings behind them and Conan whirled, half drawing his sword, biting off a guttural curse, A cloud of bats ascended from their crypts beneath the temple.
Achilea laughed. “You are skittish tonight, Cimmerian! They are just winged mice, out looking for their dinner. Speaking of which, I could use some as well.”
Somewhat embarrassed at his show of unease, Conan slammed the sword home in its sheath, the hilt clicking solidly against the metal throat of the scabbard. He followed the Amazon, admiring as always her firm, springy stride that never lost its seductive sway.
They left one of the Hyrkanians to watch over their animals while the rest went into the village to break the monotony of their journey. Monandas and Yolanthe elected to stay within their tent, uninterested hi whatever delights the little town might have to offer.
The band found an inn that catered to the caravan traffic and soon were indulging themselves. While far from the centers of civilization, the food and wine available here were far superior to any they had been able to get in the mountains, as well as being much cheaper. The locals watched them curiously, but there was no trouble.
When they returned, the moon was rising above the truncated tower, silvering the growth of moss and vines that draped its sides like a ragged curtain. The stones of the mined temple gleamed softly, their carvings thrown into bold relief by the deepening shadows. A soft breeze filled the air with the sound of rustling grass. The tall camels knelt by the little tent, and beyond them, the horses stood with their heads down. It was a peaceful scene, but Conan mistrusted it.
“Something is wrong,” he muttered to his companions, “You always think something is wrong,” Achilea said.
“Everything is fine,” said Kye-Dee, weaving slightly, having drunk a good deal more than the Cimmerian, “With grass like this, and no storm, and no soldiers chasing us, what can be amiss?” The other Hyrkanians laughed and agreed. They all carried wineskins and drank from them every few steps.
“I cannot say,” he grumbled, “but I shall know soon.”
The others went off to find their beds. On such a fine evening, these consisted of little more than rolling into a blanket upon the deep, springy grass.
The Cimmerian, however, was restless. He knew better than to try to sleep while he felt such apprehension, so he sat by their watchfire until all the rest were asleep, and then he rose. Settling his weapons securely at his hips, he walked from the fire.
Something he could not name drew him toward the ruined temple. In the center of the tumbled wall, the pointed arch of the gateway loomed intact, its wooden doors long since rotted away. The Cimmerian passed through, pushing aside me tendrils of vines that hung from the top of the arch.
As he entered the courtyard, a skulking fox sidled away. An owl hooted in the gloom. Except for these, all was stillness and silence. Silent as a ghost, the Cimmerian crossed me courtyard, his booted feet making no sound upon the small, colored flagstones. Once these had formed brilliant patterns and pictures, but the sun of centuries had faded their glory, and in the moonlight, they possessed no more than a hint of their former beauty.
On the far side of the courtyard hulked the temple proper and to one side of it, the broken tower.
Through the gaping doorway of the temple and within its long, slit-like windows he saw a dim, flickering light. The windows still, miraculously, held some inserts of red glass, and these lent an even eerier aspect to the scene. Slowly and with great caution, Conan approached the temple, his hand gripping his hilt, ready for anything.
A flight of steps led up to the temple door. These he climbed, his soft-soled boots scarcely touching the stones as he ascended. He paused at the top of the steps and listened, straining his ears to catch the slightest sound. He heard a serpent slithering through a clump of weeds twenty paces away, but he heard
nothing from within the temple. Stealthily, hugging the shadows in the side of the doorway, he went in.
The walls of the temple were largely intact, but the roof was open to the sky. Clumps of grass and weed grew from cracks in the flooring, and the walls were topped with vines, bushes and even small trees. But at the far end of the temple was a sheltered niche holding an altar. Upon that altar burned a number of candles, and before it stood two figures.
Monandas and Yolanthe had removed their swathing and cowled cloaks, and each stood clad in a sleeveless white robe. The man’s garment seemed to be of heavy silk. Yolanthe’s was of a fabric so sheer that the candlelight shone through it, revealing a lissome figure. The two were going through some sort of ritual in absolute silence. They paced before the altar, made precise turns, raised and lowered their arms in hieratic fashion, their fingers tracing symbols with bewildering rapidity.
Keeping close to the shadowing walls, the Cimmerian worked his way closer to the mysterious pair.
As he drew nearer, he saw that their mouths were working as if they spoke or, from the rhythmic way their lips moved, chanted. Yet they made no sound. Their eyes were wide open, but they seemed not to see, or rather, Conan thought, they looked as if they were seeing something other than the ruined temple all around them.
As he drew even nearer to them, Conan left the sheltering wall and stopped in the shadow of a pedestal that rose just above man-height to one side of the niche. Once the pedestal had supported a statue that had stood more than twice lite-size―now only the feet and ankles remained. The rest was a tumbled heap of broken stone upon the floor. On the other side of the niche stood a matching pedestal, and its statue was intact, save that it was headless. In the moonlight, Conan could see that it had represented a man, or a manlike god, dressed in graceful robes.
Now the twins turned to face the altar and they raised their arms to shoulder height, upper arms parallel to the floor, forearms vertical, their hands upturned so that their palms faced the sky. Their lips moved in unison, but still they made no sound. Then Conan was aware that there was another person within the niche. He shook his head and stared, wondering how he had missed the man before.
He sat cross-legged upon the altar, swathed in white robes. His face was majestic, with a great silver, fan-shaped beard sweeping down to his breast. His head was covered with a white kerchief embroidered with silver threads. His eyeballs showed only white, like those of a blind man.
The twins lowered their arms and seemed to be still speaking. The man on the altar appeared to answer them, for his lips and beard moved, but there came no sound. The three of them were so noiseless that had he not been able to hear night sounds from without the temple, Conan might have thought that he had gone deaf.
The three continued their eerie conversation, but the Cimmerian was stymied for an explanation as to just what was transpiring before his eyes. Was the man a real man? A demon? A god? Whatever it was, it made his spine prickle, but he did not feel the revulsion that always assailed him in the presence of black wizardry.
Feeling that he would learn little more here, Conan stealthily backed away and made his way out of the temple. The moon stood high, and in the distance he could see the herdsmen’s watchfires. He stopped by their own fire and took one of the wineskins left there by the Hyrkanians. With this slung from his shoulder, he walked toward the nearest of t
he herdsmen’s fires. As he crossed the plain, he heard something walking parallel to him, and an errant breeze brought the scent of wolf to his nose. It caused him no concern. No wolf was going to attack a man when there were sheep and calves about.
When he strode within the light of the fire, the herdsmen gasped and snatched up their spears, scrambling to their feet.
“Who be you?” demanded a grizzle-bearded man dressed in rough leathers. His companions were a somewhat younger man and a boy in his early teens. The tip of the boy’s spear trembled slightly, but the men held their weapons steady, their expressions grim. Conan had been a herdsman in his youth, and he knew the occupation was not a task for the fainthearted, not in a land where wolves, bears and lions were plentiful.
“A friend,” Conan said, holding up the wineskin. “I am camped with my companions by the old temple.”
“So you are one of the fools,” said the younger man. Satisfied that Conan was alone, they lowered their weapons.
“Fools? What mean you?”
The older man accepted the proffered skin. “Come, share our fire. He said that because you have pitched camp in an accursed place.” There were logs arranged around a stone-lined fire pit, and the three herdsmen sat on one log while Conan took the one facing them.
“I thought as much when I saw how high the grass was and how plentiful the water. That is not something you see often in grazing land such as this.”
“Aye,” said the younger man. “It is a tempting sight, is it not? But we know better than to use it.”
Each in turn, the three took a pull at the skin and the boy passed to back to Conan. He took a drink and handed it to the elder.
“How do you keep your beasts from straying onto the grass? I saw no fence there.”
“We need not restrain them,” said the grizzle-bearded man, “for they cannot be forced onto that land.”
“That is true,” said the younger. “Cattle and sheep will eat the grass within five hundred paces of the accursed temple, but they will not go one step farther, nor take so much as a mouthful from the other side of the line. Look at it in the daylight, stranger: The ungrazed grass forms a perfect square, the line straight as one laid out by a builder stretching a string between two stakes.”
“How came this to be?” asked the Cimmerian.
“It is said,” the bearded man told him, “that Ardubal the Ninth, the great king who reigned over Zamora many, many years ago, offended the gods in his quest for wizardly knowledge. He carried out terrible rituals in that very temple. One night, at the height of his glory, Ardubal sacrificed a thousand men upon the altar of that temple, Nemedian prisoners captured in battle. The gods, angered at his impiety and his infamous behavior, destroyed the temple and the king and laid the very precincts under a curse.
Zamora fell to the Nemedians, and we lived beneath their yoke for a generation.”
“Aye, that is the tale,” said the younger man. The boy, from whom Conan had yet to hear a word, merely nodded.
He was not satisfied with the tale, but he felt sure he would hear nothing better from these men.
When the wineskin was empty, he made his way back to the camp and rolled into a blanket to sleep.
Accursed or not, the thought, the dense, springy grass made a fine, soft bed.
The next morning, as they broke camp and prepared to march, Conan approached the twins and called to their attention the singular square of high grass.
“Odd, is it not?” Monandas commented. “And yet, the world is full of little mysteries such as this.”
“Last night I beard a tale about this place,” Conan said, and told them what he had learned from the herdsmen, omitting the detail of having spied upon the two within the temple before seeking out the local men.
Both laughed and Yolanthe spoke. “Peasants always have a story to explain uncanny things in their neighborhood. Usually, these explanations involve some famous personage of the past. In these parts, it is always Ardubal the Ninth, who was a great king but who in the end lost Zamora to the Nemedians.”
“Did he truly practice evil arts?” Conan asked.
““Who knows?” Monandas said, shrugging. “But he had naught to do with this temple. To peasants, anything that happened before their grandsires’ time is remotest antiquity, and in their tales, persons and events separated by centuries are all contemporary. In truth, Ardubal the Ninth reigned a mere three hundred years ago. Yet anyone who has traveled and surveyed many ruins can tell that this temple,” he swept out an arm to take in the tatty precincts, “has lain derelict for more than a thousand years.”
Conan studied the place in light of these words, “Aye,” he admitted, “this place was built solidly. It took more than three hundred years for so many stones to topple, and to put full-grown trees atop the
walls.” He considered the prospect. “Then what think you happened here?”
“What makes you so curious?” Yolanthe asked.
“Because none of the local animals will eat this grass,” Conan said. “But ours have been cropping it happily, and drinking the water. How can this be?”
Monandas frowned. “They seem to have suffered no harm thereby. We hired you as a guard and because you know the southern lands, Cimmerian. You need not concern yourself with these trifling matters. And now I think it best for you to see to your own mount. We depart within the hour.”
“As you wish,” Conan said. He wanted to know what the two had been up to, but he knew that he would learn no more at this time. As he walked away, the twins looked after him, their expressions enigmatic.
Four
Their journey southward into the southern lowlands brought diem to warmer climes. Much of the land was cultivated, but there was also much wilderness, with abundant wild game. Since Conan, the Hyrkanians and Achilea’s party were all accomplished hunters, they seldom had to purchase provisions and thus were able to avoid large towns where they might be questioned. The little caravan passed midway between Shadizar and Arenjun and within a few days came to the border of Koth.
Since the incident in the ruined temple, there had been no more supernatural demonstrations, but the Cimmerian was still wary of their employers. His other companions seemed ID have no such qualms and were happy with the change of climate, the regular and plentiful meals and the absence of pursuers.
Had it not been for his instinctive aversion to magickal doings, Conan himself would have felt that he had fallen into a most fortunate situation. But the surpassingly strange thing he had witnessed put him on his guard, and the aloof twins’ odd mission troubled him as well. Their treasure-hunt seemed to him a fool’s errand.
Another thing galled Conan. His attempts to draw Achilea into closer intimacy had been met with unfailing rebuffs. Unlike most women, she seemed to be unimpressed by his physical charms. If she admired his warrior accomplishments, she hid it well. To make matters worse, the three women and the dwarf never strayed far from her side. Any time he drew close to her, they drew even closer, hands on their weapons. They were prepared to cut him down at the first sign of threat, and he suspected that the wild women, at least, would consider the mildest amatory gesture to be a killing matter.
They came to the border between Zamora and Koth, near the eastern extremity of the latter nation: a district of semi-arid grassland given over to great herds of shaggy, huge-horned cattle tended by riders scarcely less brutish man their four-footed charges. The watchers at the border gave them no trouble, for now they were in land where neither kings nor local chieftains paid much heed to the wild men who preyed upon travelers or more settled folk.
“From here on, we keep our bows strung and arrows ready,” Conan said as they crossed into Koth. “And we double the watch at night. This territory is rife with raiders and bandits of all sorts, but they will keep their distance from a party that is alert and well-armed, especially since it is plain that we bear no great treasure with us.”
“Who made you our leader, Cimmerian?” growle
d Jeyba the dwarf.
“Aye!” chorused all three of the savage women, jealous as always of their queen’s authority.
“Hee, hee!” cried Kye-Dee in his high-pitched laugh. “A mutiny of women and dwarfs! Surely this is something from an old fable!” The women and the dwarf reached for their weapons.
“Stop this!” Achilea snapped. Instantly, her followers froze. “The rogue presumes too much, but there is naught amiss with his advice. Now, when the danger grows, we must Dot bicker among ourselves.”
“Then, by Crom,” Conan fumed, “just who is in charge here? When raiders strike us at midnight, that will be no time to dispute authority!”
The twins, tented within their camelback abodes, seemed to be taking no notice, but at the Cimmerian’s last words, they thrust their heads from behind their curtains with their usual disconcerting
simultaneity.
“We will provide all the necessary orders,” Monandas said. “Do not forget who are your employers.”
“Aye, but you are not warriors,” Conan said. “One of us should have the captaincy of your guard.”
“Then,” Yolanthe said, “we choose Achilea. She is, after all, of royal blood.” If she meant this ironically, she gave no sign.
“Very well,” Conan said, still fuming. “Since you would rather have breeding than warrior experience, so be it.”
It was at that moment that the raiders struck them. A file of horsemen came galloping from behind a knoll, waving their weapons and rending the air with shrill war cries.
“I await your orders. Commander,” Conan said to the astonished Achilea.
She seemed to shake off the momentary surprise and rose in her stirrups to survey the terrain. The raiders were riding in fast from their left. She pointed to a rise of ground nearby to their right, next to a deep gully.
“Ride for that knoll and we’ll have the high ground of them! Camels in the middle and the rest of us will circle mem, with the gully to our back.”
“That’s a mistake,” Conan said, “but go ahead. I’ll slow diem down.”
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