“Aye, it is a simple device,” Conan affirmed, smiling grimly.
“Oh, very well, then!” said Amram, gritting his teeth at their seemingly suicidal calmness. “I will unchain them. But the time may cost us dear”
“Just get us out of here,” Conan said. “Get us to our weapons, and we will see to it that all the cost is borne by the ant-people.”
“You speak overconfidently,” the little man grumbled as they walked the few steps to the other cell.
They went inside and Achilea woke her women, placing a palm across the mouth of each as she shook them. The three wore joyous expressions, but their discipline was perfect and they asked no questions as their chains were removed. Clearly, their captors did DM mink they were as dangerous as were the two leaders, for here each wore only a single neck ring attached to the wall by means of a chain.
“Now.” Conan said when all were loosed, “lead us to our weapons, then lead us to the river.”
“Do you think this is a casual tour, that I may lead you to whichever attraction takes your fancy?”
“Just our weapons, then,” Achilea said. “We will make our own way to the river. And our belongings from the camel packs, too, I want my drinking horn.”
“Your drinking horn?” Conan said, raising a sardonic eyebrow. He had not seen the elaborate, silver-mounted thing since Leng, where she had carefully packed it away for the journey.
“Aye, it is an ancestral treasure of my people. I’ll not depart without it.”
“The last I heard, your people had done with you. But if you must have it, that suits me. I’ll settle for my sword and dirk.”
Amram looked back and forth from one to the other of them as if at two exotic beasts. “You are mad, the both of you, [ am among madmen.”
“For some time,” Conan commented. “But it seems to me that you know how to make the best bargain for yourself no matter where you find yourself, so continue on that course and do as we bid you.
I take it that you would be away from this awful place?”
“I desire that almost as much as life itself!” Amram said fervently.
“Aye,” Achilea put in. “You are plainly a man willing to endure much for the sake of life itself. Do as
we say.” She patted him on the shaven head, but her caress was as menacing as the Cimmerian’s blunter threats.
Amram sighed deeply. “Very well, then. Come with me and be very, very quiet. Our lives depend upon it.”
“Lead on,” said Conan, grinning.
In the anteroom, they found the guards on duty. They were either dead or drugged, and the fleeing prisoners did not bother to ascertain which. Conan stooped to gather up a Stygian short sword, and Achilea took a dagger. Ekun was about to lift a long-handled combination spear and ax with a wicked hook on one side, but Achilea stopped her with a motion.
“No pole-arms,” she instructed, her voice scarcely above a whisper. “They are too awkward in these passages and they may make noise. One-hand weapons only, should we come upon more.” The women nodded as Amram leaned out the doorway and looked both ways.
“There is no one without,” he said in a loud whisper. “Follow me.”
“Have no concern about that,” Conan admonished as he came up behind the little man with stealthy tread. “I shall be right at your back.”
“One would think you did not trust me,” Amram said in tones of hurt.
The Cimmerian ignored the comment. “Why is it so quiet?” he asked. They passed through an area he knew from earlier experience to be devoted to manufactures. All was silent, the chambers deserted.
“It is night. Even down here, where sun and moon are unknown, there must be day and night.
People must sleep, and for the most efficient organization of labor, all sleep at the same time. Only the ventilation staff and a few very necessary services continue through this ‘night.”
Achilea came up behind him. “What sort of necessary services?”
“Hisst!” Amram raised a hand and signaled them to silence. “One of diem comes even now. In here!” He chivvied them into a side chamber where cleaning supplies were stored. Amid brooms, brushes, mops and pails, they stood packed tightly together.
“What is it?” Achilea demanded in a whisper. Her body was pressed closely against Conan’s back.
“I care not,” said the Cimmerian with a smile. “I like it here.” She swatted him on the back of the head.
“Quiet!” Amram commanded. “It is the fire patrol.”
The curtain of the closet had been drawn so that only a slit was open. Two slaves came walking down the corridor outside. At every flame tube, they paused. Conan had noted in passage that only each third tube was flaming, doubtless because it was “night.” These men adjusted the flames of the lighted fixtures. At each darkened tube, one of the slaves leaned over its flared end and sniffed, then went on. At one such, the slave sniffed, frowned, and made a silent signal. The other slave took a bronze tool from a pouch at his belt and made some small adjustment to the fixture. The other slave sniffed once more, then nodded. They passed on.
When the two were out of sight around a comer, the fugitives and their guide left the closet. “That has cost us time,” Amram fretted.
“What were they doing?” Conan asked.
“The lighting fixtures must be monitored constantly,” Amram told him. Having something to explain seemed to relieve his nerves. “They bum a natural vapor that comes from deep within the earth. It bums cleanly, with no smoke and no scent, but in its unburned state, it is deadly poison. If a flame goes out, the vapor continues to gush forth. It can kill many if it is not shut off quickly. And if enough of it should accumulate, the instant a flame is touched to it. the whole mass erupts like a volcano. In the past, entire districts of the underground city have perished thus.”
“Why was one of the slaves sniffing at it?” Achilea asked.
“Checking for leaks in the fixtures,” Amram said. “They are made of bronze and ceramic, and with long use, they can work loose and allow the vapor to leak out in small amounts, but still enough to be
dangerous. They need constant adjusting. Because the vapor has no odor, another vapor is added to it in the processing plant to give it a sharp scent. Thus may a leak be detected.”
“Not only do drey live beneath the earth like burrowing insects,” Conan said, “but they suffer the constant threat of burning and suffocation. What sort of way is that for men to live?”
Amram shrugged. “Have you ever sailed upon the sea? Life aboard ship is far more precarious.”
“At least it is in the open air, beneath the sun and the stars,” Conan protested.
“Each to his own taste,” Amram said. “I am a man of broad tolerance and I find all modes of life to be equally peculiar.”
In silence, they traversed the sleeping city, walking down broad corridors, padding through narrow passages flanked by sleeping chambers whence drifted the sounds of snoring and wheezing, up long stairways, some straight, others winding. Several times they detected the approach of flame patrols, and then they ducked into the nearest room that had no lighting fixture to be checked. They came to a vast chamber from which came a sharp, nose-stinging scent.
“This is the vapor-works,” Amram cautioned. “Use utmost care. There are workers on duty here at all hours.”
The chamber was cavernous, and Conan entered it with trepidation, not because of the danger of discovery, but because of his great distaste at being near anything as uncanny as a vapor-works. He knew from what Omia had said that these people were not even capable of sorcery, but this great reservoir for burning gas was sufficiently unearthly that to his barbarian instincts, it was little different from the most powerful wizardry.
The light was dim and uncertain, provided here not by open flames, but by clumps of the glowing fungi. The sickly green, blue, orange and yellow phosphorescence provided sufficient illumination that they could recognize the shapes of huge, closed vats of rivet
ed bronze sheet from which trailed bewildering tangles of metal pipes leading to smaller tanks, to other pipes, and to fixtures to which Conan could not assign a name. Everywhere there were wheels of greater or lesser dimensions, apparently controlling valves to regulate the flow of the vapor. Over everything lay the pungent scent of the additive.
Conan wondered how they would ever be able to detect a leak here.
Among the mysterious fixtures moved shadowy shapes, some small, some hulking. With a prickling scalp, he saw men with long, heavily muscled arms and shoulders of gorilla dimensions, but with heads that were unnaturally small. He tapped Amram on the shoulder and pointed at one who walked along a catwalk above them, his knuckles almost dragging upon the metal treads, his mouth agape and his eyes blankly staring. Amram whispered in his ear.
“Those are harmless―-slaves specially bred to turn the largest valve wheels no matter how badly they may be stuck. When there is an emergency here, there is no time to call in extra help or use mechanical aid. The vapor must be shut off instantly.”
Even in the midst of his powerful urge to get away, Conan sought to memorize the salient features of the operation. Compared to the city without, it was a noisy place, full of hissings and rumblings, the creak and clank of metal, the sounds of barked orders and the stertorous breathing of the hulking slaves, whose small noses and mouths were scarcely up to the task of providing air for their overgrown bodies.
They passed a gigantic horizontal wheel to which no fewer than six of the massive slaves were chained by the wrist Conan surmised that this was the master valve, whereby the vapor could be cut off to the whole city, including this facility, in an extreme emergency. He wondered how the city could ever function in total darkness, then realized that the answer was all around him: the fungus that glowed with its own cold, unearthly light. Doubtless the ant-people kept enough of it in all parts of the city to provide instant illumination.
No doubt about it, he thought, they had planned well. But then, they had had many thousands of years to perfect the art of living without the sun. He shuddered at the thought. The slaves and the free workers in this place revealed with merciless clarity the consequences of such a life. The cold light of the fungi gave their colorless skin the semblance of the rotting flesh of corpses.
Once through the vapor works, they were back on more familiar ground. The Cimmerian recognized the environs as an area they had passed through upon first entering the city. They were climbing now, and he guessed that Amram was taking them back up to the great temple. He did not greatly relish the thought of recrossing the desert, but anything was preferable to spending more days as the guest of Omia and Abbadas.
During the climb, Amram took them down an unfamiliar side corridor. “Where are we going?”
Conan demanded, grasping the small man’s arm and halting him. “I don’t remember this place.”
“Nor should you,” was the answer. “But you said you wanted your weapons and belongings, did you not?”
Conan grinned. “Lead on.”
They continued until, at a bend in the passage, Amram halted them. He pulled Conan and Achilea’s heads close to him and whispered almost too faintly to hear: “Around this comer is a guardroom. There should be at least two guards on duty, and these you must deal with yourselves. Your belongings lie in the chamber beyond.” The two nodded and drew their acquired weapons. At Conan’s signal, they rushed around the comer.
The two guards flanked the door, leaning on pole-arms, barely awake. They wore black armor and beast-masks and were so startled that they had not even time to speak before the two were upon them.
Conan grasped the one on the left by the throat and rammed his short sword through to the spine.
Achilea put her dagger through the throat of her victim as the women rushed from behind to grasp the arms of bom guards and lower them to the floor without a betraying clatter. With great dexterity, Amram darted forward to grab a toppling pole-arm before it could make a noise.
Instantly, Conan dashed through the door into the chamber beyond, bloody sword in his fist, turning in a circle, ready for more enemies. Nothing moved within the guardroom and he straightened, surveying the room’s contents. It was not one of the larger chambers, about ten paces on a side, but it was crammed with chests, and upon the walls miscellaneous objects were draped from pegs.
“Here!” said Achilea triumphantly. She rushed to a wall where her belt of tooled leather hung, her sword and dagger sheathed upon it. She snatched the belt down and fastened it about her sinewy waist, then crouched to examine the bundle of goods on the floor below the peg.
Conan found his own weapons nearby, hanging above a heap that contained his desert robes and miscellaneous belongings. He rolled everything except the weapon-belt into his cape and slung it all over his shoulder. The women were doing the same. They ignored the things that had belonged to Jeyba and Kye-Dee.
Something seemed to the Cimmerian to be missing. “Where are our camel saddles and harness?”
“Still on the camels, for aught I care,” Achilea said. “I hope so. It will save us time getting away from this hideous place.”
“Come!” Amram urged. “We have tarried here too long. The city will be waking soon and it will be time to change the guards at your cells. An alarm spreads through this city instantly!”
“I am ready,” Conan said, striding out of the guardroom. “Now that we are armed, these degenerates had best not stand in our way!”
Up the great spiral and ramp they went, and as they did, they heard a loud commotion behind them.
There was a thunder of gongs and a clanging of alarm bells and a shrill skirling of unearthly pipes.
“Too late, dogs!” Achilea cried. “We are out of your grasp now!”
“Do not speak presumptuously!” Amram warned. “The gods like nothing better than to punish mortals for making such pronouncements.”
“Just now,” said the Amazon, “I fear neither gods, men nor devils!”
Then they were in a huge, dim space where their voices and footsteps echoed. It was the interior of the immense idol within Janagar’s greatest temple. The vapor torches still burned inside the immense bronze thing, their flames so low that only the vaguest shapes were visible above them.
“Where is that gate?” Achilea demanded.
“It is beneath the feet of the goddess,” Amram said, rushing to the front of the chamber. “There are controls here somewhere.” He jerked upon levers and there came to them a rattling of chains and a creaking of hinges. But the noise from behind them was already much louder.
“They come!” Payna cried. “Many of them!” The three women arranged themselves between the mouth of the ramp and their queen. Short swords and axes appeared in their hands as if by magick.
Conan and Achilea drew their longer blades and set their feet, ready for anything.
“Hurry with that gate!” Conan shouted. “I’d rather deal with them outside than in this bronze tomb!”
Light blossomed within the idol as the torches flared, five-foot tongues of flame leaping from their cupped terminals. Someone below had turned up the vapor. Conan chanced a look overhead. There was always the possibility that enemies could lurk above, ready to drop upon them. He saw a maze of catwalks and ladders, chains hanging in great loops, levers and wheels and gears of unguessable function, but no living thing. Then something above caught his eye. It was a faint purple glow, one that he had seen before.
There was no further time for speculation. The guards had reached the end of the ramp. The Cimmerian darted around the queen’s women and hacked at the first three to gain the top. Steel crunched through black armor and into flesh and bone. Taken aback, the three were easily overcome. Even as he hewed, he noted with relief that this was not the well-drilled team that had greeted their arrival with nets and lassos. They were merely the guards who had been first to answer the alarm, and they were all half-winded from the long ascent.
“Give me room!” Achil
ea demanded as she waded in, her blade whistling. Two guards rushed to meet her and fell back as swiftly, one with an arm slashed to the bone its whole length, the other pumping bright blood from a severed artery in his thigh. The wild women plied their shorter weapons with expert skill. The ramp grew slippery with blood, and for a moment the attackers withdrew in confusion.
Conan risked a glance over his shoulder and saw that Amram had the door open about a foot as he heaved at various levers and stole glances of his own at the skirmish behind him. He heaved once more and there was a mechanical clank. The door opened almost another foot. The Cimmerian made a note of which lever it was that the little man fought with.
“Go!” Conan shouted “Get through the door and I will hold diem here, men follow. Head for the great gate and our camels!”
“I’ll not desert a fight!” Achilea barked at him, her face transported with battle-lust. “No man does my fighting for me!”
Conan turned to the other women, “Get your queen out of here!”
Dumbly, they nodded. Then all three laid hold of Achilea and began dragging her bodily away.
“Conan!” she cried. “You cannot stay them alone! They will kill you!”
“They want us alive, have you forgotten? ” Truthfully, be was not certain of any such thing, Omia might want him alive, but she was nowhere to be seen and these guards might well have standing orders to kill any intruders. He saw the women hustle their chieftainess through the doorway. Amram was not in sight. Presumably, he had gone through first, exerting his customary care for his own hide. Then the Cimmerian had no attention to spare.
A guard larger than the others and more heavily armored came through the rabble of his fellows amid approving growls. Conan guessed that the local champion had arrived. The man wore a demon-faced mask and in his hands he cradled a mace with a flanged head. With a roar, he swung a full-armed blow at Conan’s head. The Cimmerian ducked and replied with a horizontal slash, but the guard leapt back to avoid it and brought his own weapon down to block the tip. Blade and mace-shaft rang and sparked. Then the massive head of the weapon arced toward Conan’s side, but the Cimmerian stepped within the man’s swing and with one hand, grabbed the guard’s arm below the elbow.
The Conan Compendium Page 518