“Dog-spawn!” Conan snarled, making for him. He wag stopped by a gesture from Achilea.
“Mine,” was all she said, but she put so much queenly authority into her voice that the berserk Cimmerian and the furious warrior-woman Payna were stopped in their tracks. With leonine tread, Achilea walked toward Abbadas, and as she did, she idly tossed her bloody sword back over her shoulder. It spun end over end and Payna caught it on the fly, as if by long practice.
“Good steel is wasted on the likes of you, you loathsome little wretch!” she said with withering contempt.
Abbadas giggled insanely. “Die however you want, big woman!” He came for her, putting all his strength into an overhand slash intended to open her from shoulder to hip.
Achilea’s big-knuckled left hand took him by the wrist and stopped the whistling blade cold. The reptilian eyes bulged with amazement, but he had little leisure in which to appreciate her strength as her right forearm swept across the bend of his elbow and her right hand grasped her own forearm as her long right leg swept around behind his body.
With all the power of her arms, shoulders and back, Achilea bent forward, using the usurper’s own forearm as a lever and his elbow as a fulcrum. Had he been able to fall to the floor swiftly enough, he might have bought himself a second’s respite in which to take action, but her steely thigh was behind him, preventing just that. With a sickening series of sounds, the bones of his forearm gave way, his elbow was wrenched apart, his upper arm was torn from his socket as its bone snapped in the middle.
Abbadas screamed and as he did, his left hand snatched his dagger from its sheath at his belt. The deadly steel lanced toward her flank, but her right hand, released from its task, snapped down and took his wrist with an audible smack just as the keen point indented the flesh above her right hip.
His useless right arm flopped to his side as her left hand went around his neck, and with a surge of brute strength, she lifted him from the floor, bringing his face within inches for her own. She smiled at him ferociously as she squeezed. His eyes bulged yet farther and began to turn red as blood sprang first from his ears, then from his nostrils and mouth. The dagger fell from his nerveless fingers and there were several very faint, popping noises. She dropped the corpse to the floor at her feet, where, like a beheaded snake, it quivered and flopped for a while as foamy blood bubbled from its mouth, propelled by the last wind from its dying lungs.
Conan whistled in appreciation at the feat. “Crom, woman! Remind me never to get on your bad side!”
She ignored the comment and walked to the body of Lombi. There she knelt and placed her fingers in the corpse’s blood and then drew another line beside the first on her face. Payna repeated the ritual.
Conan cut a scrap of cloth from the clothing of the dead Abbadas and wiped his blade, then resheathed it. Looking around him, he saw that all the workmen and slaves had fled the vapor-works save the hulking, tiny-headed slaves, who stood about with their mouths open, lacking anyone to tell them what to do.
He found the great master wheel, its six slaves standing slack in their chains. “Turn this thing!” be ordered. They stared at him, no slightest glimmer of comprehension in their eyes.
“Crom and Llyr and all their brood!” be swore, laying his own hands to the wheel and wrenching at it. Achilea and Payna joined him and added their efforts. All their strength would not budge it.
“May I be of assistance?”
Conan turned to see Amram standing near, his hands clasped behind him and an expression of studious innocence upon his face. “I was wondering when you would show up,” he said.
“May I inquire why you do this?” asked Amram.
“We have been so instructed by a wizard named Arsaces, who even now battles something above that he calls the Adversary,” Conan replied, jabbing a thick finger upward.
“Arsaces!” the small man said, wincing. “That is one I would rather not meet just now.”
“You need not,” Conan said. “Just get these slaves to shut off the vapor to the city.”
“Very well.” The little man spoke a few odd-sounding words and the slaves put their malformed hands to the spokes and began to push. Clearly, the wheel was seldom turned, for it squealed in protest as it began to move. The slaves plodded like sailors hauling up an anchor with a ship’s capstan, and slowly the constant hissing of the vapor-works began to subside. In a few minutes, it ceased entirely.
“Good,” Conan announced. “Now tell them to break it”
“I beg your pardon?” Amram said politely.
“Tell them to break the wheel, Set curse you!” barked the Cimmerian. “I want this machine disabled!”
“You needn’t shout,” sniffed the little man. “Clear instructions will suffice,” He spoke further words in the same language as before. Stolidly, the slaves shuffled to one side of the wheel, as far as their chains would allow, and they put their shoulders beneath it and strained upward with their massive legs and backs. With a screech of tortured metal, the great wheel began to tilt. Then it snapped from its shaft and clanged to the stone floor.
“Will that be satisfactory?” Amram inquired.
“It is what Arsaces wanted,” Conan told him. “Now the whirlwind-demons can come down here and destroy the underground city.”
Amram closed his eyes and seemed to be having trouble swallowing some large object. “The whirlwind-demons, you say?” he said at last, his voice trembling. “We cannot stay here!”
“And it is a cursed certainty we cannot go back up!” Conan said. “Not to the horror we left above in the temple!”
“And I am heartily sick of the desert!” Achilea said, towering over the chameleon wizard. “So, Amram, or Firagi, or whatever you name is, guide us to me river!”
“Yes,” he said, one hand kneading the other. “Yes, I think that would be the best idea all around.
But to destroy this marvelous ancient city, with all its riches, all its secrets! What ‘a loss!”
“It should have died ages ago,” said Conan, “Forget about it and lead on.”
“Follow me, then,” Amram said. They trailed after him and as they hurried through the dimmed city, he wailed his woeful displeasure. “Five years I have worked toward this! It was to have made me rich beyond the wildest imaginings of a miser. The lore of Janagar would have catapulted me to the highest order of mages!”
“Where the real wizards would have promptly taken everything you had and cast you down again,”
Achilea said scornfully.
“Besides,” Conan added, “you haven’t done badly out of this for a runaway Kothian slave.” He tapped the bulging sack that depended from Amram’s girdle. “You seem to have acquired some valuables during your stay.”
“A few baubles, yes,” said the little man. shrugging. “Perhaps enough for a little stake to get me started again, after ail this sacrifice.”
“If those are opals,” Conan said meaningfully, “you are set for life.”
“Surely you would not deprive me of this small satisfaction?”
Conan laughed “No, all I want just now is that river.”
They passed through the darkened city, seeing only by the dim, uncertain light of small clusters and
lines of glowing fungus. The people of the city crouched in huddled groups, wailing in their fear of the doom that had come upon their ancient domain.
“Out!” Conan shouted at them. “If any of you has the spirit to live, get to the river. Janagar is no more!” None of diem paid him the slightest attention.
The river-smell grew ever stronger, and at last they followed Amram to a gigantic natural cavern where black water flowed along in a broad, slow stream. By the light of great, globular clusters of glowing fungus, they saw a rough stone jetty to which was tied a long raft of logs with a rude brush hut erected in its center. To the raft was lashed a targe dugout canoe. Upon the raft stood four tiny brown men who began to gesticulate wildly and chatter questions at the newcomers.
/> The river-folk,” Amram informed his companions. “They are puzzled by the commotion and the extinguishing of the torches. I fear I must tell them that their age-old trade with Janagar is at an end. No, perhaps I shall wait until we are well away from here,” He began to converse with the tiny men in a language Conan did not understand. Soon they quieted.
“Where does the river lead?” Conan demanded
“This is a loop that branches from the Styx,” Amram told him. He pointed to his left. “Upstream, where the villagers live, it passes beneath a mountain range and emerges almost at the boundary between Punt and Keshan.” He pointed to his right, “Downstream, it rejoins the Styx near the great bend, with Stygia on the southern bank and land claimed by Shem to the north. The villagers come here, trade their wares, including the timber of the raft, and paddle back home in the dugout. I am about to take passage with them, to return to my home in Keshan. I think the canoe is large enough to hold all of us”
“Nay,” said Conan. “We will take the raft. I’ll wager there is a war in Shem, where a good fighting-man can make his way with a sword and a stout heart” He cocked an eyebrow toward Achilea and she smiled.
“Aye, just now I’ve no urge to see the dark and jungled lands. I’m for the raft,” she declared.
“Then farewell, my friends,” Amram said, stepping into the dugout. “In three days, you should see the sunlight again.” He shook his head. “With all the fools, knaves and cowards in the world, why did I have to encounter a pair of genuine heroes?”
“Your gods do not love you, Amram,” Conan said. “But may they watch over you anyway.
Farewell.” The brown men climbed into the dugout and took up their paddles. Minutes later, they were out of sight.
“Let’s be off,” Conan said. They stepped aboard the raft and while the women took up poles, Conan drew his sword and slashed through the ropes that bound the float to the jetty fore and aft. Putting their shoulders to the poles, they pushed themselves to midstream; then they laid the poles aside as the current carried them downstream. Gradually, the sounds of the city faded behind them. They soon were out of the great cavern and in a cave that was narrower, but still spacious. Overhead, the glowing fungus began to thin out.
At the stern of the raft was an earth-filled firebox and a stack of wood. With flint and steel, me Cimmerian struck a light and soon had a small fire burning. The smoky, orange flames seemed decidedly clean after the unnatural lighting of the underground city. Achilea came to stand beside him.
“Payna,” she said, “tend the fire. Should the raft drift too close to a wall, fend it off with one of the poles. Conan and I have matters to attend to in the hut here. Do not disturb us.”
Payna looked the Cimmerian up and down without favor. Then she delivered the longest speech he had heard pass her lips. “My queen, I honor this great, ugly beast for the services he has done you, but as I have said to you before, you are far too soft where men are concerned.”
They went into the little hut. It was crude and unfurnished, but they cared nothing for that Achilea unbuckled her sword-belt and her weapons fell to the logs along with his. She tugged at the thongs fastening her skimpy garments.
“Three days,” she said. “How much can we accomplish in three days?”
“More than any ordinary man and woman,” he replied, performing the same actions. “As Amram
said, we are heroes!” Then they lunged for each other like mating tigers.
The three stood on the northern riverbank and watched the raft float downstream toward the Western Sea. The Cimmerian stretched his mighty arms, exulting in open, clean air and sunshine that was not the brutal glare of the desert. To the south, they could just discern a pyramid where some .forgotten king of Stygia was entombed. To the north, east and west, grassland extended to the limit of vision.
“Let’s go that way,” Conan said, pointing westward. “If we don’t find a war before long, I don’t know Shem.”
“No,” Achilea said with a sad sigh. “I go that way.” She pointed to the north.
“Why?” Conan asked, astonished. “What is up there? “
“My homeland. I want to see my son once more. And I want my throne back. I will go and fight Briseis. All my wilderness sisters save Payna are dead now because of her. It is time for her to die.”
He stood as if thunderstruck. “Very well then, I will help you.”
She shook her head. “No, Conan, it is hopeless. When I am queen again, there will be no place for a man at my side.” She smiled wanly. “We could not be together for long; you know that as well as I do.
We are heroes, and two such cannot live beneath the same roof. We would be at each other’s throats before the turning of a year. Farewell, Cimmerian.” She leaned forward, kissed him lightly, men turned and began to walk northward, her last follower close behind her.
Conan stood watching as the two forms dwindled with distance and vanished from sight. “Farewell, my queen,” he whispered at last With a grim expression on his craggy features, he turned and strode west. Far behind him, the eternal sands of the desert buried the shattered ruins of Janagar of the Opal Gates.
The Devil in Iron
1
The fisherman loosened his knife in its scabbard. The gesture was instinctive, for what he feared was nothing a knife could slay, not even the saw-edged crescent blade of the Yuetshi that could disembowel a man with an upward stroke. Neither man nor beast threatened him in the solitude which brooded over the castellated isle of Xapur.
He had climbed the cliffs, passed through the jungle that bordered them, and now stood surrounded by evidences of a vanished state. Broken columns glimmered among the trees, the straggling lines of crumbling walls meandered off into the shadows, and under his feet were broad paves, cracked and bowed by roots growing beneath.
The fisherman was typical of his race, that strange people whose origin is lost in the gray dawn of the past, and who have dwelt in their rude fishing huts along the southern shore of the Sea of Vilayet since time immemorial. He was broadly built, with long apish arms and a mighty chest, but with lean loins and thin bandy legs. His face was broad, his forehead low and retreating, his hair thick and tangled. A belt for a knife and a rag for a loin-cloth were all he wore in the way of clothing.
That he was where he was proved that he was less dully incurious than most of his people. Men seldom visited Xapur. It was uninhabited, all but forgotten, merely one among the myriad isles which dotted the great inland sea. Men called it Xapur, the Fortified, because of its ruins, remnants of some prehistoric kingdom, lost and forgotten before the conquering Hyborians had ridden southward. None knew who reared those stones, though dim legends lingered among the Yuetshi which half intelligibly suggested a connection of immeasurable antiquity between the fishers and the unknown island kingdom.
But it had been a thousand years since any Yuetshi had understood the import of these tales; they repeated them now as a meaningless formula, a gibberish framed by their lips by custom. No Yuetshi had come to Xapur for a century. The adjacent coast of the mainland was uninhabited, a reedy marsh given over to the grim beasts that haunted it. The fisher's village lay some distance to the south, on the mainland. A storm had blown his frail fishing craft far from his accustomed haunts, and wrecked it in a night of flaring lightning and roaring waters on the towering cliffs of the isle. Now in the dawn the sky shone blue and clear, the rising sun made jewels of the dripping leaves. He had climbed the cliffs to which he had clung through the night because, in the midst of the storm, he had seen an appalling lance of lightning fork out of the black heavens, and the concussion of its stroke, which had shaken the whole island, had been accompanied by a cataclysmic crash that he doubted could have resulted from a riven tree.
A dull curiosity had caused him to investigate; and now he had found what he sought and an animal-like uneasiness possessed him, a sense of lurking peril.
Among the trees reared a broken dome-like structure, built of
gigantic blocks of the peculiar iron-like green stone found only on the islands of Vilayet. It seemed incredible that human hands could have shaped and placed them, and certainly it was beyond human power to have overthrown the structure they formed. But the thunderbolt had splintered the ton-heavy blocks like so much glass, reduced others to green dust, and ripped away the whole arch of the dome.
The fisherman climbed over the debris and peered in, and what he saw brought a grunt from him. Within the ruined dome, surrounded by stone-dust and bits of broken masonry, lay a man on the golden block. He was clad in a sort of skirt and a shagreen girdle. His black hair, which fell in a square mane to his massive shoulders, was confined about his temples by a narrow gold band. On his bare, muscular breast lay a curious dagger with a jeweled pommel, shagreen-bound hilt, and a broad crescent blade. It was much like the knife the fisherman wore at his hip, but it lacked the serrated edge, and was made with infinitely greater skill.
The fisherman lusted for the weapon. The man, of course, was dead; had been dead for many centuries. This dome was his tomb. The fisherman did not wonder by what art the ancients had preserved the body in such a vivid likeness of life, which kept the muscular limbs full and unshrunken, the dark flesh vital. The dull brain of the Yuetshi had room only for his desire for the knife with its delicate waving lines along the dully gleaming blade.
Scrambling down into the dome, he lifted the weapon from the man's breast. And as he did so, a strange and terrible thing came to pass. The muscular dark hands knotted convulsively, the lids flared open, revealing great dark magnetic eyes whose stare struck the startled fisherman like a physical blow. He recoiled, dropping the jeweled dagger in his perturbation. The man on the dais heaved up to a sitting position, and the fisherman gaped at the full extent of his size, thus revealed. His narrowed eyes held the Yuetshi and in those slitted orbs he read neither friendliness nor gratitude; he saw only a fire as alien and hostile as that which burns in the eyes of a tiger.
The Conan Compendium Page 522