Conan the Unconquered Part 9

XII.

The common room of the Blue Bull grew crowded as the appointed hour drew near, raucous with the laughter of doxies and drunken men. Conan neither laughed nor drank, but rather sat watching the door with his two friends.

"When will the man come?" Sharak demanded of the air. "Surely the hour has pa.s.sed."

Neither Conan nor Akeba answered, keeping their eyes fastened to the doorway. The Cimmerian's hand on his sword hilt tightened moment by long moment till, startlingly, his knuckles cracked.

The old astrologer flinched at the sound. "What adventure is this, sitting and waiting for Mitra knows how long while -"

"He is here," Akeba said quietly, but Conan was already getting to his feet.

The long-nosed Hyrkanian stood in the doorway beckoning to Conan, casting worried glances out into the night.

"Good luck be with you, Cimmerian," Akeba said quietly.

"And with you," Conan replied.

As he strode across the common room, he could hear the astrologer's querulous voice. "Why this talk of luck? They but wish to talk."

He did not listen for Akeba's answer, if answer there was. More than one man taken to a meeting in the night had never left it alive.

"Lead on," he told the Hyrkanian, and with one more suspicious look up and down the street the nomad did so.

Twilight had gone, and full night was upon the city. A pale moon hung like a silver coin placed low above the horizon. Music and laughter drifted from a score of taverns as they pa.s.sed through yellow pools of light spilling from their doors, and occasionally they heard shouts of a fight over women or dice.

"Where are you taking me?" Conan asked.

The Hyrkanian did not answer. He chose turnings seemingly at random, and always he cast a wary eye behind.

"My friends will not follow," Conan told him. "I agreed to come alone."

"It is not your friends I fear," the Hyrkanian muttered, then tightened his jaws and looked sharply at the muscular youth. Thereafter he would not speak again.

Conan wondered briefly who or what it was the man did fear, but his ownattention was split between watching for the ambush he might be entering and unraveling the twists and turns through which he was taken. When the fur-capped man motioned him through a darkened doorway and up a flight of wooden stairs, he was confident - and surprised - that for all the roundabout way they had gone the Blue Bull was almost due north, no more than two streets away. It was well to be oriented in case the meeting came to a fight after all.

"You go first," Conan said. Expressionless, the nomad complied. Loose steps creaked alarmingly beneath his tread. Conan eased his sword in its scabbard, and mounted after him.

At the top of the stairs a door let into a room lit by two guttering tallow lamps set on a rickety table. The rancid smell of grease filled the room. Including his guide, half a score sheepskin-coated Hyrkanians watched him warily, though none put hand to weapon. One Conan recognized, the man with the scar across his cheek, he over whose head Emilio had broken the wine jar.

"I am called Tamur," Scarface said. "You are Conan?" With his guttural accent he mangled the name badly.

"I am Conan," the young Cimmerian agreed shortly. "Where is the woman?"

Tamur gestured, and two of the others opened a large chest sitting against a wall. They lifted out Yasbet, bound in a neat package and gagged with a twisted rag. Her saffron robes were mud-stained and torn, and dried tracks of tears traced through the dust on her cheeks.

"I warned this one," Conan grated. "If she is hurt I'll-"

"No, no," Tamur cut in. "Her garments were so when we took her, behind the inn where you sleep. Had we ravaged your woman, would we show her to you so and yet expect you to talk with us?"

It was possible. Conan remembered the narrowness of the window through which she had had to wriggle. "Loose her feet."

Producing a short, curved dagger, one of the nomads cut the ropes at Yasbet's ankles. She tried to stand and, with a gag-m.u.f.fled moan, sat on the lid of the chest in which she had been confined. The Hyrkanian looked questioningly at Conan, and motioned with the knife to her still-bound wrists, and her gag, but the muscular youth shook his head. Based on past experience he would not risk what she might say or do if freed. She gave him an odd look, but, surprisingly, remained still.

"You were recognized in the enclosure of Baalsham," Tamur said.

"Baalsham?" Conan said. "Who is Baalsham?"

"You know him as Jhandar. What his true name is, who can say?" Tamur sighed. "It will be easier if I begin at the beginning."

He gave quick orders, and a flagon of cheap wine and two rough clay mugs were produced. Tamur sat on one side of the table, Conan on the other. The Cimmerian noted that the other nomads were careful not to move behind him and ostentatiously kept their hands far from swords. It was a puzzlement.

Hyrkanians were an arrogant and touchy people, by all accounts little given to avoiding trouble in the best of circ.u.mstances.

He accepted a mug of wine from Tamur, then forgot to drink as he listened.

"Five years gone," the scar-faced nomad began, "the man we call Baalsham appeared among us, he and the two strange men with yellow skins. He performed some small magicks, enough to be accepted among the tribal shamans, and began to preach much as he does here, of chaos and inevitable doom. Among the young men his teachings caught hold, for he called the western nations evil and said it was the destiny of the Hyrkanian people once more to ride west of the Vilayet Sea. And this time we were to sweep the land clean."

"A man of ambitions," Conan muttered. "But failed ambitions, it seems."

"By the thickness of a fingernail. Not only did Baalsham gather about him young warriors numbering in the thousands, but he began to have strange influence in the Councils of the Elders. Then creatures were seen in the night - like demons, or the twisted forms of men - and we learned from them that they were the spirits of murdered men, men of our blood and friends.h.i.+p,conjured by Baalsham and bound to obey him. Their spying was the source of his powers in the Councils."

Yasbet made a loud sound of denial through her gag, and shook her head violently, but the men ignored her.

"I've seen his sorcery," Conan said, "black and foul. How was he driven out? I a.s.sume he did not leave of his own accord."

"In a single night," Tamur replied, "ten tribes rose against him. The very spirits that had warned us, shackled by his will, fought us, as did the young warriors who followed him." He touched the scar on his cheek. "This I had from my own brother. The young warriors - our brothers, our sons, our cousins - died to the last man, and even the maidens fought to the death. In the end our greater numbers carried the victory. Baalsham fled, and with his fleeing the spirits disappeared before our eyes. To avoid bloodshed among the tribes, the Councils decreed that no man could claim blood right for the death of one who had followed Baalsham. Their names were not to be spoken. They had never existed. But some of us could not forget that we had been forced to spill the same blood that flows in our own veins. When traders brought rumors of the man called Jhandar and the Cult of Doom, we knew him for Baalsham. Two score and ten crossed the sea to seek our forbidden vengeance. Last night we failed, and now we number but nineteen." He fell silent.

Conan frowned. "An interesting tale, but why have you told it to me?"

The nomad's face twisted with reluctance. "Because we need your help,"

he said slowly.

"My help?" Conan exclaimed.

Tamur hurried on. "When the palace Baalsham was building was overrun, powers beyond the mind were loosed. The very ground melted and flowed like water. That place is now called the Blasted Lands. For three days and three nights the shamans labored to contain that evil. When they had constructed barriers of magic, the boundaries of the Blasted Lands were marked, and a taboo laid. No one of the blood may pa.s.s those markers and live. There must be devices of sorcery within, devices that could be turned against Baalsham. He could not have taken all when he fled. But no Hyrkanian may go to bring them out. No Hyrkanian." He looked at the big Cimmerian with intensity.

"I am done with Jhandar," Conan said.

"But is he done with you, Conan? Baalsham's enmity does not wither with time."

Conan snorted. "What care I for his enmity? He does not know who I am or where I am to be found. Let his enmity eat at him like foxes."

"You know little of him," Tamur said insistently. "He-"

With a loud crack the floorboards by Conan's feet splintered, and a twisted gray-green hand reached through the opening to grasp his ankle.

"The spirits have come!" one of the nomads cried, eyes bulging, and Yasbet began to scream through her gag. The other men drew weapons, shouting in confusion.

Conan scrambled to his feet, trying to pull his leg free, but those leathery fingers held with preternatural strength. Another deformed hand broke through the boards, reaching for him, but his sword leaped from its sheath and arched down. One hand dropped to the floor; the other still gripped him. But at least, he thought, steel would slice them.

With his sword point he pried the fingers loose from his ankle. Even as that hand fell free, though, the head of the creature, with pointed ears and dead, haunted eyes above a lipless gash of a mouth, smashed up through the floor in a shower of splintered wood. Handless arms stretched out to the hands lying on the floor.

The mold-colored flesh seemed to flow, and the hands were once more attached to the arms. The creature began to tear its way up into the room, ripping the st.u.r.dy floor apart as if its boards were rotted.

Suddenly another set of hands smashed through a wall, seizing a screaming Hyrkanian, tearing at his flesh. Conan struck off the head of the first creature, but it continued to scramble into the room even while its headspun glaring on the floor. A third head broke through the floor, and a hand followed to seize Yasbet's leg. With a shriek, she fainted.

Conan caught her as she fell, cutting her free of the creature that held her. There was naught to do in that room but die.

"Flee!" he shouted. "Get out!"

Tossing Yasbet over his shoulder like a sack of meal, he scrambled out the window to drop to the street below.

Struggling Hyrkanians fought to follow. Screams from that suddenly h.e.l.lish room rose to a crescendo, pursuing the big Cimmerian as he ran with his burden. As abruptly as it had begun, the screaming ceased. Conan looked back, but he could see nothing in the blackness.

A low moan broke from Yasbet, stirring on his shoulder. Remembering the tenacity of the hand that had gripped him, he lowered her to the ground and bent to feel along her leg. His fingers encountered the lump of leathery skin and sinew; it writhed at his touch. With an oath he tore it from her flesh and hurled it into the night.

Yasbet groaned, and opened her eyes. "I... I had a nightmare," she whispered.

"'Twas no dream," he muttered. His eyes searched the dark for pursuit.

"But it is done." He hoped.

"But those demons... you mean that they were real?" Sobs welled up in her. "Where did they come from? Why? Oh, Mitra protect us," she wailed.

Clamping a hand over her mouth, he growled, "Quiet yourself, girl. Were I to wager on it, I'd stack my coin on Jhandar's name. And if you continue screeching like a fishwife, his minions will find us. We may not escape so easily again." Cautiously he took his hand away; she scrambled to her feet, staring at him.

"I do not believe you," she said. "Or those smelly Hyrkanians." But she did not raise her voice again.

"There is evil in the man," he said quietly. "I've seen the foulest necromancy from him, and I doubt not this is more of his black art."

"It cannot be. The cult-"

"Hsst!"

The thump of many feet sounded down the street. Pulling Yasbet deeper into the shadows, Conan waited with blade at the ready. Dim figures appeared, moving slowly from the way he had come. The smell of old grease drifted to him.

"Tamur?" he called softly.

There were mutters of startlement, and the flash of bare blades in the dark. Then one figure came closer. "Conan?"

"Yes," the Cimmerian replied. "How many escaped?"

"Thirteen," Tamur sighed. "The rest were torn to pieces. You must come with us, now. Those were Baalsham's spirit creatures. He will find you eventually, and when he does ..."

Conan felt Yasbet s.h.i.+ver. "He cannot find me," he said. "He does not even know who to look for."

Suddenly another Hyrkanian spoke. "A fire," he said. "To the north. A big fire."

Conan glanced in that direction, a deathly chill in his bones. It was a big fire, and unless he had lost his way entirely the Blue Bull was in the center of it. Without another word he ran, pulling Yasbet behind him. He heard the nomads following, but he cared not if they came or stayed.

The street of the Lotus Dreamers was packed with people staring at the conflagration. Flames from four structures whipped at the night, and reflected crimson glints from watching faces. One, the furthest gone, was the Blue Bull.

Someone had formed a chain of buckets to the nearest cistern, Ferian among them, but it was clear that some goodly part of the district would be destroyed before the blaze was contained, most likely by pulling down buildings to surround the fire and letting it burn itself out.

As Conan pushed through the crowd of onlookers, a voice drifted to him."I hit it with the staff, and it disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.

I told you the staff had magical powers."

Smiling for what seemed the first time in days, Conan made his way toward that voice. He found Akeba and Sharak, faces smudged with smoke, sitting with their backs against the front of a potter's shop.

"You are returned," Sharak said when he saw the big Cimmerian. "And with the wench. To think we believed it was you who would be in danger this night.

I killed one of the demons."

"Demons?" Conan asked sharply.

Akeba nodded. "So they seemed to be. They burst through the walls and even the floors, tearing apart anyone who got in their way." He hesitated.

"They seemed to be hunting for someone who was not there."

"Me," Conan said grimly.

Yasbet gasped. "It cannot be." The men paid her no mind.

"I said that he would find you," Tamur said, appearing at Conan's side.

"Now you have no choice but to go to Hyrkania."

"Hyrkania!" Sharak exclaimed.

Regretfully, Conan nodded agreement. He was committed, now. He must destroy Jhandar or die.

XIII.

In the gray early morning Conan made his way down the stone quay, already busy with lascars and cargo, to the vessel that had been described to him. Foam Dancer seemed out of place among the heavy-hulled rounds.h.i.+ps and large dromonds. Fewer than twenty paces in length, she was rigged with a single lateen sail and pierced for fifteen oars a side in single banks. Her sternpost curved up and forward to a.s.sume the same angle as her narrow stem, giving her the very image of agility. He had seen her like before, in Sultanapur, small s.h.i.+ps designed to beach where the King's Custom was unlikely to be found. They claimed to be fis.h.i.+ng vessels, to the last one, these smugglers, and over this one, as over every smuggler he had seen, hung a foul odor of old fish and stale s.h.i.+p's cooking.

He walked up the gangplank with a wary eye, for the crews of such vessels invariably had a strong dislike for strangers. Two sun-blackened and queued seamen, stripped to the waist, watched him with dark unblinking eyes as he stepped down onto the deck.

"Where is your captain?" he began, when a surrept.i.tious step behind made him whirl.

His hand darted out to catch a dagger-wielding arm, and he found himself staring into a sharp-nosed face beneath a dirty red-striped head scarf. It was the Iranistani whose companions he had been forced to kill his first day in Aghrapur. And if he was a crew member, then as like as not the other two had been as well. The Iranistani opened his mouth, but Conan did not wait to hear what he had to say. Grabbing the man's belt with his free hand, Conan took a running step and threw him screaming over the rail into the harbor. Sharp-nose hit the garbage-strewn water with a thunderous splash and, beating the water furiously, set out away from the s.h.i.+p without a backward glance.