Conan and the Shaman's Curse (24 page)

The stone path, no longer so choked with vegetation, led directly to an arched portal in the base of the tall tower. Inside he would find the fountain of the gods and other remnants of the Rahaman civilization. Was the atnalga there, simply lying on the floor amid the bones of Kulunga? Conan prayed that the legendary Ganak warrior had not met his doom in the plant-beast’s lair—a lair now submerged in bilious muck. Conan would be a greybeard by the time he sifted through that pile of skeletal scraps. The Cimmerian turned his attention to his sword. He had just found a suitable stone to hone the sword’s edge when Makiela finally opened her eyes.

“Asusa,” she mumbled, stretching.

“Makiela!” Sajara jumped to her feet, her eyes lighting. “How do you feel?”

The tall Ganak groaned, managing a terse smile. “Alive,” she replied.

Conan and Sajara explained the situation to her, and she assured them that she could stand watch over Kanitra and Avrana, who were still unconscious. “I have slept enough,” she added, “and we must return to the village before the Kezati. Go!”

Sajara left her shell-spike with Makiela, who had lost hers earlier while battling the plant-beast. Conan examined his blade critically as he and Sajara headed toward the tower. Akbitanan steel was well worth the price it commanded in what few markets he had seen it. How Khertet had come by it, Conan could only guess. The nearly unbreakable blade could fetch its weight in gold for one who was fool enough to sell it.

“Did the gods give that weapon—sword,” Sajara corrected, stumbling over the word, “to you?”

“In a way,” he said with a dark chuckle. “It is a long tale.”

“Tell me.”

Conan briefly recounted his capture and the dire events that followed it, leading up to the melee with the Kezati. He omitted the details of his ape transformation; even the memory of that slaughter still made him uncomfortable. Sajara shook her head in bewilderment throughout most of his account, interrupting frequently with questions. The Cimmerian did his best to explain, but he was no teacher. The ship seemed most difficult for her to grasp, despite his efforts to illustrate it.

“Only our warriors use the log-boats,” she commented when he was comparing those crude Ganak craft to the ill-fated Mistress.

For Conan, the conversation was an awkward reminder of the gulf of differences that separated his world from hers. The Ganaks were in ways more primitive than the tribes in the deepest recesses of the Black Kingdoms, but their society at times seemed as complex as any he had encountered. They seemed to lack any real ability to read or write; Jukona’s crude but nonetheless accurate map in the sand had been the only indication of any literate capacity. Yet they were rich in history and legends, passed down from elders to the young.

Moreover, they had lived without the benefits of fire or metalworking, which were basic but essential tools of survival for most cultures.

It seemed incredible that Jhaora and her people had not brought knowledge of these things to the Rahamans. Perhaps they had; the engravings on the path stones demonstrated the Rahaman’s ability to write, a skill lost to the Ganaks. Whatever lore the Rahamans acquired had become a casualty of the war between Jhaora’s gods and those of the Rahamans. The Ganaks had been fortunate to survive that conflict, even if only to become a stagnant race imprisoned on this primal island.

Shaking these musings from his mind, Conan scanned the short stretch of pathway separating them from their goal. Aside from the jumble of slack-stemmed vines and a few large cylindrical buildings, he saw nothing remarkable about the region in the centre of the ruins. The only feature of note was the tower itself, a wide spike of stone that narrowed smoothly to the worn spire and rose above the impressive outer walls. It was a dazzling piece of work. One might expect to pass by it while strolling through the aristocratic districts of civilization’s more splendid cities. On this isle, however, it could not have been more out of place.

When they drew closer to it, Conan could see that spiral strings of symbols like those on the undersides of the path stones adorned its weather-worn surface. Near the base, he saw evidence of attempts to deface those symbols. As Y’Taba had said, Jhaora’s people had scoured many of the Rahaman writings from the stones. But farther up, the interlocking spirals had been subjected only to the gradual weathering of wind and rain.

A narrow ramp wound partway up the tower, ending at a tall, arched door. Conan judged its height to be half again his own. The Rahamans might well have been taller than their Ganak descendants.

At last they stood before the door. It was a pristine slab of stone without any feature resembling hasp, hinge, or handle. Conan found it curiously unmarred.

“How are we to enter here?” Sajara asked, befuddled.

“Unless your Rahamans magicked it with nameless arts, we shall pick its locks, whatever form they may take.”

After studying it carefully, Conan found no opening mechanisms. Setting his shoulder against its edge, he threw his whole weight into a shove that would have burst the hinges of an oaken door.

He might as well have tried to topple a Stygian pyramid.

“Bel curse it,” he said, running his hands all around it for a hidden means of entry but finding nothing. “We can try again to force it open,” he told Sajara.

She nodded.

“On three,” he said, beginning the count. When he reached three, they shoved in unison.

Veins knotted in Conan’s temples, his face reddening from effort. Sajara’s sleek muscles tensed, and she dug in her feet to bring the full strength of her legs to bear on the door. She shut her eyes as she and Conan strained against the unyielding stone.

“What in the fiery fifth hell of Zandru—” the Cimmerian exclaimed, backing away, eyes wide with astonishment. The surface of the door had rippled like water, swallowing up Sajara. Or so it seemed, until he heard the loud smack that was unmistakably made by her body slamming against the stone floor.

“Conan!” she cried out. “Where are you?”

“Out here, Crom curse it! Why did this blasted thing let—ha!” he suddenly shouted triumphantly. He understood now why the door had been unmarred by weather or vandals. It was illusory... a phantom existing solely in the eyes of those who beheld it. Pressing against the portal with his palm, he closed his eyes and cleared his mind of the portal’s image. He pushed again, not because he hoped to open it himself but rather in the hopes that his efforts would blind his mind’s eye.

Stone became air beneath his sweating palms; overbalancing, he sprawled unceremoniously to the floor. Avoiding the impulse to break his fall with his hands, he forced his body to roll with the impact. Sajara nimbly leapt aside.

From inside the tower, the door was invisible. They looked out at the ruins. The effect reminded Conan of mirrors he had seen once in a decadent inn of Shadizar, where all manner of fleshy delights were available for a price. The depraved proprietor had fitted many rooms with these mirrors, transparent from one side, and charged patrons for the privilege of watching the room’s occupants while remaining unseen. Of course, this Rahaman door went one step further. He speculated that many, if not all, of the cylindrical buildings surrounding the tower might boast of similar portals. It would explain why his earlier searches had revealed nothing.

“Look,” Sajara pointed downward.

Conan immediately recognized the fountain, though he had seen it only from below. They stood in a high-ceilinged chamber positioned directly above the vine-beast’s den. Before them sparkled the fountain of the gods. Its countless facets reflected the sunlight onto the tower’s walls, which glittered as if set with living jewels of ever-shifting hues: glowing greens, luminous blues, fiery reds, iridescent yellows... a dazzling rainbow of shards. Never had Conan seen its like; even the most opulent Ophirean palace had no fountain as stunning as this one.

The effect, however, was spoiled by the shallow puddle of green mire that just covered the bottom of the basin. The chamber below had apparently filled completely with that contaminated swell from the plant-creature’s lair.

A cleverly built stone ramp spiralled upward along the tower’s inner wall, forming a tapering path to the lofty spire far above. Conan moved warily along it, looking in all directions for any sort of traps. More of the cryptic spiral script adorned the walls, but Conan scarcely gave it a glance. Sajara stayed at his side, gripping her knife in one hand and Conan’s free arm in the other.

As they neared the top of the winding walkway, it narrowed, forcing them to turn sideways and edge along it with their backs to the wall. Its irregular, broken state suggested that it had once been considerably wider. An awkward climb took them so high that the fountain below looked no larger than a crystal goblet. Conan, who was at home in such lofty environs, showed no discomfort, but Sajara trembled at every step, as she clutched at his hand, looking everywhere but down.

The slender pathway ended at a chamber once covered by the worn spire. Now Conan could see that its condition was worse than he originally thought. The remnant of a crack-ridden ceiling seemed ready to cave in at any moment. All that remained of the roof was an overhanging fragment of rock which cast a thin shadow across the sparsely furnished room. It seemed austere in comparison with the antechamber below.

But to Conan, its contents were no less fascinating.

Rubble covered half of the floor, partially burying three large chests that stood against a curving wall. In front of these trunks sat a fourth, similar in construction but much smaller. All featured metal comers and bands that secured pitch-smeared wood planks. Rounded lids topped the chests’ square sides. On the wall opposite these, seeming entirely out of place in the wrecked tower, was an ornate chair fashioned from what looked like solid opal. No rubble had accumulated around the incredible object. It was elaborately carved in seamless designs, suggesting that it had been sculpted from an enormous block of that iridescent white stone. If it were truly opal, Conan could not hazard the vaguest guess of its worth. The thing was on par with the extravagant furnishings one might find in the lavish palaces of Khorshemish, Belverus, Luxur, or even Aghrapur and Tarantia.

Upon it sprawled a skeleton.

The skull had tumbled from the bony neck, landing, by a droll quirk of fate, in the skeletal lap. The throne clearly had been built for someone much smaller than its present occupant. The pelvis scarcely fit between the throne’s arms, and the thigh bones jutted far beyond the edge of the seat. Blades of broad shoulders rose well above the ornate chair’s slender back.

Resting on the ivory knees was an exotic scimitar. Its shape mimicked that of a serpent’s fang, but its composition was wholly different. It was as if a blacksmith—no, a stone smith—had moulded a piece of basalt into a sword. Puzzled, Conan suppressed the urge to snatch the thing by its gleaming black hilt. A basalt blade would be a poor weapon indeed, bound to shatter against even the basest of bronze weapons or armour. And he doubted if even the most skilled artisan could have fashioned such an incredible work from basalt, smoothing every chip and chisel mark from the surface to bring out the lustre like that of polished steel.

What stayed Conan’s hand was a superstitious dread of the scimitar’s dead owner. Bony fingers rested on the blade, and empty sockets glared from the huge skull as if promising a dire fate for any would-be thieves. As a youth, Conan had once faced such a menace, a corpse that rose up when the Cimmerian had taken away its sword.

But of course this was different.

“Kulunga?” Sajara’s voice was an awed murmur. She knelt in the doorway, lowering her eyes from the skeleton to the floor.

“Aye, or so it seems,” said Conan. He crossed the rubble and examined the scimitar closely. It looked like basalt. He reached toward it, hesitating for a moment. By Crom, if he was the chosen one, he was entitled to it.

Grasping the smooth, cool hilt, he slid the scimitar out. It rasped against the aged bones. When no immediate doom came upon him, he breathed a sigh of relief. “The atnalga is ours at last!” he grinned, brandishing the peculiar weapon. It felt nothing like it looked—indeed, the atnalga was lighter and more flexible than his sword. If anything, it seemed to lack sufficient weight to be suitable for its purpose. Slender, lightweight blades were useful only for thrusting. They were typically chosen by foppish aristocrats who pranced and played at sword fighting but dared not venture within a league of a real battle. Only a fool would pit such a weapon against a western broadsword of the sort favoured by Conan.

He tested the atnalga’s edge against his thumb and grunted in surprise. It slipped through his thick, calloused skin before he even felt the fiery tang of its bite. A normal sword cut would not have stung as this nick did. The blade’s lethal sharpness and pristine condition impressed him. It had been lying here for Crom knew how long, exposed to rain, moist air, and other elements that would have rusted even oiled, finely tempered steel into a worthless hunk of metal.

Its hilt tingled in his palm. The hairs on his hand and arm stood up as if a chill were creeping up his arm, but the blade felt warm to his touch. The tingle travelled., too, into his side and neck until it reached his head. A sudden shock of pain jolted him, crashing like a wave from his palm to his arm and searing his brain. He fell to one knee and tried to release his grip, but his muscles met with unseen resistance, as if an invisible giant had clamped a hand around his own.

“Conan! What is the matter?” Sajara was at his side, an alarmed expression on her face.

“Must... let... go...” he began, his tongue swelling inside his mouth and robbing him of his speech. Intense heat flared up in his head, searing his brain until he could barely stand to be conscious. Conan struggled to drop the hilt, his sweat-beaded face reddening. Twitching, he writhed on the floor, bearing down on his fingers with every shred of willpower he could summon.

Sibilant whispers slithered in his ears. False one, an accusing voice shrilled. Infidel! another shrieked. Die!