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Authors: Robert Jordan

BOOK: Conan The Destroyer
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Then Akiro’s magic burned its way through yet again, and they rushed out onto the landing. The lake was in turmoil, choppy waves radiating out from the palace. Conan heaved the hide boat, heavier for Bombatta’s armor already lashed in its bottom, to the water, handed Jehnna into it, then had to hold the craft against the scar-faced warrior’s attempt to push off before the others could scramble aboard.
When all were in, Conan leaped into the boat and snatched up a paddle. “Now,” he growled at Bombatta. The other man dug his paddle in without speaking.
Behind them the crystal palace scintillated with all the hues of the rainbow gone mad. Lightnings leaped from tall spires,
up
into cloudless skies.
“Faster,” Akiro urged, staring anxiously over his shoulder. “Faster!” He glared at Conan and Bombatta, wielding their paddles with all their might, and grunted. Trailing his hands in the water, the wizard began to chant, and slowly the water mounded beneath the boat. Swelling, the wave rushed forward, carrying the frail vessel faster than all their stroking could have. Malak loudly tried to pray his way through all known pantheons.
“Too much magic,” Conan grumbled.
“Perhaps,” Akiro replied, “you would rather wait until that palace—”
With a roar like the rending of the earth the crystal palace burst asunder. A hammering wind smote their backs, and then the wave they rode was caught and overwhelmed by a greater wave. Bow down at a precipitous angle, the hide craft hurtled across the lake. All Conan could do was dig in his paddle and hope to hold them straight. Did they turn sideways to that wall of water, all was lost.
The beach of black sand approached at incredible velocity, then disappeared beneath the wave. Abruptly the bow of the boat struck against the crater’s slope, and the vessel cartwheeled, catapulting them all into frothing water.
Conan struggled to his feet, fighting the water’s attempt to pull his legs from under him. Jehnna, floudering, swept by him, and he seized a handful of her robes and pulled her to him. She flung one arm around his neck and clung to him, panting, as the water rushed away, leaving them standing a quarter of the way up the slope of the crater.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
She nodded, then held up the hand not clutching him. “And I did not lose the key.” A crimson glow seeped between her fingers.
The Cimmerian shivered, and did not try to stop her when she moved away from him. From beneath her dripping robes she produced a black velvet bag into which she slipped the gem.
Conan shook his head. The longer this journey went on, the less he wanted to do with it. And yet—his hand closed around the golden amulet at his neck, the amulet Valeria had given him—and yet there were reasons.
He was surprised to realize that all of the party were not only alive but on their feet, if soaked and bedraggled, and staring at one another in disbelief that they still lived. Fear had apparently driven the horses despite their hobbles, for they stood, whickering nervously, higher still on the slope. The boat lay below them, and from there to the water were scattered the remains of their camp, such as was left. The cooking pot was gone, and half the waterbags, and a single blanket remained tangled in the rushes.
On the far side of the lake the only sign that the palace had ever been was a vast hole which the waters of the lake were quickly filling. Akiro stared toward it with something approaching sadness on his face. “All a creation of his will,” he said quietly. “It was magnificent.”
“Magnificent?” Zula’s voice squeaked with incredulity. “Magnificent?”
“I would as soon be far away from it,” Jehnna said. “And I can sense the treasure, now that I hold the key.” At that Bombatta hurried to her, hovering protectively and glaring at Zula and Conan as if the greatest danger came from them.
Malak rubbed his hands together, and lowered his voice for the Cimmerian’s ear alone. “Treasure. I like the sound of that better than wizards. We will help ourselves to whatever the girl does not want, eh? Soon we’ll be in Shadizar, living like kings.”
“Soon,” Conan agreed. His eyes on Jehnna were troubled, and his hand tightened on the amulet until the golden dragon dug into his palm. “Soon.”
 
I
t was possible, Conan reflected as he rode southward, that Akiro’s cures were worse than the wounds they were meant to heal. Gray-flanked mountains reared about him, cut with a hundred narrow valleys that could serve as roads for attack and an endless string of pinched passes where ambush could blossom in blood, but he found it hard to keep his mind on anything but the bandages, smeared with foul-smelling ointment, that covered the gashes the ape-creature had opened. Worse than the stench, they itched with a fury. Surreptitiously he scratched at the linen folds wrapped around his chest.
“Do not do that,” Jehnna said briskly. “Akiro says they must not be disturbed.”
“They are foolishness,” Conan grumbled. “I have had scratches such as these before. Wash the blood off, then let the air to them. That’s all I ever needed before.”
“They are
not
scratches,” she said firmly.
“And this grease stinks.”
“’Tis a pleasant herbal smell. I begin to wonder if you have sense enough to take care of yourself.” She went on, oblivious to his dumbfounded stare. “You will leave your bandages alone. Akiro says that his ointment will heal your wounds completely in only two days. He said I must keep an eye on you, but truly I did not believe it.”
Conan twisted in his high-pommeled saddle to glare back at the wispy-haired wizard. Akiro met his stare calmly, and the others were watching him as well. Malak and Zula wore looks of smug amusement. Bombatta seemed lost in thought, but his eyes rested on Conan in a fashion that made it clear he would not have wept had the ape-inflicted gashes proved fatal.
“I must say you do not seem grateful,” Jehnna continued. “Akiro labors to make you well, and you—”
“Mitra’s Mercies, girl,” Conan said abruptly “do you have to go on so?”
Hurt clouded her face, and the look in her big eyes made him feel it was his fault. “Forgive me,” she said shortly, and let her mount fall back. Malak replaced her.
“Sometimes,” Conan told the small thief, “I think I liked that girl more when she was affrighted of her own shadow.”
“I like them with more to fill the arm,” Malak said, and flinched at the Cimmerian’s cold gaze. “Ah, look you, it’s not the girl I want to talk of. Do you know where we are?”
Conan nodded. “I know.”
“Then why are you not turning another way? Inti put his hand over us! Another league at most, and we’ll be getting close to the village where we found Zula.” The wiry man made a sound half sigh and half groan. “They’ll not be glad to see us again, Cimmerian. It will be luck if we get no more than a fistful of arrows from ambush.”
“I know,” Conan said again. He looked back at Jehnna. She rode with her head down and the hood of her pale cloak pulled far forward to hide her face. Every line of her spoke of a deep sulk. “Must we ride all the way back to the village?” he called.
Jehnna jerked erect, blinking. “What? The village?” She looked around, then pointed to the east, to a strait pass rising between two dark, snow-capped peaks. “We must go that way.”
“Praise all the gods,” Malak breathed, and at that moment two-score mounted Corinthian soldiers burst upon them with longswords gleaming in their fists.
Conan wasted no wind on curses; he had not a moment for it in any case. His broadsword came into his hand barely in time to block an overhand strike that would have split his skull. He kicked a foot free of its stirrup to boot another Corinthian in red-crested helm from his saddle, and as if it were all one motion slashed open his first attacker’s throat. He saw Malak bend beneath a flashing blade to sink his dagger under the bottom of a polished breastplate, then another cavalryman was upon him.
“Conan!” The shrill scream reached him even as he engaged. “Conan!”
The one glance the Cimmerian could spare was enough to freeze the breath in his throat. A laughing soldier had his hand tangled in Jehnna’s dark hair, and their two horses danced in a circle, only her frantic grip on the tall pommel of her saddle keeping her from being unseated.
One glance Conan could spare, and when his eyes turned back to his opponent the Corinthian gasped at what he saw in those icy sapphires, for it was his own death. The man was no mean hand with his long cavalry sword, but he had no chance against the grim northland fury he faced now. Thrice their blades met, then Conan was turning away from a bloody corpse that toppled to the rocky ground behind him.
Desperately Conan raced his horse for Jehnna. The slender girl had loosed one hand from her saddle to clutch at the first in her hair; her other hand had only a precarious, clawed hold on the pommel. The horses pranced and circled, and the Corinthian threw back his head in gales of laughter.
“Erlik take you, dog!” Conan snarled, and stood in his stirrups so that his backhand blow had all the strength of his massive body driving the whipping blade.
So great was his rage that he barely felt the shock as his razor steel sheared through the laughing soldier’s neck. Mouth frozen forever in mirth the Corinthian’s head flew from his shoulders; blood fountained from a torso that remained erect for moments longer, then rolled over the rump of the prancing horse. Fingers twisted in Jehnna’s hair almost pulled her from her saddle before they slackened in death. She slumped across the pommel, sobbing wildly and staring with bulging eyes at the headless body beneath her horse’s hooves.
It took Conan no more than an instant to take in the situation on the small battlefield. Malak now rode one of the smaller, Corinthian horses, and even as the Cimmerian looked he leaped from that to another, pulling back the rider’s head by the red crest on his helmet and slitting his throat. Flashes and roars accompanied Akiro on his mad dashes about the narrow valley. Every time the rotund wizard found time to breathe he began the arm motions that heralded his major displays of power, but each time horsemen in polished breastplates would close about him and, with a shouted curse, Akiro would startle them with a burst of light and a clap of thunder. The deflagrations and deafening bangs hurt no one, though, and the old man was finding less time after each to try his greater wizardries. Zula and Bombatta each attempted to fight to Jehnna’s side, but flashing tulwar and whirling staff were hard pressed simply to keep back the soldiers who strove to cut them down.
In the first fury of battle the very numbers of the Corinthians made it inevitable that the balance of dead would favor the Zamorans, but there were simply too many riders in red-crested helms. And dying bravely and stupidly when there were alternatives was one custom of the cities that had never found favor with Conan.
“Scatter!” he roared. Two cavalrymen closed with the big Cimmerian; his blade swept in a circle, severing a swordarm at the elbow, axing deep into the second man’s shoulder. He wrenched his steel free without slackening his bellow. “Scatter! They are too many! Scatter!” Seizing Jehnna’s reins, Conan booted his horse toward the narrow pass she had indicated as the way they must go.
Three Corinthians spurred to put themselves in the fugitives’ way. Surprised grins of anticipation blossomed on their faces when Conan did not wheel in another direction; the grins turned to consternation when the Cimmerian galloped straight into them, his tall Zamoran mount bowling over a smaller animal. The Corinthian screamed as his thrashing horse rolled atop him, grinding him into the stony ground.
Stunned, the pair remaining fell back on defending themselves rather than attacking. Burdened with pulling Jehnna’s mount behind him, Conan knew he would have been hardpressed at best to fight a way past. Cold and methodically deadly, he taught them of their fatal mistake. He rode on from two fresh corpses—and one Corinthian screaming and coughing frothy blood—with eyes locked on the narrow pass, eyes as grim as death.
He could not afford to look back, and the knowledge gnawed at him. What if he did look back, and saw one of the others in need? He could not ride back to help. Jehnna must be gotten to the treasure, then to Shadizar with treasure and key, for Valeria. And even without Valeria, he knew he could not abandon the girl. She would get her throat cut, or be dragged behind a boulder by a cavalryman who thought it safe to ignore the unequal fight for a time. Teeth clenching till his jaw ached, he rode, and tried not to hear the sounds of battle fading behind.
 
T
he valleys were purple with the shadows of mountains when finally Conan drew rein. He had not galloped all that time—the horses could not have stood such a pace for so long on flat ground, let alone in a maze of twisting valleys—but the animals could not travel forever even at a sensible speed. Besides, he was of a mind to find a place for the night before it was too dark to see.
He glanced back at Jehnna, to see how she was bearing up. The slender girl’s cheeks were stained with dust and tear-tracks, and she was sunk in the wide-eyed silence with which she had first greeted him. She held to her saddle with both hands, and showed no more desire to take her own reins now than she had at any time during their flight. She had replied to his few comments only with shakes or nods of her head, though he reluctantly admitted his gruffness of the past few hours might have had something to do with that. All she appeared to want to do was stare at him, and it was beginning to make him nervous. If being in the middle of a battle had driven her mad … .
“Are you all right?” he demanded roughly. “Well? Speak to me, girl!”
“You were … terrible,” she said softly. “They might as well have held switches instead of swords.”
“It was not a sport,” he muttered, “not the game you still seem to think it.” Wondering why he suddenly felt so angry, he resumed looking for a place for camp.
“It is just that I have never seen such a thing before,” she continued. “What Zula did, in the village, what happened at Akiro’s hut, they were different. I … I was apart from them. They were like entertainments, like jugglers or a dancing bear.”
He could not help growling his reply. “Men died in those … entertainments. Better that they should die than we should, but that does not change the fact of it. No man should die for entertainment.” He saw a likely spot, half a score boulders, taller than a man on horseback, set close together and near to a steep slope. Twitching his reins, he turned toward them.
“I did not mean to offend you, Conan.”
“I am not offended,” he replied sharply.
He led her horse between two of the boulders, just far apart enough to admit him, and found a space between the great stones and the precipitous slope that was more than large enough for them and the animals. The boulders would keep off the worst of the mountain winds and, more importantly, shield them from searchers. Dismounting, he helped Jehnna down and set about unsaddling the horses.
“Build a fire,” she said, hugging her cloak about her. “I am cold.”
“No fire.” Even had there been anything to burn he would not have risked giving away their hiding place. “Here,” he said, and tossed the saddle blankets at her.
“They smell,” she sniffed, but as he squatted to check their meager supplies he saw that she had draped them about her shoulders over the cloak of white wool, albeit with much wrinkling of her nose.
He had had a waterskin and a pouch of dried meat tied behind his saddle, and there was enough of the meat for several days. Water, however, could be a problem. The skin was only half full.
“Do you think they got away, too?” she asked suddenly. “Bombatta, I mean, and Zula, and the others?”
“Perhaps.” Abruptly he tore the bandage from his head, and began unwinding the one about his chest.
“No!” Jehnna cried. “You must leave them. Akiro says—”
“Akiro and the others could be dead because of these,” he growled. “Because of me.” He used the bandages to wipe off the wizard’s greasy ointment. To his surprise the gashes were only slightly swollen pink lines, as if they had had days of healing already. “I was worrying about these, about the itching and the stink. If I had had my mind about me those Corinthians would never have been able to take us by surprise so easily.” With an oath he tossed the wadded cloth aside.
“It was not your fault,” she protested. “It was me. I was sulking like a child when I should have been telling you the way to go. Had I not been, we would have turned aside before they attacked us.”
Conan shook his head. “’Tis foolishness, Jehnna. In this twisted maze you could have seen the true way but moments sooner, at best, and the Corinthians would have attacked as soon as we turned away from them.” He chewed on a strip of dried mutton, as tough as ill-tanned leather and of equal taste, while she frowned pensively.
“Perhaps I could not have done anything more,” she said at last, “but I see your point concerning yourself. You, of course, can see around corners and through stone, and so should have warned us. It is quite wonderful to know we had two wizards in our party. But why did you not give us wings, so we could fly away?”
Conan choked on a bit of mutton. Regaining his breath, he glared at her, but she looked back as a wide-eyed vision of innocence. It was possible, he thought, that she was innocent enough to mean exactly what she said, to actually believe that he … . No! He was not fool enough to believe that of anyone. He opened his mouth for a retort, and closed it again with the certainty that anything he said would only end in making him feel truly the fool.
“Eat,” he said sourly, throwing the pouch of dried meat at her feet.
She chose a piece delicately. He could not be sure, but he thought, as she nibbled at it with small white teeth, that he detected the edges of a smile. It did little for his disposition.
Light faded from the sky, and amethyst twilight descended on the mountains. Finishing the meager meal, Jehnna began to shift about as if seeking for a more comfortable spot on the stony ground. She hitched the blankets this way and that, finally complaining, “I am cold, Conan. Do something.”
“No fire,” he said curtly. “You have the blankets.”
“Well, get beneath them with me, then. If you’ll not allow me a fire, at least you can share the warmth of your body.”
Conan stared. More innocent than any child, he thought. “I cannot. That is, I will not.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “I am freezing. Did not my aunt send you along to protect me?”
Conan laughed and groaned at the same time. Ask the wolf to protect the sheepfold. He shook his head to rid it of unwanted thoughts. “You must have a care of Taramis, Jehnna, when you are back in Shadizar.”
“Of my aunt? But why?”
“I have no true reason,” he said slowly. “But kings and queens, princes and princesses, do not think as do ordinary folk. They do not see right or wrong the same way.”
“Are you troubled by the dream I had? Bombatta was right. It was just a dream, Conan. Anyone could have bad dreams in a place like that crater. Taramis loves me. She has cared for me since I was a child.”
“Be that as it may, Jehnna, should you ever have need for help, send word to the tavern of Abuletes, in Shadizar, and I will come. I know many places where you would be safe.”
“I will,” she said, but he knew she did not believe in even the possibility of it. “I am still cold,” she went on, smiling and lifting a corner of one blanket.
A moment longer the big Cimmerian hesitated. Then, telling himself that it was indeed becoming colder, that a sharing of warmth could harm nothing, he removed his sword belt and seated himself next to her. She pulled not only a saddle blanket, smelling strongly of horse, over his shoulders, but part of her cloak as well. The blankets began to slide from them, and as they shifted to secure them he realized that she was leaning against him. Instinctively he put an arm around her. His hand landed on the warm curve of her hip, jumped away as if burned, brushed the soft roundness of a breast, then settled on the indentation of her waist.
“’Tis warmer than I thought,” he muttered. There was sweat on his forehead. “Perhaps I should move.” How much forbearance, he wondered, could even the gods ask of a man?
Jehnna snuggled herself more firmly against him, touching the golden dragon at his chest with a single finger. “Tell me of Valeria.” He stiffened, and she glanced up at him. “I overheard you and Malak. And Akiro. I am not deaf, Conan. What kind of woman was she?”
“A woman,” he replied. But the off-handedness of that would not let him leave it. “She was a woman in thousands upon thousands, perhaps the only one of her kind in the world. She was a warrior, friend, companion … .”
“ … And lover?” she supplied when he let his words trail off. He drew breath, but she hurried on before he could speak. “Can there be room in your life for another woman?”
How to explain about Valeria and him, he thought. Valeria, a woman who would neither own nor be owned, a woman who could come to his bed with the passion of a tigress and two hours later nudge him so he did not miss eyeing a particularly toothsome serving wench. “There are things about men and women,” he found himself saying, “that you simply would not understand, girl.”
“Much you know,” she retorted hotly. “Zula and I had long talks about the proper methods of … of handling a man.”
Abruptly she seized his free hand and thrust it beneath her robes. Involuntarily he cupped a warm, hard-tipped mound. The thought returned to him, made to nestle in the palms of a man’s hands.
“You know not what you are doing,” he said hoarsely.
Before the words were out of his mouth she threw herself on him. So great was his surprise that he toppled over backwards, so that she lay atop him.
“Then show me,” she murmured, and honey lips drove rational thoughts from his head.
The cold night wind swept hard out of the plain across Shadizar, as if seeking to scour the city of its corruption.
It was an omen that the wind blew so, Taramis thought. A symbol of the sweeping away of old ways, and the coming of a new dawn. Her robes of sky blue slashed with gold had been chosen as well to speak of that new sunrise, that inexorable new coming.
Her dark eyes surveyed the courtyard, the largest in her palace. Tiled with huge blocks of pale, polished marble, it was surrounded by an alabaster colonnade. The balconies overlooking the court were empty, and no light showed at any window. Guards within the palace made sure no slave’s curious eye fell on what occurred there this night.
Before her rested the great form of Dagoth on its couch of crimson marble. More perfect than any mere mortal male born of woman, she thought. In a circle about her and the massive shape of the Sleeping God stood the priests of the new religion, of the ancient religion reborn. Shimmering golden robes covered the priests to their sandled feet, and on each head was a golden crown with a single point above the brow graven with an open eye, symbol that though the god slept, never did they sleep in his service.
The crown with the tallest point was on the head of he who stood by her right hand, his snowy beard fanning over his chest, his parchment-skinned face the very picture of kindly mildness. His tall staff of gold was topped with a blue diamond carved into an eye of twice human size. He was Xanteres, the high priest. And highest indeed he was, Taramis thought, after herself.
“’Tis the third night,” she said suddenly, and a sigh as of exultation rose from the circle of priests. “The third night from the Night of Awakening.”
“Blessed be the Night of Awakening,” intoned the priests.
“The Sleeping God will never die,” she called, and their reply came back to her.
“Where there is faith, there is no death!”
Taramis held her arms straight out to either side. “Let us anoint our god with the first of his anointings.”
“All glory to she who anoints the Sleeping God,” they chanted.
Flutes began to play, softly and slowly at first, then quickening, rising higher. Two more crowned priests appeared from the collonade. Between them was a girl, her raven hair pinned in tight coils about her small head, her body swathed in robes of pristine white. At the circle the two priests slipped the robes from her, and she entered, unashamed in her slender nakedness. Her eyes, on the form of Dagoth, bore a look of purest rapture as she stopped at the god’s head. Taramis and Xanteres moved together, one to either side of the girl.
“Aniya,” Taramis said. The naked girl reluctantly tore her gaze from the Sleeping God. “You,” Taramis said, “are the first chosen, above your sisters, for your purity.”
“This poor one is honored greatly,” the girl whispered.
“At your birth were you sealed to the Sleeping God. Do you now willingly serve him?” Taramis knew the answer even before the light of ecstacy appeared in the girl’s eyes. The cruel-eyed noblewoman had prepared both long and well.
“This poor one begs to serve,” the girl replied, her voice soft yet eager.
The flutes now shrieked in frenzy.
“O great Dagoth,” Taramis cried, “accept this, our offering and pledge to thee. Accept thy first anointing, against the Night of thy Return.”
His face still a portrait of gentleness, Xanteres’ clawed fingers gripped Aniya’s hair, bent her forward over the head of the alabaster form, then bent back her head so that her neck was a tight curve of smooth skin. From within his robes he produced a dagger with a gilded blade, and the gilded steel bit smoothly into the smooth curve. A crimson fountain splashed over the god’s face.

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