Conan The Freelance (23 page)

Dimma managed to will himself back into position over the various talismans and other ingredients.

Once again, he thought. For the last time.

Conan looked at the Pili female. She was dead, sure enough, with that wicked-looking black blade buried in her eye up to the hilt. Killed by her own hand.

He picked up his sword and turned toward his companions. Cheen and Hok had been joined by Tair, and they finished off the last selkie guard as he watched.

The monster, meanwhile, shoved the door open and stepped inside the chamber beyond. After a moment, the thing was rewarded for this action by a blast of light and a fierce heat Conan could feel even where he stood. All the Cimmerian could see was the thing’s hindquarters, but it was apparent that the monster would walk the land of the living - no more. Smoke rose from its carcass.

Conan moved to where the three Tree Folk stood.

“The Seed is in there,” Cheen said.

“Aye. You see what the monster got for going through that door?” Conan said.

“We have come too far to realize defeat now,” Tair said. He started for the door.

Conan sighed. Aye, that they had. He made after the smaller man, and Cheen and Hok followed.

The Mist Mage was nearly done with his spell. A few words more and he would regain the flesh permanently. He felt a surge of happiness build within him, but he kept it from spilling forth, at least until he could say the last line of the spell. Eight words more, six, four

“There it is!” a woman yelled.

Dimma mispronounced the second to last word of the spell that would have made him whole.

He screamed. “Is there no end to this!”

He turned his attention to the four people who had invaded his chamber. A woman was moving toward one of his talismans. Who were these interlopers? What were they doing here, voiding his attempts to free himself of his curse?

The largest man, a barbaric-looking fellow replete with thick muscles, leaped toward Dimma, wielding a sword. The man swung the blade in a manner that would have cleaved the wizard in half, had he been other than mist. As it was, the sword passed harmlessly through him, trailing no more than wisps of fog.

The swordsman looked puzzled, and tried a second cut, to the same end. Dimma would have laughed, had he not been so enraged.

The blast of magical force Dimma had directed at the unfortunate Ranafrosch had almost completely depleted his personal powers; otherwise he would have swept the four from his sight with the same kind of infernal rays. As it was, his ire so disrupted his thoughts that he could only come up with a simple holding spell. He spoke aloud three words and made the proper signs and the four people froze into immobility, the big one with the sword raised for a third strike. The fool would die in that pose, as soon as Dimma was finished with his important business.

To assure his privacy, Dimma floated to the shattered door and peered into the hall. There were a number of bodies lying about, but no sign of anyone else alive to disturb his conjuration. Thank all the base Gods for that!

Dimma returned to his strong room and began his spell for what he hoped would be the final time.

Conan felt as -though he were bound in an invisible net; he was unable to move more than a hair before he met the unseen resistance. He strained his powerful muscles to their utmost, to no avail. The wizard had laid some kind of spell upon them, and whatever he was saying at the moment, Conan felt certain that it would not serve him and his companions were the wizard to finish it.

The mage floated with his back to them, and Conan could see the wall beyond through the body of the wizard as the man-was he a man?-droned out some doubtlessly evil incantation.

But … what could he do? He was trapped. and even if free, he had seen that his weapon was useless against the magician.

The breath of doom cooled his spine.

Dimma unwound the final words carefully, all his concentration upon them. Nothing would interrupt him this time, not if the entire castle were to sink, nothing!

The last syllable of the last word rolled forth from Dimma’s lips into the still air and hung there echoing softly.

The wizard held his breath, waiting. He had done it. Would it work? Would anything happen?

The air about the Mist Mage began to swirl, he could feel himself stirring. Something was happening!

The currents of magic within which Dimma had lived almost his entire life also stirred as did the air, drawing into themselves all the esoteric forces available in the room.

It was working!

The spell, it seemed, was gathering its own power, pulling energies from the air and water and building to add to its tapestry. It took from Dimma part of his own force; he felt it drain from him, but that meant nothing, for when it worked he would be a man again, and able to command much greater powers than he had as a halfling!

As he felt himself begin to form bones and organs and muscles and start sinking slowly toward the floor, Dimma leaned back his head and howled in triumph. Yes! Yes! It was happening, after all the centuries! At last!

Conan had been trying unceasingly to break the invisible bonds upon him when he felt them suddenly weaken. His upraised arms came down a little, and now the spell felt more like thick mud around his limbs than a tightly wrapped net. He could move, but slowly.

In front of the Cimmerian the magician was growing more opaque and solid, settling toward the floor like a broad leaf falling from a tree, floating gently from side to side.

Conan felt certain that were the wizard to reach the ground and turn, it would be all over for him and his companions. The spell over his body weakened a little more, but he was still sluggish. He would not be able to move fast enough to chop the mage down; it would be like trying to move the sword underwater.

As the wizard lowered toward the floor, Conan also lowered his blade so that it pointed straight ahead. He could not cut, but mayhap he could use the point like a spear. He managed a step. His legs felt as if they were bound in pants of iron, his feet shod in boots of lead. Sweat broke from his skin as he strained to take another step. The wizard was only three spans away, another four or five steps and he would be there.

If he had the time.

Yes, he was becoming as he once was, Dimma felt, and in another moment he would be free, forever. He had already decided how he would destroy this entire realm. Far below the waters of the lake, a magical shield kept the molten rock under it from bursting forth as once it had ten million years past. He had placed the shield there when the mountain had rumbled two centuries ago, linking the protective device to his own soul. Should he die, the shield would vanish, and a river of lava would jet up to boil the waters of the lake before spilling over the sides of the mountain to cook everything it touched: He could also release the spell as he transported himself magically away, and by all the Dark Gods, he would do so!

His feet were nearly touching the floor now, and’ he knew that when they did, he would have defeated the old wizard’s dying curse. He began to laugh. Triumphant, finally!

Conan took another step, the sword held in front of him with both hands. His speed increased a little, but it was still no more than a crawl. Three paces more and he would be there; two … but-the magician had settled to the floor now, and he was starting to turn-Dimma felt his muscles tense as they took up his new weight, the floor solidly under his feet. Done. And now to destroy personally those who had dared to interrupt his labors before leaving the molten rock to finish everyone else.

He turned slowly. “Time to die,” he said.

With all his strength, Conan lunged. It was slow, the move, but his entire being was behind the sword. The wizard turned as the point of the blade arrived. The broadsword sank into the magician’s new body just under the breastbone and continued on, slowly, but surely. Blued iron passed through the mage’s heart and between two segments of spine before piercing the skin of his back and then his cloak, to emerge into the still air.

The spell holding Conan vanished of a moment, and the release sent the Cimmerian forward like a hurled rock. His sword’s hilt slammed into the dying wizard’s abdomen and the mage was knocked from his feet and two spans backward by the force of it. He twisted as he fell, and landed on his side.

“N-n-n-o-o-o-o-ooooo!” was all that he said, a lamenting wail. He shuddered once, and was still.

Dimma the Mist Mage was no more.

“Is he dead?” Cheen asked, coming to stand next to Conan.

Before he could speak, the body on the floor began to change. As they watched, the solid form of the Mist Mage began to shrivel, as a piece of fat tossed into a hot fire shrinks. The magician’s skin thinned and wrinkled and became like old parchment, then disappeared completely. The flesh under it did much the same, and after a moment only the bones remained, yellowish at first, then turning pale, chalky white before crumbling to powder. The entire transformation took less than a minute, and at the end, nothing remained of the Mist Mage save a thin layer of dust on the flagstones.

“Aye,” Conan said, “I would say he is dead.”

“Older than he looked, too, I would wager,” Tair added.

Cheen turned away and went to the cause of their quest. She lifted the Seed gently from where it lay and held it up before her face, staring at it reverently.

“We can go now,” she said.

Conan looked around. “Aye. But perhaps we might tarry long enough to collect a few baubles.” His keen eyes detected the yellow gleam of gold in some of the fittings in the room, and surely that faceted green jewel next to the destroyed door was of some value? This venture might prove most rewarding after all.

The floor rumbled beneath Conan’s feet, rocking him.

“What was that?” Hok said.

The adults looked at each other. “It felt like an earth tremor,” Conan said.

“On the water? Not likely?”

The castle shook again, hard enough so that Conan had trouble maintaining his stance. Cheen fell to one knee, and even the fine balances of Tair and Hok were disturbed. A large crack appeared in the ceiling and dust showered down from the gap.

“Whatever the cause, best we get out of here before it collapses on us,” Conan said.

The others followed his lead as the Cimmerian ran for the doorway. He skirted the dead monster, reached out to snatch the jewel from the stand next to the opening, and stuffed the gem into his belt pouch as he ran.

A creature with the body of a dog and the face of a monkey ran past, looking fearful, and Conan fell in behind it.

“What are you doing?” Cheen asked. “We came in from the opposite direction!”

“This beast lives here, likely it knows the halls better than we.”

The dog-thing scrabbled across the stones as it rounded a corner, Conan and the others right behind it. Ahead, a pair of selkies also ran, and if they noticed the people behind them, they gave no sign of it.

The floor shook again, the hardest tremor yet, and even Conan could not stay on his feet. He tumbled, managed to roll on one shoulder and come up without injury. A chunk of the wooden archway supporting the ceiling just ahead of him shook itself loose and fell to the floor with a loud clatter. More cracks laced up the walls and across the ceiling.

Whatever it was that had the wizard’s castle in its grasp, it did not appear that the structure would survive.

“Quickly!” Conan ordered.

The other three managed to clamber to their feet to rejoin Conan once again.

The dog-thing was nearly out of sight, but Conan spied it up ahead and once again gave chase.

Through the corridors they ran, with the building shaking and twisting around them, walls starting to collapse, the floor buckling.

Finally the dog-thing led them to a door. It moaned at the closed portal, scratching at the wood with its paws, until Conan arrived. “Move aside!”

The dog-thing obeyed, and Conan twisted the handle and shoved the door wide. Beyond lay another door. They all ran toward it, opened it, and saw yet a third portal. Conan swore and leaped at the final barrier, flinging it wide.

Night still held sway outside, but the stars shined down on them, and Conan led his companions and the dog-thing out into the clean air. A heartbeat later, the Sargasso shook violently and the portal through which they had only just passed collapsed behind them.

“A near thing,” Tair said, staring at the fallen doorway.

“We are not safe yet,” Cheen said. “Look!”

Conan turned to follow her pointing finger.

In the distance, great clouds of steam rose from the lake, nearly blotting out the moon. The clouds were lit from below by an orange glow.

The weed undulated again, and a roaring sound in the distance came as more steam boiled upward and the orange glow increased in brightness.

“A volcano,” Tair said. “The mountain is coming to life underneath the lake!”

Conan nodded. He knew of such things, where the rock itself flowed like honey down the slopes of hollow mountains, burning everything in its path. The lake would boil like a pot on a cookfire, and everything in it would be scalded to death, the weed included.

The Sargasso rippled, and they were all thrown down by the hard wave.

“We have got to get away from here!” Tair said.

Not far from where they lay, the weed tore suddenly asunder, and water splashed up through the rent.

Conan stood. “It is a day’s walk to the water’s edge,” he said.

The Sargasso erupted to his left, spraying torn weed high into the air, and the stench of rotten eggs filled the air. Before Conan could speak, another patch of weed, fifty spans away in the opposite direction, flew upward, and a gout of flame filled the air over the torn weed, roaring and then vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

“Crom!”

“We will never make it to the shore,” Tair said. “Not through that!”

“We have no choice,” Conan said. “Better to die trying than not.”

“Wait,” Cheen said. “Maybe there is another way.

“I am open to suggestion,” Conan said.