Conan the Victorious

  Kandar stood ashen-faced, trembling almost as much as the women, who writhed against their bonds and wailed with frantic despair. Karim Singh’s lips moved rapidly and silently, and Naipal realized with considerable amusement that the wazam prayed. The wizard realized as well that those monstrous forms, so terrifying to human eyes, cowered beneath Masrok’s gaze. Perhaps, he thought, he had summoned and bound a greater power than he knew. It increased his resolve to see the demon returned to the prison it shared with its other selves.

  Human skulls, dangling for ornament, swayed as Masrok raised one silvery, glowing spear and pointed with it to the blocked passage. Horrific forms flowed to the adamantine substance, clawing, gouging, devouring, a seething mass that slowly sank into the stone, leaving an open way behind it.

  “Impressive,” said a voice from one of the many entrances to the great room.

  Naipal spun, ready to utter the word that drew lightning from the khorassani, and it seemed his heart had turned to ice in his chest. “Zail Bal,” he gasped. “You are dead!”

  “You never would believe your eyes, Naipal,” the newcomer said, “when you wished to believe other than what you saw. Of course you have reason to believe as you do. You saw me carried off by rajaie while far from my implements.” Zail Bal’s dark eyes narrowed. “And some of my amulets had been most cunningly tampered with. Still, I managed to slay the demons, though not without cost, it is true. I found myself deposited on the shores of the Vilayet in an age-riddled body, too frail to travel a league.” His gaze went from the imprisoned Masrok, once again watching the humans in silence, to the passage into which the summoned beings had now disappeared. “You have done well for me in my absence, apprentice. I had not managed to locate this place before my…accident.”

  “I am no longer the apprentice,” Naipal snarled. “I am the court wizard! I am the master!”

  “Are you?” Zail Bal’s chuckle was dry. “Karim Singh may have his throne, and Kandar may call himself general, but the army that lies below will march for me, Naipal, not for you. The demon will serve me.”

  Naipal’s eyes flickered to the khorassani. Did he dare? He had never known that Zail Bal sought Orissa’s tomb, and that fact raised unpleasant possibilities. Could he risk that the former court wizard did not also know the words of power? Would the other have risked confronting him without that knowledge? So. If either began to speak the words, the other would also. The nature of the stones was to accept only one master at a time. If neither man gained control quickly enough, both would perish, as well as every living thing for leagues. Naipal had no interest in taking the other man with him as he died. He wanted victory, not death.

  “You said your body was age-riddled,” Karim Singh said suddenly in a voice that quavered, “yet you appear younger than I. No more than forty. I remember you well, and you were older than that when…” His voice trailed off at Zail Bal’s chuckle. It was dry this time as well, like the dust of the grave.

  “Yes, I am younger than I was and I will be younger still. But what of you, Naipal? Do you suffer from exhaustion that sleep will not cure? Are there pains behind your eyes, splitting your skull?”

  “What have you done?” Naipal whispered, then screamed it. “What have you done?”

  The other wizard laughed and as he spoke, his voice never lost its sound of amusement. “Did you think I kept no cords to my apprentice, Naipal? They were useless over the distance from Turan but once I was across the Himelias…aaah. Now I drain the vitality from you through those cords, Naipal, though not exactly as the rajaie drained it from me. You will not grow old. Merely tired. So tired you cannot stand or even hold your head up. But do not fear that I will let you die, Naipal. I would not do such to my faithful apprentice. No, I will give you eternal life. I will put you in a safe, dry place, with only the endless thirst to distract you from the pains in your head and the nibbles of the rats. Of course the rats will stop their nibbling when you wither sufficiently. You will be a desiccated husk, holding life until it crumbles to dust. And I assure you I will see that it takes a very long time.”

  Naipal had neither moved nor spoken during Zail Bal’s recitation. The fool should have lulled him, he thought. Now he would have to take the gamble. There would come a moment when the former court wizard let his attention lapse and then Naipal would begin the words, in a whisper. By the time Zail Bal realized what was happening, it would be too late. It must be too late.

  A gasp from Karim Singh caught a corner of Naipal’s mind. The shifting mass of beings that Masrok had summoned had returned, flowing from the mouth of the passage to the tomb.

  “They are done, O man,” the eight-armed demon announced. “The way is clear.”

  All eyes went to the passage. Zail Bal stepped by the seething horror without looking at it, not as though the sight pained his eyes but rather as if he simply could not be bothered by it at the moment. Even Kandar and Karim Singh overcame their fear enough to move closer. Naipal began to whisper furiously.

  Crouching near the end of one of the passages that let into the great underground chamber, Conan weighed the silvery weapon in his hand. A dagger, Ghurran had called it. Or Zail Bal, as he now named himself. And the Cimmerian could see the weapon’s twin clasped by the huge eight-armed shape. Much had been said in that chamber that he would ponder later, but it was another thing that Ghurran/Zail Bal had said that was of interest now. The weapon he held could slay the demon, by which Conan assumed he had meant the towering obsidian form. Masrok, he had heard it called. Perhaps it could slay the others as well.

  Once more Conan tried to look at the demons and found his eyes sliding away unbidden. Their sudden appearance from the other passage, just when he was on the point of entering while the men argued, had been a shock. But now that all eyes peered into the passage from which the monstrosities had come, it might just be possible for him to reach the women before he was even seen. As for what came then…. With a fatalistic grimness he hefted his broadsword in one hand and the large silvery dagger in the other. Then he must bar pursuit long enough for the women to flee. Treading with light swiftness, he moved into the subterranean chamber.

  His eyes shifted constantly from the women to the others. Vyndra and Chin Kou, naked and bound at wrists and ankles, lay trembling with eyes squeezed shut above their veils. Naipal appeared to be muttering under his breath, watching the other men, and they in turn had eyes only for the passage. It led to an army, had Ghurran, or Zail Bal, claimed? Kang Hou’s army that would come at the end of time perhaps? Warriors like the one he had faced? He could not waste time in worry over that now. The demons that had come from the tunnel seemed fixed on the huge ebon form floating in nothingness in the center of the chamber, while it—

  Conan’s breath caught in his throat. Those crimson eyes now followed him. He quickened his pace toward the women. If the demon called a warning, he might still…. The massive arms holding glowing spears moved back. Conan snarled silently. He could not dodge two thrown spears at once. Flipping the silvery weapon in his hand, he hurled it at the demon and threw himself toward the women.

  A titanic blast rocked the chamber, and Conan landed atop the women as the earth heaved beneath his feet. Stunned, he fumbled desperately for his own dagger as he took in the horrific scene. The humans were staggering to their feet where the blast had flung them. Splintered shards of black stone lay in ten small pools of molten gold. And Masrok stood on the stone floor, the glowing dagger it had already held now mirrored by another.

  “Free!” Masrok cried, and with gibbering howls of demonic terror, the beings it had summoned fled, flowing up into the ceiling, melting into the floor. Scarlet eyes that now glittered went to Naipal. “You threatened me with this blade, O man.” The booming voice was heavy with mockery. “How I wished for you to strike. From the inside your barriers were impervious but from the outside…. Any unliving thing could cross from the outside easily, and the crossing of this demon-wrought blade, this metal of powers you never dr
eamed of, shattered all of your bonds. All!”

  The cords on the ankles first, Conan told himself as he found his knife. The women could run with hands tied if need be.

  “I always intended your freedom,” Naipal said hoarsely. “We made a pact.”

  “Fool!” the demon snarled. “You bound me, made one of the Sivani your servant. And you!” The furious rubiate gaze pinned Zail Bal, who had been attempting to edge toward one of the passages. “You intended the same. Know, then, the price for daring such!”

  Both wizards shouted incantations, but the glowing spears sped from Masrok’s hands, transfixing each man through the chest. Almost in the same instant the silvery weapons leaped back to the demons’ grasp, bearing their still-living burdens. Shrieks split the air, and futile hands clutched at glowing hafts now staining with blood.

  “Know for all time!” Masrok thundered. And the demon spun, blurring into an obsidian whirlwind streaked with silver.

  Then it was still once more and the wizards were gone. But a new skull dangled below the head of each spear, a skull whose empty sockets retained a glow of life, and the shrieks of the wizards, echoing faintly as though from a great distance, could yet be heard.

  Slicing the last cord binding a wrist, Conan heaved the women to their feet. Weeping, they tried to cling to him, but he pushed them toward the one passage that showed the light of a torch. The marked path lay there, one they could follow even without his aid.

  “You also,” Masrok growled, and Conan realized the demon’s eyes were now on him. Keeping his face to the creature, he began to follow the women, but slowly. If the worst happened, there must be distance between him and them. “You thought to slay me, puny mortal,” the demon said. “You, also, will know—”

  A sound like all the winds of the world crying through the maze of passages filled the great room, but no breath of air stirred. The rushing howl died abruptly, and at its ending a mirror image of Masrok stood at either end of the chamber.

  “Betrayer!” they shouted with one voice, and it was as though a thunderhead had spoken. “The way that was to open at the end of time is opened beforehand!”

  Masrok shifted slightly, that monstrous ebon head swiveling from one form to the other.

  “Slayer!” they cried as one. “One of the Sivani is dead, by the deeds of a Sivani!”

  Masrok raised its weapons. No particle of the demon’s attention remained on Conan. The Cimmerian spun to hasten after the women, and he found them halted before the passage entrance, Kandar confronting them with the curved blade of his tulwar.

  The Prince’s face was pale and sweaty, and his eyes rolled to the tensing obsidian giants with barely controlled terror. “You can keep the Khitan wench,” he rasped, “but Vyndra is mine. Decide quickly, barbarian. If we are still here when their battle begins, none of us will survive.”

  “I have decided already,” Conan said, and his broadsword struck. Twice steel rang on steel and then the Vendhyan Prince was falling with a crimson gash where his throat had been. “Run!” Conan commanded the women. He did not look back as they darted into the tunnel. The ground rumbled beneath his feet. The battle of demons was beginning.

  Sound pursued them in their flight through the subterranean passages. The crash of lightnings confined and the roar of thunder imprisoned. The earth heaved, and dirt and rock showered from above.

  Sheathing his sword, Conan scooped up the women, one over each shoulder, and redoubled his speed, fleeing from the pool of light into the debris-filled darkness. The flames on distantly spaced torches wavered as the walls on which they hung danced.

  Then the stairs were before him. He took them three at a time. In the vast-domed temple chamber, massive columns shivered and the towering statue swayed. Without slowing, Conan ran past the tall bronze doors and into the night.

  Outside, the circle of torches remained, swaying as the ground heaved in swells like the sea, but the soldiers were fled. Trees a hundred and fifty feet high cracked like whips.

  Conan ran into the forest until a root caught his foot and sent him sprawling with his burdens. He could not rise again, only cling as the earth shook and rippled in waves, but at last he looked back.

  Bolts of lightning burst toward the sky from the temple, hurling great blocks of stone into the air, casting a blue illumination over the frenzied forest. And dome by dome, columned terrace by columned terrace, the huge temple fell, collapsing inward, ever sinking as it leaped like a thing alive. Lightning flashes revealed the ruin no higher than the flailing trees surrounding it, then half their height, then only a mound of rubble.

  Abruptly there was no more lightning. The ground gave one final tortured heave and was still.

  Conan rose unsteadily to his feet. He could no longer see even the mound. In truth he did not believe it was any longer there. “Swallowed by the earth,” he said softly, “and the entrance sealed once more.”

  His arms filled suddenly with naked, weeping women, but his mind was on other matters. Horses. Whether or not the demons had been buried with the tomb, he did not intend to remain long enough to find out.

  EPILOGUE

  Conan rode through the dawn with his jaw set grimly, wondering if perhaps he could not find just a few Vendhyan soldiers who would try to contest his passage or perhaps question the Vendhyan cavalry saddle on his horse. It would be better than the icy daggers of silence being hurled against his back by Vyndra and Chin Kou. Of necessity he gripped the reins of their horses in one hand; the fool women would not have left the forest otherwise.

  “You must find us garments,” Vyndra said suddenly. “I will not be seen like this.”

  “It is not seemly,” Chin Kou added.

  Conan sighed. It was not the first time they had made the demand, though they had no idea as to where he might obtain the clothes. The past hour of silence had come from his retort that they had already been seen by half the populace of Gwandiakan. He twisted in the saddle to look back at them. The two women still wore the veils, if nothing else. He had asked why, since they obviously hated the small squares of silk, but they had babbled incomprehensively at him about not being recognized, and both had gone into such a frenzy that someone might be watching, for all it had been pitch dark in the middle of the forest at the time, that he did not mention it again. They stared at him now with dark, furious eyes peeping over the top of their veils, yet each sat straight in her saddle, seemingly unaware of the nudity of which she complained.

  “We are almost to the old well,” he told them. “Kuie Hsi should be there with garb for you both.”

  “The well!” Vyndra exclaimed, suddenly trying to hide behind the high pommel of her saddle. “Oh, no!”

  “There might be people!” Chin Kou moaned as she, too, contorted.

  Before they could slip from the saddles and hide—they had done that once already—Conan kicked his horse to a gallop, pulling theirs along behind, heedless of their wails of protest.

  The wall of the old well remained, surrounded by trees much smaller than those of the forest. The well itself had long collapsed. A portion of a stone wall still stood nearby, perhaps once part of a caravansary. There were people there as well. Conan grinned as he ran his eye over them. Hordo and Enam tossing dice. Hasan and Shamil seated with their backs against the wall. Kang Hou sipping from a tiny cup held delicately in his fingers, while Kuie Hsi crouched by a fire where a kettle steamed. The men looked the worse for wear, sprouting bandages and poultices, but they sprang to their feet with glad shouts at his appearance.

  Kuie Hsi did not shout but rather came running with bundles in her arms. The other two women, Conan saw, had slid from the saddles and were hiding behind their horses. He dismounted, leaving them to their flurry of silks, and went to meet the men.

  “I thought you were dead for certain this time,” the one-eyed man muttered gruffly.

  “Not I,” Conan laughed, “nor any of the rest of us it seems. Our luck has not been so bad after all.” The smiles faded fro
m their faces, producing a frown on his. “What has happened?”

  “A great deal,” Kang Hou replied. “My niece brought much news with her. For one thing, King Bhandarkar is dead at the hands of the Katari. Fortunately Prince Jharim Kar managed to rally nobles to Bhandarkar’s young son, Bhunda Chand, who has been crowned as the new king, thus restoring order. On the unfortunate side, you, my cheng-li friend, have been condemned to death by Royal Edict, signed by Bhunda Chand, for complicity in the assassination of his father.”

  Conan could only shake his head in amazement. “How did this madness come about?”

  The Khitan merchant explained. “One of Jharim Kar’s first moves after the coronation—and that was a hasty affair, it seems—was to ride for Gwandiakan with the young King and all the cavalry he could muster. Supposedly he found evidence that Karim Singh was a leader of the plot, and thus must be arrested and executed before he could become a rallying point for disaffection. It is rumored, however, that the Prince blames the wazam for an incident involving one of his wives. Whatever the truth, Bhunda Chand’s column met the caravan on which we and the wazam traveled. And one Alyna, a servant of the Lady Vyndra, gave testimony that her mistress and a pale-skinned barbarian called Patil had plotted with Karim Singh and spoken in her presence of slaying Bhandarkar.”

  A shriek of fury announced that Vyndra had just had the same information from Kuie Hsi. The Vendhyan noblewoman stormed from behind the horses, clutching half-donned silken robes that fluttered after her. “I will strip her hide! That sow will speak the truth, or I will wear out switches on her!”

  “I fear it is too late for any such action on your part,” Kang Hou said. “Alyna—perhaps I should say the Lady Alyna—has already been confirmed in your titles and estates. The Royal Edict concerning you not only strips you of those possessions but gifts her with your life and person.”