The chamberlain’s face tightened, and for a moment Conan thought the man would argue. Instead he said curtly, “Follow me,” and led the Cimmerian up marble stairs to a small room. “Wait here,” he commanded Conan, and left after casting an eye about as if cataloguing the room’s contents against a light-fingered visitor.
It was no mean room for all its smallness. Tapestry-hung and marble-floored, its furnishings were inlaid with mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli. An arch led onto a balcony overlooking a garden fountain. But still there were neither towels nor wine. It boded ill indeed for Garian, such insult to his messenger.
Muttering to himself, Conan walked to the balcony and looked down. Almost he cried out in surprise, slights forgotten for the moment. Stephano staggered drunkenly through the garden, half supported by two girls in skimpy silks.
The sculptor bent to dabble his fingers in the fountain and near fell in. “No water,” he laughed at the girls, as they drew him back. “Want more wine, not water.” Giggling together, they wound a shaky way from the fountain and into the exotic shrubs.
Someone cleared his throat behind Conan, and the Cimmerian spun.
A plump man of middling height stood there, one hand clutching his ill-fitting velvet tunic at the neck. “You have a message for me?” he said.
“Lord Albanus?” Conan said.
The plump man nodded shortly and thrust out his hand. Slowly Conan gave him the sealed parchment. The plump man’s hand closed on it like a trap. “Now go,” he said. “I have the message. Go!”
Conan went.
The gray-bearded chamberlain was waiting immediately outside to conduct him to the door, and there clip-nose waited with another man to escort him to the gate.
As he emerged, Hordo brought his horse forward, a relieved grin wreathing his scarred face. “Almost was I ready to come over that wall after you.”
“I had no trouble,” Conan said as he mounted. “I carried the King’s message, remember. When next you see Ariane, tell her that Stephano is not dead, as she feared. He dwells within, sporting himself with serving girls.”
“I mean to see her this day,” Hordo replied. He stared at the gate thoughtfully. “’Tis odd he sent no message to his friends that he is well.”
“Not so odd as a lord with broken nails and work-calloused hands,” the Cimmerian said.
“A swordsman—”
“No, Hordo. I know work-wrought calluses when I see them. Still, ’tis none of our concern. Vegentius is, and this very night I mean to have private conversation with the good Commander.” Grimly he rode from the gate, the others galloping in two columns behind.
Albanus thrust the plump man, now dressed in nought but a filthy breechclout, to his knees, face to the marble floor.
“Well, Varius?” Albanus demanded of his chamberlain, his cruel face dark with impatience. He snatched the parchment, crumpled it in his fist. “Did he seem suspicious? Did he accept this dog as me?” He prodded the kneeling man with his foot. “Did he think you a lord, dog? What did he say?”
“He did, master.” The plump man’s voice was fearful, and he did not lift his face from the floor. “He asked only if I was Lord Albanus, then gave me the parchment and left.”
Albanus growled. The gods toyed with him, to send this man whose death he sought beneath his very roof, where he could not touch the barbarian, lest suspicion be drawn straight to him, and where he must hide to escape recognition. Beneath his own roof! And on this, the first day of his triumph. His eye fell on the kneeling man, who trembled.
“Could you not have found someone more presentable to represent me, Varius? That even a barbarian should take this slug for me offends me.”
“Forgive me, my lord,” the chamberlain said, bowing even more deeply in apology. “There was little time, and a need to find one who would fit the tunic.”
Albanus’ mouth curled. “Burn that tunic. I’ll not wear it again. And send this thing back to the kitchens. The sight of it disgusts me.”
Varius made a slight gesture; the kneeling man scurried from the room, hardly rising higher than a crouch. “Will that be all, my lord?”
“No. Find that drunken idiot Stephano, and hasten him to the workroom. But sober him, first.”
Albanus waved Varius from the room, and turned to the message from Garian. Curious as to what it could be, he split the seal.
Our Dear Lord Cantaro Albanus,
All honor to you. We summon you before the Dragon Throne that you may advise Us on matters near Our heart. As one who loves Us, and Nemedia, well, We know you will make haste.
GARIAN, NEMEDIA PRIMUS
A feral gleam lit Albanus’ black eyes as he wadded the parchment in clawed hands. “I will come to you soon enough,” he whispered. “My love I will show with chains and hot irons till on your knees you will acknowledge me King. Albanus, First in Nemedia. You will beg for death at my hand.”
Tossing the crumpled sheet aside, he strode to the workroom. The four guards before the door stiffened respectfully, but he swept past them without notice.
On the stone circle in the center of the room stood the clay figure of Garian, complete at last. Or almost, he thought, smiling. Perfect in every detail, just slightly larger than the living man—Stephano had made some quibble about that, saying it should be either exactly life size or of heroic proportions—it seemed to be striding forward, mouth open to utter some pronouncement. And it contained more of Garian than simply his looks. Arduously worked into that clay with complicated thaumaturgical rituals were Garian’s hair and parings from his fingernails, his sweat, his blood, and his seed. All had been obtained by Sularia at the dark lord’s command.
A huge kiln stood a short distance behind the stone platform, and a complicated series of wooden slides and levers designed to move the figure linked platform and kiln. Neither kiln nor slides were ever to be used, however. Albanus had allowed Stephano to construct them in order to allay the sculptor’s suspicions before they arose.
Climbing onto the platform, Albanus began pushing the wooden apparatus off onto the floor. Unaccustomed as he was to even the smallest labor, yet he must needs do this. Stephano would have had to be chivied to it, his questions turned aside with carefully constructed lies, and Albanus had long since tired of allowing the sculptor to believe that his questions were worth answering, his vanities worth dignifying. Better to do the work himself.
Tossing the last lever from the platform, Albanus jumped to the floor, one hand out to steady himself against the kiln. With an oath he jerked it back from the kiln’s rough surface. It was hot.
The door opened, and Stephano tottered in, green of face but much less under the sway of drink than he had been. “I want them all flogged,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand across his mouth. “Do you know what your slaves did to me, with Varius giving the orders? They—”
“Fool!” Albanus thundered. “You fired the kiln! Have I not commanded you to do nothing here without my leave?”
“The figure is ready,” Stephano protested. “It must be put in the kiln today, or it will crack rather than harden. Last night I—”
“Did you not hear my command that you were never to handle fire within this room? Think you I light these lamps with my own hands for the joy of doing a slave’s work?”
“If the oils in that clay are so flammable,” the sculptor muttered sullenly, “how can it stand being placed—”
“Be silent.” The words were a soft hiss. Albanus’ obsidian gaze clove Stephano’s tongue to the roof of his mouth and rooted him to the spot as if it were a spike driven through him.
Disdainfully Albanus turned his back. Deftly he set out three small vials, a strip of parchment and a quill pen. Opening the first vial—it held a small quantity of Garian’s blood, with the admixture of tinctures to keep it liquid—he dipped the pen and neatly wrote the King’s name across the parchment. A sprinkling of powder from the second vial, and instantly the blood blackened and dried. The last container held Alban
us’ own blood, drawn only that morning. With that he wrote his own name in larger script, overlaying that of Garian. Again the powder dried the blood.
Next, murmuring incantations, Albanus folded the parchment strip in a precise pattern. Then he returned to the platform and placed the parchment into the open mouth of the clay figure.
Stephano, leaning now against the wall, giggled inanely. “I wondered why you wanted the mouth like that.” At a look from Albanus he swallowed heavily and bit his tongue.
Producing chalks smuggled from Stygia, land of sorcerers far to the south, Albanus scribed an incomplete pentagram around the feet of the figure, star within pentagon within circle. Foul black candles went on the points where each broken shape touched the other two. Then, quickly, each candle was lit, the pentagram completed. He stepped back, arms spread wide, uttering the words of conjuring.
“Elonai me’roth sancti, Urd’vass teoheem … .”
The words of power rolled from his tongue, and the air seemed to thicken in silver shimmers. The flames of the unholy candles flared, sparking a seed of fear in the dark lord’s mind. The flames. It could not happen again as last time. It could not. He banished the fear by main force. There could be no fear now, only power.
“ … arallain Sa’m’di com’iel mort’rass … .”
The flames grew, but as they grew the room dimmed, as if they took light rather than gave it. Higher they flared, driven by the force of the dark lord’s chant, overtowering the clay figure. Slowly, as though bent by some impossible and unfelt wind, the silent flames bent inward until the points of fire met above. From that meeting a bolt, as of lightning, struck down to the head of the statue, bathing it in glow unending, surrounding it in a haloed fire of the purest white that sucked all heat from the air.
Frost misting his breath, Albanus forced his voice to a roar. “By the Unholy Powers of Three, I conjure thee! By blood and sweat and seed, vilified and attainted, I conjure thee! Arise, walk and obey, for I, Albanus, conjure thee!”
As the last syllable left his mouth the flames were gone, leaving no trace of the candles behind. The figure stood, but now it was dried and cracked.
Albanus rubbed his hands together, and put them beneath his arms for warmth. If only it had all gone correctly this time. He glanced at Stephano, shivering against a wall that glinted from the myriad ice droplets that had coalesced from the air. Terror made the sculptor’s eyes bulge. There was no point in delaying further. The hawk-faced man drew a deep breath.
“I command you, Garian, awake!” A piece of clay dropped from one arm to shatter on the stone. Albanus frowned. “Garian, I command you awake!”
The entire figure trembled; then crumbling, powdering clay was spilling to the platform. And what the figure had moulded, stood there, breathing and alive. A perfect duplicate of Garian, without blemish or fault. The simulacrum brushed dust from its shoulder, then stopped, eyeing Albanus quizzically.
“Who are you?” it said.
“I am Albanus,” the dark lord replied. “Know you who you are?”
“Of course. I am Garian, King of Nemedia.”
Albanus’ smile was purest evil. “To your knees, Garian,” he said softly. Unperturbed, the replica sank to its knees. Despite himself Albanus laughed, and the commands poured out for the sheer joy of seeing the image of the King obey. “Face to the floor! Grovel! Now up! Run in place! Faster! Faster!” The duplicate King ran. And ran.
Tears rolled down Albanus’ cheeks, but his laughter faded as his eye lit on Stephano. Slowly the sculptor pushed himself erect from his crouch. Uncertainty and fear chased each other across his face.
“Be still, Garian,” Albanus commanded, not loosing Stephano’s gaze from his own. The simulacrum ceased running and stood quietly, breathing easily.
Stephano swallowed hard. “My … my work is done. I’ll go now.” He turned toward the door, flinching to a halt at the whipcrack of Albanus’ voice.
“Your gold, Stephano. Surely you’ve not forgotten that.” From beneath his tunic Albanus produced a short, thick cylinder, tightly wrapped in leather. He hefted it on his palm. “Fifty gold marks.”
Cupidity warred with fear on Stephano’s countenance. He licked his lips hesitantly. “The sum mentioned was a thousand.”
“I am unclothed,” the simulacrum said suddenly.
“Of course,” Albanus said, seeming to answer them both.
From the floor he picked up a length of filthy rag that Stephano had used while sculpting, and with it carefully scrubbed away part of the pentagram. Many things, he knew, could happen to one attempting to enter a closed pentagram charged with magicks, and each was more horrible than the last. Stepping up onto the platform, he handed the rag to the simulacrum, which wrapped the cloth about its waist.
“This is but a first payment, Stephano,” Albanus went on. “The rest will come to you later.” He thrust the leather-wrapped cylinder into the simulacrum’s hand. “Give this to Stephano.” Leaning closer, he added whispered words.
Stephano shifted uneasily as the image of the King stepped down from the platform.
“So many times,” Albanus murmured, “have I been forced to endure the babble that spills from your mouth.”
The sculptor’s eyes narrowed, darting from Albanus to the approaching figure, and he broke for the door.
With inhuman speed the simulacrum hurled itself forward. Before Stephano had gone a single step it was on him, a hand with the strength of stone seizing his throat. A scream tore from him as obdurate fingers dug into the muscles on either side of his jaw, forcing his mouth open. Futilely Stephan clawed at the hand that held him; his fingers might as well have scraped at hardened leather. With that single hand, as if the sculptor were but a child, the replica forced him to his knees. Too late Stephano saw the cylinder descending toward his mouth, and understood Albanus’ words. Desperately he clutched the approaching wrist, but he could as easily have slowed a catapult’s arm. Remorseless, the construct forced the gold deeper, and yet deeper, into the sculptor’s mouth.
Choking rasps came from Stephano’s throat as the simulacrum of Garian dropped him. Eyes staring from his head, face empurpling, the sculptor clawed helplessly at his throat. His back arched in his struggles till naught but head and drumming heels touched the floor.
Albanus watched the death throes dispassionately, and when the last twitching foot had stilled, he said softly, “Nine hundred fifty more will go with you to your unmarked grave. What I promise, I give.” His shoulders shook with silent mirth. When the spasm had passed, he turned briskly to the likeness of Garian, still standing impassively over the body. “As for you, there is much to learn and little time. Tonight … .”
XVII
Ariane sat despondently, staring at nothing. Around her the common room of the Thestis murmured with intrigue. No musicians played, and men and women whispered as they huddled together over their tables. Reaching a decision, Ariane got to her feet and made her way through the tables to Graecus.
“I must talk to you, Graecus,” she said quietly. That deathly silence had contaminated her also.
“Later,” the stocky sculptor muttered without looking at her. To the others at his table he went on in a low, insistent voice. “I tell you, it matters not if Taras is dead. I know where the weapons are stored. In half a day I—”
Ariane felt some of her old fire rekindle. “Graecus!” In that room of whispers the sharp word sounded like a shout. Everyone at the table stared at her. “Has it not occurred to you,” she continued, “that perhaps we are being betrayed?”
“Conan,” Graecus began, but she cut him off.
“Not Conan.”
“He killed Taras,” a plump, pale-skinned brunette said. “You saw that yourself. And he’s taken Garian’s coin openly, now.”
“Yes, Gallia,” Ariane said patiently. “But if Conan had betrayed us, would not the Golden Leopards arrest us?” Silent stares answered her. “He has not betrayed us. Mayhap he spoke the truth abou
t Taras. Perhaps there are no armed men waiting for us to lead the people into the streets. Perhaps we’ll find we are no more than a stalking horse for some other’s plan.”
“By Erlik’s Throne,” Graecus grumbled, “you speak rubbish, Ariane.”
“Perhaps I do,” she sighed wearily, “but at least discuss it with me. Resolve my doubts, if you can. Do you truly have none at all?”
“Take your doubts back to your corner,” Graecus told her. “While you sit doubting, we will pull Garian from his throne.”
Gallia sniffed loudly. “What can you expect from one who spends so much time with that one-eyed ruffian?”
“Thank you, Gallia,” Ariane said. She smiled for the first time since entering the room where Conan stood above Taras’ body, and left the table to get her cloak. Graecus and the others stared at her as if she were mad.
Hordo was the answer to her problem, she realized. Not as one to talk to, of course. An she mentioned her doubts to him, he would gruffly tell her that Conan betrayed no one. Then he would pinch her bottom and try to inveigle his way into her bed. He had done all of those things already. But he had visited her earlier that afternoon, and had told her that Stephano lived, and was at the palace of Lord Albanus. The sculptor had had a good mind and a facile tongue before his jealousy of Conan soured him. Either he would dispel her doubts, convincing her of the big Cimmerian’s guilt, or, convinced himself he would return with her to the Thestis to help her convince the rest. She wrapped her cloak about her and hurried into the street.
When she reached the Street of Regrets she began to rue her decision to leave the Thestis. That street, always alive with flash and tawdry glitter, lay bare to the wind that rolled pitiful remnants across the paving stones. A juggler’s parti-colored cap. A silken scarf, soiled and torn. In the distance a dog howled, the sound echoing down other empty streets. Shivering, though not from the wind, Ariane quickened her pace.