CHAPTER 31
KHOR KALBA ROSE from the coastal plains defiantly, its bold black lines mocking the ocean’s ability to dissolve even the strongest stone. At the low-tide mark, barnacles and other signs of sea life made themselves visible, but only the most hearty. As Ela Shan and Conan picked their way over algae-slicked stones, pale crabs scuttled away. The two men headed for a large outflow pipe that stank of things noxious, of the creatures that throve in such filth.
Beyond the castle walls, a half mile farther along the coast, lay a stone formation looking very much like the skull of a giant clawing himself free of the earth. It appeared as if the moon’s dark disk was rising from within it. A bright fiery stream of magma flowed over the giant’s tongue and spilled far below to sizzle and hiss in the ocean. It seem to Conan as if the giant could not digest that which lurked in its belly and was vomiting that evil upon the earth.
Ela Shan crouched in the shadows beside the outflow. “The iron grate is new—at least, newer than Khor Kalba. Your Khalar Zym is not completely stupid.”
The Cimmerian moved forward and grabbed the black metal bars. He’d be hard-pressed to pull them apart. Still, there was no other way in.
Ela Shan’s hand landed on his wrist. “Give me a moment. No lock may withstand me, and iron bars I find particularly offensive.”
When they departed Asgalun, Ela Shan had exchanged his finery for dark clothes that made him all but invisible in the night. Over his doublet, in lieu of armor, the thief wore a vest of many pockets and sheaths. Conan estimated that the small man likely carried more steel by weight than he did, but the vests pockets contained yet more. The thief drew a small vial from one pocket, broke the wax seal, then used a bit of shell to smear the viscous liquid from within at the base of two bars.
Both the shell and the metal began to smoke. The thief tossed the bottle and the shell aside into the sea, then drew back upwind of where the potion worked. “You don’t want to breathe any of that.”
Conan nodded and crouched beside the thief. “How long?”
“Close. Foaming like a rabid dog, that’s what we want.” Ela Shan pointed toward a crusty patch on one of the bars. “The things that grow there produce an acid that etches the metal so they can sink roots in it. An alchemist believed it would let him change dross into gold, so he concentrated it. He had an accident and now, lacking hands, he’s willing to trade the secret of his formula with people who will perform services for him. I scratch his back—well, I provide people for that—and—”
The Cimmerian rose and delivered a sharp kick to one of the bars just above where the acid had done its work. The bar parted with a wet crunch, the sound of a soaked cable snapping. The second broke more easily. Conan waited for Ela Shan to wash the edges down with cupped handfuls of water. Conan then grasped the bars and was able to twist and spread them enough to permit passage.
Ela Shan kept to the side of the round conduit to avoid splashing through the stream of raw sewage in the middle, but the Cimmerian had no such option. Even with his head bowed, his shoulders brushed against the top of the pipe. Glowing lichen provided an eerie, pale green light to illuminate their path.
Beneath the first line of walls they discovered a narrow passage extending to the left and right, with the floor sloping upward. Ela Shan could have slipped into it easily, but for Conan it would have been a very tight squeeze. Evenly spaced along it, brick-lined chimneys extended up into darkness.
The thief shook his head. “In other places I’ve used a crossbow and grapnel for ascent. The last thing we want now, however, is for some fat-arsed guardsman to plant himself on a head and hear us coming up at him. Deeper in we’ll find more chances that are shorter climbs, and in portions of Khor Kalba that have gone unused for a long time.
As they pushed on, the tunnel broadened, as did the flow through it. Two more tunnels joined it at a collecting pool, and their path continued on straight across. Fetid bubbles rose to the pool’s turgid surface, bursting through a filthy brown layer. Conan probed with his sword. “It’s not deep.”
The thief restrained him with a hand to the chest. “It doesn’t need to be.” He fished a small box from one of his pouches and poured into his hand what appeared to be salt crystals. He tossed some of them before him, into the pool, as would a farmer sowing seed. As they sank, they began to glow a lurid purple, marking an uneven path.
More importantly, dark shadows moved within the water, jerking sharply away from the light.
Conan frowed. “What manner of sorcery—”
“Not sorcery, my friend. Magick can always be detected.” Ela Shan moved along the path, spreading more crystals before him. “A different form of the lichen provides the light, and oil of the red eucalyptus provides most of the crystal. Not many creatures can abide it, and as long as there is light, the path is safe.”
Conan followed the thief to the other side, then stopped as they reentered their tunnel. “The water is colder.”
The thief crouched. “Fresher, too, much fresher. There must be a bigger channel, a massive one, that draws colder water from the deep. Why they’d need it, however, I have no idea.”
The Cimmerian remembered the baleful eye he’d seen on the Hornet. “I do.”
“Yes . . . ?”
From above, distant yet powerful, drums began to pound. “It’s begun. Let’s move.”
“Conan, what are we facing?”
The Cimmerian turned toward the thief, his face taut. “I hope you have more of your crystals.” He turned, and plunged into darkness.
MARIQUE PACED AROUND Tamara, admiring and hating her at the same time. Tamara stood there in Maliva’s gown, her hands and ankles bound with long chains. The set of her shoulders and the way she raised her chin reminded Marique of her mother. At the end . . .
“I do believe you are properly prepared.”
Tamara’s eyes flashed. “Do you not wish to drug me again, Marique? After all, I might try to escape.”
Marique’s right hand rose, the Stygian talons sharp and bright. “Such a precaution might please me, but I would not have my mother addled when she takes your form. But you thought yourself clever, didn’t you? You want me to drug you so my mother will fail.”
Tamara said nothing.
“But failure is not something we shall know this night.” Marique went to the throne room’s window and pointed to the courtyard below. “Already, fighting men flock to my father’s banner, filling his ranks. Word has gone out. And trust me, child, any that even barely resemble your Cimmerian will be killed. He may have escaped my assassins, but he will not arrive in time to rescue you.”
“I care not for rescue. It is enough he kills your father and destroys the mask.” Tamara smiled slowly. “And he will kill your father. He would have done so at Shaipur save for your intervention.”
Marique let pride smother the spark of fear in her belly. “Nothing will stop my father.”
She turned and took the Cimmerian sword from the stand where it rested. She meant to brandish it triumphantly, but when she touched the cool metal, she felt a spark of fear reignite in her breast. That Conan and the blade were linked had never been in doubt. He had had a hand in its creation. She glanced at the metal, seeking illumination in its reflections, but saw nothing. This reassured her for a moment, before she realized that she should have seen a reflection of her right hand, the hand holding the blade.
Is he that close? Marique snorted and lifted her gaze from the blade. “Did you know I met your barbarian as a boy? I took this sword from him.”
The monk’s upper lip curled in a sneer. “He said nothing of you. You were not memorable.”
“Oh, I remember him.” Marique licked her lips. “I tasted him long before you ever did. I’m told that Cimmerian steel is sharper and harder than any other . . . that when it cuts, the pain is close to pleasure. I know it will please you.”
Tamara did not reply.
“It will please me as well, Tamara.” Marique glide
d in, whispering in the monk’s left ear. “You see, once you are my mother, I shall make your Cimmerian mine. He shall be my consort. As you have known him, I shall know him. What was once yours will be mine, and you, little Tamara, will fade from the world’s memory.”
Tamara turned, her voice low. “I will kill you.”
“You will never have the chance.”
“If I do not, I will make certain your mother does.”
Marique hissed, then withdrew to the chamber doors. She shouted at the soldiers and acolytes lining the corridor. “Strike the drums. Come guide your goddess to her destiny. Any man who fails in his duty will know my wrath, and terrible indeed it shall be.”
TWENTY YARDS FURTHER along, the tunnel became much steeper. Conan cut right and Ela Shan left onto narrow walkways that paralleled the spillway. They raced up steps and the tunnel broadened out before them. A massive iron grating worked in a tentacular design covered a deep pool from which water splashed at the bottom of a cylindrical cavern. Cages on chains hung from the shadowed heights, and stone steps combined with drawbridges twisted around the cylinder in a double helix, leading up to Khor Kalba’s main fortress.
Conan took all this in with a glance, then focused on the giant rising from a stone throne across the cavern. Chains swathed the man, taking Conan back to Cimmeria, to his father’s forge, and the last of Khalar Zym’s minions. Khalar Zym’s last lapdog, Akhoun. As Conan and the thief started up the steps, Akhoun hauled on chains and drawbridges rose, trapping them.
The giant pointed at the interlopers. “Kill them, now!”
Other men in leather harnesses brought weapons to hand. By dress and location they marked themselves as torturers instead of warriors. They carried whips and red-hot branding irons, rushing around the grate’s perimeter. So used to having terror on their side as they plied their trade on their victims, they advanced without realizing just how dangerous some men can truly be.
Ela Shan worked his way up the stairs, hands flashing. Blackened steel spikes and sharp-bladed knives flew. One torturer reeled away, blood spurting from his opened throat. He stumbled onto the grate, then went to his knees. As he struggled to get back up, a gray tentacle rose from the water, curled itself around him, and pulled him under.
Conan roared forward, his sword coming up in an arc that opened a man from hip to shoulder. He fell back, slowing another man. A third torturer lunged with a branding iron. Conan sidestepped it, then took the man’s arm off at the elbow. The Cimmerian caught the branding iron in his left hand, then backhanded another man with the glowing end. The man stumbled back, then fell through the grate, bobbing for a heartbeat before disappearing beneath the water’s dark surface.
Akhoun brandished a heavy mace, whirling it in time with the drums’ resonant pulsing. He moved along toward where Conan had won through the torturers. “Come, Cimmerian, you will trouble my master no more.”
Conan went for him, and would have fallen into a trap save for Ela Shan’s cry of warning. One of the thief’s throwing knives clattered against the grate. Conan turned toward the sound, then ducked as a tentacle swept through the air. As it came sweeping back, Conan sliced at it. Though the cut was a full six inches in depth, it was but a scratch to the monster, which watched Conan through the grate.
Akhoun’s laughter boomed through the cavern. “My pet will never let you harm me.”
Conan darted two steps forward, then one back, as the beast attempted to grab at him again. “Coward!”
“Smart, not craven.” Akhoun opened his arms. “The Dweller will be more kind to you than I.”
“Conan, get ready.”
His left hand firmly wrapped about a chain, the Shemite thief leaped from the stairs and arced out into the middle of the cavern. His right hand came forward and down. A glass bottle broke against the grating edge, at the central hole. Smoke began to rise from the metal as the thief sailed away again.
The water roiled and Conan sped forward. Akhoun glanced toward his pet, and saw the golden light of its eye slowly fading away; then he turned toward the barbarian. He raised his mace, his mouth open, his roar giving voice to the pain the creature must have felt. He darted forward, intent on Conan. The two combatants hurtled toward each other, one blow aimed high, the other low, with no thought to defense given by either man.
Conan’s blade sliced across Akhoun’s belly, opening him from navel to hip, front to spine, as the Cimmerian passed beneath the giant’s left arm. Blood gushed and a pale rope of intestine spilled out. Yet before death could claim him, Arkoun’s mace struck.
The weapon’s iron head should have crushed Conan’s skull, and likely would have save that a flailing tentacle brushed the mace at the highest point in its arc, diverting and slowing it. The club fell, its haft striking Conan on the shoulder. It knocked him down and sent him tumbling against the chamber wall. He rolled and came halfway up before impact with the wall dropped him onto his ass.
Akhoun stood there, staring down at his ruined belly. A hand reached toward his guts, as if to stuff them back inside. He took a sidling step toward the Cimmerian. The pure venom in his eyes overrode the shock on his face.
Then two tentacles swept out, ensnared him in their coils, and yanked him from sight.
Conan scrambled to his feet and ran to Akhoun’s throne. He released the chains that had pulled the drawbridges up, then ran over and joined Ela in his ascent. Below, the water still splashed and things moved in it.
“What did you do?”
“Five years’ worth of venom from spitting cobras. The thing’s not dead, just blind.”
“That’s more an assassin’s tool than one for a thief.”
“If I used it on other than watchdogs, it might be.” Ela raced ahead and reached an iron door. “You can feel the drums through here.”
“Open it.”
“Lock’s rusted shut, but one of these others will work. The one across the way will be more accommodating.” They ran to it and Ela Shan had it quickly open. The two of them burst into a small garrison chamber and each slew a sleeping man. They moved into the corridor, then found the servants’ stairs and worked their way up, killing everyone they could find.
Finally they reached the uppermost level and burst in through the open doorway. The fact that no guards had been posted had warned them that they would find no one. Conan ran to the window and looked down. A long procession had begun with a man in golden armor riding at its head. Behind him came acolytes carrying banners, and Conan imagined that the one at the procession’s center bore the Mask of Acheron. More riders, in long robes, with Marique among them; then a crude cart with a woman bound to a post, her back straight, her head high.
Tamara.
Ela Shan joined him. “It looks as if they are bound for that mountain. We can get there easily enough, but look at the companies he has arrayed on the road. We couldn’t possibly slaughter them all.”
Conan turned and clasped the thief on both shoulders. “Our debt is settled.”
The thief chuckled. “Do not think you can abandon me in the midst of an adventure, Cimmerian. I, too, am not without honor.”
“And I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Yes?”
“You said this place was full of traps and dangers.”
“More of those than there is treasure.”
“Good.” Conan glanced out the window again. “I can get to that mountain. I can slip past those guards. I will destroy Khalar Zym and his mask. But . . .”
“But were the unthinkable to happen, you want him to return to a stronghold that will consume him.”
Conan nodded grimly. “Make this a place of death.”
“It would make me more of an assassin than a thief, but that old career is getting boring.” Ela Shan smiled. “I shall do as you ask, friend Conan. I likely won’t kill him, but I shall slow him down. And that might give the world a chance to make this his mausoleum.”
CHAPTER 32
FROM HER PLACE of honor Mariqu
e studied those working below her. Four acolytes had bound Tamara to the ceremonial oaken wheel, linking her chains to it. She hung there as Maliva had once hung. As she will again. Displaying strength that belied their slender forms, the acolytes lifted the wheel and settled it in a wooden collar that had been fitted across a ragged split through the heart of the skull mountain. Scaffolding had been constructed around it to provide a platform for the ceremony, but down through the opening and off into the distance, one could easily see the river of fire that rose to pour out of the skull’s mouth.
Marique felt especially proud, for in the lava’s red-gold glow could be seen ruins, ancient ruins that dated back to the Acheronian period. The coast where Khor Kalba now rose had once been home to a grand city in the heart of a plain. The shattering of Acheron’s power had fractured the land as well. The sea had greedily devoured what it could, and men supposed that the city had been completely consumed, but much of it had been preserved. Marique’s researches had located it, and she had convinced her father to excavate the ruins near Khor Kalba. Within the ruins Marique had uncovered material the existence of which her mother had only dreamed about, and with this material, she had been able to construct the ritual that would bring Maliva back to life.
She had spent much time in those ruins, fearing at first that she might have been wrong, and later because the voices that spoke to her did not like the ruins. Despite this, Marique directed the recovery of the statuary and mosaics that filled her father’s throne room. He had seen her delivery of them as an act of homage to the god he would become. While she was still subject to his rages, he always forgave her because she was, after all, the first to worship him.
Marique wondered, at times, what he would think if he knew that she had recovered many more things within the ruins. Dark things. Foul things. Things that defied description. Things that had moved through dimensions untouched by time, to somehow become lodged in the sea-gnawed city. She collected them, arranging them in the largest of the galleries that lay hidden in shadow. She could only guess at some of their names, and at the unspeakable relationships that existed among them. And though she recognized most as gods, Lesser and Elder, Great and Hidden, she refrained from worshipping them.