Conan the Fearless Part 3

Muscles of striated flesh flexed and bunched, driving sharp steel against the denizens. Thrice, cold hands were laid upon him; three times did Conan chop the offending hands away. He slashed, cut, stabbed, and kicked, showering the frozen ground with shards and watery chunks of the faceless monsters. They were many, but they were clumsy compared to the whirling, leaping man. Conan raged against them, destroying three more. The fluid of their bodies steamed and froze in the hard chill as Conan continued to weave his pattern of steel-laced death.

It was a fight that could have but one end, he knew, if he stayed and tried to slay them all. He was tired; the sword was heavy in his hands, and there were still eight of the shambling monsters trying to kill him. Time to depart.

Conan turned and ran in the direction from which he had come. The eyeless beasts, followed him, stringing themselves out into a line.

Conan managed a grin even in his exhaustion. Good. They were not only clumsy, they were no tacticians.

Abruptly, he stopped and turned, then ran back at the monsters. They were too far apart now to reach him in force; he faced a single creature, the largest of the group. Conan ducked the wild swing of the monster's fist. He raised his sword and brought it down smartly. The ancient steel bit through the thing's leg and slashed the limb away from the body. The water monster fell in silence, blocking Conan's path behind him. Conan sprinted away in the direction he had been heading when first attacked. Now, if he could only collect his cursed horse!

A sharp whinny pulled Conan up from his run. He turned and observed his mount being dragged toward the rent in the lake's surface by several more of those things that harried him. Still more of the evil sp.a.w.n emerged from the lake to help clutch at the horse. There must have been at least twenty of them now. Half of them subdued the horse, while the others turned toward Conan.

His horse, all his food, and the stolen sack of gold were being dragged down into Spokesjo Lake! For an instant Conan chased them, his sword held high and rage befogging his mind. He stopped. No horse was worth dying for. There were thousands of horses and many rich men whose gold he could steal, if he lived.

"Crom take you all!" he yelled at the crystal-clear bloodless monsters before he turned and loped away.

On the road descending from the pa.s.s Conan spied a mounted figure in the distance. Though he increased his speed from a walk to a trot, then to a run, the figure grew no closer. He shouted a greeting, but received no answer; the rider never paused. Could this be the merchant he had met in that dog kennel of an inn earlier? If so, why did the man seem so intent on maintaining the distance between them? Cursing the watery attackers who had drowned his horse, Conan kept on.

After a weary day's walk Conan sighted the city of Mornstadinos, the first Corinthian city he had seen. True, there were no towers or tall spires such as graced Shadizar or Arenjun, but the settlement boasted a high wall and many buildings, even if most seemed more squat than those in other cities he had known. It would serve. If he hoped to continue his journey to Nemedia, he would have to obtain another horse and more silver or gold, and here of necessity would be the place to find both.

As the ground pa.s.sed steadily under his boots Conan realized he would be at least another day on the road. From a vantage point on a foothill he could see a large forest on the far side of the city, and what seemed a vast plain beyond that. No travelers came toward him from the town, which was unfortunate. A fat merchant would no doubt be carrying exotic foods and valuables of which Conan could avail himself. Aside from his sword, his Karpas.h.i.+an dagger, and his clothes, the Cimmerian had nothing but a purse bearing a few coppers, enough for perhaps one meal and a few cups of bad wine. An unpleasant prospect, but one he had learned to accept; it was not the first time going hungry had been his lot.

Well. The city lay ahead and his belly would manage on roots and stream water until he reached its gates. Conan trudged stoically onward.

Loganaro judged that the tall barbarian was now an hour behind him, thanks to the gallop into which he had forced his horse. The beast was lathered with sweat, but this was of little importance: What mattered was that there be time for Loganaro to contact one of his patrons. Or, in this case, a patroness.

While the horse wandered along eating sedge gra.s.ses the man began his preparations for far speaking, a magic of no small power for which he had paid dearly. Even so, there was another price to be paid for each use of the talent. Loganaro pulled a short fat-bladed dagger from beneath his robes and clutched it tightly in his right hand. Clearing his sleeve away from his left arm, he revealed a forearm covered with thin scars. Some of these were old and faded by sun and age; others lay fresh upon his flesh, in shades ranging from angry red to pale pink.

Loganaro picked a spot between two of the younger lines and laid the tip of the dagger against it. Gritting his teeth, he pressed the needlesharp tip into his flesh.

Blood welled as he drew the blade downward, scoring tanned flesh with a thin line of living ruby liquid. There was some small pain, a necessary portion of the spell; more, there was the salty fluid itself, the major ingredient. The dagger's ch.o.r.e finished, Loganaro laid it aside, to replace the steel with his middle finger. He gathered the blood on the finger's tip until that member, was fairly coated; raising the finger skyward, the man intoned a phrase he'd been taught: "Hematus cephii augmentum sichtus."

Quickly following the words, Loganaro drew upon his forehead in blood the three arcane symbols that completed the spell: the adulation rind, his own personal chop, and the double curve that represented his patroness. Then he waited.

Five minutes pounded past, on their way to join the uncounted lines of time that had marched before them. On the birth of the sixth minute a voice came to Loganaro-a woman's voice. Scarcely above a whisper, the voice carried intensity and power within its folds.

Why have you called?

Loganaro spoke to the evening air. "Mistress, I may have found that which you seek."

I seek many things, insectus minor. Which thing in particular do you pretend to have discovered?

"That which will complete your Incantation of Animation for your ebon simulacrum, the Prince of the Lance."

Many have offered that final ingredient, servant. All have been found wanting.

"I think not this time, Mistress. I saw this man slay three experienced cutthroats with as little effort as a man takes to wipe wine from his lips. More, he traveled through Haunted Pa.s.s unaided by any conjur or cantrip."

A lucky man to move while the undines slept.

"Nay, Mistress, those creatures slumbered not under the ice of the haunted lake. They came forth in great numbers and tried to carry this mortal to their watery mansions. He slew many of the monsters. His horse was taken, and I thought for a moment he would follow them under the ice to retrieve the beast."

He accomplished this unaided?

"Indeed. I thought it best to remain unseen."

No doubt. I have never thought you a candidate for my Prince's a.s.semblage. This man, however, interests me. Continue to observe him. I shall make contact with you with instructions when I deem it should be so.

"And my reward . . . ?"

Fear not, low one; the gold you value shall be yours if the heart of this man be sufficiently brave. The word of Djuluva the Witch is her bond.

"To doubt such never entered my mind, Mistress."

Has this man a name?

"He is called Conan, Mistress. A barbarian from Cimmeria."

Within her manse in Mornstadinos, Djuluva sundered the magical link with Loganaro and leaned away from the polished steel mirror that gathered her focus of mystic energies. She beheld her image: a fire-haired woman of thirty whose face appeared ten years younger smiled back at her. Her thin gown of raw silk revealed a shapely body lush of hip and breast and much experienced in carnal ways. The image held within the steel reflected the wicked smile of the comely witch as it seemed to mirror her thoughts and feelings. No man born of woman was a match for Djuvula in the arts of lovemaking, she knew. Many had tried; all had failed.

Realizing that no mortal man would ever be able to keep her pleased, Djuluva had decided to undertake the creation of an ersatz-man, a simulacrum she could hold in perpetual thrall, to satisfy her every whim. It had been simple enough to begin the undertaking. Her magic was particularly powerful when it came to such things. Unfortunately, some of the components of the a.s.semblage were less simple to obtain. Her ebon-skinned Prince of the Lance lay in all his perfection in her bedchamber, yet unable to function without the final ingredient required for her witchery: the fresh heart of a truly brave man. Dozens of organs had been tried; all had failed to animate her lover. The so-p.r.o.nounced brave hearts had done nothing whatsoever. Djuvula's disgust was profound.

Despite his obsequiousness, Loganaro was usually reliable in his dealings with her; perhaps, just perhaps, he had finally found what Djuvula needed. Such a thought was worthy of the smile she shared with her mirror. She would prepare her potions, just in case.

A tall man stood next to a much-scarred log, which leaned against a granite wall. The place was a remote corner of the estate of Lemparius, Center Strand of the Senate's Treble Whip, and the man none other than the owner of that vast acreage. In his long-fingered hands Lemparius held a device of bra.s.s and gold, shaped like a ball within a cube, but twisted in some perverse manner that was easy to see but difficult to describe. A voice issued from the device, that of Loganaro the free agent, speaking to the witch Djuluva. The conversation was not meant for Lemparius's ears, but such privacy was beneath the senator's consideration. He listened as he chose, using the storora, the "magic ear" constructed by some nameless Stygian artificer dead a hundred years.

"---called Conan, Mistress. A barbarian from Cimmeria. "

Lemparius laughed, the sound much like a growl, as he adjusted some small subdivision of the device he held. The voices of the fat agent and the witch dwindled and finally vanished. Carefully, the senator bent and placed the mechanical miracle behind the man-thick log that formed an oblique angle against the ma.s.sive granite wall. There was a special recess designed for the storora there, cut into the stone. The senator did not want anything to happen to the Stygian magic box; it was most useful, and, so far as he knew, it was unique.

Satisfied that the arcane device was safely nestled away, the senator turned around. A warm wind ruffled his long blond hair, giving his head almost a tawny glow. The sun glinted from his eyes as he moved, and that glint showed strangely shaped pupils more akin to a creature designed for predatory attack from above than to a man. Methodically, Lemparius removed his clothing. He stripped away his tunic and silken underbreeches first, then his sandals, until he stood naked on sandy ground bounded by a wall as tall as three men. He was alone in the vast clearing, so none beheld his nakedness.

None saw what followed.

Lemparius began to change. His contours altered, the skin and muscles flowing like fresh potter's clay. Bones crackled; cartilage tore asunder; the blond hair of a man thickened and turned into the tawny pelt of an animal, the hair sprouting as might weeds in some h.e.l.lish garden. Lemparius's face seemed to sink. His nose flattened and broadened at the nostrils; his mouth stretched and his teeth fused and grew until the canines became fangs.

What had been a man groaned as it dropped onto all fours. Claws replaced nails, paws metamorphized from fingers and toes. The man's form shrank in places, stretched in other places, and when at last the metamorphosis was complete, the sthenic form that stood there was no longer any design of ape.

That which prowled the estate of Lemparius, one of the Treble Strands of the Senate Whip, was the sp.a.w.n of cats: It was Lemparius, panther, one of the werefolk.

And the cat-beast was hungry.

Chapter Three.

The sun had made but a small part of its journey across the morning sky when Conan entered the city of Mornstadinos. From a distance the Cimmerian had been unable to perceive the convolutions of the narrow streets. He now traversed myriad alleys, cul-de-sacs, and cobbled roads which appeared to have been laid out by someone besotted, blind, or mad. If a pattern existed to the maze, Conan was unable to discern it.

Here sat a stable full of horses and stinking of dung; next to the stable stood a temple replete with cowled oblates; beyond that edifice an open air market dealt in fruit and baked goods.

The barbarian's stomach rumbled, insistent in its hunger. He strode to the market, attracting more than a few stares at his muscular form.

From a woven basket Conan extracted a loaf of hard black bread. He poked the loaf with one finger, then waved the bread at an old woman.