Conan the Fearless Part 33

"Kinna! To me!"

Conan caught another movement: The witch was fumbling with something.

She dropped whatever it was, but managed to catch it before it hit the floor. She cursed.

Conan swung around to face the panther, realizing too late that his sword offered no proof against the wereman's attack.

The cat leaped for Conan's throat, and the big Cimmerian swung without thinking. The blade sank into the beast's side, shearing ribs and knocking the panther to one side. But even as it landed, Conan saw the welling blood cease its flow, and the wound knit itself together.

The Cimmerian turned quickly toward Kinna and tossed her his sword.

"Here!" he yelled.

With that, he s.n.a.t.c.hed Lemparius's curved knife from his belt just as the cat sprang again. Conan ducked and stabbed upward with the steel tooth. The tip speared the panther under the throat; the force of the cat's leap carried it over Conan's squatting form, and the magical blade laid it open from neck to hindquarters. Steaming entrails gushed forth, and the panther who had been a man hit the ground, rolled once, and died.

"Conan!" That was Kinna, who swung Conan's heavy blade wildly and with little effect against the cl.u.s.ter of hooded lizard-men, who all jockeyed to get at her.

Conan caught the sword from her and lunged forward. One of the lizards took the point under his chin. It fell back, mortally wounded.

"Now I have you!" came a voice behind him. Conan backed away from the clutch of pike bearers and risked a quick glance down the hall.

Djuvula the Witch stood straight and still, holding a small globe high over her head. "It is your time, Conan, and the time of all with you!"

The castle shook, the walls glowing briefly with a bluish light.

Vitarius! He still carried the fight against Sovartus! Good, Conan thought, for certainly he and Kinna were doomed-

Djuvula screamed as she lost her balance on the vibrating floor. The globe she held spun away from her clutching fingertips, and she screamed again. "No!"

The globe smashed upon the floor as the blue light died. A thick cloud of dust burst from the shattered ball, a greenish-yellow mist that billowed out to fill the corridor.

Instantly, Conan knew the cloud for what it was: He had seen it used before by a Nemedian thief when they had scaled the Tower of the Elephant in Arenjun. The thief was long dead, but what he had said lived in Conan's memory. Black lotus dust, and breathing it meant death!

Conan's instincts took over. He grabbed Kinna by the hand. "Hold your breath, girl-do not breathe!-and run for your life!" With that, he led Kinna into the cloud of death.

Even without breathing, Conan caught the taint of a sickeningly sweet and cloying odor as the thick cloud closed over him. He tripped on the fallen form of the witch, nearly fell, but recovered, towing Kinna along with him.

Behind him, Conan heard the sound he had hoped to hear: the footsteps of the hooded lizard-men, chasing them.

The man and woman pa.s.sed out of the cloud, but Conan kept going, to shake the traces of dust that clung to them. When he stopped. he still did not breathe as he brushed more of the vaporous substance from his and Kinna's clothes and bodies. He moved away from this spot before he finally allowed his inhaled air to escape. He drew in another lungful of air carefully, but no hint of the powdery death remained. He nodded at Kinna. "Breathe," he said.

Kinna panted noisily, and followed her inhalation with a question: "What of the hooded ones?"

"Listen," Conan commanded.

The sound of heavy forms dropping onto the flagstones reached his ears.

"I hear nothing-" Kinna began.

"Wait."

After a time the cloud of dust began to settle and dissipate; as it did, the silent forms of the hooded lizards took shape upon the floor.

Among them, too, lay the bodies of Djuvula the Witch, who had wanted Conan's heart for some foul spell, and near her a naked man was sprawled on his back, gutted.

"What-?"

"A poison," Conan explained. "I have seen it work before. Vitarius shook the mountain and the witch dropped the vial, destroying herself."

"Who was the man'?"

"Lemparius. And he was also a panther. Now he is neither. Come, we have your sister to rescue, and her siblings. And Sovartus must be stopped, or that thing on the plain will rule us all."

Chapter Twenty-Two.

The blue streak broke against the castle, and Sovartus nearly pitched out through the window as the building shook from the impact. He clutched at the facing and managed to thrust himself back into the tower. The magician glared at the unseen figure on Dodligia Plain, and his face lit with hatred. He might have died in the fall had he not been quick. To control such as the Thing of Power and then to die from some base stupidity would be a cruel irony indeed.

Sovartus drew himself up to his full height and smiled. Time to end this farce with his old cla.s.smate. The master of the Black Square regarded his creation, which in turn stared back with unblinking eyes of fire.

"Go," Sovartus commanded, "and swat me that bothersome insect!" The magician waved his hand in a casting motion.

The Thing of Power, built of the Four Elements, turned away from Castle Slott, moving more quickly than it seemed possible. Walking on legs made from tornadoes, it took gigantic strides across the plain.

A line of blue shot from the seemingly empty plain toward the Thing of Power, and a small spot on its earthy body blackened and smoked, but the creature slowed not.

Sovartus grinned, looking to see if any of the children noticed. None had, for each of the captives seemed to be in a stupor, eyes closed, breath coming slowly.

No matter, the mage thought. It is enough that I see it!

Another line of blue fire scored the Thing of Power, but this time the flash was dimmer, and the beam pa.s.sed harmlessly through one of the arms of spinning wind.

In a few moments the Thing of Power had dwindled, so that it seemed no larger than a man seen across a wide street. A third blue flame arrowed up from the ground and struck the creature, who was almost upon the source.

As Sovartus watched, the awesome Thing of Power bent and raised one of its arms. The arm came down hard, and the force of the blow shook the ground, even into the castle, so that Sovartus felt the strike through the soles of his boots.

That blow meant much to Sovartus, ah, yes. He knew then that Vitarius, pupil to Hogistum, and his enemy, was no more. He had been snuffed out with no more effort needed than to command it.

Nothing could stand in his way now, Sovartus knew, for there was no power capable of withstanding the creature he had created and was master of, no power on Earth. Not since the sinking of Atlantis had such forces been under the direction of men; his triumph was as awesome as the Thing of Power itself. It would live as long as he lived, and he could live forever!

Sovartus continued to stare at the Thing of Power as it marched back toward him. Soon the nations of the world would bow to him and offer him all manner of tribute. Soon he would destroy cities, lay waste to whole countrysides, slaughter armies, did not the people offer him his due. Soon he would rule the world, and it would function to his whim-or it would function not at all!

The thought of it filled Sovartus with black joy.

The pa.s.sageway opened into an antechamber. Conan saw the backs of two more of the hooded lizard-men as he stepped into the antechamber. The lizard-men's attention lay elsewhere, and when Conan looked beyond them, he saw what held their gazes: a thin man with black hair and a pointed beard, dressed in a woven-hair robe, looking through a window.

"Sovartus," Kinna whispered next to Conan.

"At last," Conan said. He raised his sword.

Something must have alerted the two lizard-men, for they turned, as one, to stare at Conan and Kinna. They raised their pikes.