Conan and the Emerald Lotus Part 1

Conan and the Emerald Lotus.

by John Hocking.

Prologue.

Ethram-Fal stood in the ancient chamber and looked upon bones. Dark and pitted, they lay strewn in the thick dust of the stone floor. Ruddy torchlight flared, filling the circular room with leaping shadows. A tall soldier in full armor stood motionless beside the single doorway, torch held high in one steady hand.

Ethram-Fal knelt, his gray robes rustling, and pulled an ornate dagger of irregular shape from a concealed sheath. Though he was a young man, the sorcerer's hunched and shrunken form gave the impression of great age. Thin hair of mouse-brown was beginning to grow from a scalp recently shaved clean. He frowned in contemplation, furrowing his bulbous and malformed brow. He probed among the bones and dust with the dagger's tip and felt the slow welling of despair.

It's dead now, he thought. Of course it's dead now, but I had hoped that there would be something remaining, if only husks. The dagger tip disturbed the dust of centuries, revealing nothing. Ethram-Fal stood suddenly, and the soldier with the torch flinched.

"Fangs of Set," he cursed. "Have I come so far for nothing?" His voice was a hollow echo. The sorcerer looked up. The ceiling of the circular room was so high that it was lost in the flickering darkness beyond the torchlight's reach. An even band of engraved hieroglyphics ran around the walls at twice the height of a man. The markings seemed to writhe tortuously in the dim light.

"There is no doubt," said Ethram-Fal dully, "this is the room." He turned, and in doing so set his sandal upon something that gave a m.u.f.fled crack. Stepping to one side, he looked down and went rigid.

"Ath, lower the torch." The soldier dutifully lowered the torch to illuminate the floor while Ethram-Fal knelt again. He had tread upon what appeared to be a human rib and had snapped it in two. A fine black powder seeped out of the broken bone. Ethram-Fal gave a choked cry of triumph.

"Of course! It's gone dormant. It must have absorbed all nourishment down to the marrow and then spored. Set grant that there is still life!" He gestured with a gray-clad arm. "Ath, bring my apprentice."

The soldier left the room, the light of his torch receding down the empty corridor, leaving Ethram-Fal in darkness. But it was not darkness to Ethram-Fal, who saw his future looming bright and glorious before him. His breathing quickened, the only sound in the stony silence.

In a few moments Ath returned, his hawk-like Stygian features stern and impa.s.sive. Behind him trailed a slender adolescent boy clad in yellow robes. Though taller than Ethram-Fal, the top of the boy's tousled head came to well below Ath's chin. The boy looked about the room with obvious impatience.

"I was helping the men set up camp in the large chamber," he said petulantly. "Have you finally found something useful for me to do?"

Ethram-Fal did not reply, but fixed his gaze upon the bones at his feet.

"Ath," he said, "kill him."

With a single fluid motion the soldier drew his broadsword, buried it in the youth's belly, twisted it, and withdrew. The apprentice uttered a high-pitched wail, clutched himself, and dropped to lie writhing weakly in the dust. When the boy stopped breathing, Ath wiped his blade upon the body and sheathed it. He looked at Ethram-Fal expectantly. The hand gripping the torch had not faltered.

The sorcerer produced a thick reddish leaf from a leather pouch on his belt. He handed it to Ath, who immediately put it into his mouth. The soldier's eyes closed and his cheeks drew hollow as he sucked upon the leaf.

Ethram-Fal paid this no heed. Bending at the waist, he gingerly picked up the broken rib between thumb and forefinger. Tilting the bone with exaggerated care, he spilled a thin stream of black powder over the sprawled body of his apprentice. He emptied the macabre vessel, concentrating its contents on the dark stain spreading upon the corpse's midriff. When the dust ceased to fall, he tossed the rib aside and stood staring at the body in silence.

An hour pa.s.sed, during which Ath chewed and swallowed his leaf and Ethram-Fal moved not at all. Toward the close of the second hour, Ethram-Fal c.o.c.ked his head, as though he sought to hear a soft sound from a great distance. The body on the floor shuddered and the sorcerer clasped his hands together in an ecstasy of antic.i.p.ation.

A moist crackling filled the still air. The corpse jerked and trembled as though endowed with tormented life. Ethram-Fal caught his breath as fist-sized swellings erupted all but instantaneously from the dead flesh of his apprentice. The body was grotesquely distorted in a score of places, with such swift violence that the limbs convulsed and the yellow robes ripped open.

Green blossoms the size of a man's open hand burst from the corpse, leaping forth in such profusion that the body was almost hidden from view. Iridescent and six-petaled, the blooms pushed free of enclosing flesh, bobbing and shaking as if in a strong wind. In a moment they were still, and a sharp, musky odor, redolent of both nectar and corruption, rose slowly to fill the chamber.

The peals of Ethram-Fal's laughter reverberated from the stone walls like the tolling of a great bell.

Chapter One.

The night air was warm and close, but it was of polar freshness compared to the dense atmosphere within the tavern. A stout, st.u.r.dily built man in the mail of a mercenary of Akkharia shoved open the door and surveyed the scene within. The main room was s.p.a.cious, but crowded with a motley variety of locals, mercenaries, and travelers. The visitor ran a callused hand through his graying hair and scanned the gathering for the man he'd come to see. In the closest corner a number of men were throwing dice, alternately crowing in triumph and cursing in defeat. The center of the sawdust-strewn floor was dominated by a huge table bearing the nearly denuded carca.s.s of an entire roasted pig.

Men cl.u.s.tered about it, drinking and stuffing themselves.

"Ho, Shamtare!" a voice thundered over the tavern's clamor. There, in the farthest corner, was the man he sought. Shamtare made his way across the floor, dodging gesticulating drunks and busy serving wenches with practiced ease.

The one who had called his name lounged against the tavern's rear wall with his long muscular legs propped up on a table. He was a hulking, powerful-looking man whose skin had been burnt to a dark bronze by ceaseless exposure to the elements. He was clad in a chain-mail s.h.i.+rt and faded breeches of black cotton. At his waist hung a ma.s.sive broadsword in a worn leather scabbard. A white smile split a face that seemed better suited to scowl, and piercing blue eyes flashed as he hoisted his wine jug in a rakish salute, gesturing for Shamtare to join him. The scarred table-top held a loaf of bread and a joint of beef, as well as heaping platters of fruits, cheese, and nuts. From the crusts and rinds scattered about, it would seem that a celebration of sorts had been going on for some time.

"Conan," said Shamtare, "I thought you said your money was running low."

"So it is," answered the other with a barbarous accent. "What of it?

Tomorrow I shall surely be working for one of this cursed city's mercenary troops, and tonight I find that I have missed civilization more than I had realized." The barbarian washed the words down with a great swallow of wine.

Shamtare sat and helped himself to a handful of ripe fruit. "Traveled far, have you?" he asked, popping pomegranate seeds into his mouth.

"Aye, from the heart of Kush across the Stygian deserts. It seems that I'm no longer welcome in the southern kingdoms."

Shamtare raised his thick eyebrows in puzzlement "But surely you are a Northman..."

"A Cimmerian," said Conan. "But I have done much traveling."

"Indeed," murmured Shamtare, to whom Cimmeria was a chill and distant place of myth. "But about your choice of mercenary employment..."

Conan took a bite out of the beef joint and chewed enthusiastically.

"Still trying to get me to join your troop?"

Shamtare lifted his hands. "You can't blame me for that. When I saw your performance on the practice field, I knew that you'd be an a.s.set to any troop that signed you on. And you know I'm paid a bounty for each new recruit. I admit that when I asked where you'd be dining tonight, I had more in mind than tipping a jug with you. I say again that Mamluke's Legion could well use a man like yourself."

Conan shrugged, shaking his square-cut black mane. "I've been to see all four troops in this pestilent city, and they all offer the same wages. The king must keep close watch on his mercenary commanders that none of them can outbid the other for an experienced soldier. What in Ymir's name does King Sumuabi need with four troops of sellswords anyway?"

"The king watches over his mercenaries because he has plans for them."

Shamtare's voice dropped to hushed, conspiratorial tones. "Rumor has it that Sumuabi may need all four armies very soon."

"Crom, it seems that all you Shemites do is hole up in your little city-states and venture out once a year to try to conquer your neighbor. It is but a larger version of the clan feuds of my homeland.

You fight a few battles and then slink back home with nothing gained.

And this with Koth hungering at your border."

"True," said Shamtare tolerantly. "But this time it is whispered that we may go to aid a revolt in Anakia. Sumuabi may soon king it over two cities. If this comes to pa.s.s, then the plunder should be rich for even the lowliest foot soldier."

Conan thought on this while Shamtare borrowed the wine jug. "That is good news, yet it still matters little which troop I join."

"Come now, Conan." Shamtare set the empty jug down with a hollow thump.

"What do you want of me? I tell you, I'm great friends with the troop's armorer, and I promise you a s.h.i.+rt of the best Akbitanan mail if you sign up with us. The s.h.i.+rt you're wearing looks as though it's been through h.e.l.l."

Conan snorted with laughter, looking down at his tarnished mail. Long vertical tears in the mesh had been crudely repaired with inferior links that were beginning to show traces of rust.

"Perhaps not h.e.l.l itself, but a pig-faced demon from thereabouts. You have a deal, Shamtare."

The Shemite grinned in his beard, opened his mouth to ask a question, and then shut it again. The tavern's door had swung wide, and now two figures entered the room. The foremost was almost as tall as Conan and clearly a warrior. He wore a black-lacquered breastplate over brightly polished steel mail. A black crested helmet was held under one thick arm. Blue-black hair fell in a thick ma.s.s over his square shoulders. A wide white scar parted his carefully trimmed beard just to the right of his stern mouth. He looked around the room with an almost-tangible aura of scorn. The crowd in the tavern quieted somewhat at the two men's arrival, but those who stopped to gaze at the newcomers did not study the warrior but his companion.

The man who stood in the dark doorway was also tall, but he was somewhat stooped as though ill or injured. From head to foot he was wrapped in a cowl of lush green velvet. His hands, where they emerged from their sleeves, wore green-velvet gloves. His face was hidden in the shadow beneath his hood.

The strange pair hesitated a moment, then walked quickly through the tavern's crowd, which parted easily before them. They pa.s.sed through a door into a back room and were lost from view.