Fantasy Masterworks - The Conan Chronicles 2 Part 35

'Why should you risk your lives for me?' asked the king.

'You were our friend when you sat upon your throne,' answered Hadrathus. 'You protected us when the priests of Mitra sought to scourge us out of the land.'

Conan looked about him curiously. He had never before visited the temple of Asura, had not certainly known that there was such a temple in Tarantia. The priests of the religion had a habit of hiding their temples in a remarkable fas.h.i.+on. The wors.h.i.+p of Mitra was overwhelmingly predominant in the Hyborian nations, but the cult of Asura persisted, in spite of official ban and popular antagonism. Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnapped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows.

Persecution caused the followers of Asura to hide their temples with cunning art, and to veil their rituals in obscurity; and this secrecy, in turn, evoked more monstrous suspicions and tales of evil.

But Conan's was the broad tolerance of the barbarian, and he had refused to persecute the followers of Asura or to allow the people to do so on no better evidence than was presented against them, rumors and accusations that could not be proven. 'If they are black magicians,' he had said, 'how will they suffer you to harry them? If they are not, there is no evil in them. Crom's devils! Let men wors.h.i.+p what G.o.ds they will.'

At a respectful invitation from Hadrathus he seated himself on an ivory chair, and motioned Albiona to another, but she preferred to sit on a golden stool at his feet, pressing close against his thigh, as if seeking security in the contact. Like most orthodox followers of Mitra, she had an intuitive horror of the followers and cult of Asura, instilled in her infancy and childhood by wild tales of human sacrifice and anthropomorphic G.o.ds shambling through shadowy temples.

Hadrathus stood before them, his uncovered head bowed.

'What is your wish, your Majesty?'

'Food first,' he grunted, and the priest smote a golden gong with a silver wand.

Scarcely had the mellow notes ceased echoing when four hooded figures came through a curtained doorway bearing a great four-legged silver platter of smoking dishes and crystal vessels. This they set before Conan, bowing low, and the king wiped his hands on the damask, and smacked his lips with unconcealed relish.

'Beware, your Majesty!' whispered Albiona. 'These folk eat human fles.h.!.+'

'I'll stake my kingdom that this is nothing but honest roast beef,' answered Conan. 'Come, la.s.s, fall to! You must be hungry after the prison fare.'

Thus advised, and with the example before her of one whose word was the ultimate law to her, the countess complied, and ate ravenously though daintily, while her liege lord tore into the meat joints and guzzled the wine with as much gusto as if he had not already eaten once that night.

'You priests are shrewd, Hadrathus,' he said, with a great beef-bone in his hands and his mouth full of meat. 'I'd welcome your service in my campaign to regain my kingdom.'

Slowly Hadrathus shook his head, and Conan slammed the beef-bone down on the table in a gust of impatient wrath.

'Crom's devils! What ails the men of Aquilonia? First Servius - now you! Can you do nothing but wag your idiotic heads when I speak of ousting these dogs?'

Hadrathus sighed and answered slowly: 'My lord, it is ill to say, and I fain would say otherwise. But the freedom of Aquilonia is at an end. Nay, the freedom of the whole world may be Kan end! Age follows age in the history of the world, and now : enter an age of horror and slavery, as it was long ago.' 'What do you mean?' demanded the king uneasily.

Hadrathus dropped into a chair and rested his elbows on his thighs, staring at the floor.

'It is not alone the rebellious lords of Aquilonia and the armies of Nemedia which are arrayed against you,' answered Hadrathus. 'It is sorcery - grisly black magic from the grim youth of the world. An awful shape has risen out of the shades of the Past, and none can stand before it.'

'What do you mean?' Conan repeated.

'I speak of Xaltotun of Acheron, who died three thousand years ago, yet walks the earth today.'

Conan was silent, while in his mind floated an image - the image of a bearded face of calm inhuman beauty. Again he was haunted by a sense of uneasy familiarity. Acheron - the sound of the word roused instinctive vibrations of memory and a.s.sociations in his mind.

'Acheron,' he repeated. 'Xaltotun of Acheron - man, are you mad? Acheron has been a myth for more centuries than I can remember. I've often wondered if it ever existed at all.'

'It was a black reality,' answered Hadrathus, 'an empire of black magicians, steeped in evil now long forgotten. It was finally overthrown by the Hyborian tribes of the west. The wizards of Acheron practised foul necromancy, thaumaturgy of the most evil kind, grisly magic taught them by devils. And of all the sorcerers of that accursed kingdom, none was so great as Xaltotun of Python.'

'Then how was he ever overthrown?' asked Conan skeptically.

'By some means a source of cosmic power which he jealously guarded was stolen and turned against him. That source has been returned to him, and he is invincible.'

Albiona, hugging the headsman's black cloak about her, stared from the priest to the king, not understanding the conversation. Conan shook his head angrily.

'You are making game of me,' he growled. 'If Xaltotun has been dead three thousand years, how can this man be he? It's some rogue who's taken the old one's name.'

Hadrathus leaned to an ivory table and opened a small gold chest which stood there. From it he took something which glinted dully in the mellow light - a broad gold coin of antique minting.

'You have seen Xaltotun unveiled? Then look upon this. It is a coin which was stamped in ancient Acheron, before its fall. So pervaded with sorcery was that black empire, that even this coin has its uses in making magic.'

Conan took it and scowled down at it. There was no mistaking its great antiquity. Conan had handled many coins in the years of his plunderings, and had a good practical knowledge of them. The edges were worn and the inscription almost obliterated. But the countenance stamped on one side was still clear-cut and distinct. And Conan's breath sucked in between his clenched teeth. It was not cool in the chamber, but he felt a p.r.i.c.kling of his scalp, an icy contraction of his flesh. The countenance was that of a bearded man, inscrutable, with a calm inhuman beauty.

'By Crom! It's he!' muttered Conan. He understood, now, the sense of familiarity that the sight of the bearded man had roused in him from the first. He had seen a coin like this once before, long ago in a far land.

With a shake of his shoulders he growled: 'The likeness is only a coincidence - or if he's shrewd enough to a.s.sume a forgotten wizard's name, he's shrewd enough to a.s.sume his likeness.' But he spoke without conviction. The sight of that coin had shaken the foundations of his universe. He felt that reality and stability were crumbing into an abyss of illusion and sorcery. A wizard was understandable; but this was diabolism beyond sanity.

'We cannot doubt that it is indeed Xaltotun of Python,' said Hadrathus. 'He it was who shook down the cliffs at Valkia, by his spells that enthrall the elementals of the earth - he it was who sent the creature of darkness into your tent before dawn.'

Conan scowled at him. 'How did you know that?'

'The followers of Asura have secret channels of knowledge. That does not matter. But do you realize the futility of sacrificing your subjects in a vain attempt to regain your crown?'

Conan rested his chin on his fist, and stared grimly into nothing. Albiona watched him anxiously, her mind groping bewildered in the mazes of the problem that confronted him.

'Is there no wizard in the world who could make magic to fight Xaltotun's magic?' he asked at last.

Hadrathus shook his head. 'If there were, we of Asura would know of him. Men say our cult is a survival of the ancient Stygian serpent-wors.h.i.+p. That is a lie. Our ancestors came from Vendhya, beyond the Sea of Vilayet and the blue Himelian mountains. We are sons of the East, not the South, and we have knowledge of all the wizards of the East, who are greater than the wizards of the West. And not one of them but would be a straw in the wind before the black might of Xaltotun.'

'But he was conquered once,' persisted Conan.

'Aye; a cosmic source was turned against him. But now that source is again in his hands, and he will see that it is not stolen again.'

'And what is this d.a.m.nable source?' demanded Conan irritably.

'It is called the Heart of Ahriman. When Acheron was overthrown, the primitive priest who had stolen it and turned it against Xaltotun hid it in a haunted cavern and built a small temple over the cavern. Thrice thereafter the temple was rebuilt, each time greater and more elaborately than before, but always on the site of the original shrine, though men forgot the reason therefor. Memory of the hidden symbol faded from the minds of common men, and was preserved only in priestly books and esoteric volumes. Whence it came no one knows. Some say it is the veritable heart of a G.o.d, others that it is a star that fell from the skies long ago. Until it was stolen, none had looked upon it for three thousand years.

'When the magic of the Mitran priests failed against the magic of Xaltotun's acolyte, Altaro, they remembered the ancient legend of the heart, and the high priest and an acolyte went down into the dark and terrible crypt below the temple into which no priest had descended for three thousand years. In the ancient iron-bound volumes which speak of the Heart in their cryptic symbolism, it is also told of a creature of darkness left by the ancient priest to guard it.

'Far down in a square chamber with arched doorways leading off into immeasurable blackness, the priest and his acolytes found a black stone altar that glowed dimly with inexplicable radiance.

'On that altar lay a curious gold vessel like a double-valved sea-sh.e.l.l which clung to the stone like a barnacle. But it gaped open and empty. The Heart of Ahriman was gone. While they stared in horror, the keeper of the crypt, the creature of darkness, came upon them and mangled the high priest so that he died. But the acolyte fought off the being - a mindless, soulless waif of the pits brought long ago to guard the Heart -and escaped up the long black narrow stairs carrying the dying priest, who before he died, gasped out the news to his followers, bade them submit to a power they could not overcome, and commanded secrecy. But the word has been whispered about among the priests, and we of Asura learned of it.'

'And Xaltotun draws his power from this symbol?' asked Conan, still skeptical.

'No. His power is drawn from the black gulf. But the Heart of Ahriman came from some far universe of flaming light, and against it the powers of darkness cannot stand, when it is in the hands of an adept. It is like a sword that might smite at him, not a sword with which he can smite. It restores life, and can destroy life. He has stolen it, not to use against his enemies, but to keep them from using it against him.'

'A sh.e.l.l-shaped bowl of gold on a black altar in a deep cavern,' Conan muttered, frowning as he sought to capture the illusive image. 'That reminds me of something I have heard or seen. But what, in Crom's name, is this notable Heart?'

'It is in the form of a great jewel, like a ruby, but pulsing with blinding fire with which no ruby ever burned. It glows like living flame--'

But Conan sprang suddenly up and smote his right fist into his left palm like a thunderclap.

'Crom!' he roared, 'What a fool I've been! The Heart of Ahriman! The heart of my kingdom! Find the heart of my kingdom, Zelata said. By Ymir, it was the jewel I saw in the green smoke, the jewel which Tarascus stole from Xaltotun while he lay in the sleep of the black lotus!'

Hadrathus was also on his feet, his calm dropped from him like a garment.

'What are you saying? The Heart stolen from Xaltotun?' 'Aye!' Conan boomed. 'Tarascus feared Xaltotun and wanted to cripple his power, which he thought resided in the Heart.

Maybe he thought the wizard would die if the Heart was lost. By Crom - ahhh!' With a savage grimace of disappointment and disgust he dropped his clenched hand to his side.

'I forgot. Tarascus gave it to a thief to throw into the sea. By this time the fellow must be almost to Kordava. Before I can follow him he'll take s.h.i.+p and consign the Heart to the bottom of the ocean.'

'The sea will not hold it!' exclaimed Hadrathus, quivering with excitement. 'Xaltotun would himself have cast it into the ocean long ago, had he not known that the first storm would carry it ash.o.r.e. But on what unknown beach might it not land!'

'Well,' Conan was recovering some of his resilient confidence, 'there's no a.s.surance that the thief will throw it away. If I know thieves - and I should, for I was a thief in Zamora in my early youth - he won't throw it away. He'll sell it to some rich trader. By Crom!' he strode back and forth in his growing excitement. 'It's worth looking for! Zelata bade me find the heart of my kingdom, and all else she showed me proved to be truth. Can it be that the power to conquer Xaltotun lurks in that crimson bauble?'

'Aye! My head upon it!' cried Hadrathus, his face lightened with fervor, his eyes blazing, his fists clenched. 'With it in our hands we can dare the powers of Xaltotun! I swear it! If we can recover it, we have an even chance of recovering your crown and driving the invaders from our portals. It is not the swords of Nemedia that Aquilonia fears, but the black arts of Xaltotun.'

Conan looked at him for a s.p.a.ce, impressed by the priest's fire.

'It's like a quest in a nightmare,' he said at last. 'Yet your words echo the thought of Zelata, and all else she said was truth. I'll seek for this jewel.'

'It holds the destiny of Aquilonia,' said Hadrathus with conviction. 'I will send men with you--'

'Nay!' exclaimed the king impatiently, not caring to be hampered by priests on his quest, however skilled in esoteric arts. 'This is a task for a fighting man. I go alone. First to Poitain, where I'll leave Albiona with Trocero. Then to Kordava, and to the sea beyond, if necessary. It may be that, even if the thief intends carrying out Tarascus' order, he'll have some difficulty finding an outbound s.h.i.+p at this time of the year.'

'And if you find the Heart,' cried Hadrathus, 'I will prepare the way for your conquest. Before you return to Aquilonia I will spread the word through secret channels that you live and are returning with a magic stronger than Xaltotun's. I will have men ready to rise on your return. They will rise, if they have a.s.surance that they will be protected from the black arts of Xaltotun.

'And I will aid you on your journey.'

He rose and struck a gong.

'A secret tunnel leads from beneath this temple to a place outside the city wall. You shall go to Poitain on a pilgrim's boat. None will dare molest you.'

'As you will.' With a definite purpose in mind Conan was afire with impatience and dynamic energy. 'Only let it be done swiftly.'

In the meantime events were moving not slowly elsewhere in the city. A breathless messenger had burst into the palace where Valerius was amusing himself with his dancing-girls, and throwing himself on his knee, gasped out a garbled story of a b.l.o.o.d.y prison break and the escape of a lovely captive. He bore also the news that Count Thespius, to whom the execution of Albiona's sentence had been entrusted, was dying and begging for a word with Valerius before he pa.s.sed.

Hurriedly cloaking himself, Valerius accompanied the man through various winding ways, and came to a chamber where Thespius lay. There was no doubt that the count was dying; b.l.o.o.d.y froth bubbled from his lips at each shuddering gasp. His severed arm had been bound to stop the flow of blood, but even without that, the gash in his side was mortal.

Alone in the chamber with the dying man, Valerius swore softly.

'By Mitra, I had believed that only one man ever lived who could strike such a blow.'

'Valerius!' gasped the dying man. 'He lives! Conan lives!'

'What are you saying?' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the other.

'I swear by Mitra!' gurgled Thespius, gagging on the blood that gushed to his lips. 'It was he who carried off Albiona! He is not dead - no phantom come back from h.e.l.l to haunt us. He is flesh and blood, and more terrible than ever. The alley behind the tower is full of dead men. Beware, Valerius - he has come back - to slay us all--'

A strong shudder shook the blood-smeared figure, and Count Thespius went limp.

Valerius frowned down at the dead man, cast a swift glance about the empty chamber, and stepping swiftly to the door, cast it open suddenly. The messenger and a group of Nemedian guardsmen stood several paces down the corridor. Valerius muttered something that might have indicated satisfaction.

'Have all the gates been closed?' he demanded.

'Yes, your Majesty.'

'Triple the guards at each. Let no one enter or leave the city without strictest investigation. Set men scouring the streets and searching the quarters. A very valuable prisoner has escaped, with the aid of an Aquilonian rebel. Did any of you recognize the man?'

'No, your Majesty. The old watchman had a glimpse of him, but could only say that he was a giant, clad in the black garb of the executioner, whose naked body we found in an empty cell.'

'He is a dangerous man,' said Valerius. 'Take no chances with him. You all know the Countess Albiona. Search for her, and if you find her, kill her and her companion instantly. Do not try to take them alive.'

Returning to his palace chamber, Valerius summoned before him four men of curious and alien aspect. They were tall, gaunt, of yellowish skin, and immobile countenances. They were very similar in appearance, clad alike in long black robes beneath which their sandaled feet were just visible. Their features were shadowed by their hoods. They stood before Valerius with their hands in their wide sleeves; their arms folded. Valerius looked at them without pleasure. In his far journeyings he had encountered many strange races.

'When I found you starving in the Khitan jungles,' he said abruptly, 'exiles from your kingdom, you swore to serve me. You have served me well enough, in your abominable way. One more service I require, and then I set you free of your oath.

'Conan the Cimmerian, king of Aquilonia, still lives, in spite of Xaltotun's sorcery - or perhaps because of it. I know not. The dark mind of that resurrected devil is too devious and subtle for a mortal man to fathom. But while Conan lives I am not safe. The people accepted me as the lesser of two evils, when they thought he was dead. Let him reappear and the throne will be rocking under my feet in revolution before I can lift my hand.

'Perhaps my allies mean to use him to replace me, if they decide I have served my purpose. I do not know. I do know that this planet is too small for two kings of Aquilonia. Seek the Cimmerian. Use your uncanny talents to ferret him out wherever he hides or runs. He has many friends in Tarantia. He had aid when he carried off Albiona. It took more than one man, even such a man as Conan, to wreak all that slaughter in the alley outside the tower. But no more. Take your staffs and strike his trail. Where that trail will lead you, I know not. But find him! And when you find him, slay him!'

The four Khitans bowed together, and still unspeaking, turned and padded noiselessly from the chamber.

11 Swords of the South Dawn that rose over the distant hills shone on the sails of a small craft that dropped down the river which curves to within a mile of the walls of Tarantia, and loops southward like a great s.h.i.+ning serpent. This boat differed from the ordinary craft plying the broad Khorotas - fishermen and merchant barges loaded with rich goods. It was long and slender, with a high, curving prow, and was black as ebony, with white skulls painted along the gunwales. Amids.h.i.+ps rose a small cabin, the windows closely masked. Other craft gave the ominously painted boat a wide berth; for it was obviously one of those 'pilgrim boats' that carried a lifeless follower of Asura on his last mysterious pilgrimage southward to where, far beyond the Poitanian mountains, a river flowed at last into the blue ocean. In that cabin undoubtedly lay the corpse of the departed wors.h.i.+pper. All men were familiar with the sight of those gloomy craft; and the most fanatical votary of Mitra would not dare touch or interfere with their somber voyages.

Where the ultimate destination lay, men did not know. Some said Stygia; some a nameless island lying beyond the horizon; others said it was in the glamorous and mysterious land of Vendhya where the dead came home at last. But none knew certainly. They only knew that when a follower of Asura died, the corpse went southward down the great river, in a black boat rowed by a giant slave, and neither boat nor corpse nor slave was ever seen again; unless, indeed, certain dark tales were true, and it was always the same slave who rowed the boats southward.

The man who propelled this particular boat was as huge and brown as the others, though closer scrutiny might have revealed the fact that the hue was the result of carefully applied pigments. He was clad in leather loin-clout and sandals, and he handled the long sweep and oars with unusual skill and power. But none approached the grim boat closely, for it was well known that the followers of Asura were accursed, and that these pilgrim boats were loaded with dark magic. So men swung their boats wide and muttered an incantation as the dark craft slid past, and they never dreamed that they were thus a.s.sisting in the flight of their king and the Countess Albiona.

It was a strange journey, in that black, slim craft down the great river for nearly two hundred miles to where the Khorotas swings eastward, skirting the Poitanian mountains. Like a dream the ever-changing panorama glided past. During the day Albiona lay patiently in the little cabin, as quietly as the corpse she pretended to be. Only late at night, after the pleasure boats with their fair occupants lounging on silken cus.h.i.+ons in the flare of torches held by slaves had left the river, before dawn brought the hurrying fisherboats, did the girl venture out. Then she held the long sweep, cunningly bound in place by ropes to aid her, while Conan s.n.a.t.c.hed a few hours of sleep. But the king needed little rest. The fire of his desire drove him relentlessly; and his powerful frame was equal to the grinding test. Without halt or pause they drove southward.

So down the river they fled, through nights when the flowing current mirrored the million stars, and through days of golden sunlight, leaving winter behind them as they sped southward. They pa.s.sed cities in the night, above which throbbed and pulsed the reflection of the myriad lights, lordly river villas and fertile groves. So at last the blue mountains of Poitain rose above them, tier above tier, like ramparts of the G.o.ds, and the great river, swerving from those turreted cliffs, swept thunderously through the marching hills with many a rapid and foaming cataract.

Conan scanned the sh.o.r.e-line closely, and finally swung the long sweep and headed insh.o.r.e at a point where a neck of land jutted into the water, and fir trees grew in a curiously symmetrical ring about a gray, strangely shaped rock.

'How these boats ride those falls we hear roaring ahead of us is more than I can see,' he grunted. 'Hadrathus said they did -but here's where we halt. He said a man would be waiting for us with horses, but I don't see anyone. How word of our coming could have preceded us I don't know anyway.'

He drove insh.o.r.e and bound the prow to an arching root in the low bank, and then, plunging into the water, washed the brown paint from his skin and emerged dripping, and in his natural color. From the cabin he brought forth a suit of Aquilonian ring-mail which Hadrathus had procured for him, and his sword. These he donned while Albiona put on garments suitable for mountain travel. And when Conan was fully armed, and turned to look toward the sh.o.r.e, he started and his hand went to his sword. For on the sh.o.r.e, under the trees, stood a black-cloaked figure holding the reins of a white palfrey and a bay war-horse.

'Who are you?' demanded the king.

The other bowed low.

'A follower of Asura. A command came. I obeyed.'