Conan Pastiche - Conan Part 3

How can you kill a thing that is already dead? The question echoed madly in Conan's brain. It went round and round until he thought he would go mad with the repet.i.tion of it. His lungs labored; his heart pounded as if it were about to burst. Slash and strike as he would, nothing could even slow the dead thing that shuffled after him.

Now he struck with greater cunning. Reasoning that if it could not walk it could not pursue him, he drove a fierce, back-handed slash against the mummy's knee. A bone cracked, and the mummy collapsed, groveling in the dust of the cavern floor. But still the unnatural life burned within the mummy's withered breast. It staggered to its feet again and lurched after the boy, dragging its crippled leg behind it.

Again Conan struck, and the dead thing's lower face was shorn away; the jawbone went rattling off into the shadows. But the cadaver never stopped. With its lower face a mere expanse of broken white bone beneath the uncanny glow in its eye sockets, it still shambled after its antagonist in tireless, mechanical pursuit. Conan began to wish he had stayed outside with the wolves rather than sought shelter in this cursed crypt, where things that should have died a thousand years ago still stalked and slew.

Then something caught his ankle. Off balance, he fell full-length to the rough stone floor, kicking wildly to free his leg from that bony grip. He stared down and felt his blood freeze when he saw the severed hand of the corpse clutching his foot. Its bony claws bit into his flesh.

Then a grisly shape of nightmare horror and lunacy loomed over him. The broken, mangled face of the corpse leered down into his, and one claw-hand darted towards his throat.

Conan reacted by instinct. With all his might, he brought both sandaled feet up against the shrunken belly of the dead thing stooping over him.

Hurled into the air, it fell with a crash behind him, right in the fire.

Then Conan s.n.a.t.c.hed at the severed hand, which still gripped his ankle.

He tore it loose, rolled to his feet, and hurled the member into the fire after the rest of the mummy. He stopped to s.n.a.t.c.h up his sword and whirled back toward the fire-to find the battle over.

Desiccated by the pa.s.sage of countless centuries, the mummy burned with the fury of dry brushwood. The unnatural life within it still flickered as it struggled erect, while flames ran up its withered form, leaping from limb to limb and converting it into a living torch. It had almost clambered out of the fire when its crippled leg gave way, and it collapsed in a ma.s.s of roaring flame. One blazing arm dropped off like a twitching stick. The skull rolled through the coals. Within minutes the mummy was utterly consumed, but for a few glowing coals of blackened bone.

6. The Sword of Conan

Conan let out his breath with a long sigh and breathed deeply once again. The tension drained out of him, leaving him weary in every limb.

He wiped the cold sweat of terror from his face and combed back the tangle of his black hair with his fingers. The dead warrior's mummy was at last truly dead, and the great sword was his. He hefted it again, relis.h.i.+ng its weight and power.

For an instant he thought of spending the night in the tomb. He was deathly tired. Outside, the wolves and the cold waited to bring him down, and not even his wilderness-bred sense of direction could keep him on his chosen course on a starless night in a strange land.

But then revulsion seized him. The smoke-filled chamber stank, now, not only of the dust of ages but also of the burning of long-dead human flesh-a strange odor, like nothing Conan's keen nostrils had ever detected before, and altogether revolting. The empty throne seemed to leer at him. That sense of presence that had struck him when he first entered the inner chamber still lingered in his mind. His scalp crawled and his skin p.r.i.c.kled when he thought of sleeping in this haunted chamber.

Besides, with his new sword, he was filled with confidence. His chest expanded, and he swung the blade in whistling circles.

Moments later, wrapped in an old fur cloak from one of the chests and holding a torch in one hand and the sword in the other, he emerged from the cave. There was no sign of the wolves. A glance upward showed that the sky was clearing. Conan studied the stars that glimmered between patches of cloud, then once more set his footsteps to southward.

The Tower of fhe Elephant -------------------------.

Continuing on southward, through the wild mountains that separate the eastern Hyborian nations from the Turanian steppes, Conan eventually comes to Arenjun, the notorious Zamorian "City of Thieves." Green to civilization and wholly lawless by nature, he finds-or carves-a niche for himself as a professional thief, among a people to whom thievery is an art and an honored calling. Being still very young and more daring than adroit, his progress in his new profession at first is slow.

Torches flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the East held carnival by night In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked, unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. Steel glinted in the shadows where rose the shrill laughter of women, and the sounds of scufflings and strugglings. Torchlight licked luridly from broken windows and wide-thrown doors, and out of those doors, stale smells of wine and rank sweaty bodies, clamor of drinking jacks and fists hammered on rough tables, s.n.a.t.c.hes of obscene songs, rushed like a blow in the face.

In one of those dens merriment thundered to the low smoke-stained roof, where rascals gathered in every stage of rags and tatters-furtive cutpurses, leering kidnappers, quick-fingered thieves, swaggering bravoes with their wenches, strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery. Native rogues were the dominant element-dark-skinned, dark-eyed Zamorians, with daggers at their girdles and guile in their hearts. But there were wolves of half a dozen outland nations there as well. There was a giant Hyperborean renegade, taciturn, dangerous, with a broadsword strapped to his great gaunt frame-for men wore steel openly in the Maul. There was a Shemitish counterfeiter, with his hook nose and curled blue-black beard. There was a bold-eyed Brythunian wench, sitting on the knee of a tawny-haired Gunderman-a wandering mercenary soldier, a deserter from some defeated army. And the fat gross rogue whose bawdy jests were causing all the shouts of mirth was a professional kidnapper come up from distant Koth to teach woman-stealing to Zamorians who were born with more knowledge of the art than he could ever attain. This man halted in his description of an intended victim's charms and thrust his muzzle into a huge tankard of frothing ale. Then blowing the foam from his fat lips, he said, "By Bel, G.o.d of all thieves, I'll show them how to steal wenches; I'll have her over the Zamorian border before dawn, and there'll be a caravan waiting to receive her. Three hundred pieces of silver, a count of Ophir promised me for a sleek young Brythunian of the better cla.s.s. It took me weeks, wandering among the border cities as a beggar, to find one I knew would suit. And is she a pretty baggage!"

He blew a s...o...b..ry kiss in the air.

"I know lords in Shem who would trade the secret of the Elephant Tower for her," he said, returning to his ale.

A touch on his tunic sleeve made him turn his head, scowling at the interruption. He saw a tall, strongly made youth standing beside him.

This person was as much out of place in that den as a grey wolf among mangy rats of the gutters. His cheap tunic could not conceal the hard, rangy lines of his powerful frame, the broad heavy shoulders, the ma.s.sive chest, lean waist, and heavy arms. His skin was brown from outland suns, his eyes blue and smoldering; a shock of tousled black hair crowned his broad forehead. From his girdle hung a sword in a worn leather scabbard.

The Kothian involuntarily drew back; for the man was not one of any civilized race he knew.

"You spoke of the Elephant Tower," said the stranger, speaking Zamorian with an alien accent "I've heard much of this tower; what is its secret?"

The fellow's att.i.tude did not seem threatening, and the Kothian's courage was bolstered up by the ale and the evident approval of his audience. He swelled with self-importance.

"The secret of the Elephant Tower?" he exclaimed. "Why, any fool knows that Yara the priest dwells there with the great jewel men call the Elephant's Heart, that is the secret of his magic."

The barbarian digested this for a s.p.a.ce.

I have seen this tower," he said. "It is set in a great garden above the level of the city, surrounded by high walls. I have seen no guards.

The walls would be easy to climb. Why has not somebody stolen this secret gem?

The Kothian stared wide-mouthed at the other's simplicity, then burst into a roar of derisive mirth, in which the others joined.

"Harken to this heathen!" he bellowed. "He would steal the jewel of Yara!-Harken, fellow," he said, turning portentously to the other, "I suppose you are some sort of a nothern barbarian-"

"I am a Cimmerian," the outlander answered, in no friendly tone. The reply and the manner of it meant little to the Kothian; of a kingdom that lay far to the south, on the borders of Shem, he knew only vaguely of the northern races.

"Then give ear and learn wisdom, fellow," said he, pointing his drinking jack at the discomfited youth. "Know that in Zamora, and more especially in this city, there are more bold thieves than anywhere else in the world, even Koth. If mortal man could have stolen the gem, be sure it would have been filched long ago. You speak of climbing the walls, but once having climbed, you would quickly wish yourself back again. There are no guards in the gardens at night for a very good reason-that is, no human guards. But in the watch chamber, in the lower part of the tower, are armed men, and even if you pa.s.sed those who roam the gardens by night, you must still pa.s.s through the soldiers, for the gem is kept somewhere in the tower above."

"But if a man could pa.s.s through the gardens," argued the Cimmerian, "why could he not come at the gem through the upper part of the tower and thus avoid the soldiers?"

Again the Kothian gaped at him.

"Listen to him!" he shouted jeeringly. "The barbarian is an eagle who would fly to the jeweled rim of the tower, which is only a hundred and fifty feet above the earth, with rounded sides slicker than polished gla.s.s!"

The Cimmerian glared about, embarra.s.sed at the roar of mocking laughter that greeted this remark. He saw no particular humor in it and was too new to civilization to understand its discourtesies. Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. He was bewildered and chagrined and doubtless would have slunk away, abashed, but the Kothian chose to goad him further.

"Come, come!" he shouted. "Tell these poor fellows, who have only been thieves since before you were sp.a.w.ned, tell them how you would steal the gem!"

"There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage,"

answered the Cimmerian shortly, nettled.

The Kothian chose to take this as a personal slur. His face grew purple with anger.

"What!" he roared. "You dare tell us our business, and intimate that we are cowards? Get along; get out of my sight!" And he pushed the Cimmerian violently.

"Will you mock me and then lay hands on me?" grated the barbarian, his quick rage leaping up; and he returned the push with an open-handed blow that knocked his tormenter back against the rude-hewn table. Ale splashed over the jack's lip, and the Kothian roared in fury, dragging at his sword.

"Heathen dog!" he bellowed. "I'll have your heart for that!"

Steel flashed and the throng surged wildly back out of the way. In their flight they knocked over the single candle and the den was plunged in darkness, broken by the crash of upset benches, drum of flying feet, shouts, oaths of people tumbling over one another, and a single strident yell of agony that cut the din like a knife. When a candle was relighted, most of the guests had gone out by doors and broken windows, and the rest huddled behind stacks of wine kegs and under tables. The barbarian was gone; the center of the room was deserted except for the gashed body of the Kothian. The Cimmerian, with the unerring instinct of the barbarian, had killed his man in the darkness and confusion.

The lurid lights and drunken revelry fell away behind the Cimmerian. He had discarded his torn tunic and walked through the night naked except for a loincloth and his high-strapped sandals. He moved with the supple ease of a great tiger, his steely muscles rippling under his brown skin.

He had entered the part of the city reserved for the temples. On all sides of him they glittered white in the starlight-snowy marble pillars and golden domes and silver arches, shrines of Zamora's myriad strange G.o.ds. He did not trouble his head about them; he knew that Zamora's religion, like all things of a civilized, long-settled people, was intricate and complex and had lost most of the pristine essence in a maze of formulas and rituals. He had squatted for hours in the courtyards of the philosophers, listening to the arguments of theologians and teachers, and come away in a haze of bewilderment, sure of only one thing, and that, that they were all touched in the head.

His G.o.ds were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth dooms and death. It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage G.o.d, and he hated weaklings. But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian's mind, was all any G.o.d should be expected to do.

His sandalled feet made no sound on the gleaming pave. No watchmen pa.s.sed, for even the thieves of the Maul shunned the temples, where strange dooms had been known to fall on violators. Ahead of him he saw, looming against the sky, the Tower of the Elephant. He mused, wondering why it was so named. No one seemed to know. He had never seen an elephant, but he vaguely understood that it was a monstrous animal, with a tail in front as well as behind. This a wandering Shemite had told him, swearing that he had seen such beasts by the thousands in the country of the Hyrkanians; but all men knew what liars were the men of Shem. At any rate, there were no elephants in Zamora.