CHAPTER 24
MARIQUE REACHED THE wall beside her father, having dodged blazing puddles and the thrashing of burning bodies. A ship—smaller than her father’s land ship—had rounded the headland and had deployed two longboats. Corsairs pulled at oars, heading for where the monk was managing to keep the Cimmerian afloat.
Her father, a trickle of blood running down the side of his face, slammed his fist against the wall. “She is getting away.”
Marique laid a hand on her father’s forearm. “We shall get her, Father.”
He turned on her, fury knotting his features. “We? We? Her escape is your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Yes, your sorcery has failed me . . .” His eyes became slits. “Your weakness sickens me.”
Marique fell back, clutching her stomach as she might have had her father shoved a foot and a half of steel into her belly. “My weakness?”
He stared out at the sea again. “You know it is true.”
“My weakness?” Anger entered her voice, tinged with ice. “It is I who found her for you, Father.”
“And you could not do as I asked. You could not kill the barbarian as I asked. So now she flees. My archers burn and the two of them swim to that ship.” He thrust a finger toward the east. “So, what does your sorcery tell you now, Marique? That they will sail up the River Styx and, from there, overland to Hyrkania? Or perhaps they will skirt the Black Coast and sail to Vendhya and go north from there. Maybe all the way to Khitai and then west? Will that be it?”
“Father, I can track her, but you know that I cannot predict . . .”
“Then what good are you to me?” He turned, a hand raised to slap her. “Your mother was not weak. She could have predicted.”
Marique clenched her jaw. Could she? Could she indeed? Marique wanted to shout the obvious at him: that her mother had failed to foresee the trap that led to her own death. Where was the strength of her magic when that happened?
Outrage raced through Marique. She forced herself to look out at the ocean. Pirates were already pulling the Cimmerian’s unconscious body into a longboat. What an amazing constitution he had, for the poison, even with so tiny a scratch, should have felled him in two steps or three. Even wounded and wavering, he had fended her father off—proving himself to be the better man.
The moment that particular thought entered her head, Marique’s vision of the future shifted. She had always believed that they would succeed in activating the Mask of Acheron. It would allow her father to draw Maliva back from the dead, but that did not mean that the mask was good for nothing else. Marique knew far more of the ways of the mask than her mother ever had. With it activated, on his face, and he in full command of its magicks, Khalar Zym would become invincible in battle. No force could stand against him. He would be able to summon the wisdom of Acheron’s finest generals, direct the magicks of its greatest necromancers. Compared to that, the things her mother might offer would be but the snarls of a puppy in a company of wolves.
But my father is not the only one who could wear that mask. She allowed herself to imagine Conan wearing it, with her at his side—or rather, with him as her consort. With her magicks and his skill, not only would Acheron rise again, but it would expand far beyond the borders it had once known. Her father’s dreams of power and glory would fade in comparison to the reality Conan and she could create.
Khalar Zym turned cold eyes on her, a fingertip probing his busted lip. “So silent, Marique. I would take this as a sign of your being appalled at your weakness, but you are not at my knees, begging my forgiveness.”
“Do you wish to know the depth of my weakness, Father?” Marique turned, and with a crooked finger summoned the acolyte who bore the standard upon which hung the Mask of Acheron. The man came forward, stumbling, the mask swinging. Two of Ukafa’s burly spearmen moved to stop him, but sandliches sprang up and hamstringed them with quick cuts. The acolyte flew up the stairs even more swiftly than the barbarian had done, and slammed into the wall.
The Mask of Acheron hung past the battlements, dangling above sea and stone.
“This is how weak I am, Father. Watch my sorcery shatter the mask and scatter the pieces into the sea.” She looked at the soldiers who had filtered into the outpost. “Watch me burn the eyes from your warriors, snap their spines, and boil brains within skulls. And ask yourself, Father, once I have done all that, will you dare to call me weak?”
Marique watched him. Show me one sign of your own weakness, Father, just one sign . . . She looked for a lip to quiver, for a bead of sweat to rise on his brow. She wanted a muscle to twitch, his pupils to contract, his mouth to hang open, just a bit. Anything to show that he knew that she had grown past him, past her mother.
Give me that sign, and I shall destroy you.
Instead his head canted to the side, only a degree or two, in a sign of curiosity. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Oh, Marique, so much of your mother’s fire, so much of my spirit . . . they have melded in you in ways unexpected. You make me so proud.”
Her grim expression eased.
“You must forgive me for scolding you, beloved daughter. We are so close to everything we have sought. Being able to rebuild our family, to recover our heritage.” Khalar Zym turned his back to the sea and the sight of the monk as she was taken aboard the pirate ship. “And you will forgive me for testing you.”
“Testing me?”
“Oh yes, Marique.” He focused distantly. “My longing to have my wife returned to my side has not blinded me to the difficulties of the future. The task we set ourselves of restoring Acheron is not one which two alone can accomplish. I have driven you hard, Marique, and today the hardest of all. Never have I questioned your love for me, but being as close as we are, now, I had to assure myself that you were committed to realizing our entire goal. Resurrecting your mother is but one part of it—a minor part—and you shall be a major player in all the rest.”
The girl frowned and gestured toward the outpost. “This was a test?”
“Yes, and you proved yourself, Marique.” Khalar Zym smiled. “When I allowed the barbarian to strike me, when I allowed it to seem as if I was in danger, you reacted. You attacked him, unbidden. You worked with me to defeat him . . . and so shall you work with me to defeat all of our enemies.”
He reached out and caressed her cheek. She raised a finger to his broken lip, repairing the torn flesh with a whisper, ignoring the fact that Ukafa had pulled the standard back from the battlement. “I love you, Father.”
“I know.” He slid his arm around her shoulder to guide her out of the burning outpost. “Come, we return to Khor Kalba to continue our preparations.”
“But, Father, we don’t have her.”
“This shall not be a problem for long, I trust, Marique, will it?” Her father gave her a squeeze. “I want you to use your unique and valuable gifts . . . your very strong gifts . . . to find the woman for me again.”
“Yes, Father, I shall.” Marique nodded solemnly. “And at Khor Kalba, we have just the creature we need to bring her to us.”
CONAN SHIVERED AS consciousness teased him with its return. The world moved around him, but resolved itself into a steady, rhythmic motion. Combined with faint creaks and tang of salt air, he concluded that he was aboard a ship. He tried to move an arm and wasn’t certain he’d been able to do so. Still, he felt no band around his wrist, nor heard the clank of chains, so he assumed he was not in the hands of his enemies.
As more of his senses returned, with them came an awareness of aches and pains, and general stiffness. The cut on his neck burned still, but not with poison. The unguent’s scent reminded him vaguely of the poultice Connacht had used to preserve his hands so many years before. Other nicks and cuts he found through the tightness of stitches. The wounds hadn’t been deep that he remembered, and had they been, cautery would have been used to close them instead of needlework.
A gentle hand laid a cool compress on his forehe
ad. Another cloth dabbed at the wound on his neck. Soft words in distant whispers reached his ears, and his mind reconstructed his world. On a ship, a woman attending him, her hand so gentle, her voice warm for him. My beloved ...
When he opened his eyes, even the feeble candlelight burned them. He began to tear up, but not quickly enough. He could not recognize the woman perched on the edge of the bunk, but he knew who she was not. She is gone, Conan, long gone. A tremor shook him, then all strength fled his limbs.
Tamara pressed a hand to his chest. “Don’t speak, Conan. Don’t try to move. The poison gave you a fever. It’s only just broken.”
He blinked away tears. “How long?”
The monk smiled. “You don’t listen very well.”
“How long?” He tried to make his words forceful, but he could barely muster a whisper.
“Two days. There has been no sign of them.” Tamara nodded sincerely. “Artus has set course for the east, to Hyrkania.”
Conan shook his head and tried to sit up. “No.”
She restrained him with a light hand. “Once I am safe, there is nothing more to fear.”
Conan sighed. He wanted to explain to her that as long as Khalar Zym lived and had the mask, she would never be safe. She would argue that her master had directed her to Hyrkania, and he would explain that her journey and his mission were not intertwined. He had to go after Khalar Zym and destroy the mask.
But weakness betrayed him. He surrendered to her ministrations and exhaustion. First defeat the poison, then the one who uses it.
IT TOOK ONE more day for Conan to crawl from the bunk, and that over Tamara’s protestations that he would faint and his stitches would burst. He just growled at her, and the woman proved she had some sense by not trying to stop him. She showed she had more by not laughing when he bumped his head on the companionway ceiling as he stumbled his way to the main deck.
Thank Crom it’s night. He straightened up and drew in a deep breath, resisting the temptation to shade his eyes from the harsh moonlight. It splashed silver over the waves and he smiled, remembering many an evening watching it, content with his life as a corsair.
Artus looked down from the wheel deck. “So the dead have risen.”
“How long are we out of Shaipur?”
“Three days, but becalmed for the last half.” Artus shrugged. “Trade winds will be shifting soon. I’d rather not chance the Styx. So what will be your pleasure? Vendhya or Khitai?”
Conan slowly trudged up the steps and stood beside his friend. “Someday both, but not for me, now.”
“But the girl said . . .”
The Cimmerian patted Artus on the shoulder. “You can take her to Hyrkania, and may all the gods speed that journey. But me, you’ll be putting me ashore as soon as we find a place where I can buy a horse. Khalar Zym has to be bound for Khor Kalba. I’ll happily kill him there.”
“That will be quite the undertaking for one man, Conan, even such as you. Let us come with you.”
The Cimmerian shook his head. “It is not your fight, Artus.”
“Either you are lying to me now, my brother, or you are lying to yourself.” Artus waved a hand toward the shore, which was but a distant black band beneath the starry sky. “You tell me that Khalar Zym must die and the mask must be shattered so he cannot raise Acheron. You claim preventing this is a responsibility you inherited through your father. But I ask you, were Khalar Zym to succeed, what would his empire mean to me, mean to this motley pack of sea wolves?
“One empire from mountains to sea, from ice to the Black Kingdoms? Would there be room for corsairs and adventurers? No, save perhaps in arenas where men die for the amusement of nobles. No freedom. No wealth to be won, no wenches to be bedded. My parents were slaves, but not I, and I shall die fighting Khalar Zym’s empire.”
The barbarian’s head ached. Conan could not tell if Artus was right, or if he’d been lying to himself and indulging in dreams of revenge. Ultimately it did not matter, because either answer still pointed to the same necessities.
“You are wise, Artus, perhaps wiser than I.” Conan exhaled heavily. “You can help me, but it will not be by traveling with me.”
Artus folded his hands over his chest. “Go on.”
“If I fail, the girl must be hidden in Hyrkania and the world must know the danger it faces. Upon you I rely for both of those things.”
The Zingaran’s expression tightened. “You cannot assault Khor Kalba alone.”
“I don’t intend to go alone. And I don’t intend to make an assault.” Conan smiled. “Remember, Artus, before either of us were pirates, we were both thieves. A thief will do what pirates can’t . . . and pirates will be free to save the world.”
CHAPTER 25
CONAN STOOD ON the main deck a day later, the sword in his hand whistling through the air. He’d lost his sword at the Shaipur outpost. The Hornet’s armory boasted a fine selection of weapons plundered from the world over. As sailors were wont to do, they wagered on which they thought the Cimmerian might choose.
He tried a half dozen, almost instantly rejecting anything saberlike that resembled Khalar Zym’s sword. While the sabers were fine weapons, and curved cutlasses worked well aboard ship, both served best when the fighting allowed for grand slashes. He wanted more reach than afforded by an Aquilonian short sword. The closest blade they had to the one he lost needed a new grip. Finally he settled on a long sword, which gained in length what it surrendered in width. Had this been my blade at Shaipur, I might have spitted him.
Conan studied the blade once more, then turned to face Artus. “Raise an edge on it, open the toe of my scabbard so it fits, and I am set.”
Artus smiled and accepted a small pouch of gold coins from the first mate. “I thought that might be it.”
“And ’twas your teeth that gnawed the grip on the broadsword.”
The Zingaran shrugged. “Tang was weak and cross hilt too small.”
“True.” Conan smiled. “Artus, I had him. So very close.”
“The gods were not amused enough.” The corsair’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain you’re well enough to go after him?”
Conan spread his arms wide, stretching massive chest muscles. “I will be fine by the time the gods are amused enough to blow us to the coast. I swear, Artus, you are as bad as Tamara.”
“I care for you as a brother, Conan. She cares as well.” Artus smiled easily. “You saved her life.”
“And she mine.” Conan shook his head. “You must promise me she will be safe, Artus.”
“I will not disappoint you. Still . . .”
“Yes?”
“There is no reason you cannot get her to Hyrkania and await Khalar Zym there.” Artus held a hand up. “No, Conan, do not try to convince me this is the only way. He needs her. He will pursue her.”
The Cimmerian shook his head. “I am not one to lie in wait, Artus, you know that.”
“True, but if a brother may point out the obvious to a brother, you seem to run faster from her than toward him.”
Conan growled at Artus, but before he could say anything, Tamara appeared from belowdecks, adorned in bright red and blue silks. She wore a broad smile.
The Cimmerian snapped at her. “You look like a harlot.”
Her eyes flashed. “Yes, and apparently I’m the only woman you have met who isn’t one!”
Conan stared at her for a heartbeat, then turned away, his new sword singing through the air. One sailor laughed and the Cimmerian spun, looking at him over a yard of steel. “Artus, give her leather and armor. She handles herself better in a fight than you scum. Keep civil tongues in your heads and you may live long enough to see the proof.”
TAMARA LOOKED AFTER the withdrawing barbarian, then to Artus. “I don’t understand.”
Artus perched himself on the rail as Conan climbed up to the wheel deck and disappeared from sight. “Most people look at him, a northern barbarian, and they think he’s simple. And ’tis true that strong cur
rents run through him. When action’s demanded, he’s the man who acts instead of thinking . . . but he’s cunning, too. I’ve seen that over my time with him, and it’s that time, going on a decade here and there, that maybe lets me see.”
She pressed a hand to her throat. “Then perhaps you can enlighten me. The Conan I’ve seen has the constitution of a bull and the disposition of a mule. He’s fearsome in combat and yet capable of . . . Khalar Zym’s aide, the one we captured, Conan snapped his neck as if it was nothing.”
“From the barbarian point of view, the man was already dead. After all, had he been any sort of warrior, he never would have surrendered. He would have died on the battlefield.” Artus shrugged. “And his willingness to bargain, this unmanned him further. The man, I’m sure, thought he could pull the wool over Conan’s eyes. Not the first to make that mistake, and certainly not the last—though all of them tend to share the same fate.”
She glanced up toward the wheel deck but could not see Conan. “So, he is a man who kills, and that is all?”
“You know that is not true, woman. Conan is a man of great passions. Wine and women, plunder and adventure; these are passions of his. But he is fiercely loyal. You’ve saved his life. He shall never forget that, and never let harm come to you. Know that as well as you know the sun rises in the east.”
Tamara nodded. Conan was completely unlike the people she had known growing up. In the monastery, their training allowed them to channel their emotions into constructive things. While they did develop martial skills, they studied them to defend themselves and others. Conan’s passions flowed in the entirely opposite direction. Master Fassir was a creature or order, but Conan . . .
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