"This proved a proper choice. The hermit was a wizard of ten score years and more. Had robbers entered his abode, he would have instantly destroyed them by supernatural means. But the mage discerned my ancestor's virtue and, in return for his assistance, granted him a favor. He cast a mighty spell upon the gem."
"The Star of Khorala?"
"Aye. When the wizard completed his spell, he said, This ring, in the possession of a good man, will cause other good men to rally round him to fight in a good cause.'" She paused, remembering.
"But—this gem—what does it signify to us today?"
Marala collected herself. "About two hundred years ago, the gem enabled Alarkar to rally the support of king and nobles for a charter to establish the rights and duties of all subjects of the kingdom. Because of treachery, his movement failed, and ..."
The window of the apartment burst inward with a crash and the tinkle of broken panes. A black-clad giant with blue eyes blazing leaped into the room, his sword upraised.
In his free hand the man carried a pair of curious contraptions, huge bird claws cunningly wrought of steel. These he placed gently on the carpet, along with his weapon; then, sitting on a footstool, he removed a pair of similar devices from his feet. Rising, he glided to the door of the apartment to listen briefly. Alarming as this apparition was, Marala could not but admire the catlike way he moved.
The intruder turned to Khafrates and the queen, flashing white teeth in a wide grin. Khafrates had lurched to his feet, uncertainly fluttering his hands. At last the physician pulled himself together.
"Conan!" he said. "I have not yet had time to tell Her Majesty our plan! You burst in here like a bull in one of the legendary porcelain shops of Khitai!"
Conan ignored him. With eyes devouring Marala's splendid form, he said: 'Your Majesty, you want your freedom from this prison, do you not?"
"Oh, yes—but how?"
"The same way that I entered—down the wall, with the use of these devices. You'll have to ride like a sack on my back."
"Whither would you take me, stranger?" The queen's eyes smoldered with excitement.
"First to a safe place where we can strike a bargain; and then wherever you choose."
"But what of me?" quavered Khafrates. "When the guards find Your Majesty gone, 'twill be the rack and boiling oil for me!"
Marala turned to Conan. "Can we not take him with us?"
The Cimmerian pondered. "Nay. These dragon's feet could not support the weight of more than two. But I shall give the good doctor an excuse for having failed to call the guard. We must hurry; Garus waits below with horses."
Marala's face betrayed her joy. "Is Garus still alive, then? I would entrust my fife to him at any time!"
"Then let's be off, Lady! We have no time to lose."
Marala was unused to being addressed in a rough, peremptory manner, let alone by a foreigner with a barbarous accent. But she hastened to her dressing room and soon emerged in hunting dress to find Khafrates lying bound and gagged upon the carpet. The physician, who bore a purpling bruise about his jaw, knew neither where he was, nor what had befallen him.
Conan grinned as the queen approached him resolutely. "Your plan for Khafrates' safety was sound," she said. "I am ready."
The barbarian's ice-blue eyes warmed with admiration as much for her composure as for the lovely curves scarcely shrouded by a velvet riding jacket and silken pantaloons thrust into fine red-leather boots. Snatching up a broidered coverlet, he said:
"I shall tie you to my back, lass, like a babe in its mother's shawl. Put your arms around my neck and press your knees against my waist. If heights make you queasy, shut your eyes. Shift not your weight, and these dragon's feet will serve for both of us."
Conan sat down to clamp the devices to his boots; then enfolding the queen's slim body in the coverlet, he tied two ends around his chest and two around his hips. With Marala clinging to him, he backed carefully out the window, feeling for joints in the masonry to make fast his steel devices.
Conan moved slowly during the descent; for the strain was great both on the dragon's feet and on his gigantic frame. Moreover, his rude code of chivalry compelled him to cherish any woman who entrusted her safety to him.
Thus they descended foot by foot, while the city slept under a moonless sky and no dogs barked.
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4 • A Fire on the Mountain
"Stranger, tell me, pray," said Marala, "who are you?"
After a long gallop away to the southwest, they were walking their horses to breathe them. There had been no surprises and no delays upon reaching the road . where Garus awaited them with three horses and supplies for the journey. Nor had the thunder of their horses' hooves disturbed the sleep of prince or peasant as they rushed along the quiet streets of Ianthe and the ghost-haunted country lanes.
"I am Conan, a Cimmerian by birth—and a wanderer," said the hulking barbarian. "I have fought in more countries than most wise men know exist."
"And why did you rescue me?"
"I may have something you want, Lady, and I think you will offer a fair price for it."
"Methinks I shall never be able to offer anyone a fair price, even for a loaf of bread. I am a queen without a throne. But tell me, what is this desirable thing?"
"We'll talk of such matters later, when we stop to rest. We must not tarry now."
When night drew curtains of darkness around the long day of their flight, they built a small campfire in the cleft of a rock where the glow was well hidden from the road. Their horses, unsaddled and tethered nearby, slaked their thirst in a bubbling mountain spring and cropped the sparse grass. In the markets of Ianthe, Conan had purchased bread, fruit, and dried meat, together with a skin of Kothian wine; and now they supped amid the cheerful crackle of burning logs.
His hunger satiated, Conan leaned back against his saddle and contemplated the beautiful woman beside him. This weary but courageous girl, then, was the Queen of Ophir, she who was reputed to enslave men with the great gem now hidden in his pouch. He had often imagined how he would come to Ophir, obtain an audience with the queen, bowing like a courtier, and hand her the ring in exchange for a thousand pieces of gold and, perhaps, a military post of consequence. He found himself, instead, stretched out upon the greensward, like a common laborer in a strife-torn land, beside a queen who was a penniless refugee. He spoke bluntly:
"Khafrates, I see, did not explain things to you, nor, perhaps, to me. What of this gem they say you use to bend men to your will?"
The queen met his eyes with a level gaze. "Know, Conan, that Alarkar, my ancestor, received the jewel from a Vendhyan hermit long ago."
As she briefly repeated the story she had told to Khafrates, memories of ancient treachery made her voice heavy with unshed tears.
"Upon his return to Ophir, Count Alarkar, determined to strengthen the kingdom, called an assemblage of all the lords of the realm." She turned to Garus. "Captain, you have surely heard of the Battle of the Hundred and One Swords?"
Garus, half dozing, vanquished sleep, and his deep voice tolled:
"Aye, Your Majesty, I have heard of it, albeit as a legend, muddied by the passage of time. Count Alarkar called a meeting of these lords at his castle of Theringo, two hundred years agone. Each, with only his personal retinue, came to discuss the problems of the realm. They all met on the plain outside Theringo Castle but could agree on nothing. Then the count disappeared."
The queen broke in. "The remainder of the tale is known only to my family. I will tell it to you."
Conan sat still, intently listening. Marala went on:
"All the leading nobles gathered on the plain before the castle, but the conference proceeded at a snail's pace. Although my forbear feared the power of Koth and the growing might of Turan, he had no wish to command the magic ring save as a last resort."
Garus stirred the embers until they ignited a log fresh-laid upon the dying fire; and sparks, like fireflies, winged upward into the night. T
he queen took a swallow of wine before continuing:
"During the conference, the Count of Mecanta— from whom my kinsman Rigello descends—withdrew without a word. The Count of Frosol and the Barons of Terson and Lodier soon followed after him. All with their retainers saddled their mounts and sped away.
"A moment later, a rain of arbalest quarrels arcked from the nearby woods, where Mecanta's crossbow-men lay hidden along the ridge. There were a hundred nobles and their knights unarmed upon the plain that day, and most of them were slain. Alarkar rallied the remainder, who mounted their horses and pursued the traitors."
Marala's eyes filled with tears, and Conan pulled her to him, cradling her against his shoulder. "What then befell?" asked Conan eagerly.
"Alarkar and his men had gone but a bowshot from the camp below the castle, when they met the army of Mecanta and his partisans, charging at full gallop. Alarkar stood to the attack, defending the family banner, until he fell, pierced by a crossbow bolt." Her voice became silent at the memory of ancient wrongs.
Conan's deep bass recalled her to herself. "So," he said, "the same as always. Nobles quarrel and stab each other in the back. What's new about that?" His tone was deliberately abrasive to spur Marala to further talk about the Star of Khorala. She resumed:
"All were buried when they fell, and there they all remain. The castle was laid in ruins. The countess and a few retainers escaped through the postern when they saw the outcome of the battle. The son she carried was my forebear."
"And what of the Star of Khorala?" rumbled Conan softly.
"Alarkar did not use its magic. He trusted in the power of reason because his cause was clearly in the right. The Star was carried away in the bosom of his wife—his widow, rather—who later married in another land. Her son, when grown, returned to Ophir to claim his fief and found my family line. And so the . legend has been remembered and the jewel handed down the generations. Now it is lost forever."
"What would you do if it were returned to you?" asked Conan casually.
"I would try to work the magic in it. I would gather the good men of the kingdom to free my feckless husband from the clutch of Rigello and his ruthless land. Do you question that I would oust Rigello and unite the kingdom if I could?"
The fierce courage of the slender girl who, sitting beside the embers of a campfire in the wilderness with but a retinue of two, still spoke of ousting tyrants and intriguers from a kingdom, struck a receptive chord in Conan's barbaric spirit. He cleared his throat, embarrassed at his surge of deep emotion.
"My Lady," he said, "mayhap I can help you on your way." He groped in his pouch and drew out the Star of Khorala. "Here is your ancestral bauble. You have better use for it than I."
The queen's lips parted in astonishment. 'You—you give me this?"
"Aye. I'm no saintly character like your ancestor, but I ... I sometimes like to help a brave woman beset by troubles."
Marala took the ring and gazed upon the gem, from whose oval, sapphire eye, firelit, burst the beauty of the star within.
"You put me under vast obligation, Conan. How can I repay you?"
Conan's burning gaze roved up and down Marala's sweetly curving body. With queenly dignity, she moved away from his embracing arm to signal disapproval of his unspoken suggestion.
Looking away, he said: "You owe me naught just now, my Lady. If you regain your throne and I attend your court, you might offer me a generalship."
Marala looked a question at Garus, who nodded. "He is the man for it, my Queen. Mercenary captain, chief of a band of wild nomads, guard commander— a clever strategist and skilled with sword and dirk. He saved my life and gained you your liberty."
"So be it," said Marala.
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5 • "Fetch My Horse; We Ride at Once"
Count Rigello was clad in ebon mail. His sword and dirk rattled at his side; his black casque rested on an inlaid table. King Moranthes regarded him with anxious eyes, for he knew the power of this arrogant descendant of the house of Mecanta.
The king, betimes, considered ordering the black count done away with. But he feared that Rigello's kinsmen and followers would avenge their leader on the person of their king. Besides, with Rigello gone, might he not fall into the power of nobles even more ruthless, or be toppled from his throne by some reckless usurper, such as his rascally cousin Amalrus?
Intensity etched Rigello's coarse and swollen features as he leaned forward, like a dog straining at its leash. "The queen was abducted from the tower last night, Your Majesty," he said. "I have a hundred men ready to ride upon your command."
Rigello knew that the call to action would be his, but a show of obsequious fealty to the delicate young king amused him. He continued:
"This abduction, I am sure, occurred with her consent. Her trusted physician was found senseless, bound and gagged in her apartment; and the window was shattered."
"How could anyone enter and leave the chamber by way of the window?" asked the king in his high-pitched voice. "There is a sheer drop of fifteen or twenty paces!"
"Exactly so, Sire," said Rigello. 'The queen doubtless lowered a rope or its like to her abductors, first making one end fast to the furniture. 'Tis plain she plots against Your Majesty, as I have oftimes warned you. It is but a matter of time before she foments a rebellion."
Biting his thumbnail, the king searched his gilded throne chamber, seeking advice from the speechless walls. But, save for the count, there was none to give him counsel other than the statuesque guards standing motionless in the doorway. Rigello persisted:
"Your Majesty, now is the time to end the strife among the noble families, once and for all."
"Yes, yes." The king wallowed in indecision. "What think you I should do?"
"Order immediate pursuit. The queen and her retinue—whoever they may be—cannot be far from Ianthe. Even with good animals, they needs must rest from time to time. Each of my riders leads an extra horse, so we shall soon catch up with them."
"How know you which way they went?" asked the king querulously.
"The queen would surely head southwest toward her ancestral lands of Theringo. There, if anywhere in Ophir, could she hope to rally supporters."
"But if she has regained the Star of Khorala, no man can compel her to do aught against her will, and none can stand against her. How will you overcome the power of the gem?"
"Sire, no one has seen the Star since it was filched a twelve-month past. Had she possessed it, she would not have fled the tower; for she could have commanded the obedience of the guards and so regained her freedom."
The king's weak face brightened. T thank you, Rigello; you anticipate my wishes. Ride like the wind! Bring the queen to my torture chambers and spare not the men who have aided her!"
Rigello smiled as he left the throne chamber, drew on a mailed gauntlet, and hitched his sword belt more tightly around his hips. When he captured Queen Marala, he thought, he would use her popularity with the citizenry to foment a revolt against Moranthes, and overthrow and slay him. Then he, himself, would wed Marala and reign as king of Ophir.
With what the queen might say to this plan Rigello was not much concerned. Surely, she would prefer a virile man like him to that effeminate noodlehead now huddled on the throne. If she resisted, there were less pleasant methods of persuasion. He smiled again.
Rigello stood for an instant in the hallway, admiring his stalwart figure in a full-length mirror. Then drawing on his other gauntlet, he strode down the palace stairs to the courtyard.
"Barras! Fetch my horse. We ride at once!" he barked.
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6 • "This Is Theringo Castle"
Conan left his horse with Garus below the crest of the hill and crept to the summit. He did not show his head above the bushes, but, instead, gently parted the foliage to study the land beyond.
Anxiously, Marala asked, "Why does he move so slowly? We are in haste to reach the Aquilonian border."
Garius replied: "He is the man who c
an bring you to safety if anyone can, my Lady. Although I take him to be little more than half my age, he has crowded into his youthful years a lifetime of battles and escapes. Trust him!"
Conan beckoned. When Marala and Garus reached the crest of the rise, they looked down upon a broad plain. In the middle distance, on a small hill, stood the ruins of a castle. Beyond, at the edge of the flat-land, a distant river snaked its silvered way among the feet of the forested hills that rose against the skyline.
"I know now whose seat this was," whispered Marala.
Studying the countryside, Conan said, "Once we cross that plain and, after that, the river, we shall be close upon the border of Aquilonia. I believe the line is drawn along the crest of yonder mountain range. Your king's men would have trouble capturing us there; for the Aquilonians have no love of armed invaders."
Conan the Swordsman Page 10
