Conan and the Grim Grey God

by Sean A. Moore

  “Murdering swine,” Sivitri spat. “You would not dare speak to her of my doings. She would not believe you if you did.” A flicker of doubt in her expression coloured her bold words.

  “Would you wager your life on that? I think not.”

  “We need no help from an arrogant throat-slitter like you, Zamboulan scum,” Conan retorted. Bitter sarcasm crept into his tone. “And one of your immeasurable skills can surely dispatch a whelp like Thoth-amon without so much as breaking a sweat. What help could we offer?”

  “You may be right, Cimmerian. I am of a mind to slip inside the tower there, slay the mage, and flee with the god. Then you and Sivitri would give chase, and I would be forced to kill you both.”

  ‘Try it,” snarled Conan, tossing Balvadek’s hilt deftly from one hand to the other.

  “In time, Cimmerian, in time. Hear me out first, then decide. I am merely—” he flinched, as if suddenly in pain, and drew in a sharp breath. His hand lifted briefly to his chest.

  Conan suspected that this display was a ploy to cover a sudden attack. He stepped forward, raising his arm to strike.

  Toj took two swift steps backward. He blinked and, again, slowly extended an open palm. “I am merely trying to save myself some time. You, Cimmerian, are a blunt but useful tool. With your cooperation, I can sooner wrest the prize away from Thoth-amon. Then you can try to take it from me. And you, Sivitri, you must not die here. My life may depend on yours. I revealed my presence mainly to detain you—no farther will I suffer you to go.”

  Sivitri raised a quizzical eyebrow, while Conan, still tensed to spring, looked on suspiciously.

  “Jade provided me with a certain incentive for returning the statue to her,” Toj continued. “The twinge I felt just now was a reminder of it.”

  “A curse?' Sivitri asked. “She is no witch! And tell me not that she poisoned you. Toj Akkhari could bed down among a nest of cobras and take no harm from their bites. No herb or venom exists that your antidotes cannot counter.”

  “True enough. But against the kalb beetle, I can do nothing. She inflicted one upon me when we last met. Already it has burrowed deep inside me, seeking my heart—I can feel the sharp pain in my chest that heralds its coming. Only Jade has the means to stop it, and she has promised to do so if I bring the god to her.”

  “The kalb beetle? Yes, one of her most persuasive tactics. And you misdoubt her word, it seems.” Sivitri’s voice was dry, her tone sceptical.

  “I merely do not wish to... disappear, as so many of her male hirelings have done in the past.”

  Conan flashed a knowing glance at Sivitri, quickly returning his attention to Toj.

  “Why would I interfere with Jade’s intent?” Sivitri demanded. “You are less to me than the scum in Shadizar’s gutters. Few men deserve to die more than you!”

  Toj shrugged. “You would interfere to save yourself,” he said with surety. “Though inutile against me, poison can be quite effective against others. It has already gone to work within you, Sivitri. Have you not felt the chills, the effort of breathing? In the wine you drank at Saridis—”

  “Crom,” Conan muttered. “We shared it.”

  “So you did,” Toj commented. “But the poison became active only when mixed with the potion I added to Sivitri’s waterskin. You, Cimmerian, must remain healthy... whereas the woman will serve me well enough in a sickness. I will hide you away, Sivitri, in a place known only to me, ere I return to Jade. You and the idol. Only when Jade rids me of the kalb beetle will I tell here where you are. Fret not—an antidote to the poison does exist. I carry upon me all the necessary herbs and oils, though only I know how to mix them.” “Swine! Filth!” sputtered Sivitri. “May Derketo further shrivel your tiny manhood!” She lunged forward with a burst of frenzied slashes, but Toj deftly kicked her sword-arm and spun away her blade.

  Conan feinted, deliberately drawing another kick from Toj. When the assassin’s foot lashed out, he seized it and jerked Toj off balance.

  “Fools!” Toj hissed, as he rolled and kicked free of Conan’s grasp. He slipped a hand into a sleeve and withdrew it, simultaneously blocking Conan’s brutal sword-stroke by again kicking the Cimmerian’s arm. “You need me, dog,” he panted as he leapt to his feet, brandishing a menacing dagger with a crimson blade. “Attack me again and feel the sting of my Red Asp, which brings instant death.”

  There was a moment’s pause as Conan glared at Toj. Did the wily Turanian truly possess an antidote to his poison? Conan could not send him to Gehanna without knowing for certain. He was not oath-bound to save Sivitri, but it was not in him to simply let a woman die after he had shared a bed with her.

  The assassin held his ground, his eyes shifting back and forth between Conan and Sivitri. He stood in an expert knife-thrower’s stance, ready to hurl his deadly dagger at whoever dared to strike.

  Sivitri groaned and sank to one knee beside her fallen sword. She wiped at her brow and shivered again.

  Conan spoke slowly. “Mix the antidote now, and tell me the rest of your plan. When I see that she is recovering, we go together into the ruins.”

  “We... together?” Toj shook his head. “That is not my plan. You must go alone... straight into the midst of those skeletons, where he can see you. Thoth-amon will surely oppose your approach—but he will not be aware of me. Once you distract him, I will creep forth, into the structure, and bury my Red Asp into his back. What happens to the god afterward is between you and me. So, do you agree, Cimmerian?”

  “Mix the potion,” Conan grumbled, lowering his sword. “By Crom and Badb, I deliver this oath: If you take the statue and do not surrender it to me, you will die by my steel. Now to it, man, before dusk ends. Night is the Stygian’s ally.”

  “And mine.” Toj slipped the incarnadine dagger back into its heavy cloth wrappings, held in place by a strap across his chest. He smiled thinly and began to rummage through his gear. His Golden Lotus could easily have neutralized the poison, but he had no intention of giving the woman a true cure. He opened a jar of thick, pale-green ointment and daubed a careful measure into the lid. From a pouch he took a small, reddish-brown leaf and crumbled it into power, smearing it into the ointment to form a paste. He then loosened his robes, showing a broad cloth belt around his waist, fitted with several loops to house some half-dozen crystal phials. Selecting one, he removed its tiny cork and shook several oily pink drops into the paste, blending it for a few moments.

  Sivitri wiped at her pale, sweat-drenched face. She had neither risen nor retrieved her sword.

  “Here,” Toj said, extending the lid to her. He turned his face toward Conan, fixing him with a cold stare. “No man can defeat me in combat, Cimmerian. You would be a fool to attempt—ah, Bel!” He flinched in apparent pain.

  Sivitri’s hand had darted away from the lid, toward the hilt of the dagger that jutted from Toj’s robes. She angled the blade into his breast, shoving hard so that its point pierced the cloth wrappings and shirt beneath, to slide into flesh.

  Conan’s jaw dropped in astonishment.

  The assassin gurgled and toppled, clawing at the spreading stain that soaked his tunic. He froze instantly in that pose, the glaze of death in his eyes.

  Sivitri withdrew her hand from Toj’s robes, her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the assassin’s Red Asp dagger. She spat into the mage’s pale, still face. “Perhaps no man could have defeated you,” she said, opening her other hand, which held the jar-lid that Toj had proffered. “But where a man fails, a woman may succeed.” She dabbed her finger into the paste, lifted out the potion and swallowed it with a grimace.

  “Good riddance,” Conan grunted. He rolled Toj onto his back and knelt to feel his neck for a pulse. Scarcely had his fingers brushed the Turanian’s skin when he snatched back his hand and mumbled an oath.

  “The Red Asp’s bite is that of icy death,” Sivitri said, smacking her lips. “Had Toj not fallen for my ruse, it might have been you who felt its chilling effect. I know not how Toj cam
e to possess it, for last I knew, the dagger had been stolen from a temple in Luxur and moved to a Messantian guild.” She dropped the empty lid and rubbed at her temples.

  Conan eyed the weapon suspiciously. “Luxur? No doubt a weapon of such unnatural potency is surely befouled with some Stygian death-spells,” he said. “Well, it proved to be Toj’s bane. At least we are free of him now! Yet still we must deal with the sorcerer—with daylight all but fled.” Conan extended a hand to Sivitri. “Can you go on?”

  Sivitri sighed as Conan pulled her to her feet, then she sank back to the sand. “Not yet,” she winced. “By the morrow, I may recover, if that vile-tasting antidote subdues Toj’s poison quickly enough.” “His plan might have worked,” mused Conan. “That Red Asp— though as dangerous to wielder as to foe—seems a handy weapon for wizard-killing. I have half a mind to stick it into Thoth-amon's gizzard.”

  “And if he slips away with the relic before we reach him, Conan—what then? I could not ride, with my head afire with fever.” “Crom, woman! With you it is always ‘what if.’ A man must do what his guts or his heart tell him to do, and consequences be damned! I’ll not darken my thoughts with ‘what ifs.’ You rest here and recover,” he said, bending down to take the rubiate dagger, “whilst I prove the worthiness of Toj’s plan. I’ve a bargain to seal with you, and no Stygian swine can turn me away when a roomful of gold awaits me. There’s a way to tell if Thoth-amon still lurks within yon walls, or if naught but sand and bone haunt these ruins.” “No gold is worth dying for, Conan. And if the Stygian already has the statue, then Jade will never possess it.”

  “If there’s dying to be done today, it’s Thoth-amon who will do it. Wait for me here until morning. And forget not the words of Caranthes, which may yet prove veritable. By sunrise, I’ll be riding back to Saridis with you or I’ll be in Hell!” As he spoke, he leapt into his saddle and guided his horse at full gallop toward the skeletons heaped in the shadows behind the white marble tower.

  XVIII

  The Grim Grey God

  Marble walls, bright as alabaster, pained Tevek’s eyes as he looked upon them. The passing of centuries had not dulled their brilliance. In direct light, the inside of this temple would have burned his eyes. He had wound a strip of thin cloth around his head and cast forward his cowl to dull the whiteness. But he would have endured more to reach the prize that lay but a few paces away.

  The Grim Grey God! An icy chill swept up Tevek’s spine as the Jackal carefully brushed sand from the top of the pearl statue. When the Acheronian warriors had completed their labour, the necromancer had withdrawn his will from all of them except for the Jackal. Nearby stood the only other skeleton that Tevek had kept reanimated—that of the sole Nithian to hear his call and stir from the sands. He had again briefly probed the bones of six others, whose remains were scattered upon the floor before the god.

  Only one of these retained any spiritual link with its corporeal form—and that one’s skull was an arm’s length from its neck. A strange calm radiated from it despite its apparently sudden and violent death. Contact with the remnant’s spirit had made Tevek queasy, and he had broken it off abruptly. Whatever happened here, in bygone centuries, was of secondary interest. The necromancer had but one priority: to retrieve the God-statue and set his plan into motion. Still, this calm Nithian would be important later. Blackblade had told him that the Nithian had been a lesser priest of Ibis, and as such, he would know three of the Grim Grey God’s names. Tevek would learn those names from him soon enough.

  From the arched hallway that led outside came a distant, repeated thumping. Someone approaching? No—not now! Tevek cursed softly and looked longingly at the strangely carved idol. “Wait,” he said sternly to the Jackal. Then he returned his will to the dead warriors he had left sprawled outside the temple. Moments later, he was seeing through their hollow sockets.

  A heavily muscled, bronze-skinned man was riding hard across the sloping dune. His sword bounced and swayed at his hip, and his jaw was set in a grim and determined expression. No desert raider, this. The man clearly knew what he was after. He had already reached the edge of the tower’s shadow. The sweat-lathered horse galloped past the outermost bodies, apparently intent upon reaching the temple’s gates—which had been reduced to rubble by a formidable battering ram.

  The ram’s immense head lay there still, a hunk of tarnished iron, shaped like the skull of a viper and attached to an iron spike that was as long as a man was tall. That spike had probably once been driven into the end of a heavy log, which in this dry waste would have crumbled to dust long ago. Tevek reasserted his will and bade four of his Acheronians to crawl stealthily toward it. The others he again awakened, commanding them to lie still—until the stranger should pass by them and fall into the trap that awaited him. This bothersome intruder would be dealt with in a short span.

  Satisfied with his improvisation, Tevek measured the distance and waited impatiently.

  Sivitri took a long drink from Toj’s waterskin, deeming her own unsafe. She peered over the edge of the dune, into the dust that settled in the wake of Conan’s steed. His courage impressed her as much as it infuriated her. He could be so bold, so honourable—and yet so coarse and callous.

  Since her nightmarish youth, she had held men in utter disdain.

  They were savage, egotistical creatures, and they had no use for women but slavery. Her pitiful father had permitted, nay, condoned some of the atrocities that the men of the palace had committed upon her body, and she had loathed him for it. Those sweaty, jeering faces still haunted her dreams at times, stirring the coals of hatred toward all males. Only by using men, by manipulating them, could she cool that heat and suppress the nightmares.

  Why, then, had she given herself freely to this Cimmerian? Had this muscle-bound barbarian single-handedly unravelled a tapestry of bitterness that she had woven for nearly two decades? But she knew the answer, even as she posed the question: no. She had spent the night with him only to use him.

  And in the end, he had proven no different than the others. He cared only for gold. Like all the beasts of his gender, he was incapable of love. And to think that she had almost stopped him from entering the ruins! There, the withering disease would seal his doom.

  Almost. Almost had the strange Cimmerian awakened feelings in her that she thought had been forever banished. Was it the fever from Toj’s poison then, that made her regret her decision to let him die? Conan had saved her freely enough—not just once, but even after she had treated him coldly. The night she had spent with him in the bath at Saridis lingered in her memory. Though his passion had been as fierce as that of a wild beast, he had not mauled or bruised her. She would never experience such a night again, for she had led him to his doom... all for the sake of power, to possess a talisman that would forever banish those loathsome, leering faces from her troubled sleep.

  As she watched the Cimmerian’s broad back, his black mane windswept behind him, she wished desperately that she could be Sivitri, the woman who loved Conan and would save him from the disease before it was too late. But she was not. Jade she was, the girl who had laboured hard to master the sword, the girl whose blade had first tasted the blood of her cruel and sadistic father, a Zamorian prince, brother of Tiridates the king. Jade, the woman who had risen to a station above that of many kings—Jade, who kept her true identity hidden.

  To those within her guilds, she was three other people. The woman Sivitri was one; the faceless, genderless Jade another; and when necessary, she disguised herself as a man. There were a host of others: in Messantia, Rubinia the barmaid; in Zingara, Isvara the seamstress; in Koth, Hypatia the baroness; in Nemedia, Sephir the palm-reader; in Aquilonia, Androclea the herb-merchant.

  Jade she would always be. She could trust no man—not even one who had proven his reliability, like the assassin. He had lied to her about the map, forcing her to make use of the kalb beetle. Then, when she had later decided that she could afford no risk of failure or treache
ry, she had set out to follow Conan and pose as Kylanna, then as Sivitri.

  Behind her, the body of Toj twitched ever so slightly. The unfocused stare shifted to the oblivious woman. The limbs were paralysed, but the devious mind was in full motion. The woman’s dagger-thrust had sunk to perhaps a finger’s depth into his flesh, but it had missed his heart. The blade had pierced a bladder of that most precious of philtres, the Golden Lotus. A misnomer, actually, for though its leaves were the xanthous hue of the finest Aquilonian coin, its nectar was as red as blood. Conan and the woman had doubtless mistaken it for such.

  The Red Asp had surely frozen his heart for a span; there was a void in his memory where he had lost consciousness. But that scarlet nectar had seeped into the wound and gone to work swiftly, staunching the flow of blood, knitting the tom flesh, reviving his heart and warming the frozen veins within him. Soon his circulation would return, and with it, the power to deal death again. Of course, he would save that for the Cimmerian. He still needed Sivitri alive as hostage, and the false antidote he had given her would provide but a brief respite from the poison’s symptoms. She would live long enough to buy him freedom from the kalb beetle. If only the Golden Lotus had power over that bothersome... wait. Could it be?

  His thoughts paused for a moment as the realization struck him— the Red Asp had frozen him for a span; had it also frozen the beetle, perhaps destroying it? He focused on the area where the tickling sensations had plagued him, where the twinges of pain had begun to originate with worrisome frequency.

  He felt nothing. True, he was numb from the cold still, but the warmth had returned first within his breast and from there, spread outward.

  When he was no longer bound by that deadly affliction, he no longer needed Sivitri alive. With her back to him, she would be easy prey.

  Toj’s thoughts raced, jumbled by his brush with death. He decided that he would next slay the Cimmerian. Where the barbarian had gone, he could not recall. He had doubtless charged into the ruins to face the Stygian mage and retrieve the idol. Reckless nithing. If he somehow succeeded, he would return to the woman. Even if he did not come back, the withering disease would stay with him and send him to Hell.