Conan the Great

by Leonard Carpenter

  “Tongues will wag,” the dwarf replied, “the envious ones most loosely. As is fitting, perhaps, since our meeting was such a lucky chance.” With a melancholy flourish of strings, the minstrel launched into the refrain of a languid western air. “If not for a clumsy charioteer,” he complained, “an ill-fitting suit of armour, and a barbar-king’s mad whim to rove the field of carnage alone, why, I would now be dead. Or in Ianthe, or Belverus, playing to a more jaded audience of besotted nobles and their fancy tarts.”

  “Hmm. And yet, my friend,” Conan equably remarked, “I smell the taint of destiny in our meeting. We have much in common, you and I. For one thing, I betimes have had my own problems finding armour that fits.” Delvyn, instead of laughing, struck an ill-tuned chord on his lute. “Chalk that up to Malvin’s miserliness as a host,” he said, resuming his melody, “and to my master Balt’s loutish inattention in not getting me properly outfitted before we left Nemedia. What kind of negligent ruler is it, I ask you,” the dwarf complained in evident sincerity, “who leaves his fiercest warrior ill-armed, unmounted, and ungirded on the eve of battle?” “You would have fought valiantly for your king, I’m sure,” Conan said.

  “And did so!” Delvyn put in sharply.

  “Yes, yes, of course. And yet your speeches give him little honour., nor any to his ally, Lord Malvin.” The king looked up at last from his stack of royal decrees.

  “If you speak so ill of them in their absence, I wonder, how will you speak of me when my back is turned?” Delvyn strummed the plaintive air’s refrain. “Need you wonder, O King Gut-squeezer”—the pale, close-set eyes glinted at Conan out of the shadows—“keeping in mind that I speak only ill of you to your face?” Conan guffawed. Once his burst of laughter had subsided, he swigged from his ale cup and said, “Good, then, brave Delvyn! A king learns to cherish frankness above all else—especially from fools, who always flock so thickly around him. I can accept your acid tongue, as long as you’ll warrant that I need not fear spying by you, nor outright treachery.” His speech ended with a direct, sombre look to Delvyn in his seat atop a heavy brass-bound chest.

  “No spying, O King. And no treachery, outright or otherwise.” Delvyn’s strumming shifted subtly in key, although his gaze did not drop. “I have no need of such devious tricks, I assure you. And I pledge no further loyalty or fealty to King Balt and his jackal Malvin.” Without interrupting his melody’s soulful conclusion, the little man rearranged his stubby legs beneath him. “To be frank with you, Sire, I have seen more than enough of their half-handed misrule. And I know friends in Ianthe and in the Nemedian officer corps who feel the same way.”

  “Indeed, little man. You know much about the ways of kings, ’tis clear.” After gazing thoughtfully another moment at the dwarf, Conan turned back to his desk-work. “And with your vast trove of experience, what think you of this, my kingdom?”

  “Aquilonia? Yours is a passable realm, Conan the Neck-cruncher.” Now Delvyn plied his lute tunelessly, wandering into an eerie thicket of notes lost or abandoned between melodies. “’Tis a wealthy land, to be sure. Worldly and many-striped to my eye, and yet docile enough to let itself be yoked and tamed by a belching, brawling savage from its barren northern hinterlands. A strange combination, that: the nation which gives rise to perhaps the highest flower of Hyborian art and culture, cowering under the knotted fist of an unschooled, unlettered foreigner! A clear case of the dominance of brute, barbarian force over decadent, civilized maunderings—”

  “I respect the arts, little man,” Conan interrupted him, “your own plinkings and plunkings included. Since becoming king, know you, I have learned to write and have even set my hand to bardic verse.”

  “A great achievement for you, doubtless. Many monarchs and generals turn to such pastimes in retirement, after they have reached the compass of their powers and ambitions.” The dwarf strummed idly on, his chords making a shifting background to his words. “Once a man forsakes the work for which he is best suited, he may find it equally challenging to perform less well in a less notable pursuit. Such tasks can lighten the burden of indolence and sated hopes.”

  “Rapscallion, you call me indolent?” Conan was provoked once again to look up from his work. “Why, man, I am galloping just as hard as I can, and barely keeping apace, what with sorceries and uprisings here at home, and rapacious kings at my border!” He shook his black mane. “Long ago I learned that a throne is a slumbering tiger, easier to mount than to ride!” He shook his head angrily, his dark locks framing a darker scowl. “And sated—well I deserve to be sated, after spending my life scrabbling and searching for treasure and ease. Now, by dint of the harshest and most gruelling efforts of my days, I command power and treasure enough to satisfy any man!”

  “Interesting, King Purse-grabber. To each his own.” Delvyn shrugged. “And yet, from the viewpoint of the greater world, your kingdom is by no means unique. It is no richer than mighty Turan, for instance, and no vaster than far-flung Khitai—or so at least the travelling adepts tell me. How much greater, I wonder, are the needs and cravings of the rulers of those lands, that they should have attained more than you in all your barbaric rapacity?” He struck an idle chord on his lute. “And tell me, O King, all this power and treasure you possess—does it indeed satisfy you?”

  Conan set his pen into his ink pot with an air of barely restrained exasperation. “Crom’s curse on you, little man! What is it you are prying and probing at?”

  From his shadowy perch, the dwarf shrugged. “Merely to sound you out, King Gold-filcher; to learn whether you are a truly exceptional king, or just an ordinary one.” His small hand scattered a handful of notes from his lute strings. “For you know, although the world abounds with bold generals, clever court intriguers, and brilliant priests and magicians, kings are not an especially able lot, as kings go. They inherit or usurp their power, and keep it or lose it as the case may be, generally without doing anything remarkable after they become king. By then their greatest exploits are usually far behind them. Often their kingship is but a retreat from life—a dotage, as with sour old Balt, or a morass of vanity and fleshy abandon, as with Malvin. They are surrounded by comforts which imprison a man, and by loyal, solicitous friends, counsellors, and family who do what no enemy or hardship could ever have done: that is, they tame and disarm the ravening self-seeker who made himself king.” Delvyn shook his head musingly. “’Tis true, perhaps, that most men crave ease and security. But to surrender to them—that, O King, is a death worse than death.”

  All through Delvyn’s speech, Conan sat with his brow knit, listening to the blending of words and tuneless, haunting lute notes, remaining idle and pensive.

  “Now in you, King Sword-slinger, I thought I perceived one whose spirit could not be so easily tamed. Are you not after all, besides being such a vast brute of a fellow, a sly and ruthless fighter, free of all the moral qualms and crotchets the weak call ‘civilized’?” During Delvyn’s brief pause, Conan could feel the dwarf peering at him inscrutably from the shadows.

  “And, from what I have been told of your escapades and luck, one would suspect a further influence at work, some hint of an unseen power. Since you are no spell-caster, and your rustic aversion to magic of all kinds is well known, it implies something even more mysterious, be it witting to you or not—the touch of the gods, no less. A strange thought, that; and yet it seems impossible otherwise to explain the swift, astonishing rise of one so ill-suited to grandeur and high estate.

  “If indeed you enjoy the gods’ favour—that elusive gift so many kings lay claim to, based on far less convincing evidence—why, then it raises the inevitable question: to what end? Were you raised from barbarous obscurity to idle here amid callow, womanly comforts, to fret over vulgar daily concerns and cling to what wealth and sway you have? Truly, O King, were you fated to come only so far, and then cease? Or does it lie in your destiny to achieve something more— something, perhaps, which no monarch on earth has yet achieved?

&nb
sp; “For it is a small world, O King—the stretch of it we know, at least. ’Tis little more than a hamlet, really, a sleepy village of tired, passable kings. There never yet lived the man who mastered more than a small part of it—a measured, circumscribed tract, no greater than a hand’s-breadth on the sheepskin maps you kings are so fond of drawing and redrawing in bright ink and brighter blood.” Delvyn ceased his strumming and gestured with his lute to one such map, which was pinned to the wall beside the casement.

  “Get on with it, dwarf! Where are you leading me?” Conan’s voice sounded level in the silence, toneless and resigned.

  “I am telling Your Majesty that, since ’tis but one paltry world, why should it have more than one ruler? And who better to rule it, King Skull-basher, than you? Is that not your obvious, unalterable destiny, for which the gods have been saving you so diligently from your own bloodthirsty folly?”

  The interval before Conan answered was a silent, lengthy one. He sat motionless before his writing-table, half-turned toward Delvyn sitting against the tower room’s rounded wall; even in his grey cloth jerkin, dagger-belted kilt, and plain leather sandals he was every inch a king. At last he spoke once again with the same air of weary resignation.

  “And what part of the world does that leave for you, little man? What is to be your share of my divine destiny?”

  Delvyn riffled the lute strings once more. “Is it not plain to you, Sire? I am but a jester. The only way for a jester to be great is to be the jester of a great king. And I intend to be the greatest jester who ever lived.”

  IV

  Leavetaking

  “The king is preoccupied of late, Trocero.”

  “Aye, Prospero. He is not as jovial in the flush of victory as I would expect him to be.”

  “True. One would look for it to cheer him, and yet he seems glummer than ever. What, I wonder, is eating at him?”

  The two noblemen, taking their noon wine on the terrace overlooking the palace entry, pondered in silence a moment. Trocero sat on a weathered wooden chair, his shoulders hunched forward, his elbows braced on his knees, letting the sun warm his broad back. Prospero assumed a more courtly posture, standing with one foot propped in a crenellation of the battlement as he surveyed the leisurely bustle of the palace yard below.

  “Perhaps,” Trocero declared, “it is the baneful influence of that noxious dwarf he has taken to his bosom.

  I trust not Delvyn.”

  “You think him a spy?” Prospero asked, stepping down and shifting around to make a seat of the embrasure.

  “A spy?” the count asked. “Yes, to be sure, if listening goggle-eared and spreading outrageous slanders is spying. As to what it may avail him, why—that is hard to say, since he has little commerce with anyone at court except the king.”

  “He has told us much about our enemies,” Prospero said. “None of it is provably false.”

  “Aye, precisely, the better to insinuate himself into our trust! By now he knows enough about our plans to make him a peril to us if he were freed. That, me-thinks, is why Conan has ceased to talk of ransoming him back to Nemedia.”

  “Ah, well.” Prospero shifted sidewise to lean back against the warm stone. “He is too small and too conspicuous to be an assassin. Mayhap the king is only burdened by the weight of middling years and too-easy triumphs. After all, Trocero, ’tis hardly unusual for a king to enlist the services of a court jester or a fool.” “Yes, but mark me, this one does not jest and he is no fool.” The count finished his wine and set the tankard down beside his chair. “He has a treacherous way of ferreting out a man’s weaknesses and playing on them. Who can know what part he played in his former king’s downfall in battle? And the way he treats Conan with open contempt... I, for one, find it revolting!” “Come, fellow! Such is the value of a jester, as well you know. A king, especially one as great as Conan, needs relief from constant flattery. He enjoys being taken down a notch or two! He craves laughter at his own expense, which full-sized men like us can ill afford to offer him.”

  “That were well spoken, if the midget really cheered the king. But he seems to do the opposite, over the long haul at least. Do you remember how we would hear that damnable twanging and plunking from Conan’s vicinity every moment—in his tent at Tybor, and on the march home? Just listen!” Trocero glanced up toward the window of the east tower, whence even then the faint, eerie strains of a lute could be heard. “Mitra knows what devilment he is whispering in the king’s ear, and what sorcerous spells his foreign music is weaving!”

  “Now, now, my good count,” Prospero laughed, “have a little faith in our king! No man is leerier of sorcery than Conan. And what weakness can he possibly have for such an ill-favoured little imp to play on, as the victorious king of a thriving realm, and head of a devoted court and family? Let us observe Conan in our meeting today, and see if his judgement of military and diplomatic affairs is weak or spiritless. If so, we can speak to him; otherwise let him enjoy his dwarf. There are great issues afoot which will serve as a test of his kingship.”

  It was late dusk by the look of the sky—or else pale night. But not Aquilonian night; something about the wan colour of the heavens low down near the horizon, and the mournful soughing of the wind through the stones, seemed to preclude that. Halfway up toward the zenith, a watery disc of moon glared down. Framed by looming black pillars, it cast faint shadows of ruined Cyclopean stonework across the cracked pavement of the courtyard.

  The wind was gusty and piercing, but there was no vegetation to be vexed by it—not even grass stalks to wave, or dry husks of leaves to be frighted about the enclosure. The restlessness of the air was visible only in the changing traceries of pale dust blowing over the fractured stones, and in the rippling of dark water in a low-curbed pool at the centre of the court.

  The lone figure walked slowly forward, looking timid and small in the vastness of the ruins. He was undersized, frail and stunted even for a puny mortal in this abode of forgotten gods.

  “Kthantos?” the thin voice called out, squeaking in its essay at boldness. “Elder One, why am I brought here? I have not conjured you, Kthantos!”

  The answer to his question was not spoken. Rather, it bubbled up, surfacing in oily splatters from the centre of the black pool that spread before the questioner.

  “Conjured, you say?” The cracked glottal sounds were punctuated by laughter, which gushed forth in a thick-bubbled geyser. “Men conjure demons, mortal! Gods conjure men.”

  “Always before this I have invoked you.” The small, hunched figure halted at a judicious distance from the pool’s rim. The breeze had abated, yet the pond’s dark waters stirred restlessly from the bubbling. “Can it be that your strength waxes greater already, Kthantos?” “As a god’s strength should,” the low-pitched accents burbled, “who has more followers than he formerly had.”

  “One more follower, at least,” the mortal visitor mused aloud with a note of scepticism in his voice. “Hmm, from zero to one is an immeasurably large increase. So you should feel infinitely stronger—for the time, at least.”

  “For your lifetime, at least,” the black water gurgled back mockingly in reply, “pathetically short as it will ' be, compared to mine.” And yet, on more careful inspection, the pool might not have been filled with water after all. Its bubbles and ripples seemed to have a thicker, oilier quality, like that of molten pitch. “After all,” the voice spoke on, “I possess your unalterable belief.”

  “Perhaps, Elder One,” the visitor added disputatiously. “Even so, my devotion to you might falter someday.”

  “If not through devotion, then through simple fear I own you. Having once believed, mortal, can you cease to do so by an act of will?” The pool’s contents roiled, forming black wavelets that lapped the stone rim with a hint of menace. “Remember, a weak god is a jealous one. One who punishes his forswearers harshly. A fat, complacent deity like Tarim or Mitra can afford to let a few followers lapse, but not I! And even in my former supremacy,
I was no god of mercy....”

  “Yes, yes, Kthantos,” the mortal said with a valiant show of boredom. “You told me already of your vast powers and cruelties of old. Pray, do not exert yourself so greatly to frighten me, lest I begin to regret that I ever resurrected your name and rite... out of a crumbling, scarcely legible scroll, which had lain forgotten in a catacomb for countless centuries.”

  “Indeed, mortal,” the disembodied voice said, “well may you taunt me with memories of my lost glory.” The pond bubbled idly, tossing a reflection of the pale moon hither and back across its surface like a child’s plaything. “Yet I caution you: even in my present state I retain more than enough power to slay any mortal, swiftly or slowly, as I may choose. Short of that, I could withdraw the boon I have already bestowed upon you—”

  “Enough of this idiotic sparring!” The listener spoke with sudden, daring vehemence. “Tell me, why have you called me here? Or have your forgotten, in your doddering ancientness?”

  “Why else, but to hear of your schemes and successes?” The voice in the pool bubbled awkwardly to a stop, as if embarrassed to request any favour of a mortal, or to admit any lack of omniscience. “What of this new king?” it asked finally in a reluctant, oily spurt.

  “He is promising, most promising indeed, and receptive to my influence.” The human crossed his arms with an air of relaxed certainty. “Even so, there are other possibilities—younger ones who may be more energetic and malleable. Shortly I will begin to test this one’s strength and resolve.” The visitor laughed. “I have already told him the gods are on his side.”

  “So they are,” the pool blurted, “one god at least. Though I am an ancient god, a mere shade of my former self. That will soon change. I shall take my place among these upstart Hyborian deities and in time supplant them—”