Again that courtly bow. "A thousand pardons, Your Grace! Not for the blessings of all uie gods would I have displeased you."
"Then why are you half an hour late, sirrah?"
A graceful gesture. "A mere nothing―a wisp of foolery―"
The man with the priestly shaven skull put in: "A tavern brawl, lord Duke."
"A brawl in a common wineshop?" demanded the duke. "Have you lost your wits, you scoundrel? How did this happen?"
His sallow cheeks flushing, Zarono cast a glare of menace at the priest, who returned his look impassively. "Twas naught, Your Grace! Nothing that need detain you―"
"I will judge that, Zarono," said the duke. "It is not impossible that our plan has been betrayed. Are you certain that this―ah―interruption was not a provocation?" The duke's hands closed on a folded letter and tightened until their knuckles whitened.
Zarono gave a smooth little laugh. "Nothing at all like that, my lord. Perhaps you have heard of an oafish barbarian called Conan, who has risen to command of a Zingaran privateer, notwithstanding that he is but the whelp of some Cimmerian slut in the frozen North?"
"I know nothing of the rogue. Continue."
"As I say, 'twas naught. But, entering the Inn of the Nine Drawn Swords for my rendezvous with the holy Menkara here, I espied a roast sizzling on the spit and, as I had not replenished nature since dawn, I resolved to slay two pigeons with a single bolt. Since a man of my quality cannot be expected to waste his time in waiting, I hailed Sabral the tavemer and commanded him to set the haunch before me. Then this Cimmerian lout, claiming it was his dinner, dared oppose me. A gentleman can scarce be expected to brook that upstart outlanders be given preference―"
"What happened? Come to the point," said the duke.
"There was some argument, and from words we passed to buffets." Zarono chuckled as he touched a dark swelling beneath one eye. "The fellow is strong as a bull, although I flatter myself that I also marked his ugly visage. Before I could show the peasant the temper of my steel, the taverner and some of his customers seized us and forced us apart―not without effort, as it took four or five of them to hold either of us. In the meantime, the holy father Menkara here had arrived, and he devoted himself to assuaging our angry passions. What with one thing and another…"
"I see; it was in all probability a mere accident But you should know better than to provoke such broils. I will not have it! And now to business. This, I presume, is… ?"
The Zingaran twirled his mustachios. "Pardon my ill manners, Your Grace; I present the holy Menkara, a priest of Set, whom I have persuaded to join our high emprise and who now labors diligently in the cause."
The shaven-headed one again clasped hands and bowed. Villagro nodded curtly.
"Why did you insist on a personal interview, holy Father?" he snapped. "I prefer to work through agents like Zarono. Is aught amiss? Is the compensation offered you enoughr
The glazed eyes of the bald Stygian bore a deceptive look of dull indifference.
"Gold is but dross; yet, for all that, the fleshly envelope must be sustained on this lowly plane of being. Our cultus knows that the world is but an illusion―a mask over the naked face of chaos… But pardon this lowly one, lord Duke.
Theological discourse is a custom of my land, but my presence here is due to the custom of your country, eh?" The Stygian gave a bleak little smile, indicating that he had made a joke.
Duke Villagro raised an inquiring eyebrow. Menkara continued: "I refer to Your Grace's plan to compel the amiable but senile King Ferdrugo to bestow the hand of Princess Chabela upon you, before the well-timed end of his existence on this planet. I alluded to the well-known apothegm: 'Conspiracy and treason are venerable customs in Zingara.'"
Villagro's grimace showed that he did not deem the joke very humorous. "Yes, yes, priest, all this we know. What is your news? How goeth the struggle to capture our subjects' minds?"
The Stygian shrugged. "All goeth poorly, my lord. The mind of Ferdrugo is easily dominated, for he is old and sickly. I have, however, encountered a problem."
"Well?"
"When I have the king under the valence of my will, I can command him perfectly.
I can force him to give you the princess's hand; but the princess― not unreasonably, given the difference in your ages ―balks."
"Then place her mind under your control as well, you bald-pated fool!" snarled Villagro, irked by the allusion to his age.
Cold fires flared in the Stygian's dull eyes but were swiftly banked. "This very night have I striven to that end," he purred. "My spirit came upon the princess slumbering in her suite and intruded into her dreams. She is young, strong, and vital. With the greatest difficulty, I achieved control of her brain―but even as my shadow whispered to her sleeping soul, I felt my control over the old king's mind loosen and slip away. I swiftly released the girl to reassume my mastery of her father. She awoke in terror and, although she remembers naught of my whispered suggestions, I have doubtless alarmed her.
"Here is the problem. I cannot at the same time control both king and princess―"
He broke off, for fire blazed up in the duke's eyes. "So it was you, you bungling dogl" roared Villagro.
Surprise and alarm flickered in the Stygian's dull gaze. "What means my lord?"
he murmured. Zarono added his query to that of the priest.
The duke voiced a strangled oath. "Is it possible that my cunning spy and my canny sorcerer are oblivious to what has half the city in a buzz?" he shouted.
"Can it be that neither of you idiots knows that the princess has disappeared from the city? And that all our plans are set at naught?"
Duke Villagro had laid his plans with care. King Ferdrugo was decrepit and ailing. To insure a peaceful succession, the royal princess, Chabela, must soon wed. Who could better sue for her hand and follow her to the throne than Villagro, a widower of many years and, after the king, the richest and most powerful peer of the realm?
In the crypt beneath his ancient castle, Villagro had advanced his scheme. The privateer Zarono, of noble lineage but tarnished past, he enlisted in his cause.
To Zarono he gave the task of enlisting a sorcerer of flexible scruples, who could influence the mind and will of the aging monarch. For this mission, the wily Zarono had selected Menkara, wizard-priest of the outlawed Stygian cult of Set. Chabela's flight, however, threw all Villagro's plans awry. What booted it to control the mind of the king if the princess were no longer present to be wedded?
With stony self-possession, Menkara gradually calmed the agitated Villagro. He said: "May it please Your Grace, but such modest mastery of the occult sciences as I possess should soon reveal the lady's present location."
"Do it, then," said Villagro gloomily.
At the priest's direction, Gomani the Kushite fetched a bronze tripod and charcoal from the adjacent torture cell. The carpet was rolled back, revealing the stony pave. From beneath his robe, the Stygian produced a large wallet with many interior compartments. From this he took a piece of luminous green chalk, with which he traced on the floor a circular design like a serpent holding its tail in its jaws.
Meanwhile, the Kushite kindled a small fire on the tripod. Blowing and fanning soon raised the charcoal to red heat.
On the glowing coals, the priest poured a fragrant green fluid from a crystal phial. With a serpentine hiss, a sharp aromatic odor filled the still air of the chamber. Pale-green spirals of smoke coiled and writhed in the drowsy air.
The priest seated himself tailor-fashion in the circle of green chalk. The candelabrum was extinguished, plunging the chamber into an eery gloom. Three sources of light remained: the red glow of the coals in the brazier, the green-glowing serpentiform circle of chalk, and the yellow eyes of the sorcerer, which blazed like the orbs of some nocturnal beast.
The voice of the Stygian rose, chanting: "Iao, Set-esh… Setesh, Iao! Abrathax kuraim mizraeth, Seteshr The harsh, sibilant words died to a droning whisper, then faded
away. The only sound was that of the slow rhythm of the Stygian's breathing. As he sank into a trance, his yellow orbs were veiled by his eyelids.
"Mitra!" gasped Zarono, but the viselike grip of the duke on his arm enjoined him to silence.
The coils of smoke writhed and diffused into a luminous, jade-green cloud.
Patches of light and dark appeared in the vapor. Then the watchers gazed upon a life-like scene within the cloud. This scene snowed a small ship, caravel-rigged, racing across a nighted sea. On the foredeck stood a young girl, her rounded form apparent through the heavy cloak, which the wind whipped tightly against her vigorous young body…
"Chabela!" breathed Villagro.
As if his murmur broke the spell, the glowing cloud eddied and fragmented. The coals went out with a hiss. The priest fell forward, his bald brow thudding against the floor.
"Whither is she bound?" Villagro asked Menkara when a swallow of wine had revived the sorcerer.
The Stygian pondered. "I read the name of Asgalun in her mind. Know you of any reason why she should seek Asgalun, Your Grace?"
"That is where the king's brother, Tovarro, has his present seat," mused the duke. "As ambassador, he roves from one Shemite city to another, but that is where he now is. I see it! She will flee to Tovarro and beseech him to return to Kordava. With that meddlesome fellow here, the gods only know what would befall our plans. Well, then, what's to do, since your powers cannot dominate both king and princess simultaneously?"
Zarono stretched out a hand toward the silver tray, murmuring: "With Your Grace's land permission?" At Villagro's nod, Zarono helped himself to a piece of fruit. "Methinks," he said between bites, "we should get another sorcerer."
"That makes good sense," said the duke. "Whom do you suggest, priest?"
The Stygian brooded without expression. "The chief of my order," he said at last, "and the mightiest magician now carnate on this plane, is the great Thoth-Amon."
"Where does this Thoth-Ammon reside?"
"He dwells in his native Stygia, in the Oasis of Khajar," replied Menkara. "I must, however, warn Your Grace that the mighty talents of Thoth-Amon are not to be purchased with mere gold." A bitter smile curled the swarthy lips. "Gold can buy little men, like me; but Thoth-Amon is a veritable prince of sorcery. One who commands the spirits of the earth has no need of material wealth."
"What, then, can tempt him?"
"One dream lies close to Thoth-Amon's heart," purred the priest. "Centuries ago, the cults of the accursed Mitra and of my own divinity, Set, warred here in these western realms. Such were the twists of fate that my cultus was thrown down, while the Mi-tra-worshipers were exalted over us. The worship of the Serpent was outlawed, and all of my order were driven into exile.
"Now, if Your Grace would swear to throw down the temples of Mitra and rebuild the fanes of Set in their place, and elevate great Set over the upstart gods of the West, then I daresay that Thoth-Amon would lend his power to your schemes."
The duke chewed his lip. Gods, temples, and priests meant nothing to him, so long as the temples and their hierarchy paid their taxes. He shrugged.
"It shall be so," he said. "I will swear it by any gods or demons your wonder-worker names. Now, here are your tasks: "At dawn, you shall put to sea. Set your course to the southeast and intercept the vessel bearing the princess. Seize her and destroy the ship, leaving no survivors to tell the tale. Your Petrel, Zarono, should easily overhaul the little Sea Queen.
"Having secured the lady, you shall continue on to Stygia. You, Menkara, shall guide the party to Thoth-Ammon's stronghold and serve as my ambassador to him.
When you have enlisted him in our cause, you shall return to Kordava with him and the princess. Are there any questions?"
Thus the double mission was launched.
Chapter Two
A KNIFE IN THE DARK
Dawn paled the eastern sky. The storm had blown over. Now broken, black clouds scudded across the somber heavens. A few faint stars, lingering in the west, were seen intermittently through the gaps in the clouds and were reflected in the puddles of muddy rainwater in the gutters of Kordava.
Zarono, master of the privateer Petrel and secret agent of the duke of Kordava, strode through the wet streets in a foul mood. His exchange of fisticuffs with the giant Cimmerian buccaneer had not sweetened his temper, to say nothing of his having missed his dinner. The imprecations heaped upon him by his master the duke had further soured his disposition, and to top it all he was bleary-eyed with lack of sleep and ravenously hungry. As he dodged dripping eaves and hiked the edges of his cloak out of muddy puddles, his mouth tasted of smothered anger. He yearned for something helpless on which to vent his wrath. Menkara loped silently at his side.
A scrawny little man, whose bare legs could be seen under the ragged hem of his patched cassock, strove to keep his footing on the greasy cobbles as he scurried through the gusty streets. His sandals slapped against the wet stones. With one hand he gathered a patched shawl about his meager chest; with the other he held aloft a burning link of tarred rope to light his way.
Under his breath, he mumbled the dawn litany to Mitra. To him, this was a mere jumble of meaningless sounds, for his mind was elsewhere. Thus Ninus, a minor priest of the Mitraic temple, hurried through the wet, windy streets to his destiny.
Ninus had risen from his pallet before dawn and, eluding the preceptor, had crept from the precincts of the temple of Mitra into a gloom-drenched alley.
Thence he made his way toward the harbor of Kordava and his meeting with the foreign corsair, Conan the Cimmerian.
The unprepossessing little man had a wobbling paunch and spindly shanks. Watery eyes looked out over a huge nose. He was wrapped in a tattered robe of the Mitraic priesthood―a robe that was none too clean and suspiciously stained with the purple spots of forbidden wine. In his earlier years, before seeing the light of Mitra, Ninus had been one of the ablest jewel thieves of the Hyborian lands; this was how he had become acquainted with Conan. Never much of a temple goer, the burly privateer had also once been a thief himself, and the two were friends of long standing. Although Ninus felt that his call to the priesthood was sincere, he had never succeeded in subduing the fleshly appetites that he had so freely indulged in his former hie.
Close to his scrawny bosom, the little priest hugged the document that Conan had promised to buy. The privateer needed treasure, and Ninus required gold ―or at least silver. The chart had long been in Ninus' possession. In his thieving days, the little man had often thought of following its inked path to the fabulous wealth whose hiding place it professed to disclose. But since, in his present holy profession, it seemed unlikely that he would ever hunt treasure again, why not sell the map?
His mind full of rosy visions of sweet wine, hearty roasts, and plump wenches that, he hoped, Conan's money would obtain, Ninus scurried around the cor-'
ner―and ran full into two men in dark cloaks, who stepped aside to avoid him.
Murmuring an apology, the little priest peered near-sightedly at the gaunt man whose hooded robes had fallen back. Then astonishment shocked him out of his normal prudence.
"Menkara the Setitel" he cried shrilly. "You here? Vile snake-worshiper, how dare you?^ Raising his voice in righteous wrath, Ninus shouted for the watch.
Growling an oath, Zarono seized his companion to hurry him away, but the Stygian tore loose and turned blazing eyes upon him. "The little swine knows me!" he hissed. "Slay him quickly, else we are all undone!"
Zarono hesitated but an instant, then whipped out his dagger and thrust. The life of one miserable priest meant nothing to him; the important thing was not to have to answer the questions of the watch.
The gleam of the steel blade in the waxing light of dawn was quenched in the robes of the Mitraist. Ninus staggered back with a choking cry, gasped, and crumpled up on the cobbles. A drop of blood oozed from his mouth.
The Stygian spat. "So perish all your abominable kind!" he snarled.
But the Stygian's eyes had noticed a bulge in Ninus' tunic. He crouched and took a small roll of parchment from the Mitraist's garment. With both hands, he spread the document.
"A chart of some kind," mused the sorcerer. "With study, methinks I could decipher―"
"Later, later!" insisted Zarono. Tlasten, ere the watch find usH
Menkara nodded and secreted the scroll. The two men slunk off through the reddening mists of dawn, leaving Ninus sprawled on the cobbles.
Fed by poor wine, an inconclusive scuffle with the sneering Zarono, and hours of idle waiting, Conan's humor had grown steadily worse. Now, restless as a jungle cat, he prowled the common room of the smoky fa", whose ceiling barely cleared the top of his head. Although the Nine Drawn Swords had earlier been crowded, there were now only a few customers left, such as a trio of drunken seamen sprawled in the corner. Two of these softly sang chanteys off key and out of time, while the third had fallen asleep.
The time candle told Conan that dawn was approaching. Ninus was hours overdue.
Something must have befallen the little priest, who would never be so late when there was money to be had. Speaking Zingaran with a barbarous accent, Conan growled to the stout tavemer: "Sabrall I'm going out for a breath of fresh air. If any ask for me, I shall be back soon."
Outside, the rain had died to mere eves-dripping. The black blanket of cloud had broken up and rolled away. The silver moon again peered forth, to illumine the last of the night; but already she had paled in the growing light of dawn. Wisps of mist arose from the puddles.
With a hearty belch, Conan strode heavily along the wet cobbles, meaning to take a turn around the block in which the Nine Drawn Swords stood. He cursed Ninus under his breath. The holy little tosspot would make him lose the dawn breeze, which would carry the Wastrel out of the harbor of Kordava. Without it, they might have to put the longboat over and warp the ship out by laborious towing.
The Conan Compendium Page 576
