Conan and The Gods of The Mountains

by Roland Green

  Chabano sprang down from his platform. Although he had seen just short of forty turns of the seasons, his eyes and his wind were those of a man far younger. His feet, painted the red that marked his chieftaincy, danced in the dust as he approached his warriors.

  "Hail, Chabano!" the underchiefs called. The warriors repeated the greeting, then clashed shield and spear again.

  "Well done," Chabano said. "Not perfect, but only the gods are perfect."

  "Thus say the God-Men," a warrior shouted. One had to be of the Kwanyi oneself to catch the note of mockery in the man's voice. The God-Men were not Kwanyi, and to them, these words would seem full of honor.

  Empty honor, as empty as their heads.

  Only if a Kwanyi warrior had grown so foul of spirit as to spy for the God-Men would they learn they had been mocked. Chabano refused to believe that any of the men he had sworn, taught, and led in ordeal, battle, or rite could be so corrupt.

  Even if one had turned, Chabano still had the advantage. He had found eyes and ears among the God-Men before the God-Men could have found any among his warriors.

  The height of the»sun above the trees reminded him that this day's war rites were almost done but his work was not. He slung his shield across his back with the ritual three twists of the thong and held his spear across his chest with both hands in the customary manner.

  "Warriors of the Kwanyi, I must go speak with the gods. This day you have pleased me. This night you may please yourselves."

  That meant an ordeal for the slave women, perhaps for a few unlucky free women as well. It would also be an ordeal for the brew-sisters, who would have to work very hard to keep the warriors from growing thirsty. Thirsty warriors had been known to ignore the fact that a woman wore a headdress of the free Kwanyi.

  "Let us go with you as far as the gods allow," said an underchief.

  It was a moment to give fear, but not to shed blood.

  Chabano slowly lowered his spear until its butt sank into the earth. Without seeming to exert himself, he drove the butt half an arm's length into the jungle floor.

  Then he whipped his shield off his back, hooked his spear loose, and caught it as it flew high. He ended with the spear aimed at the chest of the un-derchief who had spoken.

  The man knew that any outward sign of the fear thundering within him would send the spear leaping into his chest. He did not even make the gesture of supplication, although his eyes did not leave Chabano.

  "The gods command that we stay here?" the man said. It showed high courage to make it a question.

  "They do," Chabano said. "Do you doubt their word?"

  "The gods speak, but do they always speak plainly?" the man persisted. Chabano decided that such courage deserved the reward of an end to these fear-jests.

  "You have wisdom, more than some I could name, who think that the gods' messages bear only one meaning."

  That was mockery of the God-Men which might be dangerous even for Chabano should it reach their ears. The chief did not overly much care.

  "But when the gods wish me dead, they will have me if all the warriors of the Kwanyi march with me. If the gods wish me safe, I may go to this day's speaking alone. Go, and find better company than I shall enjoy for a while!"

  The warriors grinned at one another, hearing the boldness of a chief who dared mock even the gods themselves, not merely the God-Men. Then they tossed their spears, gave a war cry, and strode off into the jungle.

  Chabano waited until the last was gone before he turned onto the path he intended to follow. Even after that, he waited for a space, hiding, and listening to be sure that he alone was taking this path. He did not speak to the gods, but his eye and ear among the God-Men could tell him more than the gods ever had.

  Conan thought he heard a sound to their rear. He dropped back, looked for a place from which to watch unseen, and found none that would hide a mouse, let alone a Cimmerian. He contrived to flatten himself against the wall and keep the silence of a cat stalking that mouse.

  Then he heard Valeria signaling with the beat of dagger-hilt against stone wall. Conan listened. He heard the code that said, "Come as soon as you can, but there is no danger here." To any ear but his and Valeria's, it would seem a natural sound of these haunted depths, or at least nothing that spoke of human presence.

  Conan waited, for about as long as a skilled tavern dancer might take to shed her garments when the watchers bid eagerly in silver coin for each piece of silk. Then he decided that once again this city of the dead could play tricks with even the ears of a seasoned warrior.

  He still walked cat-footed as he came up behind Valeria. She did not start or make a sound, though; her ears seemed keener now than when she had first gone underground. Instead, she pointed down the tunnel. Her gesture was more eloquent than words, which were not needed. Conan saw that a hundred paces farther on, the light turned green.

  Now both were as silent as hunting creatures, or prey seeking to escape, as they crept forward, one against either wall. Both bore steel in their hands, both set feet down as if they trod on shards of glass, or on sleeping serpents.

  They reached the turning where the light changed, and looked beyond it. For a moment, Conan thought they had stumbled upon a sleeping serpent—a monster such as he had fought too often to care to meet again.

  Then he saw that it was but a trick of the light that made the serpent seem whole. Only a skeleton remained, although that skeleton stretched twenty paces from the tooth-studded skull to the delicate bones of the tail.

  It was the light that had deceived Conan, a light that flooded the cave. A light that seemed to rise like smoke from green jewels piled deep inside the circle formed by the skeleton. The light of a greater mass of fire-stones than Conan had ever dreamed existed.

  In the Black Kingdoms, Conan had heard the legend of the Dying Place of the Elephants. There, it was said, the great gray beasts went to end their days. There, ivory to buy a kingdom lay, waiting for some bold adventurer to stumble upon it.

  He had never heard of such a tale about the Golden Serpents. Indeed, he had never heard of anyone who had seen more of a Golden Serpent than its fire-stone eyes—and it was only a tale that Golden Serpents' eyes and fire-stones were one and the same.

  Rather, it had been a tale. Now Conan knew it for the truth. In the skull, as large as a horse's, two vast, green orbs flashed. Their glow was identical to that of the jewels on the floor.

  Conan softly let out his breath and stalked forward. Nothing living could have been more silent. In that silence, he reached the skeleton and knelt beside it, studying the eyes.

  Now he understood why even such vast creatures as the Golden Serpents yielded so many fire-stones. Each eye was the size of a platter, and each one was made of twoscore or more stones. Some were as small as acorns, others as large as the finest Bosson-ian cider apples. All glowed with that unnatural light.

  Conan also understood why the light had nothing of nature in it. No natural creature had such eyes; the Golden Serpents were magicians' work. The same magicians who had wrought this maze in the rock, where he and Valeria might yet end their days? Perhaps. If so, they were long dead, and their creations likewise.

  Then even that small comfort left Conan. A wind colder than any that ever blew in Cimmeria seemed to play upon his spine. Shreds of flesh still clung to the serpent's bones. Golden scales still covered a few of those shreds, and a faint miasma of decay rose from the greater part of them.

  Had it been here since the time of its creators, this Golden Serpent's bones would have been fleshless, or the shreds of flesh mummified by the subterranean air. This creature had been living while Conan walked the earth above, perhaps even while he had fought and caroused with the Barachan pirates.

  Conan motioned Valeria forward, then moved to where he could look both ways. He waited, steel at the ready, for her to study the bones and see what he had seen.

  Chabano's eyes and ears were those of a warrior half his age. He did not need t
hese to warn him of his spy's coming, for Ryku seemed as careless as a

  child of being seen or heard. He was first among the lesser God-Men, the Silent Brothers, but his lack of jungle craft made him anything but silent.

  Chabano used the time he gained to place himself high on a branch above the trail. When the young God-Man came stamping into view like a warthog in rut, Chabano slung both spear and shield, then gripped a stout vine and leaped from his perch.

  The other threw up his hands in dismay as Chabano seemed to fly down on him out of the sky. Then he flung himself back against the mossy bark of a forest tree and began silently mouthing curses.

  "Cease," Chabano said. He put the tip of his spear under the man's chin and gently raised the weapon until the man closed his mouth. "Or do you think the gods will hear you without your masters also hearing?" the chief added. "Surely you came as if you feared no human foe."

  "I do not," Ryku said. "I am in the land of friends."

  Chabano laughed longer than was good for Ryku's pride, but he did not take the spear away. By the time the chief was done laughing, a drop of blood showed on Ryku's chin.

  "Is friendship then a jest?" Ryku asked. He stood without trying to wipe away the blood, and met Chabano's eyes.

  Again the chief decided there was enough courage here to deserve some reward. "It is not. Nor is it found among all the Kwanyi. At least not toward you, if it were known why you are here."

  "Who would tell?"

  "You would, if someone heated a spear and applied it to sufficient parts of your body to unman or blind you," Chabano said. "Do not deny it."

  "I do not," Ryku said sturdily, but seeming a trifle bemused.

  "As well. Do not, then, tread like an elephant when you come to our meetings. Even if you have no enemies, I do, and they might follow you to me."

  "As you wish." Then Ryku took a more defiant tone. "One would think you feared that the over-throwers of Xuchotl were abroad in the land instead of your own warriors!"

  "They could well be. Or do your masters know otherwise?"

  "I came to tell you that they do not know one way or the other. They cannot even be sure what magic was wrought to bring down the Accursed City."

  To Chabano, it seemed likely as not that it was the city folk's own magic that had finally sent them mad, and not outsider's spells. If they had then fallen on one another and cleansed the city of their foul and useless lives, so much the better.

  The folk of Xuchotl had bred for too long, and to little purpose. Now they had left what would be a fine city from which to rule these lands when the Kwanyi under him had done with all their enemies.

  That was a dream he would not dwell on, however. Not while this close to Ryku, who had the rank of Silent Brother but more of the God-Men's knowledge than a wise man would offend without good cause.

  "Then what do the God-Men wish of the Kwanyi?"

  "Who-says they wish anything?"

  "I, Paramount Chief of the Kwanyi, say so. When have you come to me without telling me some wishes of your masters? They know not what you bear to me, but you do it nonetheless."

  "The First Speaker wishes as before to learn anything you discover of how Xuchotl was overthrown," Ryku said. "He also wishes the return of the slave girl taken by the Ichiribu on the night of their raid."

  This last demand was new. "Nothing more?"

  "It is enough for the First Speaker."

  Chabano laughed coarsely. "I should say that a wench of that age is more than adequate for such an old man. What does he want of her?"

  Ryku had enough courage, or enough fear of his leader to glare at Chabano, a thing few did and lived. "Know you not what it is to be a man with a woman? It will make a fine tale, that the great chief of the Kwanyi—"

  "—dashed out the brains of a God-Man whose tongue flew too far too long," Chabano finished. He returned the glare, and Ryku fell silent.

  "I shall discover what may be done prudently to return the girl, and then find men to do it. This is not to be doubted."

  "I do not doubt it," Ryku said. He was wise enough to make no promises for the masters who did not know of his divided loyalties. "What of Xuchotl's fate?"

  "What of it?" Chabano retorted. "To ask me to seek wielders of mighty magic is to ask the snake to hunt the leopard. Only by great good fortune will I win any knowledge worth having."

  Ryku's gestures and face told Chabano that matters were unchanged. The God-Men would not put into Kwanyi hands any of their power, not even to seek the cause of Xuchotl's doom. They would rather remain in ignorance than risk giving others too much knowledge.

  There lay the difference between the First Speaker of the Living Wind and the Paramount Chief of the Kwanyi. For knowledge, Chabano had given much, and might yet give more. There was another difference, too. The chief knew that the God-Men would use the magic of Xuchotl's foes against even the

  Kwanyi. He would not, if he could help it, give them the power to doom his people.

  Ryku went through the rituals of farewell from hunter to chief, then withdrew. He could be heard for a shamefully long distance, but at least he seemed to be attempting silence.

  Valeria knelt beside the skeleton and the glowing mass of fire-stones until she saw what Conan had wished her to see. Then she rose. It seemed that every movement of her joints, every breath she took, had to be loud enough to raise echoes and warn whatever lurked farther within this nightmare of stone.

  She wanted to whisper, but when she tried to speak thus, no sound came out. Then she took a deep breath, bid fear kiss her hindquarters, and laughed aloud.

  "So the Golden Serpents are no legend after all? This brute lost its scales a while back, I judge, but the eyes tell the tale."

  Conan nodded. "And I'm thinking that it hasn't been dead for as long as the beast we found dead in the fungus cave."

  "I wish it had been," Valeria said. "Even a slab of that fungus would seem like a banquet." She looked at the Cimmerian. "What are you staring at? The hew shape of my stomach, after being so near empty these past days?"

  The Cimmerian grinned. "You take it lightly, our sharing these tunnels with the Golden Serpents."

  Valeria blinked—and realized that her eyes were not quite dry. She turned away, and Conan did her the courtesy of letting her stand thus until she had command of herself again.

  "How should I take it?" she said at last. "We are, I think, at that time of an ordeal when one can either run mad or laugh. I'll laugh, if it's all the same to you."

  Conan's roar raised echoes and made stones fall from the pile. He kissed her roundly on both cheeks, then on the lips, and finished with a smart slap to her rear.

  "I'll have to buy that pox-ridden captain a drink the next time I see him. How else would I have won such a comrade if he hadn't driven you into flight?"

  "The gods only know. I'd rather voyage with a bog-troll, as often as not." She knelt and set her boots on the floor.

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Conan, this may be our last hoard of fire-stones. Have you forgotten that I am of the Red Brotherhood, that you have a name among the Barachans, and that good pirates do not leave fine loot to gather dust?"

  Conan laughed shortly and joined her at her work. The fire-stones were light for their size, and enough to fill the toes of their boots was no great burden.

  Magic might be in the stones, of course, magic as evil as any in Xuchotl. They might even draw other Golden Serpents, living ones, to avenge the theft of their dead mates' treasures.

  Valeria did not care. The magic here would slay her and the Cimmerian or not, as fate would have it. It would no longer put her in fear.

  As for the Golden Serpents, let them come. A day or two more and she would be ready not only to spit one on her sword, but to eat it raw afterward!

  SIX

  "Conan," Valeria whispered, "I smell cooking fat. Or else my wits have finally parted their mooring lines."

  Conan sniffed the air, more damp and mephi
tic of late than before. They had come, he judged, half a league through scum-coated water that seemed to both ooze from below and drip from above. He wondered if they were under a river, or more likely, a lake.

  At times, the water was no more than a thin coating of slime on the stone, which made footing treacherous even for two nimble warriors like the Cimmerian and his companion. At other times, it rose to their ankles, or even to their knees. After the first such place, Valeria slung her jewel-laden boots about her neck. The Cimmerian's greater stature allowed him to keep his treasure riding at his waist. Neither needed the boots to guard leather-tough feet, and indeed, preferred bare toes by which to feel out lurking menaces.

  When knee-deep, the water seemed sometimes almost solid with plant and animal matter that the ancient magic of these tunnels had been unable to keep alive. In those places, it exhaled a noisome stench that made even the hardened Cimmerian wish for something to bind over his mouth and nose.

  He wished even more to know what sort of creature had risen to attack Valeria on the day they had entered this maze. Was it a water-dweller, and were they perhaps approaching the lair of more of the breed? Well-wielded steel was an answer to most creatures, but if the water grew much deeper, swordplay would be sadly slowed… to say nothing of what this muck could hardly fail to do to their blades—

  Conan finished his sniffing. "Your wits are as sound as ever. I smell it, too. Fish oil, I'd wager."

  "What do you have to wager with, Cimmerian?"

  "Not as much as you, I'll be bound, but—"

  It was Valeria who held up one hand and pointed with the dagger in the other. "Stairs?"

  Conan's eyes followed the gesture. "If they're not, my eyes are failing me."

  Valeria grimaced. "It does seem darker along here." Even her courage was not proof against the thought of the light abandoning them. Magical as it was, they owed their lives to it.

  "All the more reason to start climbing the stairs, then."

  Between them and the entry to the stairs, the water deepened almost to Valeria's waist. They pushed forward through the filth, greasy whorls of floating muck drifting to either side as they advanced. Conan had both sword and dagger drawn now, and held the weapons clear of the water, ready to strike down at the slightest hint of alien presence.