Conan and the Shaman's Curse

by Sean A. Moore

  “Only our warriors use the log-boats,” she commented when he was comparing those crude Ganak craft to the ill-fated Mistress.

  For Conan, the conversation was an awkward reminder of the gulf of differences that separated his world from hers. The Ganaks were in ways more primitive than the tribes in the deepest recesses of the Black Kingdoms, but their society at times seemed as complex as any he had encountered. They seemed to lack any real ability to read or write; Jukona’s crude but nonetheless accurate map in the sand had been the only indication of any literate capacity. Yet they were rich in history and legends, passed down from elders to the young.

  Moreover, they had lived without the benefits of fire or metalworking, which were basic but essential tools of survival for most cultures.

  It seemed incredible that Jhaora and her people had not brought knowledge of these things to the Rahamans. Perhaps they had; the engravings on the path stones demonstrated the Rahaman’s ability to write, a skill lost to the Ganaks. Whatever lore the Rahamans acquired had become a casualty of the war between Jhaora’s gods and those of the Rahamans. The Ganaks had been fortunate to survive that conflict, even if only to become a stagnant race imprisoned on this primal island.

  Shaking these musings from his mind, Conan scanned the short stretch of pathway separating them from their goal. Aside from the jumble of slack-stemmed vines and a few large cylindrical buildings, he saw nothing remarkable about the region in the centre of the ruins. The only feature of note was the tower itself, a wide spike of stone that narrowed smoothly to the worn spire and rose above the impressive outer walls. It was a dazzling piece of work. One might expect to pass by it while strolling through the aristocratic districts of civilization’s more splendid cities. On this isle, however, it could not have been more out of place.

  When they drew closer to it, Conan could see that spiral strings of symbols like those on the undersides of the path stones adorned its weather-worn surface. Near the base, he saw evidence of attempts to deface those symbols. As Y’Taba had said, Jhaora’s people had scoured many of the Rahaman writings from the stones. But farther up, the interlocking spirals had been subjected only to the gradual weathering of wind and rain.

  A narrow ramp wound partway up the tower, ending at a tall, arched door. Conan judged its height to be half again his own. The Rahamans might well have been taller than their Ganak descendants.

  At last they stood before the door. It was a pristine slab of stone without any feature resembling hasp, hinge, or handle. Conan found it curiously unmarred.

  “How are we to enter here?” Sajara asked, befuddled.

  “Unless your Rahamans magicked it with nameless arts, we shall pick its locks, whatever form they may take.”

  After studying it carefully, Conan found no opening mechanisms. Setting his shoulder against its edge, he threw his whole weight into a shove that would have burst the hinges of an oaken door.

  He might as well have tried to topple a Stygian pyramid.

  “Bel curse it,” he said, running his hands all around it for a hidden means of entry but finding nothing. “We can try again to force it open,” he told Sajara.

  She nodded.

  “On three,” he said, beginning the count. When he reached three, they shoved in unison.

  Veins knotted in Conan’s temples, his face reddening from effort. Sajara’s sleek muscles tensed, and she dug in her feet to bring the full strength of her legs to bear on the door. She shut her eyes as she and Conan strained against the unyielding stone.

  “What in the fiery fifth hell of Zandru—” the Cimmerian exclaimed, backing away, eyes wide with astonishment. The surface of the door had rippled like water, swallowing up Sajara. Or so it seemed, until he heard the loud smack that was unmistakably made by her body slamming against the stone floor.

  “Conan!” she cried out. “Where are you?”

  “Out here, Crom curse it! Why did this blasted thing let—ha!” he suddenly shouted triumphantly. He understood now why the door had been unmarred by weather or vandals. It was illusory... a phantom existing solely in the eyes of those who beheld it. Pressing against the portal with his palm, he closed his eyes and cleared his mind of the portal’s image. He pushed again, not because he hoped to open it himself but rather in the hopes that his efforts would blind his mind’s eye.

  Stone became air beneath his sweating palms; overbalancing, he sprawled unceremoniously to the floor. Avoiding the impulse to break his fall with his hands, he forced his body to roll with the impact. Sajara nimbly leapt aside.

  From inside the tower, the door was invisible. They looked out at the ruins. The effect reminded Conan of mirrors he had seen once in a decadent inn of Shadizar, where all manner of fleshy delights were available for a price. The depraved proprietor had fitted many rooms with these mirrors, transparent from one side, and charged patrons for the privilege of watching the room’s occupants while remaining unseen. Of course, this Rahaman door went one step further. He speculated that many, if not all, of the cylindrical buildings surrounding the tower might boast of similar portals. It would explain why his earlier searches had revealed nothing.

  “Look,” Sajara pointed downward.

  Conan immediately recognized the fountain, though he had seen it only from below. They stood in a high-ceilinged chamber positioned directly above the vine-beast’s den. Before them sparkled the fountain of the gods. Its countless facets reflected the sunlight onto the tower’s walls, which glittered as if set with living jewels of ever-shifting hues: glowing greens, luminous blues, fiery reds, iridescent yellows... a dazzling rainbow of shards. Never had Conan seen its like; even the most opulent Ophirean palace had no fountain as stunning as this one.

  The effect, however, was spoiled by the shallow puddle of green mire that just covered the bottom of the basin. The chamber below had apparently filled completely with that contaminated swell from the plant-creature’s lair.

  A cleverly built stone ramp spiralled upward along the tower’s inner wall, forming a tapering path to the lofty spire far above. Conan moved warily along it, looking in all directions for any sort of traps. More of the cryptic spiral script adorned the walls, but Conan scarcely gave it a glance. Sajara stayed at his side, gripping her knife in one hand and Conan’s free arm in the other.

  As they neared the top of the winding walkway, it narrowed, forcing them to turn sideways and edge along it with their backs to the wall. Its irregular, broken state suggested that it had once been considerably wider. An awkward climb took them so high that the fountain below looked no larger than a crystal goblet. Conan, who was at home in such lofty environs, showed no discomfort, but Sajara trembled at every step, as she clutched at his hand, looking everywhere but down.

  The slender pathway ended at a chamber once covered by the worn spire. Now Conan could see that its condition was worse than he originally thought. The remnant of a crack-ridden ceiling seemed ready to cave in at any moment. All that remained of the roof was an overhanging fragment of rock which cast a thin shadow across the sparsely furnished room. It seemed austere in comparison with the antechamber below.

  But to Conan, its contents were no less fascinating.

  Rubble covered half of the floor, partially burying three large chests that stood against a curving wall. In front of these trunks sat a fourth, similar in construction but much smaller. All featured metal comers and bands that secured pitch-smeared wood planks. Rounded lids topped the chests’ square sides. On the wall opposite these, seeming entirely out of place in the wrecked tower, was an ornate chair fashioned from what looked like solid opal. No rubble had accumulated around the incredible object. It was elaborately carved in seamless designs, suggesting that it had been sculpted from an enormous block of that iridescent white stone. If it were truly opal, Conan could not hazard the vaguest guess of its worth. The thing was on par with the extravagant furnishings one might find in the lavish palaces of Khorshemish, Belverus, Luxur, or even Aghrapur and Tarantia.
/>   Upon it sprawled a skeleton.

  The skull had tumbled from the bony neck, landing, by a droll quirk of fate, in the skeletal lap. The throne clearly had been built for someone much smaller than its present occupant. The pelvis scarcely fit between the throne’s arms, and the thigh bones jutted far beyond the edge of the seat. Blades of broad shoulders rose well above the ornate chair’s slender back.

  Resting on the ivory knees was an exotic scimitar. Its shape mimicked that of a serpent’s fang, but its composition was wholly different. It was as if a blacksmith—no, a stone smith—had moulded a piece of basalt into a sword. Puzzled, Conan suppressed the urge to snatch the thing by its gleaming black hilt. A basalt blade would be a poor weapon indeed, bound to shatter against even the basest of bronze weapons or armour. And he doubted if even the most skilled artisan could have fashioned such an incredible work from basalt, smoothing every chip and chisel mark from the surface to bring out the lustre like that of polished steel.

  What stayed Conan’s hand was a superstitious dread of the scimitar’s dead owner. Bony fingers rested on the blade, and empty sockets glared from the huge skull as if promising a dire fate for any would-be thieves. As a youth, Conan had once faced such a menace, a corpse that rose up when the Cimmerian had taken away its sword.

  But of course this was different.

  “Kulunga?” Sajara’s voice was an awed murmur. She knelt in the doorway, lowering her eyes from the skeleton to the floor.

  “Aye, or so it seems,” said Conan. He crossed the rubble and examined the scimitar closely. It looked like basalt. He reached toward it, hesitating for a moment. By Crom, if he was the chosen one, he was entitled to it.

  Grasping the smooth, cool hilt, he slid the scimitar out. It rasped against the aged bones. When no immediate doom came upon him, he breathed a sigh of relief. “The atnalga is ours at last!” he grinned, brandishing the peculiar weapon. It felt nothing like it looked—indeed, the atnalga was lighter and more flexible than his sword. If anything, it seemed to lack sufficient weight to be suitable for its purpose. Slender, lightweight blades were useful only for thrusting. They were typically chosen by foppish aristocrats who pranced and played at sword fighting but dared not venture within a league of a real battle. Only a fool would pit such a weapon against a western broadsword of the sort favoured by Conan.

  He tested the atnalga’s edge against his thumb and grunted in surprise. It slipped through his thick, calloused skin before he even felt the fiery tang of its bite. A normal sword cut would not have stung as this nick did. The blade’s lethal sharpness and pristine condition impressed him. It had been lying here for Crom knew how long, exposed to rain, moist air, and other elements that would have rusted even oiled, finely tempered steel into a worthless hunk of metal.

  Its hilt tingled in his palm. The hairs on his hand and arm stood up as if a chill were creeping up his arm, but the blade felt warm to his touch. The tingle travelled., too, into his side and neck until it reached his head. A sudden shock of pain jolted him, crashing like a wave from his palm to his arm and searing his brain. He fell to one knee and tried to release his grip, but his muscles met with unseen resistance, as if an invisible giant had clamped a hand around his own.

  “Conan! What is the matter?” Sajara was at his side, an alarmed expression on her face.

  “Must... let... go...” he began, his tongue swelling inside his mouth and robbing him of his speech. Intense heat flared up in his head, searing his brain until he could barely stand to be conscious. Conan struggled to drop the hilt, his sweat-beaded face reddening. Twitching, he writhed on the floor, bearing down on his fingers with every shred of willpower he could summon.

  Sibilant whispers slithered in his ears. False one, an accusing voice shrilled. Infidel! another shrieked. Die!

  The unseen choir hissed in a chanting crescendo, their voices piercing his eardrums like needles. Blood seeped from his nose, so hot that he smelled the scorching of his nostrils and upper lip. Tendons thick as cords rippled along his arm as he laboured to relax his grip.

  Sajara was shouting at him, but her words were drowned in a sea of wailing voices. She grasped his face in her hands, snatching them away, grimacing and shaking her fingers.

  Conan mustered his last surge of strength, expelling hot breath from his lungs. At the same instant, Sajara grabbed a head-sized chunk of rock and brought it down on Conan’s vibrating hand.

  The atnalga flew from his nerveless fingers, rattling against the wall before it lay still. The hideous howling ceased at once. Conan felt the heat subsiding quickly, though twinges of pain tingled from his hand to his sweat-drenched head. He rose, limbs still shaking, breathing laboured. “Crom,” he said thickly, licking the dried smear of blood from his lips. “Y’Taba was wrong.”

  “Oh, Conan! If you are not the chosen one, what are we to do? The gods have turned away from us. We have failed!” Tears ran from her eyes.

  “Not while we still live,” he said fiercely, a measure of his strength returning. “By Crom, a Cimmerian never gives up.” He rubbed at the lump of flesh swelling on the back of his hand, flexing the fingers slowly, his teeth clenched.

  “But without the atnalga we are doomed.” Sajara suddenly turned her tear-stricken face toward Conan, as if the meaning of his words had only just struck her. “You... you would still help us, Conan?” she fixed her pleading gaze on him.

  He nodded. “We shall yet deliver this blasted atnalga to Y’Taba, though I see no use for a demon-haunted relic that bites the hand of its wielder! Y’Taba made a bargain with me and I shall keep it, by Crom—as will he. But with or without that thrice-accursed black blade, your people will not fall to the damned Kezati, not even if I must hew a hundred vulture-necks myself.”

  “What befell Kulunga, I wonder?” Sajara mused, wiping at her eyes.

  She was regarding the skeleton in either morbid fascination or reverent awe, Conan could not say which. “May-hap he escaped the monstrous beast below and holed up in this tower, only to starve. There are a thousand nameless graves such as this, in all comers of the world, marked by the bones of heroes who sought to restore past glories of their peoples.” The Cimmerian spoke absently as he stood beside Sajara, running a hand along the opaline throne and studying it with a practised eye. “Opal, or I’m a Pict,” he murmured. The sight of it tickled at his memory.

  With a rasp, the bony occupant slumped forward, tumbling out of the throne with a crash. Sajara sprang backward, gripping a wall in wide-eyed terror. Conan, in spite of his numbness, leapt a foot into the air and landed in a crouch beside the rubble. He snatched up his fallen sword and held it at ready.

  The skull, which was half again as large as a normal man’s, thumped onto the stone and came to rest near Sajara’s feet. But otherwise the bones lay in an unmoving jumble at the foot of the throne.

  Conan gawked at the likenesses engraved in the smooth, iridescent stone. Sculpted in painstaking detail were the twin faces of a two-headed elephant, adorned with resplendent collars and fringed caps. Huge eyes stared outward at Conan; tusks curved upward, framing a coiled, upraised trunk. The sight lit a lantern in a dim comer of the Cimmerian’s memory. “Vendhyan!” he exclaimed. He had seen it before while adventuring in that land of glittering jewels and ancient gods. He knew the thing represented an obscure god, though he could not recall its name. But in that instant he mentally assembled all the clues about the island which had thus far stumped him. Like tom pieces of a treasure map, they fit together. He even recalled the name of the goddess whose macabre image loomed above the doorway in the outer wall.

  “Kahli,” he said grimly. “Jhaora was the high priestess of Kahli whom King Orissa banished from Vendhya.”

  Sajara looked at Conan in utter befuddlement. “I do not understand, Conan. Vendhyan... Kahli... King Orissa?” Her tongue stumbled over the unfamiliar words. “What— or who—are they?”

  “You remember the glimpse you had of the devilish goddess whose graven effigy broods
on the outer wall?” Sajara nodded, shuddering at the memory of that glance. “Well, years ago I was traipsing through the two-millenia-old ruins of Maharastra, a once-glorious city of Vendhya.”

  “Vendhya?”

  “A kingdom far east and south of Cimmeria—at least a year’s journey on foot, were one hardy enough to attempt it. Anyway, the face of that ten-armed she-devil was chiselled on a gigantic stone that lay among those ruins of Maharastra. At the time I was forced to travel in the company of a treacherous Vendhyan wizard, and I half-listened to his account of the legend behind that cruel goddess’s face.

  “Maharastra had once been the capital of Vendhya. The city’s founder was King Orissa, first true king of Vendhya. He had vanquished many foes in his day. Only one rival was known to have survived: the high priestess of Kahli. She claimed kinship with a race called pan-kur, the spawn of a human woman raped by a demon. The priestess was powerful, holding sway over thousands of worshippers who revelled in degenerate rites. She had built a small empire that spread like blood from a slit throat, staining the southern coast of Vendhya. All feared to oppose the priestess, for Kahli was the most bloodthirsty goddess in the Vendhyan pantheon. Her long-forbidden rites had been a red blasphemy. The abominations that took place in Kahli’s temples were recorded once in crumbling scrolls which that Vendhyan wizard had read. He related a few of them to me, but thankfully I remember them not. According to the wizard, the most ghastly rites were unreadable; some scrolls had been soiled by the vomit of their scribes.” He paused, rubbing his chin and dragging his recollection of the tale from the dark recesses in his mind. “The priestess’s army of zealots once sacked a city ruled by Orissa’s brother, whom they sacrificed to Kahli. This”—he tapped the opal chair with his sword-point—“is surely the famous opaline throne of Orissa. Treasure-seekers and plunderers all over the world still swap tales of its whereabouts or sell false maps which supposedly reveal its location.” He made a wry face, remembering that as a once-naive youth, he had wasted a dinar or two on those shams.