Conan the Rogue

by John Maddox Roberts

  The corner presented a problem, since there he could not press himself flat against the wall and would have to lean back slightly as he made his way around it. He was aided somewhat by a drain spout that ran down the façade. The thin bronze creaked slightly beneath the vice-like grip of his fingers.

  He edged along the eastern side of the building until he came to a tall window. This, he knew, opened to the room with the red door, to the quarters of Oppia and Andolla. With a cautious hand, he tested the wooden shutter. It was latched from the inside, but he could tell by its give that it was held by only a flimsy latch.

  At a sound from within, he jerked his hand away and held his breath. It was the rattle of a key in a lock. There was the rasp of a door opening, then a rustling as several people entered the chamber. Nothing was said for a minute, but light began to seep between the boards of the shutter as lamps or candles were lighted within.

  'You may go now,' said Oppia's voice. There were pious murmurs, and then the closing of the door. She had dismissed the slave-acolytes.

  'It is here!' said a voice Conan did not recognize. 'It is in the city! I can feel it!' The voice was a man's. It was deep and resonant, like the voice of a trained herald or an actor, but it was full of an almost boyish enthusiasm.

  'How do you know?' asked Oppia impatiently.

  'Because it is magical and I can feel such things. When one has studied the arts and pried into secret and forbidden things as I have, the presence of an ancient source of great sorcerous power is not difficult to discern.'

  'Oh, Andolla my husband,' Oppia said, 'why must you persist in these foolish pursuits? We are rich and powerful as we are. We have wealth and we have slaves to do our bidding. No one ever came to a good end meddling in these things.'

  'Is what we do so grand?' he asked. 'Fleecing young idiots by relieving them of any responsibility for their own lives? I was meant for better things.'

  'But, my husband,' she pleaded, 'where have we ever before found such a town? Here we need not be always looking over our shoulders for the king's men.'

  'At great cost to us,' he asserted. 'Fully one-third of all we take goes to the King's Reeve alone!'

  'One third of our admitted take,' she corrected. 'And a few hundred each month to every gang leader. The rest is ours! I tell you, husband, that we have fallen into a situation richer than those silver mines outside of town. But if you persist in these sorcerous

  experiments, you will ruin it all. It is the sort of thing that draws notice. And if you buy this... this thing, the truly great mages may turn their attention toward this wretched little city. Would you attract the likes of Thoth-amon and the others?'

  'With it in my hands,' he said haughtily, 'I will be their equal!'

  'You cannot believe that!' she cried. 'A few years of dabbling in forbidden arts, studying a few books of doubtful authenticity, cannot make you the equal of those who have spent many human lifetimes in mastering the arts.'

  'Nevertheless,' he said, 'I must have it, and I will have it!'

  The squabbling voices faded, and Conan knew that the two gone into another room. He had heard enough. Carefully, he ma his way back around the corner and into his quarters.

  He undressed and pulled back the luxurious covers of his bed, but before he lay down, he pulled a chair close to the bed and drew his sword. He set the weapon with its grip slanting toward the bed; his hand could grasp it instantly at need. It was a precaution he never omitted when he slept amid possible enemies. Nor, for that matter, when he slept amid friends.

  X

  The Royal Warehouse

  He left the temple in the morning when he could no longer abide the endless chanting, the smell of incense, and the presence of mindless fools. It seemed astonishing to him that the victims could be so happy while being robbed and enslaved. -Even sheer stupidity could not account for it. He suspected that there might be a drug at work. If those in charge were willing to use black lotus smoke on just one of their victims, they would not baulk at using milder potions to keep the rest in line.

  He had a specific goal this day. He now had a working knowledge of the town's streets and alleys. The rooftop routes were there, yet to be further explored, but that project would have to await the fall of night. Most civilized towns had a third means of access, usually unseen and unknown even to the citizenry, and he knew just where to find the information leading to it.

  The Pit was, as customary, all but deserted in the-early morning hours, but he knew from experience that there was one class of inhabitant that conducted the first part of its business in the hours of darkness and concluded it in the early morning.

  At the Temple of Bes he found a deep, shadowed doorway facing the entrance and waited patiently. Within the space of an hour, five men passed furtively within, each bearing a bulky sack. Each left with an empty sack, but the Cimmerian knew that each would have a bulging purse secreted upon his person. The sixth man turned out to be the one he needed. The man was small, and his shoes left damp footprints behind him. The sack he bore over one shoulder clanked slightly. The smell was unmistakable. When the man emerged from the temple, smiling and stuffing his now-empty sack into the breast of his doublet, he found the towering barbarian planted firmly in his path. Mouth agape, he looked up past the armoured chest to the glowering face.

  'Wh-what business have you with me, stranger?' he stammered. Conan saw that he was little more than a boy. 'Some information,' Conan said.

  At this the boy straightened and stuck out his chest in a pathetic show of defiance. 'Be you a king's man? I am no informer!' Since he did not add a qualifying price for such dishonourable behaviour, Conan's opinion of him went up by a notch.

  'You may be the only man in town so scrupulous,' the Cimmerian told him. 'Nay, lad, I just need a guide. I've but newly arrived in Sicas and am not yet familiar with the town. As you know, there are times when a man needs to get about on matters of business without being seen by the common run of citizens. This is a well-built royal city, and I know that it has sewers and drains. I'll make it well worth your time to reveal to me the secrets of this system.'

  Now the boy smiled complacently. 'Well, outlander, you have come to the right man. No enterprising businessman of this city knows the lower paths so well as Ulf the Unseen.' He tapped his bony chest significantly. Then he eyed the Cimmerian's bulk with speculation. 'I can show you the main passages. Some of the side tunnels may be too small for you.'

  'That will be sufficient,' Conan assured him. 'I just need to know how to pass swiftly and invisibly from one district of the town to another.' He took a broad gold piece from his pouch and tossed it to Ulf. 'Let us be on our way.'

  'Come,' said the boy. 'We'll start at the river drain.' They walked toward the confluence of the rivers, which was but a short distance away. Here the low river walls formed an angle, and within the angle was a stone slab set into the pavement. Ulf grasped a bronze ring embedded in the slab and tugged upward. Despite its obvious mass, the slab yielded easily to the frail youth.

  'To one who knows not the craft,' said Ulf, 'this slab is very weighty. But it you twist the ring so—' he showed the Cimmerian how the bronze ring could be moved '—it releases a counterweight inside that does most of the work. This was installed more than three hundred years ago by the legendary burglar Mopsus the Locksmith. It has been a secret of the burglars' guild ever since.'

  'Then will you not be punished for showing me the secret?' Conan asked. 'In other towns, the guilds have strict rules and severe punishments.'

  Ulf shrugged wistfully. 'The days of honourable guilds are long past in this town, stranger. Most of them have been shut down by the outside gangs that have moved in. Maxio's men assassinated all of our guild chiefs last year. Those of us who got away have kept some of our secrets, but there is little point now.'

  'Have they not tried to get the information out of you?' Conan asked.

  'What need have they? Maxio's band are a haughty lot and act as if they are too
good to be running around in sewers. They get their way by bribery and intimidation.' He dropped lightly through the manhole.

  Conan dropped after him as lightly. ' 'I have not as yet encountered Maxio. What is he like?'

  'Avoid him,' Ulf advised. 'He's a smooth little schemer, but as treacherous and murderous as any. The rules of our guild forbid us to carry arms while we are working, and they require that we leave at first sign of a wakeful person, even if it means abandoning rich loot. But Maxio's gang obeys no such rules. Not only

  have they slain rival burglars, they have even murdered men and women who have come upon them at their work. Shocking behaviour! ''

  Conan surveyed the chamber in which they stood. Its vaulted walls were of brick, forming an arch overhead. It was just high enough for Conan to stand upright. At its southern extremity, morning light came through a rusty iron grating that covered an opening about four feet on a side. At their feet, a narrow stream made its way out through the grate and down to the river, nearly five feet below.

  'This is the Great Drain,' Ulf informed him. 'It runs beneath the high street for its full length. If ever you are lost down here, just determine which way the floor slopes and follow it downward. Eventually it will bring you to the Great Drain.'

  Conan eyed the grate. 'Does the river ever rise high enough to back into the sewers?''

  'It happens every few years,' Ulf said, 'and I would not wish to be here then. Usually there is plenty of warning, though. It happens only after heavy rains in the hills to the north.' 'Is it possible to get out through that grate?' Conan asked. 'That is not necessary,' Ulf said. He walked to the grate and Conan followed. 'Here at the grate you are outside the river wall.' He reached upward and pressed a brick that protruded slightly from the others. A section of the brick ceiling swung smoothly downward. Its upper surface was made of moulded cement that resembled a part of a boulder. Conan sprang up and gripped the edge of the hole with the tips of his fingers, then pulled himself up to look outside. He saw a rocky slope angling down to the river. Behind him was the angle of the river wall. He dropped back to the damp floor of the tunnel. 'Mopsus the Locksmith again?'

  Ulf nodded. 'You'll be hearing a lot about him as you tour the deep ways.' He took a skin-covered object from his belt and peeled away the cover, revealing a small but finely crafted lamp. With flint and steel he struck a light and closed the crystal window. It cast a strong illumination for a lamp so small, and Ulf

  proudly displayed the way its beam could be adjusted with a clever shutter.

  'This lamp was my father's and his father's before him,' he proclaimed. 'All of the men of my line have risen high in the guild.'

  Turning north, they began the tour. Ulf took the Cimmerian through the side tunnels that were large enough to admit the out-lander's size, identifying the streets and major buildings above. Occasionally they passed beneath grated drains in the centres of the streets, and when they did, Ulf closed the shutter of his lamp, although the likelihood of observation from above was slight. 'Guild rules,' was all he would say. 'Old habits are hard to break.''

  Once Conan stopped and had the lad cast his beam toward an odd mark carved into the wall beneath a square hatch of heavy timber. 'This looks like the secret writing of the Guild of Poitainian Thieves.'

  'You are a scholar, I see,' Ulf said approvingly. 'Yes, it is used throughout Aquilonia as well. This mark identifies that hatch as access to the cellar of the Wyvern.'

  travelling northward in the Great Drain, they passed through a heavy stone foundation. 'This is the old city wall,' Ulf said, 'torn down two hundred years ago at the time of the great expansion. Naught but its foundations remain. The Great Drain is the only underground passageway through the old wall; you must remember that.'

  Farther on, the tunnel was faced with stone instead of with brick and was somewhat more spacious. The smell, however, was no better. Soon they came to a tunnel that was almost as large as the Great Drain. A broad grate in its ceiling admitted abundant sunlight.

  'This is the tunnel that runs beneath the Square,' Ulf said. 'That drainage grate is in its centre.' He shivered slightly. 'These last two years, I've seen blood coming down through that grate some mornings.'

  'The gangs here are lively,' Conan agreed. 'Does this tunnel pass beneath the Reeve's headquarters?'

  Ulf shook his head. 'It was decided not to cut into it. Too much chance of meeting with prisoners tunnelling their way out, you see. We couldn't very well let dishonourable men learn of our

  passageways. Besides,' he added, 'it's all too easy to end up in those dungeons as it is.'

  Still following the high street, they proceeded up the Great Drain, which was straighter than in the old city. Conan pointed down a tunnel branching to the left.

  'Does that run beneath the new theatre, the big temple, and the house of Xanthus?'

  'You've a good sense of direction,' Ulf complimented.

  'Aye.'

  'And are there accesses to all those buildings?'

  Ulf shook his head. 'Beneath the theatre, yes, but riot beneath the others. The theatre cellar is one of our gathering places. The temple has a drain running from the main altar down through the cellar. That's for the blood of sacrificial animals and the oil and wine that are poured out to the god. Most temples have such a drain, but it is a passage only about a foot square, too small for a man to pass through.'

  'And the house of Xanthus?' Conan inquired.

  'The house of Xanthus is forbidden to us. That family has had dealings with our guild for generations and there is no access.'

  That made sense. 'Show me the way into the theatre,' he said.

  Ulf guided him down the side passage to another ceiling trap, which he pushed open amid much creaking. 'The trouble with the new part of town,' he said, 'is that we have no more of the fine doorways crafted by Mopsus the Locksmith.' He shook his head and sighed. 'The gods don't make them like Mopsus any more.'

  'I want to have a look,' Conan said, pulling himself up through the trap. Ulf followed him. The lamp revealed a cavernous room full of props: masks, backdrop paintings, old benches, ropes, curtain weights, racks of stage lamps, and all the miscellaneous debris of a theatre that has been in operation for a good number of years.

  'What do you want here?' Ulf asked. 'There is little worth stealing in a theatre. Besides, theatre people and thieves usually get on well together, having much in common.'

  'I am more interested in the location than in the contents. Do you know the inside of the building well?''

  'Intimately,' the lad said. 'As a boy, I explored the whole place when my father and uncles came here for guild meetings.'

  'Show me how to get to the roof,' the Cimmerian said.

  They went up a flight of stairs to a backstage chamber. The floorboards echoed softly beneath their feet. Behind the curtains, the stage surface was littered with rotting fruit. Apparently the last performance had been unsatisfactory and the company had departed without cleaning up.

  In the wings beyond the stage, Conan followed Ulf up a wooden stair that zigzagged its way up to a catwalk from which the curtains were controlled. Another stair led from that to a cupola set atop the roof. Ulf opened the cupola's door and gestured outside. Both men squinted through the bright light at the lead-sheathed roof. Conan saw the parapet and the roof of the temple beyond.

  'This is what I wanted to see,' he pronounced, shutting the door. 'Let's go back.'

  They resumed their tour, always travelling up the Great Drain, occasionally going off into side tunnels, where Ulf identified their location when they reached various prominent sites of the city. Most of the accesses were marked with the enigmatic sigils of the Poitainian thieves' guild. The tunnel ended at a blank wall.

  'We are now just below the main gate of the landward wall,' Ulf said.

  'There is no passage to the other side of the wall?' Conan asked.

  'No. I do not suppose that escaping from the city ever occurred to the guild. If one had to d
o that, the river hatch is a better way. There is seldom a watchman stationed on the river wall.'

  'It is sufficient,' Conan said. 'You've been an excellent guide.' They walked back to the angle of the river wall, taking only a few minutes to traverse the length of the city. When they emerged, Conan tossed Ulf another coin.

  'Here. You've served me better than I had hoped. And be of good cheer. I think that soon things in this town will settle back into the old ways and your guild can resume its former customs. Do not worry that you have revealed the secrets of the underground passages to me, for I'll be long gone.'

  Ulf favoured him with a gap-toothed grin. 'You look like one who can truly stir things up, but I cannot believe that a single man can set things aright in this city.'

  'Have no fear,' Conan told him. 'I will not be alone when things began to happen. The next few days may be a good time for you to lie low. Keep clear of the Temple of Bes, and watch out for Maxio's crowd. They may grow short-tempered very soon.'

  The boy gaped. 'You have this all planned, do you?'

  'Not entirely,' Conan told him. 'But things are shaping up nicely. With men as foul as those who run roughshod over this town, trouble is never far away. To bring everything down, it is only necessary to provide a lot of trouble all at once.'

  Ulf shook his head. 'Well, it escapes me how you propose to do this.'