Kushad shook his turbaned head. “I am sure the King of Zamora is not behind this. Mithridates knows the strength of his kingdom as well as we, and in any event he is but a tool of the priesthoods. The deep sleep that Harpagus cast upon you suggests the involvement of priests. Are you resolved upon going to Zamora?”
“Aye, that I am.”
“Then stay hidden in my house, whilst I teach you some of the tricks of my trade.”
Conan scowled. “I’ve always found a stout, sharp blade a better defense than magical mummeries.”
“Your strong right arm failed you in the Marshes of Mehar, did it not? Now use your wits, young man! When you were stationed at Sultanapur, you told me how you had scorned the bow as an unmanly weapon until you learned its value in Turan. You will make the same discovery with the mental training that I intend to give you.”
“I’ll steer clear of priests and wizards,” growled Conan.
“Ah, but will they steer clear of you? How can you avoid them if you do pursue them to recover your property?”
Conan grunted. “I understand your meaning.”
“Where you are going, you will need every shaft your quiver can hold. You may wonder how Harpagus and his confederates could so easily escape from Turan. Had a squad of the King’s men caught up with them, Harpagus and his ilk could readily have cast an illusion to send their pursuers haring off in the opposite direction. And they could do the same to you.”
“Uh,” said Conan suspiciously. “What is it that you propose to teach me?”
Kushad smiled. “Merely to defend yourself against the occult wiles of others. I cannot cast an illusion quite so well as when I had the full sight of my orbs, yet I lack not all resource. Let us step out into the garden for a moment.” When Conan had followed the seer out into the flower and vegetable garden in back of the house, Kushad turned and said: “Look at me!”
Conan stared and found that Kushad’s nearly blind eyes caught and held his vision as firmly as had the sharp eyes of Harpagus. Kushad waved a hand to and fro, muttering softly.
Of a sudden, Conan found himself standing in a dense jungle, among the massive boles of orchid-hung trees, whose buttressed roots spread writhing across the jungle floor. A sound as of sawing wood caused him to whirl, hand on his sword hilt. Ten paces off, the head of a huge tiger protruded from a patch of long grass. With a low rumble, the tiger drew back its lips in a snarl, showing fangs like curved Zuagir daggers. Then it charged.
Conan whipped out his scimitar. To his horror, he felt sentient life within his grasp. Staring, he saw that he held not a curved Turanian saber, but the neck of a writhing serpent. The snake’s head strained this way and that as it sought to flesh its needle-like fangs in Conan’s hand and wrist.
With a yell of revulsion, Conan hurled the serpent from him and threw himself sideways, out of the path of the tiger’s hurtling body. His hand sought his dagger. Knowing how puny was the strength of even the strongest man compared to that of a giant cat, he was sure that death, which he had narrowly foiled so often, had at last caught up with him … .
He found himself lying among the shrubs of Kushad’s garden. Grumbling, he staggered to his feet.
“See you what I mean?” said the blind seer, smiling thinly. “I must be more circumspect with my illusions; you nearly took my head off when you threw your sword. Happen I had you at a disadvantage, for you are fatigued from your recent journey. Go; you will find a bed prepared. Tomorrow we shall begin our lessons.”
“Are you ready?” said Kushad, as sunbeams played among the trellises of the garden. “Remember your numbers, and clutch the mental picture of this courtyard firmly in your mind. Now look!”
Kushad waved a hand and muttered. The small court faded away. Conan stood on the edge of a boundless swamp, lit by the eery crimson light of a setting sun. Yellowed patches of swamp grass and dried reeds alternated with pools and meres of still waters, lying jet-black beneath the bloody reflection of the scarlet eye of heaven. Strange flying creatures, like gigantic bats with lizard heads, soared overhead.
Directly in front of Conan, a huge reptilian head, as large as that of the bull aurochs whose neck Conan had broken as a stripling in Cimmeria, parted the surface of the slimy, stagnant water. As the gigantic head reared up against the red disk of the sun, there seemed to be no end of the serpentine neck supporting it. Up—up—up it went … .
At first sight of the creature, Conan’s hand instinctively flew to his sword. But then he recalled that his weapon was within the house; Kushad had insisted that he face his trial unarmed.
Still the head rose on its colossal neck, until it towered upward thrice the height of a man. Frantically searching the shards of his memory to piece together the seer’s teachings, Conan concentrated on the picture of Kushad’s garden, with the small, white-bearded seer sitting placidly on a cushion laid beside the path. Little by little, the image solidified and merged with that of the actual courtyard. Conan muttered to himself, “Four threes are twelve; four fours are sixteen; four fives …”
Slowly the swamp and its reptilian denizens faded from view, and Conan found himself back in Kushad’s garden. He drew his sleeve across his sweat-beaded forehead, saying: “I feel as if I had been fighting a battle for an hour.”
“Labor of the mind can be as strenuous as that of the body,” said Kushad gently. “You are learning, my son, but you were slow to bring your mental forces to bear. We must try again.”
“Not just yet, pray,” said Conan. “I am fordone, as if I had run ten leagues.”
“You may rest for the nonce. What will you call yourself henceforth?”
“Call myself?” snorted Conan. “What’s the matter with Conan of Cimmeria?”
“Be not wroth. If there be not a price on your head now, there soon will be. A client full of bazaar gossip reports that you are accounted Jamilah’s abductor, since you and she both vanished on the selfsame night.”
“Going under a false name is cowardly; and besides, I’m sure to forget to answer to it.”
“One gets used to an assumed name sooner than one thinks. Anyway, you needs must take another identity, at least until you reach a land where your repute has not preceded you. What name would you choose—something not incongruous with your aspect?”
Conan, scowling, pondered. At last he said: “My father was Nial the smith. He was a good man.”
“Excellent! You shall be Nial, at least for the nonce. Tahmina! I sense that our guest hungers again. Fetch him wherewith to stay his pangs.”
“You must think I eat enough for three,” said Conan, sinking large white teeth into the loaf the girl proffered. “I am still making up for my dinnerless detour through the Marshes of Mehar. Thank you, Tahmina.” He took a gulp of ale.
“Captain Conan,” said the girl, “I—I had a dream last night, which perchance concerns you.”
“What’s this, my young seeress?” asked Kushad. “Why did you not inform us sooner?”
“’Tis the first chance I have had, with you two locked in talk and saying you would fain not be disturbed.”
“What of your dream, girl?” said Conan. “I scoff not at such portents; too many prophetic dreams have visited my kin.”
“I dreamt I saw you running down a tunnel, deep inside the earth. Some creature did pursue you. It was too dark to see aright, but the thing was big—as large as an ox. As you ran, it gained upon you.”
“Tell me more, my little one,” persisted Conan. “Describe it in detail.”
“I—I cannot, save that it had glowing eyes. There were eight such eyes, gleaming like great fiery jewels.”
“Perhaps a pack of famished wolves?” suggested Conan.
“Nay, it was a single creature. But it did not move the way a large animal normally moves. It—I know not how to say it—it seemed to scurry along like a walking nightmare. And it came closer and closer, and I knew that in an instant it would catch you … .”
“Well?” barked Conan. “W
hat then?”
“Then I awoke. That is all.”
Kushad questioned his daughter, but elicited no further information. He said: “So, young Nial, meseems the dream is a symbol of something; but of what? Dreams can be interpreted in many ways, and any way may be right. Mayhap you had better avoid subterranean tunnels, in case this were a premonition of some real, material menace. Now, if you have eaten, we shall begin another trial of your powers of psychical resistance.”
Several days later, Conan, wearing Kushad’s hooded cloak, led his new horse to the seer’s portal. The beast was a shaggy, stocky, Hyrkanian pony, shorter in the leg than the stolen Egil. Conan knew that, while the animal could easily be outdistanced by the slender-legged western breeds, it offset this shortcoming by endurance and an ability to thrive on coarse and scanty fare.
He bade Kushad and his daughter a brisk but affectionate farewell. Tahmina smiled bravely and wiped away a trembling tear. In a way, Conan was glad to leave. The young girl, whose form had just begun to fill out, had been casting sheep’s eyes at him; and from a remark by Kushad, the Cimmerian gathered that the old man would welcome him as a son-in-law, if Conan ever gave up his wild, headstrong ways, got on the right side of the law, and settled down in Sultanapur to wait for the child to reach a marriageable age.
But Conan had no intention of settling down, or of tying himself to any woman. Neither did his sense of honor permit him to take advantage of Tahmina’s girlish infatuation. So it was with a small sigh of relief that he strapped his gear to Ymir, his new horse, embraced his mentor and his youthful hostess, tightened the girth, and trotted smartly off.
chapter iv
THE GOLDEN DRAGON
Westward Conan wended his way at the steady pace of the seasoned rider: walk, trot, canter, trot, walk, over and over. Every third day he paused long enough to give his steed several solid hours of grazing. Failure to do this, he knew, would wear the animal out and perhaps even kill it before he arrived at his destination.
He had reached the short-grass country of western Turan, where the plain glowed with clumps of wildflowers of scarlet and gold and blue, while the air above the greensward quivered with the flutter of countless iridescent butterflies. Here the land stretched for leagues with only slight rolls and undulations. The traveler in these parts came upon few signs of human life, save an occasional neatherd with his cattle or a shepherd with his flock. Once or twice a day, Conan encountered a caravan of camels sounding the silvery tinkle of bells, and the creaking leather and jingling mail of hired horse guards. More rarely, a lone trader jogged along on his ass, leading another piled with his gear and stock of goods.
Soon, Conan knew, he would reach the border. There King Yildiz’s blockhouses and patrols warded the kingdom against the nomads and outlaws who roamed the unclaimed prairie to the west. The protection they afforded the kingdom was far from perfect. One of Conan’s first assignments after promotion to a regular army unit had been to chase marauders back into this sparsely-settled west country. Sometimes the troop caught the raiders and rode proudly back to their fort with severed heads on their lances. More often the pillagers gave them the slip; and they returned on lathered steeds, with glum looks on their faces and grim jokes on their lips.
The border guards, Conan was well aware, had other duties, too. They questioned all travelers who sought to enter or leave the kingdom and apprehended felons and persons wanted by the authorities. The road that Conan followed had dwindled to a sandy track; and for a mounted man there was scant choice between this track and the boundless virgin prairie. After some deliberation Conan decided not to try to bluff his way past the border guard, but to detour around the blockhouse. So he angled northwest and soon lost sight of the beaten way.
The following afternoon, a black speck atop a nearby rise attracted his attention. Approaching, he discovered a pile of rocks, which betimes the kings of Turan ordered erected to define the bounds of the kingdom. But so vague was the site of the border that the cairn might be a dozen leagues beyond, or half a dozen short, of the line that appeared on the maps in Aghrapur.
Conan continued westward, and that evening staked out his horse to graze and stretched himself upon his blanket, assured that he was now beyond the bourn of Turan.
A stealthy footstep awakened him; but, before he could spring to his feet, something clinging fell upon him. When he struggled up, it tripped and hampered him. It was a game net, such as the Hyrkanians used in their periodic mass hunts. Before he could fight his way out of the entanglement, a club smashed down upon his head, bringing a shower of shooting stars followed by blackness.
When Conan regained consciousness, he found that his wrists were firmly lashed behind him. Looking up, he saw a circle of men in the King’s uniforms, some mounted and some afoot, surrounding him in the starlight. One, bearing the insignia of a Turanian officer, commanded, “On your feet, vagabond!”
Grunting, Conan rolled over and tried to rise. He discovered that, when a man is lying down with his hands tied behind him, it is difficult or even impossible for him to arise without assistance. After several tries, he sank back on the grass.
“Someone will have to boost me up,” he growled.
“Help him, Arslan,” said the officer. “Aidin, stand ready with your club in case he tries to bite or run.”
On his feet at last, Conan roared: “What is the meaning of this? It’s an outrage on a harmless traveler!”
“We shall see about that,” said the officer. “Honest travelers stop for questioning at the border post, which you obviously avoided. Luckily, we had word from a shepherd who saw you straying from the road, and the night was clear enough to track you down. Now come along, and we shall learn just how harmless you are.”
A trooper slipped a Hyrkanian lasso—a pole with a running noose on the end—over Conan’s head and tightened it around the Cimmerian’s neck. The troopers mounted and set out across the steppe, one leading Ymir while Conan stumbled along on foot.
At the blockhouse, the soldiers pushed Conan into a small, crowded room. Six men with ready weapons watched him, while their commanding officer settled himself at a rough trestle table.
“Here’s the blackguard, Captain,” said the lieutenant who had brought Conan in.
“Did he put up a fight?” asked the captain.
“Nay; we caught him sleeping. But I do not think—”
“Never mind what you do or do not think,” snapped the captain. “You, fellow!”
“Yes?” snarled Conan, staring at the officer through narrowed lids.
“Who are you?”
“Nial, a soldier of Turan.”
“You are no Hyrkanian; that is plain from your aspect and barbarous accent. Whence came you?”
“I am a native of the Border Kingdom,” said Conan, who had rehearsed his lies on the trek back to the blockhouse.
“What land is that?”
“A country far to the northwest, near Hyperborea.”
“In what unit of the army do you serve?”
“Captain Shendin’s cuirassiers, stationed at Khawarizm.” This was a real unit and one with which Conan was familiar. Conan was thankful now that he had, however unwillingly, followed Kushad’s advice and left most of his handsome uniform at the seer’s house in Sultanapur. Had it been packed with the rest of his belongings and had the troopers found it, his imposture would have been shattered in an instant.
“Why are you departing from Turan? A deserter, eh?”
“Nay, I applied for leave because I learned that my aged mother is sick at home. I am returning thither and shall be back at my duties within three months. Send to ask Captain Shendin if you believe me not.”
“Then why did you avoid the border post?”
“So as not to waste time answering foolish questions,” grated Conan.
The captain reddened with quick anger. As he paused before replying, the lieutenant spoke again: “I do not think this man can be the renegade Conan, Captain, even thoug
h he somewhat answers the description. First, he does not have the King’s lady with him. Second, he does not try to flatter or conciliate us, as would a guilty fugitive. And finally, this Conan is said to have such keen senses and mighty strength that we could not so easily have taken him alive.”
The captain pondered for a moment, then said: “Very well; you seem to have the right of it. But I am still minded to have him flogged for insolence and for putting us to needless trouble.”
“Pray, sir, the men are weary. Besides, if he be truly a soldier on leave—which he may well be—such a course might cause us trouble with the commander of his unit.”
The captain sighed. “Release his bonds. Next time, Master Nial, do not try such tricks upon us, and count yourself lucky to get off without at least a beating. You may go.”
Growling a surly word of thanks, Conan recovered his sword from the soldier who held it and started for the door. He was crowding past the troopers when another lieutenant appeared in the hallway before him. This man’s eyes widened.
“Why, Conan!” cried the newcomer. “What do you here? Don’t you remember Khusro, your old—”
Conan reacted instantly. Lowering his head in a bull-like rush, he lunged at the lieutenant, giving him so violent a push in the chest with his open hand that the man, hurled back, crashed against the wall and fell supine. Leaping over the sprawling body, Conan dashed out into the night.
Ymir was tied to a hitching post in front of the blockhouse. Without taking time to draw sword or dagger, Conan snapped the stout leather reins with a terrific jerk, vaulted into the saddle, and savagely pounded his heels against the horse’s ribs.
By the time the shouting troopers had boiled out of the blockhouse, run to the paddock, saddled their mounts, and set out in pursuit, Conan was a distant speck in the starlight. As soon as a roll in the landscape hid him from view, he galloped off at right angles to the narrow road. Before the sun had thrust its ruddy limb above the level eastern horizon, he had shaken off his pursuers.
Conan and the Spider God Page 4
