Conan: Road of Kings

by Karl Edward Wagner

  Conan laughed without humor. “You and I have followed a long and difficult road, just to find ourselves walking in a circle. Are we two once again to stand together upon the Dancing Floor?”

  “Well, I don’t think we’d better count on Mordermi for our rescue this time,” Santiddio grinned sourly.

  “I think we may have owed that one to Sandokazi,” Conan said. “What will happen to her now?”

  “She has thrown her lot in with Mordermi,” Santiddio sighed. “Not that I could expect her to join us in a cell, when she will wear a queen’s crown if she remains with Mordermi. She loves the treacherous bastard, and she’ll not desert him even now.”

  “Nor will she stand by and let her brother rot in a cell,” a new voice spoke.

  Conan was on his feet in an instant, despite the stupor of the drug that still left his muscles rubbery.

  Sandokazi peered in at them through the barred peephole. Her eyes held a wild, dreamy gaze.

  “‘Kazi!” Santiddio blurted. “Does Mordermi know you’re here?”

  “No, nor does anyone else,” his sister smiled slowly. “He and Callidios are deep in schemes again. I’m certain Callidios wants him to order Conan’s execution immediately, but Mordermi hasn’t sunk so deep into the renegade’s influence to agree that easily to a friend’s murder.”

  “Your lover’s scruples in such matters are well known.” Conan snarled. “He and I will share another drink to our friendship, but the wine will be of my choosing.”

  “You mustn’t blame Mordermi for what has happened,” Sandokazi begged him. “Mitra, why didn’t we heed your counsel when the Stygian first crept into our lives!”

  “That’s another mistake I’ll see to when I get out of here,” Conan vowed. “It was Mordermi who poured drugged wine for me.”

  “If it had been Callidios, you’d never have awakened,” she argued fiercely. “How can you both be such fools! Mordermi was as deadly a foe of Rimanendo and his tyranny as any of us were. While we discussed ways of elevating the masses through social reform, Mordermi was distributing the spoils of his thefts to the poor. Callidios changed all this! I scarcely know Mordermi these days. That sorcerer has a spell over Mordermi. Kill Callidios, and Mordermi will be freed of his dark influence.”

  “What are you doing here, ’Kazi?” her brother asked again. “Did Mordermi send you to make a truce?”

  “I’m here to set you free,” Sandokazi explained, adding a wild giggle that made both men stare at her.

  She held up a set of keys. “I’ve spied on Callidios,” she told them, slurring her words somewhat. “I know where he keeps his precious yellow lotus. I dropped crumbs of the dried gum into the pipe bowl, as I’ve watch the Stygian do. But I crouched outside the guardroom door while they slumbered over their cups, and I blew the heavy fumes into the chamber. The air is still down here; the fumes grew deeper, and so did the snore of the guards. No one awoke when I crept in and stole the keys to the cells.”

  “Crom, woman!” Conan exploded. “Then let us out of here before the guards recover! What jest is this!”

  “I’ll let you out,” Sandokazi said coyly. “But you must promise me that you won’t kill Mordermi. I know he’s betrayed all of us, but Callidios has poisoned his soul. Kill the Stygian, if you’ll have your vengeance—but you both must give me your word that you won’t kill Mordermi!”

  Conan wondered how seriously the fumes of the yellow lotus had dazed the girl’s wits. But there was no time to argue with her. The guards might be relieved, or the lotus-clouded girl might decide to withhold the keys out of spite.

  “I promise not to kill Mordermi,” Conan swore, although the oath burned in his throat. The Cimmerian would not break his word, no matter under what circumstances it was given.

  “And I promise, as well,” Santiddio conceded. “Now then, ’Kazi—be quick!”

  For a maddening interval she fumbled for the proper key, struggled to work the massive lock. At length the bolts slid back. Conan went through the door like a great cat escaping its cage. He glared along the corridor, as Santiddio embraced his sister.

  Within the guardroom, their wardens snored foolishly. Their lapse would doubtless cost them their lives, but Conan felt no remorse. The three chose military cloaks from a rack, and stole up the stairs.

  There was a door at the top of the stairway, and beside the door a dead man. A thin-bladed dagger had expertly found his heart.

  “I told him I’d make it worth his time to let me pass to visit my brother,” Sandokazi explained. “He probably meant to renege afterward.”

  In the dead of night, the palace hallways were deserted except for patrolling guards. Conan had set the patrols, and with luck and stealth they were able to slip past them. Dawn, Conan knew, could not be far off; their escape would be discovered as soon as the guards were relieved.

  “I have a rope hidden where you can descend the wall,” Sandokazi told them. Conan had always admired her cleverness. “After you’re beyond the fortress, you’re on your own.”

  “You’ll have to come with us,” Santiddio urged. “Mordermi is certain to suspect you.”

  “Mordermi may suspect, but he’ll do nothing,” Sandokazi said. “Callidios may have poisoned his soul, but I still own his heart. Mordermi will blame your escape on the White Rose, and use it as further evidence of a conspiracy.”

  “You’ll not hold us up, woman,” Conan tried to argue. “I won’t leave you here in danger after you’ve helped us. Mordermi isn’t to be trusted…”

  “Mordermi is my lover,” Sandokazi snapped at him. “Can’t you understand—I love him! If I run out on him now, he’ll have no one beside him but Callidios.”

  Conan disagreed, but it was her decision to make. Santiddio knew better than to try to sway his sister’s mind.

  “What will you do?” she asked, drawing them away from the argument.

  “Escape from Kordava to begin with,” her brother answered. “We’re too well known to hide out within the city, and Mordermi has too tight a grip here for us to challenge him. We’ll organize a new rebellion from the ranks of the people he has betrayed—and this one won’t be any trumped-up conspiracy for him to suppress as easily as he invented it.”

  “How will you stand again the Final Guard?” Sandokazi reminded them of the obvious.

  “Do you have any knowledge of how Callidios controls his devils?” Conan asked her.

  “Only that Callidios locks himself in a heavily guarded chamber atop the palace tower when he summons them,” she told them. “And he doesn’t reappear until their bloody task is completed. Callidios works all of his magicks there; no one is ever allowed to enter.”

  “We’ll seek aid against the Stygian’s sorcery from one who is also adept in the occult arts,” Santiddio stated. “I’ve given the matter much thought, while staring at the walls of my cell.”

  “You’ll seek aid from another sorcerer?” Conan protested. “If he has powers greater than those of Callidios, we’ll be turning the tiger into the house to drive out the wolf.”

  “Not if she is our sister,” Santiddio countered. “I’m going to ask Destandasi for her help—if she’ll give it.”

  Conan had all but forgotten that the Esantis were triplets, that their sister, Destandasi, had withdrawn from corrupt Zingara and entered the mysteries of Jhebbal Sag. Mordermi had told Conan that the third Esanti was a priestess in a sacred grove of Jhebbal Sag, somewhere beyond the Black River.

  “Destandasi has cut all ties with our family—with the old traditions of Esanti greatness, and with the cause we two fight for today,” Sandokazi said. “What reason for her to aid us now, even if she could.”

  “I’m going to try,” Santiddio frowned. “Where else can I turn?”

  “I’d a thought to cross the Black River to make our escape,” Conan put in. “The border is close, and with the recent trouble with the Picts there, any guard along the northern marches will be a lot more concerned with who might be crossing fro
m the Pictish Wilderness to care about who crosses over from Zingara. Can you find Destandasi?”

  “I think I know how to find her,” Santiddio said. “If not, we may as well let the Picts take our scalps as give Mordermi our heads.”

  “We’ve wasted enough time then.” Conan studied the skies. “If we hurry, we can steal a canoe and make our way well up the Black River before daylight.”

  He tested the rope Sandokazi had provided, dropped it over the wall. “For the last time, will you come with us?”

  “You know my decision. Just remember your promise to me.”

  Conan considered clipping her on the chin and carrying her with them. But the woman had made her decision, and the Cimmerian respected her for it.

  “Give Destandasi my love,” she called out almost merrily, as they slid quickly down the rope and into the dark shadows at the base of the wall.

  Sandokazi untied the rope and tossed it after them. No need to tell the guards which way the fugitives had fled. It was growing late, although the lotus fumes Sandokazi had inadvertently inhaled distorted her sense of time. Nonetheless, their stealthy passage to the outer wall and their whispered conversation had taken more time than seemed possible.

  She made her way toward Mordermi’s chambers, hoping that her lover was still in counsel with Callidios. If not—well, if he could stay awake to all hours, so might she. Sandokazi had an excuse in mind, when she remembered that she still carried Callidios’ lotus pipe in her bodice.

  She considered hiding it, but Callidios would mark its disappearance, connect it with the unconscious guards, and wonder why the conspirators who released the two prisoners had been so devious in their method. Best to return the pipe to its hiding place in Callidios’ chambers, so that no one would ever guess how the guards had been drugged.

  Sandokazi took care to make certain Callidios had not returned to his quarters. So much the better; he and Mordermi were still hatching schemes. Cautiously she slipped into the room and placed the pipe in its drawer next to the phial of yellow lotus.

  She had forgotten that Callidios was also an illusionist.

  Callidios stepped out of the grayness where the door had been a moment before.

  “I can’t sleep without it, of course,” he said gently.

  Seventeen

  Destandasi

  They had not paddled very far up the course of the Black River before Santiddio realized that he could never have attempted this journey and lived without the giant Cimmerian. For all that Conan was a close friend, while in Kordava Santiddio had never been able to put aside his air of easy superiority to the northern barbarian. It was part of the Kordavan manner toward those not fortunate enough to have lived in that city all their lives, and the Cimmerian, with his uncouth accent, his coarse manners and rustic ideas, had been too easy to regard as some uncultured boor from the provinces.

  As they entered the outermost fringes of the Pictish Wilderness, Santiddio suddenly understood that here, as far removed from civilization as though Kordava were across the Western Sea and not merely a few days journey downstream, it was Conan who was the man of learning and he the untutored oaf.

  They had stolen a canoe from along Kordava’s riverfront. Seeming to have a cat’s night vision, Conan had paddled fiercely upstream, not pausing until the climbing sun had burned the mist from off the river. Santiddio’s lean frame was all sinew and wiry muscle, and he considered himself athletic enough. Yet long before Conan called a halt, his body ached as if it had been stretched upon the rack in Mordermi’s dungeon. The Cimmerian had drawn the canoe alongside the shore, driven it beneath the thick willows that overhung the bank—carefully arranging a cover of branches.

  “Too dangerous to go farther by day,” he explained, as if to a child. “Mordermi will remember that once I thought to flee Rimanendo’s hangmen by crossing into the Pictish Wilderness. He can send mounted patrols along the riverbank and cover ground faster than we can paddle upstream. By night we can slip past them, so long as we keep to the moonshadows.”

  Santiddio had sprawled out upon the floor of the canoe, sleeping soundly despite the cramped position. When he awoke, Conan gave him a handful of nuts and some autumnal fruit he had gathered along the riverbank; Santiddio had never sensed it when the Cimmerian had left the canoe.

  With dusk they continued upstream. Conan paddled in a more regular rhythm now, but each time Santiddio stabbed the water with his paddle, fire seemed to lance through every muscle. Once Conan halted the canoe, signed for silence; they remained in the shelter of a half-submerged snag for what must have been an hour, until Conan cautiously resumed paddling.

  “The other canoe,” Conan explained to him later. “Didn’t you see them drift past us? Mordermi should tell his hounds not to wear mail if they can’t sit without motion.”

  Santiddio had seen, had heard nothing.

  The next day Conan was able to spear a carp with a dagger he had attached to a pole. They had taken swords and daggers from their guards, but there had been no bow or quiver of arrows with which they might take game. Ravenously devouring his portion of the raw fish, Santiddio realized that the Cimmerian could fashion some sort of rough bow and arrow if the need arose.

  Another night’s paddling took them past burned-out clearings where the stench of smoke still hung on the night air. “We won’t have to worry about Mordermi’s patrols any farther upstream,” Conan laughed harshly. “The Picts have raided this far south, and these Zingarans won’t risk running into any raiding parties that might have been slow to return without a fresh belt of scalps.”

  Conan dug his paddle into the river with renewed energy. “From here on in,” he said, “we’re going to have to be ten times more careful.”

  The next evening, just before they started northward again, Conan emerged from the forest with a short bow of dark wood and a quiver of flint-tipped arrows. He placed these carefully at hand in the canoe, then passed Santiddio a leather pouch of dried meat and some coarse cake made of acorn meal.

  “I took pains to sink it, but Picts are devils when it comes to finding their dead. Let’s hope he didn’t have any friends close by,” Conan told him in a near whisper. “We need to make some distance now.”

  There was a trading post situated along the Black River at the vague point where Zingara’s frontier was presumed to end and the edges of the Pictish Wilderness to begin. Since the Picts had never been known to recognize the boundaries that learned men drew on maps, the border was a tenuous point. The trading post was run by a half-breed named Inizio, and whether because of his Pictish blood or his usefulness as a trader, the Picts generally left him alone. Letters, when they had come, from Destandasi had reached them by stages that led back to here, and letters they had sent to their elusive sister had been directed toward Inizio’s post, whence presumably they eventually reached Destandasi.

  Conan thought that Inizio’s trading post had not been burned during this most recent series of raids. They would take up the trail from there.

  Inizio had taken on the peculiar dwarfish physique that seemed to result when Pictish blood mixed with the Hyborian races. Unlike most proprietors of such frontier waystations, his manner was taciturn, his attitude almost hostile. Santiddio wondered if the trader preferred to have dealings with the Picts, or whether he resented all intrusions upon his solitude here.

  When Santiddio explained his mission, Inizio had only glared at them. Conan glowered back, and after a moment beneath that, Inizio shrugged his thick shoulders and admitted: “The letters came out of the forest, I sent them downstream; the letters came upriver, I sent them into the forest.”

  “And who carried them in and out of the forest?” Santiddio asked patiently.

  Inizio’s scowl darkened. “An owl.”

  “An owl?”

  “That’s right. A big damn owl.”

  “You mean like a carrier pigeon?” Santiddio pressed him.

  “Like that. Flies at night, beats the door with its wings. Lett
er tied to its leg.”

  “And comes to carry letters back to its mistress. How does it know when to come?”

  “I don’t want trouble. I don’t want trouble with nothing.”

  “Then answer when you’re asked something,” Conan advised.

  “Cimmerian Pict-Slayer,” Inizio grunted, “I don’t scare of you. I don’t scare of soldiers. I don’t scare of Picts. I don’t want no trouble.”

  “Write a letter to your sister, Santiddio,” Conan suggested. “Tell her you’re here and why. Ask her to meet us here or send a guide. Inizio will make certain it gets to her, since we’ll wait here with him until we get her reply.”

  At midnight there came the beat of wings upon the door of the trading post. Inizio unbarred the door, and a huge owl flew into the room. Conan, who could name almost any bird or animal that was to be found here, had never seen an owl such as this one. The black-feathered bird regarded them with a scowl not unlike Inizio’s, while the trader tied the message to its leg. Then, with an almost silent thrust of its great wings, the owl was out of the doorway and vanished into the night.

  They never were able to learn how Inizio had summoned the owl.

  Conan was thoughtfully honing the edge of his sword the following evening, when a wolf appeared in the dusk and loped purposefully toward Santiddio. Conan’s first thought was that the animal was a pet of Inizio, so calm was its self-assurance. The wolf turned its yellow eyes upon the Cimmerian, and Conan knew this beast had never been tamed. Behind them, he heard the trader slam and bar his door.

  There was a thong tied about the wolf’s massive neck, and a letter was fastened to the thong.

  Santiddio read it once to himself, then aloud for Conan’s sake: “My brother: I have taken a vow never to leave this sacred grove. If you must see me, this messenger will lead you to me. I must warn you that you will be trespassing upon a region where the old gods are more than memory. I advise you to return to the world where you belong. Destandasi.”