by Roland Green
“There is even a crack in the rock, to let out the smoke of a fire,” Akimos said, pointing at the wall. He laughed. “A common fire, of wood or charcoal, at any rate. I do not know what it will do with the stenches of your magic.”
“I do not expect to need such spells once we are— ah, fortified here.”
Akimos frowned, and Skiron realized too late that his voice had betrayed him. The merchant prince looked at him long and hard.
“You will not need them? Or you will not dare cast them?”
“What is there to fear?”
“You have never heard of the Watchers, and you a sorcerer?”
Skiron laughed. Too late, he realized that his laughter was sending echoes rolling up and down the maze of tunnels and caves. He had to wait until the echoes died to speak, and by then Akimos’s face was a thundercloud.
“There is some doubt that the Watchers were creatures of sorcery. Many of the tales say that they were only the creations of a remnant of the Atlanteans’ wisdom about nature.”
“Perhaps they say that to you,” Akimos said. “To most of us, the Watchers reek of evil magic.” “Wisdom or wizardry, they are certainly long dead,” Skiron said. “But I certainly do not mind it if men believe the tales. They may be more ready to keep their distance. ’ ’
“Men such as a certain Cimmerian?”
“Exactly.”
Skiron turned away, relieved to have the matter ended so easily. He did not wish Akimos to be too curious about the matter of the Watchers.
That scream in the night came from no common death. Nor did the stench that clung to the road come from the marsh or Skiron’s own magic. Where it did come from, Skiron did not know.
He did know that Akimos had chosen to place his refuge in the very heart of the land where the Watchers once roamed and fed. If they were dead or at least as weak as the spells that bound them to this land, then no harm might come of it. Otherwise...
Yet that was a matter that Skiron must guard within his own heart. To speak of it would be to admit fear, fear that his own arts were less than he boasted. Akimos would not forgive or forget such a deception, and without Akimos what could Skiron do with the remainder of his life?
Granted, that is, that Akimos allowed him to survive their parting!
IX
The message from Lady Doris of Lokhri came by a hired messenger whom neither Lady Livia nor Reza had ever seen before. It could hardly have caused a greater uproar had it set the place on fire. Lady Livia read it first, then summoned Reza and Conan to hear her read it again.
“If Captain Conan comes to the seat of House Lokhri tonight after the fourth hour, he will learn of a matter vital to the safety of House Damaos.”
That was all, except for Lady Doris’s seal, pressed into perfumed wax. Livia and Reza vouched for the seal, and Conan remembered the perfume from the day of Lady Doris’s visit to the Damaos palace.
“So it’s real enough,” the Cimmerian said. “She also didn’t say anything about coming alone. So I think it best that I go.”
Livia’s mouth opened, but Reza spoke first. “By all means, Conan. I will pick three or four of our best, and you can pick the same from yours. We had also best be ready to send messages. If it is a trap, you may send out what you learn even you cannot escape yourself.” Conan grinned. “I’ve been walking into traps set by better trappers than Lady Doris for a good many years. I’m here. Most of the trappers aren’t. If she’s set a trap for a fox, she’ll find she’s caught a bear.”
Livia finally got some words out. “Conan—Captain— this is folly! Lady Doris can hardly trust you enough to tell you anything this House must know. If you go, the danger to you will be great, and the danger to this House no less.”
“That’s always a chance when lords plot,” Conan said. “But I’d be a fool to ignore the other chance too, that we might learn something.” He decided against mentioning the chance of a meeting with Harphos. In his home, the Lokhri heir might have his guard down.
“At the cost of you and the men who go with you, perhaps!” Livia snapped. “That is more than this House can pay, for a promise of the Chief Archonship itself!”
Reza frowned. “As Conan said, he will be in little danger, at the head of eight or nine well-armed men.” “But if Lady Doris refuses to admit the guards—” Livia was clearly digging in her heels for a fight.
“Then we can suspect that Conan faces a trap,” Reza said. “We can also trust him to act wisely. My lady, forgive me for plain speaking. But if we cannot trust a man taught by High Captain Khadjar, we can trust no one under the sun.”
“I trust Conan, and I suppose I must trust your judgement of Khadjar.” Livia sounded like a petulant small girl. “But can I trust you, Reza?”
“What do you mean by that, my lady?” The steward’s tone bordered on disrespect.
Conan held his breath and rested one hand on his sword hilt. If Livia was ready to accuse Reza openly of jealousy of the Cimmerian, it would make matters worse rather than better, for Reza would likely be more in fear for his position, rather than less. If Reza’s jealousy got the better of him, the Lokhri palace might be safer than the Damaos one!
“My lady,” Conan said, “I think I had best go. If nothing else, Lady Doris will be offended if I do not. We have enough enemies already.”
Livia bit her lip but nodded. “The gods be with you, then, Captain Conan.”
Conan grinned. “I don’t know about the gods. But with Reza’s help, good men and sharp steel will be! I trust in those more than the gods, by your leave.”
The Cimmerian still felt Livia’s eyes on him, until the door closed behind him.
Conan raised a hand, and the ten men behind him stopped. The water clock atop the fountain in the Square of the Cagemakers said that the sixth hour was not yet half gone.
“We’ve time enough to make the work of anyone following us a trifle harder,” he said. He pointed toward one of the streets leading to the harbour. “Down that way, as far as the Street of Steps. Mekhas, you know this quarter best. Take the lead.”
The Damaos man nodded and stepped forward. When he had passed out of earshot, Conan signalled to Jarenz.
“Join him in the lead. Keep your sword sheathed but ready. If he seems to be nervous, ask him why. If you have to draw on him, use the flat if you can.”
“Yes, Captain.” Jarenz hurried forward. He still favoured the leg injured in the lumber camp, but could cover ground swiftly enough.
Conan fell back to bring up the rear as his men turned toward the waterfront. For some time his instincts had told him they were being followed. He had seen and heard nothing, but he had trusted his instincts too long and too successfully to ignore them.
For a few hundred paces, the street was as well lit and deserted as most in the wealthier quarters of Messantia. In those parts of the city few had lawful business after nightfall. Few of those whose business was unlawful cared to risk meeting a Guardian patrol. The life of a thief in Messantia, at least in any part of the city where there was something worth stealing, would be exciting and probably short.
As the street began to wind downhill toward the harbour., the Guardian patrols were no longer to be seen. The lights grew few and far between, until at last there was only the moon, the stars, and the glow from wineshop and brothel windows to show a man the way. Meanwhile, the smooth cobblestones grew rough and littered with filth, where they did not give way altogether to patches of reeking mud.
Conan shrugged broad shoulders under his mail coat. For all its light and air, its good food and clean beds, the wealthy quarters of Messantia did not feel like home to him. A man who had first seen cities as a slave, then as a thief, he was more used to the way of the poorer quarters.
When the waterfront hove in sight a hundred paces away, Conan called another halt. Then he signalled a turn west. This took the band sharply to the right. Making the turn, Conan was able to look down three streets at once without turning his head.
Hand signals sent Conan’s message forward: “Prepare for an ambush.” That would set the men in front and rear watching to the sides, the men in the middle watching for attack from above.
The street twisted like a drunken snake, then narrowed until Conan could touch the walls on either side. It also began to climb. They were on their way back uphill, toward the Lokhri palace.
They were also still being followed. No night sight less keen than the Cimmerian’s could have kept watch on the band, but clearly the follower was Conan’s match in that regard.
The street climbed four steps, then broadened. Ahead Conan saw a lantern. He also saw three massive wine barrels in a rack—and a thin arm reach from the shadows to snatch a wedge from the rack.
“The barrels!” Conan roared. He leaped forward reaching the head of the band as the barrels rumbled out of the rack. On the steep slope they rolled swiftly toward the men.
Conan saw a roughly trimmed log leaning against a door. He snatched it up, balanced it in both hands, then leaped into the path of the barrels. As he leaped, he thrust the log forward like a lance. Its trimmed end drove under the lead barrel, bringing it tottering to a stop. The second barrel crashed into the first, and the third into the second, so hard that it split open.
Wine poured down the street, scouring the filth from the cobblestones. “Waste of good wine!” shouted Jarenz cheerfully.
Before Conan could curse him to silence, alleys to both right and left spewed men. So did the street behind the band.
Conan’s hands gripped the log again. As he jerked it free, the two remaining barrels began to roll. They rolled straight downhill, to where the street turned into steps. Of the four men climbing the steps, the barrels knocked three down. They screamed as the barrels crushed the life out of them and Conan feinted with the log at the last man. That fellow leaped aside, but slipped on the wine-slick stones and cracked his skull as he fell.
By now Conan’s band and their attackers were fully engaged and thoroughly entangled. Two men ran at Conan. Not wasting time getting rid of the log, he held it up to meet their downward slashes. Both swords stuck in the wood. Conan twirled the log, jerking the weapons out of their owner’s hands, then flung log and swords straight into the men’s faces.
They flew backward to smash into the walls. One went down and lay under the log; the second drew a knife. He barely had it raised before Conan’s sword flickered out and took his arm off just below the elbow. His thin scream was lost in the uproar of the fight.
That uproar soon began to fade. The attackers must have been expecting the barrels to scatter Conan’s men, perhaps hurt a few of them. Instead they had seen the Cimmerian’s colossal strength take six of their number almost without drawing breath.
Whatever they had expected, it was not that. Most of the attackers who could still run did so.
Two ran into one of the houses and slammed the door behind them. Conan saw three of his men pick up the fallen log and start using it as a battering ram on the door. He gripped the log and heaved. It flew out of their hands and clattered on the stones as they turned to stare.
“We don’t have time to chase those fatherless dogs! Besides, knocking down their door’s sure to be against some law the Argosseans thought up when they’d drunk bad wine!”
The men, all Conan’s free lances, grinned. The Cimmerian raised his voice. “Rally, and call out! Have we anyone hurt?”
Two men called out, then Jarenz did the same, feebly and from the ground. Conan knelt beside him, mouth setting in a grim line as he saw the young man’s pale face and gaping thigh.
He said nothing; he did not need to. Jarenz’s hands groped feebly for his belt pouch and tore it loose.
“For Vandar—a little—to help him with—that girl. First—first time he’s courted on—his own.” Jarenz smiled, although it was like a skull smiling.
“Sorry, Captain,” he added. “Don’t think I—did my share. Hope the gods...”
What Jarenz hoped of the gods, Conan never knew. The young man’s eyes drifted closed and a moment later his breathing stopped. The Cimmerian rose, wiping bloody hands on the tunic of a dead enemy.
It helped that the dead enemy had a deal of company—eight more bodies, to be exact. But that would not bring Jarenz back to life, ease his brother—or keep Conan from a red vengeance on those who had set this ambush.
“Make a litter,” Conan snapped. “Jarenz comes with us.”
* * *
The Lokhri palace was even larger than the Damaos one, although not as well kept up. One blind wall, dribbling stones and half overgrown, faced a small park.
Conan sent one man up to a stout branch of an oak in that park, a second man up to the top of the wall to perch where the iron spikes had rusted away. Both protested, the Damaos man as loudly as Conan’s.
“I thought I was the captain here,” the Cimmerian said mildly. “If you want to argue the point, shall we try it with swords?” Two heads nearly fell off their shoulders, so vigorously did the men deny such an ambition.
“Good. Then keep your ears and eyes open and your mouths shut. We need somebody outside the palace, to run with a message if there is one. We need somebody on the wall, to watch the grounds. We’ll have a man on the roof once we’re inside, to send the message. The last two can jump down and get themselves killed or not as they please, after they send the message.
“If they fall in that, they’d better run for Khitai. Anywhere closer, I may find them.”
The Damaos man laughed. “And if the trap takes you along with the rest, Captain?”
The Cimmerian’s smile held little mirth. “Do you want to wager on my leaving you unpunished just because I’m dead?”
Neither man seemed to have much enthusiasm for facing the Cimmerian’s vengeful ghost. They were already in place when Conan led the remaining seven live men and one dead one toward the main gate.
The two gate guards were each about half Conan’s size and old enough to be his father. If there was a trap planned, they were no part of it. They studied the seal on the message and the pass from the Guardians as though they might hold the secret of eternal youth. This gave Conan time to study them in turn.
The guards were not only ill-suited for fighting, they were ill-equipped. From their stained helmet straps to their mismatched sandals, they were men Conan would have thrown out of any company of his at one glance.
Crumbling, overgrown walls. Guards who looked as if they slept at their posts, if not in the streets. And Lady Doris eager to make a match for her son with Lady Livia, mistress of one of the great fortunes in Argos.
If Conan had doubted before what sort of intrigue was afoot here, he doubted no longer. He also swore that when he had avenged Jarenz, he would deal with Lady Doris’s insult to the House of Damaos.
And if Lady Doris and not Akimos or a friend of his had sent those men tonight? Conan’s hands gripped the rusty iron bars of the gate as if they were a throat. It was not in him to think lightly of harming a woman.-But a woman whose treachery had taken a man sworn to him—he would find a way to repay her.
This vow turned his face into a mask even grimmer than before. The guards sprang hastily aside as the Cimmerian led his men through the open gate and up a weed-ridden path toward the house.
“Lady Doris will receive you in the Amber Chamber,” the steward said.
Conan nodded. The steward was nearly as large as the Cimmerian, but old enough to be his grandfather, nearly bald, and paunchy. The only way he could take part in a war, Conan decided, was to be fired from a siege engine. He would doubtless smash through almost any roof from sheer weight alone!
“Did she say when?” Conan asked.
“Ah, young warriors are so impatient,” the steward said, chuckling.
“That wasn’t what I asked,” Conan said
. “If you don’t know—or your mistress doesn’t know—you won’t shame the House by saying so.” He frowned. “If you keep us waiting like beggars, though, it might do more than shame the House.”
Conan left to the steward’s imagination what that “more” might be. He wasn’t disappointed. The steward’s rheumy eyes widened and he turned ponderously. Then he vanished up the stairs faster than Conan would have imagined of him.
He returned shortly, wheezing and paler than ever. “My lady bids you to follow me.”
“What of my men?”
“Your—oh, them. They will find hospitality in my quarters, wine and food. If they wish to bring that gift they bear to the kitchen on the way—”
“That gift is a dead body,” Conan said.
“A—?” the steward began, then his mouth was gaping too wide for speech.
“The body of one of my men. Slain tonight, in a treacherous ambush, as we approached the house.” That stretched the truth a trifle, but Conan did not mind frightening the steward. It might frighten him into speaking the truth. Or it might frighten him away, which would be no bad thing either!
“I doubt it would be very welcome in the kitchen,” the Cimmerian went on. “My men will keep their comrade with them. Now, I believe Lady Doris waits above?’*
As Conan climbed, everything he saw told the same tale, of a once-mighty House now fallen far and still sinking. Stained, patched, or crumbling walls. Bare spots once covered by tapestries or rugs. The few rugs and tapestries remaining, faded, threadbare, mould-spotted, or all three at once. Holes gnawed by mice or rats in richly carved woodwork. The servants mostly either old or very young, thin-faced, and moving furtively, as though they feared the lash.
Conan remembered the tales of the display Lady Doris had made on her first visit to the Damaos palace. How many tapestries had been sold, how many servants had eaten thin porridge, to pay for the hire of all that splendour?
