Conan and the Sorcerer

by Andrew J Offutt

  Conan crouched. 'Better come all at once,' he said quietly. 'First man dies.' Then he lifted up his voice: 'Up Bel!' the Cimmerian bawled, remembering the voice that had cheered his carving of a watchman. 'Up Bel! Name of Bel!'

  Clamping his lips then he pounced, cutting at a watchman's eyes while holding the man's gaze with his own. The Zamorian fell back and stumbled against a table formed of boards on trestle. A woman shrieked and the ruby-wearing young noblewoman stared with eyes gone bird-bright. Her bosom heaved and the tip of her tongue came out to wet pink-tinted lips.

  To the dodging man's left Kagul came in, stabbing low. On the back-swing., Conan's blade met his with a loud clanging ring. Kagul was only just able to parry the Cimmerian's swift chop-a stroke that came far too swiftly. The hillman handled his blade as if it were of paper rather than of heavy old iron. And at once he was backing a pace, flicking his eyes leftward, ready to meet the third watchman. It was then that a new voice rose, surely elicited by Conan's loud invocation of Bel, patron deity of thieves.

  'Best seek the window, hillman! I hear the tramp of more watchmen without.'

  The rightward member of Arenjun's police whirled to confront the owner of the voice sympathetic to the outlaw. There was only time for his eyes to register sight of an Iranistani in striped shirt and leathern vest; then the blue-bearded man from the distant east drove a three-foot Ilbarsi knife into the Zamorian's belly.

  That was all the aid he gave Conan, and surely enough. The stranger had after all removed an enemy and warned the Cimmerian of enemy reinforcements. He was over a stool and past a nervous, backing Zamorian noble and out the inn's open doorway in seconds.

  Conan was alone, facing two antagonists, with more coming.

  He did not wait for their attack.

  The Cimmerian's alert eyes had already marked the location of a window opening on to an alley. He drove forward in a running stroke that Kagul elected to dodge rather than meet with his blade. The barbarian plunged on past, racing to the far wall-and, without pausing, he hurled his sword out the window. He followed, in a head-long rush.

  Outside, the blade clanged off a wall less than six feet away; it skittered on the ground while Conan, doubling in midnight, struck the alley's hard-packed earth and rolled. He fetched up against that same wall, and came unwound without a groan.

  To the Cimmerian, his movements were studied, methodical. To an observer had there been one, he'd have been a blurred series of movements. His tunic's hem tore. As he rose, he plucked up his sword in his left hand. Still rising, he transferred the long blade to his right. It slid into its sheath before he was fully vertical. He was not looking; his head was up and his gaze was challenging the darkness, scanning the inn's construction; the eaves, the shelf formed by a continuation of the ledges of upper windows. In the few seconds that had passed, Kagul and his remaining watchman had not yet reached the window. The five men of a reinforcing squad had not quite reached the inn's main door. Conan kept moving.

  Inside: Hurling aside a watchman by means of momentum and well-fed bulk, the retired general reached the window. He caught just a glimpse of the flapping of a torn tunic-hem as the fugitive rounded the inn's rear corner.

  'Outside and around! He's run into the back alley, heading west!'

  'I'd have been out the window and on him, my lord General Stahir,' Kagul said, 'but you are blocking the window.'

  The older man in the belly-strained tunic turned on the watch sergeant. Eyes stared, suddenly gone to ice in a slabby, purple-veined face.

  'Enjoy the sound of your mouth, little man,' Stahir said. 'It is the second time tonight you have dog-yapped at a better. Once I report what your hot-headedness brought on this night, you'll be fortunate not to be talking to the torturer, much less retain a Watch command.' And Stahir swung away. More watchmen were boiling into the inn; it was not from a sergeant they'd receive their orders, but from a retired general.

  When those watchmen raced around both sides of the Shadiz Inn to converge behind, they found nothing.

  The moment he had rounded the inn's corner, on the run, the Cimmerian used his momentum and his legs' powerful muscles. He leaped; he caught a cornice; his biceps and the muscles of shoulders and back bunched as he pulled himself up. Like a great cat, he was acrouch on the window ledge. He moved along a pace, turned. He squinted into the dark, considering. All in seconds.

  While Kagul was receiving unpleasant news concerning his future, Conan was leaping on to the roof of the one-storey building behind the Shadiz. By the time five watchmen reached the alley behind the inn, Conan was four buildings away, moving as only a Cimmerian could. He heard the seven watchmen calling to one another, spreading out, hurrying down dark alleyways. None thought to look upward; they sought a man, not a bear or mountain-cat.

  Conan tore his tunic again, and only just forbore cursing. His fine new cloak lay on the stool of the Shadiz Inn, and not likely he'd be retrieving it! And now his fine new silken tunic was ruined. Could nothing good come of this night? Squatting, he moved along a roof's sloping lip to edge around an out-thrusting, second-storey alcove. It housed a tiny window that, intelligently, would admit air but no thief or assassin.

  Conan froze at the sound of voices. They emanated from that tiny window, which was of another inn. The Cimmerian frowned, paused, staring at the window as if to hear better.

  'Why it is valuable to this Hisarr Zul I know not,' an accented male voice said. 'Certainly it is valuable to our lord!'

  'And so we become thieves another voice said, also accented, and female.

  Foreigners, Conan thought, and two of their words registered: valuable... thieves. Things were hard enough for thieves in Arenjun, he thought with misplaced chauvinism, without foreigners joining in! And they were discussing their plans, were they?

  With a wolfish grin, Conan crouched close to the cornice, like a jungle beast in the dark. Most attentively he listened to the conversation inside the inn's second-floor room. 'For our lord, by Erlik!' the man had said. 'Aye,' the woman sighed. 'And by Erlik indeed... some-

  thing called the "Eye of Erlik", and in the hands of one who fled Zamboula ten years agone. He is called a mage, this Hisarr Zul-do you know why, Karamek, such would want an amulet of our lord?'

  'Our pay is good, and we've a third of it jingling in our purses. Cease questioning our good fortune, Isparana. We can live a year on what we'll receive for the return of the amulet to Zamboula-and live well! Enough that the Eye of Erlik belongs to our khan, and was stolen by an old enemy, and must be returned. You saw how nervous the khan was!'

  'Karamek! Don't you even know?' the woman Isparana demanded, with incredulity ripe in her voice. 'Did you ask no questions at all?'

  'Our job,' Karamek said with exaggerated patience, 'is to steal it back. We need know nothing more.'

  'Well, listen then, my foolishly impulsive Karamek! The khan's Eye of Erlik is blessed for him, and peculiar to him through means sorcerous: by means of it he may be controlled or slain.'

  'Erlik's beard! No wonder he wants it back!'

  No wonder, mused the eavesdropper. And wouldn't the Khan of Zamboula pay a pretty sum to see it safe in his own grasping hand again! Zamboula... methinks I have made Arenjun a bit warm for me, this night... One could do worse than to be favoured of Zamboula's ruler!

  'And think further, Karamek,' Isparana was saying, still with an exaggerated tone; the clever explaining to the impetuous boy. 'Were the khan controlled or slain, another would gain Zamboula's throne rather than his son, Jungir. That would be Balad! And-'

  'Balad! By Yog Lord of the Empty Abodes! - that would be disaster!'

  The only disaster, the Cimmerian mused, trying to settle comfortably, would be if a pair of Zamboulans were to aid Zamboula's ruler so – rather than a fine big expert thief from Cimmeria! And he listened closely whilst they laid out a plan. They spoke nervously of Hisarr Zul's awful guards, single-minded zombies who had no thought but to protect their master's domain and slay all interl
opers. Karamek and Isparana presumed other defences too, shudder-

  some ones; it was for dark sorcery that the man Zul was driven from Zamboula these ten years past.

  'Two night's hence, then, by Erlik's beard,' Isparana said, 'when the moon is gone and the sky dark as Hisarr Zul's heart!'

  Conan, grinning wolfishly, already plotting, half-rose and crept off across the roof. He pounced to another and thence to the ground, so that by means of dark alleys he would soon vanish into the Maul.

  Two nights hence, eh, he mused. But on morrow's night there will be hardly any moon... and that's when I will steal this valuable amulet! Zamboula's nervous king should pay and pay well for his Eye of Erlik, to ensure his dear brat's ascension!

  As he crept away into the night, smiling, planning, he missed the rest of the Zamboulans' conversation.

  'Two nights hence, eh?' Karamek said. 'Nay, nay, Isparana, you were best to stick to that which you know best, easy-girl! You forget that two nights from this is the Night of Ishtar, who is worshipped by the queen... and the Time of the Equilibration, Derketo, beloved of the king's mistress! The streets will be full of people bearing torches, and Hisarr Zul is sure to keep close to that palatial home of his. Nay-we will just take the amulet from his coffers on tomorrow night!'

  II. At the Keep of Hisarr Zul

  Many peoples of several lands thronged the streets of Arenjun. They flowed in a river of colour amid the temples and darker domains of Zamora's myriad strange gods. Some did or sought to do business, straightforward or no, legal or otherwise. Some spied, for this or that priest or anxious noblewoman, or foreign ruler or priest or hopeful little baron. Some made assignations, for themselves or their masters or mistresses. Many gossiped, so that the market place of Arenjun gave off the sound of a great hive of bees. Among the topics was Zamora's king: having formed the habit of drunkenness during the rule of Yara the priest who had died in the inexplicable toppling of his Elephant Tower, my lord King seemed unable to break the habit. He drank as much or more than ever. None was sure now who ruled in Zamora, and who in Arenjun must not be crossed; at least when all knew that Yara was the power, they knew of whom to be wary!

  Others in Arenjun walked about observing, asking casual questions, pondering, reconnoitring. These were planning thefts, and among them was Conan of Cimmeria.

  Today he wore no fine cloak, and gone was his thrice-torn tunic of blue silk. As they could be sewn on another garment, the cloth-of-gold borders had brought him a pittance. His casual questions and observances told him little more about Hisarr Zul than he'd overheard last night.

  The man was presumably a mage; a wizard at any rate. Me kept much to himself within a walled little estate at the edge of Arenjun opposite that where lay the ruins of Yara's once-bright tower.

  There were low-voiced rumours of Hisarr Zul's guards, but no specifics were available. The home of Hisarr Zul was not robbed. No one knew anyone who knew the man, who had indeed come here some ten years agone. From Zamboula? Perhaps; who knew? Who cared?... in point of fact, another man with an accent was asking about him today, too... You don't come from the capital do you, a king's spy in those ragtag mendicant's clothes? Here-have a cup of wine, big 'beggar' one can never be too careful...

  Making his way through the city, the ragtag beggar with the smouldering blue eyes and square-clipped black mop discovered the sprawling domain of Hisarr Zul.

  He saw no activity within the walls. He saw no one enter the gate and saw no one depart. He heard no animal-sounds from within the grounds and smelled no such odours, though he listened and sniffed, for he recalled the lions that had guarded the verdant grounds of Yara's keep.

  Two things Conan had of the adventure of the Elephant Tower: the excellent rope of dead Taurus of Nemedia-and more caution. He spent hours at the reconnoitring of Hisarr's walled keep, though he seemed only to be wandering, begging. Within, the manse was impressive and strange. It was built of stone and corpse-pale marble, a pale sprawl, brooding and seemingly demon-haunted, with windows like flatly faceted amethysts.

  'You're a big strapping lad, damn you!' a one-legged man snarled. 'Why do you Interfere in the business of those who need alms? Do something! Go steal, damn you!'

  That evening a cloak, worn but serviceable against night-chill, vanished from off a sleeping man just outside the Maul. The cloak was of red, faded by age and wear and weather to a rusty pallor. A bit later, a big man doffed that cloak and thrust it betwixt a skinny, gnarly tree and the base of Hisarr Zul's stone wall.

  He stood in the darkness clad only in a loose, short, sleeveless tunic laced up tie front and girt with a big sword-belt. From it depended a long dagger sheath on a thong; his old leather sheath was slung across his back so that his sword hilt stood up behind his left shoulder. Fastened inside the ill-got cloak was his pouch of coins, which he could not trust not to jingle during the coming venture in thievery. They were safer here in the shadows against Hisarr's avoided wall than anywhere in that thieves' den called the Maul.

  His sandals he left, too, between wall and tree.

  Also at his belt hung a pouch of tools and the excellent rope that had belonged to Taurus the Nemedian. Woven from the tresses of dead women taken by Taurus from their tombs at midnight, that older thief had told the Cimmerian, and steeped in the deadly wine of the upas tree to give it strength. Even bigger than Conan, Taurus had avowed that the rope would bear three times his weight.

  Conan would not test it just now. The wall was only ten feet high.

  First he looked carefully about, peering into the darkness. Hisarr's keep was set apart from contaminating neighbours. Conan saw nothing, heard no one. He moved away from the wall, at a crouch, still wary. His observations earlier had shown him no sunlit flashes from the wall's top; it was not embedded with shards of steel or bits of glass, then.

  Could it be true that eight or nine good thieves had quietly announced plans to rob this place, over the last few years, and that none was ever seen again?

  Well, they weren't Cimmerians.

  Ten feet away, Conan wheeled, ran, leaped, and slapped both hands atop the stone barrier. Bare feet helped him up mortared old rock, and in seconds he lay atop the wall, which was over a foot thick. He remained there for some lime, alert and listening, striving to send forth his very yes as rays of light to pierce the darkness. Though his hearing, like his other senses, was unusually keen, the battle-bom Cimmerian saw, heard, smelled nothing menacing.

  The moon, just now on the other side of Arenjun, was at its crescent. He congratulated himself-as if he'd had a choice-on choosing well the time of his invasion; in the night of the morrow the streets would be full of religious revellers and their torches and eerie humming murmurs – punctuated by screams supposed to denote fervour.

  He heard nothing, saw nothing. Silence lay over the brooding keep of Hisarr Zul like a black blanket. The double-winged, two-storey manse bulked silent, forty feet away, a pale place that might lair liches and drying mummies. Conan saw no light. He had noted one on the far side in the other wing, which was why he was where he was, amid dead shadows outside dark windows.

  Forty feet of sod, grassy and beshrubbed with bushy evergreens, like shadow-sentinels rearing in the night. Near them might lie fallen needles to pierce and slow bare feet. He'd skirt them, then; it was dark enough that a man needn't seek tree-shadows. Forty feet. There might be dogs, traps, lions – unknown guardians. He considered. Creeping, skulking, he was as likely to arouse such guardians as on the run. In this darkness he was no less likely to spring traps. And skulking, he'd have less chance of escaping trap or sentinels, human or otherwise.

  He dropped into Hisarr's grounds with hardly a sound.

  Crouching, he was able to see less than he had from atop the wall. No matter. He'd marked every tree, and the house, and his path. He took a deep breath-and ran, as though a dozen demons pursued him.

  Seconds later he was beside the house, and hardly winded. Nothing had happened. The only sound was his
own breathing. Hisarr Zul either had no defences as had Yara, or-the Cimmerian, racing with such swift silence, had aroused none. Good! Beside the house, Conan looked up.

  Would this conveniently-located window open?

  No. Of course not. Nothing was that easy. He moved on. This one? No. He considered breaking it. No. Though the only light he'd seen was over in the other wing, he'd not risk the noise of shattering glass – which was nigh opaque, and amethystine in hue. The Cimmerian moved on beside the lich-pale wall. A shrub seemed to lean towards him and, superstitiously, his nape and armpits prickling, Conan avoided it in a wide semi-circuit. Was Hisarr a mage?

  Another window, also purplish, also impenetrable to his glower, also secured from within.

  Directly over his head loomed a small round balcony. Perhaps Hisarr stood there to watch the sunset. Perhaps its door...

  Conan's pouch was stuffed with wrapped tools wedged with pieces of sponge, against noise. After removing it from his belt, he tied its thongs to one end of Taurus's rope.

  Conan stepped back, and back, keeping close to the house. Panic threatened when he backed into the shrub he'd suspected of some impossible sentience. He was wrong. It was only a tall evergreen bush.

  The balcony was more than ten feet above the ground. That second storey must have mighty thick floors, judging from the height of windows and balcony! An iron safety railing surrounded it. Conan squinted. The vertical bars of iron were thumb-thick, and spaced about eight inches apart. Conan aimed, tested and corrected his stance, wound up, aimed, and threw his tool-pouch. The rope streamed out behind it.

  He muttered curses when the pouch struck one of the uprights and rebounded. He caught it without a clink.

  'Try to hit one of those little rods and I'd miss nine in ten times!'

  His second throw was more forceful, and only generally aimed. Trailing the ill-gained rope, the pouch rushed between two iron bars, across four feet of balcony, and 'lunged between two bars on the other side. Conan's grip of the rope stopped the pouch a foot short of the ground. He let it down, dropped his end of the rope. There was plenty of slack.