The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'Just claim nothing and no one else here, Conan,' Arsil said, 'else we have rebellion within the Empire! You'd make a rotten slave anyhow, blue-eyes.'

  'Would I not indeed! Now Isparana here - methinks she'd be a perfect slave. Yet I am weak and overly gentle, and could not let her remain coffled. Why, one of those two camels is actually her own!'

  Arsil turned his head a bit to one side. 'And the other?'

  Conan spread his hands. 'I told you I followed her for my employer, up in Shadizar. She had several little' items of his - but all are in the pack on the sumpter-camel's back -my employer's camel.'

  That brought life to Isparana for the first time in the day and a half they had been slaves; she had been as if dazed, and the sudden appearance of friends of the Cimmerian thief and the opening of her iron anklet had been just as perplexing. Now she rounded on the grinning Conan.

  'Animal! Son of an animal! Dog of a thief-that is MY camel! Both are and you know it. Captain-look at me. I am on a mission for the khan of Zamboula himself. How can a soldier of Turan allow this - this -'

  'Best cease your habitual lyjng, my love,' Conan said, 'lest I claim too that bauble you wear around your neck.'

  Isparana's voice broke off; Isparana's eyes widened; Isparana's hand clamped over the amulet made by Hisarr Zul to confound thieves — a bit too late. Isparana's lips, too, clamped.

  Conan smiled up at the mounted Arsil. 'Did you find aught at the oasis up yonder?'

  'Nothing, The caravan you mentioned must have done something with the bodies you left. Naturally, they also appropriated the camels. A fine gift, to them.'

  Conan wagged his head. 'I do feel responsible, Arsil, and I am in your debt. Here.' He unstrapped the sword he'd taken from Uskuda the Samaratan thief. 'Take this; it is proof to your khan that you met and slew Uskuda and his partner.' He turned to his own sumpter-horse, and swiftly unstrapped a smallish pack. 'You know what this contains, Arsil, and you know whence it came, though you'd have let me keep it. Take it too. This way you return proof of Uskuda's death as well as a goodly portion of his loot.'

  'Conan, you were born too low! Come with us; a man of your abilities and noble nature will soon be my superior in the Guard of Samara!'

  'Noble,' Isparana muttered-and both Arsil and Conan stared until she looked away.

  'I will never forget you or that offer of employment,' Conan said, and he paused to show his pantherish strength and suppleness by pouncing on to his horse. 'But I must get myself up north, now. My employer does have a certain . . . hold on me. 'My lady' - you do think swiftly and you are good with a sword-too bad we cannot remain a team!'

  'Speaking of swords, do — uh, Conan —'

  He clapped a hand to his, which had been hers. 'Ah, you'll not need one, dear girl-these big Turanian soldiers will take care of you! Do fare well down in Zamboula. Oh-Arsil, my friend: get her to show you how well she swims!'

  And Conan urged his horse into a trot, with the other, a little more lightly laden, hurrying along behind at the end of his lead. Behind him swift-plodded Isparana's dromedary. All along the line of the caravan Conan rode, grinning, and paused only for a long, long moment in which he stared down at Iskul of Khawarizm.

  'Some day, fat one . . . some day I am going to come down to Khawarizm, and open up your belly to let the air nit, and burn down your whole rotten slaving city!'

  Then Conan galloped northward, and he made but one ;mall divergence on his direct route to Arenjun. At a certain oasis, he paced a hundred steps eastward into the desert arid there dug up a nice little package he had buried.

  IX

  Black Lotus and Yellow Death

  'So, Conan of Cimmeria! You are back in much less than a month,' Hisarr Zul said, his brows arching above exophthalmic eyes. 'You have succeeded in your mission, then?' The mage stood rocking on his toes, his hands clasped behind his back as Conan had first seen him.

  'Aye,' the Cimmerian said, and he glanced about the Green Room to which Hisarr's eerie guards had conducted him. Once again he was weaponless; those were down by the manse's rear door. Aye, there it was, he saw with a qualm and a renewal of that inner sensation of emptiness. There in the cupped hands of the statue of a black demon rested the little mirror containing his soul.

  Conan gestured. 'I'll have that mirror emptied, sorcerer.'

  'Will you! Nothing simpler-for me. But first the proof of your success in retrieving the amulet.'

  'I do hate to part with it,' Conan said. 'I've worn it for a week now.'

  'Hmm. And the copy I gave you?'

  'It has been in the hands of her who stole the real Eye from you. She is doubtless still on her way to Zamboula -with the five-man escort I arranged.'

  'How resourceful you are, Conan of Cimmeria!'

  'Not resourceful enough. I have no waters from that river down in Kush, or Stygian iron, and I am not the sort to slay a maiden for her hair!'

  The blood drained visibly from Hisarr's face. 'How did you-what sort of nonsense is this you speak?'

  'You have already slipped, sorcerer. It's true, then. Those are the means of your death. And all the souls you have stolen may be liberated by stuffing your dead skull with earth and burning it to ash, eh?'

  Hisarr Zul was shaken, and literally staggered: he backed a pace on watery knees while he stared into deadly blue eyes. 'You . . . but one person knows those things!'

  'And I am he. The other has been dead ten years. Ask no more, Hisarr Zul. Return to me my soul,' he said, fighting so as not to falter over the word, 'and I shall tell you where to find the amulet.'

  Regaining control though still pale, Hisarr shook his head. 'That will not do, Conan. I must see the Eye before I free you.'

  'And how will you know that it is the real Eye?'

  JI will know. So would the Khan of Zamboula - but he will never have the opportunity.'

  The Cimmerian thought of Isparana, on her journey over a thousand miles south to Zamboula. 'No?' He moved to place himself between his soul and its ... keeper.

  'No.'

  Smiling, Hisarr moved to his long, high table. There, muttering the while, he took up a carven chest of russet-coloured wood. From it he took, showing each to Conan, a ruby and two black-barred yellow stones, and a quantity of gold dust; the components of the Eye of Erlik. He dropped them into a bowl that appeared to have been wrought from a single piece of amber larger than the Cimmerian's fist. He filled it with oil from a large stoppered jug, and struck spark to tinder. He lit the oil, which flared up bluely, with tongues of yellow.

  'When the oil is consumed and the flame out, the bauble I made will be but a blob of yellow metal in which three gems are embedded. True gems, mind; I made the copy to place here and confound thieves. As you should very well know, my northish lad, experienced thieves know gem-stones from glass!'

  Conan nodded. He reached within his tunic. 'This will not become slag.'

  The sorcerer's dark eyes brightened and seemed to bulge a whit more. 'No, no, it will not. You have accomplished your task indeed, my good servant! Do you fetch me yon mirror, and we will soon have you whole again. A soulless man is a sad thing.'

  Conan said nothing; his agreement need not be expressed. He went to the statue and from its clawed, cupped hands of black jade plucked the mirror. With great care he conveyed it to the sorcerer, who stood across the table from

  him. There Hisarr presided over his alembics and crucibles, his powders and liquids, statuary and strange tools and that potent oil of a man who had within him the means of gaining control of the world, via the systematic stealing of souls. His eyes were fixed on the amulet Conan wore on a simple thong around his neck. It would be Hisarr Zul's means of controlling his first ruler, and Zamboula. A mere start.

  Conan placed the mirror on the table before the wizard, with great gentleness. He gazed across the board at the mage, from sullenly threatening blue eyes. Smiling, Hisarr Zul hefted a rolled strip of parchment. It was bound with a cord at either end so that it formed the
customary tube.

  'You are in some trouble with Arenjun's authorities, I now know. I have acquaintances among them; the magistrate, for instance. In this parchment lies the solution to all your problems, Conan of Cimmeria.'

  He held it high, balanced on his palm with his thumb atop, so that as Conan leaned forward to take it he was looking into the end of the tube. Conan took a deep breath . , .

  So did the mage. Swiftly Hisarr Zul's head bent and he set his puckering lips to his end of the tube. He blew.

  Conan knew instantly what the tube contained: death from far Khitai. Nor did he bother to cry 'Dog!' at Hisarr's trick. Having assured himself that his unwilling agent had returned the Eye of Erlik, the treacherous wizard would swiftly slay one who was manifestly dangerous to begin with and who now knew far too much. He blew hard into the tube-

  And Conan blew with all his might at the other end, just as the deadly powder started to emerge. Then he turned and ran as fleetly as ever he'd run, not tarrying or looking back to watch the cloud of the black lotus's yellow death envelop Hisarr Zul's face. Conan exited the room by the same door Isparana had used, and barred it just as she'd done.

  Conan sucked in a great breath-and grinned. He had blown all the deadly cloud back on the sorcerer - using Hisarr's own means against him as his dead brother had specified - and the Cimmerian felt no ill effects. He had

  blown so desperately in time.

  He saw that he had entered a room of dark portent and shuddersome occupancy; on various tables lay the corpses of those guards he and Ajhindar had slain in this keep of sorcery and death-and none had decomposed! The room also contained their clothing and weapons, and a horrid chemical odour.

  A new endeavour of that monster, Conan thought, but otherwise ignored the grim corpses. He seized on a sword, whished it through the air, tried another. First cutting off a goodly piece of thick drapery, he left the room by the corridor door. He grinned evilly at the single guard outside the Green Room. Mechanically, the soulless creature drew Ms sword, and again steel rang in the manse of Hisarr Zul. In less than a minute the guard bled from two wounds; the second was fatal.

  'If all has gone well, your soul will soon be liberated to go - wherever the souls of the dead go,' Conan said, and he pressed the doubled scrap of velvet firmly over his mouth and nose. Then he kicked open the door to the Green Room.

  Hisarr Zul, having collapsed instantly into unconsciousness, had had no opportunity to get at his antidote. More than twice two minutes had passed since Conan had left him enveloped in the cloud of greenish-yellow death. The powder still dusted the wizard's face and robe, like golden pollen.

  He lay on his back, and though his eyes were closed for he'd been unconscious, he was dead.

  So much for a sorcerer's nasty tricks, the Cimmerian thought, and so much for world conquest. And what a hero I am; I have just laid to rest the demon-lich of the haunted gorge!

  An hour later, having used the sorcerer's own potent oil to burn his earth-stuffed skull to white ash, Conan left the keep of Hisarr Zul. He bore a huge pack, and two swords, and several daggers. Too, he wore an excellent cloak. In the pack was much valuable loot. And, wrapped many times in fine velvet, was a small and most valuable mirror under a thick glass dome.

  Conan had the Eye of Erlik, and the wherewithal to gain the attention of a ruler of men, and his soul. Behind him, flames danced higher in the manse of Hisarr Zul.

  Conan the Mercenary

  Andrew J. Offutt

  Prologue

  The old man's skull gleamed in the lamplight that picked out brownish spots scattered over the tight-drawn skin. Pale yellow light emanated from four oil lamps set in a complicated sculpture suspended from the ceiling; daily a servant lowered the fixture on its chain to fill the lamps, which he later lit from a taper.

  The hairless dome thus unflatteringly lit belonged to my lord Sabaninus, Baron of Korveka. His chain and medallion of rank hung heavy on the breast of a robe of wine-dyed woollen. The robe was high of neck and long of sleeve, though neither weather nor this chamber of his office was cold.

  Slowly the baron lifted a wrinkled and liver-spotted hand to the jaw-long strands of hair that hung at his ear, framing his skull in a lank fringe the colour of cream. Even the last mocking remnant of his former mane was yellowing with age, as were his nails. Korveka's lord blinked, leaning a bit forward across his desk to look at his visitor.

  Was it sheer imagination that there seemed an aura of malign genius about this man from so very, very far away, however dimly the baron saw him?

  Sabaninus blinked again. The Baron of Korveka thought that no one discerned his failing sight and daily headaches; the truth was that none who more than glanced at him could fail to note how he blinked, and squinted, and strained ever forward in his effort to distinguish the details his eyes refused to report.

  The lord baron was certain of one detail concerning his visitor. The man's skin was yellow as a dying flower or as gold seen at sunset.

  The lord of Korveka had never before encountered a yellow-skinned person. This one he was delighted to see — almost to see - because the younger man had made the baron an offer; a most strange and tempting offer indeed.

  In silence, Sabaninus considered it. The two men gazed at each other. Neither moved. Above, the lamps burned silently. None would interrupt; so had Baron Sabaninus ordered. Sabaninus pondered the offer, and his past-and his future.

  The lord of the far north-western uplands of Koth was a widower. Nor had either of his wives borne him a son to inherit the domain of meadowland that produced such fine crops at the foothills of rearing mountains. Not even a daughter had his wives produced, a girl he might have wed to some other noble's son, to preside over Korveka and produce sons to carry on the line; even that were better than the situation in which he found himself. The baron was no happy man.

  Sabaninus knew that at court in Khorshemish he'd long been referred to as 'Baron Farm-lout' and 'Lord Bumpkin' and, of late, That Wrinkly Old Farm-lord of the Blue Lake Country. Other nobles of the ancient Hyborian kingdom plotted incessantly. None had approached Sabaninus for years. Neither his support nor his advice was any longer sought. His produce was valuable; he was harmless. He was neither an intimate of king and court, nor out of favour. None sought him as ally and none sought his counsel. People of other lands knew Koth for its superbly made armour; none came from Korveka. The barony's fertile land, fed by clear lakes and rivers emanating in the mountains, was effectively cut off from the rest of the country by that natural wall of granite. Here the land was too hospitable to animals and foodcrops to be wasted in the production of aught else. Even as far as Hyrkania across the Vilayet Sea; even as far as Zamboula to the south, men of weapons wore Kothian armour. Who beyond Koth's capital knew of Korvekan lettuce or cabbage or olives? What people truly appreciated those who fed them, in their cities and palaces? When Sabaninus of Korveka was thought of or mentioned, it was as that quaint old provincial noble from over in the mountains; the hermetic old fellow who sent such fine produce to the palace and markets of Khorshemish. Oh yes, Korvekan wool is superior - have you heard the latest about that handsome guard captain and the queen's cousin's wife . , . ?

  Royal decree had long forbidden his trading with his

  neighbour, the little kingdom of Khauran, a wedge nestled ..I! to Korveka's easternmost border. Fierce sky-reaching mountains separated Korveka from Corinthia and Zamora in the north. Korveka, which might well have been a kingdom of its own, was all but forgotten. 'Khauran,' Sabaninus muttered.

  'Aye. Khauran of the Unhappy Queens,' his visitor said in his glutinous voice.

  Ah, Sabaninus thought, if only he could have made alliance with the current queen or her predecessor - however fat, after her widowing. What a hero he'd be in Koth; in Khorshemish! Koth's narrow-eyed, plot-wary kings had long given jealous and calculating thought to the diminutive eastern neighbour. With a Kothian on its throne-a Korvekan! -alliance might well develop into . . . more; into a
sort of annexation of Khauran; a satrapy whose future ruler would be of Kothian blood.

  My lord Sabinamus, son of Sabaninus, Lord of Korveka and King of Koth!

  A smile flirted with Sabaninus's sagging mouth. Such a prospect, along with his becoming instantly honoured hero, meant more to him than did wearing Khauran's crown. It was his own people he had ever wanted to impress, during all the two-score years since he, at forty-two, had inherited his father's medallion and title. The medallion of sapphire-set gold had grown steadily heavier, and its chain; the meaning of the title had not appreciated. To be invited into the glittering palace in Khorshemish! To pass between lines of admiring and envious nobles; to be announced and honoured, welcomed and praised by a grateful king! Never again to be indicated as a bumpkinish upland farm-lord! Oh, aye! He'd gladly make the long ride down to the west to such a purpose, such a reception!

  His visitor smiled. 'And perhaps my lord baron is wise at that; as king over Khauran you would be but consort, and ever aware and wary of Koth, and justifiably nervous of invasion.'

  'You know my very thoughts, man of Khitai?' 'I have many abilities, Baron, but the reading of minds is not one of them. I am merely no fool; a wise man would

  know how you would think, having heard my proposal and taken time to reflect.'

  'Youth.'

  'Ah.' A smooth, gold-sheened hand rose, first finger uplifted as if in admonition. 'Not youth, Sabaninus of Korveka. The appearance of youth; the feel of it. That we can obtain for you. Inside, you remain the same man, and you surely cannot be offended by my pointing out that Death still has his burning eye on you.'

  The baron sighed, staring intently, and the sigh wheezed out through a mouth in which less than half the teeth remained. One ached even now.

  'My hair ...'

  'Full, and brown.'

  'My . . . my mouth . . .'

  'Firm of lip. Were your teeth white? They will be whiter.'