Whatever the truth, Bhunda Chand's column met the caravan on which we and the wazam travelled. And one Alyna, a servant of the Lady Vyndra, gave testimony that her mistress and a pale-skinned barbarian called Patil had plotted with Karim Singh and spoken in her presence of slaying Bhandarkar.'
A shriek of fury announced that Vyndra had just had the same information from Kuie Hsi. The Vendhyan noblewoman stormed from behind the horses, clutching half-donned silken robes that fluttered after her. 'I will strip her hide! That sow will speak the truth, or I will wear out switches on her!'
'I fear it is too late for any such action on your part,' Kang Hou said. 'Alyna-perhaps I should say the Lady Alyna-has already been confirmed in your titles and estates. The Royal Edict concerning you not only strips you of those possessions but gifts her with your life and person.'
Vyndra's mouth worked silently for a moment, then she rounded on Conan.
'You are the cause of this! It is all your fault! What are you going to do about it?'
'I am to blame?' Conan growled. 'I enslaved Alyna?' Vyndra's eyes almost started from her head in fury and he sighed. 'Very well. I will take you to Turan with me.'
'Turan!' she cried, throwing up her hands. 'It is a pigsty, unfit for a civilised woman! It-' Suddenly it dawned on her that her gesture had bared her to the waist. Shrieking, she snatched the still-sliding silk and dashed for the shelter of the horses.
'A woman whose temper equals her great beauty,' Kang Hou said, and whose deviousness and vindictiveness exceed both.'
Conan waved the words aside. 'What of Gwandiakan? Will it be safe to hide there for a day or two while we recuperate?'
'That will not be possible,' Kuie Hsi said, joining them. 'The people of Gwandiakan took the earthquake as a sign from the gods, especially when they discovered that carts had been assembled to take the children from the city to an unknown destination. A wall of the fortress had collapsed. The people stormed the fortress, freeing the imprisoned children. Soldiers who tried to stop them were torn limb from limb.
Jharim Kar has promised justice in the matter, but in the meanwhile his soldiers patrol the streets heavily. I cannot believe any Western foreigner would long escape their notice.'
'I am glad for the children,' Conan said, 'for all it had nothing to do with me, but this means we must ride for the mountains from here. And the sooner the better, I think. What of you, Kang Hou? Are you, too, proscribed?'
'I am but a humble merchant,' the Khitan replied, 'and so, no doubt, beneath Alyna's notice. To my good fortune. As for your journey over the mountains, I fear that not all who came with you will return to Turan. You will pardon me.' Bowing, he left before Conan could ask what he meant, but Hasan took his place.
'I must speak with you,' the young Turanian said. 'Alone.' Still frowning after Kang Hou, Conan let himself be drawn off from the others. Hasan pressed a folded square of parchment into the Cimmerian's hand. 'When you return to Sultanapur, Conan, take that to the House of Perfumed Doves and say it is for Lord Khalid.'
'So you are the one who will not return to Turan,' Conan said, turning over the square of parchment in his hands. 'And what message is it you send to Yildiz's spy master?'
'You know of him?'
'More is known on the streets of Sultanapur than the lords of Turan would believe. But you have not answered my question.'
The Turanian drew a deep breath. 'I was sent to discover if a connection exists between the Vendhyans and the death of the High Admiral. Not one question have I asked concerning that, yet I know already this land is so full of intrigues within intrigues that no clear answer can ever be found. I say as much in the letter. As well I say that I can find no evidence connecting the 'fishermen' of Sultanapur with the matter, and that the rumours of a northland giant in the pay of Vendhyans is just that. A rumour. Lord Khalid will recognise my hand, and so know it for a true report. It is unsealed. You may read it if you wish.'
Conan stuffed the parchment into his belt pouch. There would be time for reading-and for deciding whether to visit the House of Perfumed Doves-later. 'Why are you remaining?' he asked. 'Chin Kou.'
'Yes. Kang Hou has no objections to a foreigner marrying into his family.' Hasan snorted a laugh. 'After years of avoiding it, it seems I will become a spice merchant after all.'
'Be careful,' Conan cautioned. 'I wish you well, but I do not believe the Khitans are much less devious than the Vendhyans.'
Leaving the young Turanian, Conan went in search of Kang Hou. The merchant was seated on the wall of the caved-in well. 'Soon you will be fleeing Vendhya,' the Khitan said as Conan approached. 'What of your plans to sack the land with an army at your back?'
'Someday perhaps. But Vendhya is a strange land, mayhap too devious for a simple northlander like me. It makes my thoughts whirl in peculiar fashions.'
Kang Hou arched a thin eyebrow. 'How so, man who calls himself Patil?'
'Just fragments, spinning. Odd memories. Valash, sitting in the Golden Crescent on the morning the High Admiral died. A very hard man, Valash.
He would never have let two such beauties as your nieces leave his ship except to a slaver's block. Unless someone frightened him into it perhaps. But then, you are a very hard man for a poor merchant, are you not, Kang Hou? And your niece, Kuie Hsi, is an extremely able woman.
The way in which she passed for a Vendhyan woman to seek information in Gwandiakan. And knowing Naipal was among those who rode to the Forests of Ghelai, though I have heard his face was known but to a handful.
Were you aware that a Vendhyan woman was delivered to the High Admiral as a gift on the morning he died? She vanished soon after his death, I understand. But I have never understood why the Vendhyans would sign a treaty with Turan and kill the High Admiral within a day of it. Kandar seemed truly shocked at the news, and Karim Singh as well. Strange, would you not say, Kang Hou?'
All through the rambling discourse the Khitan had listened with an expression of polite interest. Now he smiled, tucking his hands into his broad sleeves. 'You weave a very fanciful tale for one who calls himself a simple northlander.'
Returning the smile, Conan put his hand on his dagger. 'Will you wager you are faster than I?' he asked softly.
For an instant Kang Hou wavered visibly. Then, slowly, he brought his hands into the open. Empty. 'I am but a peaceful merchant,' he said as though nothing had happened. 'If you would care to listen, perhaps I can weave a tale as fanciful as yours. Having, of course, as little to do with reality.'
'I will listen,' Conan said cautiously, but he did not move his hand from the dagger hilt.
'I am from Cho-Hien,' the Khitan began, 'a small city-state on the borders of Vendhya. The lifeblood of Cho-Hien is trade, and its armies are small. It survives by balancing its larger, stronger neighbours one against another. Largest, strongest and most avaricious of Cho-Hien's neighbours is Vendhya. Perhaps the land rots from within, as you say, but the ruling caste, the Kshatriyas, are tierce men with eyes for conquest. If those eyes turn to the north, they will fall first on Cho-Hien. Therefore Cho-Hien must keep the Kshatriyas' gaze to the east, or to the west. A treaty with Turan, for instance, might mean that Kshatriyan ambitions would look not toward the Vilayet but toward Khitai. My tale, I fear, has no more point than yours but perhaps you found it entertaining.'
'Entertaining,' Conan agreed. 'But a question occurs to me. Does Chin Kou share Kuie Hsi's talents? That is,' he added with a smile, 'if Kuie Hsi had any talents out of the ordinary.'
'Chin Kou's sole talent is that she remembers and can repeat every word that she hears or reads. Beyond that she is merely a loving niece who comforts an ageing man's bones. Though now it seems she will comfort another.'
'That brings another question. Does Hasan know of this?'
'Of my fanciful tale? No.' A broad grin split the Khitan's face. 'But he knew what I was, as I knew what he was, before ever we reached the Himelias. He will make a fine addition to my family. For a foreigner.
; Now I will ask a question,' he added, the grin fading. 'What do you intend concerning my fanciful tale?'
'A tale spun by a northlander and another spun by a Khitan merchant,'
Conan said musingly. 'Who in Turan would believe if I told them? And if they did, they would find ten other reasons for war, or near to war.
For there to be true peace between Turan and Vendhya, the Vilayet will have to expand to swallow Secunderam, perhaps enough to separate the two lands for all time. Besides, true peace and true war alike are bad for smugglers.'
'You are not so simple as you claim, northlander.'
'Vendhya is still a strange land,' Conan replied with a laugh. 'And one I must be leaving. Fare you well, Kang Hou of Cho-Hien.'
The Khitan rose and bowed, though he was careful to keep his hands away from his sleeves. 'Fare you well ... Conan of Cimmeria.'
Conan laughed all the way to the horses. 'Hordo,' he roared, 'do we ride, or have you grown so old you have put down roots? Enam, to horse!
And you, Shamil. Do you ride with us, or remain here like Hasan?'
'I have had my fill of travel and adventure,' Shamil replied earnestly.
'I return to Sultanapur to become a fisherman. For fish!'
Vyndra pushed her way past the men scrambling into saddles and confronted Conan. 'What of me?' she demanded.
'You do not wish to go to Turan,' Conan told her, 'and you cannot remain in Vendhya. Except as Alyna's ... guest. Perhaps Kang Hou will take you to Cho-Hien.'
'Cho-Hien! Better Turan than that!'
'Since you have asked so nicely, if you keep me warm on the cold nights in the mountains, I will find a place for you dancing in a tavern in Sultanapur.'
Her cheeks coloured, but she held out her arms for him to lift her to her saddle. As he did, though, she pressed herself against him briefly and whispered, 'I would much rather dance for you alone.'
Conan handed her her reins and turned away, hiding a smile as he vaulted to his own saddle. There would be problems with this woman yet, but amusing ones he thought.
'What of the antidote?' Hordo asked. 'And Ghurran?'
'I saw him,' Conan replied. 'You might say he saved all of us with what he told me.' Ignoring the one-eyed man's questioning look, he went on.
'But are we to sit here until the Vendhyans put all our heads on pikes?
Come! There's a wench called Tasha waiting for me in Sultanapur.' And with a grin for Vyndra's angry squawl, he booted his horse to a gallop, toward the mountains towering to the north.
Conan the Unconquered
Robert Jordan
Prologue
Storm winds howling off the midnight-shrouded Vilayet Sea clawed at the granite-walled compound of the Cult of Doom. The compound gave the appearance of a small city, though there were no people on its streets at that hour. More than the storm and the lateness kept them fast in their beds, praying for sleep, though but a bare handful of them could have put a finger to the real reason, and those that could did not allow themselves to think on it. The gods uplift, and the gods destroy. But no one ever believes the gods will touch them.
The man who was now called Jhandar did not know if gods involved themselves in the affairs of mortals, or indeed if gods existed, but he did know there were Powers beneath the sky. There were indeed Powers, and one of those he had learned to use, even to control after a fashion. Gods he would leave to those asleep in the compound, those who called him their Great Lord.
Now he sat cross-legged in saffron robes before such a Power. The chamber was plain, its pearly marble walls smooth, its two arched entrances unadorned. Simple round columns held the dome that rose above the shallow pool, but ten paces across, that was the room's central feature. There was no ornamentation, for friezes or sculptures or ornate working of stone could not compete with that pool, and the Power within.
Water, it might seem at first glance, but it was not. It was sharply azure and flecked with argent phosphorescence. Jhandar meditated, basking in the radiance of Power, and the pool glowed silver-blue, brighter and brighter until the chamber seemed lit with a thousand lamps. The surface of the pool bubbled and roiled, and mists rose, solidifying. But only so far. The mists formed a dome, as if a mirror image of the pool below, delineating the limits that contained the Power, both above and below. Within ultimate disorder was bound, Chaos itself confined. Once Jhandar had seen such a pool loosed from its bonds, and fervently did he wish never to see such again. But that would not happen here. Not now. Not ever.
Now he could feel the Power seeping into his very bones. It was time. Smoothly he rose and made his way through one of the archways, down a narrow passage lit by bronze lamps, bare feet padding on cool marble. He prided himself on his lack of ostentation, even to so small a thing as not wearing sandals. He, like the pool, needed no adornment.
The passage let into a circular sanctorum, its albescent walls worked in intricate arabesques, its high vaulted ceiling held aloft by fluted alabaster columns. Light came from golden cressets suspended aloft on silver chains. Massive bronze doors barred the chamber's main entrance, their surfaces within and without worked in a pattern of Chaos itself, by an artist under the influence of the Power, before madness and death had taken him. The Power was not for all.
The forty men gathered there, a fifth part of his Chosen, did need this show of splendor to reflect the glory of their cause. Yet the most important single item in that chamber, an altar set in the exact centre of the circle formed by the room, was of unornamented black marble.
Two-score men turned silently as Jhandar entered, saffron robed and shaven of head as the laws of the cult demanded, just as it forbade its women to cut their tresses. Eager eyes watched him; ears strained to hear his words.
'I am come from the Pool of the Ultimate,' he intoned, and a massive sigh arose, as if he had come from the presence of a god. Indeed, he suspected they considered it much the same, for though they believed they knew the purposes and meanings of the Cult, in truth they knew nothing.
Slowly Jhandar made his way to the black altar, and all eyes followed him, glowing with the honour of gazing on one they considered but a step removed from godhead himself. He did not think of himself so, for all his ambitions. Not quite.
Jhandar was a tall man, cleanly muscled but slender. Bland, smooth features combined with his shaven head to make his age indeterminate, though something in his dark brown eyes spoke of years beyond knowing. His ears were square, but set on his head in such a fashion that they seemed slightly pointed, giving him an other-worldly appearance. But it was the eyes that oft convinced others he was a sage ere he even opened his mouth. In fact he was not yet thirty.
He raised his arms above his head, letting the folds of his robes fall back. 'Attend me!'
'We attend, Great Lord!' forty throats spoke as one.
'In the beginning was nothingness. All came from nothingness.'
'And to nothingness must all return.'
Jhandar allowed a slight smile touch his mouth. That phrase, watchword of his followers, always amused him. To nothingness, indeed, all must return. Eventually. But not soon. At least, not him.
While he was yet a boy, known by the first of many names he would bear, fate had carried him beyond the Vilayet Sea, beyond even far Vendhya, to Khitai of near fable. There, at the feet of a learned thaumaturge, an aged man with long, wispy mustaches and a skin the colour of luteous ivory, he had learned much. But a lifetime spent in the search for knowledge was not for him. In the end he had been forced to slay the old man to gain what he wanted, the mage's grimoire, his book of incantations and spells. Then, before he had mastered more than a handful, the murder was discovered, and he imprisoned. Yet he had known enough to free himself of that bare stone cell, though he had of necessity to flee Khitai. There had been other flights in his life, but those were long past. His errors had taught him.
Now his way was forward, and upward, to heights without end.
'In the beginning all of tota
lity was inchoate. Chaos ruled.'
'Blessed be Holy Chaos,' came the reply.
'The natural state of the universe was, and is, Chaos. But the gods appeared, themselves but children of Chaos, and forced order-unnatural, unholy order-upon the very Chaos from which they sprang.' His voice caressed them, raised their fears, then soothed those fears, lifted their hopes and fanned their fervour. 'And in that forcing they gave a foul gift to plan, the impurity that forever bars the vast majority of humankind from attaining a higher order of consciousness, from becoming as gods. For it is from Chaos, from ultimate disorder, that gods come, and man has within him the taint of enforced order.'
He paused then, spreading his arms as if to embrace them. Ecstasy lit their eyes as they waited for him to give the benediction they expected, and needed.
'Diligently,' he said, 'have you laboured to rid yourselves of the impurities of this world. Your worldly goods you have cast aside. Pleasures of the flesh you have denied yourselves. Now,' his voice rose to a thunder, 'now you are the Chosen!'
'Blessed be Holy Chaos! We are the Chosen of Holy Chaos!'
'Let the woman Natryn be brought forth,' Jhandar commanded.
From a cubicle where she had been kept waiting the Lady Natryn, wife of Lord Tariman, was led into the columned chamber. She did not look now the wife of one of the Seventeen Attendants, the advisors to King Yildiz of Turan. Naked, she stumbled in the hobble that confined her ankles, and would have fallen had not two of the Chosen roughly held her erect. Her wrists, fastened behind her with tight cords, lay on the swell of her buttocks. Her large brown eyes bulged in terror, and her lips worked frantically around a leather gag. Slender, yet full-breasted and well-rounded of hip, her body shone with the sweat of fear. No eyes there but Jhandar's looked on her as a woman, though, for the Chosen had forsaken such things.
'You have attempted to betray me, Natryn.'
The naked woman shook at Jhandar's words as if pierced with needles. She had dabbled in the teachings of the cult as did many bored women of the nobility, but her husband made her different, and necessary to Jhandar's great plan. With his necromancies he had learned every dark and shameful corner of her life.
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