The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

Let his enmity eat at him like foxes.'

  'You know little of him,' Tamur said insistently. 'He-'

  With a loud crack the floorboards by Conan's feet splintered, and a twisted grey-green hand reached through the opening to grasp his ankle.

  'The spirits have come!' one of the nomads cried, eyes bulging, and Yasbet began to scream through her gag. The other men drew weapons, shouting in confusion.

  Conan scrambled to his feet, trying to pull his leg free, but those leathery fingers held with preternatural strength. Another deformed hand broke through the boards, reaching for him, but his sword leaped from its sheath and arched down. One hand dropped to the floor; the other still gripped him. But at least, he thought, steel would slice them.

  With his sword point he pried the fingers loose from his ankle. Even as that hand fell free, though, the head of the creature, with pointed ears and dead, haunted eyes above a lipless gash of a mouth, smashed up through the floor in a shower of splintered wood. Handless arms stretched out to the hands lying on the floor. The mould-coloured flesh seemed to flow, and the hands were once more attached to the arms.

  The creature began to tear its way up into the room, ripping the sturdy floor apart as if its boards were rotted.

  Suddenly another set of hands smashed through a wall, seizing a screaming Hyrkanian, tearing at his flesh.

  Conan struck off the head of the first creature, but it continued to scramble into the room even while its head spun glaring on the floor. A third head broke through the floor, and a hand followed to seize Yasbet's leg. With a shriek, she fainted.

  Conan caught her as she fell, cutting her free of the creature that held her. There was naught to do in that room but die.

  'Flee!' he shouted. 'Get out!'

  Tossing Yasbet over his shoulder like a sack of meal, he scrambled out the window to drop to the street below.

  Struggling Hyrkanians fought to follow. Screams from that suddenly hellish room rose to a crescendo, pursuing the big Cimmerian as he ran with his burden. As abruptly as it had begun, the screaming ceased.

  Conan looked back, but he could see nothing in the blackness.

  A low moan broke from Yasbet, stirring on his shoulder. Remembering the tenacity of the hand, he placed her on the ground and bent to feel along her leg. His fingers encountered the lump of leathery skin and sinew; it writhed at his touch. With an oath he tore it from her flesh and hurled it into the night.

  Yasbet groaned, and opened her eyes. 'I... I had a nightmare,' she whispered.

  ''Twas no dream,' he muttered. His eyes searched the dark for pursuit. 'But it is done.' He hoped.

  'But those demons... you mean that they were real?' Sobs welled up in her. 'Where did they come from?

  Why? Oh, Mitra, protect us,' she wailed.

  Clamping a hand over her mouth, he growled, 'Quiet yourself, girl. Were I to wager on it, I'd stack my coin on Jhandar's name. And if you continue screeching like a fishwife, his minions will find us. We may not escape so easily again.' Cautiously he took his hand away; she scrambled to her feet, staring at him.

  'I do not believe you,' she said. 'Or those smelly Hyrkanians.' But she did not raise her voice again.

  'There is evil in the man,' he said quietly. 'I've seen the foulest necromancy from him, and I doubt not this is more of his black art.'

  'It cannot be. The cult-'

  'Hsst!'

  The thump of many feet sounded down the street. Pulling Yasbet deeper into the shadows, Conan waited with blade at the ready. Dim figures appeared, moving slowly from the way he had come. The smell of old grease drifted to him.

  'Tamur?' he called softly.

  There were mutters of startlement, and the flash of bare blades in the dark. Then one figure came closer.

  'Conan?'

  'Yes,' the Cimmerian replied. 'How many escaped?'

  'Thirteen,' Tamur sighed. 'The rest were torn to pieces. You must come with us, now. Those were Baalsham's spirit creatures. He will find you eventually, and when he does ....'

  Conan felt Yasbet shiver. 'He cannot find me,' he said. 'He does not even know who to look for.'

  Suddenly another Hyrkanian spoke. 'A fire,' he said. 'To the north. A big fire.'

  Conan glanced in that direction, a deathly chill in his bones. It was a big fire, and unless he had lost his way entirely the Blue Bull was in the centre of it. Without another word he ran, pulling Yasbet behind him. He heard the nomads following, but he cared not if they came or stayed.

  The street of the Lotus Dreamers was packed with people staring at the conflagration. Flames from four structures whipped at the night, and reflected crimson glints from watching faces. One, the furthest gone, was the Blue Bull. Someone had formed a chain of buckets to the nearest cistern, Ferian among them, but it was clear that some goodly part of the district would be destroyed before the blaze was contained, most likely by pulling down buildings to surround the fire and letting it burn itself out.

  As Conan pushed through the crowd of onlookers, a voice drifted to him.

  'I hit it with the staff, and it disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. I told you the staff had magical powers.'

  Smiling for what seemed the first time in days, Conan made his way toward that voice. He found Akeba and Sharak, faces smudged with smoke, sitting with their backs against the front of a potter's shop.

  'You are returned,' Sharak said when he saw the big Cimmerian. 'And with the wench. To think we believed it was you who would be in danger this night. I killed one of the demons.'

  'Demons?' Conan asked sharply.

  Akeba nodded. 'So they seemed to be. They burst through the walls and even the floors, tearing apart anyone who got in their way' He hesitated. 'They seemed to be hunting for someone who was not there.'

  'Me,' Conan said grimly.

  Yasbet gasped. 'It cannot be.' The men paid her no mind.

  'I said that he would find you,' Tamur said, appearing at Conan's side. 'Now you have no choice but to go to Hyrkania.'

  'Hyrkania!' Sharak exclaimed.

  Regretfully Conan nodded agreement. He was committed, now. He must destroy Jhandar or die.

  XIII

  In the grey early morning Conan made his way down the stone quay, already busy with lascars and cargo, to the vessel that had been described to him. Foam Dancer seemed out of place among the heavy-hulled roundships and large dromonds. Fewer than twenty paces in length, she was rigged with a single lateen sail and pierced for fifteen oars a side in single banks. Her sternpost curved up and forward to assume the same angle as her narrow stem, giving her the very image of agility. He had seen her like before, in Sultanapur, small ships designed to beach where the King's Custom was unlikely to be found.

  They claimed to be fishing vessels, to the last one, these smugglers, and over this one, as over every smuggler he had seen, hung a foul odor of old fish and stale ship's cooking.

  He walked up the gangplank with a wary eye, for the crews of such vessels invariably had a strong dislike for strangers. Two sun-blackened and queued seamen, stripped to the waist, watched him with dark unblinking eyes as he stepped down onto the deck.

  'Where is your captain?' he began, when a surreptitious step behind made him whirl.

  His hand darted out to catch a dagger-wielding arm, and he found himself staring into a sharp-nosed face beneath a dirty red-striped head scarf. It was the Iranistani whose companions he had been forced to kill his first day in Aghrapur. And if he was a crew member, then as like as not the other two had been as well. The Iranistani opened his mouth, but Conan did not wait to hear what he had to say. Grabbing the man's belt with his free hand, Conan took a running step and threw him screaming over the rail into the harbour. Sharp-nose hit the garbage-strewn water with a thunderous splash and, beating the water furiously, set out away from the ship without a backward glance.

  'Hannuman's Stones!' roared a bull-necked man, climbing onto the deck from below. Bald except for a thin black fringe, he wore a full beard fanning
across his broad chest. His beady eyes lit on Conan. 'Are you the cause of all the shouting up here?'

  'Are you the captain?' Conan asked.

  'I am. Muktar, by name. Now what in the name of Erlik's Throne is this all about?'

  'I came aboard to hire your ship,' Conan said levelly, 'and one of your crew tried to put a dagger in my back. I threw him into the harbour.'

  'You threw him into the ....' The captain's bellow trailed off, and then went on in a quieter, if suspicious tone. 'You want to hire Foam Dancer? For what?'

  'A trading voyage to Hyrkania.'

  'A trader! You?' Muktar roared with laughter, slapping his stout thighs.

  Conan ground his teeth, waiting for the man to finish. The night before he, Akeba and Tamur had settled on the trading story. Never a trusting people, the Hyrkanians had become less tolerant of strangers since Jhandar, but traders were still permitted. Conan thought wryly of Davinia's gold. When the cost of trade goods, necessary for the disguise, was added to the hiring of this vessel, there would not be enough left for a good night of drinking.

  At last Muktar's mirth ran its course. His belly shook a last time, and cupidity lit his eyes. 'Well, the fishing has been very good of late. I don't think I could give it up for so long for less than say, fifty gold pieces.'

  'Twenty,' Conan countered.

  'Out of the question. You've already cost me a crewman. He didn't drown, did he? An he did, the authorities will make me haul him out of the harbour and pay for his burial. Forty gold pieces, and I consider it cheap.'

  Conan sighed. He had little time to waste. If Tamur was right, they had to be gone from Aghrapur by nightfall. 'I'll split the difference with you,' he offered. 'Thirty gold pieces, and that is my final offer. If you do not like it, I'll find another vessel.'

  'There isn't another in port can put you ashore on a Hyrkanian beach,' the captain sneered.

  'Tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, there will be.' Conan shrugged unconcernedly.

  'Very well,' Muktar muttered sourly. 'Thirty gold pieces.'

  'Done,' Conan said, heading for the side. 'We sail as soon as the goods are aboard. The tides will not matter to this shallow draft.'

  'I thought there was no hurry,' the bearded man protested.

  'Nor is there,' Conan said smoothly. 'Neither is there any need to waste time.' Inside, he wondered if they would get everything done. There simply was no time to waste.

  'Speak on,' Jhandar commanded, and paced the bare marble floor of his antechamber while he listened.

  'Yes, Great Lord,' the young man said, bowing. 'A man was found in one of the harbour taverns, an Iranistani who claimed to have fought one who must be the man Conan. This Iranistani was a sailor on a smuggler, Foam Dancer, and it seems that this ship sailed only a few hours past bearing among its passengers a number of Hyrkanians, a huge blue-eyed barbarian, and a girl matching the description of the initiate who disappeared the night of the Hyrkanians' attack.' He paused, awaiting praise for having ferreted out so much so quickly.

  'The destination, fool,' Jhandar demanded. 'Where was the ship bound?'

  'Why, Hyrkania, or so it is said, Great Lord.'

  Jhandar squeezed his eyes shut, massaging his temples with his fingers. 'And you did not think this important enough to tell me without being asked?'

  'But, Great Lord,' the disciple faltered, 'since they have fled... that is....'

  'Whatever you discover, you will tell me,' the necromancer snapped. 'It is not for you to decide what is important and what is not. Is there aught else you have omitted?'

  'No, Great Lord. Nothing.'

  'Then leave me!'

  The shaven-headed young man backed from Jhandar's presence, but the mage had already dismissed him from his mind. He who had once been known as Baalsham moved to a window. From there he could see Davinia reclining in the shade of a tree in the gardens below, a slave stirring a breeze for her with a fan of white ostrich plumes. He had never known a woman like her before. She was disturbing.

  And fascinating.

  'I but listen at corners, Great Lord,' Che Fan said behind him, 'yet I know that already there is talk because she is not treated as the rest.'

  Jhandar suppressed a start and glanced over his shoulder at the two Khitans. Never in all the years they had followed him had he gotten used to the silence with which they moved. 'If wagging tongues cannot be kept still,' he said, 'I will see that there are no tongues to wag.'

  Che Fan bowed. 'Forgive me, Great Lord, if I spoke out of my place.'

  'There are more important matters afoot,' Jhandar said. 'The barbarian has sailed for Hyrkania. He would not have done so were he merely fleeing. Therefore he must be seeking something, some weapon, to use against me.'

  'But there is nothing, Great Lord,' Suitai protested. 'All was destroyed.'

  'Are you certain of that?' Jhandar asked drily. 'Certain enough to risk all of my plans? I am not. I intend to secure the fastest galley in Aghrapur, and the two of you will sail on the next tide. Kill this Conan, and bring me whatever it is he seeks.'

  'As you command, Great Lord,' the Khitans murmured together.

  All would be well, Jhandar told himself. He had come too far to fail now. Too far.

  XIV

  Gray seas rolled under Foam Dancer's pitching bow, and a mist of foam carried across her deck. The triangular sail stood taut against the sky, where a pale yellow sun had sunk halfway from zenith to western horizon. At the stern a seaman, shorter than Conan but broader, leaned his not inconsiderable weight against the steering oar, but the rest of the crew for the most part lay sprawled among the bales of trade goods.

  Conan stood easily, one hand gripping a stay. He was no sailor, but his time among the smugglers of Sultanapur had at least taught his stomach to weather the constant motion of a ship.

  Akeba was not so fortunate. He straightened from bending over the rail-as he had done often since the vessel left Aghrapur-and said thickly, 'A horse does not move so. Does it never stop?'

  'Never,' Conan said. But at a groan from the other he relented. 'Sometimes it will be less, and in any case you will become used to it. Look at the Hyrkanians. They've made but a single voyage, yet show no illness.'

  Tamur and the other nomads squatted some distance in front of the single tail mast, their quiet murmurs melding with the creak of timbers and cording. They passed among themselves clay wine jugs and chunks of ripe white cheese, barely interrupting their talk to fill their mouths.

  'I do not want to look at them,' Akeba said, biting off each word. 'I swear before Mitra that I know not which smells worse, rotted fish or mare's milk cheese.'

  Nearby, in the waist of the ship, a few of the sailors listened to Sharak. '... Thus did I strike with my staff of power,' he gestured violently with his walking staff, 'slaying three of the demons in the Blue Bull. Great were their lamentations and cries for mercy, but for such foul-hearted creatures as they I would know no mercy. Many more would I have transmuted to harmless smoke, blown away on the breeze, but they fled before me, back to their infernal regions, casting balls of fire to hinder my pursuit, as I....'

  'Did he truly manage to harm one of the creatures?' Conan asked Akeba. 'He has boasted of that staff for years, but never have I seen more from it than support for a tired back.'

  'I know not,' Akeba said. He was making a visible effort to ignore his stomach, but his dark face bore a greenish pallor. 'I saw him at the first, leaping about like a Farthii fire-dancer and flailing with his stick at whatever moved, then not again till we had fled to the street. Of the fire, however, I do know. 'Twas Ferian. He threw a lamp at one of the demons, harming the creature not at all, but scattering burning oil across a wall.'

  'And burned down his own tavern,' Conan chuckled. 'How it will pain him to build anew, though I little doubt he has the gold to do it ten times over.'

  Muktar, making his way aft from the necessary-a plank held out from the bow on a frame-paused by Conan. His beady eyes rolled to
the sky, then to the Cimmerian's face. 'Fog,' he said, then chewed his thought a moment before adding, 'by sunset. The Vilayet is treacherous.' Clamping his mouth shut as though he had said more than he intended, he moved on toward the stern in a walk that would have seemed rolling on land, but here exactly compensated for the motion of the deck.

  Conan grimly watched him go. 'The further we sail from Aghrapur, the less he talks and the less I trust him.'

  'He wants the other half of his gold that you hold back. Besides, with the Hyrkanians we outnumber his crew.'

  Mention of the gold was unfortunate. After he paid the captain, Conan would have exactly eight pieces of gold in his pouch. In other times it would have seemed a tidy sum, but not so soon after having had a hundred. He found himself hoping to make a profit on the trade goods, and yet thoughts of profits and trading left a taste in his mouth as if he had been eating the Hyrkanians' ripest cheese.

  'Mayhap,' he said sourly. 'Yet he would feed us to the fish and return to his smuggling, were he able.

  He- What's the matter, man?'

  Eyes bulging, Akeba swallowed rapidly, and with force. 'Feed us to-' With a groan he doubled over the rail again, retching loudly and emptily. There was naught left in him to come up.

  Yasbet came hurrying from the stern, casting frowns over her shoulder as she picked her way quickly among coiled ropes and wicker hampers or provisions. 'I do not like this Captain Muktar,' she announced to Conan. 'He leers at me as if he would see me naked on a slave block.'

  Conan had declared her saffron robe unsuited for a sea voyage, and she had shown no reluctance to rid herself of that reminder of the cult. Now she wore a short leather jerkin, laced halfway up the front, over a grey wool tunic, with trousers of the same material and knee-high red boots. It was't man's garb, but the way the coarse wool clung to her form left no doubt there was a woman inside.

  'You've no need to fear,' Conan said firmly. Perhaps he should have a talk with Muktar in private. With his fists. And the captain was not the only one. His icy gaze caught the leering glances of a dozen sailors directed at her.