The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'And what, good thief, are you asking for your services?' inquired Taurus.

  'Besides revenge, I wish for a small pension - the kind Khoraja pays to her old soldiers.'

  'You shall have it,' said the chancellor.

  Conan shot a glance at the astrologer, asking: 'What is your part in this, Master Rhazes?'

  'I offer my services to your expedition, General. With my astronomical calculator,' he said, pointing to the brass box fitted with dials and wheels that he set upon his palm, 'I can seek out the most auspicious times for each step of your journey.'

  Rhazes held it forward and turned the silver knob. After frowning at the dials, he said, 'A happy coincidence! The best time for departure for the next two months occurs upon the morrow. And while I am no sorcerer, I know a magical trick or two to aid you.'

  Conan growled: 'I've managed not a few years without the aid of magical mummeries, and I see no reason to turn to them now.'

  'Furthermore,' said Rhazes blandly, ignoring Conan's remark, 'I know Koth well and speak the tongue without a trace of accent. Since we shall cross that vast kingdom on . our way to Ophir -'

  'The devil with that!' said Conan. 'Strabonus would love to get his hands on us. Nay, we shall skirt the borders of Koth, through Shem and Argos -'

  'Rhazes has reason' Taurus broke in. 'Time is of the essence, and the route you propose would add much to your journey.'

  Yasmela joined Taurus in the arguement, until Conan with little grace agreed to take the shorter route and accepted the Corinthian as the third member of the party. Then the chancellor said:

  'You will need personal guards and servants to do camp chores and care for your equipment -'

  'No!' roared Conan, smiting the table in the audience room. 'Every extra man is one more pair of eyes to see, ears to hear, and tongue to blab our secrets. I've camped out in many lands, in weather fair and foul, and Pronto also knows the rougher side of life. If Master Rhazes does not wish to share these trifling hardships, let him remain in Khoraja.'

  Taurus clucked. 'It is unheard-of for a man of your rank, General, to cross the country without even a varlet to clean your boots.'

  'I've done my chores before, and it won't harm me to do them once again. On a journey of this kind, he travels the fastest who travels alone.'

  The fat astrologer sighed. 'I will come alone, if I must. But ask me not to chop the firewood.'

  'Very well, then.' Conan rose. 'Chancellor, give Pronto a pass from the palace, lest some sentry assume the worst and clap him in irons.' He flipped a coin to the thief, who caught it. 'Pronto, buy yourself some clothes - decent but not gaudy - and meet me at the officers' quarters before the supper hour. Princess, permit me to escort you to your apartments.'

  When they neared Yasmela's rooms, Conan murmured: 'May I come to you tonight?'

  'I- know not - the risk -'

  'It may be our last time, you know.'

  'Oh, you wretched man to torment me so! Very well, I'll send my tiring women away before the changing of the guard.'

  Three riders and their pack mule trotted up the gentle slope that led toward the northern branch of the Kothian Escarpment. Now and again the travellers passed traffic on the

  road: a pedaller afoot with his nark rn his hark a farmer in a

  cart drawn by plodding oxen, a train of camels guided by Shemites in striped robes and head-cloths, a Khorajan aristocrat whipping his chariot team ahead of his cantering knot of retainers.

  At last the rampart of the escarpment towered above them. From below it seemed a solid wall of rock, but as they came closer, the wall was seen to be fractured into bluffs, parted by narrow gorges.

  The road led into one of these defiles, and as they walked their horses up the winding path cut in the canyon side, the wall of rock blotted out the setting sun. When the travellers mounted the highest rampart, the sun had set.

  To the west, the rounded Kothian hills stood out against the sky line like breasts of recumbent giantesses. In the distance Conan could discern the peak of Mount Khrosha, its plume of smoke coloured an angry red by the glow of the seething fires within the crater.

  Ahead the ground rolled gently, and here a group of armed men, wearing the golden helmet of Koth embroidered on their surcoats, halted them. The travellers had reached the border. Rhazes said:

  'General Conan, let me manage this.'

  With a grunt, the stout magician lowered himself from the saddle and approached the commander of the border guard. He took the officer by the elbow, led him aside, and spoke rapidly in fluent Kothic, now and then gesturing toward .his companions. The officer's stern face broke into a smile. Then uttering a guffaw and slapping his thigh, he turned to Conan and Pronto and jerked a thumb.

  'On your way!' he said.

  When the border post had shrivelled in the distance, Conan asked: 'What did you tell those knaves, Rhazes?' The astrologer smiled blandly.

  'I said that we are on our way to Asgalun and we heard tales of war among the western states of Shem.'

  'Aye, but what made the fellow laugh?'

  'Oh, I said that Pronto was my son, and we were going to offer prayers at the temple of Derketo to enable him to beget a son. I said he suffered from - ah - certain bodily weakness.'

  'You bastard !' roared Conan, doubling up with raucous mirth, while Pronto kept his eyes upon the road and scowled.

  The moon swelled to full, then shrank to a slender scimitar as they plodded over the endless leagues of Koth. They moved through a land of rolling prairie, where mounted neat herds tended long-horned cattle. They skirted the barrens of central Koth, where streams emptied into a lake so salt that the few plants marching along the marge were armed with spines and thorns. In time they reached more fertile country and stopped to rest.

  Conan studied his companions. Pronto worried him. The little thief was a willing helper, active and adroit; but he muttered endlessly about his private woes and grudges.

  'If the gods vouchsafe the chance,' he said, 'I'll slay that villain Moranthes, though afterwards they boil me in oil.'

  'I blame you not,' said Conan. 'Vengeance is sweet, and I, too, have enjoyed it. But one must survive to experience the pleasure of revenge.

  'Remember that we come not to kill Moranthes, however much he may deserve it, but to get Khossus out of his confines. Later if you would fain go back to stalk the king, that's your affair.'

  But Pronto still muttered, chewing his lips and wringing his fingers in the intensity of his pent-up emotions.

  Rhazes was different. The astrologer did no chores unless Conan bullied him, and he was so unhandy that he would have been but little help if willing. Always good-natured, he entertained the two with stories out of ancient myths and disquisitions on the arcane sciences.

  Still, the astrologer had a way of evading answers to direct questions, slithering out from under them like a serpent wriggling away from a descending foot. Conan felt a vague distrust of the man; yet, however much he watched and listened, he could find nothing definite against him.

  They were camped in a stretch of forest east of Khorshemish when Rhazes said : 'I must cast our horoscope to ascertain if danger awaits us in the capital of Koth.'

  He studied the stars ' overhead, peering through the branches of the surrounding , trees, and turned the silver knob, watching the dials by the flickering firelight. At last he said:

  'Indeed, peril awaits us in Khorshemish. We had best take the back roads around the city. I know the route.' The astrologer frowned at his instrument, made small adjustments, and continued: 'I am puzzled by an indication of another danger, close to hand.'

  'What sort?' said Conan.

  'That I cannot tell, but we had best be on our guard.' Rhazes carefully returned his machine to the sack, in which he fumbled and brought forth a length of rope. 'I'll show you a trick of petty magic, which I learned from a sorcerer in Zamora. See you this ? Catch it!'

  He tossed the rope to Conan, who shot out a hand. Then Conan lea
ped up with a startled oath, hurling the object from him, for in mid-air it had turned into a writhing serpent. Falling to earth, the snake changed back to an inert piece of rope.

  'Damn your hide, Rhazes!' snarled Conan, hah0 drawing his sword. 'Do you seek to murder me?'

  The astrologer chuckled as he retrieved the rope. 'Merely an illusion, my dear General. 'Twas never aught but a rope. Even if it had truly been a serpent, it was - as anyone could see - a snake of a harmless kind.'

  'To me, a snake is a snake,' grunted Conan, resuming his seat. 'Count yourself lucky your head still rides atop your .: shoulders.'

  Imperturbably, Rhazes returned the rope to his bag, saying: 'I warn you not to pry into this pack. Some of the things therein are not so harmless. This casket, for example.'

  He drew out a small, ornately-carved copper chest, larger than the calculating device, and soon returned it to the bag.

  Fronto grinned an elfish grin. 'So the mighty General Conan fears something after all!' he chortled.

  'Indeed,' growled Conan, 'when we sight the towers of Ianthe, we shall see who fears-'

  'Do not move!' said a harsh voice in Kothic. 'You are covered by a dozen drawn bows.'

  Conan turned his eyes as a man stepped out of the shadows - a lean man in ragged finery, with a patch over one eye. A movement among the trees revealed the presence of his fellows.

  'Who are you?' grated Conan.

  'A distressed gentleman, collecting his fee for the use of his demesne, to wit: this greenwood,' said the man, who called to his men, 'Come closer, lads, and let them see the points of your shafts.'

  There were only seven archers in the robber band, but they were quite enough to keep three travellers covered.

  Conan bent his knees beneath Mm, as if preparing to spring erect. Were he alone, he would have instantly attacked, trusting to the mail shirt beneath his tunic; but the fact that his comrades would surely perish if he did so made him hesitate.

  'Ah!' said the leading robber, bending over Rhazes' leathern sack. 'What have we here?' Thrusting in a hand, he brought out the copper casket. 'Gold - not heavy enough. Jewels - mayhap. Let us see -'

  T warn you not to open it,' said Rhazes.

  The one-eyed man gave a small snort of laughter, fumbled with the catch, and raised the lid of the box. 'Why,' he exclaimed, ' 'tis empty - or full of smoke -'

  The robber chief broke off with a shrill scream and hurled the box away. From it had issued what looked in the firelight like a cloud of sooty smoke. The cloud, like a living thing, swelled to man-size and wrapped itself around the one-eyed robber, who staggered about, thrashing his arms and beating his clothes as if to put out enveloping flames. As he danced, he continued screaming. Rhazes sat motionless, muttering to himself.

  The box lay open where it had fallen, and from it poured another animated cloud and yet another. Shapeless, amorphous presences, they billowed through the air, like some amoeboid creatures swimming through the depths of the

  ocean. One fastened on a second robber, who also began to leap about and yell.

  The remaining robbers loosed their arrows at the inky clouds, which continued to roll out of the copper casket, but the shafts met no resistance. The robber chief and the archer ceased writhing and lay still. In a trice, the remaining archers vanished from the firelight, their pounding feet and shouts of terror receding into the silence of the forest.

  Rhazes pushed himself erect and recovered his box. Holding it open, he raised his voice in a weird chant, and one by one the smoky clouds drifted toward him and poured into ; the casket. They seemed to have no trouble crowding back into their pen.

  At last Rhazes snapped shut the lid and turned the catch. 'He cannot say I did not warn him,' said the astrologer with a smile. 'Or, I should say, his ghost cannot so accuse me.'

  'You're more of a sorcerer than you care to own,' growled Conan. 'What were those spooks?'

  'Elemental spirits, trapped by a powerful spell on this material plane. In darkness they obey me, but they cannot endure the light of day. I won the casket from a magician of Luxur in Stygia.' He shrugged. 'The stars foretold that I should win the game.'

  'Seems like cheating to me,' said Conan.

  'Ah, but he tried to cheat me, too, by enchanting the dice.'

  'Well,' said Conan, 'I've gambled away more gold and silver than most men see in a lifetime; but Mitra save me from being lured by a wizard into a game of chance!'

  Conan poked the fire thoughtfully. 'Your man-eating clouds saved our gear and perhaps our necks as well. But had I not been listening to your chatter, I should have heard the men approach and not been surprised like a new-born lamb. Now stop the talk and go to sleep. I'll take the :' watch.'

  Rhazes guided the party over little travelled roads around Khorshemish, until they were again on the main road Ophir. As the leagues fell behind them, Conan grew more

  more uneasy. It was not the prospect of breaking into King Moranthes' stronghold that daunted him; he had survived many such episodes. Nor was it fear of torture; and death had been his companion for so long that he paid it less attention than he would a fly.

  He finally found the source of his unease: their journey so far had been too free of trouble. Whenever they were stopped by road patrols, Rhazes talked their way past them as handily as with the border guards. There had been no magical menace, no desperate combat, no wild pursuit. Conan smiled at the irony of it. He had become so hardened to peril that its absence made him uncomfortable.

  At last they came in sight of Ianthe, straddling the Red River. A short, sharp rainstorm had swept the air clean, and the setting sun sparkled on the metal ornaments that crowned the city's domes and towers. Over the wall stared the red-tiled roofs of the taller houses. Pronto said:

  'To cross the river by the floating bridge, one must enter the city - a questionable plan. Or we can ride half a league upstream to the nearest ford.'

  'Is the tunnel entrance on the northern side?' asked Conan.

  'Aye, General.'

  'Then we'll go upstream to cross.'

  Rhazes looked sharply at Pronto. 'Can we reach the tunnel by midnight?'

  'I'm sure of it.'

  The astrologer nodded.

  The moon, a thick crescent waxing toward the half, flirted palely through the trees as the three men dismounted in a grove on the north-east side of the city. A bow shot away, the crenellated city walls rose black against the star-strewn sky. Conan took from his saddle bags a bundle of torches -long pine sticks with one end wrapped in rags, which had been soaked in lard.

  'Stay with the horses, Rhazes,' muttered Conan. 'Pronto and I will enter the tunnel.'

  'Oh, no, General!' said the astrologer firmly. 'I'll go with

  you. The tethered beasts will be quite safe. And you may need my bag of magic tricks ere you get Khossus out alive.'

  'He's right, General,' said Pronto the thief.

  'He's too old and fat for acrobatics,' said Conan.

  'T am more active than you think,' replied Rhazes. 'Further, the stars foretell that you will require my aid to bring off your enterprise.'

  'Very well,' growled Conan. In spite of himself, Conan had been impressed by some of Rhazes' prognostications about such things as weather and accommodations at inns. 'But if you lag behind and Ophireans seize you, do not expect me to return to rescue you!'

  'I am prepared to take my chances,' said Rhazes.

  'Then let's go!' hissed Pronto, fidgeting. 'I cannot wait to flesh my dagger in one of Moranthes' villains!'

  'No stabbing for mere pleasure!' growled Conan. 'This is no pleasure hunt in the greenwood. Come on.'

  Muttering, the thief led his companions through the gravel and into a clump of shrubs a few yards beyond the palace wall. Above them, the moonlight twinkled on the helmet and spear of a sentry pacing his rounds upon the parapet. All three froze, like hunted animals; and they held their positions, scarcely breathing, until the sentry passed out of sight.

  In the centr
e of the thicket, shielded on all sides from view by the circle of bushes, they found a patch of earth! where the grass grew thin. Pronto scrabbled in this meagre 3 ground cover until he found a bronzed ring. Seizing it, ho tugged upward, but nothing moved.

  'General,' he breathed, 'you are stronger than I; try! raising it.'

  Conan took a deep breath, stooped, grasped the ring, and heaved. Slowly, with a grating sound, the buried trapdoor rose. Conan peered down into foetid darkness. The moonlight outlined a flight of stairs.

  'My father planned the thing aright,' whispered Frontal 'Even so tall a man as you, Conan, can walk upright without butting the ceiling.'

  'Stay here to lower the trapdoor, after I light a torch,' said Conan, feeling his way down the steps.

  At the bottom, he went to work with flint and steel. After striking sparks for some time without result, he growled:

  'Crom's devils! The rain has gotten into my tinder. Has anybody some that's dry?'

  'I have that which will do in its stead,' said Rhazes, leaning over Conan's shoulder. 'Stand back, pray.'

  From his leather bag the astrologer produced a rod, which he pointed at the torch while muttering an incantation. The end of the rod glowed red, then yellow, then white. A beam of bright light speared the torch, which smoked, sputtered, and burst into flame. The rod's glow faded, and Rhazes returned the implement to his bag.

  'Lower the trapdoor, Fronto!' said Conan. 'Gently, you fool! Banging it down that way will alert the guards!'

  'Sorry; my hand slipped,' said Fronto, scuttling spider-like down the stairs. 'Give me the torch; I know the way.'

  In silence the three men plodded along the dark passage. It was lined with stone slabs on floor and sides and roofed with massive timbers. Moss and fungus splotched the crude stones and squelched noisomely underfoot. Rats squeaked and fled from their approach, red eyes glinting like accursed rubies in the blackness, claws scraping the damp stones as (hey fled.