The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  Was this a great throne room, or the transept of some colossal temple?

  It was hard to say. The most peculiar thing about the vast, shadowy hall, other than the neglect from which it had evidently long suffered, was the statuary that stood about its floor in clusters. A host of puzzling questions rose within Vardanes' troubled brain.

  The first mystery was the substance of the statues. Whereas the hall itself was builded of sleek marble, the statues were made of some dull, lifeless, porous grey stone that he could not identify. Whatever the stuff was, it was singularly unattractive. It looked like dead wood ash, though hard as dry stone to the touch.

  The second mystery was the amazing artistry of the unknown sculptor, whose gifted hands had wrought these marvels of art They were lifelike and detailed to an incredible degree: every fold of garment or drapery hung like real cloth; every tiny strand of hair was visible. This astonishing fidelity was carried even to the postures. No heroic groupings, no monumental majesty was visible in these graven images of dull-grey, plasterlike material. They stood in lifelike poses, by the score and the hundred. They were scattered here and there with no regard for order. They were carved in the likeness of warriors and nobles, youths and maidens, doddering grandsires and senile hags, blooming children and babes in arms.

  The one disquieting feature held in common by all was that each figure bore on its stony features an expression of unendurable terror.

  Before long, Vardanes heard a faint sound from the depths of this dark place. Like the sound of many voices it was, yet so faint that he could make out no words. A weird diapason whispered through this forest of statues. As Vardanes drew nearer, he could distinguish the strains of sound that made up the whole: slow, heart-rending sobs, faint, agonized moans; the blurred babble of prayers; croaking laughter; monotonous curses. These sounds seemed to come from half a hundred throats, but the Zamorian could see no source for them. Although he peered about, he could see naught in all this place but himself and the thousands of statues.

  Sweat trickled down his forehead and his lean cheeks. A nameless fear arose within him. He wished from the depths of his faithless heart that he were a thousand leagues from this accursed temple, where voices of invisible beings moaned, sobbed, babbled, and laughed hideously.

  Then he saw the golden throne. It stood in the midst of the hall, towering above the heads of the statues. Vardanes' eyes fed hungrily on the lustre of gold. He edged through the stony forest toward it.

  Something was propped up on that rich throne―the shriveled mummy of some long-dead king? Withered hands were clasped over a sunken breast From throat to heel, the thin body was wrapped in dusty cerements. A thin mask of beaten gold, worked in the likeness of a woman of unearthly beauty, lay over the features.

  A twinge of greed quickened Vardanes' panting breath. He forgot his fears, for, between the brows of that golden mask, a tremendous black sapphire glowed like a third eye. It was an astounding gem, worth a prince's ransom.

  At the foot of the throne, Vardanes stared covetously at the golden mask. The eyes were carved as if closed in slumber. Sweet and beautiful slept the drowsy, full-lipped mouth in that lovely golden face. The huge, dark sapphire flashed with sultry fires as he reached for it.

  With trembling fingers, the Zamorian snatched the mask away. Beneath it lay a brown, withered face. The cheeks had fallen in; the flesh was hard, dry, and leathery. He shuddered at the malevolent expression on the features of that death's head.

  Then it opened its eyes and looked at him.

  He staggered back with a scream, the mask falling from nerveless fingers to clatter against the marble pave. The dead eyes in the skull-face leered into his own. Then the Thing opened its third eye…

  VIII

  The Face of the Gorgon

  Conan padded through the hall of grey statues on naked feet, prowling the dusty, shadow-haunted aisles like some great jungle cat. Dim light slowed along the keen edge of the mighty broadsword in his huge, capable fist His eyes glared from side to side and the hackles bristled upon his nape. This place stank of death; the reek of fear lay heavy in the still air.

  How had he ever let old Enosh talk him into this foolish venture? He was ho redeemer, no destined liberator, no holy man come from the gods to free Akhlat from the deathless curse of the demoness. His only purpose was one of red revenge.

  But the wise old shaykh had spoken many words, and his eloquence had persuaded Conan to undertake this perilous mission. Enosh had pointed out two facts that convinced even the hard-bitten barbarian. One was that, once within this land, Conan was bound there by black magic and could not leave until the goddess was slain. The other was that the Zamorian traitor was immured beneath the Black Temple of the goddess, soon to face the doom that would, if not averted, destroy them all.

  So Conan had come by secret underground ways, which Enosh had shown him. He had emerged from a hidden portal in the wall of this vast, gloomy hall, for Enosh knew when Vardanes was to go before the goddess.

  Like the Zamorian, Conan also noted the marvelous realism of the grey statues; but, unlike Vardanes, he knew the answer to this riddle. He averted his eyes from the expressions of horror on the stone faces about him.

  He, too, heard the mournful wailing and crying. As he drew nearer to the centre of the mighty hypostyle hall, the sobbing voices became clearer. He saw the golden throne and the withered thing upon it, and he crept toward the lustrous chair on silent feet.

  As he approached, a statue spoke to him. The shock almost unmanned him.

  His flesh crawled, and sweat started from his brow.

  Then he saw the source of the cries, and his heart pounded with revulsion. For those about the throne were not yet dead. They were stone up to the neck, but the heads still lived. Sad eyes rolled in despairing faces, and dry lips prayed that he would bury his sword in the living brains of these almost―but not completely―petrified beings.

  Then he heard a scream, in Vardanes' well-known voice. Had the goddess slain his enemy before he could wreak his vengeance? He sprang forward to the side of the throne.

  There a terrible sight met his eyes. Vardanes stood before the throne, eyes popping and lips working feverishly. The rasp of stone caught Conan's ear, and he looked at Vardanes' legs. Where the Zamorian's feet touched the floor, a grey pallor crept slowly up them. Before Conan's gaze, the warm flesh whitened. The grey tide had reached Vardanes'

  knees; but, even as Conan watched, the flesh of the upper legs was transmuted into ashen-grey stone. Vardanes strained to walk but could not His voice rose in a shriek, while his eyes glared at Conan with the naked fear of a trapped animal.

  The thing on the throne laughed a low, dry cackle. As Conan watched, the dead, withered flesh of her skeletal arms and wrinkled throat swelled and became smooth; it flushed from dead, leathery brown to the warm flesh tones of life. With every vampiric draught of vital energy that the Gorgon drained from Vardanes' body, her own body became imbued with life.

  'Crom and Mitra!' breathed Conan.

  With every atom of her mind focused on the half-petrified Zamorian, the Gorgon paid Conan no heed. Now her body was filling out. She bloomed; a soft rondure of hip and thigh stretched the dull cerements. Her woman's breasts swelled, straining the thin fabric. She stretched firm, youthful arms. Her moist, crimson mouth opened in another peal of laughter―this time, the musical, voluptuous laughter of a full-bodied woman.

  The tide of petrification had crept to Vardanes' loins. Conan did not know whether she would spare Vardanes with the semi-petrification of those near the throne or whether she would drain him to the dregs. He was young and vital; his life force must have been a robust vintage to the vampire goddess.

  As the stony tide swept up to the Zamorian's panting breast, he uttered another scream―the most awful sound that Conan had ever heard from human lips. Conan's reaction was instinctive. Like a striking panther, he leaped from his place of concealment behind the throne. Light caught the edge of his
blade as he swung it.

  Vardanes' head jumped from its trunk and fell with a meaty smack to the marble floor.

  Shaken by the impact, the body toppled and fell. It crashed to the floor, and Conan saw the petrified legs crack and splinter. Stony fragments scattered, and blood welled from the cracks in the petrified flesh.

  So died Vardanes the traitor. Even Conan could hot tell whether he struck from lust for revenge, or whether a merciful impulse to end the torment of a helpless creature had prompted the blow.

  Conan turned to the goddess. Without meaning to, he instinctively raised his eyes to hers.

  IX

  The Third Eye

  Her face was a mask of inhuman loveliness; her soft, moist lips were as full and crimson as ripe fruit Glossy, ebon hair tumbled across shoulders of glowing pearl, to fall in tides of silken night through which thrust the round moons of her breasts. She was beauty incarnate―save for the great dark orb between her brows.

  The third eye met Conan's gaze and riveted him fast. This oval orb was larger than any organ of human vision. It was not divided into pupil, iris, and white as are human eyes; it was all black. His gaze seemed to sink into it and become lost in endless seas of darkness. He stared rapt, the sword forgotten in his hand. The eye was as black as the lightless seas of space between the stars.

  Now he seemed to stand at the brink of a black, bottomless well, into which he toppled and fell. Down, down through ebon fogs he fell, through a vast, cold abyss of utter darkness. He knew that, if he did not soon turn his eyes away, he would be forever lost to the world.

  He made a terrible effort of will. Sweat stood out on his brow; his muscles writhed like serpents beneath his bronzed skin. His deep chest heaved.

  The Gorgon laughed―a low, melodious sound with cold, cruel mockery in it. Conan flushed, and rage rose within him.

  With a surge of will, he tore his eyes from that black orb and found himself staring at the floor. Weak and dizzy, he swayed on his feet. As he fought for the strength to stand erect, he glanced at those feet.

  Thank Crom, they were still of warm flesh, not cold, ashen stone! The long moment he had stood ensorcelled by the Gorgon's gaze had been only a brief instant, too short for the stony tide to have crept up his flesh.

  The Gorgon laughed again. With his shaggy head bowed, Conan felt tie tug of her will. The muscles of his corded neck swelled in his effort to keep his head bent away.

  He was still looking down. Before him, on the marble pave, lay the thin golden mask with the huge sapphirine gem set in it to represent the third eye. And suddenly, Conan knew.

  This time, as his glance rose, his sword swung with it. The flashing blade clove the dusty air and caught the mocking face of the goddess―slashing the third eye in twain.

  She did not move. With her two normal eyes of surpassing beauty, she stared silently at the grim warrior, her face blank and white. A change swept over her.

  From the ruin of the Gorgon's third eye, dark fluid ran down the face of inhuman perfection. Like black tears, the slow dew fell from the shattered organ.

  Then she began to age. As the dark fluid ran from the riven orb, so the stolen life force of aeons drained from her body. Her skin darkened and roughened into a thousand wrinkles. Withered dewlaps formed beneath her chin. Glowing eyes became lusterless and milky.

  The superb bosom sagged and shrank. Sleek limbs became scrawny. For a long moment, the dwarfed, withered form of a tiny woman, incredibly senile, tottered on the throne. Then flesh rotted to papery scraps and mouldering bones. The body collapsed, spilling across the pavement in a litter of leathery fragments, which crumbled as Conan watched to a colorless, ashy powder.

  A long sigh went through the hall. It darkened briefly as if the passage of half-transparent wings dimmed the obscure light. Then it was gone, and with it the brooding air of age-old menace. The chamber became just a dusty, neglected old room, devoid of supernatural terrors.

  The statues slept forever now in graves of eternal stone. As the Gorgon passed from this dimension, so her spells snapped, including those that had held the living dead in a grisly semblance of life. Conan turned away, leaving the empty throne with its litter of dust and the broken, headless statue of what had once been a bold, high-spirited Zamorian fighting man.

  'Stay with us, Conan!' Zillah pleaded in her low, soft voice. 'There will be posts of high honour for a man such as you in Akhlat, now that we are freed of the curse.'

  He grinned hardly, sensing something more personal in her voice than the desire of a good citizen to enlist a worthy immigrant in the cause of civic reconstruction. At the probing gaze of his hot, male eyes, she flushed in confusion.

  Lord Enosh added his gentle voice to the pleadings of his daughter.

  Conan's victory had lent new youth and vigor to the elderly man. He stood straight and tall, with a new firmness in his step and a new command in his voice. He offered the Cimmerian wealth, honours, position, and a place of power in the newborn city. Enosh had even hinted that he would look with favour upon Conan as a son-in-law.

  But Conan, knowing himself ill-suited to the life of placid, humdrum respectability they held out to him, refused all offers. Courtly phrases did not spring readily to the lips of one whose years had been spent on the field of battle and in the wine shops and joy houses of the world's cities. But, with such tact as his blunt, barbaric nature could muster, he turned aside his hosts' pleas.

  'Nay, friends,' he said. 'Not for Conan of Cimmeria the tasks of peace.

  I should too soon become bored, and when boredom strikes, I know of but few cures: to get drunk, to pick a fight, or to steal a girl. A fine sort of citizen I should make for a city that now seeks peace and quiet to recover its strength!'

  'Then whither will you go, O Conan, now that the magical barriers are dissolved?' asked Enosh.

  Conan shrugged, ran a hand through his black mane, and laughed. 'Crom, my good sir, I know not! Luckily for me, the goddess's servants fed and watered Vardanes' horse. Akhlat, I see, has no horses―only donkeys―and a great lout like me would look like a fool, jogging along on a sleepy little ass with my toes dragging in the dust!

  'I think I'll bend my path to the southeast. Somewhere yonder lies the city of Zamboula, which I have never been. Men say it is a rich city of fleshpots and revelry, where the wine all but flows free in the gutters. I've a mind to taste the joys of Zamboula, to see what excitement it has to offer.'

  'But you need not leave us a beggar!' Enosh protested. 'We owe you much. Let us give you what little gold and silver we have for your labours.'

  Conan shook his head. 'Keep your treasure, shaykh. Akhlat is no rich metropolis, and you will need your money when the merchants' caravans begin to arrive again from across the Red Waste. And now that my water bags are full and I've provisions aplenty, I must be off. This time, I shall make the journey through the Shan-e-Sorkh in comfort.'

  With a last, brisk farewell, he swung into the saddle and cantered up out of the valley. They stood looking after him, Enosh proudly, but Zillah with tears on her cheeks. Soon he was out of sight.

  As he reached the top of the dunes, Conan halted the black mare for a last look at Akhlat. Then he rode off into the Waste. Perhaps he had been a fool not to accept their small store of treasure. But there was plenty in Vardanes' saddle bags, which he reached behind him to thump.

  He grinned. Why squabble over a few shekels like a greasy tradesman? It does a man good, once in a while, to be virtuous. Even a Cimmerian!

  Conan and the Manhunters

  John Maddox Roberts

  I

  The sensations were familiar: the blazing pain in his head, the raging thirst, the itchy irritation of rotten straw beneath his back, the pervasive stench. At least being able to sense all these things, however unpleasant, meant that he was alive. It was not the first time the Cimmerian had awakened in a dungeon. Of course, there were certain dungeons where being alive was not an advantage.

  By straining the
muscles in his face, he managed to wrench his gummy eyelids open and felt a certain relief when they parted. He knew there was a judge in this province whose favourite punishment was to order a felon's eyelids sewn shut. Through his blurred vision, he could make out stone walls, stone ceiling, and morning light slanting in through the close-set bars of a tiny window high on one wall. He longed to get to that window and breathe some fresh air.

  This longing compelled him, slowly and carefully, to sit up. The back of his head, glued by dried blood, parted reluctantly from the floor, and as it came free, a handful of straw

  remained plastered to his black mane. He heard a clink of metal as he moved and looked down at his scarred hands and heavily muscled arms. Manacles had been fastened around his thick, swordsman's wrists, the dingy brown iron secured by shiny new rivets. Similar fetters confined his legs. A quick touch told him that another ring encircled his corded neck. All the rings were attached by chains to staples buried deep in the stone floor and walls.

  Clearly, he had impressed someone as a dangerous man. That made sense, because he, Conan of Cimmeria, was the most dangerous man he knew. He managed to stand, but he found that there was no chance of reaching the window. Standing, he could move no more than a stride in any direction. As the blood began to flow freely through his veins, he became fully aware and tried to remember what had brought him to this pass.

  The face of a woman swam into his consciousness. Minna? No, Minata. He had come into the town the night before to visit her, as had become his custom. He had ridden in from the hills to the south, swathed in a hooded desert robe. There was a price on his head throughout this kingdom. He had intended to clear out months ago, to ride south into Iranistan, but he stayed on because of the woman. Even in his pain and predicament, the memory of her huge grey eyes and raven hair, her ripely lissome body, still stirred him.

  He had passed the gate guard with a small bribe, such as was customary in this land when a traveller wished to pass through the foot-gate after sunset. He had made his way through the maze-like huddle of tenements in the Foreigners' Quarter, climbed a rickety stair and rapped upon the door of Minata the Zamoran. She was a 'priestess' in the ill-famed Temple of Ishtar. He cared not what she did with her days so long as she saved her nights for him.