'Nay.'
'Wherefore not?' the Cimmerian exploded.
'Because I have no wish to. What have I to gain, removing myself from important labours to take part in this frivolous adventure?'
'Frivolous?' Osman said, aghast. 'A ton and a half of precious metal is not frivolous!' He calmed himself with an effort. 'Forgive my outburst. Perhaps we approached this wrongly. We are willing to reward you most generously. A double share of the gold and silver for your help.' Conan and Auda nodded agreement.
'But I have no need of gold or silver. Worldly wealth is nothing to one such as I.'
'With what did the priests of Ashtoreth pay you?' Conan asked.
'With an ancient and precious manuscript, a tract upon the properties of the dragon's-eye crystal writ three thousand years ago by the wizard Baalkar of Shem. Such things as this are valued by the masters of my art.'
'But think of the glory!' Osman urged. 'It will be a feat unheard of and will make you renowned in the great world!'
At this the wizard laughed once again; 'My friend, for me
to take part in this escapade would render me a laughingstock among my peers! For the wizard Volvolicus to play the part of the thief would make my name a jest.'
'I do not understand,' said Auda. 'You mean to say the sorcerers think that plunder is dishonourable?' He shook his head in disbelief. 'Surely only judges, merchants and dirt grubbing farmers think thus!'
'Oh, we are not as ordinary men,' said the mage. 'Man a wizard takes pride and delight in purloining the spells, grimoires, instruments and suchlike from other members of the fraternity, and may even gain honour thereby, but to stoop to something as petty as robbery from ordinary mortals deemed unworthy. I must decline.'
'But I must have that treasure!' Conan barked. 'Like you! I care not for the gold. But it must be mine!'
For the first time, the wizard gave the Cimmerian a searching look. 'A bandit who cares not for gold? This is a marvel indeed. What is your nation, warrior? I have never seen man of your sort.'
'I am a Cimmerian, a man of the far north.'
'Yes, there is something of the Atlantean about you. It ha been written that the last remnants of the Atlantean race dwell in the rocky fastnesses of Cimmeria.'
'I know nothing of that, but it does not surprise me that you have never seen a Cimmerian. Few of my kin travel far from home, and none save I have ever visited Turan.'
'So, Cimmerian, how is it that you lust for the treasure, ye care not for the gold and silver?'
'It is a matter of honour,' Conan said. 'I want to see Torgut Khan and his dog, Sagobal, crushed and humbled. I could slay either of them or both, but for such men, disgrace is fate far worse. Torgut Khan has boasted to the king that he is worthy to guard all the treasure of the district. Were I to snatch it from beneath his pig's snout, he would have to send his own head to the king! And Sagobal, who thinks he car keep me from the treasure, if he escape the headsman, aspire no higher than the rank of common trooper for the rest of his life!'
'These men must have wronged you marvellously to have inspired such enmity,' Volvolicus observed.
'Aye, they did that,' Conan answered. 'They tricked me by suborning a woman I favoured. Then they bound me in a dungeon—chained hand, foot and neck like a contemptible beast—from whence they condemned me to death upon the scaffold!' The Cimmerian burned with rage.
'Annoying to you perhaps, but many would consider these to be the actions of men concerned with the public health. A thief who does not want such treatment would do well to avoid capture.'
Conan was unmoved. 'It was not enough to kill me, but Mu-.y must make a mockery of my execution. I was to be tortured and flayed as part of a celebration Torgut Khan has declared to the dedication of his new Temple of Ahriman. A clean death I can look upon without fear. Death by torture I can endure. But to be made a spectacle, for cowards and common city folk to laugh and jeer at, that I cannot endure. They must pay for their insolence and arrogance!'
The wizard seemed not to have heard the last part. His expression sharpened, became more intense. A hand shot out and grasped the Cimmerian's thick wrist. The cold, inhumanly strong grip repelled Conan, but he did not draw
hack.
'Did I hear you say 'Temple of Ahriman'?' the mage demanded.
'You heard me aright.'
'Can it be that you have not heard of this?' Osman said. 'You, who knew that three men were to visit you this night? I or two years, the rebuilding of the temple has been spoken of up and down the Vilayet coast and far into the desert. So grandiose a project has not been seen in southern Turan in a
generation.' 'My home exists, as it were, an island removed from the times and turmoil surrounding. My guardian-spells warn-me of your approach when you were within an hour's ride but I take little interest in things that might upset my studies. Surely, it is the priests of Ormazd who erect this temple, honouring their god's adversary?'
'Nay,' said Osman. 'This temple is no part of the Ormazd cult, and the priests of that god only spit and will s; nothing when asked about it. It is a vast, ugly building with a door like the gaping maw of a huge, hellish beast. Work men had to be tempted with high wages to take part in the work, and some of them picked up their tools and depart in the middle of the night, forfeiting their pay rather than continue.'
'Aye, that I do not doubt if this temple is what I fear.' T wizard spoke in a near-whisper, so that the others had to le forward, straining to hear his words. He released Conan wrist and the Cimmerian rubbed the indented finger mark which burned with cold fire.
'It is the crypt of this temple that is to serve as the one treasury,' Conan remarked.
'Say you so?' Volvolicus murmured. 'This puts matters in a different light.'
Osman pounced eagerly upon the mage's words. 'May it be that you will help us?' he asked.
'It seems that I must.'
His three guests looked at each other in surprise, wondering what had brought about the sudden change of heart. 'Good,' Conan said succinctly. 'Tonight I must make preparations. Tomorrow at dawn, I shall ride with you. I must see this temple and this city, Layla will prepare quarters for you. There is a vacant room in the back of this house. You will find it most comfort' able.'
Conan rose. 'With your leave, I will sleep beneath stars. My recent stay in the dungeon has made me long ft the open air.'
'I am a city dweller,' said Osman, 'and I shall avail my time of our host's hospitality.'
'As shall I,' Auda said.
'Then,' said Volvolicus, rising, 'if you will give me leave, I shall retire to my meditations. Sleep safely in this house.' He looked at Conan. 'The desert night is not without dangers, but you seem to be a man equal to most challenges.'
Conan uncoiled himself to his great height and nodded. 'I have yet to be slain by man or beast. The sand does not shift tonight and the stars are a fair ceiling. Good night to you.'
He exited the house, and his companions followed to tend to their mounts and collect their gear.
'What think you, Conan?' asked Osman in a low voice as he loosened a girth. 'He does not seem as forbidding as one might expect a great mage to be.'
''Aye,' said Auda, 'but what of his sudden change? One night he was too good to go raiding with us, the next he was all too ready. What means this?'
''The man is playing his own game,' said Conan, 'but if he can accomplish what we require, I'll not demand an explanation from him. It sounds to me as if some enmity lies between him and these priests of Ahriman. Perhaps he wishes in do them an ill turn. He may do so with my good wishes, I've no love for priests. If he can get the treasure out of the city for us, the rest is his own business.'
'Aye, aye,' said the others. Laden with gear, they trooped back to the wizard's house, leaving their hobbled horses to munch at the grass that grew in abundance in the little oasis.
Conan took his blanket roll and walked around the pool in find a place whereupon to lie down. His recent experience In the dungeo
n was only a part of the reason he had declined the mage's offer. He detested wizardry, and the house was wrapped in it. He knew he would sleep better beneath the stars.
Between two palms heavily laden with dates, he found a spot where the grass lay thick over springy turf. There unrolled his blankets and took off his sword-belt, leaving his hilts close to hand at need. A half-moon was rising, silver beams sparkling off the rippled surface of the sand. Overhead, a faint breeze rustled the tops of the palms. Otherwise, all was silent. He lay down, stretching his grand frame upon the rough blankets and yawning. Within minutes, he was asleep.
Two hours past midnight, something awoke him. For several minutes he lay listening, but there was nothing to heard save the rustling of wind in the palm tops. He sat and strained his eyes, but he saw nothing untoward, moon bathed everything in a pale glow, leaving areas of shadow.
Puzzled, he rose to his feet. The air had cooled, but enough for him to bother with blankets. He walked to the edge of the pool and crouched, scooping up water in his hands and bathing his face.
With water still dripping from his head, the Cimmerian heard again the faint splashing sound that had awakened bin He looked out over the water and saw something moving along its surface. For an instant, he almost made a run for h weapons, then he chided himself for the impulse. Surely nothing menacing inhabited this little pool.
The thing drew closer and he saw that it was a human head atop a graceful neck that grew from shapely shoulders. All else was mysterious, hidden beneath the water. Conan relaxed. This was no enemy.
'Layla?' he said.
'It is I.' Her voice was low and musical. Now he could see the shape of her features. Her hair lay slicked back against her delicate skull and gave her the aspect of a swimming seal. Like a seal, she was fluidly graceful in the water.
'Does your master know you are out here?'
'Volvolicus is deep in his nightly exercises. He cares not at all what I do when he is sequestered. I swim here night, only during these hours of darkness is the air pleasant in this desolate place. The water is cool, and I have the moon and stars for company.'
'But do the beasts of the desert not come here to drink at night?' Conan asked.
'They will not harm me,' she said. She made her leisurely way through the water to the place where Conan crouched and leaned her elbows upon the stone edging, her chin resting upon her hands. 'Not all the creatures out here walk on four legs,' Conan grumbled.
She smiled, her teeth flashing white in the moonlight. 'I know. I have nothing to fear from that sort, either.'
'Say you so?' The Cimmerian was intrigued by the woman. She did not speak like a serving wench or slave, which he had assumed her to be. He wondered at her confidence, although the sorcerer's protective spells could account for that. Most of all, he wondered what delights lay concealed beneath the surface of the water. He had yet to see her in good light, but he had long experience in judging the forms of men and women by the subtleties of their movements. It was a matter of survival for a fighting man. What he had seen so far proclaimed the woman to be as ripely formed as any in his wide experience.
'I say so,' she said. Abruptly, she shot up from the water, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, her lips warm and mobile upon his own. He sought to take her in his grasp but, slippery as an eel, she slid back into the water and swam away, laughing. He had seen little, but his brief feel of her said that she was as toothsome as he had imagined.
'Crom take her,' he grumbled as he stood and made his way back to his blankets. 'The woman knows how to ruin a man's sleep!'
In a dark chamber below his house, the mage Volvolicus prepared a seldom-used spell. He was long accustomed to his solitary studies, but this night he sought contact with his peers. He sat at a table of black marble, inlaid with mystic signs in threads of gold. The signs were connected by line; both straight and curved that radiated from a point at the centre of the table, and above this spot lay a jagged green crystal glowing softly. The mage made passes over the table with his hands, hesitating and stopping frequently, for he was out of practice.
Soon, though, his confidence returned and his movements became swift and sure. Points of light began crawling along the golden threads, slowly at first, then with greater speed. When the lights reached the symbols where the lines terminated, most of the symbols began to glow likewise, some of them at once, others after an interval of several minutes to an hour. A few did not respond at all.
Volvolicus lowered his hands, and the crystal began to glow more brightly. Slowly, human faces started to appear above the symbols inlaid in the black marble. Most of them were men's faces, although there were a few women. All were of middle to advanced years, and they represented great many races and nations.
'Who are you, who disturb our labours with the Supreme Convocation?' asked one whose hairless head floated above a sigil in the shape of the constellation of the Scorpion. His features, those of an upper-caste Stygian, were terrible, his eyes as cold as a serpent's.
'I know this one, mighty Thoth-Amon,' said an elderly man also Stygian, with lower-caste features. 'He is Volvolicus, a Turanian and a master of Khelkhet-Pteth. He came to me many years ago for instruction and was an apt pupil.'
'A mere dabbler in the magicks of stone and crystal?' Thoth-Amon radiated contempt. 'What business have you with sorcerers of the First Rank? All here are your masters many times over. To use the Supreme Convocation without just cause is to incur the eternal life that is more terrible than the foulest death.'
Speak quickly if you would not endure our curse,' said a wizened Khitain whose eyelids and mouth were stitched shut. His voice seemed to come from all directions.
'He is back,' Volvolicus said simply. 'The evil worse than the serpent is back in the world of men.'
'Absurd!' sneered Thoth-Amon. 'Ahriman was driven from this very universe by the god-kings of Stygia with the power of Set! Spells more powerful than any now known were established to keep him away. You babble nonsense! Prepare to endure the curse.'
'Wait, Stygian,' said a painted Pict who wore bones through his ears and a necklace of dried human fingers.
Ten moons ago, a strange man came to our shore from an island of the Western Sea. He was of no race known to us, they spoke Pictish of a sort. It was not the tongue we know today, but that spoken to me in dreams by my ancestors of unthinkable ages past. He spoke fair words and he intended no harm, but there was that about him revolting to the senses of one attuned to the spirit world. He inquired of the land of Turan, and by what route he might make his way thither.'
'Another such was seen in Belverus three moons ago!' said a Nemedian mage.
'What manner of men were these?' Thoth-Amon asked.
'Attend our thoughts,' said the Nemedian. He and the Pict rinsed their eyes and all were silent. Then Thoth-Amon sucked in his breath, a remarkable demonstration for the reptilian mage.
'It is true! Men of the race long thought extinct have reunited! How can this be? All the temples and sanctuaries of Aliriinan were destroyed utterly, every gate through which the unspeakable god might return pulverized and then laid under deadly curse!'
Time is a great wheel, Westerner,' said a rotund Wndhyan. 'Nothing is ever wholly destroyed, nothing is exiled, never to return. All comes back in the circuit of time. A god cannot be annihilated. Far less can one be killed.'
'But how could this happen without my knowledge? Thoth-Amon demanded.
'There speaks your vanity, Stygian,' said a black wizard, his head painted white except for the eye sockets, so that he resembled a skull. His yellow teeth were filed to points 'You are a wizard like the rest of us. Are you so great that a god must ask your permission to return to the world men?'
'No such thing, as you well know, Damboula!' the Stygia retorted. 'But so epochal an event should have caused disturbances obvious to a first-year acolyte. Yet we, mages the First Rank, felt nothing, and must be told by this learn stonemason!'
'Bridle your
wrath, esteemed Thoth-Amon,' said the age Khitain. 'As it happens, I agree with you. I believe this mean; that Ahriman has not yet returned. But his followers have somehow been resurrected, and it is they who prepare the way for their god to resume his place among the men, spirit and gods of this world.'
'You speak wisely, Feng-Yoon,' the Stygian acknowledged. 'And whatever these lizard-men propose to accomplish, it is too great a work to bring about swiftly. I must consult my screeds and my spiritual advisers. Some of you serve bright gods, some of us the dark ones, and some d with no gods at all, but Ahriman is the deadly enemy of everyone. If he cannot be destroyed, he must be contained, charge you all to abandon your present labours until this threat is dealt with. Cease your feuds and work to contact all magicians of the First Rank who have not answered this convocation to enlist their aid. Are all in agreement?'
'Aye,' they chorused.
'And you, crystal-gazer,' Thoth-Amon said. 'I charge you to take yourself to the lair of these Ahriman-worshippers and discover their secrets.'
'As it occurs,' said Volvolicus, 'my steps take me thither upon the morrow.' He smiled thinly. 'I am called there to render assistance in a most weighty matter.'
'Then fear us and obey. Your reward will be great. Punishment for failure is unimaginable.'
The images above the table faded, and Volvolicus pondered long before seeking his bed.
IV
The two men, accompanied by a woman, rode into the city amid preparations for the festival. They wore the robes of desert dwellers of the Geraut tribe; the men in black turbans, their faces tightly veiled to the eyes, the woman in a yellow head-scarf, her face exposed. All three wore long flowing capes of striped cloth, baggy trousers and soft, high-topped boots. The tall thin man wore the ornaments of a shaykh. His burlier companion was clearly a bodyguard.
'Lucky it is for you that blue eyes are not unknown: among the Geraut,' said Volvolicus. 'Else those guards back there would have dragged that veil down and embarrassed us all.'
'Aye, but this is a good time to evade the law,' said Conan, in high good humour. 'When a city is thronged by unwanted crowds, the guards have no attention to spare. They know that a festival such as this will draw every robber, cut-purse and burglar for a hundred leagues around. They will have their hands full for many days. At such a time, who will stare twice at a common desert nomad?'
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