The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'Have you ever seen so great a structure?' Achilea gasped.

  'A few,' Conan said. 'Those were in Stygia, and even there, I never saw any as high. And this is just the front of the place. Remember what we saw from the tower. The dome doubles the height of the building.'

  'How could mortal hands have built such a thing?' she wondered, 'They did not,' said Kye-Dee. 'It is clear to me that this place was built by gods or giants.'

  Conan was almost inclined to credit him. The thought of mere men toiling for untold years, probably over many generations, to erect this oppressively massive edifice was alien to him. It was marvelous, but it seemed detestable that men should spend their lives in such a pursuit. Surely, he thought, these people must have had the souls of ants,

  'Nothing to be gained by standing around here,' he said, settling the weapon-belt around his lean hips. They walked across the broad plaza surfaced with black and white paving stones set in eye-dazzling geometric patterns. It seemed to take forever to reach the vast building. It appeared to recede before them at their approach. But in time, they stood directly beneath its clifflike facade, gaping at the infinite intricacy of the carvings thereon, which were set row upon row running in continuous bands, interrupted only by windows and the single great entryway.

  Each band was crowded with life-size human figures, and if the activities of the sculptures in the temple where the Hyrkanian had died had been scabrous, these were almost supernaturally so. Ekun walked to one especially tangled group of figures and peered at it closely. 'That is impossible,' she announced at length. 'You would need three legs.'

  'Some of their gods or demons had a superfluity of limbs,' said Kye-Dee. 'Maybe some of the folk of Janagar were likewise equipped.'

  Conan was not interested in the carvings. He went to the great doorway and studied it. The twin doors were nearly as large and massive as me city gate. They rose straight for nearly a score of paces and then arched to a point in the centre. Around the doorway was a band of carving that looked at first

  like entwined vines, a design much used in the city. Closer examination revealed that it did not depict vines, but rather, innumerable serpents, their eyes made of gleaming gems. So realistic were they that the Cimmerian almost expected to see forked tongues flickering in and out of their mouths. Achilea joined him before the door.

  'We will need a ram to force this,' she said.

  'Perhaps we can go in through the roof,' Conan mused. 'At least this will not be difficult to climb.'

  'You may climb it,' said Kye-Dee. 'I will gladly cheer you on. But I am not going to scale that cliff, no matter how many handholds it provides.' The other Hyrkanians agreed vociferously.

  'Cowards!' Achilea sneered.

  'Men are not intended to climb rocks like lizards!' Kye-Dee said, offended.

  Jeyba walked to the great door and felt its massive timbers. Idly he gave it a shove, and the door swung inward as easily as would a house door hung on well-oiled hinges, yielding only a slight groan and creak.

  'Perhaps this will not be as difficult as we had thought,' Achilea said.

  'Don’t say that until we see what lies within,' Conan told her. He drew his sword and strode to the opening. Not to be outdone, Achilea drew her own blade and hurried to walk beside him. Her women and the dwarf were close behind, and the Hyrkanians came last, arrows fitted to the strings of their bows.

  Nervous and as alert as cats, the little band walked through a high-arched passageway that was like a great tunnel through the thick walls of the building. As with the outside, its walls bore decorations, but the light within was too dim for them to make out their nature. The heat and glare of the desert day disappeared as they left the door behind them. The air inside was faintly musty, but breathable. Ahead of them, they could see that the tunnel opened into a gigantic room where there was more light.

  As they reached the end of the tunnel, they gazed with wonder at the immensity of the cavernous interior. Before they could take it in, a huge, shaggy shape loomed up beside them, bellowing. A Hyrkanian spun and drew his bow, but Conan slapped the weapon aside. The arrow soared off into the distance and was broken against an unseen wall.

  'That’s a camel, you fool!' Conan barked.

  The Hyrkanian, bristling at Conan’s unwonted action, grinned sheepishly when he realised his mistake. ‘I thought it was a demon,' he said, shrugging.

  The camel whose life the Cimmerian had saved was one of the tall, white ones. Its mate stood just beyond it, along with the smaller, local camel that Amram had been riding. The animals were placidly chewing their cud. They seemed to be slightly indignant at this intrusion.

  'This is the first sign we’ve had of those three,' Achilea said. 'You were right, Conan.'

  Slowly, they walked into the vastness of the interior chamber. The light that fell upon the tesselated floor was multicolored and it stained the mosaic in neat, geometric lozenges. Peering upward, they saw that the huge dome overhead was made entirely of glass panels set into a lattice of metal. The individual panels were made tiny by distance, but Conan estimated that each one had to cover the area of a small house. He had never seen such huge panes in his life.

  They were halfway across the floor before they realised that the hulking shape at the far end of the chamber was not a part of the building, but rather, an immense idol. The angle of the sunlight left it largely shrouded in gloom, hence their tardiness in recognizing it for what it was. By its location, Conan estimated that it would be fully illuminated only at sunset.

  'Is this a god?' Kye-Dee inquired.

  'A goddess, if anything,' Achilea said dryly.

  The figure was vaguely pyramidal in shape: a nude, anthropoid figure seated cross-legged, its multiple arms outstretched, some of its hands grasping weapons, others holding implements of no readily discernible function. Two arms extended straight out from the figure’s shoulders, their palms open and empty. The torso bore a dozen breasts arranged in a triple row between shoulders and navel. Its face was serenely beautiful, but the long, narrow eyes carried an expression of inhuman malice. Enormous

  jewels gleamed in forehead, eyes and navel. They approached the looming sculpture in awe and trepidation.

  'Why would anyone build such a thing?' Achilea asked. 'It must be a hundred paces from one knee to the other.'

  'I do not know,' Conan said, 'but I am weary of this.' He drew a deep bream and bellowed, 'Monandas! Yolanthe! Amram! Come out and face us! We would have a few words with you!'

  The shouted words echoed from wall to wall of the temple chamber for a long time. Then they faded and a great silence reigned.

  'Now what?' the dwarf said. Gingerly, he rapped his knuckles upon the gigantic shin of me goddess. The greater part of the idol seemed to be made of bronze, although no rivets or joints between plates were visible. The method of its construction was a marvel on a par with everything else they had seen.

  'Well,' Achilea said, irritated, 'where do we―' Her words ended abruptly when the idol emitted a long, deep groan from its innards.

  'What is this?' Jeyba said, alarmed. There was more groaning and creaking, as if something massive were shifting within the idol. They backed away from the huge thing, looking upward as if expecting to see the heavy arms come to life and reach for them. A rushing, hissing sound came from above and they looked around them in near panic.

  With a dazzling burst of light, flames erupted from the upturned palms of the outstretched pair of hands. The curled fingers seemed to be grasping great balls of flame, and the glaring, fund tongues of fire cast shifting shadows across the face of the goddess, giving her an even more sinister expression. To their horror, the narrow eyelids opened wider, exposing scarlet irises dotted with many small, black pupils.

  The jewelled eyes glowed with an inner fire. The Hyrkanians yammered spells to avert evil and made as if to run.

  'Hold!' Conan shouted. 'This is no goddess! It is a great automaton, worked by machinery!'

  'What of that
?' said Kye-Dee. 'I want no part of it.'

  'I run from no puppet,' said Achilea, 'even if it is the biggest puppet in the world!' Her women crowded close beside her, and Jeyba stood just before them, his bludgeon cradled in his hands.

  Conan stood poised, ready to fight or to run, as circumstances should dictate. Had the twins brought this prodigy about? Were they inside, operating the incredibly ancient machinery that sail, against all reason, worked?

  There was a rushing of feet and a clatter of harness as a double file of bizarre human figures came running from behind the idol. Within five seconds, they had the intruders surrounded. Conan estimated that there were at least a hundred of them, and more were coming. They were partially clad in bits and pieces of strange armour, but they wore no other clothes. Their numbers were of women as well as of men. All carried weapons and some had nets and ropes. All wore masks.

  The Hyrkanian who had almost shot the camel drew his bow and loosed. The hard-driven shaft punched easily through a breastplate of black leather and silvery metal and a woman went down, spraying scarlet.

  'No!' Conan shouted. 'They are too many!'

  But the Hyrkanians were too overwrought to hear. At the sight of blood, two more drew their bows as the first reached for another arrow. Instantly, they were enveloped in the meshes of thrown nets, and the nets were followed by viciously barbed javelins. The men squalled like enraged panthers as they were harpooned until they choked on their own blood. Kye-Dee screamed and half-drew his short saber, but the Cimmerian knocked him to the floor with a blow of his massive fist 'Be still, idiot!' he hissed.

  'But they slew my countrymen!' Kye-Dee wailed.

  'You countrymen were fools and they died like fools,' Conan said pitilessly. 'If you want to live, obey orders for a change.'

  The strange warriors crowded in all around them. They were short but well-muscled, their skins the whitest Conan had ever seen. Of their faces he could tell nothing, for all were grotesquely masked. The masks appeared to be of hammered metal, some bearing the long beaks of birds, others the muzzles of animals, yet others with snarling monkey faces. Their armour was made of leather and polished metal.

  None wore full armour, only breastplates and greaves and bracers on their forearms, and all of it was spiky, jagged and ornate.

  Conan doubted that his band could carve a way through the line of these strange warriors; they would be speared long before they reached the door.

  A man in especially ornate armour strode up to them. In his hands be carried a poleax equipped with wicked spikes and hooks and this weapon he pointed toward Conan’s broad chest.

  'Lower your weapons!' the man cried, his words so twisted that the Cimmerian could scarcely understand them. He repeated the words, this time more shrilly.

  'What does he want?' Achilea asked.

  'He wants us to disarm,' Conan told her.

  'Never! If this means a fight to the death, so be it, but I’ll not be helpless among strangers!'

  'Just keep your hands well away from your weapons,' Conan said. 'Perhaps that will be enough.'

  The man barked something and a net came sailing out to blossom open and envelop Achilea. Conan began to draw his sword, only to have a weighted cord whip around his wrist and slow his hand Then another net settled over him. He struggled against the meshes, but even his iron strength could not prevail against their tough fibers. He heard squalls and he twisted his bead around to see that the others were being as efficiently immobilized.

  The warriors were well practiced in this manoeuvre, for they quickly overwhelmed their victims by weight of numbers and trussed them soundly. It took many of them to overcome the Cimmerian, but they had numbers to spare. In minutes, he lay on his belly, his hands bound securely behind him, his ankles shackled with two feet of chain between them. When all were similarly trussed, they were hauled to their feet and the nets and ropes removed from them.

  'So much for your orders, Cimmerian!' Kye-Dee spat. 'We should have fought our way out!'

  'You would have died,' Conan said. 'We still live and we’ll get out of this. Your men probably got us into it. What people do not meet intruders with arms? There was no cause to kill that woman.' Though he held his words steady, inwardly he seethed with anger.

  'But there was supposed to be no one here!' Kye-Dee protested.

  'These folk seem to have their own opinions on the matter,' Jeyba remarked.

  The man who had spoken stepped aside as a woman came forward to eye the captives closely. She wore a mask of blackened steel in the form of a hawk’s face, trimmed with a ruff of white feathers. An abbreviated mantle of black and silver scales covered her shoulders, and closely moulded greaves encased her lower legs and knees. Similar guards graced both forearms. A belt of black and silver plates rode her lissome hips, supporting a dagger and a short sword. Except for these items, she was naked, 'Who are you?' she asked in a husky voice through the gaping beak of her mask. She was a small woman, of a slender but wiry build.

  'I am Conan of Cimmeria,' came the answer, 'and this is Queen Achilea of the Amazons. The rest are our followers. We come in search of our friends, whose camels stand yonder.' He jerked his head back over one shoulder, indicating the beasts.

  'And to do this, you had to slay one of us?' She pointed toward the dead woman, who was being carried toward the great idol.

  'It was an error,' Conan said. 'We expected to find no one here and the fool panicked. He died for it, as did two of the others. The rest of us made no attempt to harm you.' He had no idea if this would appeal to her sense of fairness, but he deemed it worth a try.

  The woman stepped closer until she stood inches from the towering Cimmerian. With the forefinger of a fine-boned hand, she traced the massive muscles of his chest. 'You do not look like the desert men

  who sometimes stumble upon the Forbidden City. What is your land?'

  'Cimmeria lies far, far to the north of here,' he answered.

  'Are your countrymen all as large and as strong as you?'

  'Almost,' he said.

  She stepped as close to Achilea and examined her minutely, lightly punching her cobblestoned belly, feeling the rippling muscles of arms and legs and body as if me queen were a camel she contemplated buying. With the back of one hand, she stroked Achilea’s cheek.

  'I have never seen a woman such as you. Your land must lie even farther away than his.' The masked woman’s head barely reached Achilea’s shoulder.

  ‘In my own land, I am a queen,' Achilea said through clenched teeth, 'I am not to be handled in such a fashion.'

  The masked woman laughed shrilly, her tones echoed by the rest, 'You are overdressed, slave!'

  she said, hauling on Achilea’s cloak with all her strength. The cord that held the garment to Achilea’s neck snapped. Next, the woman tore off her belt and fox pelt, leaving her dressed only in her fur leggings.

  'That is better,' the woman said with satisfaction. 'You may be comely in your barbaric fashion, when you have done with shedding your skin.' She ignored the rest and turned to the bizarre warriors behind her.

  'Below with them!' she barked. 'We shall soon see what these odd creatures are made of.'

  The warriors surged forward and began to hustle and the captives toward the immense idol. A wide bronze door creaked open beneath the crossed ankles and they were dragged and pushed within.

  X

  Conan gazed overhead. The gloomy interior of the idol was illuminated by only a few torches, and these revealed an internal bracing of heavy timbers and strong metal beams, held together with bolts as thick as a man’s leg. There were huge gears, ten paces across, and levers that must need five or ten men to move. Metal pipes led from no place to nowhere, and thick chains hung in great loops, their upper ends lost in the darkness. He felt a hard point prodding him in the back.

  'Stop gaping,' the masked woman ordered. 'The Great Goddess does not like profane eyes probing her holy interior.'

  He could not tell whether the woman
spoke ironically, for it was hard enough just making sense of her words, so thickly accented were they. Did she truly think this colossal thing to be a goddess, knowing that it was nothing but levers and gears and chains within? He shrugged off the question. If true, it would be far from the most unreasonable religion he had come across in his travels.

  Beneath the centre of the idol was a spiral ramp, wide enough for ten people to walk abreast. They began to descend. Achilea’s women walked close behind her to protect their queen from the indignity of the prodding spears. For this, they earned a number of small wounds in their backs, buttocks and thighs.

  The dwarf strode ahead of her truculently, as if daring anyone to come too close.

  The descent seemed interminable. The ramp was of smooth stone, its surface throwing back a reflection from the strange, smokeless torches that burned with a muted hiss every few paces along the wall. As they walked, the Cimmerian’s keen perceptions detected a slight relaxation among their captors.

  Muscles that had tensed along backs and necks smoothed their knotted contours; their stiff-legged stalking eased-It was as if being above had set their nerves on edge and now they felt freer in more secure and familiar surroundings. Conan could hardly guess why this should be. Did these strange folk live down here all the time?

  The spiral ramp ended in a wide corridor illuminated by more of the smokeless torches. The walls and ceilings of the corridor were richly decorated with the same designs they had seen so frequently in the town above: intertwining foliage, complex geometric patterns and obscenely coupling human and demonic figures.

  They passed openings that gave onto huge rooms where shadowy forms went through incomprehensible rituals or activities, but they never paused long enough to get a good look. As they