The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  On either side of the throne stood a giant Kushite. They were like images carved of black basalt, naked but for sandals and silken loincloths, with broad-tipped tulwars in their hands.

  'Who is this?' languidly inquired the man on the throne in Hyrkanian.

  'Conan the Cimmerian, my lord!' answered Zahak with a swagger.

  The dark eyes quickened with interest, then sharpened with suspicion.

  'How comes he into Yanaidar unannounced?'

  The Zuagir dogs who watch the Stair say he came to them, swearing that he had been sent for by the Magus of the Sons of Yezm.'

  Conan stiffened at that title, his blue eyes fixed with fierce intensity on the oval face. But he did not speak. There was a time for silence as well as for bold speech. His next move depended upon the Magus' words. They might brand him as an impostor and doom him. But Conan depended on the belief that no ruler would order him slain without trying to learn why he was there, and the fact that few rulers wholly trust their own followers.

  After a pause, the man on the throne spoke: 'This is the law of Yanaidar: No man may ascend the Stair unless he makes the Sign so the Watchers of the Stair can see. If he does not know the Sign, the Warder of the Gate must be summoned to converse with the stranger before he may mount the Stair. Conan was not announced. The Warder of the Gate was not summoned. Did Conan make the Sign, below the Stair?'

  Antar sweated, shot a venomous glance at Conan, and spoke in a voice harsh with apprehension: 'The guard in the cleft did not give warning.

  Conan appeared upon the cliff before we saw him, though we were vigilant as eagles. He is a magician who makes himself invisible at will. We knew he spoke truth when he said you had sent for him, otherwise he could not have known the Secret Way―'

  Perspiration beaded the Zuagir's narrow forehead. The man on the throne did not seem to hear his voice. Zahak struck Antar savagely in the mouth with his open hand. 'Dog, be silent until the Magus deigns to command your speech!'

  Antar reeled, blood starting down his beard, and looked black murder at the Hyrkanian, but said nothing. The Magus moved his hand languidly, saying:

  'Take the Zuagirs away. Keep them under guard until further orders.

  Even if a man is expected, the Watchers should not be surprised. Conan did not know the Sign, yet he climbed the Stair unhindered. If they had been vigilant, not even Conan could have done this. He is no wizard.

  You may go. I will talk to Conan alone.'

  Zahak bowed and led his glittering swordsmen away between the silent files of warriors lined on each side of the door, herding the shivering Zuagirs before them. These turned as they passed and fixed their burning eyes on Conan in a silent glare of hatred.

  Zahak pulled the bronze doors shut behind them. The Magus spoke in Iranistani to Conan: 'Speak freely. These black men do not understand Iranistani.'

  Conan, before replying, kicked a divan up before the dais and settled himself comfortably on it, with his feet propped up on a velvet footstool. The Magus showed no surprise that his visitor should seat himself unbidden. His first words showed that he had had much dealings with Westerners and had, for his own purposes, adopted some of their directness. He said: 'I did not send for you.'

  'Of course not. But I had to tell those fools something or else slay them all.'

  'What do you want here?'

  'What does any man want who comes to a nest of outlaws?'

  'He might come as a spy.'

  Conan gave a rumbling laugh. 'For whom?'

  'How did you know the Road?'

  'I followed the vultures; they always lead me to my goal.'

  'They should; you have fed them full often enough. What of the Khitan who watched the cleft?'

  'Dead; he wouldn't listen to reason.'

  'The vultures follow you, not you the vultures,' commented the Magus.

  'Why sent you no word to me of your coming?'

  'By whom? Last night in the Gorge of Ghosts a band of your fools fell upon my party, slew one, and carried another away. The fourth man was frightened and fled, so I came on alone when the moon rose.'

  They were Sabateans, whose duty it is to watch the Gorge of Ghosts.

  They did not know you sought me. They limped into the city at dawn, with one dying and most of the others wounded, and swore they had slain a rich Vendhyan merchant and his servants in the Gorge of Ghosts.

  Evidently they feared to admit that they ran away leaving you alive.

  They shall smart for their lie, but you have not told me why you came here.'

  'For refuge. The King of Iranistan and I have fallen out.'

  The Magus shrugged. 'I know about that Kobad Shah will not molest you for some time, if ever. He was wounded by one of our agents. However, the squadron he sent after you is still on your trail.'

  Conan felt the prickling at his nape that magic aroused in him. 'Crom!

  You keep up to date on your news.'

  The Magus gave a tiny nod towards the crystal. 'A toy, but not without its uses. However, we have kept our secret well. Therefore, since you knew of Yanaidar and the Road to Yanaidar, you must have been told of it by one of the Brotherhood. Did the Tiger send you?'

  Conan recognised the trap. 'I know no Tiger,' he answered. 'I need not be told secrets; I learn them for myself. I came here because I had to have a hiding place. I'm out of favour at Anshan, and the Turanians would impale me if they caught me.'

  The Magus said something in Stygian. Conan, knowing he would not change the language of their conversation without a reason, feigned ignorance.

  The Magus spoke to one of the blacks, and that giant drew a silver hammer from his girdle and smote a golden gong hanging by the tapestries. The echoes had scarcely died away when the bronze doors opened long enough to admit a slim man in plain silken robes, who bowed before the dais―a Stygian from his shaven head. The Magus addressed him as 'Khaza' and questioned him in the tongue he had just tested on Conan. Khaza replied in the same language.

  'Do you know this man?' said the Magus.

  'Aye, my lord.'

  'Have our spies included him in their reports?'

  'Aye, my lord. The last dispatch from Anshan bore word of him. On the night that your servant tried to execute the king, this man talked with the king secretly an hour or so before the attack. After leaving the palace hurriedly he fled from the city with his three hundred horsemen and was last seen riding along the road to Kushaf. He was pursued by horsemen from Anshan, but whether these gave up the chase or still seek him I know not.'

  'You have my leave to go.'

  Khaza bowed and departed, and the Magus meditated for a space. Then he lifted his head and said: 'I believe you speak the truth. You fled from Anshan to Kushaf, where no friend of the king would be welcome. Your enmity toward the Turanians is well-known. We need such a man. But I cannot initiate you until the Tiger passes on you. He is not now in Yanaidar but will be here by tomorrow's dawn. Meanwhile I should like to know how you learned of our society and our city.'

  Conan shrugged. 'I hear the secrets the wind sings as it blows through the branches of the dry tamarisks, and the tales the men of the caravans whisper about the dung-fires in the serais.'

  'Then you know our purpose? Our ambition?'

  'I know what you call yourselves.' Conan, groping his way, made his answer purposely ambiguous.

  'Do you know what my title means?' asked the Magus.

  'Magus of the Sons of Yezm―magician-in-chief of the Yezmites. In Turan they say the Yezmites were a pre-Catastrophic race who lived on the shores of the Vilayet Sea and practiced strange rites, with sorcery and cannibalism, before the coming of the Hyrkanians, who destroyed the last remnants of them.'

  'So they say,' sneered the Magus. 'But their descendants still dwell in the hills of Shem.'

  'So I suspected,' said Conan. 'I've heard tales of them, but until now I scorned them as legends.'

  'Aye! The world deems them legends―but since the Beginning of Happenings
the Fire of Yezm has not been wholly extinguished, though for centuries it smoldered to glowing embers. The Society of the Hidden Ones is the oldest cult of all. It lies behind the worship of Mitra, Ishtar, and Asura. It recognizes no difference in race or religion. In the ancient past its branches extended all over the world, from Crondar to Valusia. Men of many lands and races belong and have belonged to the society of the Hidden Ones. In the long, long ago the Yezmites were only one branch, though from their race the priests of the cult were chosen.

  'After the Catastrophe, the cult reestablished itself. In Stygia, Acheron, Koth, and Zamora were bands of the cult, cloaked in mystery and only half-suspected by the races among which they dwelt But, as the millennia passed, these groups became isolated and fell apart, each branch going its separate way and each dwindling in strength because of lack of unity.

  'In olden days, the Hidden Ones swayed the destinies of empires. They did not lead armies in the field, but they fought by poison and fire and the flame-bladed dagger that bit in the dark. Their scarlet-cloaked emissaries of death went forth to do the bidding of the Magus of the Sons of Yezm, and kings died in Luxur, in Python, in Kuthchemes, in Dagon.

  'And I am a descendant of that one who was Magus of Yezm in the days of Tuthamon, he whom all the world feared!' A fanatical gleam lit the dark eyes. 'Throughout my youth I dreamed of the former greatness of the cult, into which I was initiated as a child. Wealth that flowed from the mines of my estate made the dream a reality. Virata of Kosala became the Magus of the Sons of Yezm, the first to hold the title in five hundred years.

  'The creed of the Hidden ones is broad and deep as the sea, uniting men of opposing sects. Strand by strand I drew together and united the separate branches of the cult: the Zugites, the Jhilites, the Erlikites, the Yezudites. My emissaries travelled the world seeking members of the ancient society and finding them―in teeming cities, among barren mountains, in the silence of upland deserts. Slowly, surely, my band has grown, for I have not only united all the various branches of the cult but have also gained new recruits among the bold and desperate spirits of a score of races and sects. All are one before the Fire of Yezm; I have among my followers worshippers of Gullah, Set, and Mitra; of Derketo, Ishtar, and Yun.

  Ten years ago, I came with my followers to this city, then a crumbling mass of ruins, unknown to the hillmen because their superstitious legends made them shun this region. The buildings were crumbled stone, the canals filled with rubble, and the groves grown wild and tangled.

  It took six years to rebuild it Most of my fortune went into the labour, for bringing material hither in secret was tedious and dangerous work.

  We brought it out of Iranistan, over the old caravan route from the South and up an ancient ramp on the western side of the plateau which I have since destroyed. But at last I looked upon forgotten Yanaidar as it was in the days of old.

  'Look!'

  He rose and beckoned. The giant blacks closed in on each side of the Magus as he led the way into an alcove hidden behind a tapestry. They stood in a latticed balcony looking down into a garden enclosed by a fifteen-foot wall. This wall was almost completely masked by thick shrubbery. An exotic fragrance rose from masses of trees, shrubs, and blossoms, and silvery fountains tinkled. Conan saw women moving among the trees, scantily clad in filmy silk and jewel-crusted velvet―slim, supple girls, mostly Vendhyan, Iranistani, and Shemite. Men, looking as if they were drugged, lay under the trees on silken cushions. Music wailed melodiously.

  'This is the Paradise Garden, such as was used by the Magi of old times,' said Virata, closing the casement and turning back into the throne room. 'Those who serve me well are drugged with the juice of the purple lotus. Awakening in this garden with the fairest women of the world to serve them, they think they are in truth in the heaven promised for those who die serving the Magus.' The Kosalan smiled thinly. 'I show you this because I will not have you 'Taste Paradise'

  like these. You are not such a fool as to be duped so easily. It does no harm for you to know these secrets. If the Tiger does not approve of you, your knowledge will die with you; if he does, you have learned no more than you would in any event as one of the Sons of the Mountain.

  'You can rise high in my empire. I shall become as mighty as my ancestor. Six years I prepared; then I began to strike. Within the last four years, my followers have gone forth with poisoned daggers as they went forth in the old days, knowing no law but my will, incorruptible, invincible, seeking death rather than life.'

  'And your ultimate ambition?'

  'Have you not guessed it?' The Kosalan almost whispered it, his eyes wide and blank with fanaticism.

  'Who wouldn't?' grunted Conan. 'But I had rather hear it from you.'

  'I shall rule the world! Sitting here in Yanaidar, I shall control its destinies! Kings on their thrones shall be but puppets dancing on my strings. Those who disobey my commands shall die. Soon none will dare disobey. Power will be mine. Power! Yajur! What is greater?'

  Conan silently compared the Magus' boasts of absolute power with the role of the mysterious Tiger who must decide Conan's fate. Virata's authority was evidently not supreme after all.

  'Where is the girl, Nanaia?' he demanded. 'Your Sabateans carried her away after they murdered my lieutenant Hattusas.'

  Virata's expression of surprise was overdone. 'I know not to whom you refer. They brought back no captive.'

  Conan was sure he was lying but realised it would be useless to press the question further now. He thought of various reasons why Virata should deny knowledge of the girl, all disquieting.

  The Magus motioned to the black, who again smote the gong. Again Khaza entered, bowing.

  'Khaza will show you to your chamber,' said Virata. There food and drink will be brought you. You are not a prisoner; no guard will be placed over you. But I must ask you not to leave your chamber unescorted. My men are suspicious of outsiders, and until you are initiated…' He let the sentence trail off into meaningful silence.

  IV

  Whispering Swords

  The impassive Stygian led Conan through the bronze doors, past the files of glittering guards, and along a narrow corridor, which branched off from the broad hallway. He conducted Conan into a chamber with a domed ceiling of ivory and sandalwood and one heavy, brass-bound, teakwood door. There were no windows; air and light came through apertures in the dome. The walls were hung with rich tapestries; the floor was hidden by cushion-strewn rugs.

  Khaza bowed himself out without a word, shutting the door behind him.

  Conan seated himself on a velvet divan. This was the most bizarre situation he had found himself in during a life packed with wild and bloody adventures. He brooded over the fate of Nanaia and wondered at his next step.

  Sandaled feet padded in the corridor. Khaza entered, followed by a huge Negro bearing viands in golden dishes and a golden jug of wine. Before Khaza close the door, Conan had a glimpse of the spike of a helmet protruding from the tapestries before an alcove on the opposite side of the corridor. Virata had lied when he said no guard would be placed to watch him, which was no more than Conan expected.

  'Wine of Kyros, my lord, and food,' said the Stygian. 'Presently a maiden beautiful as the dawn shall be sent to entertain you.'

  'Good,' grunted Conan.

  Khaza motioned the slave to set down the food. He himself tasted each dish and sipped liberally of the wine before bowing himself out. Conan, alert as a trapped wolf, noted that the Stygian tasted the wine last and stumbled a little as he left the chamber. When the door closed behind the men, Conan smelled of the wine. Mingled with the bouquet of the wine, so faint that only his keen barbarian nostrils could have detected it, was an aromatic odor he recognised. It was that of the purple lotus of the sullen swamps of southern Stygia, which induced a deep slumber for a short or a long time depending on the quantity. The taster had to hurry from the room before he was overcome. Conan wondered if Virata meant to convey him to the Paradise Garden after all.
r />   Investigation convinced him that the food had not been tampered with, and he fell to with gusto.

  He had scarcely finished the meal, and was staring at the tray hungrily as if in hope of finding something more to eat, when the door opened again. A slim, supple figure slipped in: a girl in golden breastplates, a jewel-crusted girdle, and filmy silk trousers.

  'Who are you?' growled Conan.

  The girl shrank back, her brown skin paling. 'Oh, sire, do not hurt me!

  I have done nothing!' Her dark eyes were dilated with fear and excitement; her words tumbled over one another, and her fingers fluttered childishly.

  'Who said anything about hurting you? I asked who you were.'

  'I―I am called Parasati.'

  'How did you get here?'

  'They stole me, my lord, the Hidden Ones, one night as I walked in my father's garden in Ayodhya. By secret, devious ways they brought me to this city of devils, to be a slave with the other girls they steal out of Vendhya and Iranistan and other lands.' She hurried on. 'I have d-dwelt here for a month. I have almost died of shame! I have been whipped! I have seen other girls die of torture. Oh, what shame for my father, that his daughter should be made a slave of devil worshipers!'

  Conan said nothing, but the red glint in his blue eyes was eloquent Though his own career had been red-spattered with slaying and rapine, towards women he possessed a rough, barbaric code of chivalry. Up till now he had toyed with the idea of actually joining Virata's cult― in hope of working up and making himself master of it, if need be by killing those above him. Now his intentions crystallized on the destruction of this den of snakes and the conversion of their lair to his own uses. Parusati continued: