The Conan Compendium

by Robert E. Howard

  He stumbled through an opening in the outer wall, falling over but managing to stagger to his feet and continue. Behind him, the Cimmerian bolted madly toward the gate, less than a dozen paces away. He raised his sword before him, and its point was mere paces from the eunuch's back. The unseen, dark-eyed watcher within the fortress observed every step. As Lamici passed through the wall, the watcher spoke his first word in many silent centuries.

  "Kapatmak-kutuk!"

  The syllables rolled echoingly from Skauraul's throat, setting powerful forces in motion.

  "Augh!" Conan bellowed in surprise as he slammed into the hardened iron of the gate, where there had been only empty air moments before. His blade went flying, and he rebounded backward into the sand. Reeling from the unexpected collision, he groped for his weapon and rose unsteadily.

  "What witchery is this?" Kailash asked, skidding to a halt several feet in front of the gate. "Look!" With his sword, he pointed toward the walls on either side of the gate. They were no longer crumbling, cracked ribs of stone jutting up from the stand. Now they stood restored, unblemished and impervious.

  "We must climb over," grumbled Conan. "We can still catch him!"

  Both he and the hillman were skilled climbers. They scaled the gate, which provided more footholds and grips than did the smooth walls.

  Conan hoisted himself up to the top of the gate and looked over it.

  Lamici was halfway to the steps that led to the fortress's door. The Cimmerian swung over the gate and climbed part of the way down, then dropped to the ground below. Kailash followed him, rolling as he fell upon the soft sand. The eunuch was only a few hundred feet away. He had just reached the steps that led up to the fortress door.

  "Delmek-keskin!"

  Once again Skauraul spoke boomingly from the tower.

  Conan drew his broad-bladed dagger as he darted toward the faltering eunuch. Behind him, Kailash let out a roar of surprise and pain. Conan glanced over his shoulder, nearly dropping the dagger in astonishment.

  A long, wickedly barbed spike had suddenly thrust up from the sand. Its iron shaft was nearly as thick as the Cimmerian's wrist. The spike had narrowly missed the hillman, grazing his left side and ripping away a piece of his worn cloak. Conan felt a slight tickle by his right foot and instinctively dived to one side. His lightning-fast reflexes saved him; another iron spike pierced the air where he had been only an instant before. It rose in the air, a head taller than Conan, before stopping.

  The sandy patch of ground between the two men and the fortress had become a nightmarish death trap. Conan and Kailash frantically dodged the lethal spikes, which were sprouting from the ground around them like deadly iron weeds. Occasionally a spike would retract back into the ground; the sand would fill the hole that had been made, leaving little trace of the evil presence.

  Conan and Kailash continued their frenzied dance around the spikes, inching closer to the fortress. Both men bled from numerous close calls, and their cloaks were ripped and torn in countless places. The Cimmerian, already winded from the foot-race, knew he would be skewered if he let his concentration slip for even a moment. Trusting to luck, he plunged ahead heedlessly, closing his eyes and running at full clip toward the door of the fortress.

  When he opened his eyes again, he stood at the base of the steps, beyond the reach of the harrowing spikes. A nasty gash had opened along his right leg; the barbs from one spike had slashed his flesh brutally.

  He was otherwise intact.

  Imitating Conan's crazed rush for the steps, Kailash hurled himself forward. He had nearly made it when a pole came up forcefully, ripping through his left foot and continuing upward. Howling in agony, Kailash fell to the ground.

  Conan latched hold of the spike and wrenched at it with all his might.

  The thick iron pole bent, then snapped off. Its barbs bit deeply into his palms, but he ignored the blood that flowed. Kailash pulled his foot free from the stem. In spite of his dehydration, a few tiny droplets beaded from his eyes, drawn out by the pain. Grimacing, he tore a loose strip from his cloak and bound his injured foot, knotting the cloth tightly and hobbling forward. Thick blood oozed slowly into the wrapping.

  Gripping the spike like a makeshift spear, Conan drew his arm back.

  "Die, dog of hell!"

  He hurled the deadly shaft toward Lamici, who had been struggling weakly with the fortress's heavy door. Even for one of Conan's skill, the emaciated eunuch made a poor target. The point buried itself in the eunuch's right shoulder, passing through with enough force to push the door open. The momentum of Conan's throw propelled Lamici inside.

  Conan retrieved his dropped dagger and bounded up the steps. Kailash limped stubbornly after him, wincing. They reached the door minutes later and dived inside.

  A gruesome sight awaited them in the fortress's cobwebby antechamber.

  Several hairy, bloated spiders surrounded the eunuch's prone form and were busily feasting upon it. Conan's stomach heaved in revulsion at the hideous slurping and rending noises. Wielding his sword, he quickly dispatched the carnivorous arachnids.

  Kailash fought off others that had dropped down from the chamber's high ceiling, while Conan wrenched a small leather pouch from the dead eunuch's scrawny waist. Inside, he found nothing but a small, heavy, cloth-bound object. He tore off the wrappings and triumphantly held up Madesus's amulet.

  Kailash looked down at his injured foot. "You must leave, Conan! Take the amulet and flee. Give it to a priest with the power to wield it against the priestess. You must go, now!" He thrust the bag of provisions at the Cimmerian.

  Conan was spared the decision.

  "Kapatmak-kapi!" Skauraul had spoken for a third time, sealing the human maggots in his tower. The iron door clanged shut. Conan made a vain effort to pull the spear from Lamici's corpse and block the door, but he was too late.

  Leaving the lofty observation room, Skauraul began the long climb down the winding stairs.

  Twenty

  Exitium

  Conan and Kailash stared at the stone portal. Kailash tried his strength, but the door stubbornly refused to open. "There are three other doors," the burly hillman observed after his eyes had adjusted to the chamber's almost indiscernible light.

  Conan eyed the doors with suspicion. Leering gargoyles crouched menacingly above them, and his instincts told him that traps lay just beyond.

  "Four doors," Conan said, moving to the large stone door that had slammed behind them. He made several efforts to force it open, but the stout portal would have withstood a dozen men with a metal-shod battering ram. Kailash and Conan combined their strength in a final, superhuman push. The thick stone refused to yield; it stood before them, silently mocking their strength. Panting from exertion, they gave up and slumped against the wall.

  "Why did it close?" Kailash wondered aloud. "By Mitra, the traps in this accursed place are timed with inhuman precision! Do the very doors obey the witch's commands?"

  Conan responded with a vague grunt and mumbled a few curses. He was looking around the chamber for another way out and noticed that the light within had somehow improved. As he scanned the walls and ceiling, he was startled to find that the priest's amulet was shining. It gave off an increasingly bright blue glow. He held it aloft, allowing it to illuminate the room.

  "Look here! Tracks, in the dust!" Conan called to Kailash, pointing at boot-marks in the thin layer of dust on the floor before one of the doors.

  Kailash stared questioningly at the amulet, but Conan only shrugged in response. Then the hillman studied the tracks and carefully eyed the door. "Locked or bolted, I'll warrant." He tried the handle, letting out a murmur of surprise when the portal pushed open with ease.

  Conan put a restraining hand on Kailash's shoulder. "Wait," he said curtly. "I'll go first, to light the way." With his sword, he pointed to the blood-soaked wrap around the hillman's injured foot. "Step carefully! More traps may lie ahead."

  Kailash nodded, shifting his grip on his hil
t. With the toe of one sandal, Conan shoved the door all the way open. The amulet shone into the large, semicircular room beyond. It was empty but for a half-dozen or so statues. In the center of the room, a wrought-iron spiral stair wound upward, disappearing into the high ceiling some twenty or thirty feet above. Conan stepped guardedly, motioning for Kailash to follow.

  The Kezankian paused to wrap a new strip of cloth around his foot, then limped in after Conan.

  Seven statues stood opposite the door, spaced evenly apart, taking up the entire wall. They resembled the repugnant gargoyles that perched above the doors in the outer chamber, but they were larger and did not grip orbs, as their smaller counterparts did. Conan had no wish to walk within their reach. He strode catlike toward the twisting stair of iron in the room's center.

  Kailash picked up the barbed spike still gleaming wetly with Lamici's blood. To prevent the door from closing behind them, he wedged the spike against the jamb and set its point securely into the door.

  When Conan placed his foot on the bottom step of the iron stair, he heard a loud crack from the antechamber. Whirling, he jumped off the step toward the door, landing beside Kailash, who reacted more slowly.

  The crack was followed by a stony thump, and a cloud of gray dust billowed in from the doorway. Conan shoved the amulet forward, hoping to see what was happening in the outer chamber.

  When the dust settled, both men cursed and backed into the room.

  Standing in the doorway was the hideous, crouching form of a gargoyle.

  Its skin had changed from pitted gray stone to dark, reptilian green, and its eyes flickered redly in the shadowy chamber. Before either man could react, the leering beast tossed its orb at them.

  Conan's blade lashed out and rang against the milky-white sphere with a burst of blue sparks. Deflected, the orb fell to the floor a few feet away from the Cimmerian, sputtering faintly. Wisps of noxious white smoke rose from it, fouling the air. Conan advanced and raised his sword to strike the gargoyle.

  The scaly beast moved rapidly. It grabbed the spike that Kailash had jammed into the doorway and shoved the point menacingly at Conan. The Cimmerian sidestepped the deadly weapon, twisting and bending his head.

  With a bloodcurdling cry, he swung his sword at the beast's exposed side. The blade bit deeply into the creature's vitals, shearing off a leathery chunk of flesh that fell to the floor with a meaty thump.

  The gargoyle jumped back, grasping the door handle and pulling the door firmly shut, blocking Conan's next attack. The wounded beast slid the spike through the handle, barring the portal, as grayish-yellow ichor gushed from the gaping wound in its side. Moments later, the beast froze and turned to stone, its hands still locked onto the spike.

  Inside the chamber, Conan threw himself against the thick door, but could only rattle it. Kailash yelled a warning to Conan, who turned from the door to face the hillman. The ashen-faced Kezankian stood a few feet away, staring in horror at the statues along the wall. All seven had begun to advance slowly toward them. Like the gargoyles above the doors, their flesh had taken on a scaly, green appearance, and to Conan they looked even more formidable than their smaller, orb-bearing cousins.

  Further, his eyes were watering from the acrid smoke of the cracked orb. The fumes tore at his lungs like daggers; every breath he drew brought fresh twinges of pain from within his chest.

  The statue in the center flapped its leathery wings and soared into the air, while the two nearest to Conan began closing in. Cut off from Conan, Kailash hobbled over to the iron stair, gritting his teeth as four of the sharp-taloned beasts moved closer, surrounding him.

  Conan set his back to the door and prepared to meet the flying gargoyle's attack. It dived right at the Cimmerian, talons and fangs bristling and leathery wings flapping. The barbarian held his position until the fearsome talons were inches from his face. With a yell, he dodged to one side and rolled to his feet, swinging his blade with enough vigor to fell a tree. The gargoyle slammed into the door with stunning force; a loud crack of snapping bones filled the room.

  The edge of Conan's blade tore through the beast's wings, ripping them from its back. They lay on the floor, still beating weakly. The gargoyle left a nasty smear on the door as it slid down, twitching spasmodically. Seconds later, its crumpled carcass had turned back to stone. Undaunted, the other two gargoyles closed the distance to Conan, stepping near enough to strike.

  In the center of the chamber, Kailash fought desperately. His punctured foot ruined his balance and kept him on the defensive. A few gargoyles sported minor wounds from the hillman's efforts, but the Kezankian himself bled from bloody scratches. One gargoyle had gotten close enough to rip a furrow along Kailash's jaw. Step by step, they forced the sweating hillman to retreat up the iron stair. He had already climbed a dozen feet above the floor, but from this position, he could no longer see Conan.

  Slowly, he backed up the stair, struggling to keep his balance. At least now only one beast at a time could attack him. As he neared the top of the stair, he was eye-level with the chamber there. A small but sturdy-looking wooden door was the only exit. Before Kailash could put his back to this door, two gargoyles raced into the chamber and blocked the exit. A few more crept up the stairs, barring his return to the room below. The hillman turned to face the beasts closest to him, hoping to cut them down and reach the door. Their sharp talons slashed at him, tearing deep, crimson furrows into his sword-arm. Blood welled from dozens of cuts.

  Keeping his composure, the hillman surprised his unearthly foes by rushing straight for them, then falling to the floor. Rolling smoothly between two of the gargoyles, Kailash lunged for the door. His injured foot shot arrows of pain up his leg, but he gritted his teeth and wrenched at the doorhandle, praying silently to Mitra that the door would open. Mitra was listening. The unlocked door opened easily, and he fell into the room beyond, narrowly evading the grasping talons of the gargoyles pursuing him.

  Darkness shrouded the chamber he had entered. The bright light from the amulet had faded gradually as Kailash had moved upstairs away from the Cimmerian.

  Groping for the doorhandle, he slammed the portal shut. Seconds later, it rattled in its frame as a gargoyle rammed into it. Fumbling along the door frame, Kailash found the bolt and shot it home with a reassuring iron clank. The door looked solid enough to keep the beasts at bay for at least a while. He slumped against the door to brace it, catching his breath and automatically assessing his position. His eyes, now adjusted to the darkness, still could not discern any of the room's secrets.

  As he tightened the shreds of cloth around his wounded foot, he heard a strange sound from somewhere in the chamber. He froze, listening intently, but the din made by the gargoyles battering the door drowned out nearly everything else. His hillman instincts took over; he readied his sword and felt along the wall, hoping to find a defensible corner in the room. During a pause in the noise from outside, he heard the sound again. It was a soft rustling, like leather rubbed against smooth stone. The sound had grown louder. His left hand found the end of the wall, and he stood up straight in a fighting stance. How much longer would the door hold? He suspected that the gargoyles could see in the dark. If they broke in, his doom was at hand.

  An eerie sensation from his foot wiped all thoughts of the door from his mind. Some thing was probing lightly at his injured foot. His skin crawled as he felt the thing touch him. Moments later, he felt new pain as something small and sharp thrust into the open wound. A revolting sucking noise ensued.

  Kailash jerked his foot away in disgust, kicking to dislodge the thing that clung to it. The creature hissed wetly in anger as he shook it off. He heard it fall softly to the floor, sputtering. Its body had been soft, bulbous, and leathery. From what pit had this horror crawled? He swung blindly in the direction of the hissing. His sword rang against the stone floor with a shower of tiny sparks. He had missed, and the sparks had died too quickly for him to get a glimpse of the creature.

  As he ai
med another swing, a dim, orange glow filled the room. His nose twitched at a strange, smoky odor. He could now see that the room was small. In an open doorway on the opposite wall, a narrow stair led up into the tower. There was no furniture or features save the door he had bolted a few minutes earlier. He was not alone in the chamber. A few feet away, a large spider was dragging itself across the floor toward him. Its pale eyes glowered at him with rage, suggesting that it had far more intelligence than any of its smaller kin. By luck, he had wounded it. A few of its severed legs lay on the floor near it. Mitra had surely guided his desperate sword-stroke. Fresh red blood, leeched from his foot, smeared the spider's loathsome fangs. He fought a sudden urge to retch and looked up, away from the spider.

  Kailash sucked in a breath of air, gasping in surprise. He saw the source of the glow, and of the smoke. A woman was coming down the narrow stairs. In one hand she carried a dark stone bowl. Wisps of smoke rose from the bowl, which gave off a dull, orange-red glow. The fumes concealed her face and other features from him, but he was certain that he was confronted by the Mutare priestess. She carried no weapons that he could see, but Madesus had told him that against her, a sword was useless.

  She reached the bottom stair and stepped into the room, setting the stone bowl on the floor. The smoke parted around her, and he could see that she wore no garments. The light cast a hellish red glow on her smooth skin and tinted her shoulder-length, shiny black hair. Wantonly, she ran her fingers through her tresses, stroked her neck, then her perfect body. She moved her hands over the generous globes of her exposed breasts, and past them to her belly. Her stomach was not flat, as he would have expected. It bowed outward, as though she were with child. The skin above her navel pulsed obscenely, like a beating heart.

  He tore his gaze from her, repulsed.

  She laughed, a sound that chilled his bones and froze the hot blood in his veins. "Welcome, hillman!" She paused, seeing that his eyes were downcast. "You cannot bear to look upon true beauty? Am I too much for your eyes?"