Over the years he had perhaps grown a bit arrogant, he realized. Hundreds of years past, when first he had arrived at the caves, the wizard had been more cautious. He had set traps to protect himself in the event of just such an attack, but in the ensuing decades and centuries, he had almost forgotten about his protections. Many had fallen into disrepair or, in the case of those involving magic, lost their potency. But there remained one he had never deactivated.
Rey hurriedly rehearsed the words of the old spell, trying to be certain he recalled them correctly. He stepped back out into the hallway and faced the oncoming horde. The Whites could not see per se, but they were aware of him through their augmented senses of hearing and smell.
They charged, full tilt, screaming. The bats flew right behind the wave of running Whites.
Rey spoke aloud the words of the ancient spell, gesturing at the ceiling of the corridor as he did so.
Suddenly the tunnel was filled with the roar of uncounted tons of rock breaking loose from the age-old ceiling. The noise of the avalanche was followed immediately by the screams of those below. The roof did not entirely collapse, nor did the rocks that fell do so all at once, but the position of the attackers made it quite impossible for them to escape the cascade of rocks that showered down upon them. Despite the dampness, dust and grit flew. Moans arose from the shattered victims, those still capable of mounting speech. Red splashed and coated the walls. It was a hard rain indeed.
When the last rock dropped, what remained was a corridor now somewhat shallower on the bottom and deeper at the top than before. The new floor was that much higher for the bodies under the former ceiling. Two or three Whites had avoided the trap, and several bats flew around in dazed circles, but the attack was broken.
Rey grinned, pleased with himself… until he saw the first rank of worms and cyclopes begin climbing over the rockfall. Set and all the demi-demons!
* * *
Twenty-five
The fire that had burned the pile of clothing had begun to die down when from it there came a pop!
Elashi, Lalo, and Tull all turned at the sudden sound and stared at the fading light of the smoldering clothing.
"What was that?" Tull asked.
Elashi shook her head.
Lalo said, "That vial you tossed into the clothing. I think perhaps the fire has opened it."
No sooner had Lalo said this than a poisonous-looking black vapor arose from the dying fire. The tendrils of black appeared to be unaffected by the fire's heat―and it looked nothing at all like normal smoke. As the three watched, the curling black swirled up and began to move toward them, pulsing as if to some unheard rhythm.
"Uh-oh," Tull said. "I like the look of this not at all."
"What can we do?" The wizard has threatened to blast us if we move from this chamber," Elashi said.
"Better the demon we know than one we do not," Lalo told her, nodding at the malignant vapor undulating slowly toward them. "Besides, it sounds to me as if the wizard might have his hands occupied at the moment."
Neither Tull nor Elashi chose to argue with Lalo's assessment of the situation. The black cloud was growing in size; already it blotted out half of the chamber.
The three scrambled for the doorway.
Conan moved along the corridor next to Wikkell and Deek. Ahead, the ceiling had just fallen in with a sound like constant thunder, burying the advance ranks of Whites and bats. The wizard was not without his defenses, so it seemed. The Cimmerian sheathed his sword in order to better clamber over the uneven piles of rock now blanketing the floor.
The witch who was a flying reptile approached the scene of carnage and flapped down to perch on a shelf high above it all. My, my. That Bastard most assuredly had his problems. Could the magicked beast have performed the action, it would have grinned. Chuntha decided that she could tarry here for a bit and watch. It seemed that the wizard was finally about to get his just due, and this was too good a show to miss.
Rey's skills had fallen into disuse over the years, but there had been a time when he was as adept a spellcaster as any. He dredged up old curses and conjurations from his long past, searching for one that would put a decisive end to this attack. There was a demon-call he had used once, oh, three or four hundred years ago. As he recalled, the demon had been both large and fearsome, with a hideous visage. Yes, he would set the demon upon the blasted worms and traitorous cyclopes and see how they enjoyed that!
Could he but recall the words of the damned spell in time…
Tull, Elashi, and Lalo ran into the antechamber and skidded to a halt. The wizard was not to be seen.
"Outside, he must be outside, in the corridor," Elashi.said, pointing at the door.
"We cannot go out there," Tull said.
"Well, no doubt the black vapor behind us will stop at the open doorway through which we have just passed," Lalo said, his voice heavy with irony.
Elashi shook her head. Lalo was right. What were they going to do?
Chuntha's observation post gave her a good view of the proceedings below; That Bastard, give him credit, had more than a few things left up his sleeve. The witch watched with respect as the air began to swirl inside the hastily sketched pentagram on the floor in front of the entrance to the wizard's chambers. Calling up something, he was, and she doubted that such an act would do the attacking rebels any good whatsoever.
Wait―what was that?―no, who was that? Conan! Climbing over the fallen rock, in company with the cyclopes and worms.
For a moment Chuntha's rage was such that she nearly took to the air, intending to dive down and rend the cursed barbarian into tattered and bloody flesh. But no. Wait a moment and see what the wizard works, she thought. No point in being foolish.
The reason Rey had chosen the location of his chambers originally from all the thousands available was simple enough: the magic permeating the old rock here hung thick and potent. A spell that might exhaust some other location might hardly take a small fraction of the energies resident in this particular area. So it was that the wizard had sufficient force to conjur the demon.
Within the bounds of the pentagram, the air twirled and became a flashing display of purple and yellow, much like a liquid bruise upon the atmosphere. Came a loud clap of noise and suddenly the demon, one of Set's lesser messengers, named Tunk, appeared in an eye-smiting flare of light. Tunk was easily twice the size of the largest cyclops, thrice the weight in his earthly form, and bristling with dagger-sized black claws on hands and feet. His mouth―and there was no doubt of his maleness to anyone with even the smallest of vision―his mouth opened in a grimace that be came a roar. Teeth like a boar's tusks flashed in the light of Tunk's arrival, and the sound he made might be likened to that of iron plates banged and scraped together with great force.
Tunk's appearance put a halt to the advancing horde of worms and cyclopes as quickly as if those worthies had reached the end of a stout tether.
"Go and kill them, all of them!" Rey ordered. "I call upon you with your true name Tunk, and demand that you obey."
Tunk, of course, had no choice; still, his rage at being jerked away from a most interesting encounter with a demoness in Gehanna was such that killing something would have come easily enough without an order. The demon leaped from the pentagram toward the startled worms and cyclopes.
Wikkell sucked in a deep breath as he saw the monstrous apparition bound from where it appeared in front of the wizard. It was coming right at him, it seemed, and the small form of Conan perched atop a new-made hill in between did little to give the cyclops confidence that he would survive for long once that thing arrived. Panic flowed through Wikkell, and he scrabbled in his belt for a weapon, any weapon, he might use to defend himself.
Conan must have been as startled and frightened as he, the cyclops thought, and yet the man, less than a third the size of the onrushing demon, drew his sword and raised it.
Amazing, that this puny human would dare to stand with what amounted to a small s
liver of iron against such a behemoth. Doomed, and yet stand ing his ground Conan was, and no one could see such a thing and not feel admiration against the amazement that anyone could be so foolish ess to hope to prevail.
The thing reached the base of the rocky slope upon which Conan stood and began its ascent.
The problem was that after it crushed Conan, Wikkell and Deek were next in line.
The black vapor lapped at the edges of the inner chamber's doorway behind the three people, then slowly began to ooze across the floor like some cold and thick liquid.
Tull, Elashi, and Lalo moved across the antechamber away from the blackness, toward the exit. Now they could see the wizard outside, directing some hellish monster's attack against a gathering of worms and cyclopes and―yes!―Conan!
Not that he had a chance against the thing that rushed toward him. The giant beast made Conan look tiny, perched as he was atop a hill of rock, sword raised. The monster screamed in a roaring gong of a voice as it charged.
Rey smiled in triumph. Best this, fools! he thought as Tunk sprinted toward Conan and his doomed friends.
Chuntha watched, trying to remain detached, she could not help feeling the excitement as the demon prepared to destroy Conan and the rebels. This would be most bloody… and most amusing.
"D-d-do s-s-something!" Deek scraped.
Wikkell came up with the graystone jar full of pale powder they had stolen from the wizard's chambers. No good―wait! Perhaps it might help.
Instantly Wikkell saw that he would have but one chance, and that one slim. The timing must be perfect; a mistake would be instantly fatal. Then again, it was not as if there were a number of choices left to him. Better a small chance than none at all.
"Conan!" Wikkell yelled. "When I yell again, leap to the side!"
"What?" Conan did not turn, but kept his gaze upon the thing bounding up the side of the hill at him.
"Just do it! I have a plan!"
Conan considered his options. He might inflict a nasty wound upon that thing coming at him, but he had little hope of slaying it outright before it swiped at him with one of those clawed hands or feet and disemboweled him. If Wikkell had a plan, Conan was not averse to trying it. He could always die swinging his blade later, if it came to that.
"Aye!" Conan yelled. He bent his knees further.
Rey watched as his enthralled demon sprang up the hillside. Another leap and he would be upon Conan, and good riddance―!
"Now, Conan, now!" the cyclops behind the Cimmerian yelled.
Was not that Wikkell, his old assistant? Rey wondered. I thought him dead…
As he watched, Conan leaped agilely to one side, tumbling and falling on the loose rock as he landed, out of the demon's path. Well, no matter. Tunk could attend to Conan after he slew the cyclopes and the worms.
Wikkell swung his arm, as if casting something. What was he doing? Rey could not see anything, no… wait, something glittered in the green light, some kind of dust.
The cyclops leaped to one side and the worm next to him slithered the opposite way just as Tunk landed on the spot where Conan had only recently been.
Tunk's feet shot out from under him and he fell upon his back, hard. As heavy as Tunk was, he should have hit the rock and stuck, but instead, he skipped over the ground as a cast stone does over water―once, twice―and on the second bounce, flew into the air a good span high. The demon sailed like a bird for a moment; unfortunately for him, Tunk was not a creature of the air in his current form, and his flight became less birdlike and more like a boulder.
The demon hit the ground past the base of the slope after having gone perhaps fifty paces through the air, dropping an easy four spans.
Rey felt the earth shake beneath him when Tunk slammed into the cave's floor. Such a fall would have killed any man who ever lived, and most likely anything else born of nature as well. Even a demon could not withstand such an impact without damage, as long as he wore solid flesh.
But Tunk was a demon, and while his recovery would have been painful, he would have risen from the fall in a moment or two, shaken but more enraged than ever, except that the force of the impact shook loose a few of the more solidly entrenched roof rocks that had resisted the wizard's earlier release spell.
Two house-sized boulders fell. The first landed squarely upon Tunk's prone form, driving him into the rock as a man drives a tent peg with a large mallet.
The second boulder, somewhat larger than the first, came down upon the big rock, and thus drove it into the floor, shattering the top of the first and the bottom of the second. What was thus formed looked much like a rather fat mushroom when the dust settled.
There were limits even to a demon's power, Rey knew. Tunk was not going to be digging out from under that any time soon, if ever.
The wizard looked and saw Conan rising to his feet, sword in hand. Best to retreat to his chambers, Rey thought, to consider his next move. And now!
The black miasma had swirled to fill nearly all of the antechamber. Elashi, Tull, and Lalo crouched at the doorway watching the darkness come toward them. Lalo said, "We have to get out of here, at once!"
With that, the three of them turned and sprang for the exit―just as the wizard leaped at the portal from the other side. The four collided and fell sprawling.
Fortunately for the three captives, their combined weight was enough to force the fall to end outside the chambers. As they tried to untangle themselves, they heard a screech of something whose voice they recognized: the flying reptile that had taken Conan before.
Chuntha could stand it no longer. The wizard, That stupid Bastard! had failed to kill Conan and stop the attack. His enthralled demon lay flattened under solid rock, and Conan―that vile, wretched, beautiful barbarian―was still alive.
It was too much. The only man to ever shame her in bed must die, that was the beginning and end of it. The witch leaped into the air and flapped downward in a flight she intended to end with her claws buried in Conan's heart.
Screeching in primal rage, the reptile dived…
Conan ran toward his three friends and the fallen wizard. Ten paces, five, he would be upon them in an instant, and his sword would claim the wizard's head, by Crom! He raised the blade to strike―The screech from above called Conan's attention. He looked up to see the ensorceled witch coming through the air at him. He immediately saw that he would not be able to reach the wizard before the flying reptile would intercept him. He turned toward the witch. A lucky strike might take a wing, he thought, though it was much more likely that the toothed snout would take him first. Well, he would met his end as a man, sword swinging. He twisted to face the new threat.
I have you now! Chuntha thought. Prepare to die, Conan!
She was five armspans from Conan and dropping fast when the spell enshrouding the true form of the witch failed.
One moment she was a terrible and ferocious thing from the early dawn of life on earth; the next moment the leathery form vanished. Chuntha screamed, and the voice was that of a woman.
Conan saw the change, as quick as an eyeblink. What was a scaled monster became a naked woman, hair streaming back in the wind of her flight, now a fall heading straight at him. The Cimmerian was startled; not so much that he failed to leap lithely out of the witch's path, but enough so that he did not swing the sword to slash at her.
The sword was not necessary in the end, however.
Chuntha the witch hit the rock floor with less force than had Rey's demon, but it was more than sufficient enough to end her days on earth. She bounced only once, stopped. The naked form seemed almost unmarked on the back, but the face and front had become red jelly and splintered white bone in an instant.
As Conan watched, the smooth beauty of the witch's back and buttocks and legs shriveled, as quick as a dry leaf cast into a hot fire. In an instant, nothing but black ash remained of the form that had been kept alive for long years past the day when it should have died.
Chuntha the witch was
no more.
Conan turned back toward the wizard. He was still alive, and did Conan not attend to that, the evil sorcerer might do to him what Chuntha had just done to herself.
Lalo and Tull were helping Elashi to crawl away from the chamber's entrance when the wizard managed to attain his feet. He looked at the approaching Conan, shook his head, and turned toward me portal. He leaped inside. : Conan rushed after the wizard. Best to stop him before he could mount another magical attack.
"Conan, no!" Elashi screamed. "Do not go in there!"
The Cimmerian was but a few steps away from the entrance and moving fast when he heard Elashi's yell. Something in her voice warned him of great danger, and he managed to alter his path. He skidded and slid, and dropped his sword. He had to put both hands out to keep from smashing 'head-on into the wall next to the entrance. As he did this, he heard the wizard cry out, a high-pitched and terrible sound. Something had him.
What ungodly thing lay within?
A moment later Katamay Rey stepped out, stumbling past Conan.
The Cimmerian could not be certain it was the wizard at first. The creature who staggered past him was wrapped in black flame that seemed to consume him. Flesh crackled like fat dropped into a heated skillet, and the man's screams were continuous.
Conan retrieved his fallen sword and started toward the man. Slaying him would surely be a mercy, though that was not Conan's motivation.
He raised the sword.
Rey knew he was dying. There was no cure for the Black Rot; it would burn him to nothingness in a matter of moments. Not even the most powerful healing spell he knew would delay it for a second.
Through his pain and rage, Rey accepted his end. He would die, there was no help for it. But, by Set, he would take all those around him to Gehanna with him!
Even a dying wizard has power, and wizards do not die easily or fast, even under decay of Black Rot. He would have time to kill them all and bring the cave down around their ears!
The Conan Compendium Page 89
