A sigh of exaltation passed through the watchers, and their response rumbled against the mountainsides. “All glory be to the true gods!”
Had Basrakan’s nature been different, he might have smiled in satisfaction. Hillmen did not gather in large numbers, for every clan warred against every other clan, and the tribes were riddled by blood feuds. But he had gathered these and more. Nearly ten times their number camped amid the jagged mountains around the amphitheater, and scores of others joined them every day. With the power the true gods had given him, with the sign of their favor they had granted him, he had done what no other could. And he would do more! The ancient gods of the Kezankians had chosen him out.
“Men of the cities,” he made the word sound obscene, “worship false gods! They know nothing of the true gods, the spirits of earth, of air, of water. And of fire!”
A wordless roar broke from a thousand throats, approbation for Basrakan and hatred for the men of the cities melting together till even the men who shouted could not tell where one ended and the other began.
Basrakan’s black eyes burned with fervor. Hundreds of Imallas wandered the mountains, carrying the word of the ancient gods from clan to clan, kept safe from feud and battle by the word they carried. But it had been given to him to bring about the old gods’ triumph.
“The people of the cities are an iniquity in the sight of the true gods!” His voice rang like a deep bell, and he could feel his words resonate in the minds of his listeners. “Kings and lords who murder true believers in the names of the foul demons they call gods! Fat merchants who pile up more gold in their vaults than any clan of the mountains possesses! Princesses who flaunt their half-naked bodies and offer themselves to men like trulls! Trulls who drench themselves in perfumes and bedeck themselves in gold like princesses! Men with less pride than animals, begging in the streets! The filth of their lives stains the world, but we will wash it away in their blood!”
The scream that answered him, shaking the gray granite beneath his feet, barely touched his thoughts. Deep into the warren of caverns beneath this very mountain he had gone, through stygian passages lit only by the torch he carried, seeking to be closer to the spirits of the earth when he offered them prayers. There the true gods led him to the subterranean pool where eyeless, albescent fish swam around the clutch of huge eggs, as hard as the finest armor, left there countless centuries past.
For years he had feared the true gods would turn their faces from him for his study of the thaumaturgical arts, but only those studies had enabled him to transport the slick black spheres back to his hut.
Without the knowledge from those studies he could never have succeeded in hatching one of the nine, could never have bound the creature that came from it to him, even as imperfectly as he had. If only he had the Eyes of Fire … no, when he had them all, bonds, so tenuous now, would become as iron.
“We will kill the unbelievers and the defilers!” Basrakan intoned as the tumult faded. “We will tear down their cities and sow the ground whereon they stood with salt! Their women, who are vessels of lust, shall be scourged of their vileness! No trace of their blood shall remain! Not even a memory!” The hook-nosed Imalla threw his arms wide.
“The sign of the true gods is with us!”
In a loud, clear voice he began to chant, each word echoing sharply from the mountains. The thousand watching warriors held their collective breath. He knew there were those listening who sought only gold looted from the cities rather than the purification of the world.
Now they would learn to believe.
The last syllable of the incantation rang in the air like struck crystal. Basrakan ran his eyes over the Brythunian captives, survivors of a party of hunters who had entered the mountains from the west. One was no more than sixteen, his gray eyes twisted with fear, but the Imalla did not see the Brythunians as human. They were not of the tribes. They were outsiders. They were the sacrifice.
Basrakan felt the coming, a slow vibration of the stone beneath his feet, before he heard the rough scraping of claws longer than a man’s hand.
“The sign of the true gods is with us!” he shouted again, and the creature’s great head emerged from the tunnel.
A thousand throats answered the Imalla as the rest of the thick, tubular body came into view, more than fifteen paces in length and supported on four wide-set, massive legs. “The sign of the true gods is with us!” Awe and fear warred in that thunderous roar.
Blackened plates lined its short muzzle, overlapped by thick, irregular teeth designed for ripping flesh. The rest of that monstrous head and body were covered by scales of green and gold and scarlet, glittering in the pale sun, harder than the finest armor the hand of man could produce. On its back those scales had of late been displaced by two long, leathery boils. Drake, the ancient tomes called it, and if those volumes were correct about the hard, dull bulges, the sign of the true gods’ favor would soon be complete.
The creature turned its head to stare with paralyzing intensity directly at Basrakan. The Imalla remained outwardly calm, but a core of ice formed in his stomach, and that coldness spread, freezing his breath and the words in his throat. That golden-eyed gaze always seemed to him filled with hatred. It could not be hatred of him, of course. He was blessed by the true gods. Yet the malevolence was there. Perhaps it was the contempt of a creature of the true gods for mere mortal men. In any case, the wards he had set between the crudely hewn granite columns would keep the drake within the circle, and the tunnel exited only there. Or did it? Though he had often descended into the caverns beneath the mountain-at least, in the days before he found the black drake eggs-he had not explored the tenth part of them. There could be a score of exits from that tangle of passages he had never found.
Those awesome eyes turned away, and Basrakan found himself drawing a deep breath. He was pleased to note there was no shudder in it. The favor of the old gods was truly with him.
With a speed that seemed too great for its bulk, the glittering creature moved to within ten paces of the bound men. Suddenly the great, scaled head went back, and from its gaping maw came a shrill ululation that froze men’s marrow and turned their bones to water. Awed silence fell among the watchers, but one of the prisoners screamed, a high, thin sound with the reek of madness in it. The boy fought his cords silently; blood began to trickle down his arms.
The fiery-eyed Imalla brought his hands forward, palms up, as if offering the drake to the assemblage. “From the depths of the earth it comes!” he cried. “The spirits of earth are with us!”
Mouth still open, the drake’s head lowered until those chill golden eyes regarded the captives. From those gaping jaws a gout of rubescent flame swept across the captives.
“Fire is its breath!” Basrakan shouted. “The spirits of fire are with us!”
Two of the prisoners were sagging torches, tunic and hair aflame. The youth, wracked with the pain of his burns, shrieked, “Mitra help me!
Eldran, I-“
The iridescent creature took two quick paces forward, and a shorter burst of fire silenced the boy. Darting forward, the drake ripped a burning body in half. The crunching of bones sounded loudly, and gobbets of charred flesh dropped to the stone.
“The true gods are with us!” Basrakan declaimed. “On a day soon, the sign of the gods’ favor will fly! The spirits of air are with us!” The old tomes had to be right, he thought. Those leathery bulges would burst, and wings would grow. They would! “On that day we will ride forth, invincible in the favor of the old gods, and purge the world with fire and steel! All praise be to the true gods!”
“All praise be to the true gods!” his followers answered.
“All glory to the true gods!”
“All glory to the true gods!”
“Death to the unbelievers!”
The roar was deafening. “DEATH TO THE UNBELIEVERS!”
The thousand would stay to watch the feeding, for they were chosen by lot from the ever-growing number encampe
d in the surrounding mountains, and many had never seen it before. Basrakan had more important matters to tend to. The drake would return to its caverns of its own accord when the bodies were consumed. The Imalla started up a path, well worn now in the brown stone by many journeys, that led from the amphitheater around the mountainside.
A man almost as tall as Basrakan and even leaner, his face burning with ascetic fanaticism above a plaited beard, met him and bowed deeply,
“The blessings of the true gods be on you, Basrakan Imalla,” the newcomer said. His turban of scarlet, green and gold marked him as Basrakan’s acolyte, though his robe was of plain black. “The man Akkadan has come. I have had him taken to your dwelling.”
No glimmer of Basrakan’s excitement touched his stern face. The Eyes of Fire! He inclined his head slightly. “The blessings of the true gods be on you, Jbeil Imalla. I will see him now.”
Jbeil bowed again; Basrakan went on, seemingly unhurried, but without even the inclination of his head this time.
The path led around the slope of the mountain to the village of stone houses, a score in number, that had grown up where once stood the hut in which Basrakan had lived. His followers had spoken of building a fortress for him, but he had no need of such. In time, though, he had allowed the construction of a dwelling for himself, of two stories and larger than all the rest of the village placed together. It was not a matter of pride, he often reminded himself, for he denied all pride save that of the old gods. The structure was for their glory.
Turbanned and bearded men in stained leather vests and voluminous trousers, the original color of which was a mystery lost in age and dirt, cowed as he passed, as did women covered from head to foot in black cloth, with only a slit for their eyes. He ignored them, as he did the two guards before his door, for he was openly hurrying now.
Within, another acolyte in multihued turban bent himself and gestured with a bony hand. “The blessings of the true gods be on you, Basrakan Imalla. The man Akkadan-“
“Yes, Ruhallah.” Basrakan wasted not even moments on honorifics. “Leave me!” Without waiting to be obeyed, the tall Imalla swept through the door Ruhallah had indicated, into a room sparsely furnished with black-lacquered tables and stools. A hanging on one wall was a woven map of the nations from the Vilayet Sea west to Nemedia and Ophir.
Basrakan’s face darkened at the sight of the man who waited there.
Turban and forked beard proclaimed him hillman, but his fingers bore jeweled rings, his cloak was of purple silk and there was a plumpness about him that bespoke feasting and wine.
“You have spent too much time among the men of the cities, Akkadan,”
Basrakan said grimly. “No doubt you have partaken of their vices!
Consorted with their women!”
The plump man’s face paled beneath its swarthiness, and he quickly hid his beringed hands behind him as he bowed. “No, Basrakan Imalla, I have not. I swear!” His words tumbled over each other in his haste. Sweat gleamed on his forehead. “I am a true-“
“Enough!” Basrakan spat. “You had best have what I sent you for, Akkadan. I commanded you not to return without the information.”
“I have it, Basrakan Imalla. I have found them. And I have made plans of the palace and maps-“
Basrakan’s shout cut him short. “Truly I am favored above all other men by the true gods!”
Turning his back on Akkadan, he strode to the wall hanging, clenched fists raised in triumph toward the nations represented there. Soon the Eyes of Fire would be his, and the drake would be bound to him as if part of his flesh and will. And with the sign of the true gods’ favor flying before his followers, no army of mortal men would long stand against them.
“All glory to the true gods,” Basrakan whispered fiercely. “Death to all unbelievers!”
Chapter I
Night caressed Shadizar, that city known as ‘the Wicked,’ and veiled the happenings which justified that name a thousand times over. The darkness that brought respite to other cities drew out the worst in Shadizar of the Alabaster Towers, Shadizar of the Golden Domes, city of venality and debauchery.
In a score of marble chambers silk-clad nobles coerced wives not theirs to their beds, and many-chinned merchants licked fat lips over the abductions of competitors’ nubile daughters. Perfumed wives, fanned by slaves wielding snowy ostrich plumes, plotted the cuckolding of husbands, sometimes their own, while hot-eyed young women of wealth or noble birth or both schemed at circumventing the guards placed on their supposed chastity. Nine women and thirty-one men, one a beggar and one a lord, died by murder. The gold of ten wealthy men was taken from iron vaults by thieves, and fifty others increased their wealth at the expense of the poor. In three brothels perversions never before contemplated by humankind were created. Doxies beyond numbering plied their ancient trade from the shadows, and twisted, ragged beggars preyed on the trulls’ wine-soaked patrons. No man walked the streets unarmed, but even in the best quarters of the city arms were often not enough to save one’s silver from cutpurses and footpads. Night in Shadizar was in full cry.
Wisps of cloud, stirred by a warm breeze, dappled the moon sitting high in the sky. Vagrant shadows fled over the rooftops, yet they were enough for the massively muscled young man, swordbelt slung across his broad chest so that the worn hilt of his broadsword projected above his right shoulder, who raced with theta from chimney to chimney. With a skill born in the savage wastes of his native Cimmerian mountains he blended with the drifting shades, and was invisible to the eyes of the city-born.
The roof the muscular youth traveled came to an end, and he peered down into the blackness hiding the paving stones of the street, four stories below. His eyes were frozen sapphires, and his face, a square-cut lion’s mane of black held back from it by a leather cord, showed several ordinary lifetimes’ experience despite its youth. He eyed the next building, an alabaster cube with a freize of scrollwork running all the way around it an arm’s length below the roof. From deep in his throat came a soft growl. A good six paces wide, the street was, although it was the narrowest of the four that surrounded the nearly palatial structure. What he had not noticed when he chose this approach-eying the distances from the ground-was that the far roof was sloped. Steeply! Erlik take Baratses, he thought. And his gold!
This was no theft of his own choosing, but rather was at the behest of the merchant Baratses, a purveyor of spices from the most distant realms of the world. Ten pieces of gold the spice dealer had offered for the most prized possession of Samarides, a wealthy importer of gems: a goblet carved from a single huge emerald. Ten pieces of gold was the hundredth part of the goblet’s worth, one tenth of what the fences in the Desert would pay, but a run of bad luck with the dice had put the Cimmerian in urgent need of coin. He had agreed to theft and price, and taken two gold pieces in advance, before he even knew what was to be stolen. Still, a bargain sworn to must be kept. At least, he thought grimly, there was no guard atop the other building, as there were on so many other merchants’ roofs.
“Crom!” he muttered with a last look at Samarides’ roof, and moved back from the edge, well back into the shadows among the chimneys. Breathing deeply to charge his lungs, he crouched. His eyes strained toward the distant rooftop. Suddenly, like a hunting leopard, he sprang forward; in two strides he was sprinting at full speed. His lead foot touched the edge of the roof, and he leaped, hurling himself into the air with arms outstretched, fingers curled to grab.
With a crash he landed at full length on the sloping roof. And immediately began to slide. Desperately he spread his arms and legs to slow himself; his eyes searched for a projection to grasp, for the smallest nub that might stop his fall. Inexorably he moved toward the drop to the pavement.
No wonder there was no watchman on the roof, he thought, furious at himself for not questioning that lack earlier. The rooftiles were glazed to a surface like oiled porcelain. In the space of a breath his feet were over the edge, then his legs. Abruptly his
left hand slid into a gap where a tile was missing. Tiles shattered as his weight smashed his vainly gripping hand through them; fragments showered past him into the gloom beneath. Wood slapped his palm; convulsively he clutched. With a jerk that wrenched at the heavy muscles of his shoulder he was brought up short to swing over the shadowed four-story drop.
For the first time since his leap he made a sound, a long, slow exhalation between his teeth. “Ten gold pieces,” he said in a flat voice, “are not enough.”
Suddenly the wooden roof-frame he was grasping gave with a sharp snap, and he was falling again. Twisting as he dropped, he stretched, caught the finger-joint-wide ledge at the bottom of the frieze by his fingertips, and slammed flat against the alabaster wall.
“Not nearly enough,” he panted when he had regained his breath. “I’ve half a mind to take the accursed thing to Zeno after this.” But even as he said it he knew he would not go to the Nemedian fence. He had given his word.
At the moment, he realized, his problem lay not in how to dispose of the emerald goblet, but in how to leave his present position with a whole skin. The only openings piercing the alabaster wall at this height were ventilation holes the size of his fist, for the top floor and the attic were given over to storage and quarters for servants and slaves. Such needed no windows, to the mind of Samarides, and if they had them would only lean out and spoil the appearance of his fine house. No other ledges or friezes broke the smoothness of the walls, nor were there balconies overlooking the street. The roof he had first leaped from might as well have been in Sultanapur, the roof above as well have been beyond the clouds. That, the dangling youth reluctantly concluded, left only the windows of the third floor, their arched tops a good armspan lower than his feet.
It was not his way to dally when his course was decided. Slowly, hanging by his fingertips, he worked his way along the narrow ledge.
The first two arched windows to pass beneath his feet glowed with light. He could not risk meeting people. The third, however, was dark.
The Conan Compendium Page 130
