The Conan Compendium

by Robert E. Howard

  "I held the gate for a time," he shouted above the din of earthquake and slaughter, "but then it was all we could do to keep from being shaken into jelly. At least the accursed lizards became too busy killing each other to pay us any mind. What madness has taken them?"

  "No time!" Conan shouted back. "Run, before the mountain comes down on us."

  They pounded down the ramp as the barbican and portcullis collapsed in a heap of rubble.

  The floor of the valley was a charnel house, the ground soaked with blood and the moans of the dying filling the air. Savagely hacked S'tarra lay tangled with bleeding hillmen corpses in a hideous carpet, here and there dotted with the body of a bandit. From the mountains around, despite the trembling of the earth, the sounds of battle floated, as those who fled the horror of the keep and the valley fought still.

  Conan saw Hordo near the bandit campsite, sitting beside Karela's crumpled red-striped pavilion as if nothing had happened. With Velita still dangling over his shoulder, the Cimmerian stopped before the one-eyed brigand. Haranides, having left his men a short distance back, stood to one side. Rock slides rumbled loudly as the earth still shook. But at least, Conan thought, the death screams of the god-demon had faded from his mind.

  "Did you find her, Hordo?" he asked as quietly as the noise would allow. They were in the safest spot there, so far as the earthquake was concerned, well away from the danger of the mountain coming down on them.

  "She's gone," Hordo replied sadly. "Dead, I don't know, gone."

  "Will you search for her?"

  Hordo shook his head. "After this shaking I could search for years and not find her if she was right under my nose. No, I'm for Turan, and a caravan guard's life, unless I can find an agreeable widow who owns a tavern. Come with me, Conan. I've about two coppers, but we can sell the girl and live off that for a while."

  "Not this girl," Conan replied. "I promised to set her free, and I will."

  "A strange oath," Haranides said, "but then you're a strange man, Cimmerian, though I like you for it.

  Look you, having decided there's no point to going back to Shadizar to lose my head, I, too, am going to Turan, with Resaro and such other few of my men as survived. Yildiz dreams of empire. He's hiring mercenaries. What I am trying to say is, join us."

  "I cannot," Conan laughed, "for I'm neither soldier, nor guard, nor tavern keeper. I'm a thief." He studied his surroundings. Half of the black keep was covered beneath a mound ripped from the side of the mountains. The tremors had lessened too, till a man could stand with ease, and walk without too much difficulty. "And as I'm a thief," he finished, "I think it's time for me to steal some horses before the hillmen decide to return."

  The reminder of the hillmen stirred them all to action. Quick farewells were said, and the three parted ways.

  Epilogue

  Conan walked his mount back up the hill to where Velita sat her own horse, watching the caravan make ready to move below on the route to Sultanpur. This was the caravan that had been spoken of, the big caravan that would drive through despite those that had disappeared. It stretched out of sight along the winding path that led through the pass. Conan did not believe they would have any trouble at all.

  "Your passage is booked," he told Velita. She was swathed in white cotton from head to foot. It was a cool way to dress for travel in the hot sun, and they had decided it was best she not advertise her beauty until she got to Sultanapur. "I gave the caravan master a gold piece extra to look after you, and a threat to find him later should anything untoward befall."

  "I still don't understand how you have the money for my way," she said. "I seem to recall waking just enough to hear you tell a one-eyed man that you had no money."

  "This," Conan said, pressing a purse into her hands, "I took from Amanar's chamber. Eighteen gold pieces left, after your passage. If I had told the others of it-and I didn't lie, Velita, I just didn't tell them-they'd likely have wanted a share. I'd have had to kill them to keep it for you, and I liked them too much for that."

  "You are a strange man, Conan of Cimmeria," she said softly. She leaned forward to brush her lips delicately against his. Holding her breath, she waited.

  Conan brought his hand down on her horse's rump with a loud slap. "Fare you well, Velita," he shouted as her horse galloped toward the caravan. "And I am likely a thrice-accursed idiot," he added to himself.

  He turned his horse down the caravan, on the way that would lead him west out of the Kezankians into Zamora. He now had about enough coppers left for two jacks of sour wine when he got back to Abuletes.

  "Conan!"

  He pulled his horse around at the hail. It seemed to come from a slave coffle. The caravan contained sorts that would have formed their own if not for the fear of those caravans that had disappeared. As he rode closer, he began to laugh.

  The slaver had arranged his male and female slaves separately, to avoid trouble. The women knelt naked in the slight shade of a long strip of cotton, linked to the coffle line by neck chains. And kneeling in the center of that line was Karela.

  As he reined in before her, she leaped to her feet, her lightly sunburned breasts swaying. "Buy me out of here, Conan. We can go back and take what we want of Amanar's treasure. The hillmen will have gone by now, and I doubt they'll want anything of his."

  Conan mentally counted the coppers in his purse again, and thought of an oath extracted not too many days before. Oaths were serious business. "How came you here, Karela? Hordo thought you dead."

  "Then he's all right? Good. My tale is a strange one. I awoke in Amanar's keep, feeling as if I had had a monstrous nightmare, to find an earthquake shaking the mountains down, hillmen attacking and the S'tarra gone mad. It was almost as if my nightmare had come true."

  "Not quite," Conan murmured. He was thankful she did not remember. At least she was spared that.

  "Speak on."

  "I got a sword," she said, "though not mine. I couldn't find it. I regret losing that greatly, and I hope we find it when we go back. In any case, I fought my way out of the keep, through a break in the wall, but before I could reach the camp that fool sword broke. It wasn't good steel, Conan. I stole a horse then, but hillmen chased me south, away from the valley. I was almost to the caravan route before I lost them."

  She shook her head ruefully.

  "But that doesn't explain how you ended up here," he said.

  "Oh, I was paying so much heed to getting away from the hillmen that I forgot to mind where I was going.

  I rode right into half a dozen of this slaver's guards, and five minutes later I was tied across my own horse." She tried to manage a self-deprecating laugh, but it sounded strange and forced.

  "In that case," Conan said, "any magistrate will free you on proof of identity, proof that you aren't actually a slave."

  Her voice dropped, and she looked carefully at the women on either side of her to see if they listened.

  "Be not a fool, Conan! Prove who I am to a magistrate, and he'll send my head to Shadizar to decorate a pike. Now, Derketo take you, buy me free!"

  To his surprise, she suddenly dropped back to her kneeling position. He looked around and found the reason: the approach of a plump man with thin, waxed mustaches and a gold ring in his left ear with a ruby the size of his little fingernail.

  "Good morrow," the fellow said, bowing slightly to Conan. "I see you have chosen one of my prettiest.

  Kneel up, girl. Shoulders back. Shoulders back, I say." Red-faced and darting angry glances at Conan, Karela shifted to the required position. The plump man beamed as if she were a prime pupil.

  "I know not," Conan said slowly.

  Karela frowned in his direction, and the slave dealer suddenly ran a thoughtful eye over the Cimmerian's worn and ragged clothes. The plump man opened his mouth, then a second glance at the breadth of Conan's shoulders and the length of his sword made the slaver modify his words.

  "In truth, the girl is quite new, and she'll be cheap. I maintain my repu- t
ation by selling nothing without letting the buyer know everything there is to know. Now, I've had this girl but two days, and already she has tried to escape twice and nearly had a guard's sword once." Conan was watching Karela from the corner of his eye. At this she straightened pridefully, almost into the pose the slave dealer had demanded.

  "On the other hand, all that was the first day" Karela's cheeks began to color. "A good switching after each, longer and harder each time, and she's been a model since." Her face was bright scarlet. "But I thought I should tell you the good and the bad."

  "I appreciate that," Conan said. "What disposition do you intend to make of her in Sultanapur?" Her green eyes searched his face at that.

  "A zenana," the slaver said promptly. "She's too pretty for the work market, too fine for a bordello, not fine enough for Yildiz, neither a singer nor a dancer, though she knows dances she denied knowing. So, a zenana to warm some stout merchant's bed, eh?" He laughed, but Conan did not join in.

  "Conan," Karela said in a strangled whisper, "please."

  "She knows you," the plump slaver said in surprise. "You'll want to buy her, then?"

  "No," Conan said. Karela and the slaver stared at him in consternation.

  "Have you been wasting my time?" the slaver demanded. "Do you even have the money for this girl?"

  "I do," Conan answered hotly. He reflected that a lie to a slaver was not truly a lie, but now there was no way to let Karela know the entire truth of the matter. "But I swore an oath not to help this woman, not to raise a hand for her."

  "No, Conan," Karela moaned. "Conan, no!"

  "A strange oath," the slaver said, "but I understand such things. Still, with those breasts she'll fetch a fair price in Sultanapur."

  "Conan!" Karela's green eyes pleaded, and her voice was a breathy gasp. "Conan, I release you from your oath."

  "Some people," the Cimmerian said, "don't realize that an oath made before gods is particularly binding.

  It's even possible the breaking of such an oath is the true reason she finds herself kneeling in your coffle."

  "Possibly," the slaver said vaguely, losing interest now that the chance of a sale was gone.

  Karela reached out to pluck at Conan's stirrup leather. "You can't do this to me, Conan. Get me out of here. Get me out of here!"

  Conan backed his horse away from the naked red-head. "Fare you well, Karela," he said regretfully.

  "Much do I wish that things could have ended better between us."

  As he rode on down the caravan her voice rose behind him. "Derketo take you, you Cimmerian oaf!

  Come back and buy me! I release you! Conan, I release you! Derketo blast your eyes, Conan! Conan!

  Conan!"

  As her cries and the caravan faded behind him, Conan sighed. Truly he did not like to see her left in chains. If he had had the money, or if there had not been the oath .... Still, he could not entirely suppress a small tinge of satisfaction. Perhaps she would learn that the proper response for a man saving her life was neither to have him pegged out on the ground nor to abandon him to a sorcerer's dungeon without so much as a glimmer of a protest. An he knew Karela, though, no zenana would hold her for long. Half a year or so, and the Red Hawk would be free to soar again.

  As for himself, he thought, he was in as fine a position as a man could ask for. Four coppers in his pouch and the whole wide world in front of him. And there were always the haunted treasures of Larsha. With a laugh he kicked his horse into a trot for Shadizar.

  The Hall of the Dead

  A squad of Zamorian soldiers, led by the officer Nestor, a Gunderman mercenary, were marching down a narrow gorge, in pursuit of a thief, Conan the Cimmerian, whose thefts from rich merchants and nobles had infuriated the government of the nearest Zamorian city.

  Conan had left the city and been followed into the mountains. The walls of the gorge were steep and the gorge floor grown thickly with high rich grass.

  Striding through this grass at the head of his men, Nestor tripped over something and fell heavily. It was a rawhide rope stretched there by Conan, and it tripped a spring-pole which started a sudden avalanche that overwhelmed all the soldiers except Nestor, who escaped, bruised, and with his armor scratched and dented.

  Enraged, he followed the trail alone, and emerging into an upland plateau, came into the deserted city of the ancients, where he met Conan. He instantly attacked the Cimmerian, who, after a desperate battle, knocked him senseless with a sword-stroke on his helmet, and went on into the deserted city, thinking him dead.

  Nestor recovered and followed the Cimmerian. Conan, meanwhile, had entered the city, clambering over the walls, the gates being locked, and had encountered the monstrous being which haunted the city. This he slew by casting great blocks of stone upon it from an elevation, and then descending and hacking it to pieces with his sword.

  He had made his way to the great palace which was hewn out of a single monstrous hill of stone in the center of the city. He was seeking an entrance, when Nestor came upon him again, sword in hand, having followed him over the wall. Conan disgustedly advised him to aid him in securing the vast fabulous treasure instead of fighting.

  After some argument the Gunderman agreed, and they made their way into the palace, eventually coming to the great treasure chamber, where warriors of a by-gone age lay about in life-like positions.

  The companions made up packages of gold and precious stones, and threw dice to decide which should take a set of perfectly matched uncanny gems which adorned an altar, on which lay a jade serpent, apparently a god. Conan won the toss, and gave all the gold and the other jewels to Nestor.

  He himself swept up the altar-gems and the jade serpent - but when he lifted it off the altar, the ancient warriors came terrifically to life, and a terrible battle ensued, in which the thieves barely managed to escape with their lives. Hewing their way out of the palace, they were followed by the giant warriors who, upon coming into the sunlight, crumpled into dust. A terrific earthquake shook down the deserted city, and the companions were separated. Conan made his way back to the city, and entering a tavern, where his light-of-love was guzzling wine, spilled the jewels out on the ale-splashed table, in the Maul. To his amazement, they had turned to green dust. He then prepared to examine the jade serpent, who was still in the leather sack. The girl lifted the sack and dropped it with a scream, swearing that something moved inside it. At this instant a magistrate entered with a number of soldiers and arrested Conan, who set his back to a wall, and drew his sword. Before the soldiers could close in, the magistrate thrust his hand into the sack. Nestor had regained the city, with the coins which had not crumpled, and drunk, had told of the exploit. They had sought to arrest him, but drunk though he was, he had cut his way through and escaped. Now as the magistrate thrust his fat hand into the sack, he shrieked and jerked it forth, a living serpent fast to his fingers. The turmoil which followed gave Conan and the girl an opportunity to escape.

  Conan the Fearless

  Prologue

  The chamber exuded cold, but a kind of coldness deeper than that offered by the damp and mold-speckled gray stone walls. It was an unnatural chill, a thing of the soul as well as of the air, a frigidity of ancient bones interred in the heart of a glacier old when Atlantis still rode the oceans. In the center of this coldness stood wrapped its cause and its focus-Sovartus, Mage of the Black Square, delving into an arcane spell forged with warped and stained essences of evil.

  The magician's body swayed with the forces flowing through him, and his voice was deep and powerful when he spoke. "Come forth, child of the gray lands. Come forth, spawn of the pits. Come forth by my command!"

  Sovartus then intoned the Seven Words from the Parchment of Slicreves, being careful to pronounce them precisely. To do less was to court instant death-a word misspoken would allow the demon he conjured to tear free of the diagram sketched exactingly upon the flagstones.

  From deep within the body of the castle a terrible shriek issued forth
, made as if by some unearthly beast being dipped slowly into boiling lead.

  In the center of the drawn pentagram smoke boiled forth from a tiny vibrating point, expanding outward in malignant waves of dark purple mixed with hard yellow, as a fresh bruise upon the air of the chamber.

  There came an eye-smiting flash of infernal light, and the smell of burnt sulphur claimed the room. A demon suddenly stood within the confines of the pentagram, dripping black slime and exuding the stink of Gehanna from every pore. He was half again as tall as a man, with skin the color of fresh blood; he stood naked and hairless, and only a blind man could have failed to see how awesomely male he was.

  "Who dares?" the demon screamed. He lunged toward Sovartus, seeking to wrap his taloned hands around the throat of the man with jet hair and pointed beard who grinned at him; but the demon slammed into the wall of force that bounded the pentagram. Giant muscles bunched in the monster's arms as he pounded his fists against the invisible barrier.

  He screamed, a sound that carried the rage of Hell, and he bared long ivory fangs at the man. "You will beg a thousand days for death!" His voice screeched like sheets of thick brass being sundered.

  Sovartus shook his head. "Nay, hellspawn. I have summoned you and you shall serve at my command." The mage grinned, then laughed. "You shall serve indeed, Djavul."

  The demon recoiled, holding his clawed hands in front of him. His face held horror. "You know my name!"

  "Aye. And thus you will do my bidding or remain bound in my pantagram until time's end."

  Black slime oozed from Djavul's body and dripped onto the floor. Where it touched, tendrils of smoke spiraled up from the flagstones. Pools of sludge formed, but stopped at the outline of the magic diagram Sovartus had drawn. Djavul stared at the man. "You are a Wizard of the Black Ring?" the demon asked.