The Conan Compendium

by Robert E. Howard

  Beyond the matter of a thousand soldiers, you know there is a wizard involved, and he will be where I am going."

  "Be not a fool," Hordo growled, and Enam added, "The Brotherhood of the Coast does not desert its own. Prytanis never understood that but I do."

  "He has Chin Kou," Hasan burst out. "Do you expect me to sit here while he does Mitra alone knows what to her?" He seemed ready to fight Conan if need be.

  "As for me," Kang Hou said with an amused smile for Hasan, "she is only my niece, of course." The young Turanian's face colored. "This is a matter of family honor."

  Shamil gave a shaky laugh. "Well, I'll not be the only one to stay here. I wanted adventure, and none can say this is not it."

  "Then let us ride," Conan said, "before they escape us."

  "Patience," Kang Hou counseled. "The Forests of Ghelai are ten leagues distant, and a thousand men ride more slowly than six may. Let us not fail for a lack of preparation. There are stinging flies in the forests, but I know of an ointment that may abate their attack."

  "Flies?" Hordo muttered. "Stinging flies; wizards are not enough, Cimmerian? When we are out of this, you will owe me for the flies."

  "And returning to Gwandiakan may not be wise," Kuie Hsi offered. "Soon there may be riots. A league this side of the forests there is said to be a well, thought to be a stopping place for caravans in ancient times but long abandoned. There I will await you with food and clothing for Chin Kou and Vyndra. And word if the city is safe. I will draw maps."

  Conan knew they were right. How many times in his days as a thief had he sneered at others for their lack of preparation and the lack of success that went with it? But now he could only grind his teeth with the frustration of waiting an instant. Time and the knowledge of the poison in his veins pressed heavily on him. But he would see Vyndra and Chin Kou free-and Karim Singh and Naipal dead-before he died. By Crom, he vowed it.

  Chapter XXII

  Riding beneath the tall trees of the Forest of Ghelai, Conan was unsure whether Kang Hou's ointment was not worse than the flies it was meant to discourage. There was no smell to it, but the feel on the skin was much like that after wading in a cesspool. The horses had liked having it smeared on them no more than had the men. He slapped a tiny fly that would not be discouraged-the bite was like a red-hot needle stabbing his arm-and grimaced at the glittering-winged swarms that surrounded the meager column. Then again, perhaps the ointment was not so bad.

  The forest canopy was far above their heads, many of the trees towering more than a hundred and fifty feet. The high branches were thickly woven, letting little light through, and that seeming tinged with green. Streams of long-tailed monkeys flowed from limb to limb, a hundred rivers of brown fur rolling in a hundred different directions.

  Flocks of multicolored birds, some with strange bills or elaborate tail feathers, screamed from high branches while others in a thousand varied hues made brilliant streaks against the green as they darted back and forth.

  "There are no such flies on the plains of Zamora," Hordo grumbled, slapping. "I could be there instead of here had I a brain in my head.

  There are no such flies on the steppes of Turan. I could be there-"

  "If you do not shut your teeth," Conan muttered, "the only place you will be is dead, and likely left to rot where you fall. Or do you think Kandar's soldiers are deaf?"

  "They could not hear themselves pass wind for those Mitra-accursed birds," the one-eyed man replied, but he subsided into silence.

  In truth Conan did not know how close or how far the Vendhyans might be. A thousand men left a plain trail, but the ground was soft and springy with a thousand years of continuous decay, and the chopping that passed for hoofprints could have been five hours old or the hundredth part of that. The Cimmerian did know the day was almost gone though, for all he could not see the sun. The amount of time they had been riding made that plain, and the dim greenish light was fading. He did not believe the soldiers would continue on in the dark.

  Abruptly he reined in, forcing the others behind to do so as well, and peered in consternation at what lay ahead. Huge blocks of stone, overgrown with vines as thick as a man's arm, formed a wide wall fifty feet high that stretched north and south as far as the eye could make out in the dim verdant light. Directly before him was a towered gateway, though the gates that once had blocked it had been gone for centuries by the evidence of a great tree rising in its center. Beyond he could make out other shapes among the forest growth, massive ruins among the trees. And the trail they followed passed through that gateway.

  "Would they pass the night in there?" Hordo asked. "Even the gods do not know what might be in a place like that."

  "I think," Kang Hou said slowly, "that this might be where they were going." Conan looked at him curiously, but the slight merchant said no more.

  "Then we follow," the Cimmerian said, swinging down from his saddle.

  "But we leave the horses here." He went on as mouths opened in protest.

  "A man hides better afoot, and we must be like ferrets scurrying through a thicket. There are a thousand Vendhyan lancers in this place, remember." That brought them down.

  Leaving someone with the animals, Conan decided, was worse than useless. It would reduce their number by one and the man left behind could do nothing if a Vendhyan patrol came on him. All would enter the city together. Conan, sword in hand, was first through the ancient gateway, with Hordo close behind. Enam and Shamil brought up the rear with arrows nocked to their bowstrings. Alone of the small column, Kang Hou seemed unarmed, but the Cimmerian was ready to wager the merchant's throwing knives resided in his sleeves.

  Conan had seen ruined cities before, some abandoned for centuries, or even millennia. Some would stand on mountain peaks until the earth shook and buried them. Others endured the sand-laden desert winds, slowly wearing away stone so that in another thousand years or two, unknowing eyes would see only formations of rock and believe chance alone made them resemble an abode of men. This city was different, however, as though some malevolent god, unwilling to wait for the slow wearing away by rain and wind, had commanded the forest to attack and consume all marks of man.

  If they crept over the remains of a street, it was impossible to tell, for dirt and a thousand small plants covered all, and everywhere the trees. Much of the city was no more, with no sign that it had ever been. Only the most massive of structures remained-the palaces and the temples. Yet even they fought a losing battle against the forest.

  Temple columns were so wreathed in vines that only the regularity of their spacing betrayed their existence. Here the marble tiles of a palace portico bulged with the roots of a giant tree, and there a wall of alabaster, now green with mold, buckled before the onslaught of another huge trunk. Toppled spires lay shrouded by conquering roots and monkeys gamboled on no-longer gleaming domes that might once have sheltered potentates.

  The others seemed to feel the oppressiveness of the ruins, but neither Conan nor Kang Hou allowed themselves to be affected, outwardly at least. The Cimmerian would allow no such distractions from whatever time he had left. He ghosted through the fading light with a deadly intensity, eyes striving to pierce the layers of green and shadow ahead. And then there was something to see. Lights. Hundreds of scattered lights, flickering like giant fireflies.

  Conan could see little from the ground, but nearby vines like hawsers trailed down from a balcony of what might have once been a palace.

  Sheathing his sword and shifting the silk-wrapped sorcerous weapon to a place behind his back, the Cimmerian climbed one of the thick vines hand over hand. The others followed as agilely as the monkeys of the forest.

  Crouching behind a green-swathed stone balustrade, Conan studied the lights. They were torches atop poles stuck in the ground, forming a great circle. A knot of Vendhyan cavalrymen clustered around each torch, dismounted and fingering their swords nervously as they peered at the wall of growth surrounding them. Oddly, no insects fluttered in the lig
ht of the torches.

  "Their ointment is better than yours, Khitan," Enam muttered, crushing one of the stinging flies. No one else spoke for the moment. It was clear enough what the soldiers guarded. The great circle of torches surrounded a building more massive than any Conan had yet seen in the ruined city. Columned terraces and great domes rose more than twice as high as the tallest tree on the forest floor, yet others of the giant trunks rose in turn from those terraces, turning the huge structure into a small mountain.

  "If they are in that," Hordo said softly, "how in Zandru's Nine Hells do we find them? It must have a hundred leagues of corridor and more chambers than a man could count."

  "They are in there," Kang Hou said. "And I fear we must find them for more than their lives."

  Conan eyed the merchant sharply. "What is it you know that I do not?"

  "I know nothing," Kang Hou replied, "but I fear much." With that he scurried to the vines and began to climb back down. There was nothing Conan could do but follow.

  Once on the ground again, the Cimmerian took the lead. The two women would be with Kandar, and Kandar would certainly be with Karim Singh and Naipal. In the huge building, Kang Hou said, and for all the denials, Conan was sure the man knew something. So be it, he thought.

  It was a file of wraiths that flitted through the Vendhyan lines, easily avoiding the few soldiers who rode patrol among the clusters at the torches. Bushes and creepers grew from chinks between the marble blocks of the great structure's broad stairs and lifted tiles on the wide portico at their head. Tall bronze doors stood open, a thick wreathing of vines speaking of the centuries since they had been shifted from their present position. With his sword in advance, Conan entered.

  Behind him he heard the gasps of the others as they followed but he knew what caused the sounds of astonishment and so did not look back.

  His eyes were all for the way ahead. From the huge portal a wide aisle of grit-covered tiles led between thick columns, layered with gold leaf, to a vast central chamber beneath a dome that towered hundreds of feet above. In the middle of that chamber stood a marble statue of a man, more than half the height of the dome and untouched by time.

  Conan's skin prickled at the armor on the figure, stone-carved to represent studded leather. Instead of a nasaled helm, however, a gleaming crown topped the massive head.

  "Can that be gold?" Shamil gasped, staring up at the statue.

  "Keep your mind to the matter at hand," Hordo growled, "or you'll not live long enough for worrying about gold." His eyes had a glitter though, as if he had calculated the weight of that crown to within a feather.

  "I had thought it was but legend," Kang Hou breathed. "I had hoped it was but legend."

  "What are you talking about?" Conan demanded. "This is not the first time you have indicated you knew something about this place. I think it is time to tell the rest of us."

  This time the Khitan nodded. "Two millennia ago, Orissa, the first King of Vendhya, was interred in a tomb beneath his capital city, Maharastra. For five centuries he was worshiped as a god in a temple built over his tomb and containing a great figure of Orissa wearing a gold crown said to have been made by melting the crowns and scepters of all the lands he had conquered. Then, in a war of succession, Maharastra was sacked and abandoned by its people. With time the very location of the city was lost. Until now."

  "That is very interesting," Conan said dryly, "but it has nothing to do with why we are here."

  "On the contrary," Kang Hou told him. "If my niece dies, if we all die, we must slay the wizard Naipal before he looses what lies in the tomb beneath this temple. The legends that I know speak vaguely of horrors, but there is a prophecy associated with all of them. 'The army that cannot die will march again at the end of time.' "

  Conan looked again at the carved armor, then shook his head stubbornly.

  "I am here for the women first. Then I will see to Naipal and the other two."

  A boot crunched at one side of the chamber and Conan whirled, his broadsword coming up. A Vendhyan soldier, eyes bulging beneath his turbaned helm, clutched at the throwing knife in his throat and fell to lie still on the floor. Kang Hou hurried to retrieve his blade.

  "Khitan merchants seem a tough lot," Hordo said incredulously. "Perhaps we should include him when we divide that crown."

  "Matters at hand." Conan grunted. "Remember?"

  "I do not say leave the women," the one-eyed man grumbled, "but could we not take the crown as well?"

  Conan paid no heed. His interest lay in where the soldier had come from. Only one doorway on that side of the chamber, and that the nearest to the corpse, opened onto stairs leading beneath the temple.

  At the base of those stairs he could see a glimmer of light, as of a torch farther on.

  "Hide the Vendhyan," he commanded. "If anyone comes looking for him, they'll not think that wound in his throat was made by a monkey."

  Impatiently hefting his sword, he waited for Hasan and Enam to carry the corpse into a dark corridor and return alone. Without a word, then, he started down.

  Chapter XXIII

  In a huge high-ceilinged chamber far beneath the temple once dedicated to Orissa, Naipal again paused in his work to look with longing expectation at the doorway to his power. Many doorways opened into the chamber, letting on the warren of passages that crossed and crisscrossed beneath the temple. This large marble arch, each stone bearing a cleanly incised symbol of sorcerous power, was blocked by a solid mass of what appeared to be smooth stone. Stone it might appear, but a sword rang on it as against steel and left less mark than it would have on that metal. And the whole of the passage from the chamber to the tomb, a hundred paces in length, was sealed with the adamantine substance, so said the strange maps Masrok had drawn.

  The wizard swayed with exhaustion, but the smell of success close at hand drove him on, even numbing the ache behind his eyes. Five of the khorassani he placed on their golden tripods at the points of a carefully measured pentagon he had scribed on the marble floor tiles with chalk made from the burned bones of virgins. Setting the largest of the smooth ebon stones on its own tripod, he threw wide his black-robed arms and began the first incantation.

  "Ka-my'een dai'el! Da-en'var hoy'aarth! Khora mar! Khora mar!" Louder the chant rose, and louder still, echoing from the walls, ringing in the ears, piercing the skull. Karim Singh and Kandar pressed their hands to their ears, groaning. The two women, naked save for their veils, bound hand and foot, wailed for the pain. Only Naipal reveled in the sound, gloried in the reverberations deep in his bones. It was a sound of power. His power. Eye-searing bars of light lanced from the largest khorassani to each of the others, then from each of those smaller stones to each of its glowing brothers, forming a pentagram of burning brilliance. The air between the lines of fire shimmered and rippled as though flame sliced to gossamer had been stretched there, and the whole hummed and crackled with fury.

  "There," Naipal said. "Now the guardian demons, the Sivani, are sealed away from this world unless summoned by name."

  "That is all very well," Kandar muttered. Actually seeing the wizard's power had drained some of his arrogance. "But how are we to get to the tomb? My soldiers cannot dig through that. Will your stones' fire melt that which almost broke my blade?"

  Naipal stared at the man who would lead the army that was entombed a hundred paces away-at least the man the world would think led it-and watched his arrogance wilt further. The wizard did not like those who could not keep their minds focused on what they were about. Kandar's insistence that the women should witness every moment of his triumph-his triumph!-irritated Naipal. For the moment Kandar was still needed, but, Naipal decided, something painfully fitting would make way for the prince's successor. At least Karim Singh, his narrow face pasty and beaded with sweat, had been cowed to a proper view of matters.

  Instead of answering the question, Naipal asked one in tones like the caress of a razor's edge. "Are you sure you made the arrangements I comman
ded? Carts filled with street urchins should have arrived by now."

  "They will come," Kandar answered sullenly. "Soon. I sent my body servant to see if they have come, did I not? But it takes time to gather so many carts. The governor might-"

  "Pray he does only what he has been told," Naipal snarled.

  The wizard rubbed at his temples fretfully. All of his fine plans, now thrown into a hodgepodge of haste and improvisation by that accursed pan-kur.

  Quickly he took the last four khorassani from their ebony chest and placed them on tripods of gold. So close to the demon's prison, they would do for the summoning. He was careful to put the tripods well away from the other five to avoid any interaction. A resonance could be deadly. But there would be no resonance, no failure of any kind. The accursed blue-eyed barbarian, the devil spawn, would be defeated.

  "E'las eloyhim! Maraath savinday! Khora mar! Khora mar!"

  Conan was grateful for the pools of light from the distantly spaced torches, each only just visible from the last. Seemingly hundreds of dark tunnels formed a maze under the temple but the torches made a path to follow. And at the end of that path must lie what he sought.

  Suddenly the Cimmerian stiffened. From behind came the sound of pounding feet. Many pounding feet.

  "They must have found the body," Hordo said with a disgusted glare that took in Hasan and Enam.

  Conan hesitated only an instant. To remain where they were meant a battle they could not in all probability win. To rush ahead meant running headlong into the gods alone knew what. "Scatter," he ordered the others. "Each must find his way as he can. And Hanuman's own luck go with us all."

  The big Cimmerian waited only long enough to see each man disappear down a separate dark passage, then chose his own. The last glimmers of light faded behind him quickly. He slowed, feeling his way along a smooth wall, placing each foot carefully on a floor he could no longer see. With the blade of his sword he probed the blackness ahead.