"And so, my good barbarian, farewell. You will forgive this person for turning his back upon you during your last moments.
For your demise is a pity in a way, and I should not enjoy witnessing it. Had you had the advantages of a Khitan upbringing, you would have mad an admirable servant say, a bodyguard for me. But things are as they are."
After a mocking bow of farewell, the Khitan withdrew to the lower slope of the hill. Conan wondered if the Duke's plan was to leave him trapped against the shaft until he perished of starvation and thirst. If his men marked his absence before dawn, they might look for him. But then, since he had stolen out of the camp without leaving word of his going, they would not know whether to be alarmed by his absence. If he could only get word to them, they would scour the countryside for him and make short work of the treacherous little duke. But how to get word?
Again he threw his massive strength against the force that held him crushed against the column, but to no avail. HE could move his lower legs and arms and even turn his head somewhat from side to side. But his body was firmly gripped by the iron mail that clothed it.
Now the moon brightened. Conan observed that, about his feet and elsewhere around the base of the monument, grisly remains of other victims were scattered. Human bones and teeth were heaped like old rubbish; he must have trodden upon them when the mysterious force pulled him up against the shaft.
In the stronger light, Conan was disquieted to see that these remains were peculiarly discolored. A closer look showed that the bones seemed to have been eaten away here and there, as if some corrosive fluid had dissolved their smooth surfaces to expose the spongy structure beneath.
He turned his head from side to side, seeking some means of escape. The words of the smooth-tongued Khitan seemed to be true, but now he could discern pieces of iron held against the curiously stained and discolored stone of the column by the invisible force. To his left he sighted the shovel, the crowbar, and the rusty bowl of a helmet, while on the other side a time-eaten dagger was stuck against the stone. Yet once more he hurled his strength against this impalpable force...
From below sounded an eery piping sound a mocking, maddening tune. Straining his eyes through the fickle moonlight, Conan saw that Feng had not left the scene after all. Instead, the duke was sitting on the grass on the side of the hill, near its base.
HE had drawn a curious flute from his capacious garments and was playing upon it.
Through the shrill piping, a faint, squashy sound reached Conan's ears. It seemed to come from above. The muscles of Conan's bullneck stood out as he twisted his head to look upward; the spired Turanian helmet grated against the stone as he moved.
Then the blood froze in his veins.
The mist that had obscured the top of the pylon was gone. The rising half moon shone on and through and amorphous thing, which squatted obscenely on the summit of the column. It was like a huge lump of quivering, semitranslucent jelly and it lived.
Life throbbing, bloated life pulsed within it. The moonlight glistened wetly upon it as it beat like a huge, living heart.
4.
As Conan, frozen with horror, watched, the dweller on the top of the monolith sent a trickle of jelly groping down the shaft toward him. The slippery pseudopod slithered over the smooth surface of the stone. Conan began to understand the source of the stains that discolored the face of the monolith. The wind had changed, and a vagrant down-draft wafted a sickening stench to Conan's nostrils. Now he knew why the bones at the base of the shaft bore that oddly eaten appearance. With a dread that almost unmanned him, he understood that the jellylike thing exuded a digestive fluid, by means of which it consumed its prey.
HE wondered how many men, in ages past had stood in his place, bound helplessly to the pillar and awaiting the searing caress of the abomination now descending toward him.
Perhaps Feng's weird piping summoned it, or perhaps the odor of living flesh called it to feast. Whatever the cause, it had begun a slow, inching progress down the side of the shaft toward his face. The wet jelly sucked and slobbered as it slithered slowly toward him.
Despair gave new strength to his cramped, tired muscles. He threw himself from side to side, striving with every last ounce of strength to break the grip of the mysterious force. To his surprise, he found that, in one of his lunges, he slid to one side, partway around the column.
So the grip that held him did not forbid all movement! This gave him food for thought, though he knew that he could not long thus elude the monster of living jelly.
Something prodded his mailed side. Looking down, he saw the rust-eaten dagger he had glimpsed before. His movement sideways had brought the hilt of the weapon against his ribs.
His upper arm was still clamped against the stone by the sleeve of his mail shirt, but his forearm and hand were free. Could he bend his arm far enough to clasp the haft of the dagger?
He strained, inching his hand along the stone. The mail of his arm scraped slowly over the surface; sweat trickled into his eyes. Bit by bit, his straining arm moved toward the handle of the dagger. The taunting tune of Feng's flute sang maddeningly in his ears, while the ungodly stench of the slime-thing filled his nostrils.
His hand touched the dagger, and in an instant he held the hilt fast. But, as he strained it away from the shaft, the rust-eaten blade broke with a sharp ping. Rolling his eyes downward, he saw that about two thirds of the blade, from the tapering point back, had broken off and lay flat against the stone. The remaining third still projected from the hilt. Since there was now less iron in the dagger for the shaft to attract, Conan was able, by a muscle-bulging effort, to tear the stump of the weapon away from the shaft.
A glance showed him that, although most of the blade was lost to him, the stump still had a couple of apparently sharp edges.
With his muscles quivering from the effort of holding the implement away from the stone, he brought one of these edges up against the leathern thong that bound the two halves of the mail shirt together. Carefully, he began to saw the tough rawhide with the rusty blade.
Every movement was agony. The torment of suspense grew unbearable. His hand, bent into an uncomfortable, twisted position, ached and grew numb. The ancient blade was notched, thin, and brittle; a hasty motion might break it, leaving him helpless. Stroke after stroke he sawed up and down, with exquisite caution. The stench of the creature grew stronger and the sucking sounds of its progress, louder.
The Conan felt the thong snap. The next instant, he hurled his full strength against the magnetic force that imprisoned him.
The thong unraveled through the loopholes in the mail shirt, until one whole side of the shirt was open. His shoulder and half an arm came out through the opening.
The he felt a light blow on the head. The stench became overpowering, and his unseen assailant from above pushed this way and that against his helmet. Conan knew that a jellylike tendril had reached his helmet and was groping over its surface, seeking flesh. Any instant, the corrosive stuff would seep down over his face...
Frantically, he pulled his arm out of the sleeve of the unlaced side of the mail shirt. With his free hand, he unbuckled his sword belt and the chin strap of his helmet. Then he tore himself loose altogether form the deadly constriction of the mail, leaving his tulwar and his armor flattened against the stone.
He staggered free of the column and stood for an instant on trembling legs. The moonlit world swam before his eyes.
Glancing back, he saw that the jelly-beast had now engulfed his helmet. Baffled in its quest for flesh, it was sending more pseudopods down and outward, wavering and questing in the watery light.
Down the slope, the demoniac piping continued. Feng sat cross-legged on the grass of the slope, tweedling away on his flute as if absorbed in some inhuman ecstasy.
Conan ripped off and threw away the gag. He pounced like a striking leopard. He came down, clutching hands first, upon the little duke; the pair rolled down the rest of the slope in a tangle of silken robe and thrashi
ng limbs. A blow to the side of the head subdued Feng's struggles. Conan groped into the Khitan's wide sleeves and tore out the ivory cylinder containing the documents.
Then Conan lurched back up the hill, dragging Feng after him. As he reached the level section around the base of the monolith, he heaved Feng into the air over his head. Seeing what was happening to him, the duke uttered one high, thin scream as Conan hurled him at the shaft. The Khitan struck the column with a thud and slid unconscious to the ground at its base. The blow was merciful, for the duke never felt the slimy touch of the haunter of the monolith as the glassy tentacles reached his face.
For a moment, Conan grimly watched. Feng's features blurred as the rippling jelly slid over them. Then the flesh faded away, and the skull and teeth showed through in a ghastly grin. The abomination flushed pink as it fed.
5.
Conan strode back to camp on stiff legs. Behind him, like a giant's torch, the monolith stood against the sky, wrapped in smoky, scarlet flames.
It had been the work of moments only to strike fire into dry tinder with his flint and steel. He had watched with grim satisfaction as the oily surface of the slime-monster ignited and blazed as it squirmed in voiceless agony. Let them both burn, he thought: the half-digested corpse of that treacherous dog and his loathsome pet!
As Conan neared the camp, he saw that the last of his warriors had not yet retired. Instead, several stood staring curiously at the distant firelight. As he appeared, they turned upon him, crying out: "Where have you been, Captain? What is that blaze?
Where is the duke?"
"Ho, you gaping oafs!" he roared as he strode into the firelight.
"Wake the boys and saddle up to run for it. The Jaga headhunters caught us, and they'll be here any time. They got the duke, but I broke free. Khusro! Mulai! Hop to it, if you do not want your heads hung up in their devil-devil huts! And I hope to Crom you've left me some of that wine!"
Conan the Valiant
Prologue
SUNSET TINTED GOLD and crimson the snows of the Lord of the Winds, monarch of the Ibars Mountains. Twilight had already swallowed its lower slopes, while night shrouded the valleys.
Bora, son of Rhafi, lay behind a boulder and studied the valleys before him.
Three stretched away from the foot of the Lord, like the spokes of a cartwheel.
Mist rose from all. Had he been citybred, given to such fancies. Bora might have discerned monstrous shapes already forming out of the mist.
Instead, Bora's family had been shepherds and wolf-hunters in the village of Crimson Springs, when the forebears of King Yildiz of Turan were petty lordlings. These mountains held no strangeness for him.
Or rather, they had not, until two moons before. Then the tales began. In one valley, the mists turned green each night. Those who ventured into the valley to see why did not return, except for one who returned mad, babbling of demons unleashed.
Then people began to disappear. Children at first―a girl filling water jugs by a lonely stream, a shepherd boy taking food to his father in the pasture, a baby snatched while his mother bathed. Never was there any trace of the reavers, save for a foul stench that made the dogs turn away howling and sometimes a footprint that might have been human, if humans had claws a finger long.
Then grown men and women began to vanish. No village was spared, until people dared not leave their houses after dark and went about even in daylight in
stout, armed bands. It was said that caravans struggling over the passes and even patrols of Yildiz's soldiers had lost men.
Mughra Khan, Yildiz's military governor, heard the tales but doubted them, at least where the villages were concerned. He saw nothing but rebellion looming and his duty clear: to put it down.
He was not such a fool as to arrest men at random and try to persuade the Seventeen Attendants that they were rebels. The Seventeen were not fools either.
Mughra Khan strengthened his outposts, arrested the few men who protested, and waited for the rebels to either strike or skulk back into their lairs.
Neither rebels nor anything else human did either. But entire outposts began to disappear. Sometimes a few bodies remained behind, gutted like sheep, beheaded, dismembered by more than human strength. Once, two men reached safety―one dying, both mad and babbling of demons.
This time, the tales of demons were believed.
Of course Mughra Khan continued to believe in rebels as well. He saw no reason why both could not be menacing the peace and order of Turan. Messengers rode posthaste to Aghrapur, with requests for advice and aid.
What fate those messengers might meet, Bora did not know, and hardly cared. He was more concerned about the fate of his father, Rahfi. Rahfi accused some soldiers of stealing his sheep. The next day the soldiers' comrades arrested him as "a suspected rebel."
What fate suspected rebels might meet, Bora knew too well. He also knew that pardons often came to those whose kin had well served Turan. If he learned the
secret of the demon reavers, might that not procure his father's release?
It would be good if Rahfi could be home in time to attend his daughter Arima's wedding. Though not as fair as her younger sister Caraya, Arima would bear the carpenter of Last Tree many fine sons, with Mitra's favor.
Bora shifted slightly, without dislodging so much as a pebble. It might be a long wait, studying these nighted valleys.
Master Eremius made a peremptory gesture. The servant scurried forward, holding the ornately-shaped chased silver vials of blood in either hand. Thos hands were filthy, Eremius noted.
Eremius snatched the vials from the servant and plunged them into the silk pouch hanging from his belt of crimson leather. Then he struck the rock at his feet with his staff and threw up his left hand, palm outward. The rock opened. Water gushed, lifting the servant off his feet, then casting him down, gasping and whimpering for mercy. Eremius let the water flow until the servant was as clean in person and garments as was possible without flaying him.
"Let that be a lesson to you," Eremius said.
"It is a lesson, Master," the man gasped, and departed faster than he had come.
The wet rock slowed Eremius not at all as he descended into the valley. His long-toed feet were bare and hard as leather, seeking and finding safe holds without the least spell bringing light. At the foot of the path two more servants stood holding torches. The torches were of common rushes, but burned with a rubicund light and a hissing like angry serpents.
"All is well, Master."
"So be it."
They followed him as he climbed the other side of the valley to the Altar of Transformation. He wished to arrive in time to correct whatever was not indeed well. The assurances of his servants told him little, except that the Altar had not been carried away by vultures or any of tonight's Transformations escaped.
Ah, would that Illyana was still friend and ally, or that he had snatched the other Jewel of Kurag from her before she fled! Then it would have mattered little whether she escaped or not. Before she found any way to oppose him, the twin Jewels would have given him irresistible power, both in his own right and through human allies.
Eremius nearly thought a curse upon Illyana. He quickly banished the impulse.
The magic he used in a Transformation was unforgiving of anything less than total concentration. Once, he had sneezed in the middle of a Transformation and found its subject leaping from the Altar, partly transformed and wholly beyond his control. He had to summon other Transformations to slay it.
The Altar seemed part of the hillside itself, as in truth it was. Eremius had conjured it into being out of the very rock, a seamless slab as high as a man's waist and twelve paces on a side. Around the edge of the slab ran in high relief the runes of a powerful warding spell.
Like the runes on the great golden ring on Eremius's left forearm, these runes were an ancient Vanir translation of a still more ancient Atlantean text. Even among sorcerers, few knew of these or any of the other spells c
oncerning the
Jewels of Kurag. Many doubted the very existence of the spells.
Eremius found this to his advantage. What few believe in, fewer still will seek.
He stepped up to the Altar and contemplated the Transformation. She was a young village woman, fully of marriageable age and exceedingly comely, had Eremius been concerned about such things. The whole of her clothing was a silver ring about her roughly-cropped dark hair and silver chains about her wrists and ankles. The chains held her spread-eagled on the slab, but not so tightly that she could not writhe from side to side in an obscene parody of passion. In spite of the night chill, sweat glazed her upthrust breasts and trickled down her thighs. Her eyes held shifting tints that made them look now ebony dark, now silver gray, then the fiery tint of a cat's eyes seen by firelight.
Indeed, all seemed well. Certainly there was nothing to be gained by waiting.
Eight more Transformations awaited him tonight, nine more recruits for his army.
Soon he could bargain from strength, with the ambitious or the discontented at the court of Turan. No court ever lacked for such, and the court of Turan had more than most. Once they were his allies, he could set them in search of the other Jewel. Illyana could not hide forever.
Then the twin Jewels would be his, and bargaining at an end. It would be time for him to command and for the world to obey.
He raised his left hand and began to chant. As he chanted, the Jewel began to glow. Above the Altar the mists took on an emerald hue.
Bora's breath hissed between his teeth. The mist in the westernmost valley was
turning green. It was also the nearest valley. In daylight he could have reached it in an hour, for he was as keen-sighted by night as by day. Tonight, speed was not his goal. Stealth was what he needed, for he was a wolf seeking prey―an odd fate for a shepherd, but Mitra would send what Mitra chose.
Bora sat up and unwrapped the sling from around his waist. In the dry mountain air, the cords and leather cup had not stretched. In the mist-shrouded valley, it might have been otherwise; still, he could face anything but heavy rain. He had practiced almost daily with the sling, ever since he was no taller than it was long.
The Conan Compendium Page 288
