"You're mad!" Sularia said, a quaver in her voice. Her back was almost to the wall.
Karela let her sword drop as she continued her advance. "I need no sword for you," she said softly. "A sword is for an equal."
From beneath her robes Sularia drew a dagger, its blade as wide as a man's finger and no more than twice as long. "Fool," she laughed. "If you truly are Tiana, I'll give you reason to wear your veils." And she lunged for Karela's eyes.
The auburn-haired woman moved nothing but a single hand, which darted to close over the hand that held the dagger. Sularia's blue eyes widened in disbelief as her lunge was stopped by a grip made steel by long hours with a sword. Karela knotted her other hand in those blonde tresses, tight enough to force the woman to meet her hard emerald gaze. Slowly she twisted, forcing the dagger and the hand that held it alike to turn.
"Despite it all," she whispered to the blonde, "you might have lived had not you put your sluttish hands on him." With all her strength she drove the dagger home in Sularia's heart.
Letting the dead woman fall, Karela retrieved her sword and wiped the blade contemptuously on a wall hanging. There was still the Cimmerian.
Her mind whirling with a thousand thoughts of what she would do to him when she found him, she stalked from the room. Almost she had been ready to let him live, but Sularia had brought it all flooding back, all the thousand humiliations she had suffered because of him. That he had lain with such as Sularia was the worst humiliation of all, though when she questioned that strange thought her mind skittered away from answering.
Then, from a colonnaded gallery, she saw him in a courtyard below, lost in thought. No doubt he still wondered how to find this precious Ariane of his. Her beautiful face twisted in a savage snarl. From the corner of her eye she caught a movement below, and her breath suddenly would not come. Vegentius had entered the courtyard, and Conan had not moved. Slowly, like a murderer in the night, the big soldier, as big as Conan, crept forward, ensanguined sword upraised. His red-crested helmet and chain mail looked untouched, though that bloody blade was proof he had seen fighting. At any moment he would strike, and she would see Conan die. Tears ran down her face. Tears of joy, she told herself. It would give her much joy to see the Cimmerian meet his death. Much joy.
"Conan!" she screamed. "Behind you!"
Conan listened to the approaching footsteps, footsteps that grew less wary by the second. The Cimmerian's hand already rested on his sword hilt. He did not know who it was that crept toward him, save that by his actions he was an enemy. Whoever he was, a few steps more and the surpriser would be the one surprised. Just one step more.
"Conan!" a scream rang out. "Behind you!"
Cursing his lost advantage the Cimmerian threw himself forward, tucking his shoulder under as he hit the flagstones, drawing his scimitar as he rolled to his feet. He found himself facing a very surprised Vegentius.
A quick glance upward showed him the source of the shout, Karela, half hanging over the stone rail of a gallery two stories above the courtyard. He knew it had to be his imagination, yet in that brief look he could have sworn that she was crying. It did not matter, in any case. He must concern himself with the man he faced.
Vegentius wore a grin as if what was to come were the greatest wish of his life. "Long have I wanted to face you with steel, barbar," he said. His face yet bore the yellowing bruises of their last encounter.
"That is why you try to sneak up behind me?" Conan sneered.
"Die, barbar!" the big soldier thundered, launching a towering overhead blow with his sword.
Conan's blade rose to meet it with a clang, and immediately he moved from defense to offense. Almost without moving their feet the two men faced each other, blades ringing like hammer and anvil. But it was always Conan's blade that was the hammer, always he attacking, always Vegentius parrying, ever more desperately. It was time to end, the Cimmerian thought. With a mighty swing, he struck. Blood fountained from the headless trunk of the Commander of the Golden Leopards. As the body toppled, Conan was already turning to look for Karela. The gallery was empty.
Still, he could not suppress a complacent smile at the thought that she did not hate him as much as she pretended. Else why had she cried out?
He looked around as Hordo hurried into the courtyard.
"Vegentius?" the one-eyed man asked, looking at the headless body. "I saw Albanus," he went on when Conan nodded. "And Ariane and the imposter. But when I got to where I saw them, they were gone. I think they were headed for the old part of the Palace." He hesitated. "Have you seen Karela, Cimmerian?
I can't find her, and I do not want to lose her again."
Conan pointed out the gallery where Karela had stood. "Find her if you can, Hordo. I've another woman to seek."
Hordo nodded, and the two men parted in opposite directions.
Conan wished the bearded man luck, though he suspected Karela had disappeared once more. But his own concern was still Ariane. He could not imagine why Albanus would go into the ancient portion of the Palace, unless it was to escape by way of one of the secret passages. If Jelanna knew some of them, it seemed reasonable that the hawk-faced lord might also.
Yet the Cimmerian did not think he could find even the one he had escaped through, lost as it was in that maze of pitch-dark corridors. There was only the wolf pit to hope for. And hoping against hope Conan ran.
He thanked every god he could think of that he encountered no Golden Leopards as he sped through the Palace, into the rough stone corridor he remembered so well. He could afford not the slightest delay if he was to reach the wolf pit before Albanus departed. If Albanus had gone to the wolf pit. If Ariane was still alive. He refused to admit any of those ifs. They would be there. They had to be.
Almost to the pit, he heard Albanus' voice reverberating from that domed ceiling. The Cimmerian allowed himself one brief sigh of relief before entering the chamber, his eyes like blue steel.
"With this I will destroy them," Albanus was saying, caressing a blue crystal sphere in his hands as he spoke. The imposter stood beside him, and Ariane, staring unnaturally ahead, but the hawk-faced man appeared to speak only to himself. "With this I will unleash such power-"
Sorcery, Conan thought, yet it was too late to stop his advance. Albanus' dark eyes were on him already, and annoyingly seemed to see him as an irritation rather than a danger.
"Kill him, Garian," the nobleman said, and turned his attention back to the blue sphere. Ariane did not move or change expression.
Did the man truly think he was Garian, Conan wondered as the duplicate advanced. He noticed the sword the other carried, then, the same serpentine blade that he had sold to Demetrio what seemed like so long ago. That it was a sorceled weapon he no longer had any doubt, and his belief was confirmed when the blade was raised. A hungry, metallic whine sounded, the same he had thought he imagined when facing Melius.
Still he set himself. Death came when it would. No man could flee his appointed time.
The false Garian's blade blazed into motion, and Conan swung to block it. The shock of that meeting of blades nearly tore the Cimmerian's sword from his grip. There had been no such strength in Melius'
blows. That force came not from any sorcery, but from the man wielding the blade, yet Conan refused to believe that anything human could have so much strength. The hair on the back of his neck rose. Nothing human. Warily he backed away, wondering what it was he faced.
Cupping the blue crystal, ignoring the two who faced each other not twenty paces from him, Albanus began to chant. "Af-far mearoth, Omini deas kaan ...."
Conan thought he felt a rumble from deep in the bowels of the earth, but he had no time to consider it.
The creature with Garian's face stalked him, the wavy-bladed sword darting with preternatural speed.
Conan no longer attempted to block it, only to deflect it, yet even the glancing blows he felt to his heels.
Once the tip of that ensorceled blade opened a shallow
gash in his cheek, sending a thin rivulet of blood trickling. The metallic whine sounded again, but louder, almost drowning out Albanus' chanting.
The creature swung again, a decapitating blow an it landed, but Conan leaped back. The blade smashed into the iron leg of one of the massive tripod lamps, shearing it in two. Slowly the lamp toppled, and Conan saw the first true expression on the creature's face. Terror, as it gazed at the fire in that falling lamp.
As if in mortal danger, the false Garian jumped back. Albanus' voice faltered, then resumed its incantation. The lamp crashed against the wall surrounding the pit, flaming oil pouring down into the pit.
Dry straw crackled alight.
Conan risked a glance at the hawk-faced lord. Above Albanus' head something was forming. A darkness, a thickening of the air. The stones beneath the Cimmerian's feet shifted, and he thought he heard thunder.
There was no time for more than a glance, though, for the creature grasped one leg of the heavy lamp and heaved it into the now fire-filled pit as easily as a man might throw aside a stick of kindling. The ground trembled continuously now, the tremors growing stronger. From the corner of his eye Conan saw the dark amorphous shape above Albanus' head lift higher into the dome, grow more solid. The nobleman's chanting became louder, more insistent. The creature advanced on Conan.
"Run, Ariane!" the Cimmerian shouted, and steadied his feet against the now pitching floor. No man could flee his own death. "Run!"
She did not move, but the simulacrum continued its steady approach, sword lifting for a strike that would smash through the Cimmerian's blade and split the man in twain.
Desperately Conan leaped aside. The tremendous blow struck sparks from the floor where he had stood. In that instant, when the creature tottered off balance from the force of its own blow and the quaking of the earth, Conan struck. Every muscle from his heels up he put into that blow, blade slamming against the creature's side. It was like striking stone. Yet, added to the rest, it was enough, for just that one instant. The simulacrum fell.
Conan had seen the speed of the creature, and had no intention of giving it time to recover its feet. Before it struck the stone floor he had dropped his sword and seized the simulacrum by its swordbelt and its tunic. With a tremendous heave the massive Cimmerian lifted the creature into the air.
"Here's the fire you fear," he shouted, and hurled it over the wall.
As it fell, a scream ripped from its throat. The sword was hurled away as it twisted in an inhuman effort to find some salvation from the flames. As it struck the burning straw there was a whoosh, as of oil thrown on a fire, and flames engulfed the simulacrum, yet even as a statue of flame its horrible screams would not cease.
As Conan raised his eyes from the pit, they met those of Albanus. The dark lord's mouth struggled to form the words of his chant, but from his chest projected the blood-hungry sword that had been hurled with such inhuman strength. Beside him Ariane stirred. Sorcerous spells died with the sorcerer, and Albanus was dying.
Conan hurried to her side. As he took her hand, she looked at him dazedly. Albanus fought still to form words, but blood was filling his mouth.
As the Cimmerian turned to lead Ariane from the chamber, his gaze was drawn by what occupied the height of the dome. He had an impression of countless eyes, of tentacles without number. His own eyes refused to take it all in, his mind refused to accept what he saw. From whatever floated horribly above, a ray of light struck down, shattering the blue crystal. Albanus' eyes glazed in death as the fragments fell from his hand.
Thunder rumbled in the room, and Conan knew it for the laughter of a demon, or a god. The dark shape above gathered itself. Conan scooped up Ariane and ran, as that which was above smashed through the dome. Stones showered down, filling the wolf pit, and dust belched after him. Collapsing walls toppled still other walls. Spreading out in a wave of destruction from the wolf-pit, the ancient portions of the Palace crumbled in on themselves.
Conan was running on polished marble floors before he realized that that floor no longer tossed like a ship in a storm and rubble no longer pelted him. He stopped and looked back through the slowly clearing dust. The corridor behind him was filled from top to bottom with shattered debris, and he could see the sunset sky through a hole in a ceiling that had borne three stories above it. Yet, except for a few cracked walls, there seemed to be remarkably little destruction outside of the ancient parts of the Palace.
Ariane stirred in his arms, and he reluctantly set her down. She was a pleasant armful, even covered in dust and rock chips. Coughing, she stared around her. "Conan? Where did you come from? Is this the Royal Palace? What happened?"
"I'll explain later," the Cimmerian said. Or some of it, he thought with another look at the devastation behind them. "Let's find King Garian, Ariane. I've a reward coming."
Chapter XXV
Strolling down the hall of the palace that had once belong to Albanus-and had for two days now, by decree of King Garian, belonged to him-Conan paused to heft an ivory statuette. Intricately carved, it was light and would fetch a good price in almost any city. He added it to the sack he carried and moved on.
He reached the columned entry hall just as Hordo and Ariane came through the front doors, now standing open. "About time you came back," the Cimmerian said. "What is it like out there?"
Hordo shrugged. "City Guards and what Golden Leopards are left are patrolling the streets against looters. Not that many are left. Seems they thought that earthquake was the judgment of the gods against them. Then, too, some claim to have seen a demon hovering over the Royal Palace at the height of the earthquake." He gave an unconvincing laugh. "Strange what people see, is it not?"
"Strange indeed," Conan replied in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. Even if he managed to convince Hordo of what had occurred at the wolf pit, the one-eyed man would only moan about being too old for such any longer. "What about the Thestis?" he asked Ariane.
She sighed wearily, not looking at him. "The Thestis is done. Too many of us saw too much of what our fine talk leads to. Garian is releasing Graecus and the others from the mines, but I doubt we will be able to look any of the others in the face for a long time. I... I intend to leave Nemedia."
"Come with me to Ophir," Conan said.
"I go to Aquilonia with Hordo," she replied.
Conan stared. It was not that he objected to losing her to Hordo-well, a little, he admitted grudgingly, even to a friend-but after all, he had saved her life. What sort of gratitude was this?
She shifted defiantly under his gaze, and put an arm around the one-eyed man. "Hordo has a faithful heart, which is more than I can say for some other men. It may not be faithful to me, but it is still faithful.
Besides, I told you long ago that I decide who shares my sleeping mat." Her voice held an exculpatory note; a tightness at her mouth said that she heard it, and refused to admit that she had anything to excuse.
Conan shook his head disgustedly. He remembered an ancient saying. Women and cats are never owned, they just visit for a time. At the moment he thought he would take the cat.
Then her destination, and Hordo's, penetrated. "Why Aquilonia?" Conan asked him.
The one-eyed man passed him a folded sheet of parchment and said, "I heard a rumor she went east.
There's something in there for you, as well."
Conan opened the sheet and read.
Hordo, my most faithful hound,
When you receive this I will be gone from Nemedia with all my goods and servants. Do not follow. I will not again be so pleased to find you on my trail. Yet I wish you well. Tell the Cimmerian I am not finished with him.
Karela
Below the signature, in red ink, was the outline of a hawk.
"But you follow anyway," Conan said, handing back the sheet.
"Of course," Hordo replied. Carefully he tucked the letter into his pouch. "But why this talk of going to Ophir now? Garian will make you a lord, next."
"I remembe
red that blind soothsayer in the Gored Ox," the Cimmerian said.
"That old fool? I told you to see one of my astrologers."
"But he was right," Conan said quietly. "A woman of sapphires and gold. Sularia. A woman of emeralds and ruby. Karela. They'd both have watched me die, for exactly the reasons he named. The rest was right, as well. And do you remember how he ended?"
"How?" Hordo asked.
"Save a throne, save a king, kill a king or die. Whatever comes, whatever is, mark well your time to fly.
He also said to beware the gratitude of kings. I'm taking him to heart, if a little late."
The one-eyed man snorted, looking about him at the marble columns and alabaster walls. "I see little enough to beware of in this gratitude."
"Kings are absolute rulers," Conan told him, "and feeling grateful makes them feel less absolute. On that I'll wager. And the best way to get rid of that feeling is to get rid of the man to whom he must be grateful.
Do you see now?"
"You sound like a philosopher," Hordo grumbled.
Conan threw back his head and laughed. "All the gods forbid."
"Captain," Machaon said, entering from the back, "the company is mounted, every man with a sack of loot at his saddle. Though I never heard of a man ordering his own palace looted before."
Conan met Hordo's gaze levelly. "Take whatever you want, old friend, but do not tarry overlong." He held out his hand, and the other grasped it, a custom they had picked up in the east.
"Fare you well, Conan of Cimmeria," Hordo said gruffly. "Take a pull at the Hellborn for me, an you get there before me."
"Fare you well, Hordo of Zamora. And you the same, if you're first."
The Cimmerian did not look again at Ariane as he strode from the hall, She had made her choice.
Behind the palace the Free-Company waited, the score that survived, mounted and armed. Conan swung into his saddle.
The Conan Compendium Page 379
