"Crom!" The curse was wrenched from the barbarian's throat. Conan ducked and ran for the door, almost slamming into Heng Shih as the Khitan came through on his heels. They ran for their lives down a darkened corridor, while behind them a soul-searing scream was ripped from the man whose jaw Conan had broken. The cry was mercifully short, but superseded by the even more chilling sound of the swift, rasping progress of the blood-sotted Emerald Lotus as it pursued its prey.
Chapter Thirty-Six
When Zelandra was a girl of twelve, she contracted a fever that came close to ending her life. When the disease reached its critical phase, and her young body was wracked with chills and delirium, her parents wrapped her in woolen blankets and laid her upon a couch on a balcony overlooking the grounds of their estate. There they left her to fight for her life.
The strength of her youth, and the powerful Vendhyan medicines they had given her, gradually won out over the sickness. When she came to herself it was as though she was emerging from a long, winding tunnel of woven dreams. The events of the previous few days blurred into a fantastical skein of unfocused impressions, and she had no real idea of where she was or how she had come to be there. There was only a strong sensation of well-being: the sense that she was well at last and sitting safely in her home.
Now Zelandra felt that old feeling anew, and her stirring consciousness believed that she was back on that balcony in the summer of her twelfth year. The sensation of emerging from a half-recalled maze of unreal events was the same. Zelandra licked her dry lips and opened her mouth to call for her mother, but found that her voice would not respond. As her vision began to clear, she noticed that someone was speaking to her in a familiar voice. It was a hateful voice. It planted a germ of unease that took root within her, growing and spreading until her emerging awareness focused upon a simple and disturbing certainty. She was not on that balcony now.
Zelandra found herself looking down at her feet. There was a bitter, oddly familiar, taste in her mouth. A frown creased her high forehead as she noticed the dismal condition of her fine riding boots. How had they come to be so battered and dirty? The hateful voice droned on, sounding very pleased with itself. Zelandra looked up to see who would speak to her in such an annoying fashion.
"Are you coming back to us now? Yes, I believe that you are. It is a great honor and a greater pleasure to have you as my guest, Lady Zelandra. First of all, you must tell me, how did you manage to use my lotus so slowly? Shakar, the poor fool, was dead within two days of finishing his supply. How is it that you still have some left after all this time?"
Zelandra stood up straight and ran a hand through her tangled hair. She knew where she must be, though she remained uncertain as to how and when she had arrived. Saying nothing, the sorceress looked slowly and carefully around the huge room, taking in her captors, the black statue, and the bound form of Neesa. Her eyes met those of her scribe for a moment; then Zelandra made herself look away. She could not recall the last time that she had seen Heng Shih or the Cimmerian. She wondered if they were dead. Her lips parted again and when her voice came, it was like the creak of a rust-choked hinge.
"Shakar must not have seen your lotus for the poison that it is. Either that or he took too much at once and found himself unable to lower the dosage. I felt the craving from the start and tried to stave it off immediately. I used whatever power the drug gave me to strengthen myself against it. Would that you had done the same."
"Ah." Ethram-Fal was smiling at the spirit and cogency of her response.
His thin lips drew back from green-stained teeth in a loathsome grin that gave his face the appearance of a withered skull.
"Well done, milady. A small triumph of skill and determination. And yet, here you are now, a mere handful of hours from a painful death despite your best efforts. It seems most unjust, does it not? Perhaps this is the time to bargain?"
"Bargain?" Zelandra's eyelids fluttered and she put her left hand to her brow. She had to buy time, both to remember what she could about how she came here and to plan some sort of action, however suicidal.
Pretending greater weakness than she felt, the sorceress closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead.
"Yes, of course," said Ethram-Fal with ill-concealed impatience, "You must remember
"You were Eldred the Trader?"
"Yes, yes, I thought that you understood all of that. I came to both you and Shakar the Keshanian in that guise so as to test the effects of my lotus upon you."
"A spell of hypnotism?"
"Ha! Hardly!" The little sorcerer puffed up like a preening sparrow.
"Nothing so simplistic and easy to expose. It was a full-fledged glamour: a flawless illusion to any who might look upon it. Behold!"
As the Lady Zelandra watched, Ethram-Fal's slight body began to shimmer like a desert mirage. His image blurred over swiftly, then cleared, revealing an astonishing transformation. Where the stunted Stygian in stained robes had been, now stood a plump and stately Shemite dressed in the elegant silks of a successful merchant. His black beard parted in a broad smile. The illusion winked out and there was Ethram-Fal, grinning just as broadly.
"You see? Such mummery is nothing to me now."
"But the time, the preparations¦" Zelandra dissembled. Feeling within for sorcerous strength, she was shocked by her own weakness. The bit of Emerald Lotus given to her by Ethram-Fal had apparently vented most of its strength in merely returning her to rational consciousness. A powerful offensive spell was out of the question. She had to conceive of a simple defensive tactic that would both take her captors by surprise and allow her adequate time to free Neesa and flee. Her mind raced frantically as she felt the borrowed power of the lotus fading, moment by moment.
"You disappoint me, milady. Either you have used my lotus so sparingly as to be unaware of its true strength or you are much less perceptive than I had hoped. Such spells are little more than child's play to me.
The Emerald Lotus has so enhanced my abilities that I daresay I'm more than a match for any of those arrogant, shortsighted pigs of the Black Ring."
Zelandra made her eyes go wide and took on a look of amazement. "As powerful as that?" she murmured. Her aura of awed astonishment served its purpose. Ethram-Fal swelled visibly with pride and continued in more strident tones, while she settled upon a simple spell of blindness and strove to recall the precise and elaborate details of its casting.
"Certainly! You are familiar with the spell called the Hand of Yimsha?
It is a simple manipulator that can be performed by any apprentice of moderate talent to pick up small objects and move them about. It is a fine index of a sorcerer's skill. I have read that the creators of that spell were mighty enough to use it as a weapon, and heard it rumored that Thoth-Amon employed it to build his palace at the Oasis of Khajar.
Understand this well, Zelandra, I no longer even need to conjure it. It is with me always. And I have used it to kill. Thus far I have seen nothing to indicate that there is an upper limit to the power bestowed by the Emerald Lotus. The more I immerse myself in it, the mightier I become. If you join me, milady, all the power I describe and more shall be yours. Do you understand what it is that I am offering you?" The Stygian leaned forward and lifted his hands imploringly, his tainted eyes shining green as a cat's. "We could become as gods!"
Zelandra thrust out both hands as though pushing him away. Thin streams of gray smoke coiled along the pale flesh of her forearms.
"Tieranog Dar Andurra!" her Voice snapped like the crack of a whip, abruptly free of any weariness. .The eldritch spirals of soft gray did not seem to extend themselves from her arms, yet the air was suddenly choked with writhing tendrils of mist. Ethram-Fal cried out in shock as the blunt tips of the smoke trails moved for his eyes like so many trained cobras. Ath stumbled away, shouting incoherently in alarm, both hands covering his face. Zelandra kept her hands extended, her fingers working as if communicating in Heng Shih's sign language. On the altar, Neesa began to writhe
against her bonds.
Ethram-Fal backed quickly away, dodging the questing streamers of smoke while muttering sibilant syllables under his breath. Beneath the blank countenance of the black sphinx, with her back to the altar between its paws, Zelandra struggled with her invocation, trying to strike her nemesis blind before he gathered his wits or her strength failed.
Ethram-Fal was forced to retreat all the way to one of the temple's doors, and now he stood motionless before it. He no longer sought to avoid Zelandra's tentacles of smoke. They swarmed into his calm face.
From the halls behind him came the muted sounds of outcry and struggle, distant yet drawing nearer. The Stygian sorcerer had no time for that.
He seemed to relax, his arms hanging limply at his sides, and the chamber was filled with the sound of a raging wind. The strands of the blindness spell were whipped about and shredded in a storm that was felt by no one in the room. Zelandra watched as her desperate bid for freedom disintegrated in a gale that did not so much as stir her hair.
"Clever!" yelled Ethram-Fal. "You led me to underestimate your strength. I salute your power, but this last betrayal is too much to bear. Feel the Hand of Yimsha, milady!"
The last gray streamers thinned and faded, like blood diluting in water, and the Lady Zelandra felt a giant's fist close about her torso.
The pressure was immediate and excruciating. Tears sprang to her eyes as the breath wheezed from her compacted lungs.
"Blame yourself, Zelandra! You might have shared the world with me.
I-I¦" The Stygian appeared almost overcome by a sudden excess of emotion. His wizened face darkened, contorted by hatred and something less easy to identify. "Damn you! Do you think I can't find another to take your place? You're nothing to me! Nothing!"
Zelandra frantically sucked for breath and felt her feet leaving the floor. She was borne upward and back until she hung suspended above the prone form of Neesa and directly in front of the smooth oval of the idol's face. Even through the haze of pain her eyes were drawn to it, fearfully seeking something in its blank and implacable emptiness.
Against the black gloss of its face, a deeper darkness bloomed and grew.
"Tribute!" screamed Ethram-Fal, his body vibrating in every limb.
"Sacrifice!" His fist shook and, away across the chamber, Zelandra's body shook with it. The Stygian readied himself for the final moment, opening his eyes wide so as to miss nothing.
There was a clamor in the hallway behind him. He thought to turn and was dealt a blow that lifted him off his feet and dashed him against the wall. His brow struck stone. Pain and blood blurred his vision as he fell to the floor, stunned.
Neesa saw two figures burst into the chamber behind the Stygian sorcerer. The foremost hurled Ethram-Fal aside with a casual blow of his forearm, sending the little man flying like a discarded doll to rebound limply from the wall. A pulse of excitement slammed through her as she saw that the intruders were Conan and Heng Shih. Then Zelandra, freed from the Hand of Yimsha, fell full upon her.
Ath advanced purposefully from the shadows beside the dark idol, his broadsword whisking from its sheath. He moved directly for Conan, who brandished his recently acquired shortsword and spoke.
"Flee, you fool! We're running from a devil out of hell!"
Ath responded with a swift, overhand cut aimed at splitting the barbarian's skull. Oman's shorter blade licked out to deflect it with an echoing clang.
"I'll take this dog," he bellowed to Heng Shih. "Cut the girl free!"
The Cimmerian presented a picture of starkly primordial savagery. His huge body was entirely spattered with drying blood. A sluggish stream of it split his face like a smear of some macabre war paint. His mail shirt was tarnished and torn, hanging upon his mighty torso in tatters.
Glacial blue eyes blazed volcanically through the crimson streaking his snarling visage, fastening upon the mercenary captain with chilling intent.
As Ath stared at his opponent in growing trepidation, the barbarian lashed out. The silvery sword darted for the Stygian's eyes. With a speed that belied his rangy form, Ath brought his weapon up and caught Conan's sword between the blade and quillion. With a practiced twist, Ethram-Fal's captain snapped the barbarian's sword off three inches above the hilt. The blade of the broken weapon sailed above the heads of the combatants, falling to strike the stone floor and rebound with a jingle. Ath skipped back to slash at his nigh-weaponless opponent, but the Cimmerian lunged forward to embrace him. Their bodies slammed together with a clash of mail. Ath's breath, sickly sweet with kaokao, hissed into Conan's face. They grappled. The Stygian could not bring his weapon to bear at such close quarters. The barbarian twisted his sword arm free, dragged the stump of his broken weapon up inside Ath's guard, and buried it in his throat. Then Conan shoved the Stygian away from him with all his strength. The stricken captain reeled away, falling on his back with a crash. His broadsword rattled across the floor and was intercepted by Conan, who took two quick steps, bent, and caught it neatly by the hilt. He snatched the blade up and turned toward the statue, leaving Ath dying on the stone behind him.
Heng Shih's flare-bladed scimitar had cut the bonds pinning Neesa to the black altar and she now stood beside it. The scribe rubbed at her thigh where Zelandra's knee had struck her. Zelandra herself was locked in an embrace with the brawny Khitan, her slender form almost engulfed in his powerful arms.
A distant series of horrified screams came echoing down the hallway.
They were choked off almost at once, replaced by an indescribable rasping sound.
"Crom! It follows us! Run if you value your lives!"
"You are going nowhere!"
All heads turned to the doorway that had admitted Conan and Heng Shih.
There, Ethram-Fal had struggled to his feet and stood unsteadily, bracing himself against the portal's arch with one hand. The other hand wiped at the unnaturally dark blood streaming from his forehead, then extended, dripping, to point accusingly at the little group.
"Your luck is remarkable, Zelandra. But it will require more than the selfless efforts of your slaves to save you from my wrath. Nothing has changed. I shall
With the instinctive reflexes of the true barbarian, Conan chose that moment to charge his foe. The savage, ululating war cry of a Cimmerian tribesman smote the ears of those in the chamber. It froze the blood.
Ethram-Fal lifted his encrimsoned hand toward Conan and, with a gesture, halted him in his tracks. A guttural grunt was torn from the barbarian's lips as the Hand of Yimsha clenched its sorcerous fist.
"All of your paltry physical strength is as nothing," spat the Stygian.
"I shall crush you like the useless insect that you are." His hand curled into a tighter fist and the Cimmerian jerked like a man stretched rigid on the rack.
"Watch closely, Zelandra! This fate awaits you, too!" The fist began to close.
Conan felt himself in the coils of some vast and invisible python.
Sheets of agony rippled over his straining torso and his skull throbbed, filling his vision with billowing clouds of black and scarlet. His lungs heaved, starving for air and unable to expand. Sweat rolled down his contorted face to drip from his chin. Very slowly, he lifted Ath's broadsword higher and took a faltering step forward.
"Set's mercies!" Ethram-Fal stared in amazed horror as the barbarian took another dragging step toward him.
"Die, dog! Die!" screamed the sorcerer, clenching his fist and squeezing tight. There was a strange sound somewhere in the hallway behind him, but he had confined his attention to the barbarian. This man was damned hard to kill.
Conan felt as if he were walking across the bottom of an ocean.
Pressure from all sides threatened to crush his body like a grape in a wine press. Although his sword weighed more than a mountain and the veins in his neck stood out like writhing serpents, all his besieged senses remained set upon his enemy. He lamented the distance that still lay between them while never wavering from his grim pur
pose. As he shuffled forward another step, his vision began to dim.
"Now!" shouted the Stygian sorcerer. "Now I have you!"
At that moment the Emerald Lotus burst through the doorway like the flood from a broken dam. It bore Ethram-Fal aloft before it, a mere chip upon its tide. The bristling plant-thing drove its bulk through the narrow gap of the doorway and thrust its thorned and flowering branches into the chamber.
The sorcerer found himself helpless on the forefront of a surging juggernaut. His startled cry became a full-throated scream as thorns like black daggers pierced his struggling body.
Ethram-Fal's sorcerous grip fell away from Conan. The barbarian staggered, looked up at the oncoming colossus, and blindly turned to run.
Heng Shih, Neesa, and Zelandra shook free of the paralysis of horror that had held them motionless. The Khitan seized the dazed Zelandra and spun her toward the closest doorway. Neesa followed, turning her back on the monstrosity that poured into the temple as she ran to grasp her mistress's arm. Heng Shih rushed to Conan's aid as the battered barbarian stumbled past him. The great scimitar lashed out at the first, questing branch of the blood-hungry Emerald Lotus, lopping off a section the length of a man and sending it spiraling away. The huge bulk of the vampiric fungus slowed not at all. It bore down on the Khitan with Ethram-Fal, howling like a dying dog, still fastened to its swelling bosom. Spiked limbs festooned with vivid green flowers clawed their way over the altar that stood between the black sphinx's stone paws.
Conan hesitated in the portal's arch, and saw the women fleeing toward safety down the hallway ahead. Then, turning back, he beheld Heng Shih sprinting straight at him with a towering mass of lotus looming up behind.
"Hurry!" roared the Cimmerian, hefting Ath's broadsword with an arm that still ached from the cruel grip of Ethram-Fal's spell. The Khitan shot past him through the arch and Conan followed. The Emerald Lotus hit the wall around the opening with the sound of a forest splintered by a lightning bolt. Tentacle-like branches whipped through the portal, seeking warm flesh and blood.
The Conan Compendium Page 449
