The Conan Compendium

by Robert E. Howard

  The desecration showed every sign of deliberation, as if someone were starting at the top and disassembling the city stone by stone, brick by brick, tile by tile. Demolition by hammer and crowbar he understood, but something that could melt the most unyielding of substances suggested things the Cimmerian preferred not to think about.

  Payna nudged him and her queen as they passed an alley. Within it were bodies and shredded parts of bodies. The most complete specimens were clothed and masked like the inhabitants of the underground city. Some might have been slaves, but most were too mutilated to recognize. Conan has reminded of the massacred tribe whose remains they had found in the desert. An appalling charnel stench drifted from the alley and in any ordinary city, the air would have been vibrating with swarms of flies.

  This, Conan surmised, had been the previous night’s maintenance crew, whose age-old task had conflicted with that of the demolishes.

  They reached the city wall and found the great gate fully open. They passed through the found beyond it a camp set up near the water-trough, complete with tents. Many camels grazed upon the grass, and Conan could not tell which, if any, of them had been the mounts he, the women, the dwarf and the Hyrkanians had ridden into the desert. Nowhere did he see the tall, two-humped camels ridden by the twins.

  They were conducted to the largest tent. In the desert fashion, three of its sides were raised, leaving only the canopy for shade and its back lowered to face the prevailing wind. Except. Conan reflected, that there was no wind in this uncanny place. Then, with a shock, be felt a faint breeze. He looked up and saw that the perfect bowl in which the city lay was no longer quite perfect. The lip of the crater showed dips and notches. Even as he watched, an errant gust blew sand over the rim and onto the interior slope.

  “Be seated,” said Arsaces, crossing his ankles and lowering himself onto a cushion. To the guards, he said, “Wait you a little way off. I wish private converse with these people.”

  “My lord―” Vladig began, but Arsaces cut him off.

  “I shall be safe,” said the wizard, his voice and his gaze so firm that the words could not be doubted.

  Vladig bowed, signaled to the others and walked off with ill grace.

  Conan and Achilea sat facing Arsaces, separated from him by me distance of a pace. Achilea’s women sat just behind her. Automatically, as if by long habit, Payna began to massage her queen’s neck and shoulders.

  “You people have caused me some little consternation,” Arsaces began. “I came hither expecting a conflict of wizards and higher powers. I knew that there would be a retinue of guards, but I expected scum like those I myself hired.” He nodded toward the rabble of desert men and warriors who sat some way off. Already the desert nomads had a fire of hoarded brush burning. They were brewing their inevitable-herb tea. Arsaces looked back at his involuntary guests. “I was not expecting a barbarian hero and an Amazon warrior-queen.”

  “Life is full of imponderables,” said Achilea, as regal as if she were seated upon a throne surrounded

  by perfumed courtiers.

  The mage smiled grudgingly. “And who should know that better than a wizard? Even so, you may have been of service to me, albeit unknowingly.”

  “You called the sandstorm upon us!” Conan said, “And I’ve no doubt it was you who set the whirlwind-demons upon me!”

  Arsaces regarded him blandly. “And wherefore not? You were spying upon my encampment. I do not take lightly such impertinences from the lower orders.”

  “My queen is not to be referred to thus!” said Payna, as proud as a duchess despite her ragged condition.

  “Your queen is my prisoner. Be silent, woman.”

  Achilea patted Payna’s hand. “Yes, my pet, be still. This fellow wants something from us and we must endure his lordly posturing until he informs us what it is.”

  The wizard’s face reddened. Then he calmed himself with an effort. “For a start, I would know what transpired below.”

  “We’ve been running and fighting and climbing for what seems like hours,” Conan said. “How about some food and drink before we get down to business? A real man of the desert would have offered refreshment even to prisoners beneath his tent.”

  “You are insolent beyond belief!” Arsaces snapped. “But then, I suppose that is to be expected from a barbarian!”

  “Expect it from people of the north,” Conan said. “We are not toadies and lickspittles like your followers out there.” He jerked his touseled black mane toward the little group without.

  Arsaces clapped his hands and shouted. Men came in and set before them food and drink: preserved travel rations and watered wine. When they had eaten, they sat back on their heels, ready to bargain.

  “What would you know?” Conan asked. “You saw the fight with the crocodile, did you not? We saw your little crystal man down there. Is he not your eyes and ears?”

  Arsaces smiled again. “You are less stupid than you appear, Cimmerian, Eyes only―alas. These crystals vibrate only in the plane of vision, not in that of hearing. Yes, I saw the battle, and it was most impressive. That was when I knew that the two of you were not persons of the common sort and that your presence here may not be entirely coincidental. So let us begin with how you came to be employed by my Adversary.”

  “You mean the twins?” Achilea asked.

  “I mean my Adversary,” he repeated firmly. “Tell me.”

  Thus Achilea told of bow they had all met in the wretched outlaw village of Leng in the mountains of faraway Brythunia, and of how in their desperation they had agreed to accompany the mysterious twins on their madman’s mission into the desert, and of how the twins had manifested uncanny powers in their travels through the lands in between.

  Conan took up the tale and he spoke of the strange sights he had seen in the ruined temple in Zamora. Achilea looked at him sharply as he described the actions of the twins, and the majestic, white-bearded man upon the temple altar, and the utter silence that had enveloped all within the temple walls.

  “You did not speak to me of this before,” Achilea said accusingly.

  “Sometimes it is wise to maintain silence,” Conan said.

  “Do not seek to hold secrets from me,” warned the mage, “for I will unfailingly detect prevarication.

  Continue.”

  Conan spoke of their trek into the desert lands, the fight with the bandits and the discovery of the massacred tribe. “Were the bandits your hirelings?” Conan demanded.

  The mage nodded. “Aye. It was a probing assault, intended to test your mettle and that of my

  Adversary. You see, I have for long followed him from a great distance. Never before had I seen him or had the opportunity to contest powers with him.”

  “You keep speaking as if there were only one of them, not two,” Achilea protested.

  “All shall be made plain in time,” he said. “That is, if I think you are worth the effort of explanation.”

  Seething, Conan told of the last stages of the journey, of his fight with the whirlwind-demons in the sandstorm, and of the terrible trek afoot in the desert that had almost been the death of Achilea.

  Throughout, the mage listened without comment or change of expression, his eyebrow quirking only when the Cimmerian described Arnram and the little chameleon’s story. Conan almost thought he detected a smile upon the wizard’s lips at this point in the tale; then it vanished.

  Achilea resumed and told of their scaling of the gate and exploration of the city, hurrying through this part for she knew that it was not a matter of great importance. When she described their capture in the great temple, the wizard placed his palms upon his knees and leaned forward, listening intently. On the carpet before him, the little heap of violet crystal pulsed softly with its lifelike inner light When they reached the point of Conan’s interview with Omia, the Cimmerian resumed the recitation. He repeated Omia’s tale of the history of Janagar, relaying her word for word, and the wizard nodded as it’ what he heard was that
which he expected.

  Achilea finished with me story of their escape, telling of how Amram had released them and accompanied them as far as the temple, where they lost him. “The rest,” she finished, ”I take it you know already.”

  “All but one thing.” He turned to Conan. “Did Abbadas truly slay Omia? My homunculus was so high up in the idol that I could not see clearly, and I have told you that it cannot relay sounds.”

  “He did,” Conan affirmed. “Slit her throat as if it were a caress.”

  “Good riddance,” said Achilea, her words echoed by a chorus of agreement from her women.

  “You’d not say that if you’d seen it,” Conan told her. “Abbadas is not truly human. But then, none of them are.

  Now, Arsaces,” he bent his sulfurous, blue-eyed gaze upon the wizard, “we have spoken true words to you, and we’ve done naught to threaten you. Will you in turn explain some things to us?”

  “Very well. Know, then, that the tale of Janagar related to you by the late Queen Omia is true, at least insofar as she knew the tale. The epic of each nation is told as if that were the sole nation in all the world. But always there are others. So it was with Janagar. The empire of Janagar was great, but it contained city-states of a luster little dimmer than that of the queen city, and in the ages of misrule by the late priest-kings of Janagar, these cities grew restive, and they were fearful of the course taken by the overweening wizards. One of these was the city-state of Pulawar, which lay near what is now the northern border of Zamora.”

  “Where I saw the temple,” Conan said.

  Arsaces nodded. “That roofless hulk and its shattered tower are all that remain of magnificent Pulawar, which in its day rivaled Janagar herself in splendor, the most powerful of the mages of Pulawar formed the Guild of Murghal, named for the Powers they conversed with on the plane of such beings.”

  “Then others trafficked with these Powers?” Conan asked.

  “Aye, they did, although unlike the mages of Janagar, they accomplished this without polluting themselves with nonhuman blood. The elder you saw in the temple was the last Master of the Guild. That is, you saw his specter, for he has been dead for eons.”

  The gaze of the mage’s eyes grew fixed, as if he were in a trance. “Countless years have passed since the wizards of Janagar sought to save themselves with the Great Spell of Unchanging. The rival Guild of Pulawar sought to shut all the doors to the higher planes and then attempted the same spell, but they were not as accomplished in earthly magicks and Pulawar crumbled to the pathetic remnant you beheld. When they knew that they could not last, they set in place numerous safeguards. These were spells and writings that would appear,. at least in fragmentary form, if the folly of Janagar should ever again threaten the world.”

  “Abbadas!” Conan said. “He spoke of rejoining the real world when he slew Omia.”

  “Once again your wit belies your appearance,” said Arsaces. “He is the last descendant of the royal line of Janagar, and in him have been reborn the vaunting, blasphemous ambitions of the ancient wizards of that accursed nation. Years ago, he began to ponder the likelihood of restoring its fortunes, and from that moment, the ancient safeguards began appearing. Scholars discovered them, but so fragmentary were they that it took years and many consultations to piece together the story and decide what must be done about it A few lone-wolf wizards of this decadent age sought to discover the city for themselves in hope of reaping its arcane riches, but most of mem perished in the attempt”

  “And the twins discovered some of these safeguard documents?” Achilea asked.

  He shook his head. “No. They are one of the safeguards!”

  “That is nonsense!” she protested.

  “Is it?” queried me wizard. “You yourself noted their uncanny behavior―how they spoke as one person, bow they never seemed to eat or drink.”

  “Aye.” Conan said, “but how could―”

  “Think!” snapped Arsaces. “Your own camels are out there with the herd. Did you see their strange beasts among them?”

  “I did not,” Conan admitted.

  “That is because they were not camels, any more than your twins were human beings, hi fact, what you accompanied hither was a single being that took the form of four a man, a woman and two camels.”

  “It is not possible!” Achilea cried.

  “And wherefore not?” the mage demanded. “What know you of beings from worlds beyond? When the safeguards reappeared, the creature was drawn from its proper plane to this. Its bulk is great, and there are reasons you would not understand why there must always be a balance between mass and energy. It could not reduce its size, but it has the power to subdivide itself, within limits. For purposes of credibility, it settled upon two humans and two beasts. We are accustomed to twins being closer to one another than other persons are. The twins and the camels made more sense than ten humans all acting exactly alike, do you not agree? Even then, it was not capable of wholly human behavior.” His hearers

  were by now beyond astonishment “You call it your Adversary,” Conan said. “Why?”

  “It is here to destroy Janagar,” he answered.

  “And so, it seems, are you,” the Cimmerian countered. “Why are you not allies instead?”

  “Because we seek to destroy the city for differing reasons. It wishes to throw open the last gate and admit the Powers to our world. I seek to shut it forever. You see, none of the wizards of ancient days, not those of Janagar or those of Pulawar, understood the nature of the Powers. They have been the subject of ages of study by the highest scholars of the thaumaturgic arts in the time since, and all now know that they are not to be trifled with, they cannot be dealt with in any fashion possible to humans, nor even to half-humans such as those ancient wizards of Janagar.

  “The thaumaturges of Pulawar called their Power ‘Murghal’―although actually the Powers have no names in the human sense―and they thought it to be beneficent. They were wrong. They had merely not yet attracted from it something they would recognize as hostility. But in truth, the Powers are hostile to all things, including each other. They fight and devour one another continually, hi their last contact with Murghal, the Guild obtained from it the creature you knew as the twins. It arrived in this world ignorant and unaware of how to locate the well-hidden city of Janagar. It had to search, like the rest of us.”

  “Why did a creature like that need guards?” Achilea asked.

  “In this world, it is vulnerable. It needs much of its strength just to maintain its spurious appearance.

  Also, it strove for a realistic appearance, and scholarly, well-born folk would never travel in the wild lands without an escort.”

  “The whirlwind-demons seem to be at your command,” said Conan, <4 yet they also seem to figure in the ancient tale of Janagar, How is this?”

  “They, like my Adversary, are another of the safeguards. They have lain buried deep beneath the sands of the deserts since the fall of Janagar, but a few times since, one or two have been accidentally called to the surface to ravage and destroy, thus the legends among the desert nomads. The demons stirred when the other safeguards were activated, and have grown active in recent months. They are unintelligent and undiscriminating without guidance, hence that massacred tribe you came upon. There have probably been others.

  “Incidentally,” he said with a look of frosty approval, “it is a great feat to kill one. For a lone man to fight two in the dark and to slay one and severely would the other … that is the work of a true hero. One of the safeguard fragments contained their leash-spell, and I control them now. They can do more than kill. Their claws can tear apart stone, and the acid fluids of their bodies are capable of dissolving not only stone, but metal and glass as well. My scum out there,” he gestured contemptuously toward his escort, “are good for killing, but they abhor hard work. The whirlwind-demons can function only in the dark, so they rend the city to pieces at night.”

  “How long will they need to complete t
he work?” Conan asked.

  “Not long. It will not be necessary to demolish the city utterly, just enough to break the Spell of Unchanging. Already it is seriously weakened.”

  “A moment,” Achilea said. “When we found Amram, or rather, when he found us, he spoke of a wizard named Firagi whom he had led hither. Was this just another of his lies?”

  Again they saw that hint of amusement. “Nothing he says is an utter lie, and he is never to be believed utterly. The man you know as Amram is the wizard Firagi.”

  “Crom!” Conan said in exasperation. “Is nothing here ever as it seems? I had rated myself a good judge of men, and I would have sworn that he was a runaway slave, an unhung rogue, from Koth!”

  “He is that indeed, and many other things. You recall that I spoke of lone-wolf wizards who sought Janagar on their own? Firagi was one of them. In his checkered career, he was once the salve of a Stygian wizard, and from him he learned some of the thaumaturgic arts. He has a nimble mind a a knack for taking on roles. For many years, be has been a gadfly wizard, almost an outlaw among us, save that we have no laws. He is tolerated among the fraternity because he is amusing and sometimes he is useful.

  A genuine rogue can oft discern possibilities where a traditional mage is stymied.

  “At any rate, Firagi-Amram found one of the very first fragments to appear an engraved vessel dredged up in the net of some lake-fisherman in Keshan five years ago. He bought it, hid and deciphered it, and it turned out to contain one of the best descriptions of Janagar and its location, By the time it came into the hands of the fraternity and was pooled with the other information we had, he was well on his way.”