The Conan Compendium

by Robert E. Howard

  The gate opened swiftly, cranked by two menservants with the beardless faces of eunuchs and stark terror written all over those faces. A Maiden stood by them, keeping them at their posts as she remained at hers, although her own face told of fear commanded by brute force of will.

  Muhbaras did not blame any of the three. He was here for his Lady, his men, and his honor”in that order. Khoraja was but a name that would have had no power to prevent his flight but for the other three bonds that had brought him here in this dire hour.

  The men filed in through the gate behind Muhbaras. Some called bawdy greetings to the Maiden, or stared around these once-forbidden precincts.

  All lightness of heart vanished, however, as they marched down the path and saw the far end of the cleft in the rock. There the passage from the gate gave on the valley itself, and there purple light blazed like the forge of some mad blacksmith of the gods.

  Purple light, and worse. Muhbaras saw (or at least thought he saw, and would ask no other for their opinion) patches of sky where a blackness that was not the night seemed to eat the light.

  He could hope that this was the magic by which the Lady sought to subdue her own creation. Hope, perhaps pray, but no more.

  "Pair off," he shouted. "Stay together, and don't let anyone get between you and your mate! Any Maidens who come up, if they're armed, have them pair off and fall into line with us. Anyone armed who is not a Maiden, disarm them."

  "Then what?" someone called. "Send them out or keep them here?"

  "If they won't stay, send them out. When the valley is empty, we'll take its folk down to find water and shelter until the Lady has matters in hand."

  Some of the laughter that drew was bawdy, but not much of it unfriendly. So far Muhbaras still commanded his men's loyalty.

  Lady, for all our sakes, put things to rights before my men flee like your people.

  Even as they moved uphill, Conan kept his men reined in.

  "Run on a slope like this, and you're likely to fall on your face. If somebody doesn't skewer you before you get up, you'll roll back down and knock out what brains you have!"

  Farad added his mite to the profane cajoling, and the men mounted the slope in a compact formation, with archers well out to the flanks where they had clear shooting. Thus far they had no targets, and Conan would be quite happy if there was no more fighting on sloping ground. His Afghulis were as at home on it as he was, but Bethina's tribesfolk were accustomed to the more level desert.

  Nonetheless, they and their young chieftess kept pace with the Cimmerian. Bethina no longer seemed entranced by her magical bond with Omyela, but she strode on in silence, looking neither to right or left.

  She spoke first when Conan called for a short halt to realign the formation and let everyone take a few unhurried breaths.

  "Omyela and I were talking."

  "So I judged," Conan said. "Is it permitted to speak of what she said?"

  "Oh, it is permitted, or at least I will take her permission for granted. But you do not want to hear all of it. Omyela can no more utter two words of meaning without ten words of speech than any other old woman or sorcerer."

  Conan grimaced in mock-horror. "And she is both. How does she ever speak clearly?"

  "Not often," Bethina said. "But I can tell you what she meant. She says there is death and life battling in the valley."

  "How does that make the valley different from any other place where life exists? Death comes to every living thing, or it seems to me."

  "Yes, but”how to say it?"

  "Plainly and shortly. We must move on soon."

  "Do you wish to wed me also, so you may command me?"

  "Do you wish two husbands?"

  "If they were you and Farad

  "I'm flattered. We're in haste. Speak."

  "Death and life each has”being”in the valley. Left alone, they will between them destroy it and go on to seek destruction elsewhere.

  Brought together, they will destroy each other."

  "So all we need is to introduce the death being to the life being and stand well clear?"

  "I suppose so. She did not explain."

  "Just as long as she does it when it's needed," Conan said. "Otherwise there'll be no one alive here to listen to her explanation."

  Bethina heard those words without flinching, which was more than some of the men did.

  Muhbaras's men barely had time to order their slender ranks before the fleeing Maidens were on them. No, that did an injustice to some of the Maidens, and indeed some of the other women, Muhbaras decided. They were retreating, not fleeing, trying to stay ahead of the mob of fugitives but keeping themselves in fair order, and those with weapons holding on to them.

  The mob behind was another matter. At intervals the sky itself seemed to howl like a living thing gone mad, and in those moments Muhbaras wanted to clap his hands over his ears. He could not have heard the cries of the fugitives if they'd been shouting in his ear”and he kept his distance from them with great care.

  They were of all ages from babes to graybeards and of both sexes, as well as more than a few fresh eunuchs. Most seemed to be wearing what they could snatch up when the urge to flee struck them, which was often little or nothing. Few had anything more than their scanty garments, or at most a loaf of flatbread or a bunch of onions.

  Feeding these without the croplands of the valley is going to be no easy task, my Lady. But they are yours, and for your sake I will do what I must.

  Hardly any of the fugitives were the misshapen half-men, conjured into deformed existence by the Lady to do the harshest work before their time came to yield up their life essences. Whether the Mist had overtaken them, their true human neighbors slain them, or their own weakness brought them down, they would not live out the night.

  Muhbaras could not find it in his heart to regret their passing, and only hoped their deaths would be for the most part merciful.

  Less agreeable was the sight of several bands of well-thewed and armed men or eunuchs. These swaggered along, and Muhbaras knew that they would prey like jackals on the fugitives if they were given the slightest chance. He had encountered their breed before, and found no answer to it save sharp orders enforced by sharper steel.

  Muhbaras stepped forward to meet the first three.

  "Halt and disarm!" he said, not quite shouting but raising his voice loud enough to be heard over the fugitives' gabble. The sky screamed at that moment, so he had to repeat the command.

  "Who are you to be giving orders?" the biggest man snapped.

  "Captain Muhbaras of the Khorajan service," was the reply.

  The man drew his sword. Muhbaras drew his faster. Its point was at the man's throat before the other's blade could rise into fighting position.

  The man stared at the point just barely pricking his skin and swallowed. "Ah”can I have my blade back afterward?"

  "When we're Another howl from the sky, and something vast and black seemed to fly low overhead, like a cloud that was a window into the Abyss and cried with the voice of a mad dragon.

  "That's a Maiden's sword!" screamed a voice from behind Muhbaras. He turned, taking his eye off the man, who jerked his blade up and nearly laid Muhbaras's cheek open.

  Then Muhbaras was trying to fight at the same time the man and a wild-eyed Maiden determined to avenge her unknown comrade. The fugitives had broken into a run now, all who could move that fast, and both the unarmed and the armed were streaming past, jostling the fighters without regard to the flying steel.

  In the confusion the Maiden tried to watch her back, Muhbaras, and the man at the same time. She could not quite contrive this, and the man laid open the side of her neck with a wild slash. The next moment Muhbaras pierced him through the throat, and he fell beside the woman.

  Muhbaras looked at the fallen Maiden, cursed everything save the Lady herself, and even allowed himself a few unkind thoughts about her. He would not be able to forget this night of madness, and it would always lie between
them even when they lay in each other's arms.

  Then the greatest cry of all rose from the valley, as if the mountains themselves were in mortal agony, likewise the stars, the air, the water, and every living thing within reach of the unleashed magic. It was the sound of madness, and Muhbaras saw that on the faces of his men and the Maidens who had stood thus far.

  He closed his eyes, to shut out the nightmare vision. When he opened them he still lived, and only the echoes of that cry remained pealing about the valley.

  But he was alone, except for the dead and those too spent to run.

  Alone, with no further duties to anyone but the Lady. Alone, and free to go to her, to hold her, to carry her out of this antechamber of Hell.

  Muhbaras had a dim notion that perhaps there was some madness in him, too, that he thought this. His men still lived, likewise the Maidens and the fugitives. He could do more for them than for the Lady, if she yet lived.

  It was the thought of her death that finally turned Muhbaras's steps toward the valley. Nothing remained in his mind but that thought. If she was dead, he must find her body before anyone else.

  Sword in hand, Captain Muhbaras stumbled down into the Valley of the Mists, along the path that the Lady herself had followed only a short while before.

  The gate to the valley stood open when Conan led his companions toward it. The gateway was also vomiting people, wide-eyed, ragged, some wounded, all staggering with exhaustion and half-witless with fear.

  Conan did not even try to stop the outpouring with his handful of men.

  Nor did he really wish to. If the Lady of the Mists was soon to be a queen without subjects, many of her teeth would be drawn without the Cimmerian's having to labor at it.

  Conan was proud of the victories he had wrought with his strength and skill. He was not so proud of them that he would refuse a victory handed to him by fate.

  There were armed men and some armed women among the fleeing people.

  Some of the armed men had the look of those who had picked up fallen weapons with an eye to carving from others' misery what fortune they could. Others, the women included, wore armor and had about them the air of an army in retreat.

  "Those women are the Maidens of the Lady," Bamshir said, low-voiced.

  "The armored men are Muhbaras's. I know some of them."

  "Do you see Muhbaras?"

  "I have not yet. He would be the last to flee. Even if the men did, he himself would go forward to seek the Lady." Bamshir added, in a still lower voice, "He loved her, it is known. And I think she loved him back."

  Conan tried not to gape. The idea of loving a sorceress chilled him to the marrow. The idea of being loved by one”well, he had survived the affections of many sorts of dangerous women, but any man who played love games with a witch loved danger even more than the Cimmerian did.

  "Then let us seek your captain, and perhaps when we find him, we shall find the Lady."

  Conan led the way, and Farad, Bethina, and Bamshir followed almost shoulder to shoulder through the gateway.

  Muhbaras was vaguely aware that the ground under his feet was shaking.

  He did not slow, or even break stride. He was running like a man who will stop when his heart does, who will keep running in midair if the ground drops away beneath him, fall, and land running still.

  He might never have had soldiers, or anything else behind him to think of. All his thoughts roved the valley ahead, seeking his Lady.

  Do you yet live? Send me a sign, if you do!

  He knew that he was crying out for that sign like a child for a second bowl of porridge. He did not care. Before the Lady, before his love for her, he had no more shame.

  Not so vaguely, he became aware that the sky was turning solid and beginning to whirl. He also saw that the solidity took the form of two vast spirals, like whirlwinds of unimaginable proportions. One was purple, the other was a black that seemed to both repel and swallow light at once.

  They leaped skyward from different parts of the valley, and leaned toward one another like partners in an obscene dance. Then they drew back, swayed, leaned forward again, and repeated this over and over again.

  Either they were silent now, or Muhbaras's ears had ceased to accept new sounds. No, that was not quite so. When the ground before him cracked wide so that he had to leap or be swallowed up, he heard the shrill sundering of rock and the thud of his boots landing on the far side.

  Then he heard only his own rasping breath as he ran on.

  Conan watched the spirals in the sky, one blazing purple and the other the black of a demon's nightmares, and knew that the unleashed magic was approaching its climax. He knew this without a word from Bethina, who indeed could not have spoken a word to save Conan's life or perhaps her own.

  Bowed backward in a way that had to be torturing her spine, she stared wide-eyed into the sky. She shook her head so that her hair flew in clouds about her, and raised her arms, hands clasped together.

  Those clasped hands began to glow”with a light that was all colors and no colors. Conan could neither bear to look at it nor turn his head to look away. Farad muttered curses in Afghuli, while Bamshir knelt and cried out what sounded like orthodox prayers to Mitra.

  It had to be comforting to believe in the kind of god who answered prayers, or at least told his priests that he would answer them. It was a comfort Conan had always been denied.

  Instead of praying, he drew his sword. Steel in hand was the way he had always sworn death would find him, and he would not be forsworn now.

  The nimbus around Bethina's hands turned distinctly green. At the same time, Conan felt the ground underfoot begin to shake, and saw the walls of the valley swaying like trees in a high wind.

  In another moment the earth itself would be sundered and the valley fall in on itself, obliterating everything and everyone within. Conan knew brief pleasure that at least some of the valley's folk would survive the ruin of their home”although how long they would survive starvation, disease, and the windy mountain slopes was another matter.

  Then the green nimbus around Bethina's hands became a spear of green fire, hurtling upward. It struck the black spiral, encompassing it in a fugitive green glow and a shower of green sparks that seemed to rain down from the stars themselves.

  It also drove the black spiral violently forward, until it struck the purple one.

  Such a sound filled the valley as Conan had never heard before and hoped never to hear again. He thought he would gladly be deaf as an adder for the rest of his days if the other choice was to hear that sound again. He also wondered if he might indeed be deaf, whether he wished it or not.

  But the sound did not blind his eyes. Afterward he never talked about what he saw, even when he was telling tales of his most exotic adventures to drinking companions who had to listen to the King of Aquilonia. He did not believe what he saw then, and did not expect anyone else to believe it afterward.

  He saw cliffs that had been leaning forward draw back as if pushed by giant hands. He saw chasms large enough to swallow houses suddenly close, or fill with steam and churning water. He saw boulders the size of horses plunge from on high, then float down to land with all the harshness of soap bubbles. He saw patches of ground that had been shaking like beaten carpets suddenly blossom with flowers and long grass.

  He saw much else that he carried to his grave with him, and so did those with him”and most of them did the same as the Cimmerian.

  Then suddenly no one saw anything, because all light left the valley.

  All sound did likewise”or perhaps it was only stunned ears being unable to detect more subtle sounds than the fall of mountains or the creation of new life.

  In time, Conan heard the plash of new streams, the rattle of the last loose stones finding a resting place, the sigh of breezes now free to blow naturally. He even heard, far off, the bray of a donkey that had somehow survived the upheaval.

  He laughed. "Bamshir, I was going to ask you to guide us. But I think
we can wait here until daylight. Your captain and his Lady will not be the better for our falling downhill in the dark."

  "The gods made you too sensible to be a hero, Cimmerian," Farad chaffed.

  "I sometimes wonder what the gods were about when they made me," Conan said. "If they ever tell me the truth, I'll spread the word. Meanwhile, my friend, see to Bethina, and set the sentries. For now, we wait."

  Muhbaras reached his Lady just as the ground seemed to turn to jelly under his feet. His final dash to where she lay turned into an undignified sprawl on his face.

  He rose bruised and dusty, to see Ermik cowering back against the cliff. The spy was the color of old chalk, and not all of it was the dust on his skin.

  "I”I wanted to stop her," Ermik stammered. "I tried to stop her. She was conjuring”she was casting a spell to”I used my dagger. The dagger with the chaos stone. It should have stopped her. I wanted to stop her.

  I wanted to

  Muhbaras neither could nor would hear any more of this litany. He walked to the Lady's body. She lay as if in sleep, save for the death-rictus of her lovely mouth and a gaping dagger wound in her back.

  It must have reached her lung, but there was no sign of blood from her mouth.

  The captain knelt and drew out the dagger. It was Ermik's”he recognized the silver mounting and the "chaos stone."

  Muhbaras flung the dagger point-first into the ground. It stuck there, quivering even when the ground did not. Then he walked slowly toward the spy. He had not thought he had much strength left after his long run, but now it flowed into him as if from the earth itself”or perhaps the Lady's spirit.

  Ermik did not know that he was about to die until Muhbaras seized him by the throat. In the next moment he knew nothing at all, because Muhbaras smashed him back against the rock hard enough to crack his skull.

  That was not the end, because Muhbaras kept pounding Ermik's head against the rock and twisting his throat until he heard rocks falling down around him. He heard only three, because the fourth struck him on the shoulder and knocked him down, and the fifth struck him in the stomach as he lay on his back on the ground.