Conan of the Red Brotherhood Read online

  Yet in his deepest soul, Alaph had begun to feel that if great Tarim had spared his life while others perished, it was for a reason. Specifically, he was kept alive to pursue this new knowledge; the innocent deaths had occurred merely to show him its power. Accordingly, with but little consideration of the Imperial prize, he now redoubled his thought and effort toward his greater goal.

  Fascinating, disturbing new possibilities had occurred to the alchemist. The bursting of the coffin-boiler, fierce and terrible in its potency, nevertheless showed tremendous power—a power which, if it could be harnessed under the proper conditions, might prove very effective in warfare. How this destructive force might be carried to the enemy—whether, say, in a flaming fireship containing a coffin that had already been vexed near to bursting, or perhaps through the heating of a tight metal steam-bottle, fitted with a sharp or massive stopper that would be shot out at the foe along with the escaping demons—these speculations were the subject of Alaph’s current work. Yet there were other aspects of it as well.

  Without knowing precisely why, the little alchemist sensed that the fury of the demons’ release had to do with the intensity of the heat they were subjected to, as well as to the tightness of their confinement. Along these lines, in addition to improved metalworking, he turned his attention to fuels. Greatly impressed by Mustafar’s volatile liquids, he paid a visit to the weaponeer’s compound and wandered beyond the thump and rasp of the smithy to the storage shed for flammable humours.

  He learned that tar-oils, pitches, and more secret things were blended together in making up the flame-missiles. Some of the ingredients Mustafar had on hand gave good promise of being hotter and more compact fuels than wood or charcoal. Even though their use on shipboard posed obvious risks, fire was an ever more frequent weapon in Imperial sea-battles—so precautions would have been needed in any case.

  Mustafar, uninjured and undiscouraged by his mishap at the sea-trials, continued to oversee a number of projects. These included the enlargement of naval catapults and the fitting out of oars as fighting weapons; also the notion of a flying projectile that trailed burning ropes or streams of flammable liquid, able as it passed overhead to set more than one vessel afire. The arms-maker, for his part, expressed interest in Alaph’s work; he questioned him in particular about the possibility of some form of steam-bomb or a spraying, scalding catapult dart.

  “After all,” the smiling, swarthy-faced inventor told Alaph, “our business is the same; to serve our emperor and sow death and confusion among his enemies.” As he spoke, the armourer filed noisily at the barbs of a deeply channelled bronze dart that was supposed to punch holes through ships’ hulls. “We are honest workmen, you and I, with no great love or need of gold. I respect you,” he went on, laying down his iron rasp to clap the bun-maker on the shoulder, “because you are a tinkerer like me, not one of these courtly strutters and posturers. We have no need to resort to aloofness or secrecy against our colleagues!”

  Mustafar’s reference was likely to Tambur Pasha, who remained in the contest along with the others. Though the astrologer’s bellows-driven sailship had shown no practical value, he nevertheless proclaimed himself winner of the first sea-trials—pointing out that his scheme, at least, had not caused disaster and loss of life. For his ship’s obvious failure, he blamed faults in the manufacture of his bellows, as well as unfavourable planetary configurations on the date of the event, which he also claimed to have warned against.

  Even so, in spite of his refusal to admit to any flaws in his original concept, Tambur Pasha had shifted his researches to another means of naval propulsion. This involved an unfailing and self-perpetuating system, one that made rowers unnecessary. Its exact nature, though, was unclear. For once, the astrologer would not discuss his business; he refused visitors, and even kept his workers locked inside the shed at night to maintain secrecy.

  “You speak truly enough, Mustafar,” Alaph conceded to his host. “My one real passion is simply to understand why things work. I know I will never have the stature of men like Tambur Pasha, so I feel overawed by them.” The little alchemist leaned on his colleague’s worktable in lieu of seating his scorched nether quarters on the rough bench beside him. “The philosopher Zalbuvulus, now there is a formidable fellow!”

  “Aye, he is a sour pomegranate,” Mustafar agreed, filing away at his point. “He has grown even more ill-favoured of late...”

  They went on to discuss the Corinthian expatriate, who, angered by the bad luck of his collision with the decireme, now carried forward his researches with a sullen vengeance. He retained the same oar-crew he had used before, holding each man individually responsible for the mishap. Still, he worked in secrecy, sequestered from the other contestants and Navy Yard personnel.

  “At least we do not have the incessant beating of drums to plague us any more,” Alaph remarked.

  Mustafar frowned, glancing to the stone-walled compound that hulked near his shed. “I would much prefer drums to the sounds I heard from the Corinthian’s compound by night—screams, piteous pleadings, and those odd, rasping words growled out in a tongue no one around here seems to understand. I find such sorcery every bit as nerve racking.”

  “Zalbuvulus’s abiding interest would seem to be the human spirit,” Alaph said. “Perfecting it, making it ever stronger and more enduring...”

  “Aye, and more subservient.” Mustafar shook his head in distaste. “He is a strange one, not unlike the mage Crotalus. What that wizard’s game is, nobody can tell.” “He has not bowed out of the competition, from what I hear.” Alaph, weary of standing, eyed the bench longingly, yet did not dare lower himself onto it. “Whatever he required from the east, word is that he expects to receive it soon, regardless of his ill voyage. He was heard to say as much to Yezdigerd, shortly before the prince postponed the date of the new sea-trials.”

  “That may be so.” Mustafar paused to thump his rasp clean on the edge of the table. “As for his part in the contest, he has already commenced work. He was allotted a gang of shipwrights, and a compound across the harbour, in the swamp. They began laying the keel of a ship, a special new design, just this morning.”

  “Hmm,” Alaph mused. “I did not know. Well then, Crotalus must indeed be confident of getting what he requires... and Prince Yezdigerd believes him.”

  “So much the worse,” the weapons-maker said. “What these courtly favourites cannot have for the asking, while you and I, as honest workmen, can demand little!” He threw down his metal implements on the table. “Would Tambur Pasha dirty his hands like this? Never! But then, ’tis all patronage and interest.”

  “What do you mean?” Alaph, weary of standing, leaned an elbow on the worktable to rest his sore hamstrings.

  “I mean the high courtly patrons. Tell me, whom do you receive your disbursements from?”

  “Why,” Alaph said, “funds and materials are released to me on an order stamped by Prince Yezdigerd himself.” “As I thought. You are lucky, you and the mystic voyager, Crotalus. Myself, I must apply under the seal of High Admiral Quub. For Tambur Pasha, it is Finance Minister Ninshub, or so I have heard. And Zalbuvulus’s secret sponsor is our Imperial engineer, Nephet Ali.” “They are the ones at court who recruited us.” Alaph shrugged. “What does it matter? We are all equal in the contest, are we not?”

  Mustafar smiled, laying an arm on his colleague’s shoulder. “And do you think that what you receive in subsidy is the full amount that is laid out from the Navy Yard’s funds?” He glanced around, making sure his voice was covered from overhearing by the rasping and hammering of metal. “Yours is, quite likely—and Crotalus’s, since I do not think Yezdigerd needs to steal from his own Imperial family. At least not yet! But in my case and the others, a large share of the profit goes into the pockets of our highly placed backers.” Mustafar smiled bitterly. “That is part of the deal that launched this contest, the grease that smoothed its slide down the shipways, so to speak.”

  The baker-boy s
hook his head in puzzlement. ‘ ‘So you mean that some of us are favoured over the others?”

  “Aye, to be sure.” Mustafar’s eyes roved the shed watchfully. “It was not meant to be that way at first, very likely. ’Twas just a harmless, temporary siphoning of the Ministry of Conquest’s till. But as the source of supply grows larger, so does the need. And the potential future gains are so vast, far more than a mere five hundred golden talents for the winning invention. An illicit share of any new naval building and recruiting could be claimed as a consequence of it. Now, with the stakes so high, the backers are beginning to put greater pressure on their candidates. Dangerous pressure.”

  “You mean that it could lead to more accidents?” Alaph asked. “Or to some kind of cheating?”

  “I mean, baker-boy, be careful! Watch your back if you want to survive this.”

  XII

  Master of the Tormentress

  So, that miserable newt has struck a deal with the Turanians! He declares himself Imperial governor of Djafur, or some such title. But does he have Imperial troops to back him?”

  Captain Santhindrissa angled her spare, supple frame across the steering-bench to lean on the bireme’s rail. One lank arm rested, through evident habit, across the starboard sweep, whose thick helve was steadied in place by tackles strung from the rail to the high, overhanging stem post. She lounged opposite Conan, who squatted on a keg that had been brought up as a makeshift seat.

  Before them, along the ship’s port and starboard rails, the Tormentress's crew of female pirates plied oars to the slow, steady throb of a brazen chime. Farther down, between and beneath the files of sparsely clad women, flashed the blank faces of the male slaves chained to the lower oar-benches. They could be seen there rocking forward and back to the same slow rhythm, expressionlessly watching what transpired on the afterdeck. Conan found their dull, stolid gaze disconcerting, even more so than the women’s scornful, appraising looks. It took a positive effort to turn his mind to business.

  “Nay, Drissa, I saw no Turanian troops guarding Knulf, nor any Imperial ships in the harbour—none other than the one I stole, only to have it treacherously snatched by that blackguard!” Conan shook his head in indignation, his wet mane slapping his meaty shoulders. “Knulf did not boast of any Turanian garrison, as he surely would have done if he had one.”

  “Aye, then mark me, he does not have full agreement from the sea-tribes either. Not enough, anyway, to let foreign ships in among these isles.” Santhindrissa’s slender, callused hand touched the thick shaft of the steering-oar thoughtfully, sensing through its length the evenness of her rowers’ stroke, Conan could well guess. “The chieftains are a contentious lot,” she continued, “unlikely to unite behind Knulf without long skirmishing and infighting. We must parley with them first.”

  The Cimmerian, ever mindful of himself as the only unchained male aboard the Tormentress, watched his pirate hostess with wary interest. Her provocative manner-lounging bare-limbed before him in scanty leather breeks and halter, with clanking cutlass and dagger substituted for more effeminate jewellery—might be seen as a rough sort of invitation, so he judged. Or else a trap.

  “But say, Captain,” she cried, “we have neglected you! Your beaker is empty. Wine here, at once!” Clapping imperious palms, she summoned a youthful, half-clad boy up from below deck; the lad filled Conan’s cup from an earthen pitcher, with scarcely an upward glance at his guest’s solemn face.

  “The sea-chief Hrandulf has never trusted our friend Knulf, any more than I have,” Santhindrissa went on. “It is to his harbour we steer. He will help us resist this Imperial coup. Likely he is already summoning up his outlying clans. The sea-folk war against one another lightly and often, it keeps them in trim to fight outsiders.”

  “We should move against Djafur soon,” Conan remarked, “before Knulf has time to fortify the place, or smuggle in heavy armaments and a garrison from Turan.” “That is foolish,” Santhindrissa ridiculed her guest. “Why should the Turanians strengthen him so much? They only want to sow dissension between our Sisterhood—or Brotherhood, as you’d have it—and the sea-tribes. But Knulf will always be a traitorous rogue, just as poor an ally for them as he was for us. They must know that.”

  “I would guess that the Turanians have plans for Djafur and these isles... plans that reach far beyond Knulf and our pirate Brotherhood.” Conan leaned forward from his keg seat and dribbled out an oblong spatter from his wine cup on the gently rocking deck between them. “Think, Drissa. A few days agone, an Imperial squadron sailed straight across the Vilayet, thus-wise—” He slashed through the trickle of wine with the tip of his dagger. “That voyage, though mystical in its commanding, was not the first such crossing we have heard of, nor will it be the last. Whether by wizardry, star-reading, or other sly tricks, the Hyrkanians will attempt oversea routes oftener in the future, to shorten their sea-time and to avoid our brother pirates—or sisters, if you will—along the south coast.”

  “So think you, in truth?” Santhindrissa sat regarding Conan’s fanciful lagoon with a sceptical eye and a well-practiced sneer.

  “Aye. Now, where is Djafur? Here!” Flicking down his dagger, he stuck its point into the starboard edge of the puddle. “Sheltering in the Aetolians, ours is the port that lies farthest out to westward, nearest to Turan. A perfect base for our corsairs to raid such cross-sea shipping. Or even better, a port for Turanian merchants to take on provisions and find shelter from foul weather, before or after making the crossing. Independent of the Hyrkanian Empire, in the bargain, and easy to defend from her warships! That is the empire’s real interest in Djafur.”

  “Hmm. An interesting fancy.” Santhindrissa turned for’ard, tightening one of the steering tackles to make a minor course adjustment. “Not that it makes a difference... we will have the place back for ourselves anyway, no matter what Yildiz plans for it. Meanwhile...” reclining again, the captain turned her gaze back to Conan “... it is a rare thing to have a free male aboard the Tormentress.”

  “’Tis a rare thing for me to set foot on a slave-ship,” Conan retorted, with a glance of distaste at the two-tiered oar section. “Except as its liberator.”

  Santhindrissa shrugged, looking aside, unimpressed. “Consider these men as war captives, not slaves.” Then she faced Conan again with easy assurance. “Believe me, there are none below decks who have not asked for it—” she tossed a bare shoulder provocatively “—one way or another.”

  “And what of the boy there?” Conan nodded aside at the youth who sat waiting in attendance by the break of the deck. “Did he ask to be your footman?”

  Santhindrissa snapped her fingers, bringing the lad hurrying to her side. “Arin, here? As ship’s boy of the Tormentress...” she lay an arm across his bare shoulders, then reached up and tousled his blond-burnt hair, letting him gaze up at Conan with sullen mistrust “... he has the luck, be it good or ill, to be the most-mothered child in the Eastern Vilayet. No more than that, and no less; I make sure of it.”

  Patting the boy lightly on the rump, she sent him on his way. Then she continued, with the trace of a smile, “Anyway, I know this is not the first time you have taken passage on a ship captained by a woman. Bêlit... that was the name of your pirate maiden on the Western Sea, was it not?” She watched his face closely. “Did she not also keep a crew of male oarsmen?”

  “They were warriors, brave men of Kush,” Conan growled in protest, half-rising from his keg. “Never did they touch a chain or shackle, not for themselves or for others! They sailed on the Tigress of their own free, savage will—as did I.”

  “Yes, Bêlit. had a way of commanding men’s blind adoration, so the legends tell... for already she is legend.” The captainess nodded in grudging respect. “Yet from what I hear of the true woman, her ways were wanton and reckless, squandering both loot and life—an unfortunate lack of discipline.” Santhindrissa smiled somewhat primly as her fingers, perhaps unthinkingly, brushed the leather quirt wound at her bel
t. “Since you and your savage crew took no prisoners, you needed no chains. But some of us do not slaughter so freely.”

  “You think it nobler,” Conan demanded of her, “to eke a lifetime of toil and humiliation out of your victims? Rather than slay them honestly?” He could scarcely bear to glance aside at the stolid, work-numbed faces below decks.

  “At least we do not send them forth to be butchered for our private gain,” Santhindrissa countered. “We treat our captives well. We even tend personally to some of their bodily needs... shaving in particular, since they cannot be trusted with blades, and male beards are an abomination.” She eased her poniard out of its sheath at her waist, exposing a few fingers of gleaming-sharp steel. “We pamper them a little, and they find ways to show their appreciation.”

  “Perhaps there is something to what you say,” Conan conceded, wrinkling his nose. “Your ship smells better than most slave galleys.”

  “Well, then.” Santhindrissa shifted her posture on the bench, crossing her bare legs mannishly. “Since you like it here so much, I might find a place for you.”

  In spite of her rangy looks and rough manner, Conan felt a kindling of interest and thought he saw it mirrored in her eyes. “Well,” he ventured, “since we are shipmates anyway, for the nonce...’’He leaned toward her, elbows on knees. It was easy now to ignore the silent, steadily labouring. crew. “Tell me, Captain Drissa, would my place be above or below decks?—aforeships or poop?” The piratess met his gaze demurely. “To tell the truth, Captain, I hardly trust my own crewmates on my quarterdeck, much less a man. I like men best toiling at the nether oars, leaving me free to steer.”