Conan the Outcast Read online

  "Scoundrel! Rogue! You mean there are more weary wretches suffering out in the desert? Tell the Qjaran guards to go find them, they will be happy to do your dirty work!”

  Khumanos shook his head. "We can accept limited help, but I must remain in authority over this holy mission. I need you as my guide.” “Scallywag! How do I know those gems are worth anything? You have already deceived me once—”

  “Two handfuls,” Khumanos interrupted him. "Discharge your duty to me, and you may take all the gems you can grasp in two bare hands, held separately.”

  "Three pieces of idol, three handfuls,” Conan declared. "I will do your bidding for that much, no less.”

  “All right, it is a bargain. You will receive payment after the idol is assembled, not before.”

  Conan grunted his assent. Impulsively, to close the deal, he seized Khumanos’s hand and pumped it. After a moment he let it drop with a shiver of distaste; it felt lifeless—not cold or clammy, but rigid and dry, as devoid of feeling as the man’s whole aspect. As Conan wheeled away, the priest’s voice came after him: "We depart the city at dawn tomorrow to search the deserts to southward. Have your camel ready.” Afriandra was nowhere to be seen. Conan found King Semiarchos and Queen Regula conducting royal business in different parts of the pavilion, but neither had the princess in tow. Rather than confronting them, he accosted an elderly man; he appeared to be Lord High Mayor or some such. "Can you tell me,” he asked, gripping the man’s shoulder with courteous restraint, “where has Princess Afriandra gone? I have news for her... have they packed her off somewhere—?”

  “Did you not see?” The greybeard glared at him with a mixture of fear and indignation. "She collapsed just now in a seizure of some sort, and was taken back to the palace!”

  To Conan's mute stare he elaborated, "She had gone to meet the bearers of the idol from Sark, yonder in the caravan yard, when of a sudden she shrieked and fell to earth.” The old man shook his head in real, fatherly concern. "Perhaps it was only the sun, or mere girlish vapours; she has been high-strung since the death of her betrothed, but who would have expected this?”

  As Conan turned away the man’s voice trailed off, yet the last few words came faintly to his ears. “Her eyes were wide open, but she just would not stop screaming....”

  Conan could not wait till nightfall to see Afriandra. His concern was not so much that her parents had sequestered her, as that they would lack any sympathetic ear for the new and devastating vision she had suffered through her gift of prophecy. A dubious "gift” at best, Conan reflected... especially when brought on by the heady, insidious narcinthe liquor.

  He should have warned her against dabbling in wizardry, however harmless it might seem. Particularly during this time of religious fervour in Qjara, with two quirkish desert gods preparing either to clash or couple on the grand scale. His own customary avoidance of things supernatural had been set aside temporarily by his involvement with the Sarkad holy mission. It had seemed a convenient chance for him at the time, in the desert—but he was no longer sure of its merit, nor even that he needed or wanted the gems Khumanos offered. There was definitely something sinister about this cult of Votantha. He wasn’t proud of helping to foist a new southern god on the Qjarans, in spite of the shabby way they had treated him.

  Thumping at the gate of the royal palace to visit Afriandra, he was turned gruffly away by more guards than he cared to wade through. His inquiries after the princess’s health were rebuffed as well; there was no privileged ambassadorial treatment for him here. Disgruntled, he returned to the caravan quarter to see to his camel and supplies.

  He spent part of the afternoon arranging details regarding certain valued personal belongings. In this he enlisted the help of Anax, whom he knew he could trust a middling distance, and also an artisan of the innkeeper’s acquaintance, who was known to be discreet about working with objects that might have been brought into the city without the benefit of scrutiny by the tariff officers.

  Later, near the hour of sunset, Conan sat sipping arrak and renewing distant acquaintances. He watched impatiently as the day’s religious festivities gave way to the more determined revelry of evening.

  As the last pallor faded in the sky above the western wall, he took leave of the caravansary. He passed with weary celebrants through the Temple Gate and ducked down a neglected alley in the temple quarter. Here was a point along the wall of the palace where trees within the compound obscured the view from the sentry walks. The crevices in the weathered stone, though shallow, were more than adequate for his northern cliff-climbing skills. In moments, he crept insect-like to the top of the wall and rolled across it, barely making a ripple in its knife-edged silhouette against the dimming sky.

  His drop down the far side was a familiar, noiseless one, into a bower of trees and flowers watered from hand-served wells. This night, with festivities occupying the courtiers elsewhere in town, the garden lay abandoned. Conan slipped across it, keeping to the thickening shadows.

  At the far end of the garden was another wall, this one polished to a glassy smoothness, with joints that would have defied entry by a knife-blade or even a fingernail. But the palace’s corner was embellished with slender ornamental pillars, standing out sharply from the stone; by wedging his body between these projections, alternating pressure between his shoulders and his bare knees, he was able to wedge his way up to the top of the vertical face. Then, gripping the sculptured comice overhead with powerful fingers, he hauled himself up to the rim—and, after checking for guards, across into the deeper shadows along the parapet.

  Once there, he waited motionless for a pair of sentries to pass. Then, flitting like the shadow of a hunting owl, he crossed to the palace's inner bastion. The climbs here were far easier, due to ornamental balustrade and trellises; in moments he crouched on the balcony of Princess Afriandra’s chamber.

  No light shone within, but he saw a riffling of the curtains... and a face, oval in the night. Conan’s startlement eased as he saw that it was Afriandra, slow to discern him there in the shadows. Her eyes at last settled on him; then she parted the curtains, lithe in her pale silk sleeping gown, and stepped through into his arms.

  "I was resting,” she murmured to him, “but I dreamt of you and sensed your coming.” "You must indeed by a prophetess,” he replied, “for I made no sound.” Putting his hand to her chin, he turned her face up to his. "Is the mystic sight still upon you?”

  "It is hard to tell... the odd sensation comes and goes, yet I see nothing out of the ordinary.” "You are better, then, since your collapse this morning.” He felt her brow for coolness. "What was it that upset you so? Do you remember?” "It was the same as before, when King Anaximander visited here... only worse. Some horrible doom is upon the idol-bearers from Sark. Even as I saw them, they were consumed by fire—their skin scorched and blistered, their bodies blackened to smoking, twisted hulks.” Her voice quavered as she trembled in Conan’s arms. "And worse, as I looked around, I began to see the same fiery plague gnawing at other faces—native Qjarans, even ones well-known to me! Then the city walls retreated with a rush... I felt all alone in a desolate, windswept place. There was a huge shadow overhead, looming and spreading from somewhere behind me. I was afraid to look around. The fear was too much, it was growing... then I must have fainted.” Shivering, she clung tightly to Conan.

  The Cimmerian held and comforted her, pondering as he did so. "Those Sarkad bearers are an ill sight to behold, with their sores and weals and rashes. Their ordinary looks are enough to make many a young noblewoman scream... mayhap it was only the liquor this time, acting on your uneasy mind—”

  “No, Conan. It is a warning from the gods, I am sure of it!” She pulled back from him, gazing into his face for effect. "To my secret eye, the harbingers and omens gather thick as ravens around a dying ass in the desert. Some grim destiny awaits the city of Sark and all those connected with it... or is it my own city of Qjara? I cannot tell which!”

  "Ther
e, there, child!” Conan comforted her... though while in her clutch, he himself felt a touch of formless fear, a shiver of that same dire futurity whose hot breath already scorched her heels. Meanwhile, Afriandra’s embraces drew him back into her chamber. She clung to him first desperately, then more longingly—as if, quite literally, there were no tomorrow.

  Departing by a different route, he availed himself of a low, sheer section of palace wall that provided a straight drop onto cushioning turf. This brought him to a postern gate, locked but unguarded, lying near Saditha’s temple. Scaling it, he found himself in a familiar courtyard with a lily pond at its centre—the place Afriandra had set for her first assignation with him, not moonlit this time, but puddled in gloom. It was here that his pursuers finally caught him.

  “Ho, fellows, to me!” a voice cried out, echoing sharply across the pond. “The foreigner comes!”

  Even as Conan started forward at a run, swift footsteps scuffed from the shadows to intercept him. The pursuer was a tall, agile figure, dressed in the sandals and flimsy, unarmored tunic of a temple warrior.

  “Halt and await judgement!” The stranger barred Conan’s way around the pond. His voice was strident but youthful, with a hint of the same drill-yard arrogance Conan had so despised in Zaius.

  “Do you fear the Goddess’s justice?” The interloper challenged. He brandished a drawn sword, long and polished as any temple blade; Conan’s Ilbarsi knife now leaped into his hand to counter it.

  “I fear only to die unavenged,” Conan spat back. He feinted with his weapon, then darted aside to veer past his assailant. “Still, if your justice calls for a host of blades against one, I would as soon postpone it till morning.”

  He was already beyond his foe, with a healthy lead toward the walled court's nearest gate; but even as he bore down on it, two more temple warriors pelted through, racing toward him with drawn swords. From the right, where another gate lay, more footsteps came slapping with cries of "Halt!” and "Seize him!”

  With a snarl, Conan turned and charged back toward his first pursuer. He struck out low with his knife to disable the lone man before the others closed in.

  It was here that the temple warrior’s training proved its worth. Even as the templar came on at full speed, his blade was agile enough to strike low against Conan’s, deflecting the Cimmerian's vicious cut. The two runners collided, with Conan’s greater size and momentum carrying through; the slighter man toppled back over the curb of the fountain, to splash and flounder in the waist-deep water.

  Conan did not press after his adversary into the weedy depths; instead he barked a feral laugh and stepped clear of the curb. He turned to face the other pursuers, backing slowly away toward the square corner formed by the outer walls of palace and temple. When he reached it he waited, crouching like a panther at bay. He was now hemmed by five men with drawn swords. All were dressed in the garb of temple warriors, one of them still dripping and wringing out the skirt of his tunic.

  "Have at me, then," Conan snarled, "whoever yearns to meet the One True Goddess first! You are her servants, are you not?”

  "Aye, we are,” the wringing-wet one declared. "I am Ismir, head novice, and woe to any who profane great Saditha’s name!”

  "So! Queen Regula sends a fistful of novices to do what the late and overblown Zaius would not do, or could not! Come, then, and test your swords!”

  "Queen Regula—nay, we come not at her bidding!" A short, contentious-looking warrior spoke these words. "We are disciples of Zaius, as all good defenders of Saditha must be! But the queen is misled, seduced into error by cunning blasphemers like yourself! We are here to remedy that!”

  "Enough, Hassad,” the dripping Ismir said, "we do not have to explain ourselves to this foreign trash! Enough that we slay him—I claim the honour, if you others will but guard this corner of wall—”

  "Wait!” Conan forestalled them. "You say you are not pawns of the queen—you act on your own, then?”

  The leader impatiently shook his wet thatch of hair. "Aye we are a cabal—mutineers, if you will. But not heretics, and ever faithful to the goddess’s truth! We are sworn to save her from being polluted by unclean foreign gods and fetishes, such as the one you have dragged into our city!”

  "The god Votantha, you mean...” Conan’s knife still hovered ready, yet plainly it was less greedy for blood than it had been moments earlier. "You are rebels, purists in your faith, and you blame me! Yet I am no devotee of Votantha—I was only Khumanos’s scout.”

  "You brought them here, did you not?” Hassad accused, waving his sword. "And you ingratiate yourself with the queen, persuading her to welcome you back to Qjara, even after your sins of heresy and profanation against Saditha and Zaius!”

  “And worse,” the dripping leader chimed in, "you now subvert our princess as well, spiriting her off from her parents, slinking about the city in her wake! You even creep into the palace by night to seduce her with Goddess knows what plot or poison!” He shook his sword high, regaling his fellows with true Zaius-like fanaticism; the other temple warriors responded in kind. “Treason upon treason,” he ranted, “crime upon crime, and all by the hand of an unclean foreigner—a miserable, reprehensible outcast!”

  "Enough!” Conan growled with sufficient ferocity to silence them all. "I am no friend of Sark and its gods, nor is your princess! You and she have more in common than you know! If you want to turn out Khumanos and his idol, there may be good reason. I would consider helping you—”

  "Lies, and more lies!” Hassad howled. "Now he seeks to beguile us, as he has already done to our rulers and our divines! Death to him, I say—”

  "Hold, by all the imps and demons of Earth and the first Seven Hells!” Again, Conan’s oath and aspect were fierce enough to halt the onslaught of words. "If you really must kill me, then I say again... have at me! You there, Ismir, will do nicely!” He snarled forth a laugh at them, his teeth flashing whiter than his rusty-dark blade in the gloom. "But first I charge you, submit to the will of your goddess! If your champion does not slay me, consider it her sign that my words have merit, and consent to parley with me, at least before hewing at me further! May Saditha grant that this duel is fairer than the last!”

  "Well enough, it sounds reasonable!”

  "Make short work of him, Ismir.”

  Swiftly the two combatants came together, and swords clashed in the night.

  XV

  Consecration

  By the topaz light of dawn Conan was abroad in the caravan quarter. Surly from lack of sleep, yet without any visible wounds, he readied his camel and traps. Exalted Priest Khumanos awaited him, along with those of the original idol-bearers who were the least sick and disabled. They soon were joined by a squad of Qjaran city guards and volunteers, some mounted, some afoot, who proceeded out with them through the city gate.

  Stopping only to fill their waterskins and camel-gullets at the riverside, the band headed south-east over the desert. They followed the trail of worn, dusty bones that marked the age-old caravan route.

  Thus began their search for the two other idol-bearing processions sent northward by Anaximander, King of Sark. The parties’ precise whereabouts were not known, nor was their survival assured, for it had been many days since Khumanos had received word from them. At the very least, he advised Conan, the idols could be found; it was unlikely that thieves or scavengers could make off with more than a small part of their constituent metal.

  Conan felt less certain, knowing how easily something sizeable, such as the Ship of Stone or the royal expedition of Pronathos, could become lost in these immense, trackless wastes. Yet he kept his peace and plied the desert vigilantly, organizing the horse- and camel-riders as a search screen, scouting out waterholes, and making sure the foot borne party stayed within a survivable march of them.

  He used the route projected by Khumanos as the backbone of his search. He did so based on an antique and questionable map whose parchment was worn through in places, and in most othe
r places illegible from overuse and overexposure. The least likely limbs and ribs of terrain he scouted out himself, sometimes roving for an entire day up desolate side canyons, often forsaking his camel in order to scale vantage points whence he could survey vast expanses of desert. In time the backs of his hands were burnt as black as those of Khumanos, his lips perpetually pursed against blowing dust and hot, moisture-stealing zephyrs, and his eyes sealed in a habitual squint. Before his gaze, bleak desert terrain unrolled like an endless shroud of corpse-canvas—blotched and bleached, scorched and frayed, desolate.

  The first party of idol-bearers was intercepted some eight days' march out of Qjara. Conan, crouching atop a needle-pointed crag swept ceaselessly by a moistureless breeze, spied them hauling their oblong burden caterpillar-like into the mouth of a red-walled gorge far ahead. By the time his advance party reached them, they had trundled the wheeled idol a mere thousand paces further up the wadi—yet even at the offer of water, provisions, and physical help soon to arrive, they refused to quit their toil. After the briefest rest they resumed their labour, inching the caissons forward at a pathetic rate through soft, resisting sand.

  To Conan, their continued effort amounted to madness; he knew better than to squander his strength in trying to assist them. Their physical condition was even worse than that of Khumanos's bearers—marred with the same rashes, sores, toothlessness and hairlessness, and further compounded by thirst and starvation.

  To the Exalted Priest, when he arrived, and to the equally remote, vacant-eyed priestling who commanded the party, Conan urged that the idol be abandoned. In the name of mercy— of simple humanity, the gruff Cimmerian argued—it would be better to haul the labourers themselves home in litters, nurse them to health, and let them become living idols to their god Votantha’s power and compassion.