Conan the Outcast Read online

  But the two holy men scarcely seemed to hear him. The looks they returned wore the dull, unquestioning glaze of fanaticism; and the toilers themselves seemed eager to bend their bodies once more beneath the cruel juggernaut. So Conan shrugged and fell silent. With the help of fresh labour from Qjara, the work was resumed—by humans only, since horses and donkeys would not let themselves be hitched to the hulking burdens. Even so, the idol proceeded on its way northward, and the remaining searchers resumed their trek.

  Two days later, the third segment of the idol was found by an outrider, in a broad, dry valley that formed the lowest pass in an eastward-running mountain chain. The cargo lay at a standstill; of its six wheels, no less than three were broken; its human drays were in deplorable condition as well. Sickest and most hideously deformed of any of the bearers, they huddled helpless in the shade of the draped idol. Several of their number already lay dead of thirst and hunger; Conan, hardened as he was, dared not ask them if cannibalism had yet occurred.

  Their leader, a young, dusky-skinned acolyte, said he had gone forth twice in search of water. Failing to find any after a day's walk, he returned dutifully to aid his suffering followers. Now he sat cradling the head of one, a dying female whom the rescuers’ water came too late to save. Looking into his gaunt, seamed face, Conan saw leagues of hardship etched there, with voids of untold toil and suffering reflected in eyes that, though dimmed by thirst, could still squeeze out tears of compassion.

  This young priest was the first of Votantha’s followers who seemed capable of normal human feeling. Yet even he was subject to Khumanos's quiet, forceful will. Taking his junior aside, the elder priest knelt before him muttering admonitions or prayers, and made a pass or two with the mystical amulet he wore on a cord about his neck. From that interview the priestling came away silent and dull-eyed, accepting without protest Khumanos’s order to move the idol onward.

  With diabolical foresight, the Exalted Priest had bidden his slaves drag along one of the caissons from the idol segment in Qjara, placing it in service as a supply cart. Its two wheels were now used to brace up the stalled idol, while a third wheel was repaired using broken parts from the others. In a single day the procession was under way again. Incredibly, the depleted slaves joined in with their replacements to get the behemoth under way. To Conan’s eye, the miserable wretches seemed to experience an unholy surge of vitality as they set their starved, bony shoulders to the wheel.

  And so, in less than a fortnight they returned to Qjara. Yet Conan felt unsure whether his journey was in truth the urgent act of mercy he had deemed it. Might it not have been greater mercy, after all, to let the poor sick wanderers perish in the desert, rather than prolonging their labours under Khumanos’s diabolical sway? But among the priests and toilers there was no uncertainty, no lapse of faith. And the folk of the city received them gladly, joining them in lavish preparation for the idol’s triumphal entry to Qjara.

  According to Khumanos’s carefully planned ritual, the idol’s parts were to enter the city simultaneously by three separate gates—with the caravan quarter evidently not being considered part of the city proper, but as an outer yard or bailey. That arrangement suited the town, which had but three gates of sufficient size to admit the massive chunks of holy drayage. The pieces were to be borne inward along the broad avenues in three separate processions, coming together in the Agora at the city’s heart. There they would be assembled for the first time, to be consecrated before the eyes of the sacred gathering.

  Afterwards, by Queen Regula's decree, there would be a ritual wedding between the goddess Saditha and the newcomer Votantha. The foreign god, by the temple’s doctrinal efforts, had been popularized as a sort of physical and spiritual likeness of the dead hero Zaius, really a resurrection of him in immortal guise. By Regula's decree, the city’s worship would be divided evermore between the two gods.

  An odd concession to the church and king of a foreign city, this... yet Conan surmised that Semiarchos and Regula would never have undertaken it if they did not believe it would enhance their family's power, and enshrine them more grandly in their city’s history. They knew that Sark lay far to southward, and that it was unlikely that Anaximander would play any large or lasting role in Qjara's affairs. Whereas the rearing of a male god like Votantha seemed certain to skew the city's traditional balance between throne and temple... strongly and swiftly; in favour of enhanced royal power.

  So, Conan reflected, it could mean the end of the One True Goddess, and the rapid end of Qjara’s quaint appeal for a wayward Cimmerian—unless the traditionalist rebel faction, of whom he had intimate knowledge, should succeed in opposing the change. He had no certainty that they had been able to spread their message during his absence, or how many strong voices and stronger arms they had won to their side. He agreed with them, personally, but as a foreigner he had been told it would be best if he stayed out of the debate.

  At present, controversy did not seem to be afoot in the town. The mood among the citizens appeared pious and festive, more suited to a wedding than an armed clash. The three white-draped segments of the idol were soon raised upright, lashed to the reinforced platforms of heavy war-chariots, which could be rolled forward by manhandling their long wooden wagon-stems. In this lofty stance the fetishes waited outside their respective city gates, gazed on with awe and reverence as they were readied to be drawn inside.

  The meaning of these elaborate preparations intrigued Conan. If, like most rituals, it had some practical purpose, it was by no means clear. To be sure, the idol was too large to be transported in one piece... but why cross the desert by three separate routes, and approach the town from three different directions? And why send such a large effigy? Indeed, was there need for an idol at all...? In Conan’s experience, the most powerful religious faith dwelt not in any graven fetish, but in the hearts and minds of living men.

  Doubtless there was some subtle purpose in it, and in keeping the pieces separate until the last possible moment. Pageantry clearly had a role: the mystery of the draped statues, and the grand processions passing through all quarters of the city, drawing multitudes in their wake to witness the climactic unveiling and joining—all of it seemed very clever. Conan wondered what crowning effect Khumanos might be holding in reserve for the moment of the idol’s completion and consecration. Thus far, he had seen only vague hints of Votantha’s power; was it possible the shadowy god himself would make an appearance, or send some tangible manifestations to his worshippers.?

  After the last procession trudged up to the city gate, there was little time left to reel in gossip or contact friends. On the very next morning the ceremony was to be held. Couriers had brought word of the survivor’s approach, so most things were in readiness; the remaining details kept Qjara in a fervour of preparation.

  Conan found he could not gain an audience with Afriandra, nor even creep to her room by night to meet her. She was said to be sequestered in the inmost sanctum of Saditha’s temple with the younger priestesses, ritually cleansing their bodies and spirits for service as bridesmaids to the One True Goddess.

  And so, after helping with the sick and weak survivors, providing for the health of his overworked camel, and again beating the dust out of his clothing and belongings, Conan found the afternoon far advanced. He barely had time to conduct some personal business with his armourer, regarding revelations of his own that he planned to make on the festive day. He did not trouble Khumanos again for payment, judging that the priest would not deem the bargain complete until the idol was wholly within the city wall. Instead he consumed a lavish supper, drank his fill, and lay down in his stall at the caravansary to dreams which were far from peaceful.

  The next day, under the merciless morning sun, massively laden chariot wheels grated through the streets of Qjara. Paced by throngs of joyous, chanting citizens, they ground at a slow walk toward the Agora and the holy temple. The idols standing upright in the groaning wagons towered over the heads of the worshippers., an
d over those town buildings that were made squatly of whitewashed clay. Since Conan walked with Khumanos and his idol via the Trellis Gate, these humbler buildings were soon behind him, with the barracks, granaries and palaces of the temple quarter looming tall on either hand.

  As usual in these southern lands, Conan’s own stature gave him an advantage in the crowd. He made an imposing figure in his bulky cloak, escorting the black-skinned, cadaverous priest as he walked behind the statue and its bearers.

  Since the idol's parts were still shrouded— wrapped in their travel-soiled canvas windings as well as their fringed white canopies—only the vaguest surmise as to their true shape was possible. The composite idol would scarcely be human-shaped, Conan had decided, since each of its three segments looked so top-heavy— unless the god Votantha was represented as brandishing spear and shield, or wrestling a snake, or engaged in some other space-consuming activity. But then, the evident sameness of the idol’s parts suggested a three-sided symmetry that would hardly lend itself to a human figure... unless it were a three-armed, three-faced, semi-human monstrosity.

  These matters did not seem to trouble the faithful; thus far Conan had heard no blasphemous speculation as to the idol’s physique. Eager celebrants pressed up to the fetish and pushed it along for short distances, as if touching the cedar chariot-stem or steel-clad wheel would bring them good luck. With the casual aid of so many bystanders, the massive conveyance groaned forward almost of its own volition, with no need for any drillmasters’ shouts or workmanlike precision.

  The original bearers of the idol—those still capable of standing—were present, and greatly revered by the city-dwellers. They seemed to feel compelled even now to bend their frail bodies against the shoulder-high wheels, or to lay thin, scabrous hands on the shuddering chariot-frame, and so complete the last miles of their agonized journey. Their contribution to the forward motion of the idol was small, surely, compared to that of the stronger, huskier guards and farmers who had been assigned the task by Saditha’s priesthood.

  Conan noted that the survivors of the first batch of bearers seemed little recovered over the term of his absence. In truth, they looked even more decrepit than before, as if wasting away from some disease. These pilgrims, like the idol they served, had been robed by the priesthood in long, fringed shawls of fine white cloth, which mercifully covered the blotched hairlessness of their scalps and the worst irregularities of their faces and limbs. In all, this touch of discretion made the parade a prettier sight.

  Yet to Conan it raised uneasy questions. In recent weeks, he had encountered bearers from three different groups, widely separated across the desert. During the privations and exertions attending their rescue, it never occurred to him to question why all seemed stricken by the identical scourge. With the variations in their routes, the conditions of their toil, and the length of their exposure to the desert, he wondered, shouldn’t there be more difference in their physical aspect and sufferings?

  Bad water was now ruled out as a cause of their illness, surely—and diet, since the groups had provisioned themselves at different isolated farms and oases along their routes. Further, if the source was some ancestral plague, it would likely have affected the Shartoumi slaves and the Sarkad troopers differently, instead of marring both groups with the same weals and lesions. What eerie malady was it, Conan wondered, that afflicted only the pilgrims in this holy cause, and all of them in like degree... with the possible exception of Khumanos and his fellow priests?

  Now, as he strode behind the idol at Khumanos's side, an explanation smote him with the force and clarity of an icy bath. The one thing the groups had in common was the idol itself; all three parts formed of the same metal... that oddly warm, oddly glowing stuff... which the priests walked and slept apart from, but which the slaves hugged and sweated against by day and cowered under by night. The poor wretches never strayed far from their god, even here in Qjara, while recuperating from their ordeal. Surely, Conan realized, the holy emblem they clung to with all their hearts was what was slowly killing them.

  These thoughts swirled in the Cimmerian’s brain as the idol came into the Agora; then all was washed aside by the rushing tide of new impressions. Here the entire city of Qjara stood waiting—far more, it now seemed, than had come to witness his duel with Zaius. The alabaster idol of the One True Goddess had been carried forth through the broad archway of her temple; immortal Saditha now gleamed in the noon sun with her silver spear pointing toward heaven. She faced the spot at the centre of the vast court where Votantha’s effigy would soon be completed.

  Beside her, under their gaily coloured pavilion, the royal family stood like a diminutive wedding delegation awaiting the groom. King Semiarchos and Queen Regula, resplendent in many-coloured robes, radiated sublime confidence to all. By their side, young Afriandra headed a train of priestesses clad similarly to herself, in bridesmaids’ gowns of filmy, frothy stuff, wreathed and garlanded with lavish blossoms from the palace gardens. On either flank of the goddess and her royal servants stood the temple warriors in full array, armourless as always, but with backs straight and swords belted at their sides in vigilant readiness.

  To Conan’s eye, Afriandra did not now look haunted—nor troubled, nor even restless; she seemed to accept her place in her Goddess's nuptials with solemn grace. Among the temple warriors, the northerner thought he recognized two or three who had set upon him in the palace courtyard; but they too stood firm and unblinking, making no visible protest to the ceremony. Conan marvelled. at the transformation, wondering whether the priest Khumanos’s strange persuasive powers had somehow magically been extended to the Qjaran court.

  Now the idol in its chariot grated over the, sun-bleached paves of the Agora, down a path cleared for it by awed, respectful crowds. Now it halted—likely because the other chariots were once again late in arriving. But there, over the heads of the watchers, loomed a second statue—to Conan it looked bundled and misshapen, like an ill-preserved mummy brought forth into the light of noon. If the festive crowds streaming from the Market Way were any indication, the third chariot would soon arrive from the Old Gate.

  Khumanos chose this moment to turn his steps toward the idol of Saditha, where King Semiarchos and Queen Regula waited in attendance. Conan went beside the priest, helping him part the milling crowd; the Cimmerian gathered that, for his promised pay, he was expected to guard Khumanos and his property within the city walls—though if the Exalted Priest ever truly needed his protection, he would find that Conan, too, could shave a bargain and honour only its precise terms. For now, his main interest was in keeping his employer alive long enough to get paid.

  The two passed among the spectators, into the space the temple guards held open before the idols and the pavilion; there Khumanos merely nodded curtly to his royal hosts. He scarcely paused as Queen Regula commenced her oration.

  "Honoured and exalted guest, Khumanos of Sark, we cherish the blessings you bring us. To wit: a wealth of holy tradition from the South; a splendid monument; and a virile husband for our lonely Goddess, to rule beside her in wisdom and justice! Know, O Exalted Priest, the gift shall be given mutually. A new idol of our Goddess is to be prepared... it will be carried southward over the sands to your kingdom of Sark as an emblem of our two cities’ eternal unity—”

  "Yes, splendid.” Khumanos did not really acknowledge the high priestess’s speech, nor even wait to hear it. Instead he strode out into the open space and waved toward the other idols, the second of which had just edged into view beyond the pillared portico of Saditha’s temple. "Proceed!” he called out to them.

  The two acolytes who had led the idols northward were nowhere in sight, Conan saw. Two Sarkad guard officers now commanded the trundling chariots, and they evidently heard the Exalted Priest’s order. With gestures and gruff commands, they urged their respective parts of the effigy forward into the open space.

  Regula, in her role as high priestess, seemed somewhat taken aback by Khumanos’s lack
of diplomacy. She left off orating in mid-sentence, turning to watch the three statues converging on the centre of the plaza.

  "Don’t forget the shrouds and wrappings,” Conan muttered in Khumanos’s ear. Most of all, he was curious to see the idol's shape—though even he thought the priest’s abrupt, high-handed manner a little strange.

  The southerner ignored him as well, motioning to the nearby labourers to roll their segment of the idol more swiftly. They did so—although some of the Qjaran volunteers backed away from the burdened chariot, wiping their brows as if from the withering noon heat. The tall, bundled masses were all three in plain sight now, inching steadily toward an invisible point at the centre of the Agora.

  "That canvas will have to be cut away before the pieces of the statue are joined," Conan reminded Khumanos again. He palmed the hilt of the knife under his tunic for the task. "Didn’t you mean to unveil them first?”

  "There is no need,” the priest said, not bothering to look back at him. "Behold.”

  Struck by the priest's earnest tone, Conan turned to regard the nearest chariot. A faint burning smell had been gathering in his nostrils for some moments; now, looking closely, he saw the cause. The fine white drapery over the idol seemed to be darkening in places, as if charring—sending out wisps of smoke under the bright sun. Here and there it parted, peeling back from the brown underlying canvas.

  Then, with a sudden puff of ignition, it was alight. The statue, tall atop its chariot, became a pillar of racing flames and pale smoke as its shroud and canvas wrappings were consumed. Across the Agora, two identical fires blossomed simultaneously. The explosions were noiseless, but the sighs of amazement from the crowd drifted to Conan in breathless waves.

  It must be some petty spell or alchemic fakery, he decided. This, then, was Khumanos’s crowning spectacle, meant to impress the crowd with his foreign god’s power. The bearers did not seem to have been harmed, nor the chariots, nor even the cables that held the statues vertical.