Conan and the Spider God (12 page)

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Authors: Lyon Sprague de Camp

BOOK: Conan and the Spider God
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The innkeeper informed them that the nearest ropewalk was in the village of Kharshoi, a couple of leagues down the valley.
“Good,” said Conan. “What would be the local price of fifty cubits thereof?” When Bartakes, after a moment of thought, named a sum, Conan held out a hand to Parvez. “Money for the rope, my lord.”
“You are a hard man,” said the diplomat, fumbling in his wallet. “Now you must excuse me.”
With a sour glance, Parvez rose and withdrew. Left alone, Conan glanced around the common room. Captain Catigern came in, and Conan beckoned him. He and Conan ordered wine—the cheap local vintage, for Conan saw no reason to pauperize himself by buying Kyrian when he had no fair companion to savor it with. He and Catigern flipped coins for small sums.
Although Conan drank more wine than usual, Bartakes’s liquor seemed to have no effect. After an hour, he and Catigern were almost where they had started, and Conan found himself more bored and restless than ever.
The taverner’s daughter wandered over to watch the game. Conan yawned and said: “I’ve had enough, Captain. Methinks I’ll to bed.”
“All alone?” said Mandana archly. As Conan looked up, she met his eye and gave a little wriggle.
Conan looked at her without interest. “Smithery is hard work,” he grunted. “Hammering out a sword blade is no less laborious than wielding that sword in battle. My trade has sapped my strength.”
“Pooh!” retorted Mandana. “It would take more than that to tire a man of your thews! Your head is turned by that dancing girl from the temple. Think not that I did not know her when you brought her hither, for all her mummy wrappings. At least,
I
do not prance indecently around, naked but for a string of beads!”
A choking sound came from across the table, where Catigern was valiantly trying to restrain his mirth. Conan glowered at the captain, then at Bartakes’s daughter, growled a curt good-night, and departed.
A
fter Conan sought his pallet late that night, he could not sleep. All he could think of was Rudabeh; her image utterly possessed him. Although he told himself time and again that he should have nothing more to do with her—that she posed a dire threat to the freedom and independence he prized above all—still her face floated before him.
She would, he reflected, ruin him as a fighting man. She would trap him in a sticky web of domesticity, whence he could never honorably escape. Was not the spiderweb the very symbol of Yezud? He would be tied to one place and some dull trade all his life, until he was old and gray, living on soup for want of teeth to chew with. And all this when there were so many places he had not seen, and so many adventures yet untried!
But, though he recoiled with horror from the thought of spending the rest of his life as Yezud’s blacksmith, an even stronger urge impelled him—a fiercely burning desire to see Rudabeh again, to gaze on her handsome face, to hear her gentle voice, to admire her proud dancer’s carriage, to hold her hand. It was not mere lust, albeit he had a plenty of that.
Nor was his obsession merely a hunger for a woman—any woman. He could have enjoyed a night with the silly wench Mandana any time he chose to pay her father’s toll. But he wanted just one woman, no other.
This need, this dependence, was new to Conan’s experience, and he did not altogether like it. Time and again he told himself to break out of this invisible web before it was too late. But every time he thought thus, he felt himself weakening, knowing that he could no more brusquely cast Rudabeh aside than he could bring himself to rob an old beggar.
Furthermore, he had agreed with Parvez to rescue Jamilah in return for access to the temple, where he hoped to steal the Eyes of Zath. But, if he took the Eyes, he would have to flee from Yezud as fast as a horse could carry him. If Rudabeh would flee with him—but suppose she refused? Would he give up his quest for the Eyes to settle permanently in Yezud? If he did, would either he or the girl survive Feridun’s doom? It would be absurd to undertake the toil and risk of freeing Jamilah and then make no use of the Clavis of Gazrik.
His thoughts whirled round and round, like milk in a butter churn, without coming to a conclusion. At last he gave up trying to sleep and got up.
Some time after midnight, Captain Catigern inspected his Brythunian sentries. As he walked the wall of Yezud, his eye caught a distant movement on the Shadizar road. Then he sighted a man running through Khesron and up the path to the hilltop stronghold. Catigern turned sharply to the lieutenant in command of the watch, saying:
“Who’s that? A messenger from the King?”
“Nay,” replied the lieutenant. “Unless I mistake me, ‘tis none but Nial the blacksmith. He went forth an hour since, saying he needed a good, hard run.”
Conan, gasping, waited for the door in the gate valve to open. Then, still panting, he trotted through the gap, flung a surly greeting to the Brythunians, and disappeared.
“I wonder,” mused the lieutenant, “has our blacksmith gone mad? Never have I seen a man run so save to escape enemies.”
Catigern chuckled. “Aye, he’s mad right enough—mad for a wench. Love has made men do stranger things than run a league by the light of the stars!”
 
THE POWDER OF FORGETFULNESS
 
D
uring his courtship of Rudabeh, if such it could be called, Conan made preparations for sudden flight, despite the fact that he had not yet fully decided to flee. He, long accustomed to making his mind up quickly and following through his decision, right or wrong, found himself vexatiously balanced on a knife-edge of indecision.
Every day he took an hour or so off from his smithery to exercise his horse. He sharpened his sword. He mended and polished his boots, saddlery, and other equipment. He laid in a supply of durable foodstuffs: salted meat, hard biscuits, and a bag of dates brought north by traders from the Zuagir country. He borrowed Parvez’s map of Zamora and studied it.
If he fled from Yezud with the Eyes of Zath, which way should he turn? To make his way back to Turan was out of the question so long as Tughril maintained his feud. He did not underestimate the sorcerous powers and lust for revenge of the High Priest of Erlik, whose son he had slain.
West of Yezud, the central ridge of the Karpash Mountains snaked north and south for many leagues. As a born hillman, Conan was sure he could cross the cliffsided main ridge on foot, but equally sure he would have to abandon any horses he brought. He did not care to flee beyond the mountains only to find himself afoot in a strange land. Besides, if Rudabeh decided to come with him, she also would need a mount.
He could go north to the end of the central ridge and strike west into upper Brythunia. From all he had heard, this was a poor, sparsely-settled land where, though he carried the wealth of ages, there would be nothing to spend it on. In that country he could only buy a farm and settle down to till it. To become a yeoman farmer was the least of Conan’s desires; he had seen enough of peasant drudgery in his native Cimmeria.
He could push south, to the other end of the Karpashes, and strike west into Corinthia or south into Khauran. That route would take him through Shadizar, where a friendly fence would give him a handsome sum for his loot. On the other hand, too many Zamorians, from King Mithridates down, remembering his former depredations in their land, were whetting their knives for a slice of Conan’s flesh. Zamora was a poor country to hide in, because Conan’s very size, a head taller than most Zamorians, made him all too visible to those who sought him.
A
few days after his midnight run, following a three-day absence from his smithy, Conan rode up the valley below Yezud. He was returning from the village of Kharshoi with a coil of rope tied to his saddle.
He jogged peacefully along the narrow, winding route that snaked along the side of the narrow gulch below the wider valley in which Khesron lay. The rocky sides of the valley rose steeply on either hand, carved by erosion into a confused corrugation of pinnacles and detached blocks piled helter-skelter. A fine site for an ambush, he thought, sweeping the tumbled slopes with a wary glance; the stony chaos presented an infinitude of hiding places, while no horse could negotiate such a slope without a broken leg.
Even as this thought crossed his mind, he was jerked to full alertness by a sound that his services in the Turanian army had made all too familiar: the flat snap of a bowstring, followed instantly by the whistling hiss of an arrow in flight.
Instantly, Conan threw himself forward and to the off side of the horse, since the sound came from his left, across the ravine. Holding on with one leg over the saddle and one arm around Ymir’s neck, he presented but little target to the unknown archer. As he did so, the arrow sang past the place where his body had been, to shatter against the rocks on his right.
Furiously, Conan whipped back into his saddle and swept out his sword. He turned the horse, glaring at the stony slope as if by the very intensity of his blue-eyed stare he could melt the rocks that concealed his would-be assassin. His excitement communicated itself to Ymir, who danced and snorted. But nothing moved on the rocky incline before him.
He could force the horse down the short slope to the bottom of the valley and across the brook; but then he would have to dismount and climb the facing slope afoot. For a single man to charge uphill on foot, with neither shield nor armor, against a well-placed and competent archer, was equivalent to suicide. His own bow was back in its case in Yezud. For a few heartbeats he swept the rocks with his probing vision, but no sign of his attacker could he see.
At last he turned Ymir’s head northward and spurred the animal toward his original destination. If he could not bring his assailant to book, he must quickly get out of range.
Hardly had the horse broken into a canter when the bow twanged again. Again, Conan ducked; but this had no effect on the arrow, which buried itself with a meaty thump in Ymir’s side. The horse gave a great bound and collapsed on the edge of the roadway, rolling off and down the slope.
As his stricken steed fell, Conan flung himself clear. With catlike agility he landed on his feet; but so steep was the slope that he, too, fell and rolled. Halfway down the slope he scrambled to his feet, snatched up the scimitar he had dropped, and covered the rest of the slope in two bounds. At the bottom he jumped across the gurgling run and pounded up the other side, leaping from rock to rock. As rage was replaced by calculation, his ascent became more deliberate, taking cover behind boulders and pinnacles, scanning the slope above him, and then making a quick dash to the shelter of the next prominence.
Soon he had climbed to a level higher than that from which he had started on the other side. He could now look down upon the domes and towers of the craglets that had concealed his assailant. But no sign of his attacker could he discern, even when he had climbed to the top of the valley.
At the top, he reached a small, grassy plateau, which ran horizontally for a bowshot before rising into further slopes and peaks of the rugged Karpash foothills. He walked about the flat, frowning. Presently he sighted something that made his breath quicken: the print of a horse’s hoof in a patch of sandy soil. Casting about, he found more hoofprints and a stake driven into the ground. Evidently, someone had recently ridden up to this plateau, bringing the stake with him. At the top he had dismounted, driven the stake into the ground, and tethered his horse while he went about his business—probably trying to put an arrow through Conan. Failing to do so, he had returned to his mount, departing in too much haste to take the stake with him.
Conan cast about, like a hound on the scent, for a clue as to his murderer’s direction. But the plateau’s surface was either too grassy or too stony to hold the spoor of Conan’s unknown foe.
At length Conan gave up and returned down the slope to where, across the little stream, his horse lay dead. He unfastened the saddle and bridle and grimly set out afoot, up the slope to the road and then north toward Yezud, with rope and saddle slung over one shoulder. As he plodded, he wondered how the assassin could have reached the top of the slope without Conan’s seeing him, unless magic were involved.
This, Conan suspected, was indeed the explanation. It would not have been magic of the most fell and powerful kind, to strike Conan dead by force of a spell alone; rather it was the magic of a petty illusionist—a spell related to the hypnotic suggestions of the Vicar. For the actual killing, his attacker depended upon material weapons, using unnatural means only to keep himself hidden from Conan’s sight.
B
ack in Yezud that evening, Conan’s fury at the loss of his horse and his failure to exact payment from his attacker was mitigated by his pleasure in finding Rudabeh at her mother’s house.
But Rudabeh did not look happy. “Step out into the garden, Nial,” she said tensely. “I have tidings.”
“Well?” asked Conan as he followed her into the cabbage patch.
“You know the Vicar, Harpagus? He has learned of our visit to Khesron.”
“How so?”
“He called me in and told me that someone—he named no names, but spoke of his informant as ‘she’—had carried tales to him.”
“By Set!” growled Conan. “I’ll wager it was that tavern slut, Mandana.”
“Why should she do a thing like that? I have never harmed her.”
“I think she’s jealous of you, my girl; you know how women are. What does Harpagus intend?”
“He would have me yield to him that which I have denied to you. If I do not, he threatens to denounce me to Lord Feridun.”
Conan’s voice became the snarl of a hunting leopard. “One more score against the dog! If it wasn’t he behind that attempt to murder me on the road today, I’m a Stygian!”
“What’s this? Who tried to murder you?”
Briefly, Conan told the tale of his encounter on the road from Kharshoi. Rudabeh exclaimed:
“Oh, how sorry I am for the loss of your horse! But at least you survived, which is more important.”
“Never mind that. What will Harpagus do if you resist?”
“It would mean death by the spider-god,” said Rudabeh somberly, blanching in the ruddy light of the setting sun. “Or at least a flogging and reduction to the lowest rank in the temple service. As I see it, my choices are these: I can give in to Harpagus and, if that issues badly, end up in Zath’s belly anyway. I can defy the Vicar, threatening to tell the High Priest of his lubricity. Or I can go forthwith to Feridun with my tale. But it were my word against the Vicar’s, and I am sure his would prevail.”
“You haven’t mentioned a fourth choice: to run away with me,” rumbled Conan.
She shook her head. “We have been all over that. I had almost as lief face Zath as plunge into the life you envision. And you, too, are caught in this cleft stick; for if Feridun thought you had debauched a temple virgin, your fate would be as mine.”
“Debauched!” snorted Conan. “A pretty tame sort of debauchery! Your priests, like other rulers, are wont to lay down strict rules for their subjects but themselves to do as they please.”
“The rules had fallen into abeyance under Feridun’s predecessor, a gluttonous voluptuary; but Feridun is a man of such stern morality that the sight of another enjoying life offends him. But about Harpagus—have you decided whither your own future lies?”
She meant: Are you ready to become my prudent, unadventurous husband? Conan clenched his fists and ground his teeth with the passions that were tearing him apart. Then he had a thought that might put off the fatal decision. He said:
“Do you know of the Powder of Forgetfulness?”
“Nay. What is it?”
“A magical stuff; a witch of my acquaintance gave me some. Throw a pinch into your enemy’s face, she said, and it will make him forget all about you, as if he had never heard of you. If you will step around to my chamber—” He checked himself as she began to protest. “Nay, I understand; we cannot be seen entering my place together. Wait here.”
He soon returned with the pouch he had received from Nyssa. Handing it over, he sighed: “I truly love you, girl; I could show you such loving as these local clods never dreamed of.”
“And what of me when you gallop off to new loves and wilder adventurers, perchance leaving me with a fatherless child?”
Conan snorted. “You, mistress, should debate with philosophers in the temple courtyards and put them all to shame! I’m no match for you in argument.”
“You have a keener mind than you think; you do but lack for schooling.”
“I’m schooled in handling swords and bows and horses, not in polite arts like literature.”
“That can be remedied. Darius, the young priest, conducts a school for children, and he could teach you.”
Conan growled: “Crom’s devils, girl! Are you trying to make me over? I won’t have it!”
When they tired of argument, Conan escorted Rudabeh back to the temple door. Seeing that the nighted streets were deserted, Conan seized her, crushed her to him, and covered her with burning kisses. “Come with me!” he murmured in a voice thick with passion.
When he released her, she said gently: “I confess, Nial, that I could learn to love you—but only if you would, as you say, permit me to ‘make you over.’ That would mean giving up your wild ways to settle in Yezud as a proper householder and husband.”
Conan grunted. “I wouldn’t even consider such a thing for any other woman. But for you—I’ll think on it.”
A
t his smithy the following morning, Conan gave Lar the day off and began work on a new project, which he preferred not to have the boy know about. By afternoon he had a foot-long grapnel ending in three hooks. He was securing the grapnel to his new rope by threading the rope through the eye at the other end of the grapnel and making a splice, when a tense voice called: “Nial!”
A woman stood before the open front of the smithy; Conan recognized Rudabeh despite her heavy veiling. He dropped his work and threw open the door to his private room.
“Step in,” he said. “We cannot talk here where everybody can see us. Fear not for your cursed virtue.” When both were in the room, he closed the door. “Now what’s happened?”

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