Conan and the Spider God (5 page)
Read Conan and the Spider God Online
Authors: Lyon Sprague de Camp
“Look for employment. I am Azanes the son of Vologas, and I have been thought a good man of my hands, even though I lack your bulk. Do you know of any openings?”
Conan shook his head. “I, too, have just arrived in Shadizar the Wicked; so I am in as fine a fix as you. They say the Turanians are recruiting mercenaries in Aghrapur—hold; there’s the man I came to see.”
Conan gulped his wine, rose, and returned to the counter, where a bald, potbellied fellow had taken the place of the brawny matron. Conan said: “Hail, Tigranes!”
The bald man, beaming, started to cry: “Co—” but Conan stopped him with an upraised hand. “My name is Nial,” he said, “and forget it not. How do you? You still had hair on your pate when last I saw you.”
“Alas, it’s gone the way of all things mortal, friend. How long have you been in Shadizar? Where dwell you? How did you find me?”
“One at a time,” grinned Conan. “First, let’s find a place where we can talk less publicly.”
“Right you are. Atossa!” When the woman took Tigranes’s place behind the counter, Tigranes grasped Conan by the elbow and steered him into a curtained cubicle behind the counter.
“This one is on the house,” he said, pouring two goblets of wine. “Now tell me about yourself. What have you been doing the last few years?”
“I’ve been a soldier in Turan, but I had to leave in haste.”
The taverner chuckled. “Same old Conan—I mean Nial. Where are you staying?”
“At Eriakes’s Inn, on the edge of the maul. I asked after you, and they directed me hither.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Looking for gainful employment, honest or otherwise.”
“If you seek a fence to dispose of your loot, do not look at me! I gave all that up after the Chief Inquisitor had me arrested. I escaped the scaffold only by bribing him with all I’d saved, to the last farthing. Well,
almost
to the last farthing.” Tigranes cast a significant glance toward the curtained doorway.
almost
to the last farthing.” Tigranes cast a significant glance toward the curtained doorway.
Conan shook his head. “I’ve had enough of that starveling life, save as a last resort. But I have soldiered all the way from Shahpur to Khitai, and that should count for something.”
“Speaking of Turan,” said Tigranes, “a party of Turanians was here yesterday, asking questions. They said they were looking for a man of your description, accompanied by a woman. Has that aught to do with you?”
“It might or it might not. How looked these Turanians?”
“The leader was a short, square fellow with a little gray beard, who called himself Parvez. He had several fellow countrymen in tow, and an escort of a brace of King Mithridates’s guards. His snooping evidently has our King’s approval.”
“I know who Parvez is,” said Conan. “One of Yildiz’s diplomats. A gang of Zamorians abducted Yildiz’s favorite wife, and the King is frantic for her return. I had naught to do with that jape, but the Turanians seem to think I did. Methinks I had better shake the dust of Shadizar from my boots.”
“That were not the only reason,” said Tigranes. “The law remembers you all too well, despite the years you have been away. And your size makes you conspicuous, no matter by what name you call yourself.” Tigranes’s eyes narrowed speculatively, and the demon of greed peered out from his small, piglike orbs.
“I had thought of going to—” began Conan, but paused as suspicion crackled in his mind. His experience with the Zamorian underworld had taught him that the “honor amongst thieves,” to which the denizens of the maul paid lip service, was in fact as rare as fur on serpents or feathers on fish.
“No matter,” he said negligently. “I’ll remain in hiding here for a few days ere I decide upon my next move. I shall visit you again.”
Concealing his apprehension with a rough jest, Conan left the Golden Dragon and returned to Eriakes’s Inn. Instead of going to bed, he roused Eriakes, paid his scot, got his horse from the stable, and by dawn was well away on the road to Yezud.
N
ext morning Tigranes, who had mulled things over during the night, went to the nearest police post. He told the sergeant that the notorious Conan, wanted for sundry breaches of Zamorian law in years gone by as well as for questioning by the Turanian envoy, was to be found at Eriakes’s Inn.
ext morning Tigranes, who had mulled things over during the night, went to the nearest police post. He told the sergeant that the notorious Conan, wanted for sundry breaches of Zamorian law in years gone by as well as for questioning by the Turanian envoy, was to be found at Eriakes’s Inn.
But when the sergeant with a squad of regulars invaded Eriakes’s establishment, they found that Conan had departed hours before, leaving no word of his destination. Thus Tigranes, instead of an informer’s fee, received a beating for tardiness in reporting his news. Nursing his bruises, he returned to his inn, vowing vengeance on the Cimmerian, whom he illogically blamed for his mishap.
Meanwhile, Conan sped north on Ymir as fast as he dared to push his sturdy steed.
A
t Zamindi, the villagers were preparing for a spectacle. All the folk, in their patched brown and gray and rusty black woollens, had turned out; some boosted their children to their shoulders, the better to view the event. The much-anticipated spectacle was the burning of Nyssa the witch.
t Zamindi, the villagers were preparing for a spectacle. All the folk, in their patched brown and gray and rusty black woollens, had turned out; some boosted their children to their shoulders, the better to view the event. The much-anticipated spectacle was the burning of Nyssa the witch.
The old woman had been tied to a dead tree a bowshot from the outskirts of the town. In a ragged shift, her white hair blowing, she watched in sullen silence as a dozen men piled sticks and faggots around her. The ropes bound her tightly, but they did not sink into her flesh only because her withered form retained no fat beneath her mottled skin.
So intent upon the sight were the villagers that none remarked the clop of hooves along the path that led from the road to Shadizar. As the headman thrust his torch into the pile of firewood, the horse, a stocky Hyrkanian sorrel, nosed his way among the rearmost members of the crowd.
The smaller sticks caught fire and blazed up with a cheerful crackle. Nyssa looked down silently, her rheumy old eyes glazed with resignation.
Feeling a nudge and hearing a snuffling sound, one villager, munching an apple, turned and recoiled. The nudge was from the velvety nose of Ymir, who was begging for a bite of the apple. The man’s startled gaze traveled along the horse’s back to encompass a giant figure astride the beast. Conan rasped:
“What goes on here?”
“We burn a witch,” replied the man shortly, with a scowl of suspicion.
“What has she done?”
“Put a curse upon us, that’s what, so three children and a cow died, all in the same night. Who are you, stranger, to question me?”
“Had there been a feud between you?”
“Nay, if it be any of your affair,” replied the man testily. “She used to be our healer; but some devil possessed her and caused these deaths.”
The larger faggots were now catching fire, and the rising smoke made Nyssa cough.
“Men and beasts die all the time,” ruminated Conan. “What makes you think these deaths unnatural?”
The man turned to confront Conan. “Look you, stranger, you mind your business whilst we mind ours. Now get along, if you would not be hurt!”
Conan had no love of witches. Neither had he any idea of civilized laws and rules of evidence. But still it seemed to him that the villagers were venting their grief on the aged crone more because she was old, ugly, and helpless than because they had reason to think her guilty. The Cimmerian seldom interfered in others’ affairs where neither honor drove nor profit beckoned. If the villager had spoken him fair, he might have shrugged and gone his way.
But Conan was impulsive and easily roused to anger. And the protection of women, regardless of age, form, or station, was one of the few imperatives of his barbarian code. The villager’s threat tipped the balance in the old woman’s favor.
Conan backed his horse a few steps, wheeled the animal, and rode away from the crowd. Then he swung Ymir around, swept out his scimitar, and heeled the horse. As Ymir broke into a canter, headed straight for the tree to which the witch was tied, Conan uttered a fearful scream—the ancient Cimmerian war cry.
Startled faces turned; the villagers scrambled out of the way. Several were knocked down by the plunging beast.
Reaching the fire-ringed victim, the frightened animal rolled its eyes and reared. Conan soothed Ymir as he leaned into the smoke to smite the bindings that encircled the tree. The strands parted easily, for the villagers had thriftily chosen old and rotten rope for the burning.
As a collective growl arose from the thwarted peasants, Conan extended his free arm, roaring: “Catch hold, grandmother!”
Nyssa seized the brawny forearm and clung to it as, with a mighty heave, Conan swung her up on the horse’s withers, before the saddle.
“Hold on!” shouted Conan, pressing the oldster against his chest and urging Ymir into a run again.
Once more the crowd, which had started to converge and advance, parted and scattered. Even as Conan plowed through them, he saw some of the more active men run to their crofts. As Ymir carried his double burden away from the village, Conan glanced back. Raging, the men were reemerging with scythes, pitchforks, and a couple of spears.
“Where do you want to go?” Conan asked the witch.
“I have no home to call my own,” she replied in a quavery voice. “They have already burned my hut.”
“Then whither?”
“Pray, whither you go, sir.”
“I’m bound for Yezud; but I cannot take you with me all the way.”
“If you will return to the main road and turn left, you will soon come upon another track, which leads uphill to my hiding place. Though I know not if your horse can bear the both of us up so steep a slope.”
“Can he walk if I lead him?”
“Aye, sir; of that I am sure. But hurry! I do hear the dogs barking behind us.”
A distant baying wafted to Conan’s ears. Keen though his senses were, those of the old woman had earlier identified the sound.
“Your hearing is good for one of your years,” he remarked.
“I have ways of reinforcing my mortal senses.”
“If they have set dogs after us, what’s to stop them from following us to your hideaway?”
“Let me but once reach the place, and I have means to lead them astray.”
As they came out upon the main road, the sounds of pursuit grew louder, for Ymir was slowed by the weight of his double burden. Another quarter-hour, and Nyssa indicated the track to her refuge.
For a while, Ymir trotted up the steep path, which rose and dipped and wound through broken country. The baying increased apace, and Conan more and more disliked the situation. On the flat, with room to maneuver, he did not fear a villageful of yokels armed with improvised weapons. But on this uncertain footing, if the pursuers were brave enough to close in even after he had slain the foremost, they could swarm around him, hamstring his mount, and cut him to pieces.
“Those fellows must have horses,” he muttered between clenched teeth.
“Aye, sir; the village breeds them and has a score of the beasts. And the lads are spry afoot; they beat the other villages in foot races at every fair. I used to be proud of my village.”
Conan knew that, if he abandoned Nyssa, he could escape his pursuers even if they tried to run him to earth after they had recaptured the aged witch. But having committed himself to the crone’s rescue, he gave no thought to any other course. In such matters he could be obstinate indeed.
The track thrust upward, ever steeper and more rugged. Conan pulled up and swung off the weary horse, saying: “I’ll walk; you ride. How much farther goes this path?”
“A quarter of a league. Near the end, I needs must also walk.”
On they plodded, Conan leading Ymir by the reins, while behind them the baying waxed louder as men and dogs gained on their quarry. Conan expected to sight their pursuers at any time.
“Here I must dismount,” quavered Nyssa. “Kindly help me down, good sir.”
When the witch had regained her uncertain footing, she pointed up a trackless slope and started up it vigorously, although each breath she drew was inhaled as a painful gasp.
Glancing back across the waste of tumbled rock and scanty vegetation, Conan caught the ominous blink of sun on steel. He gritted: “We must move faster. Let me carry you, grandmother!”
When she protested, he swept her frail form into his strong arms and hurried up the slope. Sweat rolled down his face, and his own breath came harder.
“Through yonder notch,” murmured the witch, pointing.
Still carrying the old woman and leading Ymir, Conan found himself in a narrow canyon or gully, the sides of which supported a few scrubby pines. The bottom of the gulch was a jumble of stream-rounded stones of all sizes, among which gurgled and murmured a shrunken creek. Conan had to leap from boulder to boulder, while Ymir staggered and stumbled along behind him.
“H-here!” whispered Nyssa.
Around a slight bend in the gorge, Conan sighted the mouth of a cave, all but hidden by shrubs and overhanging vines. As the woman sank down, gasping, Conan said:
“Cast your spell quickly, grandmother; for the villagers are close upon our heels.”
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