Conan and the Spider God (8 page)
Read Conan and the Spider God Online
Authors: Lyon Sprague de Camp
One acolyte thrust a bowl at Conan. Peering into its depths, the Cimmerian perceived a heap of coins of various denominations. Grumbling, he dug a small copper out of his well-worn purse and dropped it on the heap.
The acolyte sniffed disdainfully. “You are not overgenerous to the god, stranger,” he murmured.
“Let the priests increase the sum they pay me as smith,” growled Conan, “and I’ll give you more.” The acolyte opened his mouth, as for a sharp reply; but Conan’s glower persuaded him to bite back his words and pass on to gather the next gratuity.
When the last offerings had been collected, the temple maidens ended their song and disappeared. High Priest Feridun stepped to the chest, ceremoniously unlocked it, and raised the lid. The acolytes paraded past, each emptying his bowl of coins, and the ringing clash of their falling echoed from the temple’s gilded dome.
Feridun intoned another prayer, blessing the offerings, and relocked the replenished coffer. Again the congregation lifted their voices in song; Zath was once more hailed with upraised arms, and the service came to its end.
A
s Conan and the boy left the temple enclosure, Lar, bubbling with youthful enthusiasm, ventured: “Isn’t High Priest Feridun a wonderful man? Does he not fill your heart with spiritual inspiration?”
s Conan and the boy left the temple enclosure, Lar, bubbling with youthful enthusiasm, ventured: “Isn’t High Priest Feridun a wonderful man? Does he not fill your heart with spiritual inspiration?”
Conan paused before answering. “I have not found priests much different from other men. All work for their own wealth, power, and glory, like the rest of us, however much they mask ambition by pious chatter.”
“Oh, sir!” ejaculated the boy. “Let not such impious sentiments come to the ears of the priests of Zath! True, they might excuse you as naught but an ignorant foreigner; but you should never speak lightly of the god and his ministers in holy Yezud—not, that is, unless you would fain serve as fodder for the spider-god.”
“Is that the fate of malefactors here?” queried Conan.
“Aye, sir. It is our regular form of execution.”
“How is it done?”
“The acolytes throw the criminal into the tunnels beneath the temple. Then, when immortal Zath takes on his mortal form at night, he descends thither to devour the miscreant.”
“Who has seen Zath thus scuttling about?”
“Only the priests, sir.”
“Has any plain citizen of Yezud witnessed this miracle?”
“N-no, sir. None dares enter the haunts of the spider-god, save the highest ranks of the priesthood. I did hear a tale last year, that one impious wight secretly entered the tunnels, hoping to find valuables to steal. You know what they say about Zamorian thieves?”
“That they are the most skillful in the world and the most faithful to their trust. What befell this venturesome fellow? Did Zath devour him?”
“Nay; he escaped.” The boy shuddered. “But he came out raving mad and died a few days thereafter.”
“Hm. No place to tarry for one’s health, meseems. Tell me, Lar, of what substance are the eyes of Zath composed?”
“Why, of the same stuff as yours and mine, I suppose; save that when Zath returns to his pedestal and settles into his stony form, his eyes must become some sort of bluish mineral. More I cannot tell.”
Conan walked in silence to Lar’s home for the midday meal, his nimble mind already scheming. The eyes of Zath were certainly gems of some kind. If he could manage to steal some of them, he would command enough wealth for a lifetime. Usually Conan trod lightly in the presence of strange gods; but he found it difficult to attribute divinity to any spider, however formidable. Whether or not the statue possessed the power to transform itself into a sentient being, Conan could not bring himself to accord it godhood. He felt sure that the priests of Zath were swindling the credulous Zamorians, and that it would be simple justice for him to deprive them of part of their ill-gotten gains.
A
fter the evening repast, Conan, weary of the sobriety of Yezud, strapped on his sword and strode down the rocky ramp to Bartakes’s Inn in Khesron,. He was pleased to find few other patrons in the common room, for he wished to be alone to think.
fter the evening repast, Conan, weary of the sobriety of Yezud, strapped on his sword and strode down the rocky ramp to Bartakes’s Inn in Khesron,. He was pleased to find few other patrons in the common room, for he wished to be alone to think.
Conan carried his jack of wine from the innkeeper’s counter and settled down in a corner. He regretted having spoken so cynically to young Lar about gods and priests because, he realized, his incautious words had given the pious and impressionable boy a hold upon him. If they should ever quarrel, or if Lar did something stupid and Conan cuffed him for it, Lar might run to the priests with an exaggerated tale of the blacksmith’s heresies. Of the many hard lessons he was being forced to learn in order to make his way in civilized lands, Conan found guarding his tongue and weighing his words the hardest.
The Cimmerian’s dour musings were interrupted by the crackle of sharp words across the dim-lit room, where a man and a woman sat with an empty bottle of wine between them. The woman, clad in a tight dress of red and white checked cotton, cut to display a generous expanse of bosom, Conan recognized as Bartakes’s daughter Mandana. The man—Conan tensed, for he should have recognized the bristling red mustache immediately upon entering the common room—was Captain Catigern. Preoccupied with his own thoughts, Conan had overlooked the mercenary officer.
Catigern had obviously drunk more than he could handle, and the woman was berating him for his sodden condition. In the midst of her scolding, he made a rude noise, laid his head on his forearms and went to sleep.
The woman pushed back her stool and, glancing boldly around the room, strolled over to Conan’s table, saying: “May I join you, Master Nial?”
“Certes,” said Conan. “What’s your trouble, lass?”
“You can see for yourself.” She jerked a thumb toward the somnolent Catigern. “He promised me a glorious evening, and what does he do but drink himself into a brutish stupor! I am sure that you, at least, would not fall asleep when came the time to pleasure your woman.” She smiled provocatively and settled the bodice of her dress until her bulging breasts almost burst from their scanty covering.
Conan raised his heavy eyebrows. “Oho!” he murmured in a voice thickening with desire. “If that be the pleasure you require, I’m your man! Just name the time and place.”
“Shortly, in my chambers upstairs. But let us drink a little first; and then you must pay my father’s tariff for my affections.” With a nod of her head she indicated the counter, behind which Bartakes stood.
Conan’s eyes grew wary. “How much does he demand?”
“Ten coppers. By the bye, you returned not to the inn after your first night here; did you then gain employment with the priests of Yezud?”
“Aye; I’m now the temple’s blacksmith,” answered Conan, digging into his purse and counting out coins. “As peaceful trades go, it is not bad—”
Conan left his sentence hanging. Captain Catigern had awakened, lurched to his feet, and now towered above the table at which Conan and Mandana sat. He roared:
“What are you doing with my girl, you oaf?”
Conan studied the speaker with narrowed eyes, gauging the degree of the captain’s insobriety. “You can go to hell, Captain,” he said evenly. “The wench sought me out of her own free will, whilst you lay snoring in a stupor.” He picked up his mug and took a lingering sip.
“Insolent puppy!” shouted Catigern, aiming a backhanded blow at Conan’s face. The knuckles of the Brythunian’s open hand struck Conan’s upraised forearm, splashing his wine. With deliberation, Conan set down the mug, rose as lithely as a jungle cat, and shot his left fist into Catigern’s face. The captain’s head snapped back; he staggered and fell heavily. The blow would have deprived an ordinary man of consciousness, if it did not do him more substantial damage; but Catigern was an unusually large and powerful man. Hence he was up again in an instant, lugging out his sword.
“I’ll carve out your liver and feed it to my dogs!” he snarled, rushing at Conan.
Ignoring a shouted plea from the taverner, Conan met Catigern halfway with his drawn Turanian scimitar, and their clanging blades flashed in the yellow lamplight. Several patrons ducked beneath their tables as the two large men circled, slashing and parrying. The ring of steel upon steel, mingled with the shouts of excited spectators, echoed like a demoniac uproar upon the evening air.
After the first whirlwind exchange of cuts and parries, when Captain Catigern had begun to pant for breath, he changed his tactics. His sword, like most of those used in the West, was straight, whereas Conan’s scimitar, heavier than most Turanian blades, was curved like a crescent moon, and therefore useless for thrusting. Now the Brythunian, instead of trading cuts, began to aim swift, deadly thrusts between his hasty parries.
While Conan had ofttimes handled Western swords before coming to Turan, for the past two years all his training and practice had been with the curving saber. Thrice, only his pantherlike agility, combined with desperate parries, saved him from being spitted on Catigern’s fine-honed blade. One thrust, like the strike of a serpent, ripped Conan’s tunic and scored a bloody scratch across his shoulder.
The Brythunian, he realized, was an experienced fighter, not easily worsted even when rendered unsteady by drink. Although Conan was taller, stronger, faster, and younger, he deemed it fortunate that the skillful mercenary was not quite sober.
Bartakes danced about the combatants in an agony of apprehension, wringing his pudgy hands and crying: “Outside, I pray, gentlemen! Do not fight within my premises! You will bring ruin upon me!”
The duellists ignored him. Then, from a dark corner of the common room, a small, shadowy figure glided toward Catigern’s back; and Conan caught the gleam of a dagger in the lamplight.
While Conan would willingly kill his adversary in a fair fight, a stab in the back of a man who faced another foe affronted his code of honor. Yet if Conan cried a warning of the danger, the Brythunian would think it merely a cunning distraction so that his antagonist could sword him with impunity.
All this flashed through Conan’s mind in less time than it took him to swing his curved sword. With the lightning speed of a leaping leopard, he bounded backward, at the same time grounding the point of his scimitar.
“Behind you!” he bellowed. “Treachery!”
Finding himself momentarily beyond Conan’s reach, Catigern whirled to glance behind him. As he whipped around, the unknown assassin threw up his dagger arm to drive a long poniard into the Brythunian’s body. With a furious curse, Catigern sent a terrific backhand slash into the assassin’s side. The blade sank in between the man’s ribs and pelvis, almost severing his spine. The impact hurled the slender man against a trestle table, to strike the floor in a welter of blood and entrails. He moaned briefly and lay still.
“A mighty stroke,” commented Conan, his point still fixed upon the floor. “Do you want to fight some more?”
“If you two great idiots—” began Bartakes, but his words were lost on the steely-eyed twain.
“Nay, nay,” replied Catigern. He wiped his blade on a corner of the dead man’s tunic and started to sheathe it, pausing only to assure himself that Conan was doing likewise. “I cannot kill a man who has just saved my life, even if he tried to slay me but a moment earlier. As to the girl—why, where the devil is the chit?”
Bartakes said: “Whilst you two were fighting, she slipped away to her chamber with another patron—one of your company, I believe, Captain.” The innkeeper turned to shout for his sons to remove the body and scrub the floorboards clean. Then, shaking his head, he muttered: “Zath save me from another such pair of young fools!”
Catigern gave a wry smile. “You are right, my friend; we
were
fools, sure enough, to risk our lives over a public woman.” He yawned. “As for me—”
were
fools, sure enough, to risk our lives over a public woman.” He yawned. “As for me—”
“Wait,” growled Conan. “Let’s see who wanted to stick a knife into you. Fetch one of those lamps, innkeeper.”
Turning over the mangled body, Conan saw that the man was a typical Zamorian, small, slight, and dark. Conan asked: “Know you this man, Partakes?”
“Surely!” replied the taverner. “He rode in on a mule only today and took a bed, giving his name as Varathran of Shadizar.”
“Had you ever clapped eyes upon him ere today?”
“Never. But folk from every corner of Zamora come here to do honor to the spider-god.”
Conan ran practiced hands over the corpse. Suspended from Varathran’s belt he found a wallet, containing a handful of silver and copper coinage and a small roll of parchment. Conan unrolled the parchment and frowned over it. At last he said:
“Catigern, do you read Zamorian?”
“Not I! I can scarcely read the writing of my native land. What of you?”
“I once learned a few Zamorian characters, but I’ve forgotten what little I once knew.”
“Let me see that,” said the innkeeper. Holding the parchment close to the lamp and silently moving his lips, he pored over the spidery script. At last, with a shrug of despair, he returned the roll to Conan.
“It’s penned in Old Zamorian,” he said, “a script gone clean out of use since Mithridates the First revised our system of writing. Perchance a priest in Yezud could decipher it; I cannot.”
“May I see it?” purred a soft, high-pitched voice with a peculiar accent. The Stygian, whom Conan had earlier beheld seated among his scrolls and tablets, now stood expectantly at his shoulder. “I may be of some assistance to you, sir.”
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