Conan the Barbarian (8 page)

Conan waved him in. “Eat and drink,” he growled.

While Subotai gnawed on the remains of Conan’s supper and guzzled the wine, the Cimmerian prowled around the hut, selecting things that he might need and things that pleased him: a silver-mounted belt, a sheath for his sword, gem-studded wristlets, a pendant carved in a strange design, and a hooded cloak of heavy fur to replace the untanned wolf skins, which had begun to stink.

Dawn was a pale gleam across the vast reaches of the treeless plain, as Conan threw open the door of the witch’s cabin to watch the break of day. Silver light glinted on a thin blanket of new-fallen snow, snow that would melt in the sun’s warmth but now wrapped the bare earth in the shell-pink mantle of a queen. The barbarian youth, breathing the clear air, was eager to be gone from this place of vile enchantments. He turned to his companion who sat, hugging his knees, beside the embers.

“Now that you are free, whither do you go?” he asked.

“To Zamora,” the Hyrkanian replied, grinning. “The capital, Shadizar, is a city of thieves, and thievery is my business.”

“You told me that you were a man of war,” said Conan, looking at the small man keenly.

“I come from a race of generals. The essence of warfare is deception; so I learn the way by practising the art of theft.” Subotai, black eyes sparkling, looked up at Conan with his crooked smile.

“An unhealthy profession, so they say.”

“And what do you do, Cimmerian?”

“I am a slayer of men.”

Subotai’s laugh rang against the stone walls of the hut. “More sanguine than thievery, to be sure. But of a more limited future. Thieves seldom get caught and, if they are, get beaten; but murderers are crucified.”

“Then why were you trussed up out here for wolf bait?” “I did not know it was a witch from whom I tried to steal. She caught me in the web of her enchantments, as she did you. Now, thanks to you, I have no need to steal.” Conan, restive, lingered at the door, while Subotai rummaged among the witch’s things, plucking a fur garment from a chest, choosing a bow and quiver of arrows to his liking, and strapping a scabbarded curved sword to his belt. Conan watched with approval as the Mongol swept the remaining food into a sack and slung the bag across his shoulder.

They left the hut together. Ahead of them lay rolling hills, bright-crested with dawn’s liquid gold, and smudged, here and there, where scrub oaks, black and gaunt, broke through the thin blanket of snow.

“I, too, am bound southwards for Zamora,” Conan said briefly.

“Then shall we go together?” suggested Subotai. “It is good to have a friend at your back when trouble comes.” Conan looked down at the small man at his side and shrugged. “Do you know the road to Zamora?”

Subotai nodded.

Conan shouldered his gear. “Then let’s be on our way.”

V

The Priestess

The journey to Shadizar of Zamora was long and weary. Above the travellers stretched the vast emptiness of the firmament, deep blue by day, and cloudless, in these climes; by night a canopy of black velvet upon which the prodigal gods had stitched handfuls of diamonds.

Below their feet lay a seldom-travelled track, which snaked across the flat prairie and the rondure of patient hills. Here the naked black soil flaunted its shabby finery of withered grasses, like some swarthy strumpet, past her prime. Scrub vegetation alone broke the eternal monotony of the steppe, that source of man’s wide migration.

Conan and Subotai strode through this empty land with a measured pace that devoured the leagues, the small man often trotting to keep up with the limber strides of the giant Cimmerian. Sometimes they ran. Conan would lope along, with the Hyrkanian pounding at his side.

Once, as they rested, Conan growled, “You have strong legs for one so small, and lungs like a smith’s bellows.”

Subotai grinned. “To follow the profession of a thief, a man must learn to outrun his enemies.”

During the fortnight on the road, they came to rich forest lands where stands of trees stood tall beside lakes and ponds gouged aeons before by the feet of glaciers. They crossed a low pass and descended to the banks of the Nezvaya River. The stream ran south before turning east at the Zamorian border; and the adventurers followed its banks.

When the provisions brought from the witch’s house gave out, they had to spend part of each day foraging for food. Conan speared fish in the river with a crude spear whittled from a sapling, while Subotai prowled the forest with his arrow nocked. One day he would bring in a hare; the next, a badger. Some days they went to sleep hungry.

In time the forest lands thinned out, save for a gallery of trees along the Nezvaya. Wide meadows lay before them, splashed with the amber, vermilion, and cornflower blue of early spring flowers. Smiling skies, sun-flecked, announced the unmourned passing of the winter cold.

When Subotai’s arrow brought down a wild ass, the companions spent the day smoking the meat, so that they could go forward for several days without further stops. As they lounged by the crackling fire, over which hung strips and slabs of drying flesh, Conan put aside his natural curiosity to learn more about the steppe-dweller and his people.

“To what gods do your people pray?” he asked.

The Hyrkanian shrugged. “I pray to the Four Winds, which rule the land. The Winds of Heaven bring the snow, the rain, the odour of the beasts we hunt, and the sound of approaching enemies. Tell me, Cimmerian, what gods are in the prayers of your people?”

“Crom, father of stars, king of gods and men,” answered Conan gruffly; for he little liked to dwell on such matters. “But my people seldom pray to him; I, never. Crom is aloof in his high heaven, indifferent to the needs mid prayers of mortals.”

“Does this god of yours reward your sins with punishments?”

Conan chuckled. “He cares not about the sins of puny men.”

“What good, then, is a god who pays no heed to prayers and fails to punish errors?”

“When I go down the long road that leads to Crom’s great throne, he’ll ask one question of me: Have I solved the riddle of my life? And if I cannot answer, he will drive me forth to wander the empty heavens, a homeless ghost. For Crom is hard and strong and will endure forever.”

Subotai said eagerly, “My gods serve men. They help us in our hour of need.”

Conan glowered. “Crom is master of your Four Winds,” he growled as if to give himself conviction. “He drives them as a man drives the horses of a chariot.”

The small man shrugged, too sleepy, or perhaps too wise, to continue a fruitless argument.

Some days later, as stars began to wink in the twilight, Conan and Subotai reached the border of Zamora. In that darkling land of shadowed secrets, furtive spies, profound philosophers, depraved kings, and sloe-eyed women, each traveller hoped to find that which he sought: Conan, the meaning of the twisted snakes upholding a black sun; Subotai, wealth that could be his for the taking.

“Zamora!” sighed Subotai, gesturing broadly. “South lies Zamora. The land to the west is Brythunia, while if you follow the river eastward a few leagues, you enter the territory of Turan. In Zamora cross all the caravans of the world, laden with the riches of distant kingdoms: superb carpets from Iranistan, spiced fruits from Turan, the famed pearls of Khosala, gems from the iron hills of Vendhya, and the heady wines of Shem.

“Ah, my barbarian friend, here is civilization— ancient, wicked, steeped in splendid sin. Have you tasted the pleasures of civilization, Conan of Cimmeria, or seen its lofty towers and teeming bazaars?”

“Not yet,” said Conan curtly. “Let us get to that border town before nightfall and waste no further time on words.” Subotai shrugged. “Rhetoric, I see, is an art unknown to the folk of Cimmeria.”

The frontier town of Yazdir presented a façade of stone houses with thatched roofs, surrounded by a wall two man-heights high. Outside the wall, a clutter of barns, sties, pens, and corrals housed a multitude of livestock. A pair of mail-clad guards at the gate were too engrossed in a game of dice to look up as the two adventurers passed them.

Although the streets were little more than noisome, muddy alleys, to the young barbarian they seemed far more impressive than the crooked lanes of his native village, or even than the thoroughfares of the little towns of Nordheim and Hyperborea. The centre square of Yazdir was paved with flagstones, and around it were set several larger buildings. As Conan gawked, Subotai pointed out the temple, the barracks, the courthouse, the inn, and large houses which he guessed to be the mansions of local magnates.

In the square, merchants of a score of nations hawked exotic wares. Some were packing up their merchandise to dose their stalls for the night; others were still in full cry. Conan bought a round loaf and a sausage and munched them as he strolled about, eyeing the dazzling assortment of weapons, garments, jewellery, slaves, and such humble goods as farm implements and cooking pots.

Everywhere he looked, Conan saw marvels: gaudy mountebanks with trained monkeys and dancing bears; painted courtesans, both male and female; a troupe of slant-eyed acrobats from some unknown sunrise land; a bookseller who swore his codices contained the wisdom of the ages. Magicians in wooden booths performed miracles for pence. Solemn astrologers offered horoscopes and forecasts of things to come. Stout merchants displayed fine woollen rugs, lustrous fabrics, and trays of rings and bracelets, while deformed beggars thrust wooden bowls beneath the noses of the travellers, and starveling boys capered in mock merriment for pennies.

Entranced, Conan and his companion meandered past pens and cages housing strange animals: yaks, camels, and a snow leopard. They continued on into a street where, with musical clangour, smiths worked copper, brass, silver, and iron. Around a corner, they found workers tooling leather, and offering displays of shoes, boots, belts, scabbards, saddles, harness, and leather-bound coffers.

From time to time, Conan paused before one stall or another to ask, “Do you know aught of a design of two serpents intertwined and facing each other, with a black sun between?”

Sometimes the merchant addressed had no knowledge of the Hyrkanian tongue, and the Cimmerian had not yet learned the language of Zamora. Sometimes the reply was obsequious. “Nay, young master, I have not. But I have goblets of true Shemitish glass, made from the pure sands of the river Sulk...,” or describing whatever other commodity the merchant had for sale.

On they went, from the frontier town of Yazdir to the inner cities of Zamora. Conan and Subotai kept up their tireless pace, walk, jog-trot for an hour, and walk again; but the pace seemed slow to the barbarian. With his longer legs, he could easily have left his bow-legged companion far behind. The little man, moreover, grumbled about having to walk like a mere peasant instead of riding like a proper Hyrkanian warrior. Whenever they passed horses grazing in a field, Subotai suggested stealing a couple; but Conan, who had never ridden any animal, turned the idea aside.

At length the travellers came to the capital—Shadizar, the city of thieves, the abode of rogues. Here dwelt, in comparative safety, all the outlaws of the western world, even escaped slaves, exiles, and men with a price on their heads; for here they could safely hide, if they had the price should they be caught, and knew their ways around.

Conan found himself in the midst of a colourful throng. He rubbed shoulders with merchants in rich robes; artisans hawking trays of brass ornaments, gems, and weapons; bearded farmers in rough homespun, guiding to market wains laden with sacks of wheat and barley, sides of beef, and trussed, grunting pigs; stiff-backed soldiers, mobile-hipped whores, beggars, urchins, and priests. He saw squat Shemites with curly beards, lean Zuagirs in head cloths, kilted Brythunians, booted Corinthians, and turbaned Turanians.

Conan was amazed. Shadizar as far surpassed Yazdir in size and variety as Yazdir surpassed the towns of his Pit-fighting days. Never had he seen such a bewildering array of folk. It seemed to the Cimmerian that here was gathered a sampling of all the divers peoples of the earth.

Nor had he seen anything to equal the city’s broad boulevards, pillared temples, domed palaces and mansions, and lush, walled gardens. He marvelled that so many could dwell crowded together thus, without turning on one another to rend and slay, like savage beasts.

Not all sections of the city were so beautiful as the estates of the great lords and princes, with their marble columns and glimpses of parks and gardens. In the back streets he discovered crooked alleys swarming with hags and pimps, with painted children for sale to degenerates, with the poor and the ill. Here flesh was for sale, or at least for rent. Every pleasure, however decadent, could be had for money.

In these back streets lurked violence and sudden death, as well. Once, as Conan and Subotai strode through the crowd, a woman screamed. Men, cursing, scuttled away on furtive feet. In a trice, the two found themselves alone in the narrow way, with their hands on the hilts of their blades. At their feet, a man writhed as he clutched a wound in his belly from which a steady stream of blood trickled through his lingers.

“What...” began Conan uncertainly.

“Ask not,” whispered Subotai. “Let us be gone, before the Watch comes by.”

Conan shrugged as the Hyrkanian led him away by an obscure aperture between two buildings.

The narrow passageway opened into a broad, paved boulevard, lined with fashionable shops and stately trees. A procession occupied the centre of the avenue; and the two strangers lingered to watch its passing.

The procession was led by a group of girls and young women, some scarcely more than children, who danced and chanted to the rhythm of myriads of tambourines. All were draped in soiled white garments, and garlands of wilted flowers crowned heads of unbound hair. Behind them marched ranks of youths beating time on deep-voiced drums, or making discordant music with cymbals, lyres, and plaintive flutes.

The eyes of all were glazed, unaware of the scene about them, like dreamers walking in their sleep. Among them stalked robed men with shaven pates, bearing brazen pots in which incense smouldered, to fill the air with seductive sweetness.