Conan the Barbarian (10 page)

“Beggars cannot chose,” shrugged the Hyrkanian.

Unless you wish to sell your ancient sword. It, too, would catch a handsome price.”

“The sword, never!” exclaimed Conan. “It saved me from the wolves. It will serve me well in times to come. It is such a weapon as my father might have made.”

“Then we starve tomorrow.” The small man shrugged. "I am more used to that than you, Cimmerian.”

“If you hadn’t spent so much on that accursed Black Lotus stuff, we should still have the means for food and lodging!”

Subotai choked back an angry reply and finished his repast in silence. The two were fast becoming friends, and neither relished the thought of parting over such a quarrel.

At length, Conan rumbled, “Take me to a jewel seller who buys craft from distant places.”

Subotai, grinning behind a sheltering hand, led the Cimmerian to the thieves’ quarter, known as the Maul. As they passed the Tower of Set, the infamous Stygian serpent god, Conan stared at its majestic height.

“You know what’s in there, well guarded by the votaries?” asked Subotai with a sly look at his companion.

“No.”

“Jewels... riches without end. And the greatest jewel of all, called the Eye of the Serpent... it’s supposed to have powers beyond a man’s imagining.... And do you know what else is there?”

“No.”

“Snakes. It is the home of all those serpents you saw in the procession. Do you want to have a snake, like the worshippers of Set?”

“Enough. We have our work cut out for us,” snapped Conan. But his eyes, the eyes of a mountain-bred man, scaled off the edifice judging it as he would a rock wall in the homeland of Cimmeria. Yes, it might be breached... if one had the right equipment, courage, and a sturdy sword.

Subotai led his friend down several back alleys. Along one, a hag, bent and grizzled, beckoned to them with some strange religious artefact.

“A pittance, to protect you from evil,” she begged.

“I have need of that pittance as much as you, old woman,” said Subotai. “I am evil!” He laughed.

“May the milk of your mother turn sour!” she spat as she hobbled off.

As the two companions threaded their way through the street of the whores, filthy wenches sidled up to them.

“Here are the gates of heaven,” one wheedled, smiling at Conan as she lifted her garment to display a shapely thigh.

“Too bad we have no money for a fee,” said Subotai. “I fear they would not love us for ourselves.” Remembering the night in the demon-witch’s house, Conan looked at the Hyrkanian with faint disgust.

On the street of the animals, Conan’s feeling of disgust became abhorrence. All around them, they encountered beasts of every species, many from lands unknown to the Cimmerian. They grunted, snarled, barked, and bleated; and the ground was sodden with their excrement. Traders argued and whined over prices, so intently that they scarcely marked the passage of the strangers.

“Does it always smell like this?” Conan asked. “How does a cleansing wind come in to blow the stench away?” Subotai said nothing; for there was no answer to the hillman’s question.

Moments later, Conan glanced into the open door of a shabby shop. He glimpsed a bizarre ritual in progress, one he could not comprehend, save that it involved several naked boys and a pure white cow.

“Is there no end to the obscenities committed in the name of civilization?” he asked Subotai.

“Not in Shadizar, at least,” said the Hyrkanian with the unconcern born of long experience. Conan stared in silence at a deformed thing that scurried away before him. He felt the freak was a symbol of all the evil man had wrought when he built large habitations for humanity.

The Maul was the lurking place of rapists, murderers, and perverts. Here, too, congregated thieves and those who sold the goods they stole to merchants who were less squeamish than their fellows.

The companions found the stall of a merchant of gems -an ill-kept place, which could quickly be abandoned if the constabulary should come seeking the proprietor. Conan slipped the jewel-set sigil from his burly neck and handed it to the man, an elderly Shemite, judging by his turban and grey, curling beard. The sharp-eyed fellow appraised the seller—or so it seemed—far more closely than the object to be sold.

“This is old, very old,” he muttered, after examining the pendant with cursory interest. “It comes from some exotic land, eastward a thousand leagues or more. It shows the wear of centuries.”

“What mean the symbols carved between the rubies that encrust the strange design?” asked Conan. “They speak of magic—or so it seems to me.”

The Shemite shot a searching glance at the young Cimmerian. Although avarice gleamed in his beady eyes, his answer came with studied indifference.

“The thing is ancient and much worn. Not too much value there,” he said. “As for magic, who knows which things have magic, unless such properties can be shown? I’ll give you two crowns five, and that’s a generous offer.” He turned his back and started to dust a shelf of merchandise.

“Done,” said Conan quickly, ignoring the light tug on his sleeve.

The man swung back and dropped the small gold pieces into Conan’s outstretched palm. As the friends walked away, Subotai exploded.

“Fool! Ninny! Any idiot knows you never take the first offer. I could have got you twice or thrice the price with a little haggling.”

Conan scowled at his companion. “Why didn’t you say so at the time?”

“You did not say what you proposed to do, and one does not jostle the archer’s arm when he has drawn the shaft.”

The turbulence of Conan’s anger quickly faded to a sigh. He said, “I fear me you have the right of it. I have never learned the customs of the marketplace. The next time we must chaffer, I’ll give the task to you.”

“Admission of ignorance,” said the Hyrkanian, “is the beginning of wisdom, as some Khitanian philosopher liked to say. Don’t look so downcast; we have enough for a fortnight’s worth of food. Before that, something will turn up, I’m sure.”

Conan grunted. “And if it does not, what shall we do then? I must find the bearer of that emblem and him who slew my parents—my Cimmerian honour demands it!”

“To the Nine Hells with your snaky emblem and your Cimmerian vengeance!” Subotai nodded toward the dark tower, which, silent and forbidding, could be seen from every street and alley. “I think I have a plan to make us rich as lords....”

“You have more plans than an ass has feet,” growled Conan. “What is this plan of yours?”

“If this is indeed the Tower of the Black Serpent, as our informant named it, then I have heard of it betimes... in a professional way, you understand, from my brother

thieves.”

“Heard what?”

“That it contains fabulous riches,” whispered Subotai, licking dry lips. “Thither comes the tribute of the believers from every Set cult in the kingdom—gold, drugs, jewels, wine, and women! But in particular come jewels. The Set worshippers prize polished precious stones, deep and unwinking like the eyes of the serpents they adore.”

Conan grunted. He had never in his life stolen anything more than a piece of fruit from the tree of a Cimmerian neighbour, unless one counted the looting of the dead Hyrkanian and the vanished witch’s cave. And until he had met Subotai, he had despised all thieves. Cimmerian villagers did not steal from one another, although they freely raided the lands of clans with whom they were at feud.

Now, in a city, with his money low and his chances of employment poor until he could better master the language of Zamora, he knew he must find some means of satisfying his leonine appetite. Seeing his hesitation, Subotai continued.

“They say the tower harbours the greatest jewel of all. The ‘Eye of the Serpent,’ ’tis called—a gem of such rarity that we could buy a dukedom with it. It’s said to have mystic powers, too; but I heed not such rumours. Its value in hard money is enough.”

Conan continued sceptical. “Such a treasure, without doubt, is guarded well.”

“Aye,” Subotai nodded wisely, “but not by men! ’Tis said by serpents, which roam freely about the tower and its winding ways, as dogs do wander about the yurts of my people.”

“So?” said Conan.

Subotai spread greasy palms. “You look for snakes; I look for treasure. Mayhap we could find them both in yonder spire....”

In the end it was agreed to break into the tower, although the Cimmerian little liked the idea. The next day, hunched over a frugal dinner, they outlined a plan, their conspiratorial whispers masked by the crackling of a hot fire on a stone hearth. Recklessly, they decided to embark on the venture that very night, since the overcast skies would shroud the full moon, making it a perfect occasion for a burglary.

Gloom wrapped the two in a velvet cloak of darkness as they crept along the shoulder of a craggy rise from whose crest the dark tower soared into the clouded heavens. A wall, hung with leafy vines, as with some ancient tapestry, guarded the base of the knoll. No rope ladder could have provided them with easier access to the temple precincts than those sturdy, interwoven vines. Subotai scuttled over the wall first, being the lighter of the two; and once over, he signalled his success with a low bird-call. The young Cimmerian made his ascent.

Concealed behind a blanket of low shrubs, the thieves studied the slope between them and the tower’s base. Gnarled trees raised threatening branches, as if to warn them off. Sharp-toothed rocks thrust up their pointed fangs through the infertile soil. The tower, black against the shrouded skies, soared upward, a cylinder of sleek, dark stone tapering to a lofty peak. And between the tower and the sheltering shrubs, a reflecting pool stretched its gaping mouth in a soundless shriek. The intruders were about to leave their hiding place and approach the tower when a twig snapped underfoot and a shape materialized from the deeper shadows of the curved tower wall.

Just then an icicle of silver moonlight speared through a rift in the cloudy vapours, to reveal the form of the newcomer. It was a woman, young and beautiful. Moon fire cascaded over her slender shoulders, and played on one bare, muscular thigh and the long, slender leg of a dancer or acrobat. Conan held his breath, for the woman was superbly desirable from what he could see of her.

Over tight undergarments of black silk, she wore an abbreviated suit of black leather, which left her arms and legs bare; and in that momentary shaft of white moonlight, Conan saw that the woman’s limbs were sun-bronzed and endowed with steely strength. Her buskins were tight-laced about her feet, and the blonde hair, rippling about her leather-clad shoulders, was bound out of her way by rings of ebony. A band of metal, sombre in hue, protected her brow; while slung from her girdle were a knotted length of silken cord and a three-pronged grappling hook. A curved knife, almost as long as a sabre, was strapped in its sheath against her thigh.

Conan shifted his weight, and a dry leaf rustled beneath him. The woman darted a glance in his direction, and the curved blade hissed from its sheath to point at Conan’s chest, as if the woman’s eyes could penetrate the darkness like the eyes of a cat. Since further concealment was useless, Conan slowly rose to his feet, keeping both hands in plain sight. The balance and shaping of the sword, he saw, made it as useful for throwing as for thrusting.

Conan and the woman looked at each other for a wordless moment, as the shaft of light diminished and died. “You are no guard,” murmured Conan.

“No more are you,” the girl retorted. “And who is that beside you who tries to make no sound but breathes as heavily as a fat man?”

“Another thief,” replied Subotai, rising to his feet. “I fear it is one whose skills are a little rusty.”

“And who and whence are you?” The girl addressed Conan coolly.

“I am Conan, a Cimmerian, a man-slayer by profession, a thief from necessity. This is Subotai, the Hyrkanian...”

“A thief both by choice and profession,” said his comrade with a touch of pride. “We come to plunder the snake-lovers of their riches.”

The girl smiled broadly, her white teeth visible despite the shadows. “You are two fools who laugh at certain death! You do not even have a rope and tackle. How, then, do you plan to ascend the tower—fly on the back of a dragon? There are no windows on the lower floors.”

“I have my means,” said Subotai, “though my friend is less prepared. And who, good wench, are you?”

“I am Valeria,” she answered shortly.

Subotai gasped. “Not the Valeria?”

As the girl nodded, Conan shot a puzzled glance at his companion.

“This is a famous lady, Conan. A very queen of thieves, they say. But tell me, lady, where is your band of brigands? You could not mean to dare the serpent’s tower alone.”

The girl shrugged. “They’re fools and cowards all! Some scared of snakebite; others afraid of the demon Set; all dreading the man called Doom.”

Conan started at the mention of that name; and sharp-eyed Valeria noticed the tensing of his massive frame.

“You do not fear that name, Cimmerian. But it means something to you, 1 do think. Those in the tower worship strange gods; are you among them?”

“They are not my gods, girl,” growled Conan.

She shrugged and turned her attention to the tower. “Horrors lurk behind those dark walls,” she murmured.

“And wealth as well,” said Subotai.

Valeria smiled. “Then you shall go first, little man.”

In the end it was Conan who first climbed the Tower of the Black Serpent. It took three throws of the grapnel to lodge it securely in the masonry at the tower’s upper rim. Conan tried the slender silken rope and found that it held his weight. Subotai ignored these preparations; he was occupied hooking talon-like steel spikes to his footwear and binding a pair of bronzen hooks about his wrists and lower arms. Then he sank the blades into the mortar between the smooth stones and grinned.

“I do not trust myself to ropes,” he said. “I will climb my own way.”

“Suit yourself,” said Conan with a shrug.

“Less talk,” snapped Valeria. “The wealth of half the world is at our fingertips, and you waste time in useless chatter.”

With a grunt, Conan began the ascent. Valeria clambered after him, her slender body moving up the wall with effortless agility. Laughing, she looked over her shoulder at the labouring Hyrkanian and asked, “Do you want to live forever?”