Conan the Barbarian (15 page)

“How fortunate, then, that we shall be friends,” said Conan. He tossed a silver coin to the wizard, who caught it with notable agility. “That should pay for a few days’ board at this, your inn.”

At sunset, Conan, having doffed his helm and mail, sat before the fire, gnawing on a piece of smoked meat and unleavened bread. The hermit bustled about, offering his guest a gourd of sour ale and gabbing as if had had no converse in years.

“These burial mounds have been here since the days of the Titans, stranger,” the old man said. “Great kings sleep here, kings whose realms once glittered like lightning on a windy sea. And curses lie beneath those piles of earth; that is why I dwell below their summit.”

“Are you the caretaker of this graveyard, then?” inquired Conan.

The wizard laughed. “Nay, but I sing to those who lie here, to lull their slumbers... tales of old, of battles fought and heroes made, of riches and of women.”

“How do you live, good wizard?”

“The neighbouring country folk bring me flesh and bread; and 1 cast spells and tell fortunes for them. I raise a few tubers and greens, besides. No one molests me; they know my powers and position.”

Conan dipped his shaggy head towards the Mountain of Power. “What about them?”

“The serpent-besotted fools? They know me well. But, thinking me mad, they do not bother me. Each spring the man named Doom comes hither to make sacrifice to the ghosts of my sleeping kings. You’ve seen them....” He gestured towards the skeletal remains of men astride their horses. Conan, unsure whether the bones were those of ancient kings or of Doom’s followers, ate in silence for a space.

“Do any wild flowers bloom hereabouts?” he asked. The old man’s jaw hung slack. “Flowers? What on earth..." Then, recovering his composure, he said, “Yes, 1 suppose you can gather a few. A month ago the plain was carpeted with them. What do you want with flowers?”

“You’ll see,” said Conan.

The next morning Conan arose, shaved off his recent growth of beard, and brought out from his bag of gear the white robe of a pilgrim. Thus clad, he spent an hour prowling the outskirts of the ruined city, plucking the sturdiest flowers he could find. When, after breaking his fast, the barbarian began to weave the blossoms into a wreath, the wizard eyed him with distaste.

Unperturbed, Conan asked the ancient one: “What know you of this Thulsa Doom? Rest assured, I am not one of his.”

Relief flooded the oldster’s face, and he grinned a toothless grin. “Well, you don’t look much like a pilgrim. If you mean to enter the mountain thus disguised, beware. Doom’s people are deceivers, fierce and treacherous. Besides, you cannot wear that sword; even beneath your robe, they’d instantly perceive its presence.”

“Well then, I must needs do without.” Conan reached under his robe, unbuckled the baldric, and handed the scabbarded blade to the wizard, saying: “Keep it oiled, and find forage for my horse. I’ll reward you well when I return... if I return.”

Adjusting his wreath of drooping field flowers, Conan strode away toward the mountain. The wizard, muttering protective cantrips, watched him go.

The road grew steep as it zigzagged up the side of the Mountain of Power. Conan, walking briskly, joined a straggling line of youths and maidens. Their features were haggard, their faces dusty, and their eyes vacant. So vast was the difference between the robust barbarian in his fresh garment and the weary, travel-stained band that Conan feared nothing could save him from discovery.

Along the winding way, girls in fresh robes called encouragement, chanting and waving the pilgrims onward. At the first bend in the road, Conan saw a small temple of white marble, which gleamed against the brooding obsidian on which it rested. This white shrine, the least of the Shrines of Doom, bore on its outer walls a frieze of writhing shapes, obscene and serpentine; beneath its swelling cupola all seekers must pass for cleansing and renewal.

At the arched entrance to the shrine, a woman stopped Conan to hand him a fresh garland, for the chaplet he had woven some hours before was already wilted. Bowing his head to receive the wreath, he prepared to move on; but the girl with upraised hand detained him. Panic seized him until he realized this was a ritual greeting.

“You must give up all that you hold, tall pilgrim,” murmured the girl in a sing-song monotone. “You must see yourself in clear water, as you have never seen yourself before.”

Copying the reply of the pilgrim who preceded him, Conan intoned, “I wish to be cleansed.”

As the girl smiled vaguely at him, Conan became aware that she did not really see him, and he guessed that she was dragged. Unaware of his agitation, the girl hastened through the prescribed words, devoid as they were of warmth and meaning: “You are safe now from the perils of the road. We are all safe here in the shadow of the mountain. Fear no more; for this is the road to paradise!”

Conan mumbled an unintelligible reply and hastened toward. At the next turning of the road, he passed through it narrow cleft between two slabs of rock, and found himself in a natural amphitheatre, a bowl-shaped area shielded from the wind. Tents and rude pavilions littered the rocky ground. On either side stood burly guards, proud and imposing in their armour of lacquered black leather; beyond them he saw, or thought he saw, black-robed priests from the Temple of the Serpent.

Instinctively, the Cimmerian drew back, then hastily assumed a vacant-eyed, slack-jawed expression. Attracted by his failure to move forward, a priestess hurried over. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

Conan gestured toward the faceless guards. “Who are they?”

“They are our friends. They are here to protect us.”

“To protect us? Protect us from what?”

The priestess answered soothingly, as to a frightened child; “Very often from ourselves. Seldom do we know what is good for us; always are we beset with doubts and fears. We are so blind that rarely can we discern the path of truth. Only the Master can set our feet upon the path to paradise.”

Gently taking his hand, she drew Conan to the rear of the procession of which he had been a part, and there she left him. Swept along with the rest, he found himself in a crowd of boys and youths, who were being herded into a long line by several priests and ordered to strip off their travel-stained garments. On the far side of the amphitheatre, a line of women were vanishing from view.

The wily barbarian stood for a moment, undecided, among the bewildered throng. If he doffed his robe, the long dirk at his belt would instantly expose his imposture. As the line moved forward, he slipped between two tents and ran into a slender, robed and hooded priest.

“Whither go you, brother?” asked the man mildly.

“I... I know not,” stammered the Cimmerian. “I fear...”

“You fear to bare yourself, eh lad! My boy, you should be proud of that splendid body.” The priest reached out to touch him, but Conan fended off his hand. Undeterred, the priest continued, “How can you expect to reach the ultimate emptiness, my son, unless you have full knowledge of your body?”

Conan spied a cleft in the rocks well-shielded from public view.

“Can we not talk alone... where the others cannot see?” Conan motioned to the alcove. With a thin and knowing smile, the robed man bent his footsteps thither, saying, “We priests know much about the bodies and souls of men; you need feel no shame....”

Once within the alcove, Conan turned. “Tell me,” he asked with feigned innocence, “is the robe your only garment?”

“Aye, my son. It is all...”

“Good,” grunted the barbarian and drove an elbow into the priest’s ribs. As the bones cracked, only a strangled wheeze issued forth. Then a Pit fighter’s hammer blow broke the man’s neck.

A tall man in a hooded robe moved briskly through the line of naked pilgrims and headed for the temple. A priest, descending from the sanctuary, met his eyes and made a cryptic sign with his fingers. Conan clumsily mimicked the wordless greeting and, noting the look of puzzlement on the other’s face, quickly moved on.

A pair of priests went by, deep in a fiery argument. Conan saw that on each breast hung a medallion like that which he had taken from the altar in the Serpent’s Tower. Tumbling inside his unfamiliar robe, he brought forth his sigil and, despite its clumsy thong, placed it in view. The temple guards, rough, half-witted fellows with beetling brows, looked sharply at the false priest; then, seeing the medallion with its twin serpents, drew themselves to attention and let him pass. Thus Conan entered into the Mountain of Power.

X

The Mountain

Conan progressed along a passageway among other figures, little noticed, who drifted, mist-like, in the same direction. In time, the barbarian emerged into a courtyard of incredible beauty. Here were gardens bright with rainbow-tinted flowers, interlaced with strange, exotic trees. A fountain threw its crystal waters into a quiet pool, which was surrounded by marble benches.

Beyond the pool, he saw a ceremonial staircase, whose impressive risers led upward toward the portal of 3 temple. This doorway, splendidly embellished with marble carvings, led to a cavernous interior, hewn, Conan thought, from the living rock. In this vast sanctuary, the Cimmerian saw a semicircle of marble benches, row on row, backed by a walkway that was curtained, as it were, by a row of pointed columns, like obelisks.

Before the benches rose a dais, reached by a lesser flight of steps. Over the whole chamber a stained-glass dome filtered, from an unknown source of light, a radiance that rivalled that of the orb of heaven.

Beautiful women, clad in diaphanous veils, clustered about the steps of the dais, as reverent pilgrims sought seats among the welcoming benches. Conan, moving softly, joined the waiting throng; and reassured of his safety, he studied the subservient youths and maidens at his side. Their robes of fine fabrics and the brave ribbons on their brows marked them as beings above the common lot gathered outside the rock-hewn opulence he now enjoyed.

Presently, graceful young women brought trays of lighted candles and handed one to every votary. As the dome light dimmed, the slender tapers winked like stars in I he nighted sky and, shining into the young faces of the worshippers, gave them the visages of gods.

Absorbed in this pageantry, Conan was unaware that two of the apelike sentinels followed him into the temple within the Mountain of Power. Now, in the deep shadows behind him, they held converse in sign language with the lowering black priest, Yaro of Shadizar. Hither had come Yaro with his retinue to report the loss of the temple talisman, so that word of the theft could be trumpeted among the faithful in all the lands wherein the cult of the serpent god held sway. Here, too, Yaro hoped to discover the whereabouts of the purloiner and to prepare to apprehend him.

Summoned to the temple by the simian guards, the black giant studied the Cimmerian with narrow, thoughtful eyes. He had caught but a glimpse of the thief who had stolen the Eye of the Serpent, as Conan and Subotai scrambled up the narrow ladder to the top of the tower; but the burly shoulders, the swelling thews, the mane of coarse black hair hacked off at shoulder length were unmistakable.

The black priest turned to mutter a comment to another figure curtained by the darkness. As he moved forward, he proved to be a man of gigantic stature, wearing armour of blue steel backed by black leather; and on his breast-piece, in high relief, wriggled two serpents, intertwined.

Rexor, for it was he, had aged in the years since he had led the slave raid on the village of Conan’s childhood and curried off the youth to toil long years at the Wheel. Yet the passage of time had somehow enhanced his presence and vitality. Strong beyond belief were the corded muscles that crawled down his naked arms, his massive thighs, his thickset neck. Free of the confining helmet, the brutality of the features appeared to-have been refined by the passing years. Colder than ever were his eyes and deeper the lines of cruelty about his thin-lipped mouth. The iron grey that streaked the hair about his temples bespoke a man of steel.

His chill eyes took the measure of the Cimmerian seated before him. He did not remember the child snatched from his mother’s side after her murder, but that did not matter. Any intruder in the Temple of the Serpent was a foe-man; any uninitiated onlooker who observed the secret rites was an impious and blasphemous infidel. And the penalty was death, slow and painful death.

Conan’s attention now was riveted on a procession of priests, who marched with cadenced stride toward the dais. Their deep-throated chanting swelled in volume as two lines of naked girls, their bosoms draped with coiled serpents, danced down the aisles to the blare of brasses and the clash of cymbals. Behind them a group of Stygian priests bore aromatic torches, which filled the air with undulating smoke and a sweet, pungent odour. Behind them all came the catlike figure of the man called Doom.

With eyes narrowed to smouldering slits, Conan stared at his arch-enemy. Ignoring the magnificent fur-trimmed robes, which swept behind Doom as he walked, the barbarian youth focused on the evil face. The years had not lessened the sensual allure of his hooded eyes and lean, ascetic features, nor had time withered the seductive smile with which he greeted his worshippers and the ecstatic handmaidens who showered rose petals at his feet.

To Doom’s left and a single step behind him, Conan saw a young woman of breath-taking loveliness. Clad in a gossamer gown that accented her voluptuous form and golden flesh, she walked demurely, but the slumberous gaze with which she caressed her master was shot through with hidden fire. Conan grunted as he recognized the princess he had glimpsed in the veiled palanquin on a street in Shadizar —Yasimina, the missing daughter of King Osric.

While Yasimina knelt in humble adoration, Doom stepped forward, raised his arms majestically, then abruptly turned his palms down. The chanting ceased upon the instant of the gesture. On the sepulchral silence that ensued, his resonant voice rose and fell, like the tolling of a bell.

“Who amongst you fears the warm embrace of death? When I, your father, ask it, will you take life for me? Will you strike true to the infidel heart, whether it be the heart of friend, or lover, or loved one in your former life?”