Conan the Barbarian (9 page)

Conan wrinkled his nose at the sickly-sweet perfume of the vapours. The bizarre music was repugnant to him, and the strange behaviour of the marchers alerted his keen barbarian senses to the presence of a nameless evil.

The dissonant music swelled as a band of naked youths came into view. Each had a serpent wound around his neck or shoulders or looped in thick coils about his arms. Each marched in total isolation from his fellows, as if he trod the soil of a separate world. Sunlight glinted on the polished scales of the reptiles, solid grey, or brown, or black, or, in some cases, splashed with mottled blotches or patterned in bright rings or diamonds.

“Are those things venomous?” Conan asked his companion.

“Some are. That brown one yonder is, if I mistake it not, a deadly cobra from Vendhya. And those big fellows, thicker than your arm, come from tropical jungles, many moons’ journey to the south. They bear no poison; but if frightened or annoyed, they can loop a coil around a strong man’s neck and strangle him to death.”

“Ugh!” muttered Conan. The snakes revolted him, reminding him obscurely of the destruction of his Cimmerian home. Frowning, he turned to speak to Subotai but found him absorbed in staring at a young girl in the next group of marchers. The maiden, Conan saw, was a fragile beauty, despite her limp and dirty hair, her crown of withered flowers, and wide eyes lost in dreams. The flimsy shift she wore was tom and, with every step, exposed her naked thigh.

Eyeing the maiden hungrily, the thief shook his head. “Such a waste! A body like that should warm a warrior’s bed o’ nights, instead of being the plaything of priests and slithering serpents.”

“What do you mean?” said Conan.

Subotai glanced at his large companion and saw that he did not jest. “Why, that wench, like all the rest, has given herself to the cult of Set, the Serpent. I hate all snakes and most priests, but above all I despise the worshippers of Set.”

“A serpent god!” said Conan. “Would this have aught to do with the symbol that I seek?”

Subotai spread his upturned palms. Just then a shower of petals pelted the pair, and a laughing band of girls accosted them. These, bright-eyed and smiling, seemed less entranced than the maidens who were part of the procession.

“Come with us!” crooned one to Subotai.

“Not I, lass,” said the Hyrkanian, a trifle wistfully. “I care not for snakes or the snake god.”

“There is love in the arms of the serpent god such as men have never known,” she murmured, swaying languorously. “Love that men can share....”

Subotai snorted. “Since when have serpents had arms?”

As the girl walked off to try her blandishments on a more responsive onlooker, another girl glided up to Conan and tapped on his arm.

“Paradise awaits you, warrior,” she whispered. “You need but follow me...

“Follow you whither?” growled Conan, sorely tempted to comply.

A merchant, standing at the doorway of his shop, stepped forward. “Stranger, beware,” he said in a low tone to the Cimmerian. “The servants of Set are deceivers. They worship Death.”

“Do they indeed?” Conan was shocked. To him, Death was ever the enemy.

The merchant nodded. “They would murder their own parents, thinking to confer a boon by relieving them of the burden of life.”

Conan nodded curt thanks and watched the girl melt into the crowd.

A shadow passed between the sun and the young Cimmerian. Conan looked up to see a sumptuous palanquin borne on the shoulders of eight young women. Draped in embroidered silk of regal purple tied back with ropes of gold, the chair itself was a thing of opulence; but it was not for this marvel that Conan’s eyes widened in astonishment and he drew in a sudden breath. For riding in the princely litter sat a creature of such beauty as he had never imagined.

As the risen sun makes pale the lingering moon, so this woman outshone all women he had ever seen and turned them to inconsequential ghosts.

A cascade of sable hair fell to her waist; sapphire eyes sparkled in the sculptured oval of her face; her full lips were as moist as morning dew. Her figure, lithe and strong, was clad in the gold-encrusted garment of a priestess; and when she moved to acknowledge the cheering throng, her robe parted to reveal a pale, exquisite thigh.

Reading the look in Conan’s awe-struck eyes, Subotai hissed, “Don’t stare like that! She is a royal princess.”

As if ensorcelled, the barbarian remained transfixed. It was as if he had not heard the warning. And at that moment, the priestess’s gaze fell upon Conan. A light flashed in her gem-bright eyes, and her lips parted for a sudden breath. With an upraised hand, she stayed the swaying progress of her litter.

“You, warrior!” called the princess in a soft, husky voice whose reverberations stirred the Cimmerian’s blood.

“Yes, my lady?”

The woman’s voice enveloped the youth as a breaking wave constrains a swimmer in the surging sea. “Throw away your sword and come with us. Eschew the red trail of war. Return to the simple life—to the eternal cycle of the seasons.

“A cleansing time already waits at the edge of the world, a time of renewal after the downfall of all things old and decadent. Join us and you shall be renewed as are the serpents of the grass, who shed their outgrown skins and live again, young and swift, agile and beautiful.”

Conan shook his tousled head to clear it of the eddying incense, the better to grasp the meaning of the cryptic words uttered so fervently. But the woman read his gesture as a refusal; for when he looked up again, she had drawn the curtains of her palanquin, and was being borne away by her handmaidens.

Conan stared bemused. Never had any woman seemed so desirable. When Subotai plucked at his sleeve, Conan shook him off and started to follow the vanishing litter. Alarmed, the small man scampered after him.

Presently, the avenue opened out into a large, tree-lined square where the caravans gathered. Here was a miniature city, a teeming town of camel’s hair tents and gaily-coloured yurts of beaten felt. Lines of asses, mules, and camels were tethered in the centre of the square, amid the abodes of their owners; while all around the edges rose the protective walls of the caravanserais, wherein weary travellers could seek food and rest.

Beyond this busy crossroads gathering place, Conan saw a slender dark tower piercing the tenuous fabric of the sky. Despite the brilliance of the day, the tower seemed draped in shadows. Toward this grim pinnacle, Conan saw the procession wend its way; shouldering passers-by aside, he sought to overtake the litter and its beautiful occupant.

The distance had dwindled to a few short strides, when Conan froze in his tracks. As those in the lead of the procession prepared to enter the gaping doorway to the tower, a chant arose and floated back above the noises of the street.

“Doom... Doom... Doom...”

Confusion, fear, and a surge of anger contorted the face of the young Cimmerian as that ominous chant awoke images long dormant in his memory. So bitter were the feelings welling up in his heart that he scarcely saw the final groups of marchers, who passed an arm’s length from him. These were young men, scarcely more than boys, who staggered along, faces blank and drained of colour, lashing their naked flesh. The whips with which they beat their backs and shoulders were made of the hides of serpents and barbed with snakes’ fangs, cleverly inserted, so that with each stroke the flagellants’ flesh was beaded with their blood. Seemingly unaware of pain, they chanted as they went. “Doom... Doom... Thulsa Doom... Thulsa Doom...

Conan watched grimly until the last of the procession entered into the forbidding tower. “In Shadizar, in Zamora,” the witch had said, “you will find that which you seek.” And already he had found the fanatic worshippers of a man or god or devil who bore the name of Doom.

“Fools!” snapped Subotai, spitting on the pavement. “Fools and madmen, snake-lovers, death-worshippers! Everywhere in these lands they rear those dark towers, the citadels of Set. Always it is the same: they lure the young and innocent into their toils—innocents who forsake husbands, sweethearts, and family to make love with serpents and mad priests, in orgies of foulness.”

“Who was the woman you called a royal princess?” demanded Conan. “Isn’t she a priestess of the snake cult?” He remembered with a mingling of loathing and desire the serpents, embroidered in gold and silver thread, that writhed across her robe.

“That woman, as you call her,” said Subotai, “is the Princess Yasimina, daughter of King Osric and heir to the Ruby Throne. You must have seen the royal sigil on her pendant—you were staring openly enough!”

“What would a king’s daughter be doing amongst those snake-besotted votaries?”

Subotai grimaced. “She’s one of them, a high priestess of Set. Long ago the priests entrapped her with their lies and drugs. They are deceivers, all, as the merchant told. ’Tis whispered that they fall in with strangers on the road to strangle them as they sleep or to stab them in the dark—all for the honour of their slithering god. Death lurks behind those dreamy eyes, barbarian.”

“Does King Osric foster this strange religion? Is he also one of them?”

“Nay. He much bemoans the fate of his only child.” “Then, if the snake-worshippers displease him, why doesn’t he send soldiers out to round them up and slay them?”

“The priests are powerful men,” explained the Hyrkanian. “Osric dares not move against them openly, for many in Zamora deem him a foreigner and no proper king. His sire was a Corinthian adventurer who rose to generalship in the Zamorian army and seized the throne to which the son clings by a fingernail. But why this sudden interest in the fading fortunes of a weakling? His fate means nothing to the likes of us.”

“These are strange lands,” mumbled Conan, “and those who dwell here are stranger still.”

VI

The Thief

The two adventurers explored the winding ways of Shadizar, for want of other entertainment. They strolled through broad streets and mean alleys at random, drinking in the sights and sounds and smells so new to the barbarian. And as they went, Conan pondered his quest. He assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the witch in the hillside house had directed him here for some reason. So far, beyond the chanting of the word “Doom,” he had found nothing to remind him of the Vanir raiders or their leader’s sinister standard—nothing save a cult of snake-worshippers devoted to an evil god. The serpentine element in both might be a mere coincidence.

The sun, like an orange-red ball, dropped behind the jagged roofs of tall buildings and the sharp point of the lowering tower. Lights came on in the tents in the big square. Dogs slunk through the shadows, seeking garbage; furtive faces with predatory eyes leered from dark doorways on latticed windows; and, as the traffic dwindled, bonfires blazed in the streets where beggars converged for warmth and companionship.

Finding a food stall, the sightseers squandered on a good meal some of the silver filched from the dead soldier. Conan munched a slab of roast pig, while his companion questioned the proprietor.

“I am a Kerlait,” the Hyrkanian said conversationally. “The ensign of my clan has always been nine yak tails and a horse’s skull. Have you chanced to see a standard such as that?”

The shopkeeper, looking bored, claimed ignorance, but mentioned that he had heard travellers speak of such a thing.

“Standards are a matter of interest to me,” confided Subotai genially. “Perhaps I should have been a herald!” After a pause, he added with a disarming grin, “I came on one you may have seen—two black snakes face to face, upholding a black sun with their knotted tails...”

Subotai’s voice trailed off on a questioning note. The food-vendor yawned indifferently.

“I seldom notice such things; they do not intrigue me. The only snakes hereabouts are those of Set, worshipped in accursed towers like that one yonder.”

Conan asked sharply, “Are there other towers, then?” The vendor nodded. “There are many throughout Zamora. At least one in every town or city, so I’ve heard. All recent masonry, you will understand, stranger; for only in the past few years has the Set cult spread so wide.” “Oh,” said Conan. His interest spurred the shopkeeper to vouchsafe a further confidence.

“Not long ago, the Set cult was but a little band; now they are everywhere.”

“Is it so?” marvelled Subotai, with a knowing wink at the young Cimmerian by his side.

“Aye! But yonder spire is the mother of them all. ‘The Tower of the Black Serpent’ they call it, and so it is known near and far....”

A glint of amusement flared in the Hyrkanian’s eyes. He opened his mouth to ask another question; but Conan forestalled him.

“The marchers this afternoon were chanting a name, something like ‘Doom.’ Know you if this is the name of a man?”

The vendor shrugged. “I leave them alone, so they will leave me alone. I know nothing about their order. Some say they are murderers, loving death more than life, and the embraces of their venomous serpents more than the embrace of human arms. But I say naught against them.... Look you, young sirs, something I had from an Easterling merchant only this morn.”

He displayed a silk pouch filled with withered petals of an ebon hue. “Black Lotus, from Khitai,” he whispered. “The very best!”

Subotai licked his lips. Silver changed hands; and, when they strolled away, the small man clutched the pouch. He slipped one of the petals under his tongue, and offered one to Conan. The Cimmerian shook his head.

In the following days, Conan tried to find work as a guard or a soldier, but those to whom he applied dismissed his stumbling requests, put off by his few broken words of Zamorian. At length, after buying another meal for the two of them, Conan told Subotai, “There goes the last of our money. We have paid our lodging for tonight, but what shall we do for tomorrow?”

Sitting at the table in the cook shop that had taken the last of their coppers, Subotai pondered. “You could sell that pendant hanging about your neck. It is a strange device, and well crafted.”

“I found this in the witch’s hut,” objected the barbarian, “and I doubt not that it serves to ward off evil. Besides, it is a rich man’s toy; it will be thought I stole it.”