Conan The Indomitable (16 page)

Conan was already moving. He leaped at the single cyclops holding Elashi and
repeated the strike that had worked so well before. This cyclops was faster,
but in order to protect his ability to sire children, he let go of Elashi to
block Conan’s foot. That was all the Cimmerian needed, and at the last moment
he pulled the kick and threw his weight instead into a shove. Big as the
cyclops was, he was too close to the edge of the dock to withstand Conan’s full
weight. The hapless cyclops teetered on the edge of the dock and then fell into
the water.

Elashi, meanwhile, went for the weapons. In the confusion following the
attack from above, the desert woman managed to collect the swords and Tull’s
knife. She tossed Conan his blade, and the brawny Cimmerian began whipping it
back and forth at the Cyclopes holding Tull. Said guards wanted no part of
Conan’s sword, and they hastily released their charge.

“Into the water!”
Conan yelled.

Tull and Elashi
obeyed,
the latter despite her
inability to swim.

Despite the noise and surprise, they stood little chance of escaping since
the wizard was beginning to recover his wits, and there was, after all, no
place for the three to go. Conan surfaced, towing Elashi with his sword held
over her chest, and paddled furiously for the nearest shore. He expected a bolt
of magical energy to sear him into ash at any moment, but he kept moving.

Chuntha saw her chance. Something had dropped from above, coming down almost
on top of the Wizard, and while he and his troops milled about in confusion,
the gorgeous man and the other two managed to free
themselves
and leap into the water. Good! She could give Rey something else to keep his
attention while the three attained the shore; she could then collect them
later.

The witch increased the speed of her worm raft and churned toward the
magical dock just ahead. She removed from her bags a cork-and-wax-stoppered
ceramic jar containing a fog spell. She smiled as she saw the wizard catch
sight of her.

“It’s the witch! I knew this was her doing!”

The wizard raised his hands to cast a spell, but Chuntha beat him to it. She
jerked the stopper from the jar and the fog boiled out explosively. She quickly
recorked the jar, but in an instant the area around both worm raft and dock was
enshrouded in thick, wet grayness, effectively rendering both wizard and witch
invisible to each other.

“Set curse you, bitch!”

“And you, you bastard!”

A magical lightning flashed as Rey tried to wipe away the fog, but Chuntha
countered with another blast of fog from the jar. Between those actions and the
forces needed to maintain the dock and her boat, the available magic in the
immediate area dropped rapidly. Nobody was going to be doing any heavy
spellwork for a while, not here.

Time to depart, Chuntha, she told herself. Go and find that big,
fine-looking man…

Scurrying along the shore of the waterway, the Harskeel saw the fog in the
distance. Now what?
it
wondered. Where
was that
cursed bat when it needed him? It quickened its
pace.

Conan swam to a shallow ledge upon which he could stand, Elashi in tow. He
set the woman upon her feet. Tull arrived a moment later. “What
happened?” he asked.

“I know not,” Conan replied, “nor do I care. Let us find a
path away from here.”

“Aye,” Elashi said.

From the fog-shrouded water just behind them came a voice: “A good idea
from a man who probably has less brain than a turnip.”

Conan spun about, his sword pointing into the fog. That voice… he knew it
from somewhere…

Elashi recognized it first.
“Lalo!”

Indeed. As he watched, Conan saw the cursed man they had met at the inn only
a few days past emerge from the fog and wade toward them. Had it only been a
few days? It seemed half a lifetime.

“What are you doing here?” Elashi asked.

“I thought I would drop in and surprise you,” Lalo said,
“although I am certain almost everything surprises your apelike companion
there. What is going on here?” He
grinned
his
perpetual grin, and even Conan had to return a smile.

“I shall explain and introduce you to Tull later,” Conan said.
“At the moment I think it best we leave before the fog clears.”

“Come, come, Conan, does the fog ever clear for you?”

Elashi laughed, and that surprised Conan not in the least. These two should
marry. She would be more than a match for the straw-haired fellow.

Deek and Wikkell
proceeded
in their silken boat,
but more cautiously than before, sculling slowly. They arrived in the vicinity
of the confrontation between their respective mistress and master, nay—make
that ex-mistress and ex-master—as the final wisps of magical fog began to clear
from the water. They were in time to see Chuntha leaving rapidly upon a raft
made of what looked like two dozen of Deek’s brothers and Rey directing his
moving dock toward the nearest shoreline.

“I wonder what happened here.”

Deek could not speak in the boat, but his curiosity was no less than
Wikkell’s. He waved his tail in agitation.

“I agree,” Wikkell said. “Best we not get too close. They
don’t see us, and I for one would prefer to keep it that way. Let us find a
cove or small bay and lay low.”

Wikkell turned the small boat. He glanced over his shoulder. “Not that
it matters any longer,” he said, “but I do not see the people we were
sent to fetch. I wonder if they have
escaped?
We might
still find them.”

Deek shook his head in negation.

“You’re right. We are committed now.
Although perhaps
we might induce those three to help us.
They seem very lucky, and it
would not hurt to have them on our side.”

If we happen to run into them, Deek thought.

“If we happen to run into them,” Wikkell said.

Odd, Deek thought. They were beginning to think a lot alike. This might well
be the start of a beautiful friendship—assuming they lived long enough to enjoy
it.

Tull’s immediate reaction upon attaining dry land was to flee back toward
the place where they had been captured. Conan was of a different mind.

“The wizard will expect that,” he said. “Better we should
proceed in the opposite direction.”

Lalo agreed. “Despite your appearance to the contrary, that is actually
very clever.”

Conan shook his head. Lalo’s curse could turn even a compliment into an
insult.

The four of them moved quickly along the fogged shore, hoping to be well
away before the cover evaporated.

Not five minutes later, another series of tunnels branched off to their
right. Tull turned to Conan. “What do you think?” he asked.

“You’re asking him?” Lalo said to Tull. “There must be more
than a bit of slack in your wits, old man.”

Tull reached for his knife.

“Wait,” Elashi said, catching Tull’s arm. “Lalo here is under
a geas.”

“He’ll be under the ground if he does not curb his tongue,” Tull
said.

“He cannot help insulting you—that is his curse.”

Tull considered this.
“Really?
What a strange
thing to inflict upon someone.”

“Not to interrupt this discussion,” Conan said, “but we are
apt to suffer much worse if we stand around and allow ourselves
te
be retaken by the wizard.”

“Aye,” Tull said.
“So which way?”

“That one,” Conan said, pointing at the nearest tunnel. He glanced
at Elashi to see if she planned to gainsay that, but for once the woman was
silent. She was watching Lalo.

Into the tunnel they fled. After twenty minutes the corridor bifurcated, and
they chose the right-hand fork and continued on. Shortly the narrow pipe
blossomed out into a wide, low-roofed chamber, the floor of which was littered
with large, pillow-shaped stones. The four sat upon one of these stones to
catch their breath.

“Perhaps one of you nit brains would be so good as to explain what is
going on here,” Lalo said.

Elashi looked at Conan. “I think he means you,” she said.

“You are so much better with words,” Conan told her. “You
tell him.”

“Very well.”
Elashi explained their
adventures of the last few days. Tull added background material about the caves
and the ongoing battle between the witch and the wizard. When they were done,
Elashi asked Lalo how he had come to be there.

“As it happened, I wore thin my welcome at the village inn. I insulted
the owner’s ugly daughter once too often and he showed me the door.
An old story.
So I decided to take the dangerous route,
feeling I had not much to lose. I saw evidence of your passage—the dead
watchbeast and the Harskeel’s men, looking somewhat worse for the local
scavengers having been at them. And I passed almost entirely through the area
without incident… until the ground opened beneath my feet and I fell into the
huge lake below. I thought certain my time had come to leave this world for the
next. Imagine my surprise when I saw the three of you standing on a dock
practically right in my path.”

“I can imagine,” Conan said. His voice was dry.

“Well, anyway, what has that tiny mind of yours come up with for a way
out of here?”

Curse or no curse, if Lalo kept talking that way, Conan doubted if he could
maintain his temper much longer. He smiled benignly, though, and said, “At
first we merely thought to find a way out, to escape.”

“At first?”
Elashi and Tull echoed in
unison.

“Aye.
After that last episode, our plans
changed somewhat.”

“They did?” Tull and Elashi said.

Conan continued. “Aye, they did. We now have in mind collecting some of
the valuables amassed by either the witch or the wizard or both, to pay for our
troubles here.
Then
we will leave.”

“Are you mad?” Elashi asked.

“Not at all.
You will recall Tull telling us
that both the witch and the wizard have assorted jewels and gold, collected in
their caves through centuries of robbing passersby.”

“Aye,” Elashi said. “So? You cannot expect to simply stroll
into the stronghold of a magician and steal such valuables.”

“And why not?
The witch and wizard are both
out here looking for us, are they not? Recall that worm raft we saw. Think
about it—where is the last place you would expect them to look?”

“He is mad,” Elashi said to Tull,

Lalo laughed.
“Perhaps, but there is nothing wrong
with his plan, despite the fact that it was hatched by him.
When the
farmer is in the field, the hens are ripe for the fox.”

“You have taken leave of your senses as well,” Elashi said.

Lalo nodded.
“Doubtless after years of smiling so.
As you might suspect, I have little love for wizards, and being compensated by
one pleases me greatly. With enough money, one may insult anyone and get away
with it. A rich man can buy companions who will withstand much for sufficient
payment. Or mayhap even find another mage who can lift the spell. With great
wealth comes great respect. I shall be happy to assist you, you barbarian
buffoon.”

Conan smiled. “Glad to have your help, Lalo.”

Elashi and Tull looked at each other.

“Maybe Conan does have something,” Tull said.

Elashi said, “Oh, he has something all right—half the wits of a
bedbug!”

“I am open to suggestions,” Conan said.

Despite herself, Elashi grinned. She shook her head. “All right, I take
your point. I have no better idea.
At the moment,
anyway.”

“Then we shall do it,” Conan said. “I think I can direct us
back to Tull’s hideaway. Can you lead us to the wizard or the witch’s chambers
from there, Tull?”

“Aye.”

“Then let us be on our way.”

Conan felt good about his plan. He figured that they owed the witch and the
wizard much for all the grief those two had caused them. What better blow to
strike than one that would provide financial benefit in the process? As Lalo
had said, sufficient money would make a soothing balm. A most soothing balm
indeed…

Though they had grown used to each other’s company, Wikkell and Deek decided
that it would be best to return to their own people as soon as possible. With
the witch and the wizard away from their chambers, the time would never be
better for the worm and the cyclops to approach their own kind with their plans
to depose the evil humans.

So when Chuntha and Katamay Rey went deeper into the far reaches of the
Sunless
Sea
searching for the three humans,
Deek and Wikkell turned their craft homeward.

They sculled the little boat along until both were hungry and tired, then
stopped to make a meal upon assorted fungi and to rest themselves.

“It will not be easy, you realize.”

“N-n-no.
O-our p-p-people w-w-will b-
be
a-afraid.”

Wikkell nodded and munched upon a brownish mushroom with a slimy cap.
“And rightly so.
Both the wizard and the witch are
powerful. Many of us may die. It will take some convincing. I fear my brothers
may feel I am merely trying to save my own hide.”

“T-t-true e-enough.”

“Certainly.
But in the long run, it will be
better for us without such tyrants as rulers.”

“I-in th-the l-long r-r-run, w-we a-are a-all
d-d-dead.”

“Yes, to be sure. But look at us, for instance. We get along well
enough,
though I confess I had misgivings early on.”

“A-as d-d-did I.”