Conan The Indomitable (3 page)

Bent Nose shifted the point of his sword in Conan’s direction. “I care
less than mouse turd for how your day has gone. This fool insulted me and he
shall pay for it!”

Conan, whose sword remained sheathed, spared a glance at Elashi, then at
Lalo. “Perhaps,” he told Lalo, “if you apologized to Bent Nose
here, this matter could be resolved peacefully.”

“Bent Nose?
Who are you calling Bent
Nose?”

Conan said, “Have you never used a looking glass?”

“I suspect the last one he gazed upon shattered when forced to reflect
such a heinous image,” Lalo observed.

“You help matters not at all,” Conan told the grinning man.

“Yaahh!”
With that exclamation, Bent Nose
charged, sword uplifted to split Lalo like a stick of kindling.

Conan had plenty of time to draw his own weapon and block the attack, but as
he pulled his sword free of the sheath, One Ear stood and threw his wine bottle
at Conan’s head.

While the Cimmerian’s reflexes were fast, even he could not slap the bottle
from the air with the flat of his sword and then have sufficient time to block
Bent Nose’s strike at Lalo. As the glass bottle shattered against Conan’s
sword, Bent Nose’s blade came down upon the hapless Lalo…

No! He missed! Lalo danced to one side, and the sword that would have
cleaved him hit a thick table top instead, burying the blade to half its width
in the wood. Bent Nose jerked on the handle, but the sword was stuck fast.

What Lalo did then was quite amazing. He danced back toward Bent Nose,
grabbed his wrist and underwent some kind of contortion, twisting and turning
as he dropped to his knees on the floor. Bent Nose screamed and flew over
Lalo’s head to dive face first into the nearest wall.

Conan had no more time to marvel over this maneuver, however, as One Ear
charged, brandishing his sword and howling like a demented wolf. He sought to
run Conan down, a mistake most costly. Conan merely extended his sword to arm’s
length and One Ear spitted himself on the point. Half of the sword’s length
emerged from the man’s back, carrying upon its tip blood from his lanced heart.
One Ear fell, and Conan managed to jerk his blade free as the man went down. He
bent and wiped the gore from the iron on One Ear’s tunic, not doubting for a
moment that the man was dead.

So much for a peaceful evening by the fire.

Conan turned, to see Lalo and Elashi examining Bent Nose. From the angle of
the downed man’s head, it was clear that his neck was broken; and from his
impact against the wall, likely his skull was broken as well.

Such proved to be the case. Elashi stood and said, “He is dead.”

Conan moved toward Elashi and Lalo. Around them, the inn’s other patrons sat
frozen—so many figures in a painting—afraid to move.

“I have never seen that type of wrestling before,” Conan said.
“Very efficient.”

Lalo’s grin never wavered. “I learned it from the little yellow men of
Khitai,” he said. “I spent several years there. It is called jit-jit.
By its use, a practiced small man may best a larger one, or even one
armed.”

“Interesting,” Conan said. “Perhaps a man who tempered his
mirth might not have to use it at all.”

“Ah,” Lalo said, “but you see, that is my curse.” He
paused to glance at the two dead men. “I appreciate your help, though I
could have handled
these two myself
. Perhaps you will
allow me to buy you a bottle of wine and explain?”

Conan glanced at Elashi, who nodded.
Of course.
And, he had to admit, he was more than a little curious himself.

“When I was a boy in the mountains of eastern
Zamora
,”
Lalo began, “my father ran afoul of the local wizard. A very subtle being,
this wizard was. He could have caused my father’s crops to fail or our cows to
dry up, or perhaps visited a plague upon our family. But the magician was, as I
have said, very subtle; and his magics were no less effective for this. He laid
his geas upon the sons of my father.”

Lalo paused to sip at his wine. His smile remained constant.

“My brothers—I had three—all perished from the effects of the wizard’s
curse within two years of its placement. In an effort to escape, I fled across
the vast
Eastern
Desert
to Khitai.
To no avail, in that the curse stayed with
me.”

Elashi was leaning forward, fascinated. As for himself, Conan felt less
interest now than dread. This tended to happen whenever the subject of magic
was broached. Such unnatural doings were not to his taste. Still, the story was
somewhat intriguing.

“It was there,” Lalo continued, “in Khitai that I learned the
fighting art of jit-jit. The Khitains are quite adept at such things.
Eventually my curse caused me to leave there as well. I cannot stay in one
place too long; even the most sympathetic souls cannot stand against the
wizard’s magic for more than a few weeks.”

“What exactly is this curse?” Conan asked.

“I cannot stop smiling,” Lalo replied. “And I cannot prevent
myself from making sport of those around me. You, for instance, Conan, have so
much muscle that it is doubtful you can stretch enough to scratch an itch on
your backside.”

“What?” Conan started to rise from his seat.

Elashi touched his forearm.
“The curse, Conan.”

Conan relaxed, understanding. “I take your meaning, Lalo.”

The smiling man sighed. “Indeed. Imagine if you can what it would be
like to be with a woman and be unable to avoid insulting comments even as you
are joined together.”

“How awful!”
Elashi murmured.

“Here you have come to my aid against two of the Harskeel’s thugs, and
even so, I cannot help myself from haranguing you.”

“Who exactly is this Harskeel?” Conan asked.

“Not ‘who’ precisely, but more of ‘what,’
” Lalo
said. “Its full name is Harskeel of Loplain, and it is
an
hermaphrodite—half man, half woman.”

Elashi inhaled sharply.

“You know of it?” Lalo asked.

“Aye,” Conan answered. “We had an encounter with it along the
trail earlier this very day. Is it perhaps mad?”

“Mad?
What makes you ask, you apelike buffoon?”

Conan’s anger stirred, but he forced it down. The man was cursed, after all.
“This Harskeel thing lost five of its men in an attempt to steal nothing
more than my sword.”

“Ah, I can see why you would think it crazed. No, there is method in
this madness. The Harskeel of Loplain is also cursed, but by its own actions.
Once it was two separate people, a man and a woman. These two were lovers, and
desired more intensity and closeness—not that a barbarian like
yourself
could possibly understand such a thing—so they
stole a book of spells from a witch. Unfortunately for them, they bespoke the
spell incorrectly. It left them considerably closer than was their intent.”

“Ugh,” Elashi said. “But what has that to do with Conan’s
sword?”

“Actually, it collects swords from anyone who shows the slightest sign
of bravery. There is supposed to be a counterspell, some mantologic process
that will return the Harskeel to its former state of two people. The spell
involves the use of a sword dipped in the blood of its owner. If the owner
is—or was—brave enough, it will trigger the magic. So far, more than a few men
have died without providing the needed weapon.”

“I thought this creature wished more than merely my sword,” Conan
said.

“Certainly it did not seek your brain,” Lalo said. “Forgive
me.”

Conan merely nodded. He had heard worse from Elashi, and she was under no
particular curse.

Lalo told them his time at the local inn was about up and that he would be
leaving soon. Conan and Elashi also planned to leave as soon as the snowstorm
ended, likely on the morrow. The three of them finished the bottle of wine and
then parted, Lalo warning Conan to take care on his journey. Now that the
outlander had slain so many of the Harskeel’s men, the hermaphrodite would
certainly consider him a candidate for the spell it needed.

As Conan and Elashi started for their room, she said, “A shame, to be
cursed so.”

“I notice he did not insult you during our conversation,” Conan
said.

“Why should he, when you made such a likely target?”

“The two of you would do well together,” Conan said. “You
have so much in common.”

Elashi chose to be offended by this, which surprised Conan not at all.
Hardly anything she did
surprised
him of late. When
they arrived in their room, for instance, she lay against him under the inn’s
rough blanket, touching him and laughing softly… as if they had been newly wed
that same morning. He shook his head, not understanding, but not minding this
in the least.

Deep in the twisted bowels of the Grotterium Negrotus, Katamay Rey once
again called upon the slab of enchanted quartz. Under the dank-green fungal
glow, the wizard scried, searching the depths of crystal stone for the future.

The clear rock became milky, then slowly cleared near one end, and the face
of a man appeared. Strong featured, with black hair and fiery blue eyes, the
man’s face peered unseeingly back at Rey, unaware of being observed.

Rey made mystical passes over the quartz, but the remainder of the crystal
refused to lose its milky hue. He tried several times, but nothing more than
the face of the young man appeared.

“Set blast you, you cursed stone!”

The quartz did not seem frightened by this threat; indeed, as if in response
to the curse, even the face pictured therein faded, leaving the crystal once
again blank.

Cursing further, Rey turned away from the obstinate crystal. Well, he
thought, at least he had something: the danger to his domain seemed to be
centered in that youthful face. Now he could prepare to deal with it.

“Wikkell!”

At the sound of the wizard’s voice, something shuffled ponderously across
the damp stone floor. Half again the size of a large man, the figure shambled
into the eerie green light. It bore a single pink eye set in the middle of its
sloping forehead, and upon its back, a hump, much like those worn by the
desert-roaming beasts of the Southern Wastes bordering Punt and Stygia. Bald it
was, but
bearded,
and dense muscle corded its arms and
legs. The hunchback was naked save for a groin cloth; the knuckles of its hands
nearly touched the stone under its splayed feet as it shuffled into sight.

“Master,” the hunchbacked Cyclops said. It had a voice like sail
canvas being torn.

“Go to the Northern Chambers,” Rey said, “and prepare a
reception for anyone who ventures to cross the land above. I will have any who
dare the forbidden paths brought before me.”

“Master,” Wikkell said by way of acknowledgment. He bowed
slightly, causing his hands to scrape the floor, and turned to leave.

“Alive,” Rey said to the retreating form. “I want them
alive.”

Chuntha the witch fondled the carved baculum wand and regarded her thrall.
The Worm Gigantus lay before her, flattened on its bottom by its own weight. It
looked as if someone had taken an ordinary red earthworm, increased its size by
more than a thousandfold, and bleached it ghostly white. There were no features
recognizable as a face—one end seemed much like the other—but a series of
discolorations did indicate that the head of the giant worm faced Chuntha.
Three times as long as a man’s height and easily as thick as a wine barrel, the
worm twitched as it listened to its mistress.

“Go, Deek,” she said, “to the Northern Chambers. The danger to
us will manifest itself there, and soon. We must control it to survive and
triumph over That Bastard who opposes us. You are authorized to create an
alliance with any who would aid us: the bats, the Whites, the Webspinners, any
or all of them. Promise them what they ask, but do not allow the forces of That
Bastard to obtain that which I seek. Do you understand?”

The worm could not speak, but by scraping its body in certain ways over the
stone beneath it, the creature could manufacture a kind of counterfeit voice.
“Y-y-yes-s.”

When her servant had left, undulating its torpid body over the slimed floor,
Chuntha stroked her cheek with the wand, thinking. She had not envisioned such
a powerful dream in some time. The danger would come from a single man. She had
seen that much, but not the face of the stranger. In the dim green light, she
regarded the baculum. It had power, but perhaps not enough in this instance.
Mayhap she needed to try the dreaming jewel. The ensorceled gem contained much
magical force, and there was some risk involved in its use, but this was no
time to be cautious. The signs portended great danger, and dangerous times
required risky measures. Yes. She would fondle the dreaming jewel and see what
insight it offered.

In the manse that perched upon the high rocks like a mountain goat, the
Harskeel regarded itself in a floor-to-ceiling mirror, feeling for the first
time in years a real sense of hope. That barbarian along the high road… could
he be the one? Surely he was brave; he had faced six-to-one odds, even though
his confederate had aided him. And the latest story, of how he had slain
another in the village tavern with no more effort or worry than a man
slaughtering sheep… surely that added to his bravery?

The Harskeel in the mirror nodded. Aye, it seemed to say, the blooded sword
of this one might well be the final key we have been awaiting these last
fifteen years. If this barbar—named Conan, according to its spies in the
tavern—is the one, then we can be as we were before.

Yes.
A pleasant thought.