Conan the Rebel (2 page)

II

A Gathering of Sorcerers

The sun rose, tingeing the Styx bloody. Fowl clamoured on high, out of the reed marshes along it; vultures took station, crocodiles dragged themselves onto the sandbars and mud banks that were theirs by antique law. High in stem and stern, slant of sail, boats plied the stream; from cargo barges resounded the gongs that set time for slave oarsmen. Across intensely green vastness, serfs came out of their villages, naked or in loincloths, to begin the day's toil.

At the bay into which the river emptied, limestone heights started the northward climb of the land toward Shem. Here the latter country was not visible, for the uppermost branch of the delta marked the border. In these parts, that border was scarcely a frontier; the Shemitish city-states nearby were tributary to Stygia. As if to weight down this fact forever, on the southern side the Grand Pyramid bulked close to the north-east corner of Khemi, over-topping walls and towers. Untold centuries of weather had pitted and scarred its facings, so that they did not glow mellow but ochrous. Otherwise it remained inviolate, dominating those of its kind that could be seen in the distance or within the city. Below it and the ceremonial road around it, the terrain fell in a chaos of tombs, abandoned quarries, and one pit where men still dug stone beneath the overseer's lash.

The sun climbed on, until it scorched the last darkness from the streets of Khemi. They filled with laden camels, ox carts, horsemen, pedestrians, crowds in the bazaars. The traffic was less thick than might have been awaited in a metropolis, less lively, infinitely less cosmopolitan. Stygia allowed no more foreigners in as it must. Even Luxur, the royal capital far upriver, saw fewer then the most mercantile towns abroad. Khemi, the religious capital, was closed to all who did not have passes – Stygians among them; and its masters gave out passes grudgingly. If admitted, an outsider found that almost no dweller dared converse with him, except for whatever persons his business required him to meet. Those were few and closely watched.

The sun trudged and glowered through the day. Afternoon heat drove folk indoors to rest. A part of them sought palaces where fountains splashed in shady gardens; most went to apartments of a room or two in high, dingy tenements. None lacked a roof of some kind, for the hierarchy wanted everyone's whereabouts and doings known.

Toward evening, when a measure of coolness returned, they came forth again and took up their affairs. These generally ended about dusk. The shops must by law be closed. Several inns in the poor sections furtively received patrons for a while, but they would not stay open late. Though there was little crime in Khemi, the streets after sunset held their special perils. Under orders or necessity, or in boldness, various kinds of people did fare about by torchlight – soldiers, messengers, porters, harlots, tradesmen in curious wares, now and then a robed and masked priest. Hardly a one would remain out long.

Night never left the mansion of Tothapis. Sheathed in white bone, its walls lifted sheer on the Avenue of the Asps, their blankness broken only by doors and air slits. Around the dome on top, a roof garden held not the usual blossoms and bowers, but beds of black and purple lotus, and things more exotic. Within, light was from lamps and candles. The central chamber received never a sign of the world outside, apart from the cold air sighing up from the crypts.

During the day, the wizard's minions had been busy. As the sun descended crimson, a pair whom they had summoned arrived singly, and were conducted by tongue-less slaves to the centrum. A third soon appeared. But he came in chains, under guard, and his party was taken to a different room and bidden to wait.

Tothapis received his visitors with aloof courtesy. He was a tall man, gaunt in a plain black robe, shaven-headed as became a priest of Set. On him, the typical hatchet features of a Stygian aristocrat were scimitar-like, and the gullied skin dark ivory rather than light brown. The irises of his deep-set eyes might have been polished obsidian. A ruby glittered on his left hand, carved and incised to represent the terrestrial globe, held between the jaws of a golden snake that formed the ring. A talisman more potent still, in its nameless way, was the articulated skull of a viper, hung on a chain about his neck.

'Be seated,' he told the newcomers when formalities were done, and took his own chair. The back of it was carved in the form of a cobra, whose outspread hood made a canopy. Elsewhere, vague in the gloom, stood or hung objects less recognizable. A nine-branched candlestick on an altar block gave dim light. The time-blurred glyphs chiselled in the stone were of Acheron, which had perished three thousand years before.

'We are met on a grave and urgent matter,' Tothapis continued. 'Set himself,' he drew a sign, 'has vouchsafed me a vision of it. That was interrupted by an apparition I believe was from accursed Mitra, for it had the form of an axe -'

'The Ax of Varanghi?' exclaimed Ramwas. He remembered whom he confronted. 'I servilely beg my lord's pardon. I was startled.'

Tothapis' gaze sharpened upon him. 'What know you about the Ax of Varanghi?' the magician demanded.

What he saw in the chair before him was a sturdy, middle-aged person, square-visaged, prow-nosed, tan-skinned, clean-shaven. The hair that fell in severe outline down past his ears was grizzling. Outer garment doffed, Ramwas wore a plain white tunic and leather sandals. He had also, of course, left in the vestibule the short-sword which he, as a military officer, was entitled to bear. In addition he was a minor nobleman and large landholder.

'Hardly more than what you hear in Taia, my lord,' he said uneasily. 'I was stationed there years ago. The natives claim it is a relic from Mitra, hidden away somewhere, and someday a leader will bear it again and set them free of us.' He shrugged. 'The usual kind of superstition.'

'Except,' Nehekba murmured, 'that now Taia is once again in rebellion. And Our Master of Night appears to know this is no

ordinary uprising for a few regiments and executioners to quell.'

'Quite so,' Tothapis agreed. 'He Who Is did not bespeak Taia as such. Perhaps he would have later. The spells I cast afterward concerned chiefly a certain female pirate named Bêlit -'

Ramwas started.

'- and her present companion, a barbarian from the Northlands,' Tothapis continued. 'About him I could learn virtually nothing, though it is him rather than her that I was warned against. She, however, has been in these parts ere now. As always, the stones and the ghosts remember. Thus I got your name, Ramwas. My mundane agents learned more about you, and that fortunately you were at present in Khemi, inspecting your property nearby. They tell me you are an able and reliable man.'

Ramwas bowed his head over folded hands.

'Perhaps, my lord,' Nehekba suggested, 'you could begin by describing your vision to us.'

Tothapis gave her a look more whetted than he cast on the officer. The high priestess of Derketa was subordinate to the hierarchy of Set. Nevertheless this goddess of carnality, who was also a goddess of the dead, and believed to lead them through the sky on midnight winds, was no minor deity. Her cult reached far beyond Stygia; and in that kingdom, the common people probably invoked her oftener, more fervently, than they did remote and terrible Set. As mistress of her mysteries, the high priestess in Khemi was always an accomplished witch, and the sole woman who sat in the Council of Sacerdotes.

'Have a care, Nehekba,' Tothapis said low. 'You and I have worked together before, yes, but you are apt to skirt insolence.'

'I pray pardon, lord.' Her tone was unrepentant. 'I thought we should not dawdle in the business of the Serpent.'

His gaze lingered a moment longer. Ramwas' did, too. Nehekba had come to office young, amidst rumours of poison, by insinuating herself with the right faction in one of Khemi's hidden struggles for power. She retained the beauty of her youth. Slightly taller than most Stygian noblewomen, she had their slenderness, but she made it altogether sensual. Her countenance was an oval, bearing straight nose, exquisitely moulded lips, huge eyes of lustrous bronze hue beneath high-arched brows. Flawless, her skin was the colour of smoky amber. Strings of faïence beads confined the jet flow of her hair, down to just above bosom and shoulder blades. At present she wore her crown, shaped like an unfolding lotus, and a gauzy white undergown; she had left her robe outside. The rings that glittered on her fingers and the pectoral on her breast were mere ornament. Her amulet was a tiny mirror on a silver chain at her throat.

'Well,' Tothapis said. 'I will relate that with which Our Master of Night favoured me.'

His account was straightforward, simply omitting mention of any terror he might have felt. He finished: 'We can do nothing about winds until that ship is much closer, and then very little. But to judge from her present location, she will take a fortnight to work this far north; the current being against her, she must needs stands well out to sea if she would make any real speed. Thus we have time to think and prepare.'

'What can a lone buccaneer vessel mean, lord?' Ramwas wondered. 'Seaborne commerce is not vital to the wealth of Stygia – supposing our war-craft cannot hunt her down.'

Tothapis stared into shadow. 'He who has come aboard her is, in some unknown way, a torch that fate may kindle.'

The soldier shivered and signed himself.

'If this be true,' Nehekba reminded, 'then our actions to thwart him could prove to be the very sparks that light the flame.'

Tothapis nodded. 'Indeed. But if we sit passive, then surely something else will set it ablaze; and we shall not be near to seize it and quench it in the Styx. He Who Is would not reveal himself to me in vain.'

He addressed Ramwas: 'Hear why I have sent for you. The necromancy disclosed your name, enough else about you that my servants could readily learn more, and the fact that you have formerly had to do with Bêlit, and still keep what can lure her. This ought to give us a hold on Conan.' Contempt twisted his mouth. 'I saw how lost in her he already is. A half month's cruise will utterly besot him.'

Nehekba drooped long lashes. 'He sounds interesting, though,' she breathed. 'Could you describe him more closely, my lord?'

'And Bêlit, I beg you,' Ramwas added.

Tothapis did. When he had finished, the nobleman tugged his chin and said slowly, 'Aye, no mistake, no forgetting her. She is a former slave of mine, captured with her brother and a load of tribesmen in a blackbirding expedition to the south that I commissioned about three years ago. I sold most of the Negroes, but kept those two whites, and lived to regret it. Hell-spawn she was, and before long escaped, leaving good servants of mine dead behind her. The brother is no better.'

'Yes, the spell told me a little of him, wherefore I ordered you to have him led here,' Tothapis answered. 'Now tell me more.'

Ramwas shrugged. 'He is a Shemite, the name, um-m, Jehanan. Strong, intelligent, and intractable – the dangerous kind. He kept trying to break loose himself, but in his case he failed. Repeated lashings and stays in the Black Box wrought no cure. When at last, bare-handed, he killed an overseer who was punishing him, I decided he would never be of use on any farm of mine. I had him clubbed before the eyes of his fellow slaves by an expert who knows how to do it so the pain will last a lifetime. Then I rented him out to the quarry master below the Pyramid. They are accustomed to hard cases there.'

Nehekba stroked her cheek. 'Could we bring him here for an interview?' she asked.

'Pointless, my lady,' Ramwas assured her. 'By report, not even the endless pain has tamed him. He works steadily these days, but simply because chains are never off quarry slaves. I have a notion he would enjoy resisting us, no matter how he was tortured.'

'Torture would be stupid in any event,' the priestess said impatiently. 'I want to know him.'

'That is why I sent for my lady of Derketa,' Tothapis explained. 'She has arts no male will ever attain. Still, no need to bring a stinking stone chopper to this place. I will give you a sight of him where he is, Nehekba.'

He traced a symbol and muttered a few words. In the gloom of the corner, an invisible door seemed to open, and the three looked into a guardroom. Armed men lounged at ease, talking or dicing. Yet they were never entirely relaxed, and two of them stayed afoot,

pikes grounded, free hands near short swords.

He of whom they were wary sat on a bench under a decorated wall. Lamplight showed a young man of medium height but huge breadth of shoulder and depth of chest, the muscles in limbs and belly like ship's cables. He wore nothing but a dirty loincloth, his bonds, crusted grime and sweat-salt. The Stygian sun had burned his skin leathery. His matted hair and beard were brown, but filth blackened them, too. A smashed nose sprawled across a once comely face now turned into lumps and jaggednesses; numerous teeth were missing; scars criss-crossed the entire body, a broken left collarbone had been deliberately missed. Nonetheless his eyes, almost golden, were akin to a hawk's.

Sound came through the portal, click of dice, grumble of a warder: 'How long must we stay here? I go on duty at dawn, I do.'

'Hush,' cautioned another. 'We serve great lords tonight.'

'On his account, plain to see,' the first guard snapped, and jerked a thumb at the slave. 'Hey-ah, why couldn't you have died before, fellow? Most don't last as long as you have.' He spat on his charge's bare foot.

Jehanan sprang erect. The links clanked between his ankles. He swung his arms up, as if to bring their fetters down on the skull of his tormentor. Pike points were instantly at his throat. Snarling, he eased his stance. 'The revenge I will take, when my hour comes, keeps me alive,' he said, in harshly accented Stygian, through ragged gulps of air. 'But you are not worth spitting back at.'

He turned. The fresco behind him depicted Set receiving a sacrificial procession. He spat on the god.

A gasp of horror broke from the keepers and from Ramwas. 'Hold!' Nehekba cried. 'They will kill him if you don't stop them, Tothapis.'