The Sword of Skelos (27 page)
“You really are leaving, then.”
“I am. I prefer a place like Shadizar, where a man knows how he stands: everyone is openly wicked and admits it, and so none plots or dissembles!”
She smiled, a shade wistfully. “You are quite a man, Conan of Cimmeria.”
“You are quite a woman, ‘sparana.”
They gazed at each other for a time, and she said, “Hafar calls me Khan’s Companion and the nobles have confirmed. I am first woman of Zamboula, Conan. Gods, how we need a general who owes naught to any faction! A big foreigner, perhaps.”
Conan compressed his lips, lifted his eyebrows, thought on it. And he shook his head. “Not in Zamboula! Not me! Quite a woman indeed… how old are you anyway, ‘sparana?”
“Six-and-twenty,” she said, so easily he was sure she spoke truth. “How old are you, Conan, who can say no to being general and… more, to me?”
“Eighteen,” he said, promoting himself past his next birthday, and pulled his horse around. The Shanki sat waiting on camels delighted to stand still. The tails of the horses snapped constantly at flies. Conan looked around. “Hajimen?”
“Ready,” the Shanki said.
Conan looked at Isparana. “Coming?”
“Eighteen!”
“Well… almost.”
She shook her head. Pearls gleamed in her hair, and on her broad-strapped bandau of yellow silk. “Almost eighteen,” she breathed. “What a man you will be.”
Conan smiled, very tightly. “You said ‘are,’ before, Isparana, and ‘will be’ that time. You are not coming, then. Farewell, Isparana. I’m glad you failed to kill me.”
“I am not so sure,” she said softly.
Conan laughed. “And for what? An amulet to protect Akter Khan! Marvelous effective, wasn’t it. Our bringing it here protected him right onto a bier! Save me from such amulets, all you gods.”
“Conan… do you think you will ever be returning to Zamboula?”
” ‘sparana…” He turned to look back at Hajimen. “Hear me, Haji. I vow by Cimmerian Crom and Zamboulan Erlik and Shanki Theba that never will I so much as admit I have been to Zamboula! It is a vow! I will deny having been here. I’ll forget it, fast as I can.
And
that damned Eye of Erlik!”
“And me.” She looked small, the Khan’s Companion, standing on the ground with Conan mounted on a horse from the khan’s own stable.
“And you, Ispa. If ever I slip and do return to Zamboula, Isparana, nurse and Companion to Jungir Khan, you will be wrinkled and a mother several times over. Depend on it.” Blue eyes stared into brown for a long while, and he saw a glaze come over the brown, and he jerked as if awaking. “Hajimen!” Conan called, and he twitched his horse’s rein.
She stood and watched him ride away.
Andrew J. Offutt is the recently “tired and re-tired,” as he puts it, president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He loves heroic fantasy although at 6’ 1”, he is built for speed, not combat. Kentuckian Offutt has a number of other books in and out of print, and has been a helpless fan of Robert E. Howard since birth. Now he calls himself the Steve Garvey among writers; “Surely it’s every boy’s dream to grow up—but not too much—and get to write about Conan.” Offutt researches with gusto, both in and out of books, having—briefly and painfully, he says—worn chainmail and helm and wielded sword. He is also tired of aged, bald, ugly, sexless mages, and squeaky females in heroic fantasy.