Conan the Barbarian (24 page)
Read Conan the Barbarian Online
Authors: L. Sprague de Camp,Lin Carter
As he raised a hand in benediction, a wave of consternation broke over the assemblage, as ripples from a falling pebble disturb the surface of a pool. The spell of the devotions broke and faltered into silence. A hundred pairs of eyes sought to pierce the shadows beside the open doors.
As Doom looked around to see the cause of this disturbance, his brutish guards sprang into position between their master and his followers. Linking arms, they formed a living chain through which none could break, should any seek to do so, and awaited further orders.
Conan strode forth into the candlelight with the slow-paced steps of a stalking panther, his father’s sword in his right fist. He moved with a strange inevitability, like a tide sweeping in across the sand. The lead priest shrank away, unnerved by the Cimmerian’s calm certitude that Fate was guiding him; but Doom faced the barbarian squarely, with neither fear nor wonder in his cold, reptilian eyes.
“Fear him not!” said Doom. “He is but a mortal man. He cannot stem our tide of victory now. Guards! Seize him!”
Before any of the slow-witted beast-men could react to the command, Conan held up the huge gem that he had stolen from the temple in Shadizar and repeated the words learned from the shaman.
“Back, in the name of Set!” roared the Cimmerian. “Podozhditye, nazad! Back and restrain the others!”
At the sight of the crimson Eye of Set, the guards flinched, as from the flesh-tearing sting of a whip. They shrank back, but their line held. The worshippers could only watch in helpless amazement, while the priest fled, screaming, down the broad staircase.
Doom’s lean, ascetic face remained devoid of expression; but the keen eyes searching Conan’s face seemed to delve into his very soul. In the Cimmerian youth the sorcerer saw strength. There was humanity, too, and this he read as weakness. He smiled a thin, triumphant smile as he caught and held the barbarian’s gaze with his strangely snakelike eyes.
“You have come to me at last, Conan, as a son to his father,” Doom began in his soft, hypnotic voice. “And rightly so, for who is your father if not I? Who gave you the will to fight for life? Who taught you to endure? I am the wellspring whence flows your strength. If I were gone, your life would have no purpose.”
To the young Cimmerian it seemed that the Master’s eyes expanded until they swallowed up the universe. He stood in a vast nothingness between the stars, seeing only those glowing, unwinking eyes. The seductive voice droned on.
“Without me, it will be as if you never had existed. My son, I am your friend, and not your enemy!”
For a long moment, the dark eyes of Doom, redolent with unearthly power, held Conan spellbound. Then Conan blinked his ensorcelled eyes and, summoning all the courage that was in him, tore his gaze free. In that instant, the Cimmerian flung up his left arm and suspended the Eye of Set an arm’s length from the face of Thulsa Doom. Doom stared fixedly at the swinging jewel, then raised eyes wide with horror to meet Conan’s vengeful glare.
Before the frozen faces of the faithful, Doom’s neck lengthened. His jaws elongated; his nose shrank and disappeared; his forehead retreated; his lips thinned and vanished. His dark eyes rounded into lidless orbs and a purple tongue flicked out to test the air. Thulsa Doom bore the scaly serpent head of the ancient snake-men—those timeless enemies of all mankind.
As one, the congregation gasped. A shudder rippled through the silent throng. The princess, watching from the shadows, uttered a half-choked cry as tears of pity, mixed with horror and relief, coursed down her cheeks.
Conan’s sword sighed as it swept up in a great arc and clove the swaying snake head from the human body. The body fell backward and lay, writhing, like a trampled serpent, at the top of the wide steps. The severed head rolled slowly down the long flight of stairs and came to rest beside the fountain pool.
Conan watched the gory object fall into the purple shadows of the dying day. Then, half to himself, he spoke: “My father was the light of day; Thulsa Doom, my night. Yet in one thing he spoke true. What matters is not the steel within the blade, but the steel within the man.”
Rousing himself, Conan turned to face the guards who, obedient to his last command, still held the assemblage at bay. Raising the Eye of Set once more, he said: “You who were guards of Doom, go back to the caves from which he called you.... And find another source of meat. Go.”
As the beast-men melted away, Conan looked at the former followers of Thulsa Doom. Some stared dejectedly about them, as if they knew not where they were, nor how they came to be in this strange place. Some sobbed for their dead leader. Others wept for their lost Paradise, and their moans undulated like the restless singing of the surf.
Conan masked his pity with rough words: “I know you feel like orphans, but you all have homes to go to, and a welcome waiting there. I have none. Yet I’m content, and you should be so, too; for this night we are free. Go and get ready for the journey.”
The barbarian stood at the threshold of the temple, as Doom’s children straggled down the long staircase. One by one, they tossed their lighted candles into the pool, to flicker for a moment before hissing into nothingness.
After the last departed, Conan wiped clean the sword that had so long consumed his thoughts and dreams. Seating himself beneath the portal, he watched the little flames wink out. With his father’s sword across his knees, he remembered the past and wondered what the future years might bring. Yasimina, who with the others had extinguished her candle—the symbol of Doom’s intended conquest of the world—remounted the deserted stairs. She crouched on the step beside Conan, seeking his strength, and yet too humbled to risk disturbing his reverie. So they passed the weary night.
As pale dawn heralded the break of a new day, Conan perceived a strange change in the scene before him. The stone steps had become pitted and eroded, as by ages of exposure to the elements. The garden shrubs and flowers all were wilted, and the pavement around the half-drained pool was marked by muddy footprints. The ceremonial roadway beyond lay cracked and flaking, as if some spell, dredged from the womb of time to hold it firm, were broken. Behind him, the façade of the cavern temple was crumbling; and, as he watched, bits of stone fell with a clatter to the door sill.
The tension had drained out of him; he felt at peace. But mingling with his sense of destiny fulfilled was an eagerness to be gone from this foul place—to put the scene and all its memories behind him. Conan rose. The princess scrambled to her feet.
“What now?” she asked.
“Subotai and I will take you home,” he answered gruffly. “Your father will be glad to see you.”
“My father is dead,” said Yasimina. “A messenger from Shadizar arrived but five days past to say that he’d been slain by Yaro’s minions.”
“Then you are queen and will be needed in Zamora to rule your troubled land.”
“But what of Yaro? He will not accept me on the throne.”
“I’ll deal with Yaro, never fear. Now it is time to go.” “But,” the girl persisted, “there are other Towers of Set, and other leaders throughout Zamora. What of them?” Conan stood silent, thinking. At last he said: “Many will be broken and deserted, because their purpose died with Thulsa Doom. The cult may long continue here and there, for snakes are hard to kill. The worship of Set may even wax again; but not, I think, within our lifetime.” Yasimina raised her anxious eyes to the barbarian’s face and smiled.
As summer donned the russet dress of autumn, Conan, brave in new garments and bright mail, With a scarlet cloak floating from his shoulders, galloped a black stallion beside Zamora’s fields of ripening grain. At length he caught up with the man he followed—a small Hyrkanian riding a shaggy steppe pony. After a brief greeting, they dismounted.
“Why did you ride off without a word?” asked Conan. Subotai shrugged. “They told me that the Queen had offered you a place beside her on the throne.” The small man grinned and added, “I thought you’d be too busy with your... er... royal duties to have time for an old comrade-in-arms. Why are you here? I took no more than my fair share of the Queen’s reward for the Serpent’s Eye —though why she wanted it I can’t imagine.”
Conan looked faintly embarrassed. “As I did, before I left the city.”
“You mean you turned the lady’s offer down?”
Conan grunted. “When I wear a crown, it will be won by my own sword, not given as a dowry.”
Subotai sighed. “Strange are the ways of Cimmerians! How did you dispose of Yaro? Would that I had been beside you then, instead of doing guard duty at the palace!”
Conan shrugged. “The fighting came to little. When the folk of Shadizar heard that Doom was dead, the black priest’s followers turned on him. Before I had a chance to sword him, his own people tore him limb from limb.” “Whither go you now?” asked Subotai.
“South and west. I’m heading for the sea,” said Conan. “And what of you?”
The Hyrkanian pointed. “North and east, to my homeland. Shall we ever meet again?”
Conan grinned. “The world is not wide enough to keep such rogues as we apart for long. We shall meet again, but Crom knows where and when.”
“If only at the gates of Hell,” laughed Subotai.
“Until that day, good fighting!”
The two friends embraced, slapping each other’s shoulders. Then they swung into the saddle.
“What’s in the south and west that draws you thither?” called Subotai.
“Gold, jewels, beautiful women, and fine red wine!” roared Conan.
Then, with a wave of farewell, they rode away, each toward a different horizon.
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