The Sword of Skelos (23 page)

he remembered that it became welcomely cool. He was forced to bend forward, broad back popping, blood rushing hotly to his head, reddening his face. His vision blurred, grew ruddy. His bonds held him in position. He could not fall mercifully forward because of the strong cords that held his thighs and ankles to the posts. He was gagged, his mouth stuffed, and that proved demeaning: bent forcibly forward and low, he could not help drooling around the gag. He remembered feeling hate. His vision grew redder and his head felt thick. It pounded. Eventually, blood pooling in his head, he slid into unconsciousness.

He remembered how the whip came whirring down, descending abruptly and swiftly to snap horizontally across his lower back. He remembered gasping for breath, the whiplash making him breathless, and how the sweat popped forth on his face, and the trickle of it as it oozed down his sides from his armpits. It went on. The whip slithered back, sang in the air, popped on his body. Its black tongue tore and slashed mercilessly. He knew welts rose. His eyes burned with rage against the snaky whip and its wielder. His chest, stretched by bonds to the tautness of a drum and the hardness of a bear’s chest, heaved and his nostrils trembled and flared. The whip hissed and struck. He did not remember that they asked any questions; they just hurt him. He knew he groaned and he strove not to cry out. It was all hazy, misty. It might have been a dream. He bit his lip, hard. It hurt. It was not a dream. He could not control the jerking of his bound frame, the wavering of his slim hips, the tense tightening of the small muscular pads of his backside. He was naked. Sweat rivered down his back, down his sides, off his face. It splashed a floor somewhere below. Those were automatic responses to the threat and the fall of the whip, the relentless flail and tug and ready and flail and crack, and the dreadful uneasiness, and burning pain. But he stifled even his groans, and made no outcry. They had removed his gag and watered his throat, so that they could listen to his cries. They heard none, he was sure. Wasn’t he?

He remembered the burning ointment. He remembered or thought he remembered a weird demonstration; it seemed that a sword, wielded by no hand, slew a fellow captive. Had it happened? He was not sure. Could it have happened? Had he heard that soft voice say “Slay him”—and had a sword understood and obeyed?

He could not be sure. He remembered, or thought he remembered.

The pain of the flail of nettles was slight; the itching afterward was the worst torture of all. He was bound so that he could not scratch the awful burning itches.

He was beaten on the stomach. The broad strap made a very loud noise.

He remembered being told that he was to be wrapped in a fresh bloody cowhide and placed outside, facing the morning sun. He did not think that happened. He was sure that a helmet was fitted over his head and strapped on so that a slim thong of leather cut up into his chin. Someone pounded on the helmet with a hammer until he wondered which would come first: death or insanity.

Neither. He endured, and thought that he did not cry out, though he was not certain, ever, that he might not have sobbed. He would rather have been beaten or crucified.

Perhaps some of it was Zafra’s sorcery; surely some of it was, and did not happen. As certainly, some of it did. Conan was never sure what had been real and what had not. He had indeed bitten his lip; the smooth tender lump of swollen meat there attested to that. And his head ached and rang.

He awoke, then, hours or days later, with that awful misty feeling of uncertainty, of the possibility of his having been dreaming, or drugged, or sorcerously dulled of brain, and his head was coming clear and he did not think that he was bound. He lay still, trying to learn if he was bound by seeking the sensation of constriction at wrists and ankles. He could not be sure, at first. He lay still, trying to take stock of himself and his surroundings. Oh. He was in the palace. He had been captured. Where was he? In the palace—where? He could not quite get hold of it. His brain was dull and his body felt years older. Consciousness returned and grew in him like a flame rising slowly in a room with only the tiniest breath of air stirring. His brain became clearer and clearer, as if lit by that tenuous, brave candle. Though he knew he was weakened, he felt strength growing in him—or at least the weakness shrinking.

Conan opened his eyes.

He lay partly on a rug and partly on a tiled floor, gray and pale red shot with slender streamers of black and white. A handsome marble floor, in tesselated tiles. He saw a table, and things on it… he remembered the Green Room, the den of Hisarr Zul, sorcerer first of Zamboula and then of Arenjun and now of Hell, where Conan had sent him. It was the same sort of paraphernalia. This must be the chamber of Zafra, then, Akter Khan’s mage.

Aye. Next to the throne room, was it not? That door over there, perhaps…

Conan did not like the way the room smelled.

Chemicals, and herbs, and the ugly odor of burnt air. He twitched his fingers, then each hand. He had been right; he was not bound. A few impulses sent down his legs indicated that they, too, were free. He lay partly on his side, partly on his stomach. He breathed deeply, though he did not care for the scent or taste of this air of the chamber of a sorcerer.

He was halfway up before he saw Zafra. The mage had cleverly stood where he could not be seen save as the result of a consciously directed movement; that way he had known the moment Conan began to regain consciousness.

Conan paused, on one knee with one set of knuckles against the floor.

“Ah,” Zafra said smiling. “Very nice. Gratifying, I am sure: you genuflect respectfully.”

With his face twisting into a snarl, Conan thrust himself to his feet. Zafra swiftly showed the sword he held.

“You told us your tale, remember, barbarian? I know what sort of slimy arrogant youth you are. I thought you might attempt what you did; came here as a thief to find Isparana and collect a head or two, didn’t you? Fair caught you, didn’t I? You are a barbarian driven by the same instincts that push on a dog or a hog or a bear, you see. I have goals, specific goals. In contest, between two such, the brain-directed, goal-seeking man must triumph. As you see, I have. And I shall continue, while you return to the slime that thrust you up into the womb of some barbarian bitch. Within the year, I shall rule in Zamboula. In a few years more I shall rule in Aghrapur; Zafra, King-Emperor of Turan! Aye! Not too bad for the peasant boy his master beat because he did not learn his lessons fast enough… sorcerous lessons, which I was learning far far faster than that old pig thought! Stare at me if you will, with those baleful eyes of an animal—but seek to attack,
barbarian
, and you shall only die the sooner!”

“The sooner, then,” Conan said, and made a long long sidestep and snatched up a heavy brazen lamp-stand as tall as he, thick at the thinnest part of its carving-decorated stem as his wrist. It was heavy and he was not at strength; he grunted. He emptied it with a jerk. Burning oil splashed the floor.

For an instant Zafra stared in astonishment and something approaching horror; then he lifted his eyebrows and smiled.

“Do you remember this sword? I showed it you, barbarian. I showed you how it obeys. Once commanded, it will not rest until it has slain. Move fast then, barbarian…
Slay him
.”

Conan’s nape prickled and tiny icy feet seemed to race up his naked back; Zafra opened his hand. The sword he held did not drop to the floor. It dropped its point until Conan was staring at it, at the bar of the hilt behind—and then it came rushing at him.

Seized by the only fear he truly knew—that of sorcery—he nevertheless did not freeze. That would have been his death. Instead, he hurled himself to the floor—and struck wildly with the lampstand at the sword, even as it swerved down at him. Carven bronze pole struck gleaming steel blade with a great warlike clang of metal, and the sword flew across the room. The weight of his weapon—or defense—carried Conan’s hands and arms down, and he sprawled. He heard the sword bang off a wall behind him. He scrambled to his feet, bearing the brazen pole in both hands. He leaped at Zafra, whose eyes went wide. Then his gaze shifted
past
Conan, and the Cimmerian let himself fall, twisting as he fell, striking upward as he fell. He grunted at the wrenching of his side. Again his metal stave struck the kill-driven, unwielded sword.

Remembering what Zafra had said, Conan suddenly grinned. That grimace brought fear and horror to the mage, for it was the hideous feral grin of a slavering beast. Conan lurched up and ran—and not at Zafra. He ran for the door that opened out into the palace corridor!

Seconds marked by droplets of water were as minutes, while Conan’s back crawled. He ran three steps, four, another—and hurled the lampstand to his right while he dived leftward. He had been but two paces from the big paneled door; he had judged that he would never make it, for that awful mindless blade must be driving pointfirst at his back.

So it had been. And this time it had come so far and with such speed in pursuit of its racing prey that it did not swerve in air to follow him. Instead, it drove into the door with such force that it was imbedded past the shaping of the point; an inch or so. Without a word or a glance at Zafra, Conan again flung himself to his feet—and grasped the door’s brass handle, and yanked, even as the sword eerily, horribly, shook itself loose of creaking wood—and Conan leapt out into the corridor.

The sword does not cease until it has slain, eh
, the Cimmerian thought with a hideous grim smile, and he yanked the door shut behind him. It banged loudly. He stood panting, holding the handle, listening to the snarling of his empty belly—and to the cry from within the sorcerer’s chamber.

And then came the shriek that ended in a rattling throaty gurgle, and Conan knew that the young wizard’s career was nipped long before he had opportunity to grow old in his trade, much less seize thrones.

“Hai there!”

That voice and the glance Conan shot its way, to see a palace guardsman coming at him, made up his mind. He had wondered whether he dared go into the room and try to avail himself of that sword, now it had slain. Well, he thought, it’s either that or flee naked through the corridors of the royal palace—about as inconspicuous as an elephant in a beartrap!

He jerked open the door and rushed into the room. He slammed the door behind him. Only seconds passed before a body slammed against it; the Khan’s Thorn had speeded his pursuit! Conan did not pause to gaze upon the slight body sprawled untidily on the handsome tiles. It was moveless. So was the sword that stood above it, having driven itself deeply into Zafra’s chest.

“Just left of center,” Conan muttered, feeling the gooseflesh on his arm but reaching for the hilt of that ensorceled blade just the same. “A fine sword indeed!” His hand closed on the hilt. It did not move. It seemed only a sword. “Well, Zafra, it failed to serve you as you expected—perhaps it will serve Conan!”

A fine sword indeed; it had driven itself so deeply into Zafra’s lower chest that Conan had to set a foot against the supine mage and drag the thing free.

The door was hurled open, a helmeted, corseleted man appeared, burly and bearing sword in hand; from what was recognizably the corpse of the Wizard of Zamboula a naked man turned, also bearing a sword in his huge fist, and his eyes and his snarling mouth were those of a deadly beast.

Clad in the helmet and corselet-over-leathern tunic of one of the Khan-Khilayim, Conan paced the back corridor of Zamboula’s palace. At his side hung Zafra’s sword, though it had split the guardsman’s sheath of tooled leather over thin, light wood. In his hand was half a loaf he had handily filched from a passing salver, without its bearer’s noticing. It was over-leavened bread of the effete dweller in the palace of an effete city—and Conan was glad, for it wolfed down quickly and its lack of weight had not alerted her from whom it was stolen.

Or perhaps she did know and doesn’t care
, Conan mused.
The Khan-Khilayim doubtless do a great deal of precisely what they want
.

Well… not much longer, you scum who serve scum! Ah
—
this is surely the door
.

It was, and unguarded; it opened into the dungeon, where burned a single brand in a sconce just inside. Inside and below was Isparana, as he had expected.

Or perhaps he remembered; surely this was where Zafra had tortured him. Now he would—

Unfortunately Isparana was not alone. As Conan, seeing her, suffered a momentary lapse of his wariness and strode across the landing to the steps down into the pit where she lay, he heard a gasp and whirled to see two Thorns. They had been standing up here staring down at her, the bastards, just to the left of the door while he, heading forward and to the right, had charged right pass them. Bending his knees into a crouch, he filled his hands with hilt of sword and dagger, and faced them.

The two looked confused. “What do you think you’re—” one of the men began, but Conan had forgotten that he wore their uniform. He did what for them was the shockingly unexpected, and the characteristically normal for him; he attacked the two men.

The speaker, the younger of the two, lost half his upper arm to the flailing sword of Zafra, and a dagger was in the other’s belly before he could swing his blade. Surely in standing shock, the first man pawed out his own sword, though his face was white and his sundered arm hung like a tattered scarlet banner.

“You are a brave watchdog of an unworthy master,” Conan said, “and almost this pains me.” He feinted with his sword, a blow the man caught on his own blade, the while Conan swung his left hand in.

The dagger snapped against mail. Conan cursed a khan who finely attired his elite guardsmen while arming them with weapons unfit for carving baked hen. Angrily, he kicked the man in the crotch. The poor wight groaned, doubled, overbalanced when his ruined arm swung out, and pitched over the edge of the landing. He crashed to hard-packed earth twenty or so feet below. Conan took time to peer down at the sprawled form. It did not move. The Cimmerian turned and hurried over to the stairs. He descended five-and-twenty steps, into that dim chamber of unutterable horror and sphacelation.