Michael Stackpole - Conan the Barbarian

The girl looked back again. She shook her head, then squatted. She tugged at something, then came up again and displayed a steel shaft. She taunted the man with it, then blithely tossed it away.

Before Conan could be certain what she had done, two things happened. The woman leaped forward, onto the back of one of the horses. The wagon slowed as the horses sped on. The wagon’s tongue lanced down, stabbing into the road. Before it splintered, it caused the front wheels to turn sharply left and the wagon hurtled from the roadway.

Of the man on its roof Conan saw nothing until the first bounce. Wheels and bits thereof sailed in every direction. The man arced high into the air as the carriage box started tumbling across the lake bed. It flew to pieces, instantly reduced to jagged fragments. It scattered itself along a twenty-yard path, and the man rolled to the middle of it.

Conan guided the horse toward him and dismounted quickly. Khalar Zym’s man took one look at him and scrambled to his feet. He began to run in a shuffling gait, his path haphazard. Conan bent, picked up an iron wheel rim, and hurled it, tangling the man’s legs and dropping him to the cracked gray ground.

The minion had rolled to his back and held his hands up as Conan approached. “Mercy, sir, mercy.”

The Cimmerian stared down at him, seeing, now twisted in fear, a face he’d last seen warped by triumph and lit by the forge’s fire. He pressed the tip of his blade to the man’s throat. “You have one chance. Where is Khalar Zym?”

The man hesitated before he answered. Conan knew that hesitation well—civilized men always stopped to concoct lies. “If you seek Khalar Zym, then you can be a very rich man. I can guarantee you that.”

Conan’s eyes narrowed. “Should I believe your lies, or just backtrail you? I think I am better at tracking.”

“Wait, don’t kill him.”

Conan looked up as the woman approached. “I don’t need him. My mission ends where his began.”

“Your mission is to take me to Hyrkania.”

Conan glanced up toward the sun, then looked at her again. It was a bit early in the day for her to be heat-addled, and she didn’t have the look of a congenital idiot. “I do not know you.”

“My master knew you. He had a vision. He said a man would come to take me to Hyrkania.”

The Cimmerian thought for a moment. He’d believed Lucius was likely lying when he said Khalar Zym was seeking a woman in the Red Waste. Still, Zym’s men had been chasing her. The idea that her master had had a vision smacked of sorcery to him, but so did Khalar Zym and the entire Red Waste. “So you are the one Khalar Zym seeks?”

She frowned. “Who’s Khalar Zym?”

The minion sucked at his teeth. “Yes, Master, this is the one Khalar Zym wants. He’ll pay well for her return. You can be as we are, as we, his faithful, will be. You can be a god, too.”

The woman folded her arms over her chest. “I have no knowledge of this Khalar Zym. I just know that Master Fassir said you would take me Hyrkania.”

“No, Master, you cannot do that.” The ugly man gingerly pushed Conan’s sword out of line with his throat. “Khalar Zym is not to be thwarted. If you do not submit, he shall chase you to the end of the earth. He will hound you from Khitai to the Black Kingdoms, and even to the frozen plains of Cimmeria. You must believe me.”

“I do believe you, little man.” Conan stabbed his sword into the earth and crouched. He held his hands before the minion’s face, revealing chain scars traced with dirt and blood. “I remember the last time he was there. I’ve come to remind him of it, then to ensure that’s the last thought that ever travels through his mind.”

CHAPTER 21

SO USED WASshe to the ritual that Marique could have made quick work of unbuckling her father’s armor. The well-worn leather straps were compliant conspirators in what she did, but she did not move with haste. Beneath the armor, beneath the boiled-leather shell, she could feel her father’s warmth. She relished it, and took great joy in being of service to him, no matter how tiny that service might be.

Someday he will understand the true significance of all I do for him.

At the moment, however, in his grand cabin aboard the land ship, her father’s attention remained focused on one thing: the Mask of Acheron. Unforgivably ancient, the golden brown of aged ivory, with a serpent-scale texture and tentacles arrayed as if rays of the sun, the mask lay between his hands, at once terrible and hideous, yet possessed of a beauty born of its potential. His thumbs caressed the cheeks as he might have caressed a lover’s flesh.

As he caressed my mother’s face .

Marique removed the armor’s back plate and set it aside. She started working on the next layer of buckles, beginning at the top.

“The prize is near, Father. You possess the mask, and soon you shall have the blood to fill it.”

“Yes, very soon.” His fingers played over the forehead. “It was your mother’s dream to wear the mask. Magick flowed in her blood, as it does in yours. She yearned for the power, she sought the secrets of Acheron’s forgotten sorcery. Without her and her work, we would not be on this brink.”

Marique hesitated, letting a single finger caress the silken undertunic her father wore beneath the armor. His scent rose from within the shell, filling her head, warming her heart. She longed to press her cheek to his back, to linger in his presence. She drew strength from him. She hoped for a second or two of his attention, thinking that would be enough to sustain her forever, and yet knowing it would be but a drop in a vast ocean of desire.

Khalar Zym glanced back over his shoulder. “Imagine, Marique . . .”

“Yes, Father . . .”

“Imagine the secrets she will bring back with her from the realms of the dead.” His voice grew from a reverent whisper to a bold declaration. “She will have spent her time well, you know. She will have pierced mysteries that have confounded necromancer and philosopher alike. Even sorcerers who were born prior to the fall of Acheron will bow before her wisdom, the wisdom of a woman who dared venture to a realm that frightens them all.”

“Yes, Father . . .” Marique worked at the next buckle. Does he not remember that I was there? He remembers her death as he needs to. Before the monks it was a foul crime. Now it becomes a bold sacrifice that launched her on a quest for lore arcane and obscure. Her mistakes, her foolishness, is what led her to her death. Is it sane to assume she will return any the wiser?

Her father drew the mask in toward his own face. The girl felt certain that if it had lips, he would have kissed it. He stared into the empty eyeholes. “Oh, Marique, can you feel it? Can you feel the future? With my beloved Maliva at my side, I shall be invincible! Nations may call forth legions to destroy us, but I shall harvest them as if they were sheaves of wheat. I shall trample on kingdoms, I shall reave empires. All history shall begin with me and dwell forever with my beloved and me.”

“Yes, Father, I believe this.” Her fingers stopped. “But, as you have taught me, as my mother taught me, prophecy and magick, these are subtle and delicate things. Must we not plan further?”

Khalar Zym turned halfway around, shifting the mask so both it and he stared at her. “What are you suggesting?”

“Father, Remo went after the girl hours ago. What if he does not return with her?”

Her father laughed coldly. “Remo will bring her, or send word where I can find her. He would rather die than disappoint me, and will sooner soar on invisible wings than fail me. Put your mind at ease, Marique.”