Michael Stackpole - Conan the Barbarian

Conan watched until the incense burned to nothing and she ceased moving. Were it not for her chest rising and falling, he might have thought her dead. He entered her cabin silently and scooped her up in his arms. He laid her on her bunk and checked that none of the blood she’d washed off had been hers. He wrapped her in a blanket, then stole back to his cabin.

As she had found peace in her prayers, so Conan found it in caring for his weapons. He washed and oiled them, scraping away all tarnish and rust. He wiped them clean of oil, then held each blade over a lamp’s flame. Soot blackened the steel so no reflected moonlight would reveal it. He similarly blackened a cloth so he could darken his face as needed, then opened his sea chest, pulled out a mail surcoat, and repeated the process with it.

He prepared his weapons for war with the same sincere devotion Tamara had showed in her prayers. Not because Conan worshipped war, but because he had been born to it. It occurred to him, with a degree of grim satisfaction, that as long as wars raged, and men like Khalar Zym sought to elevate themselves over others, he would never truly be alone. War might be a fell companion, but it was one he knew well. And as long as I know it better than my enemies do, I shall not fall.

CHAPTER 28

MARIQUE STARTED, NOTbecause she had not expected her father’s reaction, but because she had underestimated his fury. He banged open the bronze doors to her chamber and marched in as if he were already a god. Anger had flushed his face purple and sharpened his features into a fearsome mask.

“What have you done?”

She folded the light purple tunic and laid it on top of a saddlebag before she turned to face him. She kept her expression serene, hiding her racing heart. “I am doing as you ordered, Father.”

Her answer stopped him. Shock softened his features, but only for a moment. He pointed toward her chamber’s floor. “Akhoun has told me that the Beast That Lurks has returned. Neither Ukafa nor any of those who accompanied him have come back. Their submersible coracles are lost. They failed, you failed! The girl is gone. Your mother is gone.”

“Calm yourself, Father.”

“I cannot be calm, Marique!” His clawed hands rose toward the ceiling, his angry words filling her domed chamber. “Ever have I been patient with you. For your sake. For your mother’s sake. But now . . . now that we are so close, so very close, you have failed me. Again! How am I to feel calm, Marique? Where do I find a wellspring of peace?”

“Here, Father.” She beckoned him to a side table which had been topped in forgotten times with a mosaic map of the Acheronian empire. The coastline had changed. Rivers flowed in different courses, but the mountains remained the same and created suitable landmarks for navigation. A rounded crystalline bell had been fitted over the top of the table. Beneath it had been trapped a single insect.

Khalar Zym’s rage simmered. “An old map of an old world.”

“A world to be made again anew, Father. That’s what you want. And the monk, she is of old blood.” Marique smiled casually. “This is why we had trouble locating her. The monk Fassir changed her, hid her, so that as we looked for an ancient bloodline in a modern world, we could not find it. But when we look for her blood on a world in which it was born, we find it.”

“How?”

“Is it not obvious?” Marique pointed.

“A bug on the ocean, daughter, does not cheer me.”

“A hornet , Father. The ship she is on is the Hornet . Right now it lurks here, off the coast. The scrap of cloth still bears her essence and puts her on the ship, but not forever.” She glanced at the baggage on the bed. “I go with a handpicked squad to ride and to retrieve her.”

Khalar Zym shook his head. “From Khor Kalba to there will take four days, and that would be riding horses to death.”

“Yes, Father, but you forget. I am my mother’s daughter.” Marique laughed. “With the magick at my command, what was once a horse will no longer be, and riding them unto death and beyond will make all the difference.”

Khalar Zym threw his head back and laughed, anger drained from his voice. “Very clever, beloved daughter. Proceed. But mark me. Return without the monk, or fail to bring her here for the ritual on the night of the moon’s death, and all the sorcery in the world will not save you from my wrath.”

TAMARA STOOD ONthe wheel deck, dressed as a pirate should be, with her long, dark hair dancing in the dying day’s breeze. She watched Conan below as he bid his fellows farewell. She’d awakened in her bed, naked but wrapped tenderly in a blanket, and knew who had done her that kindness. Her ritual had provided her some peace and more clarity, though the latter only extended so far.

She hoped that by standing there, standing tall and looking every inch as a corsair should, she would give Conan heart. She wanted terribly to beg him not to go—not because she feared for her safety on the Hornet . Not only would her skills with a knife and bow save her from unwanted attention, but Artus had declared her the little sister he’d never had and had suggested, none too subtly, that the rest of the crew should do likewise.

Unspoken was the fact that to fail in that regard would be to face her wrath, or his wrath, or Conan’s wrath, in no particular order.

No, Tamara feared for Conan. Oddly enough it was not because she doubted his skill with arms or courage—she had never seen a man so fearsome in combat. Though she would never have wished them to oppose each other, she would have felt certain that even Master Fassir would fall to the Cimmerian.

It was instead his grim fatalism that caused her anxiety. All of the pirates appeared to go through dark moments, but Conan dwelt most comfortably there. Quick and clever and vital as he was, in those moments of quiet where she found peace, he retreated into melancholy. Tamara worried that there might come a time when he could not find his way back.

But she smiled bravely when he looked up at her. “May the gods speed you, Conan.”

He nodded once, solemnly, then shouldered a supply satchel and headed down the gangway to the abandoned stone pier by which they had dropped anchor. Without looking back, the broad-shouldered barbarian marched to shore and started up the nearest hillside.

Artus looked up at her. “Well, woman?”

“What, Captain Artus?”

“I like the sound of that, ‘ Captain Artus.’ You poxed dogs remember that.” Artus plucked a rolled piece of canvas from his belt. “The Cimmerian forgot his map. I’d send a man, but they all need to be filling our water casks. I need someone fleet to catch him.”

Smiling, Tamara leaped to the main deck. “I’ll gladly . . .”

Artus extended the map to her, but did not yet let go. “We sail with the tide. Be back by dawn.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Artus smiled. “And if you have a chance, Tamara, tell him he’d best meet me in Hyrkania, or I will hunt him down.”

EVEN BEFORE HEcaught sight of her, Conan knew it was Tamara. She made more noise, deliberate noise, than an advancing company of freebooters. He paused on a sandy switchback, the breeze teasing long blades of sea grass, and smiled as she turned the corner. Beyond her, on the beach, Artus waved.

She held the map out to him. “Artus said you forgot this.”

Conan patted a folded piece of canvas at his belt. “You’ll have to take that back. He’s forgotten I made my own copy.”

Her face fell.

“But not yet, Tamara.”

She closed the distance between them and slipped her hand into his. “You’ll think me silly, but in all my time at the monastery, I never had to say good-bye.”