Michael Stackpole - Conan the Barbarian

The water roiled and Conan sped forward. Akhoun glanced toward his pet, and saw the golden light of its eye slowly fading away; then he turned toward the barbarian. He raised his mace, his mouth open, his roar giving voice to the pain the creature must have felt. He darted forward, intent on Conan. The two combatants hurtled toward each other, one blow aimed high, the other low, with no thought to defense given by either man.

Conan’s blade sliced across Akhoun’s belly, opening him from navel to hip, front to spine, as the Cimmerian passed beneath the giant’s left arm. Blood gushed and a pale rope of intestine spilled out. Yet before death could claim him, Arkoun’s mace struck.

The weapon’s iron head should have crushed Conan’s skull, and likely would have save that a flailing tentacle brushed the mace at the highest point in its arc, diverting and slowing it. The club fell, its haft striking Conan on the shoulder. It knocked him down and sent him tumbling against the chamber wall. He rolled and came halfway up before impact with the wall dropped him onto his ass.

Akhoun stood there, staring down at his ruined belly. A hand reached toward his guts, as if to stuff them back inside. He took a sidling step toward the Cimmerian. The pure venom in his eyes overrode the shock on his face.

Then two tentacles swept out, ensnared him in their coils, and yanked him from sight.

Conan scrambled to his feet and ran to Akhoun’s throne. He released the chains that had pulled the drawbridges up, then ran over and joined Ela in his ascent. Below, the water still splashed and things moved in it.

“What did you do?”

“Five years’ worth of venom from spitting cobras. The thing’s not dead, just blind.”

“That’s more an assassin’s tool than one for a thief.”

“If I used it on other than watchdogs, it might be.” Ela raced ahead and reached an iron door. “You can feel the drums through here.”

“Open it.”

“Lock’s rusted shut, but one of these others will work. The one across the way will be more accommodating.” They ran to it and Ela Shan had it quickly open. The two of them burst into a small garrison chamber and each slew a sleeping man. They moved into the corridor, then found the servants’ stairs and worked their way up, killing everyone they could find.

Finally they reached the uppermost level and burst in through the open doorway. The fact that no guards had been posted had warned them that they would find no one. Conan ran to the window and looked down. A long procession had begun with a man in golden armor riding at its head. Behind him came acolytes carrying banners, and Conan imagined that the one at the procession’s center bore the Mask of Acheron. More riders, in long robes, with Marique among them; then a crude cart with a woman bound to a post, her back straight, her head high.

Tamara .

Ela Shan joined him. “It looks as if they are bound for that mountain. We can get there easily enough, but look at the companies he has arrayed on the road. We couldn’t possibly slaughter them all.”

Conan turned and clasped the thief on both shoulders. “Our debt is settled.”

The thief chuckled. “Do not think you can abandon me in the midst of an adventure, Cimmerian. I, too, am not without honor.”

“And I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Yes?”

“You said this place was full of traps and dangers.”

“More of those than there is treasure.”

“Good.” Conan glanced out the window again. “I can get to that mountain. I can slip past those guards. I will destroy Khalar Zym and his mask. But . . .”

“But were the unthinkable to happen, you want him to return to a stronghold that will consume him.”

Conan nodded grimly. “Make this a place of death.”

“It would make me more of an assassin than a thief, but that old career is getting boring.” Ela Shan smiled. “I shall do as you ask, friend Conan. I likely won’t kill him, but I shall slow him down. And that might give the world a chance to make this his mausoleum.”

CHAPTER 32

FROM HER PLACEof honor Marique studied those working below her. Four acolytes had bound Tamara to the ceremonial oaken wheel, linking her chains to it. She hung there as Maliva had once hung. As she will again . Displaying strength that belied their slender forms, the acolytes lifted the wheel and settled it in a wooden collar that had been fitted across a ragged split through the heart of the skull mountain. Scaffolding had been constructed around it to provide a platform for the ceremony, but down through the opening and off into the distance, one could easily see the river of fire that rose to pour out of the skull’s mouth.

Marique felt especially proud, for in the lava’s red-gold glow could be seen ruins, ancient ruins that dated back to the Acheronian period. The coast where Khor Kalba now rose had once been home to a grand city in the heart of a plain. The shattering of Acheron’s power had fractured the land as well. The sea had greedily devoured what it could, and men supposed that the city had been completely consumed, but much of it had been preserved. Marique’s researches had located it, and she had convinced her father to excavate the ruins near Khor Kalba. Within the ruins Marique had uncovered material the existence of which her mother had only dreamed about, and with this material, she had been able to construct the ritual that would bring Maliva back to life.

She had spent much time in those ruins, fearing at first that she might have been wrong, and later because the voices that spoke to her did not like the ruins. Despite this, Marique directed the recovery of the statuary and mosaics that filled her father’s throne room. He had seen her delivery of them as an act of homage to the god he would become. While she was still subject to his rages, he always forgave her because she was, after all, the first to worship him.

Marique wondered, at times, what he would think if he knew that she had recovered many more things within the ruins. Dark things. Foul things. Things that defied description. Things that had moved through dimensions untouched by time, to somehow become lodged in the sea-gnawed city. She collected them, arranging them in the largest of the galleries that lay hidden in shadow. She could only guess at some of their names, and at the unspeakable relationships that existed among them. And though she recognized most as gods, Lesser and Elder, Great and Hidden, she refrained from worshipping them.

Instead she arranged them to be her first worshippers. For while her father would be made a god, he would only ever see her as a princess. That was an error he would not be the first god to make; and her taking her rightful place in the pantheon would not be the first act of divine rebellion. Though she loved her mother and father dearly, she was fully aware that they had used her as a means to achieving their own ends, and so she would use them as a means for her to become that which she had always been meant to be.

Below, two acolytes blew on ivory horns carved from mastodon tusks. The bass call reverberated through the sacrificial cavern. Marique felt a familiar thrill running through her belly. Outside, warriors snapped to attention. They stood on either side of the roadway, ready to welcome their new queen. Maliva would make them over into the creatures Acheron had relied upon for centuries. Their limbs would be straightened, the forms made more powerful. They would cease to be human, and would not notice or care. They would be handsome, if the shadowed murals below were any clue, and alien.

She thought briefly of Remo, whom she had seen skulking through the ruins from time to time. He’d seen the murals. It was his wish to be transformed. He believed—or at least had presumed to hope—that Khalar Zym would choose him as Marique’s consort. And the true pity was that his wish might have come true, though his transformation would have rendered any conventional understanding of their relationship moot.