Michael Stackpole - Conan the Barbarian

Her father appeared and the horns blasted again. He had donned golden armor, which shone with unnatural brightness within the cavern. It had been modeled on that worn by the last priest-king of Acheron, and the ruins themselves imparted energy to it—the tribute of ghosts who longed to honor near-forgotten glories. His twinned serpentine blades rode in the scabbard at his left hip. He walked to the platform, his steps sure, his eyes bright—every bit a warrior and a ruler. He took up his place at Tamara’s left hand, his back toward Khor Kalba, then surveyed the gathered faithful as a god might survey an assembly of his high priests.

He opened his hands. “Now is the time in which great wrongs are righted. Through this woman and her sacrifice, my wife shall return, and through her shall we return Acheron to its glory. All of you, whether from far Nemedia or Turan, from the deserts of Stygia, the dank jungles of Keshan, or the jeweled cities of Aquilonia, you all have shared with me a secret. The blood of Acheron runs through our veins. Some of us had it introduced by rapine. Others of us fled when Acheron fell. Some of us never knew until recent times of our heritage, and others have worked for centuries to bring this day to fruition.

“The day of our redemption is at hand!”

That statement was Marique’s cue. She turned to an acolyte and accepted from his hands the red silk-wrapped Cimmerian sword. She descended a short set of stone stairs and approached her father’s left side. She could not keep a smile from her face, but whether it arose from pride in her father, or because she knew that all of them would soon be on bended knee before her, she could not say.

Marique unwrapped the blade and raised it high, red silk hiding her hand and flowing, bloodlike, down her arm. “As a victorious barbarian’s sword once shattered the Mask of Acheron, a vanquished barbarian’s sword—one made by the hand of the last guardian of a mask shard—shall revive it.”

Khalar Zym took the naked blade from her, and as he did so, her smallest finger brushed the sword’s bronze pommel. It stung, as if a metal burr had slid into her flesh . . . but she knew it was not that at all. The barbarian is close . She smiled. He was not close enough. Nothing could stop her father now.

Khalar Zym studied the blade, then washed it in the smoke of a censer. As the acolyte bearing that censer moved to waft smoke over Tamara, two other acolytes tipped the wheel forward. Tamara hung by her chains above the fiery river far below, her long hair idly buffeted by rising currents. The last acolyte moved onto the platform, bearing the mask on a golden ceremonial tray. Marique took the tray from him, and moved to her father’s right hand.

Again he raised the sword above his head. “By lusty Derketo and the serpent lord Set, by Dagon and Nergal and gods we shall return to their rightful places . . . with this blade I do seed the mask with the blood of its ancient master.”

With the delicacy of a parent brushing an errant lock from a child’s cheek, Khalar Zym laid the sword’s edge against Tamara’s collarbone and slid it forward. The woman gasped and blood flowed. It trailed down from the cut to the fullness of her breast, then dripped off, hot and red.

On bended knee, Marique raised the tray and let the blood splash over the mask. The droplets did not spatter as might have been expected, but were sucked into the mask as if it were thirsty silk. What had been a hard-edged puzzle of bone and reptilian leather drank the blood. Tiny bubbles frothed along the breaks caused by the shattering, then those fissures sealed themselves. Desiccated flesh grew more supple. Tissue swelled, taking on a deeper luster. The patina of age faded and vitality suffused the mask.

And there, for the first time, one of the tentacles twitched. It was not a strong motion, but it was not a trick of the eye either. Then another one moved, and another. The motions became deliberate. One tentacle tested itself against the tray, lifting the mask for a heartbeat, then letting it thump down again. Marique felt it through the gold, and heard it, and when she looked up, in her reflection on the golden tray’s edge, she spied a goddess.

She turned, and her father, bloody sword in one hand, secured the mask in the other. The tentacles caressed his hand. Marique did not know which she envied more: the tentacles for being able to touch her father in way that lit his face so, or her father, for holding, pulsing and alive there in his hand, the culmination of his dreams,

“Ancient ones which burn beneath us, unspeakable art thy names.” Ecstasy in full possession of his expression, Khalar Zym lifted his face to the heavens and laughed aloud. “Behold your new master, and despair in his lack of mercy.”

He stared at the mask in his left hand, then slowly raised it to his face. The tentacles, as if feeling his breath, bent themselves toward him. As he pressed the mask against his flesh, they wrapped around his head. Their tips plunged into his skin, through his scalp and cheeks, along his jaw. No blood welled from the wounds because the mask’s flesh and his flesh became as one.

“Yes, of course, yes.” Khalar Zym turned toward Marique. She rose and held the tray between them as if it were a shield. “Fear not, daughter. I have always loved you. I always shall. I can forgive you anything.”

A chill ran through Marique. She bowed her head. “My father is most kind.”

“He is.” Khalar Zym’s voice grew slightly distant. “But I shall not always be your father.”

He turned, extending his open hand toward Tamara. “Maliva, my queen, hear my call! I summon you from the depths of the deepest hell. Swiftly return, my love, and bring with you all knowledge forgotten and damned. Now is the time for our eternal rule to begin.”

On the other side of the wheel, the censer clanked to the decking. The acolyte’s body fell one way. His head rolled and bounced off the platform. The acolyte beside him began to bleed from the forehead, in a line that ran down his nose. His eyes rolled up as if he were attempting to see what had happened, then he jerked forward, rebounding off the wooden collar, having been propelled by a booted foot.

Khalar Zym snarled. “Who dares?”

“That mask is not yours, Khalar Zym. Nor is the power that goes with it.” The Cimmerian crouched low, blood running from his blade. “I’ve come to take the piece that is mine, and to send you to join your wife in hell.”

CHAPTER 33

CONAN FLICKED BLOODfrom his blade and stalked across the platform toward the man who would be a god. One of the acolytes let loose with a blast on his ivory horn—a blast Conan aborted with a harsh glance. The other acolyte pulled back, and his retreat spurred the ritual’s observers to join him, giving the fighters ample room to engage each other.

Khalar Zym raised the Cimmerian great sword and struck a guard, as if he were once again a minor Nemedian prince dueling at court. Conan came at him directly, both hands on his long sword’s hilt. He did not feint or waver; he came on directly. When Khalar Zym lunged, hoping to spit him, Conan battered aside the blade his father had made and struck. He caught Khalar Zym above the right ear, striking sparks from the mask and drawing blood that the mask greedily drank in.

Foul green energy pulsed forth, sending a cold wave of numbness down Conan’s arm. Khalar Zym fell back and the very earth itself shook. Planks snapped. The platform sagged, spilling half the visitors off into the fiery abyss. Stones crumbled and began to fall, then a loud crack sounded from behind the Cimmerian.

“Conan!”

The Cimmerian turned and leaped toward the ceremonial wheel. The wooden collar around it had broken. His gaze met Tamara’s for a heartbeat, then the wheel dropped down, as if falling down a chimney, taking her with it. Conan ran to the edge, fearing all he would see was her body dwindling in the distance, a blackened shadow against the molten river below.