Conan the Fearless.
By Steve Perry.
Prologue.
The chamber exuded cold, but a kind of coldness deeper than that offered by the damp and mold-speckled gray stone walls. It was an unnatural chill, a thing of the soul as well as of the air, a frigidity of ancient bones interred in the heart of a glacier old when Atlantis still rode the oceans. In the center of this coldness stood wrapped its cause and its focus-Sovartus, Mage of the Black Square, delving into an arcane spell forged with warped and stained essences of evil.
The magician"s body swayed with the forces flowing through him, and his voice was deep and powerful when he spoke. "Come forth, child of the gray lands. Come forth, sp.a.w.n of the pits. Come forth by my command!"
Sovartus then intoned the Seven Words from the Parchment of Slicreves, being careful to p.r.o.nounce them precisely. To do less was to court instant death-a word misspoken would allow the demon he conjured to tear free of the diagram sketched exactingly upon the flagstones.
From deep within the body of the castle a terrible shriek issued forth, made as if by some unearthly beast being dipped slowly into boiling lead.
In the center of the drawn pentagram smoke boiled forth from a tiny vibrating point, expanding outward in malignant waves of dark purple mixed with hard yellow, as a fresh bruise upon the air of the chamber.
There came an eye-smiting flash of infernal light, and the smell of burnt sulphur claimed the room. A demon suddenly stood within the confines of the pentagram, dripping black slime and exuding the stink of Gehanna from every pore. He was half again as tall as a man, with skin the color of fresh blood; he stood naked and hairless, and only a blind man could have failed to see how awesomely male he was.
"Who dares?" the demon screamed. He lunged toward Sovartus, seeking to wrap his taloned hands around the throat of the man with jet hair and pointed beard who grinned at him; but the demon slammed into the wall of force that bounded the pentagram. Giant muscles bunched in the monster"s arms as he pounded his fists against the invisible barrier.
He screamed, a sound that carried the rage of h.e.l.l, and he bared long ivory fangs at the man. "You will beg a thousand days for death!" His voice screeched like sheets of thick bra.s.s being sundered.
Sovartus shook his head. "Nay, h.e.l.lsp.a.w.n. I have summoned you and you shall serve at my command." The mage grinned, then laughed. "You shall serve indeed, Djavul."
The demon recoiled, holding his clawed hands in front of him. His face held horror. "You know my name!"
"Aye. And thus you will do my bidding or remain bound in my pantagram until time"s end."
Black slime oozed from Djavul"s body and dripped onto the floor. Where it touched, tendrils of smoke spiraled up from the flagstones. Pools of sludge formed, but stopped at the outline of the magic diagram Sovartus had drawn. Djavul stared at the man. "You are a Wizard of the Black Ring?" the demon asked.
"Not the Ring, night-child. I am Sovartus of the Black Square, adept, and soon to be master of the Four Ways. I do not delude myself with the scarlet dreams of the black lotus, nor dabble in base necromancy such as those inept Stygian pretenders. It is not the Ring but the more powerful Square that binds and now commands you, Djavul. Know you of the Square in the pit?"
Djavul gnashed his fangs. "We know of it."
"Ah. And shall you serve as I bid?"
"I shall serve," he said. He flashed his teeth yet again at Sovartus.
"Yet take you care, man, for if you should make the smallest mistake-!"
"Threaten not, demon. I can bind you to a rock and have you carted to the Vilayet Sea to be tossed in to contemplate the bottom muck, should I so choose!"
Djavul"s eyes flared redly, but he spoke not.
Sovartus turned away from the demon and looked to the wall nearest him.
Three children languished there, two boys and a girl, bound as was the demon, but by more mundane means: They were chained to the gray wall.
The children seemed beyond fear; they stood or sat staring at nothing, as if drugged. There were three of them-only three.
Sovartus turned back toward the demon. "Look upon these children," he commanded.
The demon beheld the three. He nodded. "I see them."
"Do you know them?"
"I know them," Djavul said. "They are Three of the Four. The girl is Water, the boys are Earth and Air."
"Very good. So you would recognize the Fourth if you beheld her?"
"I would know her."
Sovartus nodded. He smiled, his own teeth flashing whitely in the frame of his black mustache and beard. "I thought as much. Here, then, is your task, demon. To the south and east lies the city of Mornstadinos; within that city, the Child of Fire abides, but hidden. You will find her and bring her to me, alive and well."
Djavul glared at the wizard. "And then?"
"And then I will release you to return to your pleasures in Gehanna."
"I shall look forward with great joy to seeing you there, human. "
Sovartus laughed. "Of that I have no doubt; but when I arrive in h.e.l.l, it will likely be as your master, demon. More, you shall help me to achieve it; best, then, you take care not to offend me meanwhile."
Djavul"s sharp teeth grated together and he started to speak in his metal-shredding voice. "I see-" He stopped.
Sovartus"s black eyes gleamed in the light of the guttering lamps lining the walls. "Yes? Speak."
Though the demon was obviously reluctant, he nodded and said, "As I saw the Essence of the three children, so, too, I see your Essence, sorcerer. There is power in you, much power, and the promise of greater forces hangs upon you like a malignant shroud."
"Ah," Sovartus said, nodding in return, "you are perceptive for one born of the pit. You recognize how well-served you would be to avoid antagonizing me, then?"
"Aye. The Black-Souled Ones allow many things in their dealings with men. You may well do as you speak. I shall serve you, human. I have no desire to spend ten thousand years buried in black mud at the bottom of the Vilayet Sea."
"You are wise for a mere demon," Sovartus said. "When I arrive in h.e.l.l to rule after a few thousand years-after tiring of my rule here-mayhap I shall need a wise a.s.sistant such as yourself. Consider such as you do my bidding and so serve me well." He stroked his pointed beard with one slender hand. "For now, I bid you leave. Accomplish your mission and return quickly."
The demon gathered himself. "I hear, O master," he said, "and I obey."
Gigantic muscles flexed and bunched as the inhuman thing squatted and prepared to spring. He leaped, and another bruised flash lit the dank chamber; when it dimmed, Djavul was gone, leaving only the pools of sludge staining the floor where he had stood.
Sovartus laughed again, and stared at the three children. Soon he would have the Fourth; soon he would bring together the energies each held.
Then, ah, then, he would command all of the Four Elements and not merely the undines and wind-devils; not merely the salamanders and flames; not only the demi-whelves. No, when he at last had all Four of them, he would be able to create and unleash the Thing of Power, a force so awesome even Black-Souled Set himself must take notice.
Sovartus spun away, and his black silk robe flared about him. He was the most powerful of all the Black Square, and save for Hogistum, he always had been.
Hogistum had sought to keep the power from him by hiding it. The old one had ensorcelled a maiden, and then impregnated her. The maiden had birthed four children at once, quadruplets, and each child carried within it the lines of power for one Element. They had been separated at birth and scattered, to keep Sovartus from them.
Thirteen years he had searched, thirteen long years, and all the while he looked, he studied the arcane, to improve his skills. He had traveled to the corners of the world, seeking the children and knowledge. In the far-eastern jungles of Khitai he had dealt with the frozen-faced and yellow-skinned wizards; in the ruined temples of Stygia he had learned the skills of the Black Ring. Too, the mage had seen with his own eyes the emerald-skinned alien monster with the misshapen head of an elephant enshrined in Yara"s tower in Arenjun, the Zamorian City of Thieves. Yes, he had learned his evil lessons well; even without the power of the Four, Sovartus was a force to be reckoned with, a sorceror second to none in all of Corinthia. Such power was not enough, of course, not when he could be the supreme power in all of the world.
Sovartus smiled as he stalked forth from the chamber and walked down the dark hallway toward the main hall of Castle Slott. Rats chittered and fled from his pa.s.sage, and spiders climbed higher in their webs when he pa.s.sed them.
Hogistum was dead, poisoned by Sovartus"s hand, and the slain magician"s plan was no more than a fading memory. The children had been gathered, save the one, and he possessed them. Sovartus had spent fortunes to obtain the first three. His henchmen had found them in Turan; in Ophir; in Poitain; how ironic that the last one would be in Corinthia, practically upon his own doorstep! He had three of them, and the bodies of those mortals who had aided or known of his quest now fed the fishes or more unspeakable water creatures, or lay moldering where no man"s eye would ever behold them. When his demon collected the last, he would triumph. Too bad the old man was dead; Sovartus would like him to see the victory. Perhaps he would bring Hogistum back to life. He would have that power. Yes, that would be a fine jest, to bring the old mage back long enough to savor his failure and Sovartus"s victory. He laughed loudly at the thought. He would do it, by Set he would. It was not every man who could bring back his murdered father from the gray lands.
Chapter One.
In the nameless village at the foot of a pa.s.s from Zamora through the Karpash Mountains into Corinthia, a ramshackle inn squatted forlornly.
To this rickety and dilapidated place rode a tall and muscular young man, astride a fine buckskin horse for which he seemed ill-suited. The deep-chested horse carried a fine saddle and exotic silk blankets, and had bridle fittings of silver cast in the shapes of cranes and frogs; obviously, this was an animal belonging to a rich man.