Conan The Relentless.
Roland Green.
PROLOGUE.
Night in the wilderness of the Border Kingdom was not only the absence of light. Darkness was a presence in itself, which reached out to suck a man in until he could never return to the world of light.
In that darkness, the man who called himself Lord Aybas awoke slowly and reluctantly. In another life, under another name, he had been fit to drink and wench until dawn tinted the sky, then rise to do a day"s work.
Now he was older. His name was different. The chief he obeyed was likewise different, and was harsher than any Aybas had served back in Aquilonia. Also, it was more often than not an uneasy sleep Aybas had here in the wilderness, on beds of cut branches or piled reeds, or even of leaves strewn on the sullen rock of the mountains.
Yet the true reason for Aybas"s slow awakening lay elsewhere. It was a sound that he heard, riding the night wind as harshly as a troop of cavalry in a stone courtyard. He knew what followed on the heels of this sound. If he could sleep, he would not hear it and memories of what he heard would not trouble his dreams.
The sound grew louder. It was not a roar, or a growl, or a hiss, or a rumble like that of a great grindstone hard at work. It had something of all of these in it, but more that was its own.
It also had much in it that was not of the lawful earth or of any of its G.o.ds. Called on to put a name to these unearthly sounds, Aybas might have called them s...o...b..rings, or suckings.
He would also have prayed not to be asked to tell more. He could not, without revealing that he knew what those sounds meant. That was knowledge cursed alike by G.o.ds and men, neither of whom seemed to care much what happened in this wilderness.
At last Aybas threw off his sheepskin and stood. He would not sleep again tonight, unless the cause of the sounds did. The wizards might send it back to sleep, or at least silence it before dawn. They might also keep it awake and at its work until the sun shone even into the deepest parts of the gorge and the valley.
Even if he could sleep through the grisly uproar, it would not be an untroubled sleep. He had seen too much of what those sounds meant to ever forget any of it. Aybas"s memories of what he had seen since he came among the Pougoi tribe would die only with him.
Even if it would cleanse his mind, death was not something he sought.
To avoid it, he had fled his native Aquilonia, changed his name, sold sword, honor, and everything else for which he could find a buyer, to end here in the Border Kingdom.
In tales told to Aquilonian children, the Border Kingdom was next to Stygia as a place where anything might happen, little of it clean or lawful. Aybas had long since learned that too much truth lay behind the tales told of Stygia. He was now learning the same about of those told of the Border Kingdom.
Boards creaked as Aybas walked to the door of his hut. Like most of the huts in the village, it was built on a slope so steep that one side had to be braced by entire tree trunks. Otherwise, anything left on the hut floor would roll merrily down to the low side. One fine night the hut itself might even leap wildly down the hill to its ruin.
The door also creaked as it opened on leather hinges, letting Aybas into the main street of the village. The street was actually a flight of steps, some carved from the rock itself, others rough-hewn planks pegged in place. What level ground the tribe called its own lay on the valley floor at the foot of the slope. Such rich bottomland was too precious to use for huts and storehouses.
Aybas had long since decided that if he stayed much longer with the Pougoi, he would find himself growing a tail for the better climbing of hills and trees. Then, if he survived the service of his present master, he could find work as a performing ape such as the Kus.h.i.te merchants showed at fairs!
The village was lit only by the odd torch burning before a hut here and there. Clouds had veiled the moon since Aybas had retired. The wizards who called themselves Star Brothers did their work in darkness, save when they wanted to sow even more terror by showing what they did.
Aybas"s breath caught in his throat as he saw the door open in a hut just downhill. A girl stood there, the shadowy figure of a man behind her. The girl wore nothing above the waist and only a leather skirt from supple waist to dimpled knees. The hut"s torch spilled harsh yellow light on coppery hair and firm young b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and on muscular legs that Aybas had often imagined locked around him...
As if Aybas"s thoughts had been an unwanted touch, the girl turned.
Green eyes met his brown ones, and it was the Aquilonian who finally looked down. He was still staring when he heard a gruff voice say, "Come within, Wylla. There is naught to do, standing here to be gawped at."
"It was not that which I came for, Father. I thought-I hoped that if I was out here, the... the folk up yonder might know it. Even take comfort from it."
"Hsshht! No gabbling about that where he can hear!" The "he" was as plain as a pointing finger in meaning Aybas.
The Aquilonian waited until the door thumped shut behind Wylla, then let his breath out in a long, gusty sigh. So Wylla was losing her fear of the Star Brothers, at least enough to show pity for their victims?
This was more common among the Pougoi than either the wizards or Aybas"s master cared to admit. Indeed, if all who had doubted the Star Brothers" virtue-if not their power-had been sacrificed, the Vale of the Pougoi would be very scant of inhabitants.
Perhaps it was time to make another example? If it was Wylla, could Aybas come forward and make a great show of asking for mercy? In return for certain long-craved favors, of course...
The thought made the chill mountain night suddenly seem warm. Aybas felt sweat on his brow and wiped it away with a greasy hand. A gust of wind blew down the street, and sparks flew away into the darkness from the torch outside Wylla"s hut.
As if the sparks had kindled it, a light shone forth from across the valley. A pinpoint at first, it swelled until it was a harsh blue glow, reaching out to strip the softness of night from the rocky bones of this mountain land.
It came from beyond a high dam of rocks, logs, and rammed earth. The dam blocked the entrance to the gorge across the valley and held within it a deep lake. On one side of the gorge"s mouth, the cliffs leaped upward, to form themselves into a jutting crest shaped like a dragon"s head.
On the dragon"s head, two human figures stood, one tall and one short.
The blue wizard-fire glowed on their oiled skins and on the chains that bound them. Bound them for what would soon be climbing up from the lake, to seize them at the Star Brothers" command.
Aybas decided that it was time for him also to be inside his hut. His stomach was not always fit to endure seeing the wizards" pet feed, and the Star Brothers might see this weakness as enmity.
Then, to let Aybas keep the wizards" favor, it would take more gold than his master could afford. With no friends and many foes in this land, it would be time to journey again. Otherwise, he might end up on that dragon-headed rock, waiting for the mouth-studded tentacles to claim his blood and his marrow-
Aybas gagged at the thought and all but spewed. He staggered into his hut and collapsed on his pallet without closing the door. So he heard on the wind the splashing as the Star Brothers" pet heaved itself out of the water, heard the sucking and s...o...b..ring as it gripped the rock face and began to climb.
He had stuffed rawhide sc.r.a.ps into his ears before he heard the faint high call of pipes.
The fisherman and his son atop the dragon"s head were more fortunate.
The pipes came to their ears with a sound clear and exciting, like war trumpets summoning cavalry to the charge.
The fisherman knew that the pipes could not really be making such a sound. Marr the Piper had magic at his command, as much as the Pougoi wizards had.
This did not surprise the fisherman. He had known that he risked much when he and his son went beyond Three Oaks Hill into a land where the man-hunting Pougoi warriors roamed. He had also known that in this land lay pools and streams rich in fat fish; salmon, trout, pike, even fresh-water oysters.
Nothing was ever won without danger in this life. Such was the G.o.ds"
will. The greater the victory, the greater the danger a man had to face to win it. The fisherman did not mourn his own shortened days. He would have given much to have refused his son"s pleas to accompany him.
Now the boy stood in chains beside him, his days about to end before he had seen his fourteenth year. He bore himself like a man in spite of the weight of the chains and the agony of the raw welts across his back. He had been plain-spoken to the wizards, and they did not care for that. Or perhaps they thought to frighten the father by flogging the son.
No matter. That and all other questions would go forever unanswered as soon as what was climbing the cliff reached them.
It was hard to see it clearly. The wizards" magical light had turned the water of the gorge into blue fire, the mist swirling above it into blue smoke. The creature was larger than any riverboat that the fisherman had ever seen. It had tentacles where no creature outside a madman"s dream would have them, and neither legs nor eyes.
Its color was that of a fish rotting on a sand spit in the sun; its sounds would have made the fisherman empty his stomach had it not already been empty.
It was then that the magic of the piping joined battle with the spells of the Star Brothers. The chains that bound father and son writhed like snakes. Then they snapped in the middle, leaving lengths dangling from wrists and ankles.
The piping also seemed to give the wizards" creature pause. It halted halfway up the cliff. Its call turned to a rumbling hiss, and its tentacles also writhed.
The fisherman looked about. There was no way down from the rock; a crevice-too wide to jump- sundered it from the hill. The Pougoi warriors had brought the sacrifices to their rock across a bridge of reeds and branches. Now the warriors had drawn the bridge back, and they stood beside the crevice, bows and spears ready.
Down was the only way, and death the only fate, for father and son. The fisherman still called the blessing of his people"s G.o.ds and the rivers" spirits on Marr the Piper. His spell had given them the choice of a clean death.
"My son, it will be upon us soon. Will you come with me?"
The boy saw his fate in his father"s eyes. The father saw knowledge, obedience, and love in his son"s.
"Where you lead, I follow."