Conan: Road of Kings (21 page)

“That doesn’t tell us anything,” Santiddio said tiredly.

“I’ve told you all I can. This isn’t my area of study by any means. The mysteries of Jhebbal Sag concern life forces. We are the few who
remember
—the last few.”

“‘Remember’?”
Conan repeated her stress on the word.

“There is little I may tell you, less that you would understand,” Destandasi said carefully. “There was an age when
all
living things worshipped Jhebbal Sag, and men and beasts were brothers who spoke one language. Only a few have retained that memory—beasts more so than men. It is a memory that can be reawakened. More than this I may not disclose.”

“But you can’t help us defeat the Final Guard with your knowledge?” Santiddio asked in dejection.

“I have studied living things, sought to understand the unity of all life. You want to learn about the forces of death and of chaos. Go to a sorcerer.”

“That’s the dilemma,” Santiddio sighed. “Assuming we were able to enlist the aid of a magician whose powers were greater than Callidios’—then we’d run the risk of his seizing control of the Final Guard.”

“Better the devil you know,” Destandasi finished for him. “I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t know how to advise you in this.”

A scream from the clearing outside ripped apart the brooding silence that had set in after her words. It was at once a howl of baffled rage and a shrilling of agony. Conan was not certain whether the cry was human or bestial, and in this grove the distinction might not be all that clear cut.

Destandasi came to her feet in one fluid movement. Her face expressed shock and uncertainty. Conan gave her a single glance, understood that this was not the cry of one of the children of Jhebbal Sag, and was through the door with drawn sword in the next instant.

The Cimmerian skidded away from the pool of light, crouched low against the massive bole, as he searched the clearing for the source of the outcry. Something white struggled frantically at the opposite edge of the clearing. Conan made for it in catlike bounds, keeping low.

A woman stood at the edge of the sacred grove. It was Sandokazi.

Conan stood gaping for a moment, as Santiddio and Destandasi caught up to him. Sandokazi stared back at him wildly.

“Mitra! It’s ’Kazi!” Her brother recognized her face in the wan light. “Did you change your mind and decide to join us after all? How did you manage to find us? Poor ’Kazi, no wonder you…”

He started forward to embrace her, but Destandasi hauled him back from her reach. “No! Keep back from her!” she hissed.

Sandokazi made a low growl, tried to edge forward. Some force was holding her back.

“Don’t you see!” Destandasi’s voice was sick. “She can’t cross the circle of the sacred grove!”

Conan’s eyes adjusted from the light within the tree home to the near darkness at the edge of the forest. His brain now registered that which his instincts had warned him of an instant before.

Sandokazi wore only a filthy shift. Her bare feet were torn and scratched, her tangled hair matted with briars and muck. Instead of a pearl necklace, a hempen noose bit into her throat—left there in a cruel jest. Her neck seemed unnaturally long, tipped crookedly away from the knot. Her eyes protruded in a ghastly stare, emanating insensate malice. Her tattered lips writhed in an animal snarl, and as she clawed at them from the edge of the circle, they could smell the sweet taint of decay.

“Can’t you see?” Destandasi’s voice was shaken but her nerve was steady. “She’s dead. They killed her, and Callidios sent her on your trail to kill you. If you’d been camped along the river, she would have attacked you like a deadly beast. She would leap upon us now, if evil sendings could cross the sacred grove.”

Santiddio knelt, retching between the sobs that tore from him as if hot nails had been driven into his breast.

Conan raised his sword to strike. His face was terrible with the rage he could not express.

“Don’t!” Destandasi checked him. “That isn’t the way. She’s dead—a dead thing that Callidios controls! The Stygian has revealed to us where his genius lies: Callidios is a master of necromancy.”

“What can I do!” Conan groaned between clenched teeth.

“Take Santiddio away from this and stay with him. There is a sign of power that I may use to break this foul spell. It would not be good if you saw what I do now, for the secrets of Jhebbal Sag are jealously guarded.”

“I’m not afraid,” Conan swore. “I’ll stay to help you…”

“Leave me with that which was my sister!” Destandasi hissed. “Haven’t you already helped her!”

Conan swallowed a retort. Picking up Santiddio as if he were some broken doll who might shatter completely, Conan left Destandasi to do what must be done.

Nineteen

Dreams Are Born to Die

They buried Sandokazi within the sacred grove at daybreak.

Conan dug the grave beneath the graying skies of dawn. He flung back the earth, his breath jerking in savage grunts with each blow of the shovel. From the blaze in his eyes, he might have been striking against living flesh.

Destandasi quietly washed the desecrated body of her sister—now exorcised of its depraved sham of life—and prepared a shroud from the coverlets of her bed. Her face was lined with a stress beyond even this horror, and Conan guessed that the powers of Jhebbal Sag were not to be invoked without a price.

Santiddio remained silent throughout the ordeal. Looking into his eyes, Conan knew that the soul of adventurous youth had gone into the grave with Sandokazi.

As the Cimmerian threw the final spadeful of earth upon the grave, Santiddio found his voice. “I don’t care any longer whether our cause is a lost one, or whether the final victory will be ours. I only know that I return now to Kordava to continue the struggle, and that I’ll send that Stygian down into the Hell that spawned him if it’s the last thing I do!”

“I’m going to Kordava with you,” Destandasi stated.

“But your vow!” her brother reminded.

“There comes a time when vows must be broken.” Destandasi bent to place a spray of dried flowers and autumn leaves upon the grave.

“All living things are sacred to Jhebbal Sag,” she continued. “It is wrong to take a life. It is an unspeakable sacrilege to enslave a dead soul by animating its clay with a hideous mockery of life. It was a great evil that Callidios did to Sandokazi. Such evil must not be permitted to endure.”

“Then you
can
help us defeat Callidios’ sorcery?” Conan asked quickly.

“I believe I have fathomed the secret of his command of the Final Guard,” Destandasi announced. “If I have, it may be that Sandokazi will be avenged—for in sending her forth as one of the walking dead to perform his commands, Callidios may have revealed himself. Had you any suspicion that the Stygian was a necromancer?”

“Callidios is secretive and devious in everything,” Conan replied. “He belittles the demonstrations of his powers that he has revealed on occasion, boasts of his mastery of dark forces that remain his secret.”

“His mastery of necromancy would justify his boasts. It demands the most potent spells in order to raise the dead and compel them to reveal the course of future events. Callidios, it seems, has exceeded the depraved ambitions of most others who delve into the necromantic arts. Callidios not only has the power to raise the dead, but he can compel the reanimated corpse to obey him in whatsoever he shall command. Sending Sandokazi across Zingara to slay those whom she loved was as arrogant a stroke as it was cruel. He meant that you should know in the moment of your death that the dread powers he boasted to possess were all that he had claimed.”

Santiddio thought upon her words, trying to follow her line of reasoning. “Then you believe that Callidios can command the Final Guard through necromancy? But the Final Guard are no reanimated liches; if Callidios spoke the truth, the stone devils are virtually deathless. The wizards of ancient Thuria created them to obey only King Kalenius; to guard his tomb throughout eternity was Kalenius’ command to them.”

“I believe that the Final Guard continues to obey only King Kalenius,” Destandasi concluded.

“But Kalenius is dead!”

“True. Even as Sandokazi is dead.”

They stood mute as the understanding of her logic came to them. Destandasi laid it out for them, as their minds reeled with the enormity of it.

“Callidios learned of the tomb of Kalenius through writings he perused in the temple of Set in Stygia. He told Conan that the body of Kalenius had been preserved by the king’s sorcerers and set upon a golden throne to rule his eternal palace. Kalenius was obsessed with his tomb; if his sorcerers were capable of creating the Final Guard, one can assume the same effort was devoted to the preservation of the king’s mortal remains.

“Callidios sought out the tomb of Kalenius, discovered that his knowledge was true. I doubt that even a necromancer of his powers could have reanimated a corpse that had disintegrated into dust and its dust dissolved into the sea. But Kalenius’ sorcerers had done their work too well. Callidios must have summoned Kalenius to come forth from his tomb—using his power to raise the dead—and the ages-dead king became a slave to the Stygian necromancer.

“Thus: Kalenius commands the Final Guard. And Callidios commands Kalenius.”

“Can you be certain of this?” Santiddio wondered.

“No. It is only supposition, based upon what you have told me and what we have endured. But I believe this to be correct—that herein lies the secret of Callidios’ power. You came here to seek my counsel; you have heard it.”

“We came to discover how the Final Guard might be defeated,” Conan put in. “Does this mean you have knowledge of a weapon that we might use? Tell us, and remain in your grove in peace.”

“Not a weapon, but a weakness in their armor, Conan. And I must strike the blow myself, for only I have the power. We must find the corpse of King Kalenius, so that I may exorcise the evil sham of life with which Callidios has possessed it, as I did with my sister’s violated flesh. Without Kalenius, Callidios cannot command the Final Guard.”

“Without the Final Guard, Mordermi cannot hold Koradava against us,” Santiddio stated with confidence. “Which means Callidios will have guarded his secret carefully.”

“And without Callidios, Mordermi cannot rely on his army of devils,” Conan pointed out. “Assassination or exorcism, either attempt will be guarded against.”

“Sever either link, and the chain is broken. This doubles our chances. Moreover, Callidios may not suspect that we have penetrated his secret.”

“I only pray that I have guessed correctly,” Destandasi said. “Has there been anything to suggest that Callidios has possession of Kalenius’ lich? Has no one seen such a thing?”

“Callidios works his spells from a tower chamber to which no one is admitted, so Sandokazi told us,” Conan said. “When the Final Guard slaughtered Korst’s soldiers in the Pit, Callidios was not to be seen. Earlier, he and Mordermi had talked together in secret. Mordermi came from that closet confident of victory; he knew that the Final Guard had been summoned when he led his forces to the battle in Eel Street. Callidios was not seen again until after Rimanendo’s palace had fallen, and the Final Guard were no longer needed to cheat the crowd of its share in the massacre. I asked Mordermi to halt them, and he responded that only Callidios knew the secret of their control.

“There are sewers and passages beneath the Pit through which the sea courses in high tide. I’ve smelled the sea close to me in Mordermi’s stronghold, and he told me once that so long as his rats could swim, they need have no fear of being trapped there. Callidios frequented the waterfront, seeking clues of the tomb’s location. He may have already discovered where the sea flowed beneath Mordermi’s stronghold, or Mordermi may have shown him after the two made their pact. If what you think is true, Callidios could have descended into such a passage, cast his spells in secret there, and summoned Kalenius to leave his golden throne and come forth from his sunken barrow to join the sorcerer in the sewers beneath the Pit.

“Kalenius may still be hidden there, or Callidios may have bidden him return to his barrow. Or, since it is through Kalenius that the Stygian wields his power, Callidios may have spirited his slave into his tower chamber. When the Final Guard stripped Kalenius’ tomb and bore its treasures into Mordermi’s palace, they brought many strange coffers out of the depths. One of these may have enclosed the lich of their king.”

“Almost certainly the corpse would be in Callidios’ tower,” Destandasi agreed. “There the Stygian can watch over it; command it to his will when the Final Guard must be summoned. Well reasoned, Conan. You may have described all that took place in fact. Everything you have said bears out my supposition.”

“Then we must break into Callidios’ tower and know for truth,” Conan said, having far more faith in direct action than in relying upon theories.

“It is I who must enter the tower,” Destandasi said quietly. “I shall need a moment to prepare for our journey.”

Santiddio knelt beside the grave as they waited. Conan withdrew to give him the privacy of his farewell. Santiddio’s lips were working, but from his eyes Conan did not think the youth was praying.

The Cimmerian gazed about the sacred grove, seeking to escape the bitterness of his own thoughts. The grove was a haven of natural beauty and serenity; its aura of peacefulness could not soothe the pain he felt. Conan knew that only red battle and the dark flames of vengeance could give his soul release.

Destandasi was not long in her leavetaking. When she rejoined them, she had donned sandals and a travelling cloak, and carried a small pack of her possessions. She handed a basket to Santiddio.

“Food for our journey,” she said simply. “I am ready to leave.”

“Can you not bar your door?” Santiddio asked uneasily.

“Why should I? Who shall come when I have gone?”

She took a final look about the sacred grove, at the spring and her hearth, at the giant elm wherein she had made her home a part of nature. Her eyes glowed with emotion, and her lips tightened as she gazed at the last upon the grave.