The talisman table stood in the center of the room, a square shape covered with carven symbols and resting on four gargoyle feet. Each quad-clawed foot clenched a square gem; these were black onyx, black pearl, black jade, and sunset opal. In the middle of the magical table was set a leather-covered book, also the color of a raven’s breast, and square in shape. Midnight was the room’s tone, darker yet its purpose. This suited Sovartus well, and his smile remained constant. Soon, now, his striving would come to an end; when it did, there would be a new beginning to shake the world.
Conan and Vitarius had not ridden far toward Castle Slott, when the older man reined his horse to a stop and motioned for Conan to do the same.
“Why do you halt? The journey is just begun-“
“Silence!” Vitarius’s voice held a tone of command that Conan had not heard before. The power of that single word startled the Cimmerian.
The old magician dismounted and took several steps in the direction of their travel. He reached out and seemed to be feeling for something in the night air. Conan saw nothing there. After a moment Vitarius nodded. He stepped back a pace. “Sovartus has set a warding spell; we are at its boundary.”
Conan stared into the darkness. “We are still some way from his castle.”
Vitarius nodded. He mumbled something Conan did not quite hear. and waved his hands in a strange pattern. A faint reddish glow appeared in the air just ahead of the two men, and quickly expanded away from them. “As you can see, he covers a large area. Once we enter the spell he will become aware of us. And I, with my magical abilities, will draw his attention more than an ordinary traveler would. Before we enter his realm, I must prepare myself. There will be guards for men-he is no fool-but likely, too, will there be guards for those bearing magics that would oppose the Black Square. I must be ready.”
Conan dismounted and walked about, stretching his sinews as Vitarius sat cross-legged on the ground and chanted quietly to himself. The Cimmerian was impatient, eager to put his blade to work. Enough of this magical foolery. If Sovartus found himself transfixed upon cold and sharp steel, he would deflate readily enough, Conan would wager. All of these night-glowings and mummeries sat ill with the big youth. He would be shut of this kind of work as soon as possible; he was more than willing to hack his way out of it.
Time passed, and Conan grew yet more impatient. What was the old man doing? Crom, they would be here for the next season’s change!
“I am ready,” Vitarius said.
Once again Conan was startled by the magician’s voice. There was the new note of power he’d heard before, but something additional also rode there. It seemed as if a young man had spoken. And though Conan saw nothing so changed he could name it, Vitarius seemed to move differently from the way he had before. Somehow more assured, his manner was.
They remounted their horses and approached the glowing air.
Conan noticed no difference when they entered the warding spell; no lights flashed, no screeches filled the night air. Vitarius, however, said, “He knows we have come. Be on guard. He cannot turn his full attention to us, for he is preparing himself for his abominable experiment. Still, he controls much power-and much danger lies ahead.”
The Cimmerian pulled his sword free of its leathern home and held it angled across the front of his saddle. “Good,” he said.
A wind began to blow, driving sand into Conan’s face. His horse whinnied and tried to sidestep away from the dust, but the Cimmerian held the beast to its course.
“Sovartus,” Vitarius said. “He seeks to test our mettle.”
Conan nodded. “A breeze shall not stay us.”
The wind increased suddenly, a gust rocking Conan in the saddle. He slitted his eyes and leaned into the dusty wind. With his free hand he tried to shield the eyes of his horse.
The old mage intoned the words of some spell then. Abruptly, the wind died.
“Air,” Vitarius said. “But not much of it. He thinks us little threat, it would seem.”
“I look forward to correcting his mistake,” Conan said.
“I hope your optimism is well-founded.”
Djuvula wrapped her scarf more tightly around her face to keep the dust from her eyes. She would not oppose Sovartus with her magic, of the Black, as was his own; therefore, it was unlikely he would deign to attack her directly. She had no fear of mortal guards who might be posted along the Dodligian road to Castle Slott.
She felt the force of the old wizard ahead of her flash out, and the wind died. That one had more power than she had thought. She had been surprised at how strong he truly was when he had paused to focus the White energies a short time earlier. He had just brushed aside Sovartus’s nightwind as a man might brush away a pesky insect. Interesting.
Of course, her major concern lay in how the wizard might utilize those energies against her, did he know she followed so intently. She must wait, it seemed, until Conan and he of the White Square were separated enough so that she could strike against the barbarian. The castle grew closer, and her dealings with Sovartus would have to be considered as well; still, enough time lay ahead yet to complete all her business. All the time in the world.
The panther moved in the lee of the wagon, partially protected from the wind in this manner, but not altogether so; some of the road grit found his face, and he blinked against it. The panther trod carefully, to avoid coming within range of the magic shroud that cloaked the witch’s conveyance. He did not think she knew of him, trailing her this way; neither would he have her know-yet. She had humbled him once with her foul magic, and he would not have such happen again.
As Lemparius padded along behind the wagon he considered for the hundredth time how he might effect Djuvula’s destruction. She had rendered him impotent against her directly, but there must be another manner in which he could attack. Something indirect. But-what?
For a moment the beast took over. Lemparius had to resist the urge to snarl; he had to hold himself in check to keep from sprinting to the front of the wagon, to slash at the horses, to drink from their blood before leaping upon Djuvula to rend her lifeless.
The moment passed, and the mind of the man once again rode in full control of the animal’s form. It would have been a foolish move to be prompted by such feline passions, a wasted effort, doomed from the start.
The catman shook his head. He would have to do something soon; he must do something ere he lost his human sanity to become a panther in thought as well as in form. He had but one hope in that regard: If Djuvula were to die, perhaps her bewitchment of him might also die. He might then regain his human form. A fragile hope, he knew, but all that he had.
Of course, there was the matter of Conan, who must die in any event. But whether the barbarian was killed by the panther or by the man he had been mattered little. He would die; more, he must die in such a way that Djuvula-if she still lived-could not obtain the man’s heart for her simulacrum. She must be denied that pleasure even if she survived it by only a moment.
Revenge was a dish to be savored slowly, Lemparius was finding, in all of its flavoring, before settling into partaking of it in full earnest.
The wind and dust settled then, but a sniff of the night air brought to the cat’s sensitive nostrils the smell of something he liked less: rain, and coming soon.
Lemparius held the cat’s voice, but the snarl and low growl existed in thought if not sound.
The rain came across the plain at a driving slant, presaged by lightning and booming thunder. In the light of the crackling discharges Conan saw the first fat, heavy drops splatter against the dry ground, raising dust as they thunked into the earth. In a moment the wall of water neared, a blanket of gray reaching to enshroud the two riders.
Despite the moisture in the air, the hair on Conan’s arms and neck stirred, as it sometimes did on removing a heavy woolen cloak on a winter’s day. His horse made as if to bolt, and Conan held him steady only with difficulty.
Vitarius suddenly reached skyward, arms extended fully, fingers spread. He yelled a short phrase.
A jagged bolt speared from the heavens, straight at the pair of men and horses. Conan saw the bolt deflected somehow, several spans over his head. The thunder that followed the thwarted charge was also muted, so that it was felt more than heard.
Vitarius now glowed with a pale light not unlike that produced by the flashes of lightning. The rain that should have fallen upon them fell before and behind and to either side, as though an invisible tent had been erected over the men and mounts. The storm raged at the shield; lightning crackled at it, thunder drummed upon it, hail the size of Conan’s fist shattered against the clear air. The dry ground around them, outside of Vitarius’s protection, became like a swamp, yet Conan could smell the dust disturbed by his frightened horse’s hooves as the animal pawed the ground.
The storm standing over him must be supernatural, Conan knew. Unprotected from the tempest, he would have surely paid a dear price, maybe even his life. Despite his distrust and dislike of any form of magic, Conan found himself most glad to be next to Vitarius at the moment. Most glad.
Spray from the driving rain found its way through the canvas that formed the roof of Djuvulas wagon, thick as the material was. She dared not use any more of her magic to augment the material’s natural protection, for fear of attracting either Vitarius’s or Sovartus’s attention. She had risked erecting a shelter for the horses, speeding up the process with a spell so that the hail, at least, would not bash them senseless. That same hail battered at her own roof, denting it deeply in places and making a terrible racket when the ice struck a supporting wooden hoop.
Djuvula lay on the bed next to the box containing her Prince. She stroked the smooth wood idly, and spoke to the form inside as if it were alive. “Fear not, my love. We may be dampened, but not for long. Do not allow the din to disturb your slumber … . “
Crouched under the witch’s wagon, the panther held very still, even to breathing shallowly and with great care. He did not think that Djuvula would hear him with the storm howling about them, but he knew he must not be careless.
He would have found other shelter had there been any; upon this portion of the plain, however, there existed no protection from even a normal rain, much less one driven by wizardry. Despite his ability to withstand ordinary dangers, the panther was no proof against such magic as Sovartus controlled. Hail so heavy that it dug holes in the ground would smash a skull easily enough even his.
A funnel began near one edge of the dry spot underlying the wagon and sought to cross to the opposite side. Lemparius would have moved, but the hail chose that moment to cease falling and the relative quiet might have allowed the witch to hear such a movement. So the panther held his place as the cold finger of water reached his belly and began to puddle there, running along his length.
His nostrils flared and the panther laid his ears back in rage. Yet another indignity for which Djuvula owed him. He cursed inwardly, but remained as a stone statue as the cold and muddy water soaked his fur. As quickly as it had begun, the rain stopped. The stars appeared behind the scudding clouds along with a sliver of settling moon. As the storm faded so did the glow surrounding Vitarius. For a moment the wizard looked tired. Then he took a deep breath and straightened slightly, shaking off the weariness as a dog shakes off water.
“It has been too long since I played these games,” Vitarius said. “I am out of practice.”
Grudgingly, for all his dislike of sorcery, Conan said, “You did well enough.”
“Aye, but these are but small tests. When Sovartus tries with real force, I shall have to do better.”
The Cimmerian nodded.
“Then the sooner we get to yon castle, the sooner we can depart this cursed plain.”
“Aye, Conan. Ride on.”
They urged their horses onward.
High in his castle, Sovartus became aware of an irritation, something amiss in the mystical web of forces with which he surrounded himself. On Dodligia Plain a faint glimmer of antithetical forces existed where none should, as a boil upon otherwise healthy skin. Well, he had no time for such things. He sent a wind to blow it away.
Sovartus returned to his preparations for the arrival of the girl of Fire. He donned his virgins’-hair robe, feeling the power it carried. He called for a bottle of his oldest and finest wine and sipped of the liquid as he contemplated his new place in the cosmic scheme of things. Ah, what power he would command!
He felt an itch in his side then, but it was metaphysical and not manifested in his own flesh. He expanded his consciousness, searching for the source of the bothersome itch.
Damnation! That glimmer upon the plain remained despite his broom of nightwind. Well, he could take another moment from his anticipation of glory to deal with it. Within his own sphere of influence Sovartus need not call for everything upon any of the Three he had pent. He was not without powers of his own, especially so close to his lair. He called for a storm, sending hellish force upward into the skies to shape the resulting tempest to his will. Then, like a boy casting a ball, Sovartus sent the tropical zephyr toward the troublesome speck. Defy this, insect!
Presently, the itch grew worse. After his astonishment that it persisted, Sovartus knew it for what it was: Vitarius, of the White, moved against him!
Truly astounding. Surely the old man knew better? He had not even kept himself young with his magic-those of the White seldom used their powers for personal gain or enhancement-and even if he were senile; he must know how foolish it would be to proceed against one of the Black in his own Square of power.
When the girl of Fire had been taken, Sovartus had given Vitarius no further thought; unless the man were mad, he would simply go away, for he could not hope to compare his feeble powers with those of Sovartus’s own. To contend would be suicide-the man had to know that—even if Sovartus did not control the Thing of Power, which he shortly would. There was very little for the White Square to draw upon here, not with the near-omnipotence of the Black focused as it was upon this plain. Hogistum had taught them both that White and Black had their places; and this place belonged to the Black as surely as night followed day. Vitarius had been the better student, he must know that.