“So be it,” Vitarius said. “After breakfast, at least.”
“Aye, that I will allow.”
A serving girl arrived with a tray of hard rolls, fruit, and a greasy cut of pork, along with another cup of wine of a vintage better than the first drink Conan had partaken of. He ate with gusto, and washed the food down with gulps of the red liquid.
Vitarius watched Conan intently. When the Cimmerian was done with his meal, the conjurer spoke. “We are quits on debts; still, I have a proposition in which you might find some merit. Eldia and I demonstrate our simple illusions at street fairs and market gatherings, and we could use a man such as yourself.”
Conan shook his head. “I truckle not with magic.”
“Magic? Surely you do not think my illusions are magic? Nay, I work with the simplest of the arts, no more. Would I be in such a place as this were I a real magician?”
Conan considered that. The old man had a point.
“Still, of what use could I be to a conjurer?”
Vitarius glanced at Eldia, then looked back at Conan.
“That blade of yours, for one. Your strength, for another. Eldia and I are hardly capable of protecting ourselves from such as the one you slew. She is adept with her own sword for demonstrating speed and skill, but hardly a match for a full-grown man in a duel. My illusions might scare the superstitious, but in the end can hardly sway a determined assassin, as you have just seen.”
Conan chewed on his lower lip. “I am bound for Nemedia.”
“Surely such a considerable journey would be easier were you mounted and well-appointed with supplies?”
“What makes you think I lack such things?”
Vitarius peered around the inn, then back at Conan. “Would a man of property be spending his time in such a place?”
That reasoning was sound, but Conan followed the line a step further. “Then, good conjure artist, why are you in such a place?”
Vitarius laughed, and slapped his thigh. “Ah, forgive me for underestimating you, Conan of Cimmeria. That a man is a barbarian does not mean he lacks wits. As it happens, we are conserving our money for supplies; we, too, intend to leave this fair city, to travel westward. Our path will veer southward, toward Argos. We wish to-ah-travel in some style, in an armed caravan, and thus avoid possible encounters with the bandits along the Ophir road.”
“Ah.” Conan studied Vitarius and Eldia. He was a thief, to be sure, but he had nothing against honest work for a brief enough time. Besides, he was in no great hurry to reach Nemedia. In any event, the journey would be a great deal easier astride a good horse than on foot.
“A silver coin a day,” Vitarius said. “We shall be ready to leave within the month, I should think, and surely such a short diversion would not inconvenience you greatly?”
Conan considered the sorry state of his money pouch. A good horse and supplies could be had for twenty or thirty pieces of silver, certainly. And such work, guarding a conjurer and his assistant from sneak thieves for a moon or two, could not be too taxing.
Conan smiled at Vitarius. “Master of glowing spiders, you have engaged a bodyguard.”
From under the cowled robe of a priest, Loganaro watched the Cimmerian talking to the old man and the girl. Djuvula’s agent smiled to himself. The barbarian’s speedy and fearless assault upon the would-be assassin was impressive. Such convinced him he had discovered the man he sought to complete the witch’s spell. Here was a brave man, to be sure. Visions of gold danced in Loganaro’s thoughts as he leaned back against the wall of the inn and sipped his wine. Before long, the heart of that giant barbarian with the fire-blue eyes would animate the witch’s simulacrum for her carnal pleasures.
The young Cimmerian and the conjurer’s assistant followed Vitarius through a throng of brightly clad people come to celebrate the arrival-of-age party of a local winemaker’s daughter. As the conjurer wended his way through the crowd, Conan decided there was more to the man than he pretended. He had seen too many older men make fools of younger ones to feel that an aged man was helpless; what a man lacked in muscle he could sometimes make up for in wisdom.
“We shall try to find a spot near the winemaker’s stall,” Eldia told Conan. “There the richer friends of the winemaker’s daughter will gather, and there our performance will be better rewarded. “
Conan said nothing. He saw a stalwart lad minding the reins of three horses, one of which resembled greatly the animal he had lost to the water-dwelling creatures only a few days past. The flame of fury in his eyes burned brighter at the sight.
Vitarius chose that moment to turn and observe Conan. “You seem troubled, Conan,” the conjurer said.
“Nay, Vitarius, only by a foul memory. I once had a horse, the twin of one of those we just passed. He was taken from me.”
“I find such a thing difficult to understand. I would not like to be the man foolish enough to try to relieve you of any of your possessions, much less a horse of good breeding.”
Conan grinned ruefully. “No man did the deed. I rode through a snowbound passage in the mountains east of here. While so doing, I was attacked by some water-dwelling beasts, the likes of which I have never before encountered. White they were, and faceless, with blood as clear as pure water.”
“Undines!” Vitarius’s voice carried both surprise and a touch of fear.
“You know of the monsters?”
“Aye. They are water spirits.” Vitarius exchanged glances with Eldia, and something of import passed between them. After a moment the old conjurer looked back at Conan, and seemed to be weighing and measuring the Cimmerian’s observation of them. That peculiar warmth Conan had noticed earlier seemed to emanate from Eldia as she stood next to him; indeed the air seemed to smolder. The sun was high and its rays drew sweat from most of the throng, but this new warmth was hotter.
Finally, Vitarius spoke. “It is said that the undines are now controlled by Sovartus, Mage of the Black Square. He is an evil sorcerer who, so it is rumored. seeks something-or someone-within the city of Mornstadinos. To this end, Sovartus attempts to cut off the city. Aside from the undines, there are other inhuman creatures held in thrall by this villain, aiding him in his quest.”
“Sovartus, eh?” Conan rolled the name from his tongue and tossed it around in his mind. “Well, if this magician indeed controls the things that stole my horse, then he owes me a replacement.”
“It would not be wise to try to collect such, Conan. Sovartus is a man without conscience and possessed of great magical powers. He kills without compunction and without regret.”
“Nonetheless, I am not one to forget a debt, whether incurred by or owed to me.”
“Some things are better forgotten,” Vitarius murmured as he continued to weave his way through the crowd.
Loganaro stood uncomfortably before the tall rostrum and chair of Senator Lemparius, the most powerful politician in Mornstadinos, perhaps in all of Corinthia. The short man’s discomfort was not made less by the two senatorial deputies who flanked him, each with a dagger pointing toward Loganaro’s throat.
“There must be some mistake, Honored Senator. I have done nothing to contravene the laws in the Jewel of Corinthia.”
Lemparius laughed, showing very white teeth. “You should have been a jester, Loganaro. If your crimes were divided equally among the population of the city, it is likely our dungeons would burst. You could be condemned a hundred times on what I personally know, thrice that number if half what I suspect could be proven.”
Loganaro swallowed dryly. A vision of himself dangling on the gibbet made the bones of his legs feel rubbery. This encounter was unexpected, and it began to look as if he would not survive it. What had he done to so arouse the Senate Flail? A more important question was: How had he been discovered doing it?
Lemparius waved his left hand languidly. “Leave us.”
The pair of deputies bowed slightly, sheathing their daggers. They spun on the balls of their feet, and, as one, marched from the chamber. Loganaro felt the cold beads of sweat rolling down his spine, but he tried to maintain a calm appearance.
“While I could have you flayed and dipped in boiling salt water, such is not my intent-at the moment anyway.” Lemparius arose from his chair with fluid grace. He toyed with the handle of a knife ensheathed at his right hip.
Loganaro stared at the senator’s long fingers as he caressed the weapon; the short rotund man felt as if he were snared in some spell, for he could not take his gaze from the almost sensual stroking.
Lemparius laughed again. “You admire my steel tooth, eh?” The tall blond man pulled the knife from its leather holster and raised it to chest level. The weapon was curved from the butt to the point, like a bow. It conjured up ugly images: pictures graven of fangs or talons, set for ripping. The handle was of some dark wood, likely ebony, close-grained and highly polished. Loganaro could see that the knife was full-tanged, with brass rivets mating the wood with the steel. There was a brass cap where the blade proper began, not so much a guard as a break in color from black to silver. The blade itself was short, perhaps twice the length of a man’s little finger, but tapered along a wicked steel curve to a needle’s tip. The outer side was thick and serrated for a quarter of its length; the inner curve alone bore the sharpened edge.
“Have you ever beheld a great saber-toothed cat?” Lemparius queried. “No? A pity; they are magnificent beasts, though their numbers are declining. Each of these cats bears a pair of tusklike fangs, shaped just so”-the senator waved the steel blade back and forth-“so that they can slay nearly any beast that walks or crawls. I used one of these ivory wonders as the design for my own steel tooth. It allows me to feel a certain … kinship with the great cats.”
Loganaro nodded dumbly.
“Ah, but you wish to see it demonstrated, do you not?”
“M-most Honored Senator, it is not necessary-“
“Certainly it is necessary, Loganaro. Follow me.”
Lemparius led the shorter man down a narrow corridor lined with flickering tapers, then descended a steep flight of stone steps into the anteroom of what was obviously a dungeon. Loganaro began silently imploring each god he could remember for his life.
In a filthy cell hardly bigger than a coffin, a disheveled man of indeterminate age was pent. The man’s hair was matted and unruly, his heard unkempt, and madness lit his wild eyes.
Standing in front of this cell, Lemparius turned to Loganaro and smiled. “You have a dagger. Give it to me.”
Loganaro quickly complied, tendering his fat-bladed weapon to the senator. The Flail of the Senate then tossed the dagger into the cell through the slats of rusty iron. The man snatched up the knife in an instant and lunged at the pair outside his cell, stabbing through the bars as far as he could reach, but his efforts fell short. The attack drove Loganaro back in a startled leap. Lemparius moved not a hair.
“This man is condemned to die,” the senator said. “For crimes too boring to enumerate. He has an appointment with the hangman on the morrow, but I feel that he may well be unable to keep his date with the gibbetmaster.”
With that, Lemparius flicked the tip of his knife at the wrist of the prisoner. The movement was deceptively easy, Loganaro thought, but of such a speed that the creature within the cell had no time to move his arm from the strike. When he did jerk his hand back inside the bars, blood was already welling from a thumb-length cut upon his wrist. The man howled wordlessly.
Lemparius then threw the bolt set above the door and opened wide the entrance to the cell. He took two steps back in Loganaro’s direction. Loganaro himself scrambled backward twice as many paces. Was the senator mad? The condemned man had nothing to lose by attacking and killing them both!
The prisoner leaped forth from the cell, grinning like a living skeleton. He paused for a moment to suck the blood from his wrist, then spat the collection onto the grimy flagstones under his bare feet. He howled again, then charged for Lemparius, the short dagger held low to gut the senator.
In all his travels Loganaro had never seen anyone move quite as the senator did then. He was preternaturally fast, and he leaped like a cat at the prisoner. In his right hand Lemparius held the steel saber-tooth like a sickle. The knife blurred, and struck the condemned man on the side of the neck. Before the man could react, the knife based on a predator’s tooth was jerked back and swung again, cutting this time into the opposite side of the already gravely wounded neck. Lemparius leaped away from his victim.
Loganaro had some experience with observing and even inflicting mortal wounds, but he had never seen anything like this. The great vessels carrying blood from the body to the head were cleanly sheared; crimson gouts pulsed from the arteries with each pump of the man’s heart. The dying man stood for an instant as if he’d grown roots, unable to move. Then he fell abruptly. In only a few seconds he paled to a ghostly hue as his blood pumped away. Dead.
Lemparius wiped the blood from his knife with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, then cast the gore off with a slinging motion. He smiled at Loganaro. “Did you know that by reversing the grip on my beauty thus”-he flipped the knife up, caught it as it twisted, so that he held the weapon with the handle pointing toward the ceiling and the point down-“I can effect a strike between a man’s legs in much the same manner as the neck cut? Such a stroke does not kill, but does leave a man somewhat less … of a man.”
Loganaro swallowed as if his throat had suddenly been filled with desert-baked sand.
“You seem quiet, free agent. Lost your tongue?”
Loganaro licked lips as dry as bleached bones. “Wh-what would you have of me, Honored Senator?”
Lemparius sheathed his knife and laid an arm around the shoulders of the other man. “You are in the employ of Djuvula the Witch. Did you know she has a brother who is a demon’? Ah, no matter. Currently, you shadow a barbarian called Conan. Yes, that is the name. Our witch wishes this man’s heart to enliven the simulacrum she has designed.”
“H-h-how can you know this?”