Conan The Defender Part 25

Climbing onto the platform, Alba.n.u.s began pus.h.i.+ng the wooden apparatus off onto the floor. Unaccustomed as he was to even the smallest labor, yet he must needs do this. Stephano would have had to be chivied to it, his questions turned aside with carefully constructed lies, and Alba.n.u.s had long since tired of allowing the sculptor to believe that his questions were worth answering, his vanities worth dignifying. Better to do the work himself.

Tossing the last lever from the platform, Alba.n.u.s jumped to the door, one hand out to steady himself against the kiln. With an oath he jerked it back from the kiln's rough surface. It was hot.

The door opened, and Stephano tottered in, green of face but much less under the sway of drink than he had been. "I want them all flogged," he muttered, scrubbing a hand across his mouth. "Do you know what your slaves did to me, with Varius giving the orders? They-"

"Fool!" Alba.n.u.s thundered. "You fired the kiln! Have I not commanded you to do nothing here without my leave?"

"The figure is ready," Stephano protested. "It must be put in the kiln today, or it will crack rather than harden. Last night I-"

"Did you not hear my command that you were never to handle fire within this room? Think you I light these lamps with my own hands for the joy of doing a slave's work?"

"If the oils in that clay are so flammable," the sculptor muttered sullenly, "how can it stand being placed-"

"Be silent." The words were a soft hiss. Alba.n.u.s' obsidian gaze clove Stephano's tongue to the roof of his mouth and rooted him to the spot its if it were a spike driven through him.

Disdainfully Alba.n.u.s turned his back. Deftly he set out three small vials, a strip of parchment and a quill pen. Opening the first vial-it held a small quant.i.ty of Garian's blood, with the admixture of tinctures to keep it liquid-he dipped the pen and neatly wrote the King's name across the parchment. A sprinkling of powder from the second vial, and instantly the blood blackened and dried. The last container held Alba.n.u.s' own blood, drawn only that morning. With that he wrote his own name in larger script, overlaying that of Garian.

Again the powder dried the blood.

Next, murmuring incantations, Alba.n.u.s folded the parchment strip in a precise pattern. Then he returned to the platform and placed the parchment into the open mouth of the clay figure.

Stephano, leaning now against the wall, giggled inanely. "I wondered why you wanted the mouth like that." At a look from Alba.n.u.s he swallowed heavily and bit his tongue.

Producing chalks smuggled from Stygia, land of sorcerers far to the south, Alba.n.u.s scribed an incomplete pentagram around the feet of the figure, star within pentagon within circle. Foul black candles went on the points where each broken shape touched the other two. Then, quickly, each candle was lit, the pentagram completed. He stepped back, arms spread wide, uttering the words of conjuring.

"Elonai me'rotb sancti, Urd'va.s.s teoheem.... "

The words of power rolled from his tongue, and the air seemed to thicken in silver s.h.i.+mmers. The flames of the unholy candles flared, sparking a seed of fear in the dark lord's mind. The flames. It could not happen again as last time. It could not. He banished the fear by main force. There could be no fear now, only power.

"... arallain Sa'm'di com'iel mort'ra.s.s.... "

The flames grew, but as they grew the room dimmed, as if they took light rather than gave it. Higher they flared, driven by the force of the dark lord's chant, overtowering the clay figure. Slowly, as though bent by some impossible and unfelt wind, the silent flames bent inward until the points of fire met above. From that meeting a bolt, as of lightning, struck down to the head of the statue, bathing it in glow unending, surrounding it in a haloed fire of the purest white that sucked all heat from the air.

Frost misting his breath, Alba.n.u.s forced his voice to a roar. "By the Unholy Powers of Three, l conjure thee! By blood and sweat and seed vilified and attainted, I conjure thee! Arise, walk and obey, for I, Alba.n.u.s, conjure thee!"

As the last syllable left his mouth the flames were gone, leaving no trace of the candles behind. The figure stood, but now it was dried and cracked.

Alba.n.u.s rubbed his hands together, and put them beneath his arms for warmth. If only it had all gone correctly this time. He glanced at Stephano, s.h.i.+vering against a wall that glinted from the myriad ice droplets that had coalesced from the air. Terror made the sculptor's eyes bulge. There was no point in delaying further. The hawk-faced man drew a deep breath.

"I command you, Garian, awake!" A piece of clay dropped from one arm to shatter on the stone. Alba.n.u.s frowned. "Garian, I command you awake!"

The entire figure trembled; then crumbling, powdering clay was spilling to the platform. And what the figure had moulded, stood there, breathing and alive. A perfect duplicate of Garian, without blemish or fault. The simulacrum brushed dust from its shoulder, then stopped, eyeing Alba.n.u.s quizzically.

"Who are you?" it said.

"I am Alba.n.u.s," the dark lord replied. "Know you who you are?"

"Of course. I am Garian, King of Nemedia."

Alba.n.u.s' smile was purest evil. "To your knees, Garian," he said softly. Unperturbed, the replica sank to its knees. Despite himself Alba.n.u.s laughed, and the commands poured out for the sheer joy of seeing the image of the King obey. "Face to the floor! Grovel! Now up!

Run in place! Faster! Faster!" The duplicate King ran. And ran.

Tears rolled down Alba.n.u.s' cheeks, but his laughter faded as his eye lit on Stephano. Slowly the sculptor pushed himself erect from his crouch. Uncertainty and fear chased each other across his face.

"Be still, Garian," Alba.n.u.s commanded, not loosing Stephano's gaze from his own. The simulacrum ceased running and stood quietly, breathing easily.

Stephano swallowed hard. "My... my work is done. I'll go now." He turned toward the door, flinching to a halt at the whipcrack of Alba.n.u.s' voice.

"Your gold, Stephano. Surely you're not forgotten that." From beneath his tunic Alba.n.u.s produced a short, thick cylinder, tightly wrapped in leather. He hefted it on his palm. "Fifty gold marks."

Cupidity warred with fear on Stephano's countenance. He licked his lips hesitantly. "The sum mentioned was a thousand."

"I am unclothed," the simulacrum said suddenly.

"Of course," Alba.n.u.s said, seeming to answer them both.

From the floor he picked up a length of filthy rag that Stephano had used while sculpting, and with it carefully scrubbed away part of the pentagram. Many things, he knew, could happen to one attempting to enter a closed pentagram charged with magicks, and each was more horrible that the last. Stepping up onto the platform, he handed the rag to the simulacrum, which wrapped the cloth about its waist.

"This is but a first payment, Stephano," Alba.n.u.s went on. "The rest will come to you later." He thrust the leatherwrapped cylinder into the simulacrum's hand. "Give this to Stephano." Leaning closer, he added whispered words.

Stephano s.h.i.+fted uneasily as the image of the King stepped down from the platform.

"So many times," Alba.n.u.s murmured, "have I been forced to endure the babble that spills from your mouth."

The sculptor's eyes narrowed, darting from Alba.n.u.s to the approaching figure, and he broke for the door.

With inhuman speed the simulacrum hurled itself forward. Before Stephano had gone a single step it was on him, a hand with the strength of stone seizing his throat. A scream tore from him as obdurate fingers dug into the muscles on either side of his jaw, forcing his mouth open.

Futilely Stephano clawed at the hand that held him; his fingers might as well have sc.r.a.ped at hardened leather. With that single hand, as if the sculptor were but a child, the replica forced him to his knees. Too late Stephano saw the cylinder descending toward his mouth, and understood Alba.n.u.s' words. Desperately he clutched the approaching wrist, but he could as easily have slowed a catapult's arm.

Remorseless, the construct forced the gold deeper, and yet deeper, into the sculptor's mouth.

Choking rasps came from Stephano's throat as the simulacrum of Garian dropped him. Eyes staring from his head, face empurpling, the sculptor clawed helplessly at his throat. His back arched in his struggles till naught but head and drumming heels touched the floor.

Alba.n.u.s watched the death throes dispa.s.sionately, and when the last twitching foot had stilled, he said softly, "Nine hundred fifty more will go with you to your unmarked grave. What I promise, I give." His shoulders shook with silent mirth. When the spasm had pa.s.sed, he turned briskly to the likeness of Garian, still standing impa.s.sively over the body. "As for you, there is much to learn and little time. Tonight...."

Chapter XVII.

Ariane sat despondently, staring at nothing. Around her the common room of the Thestis murmured with intrigue. No musicians played, and men and women whispered as they huddled together over their tables. Reaching a decision, Ariane got to her feet and made her way through the tables to Graecus.

"I must talk to you, Graecus," she said quietly. That deathly silence had contaminated her also.

"Later," the stocky sculptor muttered without looking at her. To the others at his table he went on in a low, insistent voice. "I tell you, it matters not if Taras is dead. I know where the weapons are stored.

In half a day I-"

Ariane felt some of her old fire rekindle. "Graecus!" In that room of whispers the sharp word sounded like a shout. Everyone at the table stared at her. "Has it not occurred to you," she continued, "that perhaps we are being betrayed?"

"Conan," Graecus began, but she cut him off.

"Not Conan."