Conan the Fearless Part 6

Conan grinned ruefully. "No man did the deed. I rode through a s...o...b..und pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 b.u.t.t 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 bra.s.s rivets mating the wood with the steel.

There was a bra.s.s 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 . . . kins.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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?"

"I am not without my ways. Suffice it that I do know. I, too, have an interest in this barbarian. When the time comes, I would greatly appreciate your aid in capturing this man for my own." Lemparius smiled widely.

"I-I cannot." Loganaro's voice was barely a whisper.

"Your pardon, friend Loganaro, for my bad hearing. I thought for a moment I heard you say that you would not help me in this matter."

"Honored Senator, Djuvula would have my head mounted on a pole in the pit of her outhouse!"

"Dear little man, what I will do should you refuse my simple request would make you beg for such a fate. I shall protect you from Djuvula's wrath, you may be a.s.sured."

Loganaro swallowed again. "Might I know why you wish this thing?"

"I see no harm in such, now that you are in my employ. Djuvula, as you may know, no longer takes lovers from among men. I would have her take one more before she animates her simulacrum."

"You, Honored Senator? But-but I thought . . ." Loganaro's speech dribbled away as he realized what he had been about to say.

Lemparius laughed, apparently undisturbed. He finished Loganaro's thought for him. "You thought that I had already partaken of that dubious honor, and, like all the others, had been found wanting?"