"Between the times when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, sword in hand, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to trod the jeweled thrones of the Earth beneath his sandaled feet. It is I, his chronicler, who knows well this saga. Now let me tell you of the days of high adventure…"
Milling crowds thronged the streets of Belverus, the marble columned and monument-filled capital of Nemedia. Through this throng marched a tall, muscular youth, an alien air hung about him. Not unusual in the great city that saw merchant trains and mercenary bands from Turan and across the Vilayet Sea to the east, from as far south as dark Kush and shadow-cloaked Stygia, and from Aquilonia and Zingara in the dreaming west. Among their civilized counterparts, many wild and barbarous men of the northlands sought to escape the dreary slate-grey skies and barren cliffs of the northern mountains. He was of this northern stock, of Cimmeria, the youth, whose icy blue eyes looked out over the shorter, leaner Nemidians from under his square cut sable mane.
He stood before the House of a Thousand Orchids, the last of his gold having dripped from his fingers into the purses of hot-eyed doxies for no more than a night's pleasure. A few of the women, upon sighting the Cimmerian's berth of shoulder, cast their vixen-eyed stare on him as they remembered his free spending the night before. Many of them arranged the strips of cloth, or gilt brass platelets on their ample breasts, that revealed more flesh than they hid, in an effort to lure him back into their nest. He was temped, sorely so until he remembered the weight of his purse. Though significantly lighter than it was the day before, his purse still held a fistful of silver, enough for him to make do at an inn on the Street of Regrets for the night before riding back to his free company in Ophir.
Shading his eyes from the midday sun, he looked again over the crowded street. Many men from many more countries filled the streets of Beleverus. Yet, still, he could not find the elusive figure of the bowlegged Hyrkanian he was looking for. Then his wilder-bred ears caught the slight sound of the slow scraping of metal on leather that would have been lost to ears of civilized men in the perpetual din of the city. In a rarity, a blade rested at his neck before he could draw his own sword from the shagreen sheath resting at his waist. "Dinner for wolf?" a familiar voice in the accents of the Mideast asked, before the blade withdrew from the youth's neck.
The youth whirled around on the man that had managed to take him by surprise, throwing his arms around the other's shoulders in greeting. "Subotai!" he near shouted, and gave a mirthful laugh at the sight of the Hyrkanian thief. "By Crom, Lord of the Mound; it has been ages since we parted ways! I had not thought to see you again."
"Civilization seems to have stolen your edge, Conan," the shorter man said, sliding his scimitar into its sheath at his side as a smile spread his mustached lips. "I could not have done this when we first met. In the name of the Four Winds, it is good to see you too old friend. I've had a devil of a time trying to track you once I was well enough to travel."
"And what kind of thief would I be if I were easy to track?" the Cimmerian replied. "A thief easily followed is a bad thief, and a bad thief is a dead thief—and I have no intention of kneeling before the headsman's block."
"Indeed Conan, I expect nothing less from you. But come, let us find a tavern and tell each other of our adventures." Subotai clapped the big Cimmerian on the shoulder. "Old Man," the Hyrkanian cried in the direction of the brothel, and from the shadowed doorway came the slight, stooped figure of a wizened Chinman, whose skin was the color and texture of aged parchment, clad in a robe of animal skins and necklaces adorned in bones. It was the wizard Akiro. He backed away from the House of a Thousand Orchids, chuckling gleefully and waving frantically farewell as he did so, to a gathering of strumpets clad only in streamers of silk a mere two finger's breadth wide, if they were clad at all.
Conan, though pleased to see his friends, could not help the grimace that crossed his face. He had had more than his fill of wizards of late. More than many men would have in all their lives. By Crom, it was more than any man should in the entirety of his life. Still, the wizard was his friend, as proved by standing at his side in battle. The Cimmerian decided not to burden his mind with worries of what could not be helped. All that mattered, for the time, was that he was among friends. He was among friends and he would drink with them, "Come, Wizard, we are off!"
"Where to, Conan," Subotai asked.
"We make for the Sign of the Gored Ox on the Street of Regrets." The big Cimmerian began walking and the others fell silently in step beside him. As the three men walked through the masses of Nemedia's capital, an air of menace seemed to hang thick in the air, as though it shadowed them. Nearly half way to the Gored Ox, Conan, disconcertingly felt an itch between his shoulder blades—not an itch of a physical nature, but rather more of a primal precognition of danger. The hackles began to rise on the back of the Cimmerian's neck as the preternatural feeling intensified. He lengthened his stride in haste, forcing his companions to quicken their own steps in order to keep pace with him.
As they walked, Conan began looking about warily, casting his ice-blue gaze, cold as the northern snows, over the citizens in the streets, carefully scanning them for any threat they might pose. Most carried nothing more than belt knives, and some few, with the look of bodyguards or fighting men about them, wore swords or axes or cudgels and their hands never strayed far from their reach. But that was not to say one was any less dangerous than the other. If boldened enough, a baker could spill a man's guts just as easily a solder. And a bag of gold oft made men bold enough.
After what seemed as hours, to the Cimmerian, he and his friends came to the Street of Regrets. The Street of Regrets was the last above the slum known as Hellgate; as such, it was a myriad of contradictions in that it was were those souls that found themselves debased, clung to with fervor to keep from falling further into depravity, where those who managed to pull themselves up from Hellgate sought sanctuary from a respectable life they did not understand. The few who truly pulled themselves up from Hellgate to the modicum of the Street of Regrets and beyond never returned to cross that threshold again.
As with any other street of its kind, musicians filled the air with sounds from lutes, zithers, and flutes frantically competing for the favor of the crowd against jugglers, tumblers, fire eaters, and other sorts of street performers each working their art. Trulls only half clad in thin bands of silk, lasciviously paraded through the throng, their offered wares no different from those of any other strumpet. Each hungrily eyeing the purses of those few fools from Upper Town, too well-dressed, even begrimed as they were, to blend with the motley crowd, come down to witness the supposed depths of degeneracy before retreating to the pampered life in their manners and palaces.
Once he entered the Sign of the Gored Ox, the ethereal itch left Conan's shoulders, and in doing so, a great burden felt as though it had been lifted from him; giving a near imperceptible sigh, his broad shoulders sagged some as an inexplicable lethargy crept over him. The inn was as he remembered it to be from his last time under its roof. The common room stank sourly of stale wine, yet that was no deterrent as women on a raised stage at the far end gyrated their hips enticingly in tune to hammered dulcimer, mostly ignored by the men who sat about crowded tables their minds set fully on drink or dice.
The Cimmerian and his companions found empty seats at the far end of a nearly deserted table, the opposite end of which was occupied by a mustachioed Argosian, his salt weathered face out of place so far inland. Sitting across from him was a dark skinned, hawk nosed Iranistani, in loose pantaloons, and bare from the waist up save for a vest of indigo cotton, who peered about suspiciously as he spoke to the yellow-haired man. At the Argosian's side, was a woman leaning over his lap, allowing him to stroke the supple curve of her ample hip, and to grip the side of her generously swelled breast, a fixed smile on her face and light laughter escaping from her pouty lips as he did so. Her chestnut hair, tinted amber in the light of the torches overhead, framed her heart-shaped face before descending past her shoulders and bosom, down her back. Though dressed as such, in a burnished brass halter and silken ribbons, she did not belong to the sisterhood of the night. Conan's eye quickly caught the hard air about her, the same air that had radiated from his beloved Valeria. No, the woman was no mere prostitute, but a fighter. And hard as any he had ever seen.
The woman tossed back her head, a ruckus peal of laughter met Conan's ears and the Iranistani rose, his face livid, veins jumping out on his neck in rage. Staring down his hawk-nose at the Argosian, his hand flew to the curved scimitar bound at his side. In an instant chairs clattered to the wooden floor, and steel flashed, a ringing clang filled the air as honed edge met against honed edge where the Argosian's head had been. The yellow-haired man backed away from his attacker, shoving the woman from his lap with one hand while parrying the wild slices of the other man's blade with noting more than a dagger, before reaching out and slamming the other's sword into the wooden planks of the table.
The denizens of the inn took little notice of the altercation, save for those who felt themselves too close for comfort to the conflict; they effortlessly slipped away to join other, already overcrowded tables. Extracting his scimitar, the Iranistani lunged over the table, swinging wildly at his foe. Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted at the Argosian, "Think do you to spear my honor so and live? Whoreson dog, you and your jade shall know the vengeance of Dellaam's blade! You will choke on your own blood, spawn of a goat! You will—"
The hawk-nosed Iranistani's words cut off as a blue-gleaming flash buried itself in his neck. It was a shuriken, one of the many deadly, star-shaped throwing knives of the Far East. The Iranistani's hand clamped to his neck in an effort to hold in his life's blood welling up beneath it. His eyes goggled in realization of death's chill embrace as he stared disbelieving at the woman, another of the weapons in her hand, ready to let fly. And she did. With a whip-like motion of her arm, the missile leapt from her hand and sailed through the air, striking true in the man's windpipe.
The Iranistani fell back, collapsing to the floor in a heap. "Who will choke on their own blood? Mitra take you, swine," she spat, in a Zamoran accent though her features spoke of an Aquilonian heritage, as she walked around to the dying man. She stared down in revulsion, watching the light fade from the man's eyes, and then bent to retrieve her weapons from the limp corpse. As she did so, three more Iranistanies, dressed likewise in pantaloons and vests, but with their heads wrapped in turbans, burst from the anonymity of the crowd, each bearing a curved tulwar in their hands. The three men, moved with the tigerish ease of experienced fighters, standing apart from one another, with legs braced wide, and knees bent. As one, they closed on the woman. The closest of the Iranistanies, tall and wiry, swept his tulwar in a high, wide arc, forcing the woman to duck. The second man, wide and large-bellied, though light-footed for his bulk, came at her low from the opposite side, in an effort to throw her off balance as the first spun away, and allow their companion to strike at the opening unhindered.
Yet the woman did not move as they expected, rather than being driven into their trap, she lithely sprang from her crouch, in a low back flip. So low in fact, that no sooner than her palms touched the wooden floor, so too did her arms to her elbows, whipping the rest of her body back from her attackers. Just before the rest of her body hit, she thrust her arms forward, heaving herself up to land in a low, wide-legged crouch. And just as quickly two more shurikens materialized in her hands.
The Iranistanies undeterred by the astonishing display of acrobatics again closed ranks on the woman, only to find the mustachioed Argosian at her side, features cast in determination, his dagger flitting in and around the tips of their tulwars with all the speed of a striking cobra. Despite their being three to two, the Iranistanies were out matched.
Conan was amazed at the display of skill to say the least. Still with no hesitation on their part, the turbaned warriors rushed forward. The woman swung her right arm as a windmill, letting loose the shuriken in her hand. It imbedded itself in fat Iranistani's swordarm, allowing the Argosian to bat aside his tulwar with ease, and then driving his dagger home to the hilt in the man's dark skinned chest. The crimson liquor spurting forth as the blond man wrenched free his blade. Twisting gracefully away from the tall Iranistani's lunge before whipping her left arm out, the woman's other missile sped from her hand, biting into the third Iranistani's leg, causing him to stumble. Quickly the Argosian knifed him once in the back, and then slit his throat.
Only the tall Iranistani remained. He looked about wildly. During the exchange, which had lasted less than a minute, he had reversed positions with the woman and the Argosian, and they now stood between him and the door leading out to the Street of Regrets. A worrisome sweet broke out on his brow, running down his long, hawkish face. Again, he eyed the crowd, and fixed on something. Moving with untold speed, he reached into the surrounding denizens, and plucked from them one of the serving girls that had been moving about before the fight broke out, holding his tulwar against her neck.
"Back, or I slit the wench's throat," said the turbaned man, his curved blade pressing harder to the girl's flesh.
"Crom!" Conan snarled an oath at the man's cowardice. The Cimmerian had no compunctions about taking hostages for ransom, nor of running from a pitched fight. The Iranistani could have fled up the stair, or through the kitchen in search of his reprieve, but to take a hostage for no other reason than to bay death. It was inconceivable to one raised in the far northern crags of Cimmeria, where the specter of death loomed over each step.
Though she resisted him, the Nemedian girl's struggles were as nothing to the hardened thews of the wiry man. The woman's face contorted in rage; she reared her arm back, ready with another of the exotic throwing knives. "No, Jasmine," barked the Argosian in a rough voice, throwing his hand to her shoulder, staying her attack, yet still glowering at the Iranistani.
In that time, in a great pantherish stride, Conan had come up behind the Iranistani, clamping his hand like a vice around the dark man's wrist. Almost instantly the tulwar fell from nerveless fingers, pent up blood, the flow pinched off by the Cimmerian's powerful grip, throbbed painfully in his benumbed hand. The shock of the action alone, made him loose his hold on the girl. He was further shocked by staring up into the barbarian's eyes, which burned with cobalt fire. With the girl free, Conan hefted the Iranistani overhead, and hurled him at the far wall, where he impacted heavily with a meaty thunk.
"By Mitra!" the woman swore, turning her baleful scowl and her shrunken on Conan, "What right has a stupid barbarian like you to interfere. This matter was not your concern."
"I made it my concern," the Cimmerian said gruffly, unperturbed by her demeanor as he crossed his arms over his chest, then he added in the Aquilonian tongue with a dangerous undertone, "I would be carful of calling a barbarian stupid; unlike civilized men, we do not take such insults lightly."
The woman—Jasmine—backed away a step in shock. In venting her fury, she had not expected such a response from the barbarian. But seeing his opening, her companion stepped forward. The man stroking his oversized mustache in contemplation as he studied the wilder man in front of him, "Do not mind, Jasmine's manner; she is quick tempered and filled with the pride of youth—much like yourself I would guess. Unless I am mistaken you are a Cimmerian, are you not?"
"Indeed. My name is Conan," he responded. He saw now the Argosian appeared to be of his middle years. The Cimmerian knew, however, venturing on the high seas could age a man before his time. To judge by appearance was a mistake of civilized men. Things were not always as they first appeared, requiring keen eyes and a shrewdness to see beneath the veneer.
The Argosian extended his hand and Conan took it, "Good! Good, I am Arkonn. And I could use your help, Conan, seeing as I had to dispose of my last partner."
"Then you are a poor judge of partners," commented the Cimmerian, kicking one of the dead Iranistanies which lay dead and all but forgotten on the floor. Arkonn blinked a few times as if trying to decide whether the statement was an insult, a jest, or just was, and then began to roar with laughter while motioning to Conan to sit. He declined the offer, "No, I cannot. I am only in Belverus to meet old friends. I have only this time with them, for I must soon return to Ophir."
The blond man unwilling to relent pressed on, "Why, what I seek is in Ophir, Cimmerian! You would be taken from your way no more than a tenday at most, and be all the richer for it. It is no mere trove of jewels of which I speak. What I seek makes the legendary Teeth of Gwahlur seem a pittance in comparison."
It was now Conan's turn to roar with laughter. The Argosian's claims were wild beyond belief, and yet they held a hint of truth to them. He would not speak of it, but Conan had indeed found and sacrificed the lost treasure of Gwahlur, and ten times that had already passed through his hands in his short life. Gems and jewels of all sorts, from the Eye of the Serpent, to the Elephant's Heart, had found their way into his hands and just as quickly out of them. Many had brought with them a plague of wizards, priests, and demons. This would be no different. Yet, as he began again to decline the Argosian's offer, the hackles on his neck stirred acutely.
A curdled scream broke though the din that had reclaimed the common room. The dead Iranistanies were rising to their feet. Their bodies moved jerkily and with a sluggish malaise, bones crackling at the joints as they were unnaturally animated. As they rose, blood, black and crusting with age, frothed from their gnashing mouths. Cold eyes, clouded white with death were rimmed in red as they fixed on the Argosian. The lips of the first Iranistani, the one who had been sitting at the Agosian's table, curled back as if to speak, and for a moment, naught but a rasped gurgling issued from his mouth. Then a voice came forth, no louder than a whisper, yet it echoed as though shouted through the mountains; it was not the dead man's voice. It was the voice of another, "Think that you can escape your debt to me Arkonn of Argos! Your doom is writ; your tricks only prolong the inevitable and worsen your fate. I had wanted to send you into oblivion's embrace swiftly, but now you shall suffer! You shall know immortal torments as I feast upon your soul, and the souls of those you have enlisted to aid you, starting with the woman!"
With that pronouncement, the Iranistani's eyes flared brightly, crimson vapors rising up from the now empty sockets, and the twisted mouth of the corpse widened even further as a mist of the crimson hue spilled forth, winding a serpentine path towards the Aquilonian woman. With the speed of a cobra the mist struck, and the woman writhed in agony; her curdled screams filled the common room, as her back arched impossibly far, bending almost double. Her arms and legs twitched madly with convulsions. No one intervened, transfixed by the unnatural display of sorcery.
All save one. A knife appeared buried in the corpse's chest; it had been thrown from high on the stair, if the angle was judged true. Though the corpse paid the knife no heed, that small disruption was all that was needed for the wilder bread instincts of the Cimmerian to break free of the primal fear of the unknown, and to charge at the twisted abominations that had once been men. As he did so, his sword all but leapt from the shagreen sheath at his hip into his swordhand. Blood drummed in his ears, drowning out the pallid screams of the woman. A wild and frenzied roar broke from the Cimmerian's lips as his first strike arced up in a diagonal swing, cleaving part way through the first corpse's outstretched arm. Conan's fingers numbed slightly, unexpectedly from the jolt of his blade biting in the creature's arm. Rather than flesh, it felt as if he had tried to hack through a tree! "Crom," the Cimmerian cursed, wrenching his broadsword free. "Crom and steel!" he roared as he swung again, straining his mighty thews to put every ounce of power into what should be a killing blow. Conan's blade connected with the thing's neck and he gritted his teeth near to breaking in an effort to hold on to his sword as his already benumbed fingers became nerveless.
The clotting miasma flowing from the corpse's mouth lessened as its head was severed by the Cimmerian's strike, though the head did not roll off as expected. At first it seemed as though the attack had not phased the creature, as the head turned to face Conan, slowly the crimson mists began to dissipate, but not before striking the Cimmerian. In that instant, pain wracked his body; his whole body seemed set on fire, lightning raced over his muscles as they convulsed, and his bones were strained nigh unto breaking. Then Conan's eyes rolled up and his vision was filled with white. And then he knew darkness.