The Return of Conan

CHAPTER 10: The Lair of the Sorcerer

A vast, high-ceilinged hall opened at the end of the dank stone corridor. Its square flagstones were covered with dust undisturbed by human feet but its aura of silence brooded menacingly. Its upper part was lost in darkness.

Conan stalked warily over the vast floor toward the opening of another corridor, as if he expected any one of the flagstones to drop out from under him.

A noise like a thunderclap rang with booming crashes between the echoing walls, and a shrill wailing cry made Conan’s blood run cold.

With a swish of mighty wings, an unearthly being swooped from the upper darkness. Like a stooping hawk it plummeted down towards Conan.

The barbarian flung himself aside barely in time to avoid the razor-sharp claws in the monster’s paws. Then his sword swept in a glittering arc. The winged horror flopped away, howling. One arm, severed at the elbow, gushed dark, ill-smelling blood. With a horrible scream it again sprang towards the Cimmerian.

Conan stood his ground. He knew that his only chance lay in a sure thrust through the creature’s vitals. Even partly dismembered, it had the strength to tear him, to pieces. It was, he was sure, the same thing that had borne off Zenobia long months before.

The monster spread its wings to soar as it sprang. At the last moment, Conan ducked the claws of the remaining hand and put all his strength into a ripping thrust. His blade tore into the black body, as the searching talons ripped the shirt from his back.

With a choking gasp, the monster fell. Conan braced his feet to drag his blade free, dripping with the creature’s dark juices.

His hair was sweaty and tangled and his back was bloody from the clawing he had received. But a terrible fire burned unquenched in his eyes as he reached the mouth of the other corridor. Behind him, on the floor of the hall, the monster lay in a pool of brown, staring with sightless yellow eyes toward the darkness from which it had come.

The corridor into which Conan stepped was short and straight. In the distance he saw a door of stone. Cryptic signs of Khitan origin covered its surface. This must be the Tunnel of Death that led to Yah Chieng’s private chambers. Beyond that door he would find his foe. Conan’s eyes glowed ferally in the darkness, and his hand gripped his hilt with vengeful force.

Suddenly the darkness changed to bright illumination. Red licking flames arose from the floor in a hellish wall.

Their writhing tongues reached up to the ceiling, and they burst toward Conan in hungry spouts of burning death.

He could feel their terrible heat on his face and arms, and his clothes began to smolder. Sweat ran down his face.

As he wiped his brow with the back of his hand, a piece of metal rasped his skin.

The ring of Rakhamon again! He had forgotten it in his single-minded determination. Would it prove potent against the strength of the yellow wizard?

He swept his hand through the licking flames. A crash, like the beating of a thousand cymbals, reverberated in the corridor. The flames fell tinkling to the floor, like shards of glass. The remainder of the fire was immobile as a frozen image of Hell.

The Cimmerian transposed of a powerful leap the wall of fire, and then advanced toward the door of stone. He felt armed of an overwhelming force. He knew that in his hand carried a ring with which all was possible.

The cold stone-altar chilled the tepid meat of the body of Zenobia. She twisted her hands vainly, for her arms and legs were chained to a ring anchored to the floor. Her splendid body was laid out on the stone. Close by her tormentor was preoccupied in front of a dark and long table, packed with strange objects as flasks, boxes and rolls of dusty parchments. Under the hood of the cloak appeared the beard of the sorcerer.

The ceiling of the extensive room was so high that Zenobia could not see it. The woman was full of desperation, only the self-control she had shown in those months of captivity permitted her to control her emotions.

Thinking about Conan, her husband, Zenobia’s heart seemed that was going to explode of grief and nostalgia.

Yah Chieng had told her that Conan had left alone in his search. Zenobia did not know by what arts the sorcerer knew that, but right now her beloved Conan could lay down dead in the Turanian steppes, or he could have been captured and killed by the himellian hillmen tribes. They were many powerful men of East that hated him.

That same noon, the henchmen of the yellow sorcerer had removed Zenobia of the cell and carried her to that room, where they chained her on the frightening altar. Since then she had remained alone with the khitanian sorcerer. Nevertheless, he seemed to ignore her and was limited to manipulate his apparatuses, while murmuring enchantments that he read in his old books.

But now the devilish old man approached Zenobia. The light was reflected in the leaf of the strange dagger he wielded. In the steel there could be seen engraved some cabalistic signs. The face of the sorcerer was tense with the evil expectation that animated it.

Full of despair, Zenobia entrusted her soul to Mitra.

Just then, the heavy door was violently opened toward the inside of the room, and fell with a terrible rumble to the floor, blowing up fragments of slabs and a great cloud of dust. A tall and strong man appeared in the vain of the door. He was a muscular giant of black long hair and vehement blue eyes that launched sparkles of ire. The torches reflected their light in the leaf of the sword he wielded.

The heart of Zenobia almost burst out of happiness. At last Conan, her champion, had arrived!

With a terrible and silent ferocity, the Cimmerian attacked the oriental necromancer. In a glance he took charge of the situation. The view of Zenobia’s body, prepared for the sacrifice, indicated to Conan that he had arrived in a timely fashion. Suddenly Zenobia raised herself of the altar, free of her chains. Then Conan saw that there no longer was his wife, but an enormous tiger. His roar echoed in the room while he jumped on Conan with claws extended and open jaws. When the Cimmerian raised his sword to behead to the enormous cat, it transformed to a green hooded skeleton. Its bony hand grasped the wrist of Conan with incredible strength.

With a fierce growl, the Cimmerian freed his weapon from the green folds of the robe, in which it had entangled itself, with a titanic blow fragmented the smiling skull in a thousand pieces. Then he noted a burning sensation in his ring finger. As if it was in flames. He saw that the magical ring shone with a reddish otherworldly brilliance that made his head ache. Conan removed the smoldering ring and dropped it to the floor. Upon doing it, he heard an evil laughter that stemmed from the sorcerer.

The khitanian remained standing, his arms extended above his head. Murmuring enchantments continuously, while dime flames shone in the lanterns. Conan, dazed, shook his head. Not yet recovered from the strong impression.

With a strange apathy he saw, all around him, a blue mist raising from the floor; with deadly slowness it wrapped him in weak spirals. Shortly after, he was completely surrounded by vapors. He tried to move, but it was like walking on cold molasses. He could barely raise his feet of the floor. He began to pant, and sweat covered his face.

The mist continued thickening. Suddenly he could see images reflected in the blue spirals. He saw old friends and beautiful women, riding knights and kings in purple mantles. Then the silhouettes transformed in old enemies, which in turn became blurry shadows. All the monsters men had feared since crawling from the sea appeared in an endless succession before his eyes, drawing closer and closer to him. Their extended claws reaching for his neck, as if to strangle him, and their burning eyes seemed to remove his soul to carry it to hell.

Conan trembled, horror growing deep within him. His muscles garroted with tremendous tension. He tried to break the spell, but his members refused to obey him. The effort of the fight developing in his mind, deep in his awareness, seemed almost unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a feeling of rout. A premonition that evil and darkness were going to succeed, and that in spite of his efforts; his bewitched soul would forever remain chained in the black abysses of hell.

Conan felt himself slowly falling unconscious, unable to avoid it.

Then, above the harmful and derisive spawns of darkness, he saw a scene that represented a great parlor.

Gigantic trunks constituted its walls, and the beams of the ceiling were so thick as four strong men together.

Under a dim light he saw some men in grey mail, who stood somberly around a throne …a throne in which a king or God of black hairs was sitting, tall, of dark eyes and severe and implacable face. The voice of the sovereign echoed in the conscience of the barbarian.

“Cimmerian!” He said “You are a son of Crom, and he will not consent you to suffer eternal damnation. Your God has always seen you with good eyes, and because of this the oriental’s black magic has no hold over your spirit.”

The God’s dark eyes shone brightly. Raising his powerful hand a light arose from it. Conan felt the strength returning to his body. The blue mist dissipated slowly, until it disappeared completely. Among murmurs of frantic terror the devils fled.

Fear reflected in the eyes of Yah Chieng. But the sorcerer raised again raised the knife of sacrifice above the figure of Zenobia. Then a heavy body fell on the sorcerer, in a confusion of moving members and folds of wide clothes.

With a powerful tigerish impulse the Cimmerian jumped on the altar. A cold, terrible whisper escaping between clenched teeth.

“Yellow dog! We meet at last!” He said in sibilant voice “The Gods have condemned you, and your black powers are gone!”

Then the barbarian pressed with deadly force the body of his enemy, Yah Chieng gave an inhuman shrill of fright.

“Do not you hear the laments of the injured and the crash of the weapons?” Continued Conan “Do not you see the flames of the fires? Witness how your evil soldiers are annihilated by the prisoners you held on the dungeons below the city, and by the people of Paikang! Your bloody empire decays, becomes ruins! And now I send you to the blackest hell, so you may rot for all eternity!”

The muscles of the Cimmerian swelled with vindictive angry strength. A horrifying click was heard, and Conan stood panting, while a corpse, fell limply to the floor.

The cimmerio had the doublet burned and torn; its back was covered with injuries and bruises and their eyebrows were scorched. But in spite of all advanced to the altar and, after being inclined, applied all the titanic force that was capable. The chains that held the woman clinked upon falling broken on the floor.

When the winners crossed the door chanting the Cimmerian’s name, they found him embracing his beloved queen with the ardor of a man that loves for the first time.

That night, for the first time in twenty-five years Conan carried out a sacrifice to Crom, the God of the Cimmerians, the men of dark scalp.