Robert Jordan - Conan The Unconquered

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Conan The Unconquered
By Robert Jordan
Copyright 1983 Robert Jordan
Prologue
Storm winds howling off the midnight-shrouded Vilayet Sea clawed at the
granite-walled compound of the Cult of Doom. The compound gave the appearance
of a small city, though there were no people on its streets at that hour. More
than the storm and the lateness kept them fast in their beds, praying for
sleep, though but a bare handful of them could have put a finger to the real
reason, and those that could did not allow themselves to think on it. The gods
uplift, and the gods destroy. But no one ever believes the gods will touch
them. The man who was now called Jhandar did not know if gods involved
themselves in the affairs of mortals, or indeed if gods existed, but he did
know there were Powers beneath the sky. There were indeed Powers, and one of
those he had learned to use, even to control after a fashion. Gods he would
leave to those asleep in the compound, those who called him their Great Lord.
Now he sat cross-legged in saffron robes before such a Power. The
chamber was plain, its pearly marble walls smooth, its two arched entrances
unadorned. Simple round columns held the dome that rose above the shallow
pool, but ten paces across, that was the room's central feature. There was no
ornamentation, for friezes or sculptures or ornate working of stone could not
compete with that pool, and the Power within.
Water, it might seem at first glance, but it was not. It was sharply
azure and flecked with argent phosphorescence. Jhandar meditated, basking in
the radiance of Power, and the pool glowed silver-blue, brighter and brighter
until the chamber seemed lit with a thousand lamps. The surface of the pool
bubbled and roiled, and mists rose, solidifying. But only so far. The mists
formed a dome, as if a mirror image of the pool below, delineating the limits
that contained the Power, both above and below. Within ultimate disorder was
bound, Chaos itself confined. Once Jhandar had seen such a pool loosed from
its bonds, and fervently did he wish never to see such again. But that would
not happen here. Not now. Not ever.
Now he could feel the Power seeping into his very bones. It was time.
Smoothly he rose and made his way through one of the archways, down a narrow
passage lit by bronze lamps, bare feet padding on cool marble. He prided
himself on his lack of ostentation, even to so small a thing as not wearing
sandals. He, like the pool, needed no adornment.
The passage let into a circular sanctorum, its albescent walls worked in
intricate arabesques, its high vaulted ceiling held aloft by fluted alabaster
columns. Light came from golden cressets suspended aloft on silver chains.
Massive bronze doors barred the chamber's main entrance, their surfaces within
and without worked in a pattern of Chaos itself, by an artist under the
influence of the Power, before madness and death had taken him. The Power was
not for all.
The forty men gathered there, a fifth part of his Chosen, did need this
show of splendor to reflect the glory of their cause. Yet the most important
single item in that chamber, an altar set in the exact center of the circle
formed by the room, was of unornamented black marble.
Two-score men turned silently as Jhandar entered, saffron robed and
shaven of head as the laws of the cult demanded, just as it forbade its women
to cut their tresses. Eager eyes watched him; ears strained to hear his words.
"I am come from the Pool of the Ultimate," he intoned, and a massive
sigh arose, as if he had come from the presence of a god. Indeed, he suspected
they considered it much the same, for though they believed they knew the
purposes and meanings of the Cult, in truth they knew nothing.
Slowly Jhandar made his way to the black altar, and all eyes followed
him, glowing with the honor of gazing on one they considered but a step
removed from godhead himself. He did not think of himself so, for all his
ambitions. Not quite.
Jhandar was a tall man, cleanly muscled but slender. Bland, smooth
features combined with his shaven head to make his age indeterminate, though
something in his dark brown eyes spoke of years beyond knowing. His ears were
square, but set on his head in such a fashion that they seemed slightly
pointed, giving him an other-worldly appearance. But it was the eyes that oft
convinced others he was a sage ere he even opened his mouth. In fact he was
not yet thirty.
He raised his arms above his head, letting the folds of his robes fall
back. "Attend me!"
"We attend, Great Lord!" forty throats spoke as one.
"In the beginning was nothingness. All came from nothingness."
"And to nothingness must all return."
Jhandar allowed a slight smile to touch his thin mouth. That phrase,
watchword of his followers, always amused him. To nothingness, indeed, all
must return. Eventually. But not soon. At least, not him.
While he was yet a boy, known by the first of many names he would bear,
fate had carried him beyond the Vilayet Sea, beyond even far Vendhya, to
Khitai of near fable. There, at the feet of a learned thaumaturge, an aged man
with long, wispy mustaches and a skin the color of luteous ivory, he had
learned much. But a lifetime spent in the search for knowledge was not for
him. In the end he had been forced to slay the old man to gain what he wanted,
the mage's grimoire, his book of incantations and spells. Then, before he had
mastered more than a handful, the murder was discovered, and he imprisoned.
Yet he had known enough to free himself of that bare stone cell, though he had
of necessity to flee Khitai. There had been other flights in his life, but
those were long past. His errors had taught him. Now his way was forward, and
upward, to heights without end.
"In the beginning all of totality was inchoate. Chaos ruled."
"Blessed be Holy Chaos," came the reply.
"The natural state of the universe was, and is, Chaos. But the gods
appeared, themselves but children of Chaos, and forced order - unnatural,
unholy order - upon the very Chaos from which they sprang." His voice caressed
them, raised their fears, then soothed those fears, lifted their hopes and
fanned their fervor. "And in that forcing they gave a foul gift to man, the
impurity that forever bars the vast majority of humankind from attaining a
higher order of consciousness, from becoming as gods. For it is from Chaos,
from ultimate disorder, that gods come, and man has within him the taint of
enforced order."
He paused then, spreading his arms as if to embrace them. Ecstasy lit
their eyes as they waited for him to give the benediction they expected, and
needed.
"Diligently," he said, "have you labored to rid yourselves of the
impurities of this world. Your worldly goods you have cast aside. Pleasures of
the flesh you have denied yourselves. Now," his voice rose to a thunder, "now
you are the Chosen!"
"Blessed be Holy Chaos! We are the Chosen of Holy Chaos!"
"Let the woman Natryn be brought forth," Jhandar commanded.
From a cubicle where she had been kept waiting the Lady Natryn, wife of
Lord Tariman, was led into the columned chamber. She did not look now the wife
of one of the Seventeen Attendants, the advisors to King Yildiz of Turan.
Naked, she stumbled in the hobble that confined her ankles, and would have
fallen had not two of the Chosen roughly held her erect. Her wrists, fastened
behind her with tight cords, lay on the swell of her buttocks. Her large brown
eyes bulged in terror, and her lips worked frantically around a leather gag.
Slender, yet full-breasted and well-rounded of hip, her body shone with the
sweat of fear. No eyes there but Jhandar's looked on her as a woman, though,
for the Chosen had forsaken such things.
"You have attempted to betray me, Natryn."
The naked woman shook at Jhandar's words as if pierced with needles. She
had dabbled in the teachings of the cult as did many bored women of the
nobility, but her husband made her different, and necessary to Jhandar's great
plan. With his necromancies he had learned every dark and shameful corner of
her life. Most noblewomen of Turan had secrets they would kill to hide, and
she, with lovers and vices almost beyond listing, was no different. Natryn had
wept at his revelations, and rebelled at his commands, but seemingly at last
she had accepted her duty to place certain pressures on her husband. Instead,
the sorcerous watch he kept on her revealed that she intended to go to her
husband, to reveal all and throw herself on his mercy. Jhandar had not slain
her where she lay in the supposed safety of her chambers in her husband's
palace, but had had her brought hither to serve her purpose in his grand
design. It was death she feared, but he intended worse for her.
"Prepare her," the necromancer commanded.
The woman flung herself about futilely in the grasp of the men who
fastened her by wrists and ankles to the black altar stone. The gag was
removed; she licked fear-dried lips. "Mercy, Great Lord!" she pleaded. "Let me
serve you!"
"You do," Jhandar replied.
From a tray of beaten gold proffered by one of the Chosen, the mage took
a silver-bladed knife and lifted it high above the woman's body. His follower
hastily set the tray on the floor by the altar and backed away. Natryn's
screams blended with Jhandar's chant as he invoked the Power of Chaos. His
words rang from the walls, though he did not shout; he had no wish to drown
her wails. He could feel the Power flowing in him, flowing through him.
Silvery-azure, a dome appeared, enveloping altar, sacrifice and necromancer.
The Chosen fell to their knees, pressed their faces to the marble floor in
awe. Jhandar's knife plunged down. Natryn convulsed and shrieked one last time
as the blade stabbed to the hilt beneath her left breast.
Quickly Jhandar bent to take a large golden bowl from the tray. Blade
and one quillon of that knife were hollow, so that a vivid scarlet stream of
heart's blood spurted into the bowl. Swiftly the level rose. Then the flow
slowed, stopped, and only a few drops fell to make carmine ripples.
Withdrawing the blade, Jhandar held knife and bowl aloft, calling on the
Power in words of ice, calling on life that was not life, death that was not
death. Still holding the bowl on high, he tilted it, pouring out Natryn's
heart blood. That sanguinary stream fell, and faded into nothingness, and with
it faded the glowing dome.
A smile of satisfaction on his face, Jhandar let the implements of his
sorcery clatter to the floor. No longer did a wound mar Natryn's beauty.
"Awake, Natryn," he commanded, undoing her bonds.
The eyes of the woman who had just been stabbed to the heart fluttered
open, and she stared at Jhandar, her gaze filled with horror and emptiness.
"I... I was dead," she whispered. "I stood before Erlik's Throne." Shivering,
she huddled into a ball on the altar. "I am cold."
"Certainly you are cold," Jhandar told her cruelly. "No blood courses in
your veins, for you are no longer alive. Neither are you dead. Rather you
stand between, and are bound to utter obedience until true death finds you."
"No," she wept. "I will not-"
"Be silent," he said. Her protests died on the instant.
Jhandar turned back to his followers. The Chosen had dared now to raise
their faces, and they watched him expectantly. "For what do you strike?" he
demanded.
From beneath their robes the Chosen produced needle-sharp daggers,
thrusting them into the air. "For disorder, confusion and anarchy, we strike!"
they roared. "For Holy Chaos, we strike! To the death!"
"Then strike!" he commanded.
The daggers disappeared, and the Chosen filed from the chamber to seek
those whose names Jhandar had earlier given them.
It was truly a pity, the necromancer thought, that the old mage no
longer lived. How far his pupil had outstripped him, and how much greater yet
that pupil was destined to become!
He snapped his fingers, and she who was now only partly Lady Natryn of
Turan followed him meekly from the sacrificial chamber.
I
Many cities bore appellations, "the Mighty" or "the Wicked", but Aghrapur,
that great city of ivory towers and golden domes, seat of the throne of Turan
and center of her citizens' world, had no need of such. The city's wickedness
and might were so well known that an appellation would have been gilt laid
upon gold.
One thousand and three goldsmiths were listed in the Guild Halls, twice
so many smiths in silver, half again that number dealers in jewelry and rare
gems. They, with a vast profusion of merchants in silks and perfumes, catered
to hot-blooded, sloe-eyed noblewomen and sleek, sensuous courtesans who oft
seemed more ennobled than their sisters of proper blood. Every vice could be
had within Aghrapur's lofty alabaster walls, from the dream-powders and
passion-mists peddled by oily men from Iranistan to the specialized brothels
of the Street Of Doves.
Turanian triremes ruled the cerulean expanse of the Vilayet Sea, and
into Aghrapur's broad harbor dromonds brought the wealth of a dozen nations.
The riches of another score found its way to the markets by caravan. Emeralds
and apes, ivory and peacocks, whatever people wanted could be found, no matter
whence it came. The stench of slavers from Khawarism was drowned in the wafted
scent of oranges from Ophir, of myrrh and cloves from Vendhya, of attar of
roses from Khauran and subtle perfumes from Zingara. Tall merchants from Argos
strode the flagstones of her broad streets, and dark men from Shem. Fierce
Ibars mountain tribesmen rubbed shoulders with Corinthian scholars, and
Kothian mercenaries with traders from Keshan. It was said that no day passed
in Aghrapur without the meeting of men, each of whom believed the other's land
to be a fable.
The tall youth who strode those teeming streets with the grace of a
hunting cat had no mind for the wonders of the city, however. Fingers curled
lightly on the well-worn leather hilt of his broadsword, he passed marble
palaces and fruit peddlers' carts with equal unconcern, a black-maned lion
unimpressed by piles of stone. Yet if his agate-blue eyes were alert, there
was yet travel weariness on his sun-bronzed face, and his scarlet-edged cloak
was stained with sweat and dust. It had been a hard ride from Sultanapur, with
little time before leaving for saying goodbye to friends or gathering
possessions, if he was to avoid the headsman's axe. A small matter of
smuggling, and some other assorted offenses against the King's peace.
He had come far since leaving the rugged northern crags of his native
Cimmerian mountains, and not only in distance. Some few years he had spent as
a thief, in Nemedia and Zamora and the Corinthian city-states, yet though his
years still numbered fewer than twenty the desire had come on him to better
himself. He had seen many beggars who had been thieves in their youth, but
never had he seen a rich thief. The gold that came from stealing seemed to
drip away like water through a sieve. He would find better for himself. The
failure of his smuggling effort had not dimmed his ardor in the least. All
things could be found in Aghrapur, or so it was said. At the moment he sought
a tavern, the Blue Bull. Its name had been given him in haste as he left
Sultanapur as a place where information could be gotten. Good information was
always the key to success.
The sound of off-key music penetrated his thoughts, and he became aware
of a strange procession approaching him down the thronging street. A wiry,
dark-skinned sergeant of the Turanian army, in wide breeches and
turban-wrapped spiral helmet, curved tulwar at his hip, was trailed by another
soldier beating a drum and two others raggedly blowing flutes. Behind them
came half a score more, bearing halberds and escorting, or guarding, a dozen
young men in motley garb who seemed to be trying to march to the drum. The
sergeant caught the big youth's glance and quickly stepped in front of him.
"The gods be with you. Now I can see that you are a man seeking -" The
sergeant broke off with a grunt. "Mitra! Your eyes!"
"What's wrong with my eyes?" the muscular youth growled.
"Not a thing, friend," the sergeant replied, raising a hand
apologetically. "But never did I see eyes the color of the sea before."
"Where I come from there are few with dark eyes."
"Ah. A far traveler come to seek adventure. And what better place to
find it than in the army of King Yildiz of Turan? I am Alshaam. And how are
you called?"
"Conan," the muscular youth replied. "But I've no interest in joining
your army."
"But think you, Conan," the sergeant continued with oily persuasiveness,
"how it will be to return from campaign with as much booty as you can carry, a
hero and conqueror in the women's eyes. How they'll fall over you. Why, man,
from the look of you, you were born for it."
"Why not try them?" Conan said, jerking his head toward a knot of
Hyrkanian nomads in sheepskin coats and baggy trousers of coarse wool. They
wore fur caps pulled tightly over grease-laced hair, and eyed everyone about
them suspiciously. "They look as if they might want to be heroes," he laughed.
The sergeant spat sourly. "Not a half-weight of discipline in the lot of
them. Odd to see them here. They generally don't like this side of the Vilayet
Sea. But you, now. Think on it. Adventure, glory, loot, women. Why -"
Conan shook his head. "I've no desire to be a soldier."
"Mayhap if we had a drink together? No?" The sergeant sighed. "Well,
I've a quota to fill. King Yildiz means to build his army larger, and when an
army's big enough, it's used. You mark my words, there will be loot to throw
away." He motioned to the other soldiers. "Let us be on our way."
"A moment," Conan said. "Can you tell me where to find the tavern called
the Blue Bull?"
The soldier grimaced. "A dive on the Street of the Lotus Dreamers, near
the harbor. They'll cut your throat for your boots as like as not. Try the
Sign of the Impatient Virgin, on the Street of Coins. The wine is cheap and
the girls are clean. And if you change your mind, seek me out. Alshaam,
sergeant in the regiment of General Mundara Khan."
Conan stepped aside to let the procession pass, the recruits once more
attempting unsuccessfully to march to the drum. As he turned from watching the
soldiers go he found himself about to trample into another cortege, this a
score in saffron robes, the men with shaven heads, the women with braids
swinging below their buttocks, their leader beating a tambourine. Chanting
softly, they walked as if they saw neither him nor anyone else. Caught off
balance, he stumbled awkwardly aside, straight into the midst of the Hyrkanian
nomads.
Muttered imprecations rose as thick as the rank smell of their greased
hair, and black eyes glared at him as dark leathery hands were laid to the
hilts of curved sword-knives. Conan grasped his own sword hilt, certain that
he was in for a fight. The Hyrkanians' eyes swung from him to follow the
saffron-robed procession continuing down the crowded street. Conan stared in
amazement as the nomads ignored him and hurried after the yellow-robed
marchers.
Shaking his head, Conan went on his way. No one had ever said that
Aghrapur was not a city of strangeness, he thought.
Yet, as he approached the harbor, it was in his mind that for all its
oddities the city was not so very different from the others he had seen.
Behind him were the palaces of the wealthy, the shops of merchants, and the
bustle of prosperous citizens. Here dried mud stucco cracked from the brick of
decaying buildings, occupied for all their decay. The peddlers offered fruits
too bruised or spoiled to be sold elsewhere, and the hawkers" shiny wares were
gilded brass, if indeed there was even any gilding. Beggars here were
omnipresent, whining in their rags to the sailors swaggering by. The strumpets
numbered almost as many as the beggars, in transparent silks that emphasized
rather than concealed swelling breasts and rounded buttocks, wearing peridot
masquerading as emeralds and carbuncle passing for ruby. Salt, tar, spices,
and rotting offal gave off a thick miasma that permeated everything. The
pleadings of beggars, the solicitations of harlots, and the cries of hawkers
hung in the air like a solid sheet.
Above the cacophony Conan heard a girl's voice shout, "If you will but
be patient, there will be enough to go around."
Curious, he looked toward the sound, but could see only a milling crowd
of beggars in front of a rotting building, all seeming to press toward the
same goal. Whatever, or whoever, that goal was, it was against the stone wall
of the building. More beggars ran to join the seething crowd, and a few of the
doxies joined in, elbowing their way to the front. Suddenly, above the very
forefront of the throng, a girl appeared, as if she had stepped up onto a
bench."Be patient," she cried. "I will give you what I have." In her arms she
carried an engraved and florentined casket, almost as large as she could
manage. Its top was open, revealing a tangled mass of jewelry. One by one she
removed pieces and passed them down to eagerly reaching hands. Greedy cries
were raised for more.
Conan shook his head. This girl was no denizen of the harbor. Her robes
of cream-colored silk were expensively embroidered with thread-of-gold, and
cut neither to reveal nor emphasize her voluptuous curves, though they could
not conceal them from the Cimmerian's discerning eye. She wore no kohl or
rouge, as the strumpets did, yet she was lovely. Waist-length raven hair
framed an oval face with skin the color of dark ivory and melting brown eyes.
He wondered what madness had brought her here.
"Mine," a voice shouted from the shoving mass of mendicants and doxies,
and another voice cried, "I want mine!"
The girl's face showed consternation. "Be patient. Please."
"More!"
"Now!"
Three men with the forked queues of sailors, attracted by the shouting,
began to push their way through the growing knot of people toward the girl.
Beggars, their greed vanquishing their usual ingratiating manner, pushed back.
Muttered curses were exchanged, then loud obscenities, and the mood of the
crowd darkened and turned angry. A sailor's horny fist sent a ragged,
gap-toothed beggar sprawling. Screams went up from the strumpets, and wrathful
cries from the beggars.
Conan knew he should go on. This was none of his affair, and he had yet
to find the Blue Bull. This matter would resolve itself very well without him.
Then why, he asked himself, was he not moving?
At that instant a pair of bony, sore-covered hands reached up and jerked
the casket from the girl's arms. She stared helplessly as a swirling fight
broke out, the casket jerked from one set of hands to another, its contents
spilling to the paving stones to be squabbled over by men and women with
clawed fingers. Filth-caked beggars snarled with avaricious rage; silk-clad
harlots, their faces twisted with hideous rapacity, raked each other with
long, painted nails and rolled on the street, legs flashing nakedly.
Suddenly one of the sailors, a scar across his broad nose disappearing
beneath the patch that covered his right eye, leaped up onto the bench beside
the girl. "This is what I want," he roared. And sweeping her into his arms, he
tossed her to his waiting comrades.
"Erlik take all fool women," Conan muttered.
The roil of beggars and harlots, lost in their greed, ignored the
massive young Cimmerian as he moved through them like a hunting beast.
Scarface and his companions, a lanky Kothian with a gimlet eye and a
sharp-nosed Iranistani, whose dirty red-striped head cloth hid all but the
tips of his queues, were too busy with the girl to notice his approach. She
yelped and wriggled futilely at their pawings. Her flailing hands made no
impression on shoulders and chests hardened by the rigors of stormy, violent
Vilayet Sea. The sailors" cheap striped tunics were filthy with fish oils and
tar, and an odor hung about them of sour, over-spiced ship's cooking.
Conan's big hand seized the scruff of the Kothian's neck and half hurled
him into the scuffle near the casket. The Iranistani's nose crunched and
spurted blood beneath his fist, and a back-hand blow sent Scarface to join his
friends on the filthy stones of the street.
"Find another woman," the Cimmerian growled. "There are doxies enough
about."
The girl stared at him wide-eyed, as if she was not sure if he was a
rescuer or not.
"I'll carve your liver and lights," Scarface spat, "and feed what's left
to the fish." He scrambled to his feet, a curved Khawarismi dagger in his
fist. The other two closed in beside him, likewise clutching curved daggers.
The man in the headcloth was content to glare threateningly, ruining it
somewhat by scrubbing with his free hand at the blood that ran from his broken
nose down over his mouth. The Kothian, however, wanted to taunt his intended
victim. He tossed his dagger from hand to hand, a menacing grin on his thin
mouth."We'll peel your hide, barbar," he sneered, "and hang it in the rigging.
You'll scream a long time before we let you -"
Among the lessons Conan had learned in his life was that when it was
time to fight, it was well to fight, not talk. His broadsword left its worn
shagreen scabbard in a draw that continued into an upward swing. The Kothian's
eyes bulged, and he fumbled for the blade that was at that moment in mid-toss.
Then the first fingerlength of the broadsword clove through his jaw, and up
between his eyes. The dagger clattered to the paving stones, and its owner's
body fell atop.
The other two were not men to waste time over a dead companion. Such did
not long survive on the sea. Even as the lanky man was falling, they rushed at
the big youth. The Iranistani's blade gashed along Conan's forearm, but he
slammed a kick into the dark man's midsection that sent him sprawling.
Scarface dropped to a crouch, his dagger streaking up toward Conan's ribs.
Conan sucked in his stomach, felt the dagger slice through his tunic and draw
a thin, burning line across his midriff. Then his own blade was descending.
Scarface screamed as steel cut into the joining of his neck and shoulder and
continued two handspans deeper. He dropped his dagger to paw weakly at the
broadsword, though life was already draining from him. Conan kicked the body
free - for it was a corpse before it struck the pavement - and spun to face
the third sailor.
The Iranistani had gotten to his feet yet again, but instead of
attacking he stood staring at the bodies of his friends. Suddenly he turned
and ran up the street. "Murder!" he howled as he ran, heedless of the bloody
dagger he was waving. "Murder!" The harlots and mendicants who had so recently
been lost in their fighting scattered like leaves before a high wind.
Hastily Conan wiped his blade on Scarface's tunic and sheathed it. There
were few things worse than to be caught by the City Guard standing over a
corpse. Most especially in Turan, where the Guard had a habit of following
arrest with torture until the prisoner confessed. Conan grabbed the girl's arm
and joined the exodus, dragging her behind him.
"You killed them," she said incredulously. She ran as if unsure whether
to drag her heels or not. "They'd have run away, an you threatened them."
"Mayhap I should have let them have you," he replied. "They would have
ridden you like a post horse. Now be silent and run!"
Down side streets he pulled her, startling drunks staggering from
seafarers' taverns, down cross-alleys smelling of stale urine and rotting
offal. As soon as they had put some distance between themselves and the
bodies, he slowed to a walk - running people were too well noticed - but yet
kept moving. He wanted a very goodly distance between himself and the
Guardsmen who would be drawn to the corpses like flies. He dodged between
high-wheeled pushcarts, carrying goods from harbor warehouses deeper into the
city. The girl trailed reluctantly at his heels, following only because his
big hand engulfed her slender wrist as securely as an iron manacle.
Finally he turned into a narrow alley, pushing the girl in ahead of him,
and stopped to watch his back-path. There was no way that the Guard could have
followed him, but his height and his eyes made him stand out, even in a city
the size of Aghrapur.
"I thank you for your assistance," the girl said suddenly in a tone at
once haughty and cool. She moved toward the entrance of the alley. "I must be
going now."
He put out an arm to bar her way. Her breasts pressed pleasurably
against the hardness of his forearm, and she backed hastily away, blushing in
confusion.
"Not just yet," he told her.
"Please," she said without meeting his eye. There was a quaver in her
voice. "I... I am a maiden. My father will reward you well if you return me to
him in the same... condition." The redness in her cheeks deepened.
Conan chuckled deep in his throat. "It's not your virtue I want, girl.
Just the answers to a question or three."
To his surprise her eyes dropped. "I suppose I should be glad," she said
bitterly, "that even killers prefer slender, willowy women. I know I am a cow.
My father has often told me I was made to bear many sons and... and to nurse
all of them," she finished weakly, coloring yet again.
Her father was a fool, Conan thought, eyeing her curves. She was a woman
made for more than bearing sons, though he did not doubt that whoever she was
wed to would find the task of giving them to her a pleasurable one.
"Don't be silly," he told her gruffly. "You'd give joy to any man."
"I would?" she breathed wonderingly. Her liquid eyes caressed his face,
innocently, he was certain. "How," she asked falteringly, "is a post horse
ridden?"
He had to think to remember why she asked, and then he could barely
suppress a smile. "Long and hard," he said, "with little time for rest, if
any." She went scarlet to the neck of her silken robe, and he chuckled. The
girl blushed easily, and prettily.
"What is your name, little one?"
"Yasbet. My father called me Yasbet." She looked past him to the street
beyond, where pushcarts rumbled by. "Do you think the casket, at least, would
be there if we went back? It belonged to my mother, and Fatima will be furious
at its loss. More furious than for the jewels, though she'll be mad enough at
those."
He shook his head. "That casket has changed hands at least twice by now,
for money or blood. And the jewels as well. Who is Fatima?"
"My amah," she replied, then gasped and glared at him as if he had
tricked her into revealing the fact.
"Your amah!" Conan brayed with laughter. "Are you not a little old to
have a nursemaid?"
"My father does not think so," Yasbet replied in a sullen voice. "He
thinks I must have an amah until I am given to my husband. It is none of my
liking. Fatima thinks I am still five years of age, and father sides with her
decisions always." Her eyes closed and her voice sank to a weary whisper. She
spoke as if no longer realizing she spoke aloud. "I shall be locked in my room
for this, at the least. I shall be lucky if Fatima does not..." Her words
drifted off with a wince, and her hands stole back to cover her buttocks
protectively.
"You deserve it," Conan said harshly.
Yasbet started, eyes wide and flushing furiously. "Deserve what? What do
you mean? Did I say something?"
"You deserve to have an amah, girl. After this I shouldn't be surprised
if your father takes two or three of them in service." He smiled inwardly at
the relief on her face now. In truth, he thought she deserved a spanking as
well, but saying so would be no way to gain satisfaction for his curiosity.
"Now tell me, Yasbet. What were you doing alone on a street like that, giving
your jewels to beggars? It was madness, girl."
"It was not madness," she protested. "I wanted to do something
significant, something on my own. You have no idea what my life is like. Every
moment waking or sleeping is ruled and watched by Fatima. I am allowed to make
not the smallest decision governing my own life. I had to climb over the
garden wall to leave without Fatima's permission."
"But giving jewels to beggars and strumpets?"
"The... the women were not part of my plan. I wanted to help the poor,
and who can be poorer than beggars?" Her face firmed angrily. "My father will
know I am no longer a child. I do not regret giving up the pretties he
believes mean so much to me. It is noble to help the poor."
"Perhaps he'll hire six amahs," Conan muttered. "Girl, did it never
occur to you that you might be hurt? If you had to help someone, why not ask
among your own servants? Surely they know of people in need? Then you could
have sold a few of your jewels for money to help."
Yasbet snorted. "Even if all of the servants were not in league with
Fatima, where would I find a dealer in gems who would give me true value? More
likely he would simply pretend to deal with me while he sent for my father!
And he would no doubt send Fatima to bring me home. That humiliation I can do
without, thank you."
"Gem dealers would recognize you," he said incredulously, "and know who
your father is? Who is he? King Yildiz?"
Suddenly wary, she eyed him like a fawn on the edge of flight. "You
will not take me back to him, will you?"
"And why should I not? You are not fit to walk the streets without a
keeper, girl."
"But then I'll never keep him from discovering what happened today."
She shuddered. "Or Fatima."
Wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, she moved closer. "Just
listen to me for a moment. Please? I -"
Abruptly she darted past him into the street.
"Come back here, you fool girl," he roared, racing after her.
She dashed almost under the wheels of a heavy, crate-filled cart, and
was immediately hidden from view. Two more carts pressed close behind. There
was no room to squeeze between them. He ran to get ahead of the carts and to
the other side of the street. When he got there, Yasbet was nowhere in sight.
A potter's apprentice was setting out his master's crockery before their shop.
A rug dealer unrolled his wares before his. Sailors and harlots strolled in
and out of a tavern. But of the girl there was no sign.
"Fool girl," he muttered.
Just then the tavern sign, painted crudely, creaked in the breeze and
caught his eye. The Blue Bull. All that had happened, and he had come right to
it. Aghrapur was going to be a lucky city. Giving his swordbelt a hitch and
settling his cloak about his broad shoulders, he sauntered into the
stone-fronted inn.
II
The interior of the Blue Bull was poorly lit by guttering rush torches stuck
in crude black iron sconces on the stone walls. A dozen men, hunched over
their mugs, sat scattered among the tables that dotted the slate floor, which
was swept surprisingly clean for a tavern of that class. Three sailors took
turns flinging their daggers at a heart crudely painted on a slab of wood and
hung on a wall. The rough stones around the slab were pocked from ten thousand
near misses. A pair of strumpets, one with multi-hued beads braided in her
hair, the other wearing a tall wig in a bright shade of red, circulated among
the patrons quietly hawking the wares they displayed in diaphanous silk.
Serving girls, their muslin covering little more than the harlots" garb,
scurried about with pitchers and mugs. An odor of sour wine and stale ale,
common to all such places, competed with the stench of the street.
When he saw the innkeeper, a stout, bald man scrubbing the bar with a
bit of rag, Conan understood the cleanliness of the floors. He knew the man,
Ferian by name. This Ferian had a passion for cleanliness uncommon among men
of his profession. It was said he had fled from Belverus, in Nemedia, after
killing a man who vomited on the floor of his tavern. But as a source of
information he had always been unsurpassed. Unless he had changed his ways he
would know all the news in Aghrapur, not only the gossip of the streets.
Ferian smiled as Conan leaned an elbow on the bar, though his small
black eyes remained watchful, and he did not cease his wiping. "Hannuman's
Stones, Cimmerian," he said quietly. "They say all roads lead to Aghrapur - at
least, they say it in Aghrapur - and seeing you walk in here, I believe it. A
year more, and all of Shadizar will be here."
"Who else from Shadizar is in the city?" Conan asked.
"Rufo, the Kothian coiner. Old Sharak, the astrologer. And Emilio, too."
"Emilio!" Conan exclaimed. Emilio the Corinthian had been the best thief
in Zamora, next to Conan. "He always swore he'd never leave Shadizar."
Ferian chuckled, a dry sound to come from one so plump. "And before that
he swore he would never leave Corinthia, but he left both for the same reason
- he was found in the wrong woman's bed. Her husband was after him, but her
mother wanted him even more. Seems he'd been bedding her as well, and lifting
bits of her jewelry. The older wench hired a bevy of knifemen to see that
Emilio would have nothing to offer another woman. I hear he left the city
disguised as an old woman and did not stop sweating for half a year. Ask him
about it, and you want to see a man turn seven colors at once, the while
swallowing his tongue. He's upstairs with one of the girls now, though likely
too drunk to do either of them any good."
"Then they'll be there till the morrow," Conan laughed, "for he'll never
admit to failure." He laid two coppers on the bar. "Have you any Khorajan ale?
My throat is dusty."
"Do I have Khorajan ale?" Ferian said, rummaging under the bar. "I have
wines and ales you have never heard of. Why, I have wines and ales I have
never heard of." He drew out a dusty clay crock, filled a leathern jack, and
made the coppers disappear as he pushed the mug in front of Conan. "Khorajan
ale. How stand affairs in the Gilded Bitch of the Vilayet? You had to leave in
a hurry, did you?"
Conan covered his surprise by drinking deeply on the dark, bitter ale,
and wiped white froth from his mouth with the back of his hand before he
spoke. "How knew you I have been in Sultanapur? And why think you I left
hurriedly?"
"You were seen there these ten days gone," Ferian smirked, "by Zefran
the Slaver, who came through here on his way back to Khawarism." It was the
tavern-keeper's major fault that he liked to let men know how much he knew of
what they had been about. One day it would gain him a knife between his ribs.
"As for the rest, I know naught save that you stand there with the dust of
hard riding on you, and you were never the one to travel for pleasure. Now,
what can you tell me?"
Conan drank again, pretending to think on what he could tell. The fat
摘要：

ConanTheUnconqueredByRobertJordanCopyright1983RobertJordanPrologueStormwindshowlingoffthemidnight-shroudedVilayetSeaclawedatthegranite-walledcompoundoftheCultofDoom.Thecompoundgavetheappearanceofasmallcity,thoughtherewerenopeopleonitsstreetsatthathour.Morethanthestormandthelatenesskeptthemfastinthei...

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