“Good of him,” Conan said.
“One does not need to be a fish to know which way the tide flows,”
Wikkell said.
Conan sheathed his sword. “Lead on, friend.”
The party, now swelled by six, moved on.
“I think I might be able to slip my hands out of these manacles,”
Elashi said. “They are very loose upon my wrists.”
“A stupid idea,” Lalo said. “
Neither Tull
nor I can do so, and
what good would it do you to be free? Do you think
you can bypass the wizard and his guards?”
“Perhaps not,” Elashi said, irritated, “but there might be
something in this chamber I can use to free you. At the very least we might be
able to strike the wizard down, can we find a weapon.”
“Her idea has merit,” Tull said. “I’d rather take a few of
‘em with me, do I have to leave this life.”
Lalo merely shrugged and looked dubious.
One of his
smaller insults.
Elashi strained and tugged at the cuff on her right wrist. The skin peeled
back next to the rusty metal and blood flowed, lubricating her hand. The two
men watched as she managed to pull her hand loose. The left hand came free
easier, since she had the right to help, but blood also oozed from scrapes
there when she was done. Her wrists hurt, but not so much as all that,
especially considering what the alternative would shortly be.
Quietly, and with great care, she stole across the chamber toward a large
trunk against the far wall. Perhaps there would be something inside it she
could use.
She wondered about Conan. Had he met his end at the teeth of the monster
that had snatched him into the air? She hoped not; for all of his faults,
Elashi had grown to like Conan more than a little. Of course he was not
so
witty as Lalo, who despite his curse, seemed a most
clever companion. Still, she would not like to think of Conan dead. They had
gone through much together, and he was so young. It would be such a waste.
Do not worry about that now, Elashi, she told herself. Whatever has happened
to Conan, you must try to keep yourself alive.
She hurried over to the chest.
In the largest chamber he had yet seen, Conan observed from a high ledge
thousands of occupants: worms,
cyclopes
, Bloodbats,
and Whites, mostly keeping together in like groups, but here and there a few
mingling without regard for kind. A low rumble of conversation filled the cave
as the thousands below talked among themselves.
Wikkell and Deek moved to the edge of the shelf, and the cyclops took a deep
breath and yelled at the assemblage:
“Ho, brothers! Listen to me!”
The drone of speech faded to silence as those below looked up at Wikkell.
There was a long pause, filled with anticipation, before the cyclops spoke
again.
“The time has come for us to restore our world to what it once
was,” he said. His voice boomed out loudly, carrying to all parts of the
chamber. “Those who have held us in thrall for so long must be removed,
forever!”
A loud cheer broke from the crowd, hoots and yells and high-pitched
whistles. He definitely had their attention.
“Your leaders will tell you of your duties. The witch and the wizard
will not relinquish their control easily, and they are powerful, but the time
has come!”
Another wave of approbation swelled from the ranks, louder than before.
Wikkell turned away.
“G-g-good sp-speech,” Deek said.
“I hope it was not my last one,” Wikkell said. He glanced at the
barbarian. “Ready?”
Conan nodded.
“Aye.”
He grinned. Here was
a situation he could enjoy: battle, with no complexity to it.
The Whites would attack the sanctums of both witch and wizard
simultaneously, followed by the bats, then a mix of worm and cyclopian troops.
The bats would also fly back and forth, reporting messages as needed. Somewhere
in the midst of all that, Conan would seek to find and free his friends. It was
simple enough.
His favorite kind of plan.
It might
fail, but at least it would not do so due to some serpentine twist that went
awry.
Conan led Wikkell and Deek down the path toward Katamay Rey’s cave.
Elashi rummaged around in the trunk, discarding items that offered no
apparent use to her. She found a stoppered vial and turned to show it to Lalo
and Tull.
“Should I open this?”
“Better you should not,” Lalo said. “We do not know what
resides within, and it might be something we would rather not know
intimately.”
Elashi nodded and tossed the vial into a pile of clothing already pulled
from the trunk.
Further searching produced a rod of shining metal. The thing was the
diameter of Elashi’s little finger and as long as the distance between her
thumb tip and forefinger. There was a knobby protrusion near one end. Curious
as to the object’s function, Elashi pressed the knob. Fortunately, the opposite
end was not pointed at any part of
herself
; rather,
the tip of the rod was aimed at the pile of clothes next to the trunk. A bright
and jagged white light erupted from the rod with a crackling noise like that of
a large fire, and the pile of clothing sizzled and burst into flame.
Elashi dropped the rod.
“Mitra!”
“Best stay away from that, girl,” Tull said.
“No, fool,” Lalo said. “Bring it here.”
“You want me to touch that again? What if it discharges another of
those lightning-like bolts?”
“I hope that it does,” Lalo said.
“At the
chains that bind us.
Where is your wit, woman? And hurry, in case the
wizard has heard the noise and comes to investigate!”
With the clothing burning and filling the chamber with flickering orange
light, Elashi picked up the magical rod and scurried back toward Lalo and Tull.
In the guise of the flying reptile, Chuntha soared high around a wide
turning in one of the major tunnels, and beheld a most surprising sight: below
was a collection of Blind Whites, hurrying along the corridor. Behind the
Whites and not much above them, a flock of Bloodbats flitted along.
What misdeed was this?
Whites and bats, intent on some
purpose, and together?
Chuntha puzzled over the event, heretofore unseen.
There was more: behind the first two groups, at some distance, came a
gathering of giant worms and
cyclopes
!
Hundreds of them, moving along as if they had been born of the same
mothers instead of enemies for scores upon scores of years.
Oh, dear.
Whatever the cause of this phenomenon, Chuntha immediately knew that such a
collaboration of the cave’s inhabitants was
not
to her advantage. In
fact, she reasoned that it could mean nothing but disaster. The only place they
could be going was her chambers, and from the look of them, they did not intend
to fall down and worship her when they arrived.
Sensha’s damnation! That prophesy of unnamed disaster had come forth despite
all of her efforts to thwart it!
Given her present circumstances, wrapped within a spell whose longevity
could not be depended upon, Chuntha had no desire to see if the weight of her
magic could prevail against such an unruly looking mob as that below her.
Besides, most of her magical apparati lay back at her chambers.
Had Rey done this? No, she thought, likely not.
Conan had somehow engineered it, as
the prophesy
had hinted he would.
Frightening, to think that a man without
any apparent sorcery about him could cause such things.
Not only had he
resisted her carnal magics, but now this.
The mark of a wise witch was the knowledge of when to stay and when to
leave, and no doubt about it, it was time to move on. Better she should forget
about Conan, the wizard, the caves, and everything connected with them. Chuntha
was not fond of the idea of losing, but she was less fond of the idea of dying.
Unseen by those below, the magical creature flew on with increased speed.
Elashi pointed the end of the rod at the chains holding Lalo to the wall.
She closed her eyes and pressed the stud.
Nothing happened.
The desert woman opened her eyes. She pressed the knob again. A kind of thin
whine came from the rod.
“So much for that idea,” Tull said. “Looks like it only had
one bolt in it.”
“Maybe not,” Lalo said. “Maybe it just needs to gather more
magic for a time. Wait for a few moments and try again… unless you have
pressing matters elsewhere to which you must attend?”
After a short wait, Elashi again pointed the rod at Lalo’s chains and
touched the knob. She expected nothing, but Lalo’s surmise proved correct: a bright
bolt zapped forth and struck the iron links. Elashi again dropped the device,
but the force of the magic had already done its job. The chains binding Lalo to
the wall ring had shattered under the impact of the blinding energy.
“The wizard must be deaf,” Tull said as Lalo moved to retrieve the
magic rod.
“Perhaps he is out,” Lalo said, “looking for flies from which
to pull the wings.” He picked up the rod and examined it.
“Patience, Tull old fool.
We shall have you free in a
few moments.”
Lalo waited for what he considered an appropriate length of time before he
tried the device again. True to his words, the thing functioned as it had twice
before, and Tull’s chains fell away. They were free!
Rey had been sleeping soundly, but even so, the use of potent magic so near
had roused him. He felt rather than heard it, and swam up from slumber. The
first thing he noticed was the smell of burning cloth. What had caused that?
Fire was mostly a stranger to the caves, since virtually everything in them was
too damp to burn without difficulty. But that was definitely the stench of
scorched wool, and very near.
The captives.
They must have done something they
should not have been able to do.
Rey sighed. He could not even gather a few minutes of sleep without being interrupted.
Enough of this.
He had planned to keep them alive, to
guarantee the capture of their comrade, Conan, but not if it meant he had to
suffer for it. He would kill them now and take his chances on the barbarian’s
recovery.
Rey arose from his bed and went to the chamber where he had left the
prisoners.
He very nearly ran into them.
The three of them had somehow managed to get free of their chains! They were
but a few spans from him as he entered the chamber, and apparently hurrying to
leave. He raised his hands in a curse-casting posture.
“Stop where you stand!” he ordered.
One of them, the cursed grinning man, extended something in Rey’s direction.
The wizard immediately recognized it as his lightning rod. If it had sufficient
charge to send a bolt, he could be in trouble.
“Hot!” Rey yelled, waggling his fingers.
The grinning man yelped and dropped the rod, now a glowing orange from the
small spell Rey had cast upon it.
“You have caused me enough trouble,” Rey said. “I am about to
be shut of you. Give my regards to the damned souls in Gehanna.”
But as he raised his hands again to melt the three, a noise intruded on his
concentration. It sounded as if someone was approaching the entrance to his
chambers from the main corridor.
A lot of someones, actually.
Could it be his
cyclopes
, returning with Conan
already? No, it was too soon. Who, then?
The noise grew quite loud.
A kind of droning chant.
Best he
go
see what it was; the two guards out
front could not be trusted to handle anything
more
complex than feeding
themselves and defecating.
“Stay here!” Rey commanded. “Move through this portal and you
will certainly regret it.”
With that, Rey turned to go see what all the noise was about.
Chuntha knew of several ways to the surface. She regretted that she would
not be able to return to her chambers to retrieve certain of her favorite
possessions, but she also considered herself lucky to have made her escape so
easily. True, she could have withstood a lengthy attack provided she had been
able to see it coming in time; doubtless she could have slain a goodly number
of the revolutionaries in the process as well. Then again, it did not matter if
she killed hundreds of them if, in the end, they managed to overcome her.
Soaring along, praying to assorted dark deities that the spell would hold
until she could make good her escape, Chuntha could not help but feel curious
as to just how Conan had inspired this revolt.
One of the hidden exits to the world above lay not far from the wizard’s
quarters. It was, in fact, the closest of such egresses, and the witch felt she
might chance it in her present form. Why not? It would warm her black soul to
see if the wizard had troubles as bad as her own.
The reptile that was also a witch altered its course when it came to a wide bifurcation
in the large tunnel.
Katamay Rey reached his chambers’ entrance and looked out.
What the wizard saw filled him with utter surprise and shock: a horde of
Blind Whites advanced toward him, and behind them, a flock of Bloodbats
darkened the air with their numbers.
By Set’s scaled scrotum! What was this?
The two guards normally posted were nowhere to be seen.
Rey ducked back inside, feeling a moment of panic. He had not survived all
these centuries by being entirely stupid. He was about to come under attack,
and if he wanted to live to see more centuries, he had best do something, and
quickly!
Over the years he had perhaps grown a bit arrogant, he realized. Hundreds of
years past, when first he had arrived at the caves, the wizard had been more
cautious. He had set traps to protect himself in the event of just such an
attack, but in the ensuing decades and centuries, he had almost forgotten about
his protections. Many had fallen into disrepair or, in the case of those
involving magic, lost their potency. But there remained one he had never
deactivated.