He lay still while his keen senses tested his surroundings. To his ears came the dull boom of waves pounding a rocky shore .His nostrils tasted the air and detected the salt tang of the open sea.
Opening his eyes to slits, he saw that he lay sprawled on damp sand amidst huge boulders. Above him arched the purple skies of night, ablaze with huge stars; among these the moon, nearly full, shone like a silver shield. The moonlight silvered the billows of an unknown sea.
From a brief glance at the starry skies, Conan knew that this sea stretched away to the south. But as far as his smoldering gaze could penetrate the murk of night, he could see no land. It was as if he lay at the world’s very edge, and the shore thereof was washed by the endless seas of eternity. How had he come hither?
He rose to his feet and peered around him. Then his gaze was riveted by a figure that stood on a massive rock above him.
The man, once tall and commanding, had dwindled and become bent and shrunken. His shaven pate and strong-boned, hawklike face had been stern and kingly; now the flesh had fallen away, leaving his head as gaunt and grim as a skull. His faded, tattered green robe showed gray in the moonlight.
A hand like a withered claw clutched a talisman in the form of a carven gem against the bony breast of the silent figure. Around the middle finger of this hand was coiled a massive ring of copper, in the form of a serpent holding its tail in its jaws. Weird fires in the heart of the gem cast a flickering light on his sunken features. From sunken sockets, Thoth-Amon’s dark eyes burned into Conan’s, who had felt the force of these probing, uncanny orbs before.
“We meet again, dog of Cimmeria!” said Thoth-Amon in a thin voice.
“For the last time, jackal of Stygia!” growled Conan.
He had been disarmed, but the strength that slept along his massive arms and shoulders was enough to break the gaunt, bent, weary figure of his ancient foe. Conan, however, made no move against the other. He knew the powers that Thoth-Amon could command with a word, a gesture, an effort of will, and he respected these powers.
He was curious to learn why Thoth-Amon had brought him to this beach at the brink of the known world. While he lay in drugged slumber, the master-magician could easily have slain him. But he had permitted him to live and had borne him away to this unknown place with the aid of the unseen demons that still served him. Why?
As if in answer to Conan’s unspoken query, Thoth-Amon began speaking slowly, in a weary, listless voice, as if the fires of life burned low in the wasted figure. As he spoke, however, his voice gained in strength, until it recalled the masterful, resonant tones of the Thoth-Amon of old. Conan listened quietly, his arms folded on his mighty breast and his mustachioed face impassive.
“You have hounded me down the length of the world, barbarian dog,” said Thoth-Amon. “One by one, you have sundered from me my most powerful allies. At Nebthu, aided by that drunken fool of a druid, you broke the Black Ring and scattered the wizards of the South —even as you broke the White Hand in dank and wintry Hyperborea. By luck and fate, you toppled the throne of Nenaunir. Now there is no further realm to which I can fly for refuge.”
Conan said nothing. Thoth-Amon sighed, shrugged, and continued:
“Here at the world’s edge dwell the remnants of the ancient serpent-folk who ruled the world before the coming of men. The earliest human kingdoms strove with them and broke their power. When by magical illusions they sought to prolong their existence in disguise among men, your own ancestor, Kull the Conqueror, discovered their secret and crushed them once more.
“Long have I known that the last of the primal rulers of the elder world dwelt here in secret, never relinquishing their hope of regaining what they view as their rightful place in the cosmos. From them I gained the knowledge that enabled me to become vicar of Set in the West, charged with the mighty mission of overthrowing the abominable worships of Mitra and Ishtar and Asura. At the same time, I held the serpent-folk in check, knowing their insatiable ambition and having no wish to share my own rule with the children of the Serpent.
“My splendid plans you alone have thwarted—how, I know not. You are no priest or prophet or wizard. You are but a crude, ignorant, blundering, boorish adventurer, for the moment tossed high by the waves of fate. Mayhap your degenerate, effeminate Western gods have helped you in subtle ways. In any case, you have frustrated all my hopes and driven me from my throne at the center of a world-wide league of magicians, transforming the would-be conqueror of the West into a harried fugitive.
“But all is not yet lost! For unto Set himself I shall offer up your immortal soul in sacrifice. The Slithering God will feast well on the living soul of Conan the Cimmerian. Restored to his favor, I shall unleash the uncanny powers of the serpent-folk in one last, great crusade …”
Then Conan struck. His grim features contorted into a snarling mask, he took two running steps, bounded high, and caught Thoth-Amon’s scrawny throat in his massive hands. The impact of his charge hurled the pair off the rock on the other side, to fall locked together to the damp sand below.
Strange was the battle between the champion of light and the champion of darkness, as they fought at the very edge of the world under the blazing stars.
EIGHT: Requiem for a Sorcerer
Conan’s tigerish charge had taken the gaunt Stygian by surprise. Little strength remained in Thoth-Amon’s withered form, and Conan should have been able to break his neck like a dry twig. The Stygian’s wizardly powers, however, lent him unearthly resources. Even as Conan’s fingers locked on Thoth-Amon’s fragile neck, one fleshless claw struck Conan’s brow with the glimmering gem that the sorcerer had clutched to his breast.
The light, feeble blow glanced from Conan’s brow, but its touch was like cold fire. The Cimmerian gasped, his senses swimming as a numbing paralysis spread along his nerves. Cold waves of blackness engulfed his consciousness. It seemed to the barbarian that he sank through black waters whose bite benumbed his flesh, until his naked spirit alone rose from the vortex of nameless forces on the darkling sands.
Still was Thoth-Amon held helpless in Conan’s grip. It was as though the sorcerer, too, had left his fleshly integument behind. Two impalpable spirits, locked in conflict, rose from the vortex into a dim region beyond the world. About them, mist swirled and billowed, gray and colorless. Above them, black stars burned against natural skies; the light from them was as cold as the breath of arctic winds.
To Conan it seemed that the gaunt body of the Stygian had turned into a writhing coil of vapor. His own body had become much the same: a thick, curling tendril of some fiery mist. Without limbs, they somehow clung together in bodiless combat, drifting under the gaze of the black stars.
Conan fought as never before—not with the iron grip of massive thews, but with some impalpable force within his very spirit. Perhaps it was the essence of his strength and courage and manhood that burned in his heart.
In spirit form, Thoth-Amon, too, had strength beyond that which his withered flesh possessed. His blows were like the blast of cold fires of hatred. Beneath them Conan gasped. His strength ebbed; his consciousness dimmed.
Locked in battle, the two drifted beneath the black stars, and ever the power of Thoth-Amon grew while that of Conan waned. Still the Cimmerian clung to his foe with a remorseless grip. He fought on doggedly, although he now clutched the very limits of consciousness. Blackness gathered about his dimming mind.