Thus the double mission was launched.
Chapter Two: A KNIFE IN THE DARK
Dawn paled the eastern sky. The storm had blown over. Now broken, black clouds scudded across the somber heavens. A few faint stars, lingering in the west, were seen intermittently through the gaps in the clouds and were reflected in the puddles of muddy rainwater in the gutters of Kordava.
Zarono, master of the privateer Petrel and secret agent of the duke of Kordava, strode through the wet streets in a foul mood. His exchange of fisticuffs with the giant Cimmerian buccaneer had not sweetened his temper, to say nothing of his having missed his dinner. The imprecations heaped upon him by his master the duke had further soured his disposition, and to top it all he was bleary-eyed with lack of sleep and ravenously hungry. As he dodged dripping eaves and hiked the edges of his cloak out of muddy puddles, his mouth tasted of smothered anger. He yearned for something helpless on which to vent his wrath. Menkara loped silently at his side.
A scrawny little man, whose bare legs could be seen under the ragged hem of his patched cassock, strove to keep his footing on the greasy cobbles as he scurried through the gusty streets. His sandals slapped against the wet stones. With one hand he gathered a patched shawl about his meager chest; with the other he held aloft a burning link of tarred rope to light his way.
Under his breath, he mumbled the dawn litany to Mitra. To him, this was a mere jumble of meaningless sounds, for his mind was elsewhere. Thus Ninus, a minor priest of the Mitraic temple, hurried through the wet, windy streets to his destiny.
Ninus had risen from his pallet before dawn and, eluding the preceptor, had crept from the precincts of the temple of Mitra into a gloom-drenched alley.
Thence he made his way toward the harbor of Kordava and his meeting with the foreign corsair, Conan the Cimmerian.
The unprepossessing little man had a wobbling paunch and spindly shanks. Watery eyes looked out over a huge nose. He was wrapped in a tattered robe of the Mitraic priesthood … a robe that was none too clean and suspiciously stained with the purple spots of forbidden wine. In his earlier years, before seeing the light of Mitra, Ninus had been one of the ablest jewel thieves of the Hyborian lands; this was how he had become acquainted with Conan. Never much of a temple goer, the burly privateer had also once been a thief himself, and the two were friends of long standing. Although Ninus felt that his call to the priesthood was sincere, he had never succeeded in subduing the fleshly appetites that he had so freely indulged in his former life.
Close to his scrawny bosom, the little priest hugged the document that Conan had promised to buy. The privateer needed treasure, and Ninus required gold … or at least silver.
The chart had long been in Ninus' possession. In his thieving days, the little man had often thought of following its inked path to the fabulous wealth whose hiding place it professed to disclose. But since, in his present holy profession, it seemed unlikely that he would ever hunt treasure again, why not sell the map?
His mind full of rosy visions of sweet wine, hearty roasts, and plump wenches that, he hoped, Conan's money would obtain, Ninus scurried around the corner … and ran full into two men in dark cloaks, who stepped aside to avoid him.
Murmuring an apology, the little priest peered near-sightedly at the gaunt man whose hooded robes had fallen back. Then astonishment shocked him out of his normal prudence.
"Menkara the Setite!" he cried shrilly. "You here? Vile snake-worshiper, how dare you?'' Raising his voice in righteous wrath, Ninus shouted for the watch.
Growling an oath, Zarono seized his companion to hurry him away, but the Stygian tore loose and turned blazing eyes upon him. "The little swine knows me!" he hissed. "Slay him quickly, else we are all undone!"
Zarono hesitated but an instant, then whipped out his dagger and thrust. The life of one miserable priest meant nothing to him; the important thing was not to have to answer the questions of the watch.
The gleam of the steel blade in the waxing light of dawn was quenched in the robes of the Mitraist. Ninus staggered back with a choking cry, gasped, and crumpled up on the cobbles. A drop of blood oozed from his mouth.
The Stygian spat. "So perish all your abominable kind!" he snarled.
Peering nervously about, Zarono hastily wiped his blade clean on the fallen man's cloak. "Let us begone!" he growled.
But the Stygian's eyes had noticed a bulge in Ninus' tunic. He crouched and took a small roll of parchment from the Mitraist's garment. With both hands, he spread the document.
"A chart of some kind," mused the sorcerer. "With study, methinks I could decipher …"
"Later, later!" insisted Zarono. Hasten, ere the watch find us.''
Menkara nodded and secreted the scroll. The two men slunk off through the reddening mists of dawn, leaving Ninus sprawled on the cobbles.
Fed by poor wine, an inconclusive scuffle with the sneering Zarono, and hours of idle waiting, Conan's humor had grown steadily worse. Now, restless as a jungle cat, he prowled the common room of the smoky fa", whose ceiling barely cleared the top of his head. Although the Nine Drawn Swords had earlier been crowded, there were now only a few customers left, such as a trio of drunken seamen sprawled in the corner. Two of these softly sang chanteys off key and out of time, while the third had fallen asleep.
The time candle told Conan that dawn was approaching. Ninus was hours overdue.
Something must have befallen the little priest, who would never be so late when there was money to be had. Speaking Zingaran with a barbarous accent, Conan growled to the stout taverner:
"Sabral! I'm going out for a breath of fresh air. If any ask for me, I shall be back soon."
Outside, the rain had died to mere eves-dripping. The black blanket of cloud had broken up and rolled away. The silver moon again peered forth, to illumine the last of the night; but already she had paled in the growing light of dawn. Wisps of mist arose from the puddles.
With a hearty belch, Conan strode heavily along the wet cobbles, meaning to take a turn around the block in which the Nine Drawn Swords stood. He cursed Ninus under his breath. The holy little tosspot would make him lose the dawn breeze, which would carry the Wastrel out of the harbor of Kordava. Without it, they might have to put the longboat over and warp the ship out by laborious towing.
Then Conan suddenly halted, frozen motionless. Huddled in the rain-streaming gutter, a shapeless clump of soiled garments and sprawled limbs had caught his gaze.
His eyes probed right and left, searching housetops, doorways, and the mouths of alleys for signs of lurking assailants. Gently he brushed aside his heavy black rain cloak and eased the cutlass in his scabbard.
In this quarter of the old city, a corpse was no cause for surprise. The crumbling hovels that lined the crooked alleys harbored thieves, assassins, and other such human scum. But where a victim lies, his assailant sometimes lurks nearby, and Conan had long since learned caution in such matters.
As silently as a prowling leopard, the burly Cimmerian slunk through the shadows to kneel beside the huddled figure. With one careful hand he turned it over on its back. Fresh blood guttered darkly in the reddening light of dawn. The cowl fell back to reveal the face.