“I'm off,” he said abruptly. “Detain me not, lest I blast you with my shafts of lightning.”
The king pointed a taut forefinger at Thulandra Thuu and made a guttural sound. Then, roaring with boorish mirth, he pushed aside a panel behind the purple arras and slipped through. Thence a secret passage led to that part of the harem whispered of, with loathing, as the House of Pain and Pleasure. The sorcerer watched him go with the shadow of a smile and thoughtfully snubbed out the nineteen massive candles.
“O King of Toads,” he muttered in his unknown tongue. "You speak the very truth, save that you have the characters reversed. Numedides shall crumble into dust, and Thulandra Thuu shall rule the West from an eternal throne, when Father Set and Mother Kali teach their loving son to vest from the dark pages of the vast Unknown the secret of eternal life… .”
The thin voice pulsed through the darkened chamber like the dry rustle of a serpent’s scales, slithering over the pallid bones of murdered men.
THE LIONS GATHER
Far south of Aquilonia, a slender war galley cleft the stormy waters of the Western Ocean. The ship, of Argossean lines, was headed shoreward, where the lights of Messantia glimmered through the twilight. A band of luminescent green along the western horizon marked the passing of the day; and overhead, the first stars of evening bejeweled the sapphire sky, then paled before the rising of the moon.
On the forecastle, leaning upon the rail above the bow, stood seven persons cloaked against chill bursts of spray that fountained as the bronzen ram rose and dipped, cleaving the waves asunder. One of the seven was Dexitheus, a calm-eyed, grave-faced man of mature years, dressed in the flowing robes of a priest of Mitra.
Beside him stood a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped nobleman with dark hair tinged with gray, who wore a silvered cuirass, on the breast of which the three leopards of Poitain were curiously worked in gold. This was Trocero, Count of Poitain, and his motif of three crimson leopards was repeated on the banner that fluttered from the foremast high above his head.
At Count Trocero’s elbow, a younger man of aristocratic bearing, elegantly clad in velvet beneath a silvered shirt of mail, fingered his small beard. Hp moved quickly, and his ready smile masked with gaiety the metal of a seasoned and skillful soldier. This was Prospero, a former general of the Aquilonian army. A stout and balding man, wearing neither sword nor armor and unmindful of the failing light, worked sums with a stylus on a set of waxed tablets, braced against the rail. Publius had been the royal treasurer of Aquilonia before his resignation in despairing protest against his monarch’s policies of unlimited taxation and unrestrained expenditure.
Nearby, two girls clutched the inconstant rail. One was Belesa of Korzetta, a noblewoman of Zingara, slender and exquisite and but recently come to womanhood. Her long black hair streamed in the sea-wind like a silken banner. Nestled against her in the curve of one arm, a pale, flaxen-haired child stared wide-eyed at the lights that rimmed the waterfront. An Ophirean slave, Tina had been rescued from a brutal master by the Lady Belesa, niece of the late Count Valenso. Mistress and slave, inseparable, had shared the moody count’s self-exile in the Pictish wilderness.
Above them towered a grim-faced man of gigantic stature. His smoldering eyes of volcanic blue and the black mane of coarse, straight hair that brushed his massive shoulders suggested the controlled ferocity of a lion in repose. He was a Cimmerian, and Conan was his name.
Conan's sea boots, tight breeches, and torn silken shirt disclosed his magnificent physique. These garments he had looted from the chests of the dead pirate admiral. Bloody Tranicos, where in a cave on a hill in Pictland, the coipses of Tranicos and his captains still sat around a table heaped with the treasure of a Stygian prince. The clothes, small for so large a man, were faded, ripped, and stained with dirt and blood; but no one looking at the towering Cimmerian and the heavy broadsword at his side would mistake him for a beggar.
"If we offer the treasure of Tranicos in the open marketplace,” mused Count Trocero, “King Milo may regard us with disfavor. Hitherto he has entreated us fairly; but when rumors of our hoard of rubies, emeralds, amethysts, and such-like trinkets set in gold do buzz about his ears, he may decree that the treasure shall escheat to the crown of Argos."
Prospero nodded. “Aye, Milo of Argos loves a well-filled treasury as well as any monarch. And if we approach the goldsmiths and moneylenders of Messantia, the secret will be shouted about the town within an hour’s time.”
"To whom, then, shall we sell the jewels?” asked Trocero.
“Ask our commander-in-chief,” Prospero laughed slyly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, General Conan, but did you not once have acquaintance with—ah—”
Conan shrugged. “You mean, was I not once a bloody pirate with a fence in every port? Aye, so I was; and that I might have once again become, had you not arrived in time to plant my feet on the road to respectability.” He spoke Aquilonian fluently but with a barbarous accent.
After a moment’s pause, Conan continued: "My plan is this. Publius shall go to the treasurer of Argos and recover the deposit advanced upon the usage of this galley, minus the proper fee. Meanwhile, I’ll take our treasure to a discreet dealer whom I knew in former days. Old Varro always gave me a fair price for plunder.”
“Men say,” quoth Prospero, “that the gems of Tranicos have greater worth than all the other jewels in all the world. Men such as he of whom you speak would give us but a fraction of their value.”
"Prepare for disappointment," said Publius. "The value of such baubles ever gains in the telling but shrinks in the selling.”
Conan grinned wolfishly. “I’ll get what I can, fear not. Remember I have often dealt beneath the counter. Besides, even a fraction of the treasure is enough to set swinging all the swords in Aquilonia" Conan looked back at the quarterdeck, where stood-the captain and the steersman.
"Ho there, Captain Zeno!” he roared in Argossean, "tell your rowers that if they put us ashore ere the taverns shutter for the night, it’s a silver penny apiece for them, above their promised wage! I see the lights of the pilot boat ahead.”
Conan turned back to his companions and lowered his voice. “Now, friends, we must guard our tongues as concerns our riches. A stray word, overheard, might cost us the wherewithal to buy the men we need. Forget it not!”
The harbor boat, a gig rowed by six burly Argosseans, approached the galley. In the bow a cloak-wrapped figure wagged a lantern to and fro, and the captain waved an answer to the signal. As Conan moved to go below and gather his possessions, Belesa laid a slender hand upon his arm. Her gentle eyes sought his face, and there was anguish in her voice.
“Do you still intend to send us to Zingara?” she asked.
“It is best to part thus. Lady. Wars and rebellions are no places for gentlewomen. From the gems I gave you, you should realize enough to live on, with enough to spare for your dowry. If you wish, I’ll see to converting them to coin. Now I have matters to attend to in my cabin.”
Wordlessly, Belesa handed Conan a small bag of soft leather, containing the rubies that Conan had taken from a chest in the cave of Tranicos. As he strode aft along the catwalk to his cabin in the poop, Belesa watched him go. All that was woman within her responded to the virility that emanated from him, like heat from a roaring blaze. Could she have had her unspoken wish, there would have been no need for a dowry. But, ever since Conan had rescued her and the girl Tina from the Picts, he had been to them no more than a friend and protector.