The monster bulked huge as it bore down upon him.

98.99.

As always, the part of Conan's mind that controlled his fighting worked with lightning speed, cataloguing the thing's strengths and weaknesses.

There were alarmingly few of the latter. Its armored body looked as invulnerable as the walls of a strong castle. Its tiny head with the crucial antennae might be attacked, but it was wedged between the powerful arms, and to attack it meant coming within reach of the pincers. The snakelike multiple tails were as yet an unknown quant.i.ty. All this went through his mind be-tween grasping his hilt and the moment when his sword point cleared the sheath. That left the legs, which were relatively spindly. Having made all the calculations that might do him any good, Conan charged.

At first his path took him directly toward the mon-ster, which reached for him with its terrible pincers. With timing so precise that few men could have matched it, Conan dove to one side just as a pincer almost touched his cuira.s.s. He went into a forward roll and came up in a crouch by the thing's flank, swinging his sword with both hands. The nearest leg gave way be-neath his blow, but it was no easy task. The legs looked thin against the monster's bulk, but each was still as thick as the arm of a strong man and armored with homy chitin.

By striking at the joints he was able to cripple two of the legs before going into another dive and roll. He knew that it would be death to stand in one place for more than a moment. This time he managed to hew away a single leg before some instinct made him look up, just in time to see one of the serpentine tails plung-ing down at him. In the instant that he saw it he also noted its bulbous tip from which protruded a transpar-ent, needlelike fang dripping some green, viscous fluid.

He dropped aside and rolled away just as the tail pa.s.sed through the s.p.a.ce where he had been standing. A cloud of stinking smoke erupted from the gra.s.s where the fluid was splattered.

Conan ran, and the thing whirled to chase him. He was gratified to note that, fast as it was in running, it was somewhat slower in turning upon its own axis. This gave him time to get a score of paces away and ready himself for his next attack. He knew that it would take a long time to disable enough legs to stop the thing, but he could see no other method open to him. He repeated his first tactic, crippling two more legs and dodging the tails, but this time the monster sent three tails plunging at him, and he was saved from them more by chance than by his own speed. The creature had antic.i.p.ated his tactic this time. Apparently then, it had a form of intelligence. His original tactic had worked well, but he dared not try it again.

Once more he charged at the beast, with his sword gripped in both hands. Now it held its pincers wide, expecting him to dodge to one side or the other. Instead he came straight in, hacking at the tiny head. He felt his sword connect jarringly, then he was beneath the crea-ture, rolling and chopping at its legs, careful to attack the legs on the same side he had started working upon. Thus, he had to disable only half as many legs as by working on both sides. As he rolled from beneath it the thing sent the whole cl.u.s.ter of tails darting at him, but he was well clear before the ground exploded in smoke and steam from the action of the acid venom.

This time as the thing turned and charged him it was noticeably slower, and it sagged a bit to the wounded side. That was all to the good, but what could he do next? If the thing was capable of learning, then it would 100.101.be prepared for the tricks he had used ere now and would counter them. This was a difficult puzzle, and one he had a terribly short time to solve.

There was one way he had not as yet attacked it. He could see little way to do it damage, but it might buy him a little time. As it neared he waited until the pincers made their grab for him, then he leaped, got one foot atop a pincer, and launched himself upon the thing's back. He made an experimental chop at the backplates, only to confirm that the stuff was as imper-vious as steel armor. The footing was treacherous as well. The tails were not able to reach so far forward, but he dared not stumble back toward them. He jumped off to one side, planning to hack at a few legs before running once more.

As he landed, an unseen stone in the gra.s.s turned beneath his foot, and he went sprawling on his back. Before he could rise, one of the tails came down like a meteor. It smashed against his breastplate, and his nos-trils were a.s.sailed by the chemical fumes of the disinte-grating bronze. Then he saw another about to strike his face. Even his quick reflexes were not swift enough to save him, but something batted the swollen poison-gland and fang aside, splattering his face with a fine dew, which burned fiercely but was not strong enough to kill. Instantly he was on his feet and running, and old Rerin was at his side.

They stopped at some distance from the monster. It was turning, once again seeming to be slowed by its injuries.

"It's good to know your staff is good for something besides leaning upon, old man," Conan said.

"Get your armor off quickly," Rerin urged. "The venom will eat through and start on you!"

Conan ignored the buckles and cut the straps of the cuira.s.s with his dagger. The once-fine bronze lay smok-ing upon the ground, slowly collapsing as the venom ate the metal away. He fought the urge to wipe at the spots where the stuff had splashed him. The pain was bearable, and it would only mean a few new scars among the many he already had. The thing was bearing down upon them once more.

"If it had eyes," Conan muttered, "I could reach its brain with a thrust."

"It may not have a brain as we know such things," Rerin said. "But its antennae serve it for eyes and ears. If you can disable those, perhaps you may finish it at leisure."

The thing was almost upon them. "Have you a spell to aid me, old man?" Conan asked.

"No."

"Ah, well," said Conan.

To get at the antennae he must reach the head. He had done that once before, but the thing must be ready for such a move. Besides supporting the antennae, the little head bore on its bottom a set of sideways-working jaws with which the thing ate. It occurred to Conan that if he could not get close to the head by his own efforts, perhaps he could persuade the beast to convey him thither.

This time the creature did not simply bear down upon Conan. Instead it halted and reached for him with its clawed pincers. He dodged from side to side, and it brought its own rear around, to menace him with the deadly, whiplike tails. As it made a pa.s.s with its pin-cers he leaped onto the arm, straddling it in the "wrist" just behind the pincer. It was a matter of some anxiety to him that the thing might raise him within range of the 102.

103.tails, but to his relief it instead brought him toward the jaws.

The instant he was within sword range, Conan hacked at the base of the nearest antenna. A shudder went through the whole beast, shaking him violently upon his precarious perch. He hacked again, and the antenna fell away. The thing went into a paralytic tremor. Conan leaped down from the pincer; the other made a slow, uncertain grab at him, but he evaded it easily. With both feet braced he hewed off the other antenna with a single chop.

As the antenna fell, Conan turned and ran. The beast behind him made clacking, chittering noises, but Conan did not look back until he was once again with the wizard. He was in time to see the creature's spasmodic jerkings cease as it collapsed upon the sward. Smoke rose from it, and it began to collapse in upon itself, much as had his cuira.s.s as the acid had eaten it away. Soon there was little more than a smoking hulk left of the frightening creature.

"It was not a natural part of this place," said Rerin. "With its vital princ.i.p.al gone, there is nothing to hold its component matter together, and it melts into the aether."

The old man was breathing hard, and Conan was more than a trifle breathless himself. "That was a brave thing you did, wizard. Had you not knocked that stinger aside with your staff, I would have died over there. I thank you. There is a warrior's heart inside that with-ered old carca.s.s of yours."

"I accept the compliment," Rerin said, "in the spirit which you no doubt intended."

Conan closely examined his sword for traces of the volatile venom, which might damage it. To his delight he found none. He sheathed the weapon at his waist and went in search of his other belongings.

Sarissa turned excitedly from the mirror. "Was that not wonderful? He is all I had hoped! This is a true hero. How may we capture him?"

"There are any number of ways, sister," said Hasta, smiling. "But why bother? Since they are searching for our slave-queen, they must come here. Let them come to us. I am curious to see how he will try to take her back."

Sarissa smiled as well, in dawning antic.i.p.ation.

105.Che Castle of Giants On their fifth day in the demon land they encountered the first of the searchers. Conan raised a hand in warn-ing, and old Rerin halted. The old wizard could hear nothing amiss, but by now he knew how preternatural!y keen were the ears of the barbarian.

"Someone is trying to sneak close to us," Conan said, "but they do not know how."

"Human or other?" asked Rerin.

"They go on two feet, whatever that means in this place. There are many of them."

"Too many?"

"That we shall know when I have tested their met-tle." Conan loosened his sword in its sheath.

He chose a little glade as a good place to meet potential foes. For the last two days they had been traveling through woods where the trees and shrubs preferred to keep their roots properly in the ground. This made for more peaceful sleep, if nothing else.

Shadowy forms began to materialize at the tree line.

104.

They were man-shaped but not human. Their fingers had too many joints and their ears were long and pointed. Their bodies were gaunt and their movements furtive. Conan's sword whispered from its sheath as they came closer.

"You are close enough now," he cautioned them. "State your business."

"We want the woman," hissed one. Its tongue was not apt at forming human speech, but it was under-standable. "The woman from the world of men. Our master wants her. If you have her, surrender her to us or die!"

Conan smiled grimly. "We want her too. You are the ones who took her. How did you lose her?"

The demon who had spoken only hissed in hate. Conan could hear Rerin muttering spells behind him. There were a dozen of the things, but they were not large and did not look strong. None of them appeared to be armed. Abruptly the speaker made a complex ges-ture and chittered out some formula, which Conan took to be a spell.

He was about to split its skull when Rerin stepped forward holding his staff horizontally at shoulder height. He was casting a spell as well, and the demon fell back, covering its face with its arms, as if reacting to a blinding light.

"Had you killed it in the midst of its casting," Rerin said calmly, "the full force of its spell would have fallen upon you. You would have rotted where you stand."

The leader growled out an order, and the demons turned and fled into the brush.

Before it disappeared, the speaker turned and said, 106.

107."We shall have you and the woman yet. A hunter comes!" Then it was gone.

"That does not sound good," said Conan as he 'sheathed his sword. "Who is their master?"

"One of the great powers of the demon world, I doubt not," said Rerin pessimistically. "If such a one takes too close an interest in us, I fear that my paltry magics must be of little value to us."

"Between your magic and my sword we have done well enough so far," Conan contended. "We may yet win through and find our way back to the real world. I have always trusted in my own strength and skill; you should do the same."

"Oh, for the confidence of youth," sighed the old man.

By evening they were within sight of the castle. It hulked upon its mountainside like a dragon, and Conan studied its strange battlements and turrets with the eye of a man accustomed to spying out the weaknesses of such places. "We'll have to get closer," he said at last. "This air is too thick to see small things. It is the small things that let you into a place like that. Are you sure she is in there?"

"I am certain. You may not sense it, but that place sends forth an aura of evil and sorcery that I can feel in my bones."

"What kind of people dwell there?" Conan asked. "It looks like a place built by giants."

"It may well have been. Many peoples live in the demon land, and many more dwelled here in the past. Some of them were giants, and that place has the look of the homes of the ancient, giant peoples. I think, though, that those who dwell there now are somewhat like us, in external appearance, at least. Within they are as inhuman as those demons we saw."

"Are they mortal?" Conan asked. "Can they be cut with steel?"

"I believe so. No inhabitants of this world are truly immortal. Many are hard to kill, as witness that scorpion-thing you slew."

Conan looked about restlessly. "What do the folk up there eat? I see no cultivated fields, no sign of villages or commerce. Even the strongholds of robber-chieftains must have a few peasants dwelling nearby to grow food."

"Life here does not follow the same rhythms as in the world of men," said old Rerin. "Whatever con-cerns occupy the people of that great hall, getting their daily bread is not likely to be among them. Their bodily needs may be satisfied by their command of the dark arts. They could even be vampires, battening upon the blood of human victims."

"Nonetheless," Conan said, "if they huddle behind stone walls they must fear something. If they fear, then they can be hurt. But, we'll know nothing until we get closer. Come." He set off at a mile-eating stride, and the old man followed after.

It was just after nightfall when they reached the base of the cyclopean walls. Strange, many-colored stars gleamed overhead, and the great, green moon shed a malevolent radiance through the thick, waterlike air. Conan ran his fingers along the stone in search of the joints and cracks between the blocks that might afford a climber a secure handhold.

"Crom," he muttered. "It's all of a piece! There are no joints."

108.

109."This pile was raised by magic, not by human hands," said Rerin. "I know a spell that would raise us to the top of the wall, but surely those inside would feel the working of an alien mage so near."

"I need no magic to climb a wall," Conan said. "This stone, if stone it be, is rough and pitted like lava. If it is like this all the way up, 1 can climb it."

Rerin felt the wall and shook his head doubtfully. "Perhaps one who is half ape and half mountain goat can climb this, but I fear that I cannot. Had we a rope, you could climb and haul me up after you. As it is, I must abide here until you find one."

"You had best stay down here at any rate. Hide yourself somewhere beyond the tree line until I return with the queen. In that place, full as you say it is with wizardly people, you would be of little help, and there is no sense in both of us dying in there should I fail. If I come not back by dawnlight, you may see if your wiles can prevail where my sword could not."

"May Ymir aid you in your task, Cimmerian," the old man said with deep feeling. "I say again, the queen wrought well in accepting your service."

Conan scratched his chin. "I am not sure that Ymir looks into this place. I am sure that Crom does not, for he takes no note of things outside Cimmeria, and little enough there." He clapped Rerin upon the shoulder. "Now, get you gone, old man. Find a safe place, and be ready to help us when we come down, for I've no doubt there will be those who will pursue us."

Conan turned back to the wall and reached up to the full extent of his arms. He felt until his fingertips lodged into minute depressions, and slowly, painfully, he drew himself upward. Scrambling with his feet, he found a precarious lodgment for his toes and reached up another foot with one hand. Thus, a foot or less at a time, he ascended the wall.

His progress was slow, but it was steady. Few men could have made such a climb save at the expense of great exhaustion and limbs trembling with fatigue, but Conan reached the top of the wall with no outward sign of wear. He found himself to be standing atop a battle-ment that was fully equipped for battle, but which was utterly devoid of inhabitants. He saw no pa.s.sages into the interior in his immediate vicinity, so he picked a direction at random and began exploring.

There was no courtyard within the wall, but instead the whole castle seemed to be a single structure, with strange towers and other architectural features protrud-ing from it here and there. At intervals he saw sculp-tured creatures with strange and repellent aspects, some perching atop the battlement, others seeming to rise up through the wallwalk itself. It all appeared to be the work of an utterly demented sculptor.

All was strangely silent, and from time to time he paused to listen, but no sound came to him. His nostrils flared, but the air carried no hint of woodsmoke. He wondered how the inhabitants went about their cooking and heating without fires. His wandering brought him to the base of a hulking tower, with a squat, conical roof. A door flanked by a pair of cadaverous, sculpted guards stood open, yawning into the black interior of the tower.

Slowly and suspiciously Conan entered with sword bared. His free hand touched the wall while his feet slid slowly forward, testing his path into the gloom. Two paces within the doorway his feet found an abrupt 110.

111.drop-off in the floor. He tested it cautiously and found it to be the beginning of a descending stairway. A warm breeze came up from below, and upon it he could faintly discern the strains of wild, bizarre music, thick with the sounds of drum and cymbal. Now he also smelled smoke on the air, but it was incense, not the wood of a cooking fire.

He descended at least one hundred steps before he first caught a glimmer of light. Moving as silently as a ghost, Conan made his way to a doorway, through which the light shone. He was gazing into a lavishly furnished chamber that was strewn with cus.h.i.+ons and carpets of what seemed to be woven gold. The light came from odd candles burning in niches, casting an eerie radiance from their circular flames.

As he swept the room with his gaze Conan saw a woman lying amid a tangle of golden coverlets and exotic furs. She wore only elaborate jewelry, and his breath caught at the voluptuous, pale-fleshed beauty thus displayed; full, round b.r.e.a.s.t.s and generously curved b.u.t.tocks. Her face was turned away from him, and he saw no sign of awareness, as if she was asleep or drugged. His feet made no sound as he stepped into the room. Alert for attack, he crossed to the woman and tapped her beneath the jaw with the flat of his sword. .

"Wake up, woman. I have some questions in need of answers." Groggily the woman's head turned and her eyes opened. Conan's own eyes widened in amaze-ment. "Alcuina!"

It took a few moments for Alcuina's eyes to focus, and in that time Conan saw that she wore a wide collar of iron about her neck and that it was connected to a ring in the floor by a short length of chain."Conan," she breathed at last. "Have you truly come for me, or is this another of the dreams these h.e.l.lish people inflict with their drugs and spells? If so, it is a more effective torture than any they have tried thus far."

"I am real, though I've no idea how to prove it." He grasped the chain in both hands and tried to pull it from the floor. "First let's get you free from this place, then we can think of some way to prove that I am real."

He pulled on the chain until the veins swelled upon his brow, but even his great strength could not break chain or ring. He muttered a curse, and Alcuina, with the drugged fog clearing from her head, became aware of her extreme state of undress.

"A liege man should not see his queen thus," she said, hiding her embarra.s.sment. She made no futile effort to cover herself; there was too much flesh exposed for two hands even to make a beginning.

Conan shrugged. "In the South they are not so fussy about clothes. Even queens sometimes wear little more than you are wearing now." He looked her up and down with frank admiration. "Have no fear, you've nothing that other women do not have. Perhaps a closer look is in order, just to make sure."

"We have more important things to concern us," she said impatiently. "Can you not free me of this chain?"

"We shall see. I had hoped to do this quietly, but--" With a full-armed overhead swing, he brought his sword down upon the chain. There was a mighty clang and a few sparks, but the only other result was a nick in his blade. "Cursed hard steel they make hereabout," he muttered, studying the damaged edge in annoyance.

Alcuina's sharply indrawn breath was the only warn- 114.

115.small window high on one wall admitted a faint light, and there was a single, circular door made of heavy timbers. He had never seen a round door before, and he wondered how it opened, since he could see no hinges.

He lay on his belly and chose a link of one of the chains to work on. He was able to get enough slack to rub the link back and forth along the floor for at least a foot. It seemed futile, but given enough time he might wear a few links down enough to weaken them. At the moment he had nothing but time in any case.

After what he judged to be an hour of this monoto-nous activity, he examined the link. The side he had rubbed was a bit s.h.i.+nier, but that was the extent of it. This could be a lengthy task. His work was abruptly interrupted when the round door rose into the lintel above it. At least that mystery was solved.

He heard approaching footsteps, and a woman bear-ing a tray entered the cell. He had expected a neck-ringed slave, but this was one of the spectators of his fight. Unless he was much mistaken, it was the same one who had rendered him unconscious. He could not be sure, as the ones he had seen looked much alike.

"Come over here, you silver-eyed trull," Conan said affably. "I'd like to wring your pretty neck."

To his surprise she answered in a tongue he under-stood. "Ah, but then you would not be able to eat this splendid dinner I have brought you."

Conan smelled the proffered viands and his mouth watered. "Well," he grumbled, "I agree. Give me the food, and I'll not kill you."

"First, a small precaution."

There was a rumbling sound and Conan looked down in stupefied puzzlement as two clamps grew from the floor of the cell and fastened securely about his ankles. Then something writhed about his arms, and they were jerked behind him and strongly pinioned. He was trussed like an ox in a slaughterhouse.