"You need not fear," Sarissa said in a dead voice. "When you destroyed the great mirror, you killed me and all my people. The group-soul of my race dwelled in that ancient artifact. You, in your barbarian igno-rance, smashed it."

"Ignorance!" snorted Conan. "If I had known that was the way to slay you all, I would have destroyed the thing at the first opportunity. It need not have hap-pened, woman. If you had shown Alcuina kindness, if you had not tried to use me for your entertainment, we would be on our way home, and you would have your brother and your castle and your accursed amus.e.m.e.nts." Conan was not one to waste much pity upon those who brought their misfortunes upon themselves.

"It is true, what she says," confirmed Rerin. "All the magical aura is gone from her."

"Let me return to the castle, so I may perish with my people," said Sarissa.

"Very well," said Conan, sheathing his sword. "I have no further use for you." He paid her no more attention as she turned and began to walk, slowly and dejectedly, back toward her castle.

When she was gone, Alcuina turned to Rerin. "And now, old friend, have you some spell to loose these magical bonds?"

Rerin bent forward and studied the cords that bound Alcuina's wrists and ankles. "Have you tried a knife?" he asked.

"I never thought of that," said Conan. He drew his dagger and slid it across the bonds, which parted easily.

"Never thought of it!" Alcuina screamed, her face turning scarlet that flooded to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. In her anger she seemed to have forgotten her nudity for the mo-ment. "You deliberately left me like that so you could handle me at will and do as you liked in the castle!"

"There is much to be said," Conan a.s.sured her, "for a queen who is immobilized when there is warrior's work to be done."

"You fool! What would I have done if they had killed you while I was helpless! Did you think of that?"

132.

"1 am sure that you would have done your queenly best and managed affairs as well as you have so far."

"Look!" said Rerin, anxious to forestall what was about to erupt into civil war between queen and warrior.

They looked to where he was pointing. The castle, which had been so solid, was beginning to melt, or rather collapse in upon itself, its outlines becoming wavery, as if all within it had grown soft, shrunken, and diminished.

"It is like a jellyfish cast upon the seash.o.r.e," said Conan, scratching his beard-stubbled chin.

"Their magic must have been all that held that unsta-ble place together," Rerin mused. Then he noticed Conan's growth of whiskers. "How long were you in that castle?"

"It must have been some three or four days," Conan said, puzzled.

"No," protested Alcuina. "It was nine or ten days at least."

"And yet I spent only a single night out here since Conan ascended the wall. Even time is strange here in the demon land."

"We must find our way home, and that swiftly," insisted Alcuina. "This place terrifies me, and I am concerned for my people at home. What may be hap-pening to them?"

"I am hungry," Conan said. "Rerin, get a fire started. I shall be back soon with game." With that he darted off into the underbrush.

Rerin sat by Alcuina when the fire was crackling. She wore his cloak as a temporary garb. "What think you now of your champion?" he asked.

"He is like something from an old tale. I have never seen a warrior like him, yet he is so wild and self- 133.

governed that 1 wonder whether he serves me or his own whim."

"And yet he has possibilities. You need a king to sit beside you in the hall, and none of the neighbor kings suits you. You could do worse than this Cimmerian. He has no kingdom to swallow yours up, and with him leading your war-host you need fear no enemy."

"It might work for a while," Alcuina said, "but some night as he lay sleeping I would probably kill him."135.Cen Court of the Winter Kings King Odoac of the Thungians, his rotund bulk swathed in rich winter furs, stood blowing on his hands. Behind him stood a band of his picked warriors, and beside him in the snow was thrust a hunting spear. They awaited the great stag that the huntsmen were to drive past them. There came a sound of cras.h.i.+ng brush from the right.

"The stag comes!" said the king's nephew.

"I can hear that, you young fool," said Odoac.

He picked up his heavy javelin and made himself ready. According to ancient custom the king had the first cast, and after him each warrior in order of rank.

With a cloud of erupting snow the splendid beast broke from the brush. Its eyes rolled and its tongue hung from its mouth in exhaustion and panic. Behind it the huntsmen yelled and clattered, driving it toward the waiting n.o.ble hunters.

As it lumbered past, the king stepped forward and, with a straining grunt, cast his spear. The cast was 134.

powerful but far wide of the mark. The spear glanced from the wide-spreading antlers of the beast, and the beast halted, startled by the unfamiliar impact.

While Odoac cursed in futile rage, the stag turned to face the hunters. With its head lowered, it began to trot toward them, presenting the most difficult of targets. The king's nephew, young Leovigild, stepped forward as his arm flashed back. He took three paces and cast his javelin. It sped unerringly to the stag, slipped below the antlers and beside the head, and pierced the juncture of chest and neck. With its neck artery cut and its heart pierced, the great animal collapsed and died almost instantly.

The young man stood smiling, and the others clapped him on the back, praising the superb cast. Then they all fell silent as the king strode up to his nephew, rage upon his face. With a powerful buffet of his open palm, he struck the younger man to the snowy ground.

"You insolent young puppy! I would have had him if you had not jostled my arm! Do you think your for-wardness has escaped my notice! You have taken my stag just as you would like to take my throne!"

The warriors remained silent at this outburst. They all knew that no man had stood near the king, and that he had missed his cast through his own clumsiness, but none would give him the lie. These insane rages were growing more common with Odoac, as he felt his pow-ers waning through the ravages of age and overindulgence.

"You are unjust, my liege," said Leovigild. The youth's face was pale with mortification, but he made no move against his uncle. "I cast because it was my turn, and all men know how loyally I have always served you."

"See that it remains so, puppy," said Odoac with 136.

137.unbearable contempt. "It will be many years before Ymir takes me into his hall and you may sit upon the throne."

The king whirled and stalked off. He would have liked to kill his nephew, as he had killed all other rivals, some of them his own sons. But custom decreed that he must have a designated heir, and Leovigild, his murdered brother's only son, was the last remaining male of the royal line. Had he slain the boy,- his n.o.bles would have felt free to rid themselves of Odoac and make one of their number king in his place. As an infant and a boy, the lad had been no threat. Now that he had reached man's estate, something would have to be done about him.

Some of the warriors would have aided Leovigild to stand, but he shook off their helping hands. "I should not have allowed such a blow, even from a king," he said, fearful that he had lost respect in the eyes of the warriors.

"What could you have done," said a grizzled n.o.ble-man, "save sharing the fate of your male kin? You must bide your time, youngling. It cannot be much longer." Mollified, he walked back to the hall in the midst of the warriors.

That evening, after the feasting, Odoac dismissed all from the hall save his n.o.blest warriors and champions. With drinking-horns filled, they waited to hear their master's words. His obese bulk filling the great throne, Odoac looked around at them, his piglike eyes almost buried in the fat face. His gaze halted for a moment upon Leovigild, and the young man stared back, un-afraid. He was handsome and yellow-haired, a short, soft, blond beard framing his firm jaw. His eyes were clear and blue, in contrast to Odoac's muddy, bloodshot orbs. Odoac envied the boy's youth, strength, and fine looks as much as he feared his ambition and the way the warriors were increasingly turning to Leovigild for advice and approval.

"My warriors," the king began, "it is time we made plans concerning the future of the kingdom. For years now we Thungians have been menaced by two enemy peoples: Queen Alcuina and her Cambres, and Totila and his Tormanna." He almost spat out the last words, trying to hide his fear of Totila with a mask of con-tempt. If the truth was known, he secretly envied the way Totila, a mere bandit-chieftain, had built his war-band into a powerful kingdom while he himself, who had inherited a kingdom from his father, had barely been able to hold it together with murder and treachery. "Of course, I would have destroyed both of them long ago had it not been for their accursed wizards, Rerin and lilma.

"Let it not be said that I am an unreasonable man. I offered Queen Alcuina my suit, in honorable marriage. With her lands and people annexed to mine, neither of us need have feared any enemy. But did the s.l.u.t eagerly accept, like my first three wives?" He glared around him and pounded on the arm of the throne with his fist. "No, she did not! She behaved as if I, King Odoac of the Thungians, were some humble crofter, instead of a mighty king whose forebears can be traced back to Father Ymir himself!" The king calmed himself with a visible effort before going on.

"I have borne this humiliation and insolence, with patience, for as long as any man could be asked. The time has now come to act. Word has come to me that, some weeks agone, Alcuina disappeared under uncanny circ.u.mstances." A murmur of conversation broke out at 138.

139.this news. "I doubt not that this is the work of Totila's pet wizard, lilma. Alcuina's men are shut up inside their stockade, and they are leaderless. They have no one of royal blood to command them, so they huddle together waiting for their queen to return. I think they will have a long wait. Now is the time to strike and swallow them up, before Totila does!"

There was a savage growl of approval from the as-sembled warriors. Whatever their doubts concerning his erratic behavior and waning powers, they had no such doubts concerning his acquisitiveness and his predatory instincts. Of these things, they all approved. Odoac had been a decent battle-leader in his younger days, and perhaps he was showing a flash of his old power in this plan. After all, kings lived by preying upon rival kings, and better the Thungians should absorb the Cambres than the hated Tormanna.

"I am not so certain that this is the best course, Uncle," said Leovigild. The old king stared at him with undisguised hate, but the youth went on fearlessly. "It seems to me a shabby thing to attack Queen Alcuina's people while her fate remains unknown. This is not the way great people should deal with one another."

"Is that so?" said Odoac in a dangerously mild voice. "And yet, it is the way we have always dealt among ourselves, high and low, here in the Northland. The weak are swallowed up by the strong. That is the way of it, as I learned from my sire and he from his, and so it has always been since the wars of G.o.ds and giants/'

Many nodded at these words, for custom was the only law among them except for might. Yet others plainly wanted to hear more of what Leovigild had to say.

"I think that this way is unwise. I grant that it is good to be strong and fierce, for how can a people survive otherwise? But I think it is also good to be wise and behave with forethought. Here is my counsel: If we war upon the Cartibres at this time, both peoples will lose warriors and will be the weaker when the inevita-ble war comes with Totila. Instead why do we not send heralds to the Cambres in then" fortress and propose an alliance against Totila until Queen Alcuina returns? This can have only two outcomes, both of them good: If Alcuina comes not back, then the Cambres must in time acknowledge you as their king, having no king of their own and having followed you in war. Should Alcuina return, how can she again reject your suit, since you will have been the salvation of her people. In truth, her folk must demand it, since she has to wed soon." There was great approbation at words of such maturity and wisdom from so young a man.

Had it not been for those sounds of admiration, had the boy come in private to Odoac with this plan, then Odoac might have adopted it and claimed it as his own. As it was, the words threw him into another towering rage. "What womanish, weakling words are these? Could the fierce Thungians ever follow such a simple-ton? No such coward could be born of our royal line, and I am minded to cut you from it!" So saying, Odoac lurched to his feet and began to draw his sword. His men rushed to restrain him, and forced him back into his throne.

A senior counselor turned to Leovigild. "Best get you gone, lad. We'll not let the king harm you, but you cannot stay here now." Ashen-faced, Leovigild strode from the hall. After a time, Odoac grew calm enough to be released.

"That boy tries me beyond my patience," said Odoac 140.

141.at length. '"Best that he is exiled. He is treacherous as well as cowardly. I thank you for restraining me," he said piously. "I should never wish to shed the blood of a kinsman, be he never so disloyal." The warriors let this pa.s.s in eloquent silence.

"What of the custom, my liege?" asked a grim-faced man. "Now you have no heir. The people must have an heir to the throne, or there must be trouble."

Odoac s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in his seat. "Think you I am so old that I may not set this matter aright? As soon as we have settled the problem of the Cambres, then I shall take a new wife, be it Alcuina or some other. Then you shall have an heir within the year, 1 vow."

"That is good to hear, my king," said the same man, and Odoac was not sure that there was no mockery in the voice. "Now, what of this black-haired champion of Alcuina's that we have heard something of? Is this fellow likely to cause us trouble?"

Happy to be off the subject of the succession, Odoac said, "1 have spoken with the trader Dawaz about this man. He is a mere sellsword, an adventurer from afar with neither kin nor friend here. He seems to possess some small skill with his weapons, and with a bit of luck he managed to slay Agilulf. I have also heard that he disappeared on the same night as Alcuina, as did the wizard Rerin. All the more reason why we should move now. The Cambres have lost queen, champion, and sorcerer. When shall we have such an opportunity again?" He looked around and saw only battle-l.u.s.ting faces. "See to sharpening your weapons, then." He turned to a trusted retainer named Wudga. "Go you to all the outlying steadings and summon the warriors. It has been many years since there has been a winter hosting, so remind them that every man must bring as much preserved food as may feed him for at least a fortnight. After that we should be feasting upon the stores of the Cambres!"

A ferocious cheer went up at these words, the unfor-tunate Leovigild forgotten for the moment. Odoac sat back and smiled with satisfaction. Few problems, how-ever th.o.r.n.y, were not to be solved with a little warfare and prospect of loot.

Leovigild rode for many hours, unsure where he might go. No man had pursued him from the hall, none had sought to molest him as he bundled his few belong-ings onto a packhorse and rode from the garth. Immedi-ate death at the hands of Odoac's men might have been preferable. He was an exile, driven from hearth and hall, denied the protection of his family. In the North, a man without clan or kin was under virtual death sentence.

His small, s.h.a.ggy mount pushed patiently through the snow, twin jets of steam streaming from his nos-trils. Mane and tail swept almost to the snow as the surefooted beast picked its way among the serried drifts, its hooves crunching musically through the hard crust left by the great freeze.

Where could he go? He had his two horses, his sword, helm and cuira.s.s of finely worked bronze. On the packhorse were his hunting clothes and his feast clothes, two long spears, a short javelin, and his s.h.i.+eld of painted wood and leather. With the clothes he now wore, these were his total resources. It never crossed his mind to take the protection of some landholder and serve as a peasant farmer. Starvation was preferable. An armed warrior of good blood could always join the war-band of some chieftain. That was at least honor- 142.

143.able, but it would have to be far from here, and a lone man was not likely to survive the journey. Besides, he was rightful heir to the lords.h.i.+p of the Thungians, and he had no intention of relinquis.h.i.+ng his claim.

His gloomy thoughts turned to Alcuina of the Cambres. If the reports were true, she now was in some form of exile as well. If the loathsome liima was behind it, Alcuina's situation was far more dire than his own. He had never met her, but rumor had it that she was a great beauty. The thought of such a lady wed to his uncle was repellent, although honor and loyalty forbade his expressing the thought while in the garth.

He wished to avoid the men of the Tormanna and of the Cambres. Times were even more unsettled than usual, and there was no law to protect lone wanderers. Captors might wish to make sport with him before killing him, and many a man who was laggard on the battlefield made up for it by fiendish ingenuity in the treatment of prisoners.

He remembered a small valley in the hills to the north. He had found it years before when hunting alone. It was uncultivated and snaked along the ill-defined border between the lands of the Cambres and the Tormanna. If he could pa.s.s between the two nations unseen, he might find a place to hide, perhaps taking service with a petty chieftain until he might return to claim his birthright. Surely Odoac could not live much longer.

That evening he bedded down on the level ground near the mouth of the valley. It was a wild place, frequented only by hunters or herdsmen in search of strayed stock. With the flint and steel from his belt pouch he kindled a fire. There was scant likelihood that he would be seen in this wild spot.

As he was about to bed down in his warm cloaks, he was startled to see ghostly lights flittering among the trees within the narrow valley. His hand went to the protective amulet that hung at his neck, and he chanted out a quick spell to ward off evil. The lights came no nearer and seemed no more menacing than the fire, which was now a small heap of coals before him.

"Ymir!" he muttered in a near whisper, "am I a child to hide my head for fear of will-o'-the-wisps?"

With a short, forced laugh he bundled into his cloaks and was soon asleep. Nothing molested him, but his sleep was fitful, troubled by vague, menacing dreams.

The next morning, remounted, Leovigild peered into the narrow, growth-choked valley. Little of the snow lay there, but the density of the tree canopy could have explained that. Still, it was an ill-looking place. It took some urging on his part to force the horses into the tangled draw. When he had visited this place before, he had been on foot. That had been in the days of high summer, but even then the darkness of the valley had oppressed him. He had spent a morning in halfhearted pursuit of a wounded stag, and turned back hastily when its tracks ended in a welter of blood and broken brush. Some dire predator dwelled in the valley, but he was older and betterrarmed now.

The air was still and warmer than that outside the valley. The growth of plants was different as well. Here, instead of pine and fir, broad-leafed oak predomi-nated. The trees were stunted but of luxuriant growth, and once he was well into the valley the undergrowth Sunned, and the traveling was easier. The valley floor was uneven, a tiny stream meandering over a gravel bed in its center. The heavy growth of stunted trees and 144.

145.thick vines, the great mossy boulders, all lent the valley a certain wild beauty, marred by the gloomy dimness.

Leovigild watched for game to supplement the scant rations in his saddlebags, but he saw little sign of larger animals, and the smaller ones would be pa.s.sing the winter in sleep. Still, he kept his bow strung, its handle of hide-wrapped yew comforting to his hand.

He was beginning to regret his decision to travel by this route. The men of Totila and Alcuina would never accost him in this place, but it had the aspect of an abode for dragons and giants. His imagination peo-pled the copses and caves with witches, and behind the mossy boulders he thought he glimpsed ragged dwarfs ducking from sight. He tried to shake off the uncanny mood.

"Tales to frighten children," he muttered. "It is men I must be wary of, not goblins from old stories."

Having thus rea.s.sured himself, Leovigild urged his horse forward. There was a tiny clearing in the over-head cover, and a heap of snow lay before him. It was the first sizable drift he had encountered since entering the valley. Then a great many things happened at once. As he guided his horse around the drift the heap of snow burst upward, flinging white clumps far and wide.

Leovigild's mount reared screeching, casting the youth to the ground with enough force to half stun him. Towering above him was a creature of nightmare--its wedge-shaped head reared high upon a sinuous trunk as thick as a man's body. Its unblinking, slit-pupilled eyes fixed malevolently upon the helpless Leovigild, and he knew that he had no chance against this thing from the earth's youth.

"Snow serpent!" he gasped.

Travelers claimed to have seen the giant, white-furred snakes in the lands north of the forest belt, where the sun rose not for half the year, nor fully set in the other half. Never had he heard of such in the woodlands of his people.

His packhorse bolted toward the upper end of the valley, but his mount fidgeted, too paralyzed by terror to pick a direction and run. With Leovigild motionless, the primitive brain of the serpent was distracted by the terrified beast. Its jaws gaped, and yellow slime dripped from its fangs to hiss upon the snow. It lunged forward, and Leovigild heard the doomed beast's shrill neigh cut short by a horrible sound of crunching bones.

With a wrenching, painful effort, the youth raised himself enough to see a writhing, white-furred coil from which protruded the twisted legs of his mount. Horror thrilled his spine as the serpent's head reared from the writhing ma.s.s, its jaws grotesquely distended. The horse's head and part of its forequarters had al-ready disappeared into the gaping maw, and he realized that the monster intended to swallow the horse whole.

Now, he knew, was his chance to escape. Even so immense a monster must need some time to swallow an entire horse. He tested his limbs and found them all relatively sound. It would be some time before he was hale enough to run, but he could creep painfully upon hands and knees.

As Leovigild began to drag himself away the serpent turned to fix its eyes once more upon him. It shook its head, trying to rid itself of the carca.s.s, but its backward-curving fangs would not release it. It had to swallow the horse or die with the carca.s.s in its jaws. Gradually it lost interest in the lesser prey and went back to its task.

Leovigild was gasping with a mixture of pain and 146.

147.relief when he pulled himself to his feet with the aid of a small sapling. He bled only from small sc.r.a.pes, al-though he felt as if King Odoac's hall had fallen upon him. As he made his slow, halting way up the valley he took stock of his situation.

If he had felt poor and abandoned upon setting out, he was in far worse condition now. He had the clothes he wore, his sword and knife, and a relatively undam-aged body. His packhorse with his other belongings was somewhere ahead. With luck, he might recover them. Only the thought that he might have ended as snake food himself kept him from cursing his luck.

He paused to catch his breath. Painfully he bent and touched .the earth. "Father Ymir, I thank you that I have escaped as cheaply as I did." He suspected that Ymir took no interest in his doings, but it did no harm to keep on good terms with the G.o.ds.

"A pious sentiment, for so young a man."

Leovigild whirled at the sound of a human voice, causing himself great pain in so doing. He saw n.o.body. "Show yourself!"

"I am here before you."

Leovigild peered into the gloom and saw a lump of mossy stone a few paces before him. It had an oddly regular look to it, a semblance of a human face below the long strands of lichen hanging from its crest. In deep-shadowed pits he saw a pair of unmistakable eyes. At another time it might have sent p.r.i.c.kles of horror up his spine. So soon after his encounter with the snow serpent, it was a mere curiosity.

"What manner of creature are you?" he asked.

"I might ask the same of you, O foolish one."

Leovigild could now see that it was a small, gnarled man sitting atop the boulder. So twisted and irregular was his shape that he seemed more a part of his sur-roundings than a living man, and whether he was cov-ered with ragged garments, hair, or moss was equally uncertain.

"I am Leovigild, heir to the lords.h.i.+p of the Thungians. My pack-beast was slain by a great white serpent, and I now search for my mount."

"And what brings you hither, to a place avoided by men since your breed first came to these wooded hills?" An oversized, k.n.o.bby hand emerged from the rags and scratched at a bark-brown cheek.