Conan the Fearless Part 9

Without another sound Conan leaped at the woman. He caught her wrist as she tried to impale his throat upon her blade; he twisted the woman's arm hard, and she exclaimed and dropped the dagger.

Suddenly, the alley seemed to come to life. Small bodies slithered over the trash and woodpile; the scratchings of hundreds of tiny feet could be heard along with the gentle rasp of small forms moving everywhere.

Conan saw that the very walls and ground seemed to undulate in small waves.

"Crom!" He released the woman and moved back a pace, drawing his sword in a fluid and well-practiced move. But there was no single enemy to be faced here. Something touched Conan's boot, and he turned his fiery blue eyes downward to stare at the thing.

It was a salamander. The creature was no longer than Conan's middle finger, but it mounted his footgear with a kind of determination Conan found hard to credit. Such lizardlike things usually ran at the sight of men, but to judge from the sound, there must be hundreds of the things here in this alley. How had they gotten here? Why were they advancing upon him'?

"Hold!" Eldia said. The rustle of tiny feet stopped instantly. The single salamander upon Conan's boot froze as if trans.m.u.ted into stone.

Eldia looked at her sister. "He saved my life on two occasions," she said. "And Vitarius means only to help me. We must allow him to have his explanation." She nodded toward Conan. "And you must hear what Vitarius has to say, sister, before we can go home. I was frightened by the demon earlier, otherwise I would have had you stay then."

Eldia looked at the salamander on Conan's boot. "Away," she said.

Obediently, the creature turned and wiggled away. Around them the sounds of other scurryings touched the night air; in a moment all was quiet again.

Conan stared at Eldia.

"Shall we go?" she said.

Conan and Eldia's sister looked at each other, and nodded. But Conan was not pleased with any of this. Not at all.

"Fool!" Sovartus screamed. "To be thwarted by an ordinary man!"

Djavul stood within the bounds of the black magician's pentagram, drawn up to his fullest height. "Nay, human mage, this was no ordinary man.

In a thousand years I have faced hundreds of men in mortal combat.

Their bones lie moldering in graves the world over. Never have I lost a death fight to any man. This man was more than most; more, he had magical help, else I would have triumphed over him despite his strength and skill. You face one of the White. Sovartus. "

"Vitarius!" Sovartus's voice was filled with anger.

"I know not his name, but he focused the power of Fire upon me, and the heat was not that which I could withstand."

"d.a.m.n you!"

"You are too late, magician. But all is not lost. I am brother to a human witch who has no small influence in the city that hides your quarry. You will have your child; I will have the man who did this."

Djavul raised his right arm and stared at the stump where his hand had been.

In the far depths of Castle Slott something screamed in hideous antic.i.p.ation.

Chapter Six.

The patrons in the Milk of Wolves Inn gave the four people seated at the table nearest the fireplace a wide berth. Conan suspected that some, if not all, of the people pretending to look everywhere else save at him and his companions had been present at the conjuring exhibition earlier. The Cimmerian did not blame them for being nervous; he himself felt no joy in the presence of those steeped in magic. The lethal flame in Conan's eyes burned low, but burn it did, as he listened to Vitarius's tale.

". . . Eldia was one of four children. Her mother, your mother, as well"-Vitarius pointed with his nose at the young woman seated across from Conan-"was ensorcelled by a powerful magician during her conception by him."

"You are saying I have a father other than the one I have known all my life?" Eldia's gaze was sharp and much harder than that usually seen in a child of her age.

"Aye. At your birth your mother was allowed to retain only one of her brood. Your father was Hogistum of the Gray Square, and he took the others and had them scattered across the world."

"Why?" Conan. Eldia, and the woman-Kinna, she called herself-all spoke at the same instant.

Vitarius sighed and shook his head. "It cannot be understood so easily.

Hogistum uncovered some ancient sorcery, weathered runes that came from a more primal time. He managed to decipher these writings and so learned how to link each of the Four Elements to a living soul. He was not an evil man, Hogistum, but he was curious. Of the Gray, he could work magic for black purposes or white, and usually, he tended toward the White. The Spell of Linkage was, in itself, neither good nor evil; it depended upon how it was used, once invoked. Hogistum had no intention of using it; he wished only to see if he could accomplish it.

At least this was what he claimed."

"How do you know this?" Kinna's voice was no less silken than Conan had noted before.

The old man hesitated for a moment, pausing to wet his lips with the wine cup in front of him on the rough table. "Hogistum had two students," he began. "One was his natural son, the other a pupil who had demonstrated magical apt.i.tude but was of a low caste." Vitarius looked at each of the three faces in turn. "I was the low-caste pupil."

Conan nodded. No surprise there. Vitarius's attack upon the demon was explained, then.

Vitarius continued. "Since his own wife had died, Hogistum chose a young woman of his household, daughter of an old retainer, for his new bride. Upon this girl Hogistum worked his spell even as they lay together on the nuptial bed."

"How . . . vile!" Kinna said.

"I can see how you would think it so," Vitarius said. "In time, the birthing of four children occurred. Each of these babes was filled with power."

"I find this all hard to believe," Kinna said.

The old magician blinked like some ancient owl at the young woman. "Do you? In your life with your sister, have you not noticed certain . . .

abilities in her? Can anyone be cold in her presence? Is not her bed always warm, even on the coldest winter nights? And, of course, there are the salamanders."

The fire in Conan's eyes leaped a bit at this last statement. Aye, the girl had some truck with such creatures. Conan looked at Kinna, and saw that she nodded in spite of her obvious reluctance to believe what she was hearing.

"Eldia is one corner of the Square," Vitarius said. "She is the Child of Fire, flameweaver and Mistress of its beasts, the salamanders. Her sister, Atena, is the Child of Water, and through her the undines serve; her brothers are Luft, Child of Air and the wind-devils, and Jord, Child of Earth, Master of the demi-whelves and trolls. I did not make it so, but I speak it as it is."

Something had been gnawing ratlike at Conan's mind, something Vitarius had said earlier. The young man voiced it. "You spoke of another student, the natural son of Hogistum. Who is he? What has happened to him?"

Vitarius nodded as if expecting the question. "We speak of one you have had contact with, albeit indirectly. He owes you a horse."

"Sovartus?"

"Aye. He poisoned his own father and has spent the years since tracing and recovering the children Hogistum so carefully hid. He now has them all save Eldia."

"Hogistum was less than careful, it would seem." Conan toyed with his own cup of wine. "He is dead and his son's goal nearly accomplished."

"Aye. I managed to thwart him by taking Eldia from her captors before she could be tendered to him. I was too late for the others. Through them, he now influences three of the Square's Four Corners: Earth, Air, and Water. If he should complete the Square, he would have at his bidding a beast greater than the sum of the parts, a synergistic force Hogistum called the Thing of Power. This would be such a monstrous happening that even the G.o.ds would turn their faces away from it."

Conan shifted upon the bench, suddenly uncomfortable. Talk of magic always made him feel thus; such things as this men should leave alone.

Kinna leaned across the table, one more-than-ample breast brushing against the back of Conan's hand as she moved. "What are your intentions, then, Vitarius?"

The old magician sighed again. "I must protect Eldia, keeping her from Sovartus's clutches; more, I must somehow find a way to free the three children he holds."

"Can you do it?" Eldia said quietly. "Can you save my brothers and sister from my-my . . . half-brother?"