eBook: Conan: City of the Dead von John C. Hocking | ISBN 978-1-80336-632-6 | Sofort-Download kaufen (2024)

The first thing that Conan became aware of was a sultry breeze smelling of moist earth. He blinked and a vortex of nausea roiled in his guts.

He was seated in a heavily built steel chair. Metal bands held his ankles, calves, wrists, and belly tightly in place. Slouched forward, his head hanging, Conan focused his bleary eyes and saw that the chair was bolted to the chamber’s glossy marble floor. He had vague memories, little more than disjointed impressions, of being dragged along a noisome alleyway before being tossed bodily into a wagon full of damp straw.

A gust of warm air stirred his hair, and he raised his head with ponderous effort in order to look about. Before him, bronze-bound double doors of glass opened out into the night, revealing a shadowed garden that sloped down and away. Beyond, through a screen of trees, the lights of Akkharia lay spread out like spilled gems on an ebony table. There was no moon, but the stars told him that it was almost midnight.

“Awake, dog?” There were footfalls behind him. It was Gulbanda, his right hand bound in a white bandage. He walked a leisurely circle around the helpless Cimmerian, who silently set all of his strength to testing his bonds. The bodyguard saw the powerful muscles of Conan’s arms and legs leap out into ridged relief and laughed humorlessly. His dark eyes flashed in the dim room.

“You cannot break free. Your efforts would be better spent begging me to make your death swift and easy.” Gulbanda drew to a halt in front of the barbarian and pulled a dagger from its sheath with great deliberation.

Conan relaxed, staring straight ahead in stoic silence. The bared blade made a silvery flourish before the Cimmerian’s expressionless face.

“Speak.” The dagger came forward until its point indented the skin beneath Conan’s right eye. “You have nothing to say?”

Gulbanda moved the blade to the barbarian’s forearm and lay the cold steel on bronzed skin. “Why don’t you beg your heathen gods for rescue? They might answer if you cried out to them loudly enough.”

The razor-sharp edge drew slowly across flesh and a thin scarlet stream broke free in its wake. Conan bared his teeth in a feral snarl, fixing his eyes upon Gulbanda with such elemental hatred that his tormentor withdrew the knife and took an involuntary step backward.

“Gulbanda, you are mistreating our guest.”

The dagger made a hasty return to its sheath as the warrior retreated to a dark corner of the room.

“I did him no harm,” he said in a voice thick with frustration.

“I should hope not,” said the man in the green cowl. “He has important work to do tonight.” The robed man stood over Conan, inspecting the shallow but painful gash inflicted by his servant. The hood lay in heavy folds about his shoulders, baring his head. He was a black man with sharp, aristocratic features. A high-domed forehead and a strong jaw might have made him handsome, but there was a weathered, weary aspect to his face that belied his obvious youth. The eyes were as rheumy and reddened as those of an old man. The skin of his face appeared to hang on his skull, slack and dull as a mask. Conan noticed a greenish smear beneath his captor’s lower lip. Under the barbarian’s gaze, he turned away as if ashamed, wiping his mouth on a velvet sleeve.

“You must learn to show restraint, Gulbanda. This man is a valuable tool. If you treat your tools well, they will serve you well.” The black man turned back to Conan, pulled a lace handkerchief from his robe, and daubed it gently in the blood on the Cimmerian’s forearm.

Folding the cloth with care, he replaced it in his pocket. He gazed down at Conan, his eyes dark wells of fathomless emotion.

“I am Shakar the Keshanian. Do you know me?”

“No, but you must be another who seeks to become King Sumuabi’s toy mage. What did you do to me?”

“You have some wit for a barbarian. I broke a glass ball upon your breast. The ball was filled with a weak distillate of the Black Lotus. The fumes produce unconsciousness but do no lasting harm. You will feel dizzy and ill for a time, though. I hope that this will not inconvenience you on your mission tonight.”

Conan spat at Shakar’s feet. “Get your lapdog to run your errands.” He jerked his head toward Gulbanda. “I’ll not serve you.”

Shakar nodded absently, pressing gloved hands together and turning away from his prisoner. He strode to a low chest of drawers set against one of the marble walls.

“The priests of Keshia had little liking for me,” he said thoughtfully. “They made my life difficult. So, before I left that city, I stole much knowledge from them. Much knowledge and several precious items to make my life outside Keshan easier. The glass balls are one thing I acquired. These are another.” Shakar arose from the chest and held his hands out to Conan.

Suspended from each fist was an amulet the size and shape of a hen’s egg. They were the color of tarnished brass and inscribed in black with a single serpentine rune. Instead of a chain, each amulet dangled from a flexible loop of thin golden wire. With a quick motion, Shakar flipped one wire noose over the top of Conan’s head and released it.

The strange pendant fell heavily upon the Cimmerian’s breast. The black warlock leaned forward, pulling the barbarian’s long hair out from beneath the encircling wire until the metal rested against his flesh.

“There,” he murmured. “There.” He stroked the amulet lovingly. Then his eyes narrowed, his lips tightened against his teeth, and he bent over to stare Conan full in the face.

“Hie Vakallar-Ftagn,” he whispered in a voice like the stirring of dead leaves. Conan went rigid. The wire necklace contracted around his neck until the cold weight of the amulet nestled unpleasantly into the hollow of his throat. A thrill of horror coursed along the barbarian’s spine. Shakar stood up straight and grinned in satisfaction. He held the other amulet away from his velvet-clad body.

“Now you shall do as I require, barbarian. You must do it because your life will be forfeit if you do not. This night you will go to the estate of Lady Zelandra, slay her, and steal for me her silver casket. And you shall have it back here by sunrise, thief, or I will speak to your amulet thus.”

Held at arm’s length, Shakar’s remaining pendant swung slowly on its necklace of wire. The man in green stared at it and spoke.

“Hie Vakallar-Nectos.” His voice died and there was an expectant silence. Then the dangling amulet flared with white incandescence and a sharp sizzling sound filled the room. A wave of heat hit Conan’s face like the rush of air from an opened forge. The blaze of light stabbed fiercely at his eyes. For a moment the amulet hung from its wire as a fusing gobbet of nigh-intolerable brilliance; then it fell in a molten stream to spatter brightly on the polished floor. Acrid smoke arose in whorls as the liquid metal gnawed into the marble. It burned out after a long moment, leaving the floor deeply pitted and scarred. A shrill laugh broke from Shakar’s lips.

“O Damballah! An ugly way to die, is it not? If you are not back by sunrise, I speak the words. If you attempt to remove the amulet, it will blaze up of its own accord. If you displease me in any way, I shall speak the words. Do you understand?” Mad triumph trembled in the warlock’s voice. In the corner, Gulbanda moved uneasily. “Let him loose,” Shakar ordered.

“Master?” Gulbanda hesitated and Shakar spun on him in sudden fury, cloak swirling.

“Now, fool!” The warrior hastened to Conan’s side and bent to his task.

In a moment the barbarian was free of the steel chair, if not of all bonds. He stretched hugely, bending to chafe his legs where the metal cuffs had cut into his flesh.

“Do you know the Street of the Seven Roses?” asked the black sorcerer.

Conan nodded curtly. “It is where they store the shipments of wine in from Kyros.”

“That is the warehouse district. Zelandra’s mansion is in the residential district at the opposite end of the street. Across the city from the warehouses. It is a respectable area and often patrolled by the city guard.”

“It has a very high wall,” said Gulbanda coldly. “A smooth one.” Conan met the bodyguard’s eyes with a gaze as bleak and stark as the blade of a stiletto.

“I want my sword,” he said.

Shakar nodded. “Of course. Fetch it, Gulbanda.” For a moment the warrior seemed to pause, then he strode quickly from the room. The black mage looked upon Conan and lifted his gloved hands imploringly.

“Do you need to see the map again?”

“No. Do you give me your word that if I bring you the casket, you will remove this thing?” The barbarian touched the amulet about his neck as though it were a sleeping serpent coiled there.

“I swear it. And if it happens that you do not slay the woman, I shall still free you if you bring me the silver box. I must have it. Do you understand?”

The Cimmerian showed his teeth in a mirthless grin. “I understand that well enough.”

“Another thing,...

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