Free Conan The Fearless by Steve Perry

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 aptitude 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 gods 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