Free Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza by Roland Green Page B

command death for others, at will?”
    “Yes, I think,” Grolin said.
    “Both? Or do you not know?”
    “The legend says both, and legend is all there is about the power of the Soul, when it is in the Mountain of the Skulls. One should not be surprised, when the legends also say that the Soul comes from the time of Acheron.”
    Lysinka jerked herself out of Grolin’s arms. “That musty tale to frighten children! Every time someone meets magic they do not understand, they blame it on Acheron.” She knew she said this to lessen her own doubts.
    “Sometimes, they do so justly,” Grolin said, once again speaking as if he were afraid the wind or the rocks might overhear him. “Acheron rose, wrought mighty magic, and fell. Though it disappeared, all its evil did not. That lingers yet in odd comers of the world.”
    “Mitra knows this is odd enough,” Lysinka said, with forced heartiness. “So are its people. So, even, are the bargains they offer.”
    “Is it too odd for you to accept?” Grolin asked. She heard greed in his voice but no treachery and, indeed, some gentleness, as though he understood how much he was asking.
    “Not that I can say, tonight,” Lysinka said. “But the decision is not mine alone. I must put it before my people.” She hesitated, then added, “Have you friends in either realm who send you aid?”
    “I see your shrewdness was no rumour,” Grolin said, a trifle sourly. “Call them enemies of my enemies and you will be right. But they would ask the swine’s share of anything we won through the Soul. Nor are they as fair as you.”
    The flattery was open, but the desire in Grolin’s voice likewise sincere. Plainly he expected that the bargain be sealed in the oldest way between a man and a woman.
    Just as plainly, she had to come to her decision tonight.
    “Grolin, I must go below and my ten with me. In such a matter, my band must meet and speak together.”
    He looked as if he wished to kiss her or at least pat her shoulder, but he withheld his hand. “Then go, and speak so that they will do the wise thing and join the quest for the Soul of Thanza.”
    “It was something in my food that had me sleeping there like a drunkard,” Rog said. He was hardly sober now, but he and Conan were at a snug country inn, the White Raven, not facing armed bravos.
    “Any notion who might have put it there?” Conan said. He had drunk less than Rog because he feared the master-at-arms might need further protection. He hoped this would not extend to putting the man to bed. The Cimmerian had expected to win the fight, but he had less hope of moving the man’s dead weight if he drank himself senseless.
    “Notions only, but enough to let me know where to start asking questions.”
    “Best not punish anyone without Klarnides’s approval,” Conan said. “If he does have the ear of the count—”
    Rog spat into the bark chips that covered the floor. The tavern-keeper looked daggers at the two big men but prudently refrained from more.
    “That for Klarnides and the other lapdogs coming to join him.”
    Conan’s look framed a question.
    “You haven’t heard?” Rog explained. He went on to describe two new captains said to be on their way to the Thanza Rangers. If half what he said was the truth, the two newcomers made Klarnides seem a more seasoned warrior than Conan.
    “Well, we’ve settled our quarrel,” Conan said. “So come good captains or bad, we can stand together against them and for our men.”
    Rog’s reply to that was to lay his head on his arms and begin to snore. Conan laid out enough brass coins to pay for the last jug of wine and wrapped himself in his cloak.
    “Huh,”' the tavern-keeper said. “Either pay for a room or take yourself and your friend—”
    An empty wine cup neatly parted the man’s hair— or would have, if he had not been entirely bald. It smashed to powder against the wall behind him.
    “We’re staying here,” Conan said. “We’ve drunk our fill and