Transcription
The scorched wastes stretched before them like the corpse of a dead world. Black fangs of obsidian jutting from red sand beneath a pitile sky. The sun blazed like a demon's eye, and the heat was a living thing that clawed at their throats with fingers of fire.
Conan the Samrian strode through that hellspawned desolation like a wolf through a graveyard. His massive frame moved with the terrible grace of a stalking panther, muscles rippling beneath sun-darkened skin. The desert garb he wore, a hooded cloak of worn leather, did little to disguise the raw power of the man beneath. A great sword rode his back, and his hand never strayed far from its hilt.
Beside him walked Zunara of Shem, and by Crom, she was a sight to stir a man's blood, even in that furnace of the damned. Age had touched her as gently as a lover's caress. Silver threading through raven hair, wisdom deepening the amber of her skin. Her body moved with a dancer's grace that mocked the years, golden robes clinging to curves that had not surrendered to time. The ornate circlet upon her brow marked her as more than mere woman. Here walked a sorceress who had drunk deep from wells of forbidden knowledge.
"By Ishtar's breasts, woman," Conan growled, his voice like grinding millstones. "Three days we've walked this cursed waste. My throat's as dry as a Stygian mummy."
Zunara's laugh was dark honey poured over broken glass. "Patience, Barbarian. The old texts speak truth." Her voice shifted, taking on harmonics that belonged to no mortal throat as she chanted. "Ashar."
She swayed as the words left her lips, then steadied herself with visible effort. "In the torment of the sun at its decline, the ancient tongue of the jin guides both cursed and blessed to Dumer's dwelling where he was slain."
As if summoned by her words, the dying sun painted the obsidian spires crimson. The air shimmered, reality bending like heated metal. And there, between two towering fangs of black rock, an archway materialized from nothingness, ancient beyond measure, carved with symbols that hurt the eyes to look upon.
"There," Zunara breathed, raising her arms in triumph. The gesture pulled her robes tight, and even in that moment of destiny, Conan's eyes traced the sweet curve of her body. She was no trembling maiden, but a woman in her prime, ripe as aged wine, and twice as intoxicating.
The archway pulsed with eldritch light, neither green nor gold, but some color that had no name in the tongues of men. Strange glyphs writhed upon its surface like living things. "Oh, the tongue of the jin," the sorceress whispered, her fingers tracing the air. "It speaks of twin souls forged in one blade at the dawn of the world, of power beyond mortal ken."
"Power," Conan spat, drawing steel. "I have heard that song before, usually sung by dead men." But his blue eyes gleamed with more than skepticism. Here was adventure worthy of a Samarian, danger and mystery, and perhaps plunder beyond imagining.
The archway yawned before them like the mouth of some prehistoric beast. They approached together, man and woman, barbarian and sorceress, while the desert held its breath. The shadows grew long and dark, and somewhere in the distance, something that was not quite wind, began to howl. Then the world shuddered like a dying man's last breath. The sand beneath their feet groaned and split asunder. From that wound in the earth rose a tower of such alien madness that even Conan's iron nerves sang like harpstrings. Black as the void between stars, impossibly tall, it thrust into the darkening sky, like an accusation against the gods themselves. No human hands had built this monstrosity. It was carved from a single mountain of shadow, seamless and terrible. Glowing sigils spiraled up its length, pulsing with the same otherworldly radiance as the archway. At its base, a portal blazed with green-white fire that was not fire. A wound torn in the very fabric of reality.
"By the black heart of Set," Conan breathed, and for once the mighty Samrian felt the cold touch of awe upon his spine.
Zunara stood transfixed. Her arms spread wide as if to embrace the cosmic horror before them. Power radiated from her lithe form. The golden robes whipped about her body, though no wind stirred in that dead place. Her eyes reflected the tower's terrible light. And in that moment, she seemed less mortal woman than avatar of some forgotten goddess.
"The tower of Dumer," she intoned, her voice carrying harmonics that belonged to no human throat. "Where the Jin prince fell, where his blade waits for one strong enough to claim them."
The portal pulsed, beckoning. From within came a sound like the universe grinding its teeth. Something vast and patient and hungry stirring to wakefulness after eons of slumber. Conan's scarred hand tightened on his sword hilt. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, to put leagues between himself and this thing that should not be. But stronger than fear was the call of his barbaric blood, the lure of the unknown, the promise of glory or doom.
"Well then," he growled, baring his teeth in a wolf's grin. "Let's see what manner of blade a dead jin leaves behind."
Together they stepped toward that blazing portal, while above them the first stars appeared like the eyes of watching gods. The tower hummed with anticipation, and the desert held its breath for what was to come. The portal swallowed them like a beast's maw.
Beyond lay stairs of black obsidian, worn smooth by feet that had never returned. Conan's sword rang clear of its scabbard, the steel singing its hunger in the dead air. "Stay behind me, woman," he growled over his shoulder. "If something lurks in this pit, you'll need room to work your sorcery."
Zunara's lips curved in a smile sharp as a kris dagger. "My magic can freeze a man between heartbeats, Sumerian. But even I cannot paralyze what is already dead."
Down they went, each step taking them further from the world of men. The walls were smooth as black glass, reflecting their forms in endless distortion. But it was the light that made Conan's hackles rise: a pulsing radiance from the chamber's core like the beating of some monstrous heart. Then the steps ended, and by Crom's iron beard, water chalice house greeted them. Bodies, hundreds upon hundreds, carpeting the chamber floor in a grotesque tapestry of death. Warriors in armor of every nation under the sun, their faces frozen in expressions of soul-blasting terror. But among them, ah, here was nightmare made flesh, things that had never been men, creatures with too many limbs or too few. Beings whose very skeletons defied nature's laws, twisted into geometries that hurt the mind to comprehend. Ghouls and dire jin-spawn caught between forms when death took them.
"Look," Zunara whispered, pointing to corpses whose bones seemed to shift between human and beast even in death. At the chamber's center, suspended in a column of that hellish light, hung the blade, curved like a serpent. It pulsed with its own rhythm, one edge glowing the slow heat of forge fire, the other rhyming with the patient cold of glacier ice. The very air around it writhed with power.
"Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. What in Set's name is that?" Conan demanded, though his barbaric soul already knew the answer.
"The blade lifts," Zunara breathed. Her eyes reflecting its terrible light. "It bears twin hearts. Can you not feel them? Fire and ice beating as one, waiting, always waiting." She gestured at the sea of corpses with one graceful hand. "Look upon those who came before, Barbarian. Warriors, sorcerers, monsters, all sought to claim the blade of Dumer. All feed the darkness now. The blade still waits, for none could master its dual will."
The pulsing grew stronger, and Conan felt it in his bones. A call, a challenge, a promise of power beyond mortal ken. Around them, shadows danced on the obsidian walls, and for a moment, he could have sworn the dead were watching. Zunara paused, her hand touching his arm.
"Samarian, one thing comes to mind," Her voice carried the weight of dread knowledge. "Should you survive, should you somehow bend the blade to your will. Know this, it was forged for beings who measured their lives in centuries. The jin who wielded it lived hundreds, even thousands of years, and the blade stretched even those vast spans longer still." She gestured at the corpses around them. "No mortal has ever claimed it. We know not what such power would do to human flesh and human years. You might live far beyond your natural span, watching all you know crumble to dust while you remain. Or..." her eyes found his in the pulsing light. "...Or your mortal frame might simply burn like a candle in a forge, consumed in heartbeats by power meant for elder beings."
The warning hung between them like a blade. Conan studied the singular weapon, its pulsing light reflected in his volcanic eyes. In all his wanderings, from the snow-crowned mountains of Samria to the jeweled thrones of the south, he had learned to trust his instincts. They had saved his neck more times than he could count, warning him when to fight and when to fade into shadow. But now, now those same instincts sang a different song.
"I've faced worse odds," he rumbled, rolling his massive shoulders. "If death wants me, let it come sword in hand. But something in my blood tells me that's not how this tale ends." His grin was pure wolf. "That blade calls to me, woman, not as it called to these fools," he gestured at the carpet of bones, "but as a sword calls to a warrior's hand."
He turned to face her fully. And in that moment, Zunara saw not the wandering sellsword, but something older, more primal, the barbarian kings of elder days, when men carved empires with will and steel alone. "Stand ready with your sorcery," Conan commanded. "If I fall, get yourself gone. But by Crom, I think this blade has been waiting for one who doesn't kneel to fate."
He took a step toward the pulsing weapon, then paused. "Is there aught else I should know before I tempt fate, Zunara?"
Her name on his lips. Not woman or wench, but her true name stopped her breath between heartbeats. When she spoke, her voice carried the weight of prophecy and desperate hope intertwined.
"Remember your sufferings," she whispered urgently. "Every lash that scarred your back, every chain that bound your wrists, the friends who died in your arms, the enemies who took what was yours. Let rage fill you like molten iron. Let vengeance light your soul ablaze until it burns hotter than the forge that birthed this blade." Her amber eyes blazed with reflected fire. "Pain, rage, endurance, these are the keys. The jin who made them knew only power. But you, Samarian, you know what it means to suffer and survive. Let your mortal fury answer their immortal challenge."
She stepped back, hands already weaving protective wards. "Now take it if you dare."
The Samarian sword rang against stone as he cast it aside, his volcanic gaze fixed upon the singular blade with the intensity of a lion surveying his rightful domain. Something changed in that moment. The air itself grew heavy with his presence. Zunara felt it like a physical force. Rage given form, will made manifest. This was no mere barbarian's fury, but something primordial, older than civilizations, raw as the first storms that lashed the young earth. Her breath caught. In all her years of arcane study, in all her congress with powers beyond the veil, never had she witnessed such terrible magnificence in mortal form. His soul blazed hotter than the desert sun. And in that instant her doubts crumbled to ash, the certainty Conan had spoken of, she felt it now, bone-deep and absolute.
"This was always yours to take," The words tore from her throat with the force of prophecy, her eyes wide, refusing to blink, lest she miss a heartbeat of this moment. "So take it."
The chamber trembled. The dead seemed to lean forward in their eternal repose. And Conan the Sumerian, his face a mask of savage triumph, reached for his destiny. He lunged like a panther. Massive hands spread wide. His fingers closed on the hilt, burning and freezing at once, and the world exploded.
The chamber vanished. In its place roared the forge of hell itself, where demons hammered stars into submission. Flames that had never known water licked at his flesh. The ground beneath became molten brass. The air itself fire. Then came the ice, absolute cold that could freeze the breath of gods, turning flame to crystal, brass to brittle glass, fire and ice, warring and wedding in endless cycle. This was where the blade was born in the heart of cosmic duality. A lesser man would have released the hilt, would have fled, screaming back to sanity. But Conan only tightened his grip and roared. A sound that shook the foundations of that infernal vision.
His feet hit solid ground with the force of mountains falling. Not hell's brass, but cold obsidian. The vision shattered like glass, leaving only the chamber, the corpses, and the barbarian standing with the curved blade in his fist. Power coursed through him like liquid lightning and frozen thunder. The blade's pulse, that eternal heartbeat, suddenly matched his own. Fire and ice, rage and will, mortal strength and immortal power, all beating as one.
Conan looked down at the curved blade, feeling its terrible weight, its hungry soul. One edge glowed with inner flame, the other rhymed with frost that never melted. It tested him still, would always test him. But it was his now, as surely as his own hand. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a grin that would have made wolves flee.
"Mine," he growled. The blade answered. Fire and ice erupted from the curved steel, wreathing his form in elemental fury. The fire blade blazed like a captured sun while the ice blade trailed frost that turned air to crystal. Power surged through his frame. Not the alien force of jin sorcery, but something new. The blade had tasted his mortal rage and found it to their liking.
Zunara stood transfixed, one hand pressed to her heart. The barbarian before her was transformed, no longer merely man, but something between mortal and myth. His wild hair whipped in winds that touched nothing else. His eyes blazed with inner light, and the blade sang its terrible song of destruction.
"By all the gods," she breathed. "You've done it. You've actually..."
The chamber shuddered. Cracks spiderwebbed across the obsidian walls. The tower itself groaned like a dying beast, and from somewhere far above came the sound of stone rending.
"The binding is broken," Zunara's eyes went wide with sudden understanding. "The blade was the keystone. Without it, this place dies."
Conan's grin widened. "Then we'd best be gone." He strode toward her, the blade leaving trails of fire and frost in the air. "Unless you fancy being buried with these fools." Even as tons of ancient stone began to fall, even as the tower that had stood since before men walked upright began its death throes, the Samarian moved without haste. The blade pulsed in his hand, eager for the world above, eager to taste blood after eons of waiting. The hunt was over. Now came the killing time.
They burst from the collapsing tower like souls fleeing hell itself. Behind them the portal winked out of existence with a sound like reality healing a wound. The great obsidian structure groaned its death rattle, folding in upon itself until only rubble remained where moments before had stood a monument to prehuman ambition. The desert night enveloped them. Black as the void between stars. No moon graced the sky, only the cold, distant eyes of constellations that had watched empires rise and fall. In that absolute darkness, the blade of Dumer painted its own light. The curved steel pulsed with dual nature, one edge wreathed in dancing flames, the other trailing crystalline frost. Fire and ice bound in a single weapon created a sphere of ethereal illumination around the two figures, warrior and sorcerer standing alone in the vastness of the scorched wastes.
Conan held the blade before him, studying its otherworldly glow. The weapon hummed with barely leashed power, its light neither torch nor lantern, but something far older. The raw luminescence of creation and destruction wedded as one.
"Well," the Samarian rumbled, his voice carrying dark satisfaction. "Let any ghoul or jinspawn come hunting us now. They'll find more than corpse flesh waiting in the dark."
Zunara moved closer, drawn by the blade's radiance, and perhaps by something more. In its mingled light, her face seemed carved from amber and moonstone. "We are three days from the nearest oasis, and every horror in these wastes will sense what you carry."
"Good," His grin was pure predator. "I have a mind to test this properly."
Zunara's warning proved prophetic. Before the stars had wheeled another hour across the vault of heaven, they came first as whispers in the dark. Dry rustlings like dead leaves stirred by no earthly wind. Then came the stench, a miasma of corruption that would have gagged a Stygian embalmer. Finally, the eyes. Hundreds of pairs gleaming like diseased stars in the darkness beyond the blade's light.
"Ghouls," hissed, her hands already weaving protective sigils. "The blade's awakening has roused every carrion feeder in the scorched wastes."
The first of the creatures shambled into the light, and by Crom, it was an abomination to sicken the soul. Once it might have been a man, but centuries of feeding on corpse flesh had twisted it into something neither beast nor human. Its flesh hung in gray tatters. Its jaw distended like a snake's, filled with teeth meant for cracking marrow from ancient bones. Behind it came more. Dozens, scores, a tide of hungering death flowing across the sands.
Conan's laugh rang out like bronze bells in a charnel house. "Come then, you maggot spawn. Let's see if this blade cuts as well as it shines."
The first ghoul leaped with inhuman speed, claws extended for his throat. The blade of Dumer moved of its own accord, or perhaps guided by a hand that had learned swordplay before these creatures' ancestors crawled from their graves. The curved steel swept up in a perfect arc, and where it passed, the ghoul simply ceased to exist. No blood, no scream. The creature was unmade, reduced to ash that scattered on the desert wind.
"By Ishtar's silver breasts," Zunara breathed, but there was no time for wonder. The horde surged forward and Conan met them like a wolf among sheep. The blade sang its dual song, fire and ice, creation and ending. And where it passed, ghouls died. Not the messy, brutal death of normal combat, but an absolute negation of their unnatural existence. Yet for every one that fell, three more took its place. They came from all sides now, rising from the very sand. And even Conan's superhuman strength began to flag.
"Woman!" he roared, severing two creatures with a single swing. "If you have any sorcery worth the name, now would be the time."
Response was to throw back her head and speak. Words that had not been uttered since the serpent men ruled in Valusia. The air around her crackled with eldritch force, and suddenly she stood at the center of a whirlwind of golden light. Ghouls that touched that radiance shrieked and fled, their corrupted flesh unable to bear its purity. Together they fought. Barbarian steel and Shemite sorcery, primal fury and ancient wisdom. The blade in Conan's hand pulsed with savage joy, drinking deep of the slaughter. Fire raced along one edge, ice along the other, and where they met at the weapon's heart, something else was born. A terrible equilibrium that unmade whatever it touched. But the ghouls kept coming. An endless tide of hunger and hate.
"There are too many," Zunara's voice cracked with strain. Blood ran from her nose. The cost of channeling such power. "We must flee."
"The hell we do?" Conan planted his feet wide, the blade blazing in his grip. "I've not come this far to run from corpse-eating dogs."
It was then that the blade spoke. Not in words. Such things were beneath its ancient dignity. Instead, knowledge bloomed in Conan's mind like a flower of fire and frost. He understood suddenly what he held. Not merely a weapon, but a key. A key to powers that slept beneath the desert, waiting for one strong enough to wake them.
The Samarian's grin was terrible to behold. He raised the blade overhead with both hands, its dual light painting the night in impossible colors. Then he drove it down, not at the ghouls, but deep into the sand itself.
The desert screamed. From the point where the blade pierced the earth, cracks spread like lightning. They raced outward in all directions, glowing with the same fire and ice radiance as the weapon itself. The ghouls had one moment to realize their doom before the ground beneath them erupted. Pillars of flame burst from the sand, each one perfectly balanced by a matching geyser of killing frost. Fire and ice danced together in a spiral of annihilation, sweeping outward in an ever-widening circle. The ghouls caught in that maelstrom didn't even have time to shriek. They simply ceased, erased from existence as thoroughly as if they had never been. The display lasted perhaps ten heartbeats. When it ended, Conan and Zunara stood alone in a circle of glass. Sand fused by impossible heat and cold into a mirror that reflected the stars. Beyond that circle, nothing moved. The ghoul horde was gone. Not fled, but unmade, returned to the nothing from which they had crawled.
Conan wrenched the blade free, and the glass circle cracked, but held. The weapon still pulsed with power, but dimmer now, sated by the feast of destruction.
"By all the gods," Zunara whispered. And for the first time since he'd known her, the sorceress looked truly shaken. "Do you understand what you've done? What you've become?"
The Samarian shrugged his massive shoulders. "I've become a man with a good blade. Nothing more, nothing less." But even as he spoke the words, he knew them for a lie. The blade had changed him. He could feel it in his bones, in the way his heart beat in time with the weapon's pulse. He was still Conan, still a man, but something more now, something the world had not seen since the age of Acheron.
He strode into the rising sun, the blade of Dumer across his back, its dual nature hidden beneath worn leather wrappings. To any who saw him, he was just another sellsword on the desert road. They could not see the way shadows bent toward him, or how his eyes now held flecks of fire and frost. The weapon had chosen, and the world would tremble at that choosing. In years to come, men would speak in awe of the Samarian who walked out of the scorched wastes with doom itself strapped to his back. Of cities that fell to one man, of armies burned and frozen by a single stroke. They would speak of Conan and the blade of Dumer.