Part 2 (1/2)
Conan shook his lion head ”No, Prospero, he's beyond s are htier than my scepter; for he has near ripped the heart fro for s will live for ever
”No, Prospero,” the king continued, a so hidden, some undercurrent of which we are not aware I sense it as in rass There is a nadom I am like a hunter who crouches by his s in the darkness, and al eyes If I could but coible, that I could cleave with my sword! I tell you, it's not by chance that the Picts have of late so fiercely assailed the frontiers, so that the Bossonians have called for aid to beat them back I should have ridden with the troops”
”Publius feared a plot to trap and slay you beyond the frontier,” replied Prospero, s ure in a silver ed you to remain in the city These doubts are born of your barbarian instincts Let the people snarl! The ue in Poitain swears by you Your only danger is assassination, and that's i you day and night What are you working at there?”
”A map,” Conan answered with pride ”The maps of the court shoell the countries of south, east and west, but in the north they are vague and faulty I a the northern lands myself
Here is Ciard and Vanaheim,” Prospero scanned the map ”By Mitra, I had almost believed those countries to have been fabulous”
Conan grinned savagely, involuntarily touching the scars on his dark face ”You had known otherwise, had you spent your youth on the northern frontiers of Ciard lies to the north, and Vanaheim to the northwest of Ci the23borders”
”What manner of men are these northern folk?” asked Prospero
”Tall and fair and blue-eyed Their God is Y
They are ard and fierce They fight all day and drink ale and roar their wild songs all night”
”Then I think you are like thereatly, drink deep and bellow good songs; though I never saw another Cihed, or ever sang save to chant dises”
”Perhaps it's the land they live in,” answered the king ”A gloomier land never was all of hills, darkly wooded, under skies nearly always gray, inds rowof his shoulders, thinking of the s sun-washed plains and blue lazy rivers of Poitain, Aquilonia's southernmost province
”They have no hope here or hereafter,” answered Conan ”Their Gods are Crom and his dark race, who rule over a sunless place of everlasting mist, which is the world of the dead Mitra!
The ways of the aesir were rinned Prospero, ”the dark hills of Cioblet of white Nerunted the king, ”but kiss Nuirls for yourself only, lest you involve the states!”
His gusty laughter followed Prospero out of the chareat Set coils asleep; A the shadows of the tombs his dusky people creep
I speak the Word froulfs that never knew the sun
SendOne!24
The sun was setting, etching the green and hazy blue of the forest in brief gold The waning beaolden chain which Dion of Attalus twisted continually in his pudgy hand as he sat in the flaarden He shi+fted his fat body on his lanced furtively about, as if in quest of a lurking enerove of slender trees, whose interlapping branches cast a thick shade over him Near at hand a fountain tinkled silverly, and other unseen fountains in various parts of the great garden whispered an everlasting syure which lounged on athe baron with deep souely knew that he was a slave in whom Ascalante reposed much trust, but like so many rich men, Dion paid scant heed to men below his own station in life
”You need not be so nervous,” said Thoth ”The plot can not fail”
”Ascalante canat the ian savagely, ”else I had not been his slave, but his master”