Part 59 (2/2)
Conan shook his lion head ”No, Prospero, he's beyond s are htier than my sceptre, for he has near ripped the heart fro for s will live forever
”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 feel unseen snares about me 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 reet these doubts They 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,” answered Conan with pride ”The maps of the court shoell the countries of the south, east and west, but in the north they are vague and faulty I have copiedthe northern countries myself”
”By Mitra,” said Prospero, ”those lands are known to few All know that east of Aquilonia lies Nemedia, then Brythunia, then Zamora; south lies Koth and the lands of Shem; west, beyond the Bossonian marches stretches the Pictish wilderness; beyond the northern Bossonian marches lies Cimmeria Who knohat lies beyond that country?”
”I know,” answered the king, ”and ae on this ard and Vanaheim,” Prospero scanned the map ”By Mitra, I had alrinned and involuntarily touched the various scars on his dark face ”By Mitra, had you spent your youth on the northern frontier of Ciard lies to the north, and Vanaheim to the northwest of Ci the
331borders The western part of Vanaheiard is the country of the Hyperboreans, who are civilized and dwell in cities East beyond their country are the deserts of the Hyrkanians”
”What manner of men are these northern folk?” asked Prospero curiously
”Tall and fair and blue-eyed, and of like blood and language, save that the aesir have yellow hair and the Vanir, red hair Their chief God is Yiant, and they own no over-lord, but each tribe has its king They are wild and ard and fierce They fight all day and drink ale and roar their wild songs all night”
”Then I think you are hed Prospero
”You laugh greatly, drink deep and bellow good songs, whereas I never saw another Cihed, or ever sang save to chant dises”
”Perhaps it's the land they live in,” answered Conan ”A gloomier land never existed on earth
It is all of hills, heavily wooded, and the trees are strangely dusky, so that even by day all the land looks dark andAs far as a man may see his eye rests on the endless vistas of hills beyond hills, growing darker and darker in the distance Clouds hang always aray Winds blow sharp and cold, driving rain or sleet or snow before the the passes and down the valleys There is little rowof his shoulders, thinking of the s sun-washed plains and blue lazy rivers of Poitain, Aquilonia's southern-e and moody, indeed,” answered Conan ”Life seems bitter and hard and futile The s They dream monstrous dreams
Their Gods are Crom and his dark race, and they believe the world of the dead is a cold, sunless place of everlastingforevermore They have no hope here or hereafter, and they brood too elike a spinning dust-cloud, or the hollow crying of a bird, or the loomy minds the emptiness of life and the vainness of existence Only in war are the Cimmerians happy
Mitra! The ways of the aesir were rinned Prospero, ”the dark hills of Cioblet of white Nemedian wine for you at Nu, ”but kiss Nuirls for yourself only, lest you involve the states!”
His gusty laughter followed Prospero out of the chamber The carven door closed behind the Poitanian, and Conan turned back to his task He paused afootsteps, which fell hollowly on the tiles And as if the empty sound struck a kindred chord in his soul, a rush of revulsion swept over him His mirth fell away from him like a mask, and his face was suddenly old, his eyes worn The unreasoning melancholy of the Ci hi sense of the futility of hushi+p, his pleasures, his fears, his as were revealed to him suddenly as dust and broken toys The borders of life shrivelled and the lines of existence closed in about hihty hands, he groaned aloud
Then lifting his head, as a man looks for escape, his eyes fell on a crystal jar of yelloine
Quickly he rose and pouring a goblet full, quaffed it at a gulp Again he filled and eain When he set it down, a fine wars assumed new values The dark Ciood and real and vibrant after all not the dreaantic cat and seated hinitude and vital importance of himself and his task Contentedly, he nibbled his stylus and eyed his map
”South of Hyperborea lies Brythunia,” he h out on the Hyrkanian desert to baffle inquisitive explorers, he wrote laboriously, ”Here be dragons” Then leaning back he surveyed his ith childish prideCHAPTER 3Under the caverned pyrareat Set coils asleep;