Conan: Road of Kings

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Authors: Karl Edward Wagner
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drew back on the oars with a sour grunt that sent the boat sliding through the low swells. In the stern, Sandokazi hitched her skirts over her thighs and kicked at their wake. In the bow, Callidios struck contorted attitudes and shouted fitful instructions. Conan had agreed to go on this excursion with the half-formed notion of tying the anchor to the Stygian’s neck and throwing him overboard in the deepest part of the bay.
    Mordermi and Santiddio were deep in schemes with the outlaw’s chief henchmen and the inner circle of the White Rose; had been throughout the night. To Conan’s unconcealed disgust, they had accepted the Stygian’s ideas wholeheartedly—so much so that Mordermi already declared (and perhaps believed) that Callidios had but seconded his own private thoughts.
    Moreover, Callidios had spoken of certain potent sorceries that were his to command—wondrous powers that he might summon to aid the cause of his newfound comrades. Lotus dreams, perhaps. But it is never prudent to ignore the claims of one who has been privy to the abhorrent secrets of the priests of Set. Callidios professed to be able to demonstrate proof of his bold assertion; Conan was detailed to examine such proofs, and Sandokazi joined their party to forstall Conan’s hostile designs upon a potentially useful ally.
    The morning was yet cool beneath the diminishing sea mists, although the speed with which the climbing sun melted the gray veil betokened the clear, hot day that awaited them. Conan, remembering that Korst would be watching the harbor, again cursed Callidios for this madman’s excursion onto the bay of Kordava. The tide was at ebb, and a motley confusion of merchant vessels and fishing boats put out to sea this morning, so that Conan felt some confidence that their skiff would draw no notice.
    “Conan, look!” Sandokazi called out. “You can see people down there on the bottom!”
    Callidios all but went over the side in his haste to see where she pointed. “Statues!” he snapped querulously. “Nothing but garden statuary. I’ll show you better than that.”
    Conan rested his oars and looked over the side. As the morning sunlight penetrated the blue depths, the sunken ruins of old Kordava could be discerned some fathoms below them. Half-buried beneath a forest of seaweed, a cluster of broken statuary stood watch amidst the toppled columns and broken walls of a drowned villa. Schools of small fish shimmered like flights of silver birds about the encrusted stones and jumbles of corroded brick. Dimly, other reefs of ruined structures merged into the inverted horizon, where long streamers of seaweed waved in the current as if stirred by a morning breeze.
    “I hadn’t realized so much of the old city had dropped beneath the sea during the earthquake,” Conan mused. “I thought only a section along the waterfront slid into the sea, but we must be close to a mile offshore here.”
    “We’re beyond the walls of the old city here,” Callidios told him. “This was once a long peninsula that enclosed part of what was then Kordava’s harbor. The entire peninsula sank beneath the sea when the earthquake struck this coast. The wealthy had their villas here; we’re passing over the remains of one now.”
    He squinted toward the open sea, where the running tide fretted across the submerged bar of land. “Good, we’re on course. Keep rowing along the shoal here. The tomb lies farther to sea, but we’ll have no trouble finding it at low tide.”
    “Is it a tomb you’re leading us to, then?” Conan asked sarcastically. “I thought you were going to show us your army.”
    “I’ll show you as much as you’ll care to see, Cimmerian.”
    Conan spat into the sea and took up the oars. The Cimmerian had given little thought and less credence to Callidios’ boasts. He entertained a vague notion that the Stygian renegade might have some sort of cutthroat band under his command—possibly waiting offshore aboard ship, or

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