Conan: Road of Kings by Karl Edward Wagner Page B

lurking upon one of the small islands at the delta of the Black River where it emptied into the sea at Kordava.
    “Whose tomb do we seek?” Sandokazi asked, to break the silence.
    “That of King Kalenius.”
    Sandokazi pursed her lips in thought. “King of lotus dreams, perhaps. I don’t recall the name ‘Kalenius’ amongst the kings of Zingara.”
    Conan snorted, thinking that the water would be very deep once they were beyond this shoal.
    “Kalenius was one of the greatest of the Thurian kings,” Callidios informed them loftily. “His was an age when Atlantis and Lemuria yet rose above the waves, and the kingdoms of this land were Verulia and Farsun and Valusia, and Zingara was a realm whose birth awaited another millennium.”
    “Well, I’ve never heard of this Kalenius,” Sandokazi said petulantly. “Nor his kingdom, nor his tomb.”
    “The kings and kingdoms of ancient Thuria are ghosts and dust, forgotten by the proud Hyborian civilization that has arisen above the bones of their greatness,” Callidios sneered. “I think there will come a day when our age, too, shall pass into dust, and the children who dance upon our bones shall remember our lands and our races only in their dreams.”
    “What rot!” Sandokazi laughed. “Kings may die, but how can this land and its peoples pass away?”
    “Look beneath our wake for your answer,” Callidios returned.
    Conan forbore comment. If Sandokazi chose to bandy words with a madman, it was her amusement. A few lengths of anchor rope and a hundred fathoms would soon still Callidios’ tongue.
    “In the centuries after Kull the Atlantean seized the throne of Valusia and plunged the Thurian kingdoms into an age of internecine warfare, it was Kalenius who finally brought the peace of conquest to the lands north and west of Grondar and the Lost Lands. Kalenius’ was an empire beyond the dreams of even the ambitious Prince Yezdigerd of Turan. The rulers and peoples of a continent bowed their necks to his will and his whim. Kalenius declared that his empire should last a thousand years and his fame throughout eternity.
    “But Kalenius grew old and died; his empire shattered into civil wars even as the king was laid within his tomb. Finally the Cataclysm drew a veil of darkness over the kingdoms of Thuria, and the fame of Kalenius is remembered only by those few who seek out the lost knowledge of a lost age.”
    Callidios broke off his monologue with an abrupt shift of stance, and shouted wildly: “Hold your oars, Conan! We are here!”
    In another instant, the Stygian had thrown over the anchor. His crooked grin met Conan’s eyes, and Conan cursed silently.
    They rode at anchor perhaps a league from shore. At low tide, the shoal here lay but a fathom beneath their skiff. Choppy waves foamed the surface above the sunken peninsula, and Conan guessed the currents would be treacherous with the turning of the tide. No other vessels were within hailing distance—their masters keeping to the deeper waters.
    “Below us,” gestured Callidios, “the tomb of King Kalenius.”
    Conan and Sandokazi peered dutifully. The sea was clear, but the wave-flecked shallows made it difficult to see below the surface. Gulls wheeled and cried overhead; the wind and sea grated together. Conan sensed that the bottom had risen here at the terminus of the shoal, indicating a sunken knoll of considerable expanse.
    “What tomb?” Conan asked, glancing significantly at Sandokazi.
    “Beneath the sea and beneath the sand,” Callidios replied. “A thousand years ago, and you might have discerned the ruins of some of the larger funereal monuments of the mausoleum upon which Kalenius lavished thirty years’ construction. What the Cataclysm spared, the founding fathers of Kordava hauled away for building stone. Only the barrow yet stood, and at last the sea swallowed up even that. We’re anchored atop all that remains of that barrow.”
    “Fascinating,” lied Sandokazi.
    “Thirty years