Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza (29 page)

Early on the morning of the fourth day, with dawn not yet warming the sky, Lysinka awoke to find Conan’s side of the bed empty and already cold. Instead of the Cimmerian, a fur robe lay, with a scrap of parchment pinned to it with one of Lysinka’s needles.

The writing was Conan’s, the strong, rough script of a plain man who had come to reading and writing only when grown but had applied his keen wits to the job as to everything else. She was grateful that she did not have to puzzle out the words.

Lysinka,

I am going to Turan. I still owe King Yezdigerd more than I have paid him. I will ride with the Kozaki, who remember me well. With them, I can finish paying the Turanians.

It would be good if I could stay. I cannot. You are too like Bêlit, and I would want to make you more like her. You might even want to do this.

Then you would not be you any more. You would know it in time and come to hate me.

Also, two thieves under one roof is bad luck.

I bought the silk bed robe but not the fur.

Klarnides says all goes well. This means you can have a pardon if you want it. I hope that you can find a place to live and a good man to live with in it.

Conan, always a friend

Lysinka wished she could say that she was surprised, but whatever she had wanted from Conan, she had not truly expected much more than she did.

So she did not weep, or throw the fur on the floor. The hour being what it was, she prudently went back to sleep, after hiding the letter under her pillow alongside her dagger.

But when she slept again, strange dreams came.... A boy toddled down a dusty garden path, a boy with her dark hair but much of Fergis in his face.

The boy grown into a young man and practising his archery.

A battlefield, well to the north. An older Conan and an older Klarnides, leading Aquilonian soldiers against short dark men—Picts, she judged. Some of the soldiers wore the badge of the Thanza Rangers, although she recognized no faces under the crested leather helmets or wielding bows and short swords.

Conan and Klarnides, still older. Conan stood with a tall, dark-haired woman, of surpassing beauty and far younger than he. They gazed fondly at a boy, playing on a tile floor. Squatting beside the boy was the young man who had once toddled down the garden path, now with a bushy moustache and scars on face and arm.

Will this come true? Lysinka’s thoughts asked.

The answer came, in Conan’s voice:

Do you want it handed to you on a platter? That’s not the Lysinka I know!

It seemed rather strange for the gods to speak with Conan’s voice, but hearing him one last time eased Lysinka back into a dreamless slumber.

Table of Contents

Prologue

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II

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IV

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