Conan the Savage (17 page)

Yet the king’s forces did not immediately march forth to battle out of the palace gardens, the noble tomb-yards, and the low-walled estates where they waited with grounded halberds. King Typhas stood in command from the loftiest tower of his palace, accompanied by a pair of signal officers with semaphore fans, which remained motionless. In his frugal way, Typhas hesitated to commit an army where a single man might do the job.

Instead, striding out onto one of the gilt-carpeted marble promontories that flanked the massive temple steps came white-bearded Epiminophas to confront the rioters. The High Priest had changed greatly in the few years since he first saw Tamsin; his square-trimmed beard had grown out hoar-white, his figure had slimmed, and his face was less sleek and pudgy, chiselled instead with priestly dignity. His bearing was altered from a complacent waddle to the light, direct step of purposefulness. In place of the rich, fur-trimmed gown of his former district priesthood, he now wore plain grey robes lacking ornament.

Epiminophas did not surrender himself to the mob but kept to the terrace above it, with a row of sword-belted acolytes taking its place behind. This, it seemed likely, would be adequate to protect his retreat if the mob should begin to swarm up the temple steps—which, to signify the greatness of Amalias and to humble the pilgrims, were hewn each half as tall as a man, and so had to be clambered up using arms and legs together. Epiminophas’s gold-fringed perch loomed as high as ten of these steps, standing forth sheerly above the broad plaza. Thus it was that the priest could survey the crowd, safe at least momentarily from its smouldering discontent.

To any who could gaze out over that square, the sight was an intimidating one: a bobbing sea of heads, a forest of waving fists with makeshift weapons and standards raised aloft at crazy angles. Moving toward the front of the mob were several long, painted banners, each one affixed to a series of poles held vertical by a score or more individuals. As these billowed and snaked nearer through the crowd, the temple’s defenders could see all too clearly what they portrayed. The long, colourful paintings depicted the destruction of Phalander-town by fire-belching volcanoes, famous massacres by Ninga’s holy zealots of priests faithful to Amalias, and other grim triumphs of the rebellion. Yet the paintings, though lurid, did not seem exotic against the backdrop of pillaged streets and flaming buildings that ringed the square under dark-clouded skies.

Far back in the crowd trundled the humble chariot carrying Tamsin and her god-puppet. Without waiting for the conveyance to halt or even to draw near the priest’s bastion, Epiminophas commenced.

“Children of Amalias.” His voice tolled forth over the angry roar of the crowd, echoing from the façades of distant buildings. “Errant sons and daughters, I welcome you to the home of your father and his servants.”

The crowd, surprised by the priest’s welcoming tone, diminished its chantings and mutterings to hear him; except for horse laughs and sceptical cries, and the scuff of still-moving feet, quiet reigned. Thus Epiminophas achieved his greatest victory, that of merely being heard.

“I know that some of you refute your Great Father’s holy power, as the child will mock and defy the parent. Some of you would even level this holy house of his to shards and dust if you could. Many more have allowed doubt and heresy into their hearts, in place of righteousness and pious teachings.” He paused with one arm extended and swept the crowd with a stately gesture, signifying that he addressed everyone. Ignoring the hoots and hisses, he continued, “That is why it is well that you come here.” “Ninga is the One God!” a zealot near the front screamed.

By not contesting the assertion, Epiminophas was able to defuse the crowd’s anger, and he went on, “I say your presence here is good, because Great Father Amalias means to heal all doubters and embrace all heretics. For troubled souls like yours, his temple is a haven of peace and healing. None knows that better than I... because, until recently, I was one of you! My sin, too, was heresy; my guilt was doubt.”

At this, even the hecklers and japers were silenced—for who in the hostile crowd would disagree with self-denunciation by the High Priest? He availed himself well of the silence.

“Know, fellow Brythunians, that far, far greater is my sin and guilt than yours—because even as I inwardly repudiated our Father Amalias, I stooped at his holy altars and donned the sacred robes as his servant. All the while,

I lacked faith—yet I made no open, honest show of my disbelief, but concealed it under priestly vestments and pious manners. In my hypocrisy, I mocked the High God’s commands and made my false obedience a reason for 1 amassing wealth, comforts, and tyrannous power.” “Scoundrel!” an onlooker exclaimed. “You still do it. Why bother to pretend otherwise?”

“The state priests all steal from the people,” another voice chimed in. “Every one of them shall be burned!” “My teachings were hollow,” Epiminophas cried. “My 1 aims were corrupt, I admit it!” His frenzy again headed off the mob’s turmoil. “My dishonesty may have helped to plant the seeds of heresy in all your breasts. For that, I am truly sorry!”

“Ninga is God,” a group of fanatics had begun chanting. Epiminophas was forced to resume his speech above their clamour.

“How have I changed? Hear me, please. On seeing the strength and belief of the Lord Amalias’s enemies, I had to question my own lack of faith, and to doubt the power of doubt itself! I asked myself then, Brythunians, and I ask you now: is this great temple, the grandest in any of the Hyborian kingdoms, built on hollow untruth?” His arm, in a theatric gesture, indicated the massy pile above him. “Have all the vast multitudes of our Great Lord’s faithful, who were, and are, and shall be yet again—have they all been deluded by guile and greed?”

Over cries of “Yes, yes!” he insisted: “No! And I shall furnish you proof! But first I ask you, are all the elaborations of our Amalian teachings—the Laws, the Prophecies, the Divine Revelations of our great race’s origin, and the names and histories of the lesser gods—are those things all foolish lies? Those great truths we teach our children from earliest speech?” Too wise to pause for an answer, the priest pressed on, “No, it cannot be! If there is any such thing as divinity in this world, why, it has not spumed and made a mock of our great empire! Nay, if gods exist at all, then Lord Amalias exists, and is the greatest of them!” Waving both arms, by sheer force of emphasis, he held the watchers’ attention.

“Brythunians, I have ventured down into the forbidden catacombs! I have read the ancient petroglyphs and pored through parchments so old they crumbled with the weight of my gaze! I have delved at the very roots of our ancient faith, and I am here to tell you, and to show you, that Amalias lives!”

“All lies, all nonsense!” the zealots jeered. “Enough of this priestly prattle!”

“It was our Ninga who restored your faith, Epiminophas,” another accused, “not your old dead god!”

“In truth,” Epiminophas said, answering his tormentors directly for the first time, “I owe a debt to the witch Tamsin and her sorcerous doll, who have reaffirmed to me the power of magic. We all owe them thanks for awakening us—” “Mark him well, O faithful!” a listener cried. “This is the priest who first gave Ninga her name in the sacred scrolls at the Abbas Dolmium. Mark him for a coward!” Above a scattering of laughter, Epiminophas continued, “Aye, mark me! For I now understand that all this strife, all this turmoil—” he gestured out over the crowd “—that all this is part of our Great Lord’s plan to renew and purify our devotion to him, once he demonstrates his true, awesome power. Then Ninga, then all other gods, will shrink and quail before his strength. Know you, citizens, that you are not meant to abandon Lord Amalias and follow this new pretender—” his finger pointed at Tamsin’s chariot, which was finally drawing up opposite his perch “—for I ask you, is a great god but a dust-broom, to be used only so long, then cast into the fire and replaced with a new one? Nay, Brythunians, give sombre thought to what glory.. you would be losing, and to what foul burden you might be taking on, by toiling under this grubby, gourd-headed witch-doll that has sprung up from the most backward and ignorant comer of our empire, like some vile, spotted toadstool from a rural dung heap!”

At this remark, the mob’s outrage and frenzy burst forth instantaneously. Objects were hurled, most of them falling short of the speaker’s lofty perch; chants were set up, to swell like waves through the human sea; spasmodically the whole mass surged forward, trampling and crushing some of its comrades while hurling others up like wavelets onto the high temple steps—where they scurried immediately forward and mounted higher toward the row of sword-hearing guards.

“He profanes the goddess!” the fanatics near Tamsin’s chariot cried. “Slay the blasphemer!”

Epiminophas, however, paid scant attention; already he had fallen to his grey-robed knees. Alternately bowing low and supplicating above his head with both arms, he began his prayers and expostulations to Great Amalias.

“O Lord of all gods! O terrible Ancient One,” he called out to the storm clouds overhead. “Thy humble servant Epiminophas invokes thee! If thou hearest, Great Lord of the Rivers, pray grant thy patient worshippers some sign.” “Kill him! Silence the devil!” The cry passed from tongue to tongue. “He prays to a dead, corrupt god whose name is infamy!”

At that moment, however, as if in direct answer to the priest’s sonorous prayers, thunder murmured faintly overhead. The sound rumbled vague and distant, like a door grating open somewhere in the heavens. Moments later, tentative, scattered raindrops began to fall.

The large, warm spatters drove deep into the dust of roofs and alleyways, giving rise to the charged, musty smell that heralds a thunderstorm. It mingled with the ripe, sweaty stench rising off the angry mob, thereby creating an air of dread anticipation.

“Priestly fool,” the zealots cried, “your prayers accomplish nothing! Ninga brings this rain! She mocks you and your old, weak god!”

“Huzzah, give thanks!” Epiminophas nevertheless exulted. “A thousand humble obeisances, Great Lord, for your all-knowing attention! We have called upon Amalias Pluvias, our High God in his role as rain-bringer,” the priest declared to the crowd, “and he answers us! Heaven praise this glorious day! I now beseech Amalias Feroher, Master of Thunders... Terrible One, your faithful servants invoke thee! Pray, bring forth the lightnings!”

“This rain comes late for last year’s drought in the south,” a sceptic was proclaiming, but his words were drowned out by new tollings of thunder, heavier and more distinct. As the crowd looked around, lightning strokes etched themselves above the horizon, and the raindrops fell thicker and faster.

“Aiaa,” Epiminophas screamed unto heaven, “Lord-Amalias, I pray you, persuade the doubters—and smite down the blasphemers!”

The mob was hardly slowed by the display. If anything, their righteous frenzy increased. The insurgents on the temple steps came up against the swords of the acolytes, and the coppery stench and spatter of blood was added to that of the rain.

“Fraud, hypocrite!” the fanatics cried. “Why does yo feeble god Amalias trouble to scratch the sky with lightnings, when Ninga swallows whole cities in flame?”

The rebels took further heart as the broad parade banners, now nearing the front of the crowd, were suddenly lowered and furled. Their function became clear, as behind them were revealed neat ranks of armoured horse-soldiers, carefully drilled cavalry, Nemedian-trained and equipped, the sort proven so grimly effective in the northern province rebellions. A new standard was raised above them, drooping from a steel-pointed lance: the emblem of Isembard, the rebellious Baron of Urbander.

“Huzzah the cavalry!” the mob cried. “For Ninga, unto death!”

“Ho-ho, the dying god sends rain to rust the armour of our Nemedian allies!”—though even as the cry went up, the rain stopped.

“Great Amalias, now is the moment—ugh-uhrk!”

From among the horsemen grouped near Isembard, an ugly, blunt-nosed crossbow was raised. Its twanging snap sent an arrow shaft whirring over the heads of the crowd-straight into the heart of Epiminophas. The priest, with his next prayer transfixed in his chest, toppled and died.

“Rejoice, the false prophet is dead!”

“Ninga is triumphant!” As if in confirmation, the sullen rumblings of thunder had ceased.

Sharp-eyed observers stood with King Typhas atop his lofty tower. When they reported the death of the High Priest, the storming of the temple, and the uncloaking of the rebel cavalry, an order was conveyed by swiftly flashing semaphore fans. Moments later, Imperial household troops and mounted guards moved forth through broad gateways and over low walls to confront the armoured vanguard of the mob.

Who might prevail in such a battle? The outcome was difficult to judge. The Imperials, well-fed, well-mounted, splendidly trained and armoured as they were, with crack morale and ample experience at the ruthless craft of city fighting—even these elite warriors, facing off against hard-eyed northern campaigners in equally tight and heavy armour, with the many-handed, fanatical mob pressing at their back to pull down and tear apart whatever enemy the horsemen had bowled over—even these staunch defenders could promise no easy victory.

It would be a vicious fight, spilling over into the gardens and stable-yards of aristocratic dwellings, the courts and porticoes of temples, and the villas of the empire’s richest merchants. It would have brought greater devastation to Sargossa—if King Typhas had not called a truce

Yet he did so, sending his First Steward Basifer hurrying down from the castle to strike a conditional peace with Tamsin and Isembard. Thus it was that the young witch’s chariot, and by her side the baron astride his battle-charger set out for the castle. With Tamsin on the chariot’s platform stood stepbrother and fellow-priest Ari. Flanked by three other high-born, clanking equestrians, they followed a phalanx of Imperial knights.

The crowd left behind in the temple plaza roared in mingled triumph, disappointment, suspicion, and apprehension. The summer rainstorm conjured by slain Epiminophas— or merely taken advantage of, some few guessed, by shrewd timing on his part—had all but dissipated. Only occasional distant lightnings etched the southern horizon and a few volleys of rain spattered the crowd. Most of the: teeming rioters were secretly grateful that Ninga had relied on a crossbow rather than her dreaded magic, and that the apocalyptic battle foreseen between the old god and the new had not come to pass. Yet other, more rabid believers felt vaguely dissatisfied, cheated of the supernatural spectacle and the fierce, bloody strife that had seemed imminent.