Conan Fanfic - The Tomb of the Ykarhu
Sept 22, 2020 21:40:36 GMT -5
Post by Von K on Sept 22, 2020 21:40:36 GMT -5
I’ve had a few requests over the years to re-post some of my old fanfics, so I guess it wouldn’t hurt to put at least one of them up on the forum here. This tale was originally written at the request of Fernando on the old CPI forum back in 2014. It’s a short yarn, close to the length of The Frost Giant’s Daughter and set soon after Conan and Belit meet.
Bear in mind there’s no way that I can match the passion, intensity, atmosphere and lyrical diction with which REH narrates the original Queen of the Black Coast. My attempt at a Conan and Belit tale can only be relatively mild by comparison. Seems almost naive now in retrospect.
Thanks to CPI for letting us post fanfics on the old forum and thanks to Crom (Bruce), Bux, Mikey C and all those who asked for permission for fanfics to be posted there. Thanks also to all the forumers who replied with encouragement and feedback all the way back when.
Illustrations are by the extremely talented fan artist doctorvince who's art thread is here: swordsofreh.proboards.com/thread/1318/gallery-undreamed-fan-art-doctorvince
Update - 06/08/21 - this yarn is now available in illustrated electronic format where it can be read online or downloaded to be read at your leisure:
www.dropbox.com/s/8aeh2jzsx8ti8ee/The%20Tomb%20of%20the%20Ykarhu-20210719.pdf?dl=0
The Tomb of the Ykarhu
(2014 - 4800 Words - 3 Chapters)
A ramshackle attempt at writing a Conan and Belit tale.
By Von K
#
Forever in the shattered crypts of eld,
Where night born horrors creep among the bones,
Fiends whisper secrets long in darkness held,
And dead kings dream upon their crumbled thrones.
Old Verse
Chapter One - The Isle of the Dead
THE SUN SANK in the west, firing the evening clouds with a crimson blaze. By the shore of a remote island, one of an uncountable number which lay off the flanks of the mainland long leagues south of Abombi, a great dark warship lay at anchor, her crimson pennon furled about her mast. This was the Tigress, vessel of the pirate queen Belit, the mere rumor of which struck fear into the hearts of all sailors that plied the coastal sea lanes from here to Messantia. And her tall plumed corsairs, who’s leaping forms had oft been the last sight of many a hapless crew, now caroused together in their camp upon the beach, by the light of a massive bonfire.
A lone figure stood upon a promontory gazing out to sea. But of Belit herself, or of Conan, the savage black-haired captain who led her corsairs, there was no sign.
#
In the gathering dusk, far away from that sheltered beach, two figures stepped from the riot of undergrowth surrounding a jungle glade. They made a picturesque couple as they advanced across the sward towards the vine-choked ruin at its center.
The first was a woman of striking aspect, a proud pale beauty formed like a goddess, who strode with the supple grace of a she panther. Gold rings and bracelets adorned her hands and arms, gemstones glittered among the raven tresses that tumbled to her shoulders, from which cascaded an opulent red cloak. A broad silken girdle girt her narrow waist and broad hips, whereon a jeweled dagger glinted.
Her companion was a northerner, a Cimmerian with a mane of black hair and wild blue eyes. Broad shouldered and heavy limbed, the sun bronzed darkness of his skin could not hide the countless scars that crossed his massive frame. His plumed and feathered headress proclaimed him as a war chief of the southern isles. But the long broadsword in the worn leather scabbard which hung from his hip had never before been borne by any tribal chieftain. He glanced about ill-favouredly, until the woman turned, resting a slim white hand upon his arm.
‘My corsairs call this the Isle of the Dead,’ said the woman. ‘They say that here the dead walk, and spirits haunt the wind. But Conan, we fear nothing. Let N’Yaga spout what superstitions he will. Belit and her mate tread where they please.’
The Cimmerian remained silent, but suspicion showed in his eyes. His gaze roved over the silent ruin and the restless wall of leaves that surrounded the glade. Like the corsairs, he was a barbarian, and was wont to share their instincts and superstitions regarding such things. To him, N’Yaga spoke wisdom, whereas Belit, for all her wild sea rovings, was nevertheless still a daughter of civilization.
‘Not only for trystery have I brought us so far inland,' said Belit. ‘According to N’Yaga, this isle was once the burial place of an ancient race. The scrolls of Askalon make no mention of them. I believe they remain unknown even to the great scholars of Nemedia and Stygia. Such riches as are oft interred with the highborn dead must lie here for the taking. Conan, we shall make that wealth our own, for the dead have no need of it.’
Twilight turned to night, and the pale moon rose. Stars glimmered in the sky. Belit cast off her cloak and padded across the sward to where a fallen tree had made a gap in the undergrowth about the glade. She stepped onto its base and picked her way with feline grace along the twisting length of its moss clad trunk. The moonlight limned her sinuous form and glittered from her jewellery. She stood framed against the stars like shadowed wonder etched with silver.
Belit turned and reached out a beconing arm to Conan, and he joined her. They gazed down upon the great vale that lay beyond, where rank upon rank of crystal windowed domes showed beyond the nodding fronds of the jungle.
‘I have stood here once before,’ said Belit. 'A year ago I came here, but there was no time then to follow up on my discovery. Tomorrow we shall walk among those domes, and see what riches we may find.’
They wandered back to the glade and gathered some of the fruits and berries that hereabout grew freely. Belit spread her cloak and they lay down together, facing one another as they feasted.
‘I have never held affection for any soft born city prince in perfumed gilded silks with scented hair. Conan, already you are legend among my adopted people. Oh lion of the north, this much I know, no other man shall have the love of Belit.’ She bit upon a fruit, and her eyes shone as she regarded Conan.
Soon Belit rose and unwound the silken girdle from about her waist and hips. One by one she let slip her golden bands and ornaments. Then she who had once danced for kings and princes in the courts of Askalon, now danced with wild abandon before a red-handed reaver, on a far-flung isle at the edge of the world. Moonlight glimmered on her ivory limbs and breasts as she spun beneath the stars, struck glints of icy fire from the jewels in her hair. Conan’s breath caught in his throat. In all his wild wanderings he had never met her equal.
Belit sped to Conan’s side. She laid her glistening arms about his neck, and her breath was hot against his cheek as she whispered. ‘Love me.’
Conan fiercely returned her embrace.
#
THE MOON HAD drifted half way across the sky when Belit lifted her head and slipped out from under Conan’s arm. The Cimmerian awoke. He lay back, watching her as she gathered up and donned her ornaments and silken girdle. She once more returned to the spot where they had gazed upon the vale. She called out and the Cimmerian arose, gathering up his sword and war knife.
Looking down through the shadowy moonlit fronds, Conan saw a soft ruby glow, which came from the tops of the domes. An eerie chill ran through him, yet also a fascination. The hint of soft effulgence he had seen in the sky as he lay next to Belit had not been imagined.
Belit spoke softly in the darkness. ‘Conan, what do you make of it? Perhaps this island is not deserted. Someone has made their home here.’ Conan sensed Belit’s anger. If the isle was occupied then any treasure had likely already been looted. Yet nevertheless she seemed unconvinced by her own explanation.
‘If so, I have seen no spoor,’ Conan said. ‘And if those lights are fires lit from within--’
Belit slipped past Conan, eyes aflame with the simmering rage that often came upon her when baulked of her prize. He laid a hand upon her shoulder and she turned. Conan unbuckled the belt of his tribal war knife and offered it to her. It was a long bone-handled weapon in a leather-bound wooden scabbard, and almost as long as a short sword. Belit normally disdained to use weaponry, but she accepted Conan’s gift, girding it about her hips with a confidence born of skill.
Conan and Belit made their way down into the vale, gliding like panthers through the darkness. The underbrush was dense and festooned with creepers. Presently they came upon the flanks of a high stone wall studded with quartz and cyenite. Though the jungle grew right up to its base, the underbrush was thinner here, and they skirted it’s length for a while, finding no windows nor means of ingress. Belit turned to speak to Conan, but he was gone.
For one mystified moment Belit stood there, glancing about for some sign of him. Then she looked up to see a familiar silhouette against the star lit sky. The Cimmerian now stood above her on the parapet of the wall. He bellied down and extended a hand, which Belit took up with both her own. In one smooth motion Conan drew her up beside him.
The wall they now stood upon was a foot broad with a gently curving coping. It ran between two of the peripheral domes, beside a wide court choked with trees. Conan and Belit hasted along it with catlike poise. They crested the first dome and looked down through its crystal window, seamlessly set into the stone by some forgotten art. All was dark within.
Now they skirted the dome and dropped down upon the roof of one of the covered walkways which linked the domes. They traversed its length, moving inward, coming to another of the domes, from the crown of which a soft ruby light pulsed and waxed and waned. This Conan and Belit ascended, their features weirdly lit. They peered down through this window also, but it was too opaque to discern details.
Conan and Belit fleeted on like shadows, gazing down into one after another of the undergrowth choked courts, but finding no doors nor windows. The whole place seemed completely sealed.
They came to the central dome, climbed to its rim and crested its apex. From this, the highest point, they looked out upon a vast web of domes linked by walkways and interspersed with wide courts choked with undergrowth. All was laid out to the pattern of some alien geometry. Some of the domes appeared lit by ruby fire from within but most remained in darkness. Far away down the valley a river glinted silverly through the jungle, and still further beyond, the great sullen expanse of the ocean shimmered in the moonlight. Above all brooded an otherworldly sense of alien antiquity.
Conan and Belit descended once more and made their way to the other side of the vast mausoleum, where they dropped back down to the level of the jungle. A broad broken pave of sunken flagstones meandered from the trees.
Conan scouted the area. ‘I’ll swear, no one has set foot here before us.’
They followed the pave to a set of dark doors which sealed the entrance, intricately wrought of some alien metal, untouched by the ravages of time. Conan strove to open them, the muscles standing out in ridges on his arms and his broad back, but they refused to yield to his efforts. They ran their hands carefully over the ornate surface. Belit frowned, then her eyes flashed with triumph as she slid back a hidden catch and twisted the star at the center of the two great doors.
Once again the Cimmerian assayed entry, and this time the doors gave inward at the touch of his reaching hand.
Chapter Two - The Tomb of the Ykarhu
A SEPULCHRAL SIGH rushed past, mingling with the sultry breeze. The blackness within was almost impenetrable, save far ahead a faint effulgence glowed where the light of the moon shone through one of the crystal windows. The dust of ages lay upon the threshold.
Conan went about and gathered branches, dried lianas and cut long pliant strips of bark. With these he made four torches. He shredded some kindling and made a small flame from which he lit two of the brands, handing one to Belit. Thus equipped, Conan and Belit stepped into the darkness.
The smoke from their brands aspired to the vaulted roof as they moved inward, the flickering light almost swallowed by the funereal gloom. Belit’s eyes glittered as her gaze swept over the inset carvings that adorned the walls. Conan seemed pensive as he regarded the graven images of death and interment which marched before him like sombre phantoms.
They moved on deeper into the mausoleum, along a long broad passage, one of the walkways they had traversed in their journey across the roof. Only now they were on the inside, two torchlit specters weaving into hell.
Upon the walls here were more of the elaborate carvings, bas reliefs of the deeds of ancient kings set in stone, all crowned by the symbol of a waxing star, chief luminary of an unfamiliar constellation. There were words inscribed here too, but in a language unknown to Conan or Belit.
And so they came to the first of the domed and crystal windowed crypts. The light of their torches merged with the soft effulgence of the moonlight as it filtered through from above. Ringing the chamber, ranged against the walls, were set six marble thrones.
Upon each throne a pale cadaver sat, its garments now mere wisps of tattered rags, the flesh of the wearer strangely undecayed considering the millennia which must have passed since their interment. Some hint of personality was preserved in the gaunt grey features. Upon each brow a simple circlet rested. And about each neck an amulet hung, with a single gem like a teardrop ruby set upon a white gold chain.
In the center of the chamber lay an over turned bracket forged from the same strange metal as the doors. An icy chill prickled Conan’s scalp as he saw the dust had been disturbed, though there was no way to determine what had done so. He followed the trail in the dust for a short way along one of the corridors. It continued on far into the darkness and Conan returned to Belit.
Belit stood at the center of the chamber with a smile upon her lips as she examined the ruby amulet which she now wore about her neck. She looked up, her dark eyes beaming. She let fall the gem and it hung between her naked breasts, gleaming like a clot of blood upon its golden chain. Belit snatched up Conan’s hand and led him onward, into the darkness of another corridor. Conan halted, gripping her hand, and drawing her to him.
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘there’s something here. In the dust I saw--’
Belit laughed. ‘Did you not say no one had set foot here before us? Oh Conan, these are but some of the treasures we shall find.’
Then Belit pulled her hand from Conan’s grasp and sped onward.
Conan cursed fervently, and followed her into the gloom.
#
THROUGH NIGHTED PASSAGES Belit led Conan, through one domed crypt after another. In each a somber circle of cadavers sat, with amulets identical to the one which Belit wore. In each lay an overturned bracket, some twisted as if by the pressure of great weight. And in each Conan saw the dust had been disturbed far beyond the signs of Belit’s passing. Then ahead he saw Belit’s form silhouetted against a ruby glow.
Conan entered this new chamber. Belit stooped over a great crystal at its centre, a crystal the size of a pomegranate which pulsed and throbbed in its bracket with ruby fire, as if a great flame burned at its heart. It stained the entire chamber with its radiance, dancing on their features and the forms of the somber cadavers with its spectral light. Conan felt a presence pressing in against his mind, heard a susurration like the sound of a thousand whispers, but he shook off the sensation with a muttered imprecation.
Belit stood gazing into the crystal depths, her dark eyes gleaming with a strange fascination. The gem between her breasts now glowed, reciprocating the light of the larger gem. Belit swayed and her eyes rolled upward, then she fell to the ground in a swoon.
Conan rushed forward and took her in his arms. Her head lolled. She muttered incoherently and began to rise. With Conan’s aid Belit stood unsteadily and gazed about the chamber. She ran her hands over her body, as if exploring it for the first time, and she looked upon Conan as if he were unknown to her.
A chill ran through the Cimmerian. Belit’s movements were oddly unfamiliar. And he knew that whoever stood before him now, it was not Belit.
She began to speak. At first her words faltered, and Conan could make no sense of them or the language in which they were spoken. Then she began to annunciate in broken Shemitish.
‘Wanderer. I am Xeyr. Your woman wears my soul gem, and I now wear her body.’
Conan growled and ripped his sword from its sheath. Lifting it high he turned toward the great crystal in its bracket at the center of the crypt.
‘Reverse your sorcery,’ he demanded, ‘or by Crom I’ll smash this trinket into a thousand shards!’
Belit’s eyes flashed with sudden fear, and she threw herself between Conan and the great crystal. Conan brushed her aside and resumed his threatening stance.
‘No!’ cried Xeyr with Belit’s voice. ‘If you do that, you will never know her again. Unless you hear me out, I will keep this body and the one you knew will remain forever trapped,’ she touched the ruby between her breasts, ‘here--.’
Conan knew little of sorcery and had no way of knowing if Xeyr spoke truth or not. In his travels he had heard tales of sorcerers in far Khitai and the Himelian Mountains who practice certain rituals of soul transference. Smashing the crystal could free Belit. And then again--.?
Conan faltered. Grudgingly, he sheathed his sword. ‘Speak, and be done with,’ he grated.
‘You stand within the Tombs of the Ykarhu. Here lie the bodies of the people of Ykar, and here too lie their souls. We have slept for thousands of years, keeping our selves from passing through the gates of death by means of our eldritch knowledge.
‘As spirits we came here, from across the dreaming vastness of unimaginable cosmic spans, from distant Ykar in the constellation Aru. Seeing the rich proud nations of this verdant world laid out before us - Valusia, Commoria, Grondar, Kamelia, Thule, Verulia, Atlantis - we became enamored of this place and desired to live here.
‘So thus our spirits flew to the southern isles, to the island kingdom of Ingara, the smallest among the nations of that age. And there we performed our one great crime, the guilt of which has lain heavy on us. We used our arts to steal the bodies of the ruling class, setting their souls adrift, and there we held sway over their people, whom we made our own. There we ruled, and our lives were long as the lives of men were reckoned. But our longevity was nothing, set against the great cataclysm which shook the world, which threw most of the great races back into the pits of savagery from which they had crawled so long ago.
‘Most of Ingara sank beneath the sea. In the wake of that cataclysm we no longer desired to dwell upon this fractured world, and looked once more to return across the starry vaults to our distant home. But our arts had dwindled and been drained through the millennia we had dwelt in mortal bodies, and we no longer possessed the power to return.
‘With the last of our people we built this tomb in the shape of a great Ykarhian symbol. Any who still traveled here from distant Ykar would know us by this sign, and come here to lead us home. We created the crystals to enhance our faded arts, and used their power to project our own consciousness back across the interstices of space, searching for the cosmic throughways by which we might return.
‘So thus we dreamed, and thus our spirits quested. But recently that dreaming was disturbed. A great earthquake shook this isle, and a rent was torn in the ground within our tombs, which opened into vast unlighted caverns beneath the earth. From those deeps a creature rose and night by night it issues forth from below to stalk among our crypts. It steals our crystals, slowly consigning us to a nightmare eternity of trapped waiting.
‘Oh wanderer, kill this creature for us and I will restore your woman’s spirit to her body.’
Conan drew an arm across dry lips. Once more the wild urge rose to smash the crystal in a rash attempt to break Xeyr’s sorcery. His scarred hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.
‘Tell me where it is,’ he muttered gravely.
Chapter Three - The Dweller from the Depths
Conan came to a great gash in the floor of the sprawling mausoleum. The walls had split around it, and about the edges the paves had also cracked and crumbled into the depths, along with part of the vaulted roof, leaving, above, a narrow rent through which the stars glittered.
Conan peered over the edge. His torchlight flickered upon the broken masonry of the Ykarhu, then vanished into darkness. A strange odor hung in the air, and hereabout Conan saw again where the dust had been disturbed by the passage of some huge creature.
With no rope, and the edges being too unstable for a descent, Conan decided to await the creature’s return. He fell back to the nearest crypt, extinguished his torch, and allowed his eyes to adjust to the moonlit gloom.
The shadows had moved an inch across the wall when an eerie illumination blossomed from the pit together with the sound of some great bulk advancing from below. Conan crouched back between two thrones, his eyes glittering in the darkness.
A monstrous shape emerged, humanoid in form yet moving as no human ever moved. It reared gigantically up and out of the pit, swaying strangely as it came forth. Light like a corpse candle emanated from an object held in the creature’s left hand, which limned both the interior of the tomb and the creature itself, which Conan could now see, had the upper body of a man set upon the lower body of a great serpent. The creature swayed and slithered along the corridor, the light in its hand limning the walls of the passage as it advanced, sending its shadow leaping.
A primordial chill ran through Conan. He glanced about like a trapped beast. The walls of the crypt were covered with bas reliefs, and the Cimmerian turned and climbed them with the ease of a hardy cragsman. He scrambled up and around the crypt until he hung above the entryway just as the creature issued into the chamber.
It passed beneath him, its skin pallid and scalene, the head humanoid with large eyes that glinted red, and its snout was distended like that of a snake. Long white hair braided with leathern strips and festooned with bones grew from its head and hung down its back. In its left hand it held a rock, encrusted with luminescent fungi, and in its right a long spear with an onyx head.
The creature moved on into the crypt and down another passage, oblivious to the man who clung above. A few moments later, Conan dropped down without a sound and trailed the creature like a phantom, following its eerie illumination through the silent catacombs, until it came to a crypt at the center of which one of the Ykarhu crystals still pulsed and throbbed. Here the creature paused. By the light of the ruby glow, it raised its spear and began to sway before the crystal.
Conan’s skin crawled as he hung back in the darkness. He watched the dweller from the deeps cavort before the crystal, dancing as it must have danced so many nights before. What ancient ritual or instinct was being here enacted he did not know. But the Cimmerian did not wait for the scene to unfold, not while Belit’s spirit lay trapped in Xeyr’s soul gem. He eased his sword from its scabbard and crept towards the chamber.
Something warned the serpentman, for suddenly it twisted. Conan bounded forward and leaped, his sword raised for a massive swing which would have ended the fight had it landed, but the serpentman’s tail whipped around and struck him in mid-air. Conan’s sword stroke went wide, opening up a shallow wound in the creature’s chest, whilst the great buffet from its tail sent him crashing into one of the marble thrones and the seated corpse pitched forward onto him.
Conan thrust aside the cadaver and rose. The onyx spear head glittered above, and he darted aside as it flashed down, grazing him as it passed. Conan instantly grasped the spear shaft, meaning to wrench it from the creature’s grip, but another buffet from the massive tail sent him sprawling.
The spear licked down again and Conan rolled aside, thence to his feet. The serpentman struck with uncanny speed for a creature of its size, yet for all its celerity, the blood mad Cimmerian was faster. He rapidly adapted to the strange fighting style of his opponent. The creature had the advantage of size and reach and the use of both tail and spear, but Conan was more agile, avoiding his opponent’s blows whilst constantly maneuvering to get inside its guard for a killing blow.
As they scuffled the bracket holding the Ykaru crystal was overturned by the coils of the serpentman. The crystal rolled against the wall, it’s gory radiance lighting the scene with a hellish underglow.
The onyx spear came flashing in again and once more Conan caught it, but this time he leapt forward and upward, over the whipping tail, and brought his sword down upon the serpentman’s crown with all the force of his powerful arm and shoulder. The ophidian skull split open to the chin. Conan leaped back and waited as for a few frenzied moments the chamber was filled with the threshing coils of the dying beast. No trained fighter could have struck that blow, a blow which combined the instinct of the natural fighting man with the raw athleticism of the wild.
Conan reset the bracket at the center of the chamber and grasped the crystal. As his fingers touched its surface, he heard again the susurration of voices whispering in his mind, their words just beyond the range of his perception. Conan dropped the crystal into its bracket and snatched back his hand with a curse.
He took up the spear and luminous rock and returned through the catacombs to the pit. Conan levered up great slabs and cast them into the opening. As he worked a low rumble shook the ground and he sprang back as the edge collapsed, sealing off the entrance to the reeking underworld.
#
Conan returned to the chamber where Xeyr and Belit waited. She stood with vacant gaze as Conan entered, then turned to regard him.
‘I thank you wanderer.’ Xeyr, in Belit’s body, reached up and removed the amulet from around her neck, placing it on the crystal.
'Do not return to this Isle. There are those among the Ykarhu who would take up mortal bodies once again rather than endure the long waiting. When I return to my soul gem, your companion will remain asleep for a while, and then awaken. Farewell.’
Then Belit lay upon the ground and seemed to slumber. Conan vainly tried to rouse her, then lifted her gently in his arms and carried her through the silent gloomy passages, towards the entrance. On a whim he turned aside, seeking out the central chamber. This he found, and stood transfixed as he gazed upon the wealth of the Ykarhu piled in great heaps beneath the central dome. Moonlight, angling in through crystal windows on the wealth of an epoch, struck all into a glittering phantasmagoria.
At the center of this chamber was a great marble dais heaped with triangular golden coins. Conan smoothed them out for Belit and lay her down upon a bed of glimmering gold.
After a while Belit stirred and woke. She smiled when she saw Conan standing beside her and yawned, stretching languorously.
‘Conan,’ she murmured sleepily, ‘I dreamed we sailed the Tigress beyond the world’s edge and out among the stars. I reached up and gathered them like jewels--’
Conan grinned and showered her with great handfuls of golden coins which quivered on her ivory bosom. Belit’s beautiful dark eyes widened as she regarded the wealth laid out around her, then she luxuriated in her bed of gold.
Conan joined her. And there, upon the wealth of the bygone nation of Ingara, they coupled in the grip of untamed passion.
The End
Conan the Barbarian, Cimmerian, Fanfic, Fanfiction, Belit, Queen of the Black Coast.