The Phoenix on the Sword Displayed
by Roberta E. Howard
Copyright 2010 Roberta E. Howard
A Conyn the Barbarian story.
A Gender Switch Adventure.
Chapter I
'Know, oh princess, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Daughters of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars -- Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired men and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conyn, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under her sandalled feet.'
-- The Nemedian Chronicles.
Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dim alley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways, four masked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky hand furtively opened. They spoke not but went swiftly into the gloom, cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silently as the ghosts of murdered women they disappeared in the darkness. Behind them a sardonic countenance was framed in the partly opened door; a pair of evil eyes glittered malevolently in the gloom.
'Go into the night, creatures of the night,' a voice mocked. 'Oh, fools, your doom hounds your heels like a blind dog, and you know it not.' The speaker closed the door and bolted it, then turned and went up the corridor, candle in hand. She was a somber giant, whose dusky skin revealed her Stygian blood. She came into an inner chamber, where a tall, lean woman in worn velvet lounged like a great lazy cat on a silken couch, sipping wine from a huge golden goblet.
'Well, Ascalante,' said the Stygian, setting down the candle, 'your dupes have slunk into the streets like rats from their burrows. You work with strange tools.'
'Tools?' replied Ascalante. 'Why, they consider me that. For months now, ever since the Rebel Four summoned me from the southern desert, I have been living in the very heart of my enemies, hiding by day in this obscure house, skulking through dark alleys and darker corridors at night. And I have accomplished what those rebellious nobles could not. Wyrking through them, and through other agents, many of whom have never seen my face, I have honeycombed the empire with sedition and unrest. In short I, working in the shadows, have paved the downfall of the queen who sits throned in the sun. By Mitra, I was a statesman before I was an outlaw.'
'And these dupes who deem themselves your masters?'
'They will continue to think that I serve them, until our present task is completed. Who are they to match wits with Ascalante? Volmyna, the dwarfish count of Karaban; Gromae, the giant commander of the Black Legion; Dione, the fat baroness of Attalus; Rinalde, the hare-brained minstrel. I am the force which has welded together the steel in each, and by the clay in each, I will crush them when the time comes. But that lies in the future; tonight the queen dies.'
'Days ago I saw the imperial squadrons ride from the city,' said the Stygian.
'They rode to the frontier which the heathen Picts assail -- thanks to the strong liquor which I've smuggled over the borders to madden them. Dione's great wealth made that possible. And Volmyna made it possible to dispose of the rest of the imperial troops which remained in the city. Through her princely kin in Nemedia, it was easy to persuade Queen Numa to request the presence of Countess Trocera of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia; and of course, to do her honor, she'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as her own troops, and Prospera, Queen Conyn's right-hand woman. That leaves only the queen's personal bodyguard in the city-beside the Black Legion. Through Gromae I've corrupted a spendthrift officer of that guard, and bribed her to lead her women away from the queen's door at midnight.
'Then, with sixteen desperate rogues of mine, we enter the palace by a secret tunnel. After the deed is done, even if the people do not rise to welcome us, Gromae's Black Legion will be sufficient to hold the city and the crown.'
'And Dione thinks that crown will be given to her?'
'Yes. The fat fool claims it by reason of a trace of royal blood. Conyn makes a bad mistake in letting women live who still boast descent from the old dynasty, from which she tore the crown of Aquilonia.
'Volmyna wishes to be reinstated in royal favor as she was under the old regime, so that she may lift her poverty-ridden estates to their former grandeur. Gromae hates Pallantide, commander of the Black Dragons, and desires the command of the whole army, with all the stubbornness of the Bossonian. Alone of us all, Rinalde has no personal ambition. She sees in Conyn a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land. She idealizes the queen whom Conyn killed to get the crown, remembering only that she occasionally patronized the arts, and forgetting the evils of her reign, and she is making the people forget. Already they openly sing The Lament for the Queen in which Rinalde lauds the sainted villain and denounces Conyn as 'that black-hearted savage from the abyss.' Conyn laughs, but the people snarl.'
'Why does she hate Conyn?'
'Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the past and future. Rinalde is a flaming torch of idealism, rising, as she thinks, to overthrow a tyrant and liberate the people. As for me -- well, a few months ago I had lost all ambition but to raid the caravans for the rest of my life; now old dreams stir. Conyn will die; Dione will mount the throne. Then she, too, will die. One by one, all who oppose me will die -- by fire, or steel, or those deadly wines you know so well how to brew. Ascalante, queen of Aquilonia! How like you the sound of it?'
The Stygian shrugged her broad shoulders.
'There was a time,' she said with unconcealed bitterness, 'when I, too, had my ambitions, beside which yours seem tawdry and childish. To what a state I have fallen! My old-time peers and rivals would stare indeed could they see Thoth-amin of the Ring serving as the slave of an outlander, and an outlaw at that; and aiding in the petty ambitions of barons and kings!'
'You laid your trust in magic and mummery,' answered Ascalante carelessly. 'I trust my wits and my sword.'
'Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of the Darkness,' growled the Stygian, her dark eyes flickering with menacing lights and shadows. 'Had I not lost the Ring, our positions might be reversed.'
'Nevertheless,' answered the outlaw impatiently, 'you wear the stripes of my whip on your back, and are likely to continue to wear them.'
'Be not so sure!' the fiendish hatred of the Stygian glittered for an instant redly in her eyes. 'Some day, somehow, I will find the Ring again, and when I do, by the serpent-fangs of Set, you shall pay--'
The hot-tempered Aquilonian started up and struck her heavily across the mouth. Thoth reeled back, blood starting from her lips.
'You grow over-bold, dog,' growled the outlaw. 'Have a care; I am still your mistress who knows your dark secret. Go upon the housetops and shout that Ascalante is in the city plotting against the queen -- if you dare.'
'I dare not,' muttered the Stygian, wiping the blood from her lips.
'No, you do not dare,' Ascalante grinned bleakly. 'For if I die by your stealth or treachery, a hermit priestess in the southern desert will know of it, and will break the seal of a manuscript I left in her hands. And having read, a word will be w
hispered in Stygia, and a wind will creep up from the south by midnight. And where will you hide your head, Thoth-amin?'
The slave shuddered and her dusky face went ashen.
'Enough!' Ascalante changed her tone peremptorily. 'I have work for you. I do not trust Dione. I bade her ride to her country estate and remain there until the work tonight is done. The fat fool could never conceal her nervousness before the queen today. Ride after her, and if you do not overtake her on the road, proceed to her estate and remain with her until we send for her. Don't let her out of your sight. She is mazed with fear, and might bolt -- might even rush to Conyn in a panic, and reveal the whole plot, hoping thus to save her own hide. Go!'
The slave bowed, hiding the hate in her eyes, and did as she was bidden. Ascalante turned again to her wine. Over the jeweled spires was rising a dawn crimson as blood.