Jhandar turned to run, but as he ran the fringes of that flowing thing touched him. Only the fringes, the outer mists, yet full-throated he screamed, like a woman put to torture or a soul damned. Saffron robes melted like dew, and on his legs flesh disappeared at every touch of that mist. Bone gleamed whitely, and he fell shrieking to match the cries of all the victims he had ever laid on his black altar.
With a groan the far end of the chamber collapsed into vapor, though with less sound than Jhandar’s screams. Conan redoubled his efforts, hacking at the tough flesh. The last sinew was severed; the unnatural grip was gone.
As the Cimmerian rolled to his feet and dove for the entrance passage, the invisible silver-flecked tide washed over the spot where he had been. Ignoring his gashed thigh, Conan ran, the sounds of Jhandar shrieking to the gods for mercy echoing in his ears.
When the Cimmerian reached the altar chamber, Sharak was peering down the passage. From a safe distance. “What was that screaming?” the astrologer asked, then added thoughtfully, “It’s stopped.”
“Jhandar’s dead,” Conan said, looking for Yasbet. He found her slicing the dead cult member’s robes into some sort of garment, using the very dagger Davinia had intended for her heart. The blonde knelt fearfully nearby, bruised but unbloodied, gagged with the remnants of her own golden silks. A strip of the same material bound her hands; another circled her neck as a leash, with the end firmly in Yasbet’s grasp.
Suddenly the earth moved. The floor heaved, twisted, and sagged toward the chamber from which Conan had fled.
“It’s eating its way into the bowels of the earth,” he muttered.
Sharak eyed him quizzically. “It? What? Nothing could—”
Again the ground danced, but this time it did not stop. Lamps crashed from the ceiling, splattering patches of burning oil. Dust rose, beaten into the air by the quivering of the floor, a floor that was tilting more with every heartbeat.
“No time,” Conan shouted, grabbing Yasbet’s hand. “Run!” And he suited his actions to his words, drawing Yasbet behind him, and perforce Davinia, for the dark-eyed woman would not loosen her grip on the blonde’s leash. With surprising swiftness Sharak followed.
Down crumbling halls they ran, past flame-filled rooms, priceless rugs and rare tapestries the fuel. Dust filled the air, and shards of stone from collapsing ceilings.
Then they were outside, into the night, but there was no safety. The rumblings of the ground filled the air as if Erlik himself walked the face of the earth, making it tremble beneath his footsteps. Great trees toppled like weeds, and tall spires fell thunderously in ruin.
Here there were people, hundreds of them, fleeing in all directions, fur-capped Hyrkanians mixed with saffron-robed cult members. But safety did not always come with flight. Ahead of him, Conan saw a rift open in the earth beneath the very feet of four running men, three with shaven heads, one in a bulky sheepskin coat. When the Cimmerian reached the spot the ground had closed again, sealing all four in a common tomb.
Other fissures were opening as well, great crevasses that did not close. A tower tilted slowly, shaking with the earth, and slid whole into a great chasm that widened and lengthened even as Conan looked.
At the wall there was no need to climb. Great lengths of it had fallen into rubble. Over those piled stones they scrambled. Conan would not let them slow. Memories of the Blasted Lands drove him on, away from the compound, into the forest surrounding, further and further, till even his great muscles quivered with effort and he half-carried and half-dragged Yasbet and Davinia.
With shocking abruptness the land was still. Dead silence hung in the air. A new sound began, a hissing roar, building.
Hanging onto a tree, Sharak looked a question at Conan.
“The sea,” Conan panted. The women stirred tiredly in his encircling grasp. “The fissures have reached the sea.”
Behind them the sable sky turned crimson. With a roar, fiery magma erupted, scarlet fountains mixed with roaring geysers of steam as the sea sought the bowels of the earth. The air stirred, became a zephyr, a gale, a whirlwind rushing in to battle with the ultimate void.
Conan tried to hold the women against the force of that wind, but the strength of it grew seemingly without end. One moment he was standing, the next he was down, his hold on the women gone, clutching the ground lest he be sucked back toward the holocaust. Dirt, leaves, branches, even stones, filled the air in a hail.
“Hold on!” he tried to shout to them, but the fury of the wind drove the words back in his teeth.
Then the earth began to heave again. The Cimmerian had only an instant to see a broken branch flying toward him, and then his head seemed to explode into blackness.
Epilogue
Conan woke to daylight. The flat coastal forest had become rolling hills, covered with a tangle of uprooted trees. Yasbet. Scrambling to his feet, he began to pick his way among trees tossed like jackstraws, calling her name without reply. Then, as he topped a hill, he fell silent in amazement.
The hills were not the only change that had been wrought upon the land. A bay now cut into the land, its surface covered thickly with dead fish. Wisps of steam rolled up from that water, and he was ready to wager that despite all of the sea to cool it the waters in that bay would remain hot for all time.
“The compound stood there,” a hoarse voice said, and Sharak limped up to stand beside him. Somehow, he saw, the astrologer had kept his staff through all that had occurred. Now he leaned on it tiredly, his robes torn and his face muddy.
“I do not think fishermen will often cast their nets in those waters,” Conan replied. Sharak made a sign against evil. “Have you seen Yasbet?”
The astrologer shook his head. “I have seen many, mainly cult members leaving this place as fast as they can. I have seen Tamur and half a dozen of the Hyrkanians, wanting only to be gone from Turan, yet unsure of their welcome at home. I wager we’ll find them in a tavern in Aghrapur. I saw Akman, hurrying west.” His voice saddened. “Yasbet, I fear, did not survive.”
“I did, too, you old fool,” the girl’s voice called.
A broad smile appeared on Conan’s face as he watched her clamber up the hill, still leading Davinia on her leash, and Akeba following close behind. All three were streaked with mud, a condition the Cimmerian realized for the first time that he shared.