Lightning-smitten, he knew… or guessed he did… “No, Jamie, we go!” he yelled.

  “To no avail save reaping of innocents?” The big man hunched his shoulders. “Never.”

  “Jamie, let us by! I can close the gate. I swear I can — I swear by — by Eshi —”

  The Northerner locked eyes with Cappen for a span that grew. At last: “You are my brother in arms.” He stood aside. “Go on.”

  The sikkintairs were so near that the noise of their speed reached Cappen. He urged Danlis toward the scroll. She lifted her skirt a trifle, revealing a dainty ankle, and stepped through. He hauled on Rosanda’s wrist. The woman wavered to her feet but seemed unable to find her direction. Cappen took an arm and passed it into the next world for Danlis to pull. Himself, he gave a mighty shove on milady’s buttocks. She crossed over.

  He did. And Jamie.

  Beneath the temple dome, Cappen’s rapier reached high and slashed. Louder came the racket of cloven air. Cappen served the upper cords. The parchment fell, wrinkling, crackling. He dropped his weapon, a-clang, squatted, and stretched his arms wide. The free corners he seized. He pulled them to the corners that were still secured, to make a closed band of the scroll.

  From it sounded monstrous thumps and scrapes. The sikkintairs, were crawling into the pergola. For them the portal must hang unchanged, open for their hunting.

  Cappen gave that which he held a half-twist and brought the edges back together.

  Thus he created a surface which had but a single side and a single edge. Thus he obliterated the gate.

  He had not been sure what would follow. He had fleetingly supposed he would smuggle the scroll out, held in its paradoxical form, and eventually glue it — unless he could burn it. But upon the instant that he completed the twist and juncture, the parchment was gone. Enas Yorl told him afterward that he had made it impossible for the thing to exist.

  Air rushed in where the gate had been, crack and hiss. Cappen heard that sound as it were an alien word of incantation: “Mëobius-s-s.”

  Having stolen out of the temple and some distance thence, the party stopped for a few minutes of recovery before they proceeded to Molin’s house.

  This was in a blind alley off the avenue, a brick-paved recess where flowers grew in planters, shared by the fanes of two small and gentle gods. Wind had died away, stars glimmered bright, a half moon stood above easterly roofs and cast wan argence. Afar, a tomcat serenaded his intended.

  Rosanda had gotten back a measure of equilibrium. She cast herself against Jamie’s breast. “Oh, hero, hero,” she crooned, “you shall have reward, yes, treasure, ennoblement, everything!” She snuggled. “But nothing greater than my unbounded thanks…”

  The Northerner cocked an eyebrow at Cappen. The bard shook his head a little. Jamie nodded in understanding, and disengaged. “Uh, have a care, milady,” he said. “Pressing against ringmail, all bloody and sweaty too, can’t be good for a complexion.”

  Even if one rescues them, it is not wise to trifle with the wives of magnates.

  Cappen had been busy himself. For the first time, he kissed Danlis on her lovely mouth; then for the second time; then for the third. She responded decorusly.

  Thereafter she likewise withdrew. Moonlight made a mystery out of her classic beauty. “Cappen,” she said, “before we go on, we had better have a talk.”

  He gaped. “What?”

  She bridged her fingers. “Urgent matters first,” she continued crisply. “Once we get to the mansion and wake the high priest, it will be chaos at first, conference later, and I — as a woman — excluded from serious discussion. Therefore best I give my counsel now, for you to relay. Not that Molin or the Prince are fools; the measures to take are for the most part obvious. However, swift action is desirable and they will have been caught by surprise.”

  She ticked her points off. “First, as you have indicated, the Hell Hounds” — her nostrils pinched in distaste at the nickname — “the Imperial elite guard should mount an immediate raid on the temple of Ils and arrest all personnel for interrogation, except the Archpriest. He’s probably innocent, and in any event it would be inept politics. Hazroah’s death may have removed the danger, but this should not be taken for granted. Even if it has, his co-conspirators ought to be identified and made examples of.

  “Yes, second, wisdom should temper justice. No lasting harm was done, unless we count those persons who are trapped in the parallel universe; and they doubtless deserve to be.”

  They seemed entirely males, Cappen recalled. He grimaced in compassion. Of course, the sikkintairs might eat them.

  Danlis was talking on: “— humane governance and the art of compromise. A grand temple dedicated to the Rankan gods is certainly required, but it need be no larger than that of Ils. Your counsel will have much weight, dear. Give it wisely. I will advise you.”

  “Uh?” Cappen said.

  Danlis smiled and laid her hands over his. “Why, you can have unlimited preferment, after what you did,” she told him. “I’ll show you how to apply for it.”

  “But — but I’m no blooming statesman!” Cappen stuttered.

  She stepped back and considered him. “True,” she agreed. “You’re valiant, yes, but you’re also flighty and lazy and — Well, don’t despair. I will mold you.”

  Cappen gulped and shuffled aside. “Jamie,” he said, “uh, Jamie, I feel wrung dry, dead on my feet. I’d be worse than no use — I’d be a drogue on things just when they have to move fast. Better I find me a doss, and you take the ladies home. Come over here and I’ll tell you how to convey the story in fewest words. Excuse us, ladies. Some of those words you oughtn’t to hear.”

  A week thence, Cappen Varra sat drinking in the Vulgar Unicorn. It was mid-afternoon and none else was present but the associate tapster, his wound knitted.

  A man filled the doorway and came in, to Cappen’s table. “Been casting about everywhere for you,” the Northerner grumbled. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Lying low,” Cappen replied. “I’ve taken a place here in the Maze which’ll do till I’ve dropped back into obscurity, or decide to drift elsewhere altogether.” He sipped his wine. Sunbeams slanted through windows; dustmotes danced golden in their warmth; a cat lay on a sill and purred. “Trouble is, my purse is flat.”

  “We’re free of such woes for a goodly while.” Jamie flung his length into a chair and signaled the attendant. “Beer!” he thundered.

  “You collected a reward, then?” the minstrel asked eagerly.

  Jamie nodded. “Aye. In the way you whispered I should, before you left us. I’m baffled why and it went sore against the grain. But I did give Molin the notion that the rescue was my idea and you naught but a hanger-on whom I’d slip a few royals. He filled a box with gold and silver money, and said he wished he could afford ten times that. He offered to get me Rankan citizenship and a title as well, and make a bureaucrat of me, but I said no, thanks. We share, you and I, half and half. But right this now, drinks are on me.”

  “What about the plotters?” Cappen inquired.

  “Ah, those. The matter’s been kept quiet, as you’d await. Still, while the temple of Ils can’t be abolished, seemingly it’s been tamed.” Jamie’s regard sought across the table and sharpened. “After you disappeared, Danlis agreed to let me claim the whole honor. She knew better — Rosanda never noticed — but Danlis wanted a man of the hour to carry her redes to the prince, and none remained save me. She supposed you were simply worn out. When last I saw her, though, she… um-m… she ‘expressed disappointment.’” He cocked his ruddy head. “Yon’s quite a girl. I thought you loved her.”

  Cappen Varra took a fresh draught of wine. Old summers glowed along his tongue. “I did,” he confessed. “I do. My heart is broken, and in part I drink to numb the pain.”

  Jamie raised his brows. “What? Makes no sense.”

  “Oh, it makes very basic sense,” Cappen answered. “Broken hearts tend to heal rather soon. Meanwhile, if I may recite from a rondel I completed before you found me —

  “Each sword of sorrow that would maim or slay,

  My lady of the morning deftly parries.

  Yet gods forbid I be the one she marries!

  I rise from bed the latest hour I may.

  My lady comes to me like break of day;

  I dream in darkness if it chance she tarries.”

  The Barbarian

  Don’t get me wrong. I am quite fond of Robert E. Howard’s work. It isn’t the most sensitive or sophisticated stuff ever published, but it has imagination, energy, vividness, together with a slightly deeper human insight and a considerably better writing style than the critics can see. I once accepted an invitation to write a Conan novel myself, for love and enjoyment much more than for money. So this burlesque was done, on an earlier occasion, in the friendliest spirit.

  Sinve the Howard-de Camp system for deciphering preglacial inscriptions first appeared, much progress has been made in tracing the history, ethnology, and even daily life of the great cultures which flourished till the Pleistocene ice age wiped them out and forced man to start over. We know, for instance, that magic was practiced; that there were some highly civilized countries in what is now central Asia, the Near East, North Africa, southern Europe, and various oceans; and that elsewhere the world was occupied by barbarians, of whom the northern Europeans were the biggest, strongest, and most warlike. At least, so the scholars inform us, and being of northern European ancestry, they ought to know.

  The following is a translation of a letter recently discovered in the ruins of Cyrenne. This was a provincial town of the Sarmian Empire, a great though decadent realm in the eastern Mediterranean area, whose capital, Sarmia, was at once the most beautiful and the most lustful, depraved city of its time. The Sarmians’ northern neighbors were primitive horse nomads and/or Centaurs; but to the east lay the Kingdom of Chathakh, and to the south was the Herpetarchy of Serpens, ruled by a priestly cast of snake worshipers — or possibly snakes.

  The letter was obviously written in Sarmia and posted to Cyrenne. Its date is approximately 175,000 B.C.

  Maxilion Quaestos, sub-sub-sub-prefect of the Imperial Waterworks of Sarmia, to his nephew Thyaston, Chancellor of the Bureau of Thaumaturgy, Province of Cyrenne:

  Greetings!

  I trust this finds you in good health, and that the gods will continue to favor you. As for me, I am well, though somewhat plagued by the gout, for which I have tried [here follows the description of a home remedy, both tedious and unprintable]. This has not availed, however, save to exhaust my purse and myself.

  You must indeed have been out of touch during your Atlantean journey, if you must write to inquire about the Barbarian affair. Now that events have settled down again, I can, I hope, give you an adequate and dispassionate account of the whole ill-starred business. By the favor of the Triplet Goddesses, holy Sarmia has survived the episode; and though we are still rather shaken, things are improving. If at times I seem to depart from the philosophic calm I have always tried to cultivate, blame it on the Barbarian. I am not the man I used to be. None of us are.

  To begin, then, about three years ago the war with Chathakh had settled down to border skirmishes. An occasional raid by one side or the other would penetrate deeply into the countries themselves, but with no decisive effect. Indeed, since these operations yielded a more or less equal amount of booty for both lands, and the slave trade grew brisk, it was good for business.

  Our chief concern was the ambiguous attitude of Serpens. As you well know, the Herpetarchs have no love for us, and a major object of our diplomacy was to keep them from entering the war on the side of Chathakh. We had, of course, no hope of making them our allies. But as long as we maintained a posture of strength, it was likely that they would at least stay neutral.

  Thus matters stood when the Barbarian came to Sarmia. We had heard rumors of him for a long time. He was a wandering soldier of fortune, from some kingdom of swordsmen and seafarers up in the northern forests, who had drifted south, alone, in search of adventure or perhaps only a better climate. Seven feet tall, and broad in proportion, he was one mass of muscle, with a mane of tawny hair and sullen blue eyes. He was adept with any weapon, but preferred a four-foot double-edged sword with which he could cleave helmet, skull, neck, and so on down at one blow. He was additionally said to be a drinker and lover of awesome capacity.

  Having overcome the Centaurs singlehanded, he tramped down through our northern provinces and one day stood at the gates of Sarmia herself. It was a curious vision — the turreted walls rearing over the stone-paved road, the guards bearing helmet and shield and corselet, and the towering, near-naked giant who rattled his blade before them. As their pikes slanted down to bar his way, he cried in a voice of thunder:

  “I yam Cronkheit duh Barbarian, an’ I wanna audience widjer queen!”

  His accent was so ludicrously uneducated that the watch burst into laughter. This angered him; flushing darkly, he drew his sword and advanced stiff-legged. The guardsmen reeled back before him, and the Barbarian swaggered through.

  As the captain of the watch explained it to me afterward: “There he came, and there we stood. A spear length away, we caught the smell. Ye gods, when did he last bathe?”

  So with people running from the streets and bazaars as he neared, Cronkheit made his way down the Avenue of Sphinxes, past the baths and the Temple of Loccar, till he reached the Imperial Palace. Its gates stood open as usual, and he looked in at the gardens and the alabaster walls beyond, and grunted. When the Golden Guardsmen approached him upwind and asked his business, he grunted again. They lifted their bows and would have made short work of him, but a slave came hastily to bid them desist.

  You see, by the will of some malignant god, the Empress was standing on a balcony and saw him.

  As is well known, our beloved Empress, Her Seductive Majesty, the Illustrious Lady Larra the Voluptuous, is built like a mountain highway and is commonly believed to be an incarnation of her tutelary deity, Aphrosex, the Mink Goddess. She stood on the balcony, the wind blowing her thin transparent garments and thick black hair, and a sudden eagerness lit her proud lovely face. This was understandable, for Cronkheit wore simply a bearskin kilt.

  Hence the slave was dispatched, to bow low before the stranger and say: “Most noble lord, the divine Empress would have private speech with you.”

  Cronkheit smacked his lips and strutted into the palace. The chamberlain wrung his hands when he saw those large muddy feet treading on priceless rugs, but there was no help for it, and the Barbarian was led upstairs to the Imperial bedchamber.

  What befell there is known to all, for of course in such interviews the Lady Larra posts mute slaves at convenient peepholes, to summon the guards if danger seems to threaten; and the courtiers have quietly taught these mutes to write. Our Empress had a cold, and had furthermore been eating a garlic salad, so her aristocratically curved nose was not offended. After a few formalities, she began to pant. Slowly, then, she held out her arms and let the purple robe slide down from her creamy shoulders and across the silken thighs.

  “Come,” she whispered. “Come, magnificent male.”

  Cronkheit snorted, pawed the ground, rushed forth, and clasped her to him.

  “Yowww!” cried the Empress as a rib cracked. “Leggo! Help!”

  The mutes ran for the Golden Guardsmen, who entered at once. They got ropes around the Barbarian and dragged him from their poor lady. Though in considerable pain, and much shaken, she did not order his execution; she is known to be very patient with some types.

  Indeed, after gulping a cup of wine to steady her, she invited Cronkheit to be her guest. After he had been conducted off to his rooms, she summoned the Duchess of Thyle, a supple, agile little minx.

  “I have a task for you, my dear,” she murmured. “You will fulfill it as a loyal lady-in-waiting.”

  “Yes, Your Seductive Majesty,” said the Duchess, who could well guess what the task was and thought she had been waiting long enough. For a whole week, in fact. Her assignment was to take the edge off the Barbarian’s impetuosity.

  She greased herself so she could slip free if in peril of being crushed, and hurried to Cronkheit’s suite. Her musky perfume drowned out his odor, and she slipped off her dress and crooned with half-shut eyes: “Take me, my lord!”

  “Yahoo!” howled the warrior. “I yam Cronkheit duh Strong, Cronkheit duh Bold, Cronkheit what slew a mammot’ single-handed an’ made hisself chief o’ duh Centaurs, an’ dis’s muh night! C’mere!”

  The Duchess did, and he folded her in his mighty arms. A moment later came another shriek. The palace attendants were treated to the sight of a naked and furious duchess speeding down the jade corridor.

  “Fleas he’s got!” she cried, scratching as she ran.

  So all in all, Cronkheit the Barbarian was no great success as a lover. Even the women in the Street of Joy used to hide when they saw him coming. They said they’d been exposed to clumsy technique before, but this was just too much.

  However, his fame was so great that the Lady Larra put him in command of a brigade, infantry and cavalry, and sent him to join General Grythion on the Chathakh border. He made the march in record time and came shouting into the city of tents which had grown up at our main base.

  Now, admittedly our good General Grythion is somewhat of a dandy, who curls his beard and is henpecked by his wives. But he has always been a competent soldier, winning honors at the Academy and leading troops in battle many times before rising to the strategic-planning post. One could understand Cronkheit’s incivility at their meeting. But when the general courteously declined to go forth in the van of the army and pointed out how much more valuable he was as a coordinator behind the lines — that was no excuse for Cronkheit to knock his superior officer to the ground and call him a coward, damned of the gods. Grythion was thoroughly justified in having him put in irons, despite the casualties involved. Even as it was, the spectacle so demoralized our troops that they lost three important engagements in the following month.