The air around the altar seemed to pulse with energy. Though the robed man standing to the side seemed focused only on the task at hand, the stark naked girl bound to the stone table squirmed with fright. She tried to scream but could not bring enough air into her lungs to cry out.
She looked wildly from side to side, saw the black tallow candles burning and sending thick tendrils of smoke curling into the air over her prostrate form. The thick haze gathered eerily over her writhing body. Every breath she took drew more of the acrid air into her already parched lungs.
There was a candle next to each of her hands and feet and, although she had no idea what was happening or what this old man was doing, she knew it meant her soul was damned to the eternal fires of some nameless hell she could not even imagine.
The ancient wizard Kydon, for such he was, invoked an enchantment that was old before Atlantis sank into the sea. As he spoke, at first mumbling softly, his voice began to rise in volume and passion until he was screaming at the dark skies.
The girl whimpered quietly as the stars above seemed to glimmer more brightly. Then before she realized what was happening, a dagger flashed downward and buried itself in her chest.
Kydon gripped the haft of the knife with both hands as the life force from the young girl's lithe body flowed through it and into him. He shook as with an ague and the foam flecked from his lips as he was overwhelmed with the shock.
Then it was over.
He fell to his knees and bent over the girl's supple waist, his head resting on her fast cooling dead flesh. Even as he opened his eyes and watched, her skin turned to a pallid grey.
He pushed himself to his feet with his hands on the side of the altar and heaved a great sigh.
He took another deep breath and looked skyward. Then he looked back down at his handiwork and smiled. He began to chuckle, at first quietly and then he was laughing as a man gripped with madness.
"Oh yes Conan," he said after his fit was done, "I have much more work for you to do!"
Far away, in the dim alleys of Messantia, Conan of Cimmeria lay sleeping restlessly on a mean pallet in a cheap inn.
He sat up suddenly and looked from side to side in confusion. He narrowed his eyes and was immediately up and prowling the small chamber with his Saber in his hand. He crept to the window and peered between the strips of rag that served as screen. The alley outside was filled with refuse and noisome with the stench of all manner of filth.
He curled his nose and snarled at the closed door, even though it was barred securely from inside.
"Crom!" he muttered, "What sorcery is this?"
His last memory before waking was the girl Julie whom he had met in a magical world filled with all manner of strange things. He had rescued her from attackers and was guarding her sleeping form in an out of the way gully in her incomprehensible world. They had loved each other fiercely before she slept and he had appointed himself her guardian until he could get her to safety.
Next thing he knew he had wakened here. Of the girl there was no sign and he did not know where she now was or whether she was safe.
He growled in frustration and thrust his Saber home angrily.
He left the room he'd rented, noting with curiosity it was the very place he had expected to lay his head last night, the place where he'd already paid his three coins for lodging. Instead, when he came to find it in the darkness of night he had found instead, not this broken down clapboard shack, but a magical mist through which he'd traveled to the strange world where he met Julie.
He gave his head a shake, his thick mane of black hair tousled and matted to his pate, and left the cursed place. Mysteries made him angry and he was now very angry indeed.
He went to the dockside and dove into the water. He washed the sweat from his hair and body and breathed the chill air through widened nostrils as he tried to think this strange set of circumstances through.
On shore he dropped his sword belt and removed his tunic to squeeze the excess water from it, then pulled it back on.
He grinned slightly at sight of three men coming his way. They were typical of the dredges of the back streets of Messantia, wild-eyed men with no law and no conscience.
He straightened and watched them approach. They watched him too. They muttered quietly to each other as they closed on him. When Conan picked up his sword and belted it to his waist, they stopped suddenly, seeing in him not the easy prey they had hoped for.
As one, the three of them turned and disappeared into the back alleys of this lawless city.
Conan snickered and made his way to the marketplace. He was in need of an employer and the sorely put-upon merchants of this quarter of the city would pay well for protection from the scum who populated it. As he walked he considered what had happened to him the past day. Again he growled in frustration at his ignorance of the situation.
Julie wakened in the chill dawn and blinked in confusion. As the harrowing events of the night before came back to her she looked in vain for the man who had rescued her. His name was Conan and she was at least half convinced he might have escaped from some lunatic asylum.
He had killed at least four men and more likely five right in front of her eyes. And what was more, he'd done it with a sword of all things! He looked like some kind of warrior king in costume, dressed as he was with a thigh length robe of some kind with the sword on his belt. He had chopped the men into pieces with that sword and did it without a second thought. But he had done it in her defense.
Julie shuddered at the memory of the violence she had witnessed but she had made love to the man afterward just the same. He was the knight in shining armor that women dreamed about. A man willing to kill and rend flesh to protect his woman.
Just the memory of their lovemaking made the goosebumps on her arms and neck rise.
She looked at the ground now and saw her ruined dress. Before last night it had been a fifteen hundred dollar little black dress from the Karl Lagerfeld collection. Now it wasn't much more than a torn rag. The men who attacked her saw to that. As for her bright pink panties, they too were torn off by those men and thrown to the ground. They were now lying in the street somewhere close by; and close by to two or three dead men.
Again she shuddered in revulsion.
The only piece of clothing she had now that covered her decently was the scarlet red cloak Conan had left behind. He had wrapped her in it before she closed her eyes and she had slept soundly in it, surrounded by his manly scent.
She took it now and wrapped it around herself tightly. She peered out from the bushes that surrounded the small gully in which she lay to see the empty street about thirty yards away. There was no traffic and no one walking that she could see.
She looked up and down the road and was dismayed that she could not see her car.
She sat back in the gully and grimaced at her predicament.
