The Venom of Luxur
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
The cobra’s hood flared. It hissed.
Anok concentrated on the Scale of Set, but something seemed wrong—
The snake drew back.
It struck.
Anok gasped as he felt the needle fangs sink into his neck, felt the hot gush of poison into the wounds.
Something liquid trickled down his neck. Blood or venom, he could not be sure.
He gasped for breath, feeling the poison pumping with each surge of his heart, into his chest, into his brain.
His body seemed to go limp, the priests holding him up as his legs failed him.
His vision dimmed. His mind seemed to float away into the night air, looking down upon the scene.
He heard Ramsa Aál’s voice, as though from far away. “By this venom he shall be changed! By this venom he shall be judged! Let him wake an instrument of our god, or let him not wake at all!”
As the blackness surrounded him, he could still hear the chanting: “Set, Set, Set, munificent Set! Set, Set, Set, munificent Set!”
Millions of readers have enjoyed Robert E. Howard’s stories about Conan. Twelve thousand years ago, after the sinking of Atlantis, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world. This was an age of magic, wars, and adventure, but above all this was an age of heroes! The Age of Conan series features the tales of other legendary heroes in Hyboria.
Look for the first adventures of Anok, Heretic of Stygia . . .
SCION OF THE SERPENT HERETIC OF SET
And don’t miss the Legends of Kern . .
BLOOD OF WOLVES
CIMMERIAN RAGE
SONGS OF VICTORY
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THE VENOM OF LUXUR
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Conan Properties International, LLC.
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Ace edition / December 2005
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Acknowledgments
This trilogy is the most massive undertaking I’ve ever been involved with, and it could not have happened without the assistance, support, and occasionally the patience of many wonderful people.
First I’d like to thank my agent, Jodi Reamer, for her able support and council.
As always, my deepest thanks to my wife, Chris, whose huge assistance proved not merely to be invaluable, but indispensable. Also for her eternal understanding and support. I hope I’m up to returning the favor as she faces her own deadlines.
My thanks to all the great folks at Conan Properties International who have participated in the project and guided it through its various stages, including Fredrik Malmberg, Matt Forbeck (with special thanks to Matt for tolerating my frazzled nerves, all the way to the end), Theo Bergquist, and Jeff Conner.
Special thanks to Ginjer Buchanan at Ace, who has stood with me through five novels now.
My thanks to all the friends who have offered encouragement, support, advice and offered feedback through the project, including Sean Prescott, Dean Wesley Smith (yes, Dean, you told me so), Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Loren Coleman, Rose Prescott, the entire Sunday Lunch Gang, and my buds from the Sandbox who helped keep me sane when I ceased to have a life.
Thanks to my family, especially my father, Jim York, my mother, Martha York (secret sleuth of the Internet), and my brother, Tim, who help keep me anchored through all the rough spots. Thanks to my kids, Shane and Lynette, for actually thinking something I do is cool.
Finally, my gratitude to Justin Sweet for some of the most breathtaking covers I’ve ever seen.
And of course, my appreciation to Robert E. Howard. Without him, we are nothing.
And so, on my hundred and third, and last, year in the Stygian city of Kheshatta, came to me the young wizard and warrior Anok Wati. He came to me as an acolyte of the hated snake god, Set, who has poisoned this land, and my very soul, with his evil.
Before I could send him away, I learned that he was a heretic of Set, secretly plotting against the cult. Though his goals seemed hopeless, I could not help but identify with his anger, and agreed to aid him. Yet I did not realize that he was a man of many secrets, some dark and terrible.
As I innocently tempted him with the terrible sorcerous secrets of my ancient texts, little did I know that he shared with me one other thing: the awful curse of the Mark of Set, a brand of power almost certain to lead its bearer to corruption and doom.
Only after he was on the brink of madness did I learn the truth, and he and his companions
sought out the Band of Neska, the one object that might balance out the Mark of Set and help him fight his way back to sanity.
He returned, victorious, having plucked his prize from an ancient tomb and certain that he had destroyed a traitorous companion from his past.
Yet overconfidence is a terrible thing for a sorcerer. For just when he believes he has mastered the magic is often the moment that he discovers that the magic has mastered him.
—THE 287th TABLET OF SABÉ THE WISE
1
THE HOT WIND blasted sand against his face, and Anok pulled the cloth covering over his mouth and nose, squinting against the dust. His camel rocked gently under him as it made its surefooted way across the Stygian wilderness.
Then the wind passed. He wiped the sand from his dry, burning eyes, and gazed out past the other camels in the caravan, across the rolling red rock of the plain, at the distant mountains. His eyes felt like they were full of boulders, and they were long out of tears.
The Mark of Set tingled on his left wrist, and he was reminded of its healing powers. Until now, he had resisted using its power for anything other than matters of life and death, yet, now he had the Band of Neska to control its power.
What harm could it do?
He closed his eyes and concentrated. “Heal,” he whispered.
There was an electric sensation that started with the mark, flowed up his arm, his neck, across his face, and into his eyes. As the tingling faded, the relief was immediate and dramatic.
He opened his eyes, which troubled him no more. The sand was gone, and he saw the distant mountains with crystal, almost supernatural, clarity. Even more, he had the feeling that no matter how much the sand blew for the rest of the day, he would not have a vision problem again. It was as though his eyes were made of glass, their lids of rugged yet supple leather.
He smiled, until he remembered his friend Sabé, with whom he shared the curse of the Mark of Set. Sabé, who was known to all in Kheshatta as the “blind scholar,” was not blind at all.
Rather, in his youth, the magic of Set had so corrupted him that his eyes became like those of a snake, seeing the world only in shades of hate. Finally, to save his sanity, he had been forced to bind them shut and live out his life in darkness.
Yet Sabé had never had the advantage of the Band of Neska, which was now bound around the bones inside Anok’s right wrist, nor had he been warned of the terrible danger the Mark of Set represented.
It won’t happen to me. It can’t. I have other things to do. One of the other camels in the caravan fell back beside him. The man riding it wore the scarlet robes and yoke of office of a priest of Set. And not just any priest, but a Priest of Needs, one of the most powerful in all the cult.
He was a tall man, thin but muscular, with pearl-white skin, white hair and dark eyes, which marked him as belonging to one of the oldest and most powerful of Stygian noble families. His name was Ramsa Aál. He was Anok’s sponsor in the cult, his trainer, his master.
He was also secretly Anok’s hated enemy, whom he would gladly kill with his own hands. By at least one account, Ramsa Aál had murdered Sheriti, Anok’s first love and oldest friend. Without doubt, he was complicit in her murder, and for that alone he would have to die.
But not today.
There were still many secrets to learn from Ramsa Aál, and as the priest rose in power he took Anok with him into the highest reaches of the Cult of Set. Anok knew well that the only sure way to kill a snake was to cut off its head.
Ramsa looked at him with a familiar grin. “The Tomb of the Lost King is just over the next hill.” He pointed to a rise, where a caravan from the west, loaded with white-robed travelers, wound its way along the crest of a hill. “Pilgrims from Khemi, wealthy elders and patrons of the cult come bearing tributes of gold for the shrine.”
His grin turned into a wide smile as he gazed off at the travelers. “It amuses us to let them think that the Lost King was a chosen of Set, taken up to join him in his Realm Eternal beyond the stars.”
Anok raised an eyebrow. “The stories are not true?” Ramsa Aál laughed. “The temple is empty, and always has been. It is so pristine and undisturbed by vandals or tomb robbers precisely because it was never used.”
They topped the rise and looked down into a small valley occupied by a complex of ancient but beautiful stone buildings, the most splendid and ornate being the tomb itself.
“Within those splendid walls, there is no golden sarcophagus, no treasures for the afterlife, save those brought as offerings by pilgrims, which are quickly taken to our troves in Khemi or Luxur.” He laughed again. “These fools will never know that within the burial chamber are only unfinished walls of unadorned stone.”
Though he suspected that Ramsa Aál only laughed at the foolishness of Set’s followers, he decided to see if that was all. “I don’t see the joke, master.”
Ramsa Aál glanced at him, eyebrow raised quizzically. They’d engaged in much verbal jousting since the priest had first arrived in Kheshatta, and it ran both ways. “The idiocy of these fools trying to buy their way to eternal life is obvious, but the richest jest is far less apparent. The nameless king who built this tomb was murdered by his own brother, his heirs slaughtered in their beds, his riches divided among his scheming relatives, his body burned, his ashes scattered. If there is indeed a Realm Eternal, he shall never go there.”
“You don’t believe in eternal life, master? The Scrolls of Set . . .”
“There are scrolls and there are scrolls, acolyte. Much of what you read in your early training is but the pabulum we give to the sheep you see here.” He cocked his head strangely. “And the path to eternal life lies not in the bribing of fickle gods, but in the attainment of earthly power!” He chuckled, and looked back at the pilgrims. “If you learn nothing else, learn that lesson well.”
Anok had other questions about their mysterious mission to this seemingly pointless shrine, but he kept silent for now. The more questions he asked, the more questions Ramsa Aál asked in return. There were few questions that Anok wished to answer right now. Especially about what had happened at the tomb of the lost Atlantean sorcerer, Neska, weeks before, and the death of Anok’s turncoat friend and fellow acolyte, Dejal.
On returning to Kheshatta, Anok had provided Ramsa Aál and Kaman Awi, the High Priest of the Kheshatta temple of Set, with a version of those events that stayed as close to truth as possible without giving away Anok’s secrets.
Anok reasoned that it might be easier to keep a lie straight when it contained large stretches of truth.
This had proven to be a wise decision, as Ramsa Aál seemed to want to hear the story again and again, each time pressing for some new detail, challenging each small inconsistency. In this altered version of events, they had gone to the tomb seeking not the magic-controlling band of Neska, but objects of magical power. As in reality, he told of how Dejal found the Rings of Neska, turned on his companions, and nearly killed them. He had also told them how he’d been able to defeat Dejal by attacking and destroying the rings rather than Dejal personally, and that Dejal had been buried when the tomb collapsed.
What Anok had neglected to mention was that the Band of Neska was now sealed within his right wrist, and that it gave him the ability to wield great magic while resisting its corrupting and maddening influence. With it, Anok had restored his fragile sanity, and now felt equipped to continue his infiltration of the cult, hoping to destroy it from within.
But he also found himself wondering, what was the Cult of Set? He had expected a tightly knit army of evil, united under, and controlled by, one supernatural god. What he found was a loose group of men drawn together by their lust for wealth and power, each with his own agenda, each building his own power base, each seeking some advantage over the others.
The Temple of Set at Khemi was as different as could be from the temple in Kheshatta. The former was a grand center of power, wealth, and intrigue, wrapped in the great trappings of Set. The lat
ter was a more modest structure, devoted to Kaman Awi’s study of sorcery and “natural law.” His lust for knowledge was as total, and just as corrupting, as the more common lusts for power or wealth. It was knowledge that he truly worshiped, not Set.
Even the cult’s high priest, Thoth-Amon, secretly conspired against his own god. What little loyalty existed within the cult could turn into treachery in a moment, and every priest knew it.
Anok suspected Ramsa Aál was well aware that Anok intended to betray him when the opportunity arose. But in that, Anok was no different than any other acolyte within the temple.
He had joined the cult expecting to be a lone heretic, but it seemed he had joined a cult of heretics, bowing to their snake god even as they plotted to use and steal his power. Was he that different than the others?
Yes, I am.
He still had his family secrets. He still had the rage over the cult’s role in the killing of two of the most important people in his life: his father, and Sheriti, his oldest friend and first lover. He still had the Mark of Set on his left wrist, a brand of frightful mystical power that he had only barely learned to tap, and one of the mysterious Scales of Set, a mystic artifact much desired by Ramsa Aál.
He had many reasons to hate Ramsa Aál and the cult, and he had resources with which he might yet do them great harm.
As he looked toward the sun, low in the horizon, he caught a glimpse of a large camel silhouetted against the horizon, a camel with two familiar riders. He saw them only a moment before they passed behind a hill, out of sight, and was careful not to draw attention to them. Still, he smiled a secret smile at the sight.
I have one other thing as well. I have friends!