ENTER THE DRAGON
The Hour of The Dragon is the only full length novel ever written by Robert E. Howard. It is one of the last Conan stories published before the authors’ death on July 11, 1936. First appearing in serial format from December 1935 to April 1936 in the American pulp fiction magazine Weird Tales, the story was renamed ‘Conan The Conqueror’ when it was finally compiled and published as a stand-alone novel by GNOME Press in 1950. Groff Conklin, reviewing this edition of the story, recommended it to those who “like to sit back and read with their minds closed”. In other words, it is for those whose brains are smooth.
In the afterword to the 1977 Berkley/Putnam edition where the original title and text were restored, Karl Edward Wagner writes, “the novel ranks as one of Howard’s best pieces of writing- and as one of the best novels ever written in the epic fantasy genre”. The Hour of The Dragon is the only Conan story which could properly be defined as Epic Fantasy, yet it antedates the existence of Epic Fantasy as a genre by several decades. For that reason, the book is an important historical document for people who are into this type of shit. That doesn’t mean I think you should read it. As a literary experience, it is middling at best*. I have produced this speed-run so that you could read The Hour of The Dragon without actually having to read it.
The back cover of my copy of the book says it is “perhaps [Robert E. Howards] most popular story ever written”. While this claim seems wildly speculative and like a marketing gimmick, it is at least true that Alfred Pyuns 1984 film The Sword And The Sorcerer was based on The Hour of The Dragon. The Heart of Ahriman, the primary quest object in the novel, appears as a macguffin in the 1984 film Conan: The Destroyer. These are both exceedingly weird films, but it is a testament to Howard’s pop sensibility that his work had enough currency to be mined by film producers during the Sword and Sorcery boom of the 1980’s. It is a testament to Howards pop sensibility that there was a Sword and Sorcery boom at all, really.I would be shocked if, going further back, the Sword and Sandal films of the 50’s and 60’s were not riffing on the work of Robert E. Howard. Beneath the cultural layers that have aged like raw milk, his gritty, terrestrial stories of an ancient world rocked by the revelation of the unknown depths of the cosmos have an enduring appeal.
As much as Howard was a pop artist writing for editors who were slaves to marketing formula, he was also a bard, reinterpreting the theme of the primordial Monster-Slayer for an increasingly post-modern audience. Perseus, Hercules, Siegfried, Odin, Ahura Mazda, Gilgamesh; These were heroes who probed the unknown and laid the foundations of entire cultures. Howard’s probes into the unknown laid the foundations of the Sword and Sorcery literary subgenre. Sword and Sorcery deals with the nihilistic exploits of bronze age anti-heroes who are out for themselves in a morally ambiguous world. The foundations of modern Epic Fantasy were laid at the end of the trail that Sword and Sorcery blazed, and I can prove it. In The Hour of The Dragon, at the climax of Conan’s long career of base, worldly adventures, our hero fights a pitched battle of good against evil which will determine the fate of the entire world. The ultimate struggle between the forces of good and evil is the theme which defines Epic Fantasy as a genre. QED, at the end of Sword and Sorcery are the seeds of Epic Fantasy.
The Hour of The Dragon is a reworking of The Queen of The Black Coast, The Scarlet Citadel, The Phoenix on The Sword, The God in The Urn, and probably a few other Conan stories wrapped into one. It serves as a functional retrospective of Conans career, while anticipating the shape of Fantasy-Adventure to come. One of the earliest entries into the Epic Fantasy literary canon, it pioneered a grim-dark fantasy motif that remains popular; that of the dark wizard who sacrifices tons of living humans in order to resurrect an ancient and evil empire:
If The Hour Of The Dragon was written for those whose brains are smooth, what follows is intended for those who’s brains are even smoother. I present to you,
THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON: DunGEONPOSTING SPEED-RUN
[*Dungeonposting note: Just read The Scarlet Citadel. It is the same story except shorter, and better. ]
[*Dungeonposting note: Rob Howards work is super-charged with racial diatribe. The writer regrets to inform you that in 2024, these views are still current among a distressingly broad segment of the American public. In light of this, it would be a public disservice to refuse to address the racism of Rob Howard. See here. //pending]
THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON: Chapter 1. 'O Sleeper, Awake!'
Four robed figures stand over an ancient green sarcophagus graven with writhing hieroglyphs.
One of them brings forth a ball of living fire. ‘The Heart of Ahriman!’, another gasps. Somewhere, a dog howls. The man holding the Heart of Ahriman motions for silence, and begins to mutter incantations that were old when Atlantis sank. The lid of the sarcophagus bursts outward, revealing the shriveled mummy within. It gains flesh, and breath, expanding and swelling out of its mouldering bandages. Everyone gasps as the wakened corpse, newly ensconced in flesh, sits up.
“I am Xaltotoun, but I am dead. In my house in Khemi, in Stygia, there I died.”
“The Heart of Ahriman has restored your life, drawn your spirit back from space and eternity.”
“The Heart of Ahriman! The Barbarians stole it from me!”
Tarascus, Valerius, and Amalric remove the revenant wizard from the casket and place him on an ebon chair. Xaltotoun, formerly the high priest and ruler of the evil kingdom of Acheron, learns that he has been dead for three thousand years.
“We have openned the doors of Hell this night to free your soul and return it to your body because we need your aid. We wish to place Tarascus on the Throne of Nemedia, and to win for Valerius the crown of Aquilonia. With your Necromancy you can aid us.” spoke Orastes, the man who, with the Heart of Ahriman and the Incantations from the lost and ancient Book of Skelos, had successfully raised the dead.
Xaltotoun wonders why they bothered to raise him; why they couldnt, with the Heart of Ahriman in their possession, achieve their aims without him. It is because the secrets of the Heart have been lost; they thought Xaltotoun might have them. Xaltotoun, it turns out, does not know the secrets of the Heart; but he does know how to conjure plagues, which is what Orastes asks him to do. Tarascus has to destroy the ruling house of Nemedia without being caught doing it, that way he can take the throne; that is, Tarascus needs to kill his own brother and nephews. Tarascus, as king of Nemedia, would then pivot the Nemedian state toward war with Aquilonia. Aquilonia is a nation of Hyborean warriors, lead by the greatest Hyborean Warrior of them all; Conan, the Cimmerian. No man has been able to stand against him in battle. The outlander Conan took the Aquilonian crown from the head of King Numedides, whom he had slain. Valerius is an exiled kinsman of the murdered tyrant, and rightful heir to the throne. The trouble is that all of Aquilona is loyal to the throne of Conan*.
Behind all this manuevering is Amalric’s desire to redraw the map of the world. To forge his limitless empire, he has to find a way to conquer Conan, the unconquerable Cimmerian. Xaltotoun is thinking about the skulls of the Hyboreans he used to pile at the feet of grim altars, in the bygone days when he ruled from the purple towers and bestial shrines of Python in Acheron. It was the Hyborean priests of Mitra who had who had taken the heart of Ahriman from him; who had used it to bury him. The Cimmerians were a Hyborean people, unconquerable even in the time of mighty Acheron. It was the Hyboreans who brought down Acheron, and Xaltotoun hated them. Xaltotoun would help the plotting barons, but Xaltotoun had his own plans.
Chapter 2: The Black Wind Blows
The year of the dragon had birth in war and pestilence and unrest. Men whisper that the ruling house has cursed the land with its foul secret practices. These rumors are being planted by forces antagonistic to the present ruling house, but the people dont know that. A plague strikes down noble and commoner and alike, until it seeps into the palace. The king of Nemedia and his three sons succumb to it. At once, the plague dissipates. The people said that the gods were satisfied, because the evil king and his loathsome spawn had died. Tarascus steps over the bodies of his dead kinsmen to ascend the throne with great fanfare; such a wave of enthusiasm and rejoicing as swept the land is frequently a signal for a war of conquest. For his first act as king, Tarascus voids the long-standing truce between Nemedia and Aquilonia. King Tarascus champions the cause of Valerius, the rightful heir to the throne of Aquilonia. Without formal declaration of war, the invasion of Aquilonia begins.
The hosts of Nemedia and Aquilonia meet in the valley of Valkia as the sun sets. A shallow river runs between the rival camps. The scarlet-on-gold dragon standard flutters over the Nemedian camp on one side of the river, facing off with the gold-on-black lion banner of Aquilonia on the other. In the night, King Conan is jolted awake in his war pavilion, wrapped in the cold sweat of an evil dream. General Pallantides rushes in. Conan tells him of his spooky dream, and of his intuition that something spooky is in the tent with them. Pallantides tries to soothe him, but Conans instincts were sharpened in the bitter fastness of the north; his intuitions range further than most. Conan is bugged out; he knows the black plague is no common pestilence, that it lurks in stygian tombs and is called forth only by wizards. He senses a brain behind all this. He thinks of the veiled stranger who men say advises Tarascus. Just then, the trumpets of the Nemedians begin to sound. Dawn is breaking, and the captains are marshalling for the onset. Pallantides rushes out to fetch Conans squires, but the crash of a falling body coming from inside the tent draws him right back. Conan, eyes wide, is on the floor paralyzed. After straining effort, the king speaks:
“The Thing- the thing in the corner!”
Pallantides looks, but there is nothing there.
“A man- at least he looked like a man- wrapped in rags like a mummies bandages, with a mouldering cloak drawn about him… All I could see was his eyes, as he crouched there in the shadows. I thought he was a shadow himself, until I saw his eyes. They were like black jewels.”
“This thing is diabolical!,” whispers a trembling squire. “Men say the children of darkness war for Tarascus!”
Outside, dawn is dimming the stars. The Battle is about to be joined. It is decided that Valannus, a Pellian Spearman, will serve as Conans body double.
Chapter 3: The Cliffs Reel
They attire Valannus as Conan, and he rides into battle at the head of the Aquilonian host as though he were the king himself. This grieves Conan; The mighty man is bed-ridden. His very blood has been frozen by the touch of a half-dreamed phantasm of shadow and ice. He yearns only to
lead his forces against those who oppose him. Instead, a nameless squire is leaning out of the tent to narrate the battle to Conan, who cant see anything from where he is laying. Conan is really pissy about the whole thing. Being a Mary-Sue, there is a good chance whatever anyone around him is doing, he could do better. This is especially true of Valannus, who is presently leading the Aquilonian host straight into the jaws of a trap. As the Nemedian line collapses, Valannus gives chase. Its too easy, and Conan knows it. Crossing the Valkian stream, the Aquilonians under Valannus follow the Nemedians into an aperature between two sheer cliffs. The nameless squire spares no detail in relating the horror that ensues as those two cliffs tumble in on themselves, ‘Oh, the humanity!,’ that kind of thing. The flower of Aquilonian chivalry is buried under an avalanche of earth and stone and rubble. All who are present believe King Conan to have perished, crushed to death along with his calvary.
The Nemedians shout in triumph. The Aquilonians shout,
‘The King is Dead! Flee! The King is dead!’
Then, it was a rout. Nemedian forces barge into the Aquilonian camp, cutting down every man in their path.
“Give me that bow!”, says Conan.
“But your Majesty! The battle is lost! Yield with the dignity becoming one of royal blood!”, the squire says.
“I have no royal blood. I am a barbarian and the son of a blacksmith.”
Conan seizes the bow; the frozen blood in his veins has thawed in the heat of his rage. He stumbles out of the tent and fires an arrow into the chest of one of Tarascus’ attendants. Tarascus sends three more of his royal guardsmen in to take the kings head; all of them die violent deaths by the whirling sword of Conan. Tarascus is about to send for the archers to have Conan dispatched like a game animal when a black chariot drawn by uncanny horses from hell pulls up. Xaltotoun steps off. Conan is immediately creeped out.
“Even a dog has uses,” says the wizard, who throws a glittering ball at Conan. Conan swipes at the ball with his sword; upon contact, the ball explodes. Conan falls senseless to the ground, overcome by some Stygian potion. Xaltotoun demands that Tarascus keep the true fate of Conan secret from Orastes, Amalric, and Valerius. To ensure compliance, the wizard turns one of the squires’ belts into a venomous snake, which bites its wearer causing instant death. This has an implication of, ‘Do as I say or your next’. The Wizard Xaltotoun, only recently brought back from a three thousand year sleep of death, has shown himself a worthy adversary and powerful sorcerer in this chapter.
Chapter 4: 'From What Hell Have You Crawled?'
Xaltotoun consults with Conan in his wizard lair beneath the Nemedian Stronghold of Belverus. Conan is bound in chains. Conan understands the political situation; Amalric, Baron of Tor, financed the Nemedian war effort; Tarascus is his pawn, and so, too, shall be Valerius, when he ascends the Aquilonian throne. Amalric intends to make of himself an emperor. Xaltotoun is conspiring against his co-conspirators, and aims to keep Conan alive as a sort of ace-in-the-hole. He even offers to place Conan back on the Aquilonian throne in exchange for his obedience, but Conan says:
“Go to Hell with your offer; I won my crown with the sword. Besides, the kingdoms not conquered; one battle doesn’t decide a war.”
“You war against more than swords. Was it a mortal’s sword that felled you in your tent before the fight? Nay, it was a child of the dark, a waif of outer space, whose fingers were afire with the frozen coldness of the black gulfs…” Xaltotoun also takes credit for the collapsing cliffs at Valkia. Conan begins to sense the wizards alien aura;his tremendous and sinsiter antiquity, incredibly ancient, incredibly evil.
“You are a bad enemy, but would make fine vassal,” says the wizard.
Conan spits. The emphasis on personal liberty is one of the overarching themes of Northern Barbarism. Xaltotoun produces a crystal globe, and sets it levitating before Conan. Xaltotoun scrys in its depths the fate of Aquilonia; if sword and pike and arrow and hoofbeat do not conquer her, then powers from the dark of ages shall march against her; such is the opinion of Xaltotouns crystal ball.
“…But I am wearied of conversation with you; it is less fatiguing to destroy a walled city than it is to frame my thoughts in words a brainless barbarian can understand.”
The wizard dismisses the barbarian. With a clap of his hands, four slaves emerge to drag Conan away to the dungeons below, where he will await Xaltotoun’s judgment. Before Conan is even out of sight, the wizard reaches into a curious jade box, taking a handful of shimmering black dust and placing it in a brazier near his elbow. Clouds of billowing green smoke swirl around the wizard like a dark nimbus, and the The crystal ball drops to the floor as the wizard nods out in the trance produced by the stygian Black Lotus, “…which creates death-like sleep and monstrous dreams… only the grisly wizards of the Black Ring, the nadir of evil, voluntarily seek the scarlet nightmares of the black lotus, to revive their necromantic powers. The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practiced their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of stygia and the nighted domes of cursed Sabataea.” Xaltotoun was awfully eager to get back to his black lotus trance; is he self-medicating?
Chapter 5: The Haunter In The Pits
Conan is chained to the wall i n the pits far beneath the palace. There is only the faint gray beam of the moon filtering through a shaft constructed somewhere above. It isn’t long before Xenobia, a harem girl of King Tarascus’ Seraglio*, appears to give Conan the keys to his freedom. She got the guards drunk and stole them.
Xenobia had loved Conan ever since she saw him in the royal procession that time he came to visit the old Nemedian king. She knew who he was right away when she saw them unloading his body. She also knows that Tarascus has ordered Conans death in spite of what Xaltotoun has planned. Apparently these pits go down to hell itself, and Tarascus has loosed some nameless horror from down there to hunt and kill Conan while he is chained up here. Tarascus is too scared of Xaltotoun to do it himself. Xenobia gives Conan a sturdy knife, then disappears into the shadows she came from. Conan is now free to face the Haunter of The Pits, which turns out to be a gigantic fucking ape.
[*Dungeonposting note: Seraglio is an old-timey word for the stable of women kept by nobility for sex. It refers specifically to the harems of the Ottoman period. Howard uses this word a lot.]
[*Dungeonposting note: Gigantic apes are a staple enemy in the Conan literary universe. This deserves careful study.]
Chapter 6: The Thrust of a Knife
After a brief struggle in which we are never really convinced that Conan is in any real danger, our hero bodies the gigantic demon ape with a knife to the chest. He makes his egress from the pits up a long staircase, emerging into a hallway where Xenobia is waiting. She hides Conan in an alcove behind a silken curtain. On the other side of the alcove, there is another set of curtains. Conan peers through them, and sees Tarascus in the in the dimly lit room beyond. He is conducting a meeting with a sinister-looking ruffian in leather breeks and a ragged cloak. Tarascus has stolen something of great value from Xaltotoun, something which he believes to be the secret of Xaltotoun’s power. Tarascus wishes this ruffian of ill aspect to dispose of it for him. The brigand will make for Kordova, where he will board a ship. When he is far from shore, he swears to throw the mysterious source of Xaltotoun’s dark power into the ocean, where it will vanish beyond the ken of mortal man, and hopefully that of undead wizards, too.
With a respectful bow to his master, the rogue leaves the room. With Tarascus alone, Conan tries to run up on him. The hot knife misses its mark, though, and Tarascus wheels paniced into the dark of the citadel crying ‘Help! Guards! Aridesus! Orastes!’. Into the dark of the citadel Conan dares not follow. He does not know the layout of the palace. His prey has escaped. Whats more, he has kicked the hornets nest.
Xenobia appears with her customary suddenness and leads Conan to a barred window. If he can tear the bars out and survive the jump, Xenobia has left him a horse tied up down there somewhere. Conan tears the bars out, jumps, and hits the ground running. Xenobia is up there leaning out of the window, waving a handkerchief at him.
Meanwhile, a wounded Tarascus is only just now realizing that it was Conan who had knifed him. In the dark he never saw his assailant, but The Haunter of The Pits lay dead in its own blood, and the chains which held the barbarian are empty. It must have been Conan. Tarascus breaks his promise to Xaltotoun when he tells Orastes that Conan lives; that Xaltotoun meant to keep Conan alive, to use as a club against them. Despite this revelation,Orastes suggests asking Xaltotoun to advise them in the matter of their escaped prisoner. Tarascus thinks it would be better to give pursuit, and kill Conan under the protection of a good excuse.
“Well,” said Orastes, “I am no Acheronian, but I am versed in some of the arts, and the control of certain spirits which have cloaked themselves in material substance. Perhaps I can aid you in this matter.”
Stopping at the fountain of Thrallos to refresh himself and his horse, Conan meets a Nemedian Adventurer.
“A horse whinnied to mine from the thicket. I investigated and thought it strange a steed should be tethered here. I waited- and lo, I have caught a rare prize! I know you, you are Conan, king of Aquilonia. I thought I saw you die in the valley of Valkia, but-”
Conan moves on the dude, putting his poinard through his throat before he can get another word out.
Chapter 7: the Rending of the veil
Conan is a fugitive. He rides hard across the countryside, knowing that he is being hunted. He is beginning to feel pressed; a black raven has been watching him, following him, squawking hellishly and incessantly above him. Conan could not have known it, but he guessed; here was a spirit cloaked in material substance, an agent under the control of the magician Orastes.
“Those riders cannot see you, spawn of Hell; but the other bird can see you, and they can see him. You follow me, he follows you, and they follow him.Did Xaltotoun set you on my trail? Are You Xaltotoun?”; Conan asks himself a question which resounds to this day: are these birds even real?
On he rode, into wilder country where he might have eluded his hunters, were it not for the traitorous birds which yet hung over him. His horse was getting tired. He was getting tired. Suddenly, his gloomy reflection is disrupted by A shrill yell from beyond the tree line. Conan looks in to see four men in Nemedian chainmail trying to put a noose around the neck of an old woman. As she struggles against her would-be captors, she is making weird low sounds. This lady is actually a druid or something, and the weird low sounds are her wolf calls. Suddenly, her wolf companion bursts onto the scene, followed shortly by her eagle friend, and together with Conan they fuck up the Nemedian soldiers. Once the old woman is safe again, she introduces herself as Zelata. Zelata takes Conan into her mystical druid hut and throws some mystical shit on the fire which launches Conan on a vision quest to witness events presently unfolding in the kingdom of Aquilonia, where Valerius is being crowned.
“You have seen. Your people have forfeited the freedom you won for them by sweat and blood; they have sold themselves to the slavers and butchers. They have shown that they do not trust their destiny; can you rely on them for winning back of your kingdom?”
Zelata throws more mystical shit on the fire, to allow Conan to look into the past to gather clues about the present. Conan sees a darkened stygian crypt watched over by carved images of half-bestial gods, through which Zamoran thieves carry a sarcophagus; this is the sarcophagus of Xaltotoun being removed from its ancient resting-place. Conan sees a golden vessel shaped like a sea scallop on a black altar, the jewel within it like a ball of living fire; this is the heart of Ahriman beneath the ancient temple of Mitra, where Orastes found it. Conan cant make heads or tails of any of it.
“If you can show me that much, these shreds of vision which mean nothing, why cant you show me all that will occur?”, Conan asks impatiently.
“These things are governed by immutable laws. I cannot make you understand; I do not altogether understand myself, though I have sought wisdom in the silences of the high places for more years than I can remember. I cannot save you, though I would if I might. Man must, at last, work out his own salvation. Yet perhaps wisdom may come to me in dreams, and in the morning I may be able to give you the clue to the enigma.”
In the morning, the clue she gives is this:
“Find the heart of your kingdom!”
Zelata and her wolf and eagle watch as Conan sets forth from the forest on his white horse across a landscape of scorched earth. This is where the Nemedian Conquest had torn through, where once-fruitful farms, villages, and fields had been reduced to ash barrens. There had been no Aquilonian resistance; without him to helm it, his entire kingdom had folded. So, the wizards crystal ball vision came true.
The bitter realization permeated his soul; even the drop of dynastic blood Valerius boasted had more hold on the minds of men than the memory of Conan and the freedom and power he had given his kingdom. For several days, then, he moved through pillaged land, until a dawn came when he viewed the blue and golden towers of the Aquilonian capitol of Tarantia far in the distance. Conan, the king without a kingdom, has come to his old neighborhood seeking an old friend.
Chapter 8: Dying Embers
Conan rides up to the plantation of Servius Gallanus after twilight. At first Servius is panicked because he thinks Conan is a ghost; upon realizing that the king lives and is standing before him, he is panicked for fear of being discovered with the fugitive by an untrustworthy servant. The wastes Conan passed through on his way here were the ruined estates of those who would defy the crown of Valerius. Servius provides Conan with food and drink even as he fears for his life. Servius relates how the toppling of Aquilonia went:
“The barons who followed you loyally would not follow one of their own number, each holding himself as good as his neighbor, each fearing the ambitions of the others. You were the cord that held them together. When the cord was cut, they fell apart. If you had a son, the barons would have rallied loyally to him. But there was no point for their patriotism to focus upon”.
Fearing anarchy, the people threw open the gates and knelt in the dust before the scarlet dragon of Nemedia. Now, King Valerius lives like a foreign prince in the midst of a conquered land. Nemedians guard the palace. Nemedians fill the garrison of the citadel. The hour of the dragon has come; Valerius is but a pawn. He does nothing to protect his subjects from his allies; hundreds of Aquilonians who could not pay the ransom imposed on them have been sold as slaves. Amalric wages war on the outlying providences. Conan swears vengeance; he will retake Tarantia before Amalric gets back.
Servius is silent and dejected, and then says:
“What mortal can fight against sorcery?”
Servius succeeds in convincing Conan that open revolt is not possible; would amount to a bloody and fruitless sacrifice of the subjects still loyal to Conan. It gets worse; Conans court has been disbanded. Some of his courtiers were imprisoned, some were sentanced to exile, others have been executed. Why, this very night, Servius tells him, the Countess Albiona is sentanced to die under the headmans ax! Conan’s eyes widen, and he springs into action.
Chapter 9: It is the King, or his ghost!
With a classic disguise of eye-patch, walking-stick, and traveller’s garments, Conan sneaks into Tarantia, the same city that he was until recently the undisputed lord of. It is after dark, the Nemedian guardsmen are drunk, and Conan makes his way without incident to the grim Iron Tower where the execution of Countess Albiona is scheduled to take place at midnight. Conan is acquainted with the secret of the Iron Tower’s lock. Deftly making his entry, he finds the trap door which leads to the dungeons below. As the bell atop the Iron Tower strikes midnight, Conan hears the footfall of the executioners approach. Blending with the shadows and waiting for the right moment, Conan breaks this dude off with an arm hooked around his throat; a dagger to the back executes the executioner.
The scene where Countess Albiona is facing the executioners block is peak exploitation. Three men in masks and cloaks stand about a young woman who is kneeling before them, her wrists bound, her golden hair falling in lustrous ripples as she stares wildly up at them. Even in the guttering torch-light, her beauty is striking. Every fiber in her vigorous young body quivers with the urge of life. But she could not speak the word that would ransom her soft young body from the block and the dripping ax. All she had to do was accept the hand of King Valerius in marriage; but at the thought of Valerius’ embrace, her flesh crawled with an abhorance even greater than the fear of death.
The hooded executioner enters, framed in the doorway like a black shadow from the underworld. The tallest of the masked men seizes Albiona, dragging her to the chopping block, where he forces her to her knees and bends her head down to it. The headsman unleashes a spell of booming laughter. Everyone stares at the great figure. Closing the door behind him, he takes up his ax and tears off his hood. Everyone recognizes King Conan, and the four masked men draw their swords. Wielding the headsmans ax like a hatchet, Conan dispatches three of them. The fourth, the tall man who held Countess Albiona to the chopping block, Conan recognizes as an Aquilonian turn-coat. Conan cleaves this mans arm off, disembowels him, and leaves him to die of blood loss.
The noise has alerted the guards. Conan and Albiona navigate the sub-levels of the Iron Tower in the dark, and Conan kills five or six people on his way out. When they emerge from the Iron Tower into a dark alley, they are hemmed in. The tower guard is behind, and the Nemedian Night Watch is ahead. Conan hurls himself into the fray, dropping several of the Night Watchmen down into death before they realize they are facing off against one man. Conan fights like a cornered tiger.
The melee intensifies as the tower guards draw nearer. Cloaked figures emerge behind the night guardsmen from out of nowhere, swiftly dispatching them. A voice from among the new-comers hisses urgently, ‘This way, your majesty!’
Chapter 10: A Coin from Acheron
Tracing a confusing, dimly lit way through the dark of the city, Conan and Albiona are lead into a Temple of Asura*. Their guide reveals himself to be Hadrathus, a priest of Asura pledged to the protection of King Conan. As King, Conan had been told dark tales of the hidden temples of the followers of Asura, where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars, and where kidnapped humans were sacrificed before a great, coiled serpent. But Conan didnt believe any of that shit. The followers of Asura were historically persecuted, which made them take their rites and observances underground, which threw gasoline on the fires of the dark rumors which surrounded them. Conan had given the cult of Asura the crowns protection:
“If they are black magicians,” he said, “how will they suffer you to harry them? If they are not, there is no evil in them. Croms devils! Let men worship what gods they will.”
Just like with Servius, Conan cant get Hadrathus and his priests pumped about helping him to re-take the throne. Just like with Servius, Hadrathus is fearful of the veiled stranger who advises Tarascus:
“It is sorcery! Grisly black magic from the grim youth of the world. An awful shape has risen out of the shades of the past, and none can stand before it!”
Hadrathus tells Conan about Acheron, the empire of dark magicians which dominated Hyboria three millenia ago. For all that Conan doesn’t like the guy, Conan doesnt believe for a second that Xaltotoun is a three-thousand year old dark wizard. Hadrathus shows him an ancient coin from old Acheron, bearing Xaltotoun’s exact likeness. The coins depiction is very accurate, unlike the portraiture on most ancient coinage, I guess because it was made with magic. Conan is shocked silent, then ponders how they could hope to bring down a revenant arch-magus who can summon wraiths, call forth plagues, and shatter entire cliff-faces.
Hadrathus tells Conan what he knows about the cosmic source which the Hyboreans in ancient times had stolen and used to end the terrible reign of the wizard Xaltotoun. This they had hidden in a deep crypt, guarded by a mindless spectral sentinel, over which three successive temples to Mitra were built, until the wide gulfs of time made men forget why the temple was even there. There it lay for aeons uncounted, until acolytes of the dark gods of ancient Python stole it.
“It is called the heart of Ahriman. …Some say it is the veritable heart of a god. Others, that it is a star fallen from the skies long ago*. It is in the form of a great jewel, like a ruby, but pulsing with blinding fire with which no ruby ever burned. It glows like living flame. It is like a sword that might smite at him, not a sword with which he can smite.It restores life, and can destroy life. He has stolen it, not to use it against his enemies, but to keep them from using it against him.”
It hits Conan like a thunder-clap; it was the heart of Ahriman he saw on his far-out vision quest in Zelata’s hut. This heart of Ahriman must also be the heart of his kingdom which the gods, through Zelata, told him he must find! Crom! Conan has great news for everyone; when he was in the Nemedian Citadel of Belverus, he had overheard Tarascus talking about how he had stolen a powerful item from Xaltotoun while the wizard was zonked out in his black lotus vision quest, an item which he believed to be the source of the wizards power. Tarascus had given this item to another, with instructions that they toss it into the sea. The other said they would take a ship to Zingara from Kordova, and from there throw it overboard. As soon as the other person left the room with the powerful object, Conan lept out from behind the curtains and made his failed attempt on the life of Tarascus. Hadrathus laughs; the sea will not hold the heart! If it would, Xaltotoun himself might have given it up to the deep! Now everyone is stoked; if they can get ahold of the Heart of Ahriman, they can bring the great and terrible wizard down! Thus does the Quest for the Heart of Ahriman commence. Conan resolves to leave Albiona with the loyal Count Trocero in Poitain. Then he will make for Kordova, and then to the sea beyond. Hadrathus pledges to begin fommenting the rebellion once the Jewel is obtained.
Meanwhile, Valerius learns from a dying Thespius that Conan lives. Thespius is the Aquilonian turn-coat that Conan had dismembered in the executioner’s chamber.
“He is not dead- He is flesh and blood, and more terrible than ever. The alley behind the tower is full of dead men. Beware, Valerius- he has come back- to slay us all-” so saying, Thespius died with a withered gasp. Valerius triples the guard across the city, orders a full cordon and the immediate capture of that strumpet Albiona, then returns to his own chambers, where he summons four men before him. They are tall, gaunt men, yellowish and immobile in aspect, shrouded in dark robes.
“When I found you starving in the Khitan jungles, exiles from your kingdom, you swore to serve me. You have served me well enough, in your abominable way. One more service I require, and then I set you free of your oath.”
Valerius instructs the Khitan assasins to use their uncanny talents to find and kill Conan before he can re-appear and set the throne of Aquilonia rocking beneath his feet. This world is too small for two kings of Aquilonia. The Khitans bow in unison, turn, and pad noiselessly out.
[*Dungeonposting note: In the earliest layer of the vedic texts, ‘Asura’ denotes ‘lord’. The word occurs 88 times in the Rgveda, where it represents any spiritual or divine being. Later, it denotes a particular class of mythical being or power-seeking clan. In later Indian mythology the Asura are typically agents of chaos, antagonistic to the throne of Indra. Where ‘Sura’ means ‘god’ and the saksrit ‘A’ means ‘without’, ‘Asura’ used to denote a group comes to mean ‘those without God’. The etymological theory which associates the sanskrit ‘Asura’ with the Indo-Iranian ‘Ahura’, as in ‘Ahura Mazda’, or the Indo-Iranian High God who made order out of chaos, suggests an extremely early date for the transmission of Vedic knowledge and culture to the Indo-Iranian homeland. I am not suggesting that Howard was conscious of all this when he created the ill-famed but largely benevolent Priesthood of Asura; the resonance is striking, though.]
[**Dungeonposting note: The Heart of Ahriman as described reminds me of the Lapsit Exillis, or ‘stone of exile’ described in Wolfram Von Eisenbachs Parzifal (469.2-7), which in that tale is the Holy Grail:
“I will tell you of their food: they live by a stone who’s nature is most pure. If you know nothing of it, it shall be named to you here: it is called lapsit exillis. By that stones power the phoenix burns away, turning to ashes, yet those ashes bring it back to life. Thus the phoenix sheds its molting plumage and thereafter gives off so much bright radiance that it becomes as beautiful as before.”
People like Julius Evola and Otto Rahn advanced the theory that Eisenbach’s Lapsis Exillis was an emerald that fell from Lucifers crown when the rebel angel was cast from heaven to earth, hence ‘Stone of Exile’.]
Chapter 11: Swords of the south
Conan and Albiona escape Tarantia in a black ship painted with white skulls; it is a ‘pilgrim boat’ which carries a deceased follower of Asura on their final pilgrimage, south to only Asura knows where. Even the most fanatical votary of Mitra would not dare interfere with their somber voyage. When they debark, they are met by a follower of Asura that will take them to Poitain, and to the court of Count Trocero.
“I know these hills,” snaps Conan, shooing the stranger away. Donning Aquilonian ringmail, Conan and Albiona ride until they are met by a band of knights in burnished armor who order them to halt. Conan is preparing for bloodshed when he learns that these men are his supporters;
“We would rather serve the memory of a dead man than the scepter of a living dog,” says one of them. Conan removes his helmet, and they are all overawed by his presence. Conan tells everyone to chill; no, it isn’t time to stick it to Valerius; yes, it is to my advantage that everyone thinks I am dead so please don’t say anything; also,please take me to Count Trocero.
In his meeting with Trocero, the Count calls for open war. Zingara is riven by civil war; if Conan leads the men of Poitain to the conquest of Zingara, the combined might of those two nations could conquer Argos and Ophir, eventually matching the strength of Aquilonia!
“Let others dream imperial dreams,” muses Conan. “I have no desire to rule an empire welded together by blood and fire. Its one thing to seize a throne with the aid of its subjects and rule them with their consent. Its another to subjugate a foreign realm and rule it by fear.”
Trocero persists; Conan tells him about the prophecy of Zelata, and about the Heart of Ahriman. Just in time; the guards have caught a man skulking about in the shadows of Trocero’s Keep. Its a follower of Asura, bringing news of the Heart! The thief who took the heart from Tarascus never reached Kordova; here in the mountains of Poitain, he was slain by robbers, who then sold the Heart to the merchant Zorathus, who hastens now toward Messantia.
Chapter 12: The Fang of The Dragon
Leaving Albiona and Trocero, Conan rides out again through another war-torn land in a desperate bid to overtake the merchant Zorathus. As he rides like the wind,The phantoms of his bloody and lawless past crowd upon him. Resisting the urge to lose himself in the red tides of war and rapine that had engulfed him so often before, Conan comes upon the stronghold of Count Valbroso. In this desolated land, Valbroso has taken to highway robbery in order to pay his men’s wages, and it is in this spirit that Valbroso and his men approach Conan. Valbroso offers Conan a job, taking Conan to be a mercenary. He is dressed as a Free Companion, after all, and that is what the Free Companions are. Valbroso tells Conan that they have captured a merchant with an iron box which they can neither open, nor impel the merchant to betray the secret of. Valbroso hopes the veteran Free Companion might know methods of coersion which have yet eluded them.
In the torture room high in a tower above the main hall, Zorathus is stretched on the rack and at the edge of death. Here, too, is the merchants famous iron chest, the one forged in unholy fires among the flaming mountains of Khrosha. It is intricately carved with interlacing dragons and skulls. Conan and Zorathus exchange words in the Kothian language, in a room full of Zingarans. Zorathus recognizes Conan; believing him to be dead, Zorathus believes he himself must be dying, or already dead. Zorathus calls for Valbroso, to whisper to him the secret of the chest. Valbroso eagerly carries out his instructions. Conans hand is on the hilt of his blade; Valbroso pricks his thumb on a sharp barb protruding from the chest and cries out. The lid flies open, and the living fire which emanates from the heart of Ahriman dazzles everyone present.
“The Jewel is yours! I give you death with it!” Zorathus exclaims. Valbroso had been scratched by the Dragons Fang; that barb which projected from the chest was steeped in the venom of the black stygian scorpion. Valbroso dies quickly, and in apparent agony. Beloso, one of Valbroso’s captains, snatches the gem and fucks off while no one is looking. Conan mounts his horse and gives chase. The day passes overhead; night mounts the sky, and a dense wood rises up from the hills when Conan finally catches sight of the fugitive. Conan is almost side-by-side with Beloso as the forest streams past when Conan’s exhausted horse trips over itself, throwing the rider from the saddle, onto the earth and into unconsciousness.
Conan wakes under the moonlight to a horrible form looming over him. Conan is in the forest of the ghouls. They are eaters of human flesh, the spawn of darkness, children of unholy matings of a lost and forgotten race with the demons of the underworld. Conan hacks his way through infernal flesh, bone, claw and flashing teeth, back to his horse. He mounts up and charges through the moonlight, making good his escape from the Ghoul Forest.
