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Title: The Phoenix on the Sword
Series:
Conan Chronicles #1
Author: Robert Howard
Rating:
3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages:
27
Words: 9K
Publish: 1932
After my last Conan pastiche (Conan and the Mists of Doom), which was horrible, like several of the previous pastiches, I gave up. When one sours on pastiches, it usually means it is time to return to the original material. I had read The Essential Conan (comprising The Hour of the Dragon, People of the Black Circle and Red Nails) back in ‘18 and thoroughly enjoyed it. But trying to track down the other original Conan stories seemed like a real chore, as it was a mix of short stories, novellas and novels and they were scattered all over the place and in various collections by various companies at various times. It was a gigantic ball of messiness and I wanted nothing to do with it. Reading is meant to be fun, not a flipping second job. Then I discovered that Delphi Classics had released one of those Complete Collections of Robert Howard and suddenly I was on easy street. That collection has all his other stuff too, but the Conan stories are linked in the TOC by publication date, so I just have to click on that and I am set.
Which brings us to now. I am going to read all of the original Conan stuff by Howard, story by story, and take my time enjoying the pulpy goodness of it all. I am dividing these up into three different categories: Short Stories, Novellas and Novels. I am calling any story with 10K or less of words a short story while a Novella will be 10K-40K and a Novel will be anything over 40K. Of course, the lines are all squishy, so I might take page numbers into account too, but that gives you the general idea. There are only two full novels and approximately nineteen short stories and novellas. That means I’ll be reading a lot more short stories about Conan over the next couple of years. And with that long winded introduction out of the way, onto the actual review.
This short story takes place much later in Conan’s career. He is currently king of Aquilonia (the big cheese kingdom) and several nobles are trying to depose him. One of them has a pet wizard who breaks free and summons a demon to kill all the nobles (for how they looked down on him) and Conan so that said wizard can become king. Well, there’s another Good Wizard ™ sleeping away in limbo and he summons Conan in a dream and gives him a magic sword that allows him to slay the demon. Thus Conan stays king of Aquilonia.
It is kind of odd to start off with Conan nearer the end of his life than at the beginning, but Howard never allows us to forget that Conan is still a powerful barbarian. It also sets out the template for Conan stories. Some disgruntled people, some magic, some regular fighting, some magic fighting and then Conan kicking butt. The magic also has hints of the cosmic horror about it, which just fits so much better into this Hyborean age than bleeding Merlin with his disneyfied bippity boppity boo.
 |
| Thoth-Amon would have their guts for garters... |
We are also introduced to Thoth-Amon, a wizard of dark Stygia who plays a role in more than one pastiche. He is the one that summons the demon and his fate is left unresolved, unlike the plotters who all die at the claws of the demon or Conan’s sword.
While I only gave this 3stars, I was still pretty pleased with it. Howard gives us all of the information we need for “this” story with just hints at the wider world of Conan without over burdening the reader. Reading a short story by itself is whole different beast than reading a novel or a whole series of novels or even a whole book of short stories. As such, you’ll have to give me a few stories to find my review footing, as it were. My standard rating will be 3stars until I have a better grasp of Conan as a whole and can be a bit more nuanced, if I feel like it. Or I might just stick with my more typical “I liked/disliked it, the end” kind of review.
I am also calling these official Howard stories about Conan the “Conan Chronicles” to easily separate them from all the Conan the Barbarian pastiches I’ve been reading. It is messy and the organizational part of my soul winces, but I do not want the official stories mixed in with the pastiches. I am including a link under my avatar at the end to all the pastiches though, so if someone wants to they can see what a minefield they have to navigate.
I was able to find an actual cover for this one. Most of what I found was the Weird Stories magazine cover that it was originally in. I hope to have an actual cover for each story, but am not counting on it. I’m certainly not going to be generating my own, even though that would be really nice.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia
A middle-aged Conan of Cimmeria tries to govern the turbulent kingdom of Aquilonia.
Conan has recently seized the crown from King Numedides after strangling the tyrant on his throne, but the Cimmerian is more suited to swinging his broadsword than signing official documents. The Aquilonians who originally welcomed Conan as their liberator have turned against him due to his foreign blood, and construct a statue to Numedides' memory in the temple of Mitra; priests burn incense before their slain king, hailing it as the holy effigy of a saintly monarch who was killed by a red-handed barbarian.
A band known as the Rebel Four forms: Volmana, the dwarfish count of Karaban; Gromel, the giant commander of the Black Legion; Dion, the fat baron of Attalus; and Rinaldo, the hare-brained minstrel. Their goal is to put the crown in the hands of someone with royal blood, and to this end they recruit the services of a southern outlaw named Ascalante. However, Ascalante secretly plans to betray his employers and claim the crown. Ascalante also enslaves Thoth-Amon, a Stygian wizard who has fallen on hard times: A thief had stolen Thoth-Amon's ring and left him defenseless, forcing him to flee from Stygia; while disguised as a camel driver, he was waylaid in Koth by Ascalante's reavers. The rest of his caravan was slaughtered, but Thoth-Amon saved himself by revealing his identity and swearing to serve Ascalante.
The conspirators plan to assassinate King Conan when he is unprepared and defenseless, but Thoth-Amon discovers that his ring of power is in Dion's possession, murders him and summons a fanged ape-like demon to slay Ascalante. Conan in turn is warned of this event in a dream by a long-dead sage named Epemitreus, who marks Conan's sword with a mystical phoenix representing Mitra, a Hyborian god. Conan awakens and, prepared for the attack, slays the three remaining members of the Rebel Four, breaking his sword upon the helm of Gromel and using a battle-axe against the rest of his would-be assassins. Conan hesitates to kill Rinaldo, whose songs once touched the King's heart - this scruple proves costly, as Rinaldo manages to stab him before being killed. Ascalante, his goal in reach, moves to finish off the wounded king, but is killed by Thoth-Amon's demon before he can strike, and the demon is then slain by Conan with the shard of his enchanted sword.
Conan's courtiers hesitate to believe his tale, as the demon has evaporated, until they spot the shape its blood has left on the floor.
All of My “Conan Chronicles” Reviews
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