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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.
