The Phoenix on the Sword
was published in December of 1932, and was an immediate success for
Robert E. Howard. The following month, January 1933, Weird
Tales would publish the next
Conan story: The Scarlet Citadel.
Conan,
King of Aquilonia, is having a very bad day. His army was drawn into
a trap and he himself is captured by a band of would-be usurpers: the
traitorous ally Amalrus, the king of Koth, Strabonus, and Kothian
sorcerer Tsotha-lanti. The first two want to kill him and be done
with it, but Tostha wants to play with him before killing him because
that's what evil sorcerers do.
Conan
refuses an offer to let him abdicate, and Tsotha has him thrown into
the dungeon of his bright red fortress (a scarlet citadel,
if you will). Chained to a wall and facing down a giant snake, Conan
escapes partly by luck, and wanders the dark recesses of the dungeon,
encountering one of the sorcerer's horrific experiments after
another.
Eventually
he rescues another prisoner from a giant plant monster. The grateful
man recovers and reveals himself as another sorcerer: Pelias, and old
rival of Tsotha-lanti's who was imprisoned for a decade.
Conan,
knowing that Aquilonia would be thrown into chaos, needs to get back
in a hurry, but has no way of getting there. Pelias has a solution.
He magics up a strange flying beast and tells Conan not to think too
hard about where it came from. Conan reluctantly does, and it flies
him back to his capital where the beatings commence.
The
story segues into the chaos engulfing Aquilonia and how Conan's loyal
retainers tried and failed to maintain order against a group of
grasping nobles, and then a would-be usurper named Prince Arpello,
who turns out to be an instant tyrant. Conan drops down onto a roof
ready to go and after a very brief fight, grabs Arpello and throws
him off the roof with a mighty heave, causing the usurper to smash on
the stones below “like a mangled beetle.”
Sort
of like A Song of Ice and Fire,
only actually satisfying and not wasting your time with pages and pages of
awkward sex and food descriptions.
But
we're not done yet. We're going into SPOILER
territory because the ending is really worth discussing.
Conan
rallies his army for a pitched battle that deals with the mortal
usurpers, and he runs down Tsotha-lanti on horseback and beheads the
wizard.
Being
a sorcerer, this doesn't stop him from trying to re-attach his body,
but suddenly an eagle swoops down and carries the head off, laughing
with Pelias' voice. The headless body takes off after it, and Conan
is left wondering what the hell is wrong with wizards and their feuds
and he just wants a drink.
Both
here and in The Phoenix on the Sword,
there are moments of dark comedy, and Howard delivers them
exceptionally well. After the high tension of the entire story and
the catharsis of the battles, dipping into screwball comedy doesn't
hurt. It has to be
deliberate comedy, since Conan's deadpan “I hate wizards”
reaction is completely in character with a man used to dealing in
concrete situations.
That
said, The Scarlet Citadel
features a similar plot to Conan's debut: King Conan has to deal with
a plot to overthrow him. The solution involves stabbing many men. The
execution is different. The fighting is larger scale and the
Weirdness factor is ramped up dramatically. Tsotha-lanti's dungeon is
a carnival of horrors, from plant monsters, invisible creepy things,
a bloated monstrosity that weeps with a woman's voice, and deep pit
leading down that feels wrong.
The giant snake is mundane by comparison.
The Scarlet Citadel
expands the scope of the Hyborean Age in every direction. Conflict is
bigger, magic is stranger, and there's a bit of continuity discussing
the “Mad Bard” Rinaldo from the first story.
Come
for the badass fighting, stay for the weird magic. Its Robert E.
Howard. Its Conan. Its a good time.
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