Elephant Tower

The Elephant Tower (or Tower of the Elephant) is the tower of the sorcerer and priest Yara in the city of Zamora, located in the temple district adjacent to The Maul. This tower is where Yara keeps the elephant-headed transcosmic being Yag-kosha as a tortured prisoner, and was built by Yag-kosha in a single night at Yara's command. In the story "The Tower of the Elephant", the tower is destroyed when Conan, in his search for the jewel known as the Heart of the Elephant, kills Yara with the help of Yag-kosha.

Exterior
The Elephant Tower is a round tower made of silver that shines so brightly in the sun that few can bear to look at it, and gleams like frost in the moonlight. It measures a hundred and fifty feet in height, and the smooth sides are slicker than polished glass.

The high rim of the tower glitters and sparkles with a multitude of gemstones. There seem to be no doors or windows in the sides of the tower, but in fact they are cleverly constructed so that they are undetectable to the sight.

The jeweled rim of the tower extends several feet up past the flat roof, allowing a person to peer down at the grounds below while partially concealed. The roof is composed of a dark blue substance set with gold that catches the starlight, resembling a wide sapphire flecked with bright gold dust.

Grounds
The tower is set in a great garden of exotic trees, shrubbery, lawns, and fountains. The tower and gardens are surrounded by a pair of circular walls with broad, flat tops. By night the outer garden is patrolled by a single armed guard, while the inner garden is protected by a pride of lions. During the day the lions are kept in caverns beneath the tower, and the armed guards are housed day and night in a ground floor watch chamber inside the tower.

Interior
On the roof is a silvery chamber with a golden door which is unlocked. This chamber is a treasure vault containing several chests of jewels, guarded by a giant black venomous spider with four glowing red eyes. This monster shoots sticky strands of webbing to immobilize its prey before killing them.

Inside the treasure chamber is another golden door with silver stairs leading down to an ivory door set with bloodstones. This room is where Yag-kosha is held prisoner by Yara. It has a golden domed ceiling, green jade walls, and an ivory floor with thick rugs. Smoke and the exotic scent of incense float up from a brazier on a golden tripod, and there is an altar of gold and ivory upon which rests the Heart of the Elephant.

From the chamber of Yag-kosha, the silver stairs lead further down to an ebony door with a grinning silver skull in the center. This room is of ebony and jet where Yara can often be found reclining on a black silken couch at an ebony table, his eyes open and dilated with the fumes of the yellow lotus, far staring as if fixed on gulfs and nighted abysses beyond the human realm.

From there the silver stairs lead down to the large ground floor guardroom, where the soldiers can be found eating and drinking and playing dice when they are not on patrol. The floor is of lapis lazuli, and a silver door opens out into the garden.