Conan the Barbarian 114

Major Characters

 * Conan (Last appearance in CB-113; next appearance in CB-115).

Minor Characters

 * Tamris (First and only appearance to date); Shemite serving wench.
 * Kagal (First appearance; dies in this issue); Kothian.
 * Caldix (First and only appearance to date); ghostly sorcerer.

Locations

 * Akkharia, Shem

Time Frame

 * One day

Synopsis
In Akkharia, Conan loses most of his money gambling, and the remainder when he is knocked unconscious from behind by the brute Kagal, who takes his purse and the woman Tamris, who Conan was entertaining, killing three men on his way out of town. Conan and an angry mob follow the Kothian but when he takes refuge in the cursed keep of a long-dead sorcerer, the townspeople slink back to the city. Unafraid, Conan enters the keep and hears the howling of a dog. Searching the deserted house, he finds the body of Kagal and the skeleton of who is assumes is the long-dead sorcerer, Caldix. Following the sounds of a woman's sobs, he discovers Tamris, chained to a wall, weeping in the room next to a large mastiff. To Conan's shock, the dog rises up on his hind legs and begins speaking - he is Caldix himself, who died while casting a spell, and when his starving dog feasted on Caldix's body his spirit somehow came to inhabit the beast. He is trapped in the barren land surrounding the keep, but he is happy to keep Tamris as his plaything. Conan hurls his sword deep into the dog, but it shakes off the wound and chases Conan out of the keep. It catches up to Conan, but Conan manages to roll the beast outside the barren land ringing the building, and in a flash the spirit is exorcised from the dog, who then dies of its wounds. The ghostly Caldix attempts to possess Conan, but passes right through and realizes he is trapped in a harmless spectral form forever. The keep begins to crumble, and Conan races inside to free Tamris as the building collapses.

Reprinted

 * The Chronicles of Conan 14 - Shadow of the Beast and Other Stories