Conan the Bold

Conan the Bold is a Conan novel by John Maddox Roberts.

Synopsis

Recently recovered from wounds sustained during an adventure in Pictland, Conan has been nursed back to health by a family in south-western Cimmeria.  The novel begins with Conan on a hunting expedition, wrestling with the possibility of marriage to the eldest daughter of that family, Naefa; his heritage and lust warring against his wanderlust.

However, while Conan is away, a band of slavers led by one Taharka of Keshan attacks the family's steading.  Hopelessly outnumbered, and following Cimmerian custom, the men kill their respective wives, and Naefa, to prevent the women from being enslaved, before slaying as many of the enemy as possible.  Thankfully, all the younger children were visiting another family at the time of the attack.

Naefa's father drives his spear, wet with the blood of his wife and daughter, into the frame of the doorway to his home, an unspoken request to other Cimmerians to bury his family and avenge their death.

Suffering heavy losses and with no slaves to show for it, Taharka leads his band back to Aquilonia and easier pickings.

Conan follows them, tracking the bandit's depredations to a small town where he meets Kayla, a swords-woman.  As a child, Kayla's mother, a rich widow, was tortured and murdered by one Axandrias of Aquilonia, years before he joined forces with Taharka.  Mutilated and left for dead, Kayla swore vengeance on the man and so accompanies Conan on his hunt, despite his initial objections

The trail grows hot, then cold a number of times with battles and escapes.  In addition to the mortal struggle, we also learn that Taharka and Conan are unwilling/unwitting chess-pieces of warring god-like powers in a cosmic battle for dominion over the earth in the coming centuries.

Together, Conan and Kayla cross Aquilonia, Ophir, Koth and Shem all the way to the River Styx and, after approximately nine months, achieve their ultimate confrontation with their respective nemeses.

At the story’s end, Conan’s destination is unknown.

Characters

• Conan
• Halga - south-western Cimmerian Elder
• Naefa - marriagable daughter of Halga
• Tahatch - warrior of the Great Valley Picts
• Dermat - Halga's oldest son
• Murcha - Halga's second son
• Taharka of Keshan - primary antagonist
• Axandrias of Aquilonia - secondary antagonist, member of Taharka's band
• Murtan and Balan of Bossonia - bowmen in Taharka's band
• Gunter and Wolf of Gunderland - bandits in Taharka's band
• Kayla of Aquilonia - a.k.a. "Mad" Kayla. Female warrior.  Secondary protagonist
• Rario - Aquilonian horse trader/fence
• Un-named preist of the Ancient Ones at the temple in Croton
• bat/humonculi creatures - demonic servants of the preist of the Ancient Ones in Croton.  Human in body and face, they are covered in short dark fur and have bat-wings.  Fingers and toes end in black talons and they have bare, lizard-like tails.
• Kuulvo of Hyperborea - tertiary antagonist, member of Taharka's band
• Vulpio - knife juggling/throwing entertainer
• Ryula - Vulpio's wife and felow performer in his knife throwing act
• Hurrapa - illusionist entertainer and secret priest of the Ancient Ones
• Gorbal - leader of the entertainer troupe to which Vulpio and Ryula belong
• Hazdral - master of a caravan
• Burra - chief guard of Hazdral's caravan
• Parva of Corinthia - minor bandit in Taharka's band
• Hyras and Nargal of Zamora - minor bandits in Taharka's band
• Pushta - minor bandit in Taharka's band
• Amyr - captian of the barge Pride of Luxur
• Ra-Harakhte - Shemitish bulk-goods fence 

Locations

• South western Cimmeria
• Northern Aquilonia - un-named town
• Croton, border town of Aquilonia and Nemedia.  Karutonia [ancient name].  Location of a temple to The Ancient Ones/The Great Powers/The Masters
• Leucta, town in Ophir.  Lies at the junction of three major roads and a number of minor ones
• Southern Ophir - un-named town
• Koth
• Shem
• Pashtun, large island (and town) in the middle of the River Styx
• Khopshef Province, Shem.  West of Pashtun on the River Styx
• Nakhmet, small town in Shem (Khopshef province) on the north bank of the RIver Styx
• Ashabal, town in Shem (Khopshef province) on the north bank of the RIver Styx
• Un-named, small island near the Stygian (southern) shore of the River Styx.  Location of a large temple to The Ancient Ones

Mystical Items

• Temple of the Ancient ones in Karutonia - Eons-old, the temple folds space (bigger on the inside than the outside), can access at least one other dimension (light coming through windows is not the same color as light outside), has braziers that burn green flame without visible fuel supply, has a room with "incalcuably ancient" instruments of "...silver, gold and age-blackened bronze"  crystals, stones, jewels and the spellbook of the wizard-king, Angkar.
• Spellbook of Angkar - the wizard-king of the pre-Atlantean Empire of Walkh was a socerer of all-embracing evil.  His massive spell-book's pages are the flayed skin of over 900 princesses from his empire's 50 subject-kings.  It's characters are written in the blood of royal infants.  The bindings and cover are the wizard's own skin and the cover is set with Angkar's own facial bones, cut from his skull while he was still alive.  Two immense rubies are set where the eyes would be.  The book reveals the secrets of communcation with beings who ruled the universe before earth was created.  
• Bowl of Galaxies - lidded, plain copper bowl.  Inside, from the gulfs of deep space is a view of "a monstrous whirlpool of stars."
• Berserker Pills - "The outer coating of each pill is the hardened gum of the Julak Tree of the Barachan Isles.  This confers strength and endurance.  Once it was commonly used by the elite guards of kings before going into battle.  It has been mixed with a secretion taken from certain Stygian scarab beetles, confering extraordinary quickness of body and eye.  In the center of each is the gum of the green poppy.  Its virtues are twofold: while the dose is working, the taker feels no fear, but instead a great urge to attack, and he is all but insesnsible to pain."  The substance is highly addictive, but used with discretion at infrequent intervals, the taker is in no danger of harm.  The pills came with a spell that, if recited "...when you administer each dose, the effect is both quicker to take hold and greater in its power."  Frequent use is destructive.  Used daily, the pills will consume the user "within a very short time."
• Scrying Flames - the green flames from the brazier in the Temple of the Ancient Ones can be used by their preists to look back into the prehistoric ancestry of whosoever doantes a few drops of thier blood.  The blood is consumed by the flames as it drops into the brazier before it touches the bottom.  

Continuity Notes

Age: Conan was 15 at Venarium [per REH].  As the novel opens, it is summer-time and only a few seasons after the sack of Venarium.  He would either be 16 years old or about to turn that age.

Recent Travels: He has already left his family, tribe, sept and clan in Northern Cimmeria to adventure with the Æsir against the Vanir and we learn that he has travelled to the Pictish coast.

Knowledge of Civilization: At the start of the novel , "The young Cimmerian was suspicious of the devious ways of civilization." and, "...was young and inexperienced in the ways of civilized men..."  As this is the first time Conan traveled south of Cimmeria (eratta: last chapter of Conan of Venarium), he doubtless learns much about the language and culture of many Hyborean nations during the course of the novel.  Kayla, his travelling companion, had a wealthy family that provided her a "decent education," and it is unlikely that Conan could have successfully navigated so far across the continent without her help and tutoring (although none is discussed in the novel).

Knowledge of Organized Religion: "He had met priests of Mitra, and of other gods, who were no worse than other men.  His own god was Crom, who had no preisthood." Priests of Mitra could easily have travelled Cimmeria during Conan's youth, seeking converts.  He had likely met Æsir preists and perhaps even Vanir priests.  Having spent a short time in Pictland it is possible he had even met a Pictish Shaman, although it is unlikely he would lump them into the category he was discussing.

Conan Sees a number of temples, as well as the pyramids of Stygia from a distance.

Languages: it is interesting to note that, at the beginning of the novel, Conan speaks fluently with a pict.  Shortly thereafter, Conan speaks rather fluently with Aquilonians and, upon reaching Croton, he speaks with, "...many traders and caravaners...[from] peoples of many nations..."  In Jewels of Gwahlur, REH seggests that Conan easily picks up languages.  He could have learned some Aquilonian from his grandfather, wandering preists of Mitra (see above), or perhaps even traders from that nation.  Conan would certainly know how to converse with the Æsir after adventuring with them and, in The Frost Giant's Daughter (both Marek and Rippke list that as the first Conan story in their separate chronologies), he knows enough Vanir to taunt his opponent.

Fuana: Conan sees camels for the first time at Croton.

Continuity Errata: Although the novel "feels" like a Conan novel, many find it difficult to "fit" this novel into a chronology of Conan's life.

In his famous letter to P. Schuyler Miller of 10th March, 1936, Robert E. Howard states that Conan was 15 at the sack of Venarium and that there was "...about a year between Venarium and his entrance into the theif-city of Zamora."  He also states that, after Venarium, Conan returned north to his Clan and that his first journey outside of Cimmeria was north to fight alongside the Æsir against both the Vanir AND then the Hyperboreans before he travelled to Zamora.  During this time he developed a hate for Hyperboreans that lasted all his life and later influenced his policies as King of Aquilonia.

Conan the Bold, prior to the main narrative, has Conan adventuring in Asgard, Vanhiem, the Pictish Coast and then through Pictland to Southern Cimmeria where the novel begins in early-toward-mid-summer, "a few seasons" afer Venarium.  Near the end of the novel, Conan remarks that he cannot tell what month it is because the weather is constantly hot.  Kayla responds that It is, "...the second week after the first full-moon of the year..." so the story takes place over the course of about 8 months, ending in Shem/Stygia it the middle of Conan's 17th winter, before he is 17 years old. 

That means that, about a year after Venarium, Conan was still in the middle of Conan the Bold (Ophir perhaps?), instead of arriving in Zamora as per Howard.

Even if we are to interperet "about a year" very liberally to mean 18 months, the peices still do not fit. 

Even if Conan returned home immediately after this novel's climax, immediately continued north (again) to Asgard to adventure against the Hyperboreans, it would already be 2 springs after Venarium.   It is feasible that he could still travel to Zamora before he was 17, but there would be very little time to develop the hatred for Hyperboreans that Howard spoke of.  Legions of the Dead (by DeCamp & Carter) takes place with the Æsir against the Hyperboreans in late fall, when Conan is captured by the Hyperboreans...and The Thing in the Crypt (also by DeCamp & Cater) has him escaping from the Hyperboreans the following spring...right about the earliest time he could  hope to arrive back in the north if he was returning from Conan the Bold.

If we accept the de Camp stories as valid (which many do not), the only way Conan the Bold fits into Conan's saga is if he arrives in the "theif-city" almost three years after Venarium instead of "about one".  That's a fair departure from what Conan's creator had intended.

Setting that aside however, the proposal is interesting in that it does accomodate the Rippke timeline's placement of "The God in the Bowl" as the second Conan story.  A more naive, younger Conan could easily have travelled through Numalia on his way back north to Asgard; it's a fairly straight line between middle-Stygia and Asgard.  That restores the possibility of the more traditional, Howard-established path directly from Hyperborea to Zamora which the Rippke timeline calls into question by placing "Bowl" before "Elephant."

Publication History

• Conan the Bold (novel) • John Maddox Roberts • Tor April 1989, reprinted June 1997

References

• Miskatonic University Library Periodical Reading Room - Weird Tales • anon.
• The Locus Index to Science Fiction (1984-1998) • Charles N. Brown & William G. Contento
  • (1999) (2000) (2001) (2002) (2003) (2004)
• The Encyclopedia of Fantasy • edited by John Clute and John Grant • Orbit 1997 ISBN 1857233689
• Robert E. Howard :Short Story Bibliography • Robert E. Howard : UK Publications • Ian Davy
• Howard Works: Robert E. Howard Bibliography • Paul Herman and Todd A. Woods • winner of The 2004 Stygian Award for best REH-related website
• A Complete Conan Bibliography • Bruce L. Precourt
  • A Complete Conan Bibliography • Expanded, edited, and reformatted by William Galen Gray et al.
• The Hyborian Age of Conan the Barbarian • Dale Rippke
• Robert E. Howard – Bibliography (Alphabetical) • Al von Ruff (isfdb)
• The Barbarian Keep • Edward A. Waterman
• International Superheroes: Conan • "Loki"