Part 67 (1/2)

”Let me see her,” co a irl by the wrist She was supple, her white skin al in contrast with the brown and black bodies to which Thuthold stream over her white shoulders She was clad only in a tattered shi+ft This Shubba re in complete nudity

Thuthmes nodded, impersonally

”She is a fine bit of ht be teht her Kushi+te, as I commanded?”

”Aye; in the city of the Sheht her, and i by means of a slipper, after the Shemite fashi+on Her name is Diana”

Thuthirl should sit cross-legged on the floor at his feet, which she did

”I a of Kush as a present,” he said ”You will no to ularly, and you will not fail to carry theenerate, slothful, dissipated It should not be hard for you to achieve coht be tempted to disobey, when you fancy yourself out of , I will demonstrate h a corridor, down a flight of stone stairs and into a long chahted The chamber was divided in equal halves by a wall of crystal, clear as water though soth as to have resisted the lunge of a bull elephant He led [her] to this wall, andit, while he stepped back

Abruptly the light went out She stood there in darkness, her slender lian to float in the darkness She saw a hideous row out of the blackness; she saw a bestial snout, chisel-like teeth, bristles as the horror moved toward her she screaetful of the sheet of crystal that kept the brute from her She ran full into the arms of Thuthmes in the darkness, and heard his hiss in her ear: ”You have seen my servant; do not fail me, for if you do he will search you out where ever you may be, and you can not hide fro ear, she proave her into the hands of a black wench with instructions to revive her, to see that she had food and wine, and to bathe, co

383

Hyborian Na is a list of nas, etc, that was prepared in March 1932 The two nah they are still visible on the original typescript384

385

Hyborian Age Maps386

387

Appendices388

HYBORIAN GENESIS

Notes on the Creation of the Conan Stories by Patrice Louinet

In a December 1933 letter to fellow author Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E Howard recounted the creation of his most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian:

”I know that for months I had been absolutely barren of ideas, co sellable Then the row up in my mind without much labor on my part and immediately a stream of stories flowed off my pen or rather off my typewriter al, but rather relating events that had occurred Episode crowded on episode so fast that I could scarcely keep up with the but write of the adventures of Conan The character took co else in the way of story-writing

When I deliberately tried to write so that his characters and stories came easily to him was customary with Howard, who almost never mentioned unfinished or unsold stories in his correspondence In the case of the Kull series, for example, only three tales had been published while a dozen others were either left unfinished or rejected Yet Horote to Lovecraft:

”Thanks for the kind things you said about the Kull stories, but I doubt if I'll ever be able to write another The three stories I wrote about that character see on my part; there was no conscious effort on rew up, unsurown in er tips”

In fact, drafts survive for al that ests How then can we give credence to his intimation that the creation of the Conan stories was virtually a case of autohtforward as Hoould have Clark Ashton Smith and us believe

In October 1931, Howard completed the first version of a story titled People of the Dark and sent it to Clayton Publications' new e Tales of Mystery and Terror, a direct competitor to Weird Tales Editor Harry Bates liked the story, but asked for so