13th December 2003, pencil, 13.5x21cm
Like Conan the Pit Fighter , this was partly inspired by a scene in the movie Conan the Barbarian, and Robert E Howard's Conan novel, specifically the story entitled "The Thing in the Crypt" by Carter and de Camp (incidentally containing one of the more memorable excerpts, that can also be heard narrated by Mako at the start of the movie - "...Between the times when the oceans drank Atlantis..."). The story of how Conan stumbles upon his fabled Atlantean sword...
"... Know, O Prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jewelled thrones of the earth under his sandaled feet..."
In Conan's veins flowed the blood of Atlantis, swallowed by the seas eight thousand years before his time. He was born into a clan that claimed an area in the north-west of Cimmeria. His grandfather was a member of a southern tribe who had fled from his own people because of a blood feud and, after long wandering, took refuge with the people of the North. Conan himself was born on a battlefield, during a fight between his tribe and a horde of raiding Vanir.
Conan had tasted the bitterness of the chains and the lash that were the normal lot of the slave. He had not, however, long remained in slavery, heading south to seek his fate with no more equipment than a tattered, threadbare tunic and a length of chain. And then the wolves had caught his scent. For days they had trailed him through the woods, and now they were closing in again.
Through a white blur of whirling snow, he saw a yawning blackness between two mighty planes of rock and flung himself toward it, squeezing through the opening just as the foremost wolf sprang at him. Drooling jaws snapped at empty air; Conan was safe.
But for how long?
The wolves snuffled and whined, hungry for blood, but not one came through the gap. And that was strange.
Conan found himself in a narrow chamber in the rock, utterly black save for the feeble twilight that came through the cleft. The uneven floor of the cell was strewn with litter blown in by centuries of wind or carried in by birds and beasts: dead leaves, spruce needles, twigs, a few scattered bones, pebbles and chips of rock. Stretching to his full height - he was already inches over six feet - he began exploring the wall with outstretched hand. Soon he came upon another door. He had to stoop double to wedge himself through the inner door, but beyond it he could once more stand erect. He paused, listening warily. Although the silence was absolute, some sense seemed to warn him that he was not alone in the chamber. Conan's questing hands came upon something cold and metallic, his sense of touch told him that this was probably rusty iron. This gave him an idea. From the floor he gathered a fistful of tinder and tried the stones on the iron. After several failures, he found a stone that emitted a bright flash of sparks when struck against the iron.
Soon he had a small, smoky fire sputtering. Now he could relax, rest from his terrible cross-country run, and warm his numbed limbs. The fire sent a warm, yellow light dancing across the walls of roughly dressed stone. Conan gazed about him. The room was square and even larger than his first impressions had told him. The high ceiling was lost in thick shadows and clotted with cobwebs. The great stone room smelt of death - of ancient things long unburied.
And then the hair lifted from the nape of his neck, and he felt his skin roughen with a supernatural thrill. For there, enthroned on a great, stone chair at the further end of the chamber, sat the huge figure of a man with a naked sword and a cavernous skull-face staring at him through the flickering firelight.
Almost as soon as he sighted the giant, Conan knew he was dead - long ages dead. The corpse's limbs were as brown and withered as dry sticks. The flesh on its huge torso had dried, shrunk, and split until it clung in tatters to naked ribs.
This knowledge however did not calm the youth's sudden chill of terror. Fearless beyond his years in war, willing to stand against a man or brute beast in battle, he feared neither pain, nor death, nor mortal foes. But he was a barbarian from the northern hills of backward Cimmeria, and like all barbarians, he dreaded the supernatural terrors of the grave and the dark, with all its dreads and demons. Much rather would Conan have faced even the hungry wolves than remain here with the dead thing glaring down at him from its rocky throne, while the wavering firelight painted life and animation into the withered skull-face and moved the shadows in its sunken sockets like dark, burning eyes.
Although his blood ran chill and his nape hairs prickled, Conan fiercely took hold of himself. Bidding his night-fears be damned, he strode stiff-legged across the vault for a closer look at the long-dead thing. With iron nerve, he forced himself to peer into those time-eaten features. Who had he been, this dead thing? A warrior of ancient times - some great chief, feared in life and still enthroned in death?
Then Conan's gaze dropped to the great sword. It was a terrific weapon: a broadsword with a blade well over a yard in length. It was made of blued iron - not copper or bronze as might have been expected from its obvious age. Many battles had this sword seen in the dim past, for its broad blade, although still keen, was notched in a score of places. Stained with age and spotted with rust, it was still a weapon to be feared.
Conan felt his pulses pound. The blood of one born to war seethed within him. Crom, what a sword! With a blade like that, he could more than hold his own against the starving wolves that padded, whined and waited without. As he reached for the hilt with eager hand, he failed to see the warning flicker that moved within those shadowed eye sockets in the skull-head of the ancient warrior.
Conan hefted the blade. It seemed as heavy as lead - a sword of the Elder Ages. Perhaps some fabled hero-king of old had borne it - some legendary demigod like Kull of Atlantis, king of Valusia in the ages before Atlantis foundered beneath the restless sea...
The Cimmerian swung the sword, feeling his thews swell with power and his heart beat faster with pride of possession. Gods, what a sword! With such a blade, no destiny was too high for a warrior to aspire to! With a sword such as this, even a half-naked young barbarian from the raw Cimmerian wilderness might hack his way across the world and wade through rivers of gore to a place among the high kings of earth!
He stood back from the throne of stone, feinting and cutting the air with the blade, getting the feel of the age-worn hilt against his hard palm. The keen old sword whistled through the smoky air, and the flickering light of the fire glanced in sparkling rays from the planes of the blade to the rough stone walls, whipping along the sides of the chamber like little, golden meteors. With this mighty brand in his grasp, he could face not only the hungry wolves outside, but a world of warriors as well.
He stopped, frozen in mid-stride, as a sound - an indescribable, dry creaking - came from the throne side of the crypt. Wheeling, he saw... and felt the hair lift from his scalp and the blood turn to ice in his veins. All his superstitious terrors and primal night-fears rose howling, to fill his mind with shadows of madness and horror. For the dead thing lived...
Extract from "The Thing in the Crypt", by L Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, edited.