Conan of the Isles

Conan of the Isles

Conan of the Isles by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, Lancer Books, 1968
Author	L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter
Cover artist	John Duillo
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Conan the Barbarian
Genre	Sword and sorcery Fantasy novel
Publisher	Lancer Books
Publication date	1968
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	189 pp

Conan of the Isles is a fantasy novel written by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter featuring Robert E. Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published October 1968 in paperback by Lancer Books, and reprinted in July 1970, 1972, and May 1973; publication was then taken over by Ace Books, which reprinted the novel in May 1977, May 1979, April 1980, July 1981, April 1982, November 1982, November 1983, June 1984, September 1986, February 1991, and May 1994. The first British edition was published in paperback by Sphere Books in December 1974. a number of times since by various publishers.^[1][2] It has also been translated into French, German, Hungarian, Spanish, Russian and Japanese.^[2]

Plot summary

King Conan, in his mid sixties, grows restless - especially since the death of his beloved wife Zenobia. With the approach of old age, what he most dreads is to die in bed – helpless, surrounded by physicians and whispering courtiers. He would much rather die in battle – but there seems little prospect of that, since he himself made Aquilonia powerful and prosperous and eliminated virtually all threats. The prospect he faces as King is many boring years of tax administration and abjudicating complicated legal cases. And meanwhile Conan's eldest son, also called Conan, is now twenty years old – a very worthy son and heir who had already given a very good account of himself at the age of thirteen (Conan of Aquilonia), and who is fully ready to assume the throne.

Suddenly, there is a new a grave crisis: Conan's old friend and loyal supporter, Count Trocero of Poitian, is suddenly snatched away from the Council Chamber itself by Red Shadows, sorcerous sendings of unknown origin. Though it happened in front of Conan himself, in a room full of courtiers and guards, there was nothing anyone can do against insubstantial shadows who suddenly appear, grab a person and disappear together with him. This is followed by the Red Shadows striking again and again, snatching at random men and women of all ages and social positions. As would later turn out, these sinister acts were perpetrated by the wizard priests of the dark god Xotli, descendants of refugees from sunken Atlantis, who settled on the other side of the ocean – and who seek to placate their demon god's voracious appetite for human sacrifice.

In his troubled sleep, Conan is visited by the ghost of the wise ancient prophet Epemitreus, who tells him that the source of the Red Shadows is in the unknown lands beyond the Western Ocean. Epemitreus, speaking for the gods, tells Conan that this is a threat to the whole world, and charges Conan to do what he was half-inclined to do anyway – i.e., abdicate, sail across the ocean, track the Red Shadows to their source and eliminate the threat. That very night Conan writes out his abdication letter and bids farewell to his son who would become King Conan II, with some final advice on how to be a King: "Discount nine-tenths of all flattery, and never punish the bearer of bad news."

At the pirate hideouts on the Barachan Islands, Conan finds that his old reputation as the pirate captain Amra the Lion is very much alive. He and his old comrade Sigurd of Vanaheim have no trouble to recruit a highly spirited, polyglot pirate crew and set off westwards on board The Red Lion. They emerge victorious from their first encounter with the dark priests, one of whom is guiding a magical green galley with no oarsemen to be seen. But in the second encounter, the Dragon Ships sent by the Xotli priests overcome Conan and his crew. All the pirates are knocked unconscious by sleeping gas and taken ashore, to be eventually sacrificed to Xotli and their hearts torn out of their chests.

Conan alone manages to escape, capturing a breathing apparatus from one of the attackers and diving into the sea. After some underwater adventures (he is threatened by a giant octopus and a shark – fortunately the two start fighting each other and forget about him) Conan comes ashore. Finding himself in a completely strange city with no idea of the language and culture, Conan finds his bearings at record speed. First, he finds refuge with the prostitute Catlaxoc – learning from her the language and customs of this lost city of Ptahuacan, proving to her as to himself that in his sixties he is still capable of pleasing love-making, and breaking her heart with his departure a few days later. Then, reasoning that a city this big must have a flourishing underworld, he makes contact with the local crime boss Metamphoc – with whom he instantly reaches a perfect understanding "between two old thieves."

With the help of Metamphoc and his Guild of Thieves, Conan sets out through the deep caverns under the city, in an effort to save his crew mates before they are sacrificed. The underground route is highly dangerous, and for a moment it seems that Conan's long and illustrious career would end with his being devoured by hundreds of giant rats – but he escapes this threat, too. Through an underground river, Conan arrives under the dark pyramid, at the top of which the victims are sacrificed, their life force greedily drunk by the physically-manifested Xotli while their bodies thrown into the underground cavern to be eaten by flightless dragons (in fact, giant lizards). Conan, pursued by some of these dragons, manages to open giant copper doors and loose the monsters at the gathered Xotli priesthood.

The attack of the dragons comes in the nick of time to save Sigurd of Vanaheim and the other pirates from being sacrificed, creating a distraction which enables them to fight their captors – soon joined by Conan himself. But aside from the priests and their soldiers there is also the direct threat of Xotli in person – the demon-god hovering in the air, annoyed at the interruption of his meal, and correctly identifying Conan as the source of his trouble.

Conan finds himself in a titanic mental struggle with Xotli. He resists the dark god to his utmost, but even the strongest mortal cannot win against a god. However, when sending Conan of this mission, Epemitreus had provided him with a powerful talisman for just such a contingency. Smashing the talisman brings on the scene the Aquilonian god Mithra in person – who is well able to deal with Xotli. Mithra warns Conan and his pirates, as well as the Ptahuacan city people, to get fast away from the vicinity. There follows a titanic struggle of the gods, in which the sacrificial pyramid and much of the city center is destroyed, and finally Xotli is banished and gone.

When the terrified city people return from the countryside where they escaped, they find that Metamphoc and his thieves have taken over the battered city. While not an ideal ruler, the crime boss would in Conan's view be a definite improvement over the murderous priests. In the prisons, hundreds of intended sacrificial victims are found and released, but nothing more is heard of Conan's old friend, Count Trocero of Poitian. Sadly, it seems that for him Conan's overthrow of dark priests came too late.

The book ends with Conan literally sailing off into the sunset: "A few hours later, the great ship, which the folk of Mayapan were to call Quetzlcoatl – meaning "winged (or feathered) serpent" in their uncouth tongue – lifted anchor. She sailed south and then, skirting the Antillian Isles, into the unknown West. But whither, the ancient chronicle, which endeth here, sayeth not."^[3]

Events after Conan of the Isles

Despite the seemingly definitive ending of the novel, various authors who have written about Conan offer hints as to subsequent events. Robert E. Howard wrote "[Conan] traveled widely, not only before his kingship, but after he was king. He travelled to Khitai and Hyrkania, and to the even less known regions north of the latter and south of the former. He even visited a nameless continent in the western hemisphere, and roamed among the islands adjacent to it. How much of this roaming will get into print, I can not foretell with any accuracy."^[4]

Later authors followed up on most of Howard's indications. Björn Nyberg took King Conan to Khitai, Hyrkania and Vendhya in The Return of Conan (Gnome Press, 1957). The last of Conan’s defensive wars followed by the ultimate war of aggression are presented by Leonard Carpenter in Conan the Great (Tor Books, 1990); his answer to whether Conan succeeded or perished in the attempt is a firm "neither." De Camp and Carter recount a couple later aggressive wars, not linked to world conquest, in Conan of Aquilonia (Ace Books, 1977). Conan's roaming among the islands adjacent to the nameless western continent is covered in Conan of the Isles itself, with the continent itself specified as his next destination. Isles indicates that he did indeed reach it, as the book records the name subsequently given his ship in Mayapan (showing that the "ancient chronicle" does say whither he goes, despite of concluding before he gets there).

Some later events in Aquilonia, set during the sixth year of the reign of Conan's son Conn, are presented by Roland J. Green in the prologue and epilogue of Conan at the Demon's Gate, which form a framing story to that novel's main narrative. There is no indication in the framing sequence that Conan has been heard from since his abdication.

De Camp’s final musings on Conan's fate are offered in "Conan the Indestructible," dated May, 1984, the last version of the 1938 Miller/Clark essay "A Probable Outline of Conan's Career" that he had revised and extended over many years: "In the end, Conan sailed off to explore the continents to the west ('Conan of the Isles'). Whether he died there, or whether there is truth in the tale that he strode out of the West to stand at his son's side in a final battle against Aquilonia's foes, will be revealed only to him who looks, as Kull of Valusia once did, into the mystic mirrors of Tuzun Thune."^[5] The awareness by the "ancient chronicle" of Conan's adventures in Antillia would seem to support an ultimate return to Aquilonia, and thus de Camp's second alternative. However, the fact that the chronicle ends with his setting off to the continent of Mayapan would argue that one or more of his piratical fellows did not accompany him there, but returned across the ocean and provided Aquilonians with the story as far as they knew it.

Whether or not there was a "last battle," Carter provides the Cimmerian's final earthly utterances in the poem "Death-Song of Conan the Cimmerian" in Dreams from R'lyeh, Arkham House, 1975.

Notes

References

• Fantastic Fiction entry for Conan of the Isles