![]() The civilized men in the Maul laughed at the very notion of breaking into Yara’s tightly guarded, mysterious tower. It also further reinforces the theme of the difference between Conan and everyone else. We can never really know if the Nemedian had intended to betray Conan in this moment – the latter’s suspicions may have been founded, or they may be a sign that the young savage is quickly learning the habit of distrust born of his new environment – but the result of course is to set up suspense for the next encounter. ![]() Taurus, who seems to admire Conan’s pluck in having simply decided on a whim to undertake a theft that the Prince of Thieves himself had spent months preparing for, is stunned, for the Cimmerian is something other than merely skilled, his very life’s rhythm beats outside the bounds thought possible by even the most accomplished and hardened of civilized men.Īnd this revelation is immediately reinforced when the two achieve the Tower’s top, and Taurus slips ahead inside, only to stagger back out again and drop cold dead. Thus when the lion of the garden that had not died from Taurus’ poison cloud springs like murderous lighting at the two as they contemplate climbing the wall, only Conan’s reflexes, his un-dulled instincts, save them. Your fortitude consists mainly in inflicting torment, not in enduring it. In a much later story, “A Witch Shall Be Born,” Conan himself comes close to saying just what that is, what elemental force flows through him as a being more in tune with nature, more natural and instinctual in his every act, than any flaccid denizen of the city, when he explains to the man who had (literally) crucified him and whom he, in turn, has crucified: “you civilized men are soft your lives are not nailed to your spines as are ours. But Conan has something too, something that no one else the length and breadth of the entire saga has. ![]() To take care of the silent lions of the garden, he has the lethal powder of the yellow lotus. To scale the slick-sided round tower with sides like polished glass, Taurus has what may well be a magic rope. When Conan suggests Taurus has made a mistake by leaving the body of a guard out in the open, the latter quickly explains the method to his madness. Taurus is strong and nimble like Conan, but he’s also got a head full of experience and a bag full of tricks. He’s an extraordinarily memorable character despite his very short appearance in the saga. The next civilized man he encounters is in the very gardens of the Tower itself: Taurus of Nemedia, Prince of Thieves. Our noble savage, unburdened by philosophy or the civilized world’s religion, reacts with a disgust that demonstrates his intrinsic decency.īut Conan is a mere fledgling in Zamora, not only perplexed by the ways of the city, but relatively untutored in his profession of thief. The Kothian slaver is the ant-scale reflection of the ancient evil that is Yara, master of the Tower, proof the sins of a civilization that yokes and coerces those within its power echoes through all levels of its hierarchy of exploitation. It isn’t a shifty thief, or a venal merchant, or a brutal mercenary that Conan kills, but one who enslaves others to enrich himself. In this one scene we have the essential nature of Conan contrasted with city swine he encounters, we get hints about the mysterious Elephant Tower and its black-hearted occupant, but we also get a thematic set up for the climax of the story. Conan proceeds to Conan, and the ‘woman-stealer’ gets his final etiquette lesson in the form of a bellyful of blade steel. Our Cimmerian gets the hint and is ready to walk away when the Kothian fool just has to take things one step too far and pushes him. ![]() The slaver mocks the young Conan’s ignorance, and also his confidence, and Conan is a bit slow on the uptake as the Zamoran thieves surrounding them join in on the fun. One of those civilized men is a fat Kothian slaver whom Conan engages in conversation, curious about the secret of the Elephant Tower that dominates the city of Zamora, a secret in the form of a jewel of incomparable value.
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