The Slithering Shadow

"The Slithering Shadow" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in the September 1933 issue of Weird Tales magazine. "The Slithering Shadow" is the original title, but the story is also known as "Xuthal of the Dusk" in further publications.^[1] It's set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age, and concerns Conan discovering a lost city in a remote desert while encountering a Lovecraftian demon known as Thog.

The story was republished in the collections The Sword of Conan (Gnome Press, 1952) and Conan the Adventurer (Lancer Books, 1966). It has more recently been published in the collections The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle (Gollancz, 2000) as "The Slithering Shadow" and in Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933) (Wandering Star, 2002) and The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (Del Rey, 2003) as "Xuthal of the Dusk."

Plot summary

Conan and his ally, Natala the Brythunian, are the sole survivors of Prince Almuric's army which swept through the Lands of Shem and the wilderness of Stygia. With a Stygian host on their heels, Almuric's soldiers had cut their way through the kingdom of Kush, only to be annihilated on the edge of Stygia's southern desert.

In the resulting conflict, when the Stygians and Kushites surrounded the trapped remnants, Conan sliced his way though the Stygian militia and fled on a camel, with Natala, into the southern desert. For days, the two pushed on, seeking water, until their camel died. Then they continued on foot.

When their canteen is empty, Conan prepares to slay Natala in an act of mercy-killing. However, Natala spies the distant city of Xuthal. Eventually, Conan and Natala enter Xuthal only to be pursued by an entrance guard. They soon encounter Thalis, a beautiful Stygian mage, who reveals the history of her peculiar city and the existence of Thog.

Thog is a monstrous demon from the city-states of ancient Valusia, his current form summoned by the sorcerers of Xuthal from the darkness between the stars. For an ageless time, Thog has haunted the depths of Xuthal in search of living flesh to assuage the continuing manifestation of his body on the physical plane.

Thalis falls in love with Conan and, to eliminate her rival, kidnaps Natala in the hopes of sacrificing her to Thog. However, Thalis pauses to strip Natala of her tunic and, with a jewel-handled whip, flagellates the Brythunian. In the middle of this bizarre act, Thog suddenly appears, snatches Thalis, and devours her. The demon returns for Natala, but Conan intervenes and saves her. Conan fights Thog with all his might, but is scarcely harming the demon's supernatural form, while receiving a hideous wound in the coils of its pseudopods and tentacles. However, Conan manages to pierce what he perceives as the "head" of the monster from below and precipitates it down into a well. Soon, Thalis is rescued from Thog's stomach and secretly escapes while Conan tosses its head into the well. Conan frees Natala, who sets forth to help him, but he's rapidly dying (this is the closest Conan ever gets to death in all of his saga). Fortunately, the Brythunian girl soon brings him a jade decanter full of golden wine, retrieved from a room with a dreaming woman of Xuthal in it. The beverage proves to be a life-giving elixir briefly mentioned by Thalis in a previous conversation, which miraculously heals all of Conan's wounds. Finally, the couple retrieve enough food and water to cross the rest of the desert with. The two depart toward the horizon while Natala jokingly blaming Conan for having aroused Thalis' lustful nature and him retorting playfully about women's jealousy.

Reception

Fritz Leiber rated it among the worst of the Conan stories, "repetitious and childish, a self-vitiating brew of pseudo-science, stage illusions, and the 'genuine' supernatural."^[2]

Adaptation

The story was adapted by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala in Savage Sword of Conan #20, then by Fred Van Lente and Guiu Vilanova in Conan the Avenger #13-15 (2015).

References

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Slithering Shadow

• Conan the Barbarian at AmratheLion.com
• Conan.com: The Official Website