Monsters of the Hyborian Age 12: Yama the Demon-King

If you missed the last one…

The Great Dog of Death and Terror, Yama the Demon King

Yama, the Demon-King, he of many arms, is a monster from an early Lin Carter & L. Sprague de Camp story, “The City of Skulls”, having no particle of Robert E. Howard in it as some stories do. It was in the first of a batch of living statues stories (borrowed no doubt from Ray Harryhausen’s  Talos from Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Harryhausen would return the favor with his deadly statue of Kali in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974). The statue-god that comes to life was first done in the Howard rewrite “The Bloodstained God” from 1955 (see last time) but here the statue takes on gigantic proportions.

Yama is described as:

As they watched, powerless to move, the image of green stone shifted one of its huge feet slowly, creaking. Thirty feet above their heads, its great face leered down at them. The six arms moved jerkily, flexing like the limbs of some gigantic spider. The thing tilted, shifting its monstrous weight. One vast foot came down on the altar on which Zosara had lain. The stone block cracked and crumbled beneath the tons of living green stone.(“The City of Skulls”, Conan 1967 by Lin Carter & L. Sprague de Camp)

A History of Sorcery

The history of Yama is given early in the story. The Meruvians got their secret valley to live in when Yama flattened the mountains for them. The god created the Meruvians and said they must obey the word of their shaman-priests or He will return and take back his gift. Because of all this, the Meruvians are too docile for the Cimmerian’s liking. Well, you can tell where this is going when Conan gets in the mix. He thinks it all mumbo-jumbo until the god’s statue comes to life.

Conan battles the statue, resorting as he always does with big enemy to the furniture:

Now Conan stood near the monstrous foot of the walking idol. The stone legs towered above him like the pillars of some colossal temple. His face congested with the effort, Conan raised the heavy bench over his head and hurled it at the leg. It crashed into the carven ankle of the colossus with terrific impact. The marble of the bench clouded with a web of cracks, which shot through it from end to end. He stepped even closer, picked up the bench again, and again swung it against the ankle. This time the bench shattered into a score of pieces; but the leg, though slightly chipped, was not materially damaged. Conan reeled back as the statue took another ponderous step toward him.

The Terrible Gaze

Yama, the Demon-King’s gaze is a powerful weapon as much as his giant bronze feet:

The ruby eyes glared into his. Strange, to stare into the living eyes of a god! They were bottomlessly deep– shadow-veiled depths wherein his gaze sank endlessly through red aeons of time without thought. And deep within those crystalline depths, a cold, inhuman malignancy coiled. The god’s gaze locked on his own, and the young Cimmerian felt an icy numbness spread through him. He could neither move nor think…

Conan is frozen by the eyes but fate saves him. The statue steps on the king that raised the god in the first place, ending the spell. In this way Conan wins not by his own thews but through friendship. It is his pal, Juma, who throws the god-king, Jalung Thongpa, under the giant’s foot.

Marvel Comics Version

Of course, The Savage Sword of Conan #59 (December 1980) adapted this tale. Written by the ever-present Roy Thomas, it was drawn by Mike Vosburg and inked by Alfred Alcala.

Conan the Destroyer

Another echo of this tale is the god Dagoth from the film, Conan the Destroyer (1984). That film was based on a story by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway. I have to think some of Carter & de Camp filtered through there to give us the statue god in the film. Originally a human statue, it mutates into a horned monster, though not a gigantic one. Conan defeats it by ripping out its horn, Beowulf style. Though not a direct borrow of Yama, the Demon-King, the tradition is certainly there.

Another Dagoth!

Of interest here is Marvel’s own character of Dagoth, who looks a bit like that movie monster. He appears in the Doctor Strange story “The Shadows of the Starstone” (Marvel Premiere #7, March 1973). This first appearance was written by Gardner F. Fox and drawn by P. Craig Russell and Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia and Dave Hunt. Roy Thomas was editor of that issue. Of course, the name is a Lovecraftianism, HPL’s Dagon with an extra “oth” added. That certainly was what Fox was going for, and I suppose, Thomas and Conway were too. (Fox had written actual Cthulhu Mythos fiction back in his Pulp days. He was no stranger to Sword & Sorcery either.) Lovecraft’s presence was always a part of Robert E. Howard’s background when writing the series.