If you missed the last one…
Conan fought several flying monsters in his career, though we have only looked at the Winged Ape previously here. The majority of his opponents are of the hulking variety. Flying opponents offer their own challenges, the most obvious being they can surprise you from above. That was why Edgar Rice Burroughs had Tarzan attacked by a pterodon in Pellucidar (a classic flying monster fight Howard may have read in 1929.)
“The Vale of Lost Women” originally appeared in Magazine of Horror #15, Spring 1967, but like most I read it in Conan the Cimmerian (1969). This story was finished in Howard’s time but didn’t see print until 1967. There is every chance it was rejected by Weird Tales. Livia takes center stage, making Conan into a secondary character. Also, it take far too long to get going.
Livia, an Ophirian noblewoman is captured by Bajujh and the Bakalahs, who murder her brother in front of her. Livia sees a strange white chief visiting her captors. She manages to escape her hut long enough to talk to him. He is Conan, a Cimmerian who is war chief of the Bamulas. She offers her virginity if he will save her from Bajujh.
Conan betrays his host and the Bakalahs are vanquished by surprise. During the fight, Livia escapes, not wanting to be a sexual toy to any man. She falls off her horse and wanders into a valley where no one will venture, the Vale of Lost Women. There she finds small, brown females with the eyes of demons.
They drug her and place her on an altar. From the starry depths of space comes a bat-like monster to devour her soul and make her another of the lost women. Conan shows up in time to defeat the demon, which flees back into space. Livia offers up her virginity again but Conan refuses her. She is too soft, not worthy of being his mate.
The Lost Women are the secondary monsters of this story. They appear to be normal human women except for their eyes which flash in the dark and show their soulless condition:
But suddenly terror seized her as she looked into their eyes. Those eyes were luminous, radiant in the star shine; but they were not human eyes. The forms were human, but in the souls a strange change had been wrought; a change reflected in their glowing eyes. Fear descended on Livia in a wave. The serpent reared its grisly head in her new-found Paradise.
The Devil of the Outer Darkness is a minor creature from the Abyss. This tale is tangential to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. (Imagine what would have happened if Azathoth showed up!) Howard did write some legit Mythos tales.
First, high above her, she saw a black dot among the stars, which grew and expanded; it neared her; it swelled to a bat; and still it grew, though its shape did not alter further to any great extent. It hovered over her in the stars, dropping plummet-like earthward, its great wings spread over her; she lay in its tenebrous shadow. And all about her the chant rose higher, to a soft paean of soulless joy, a welcome to the god which came to claim a fresh sacrifice, fresh and rose-pink as a flower in the dew of dawn.
Now it hung directly over her, and her soul shrivelled and grew chill and small at the sight. Its wings were batlike; but its body and the dim face that gazed down upon her were like nothing of sea or earth or air; she knew she looked upon ultimate horror, upon black cosmic foulness born in night-black gulfs beyond the reach of a madman’s wildest dreams.
Conan defeats the monster the old-fashioned way, by hacking it up with a sword.
The great black wings rose and fell. Livia, dumb with horror, saw the Cimmerian enveloped in the black shadow that hung over him. The man’s breath came pantingly; his feet stamped the beaten earth, crushing the white blossoms into the dirt. The rending impact of his blows echoed through the night. He was hurled back and forth like a rat in the grip of a hound; blood splashed thickly on the sward, mingling with the white petals that lay strewn like a carpet.
And then the girl, watching that devilish battle as in a nightmare, saw the black-winged thing waver and stagger in mid-air; there was a threshing beat of crippled wings, and the monster had torn clear and was soaring upward to mingle and vanish among the stars. Its conqueror staggered dizzily, sword poised, legs wide-braced, staring upward stupidly, amazed at victory, but ready to take up again the ghastly battle.
In the annals of the Cimmerian, this is a minor tale and a minor monster. The devil could have been quite creepy in a Lovecraftian way but Howard’s description is vague and uninspired. Robert A. W. Lowdnes snagged the tale before Lin Carter or L. Sprague de Camp could change it. I’m sure Lin would have given it more Mythos goodness.
Marvel Comics adapted the story in Conan the Barbarian #104 (November 1979). It was written by Roy Thomas.
For more on this story, check out David Hardy’s piece at Black Gate or in Hither Came Conan from Rogue Blades Entertainment.
Next time…Giant Slugs!
