Zub Tales

Continuing my Conan reread for Cimmerian September, the third published Conan story is The Tower of the Elephant, which arrived in the March 1933 issue of Weird Tales magazine.

This is definitely one of my favorite Conan stories, and probably one of my favorite sword & sorcery stories in general, so I’ve read it many times and know the events almost beat for beat. That said, another reading is always welcome and I find new things to enjoy each time that I do.

Unlike the previous two published stories, in this one Conan is young, brash, and ill at ease with the civilized world. This was readers first glimpse at Conan in this formative period as a thief and both his attitude and the caper that unfolds hits the mark in establishing a character and world that will become iconic.

Our introduction to the Cimmerian makes it clear that he is the same man as before, but also emphasizes how different he is from the locals in Zingara:

He saw a tall, strongly made youth standing beside him. This person was as much out of place in that den as a gray wolf among mangy rats of the gutters. His cheap tunic could not conceal the hard, rangy lines of his powerful frame, the broad heavy shoulders, the massive chest, lean waist and heavy arms. His skin was brown from outland suns, his eyes blue and smoldering; a shock of tousled black hair crowned his broad forehead. From his girdle hung a sword in a worn leather scabbard.

A cocky cutpurse talks up his capabilities and mentions the ‘Elephant Tower’ and our hero wants to know why no one has broken in and taken its rumored treasure. When the robber insults Conan, we’re given a sly sentence that deftly plays with Robert E. Howard’s ‘civilization vs savagery’ theme:

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

I’ve seen that quote laid over many a Conan meme over the years.

The god “Crom” has been muttered and yelled by Conan multiple times in his previous pair of tales, but here in The Tower of the Elephant we get more information on how the Cimmerian faith functions:

His gods were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth dooms and death. It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings. But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian’s mind, was all any god should be expected to do.

The description of the tower itself does a wonderful job at setting the scene, making it both alluring and imposing:

It was round, a slim perfect cylinder, a hundred and fifty feet in height, and its rim glittered in the starlight with the great jewels which crusted it. The tower stood among the waving exotic trees of a garden raised high above the general level of the city. A high wall enclosed this garden, and outside the wall was a lower level, likewise enclosed by a wall. No lights shone forth; there seemed to be no windows in the tower—at least not above the level of the inner wall. Only the gems high above sparkled frostily in the starlight.

In The Phoenix on the Sword there’s a conversation where King Conan discusses geography and in The Scarlet Citadel there’s a whole section around geopolitical power and regions near Aquilonia that are effective in making the Hyborian Age feel like it stretches out far past the page. In a similar way, this story includes references to distant lands and items that characters have acquired on other adventures:

‘They died without a sound!’ muttered the Cimmerian. ‘Taurus, what was that powder?’

‘It was made from the black lotus, whose blossoms wave in the lost jungles of Khitai…Those blossoms strike dead any who smell of them.’

On the heist are a series of encounters that, in modern nerdy context, feel 100% like a Dungeons & Dragons adventure – patrolling guards, a random encounter with wild beasts, a trap-laden treasure room and a giant poisonous spider. You can tell Gary Gygax was deeply influenced by Howard’s writing, and for good reason.

The eponymously-named ‘Elephant’ is an alien being called Yag-kosha, another example of cosmic creatures thrust into Conan’s world. I think there might be more eldritch horrors than nubile women in canon Conan stories, shifting the stereotype generated by countless covers filled with lovely ladies. The point being that Conan doesn’t even know what an elephant looks like:

He had never seen an elephant, but he vaguely understood that it was a monstrous animal, with a tail in front as well as behind. This a wandering Shemite had told him, swearing that he had seen such beasts by the thousands in the country of the Hyrkanians; but all men knew what liars were the men of Shem. At any rate, there were no elephants in Zamora.

And so the depictions of Yag-kosha as an actual elephant-headed man is a mistake that endlessly perpetuates thanks to illustrations, including the one that accompanied the original printing of this story. Yag-kosha may have some kind of trunk, tusks, and elephant-esque features, but he should also be quite alien in appearance:

Conan stared aghast; the image had the body of a man, naked, and green in color; but the head was one of nightmare and madness. Too large for the human body, it had no attributes of humanity. Conan stared at the wide flaring ears, the curling proboscis, on either side of which stood white tusks tipped with round golden balls.

From scene to scene, there’s a wonderful sense of rising adventure that leads to a surprisingly touching sacrifice and then an inevitable spark of vengeance carried forth by our hero. In just over 9700 words Howard drives the plot with action aplenty while still finding room for pathos and wonderment. It’s an absolute classic of the genre, and deservedly so.

The Tower of the Elephant has been adapted multiple times in comics over the years, but in my opinion the best one is in Savage Sword of Conan #24 from 1977. John Buscema’s line work is enhanced by Alfredo Alcala’s stunning inks and it hits every beat with aplomb.

If you haven’t read the original Conan prose stories, I recommend the Del Rey 3-book set, which has each story unedited and essays that add context around their publication.