Conan the adaptable, p.1
Conan the Adaptable, page 1
Foreword
J.R. Karlsson
I would like to sincerely apologise to all the Howard purists that this collection is most certainly going to offend with its blasphemous rendition of Howard's works.
To see the unaltered versions of these tales or review the extent of my alterations, I urge you to search for the Del Rey and Bison Books collections.
In 1955, after the urging of Oscar J. Friend, one Lyon Sprague de Camp took it upon himself to re-write four original Robert E. Howard tales.
The reasons for his doing so are considered largely monetary, after previously editing and rewriting typescripts of most of the previous Conan tales in existence for publication with Gnome Press.
Whether this was the sole concern of de Camp is questionable, as the man himself was frustrated by the lack of Conan stories and their potential had Howard not killed himself.
Upon doing a bit of research, I discovered the original versions of these tales were from other adventurers such as Kirby O'Donnell, Diego de Guzman, Ivan Sablianka and El Borak himself, Francis X. Gordon. All of them easily converted into Conan of Cimmeria.
This got me wondering, were there any other tales with these heroes?
It turns out that both O'Donnell and Gordon had a string of high-quality adventures that de Camp had either chosen not to or never got around to converting.
There are two schools of thought regarding Howard's other tales. The first of these states that a great number of them featured protagonists that were barbaric strong men pitted against the odds, quite often securing the woman at the end. The second maintains that each of Howard's main characters were distinct and three-dimensional.
Based on the edits, L. Sprague de Camp clearly considered Howard's protagonists to be largely similar. The Howard purists insist that this belief is false to the extreme. They loathe de Camp with a passion that they cannot help but express regularly.
I am of the belief that there is a middle ground, a third camp of sorts. A more sensible camp at that.
The Pictish king Bran Mak Morn is not Conan of Cimmeria, nor is Solomon Kane or King Kull. These are different characters altogether, with different attitudes and beliefs. You could feasibly re-write their tales into Conan yarns, but you'd have to do a lot of editing in order to make it so.
Steve Costigan is another great example of a character that differs wildly from Conan, a lumbering bull-headed brute that got into comical trouble boxing on a ship. Not Conan.
This stands as proof enough to most that Howard could write different characters.
Except that Howard himself re-wrote Kull's final story into Conan. He re-wrote and adapted constantly, shifting characters and names and worlds and events. Swords of the Red Brotherhood and Gods of the North being perfect examples of tales that were once Conan stories being rewritten into something else entirely.
There are a number of tales which clearly aren't Conan in disguise. Dark Agnes (the inspiration for Red Sonja), Pike Bearfield, the aforementioned Steve Costigan and a number of others would translate poorly into the Hyborian era.
Then you get stories like The Dark Man. Where the protagonist is called Conan and swears by Crom.
Or Hawks of Outremer, starring Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, the Crusader knight who is identical in appearance and mannerisms to Conan.
Or Tigers of the Sea, where our hero teams up with a viking called Wulfhere (a name reused in Conan lore several times) and who is also called Cormac.
Cimmeria was based on the ancestral lands of where Erin now is. Both Cormacs are the same height and weight as Conan, with dark square-cut manes and smouldering blue eyes. You're not fooling anyone by thinking they are anything but Conan transplanted into another point in history.
The idea of a connection between Howard's characters is not only explored, but written in the form of the James Allison tales, where a Texan (like Howard) recalls past lives of ancient heroes. Ancient Hyborian-era heroes nonetheless that have more than a touch of Conan about them.
Roy Thomas of Marvel Comics was one of many to hold this belief, and with the permission of Glenn Lord he took some of Howard's better tales and converted them into Conan stories.
These as well as de Camp's edits of Conan's adventures falls into a middle ground of pastiche, between the outright new works (such as the Tor paperbacks) and the original works of Howard. They use the written word of Robert E. Howard and re-purpose it slightly through renaming, and are more faithful to the tone of Conan than some of the latter works.
The one thing that stood out in Thomas's adaptions was that he chose tales that didn't need much adapting in order to become Conan. It was only later on in his career with Marvel that he began to run out of stories to convert and started resorting to some of Howard's lesser-fitting tales (such as the horror stories of The Haunter of the Ring and The Shadow of the Beast).
So you have a bunch of Howard stories that feature protagonists that have either been converted into the Conan timeline or feature a character that was converted.
That's where my editing comes in.
After gathering up as many of these tales as possible, I assembled every story that Thomas had taken inspiration from, and every near-complete story I could find that also featured the same character. I then went about converting them into Conan tales.
Black Turlogh, El Borak, Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, Kirby O'Donnell, Cormac Mac Art and Black Vulmea (who himself was Conan rewritten by Howard) all translated easily into Hyborian-era yarns.
Roy's works are included when possible, including fragments such as Two against Turan and The Slave-Princess, neither of which I could find a satisfactory conclusion to without great personal expense or extensive re-writing that wasn't true to the spirit of this collection.
In addition to this, a selection of edited James Allison and John Garfield reincarnation tales have also been included, with their perspectives changed from first to third person and the Allison/Garfield sections removed.
Elsewhere, I tried to keep meddling to a minimum. Guns were altered into bows, gods were retitled, races were renamed, places were altered. Occasionally people were renamed, often by Roy Thomas rather than me.
There are going to be mistakes in this collection, as it was all done manually by one person and spans near four-hundred thousand words. Try not to wince too much if you spot a gun here or an incorrect expletive there.
I have not altered the stories beyond that. There is no added supernatural element as Mr. Thomas was prone to doing (thus these tales will differ from the Marvel Comics slightly), there are no swathes of text written by me and inserted jarringly into Howard's work like de Camp. I have attempted to keep as much of the original story and action as true to Howard as it can be.
This is not a complete revision of all tales that are suitable for conversion or all tales that were converted into Conan yarns. There are a number of historical works that could be altered into Conan tales but I have chosen not to, they can be found in any good Howard collection and I urge you to hunt them down. Other works such as the spicy stories Guns of Khartum, The Dragon of Kao Tsu and Murderer's Grog were impossible to find and convert.
The Voice of El-Lil was told in both narrative and first person perspective, and thus would have made a poor conversion. I have decided not to include it. Black Canaan is also absent due to the amount of editing it would take to remove all the racial undertones of the text.
The only story not written by Howard in this collection is Tower of Blood, a forgotten David A. English 'Cromek' short that was edited by chance into a Conan tale by Roy for Marvel Comics. He found it while reading the Howard tale Mistress of Death, and liked it so much that he made it part of the Marvel canon.
The two barbarian series by Gardner F. Fox and Norvell W. Page that were also adapted by Roy into Conan stories have not been added to this collection as they are feature-length novels and work against the premise of this primarily Howard-based short story collection.
The premise that these stories work under is simple: what if Howard had lived beyond thirty and decided to go back and re-write some of his old tales into Conan?
We can only guess, but something like this may have been the result.
Old Garrad's Heart
(Originally Old Garrad's Heart)
Robert E. Howard & J.R. Karlsson
Conan of Cimmeria, still but a youth, watched as when his grandfather hobbled out and sank down on his favorite chair with the cushioned seat, and began to stuff tobacco in his old corncob-pipe.
"I thought you'd be going to the dance," he said.
"I'm waiting for Brax," Conan answered. "I'm going over to old man Garrad's with him."
His grandfather sucked at his pipe awhile before he spoke again.
"Old Garrad pretty bad off?"
"Brax says he hasn't a chance."
"Who's takin' care of him?"
"Joran, against Garrad's wishes. But somebody had to stay with him."
His grandfather sucked his pipe noisily, and watched the heat lightning playing away off up in the hills; then he said: "You think old Garrad's the biggest liar in these mountains, don't you?"
"He tells some pretty tall tales," the youth admitted. "Some of the things he claimed he took part in, must have happened before he was born."
"I came from the northern mountains fifty summers ago," his grandfather said abruptly. "I saw these lands grow up f
"You never mentioned that before," Conan said in some surprise.
"I knew you'd put it down to an old man's maunderings," he answered. "Old Garrad was the first Cimmerian to settle in this country. He built his place a good fifty miles west of the frontier. Crom knows how he did it, for these hills swarmed with Picts then.
"I remember the first time I ever saw him. Even then everybody called him 'old Garrad.'
"I remember him telling me the same tales he's told you—only I believe him, and you don't."
"What he speaks of was so long ago—" Conan protested.
"The last full-scale Pictish raid through this country was thirty summers past," said his grandfather, engrossed in his own reminiscences. "I was in on that fight, and so was old Garrad. I saw him kill the chieftan at seven hundred paces with his bow.
"But before that I was with him in a fight up near the head of frozen water. A band of Picts came down, looting and burning, rode through the hills and started back up, and a scout of them were hot on their heels. they ran on to them just at sundown. they killed seven of them, and the rest skinned out through the woods on foot. But three of our boys were killed, and Garrad got a thrust in the breast with a spear.
"It was an awful wound. He lay like a dead man, and it seemed sure nobody could live after a wound like that. But an old Pict came out of the brush, and when they aimed our weapons at him, he made the peace sign and spoke to them. I don't know why the boys didn't shoot him in his tracks, because our blood was heated with the fighting and killing, but something about him made them hold our fire. He said he wasn't an enemy, but was an old friend of Garrad's, and wanted to help him. He asked them to carry Garrad into a clump of the woods, and leave him alone, and to this day I don't know why they did, but they did. It was an awful time—the wounded moaning and calling for water, the staring corpses strewn about the camp, night coming on, and no way of knowing that the Picts wouldn't return when dark fell.
"they made camp right there, because the horses were exhausted, and they watched all night, but the Picts didn't come back. I don't know what went on out in the woods where Garrad's body lay, because I never saw that strange Pict again; but during the night I kept hearing a weird moaning that wasn't made by the dyin' men, and an owl hooted from midnight till dawn.
"And at sunrise Garrad came walking out of the woods, pale and haggard, but alive, and already the wound in his breast had closed and begun to heal. And since then he's never mentioned that wound, nor that fight, nor the strange Pict who came and went so mysteriously. And he hasn't aged a bit; he looks now just like he did then—a man of about fifty winters."
In the silence that followed, the galloping hooves of a horse cut through the dusk.
"That's Brax," Conan said. "When I come back I'll tell you how Garrad is."
Brax was prompt with his predictions as they galloped across the three miles of snow covered hills that lay between his home and the Garrad farm.
"I'll be surprised to find him alive," he said, "smashed up like he is. A man his age ought to have more sense than to try to break a young horse."
"He doesn't look so old," Conan remarked.
"I'll be fifty, this next birthday," answered Brax. "I've known him all his life, and he must have been at least fifty the first time I ever saw him. His looks are deceiving."
Old Garrad's dwelling-place was reminiscent of the past. The mossy sides of the low squat house had never known much repair.
Old Garrad lay on his rude bed, tended crudely but efficiently by the man Brax had hired over the old man's protests. As Conan looked at him, Conan was impressed anew by his evident vitality. His frame was stooped but unwithered, his limbs rounded out with springy muscles. In his corded neck and in his face, drawn though it was with suffering, was apparent an innate virility. His eyes, though partly glazed with pain, burned with the same unquenchable element.
"He's been raving," said Joran stolidly.
"First Cimmerian this far south," muttered old Garrad, becoming intelligible. "Hills nobody ever set foot in before. Getting too old. Have to settle down. Can't move on like I used to. Settle down here. Good country before it filled up with the rest of them."
Brax shook his head. "He's all smashed up inside. He won't live till daylight."
Garrad unexpectedly lifted his head and looked at them with clear eyes.
"Wrong," he wheezed, his breath whistling with pain. "I'll live. What's broken bones and twisted guts? Nothing! It's the heart that counts. As long as the heart keeps pumping, a man can't die. My heart's sound. Listen to it! Feel of it!"
He groped painfully for Brax's wrist, dragged his hand to his bosom and held it there, staring up into the shaman's face with avid intensity.
"Regular dynamo, ain't it?" he gasped. "Stronger than a wild bull!"
Brax beckoned me. "Lay your hand here," he said, placing his hand on the old man's bare breast. "He does have a remarkable heart beat."
Conan noted, in the dim light of the hut, a great livid scar in the gaunt arching breast—such a scar as might be made by a flint-headed spear. Conan laid his hand directly on this scar, and an exclamation escaped his lips.
Under his hand old Garrad's heart pulsed, but its throb was like no other heart beat Conan have ever observed. Its power was astounding; his ribs vibrated to its steady throb. It felt more like a vibration than the action of a human organ. Conan could feel its amazing vitality radiating from his breast, stealing up into his hand and up his arm, until his own heart seemed to speed up in response.
"I can't die," old Garrad gasped. "Not so long as this heart's in my breast. Only an arrow through the brain can kill me. And even then I wouldn't be rightly dead, as long as this heart beats in my breast. Yet it isn't rightly mine, either. It belongs to Ghost Man, the Pict chief. It was the heart of a god the Picts worshipped before our people drove them out of their native hills.
"I knew Ghost Man down south, in the old wandering days. I saved his life from raiders once. He tied the string of a ghost between him and me—the string no man but me and him can see or feel. He came when he knew I needed him, in that fight up on the frozen headwaters, when I got this scar.
"I was dead as a man can be. My heart was sliced in two, like the heart of a butchered beef steer.
"All night Ghost Man did magic, calling his ghost back from spirit-land. I remember that flight, a little. It was dark, and gray-like, and I drifted through gray mists and heard the dead wailing past me in the mist. But Ghost Man brought me back.
"He took out what was left of my mortal heart, and put the heart of the god in my bosom. But it's his, and when I'm through with it, he'll come for it. It's kept me alive and strong for the lifetime of a man. Age can't touch me. What do I care if these fools around here call me an old liar? What I know, I know. But hark!"
His fingers became claws, clamping fiercely on Brax's wrist. His old eyes, old yet strangely young, burned fierce as those of an eagle under his bushy brows.
"If by some mischance I should die, now or later, promise me this! Cut into his bosom and take out the heart Ghost Man lent me so long ago! It's his. And as long as it beats in my body, my spirit will be tied to that body, though his head be crushed like an egg underfoot! A living thing in a rotting body! Promise!"
"All right, Conan promise," replied Brax, to humor him, and old Garrad sank back with a whistling sigh of relief.
He did not die that night, nor the next, nor the next. Conan well remembered the next day, because it was that day that he had the fight with Kirhak.
People will take a good deal from a bully, rather than to spill blood. Because nobody had gone to the trouble of killing him, Kirhak thought the whole mountainside was afraid of him.
He had bought a steer from his father, and when his father went to collect for it, Kirhak told him that he had paid the money to him—which was a lie. Conan went looking for Kirhak, and came upon him, boasting of his toughness, and telling the crowd that he was going to beat Conan up and make him say that he had paid him the money, and that Conan had stuck it into his own pocket. When Conan heard him say that, he saw red, and ran in on him with a knife, and cut him across the face, and in the neck, side, breast and belly, and the only thing that saved his life was the fact that the crowd pulled him off.
