Wow, that last post was long. I guess I just got excited about the awesome rescue adventure Conan was on. I’ll try to make this one a little shorter.
Conan, Albiona, and their rescuers-ex-machina eventually end up in a weird underground temple. They find out that their new friends are worshipers of Asura, who in Howard-land is a creepy Eastern death god (I don’t know anything about Asura in real-life mythology except that it’s a real thing – I’m feeling too lazy to look it up right now, even though with Google literally at my fingertips it would have taken me less time to look it up than it did to explain why I wasn’t looking it up). Conan starts to get worried that his disguise was less impenetrable than he thought. However, the high priest assures him that the Asura worshipers only recognized him because they’re trained to look below the surface for true meaning and no one not trained in the worship of Asura could possibly have seen past such a clever disguise (that must have been some eyepatch).
It turns out that the Asura folks liked King Conan because worshipers of the traditional Aquilonian god (Mitra) persecuted the Asura-ites. Conan was never interested enough in religion for persecution so his official policy was religious tolerance because that was easier. That part about Conan being non-religious isn’t strictly true, Conan worships the Cimmerian god, Crom, but since the correct way to worship Crom is to not bother him and solve your own problems it amounts to the same thing.
The high priest informs Conan about a magical artifact called the Heart of Ahriman, and Conan deduces that A) he must get this artifact to stop Xaltotun and save his kingdom and B) that this artifact is the object which he saw Tarascus giving to a servant on his way out of the dungeon back in chapter 6. So he decides to go on a quest to retrieve the Heart (he doesn’t call it a quest, but that’s what it is). The high priest offers to send some of his lackeys along to help Conan, but Conan declines, saying he doesn’t need any priests tagging along and slowing him down.
However, Conan apparently feels that pretty young noblewomen are less trouble than priests because he takes Albiona with him without a second thought. I leave the reader to draw his (or her) own conclusions.
Conan and Albiona set off down the river in a boat painted all black except for the white skulls all over it. My first thought was that Conan was masquerading as a pirate, but the actual explanation is less interesting. It turns out that when the followers of Asura die their bodies gets escorted back to the far east in one of these boats (and since the locals are afraid of Asura no one will mess with the skull boats, so Conan gets a free pass as long as he stays on the river). Conan is disguised as the boat’s lone sailor and Albiona is disguised as the corpse, which is boring and creepy at the same time. She should’ve stayed home.
After a few days on the river Conan and Albiona leave the boat and head cross-country towards Poitain, which is one of the few provinces still in rebellion against Valerius. Conan is recognized almost immediately and escorted to the local ruler’s palace. The locals want to raise a new army and reconquer the rest of Aquilonia, but by now Conan has his heart set on the “regain the Heart of Ahriman” plan so he turns them down. Fortunately, the local congregation of Asura has ascertained the Heart’s recent whereabouts (it turns out that Asura is also the god of discovering other people’s secrets) and Conan prepares to track down the magical artifact unaided except for the help of (inexplicably) Albiona.
endurancereading 