u/romm-boss

Okay, I know the correct answer is probably "none". However, with him bringing Conan into the limelight and sort of filling the gaps in the story to make a cohesive saga, I did read/re-read some of his work lately and I'd say it's not hopeless.

My fave was probably Conan the Liberator. It's not perfect and has some really so-so plot twists, but it is a decent effort at writing one of the most important parts of Conan's life, conquering Aquilonia's throne. It has some insightful descriptions of warfare and politics, battles and logistics are believeable, and King Numedides is described as a scumbag you'll love to hate. Also liked that de Camp wrote Aquilonia as more Rome than France here, I think that fits better in the Hyborean era than late medieval elements.

The least favourite was the quartet of stories describing Conan's hunt for Thoth-Amon (The Witch of the Mist, Black Sphinx of Nebthu, Red Moon of Zembabwei and Shadows in the Skull). Intended to be the grand finale of sorts, it's just a waste of paper, with a very weak plot, mediocre descriptions and totally moronic story logic - I mean, describing the Styx, the equivalent of the Nile, as POISONOUS! Thoth-Amon is reduced to a poorly written Saturday cartoon villain (heck, maybe worse than that - the actual cartoon villains from Conan the Adventurer are more competent) and the final battle with him is very underwhelming. Only Shadows in the Skull was okay somewhat, until you realize that the serpent-men and Lilith are simply copied from REH's Kull and Solomon Kane stories respectively.

A honorable mention for Conan of the Isles - it's sort of final adventure, Conan travelling to Americas, and more or less mediocre, but I liked steampunk Aztecs and the Cthulhu expy there, was fun to read at least.

Been reading Kane stuff I missed (read only Darkness Weaves in my earlier days, and there's so much more by Wagner), and it just occured to me that in the Dark Muse story, Kane and his mad poet friend Opyros have certain similarities to REH and HPL respectively. Kane is a quintessential barbarian anti-hero, but he's highly intelligent, very well-versed in literature and poetry, and has a strong misotheistic worldview. Opyros is a well-known, but not commercially successful horror poet/writer who draws inspiration from his nightmares, is disliked by more refined peers (and dislikes the whole society in return), lives off the money he inherited and has a fascination with the otherworldly even if threatens his sanity. In other stories, set after long his death, he's much more popular and is regarded as a genius. And these two share a friendship despite being very different, and influence each other's writing.

Mind you, I'm not saying KEW was specifically basing them off real persons (it's fairly obvious Kane was not meant a straight REH copy, and even Opyros has notable differences, such as a few stereotypical "horny bard" cues while HPL was a teetotaller and not really interested in sex), but the similarities are quite obvious, and I think they are fitting as a tribute/easter egg of sorts.

Another part of a text I am working now, this works well as a standalone story. It describes Conan nearing his sixties, waging the definitive war against the kingdom of Set - and in this text he's facing the judgement of his enemies. Of course, he has his own say in this.

Additional lore on Stygian culture mentioned here was taken from the Stygia: Serpent of the South sourcebook, as well as "Pharaoh" that is mostly synonymous to "king" in REH's books. The Pharaoh's title list is based on historical ones.

Hope you like!

Conan woke up to pain. 

No longer the honest, sharp pain of fresh battle-wounds, nor the deep, grinding ache of his aging body's slow surrender to weakness. It was a very different kind of pain, a torturer's plaything, one meant to make lesser men scream, sob and beg for death.

Conan was no stranger to it either, and he was not afraid. Those who believed they could break his body and spirit later paid for this with their own agony - like that Kothic dog, Constantius the Falcon, who gloated at Conan's crucifixion only to have his own life ended in the same manner. There were many more, for a Cimmerian always pays his debts.

This time, he was hung upon no wooden cross, but an obelisk dark with countless victims' gore. Conan's arms were stretched wide and high against the sacrificial stone's surface, his legs similarly splayed below. The bronze cuirass with the lion of Aquilonia had been stripped from him, as well as his leather and linen garments; he was clad in nothing but torn breeches and streaks of drying blood, his wrists and ankles clamped by massive bracelets of dusky metal.

Below him, on a polished marble podium, a shaven-headed priest in robes of scarlet and black was reading from a scroll that spilled over the edge of his lectern and pooled on the stones like a serpent's shed skin. His voice was a nasal drone, carried across the vast square.

"...for the crime of breaking the sacred pacts of peace and invading Stygia without provocation..."

Conan tested the bracelets. They were solid, anchored deep into the obelisk. He could feel the faint give of weathered stone around the anchors - this monument was old, older than Luxur, older perhaps than Stygia itself - but not enough to break free. Not yet.

"...for the crime of burning the Black Temple of Set in Khemi, and the Great Library of Kheshatta, and the House of Serpents in Khajar..."

The square before him was a sea of faces. Defying the siege's dangers, the citizens of Luxur filled every terrace, every balcony, every rooftop. They stood on the black basalt flagstones and crowded the steps of lesser ziggurats, ignoring the smoke from recent bombardments. They hung from windows and clung to the limbs of dead cypress trees. Thousands upon thousands, their dark eyes fixed on the pale-skinned barbarian king with half hatred, half curiosity. They had come to watch him die.

Flanking the priest, lining the approach to the obelisk like a ceremonial guard, stood columns shaped like giant cobras, their hoods flared, their fangs bared. And at their foundations, coiled in the shade, were the Sacred Sons of Set - two-headed pythons, each as thick as a man's thigh, their scales gleaming with an oily iridescence, their four eyes tracking Conan's every twitch.

"...for the crime of murdering the Divine Pharaoh Ctesphon IV, the Heir of Acheron, the Youthful One, the Powerful One of Strength, protected by Father Set and all of his concubines, and all their sacred offspring, to whom the office of his father was given, victorious ruler in the entire land, the King of Khemi and Luxur and all of Stygia..."

Conan laughed at the list of the late Pharaoh's ridiculous titles. "Ctesphon? I never laid eyes on the dog. Whoever killed him did me a favor, and I'll buy him a drink in whatever hell we share."

The priest faltered, then continued, his voice rising.

"...for the crime of worshipping the false god Mitra, and blaspheming against Father Set..."

"My god is Crom, you bald vulture. But yes, I spat on Set, and I will do so again!"

This time, the priest ignored Conan's remark. The crowd cried out in sincere disdain and hate, demanding retribution.

"...for the crimes of years past, too numerous to list. For the crime of consorting with the Shemite She-Devil, the so-called Queen of the Black Coast, Bêlit, may her soul burn forever in the deepest hells of Set's Whore, Derketo..."

Conan narrowed his eyes. He cared little for the priest's speech now - deep within the sacrificial obelisk, something moved and gave in to his efforts. The bracelets shook.

"...for the crime of being a thief, a pirate, a mercenary, a reaver, a murderer, a savage who rose above his station to usurp the throne of a civilized kingdom..."

"Guilty!" Conan suddenly growled, and the grin that split his weathered face was a beast's snarl. "Guilty, and proud of that! I've been a thief in Zamora, a pirate on the Vilayet, a mercenary in Shem, a reaver in Kush. I've slain more men than you've told lies, priest, and every one of them died facing me. I took the throne of Aquilonia from an impotent despot who bathed in children's blood, and I strangled him with my own hands. And in twenty years of rule, I've made my kingdom stronger, my people richer, and my enemies fewer. Can your snake-god say the same, now that he has failed even to protect his priests and kings?"

The priest opened his mouth to retort, but Conan overrode him, his voice carrying to the farthest terraces. "You call me a savage! But I have freed more slaves than Stygia has ever bred. I have spared every city that opened its gates to me and shown mercy to every foe who asked for quarter. My people do not go hungry while priests grow fat. My laws do not demand blood sacrifice. If this is your 'civilization,' priest, then I'll go to my grave proud to be a barbarian!"

And then the obelisk behind Conan began to crumble.

"But I am not! GOING! THERE! TODAY!"

It started as a tremor, a deep grinding vibration that hummed through the stone. Ancient mortar, baked brittle by the drought, turned to powder. Iron bracelets, ripped free of their anchors, clattered against the crumbling stone. Hissing in pain, Conan collapsed, yet his body reacted with the catlike instinct, landing in a crouch on the sandstone platform amid a shower of dust and stone fragments.

The priest stood frozen, his scroll forgotten. Conan rose, stepped forward, and drove his fist into the Stygian's forehead. The shaven skull burst like a rotted melon, and the man toppled backward.

The first two-headed python lunged from the left, its jaws gaping. Conan caught the serpent behind the necks, his massive hands clamping around the scaled body, and with a roar that echoed off the ziggurats, he swung the creature like a flail. It smashed into the guards rushing up the platform steps, sending three of them rolling down the steps. The second snake coiled around Conan's leg, but not before he snatched a khopesh from the floor. In two swings, he had the beast beheaded.

The square erupted into chaos.

Armed Stygians came at Conan from every entrance. Spearmen in lacquered leather armor, temple guards with shields and curved blades, acolytes wielding sacrificial daggers, even the bravest of civilians. He met them on the steps of the platform, the captured khopesh singing in his fist, and for a long, glorious stretch of time, he was not a sixty-year-old king but the young barbarian who had stormed the walls of Venarium.

The first rank fell like wheat. The second hesitated. The third pressed forward over the bodies of their comrades, and by then Conan's blade was painted red to the hilt. He killed - a thrust through the throat, a reverse stroke to parry a stabbing blade and cut the stomach open, a kick in the chest, ribs cracking under his bare heel. Great battle-joy rose in his blood like strong wine, and he laughed as the Stygians died, their dark eyes wide with terror and disbelief.

But he was sixty years old. And his joints, warmed by the fight, still ached like hell from the crucifixion. And his bare skin took the cuts that armor could have stopped. And more guards were coming, streaming up the ziggurat steps, pouring from the side passages.

He could not fight them all. Even in his prime, even with the boundless stamina of his youth, such a host would have overwhelmed him. Now, at sixty, with a dozen wounds seeping blood, he could feel the limits of his mortal shell.

So he ran.

It was the tactical retreat of a warrior who knew when the odds had tipped past bravery and into foolishness. He vaulted a parapet, landed on a terrace below, and cut down a single guardsman who tried to bar his way. The rooftops of Luxur spread before him, a maze of flat stones and skeletal remains of dead gardens, all wrapped in smoke and dust. He sprinted, leaping across gaps between buildings with the sure-footedness of a mountain goat.

The guards followed. At first Conan paid no heed, for the Stygians, despite their fanaticism and ferocity, were not Cimmerian hillmen. But as if someone all-seeing was coordinating Luxur's city guard, they pursued him relentlessly, never losing trail, closing in and cutting off escape ways.

The aqueduct saved him.

It was one of the great stone channels that had once carried the waters of the Styx's tributary to the upper terraces, now as dry as the river that had fed it. Conan dropped into its bed and ran along the cracked stone, raising clouds of dust. The guards above shouted and unleashed a hail of arrows, but the angle was wrong and the shafts clattered harmlessly on the stone. A two-headed python, coiled in a dry cistern, lunged at him. Conan split both its skulls with a single swing and kept running.

The loud whistle of catapult-hurled projectiles proclaimed that the Shemites had resumed the bombardment, once again raining death down on Luxur.

Conan expected more jars of flaming oil. Instead, the city was smitten by something he almost took for sorcery at first - something that hit like thunderbolts, making stone shatter and bodies fly apart. Then he realized that these were iron spheres packed with thunder-sand, the black powder that the Khitaians had discovered and Shemite war-alchemists had refined into a weapon of terrible power.

As if guided by the hand of a vengeful Shemite deity, one of the bombs landed directly at the feet of approaching Stygian soldiers, the explosion painting nearby walls with soot and gore. Another struck the aqueduct directly in front of Conan. The shockwave threw him aside, and the stone beneath his feet crumbled. He fell, tumbling through darkness and debris, and landed hard in a tunnel that had not been visible from above.

It was wide, arched, lined with glazed brick - one of the old canals that fed Luxur's famous hanging gardens before the drought. The water was gone, but the passage remained, and it led downward into the heart of the city. Conan spat out a mouthful of dust, and pressed on.

The canals widened as he descended. They joined with others, forming a network of tunnels that ran beneath the streets like the veins of a colossal creature. And they were astonishingly clean. Conan, who had waded through the filth of a dozen Hyborian cities, found himself walking a tunnel that smelled of shady stone and old clay, with only the faintest hint of the murky waters it had once carried.

"Stygian sewers," he muttered, shaking his head. "More spacious than Kordava's grand canals. The world is a mad place."

The tunnel ended in a great cistern, its domed ceiling lost in shadow, its floor a maze of empty fountainheads and tiled channels. Above Conan, carved in stone, was a symbol he recognized as the sigil of Derketo - the goddess of lust and death, the Whore of Set. He had found his way into the underbelly of her temple.

To his surprise, this place was not as devoid of water as the rest of the city. A few faint, but clean streams made their ways down thin ornate cavities. He found a dry ledge, sat down, and began to clean his wounds with a piece of line torn off his breeches. The thunder-sand bombs were still falling, their distant concussions shaking the stone around him. The battle for Luxur was entering its final phase, and he was alive. Wounded, exhausted, alone in the darkness beneath a devil-goddess' temple, but alive.

Another part of a text I am working on now, this works well as a standalone story. It describes Conan nearing his sixties, waging the definitive war against the kingdom of Set - and in this text he's facing the judgement of his enemies. Of course, he has his own say in this.

Additional lore on Stygian culture mentioned here was taken from the Stygia: Serpent of the South sourcebook, as well as "Pharaoh" that is mostly synonymous to "king" in REH's books. The Pharaoh's title list is based on historical ones.

Hope you like!

(no flair for fan fiction, so using "discussion")

Conan woke up to pain. 

No longer the honest, sharp pain of fresh battle-wounds, nor the deep, grinding ache of his aging body's slow surrender to weakness. It was a very different kind of pain, a torturer's plaything, one meant to make lesser men scream, sob and beg for death.

Conan was no stranger to it either, and he was not afraid. Those who believed they could break his body and spirit later paid for this with their own agony - like that Kothic dog, Constantius the Falcon, who gloated at Conan's crucifixion only to have his own life ended in the same manner. There were many more, for a Cimmerian always pays his debts.

This time, he was hung upon no wooden cross, but an obelisk dark with countless victims' gore. Conan's arms were stretched wide and high against the sacrificial stone's surface, his legs similarly splayed below. The bronze cuirass with the lion of Aquilonia had been stripped from him, as well as his leather and linen garments; he was clad in nothing but torn breeches and streaks of drying blood, his wrists and ankles clamped by massive bracelets of dusky metal.

Below him, on a polished marble podium, a shaven-headed priest in robes of scarlet and black was reading from a scroll that spilled over the edge of his lectern and pooled on the stones like a serpent's shed skin. His voice was a nasal drone, carried across the vast square.

"...for the crime of breaking the sacred pacts of peace and invading Stygia without provocation..."

Conan tested the bracelets. They were solid, anchored deep into the obelisk. He could feel the faint give of weathered stone around the anchors - this monument was old, older than Luxur, older perhaps than Stygia itself - but not enough to break free. Not yet.

"...for the crime of burning the Black Temple of Set in Khemi, and the Great Library of Kheshatta, and the House of Serpents in Khajar..."

The square before him was a sea of faces. Defying the siege's dangers, the citizens of Luxur filled every terrace, every balcony, every rooftop. They stood on the black basalt flagstones and crowded the steps of lesser ziggurats, ignoring the smoke from recent bombardments. They hung from windows and clung to the limbs of dead cypress trees. Thousands upon thousands, their dark eyes fixed on the pale-skinned barbarian king with half hatred, half curiosity. They had come to watch him die.

Flanking the priest, lining the approach to the obelisk like a ceremonial guard, stood columns shaped like giant cobras, their hoods flared, their fangs bared. And at their foundations, coiled in the shade, were the Sacred Sons of Set - two-headed pythons, each as thick as a man's thigh, their scales gleaming with an oily iridescence, their four eyes tracking Conan's every twitch.

"...for the crime of murdering the Divine Pharaoh Ctesphon IV, the Heir of Acheron, the Youthful One, the Powerful One of Strength, protected by Father Set and all of his concubines, and all their sacred offspring, to whom the office of his father was given, victorious ruler in the entire land, the King of Khemi and Luxur and all of Stygia..."

Conan laughed at the list of the late Pharaoh's ridiculous titles. "Ctesphon? I never laid eyes on the dog. Whoever killed him did me a favor, and I'll buy him a drink in whatever hell we share."

The priest faltered, then continued, his voice rising.

"...for the crime of worshipping the false god Mitra, and blaspheming against Father Set..."

"My god is Crom, you bald vulture. But yes, I spat on Set, and I will do so again!"

This time, the priest ignored Conan's remark. The crowd cried out in sincere disdain and hate, demanding retribution.

"...for the crimes of years past, too numerous to list. For the crime of consorting with the Shemite She-Devil, the so-called Queen of the Black Coast, Bêlit, may her soul burn forever in the deepest hells of Set's Whore, Derketo..."

Conan narrowed his eyes. He cared little for the priest's speech now - deep within the sacrificial obelisk, something moved and gave in to his efforts. The bracelets shook.

"...for the crime of being a thief, a pirate, a mercenary, a reaver, a murderer, a savage who rose above his station to usurp the throne of a civilized kingdom..."

"Guilty!" Conan suddenly growled, and the grin that split his weathered face was a beast's snarl. "Guilty, and proud of that! I've been a thief in Zamora, a pirate on the Vilayet, a mercenary in Shem, a reaver in Kush. I've slain more men than you've told lies, priest, and every one of them died facing me. I took the throne of Aquilonia from an impotent despot who bathed in children's blood, and I strangled him with my own hands. And in twenty years of rule, I've made my kingdom stronger, my people richer, and my enemies fewer. Can your snake-god say the same, now that he has failed even to protect his priests and kings?"

The priest opened his mouth to retort, but Conan overrode him, his voice carrying to the farthest terraces. "You call me a savage! But I have freed more slaves than Stygia has ever bred. I have spared every city that opened its gates to me and shown mercy to every foe who asked for quarter. My people do not go hungry while priests grow fat. My laws do not demand blood sacrifice. If this is your 'civilization,' priest, then I'll go to my grave proud to be a barbarian!"

And then the obelisk behind Conan began to crumble.

"But I am not! GOING! THERE! TODAY!"

It started as a tremor, a deep grinding vibration that hummed through the stone. Ancient mortar, baked brittle by the drought, turned to powder. Iron bracelets, ripped free of their anchors, clattered against the crumbling stone. Hissing in pain, Conan collapsed, yet his body reacted with the catlike instinct, landing in a crouch on the sandstone platform amid a shower of dust and stone fragments.

The priest stood frozen, his scroll forgotten. Conan rose, stepped forward, and drove his fist into the Stygian's forehead. The shaven skull burst like a rotted melon, and the man toppled backward.

The first two-headed python lunged from the left, its jaws gaping. Conan caught the serpent behind the necks, his massive hands clamping around the scaled body, and with a roar that echoed off the ziggurats, he swung the creature like a flail. It smashed into the guards rushing up the platform steps, sending three of them rolling down the steps. The second snake coiled around Conan's leg, but not before he snatched a khopesh from the floor. In two swings, he had the beast beheaded.

The square erupted into chaos.

Armed Stygians came at Conan from every entrance. Spearmen in lacquered leather armor, temple guards with shields and curved blades, acolytes wielding sacrificial daggers, even the bravest of civilians. He met them on the steps of the platform, the captured khopesh singing in his fist, and for a long, glorious stretch of time, he was not a sixty-year-old king but the young barbarian who had stormed the walls of Venarium.

The first rank fell like wheat. The second hesitated. The third pressed forward over the bodies of their comrades, and by then Conan's blade was painted red to the hilt. He killed - a thrust through the throat, a reverse stroke to parry a stabbing blade and cut the stomach open, a kick in the chest, ribs cracking under his bare heel. Great battle-joy rose in his blood like strong wine, and he laughed as the Stygians died, their dark eyes wide with terror and disbelief.

But he was sixty years old. And his joints, warmed by the fight, still ached like hell from the crucifixion. And his bare skin took the cuts that armor could have stopped. And more guards were coming, streaming up the ziggurat steps, pouring from the side passages.

He could not fight them all. Even in his prime, even with the boundless stamina of his youth, such a host would have overwhelmed him. Now, at sixty, with a dozen wounds seeping blood, he could feel the limits of his mortal shell.

So he ran.

It was the tactical retreat of a warrior who knew when the odds had tipped past bravery and into foolishness. He vaulted a parapet, landed on a terrace below, and cut down a single guardsman who tried to bar his way. The rooftops of Luxur spread before him, a maze of flat stones and skeletal remains of dead gardens, all wrapped in smoke and dust. He sprinted, leaping across gaps between buildings with the sure-footedness of a mountain goat.

The guards followed. At first Conan paid no heed, for the Stygians, despite their fanaticism and ferocity, were not Cimmerian hillmen. But as if someone all-seeing was coordinating Luxur's city guard, they pursued him relentlessly, never losing trail, closing in and cutting off escape ways.

The aqueduct saved him.

It was one of the great stone channels that had once carried the waters of the Styx's tributary to the upper terraces, now as dry as the river that had fed it. Conan dropped into its bed and ran along the cracked stone, raising clouds of dust. The guards above shouted and unleashed a hail of arrows, but the angle was wrong and the shafts clattered harmlessly on the stone. A two-headed python, coiled in a dry cistern, lunged at him. Conan split both its skulls with a single swing and kept running.

The loud whistle of catapult-hurled projectiles proclaimed that the Shemites had resumed the bombardment, once again raining death down on Luxur.

Conan expected more jars of flaming oil. Instead, the city was smitten by something he almost took for sorcery at first - something that hit like thunderbolts, making stone shatter and bodies fly apart. Then he realized that these were iron spheres packed with thunder-sand, the black powder that the Khitaians had discovered and Shemite war-alchemists had refined into a weapon of terrible power.

As if guided by the hand of a vengeful Shemite deity, one of the bombs landed directly at the feet of approaching Stygian soldiers, the explosion painting nearby walls with soot and gore. Another struck the aqueduct directly in front of Conan. The shockwave threw him aside, and the stone beneath his feet crumbled. He fell, tumbling through darkness and debris, and landed hard in a tunnel that had not been visible from above.

It was wide, arched, lined with glazed brick - one of the old canals that fed Luxur's famous hanging gardens before the drought. The water was gone, but the passage remained, and it led downward into the heart of the city. Conan spat out a mouthful of dust, and pressed on.

The canals widened as he descended. They joined with others, forming a network of tunnels that ran beneath the streets like the veins of a colossal creature. And they were astonishingly clean. Conan, who had waded through the filth of a dozen Hyborian cities, found himself walking a tunnel that smelled of shady stone and old clay, with only the faintest hint of the murky waters it had once carried.

"Stygian sewers," he muttered, shaking his head. "More spacious than Kordava's grand canals. The world is a mad place."

The tunnel ended in a great cistern, its domed ceiling lost in shadow, its floor a maze of empty fountainheads and tiled channels. Above Conan, carved in stone, was a symbol he recognized as the sigil of Derketo - the goddess of lust and death, the Whore of Set. He had found his way into the underbelly of her temple.

To his surprise, this place was not as devoid of water as the rest of the city. A few faint, but clean streams made their ways down thin ornate cavities. He found a dry ledge, sat down, and began to clean his wounds with a piece of linen torn off his breeches. The thunder-sand bombs were still falling, their distant concussions shaking the stone around him. The battle for Luxur was entering its final phase, and he was alive. Wounded, exhausted, alone in the darkness beneath a devil-goddess' temple, but alive.

In the novel's finale, I always had the impression that Stormbringer's final act was not revealing its/his/her true self, but rather transforming into something new, fueled by Elric's soul as the final sacrifice. So was thinking of reimagining that scene with added detail and meanings, and now finally came the time to write it down.

This will be a part of Conan/Elric crossover I am working on, but this particular piece is basically standalone and tied only to the canon text. As it is based on the saga's very ending, naturally the spoiler tag is on.

There's a hint at an additional semi-crossover, though. Anyway, hope you like!

Elric of Melniboné stood alone.

The final battle had consumed everything. The Lords of Law and Chaos had clashed on a battlefield that no longer existed, beneath a sky that had boiled away into the primal void. He had blown the Horn of Fate for the third time, to end the world and have it born anew. The echoes of that third blast were still fading, a long, deep note that rolled across the dissolving horizon.

Moonglum was dead. The last of his friends, his truest companion, the little red-haired rogue who had followed him through a hundred adventures and never once faltered in his loyalty, lay dead by Elric's own hand. He had driven Stormbringer through Moonglum's chest, and the blade had drunk his soul in a single, agonizing swallow - that stolen vitality had given Elric the strength to raise the Horn one final time. Moonglum had understood. In that last moment, his eyes had held no accusation. He did not want to be mourned.

Elric wept for him anyway.

He knelt on the ground, and the tears carved white tracks through the grime and blood on his face. Stormbringer was resting beside him, black fleshmetal still wet with Moonglum's blood, runes pulsing with a slow, sated light. There was nothing left. Nothing but him, and the sword, and the colossal illusionary scales, the omen of the restored Balance in the empty sky. And the silence of a world that was about to start a new cycle.

The rebirth began as a light in the east - a soft, golden luminescence that spread across the formless void like dawn across a sleeping sea. Where the light touched, the mist coalesced into shapes: mountains, forests, rivers, beaches. A new world, fresh and clean and innocent, was rising from the ashes of the old. The sky bloomed with stars, young and fierce, and a sun kindled at dawn's edge, and the air filled with the scent of rain. It was beautiful. It was unbearably beautiful, and Elric wept again, for this beauty was not meant for him, and he had no place here. He was the last remnant of the old world, the destroyer, the kinslayer, the soul-thief. Everything he had loved was gone, everyone he cared for lay slain by his own hand.

Stormbringer stirred.

The blade rose from the ground, its point lifting toward Elric's chest with predatory purpose. He saw it coming. He could have moved, could have tried to dodge, could have called upon the last remnants of his sorcery to deflect it. He did not. He had known, from a moment of clarity long before he blew the Horn, that this was how it would end. The sword had given him power, and the sword had taken everything from him, and now the sword would take him too. It was, in its terrible fashion, fair and just.

The runesword pierced his chest, and he felt the blistering cold of it. It pressed inward, through skin and muscle, seeking his heart. His body resisted, the animal instinct of survival fighting against the will of his weary soul. His hands came up, gripping the blade, trying to hold it back, and the edge bit into his palms and his blood ran down the runes and the runes drank it eagerly.

Elric's shadow-bride materialized by his side, first a flickering presence at the edge of his vision, then a solid form. She was tall and slender, her hair a cascade of black silk, her eyes dark pools that held no malice. She wrapped her arms around him, and the pain faded - a motherly embrace, one he never knew.

"My love," she said, and her voice was not the venomous purr he had known for centuries. It was soft and gentle, soothing, almost kind. "It is time."

"You have taken everything from me," he whispered, but there was no anger in it. Only a vast, exhausted sorrow. "My wife, my friends, my kin... And now, my soul."

"I have."

The blade slid through his heart. There was a moment of pure, searing, transcendent pain that seemed to illuminate every corner of his being... and the next moment, it was gone. He was fading, and the shadow-woman was fading with him, her arms still around his own, her face pressed against his shoulder.

And he saw them. All of them. Moonglum, running fingers through his red unkempt hair and grinning at a jest known only he and Elric could comprehend. Zarozinia, shy, patient and trusting, shining with the joy of their wedding day. Rackhir, raising his bow in salute. Dyvim Tvar, stern and proud, nodding in acknowledgement. Cymoril, her eyes narrowed but lips smiling, her beauty yet unmarred by treachery and loss. And beyond women and friends, came other memories - of adventures that had nothing to do with power, nothing to do with hatred, but everything to do with the moments when he had felt, however fleetingly, that he was the master of his own fate. When he had been driven by something that might almost be called hope.

Gentle, merciful darkness covered him, and Elric of Melniboné, the last Emperor of the Ruby Throne, the White Wolf, the Kinslayer and the World-Ender, died with a smile on his pale lips.

And the sword drank his soul, and the sword was complete.

* * *

The transformation took but a moment, yet lasted for an eternity.

Stormbringer hummed, gleaming with the stolen essence of countless souls. Elric's was the last, the keystone, the final piece of a puzzle that had been assembling for centuries. The runes along the blade flared bright, then brighter, then blinding - with something that was the opposite of light, a radiance of absolute darkness, hungry to swallow the golden dawn.

The blade split, and from the unraveled fleshmetal, a figure emerged like a colossal insect crawling out from a chrysalis. It was humanoid, vaguely, but its proportions were wrong - limbs too long, joints too many, a spine that curved in ways that denied anatomy. Its skin was the colour of obsidian, smooth and reflective, and its face was beautiful and terrible, with eyes that held eternal blackness from beyond the stars.

"Farewell, friend," it said, and its voice was a cacophony of maddening flutes and drums, and the screams of the damned. "I was a thousand times more evil than thou!"

It thought of Elric, once, and then it forgot him. There was no room for sentiment in the heart of Chaos. The old Stormbringer had loved the albino outcast in her twisted fashion, but the thing that had been born from her husk was not the old Stormbringer.

It turned from the remains of its former self and faced the virgin world. Mountains stood proud against a clean sky. Oceans murmured, caressing immaculate crystal shores. Forests rustled with the first stirrings of life. It was pure, this world. Innocent. Ready to let the invader in.

The thing that had been Stormbringer spread its too-long arms, reaching out to embrace its new possession, and had the first taste. Where its shadow fell, purity was no more. Mountains began to dream dark dreams. Oceans whispered of crushing and drowning. Forests learned the taste of rot.

The creature smiled. It would be slow, this corruption. It would be patient, this defilement. There was no rush. The world was young, and the thing that walked upon it was ancient, though newborn, and it had a thousand names, and a thousand faces, and all the time in the universe.

Up in the sky yet undarkened, the illusion of scales still flickered - the Cosmic Balance, the great equilibrium that the Lords of Law and Chaos had fought to control. The thing that had been Stormbringer looked up at it and laughed. The scales shattered, their shards raining down like false stars, and the din echoed across the world, twisting the last echoes of the Horn of Fate into something that was not sound but the mind-devouring memory of music played at the court of a mad god.

"Balance," the creature said, spitting the word out as a blasphemous obscenity. "There is no Balance. There is only the dream, and the dreamer does not care."

It walked into the new world, and the new world trembled. And where it went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent by the screams of nightmare.

In the novel's finale, I always had the impression that Stormbringer's final act was not revealing its/his/her true self, but rather transforming into something new, fueled by Elric's soul as the final sacrifice. So was thinking of reimagining that scene with added detail and meanings, and now finally came the time to write it down.

This will be a part of Conan/Elric crossover I am working on, but this particular piece is basically standalone and tied only to the canon text. As it is based on the saga's very ending, naturally the spoiler tag is on.

There's a hint at an additional semi-crossover, though. Anyway, hope you like!

Elric of Melniboné stood alone.

The final battle had consumed everything. The Lords of Law and Chaos had clashed on a battlefield that no longer existed, beneath a sky that had boiled away into the primal void. He had blown the Horn of Fate for the third time, to end the world and have it born anew. The echoes of that third blast were still fading, a long, deep note that rolled across the dissolving horizon.

Moonglum was dead. The last of his friends, his truest companion, the little red-haired rogue who had followed him through a hundred adventures and never once faltered in his loyalty, lay dead by Elric's own hand. He had driven Stormbringer through Moonglum's chest, and the blade had drunk his soul in a single, agonizing swallow - that stolen vitality had given Elric the strength to raise the Horn one final time. Moonglum had understood. In that last moment, his eyes had held no accusation. He did not want to be mourned.

Elric wept for him anyway.

He knelt on the ground, and the tears carved white tracks through the grime and blood on his face. Stormbringer was resting beside him, black fleshmetal still wet with Moonglum's blood, runes pulsing with a slow, sated light. There was nothing left. Nothing but him, and the sword, and the colossal illusionary scales, the omen of the restored Balance in the empty sky. And the silence of a world that was about to start a new cycle.

The rebirth began as a light in the east - a soft, golden luminescence that spread across the formless void like dawn across a sleeping sea. Where the light touched, the mist coalesced into shapes: mountains, forests, rivers, beaches. A new world, fresh and clean and innocent, was rising from the ashes of the old. The sky bloomed with stars, young and fierce, and a sun kindled at dawn's edge, and the air filled with the scent of rain. It was beautiful. It was unbearably beautiful, and Elric wept again, for this beauty was not meant for him, and he had no place here. He was the last remnant of the old world, the destroyer, the kinslayer, the soul-thief. Everything he had loved was gone, everyone he cared for lay slain by his own hand.

Stormbringer stirred.

The blade rose from the ground, its point lifting toward Elric's chest with predatory purpose. He saw it coming. He could have moved, could have tried to dodge, could have called upon the last remnants of his sorcery to deflect it. He did not. He had known, from a moment of clarity long before he blew the Horn, that this was how it would end. The sword had given him power, and the sword had taken everything from him, and now the sword would take him too. It was, in its terrible fashion, fair and just.

The runesword pierced his chest, and he felt the blistering cold of it. It pressed inward, through skin and muscle, seeking his heart. His body resisted, the animal instinct of survival fighting against the will of his weary soul. His hands came up, gripping the blade, trying to hold it back, and the edge bit into his palms and his blood ran down the runes and the runes drank it eagerly.

Elric's shadow-bride materialized by his side, first a flickering presence at the edge of his vision, then a solid form. She was tall and slender, her hair a cascade of black silk, her eyes dark pools that held no malice. She wrapped her arms around him, and the pain faded - a motherly embrace, one he never knew.

"My love," she said, and her voice was not the venomous purr he had known for centuries. It was soft and gentle, soothing, almost kind. "It is time."

"You have taken everything from me," he whispered, but there was no anger in it. Only a vast, exhausted sorrow. "My wife, my friends, my kin... And now, my soul."

"I have."

The blade slid through his heart. There was a moment of pure, searing, transcendent pain that seemed to illuminate every corner of his being... and the next moment, it was gone. He was fading, and the shadow-woman was fading with him, her arms still around his own, her face pressed against his shoulder.

And he saw them. All of them. Moonglum, running fingers through his red unkempt hair and grinning at a jest known only he and Elric could comprehend. Zarozinia, shy, patient and trusting, shining with the joy of their wedding day. Rackhir, raising his bow in salute. Dyvim Tvar, stern and proud, nodding in acknowledgement. Cymoril, her eyes narrowed but lips smiling, her beauty yet unmarred by treachery and loss. And beyond women and friends, came other memories - of adventures that had nothing to do with power, nothing to do with hatred, but everything to do with the moments when he had felt, however fleetingly, that he was the master of his own fate. When he had been driven by something that might almost be called hope.

Gentle, merciful darkness covered him, and Elric of Melniboné, the last Emperor of the Ruby Throne, the White Wolf, the Kinslayer and the World-Ender, died with a smile on his pale lips.

And the sword drank his soul, and the sword was complete.

* * *

The transformation took but a moment, yet lasted for an eternity.

Stormbringer hummed, gleaming with the stolen essence of countless souls. Elric's was the last, the keystone, the final piece of a puzzle that had been assembling for centuries. The runes along the blade flared bright, then brighter, then blinding - with something that was the opposite of light, a radiance of absolute darkness, hungry to swallow the golden dawn.

The blade split, and from the unraveled fleshmetal, a figure emerged like a colossal insect crawling out from a chrysalis. It was humanoid, vaguely, but its proportions were wrong - limbs too long, joints too many, a spine that curved in ways that denied anatomy. Its skin was the colour of obsidian, smooth and reflective, and its face was beautiful and terrible, with eyes that held eternal blackness from beyond the stars.

"Farewell, friend," it said, and its voice was a cacophony of maddening flutes and drums, and the screams of the damned. "I was a thousand times more evil than thou!"

It thought of Elric, once, and then it forgot him. There was no room for sentiment in the heart of Chaos. The old Stormbringer had loved the albino outcast in her twisted fashion, but the thing that had been born from her husk was not the old Stormbringer.

It turned from the remains of its former self and faced the virgin world. Mountains stood proud against a clean sky. Oceans murmured, caressing immaculate crystal shores. Forests rustled with the first stirrings of life. It was pure, this world. Innocent. Ready to let the invader in.

The thing that had been Stormbringer spread its too-long arms, reaching out to embrace its new possession, and had the first taste. Where its shadow fell, purity was no more. Mountains began to dream dark dreams. Oceans whispered of crushing and drowning. Forests learned the taste of rot.

The creature smiled. It would be slow, this corruption. It would be patient, this defilement. There was no rush. The world was young, and the thing that walked upon it was ancient, though newborn, and it had a thousand names, and a thousand faces, and all the time in the universe.

Up in the sky yet undarkened, the illusion of scales still flickered - the Cosmic Balance, the great equilibrium that the Lords of Law and Chaos had fought to control. The thing that had been Stormbringer looked up at it and laughed. The scales shattered, their shards raining down like false stars, and the din echoed across the world, twisting the last echoes of the Horn of Fate into something that was not sound but the mind-devouring memory of music played at the court of a mad god.

"Balance," the creature said, spitting the word out as a blasphemous obscenity. "There is no Balance. There is only the dream, and the dreamer does not care."

It walked into the new world, and the new world trembled. And where it went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent by the screams of nightmare.

Mine's John Maddox Roberts' Conan and the Amazon. JMR is an awesome writer, with a good balance of realism, action and interesting characters in his books, and his Conan pastiches are solid. Some, like Conan the Rogue, stray a bit (I mean it's a good novel but it's essentially a western/gangster story with Conan and a bit of magic), but Conan and the Amazon follows Howard's concepts without blindly copying them. It has it all - a lost ancient city; degenerate descendants of a semi-human race ruled by an evil queen and her sadistic husband; realistically described deserts and towns; even very well-placed pseudo-Lovecraftean horror. And, of course, the Amazon Queen herself who manages to be both savage and regal, and quite a good match for Conan in both senses. Conan himself is quite smart and savvy. Also, secondary characters are extremely well-written and provide a few interesting twists. Definitely worth a read.

My second fave is probably Karl Edward Wagner's The Road of Kings. It's a very good novel by itself, a great mix of politics, crime and magic, but it just feels a bit out of place in Conanverse, it is definitely inspired by the French Revolution with some Zorro and Robin Hood thrown in, and Zingara looking a bit too much like Renaissance Spain.