Conan Reviews: Conan the Barbarian 133, Conan the Barbarian 134

Conan the Barbarian #133 – “The Witch of Widnsor” – Bruce Jones/Gil Kane/Danny Bulanadi

This one starts with Conan making his way through some mountains bordering Cimmeria. He sees a strange-looking mountain peak that shimmers in the sunlight, but his attention is soon drawn to a line of dead men tied to crosspieces of wood. They all died of deep puncture wounds and have signed waivers tacked to the crosses, attesting that they sought to free Princess Seraina of their own free will. Conan finds a village in the shadow of the mountain (which turns out to be made of glass) and soon learns the whole story. Princess Seraina was chained to the top of Mount Widnsor by a vengeful witch and her step-father has offered her hand in marriage to any man who frees her. But climbing a glass mountain is almost impossible and all the would-be grooms have fallen and impaled themselves on the stakes that surround the mountain. The same thing happens to another suitor as Conan watches, which convinces him that attempting such a feat would be folly. He spends the night in town and leaves in the morning, but runs across a royal carriage being attacked by bandits. Conan kills the brigands and finds he’s rescued Seraina’s half-sister, Arianna. She invites him back to the palace to receive her father’s thanks and Conan asks the king (Wolden) about Seraina’s fate. He tells the barbarian how he married Seraina’s mother but cheated on her on campaign with a gypsy woman, who showed up later expecting a baby and wanting Wolden to leave his wife and marry her. He tossed her in the dungeon and when she miscarried, he let her out, but she turned out to be a sorceress and conjured the glass mountain, chaining Seraina to the top. (Apparently, Wolden has birds bring food to Seraina, so that’s why she hasn’t starved to death.) Wolden’s men cut off the witch’s hands and cut out her tongue, then left her to die in a swamp. Now Wolden has no way to get his daughter back. Conan finds the story intriguing, but is still wary of risking his life. Conan leaves town but gets jumped by a would-be thief when he camps. The thief says he actually found the half-dead sorceress in the swamp and now he needs to steal to keep her from casting a spell on him (although he doesn’t say how she could do that without hands or a tongue). Conan talks to old witch, who tells him (through mime and writing) that Wolden has the key to the door in the glass mountain and that a wizard is the one who caused Seraina’s plight, not her. Conan believes her (noticing a heart-shaped birthmark on her throat) and goes back to sneak into the castle, where he finds Wolden does have the key around his neck. Conan grabs the key and heads for the mountain, pursued by Wolden and his guards. The key doesn’t open the door, so Conan has to fight the guards, but he realizes the key is actually a whistle and when he blows it, the mountain shatters. There’s a hidden staircase inside and Conan goes to the top, only to find Seraina has been dead for years and is just a skeleton now. Conan finds a locket around the skeleton’s neck with a portrait of the “witch” inside and realizes the supposed sorceress is actually Seraina’s mother. Wolden killed his daughter to keep her from inheriting the kingdom and tried to kill his wife to cover it up. When the guards find out the truth they turn on Wolden, who flees towards the swamp, hoping to find his wife and kill her for real this time. Conan and the guards follow and find Wolden tied to a cross with a note proclaiming justice for Seraina’s murder, signed by the former queen. This is a pretty good story that seems like it could be an RPG scenario. I like how Conan used his brains to figure out the key was a whistle and it was nice to see the queen meting out justice for her dead daughter.

Conan the Barbarian #134 – “A Hitch in Time” – Bruce Jones/Gil Kane/Ernie Chan

This one starts with Conan tracking a fugitive named Pelija Lon through the woods. Pelija killed Ranj, a well-loved youth of the town of Lucerthan, whose citizens have offered a reward for Pelija’s capture. But Pelija has already killed two bounty hunters, so Conan is extra careful. He finds Pelija and disarms him, only to find Pelija is a very attractive woman. Conan is hesitant to drag her back for the reward and tries to give her an out, but she admits she did kill Ranj so he reluctantly takes her back to Lucerthan. Conan feels guilty for turning in a woman to be executed, even if she was guilty. As he rides away, he wrestles with his conscience, convincing himself the villagers tricked him and don’t deserve his loyalty. He turns back towards the village, but he and his horse get bitten by a snake on the way. He figures he’ll be dead within the hour, so he might as well try to rescue Pelija Lon before his time runs out. But when he reaches the village, he’s shocked to see that time seems to be standing still for everyone except him; the villagers are frozen and a boulder that was meant to crush Pelija hangs in mid-air above her. Conan meets a wizard (Eshe Lon), who tells him how his daughter Pelija was seduced by Ranj, who used her and then dumped her because he already had a fiancée. When he was killed, the villagers blamed Pelija and staked her out (after Conan brought her back) to be crushed by the boulder. But Eshe prayed to a snake goddess (Ishiti), who made a viper bite him and told him that he could save Pelija himself. To that end, the goddess froze time and told Eshe that he had until her magic hourglass ran out to save his daughter and that he would be able to move because of the snake poison in his veins (which explains why Conan and his horse can move too). Conan figures out a way to save Pelija using a rope tied to the falling boulder to pull up the stake holding her chains. When time restarts, the boulder pulls out the stake and Conan snatches Pelija from its path, handing her to her father and staying behind to deal with the pissed off villagers. When the venom starts getting to him, Conan takes off to go to Eshe’s castle and get the antidote Eshe promised him for his help. But it turns out Eshe was lying about sharing the antidote, and that he’s the one who killed Ranj because he didn’t want Pelija to leave with him. Apparently, he’s keeping her a virtual prisoner and doesn’t want anyone helping her get away from him. But Eshe’s treachery pisses off Ishiti, who shows up to kill him and save Conan’s life. Pelija isn’t sure what she’ll do now, but Conan seems to have a few ideas. This was a pretty good story with Conan showing his honourable side when he went back to help Pelija, and his clever side when he devised a way to use the falling boulder to free her from her restraints. It was interesting to see Eshe perish from divine vengeance instead of Conan’s sword.