Conan the Barbarian #73 – “He Who Waits—in the Well of Skelos” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one continues right from last issue, with Conan and Bêlit returning to the Tigress from Asgalun. Bêlit is still reeling from the knowledge that her father (once King of Asgalun) is still alive and in captivity somewhere in Stygia. She and Conan are so distracted that they’re taken by surprise when they board the Tigress. Kawaku has finally had enough of Conan and Bêlit’s scorn (deserved or not) and has led a few other disgruntled pirates in a
mutiny, locking the loyal crewmen up in the hold. Conan and Bêlit are ready to fight but are soon captured. Kawaku wants them to lead him to Bêlit’s hidden treasure trove on an uncharted island, but Bêlit says she’d rather die. Conan volunteers to lead Kawaku to the treasure if he spares Bêlit, which pisses her off a lot. Conan also orders the loyal crew-members to cooperate with Kawaku’s men while he leads Kawaku and a few others to the treasure. Of course, Conan’s not stupid … he knows Kawaku will kill him as soon as he has the loot, but Conan has plans of his own. They land on the island and Conan leads them through the jungles to an ancient temple. Kawaku’s men (and Kawaku himself) are frightened of the eerie-looking place, but the lure of treasure 
pulls Kawaku in. Conan leads them over a rune-covered slab in the floor to a deep pit, which he says may be the fabled Well of Skelos. That makes the mutineers even more nervous, but Kawaku wants the gold so he has them lower him into the well. The rope goes slack and a horrible scream pierces the darkness, but the rope soon has weight on it again, more than before. That makes the men think Kawaku has found some treasure, so they haul him up, but they get a nasty surprise when a toad-like monster climbs from the pit and starts slaughtering them. Conan ends up fighting the monster and manages to toss it back into the well, but he almost falls in himself. He’s pulled out by Bêlit and her loyal men, who tell Conan how she escaped her bonds and killed the guards on the ship before coming to the temple with the latest chest full of treasure. Turns out the slab full of hieroglyphs hides the treasure and Bêlit deposits the new batch there with the rest. She’s almost
got enough to hire an army to take back Asgalun from the Stygians, but first she wants to rescue her father. Naturally, Conan wants to go with her. This is a pretty good story, based on a short synopsis by Robert E. Howard for an unwritten tale called “The Well of Skelos”. Skelos was mentioned in several REH stories and seems to be the name of some long-dead wizard. Roy stuck fairly closely to the original outline, adding a few things to make it fit with the ongoing saga of Conan and Bêlit. The Kawaku thing has been simmering for a while and it finally pays off here. The toad-monster is well-depicted by John Buscema and it’s cool that Bêlit got free on her own and came to help instead of waiting for Conan to come back and rescue her.
Conan the Barbarian #74 – “Battle at the Black Walls” – RoyThomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one starts with Conan having a dream—or a nightmare—about the wizard Thoth-Amon. The sorcerer orders him to abandon the quest to find Bêlit’s father, warning that great ill will come of it. Conan isn’t in the mood to listen to a wizard, even after he sees a vision of the Tigress burning at sea. A chorus of disembodied souls appears to beg Conan to desert Bêlit and abandon the rescue mission, claiming that the lives of unborn generations are at stake. That doesn’t sway Conan either (although it kinda freaks him out a bit) and he wakes to go look for Bêlit. She’s on deck and is in a contemplative mood, having had a rather strange
dream herself. She dreamt of her father’s overthrow and her flight from Asgalun, but also of her triumphant return with her father beside her. She says she’s had that dream before and thought nothing of it, but now that she knows her father is alive, it could actually happen. A Stygian ship is sighted and the Tigress goes after it. Bêlit hopes someone on board can answer some questions about the court of the Stygian king, but the high-ranking Stygians prefer death to capture. They find a captive woman aboard (Neftha), who tells them the Stygian who killed himself was fleeing for having plotted against King Ctesiphon, taking her along as chattels. Neftha takes a Set-Charm from the Stygian’s body and offers to guide Conan and Bêlit to Luxur and into the 
King’s palace. Neftha says Ctesiphon is cowardly and weak, letting his fear and paranoia drive him to shut himself away in his palace. The Tigress sails close to Khemi, a Stygian city on the coast where there are several large war galleys at anchor. Conan, Bêlit, and Neftha need to pass through Khemi to get to Luxur, but they need a distraction first. Neftha informs them that the city will be empty since all the inhabitants are celebrating a festival to Set that night, but the ships are not completely unguarded. A huge serpentine monster (kinda like a plesiosaur) rises from the harbour to attack the boats. The monster veers away from the boat containing Conan and Neftha (I’m assuming that has something to do with the snake amulet she took from the dead Stygian) and goes after the other boats. Bêlit and crew fight back and Conan dives
into the water to attack the beast close up. After taking some damage from Conan, the monster swims out to sea, leaving the raiders to set the Stygian ships afire. As the Stygians pour from the city to fight the conflagration, M’gora leads most of the raiders back to the Tigress, which sails away. But Conan, Bêlit,, and Neftha have snuck into the city, preparing to head out towards Luxur and Bêlit’s father. This is a pretty good story that’s basically setting up Conan and Bêlit’s sojourn into Stygia to rescue Bêlit’s father. The ship burning incident was mentioned in a Robert E. Howard Conan tale, set much later in the Cimmerian’s life, so Roy decided to depict it here. The dream message from Thoth-Amon was meant as foreshadowing, although when Conan meets the wizard later, he won’t remember sending the dream to Conan. Roy doesn’t recall his original intent with the dream, so he speculated that it may have been sent unconsciously by the Stygian sorcerer. In Howard’s stories, Thoth-Amon is mentioned a couple of times, but he never meets Conan in person; it was L.. Sprague De Camp that made Thoth-Amon into Conan’s nemesis, in his pastiches of the barbarian’s later career.