Publisher's Synopsis
"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleamingcities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, whenshining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars- Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold.But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreamingwest. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black- haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, areaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thronesof the Earth under his sandalled feet." -The Nemedian Chronicles.Over shadowy spire's and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runsbefore dawn. Into a dim alley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways, fourmasked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky hand furtively opened. Theyspoke not but went swiftly into the gloom, cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silentlyas the ghosts of murdered men they disappeared in the darkness. Behind them a sardoniccountenance was framed in the partly opened door; a pair of evil eyes glitteredmalevolently in the gloom."Go into the night, creatures of the night," a voice mocked. "Oh, fools, your doom houndsyour heels like a blind dog, and you know it not." The speaker closed the door and bolted it, then turned and went up the corridor, candle in hand. He was a somber giant, whose duskyskin revealed his Stygian blood. He came into an inner chamber, where a tall, lean man inworn velvet lounged like a great lazy cat on a silken couch, sipping wine from a huge goldengoblet.
