"I seek only to tread the jeweled thrones of the earth under my sandaled feet," Conan replied, quoting a dream he barely understood.
"The mountains are too small for you, Cimmerian," a voice rasped. "I seek only to tread the jeweled thrones
Years bled into decades. He sailed the Vilayet Sea as a pirate, his name a curse on the lips of Turanian merchants. He led mercenaries into the burning sands of Stygia, where ancient mummies stirred in tombs of green jade. He saw empires rise on blood and fall to rot, but he remained unchanged—a bronze-skinned giant who laughed at fate and spat at the gods. He sailed the Vilayet Sea as a pirate,
The crone cackled, a sound like dry leaves skittering over stone. "Then go, boy. But know that civilization is a whim of circumstance, a thin veil over the honest barbarism of the soul. You will find wizards who summon shadows and kings who trade their honor for gold. You will be a thief, a pirate, and a king in your own right, but you will always be a stranger to their walls". The crone cackled, a sound like dry leaves
Conan did not answer. He slung his shield over his back and began the long descent. He passed through the haunted forests of Hyperborea, where the trees whispered in forgotten tongues, and into the teeming markets of Shadizar the Wicked.
In a tavern thick with the scent of lotus-wine and unwashed bodies, he met a Zamorian thief named Taurus. Together, they scaled the impossible heights of the , seeking a gem that wept light. Inside, Conan did not find gold, but a trans-cosmic horror—a blind, elephant-headed god from a world older than the stars, imprisoned by a sorcerer’s greed.
For weeks, the red-haired reavers from the north had harried the mountain clans, but today the Cimmerians had answered with steel. Yet, as the echoes of the war-horns faded, Conan felt a restlessness that no battle could sate. He looked south, beyond the gray mists, toward the legendary kingdoms of the "civilized" world—Hyboria, where cities were built of stone and men lived in soft decadence.
