THE SLITHERING SHADOW (A.K.A. "XUTHAL OF THE DUSK")

This story has increasingly become a thorn in my side. Not because of anything in the actual text of "The Slithering Shadow," but because of a single line in "The Devil in Iron."

​"Her sleep was too deep to be natural. He decided that she must be an addict of some drug, perhaps like the black lotus of Xuthal."

"Slithering Shadow" is Conan's first brush with Xuthal, but if "The Devil in Iron" mentions it, then it must take place prior to "Devil in Iron."

But when can this story take place? 

For a while, I was looking at my Hyborian Age map and noticed that Conan goes right past the city of Xuthal after "The Vale of Lost Women," so I thought maybe I would place it there. However, Conan is a commander in the military of Shem in "Slithering Shadow." Because Conan is rising through the ranks in the armies of Shem in "Hawks Over Shem" and doesn't really become a commander until "Black Colossus," I feel like this needs to take place after both of those stories. But Conan has a falling out with Princess Yasmela during "Shadows in the Dark" immediately following "Colossus," so this story can't immediately follow that pair. In fact, he ends "Shadows in the Dark" on the coast of the western sea, completely abandoning Shem's sovereign. It seems somewhat unlikely that he would be immediately welcomed back by Shem with open arms. 

I also thought that perhaps Conan had just heard of Xuthal on his travels so that maybe he would be familiar with the "black lotus of Xuthal." But that doesn't seem possible as Conan seems totally unfamiliar with the city or name of Xuthal when he arrives and he's even more confused when Thalis the Stygian describes the black lotus and its effects.

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"Much of the time these people lie in sleep. Their dream-life is as important—and to them as real—as their waking life. You have heard of the black lotus? In certain pits of the city it grows. Through the ages they have cultivated it, until, instead of death, its juice induces dreams, gorgeous and fantastic. In these dreams they spend most of their time. Their lives are vague, erratic, and without plan. They dream, they wake, drink, love, eat and dream again. They seldom finish anything they begin, but leave it half completed and sink back again into the slumber of the black lotus."

"You have heard of the black lotus?" No, dude. No, Conan clearly hasn't.

​I also had the option of ignoring the line in "Devil in Iron" that mentions Xuthal and merely chalking it up to a goof on Howard's part- a chronology pieced together after the fact that was never designed to fit completely. But that's not as fun. Plus, I think I've found a way that works for all the stories mentioned above.

Originally, I moved "Devil in Iron" way up in my continuity, because I felt like it made much more sense for Conan to have both of his adventures on islands in the Vilayet Sea in one section, but I think I'm going to have to change that.

Instead, I'm going to leave "The Devil in Iron" in its traditional placement, following "The Star of Khorala" and preceding The Flame Knife. I think I'll slot "Slithering Shadow" and "Drums of Tombalku" (as they are a pair) right before "Devil in Iron."

​This way, Conan has an adventure in Ophir in "The Star of Khorala." Then, according to the text, he's going to have one of his brief, bullshit returns to Cimmeria that never go anywhere or amount to anything. I figure after "Star," he goes south again, enlists with the Shemetish army, and goes south to Stygia for "Slithering Shadow" and "Drums of Tombalku." Following this stint with the military, he heads east again to Vilayet.

If you head over to the "Chronology" page, you can see that I've updated my chronology document to reflect this. I've kept the old ones there too to show my process, but now the top one reflects this change. I don't know about you, but I like getting into really nerdy shit like this.

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As far as the story goes... This one's fine. Just fine. It's a pretty standard Conan story. 

I've read a fair chunk of mediocre Conan stories at this point: "Iron Shadows in the Moon," "A Witch Shall Be Born," "The Hand of Nergal." Honestly, they would never get terrible if it were somehow impossible to ignore the horrific racism of the worst ones. But I really like what Howard Andrew Jones says of "Xuthal of the Dusk" over on his site where he re-read all of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories about a decade ago: "Sure, 'Xuthal' isn't one of the great Conan stories, but I happen to think it's one of the best of the lesser ones." I've been keeping track of the Howard-penned Conan stories as I read and I've been ranking them, so I'm inclined to disagree (When I'm all done with the chronology, I'll post my rankings). I'd say this is toward the bottom of the pack. 

"The Slithering Shadow," or "Xuthal of the Dusk" as it was originally titled by Howard, is certainly a step up from "Drums of Tombalku," which I just read last time. Once again, that one is essentially a direct sequel to this story, so I should have read this one first. But the two stories are so similar, as I noted in that post, that they're almost impossible to not compare. "Tombalku" edges out "Xuthal" in terms of its description of the creepy lost city they find, the female companion is a lot cooler in "Tombalku," and the description of the evil god that terrorizes the city is probably a little more horrifying in "Tombalku," but the rest I have to give to "Xuthal."

The setup, while interesting in "Tombalku," is a little stronger here due to the absolute bleakness of it. Both stories have a pair that's been separated from others and is totally cooked out in the desert, but Conan offering the last of the water to Natala so that she can die without being thirsty is pretty hardcore. The weird ancient city on the edge of the desert that each pair goes to is cool, but Xuthal's living-dead drugged out population, totally addicted to the all-consuming dreams of the black lotus is a little more interesting than the out-of-time people of Gazal. Though, it's mostly because Howard does more with it in the story. 

We get some action, Conan lops off some heads, and stabs a gigantic frog god, here borrowed from his bud HP Lovecraft. It surprised me that since this feels like such a minor Conan story that when Conan emerges from the hole he throws Thog, he has gotten properly fucked up. I don't think there are any Conan stories I've read so far in which Conan gets so beat to shit by an enemy. Somewhat unfortunately, he's able to miraculously heal so that he can get on with the story.

It's interesting at this point in my chronology reading at how many of these stories rhyme with each other- or straight-up rip each other off. "Xuthal," "Tombalku," and "Red Nails," which I'm reading soon, all seem to be sort of building off one another. 

According to Patrice Louinet in "Hyborian Genesis:"

Stevan Subic's cover for "Xuthal of the Dusk"

"[Howard] had completed the Conan story Xuthal of the Dusk, which has justly been considered a precursor of sorts to 'Red Nails.' The arrival of Conan and a woman in a city cut off from the rest of the Hyborian world, in which they have to face an evil woman and decadent inhabitants, is the basic framework common to both stories. Xuthal of the Dusk is a rather inferior Conan tale, probably because Howard was not yet an accomplished enough writer to give it the treatment he felt it deserved. The heroine was insipid and the story was clearly exploitative. However, Howard commented to Clark Ashton Smith that 'it really isn’t as exclusively devoted to sword-slashing as the announcement might seem to imply.'"

There's nothing wrong with "Xuthal" / "Slithering Shadow," but it isn't one of the most memorable. I guess I should probably count it against the story that I really have almost nothing to say about this one outside of continuity stuff, but I had a good time reading it.

​Conan is commanding armies for Koth right now, still growing in his skills of military leadership. After five consecutive stories written by just REH or Howard and de Camp, we're going back to de Camp and Carter for the next one: "The Gem in the Tower." I read that one in comic form fairly recently and thought it was alright, so I'm ready to head even further west as we slowly approach Conan's kingship.

★★★☆☆