Robert E. Howard

"The Pool of the Black One," which appeared in Weird Tales magazine the month after "The Slithering Shadow," is a piratical adventure story and occurs in the Western Sea of the Hyborian Age. The story begins with Conan the Cimmerian adrift at sea, having had to escape from rivals in the Barachan Isles. He clambers aboard The Wastrel, a ship belonging a different pirate order, bitter rivals of the Barachan ones. After a terse conversation with the captain and a brawl with a Zingaran bully, Conan is begrudgingly accepted as a lowly member of the crew and is allowed to remain on board.

Conan the Barbarian #5

The Pool of the Black One

Sarah Escorsa

My crappy non-review for The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is imploding! I exhausted all my character allowance! So now I have to resort to crappily non-review all the stories in the collection separately! Go me and stuff!

In a super-human effort to NOT write a review that is longer than the story it is about (as is now customary with all of my Barbarian Paramour’s adventures), I have prepared out a detailed outline, and shall stick to it mercilessly. (A message from Sarah from the Future: why Sarah from the Past thought this would make the review shorter, I’ve no bloody shrimping idea.) 

Here goes and stuff.

Believe it or not, the beginning of this luscious story finds my loincloth-wearing boyfriend impersonating a merman. Cross my heart, hope to die an excruciating death and stuff, I promise I’m not making this up for once.
  “Water ran in rivulets from his great shoulders and down his heavy arms. His single garment—a pair of bright crimson silk breeks—was soaking wet, as was his broad gold-buckled girdle and the sheathed sword it supported. As he stood at the rail, the rising sun etched him like a great bronze statue. He ran his fingers through his streaming black mane, and his blue eyes lit as they rested on the girl.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "Whence did you come?"
He made a gesture toward the sea that took in a whole quarter of the compass, while his eyes did not leave her supple figure.
"Are you a merman, that you rise up out of the sea?" she asked, confused by the candor of his gaze, though she was accustomed to admiration.”
Ha! Told ya and stuff. Anyway, there a few other things worth highlighting here besides the Cimmerian Babe frolicking in the water: 

 ① Conan ditched his very basic loincloth for bright crimson silk breeks. My my, we are going up in the world, looks like.

② Conan is as Super Extra Hot (SEH™) as ever.

③ Wherever Conan goes, there’s always a Sexey Babe of the Supple Limbs and Voluptuous Contours (SBotSLaVC™)—aka the Squeeze of the Moment—in the near vicinity. 



Why hello there, you Squeeze of the Moment!

So. After playing merman for a little bit, Conan makes new Friendly Freebooting Friends (F³). And then starts breaking jaws and slightly slaughtering not-so-innocent bystanders by way of introduction. Because he’s wonderfully chummy like that. And since the F³ are all such cool, welcoming dudes, Conan decides to stick with them and play pirate for a bit (it’s one of his favorite hobbies, in case you didn’t know). 

He quickly becomes acclimated to this lovely new buccaneering environment (because he’s incredibly adaptable like that) and ends up very involuntary attracting the above-mentioned Squeeze of the Moment’s attention. Which is kinda sorta problematic since she’s supposed to be the F³’s head honcho’s Personal Hot Babe (PHB™). But given the choice between a grim, brooding, taciturn freebooter and an ale-drinking, Super Hot Pirate of the Primitive Ferocity, Bull-Like Vitality and Springy Step (SHPotPFBLVaSS™)—who comes fully equipped with eyes that blaze like blue bale-fire, a gusty laugh and a super extensive ribald song repertoire—the Squeeze of the Moment ultimately decides to pick my Barbarian Paramour. What can I say, the chick has weird taste like that.

Okay, so spoiler spoiler spoiler stuff happens, and our pirates/buccaneers/freebooters/whatever sail to a mysterious island. They go off and investigate because reasons, then more spoiler spoiler spoiler stuff happens. And that’s when “nameless panic and unbelieving horror” fall upon our merry bunch. (Oh, goody!) Something “alien and uncanny” is afoot, Conan comes across “vagrant image of fantasy and nightmare,” and gets lost in dizzy cogitations as a result (yes, it hurt). 



Yeah, more or less. Except my Cimmerian Sweetie Pie is much yummier than The One With The Slightly Inflated Cerebellum here. Obviously.

All in all, you might perhaps say this island may not be the most welcoming ever, but hey, at least the locals know how to dance and stuff: 
  “It was a convulsion of obscenity, a spasm of lasciviousness – an exudation of secret hungers framed by compulsion: desire without pleasure, pain mated awfully to lust.”
I say YUM to that, but my Conan can be treacherously sensitive sometimes, so he kinda sorta “froze with repulsion and shook with nausea” at the sight of such cosmic vileness, poor thing.

Anyway, not only do the locals know how to shake that thang beautifully, they also are a Super Extra Attractive Bunch (SEAB™):
  “The nails of the fingers provided further weapons, for they were grown like the talons of a wild beast. The face was a carven ebony mask. The eyes were tawny, a vibrant gold that glowed and glittered. But the face was inhuman; each line, each feature was stamped with evil—evil transcending the mere evil of humanity. The thing was not a human—it could not be; it was a growth of Life from the pits of blasphemous creation—a perversion of evolutionary development.”



Diabolical delectation FTW!

Strangely enough, it turns out that Conan and his F³ don’t get on too well with the SEAB™. So instead of boogying together till the break of dawn, as you would expect, they end up, well, um, you know, slightly beating the crap out of each other and stuff. Not much though, just a teensy little bit.
  “The sound of the hacking swords was like that of butchers' cleavers, and the shrieks, yells and curses were appalling.”
My Barbarian Paramour and his buddies really know how to have a good time, think you not? I mean, there’s nothing quite like the rending of flesh, the crunching of bones and howls of pain and wrath, is there? Now if that isn’t Fun Times Central (FTC™), I don’t know what is. 

So of course Conan & friends manage to prevail escape very moderately unscathed in the end. First because DUH, and second because my boyfriend shows spectacular troop leading skills:
  “Conan hurried them up; his method was simple. He grasped loiterers by the scruff of the neck, impelled them violently through the gate, added impetus with a lusty kick in the rear, spicing his urgings for haste with pungent comments on the victim's ancestry.”
No wonder the pirates/buccaneers/freebooters/whatever go so eagerly into battle and show bloodthirsty zeal. Hot Stuff sure knows how to motivate his minions!

What happens next, you ask? They all sail away in the sunset and live plunder the seas happily ever after and stuff. The end and stuff.



Don’t ask.

· Introduction to the world: The Hyborian Age ★★★★
· Main review: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian ★★★★
· Book 2: The Bloody Crown of Conan ★★★★
· Book 3: The Conquering Sword of Conan - to be read



[Pre-review nonsense]

My Barbarian Paramour on the swim run + pirates buccaneers + evil foes of the lovely pincers claws + yet another voluptuous Squeeze of the Moment + blood and gore (view spoiler)[yay! (hide spoiler)] =

The Pool of the Black One Conan the Barbarian #5

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