"The Tower of the Elephant" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan infiltrating a perilous tower in order to steal a fabled gem from an evil sorcerer named Yara. Due to its unique insights into the Hyborian world and atypical science fiction elements, the story is considered a classic of Conan lore and is often cited by Howard scholars as one of his best tales.
Video The Tower of the Elephant
Plot summary
The story is set in the Zamorian "thief city" Arenjun.. A young Conan is drinking in a rowdy tavern when he overhears a fat Kothic rogue describing a fabulous jewel called the "Heart of the Elephant". It is kept in a tower by the evil sorcerer Yara, who once terrified the King of Zamora when he transformed a prince into a spider and crushed it underfoot. When Conan presses the rogue for more information, insults are traded and a fight ensues. A candle is knocked over, and the tavern is plunged into darkness, but Conan's sword finds the Kothian in the dark, and Conan escapes into the nighted streets. (The Kothian's death saves a damsel, his intended prey, from kidnapping and slavery.)
On the spur of the moment, the teenaged Conan steals into Yara's garden to steal the jewel, and immediately runs into Taurus of Nemedia, known as the "Prince of Thieves", who has similar designs. Taurus, who is whily, fat, but amazingly agile, is impressed by Conan's daring, and they agree to work together. After battling lions in the tower gardens, they scale the spire. Upon reaching the top, Taurus enters a treasure hall and is killed by the venomous bite of a gigantic spider. After a desperate battle, Conan crushes the spider with a chest of gems. Conan hastens on to seek the greatest jewel, the Heart.
Continuing into the tower, he discovers a strange "trans-cosmic being" with the body of a man but with the oversized head of an elephant. The creature, named Yag-kosha, is a blind, tortured prisoner of the Yara.
Yag-kosha relates to Conan the pre-Cataclysmic saga of his alien people, their arrival on Earth and how he taught Yara the art of magic, only to have his apprentice turn against him. At Yag-kosha's behest, Conan takes the Heart of the Elephant, mercifully kills the elephant-being, extracts the heart from the corpse and, as instructed, drips its blood over the Heart of the Elephant. He uses the supernatural powers of the blood-infused jewel to shrink Yara and draw him into the jewel. Inside the jewel there appears a revived Yag-kosha, his limbs and wings restored, relentlessly pursuing Yara, and the jewel vanishes.
Obeying Yag-kosha's instructions, Conan leaves immediately, and emerges empty-handed from the tower at dawn, just as it collapses behind him. He has nothing after his night's work but his sword, loin-cloth, and sandals.
Maps The Tower of the Elephant
Publication history
- Weird Tales magazine, March 1933
- Skull-Face and Others (Arkham House, 1946)
- The Coming of Conan (Gnome Press, 1953)
- Conan (Lancer, 1967, later reissued by Ace Books)
- The Tower of the Elephant (Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc., 1975)
- The Conan Chronicles (Sphere Books, 1989)
- The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle (Gollancz, 2000)
- Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933) (Del Rey, 2003)
- Conan the Barbarian: the Stories that Inspired the Movie (Del Rey, 2011)
Adaptations
There is also a modular adventure based on this tale for Conan: The Roleplaying Game.
The Tower of the Elephant has been adapted into comic form three times: twice by Marvel and once by Dark Horse.
The first adaptation by Marvel appeared in Conan the Barbarian #4. The story was adapted by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith and Sal Buscema.
The second adaptation by Marvel appeared in the Savage Sword of Conan #24 and was again written by Roy Thomas but this time drawn by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala.
The newest adaptation, in Dark Horse's Conan issues 20-22, was written by Kurt Busiek and illustrated by Cary Nord, Dave Stewart and Mike Kaluta. Two of these have recently appeared in collections released by Dark Horse: the Conan the Barbarian adaptation in The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The Tower of the Elephant and other stories, and the Dark Horse adaptation in Conan Volume 3: The Tower of the Elephant and other stories.
Episode 3 of the animated series Conan the Adventurer is adapted from "Tower of the Elephant", although the character of Taurus is replaced with Jezmine who becomes an ongoing character in the series rather than dies.
A variant on this story has been added into the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Wizard101, a dungeon called the "Tower of the Helephant". The thief Taurus is the only name that remains true to the original tale, however the parallels between the stories are evident to anyone that is familiar with the story. The players must scale a tower and descend into it, ultimately freeing the elephant-headed interstellar being by defeating the wizard that bound him and destroying the "Heart of the Helephant".
The story is the inspiration for a sequence in Conan the Barbarian, which includes Conan and his fellow thieves scaling a tower, battling a giant snake, and stealing a jewel.
In the 2011 film Conan the Barbarian a character extols Conan's past accomplishments and mentions his adventure in the Tower of the Elephant.
The story was adapted into a hack and slash video game for IOS by developer Chillingo, which was released as a tie-in for the 2011 film Conan the Barbarian.
Notes
External links
- Project Gutenberg online text
- Conan the Barbarian at AmratheLion.com
- Conan.com: The Official Website
- The Tower of the Elephant title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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