The Nightmare Inside the Age Undreamed Of
By Dale E. Rippke
Over the space of four years back in the early
1930’s, Texan author Robert E. Howard crafted one of the most indelible
characters to ever capture the attention of the pulp magazine reading public.
This character was at various times a warrior, a thief, a pirate, a frontier
scout, treasure hunter and all around adventurer. His name was Conan and he
hailed from a misty place called Cimmeria during a forgotten prehistoric era
that Howard dubbed the Hyborian Age. During that fertile four years, Howard
fashioned twenty one tales of the redoubtable Cimmerian, ranging from short
stories to an episodic novel. He sold seventeen of theses stories to Weird
Tales magazine and saw most of them published prior his untimely suicide in
1936.
Although Howard crafted The Hyborian Age, a historical essay of Conan’s imaginary world
prior to starting his new series, you could not make the case where the whole
thing sprang fully-formed in his mind. Instead the pseudo-history evolved in a
rather piece-meal manner as Howard colorfully filled in the forgotten past of
his stories with whatever his imagination required to make them shine.
In 1934 Howard tried his hand at writing a novel
featuring his Conan character for a British publishing house. It was called The Hour of the Dragon and was in some
ways a mash-up of several earlier Conan stories. This novel featured a three
thousand year old resurrected sorcerer named Xaltotun as Conan’s supernatural
antagonist. Xaltotun was the most powerful mage in his time and before his
death he lived in an amazing, shadow-haunted land called Acheron.
Acheron as a named historical entity only appears
in The Hour of the Dragon. But in his
previously written stories and in the Hyborian
Age essay Howard eludes to the existence of a long-lost civilization
thousands of years prior to Conan’s life. If one takes the position that this forgotten
civilization is actually the remnants of Acheron and that the timeline that
Howard laid out in his Hyborian Age
essay changed substantially as he wrote the stories (The Tower of the Elephant uses the original timeline, while the
very next story written, The Scarlet
Citadel uses the revised timeline), then it is fairly simple to map out the
history of Acheron.
The history of Acheron is tied to the history of
Archaic Stygia. Archaic Stygia was the remnants of a forgotten Elder Earth civilization
whose foundation predated the appearance of human beings. This prehuman civilization
worshipped a demon-lord called the Great Serpent. Millennia passed and mankind
flourished as the Elder Earth races began to wither and vanish. Sometime during
the Thurian Age (the time of King Kull of Valusia) this demon-lord (who was now
called Set) saw the writing on the wall decided to take human form and mate
with the daughters of mankind, creating a hybrid race called the Children of
Set that ruled over Thurian-era Stygia in a city named Luxor. The Children of
Set were essentially human but the demonic taint of Set made them appear as
giant snakes with human faces. Some time after this, the Great Cataclysm put an
end to the Thurian Age.
Archaic Stygia managed to survive the world-wide
disaster. They found that the disaster had left their shattered capital of Luxor in the midst of a hostile
desert so they packed up and moved to a large fertile river valley to their
west. The northward flowing river was called the Nilus and it emptied into a
small salty inland sea. Archaic Stygia expanded along the sea’s coast, building
their cyclopean cites along fresh water rivers that emptied into this salty
mere. The citadels of Kuthchemes and Pteion were built during this period.
Even before the cataclysm the rulers of the land
had evolved into a much more human–looking appearance and Howard now calls them
the Giant-Kings. They still contain demonic taint of Set, though and this taint
allows them to manipulate the forces of magic much easier than a normal human
can. An era of sorcery and necromancy takes hold of the race and Archaic Stygia
becomes a nation of blood and magic. One of their most notable magical creations
is a fantastic flaming jewel called the Heart of Ahriman. This artifact was
also given the ability to kill at a word, bring the dead back to life, and most
importantly, the ability to dispel ANY sorcerous spell cast. Magic ruled the
lives of everyone in Archaic Stygia.
Five hundred years later, a lesser cataclysm
rearranged the face of their world, up lifting the lands to the east of the
salty sea and causing it to drain westward to the ocean through an old river
valley that was originally formed back in the Thurian Age by a western section
of the Stagus River. The channel cut by this drainage
in turn became the western leg of the Nilus River, and during this period was
it was referred to as either the Nilus or Stagus before the river became more
commonly known as the River Styx.
Once more the Archaic Stygians picked up the
pieces and rebuilt their civilization. They expanded westward along the new
river channel, building a new capital city named Luxor after their old Thurian Age capital.
The nation eventually stretched all the way to the Western Ocean.
The city of Khemi was founded at the mouth of
the Styx and another round of massive
stonework and pyramids was completed by the magic of the giants.
Khemi became the mercantile center of the archaic
civilization. It sent ships north and south along the coast, only to find that
while there was commerce to be had with the black lands of the south there was
no one living in the north. The sailors of Khemi proceeded to establish an
outpost at the mouth of a large northern river that they most likely called the
River Acheron, but would in later days be called the Khorotas River.
For the next several hundred years the tall, Set-worshipping
humans of the northern outpost explored and exploited the lands along the great
river and discovered the moldering ruins of ancient Valusian cities, plundering
them for their magic relicts. Eventually they ventured into the great tributary
river that in Hyborian times would come to be called the Tybor (It could be
argued that the colony considered the Tybor branch to be the main part of the
River Acheron). In short order they probably discovered gold in the streams
leading out of the mountain range that extended along the southern side of the
Tybor valley. An investigation soon uncovered a great deal of wealth from the
gold and gemstones discovered within the mountains. A number of villages sprung
up along this part of the river to take advantage of the mineral discoveries
and attracting a great number of citizens seeking their fortune. Before long
the rapidly growing towns were banding together, and formed the backbone of
Archaic Stygia’s first real colony. This colony became known as Acheron.
A thousand years after the Lesser Cataclysm, the
Giant-Kings back along the Styx were living a
life of idle, decadent splendor built on the subjugation of the area's nomadic
tribes and blacks from the lands to its south. A cloud of dust on the eastern
horizon was the first indication that their world was about to be turned upside
down by a nomadic eastern race that Howard never names.
The first city of any importance to face the
invading nomads was the citadel of Kuthchemes. The walled city, which up until
this time had to never contend with anything larger than infrequent nomadic
raids found itself facing a large disciplined army of invaders intent on its
capitulation. The vastly under-defended city fell in short order. I believe
that during this battle the nomads managed to capture the Heart of Ahriman from
the dying Giant-Kings in the city. The capture of Kuthchemes gave them a base
to accomplish the subjugation of the rest of the Styx
valley cities.
The armed forces of the Giant-kings were hampered
by mutiny from within of the subject humans that comprised it. Deprived of the
Heart, its sorcerers were forced for the first time in millennia to depend on
their own little used magical abilities. Its sorcerers were hindered by unseen
forces conjured by the nomad’s wizard-priests, who in turn were able to use the
Heart to dispel the magic of the giants. Refugees fleeing from the cities of
the east tied up the resources of the remaining cities in knots. Treachery
unwove the fabric of society as various noble houses made secret deals with the
nomads to betray the rest of their number for a place in the succeeding order.
The archaic empire of the Giant-Kings rapidly
dissolved in blood and flames. Refugee groups taking as much as they could
carry fled the nation by ship for the sanctuary of Acheron's cities. One of the
Giant-Kings by the name of Asura escaped to reside in Vendhya. The rest of the
prehuman giants were killed as the nomadic invaders consolidated their gains.
Howard was correct; the second-oldest race in the world was now effectively
extinct.
The conquerors co-opted the Giant-King's culture
and ritual and they almost immediately began to refer to themselves as
Stygians. As promised, the treacherous noble houses of the Giant/human hybrids
that aided the newly-minted Stygians were incorporated as promised into the
upper tier of Stygian society. In time the Stygians came to realized that by
intermarrying with the demon-tainted nobles they could gain genetic access to
the hybrids innate magical abilities.
The destruction of their homeland caused the
Acheron colony to become isolated and fairly insular. This did not last long.
Somewhere far to the north, a new race of tall tawny-haired barbarians called
the Hyborians had burst upon the scene. While most of the Hyborians were
content at that time to remain in their homelands, a fairly sizable group split
off from the main body and migrated far to the south. Eventually this early barbarian
drift came across the colony of Set worshippers. The Hyborians agreed to spare by
the colony in exchange for their knowledge of agriculture, metallurgy, and
magic. The demon-tainted descendants of the Giant-Kings were absorbed intact
and disappeared into the genetic mix of the Hyborians and ceased to exist as a
separate race.
In much the same way that the nomads far to the
south appropriated the culture of Archaic Stygia, the Hyborians swiftly adopted
the technology, religion and culture of the absorbed colony. The first Hyborian
nation of Acheron had begun.
In a break with their past, the men of Acheron
built incredible cities of tall purple towers, instead of the cyclopean
architecture that defined the Giant-Kings. Their capital and greatest city was
built on the plains to the north of the River Acheron (Tybor) in what would
become south-central Nemedia. They called it Python, and it was the apex of
sorcerous knowledge. Although there were other cities in the empire, Howard
never named bothered to name them.
Acheron’s population began spreading out until it
encompassed much of the lands that would later be called Aquilonia, Nemedia,
and Argos. It
subjugated every race it came across (with the exception of the
proto-Cimmerians) as slaves or sacrifices for their blood-magic. This was the
earliest phase of what came to be thought of as the Nightmare Empire.
Far to the south during this time, the wizards of
Stygia had been busy learning all they could from the surviving hybrid nobles
about the magical abilities of the Heart of Ahriman. The Stygians also began to
have bi-lateral commercial dealings with the land of Acheron,
probably due to its worshipping of Set.
Acheron's slow expansion continued southward and
eastward into relatively unpopulated lands. The Stygians had also been
expanding into the uplands north of Shem and came to share an uneasy border
with Acheron. To the east, the nation of Zamora
had arisen from the labors of the Zhemri. All of this was going to change
dramatically in a few hundred years.
Two hundred years or so after the founding of its capital
city of Python,
the ever-expanding empire encountered the first of an increasing flood of tall,
tawny-haired Hyborians from the northern lands. The barbarian flood split
itself on the nation of Acheron like a rock in a stream; some diverting
southwestward and others southeastward.
The Hyborians quickly filled the lands to the west
of Acheron, travelling as far south as the Western Ocean.
Trapped as they were between the Picts to the west and the Acheronians to the
east, the Hyborians had no real choice but to settle in the western areas of
Acheron, where they became the choice targets of slave-raiders from out of the
east.
The slow Hyborian drift along the eastern borders
of Acheron continued south until the Stygians stopped them along a line of
forts in Corinthia. Eventually, the pressure from succeeding drifts pushed the
Hyborians into the Stygian uplands
Howard’s writings seem to imply that the Stygians
resisted the Hyborian invasion into the uplands and slaughtered them by the
thousands. Eventually the Acheronians allowed refugees of the three large
Hyborians tribes to settle in the little populated regions southern regions of
their nation as a buffer with the Stygians. There are indications that the
nascent nations of Koth, Ophir, and Corinthia were formed at this time,
although Acheron probably considered them nothing more than subject provinces.
It is also of interest to note that it is around
this time that the Heart of Ahriman disappeared from Stygia and made its way to
Acheron. Whether this occurred through theft or by a war between Stygia and
Acheron is unclear. We do know that an Acheronian mage named Xaltotun came into
possession of the Heart and used it to become the premier sorcerer in that
turbulent land of wizards.
Did the wizard-priests of Acheron ever consider
the Hyborian drifts to be a particularly immediate threat? I don't believe so.
I don't think they ever really saw the other Hyborians as anything other than
raw material to fuel their magic rituals and grease the infrastructure of their
society. Plus, for all intents and purposes, the people of Acheron were
Hyborians and these people were their kinsmen. The Hyborian drifts were seen as
nothing more than a nuisance. The Hyborian situation in the east seemed to be
pretty stable with the establishment of Koth, Ophir, and Corinthia. The
Hyborian situation in the thinly settled western areas of Acheron was kept in
check by slave-raids and the destruction of entire villages.
But to the Hyborian tribes subjugated by the
Acheronians this matter was seen in a completely different light. Set worship
was demonic in practice and the average person quailed at the thought of ending
up as grist in a blood-soaked ritual. And Acheron seemed to have a stranglehold
on religion that didn’t tolerate the worship of the Hyborian gods Bori and
Mitra.
Which leads me to the most contentious part of
this article. The Hyborian Age essay tells
of a fifteen hundred year period between the founding of the Hyborian kingdoms
and Conan’s life. Phoenix on the Sword
also speaks of an event fifteen hundred years previously, when the Hyborians
were freed from their subjugation from the tyranny of Set. It seems obvious
that the two events are linked. But from the fourth Conan tale onward to the
end of the series, the date of the founding of the Hyborian nations is set at
three thousand years prior to Conan’s life. And Hour of the Dragon tells us of Set-worshipping Acheron and its
destruction at the hands of the Hyborians. Both dates can’t be true, so to my
rationale, Howard must have changed his mind about the timeline, and the
fifteen hundred year events and the three thousand year events are describing
the same exact moments in history. And that moment is the end of Acheron.
Three thousand years before Conan was born, in the
regions to the west of Acheron, a man was born named Epemitreus and when he
grew to manhood he became a priest of the Hyborian god Mitra (Xaltotun derisively
describes him as a feathered shaman). This priest of Mitra discovered the key
to the salvation of his people lay in a magical bauble called The Heart of
Ahriman. So he contrived to steal it from where Xaltotun kept it hidden. Epemitreus
learned that he could negate the magic of Acheron’s wizards with the aid of the
Heart. He persuaded the western Hyborian tribes to unite into two (possibly
more) great armies under the command of war-chiefs from the Aquilon and Nemed
clans. Shortly thereafter these armies began to attack selected targets along
Acheron’s western frontier, with Epemitreus using the Heart to negate all magic
used against them. The west quickly dissolved into blood and chaos.
The Aquilon army bored into Acheron from the west,
while the army of the Nemed clan attacked from primarily the north. Powerful
mages sent to destroy the Hyborian armies were rendered ineffectual and destroyed
by the power of the Heart. Acheron’s over-reliance on magic was proving to be
its undoing.
In an effort to stabilize the war in the west,
Acheron demanded that the subject kingdoms of Koth, Ophir and Corinthia send
troops to help repel the invasion. The three kingdoms acquiesced and sent
armies into Acheron to aid in its defense. Once there, the army led by Khossus
V of Koth treacherously rebelled and attacked the Acheronian units in the east.
The armies of Ophir and Corinthia followed suit and the eastern regions of
Acheron were decimated.
Its magic largely ineffective and its subject
armies in revolt, the empire of Acheron fell in flaming ruin. The army of the Aquilon
destroyed the Khorotas and western Tybor
River cities, finally joining with the
army of Koth to destroy the major Acheronian port city on the Khorotas River
estuary (their original Stygian outpost). The army of the Nemed burned and
pillaged across the areas of Acheron east of the central mountains, surrounding
and utterly destroying the capital of Python. They then swept southward until
they ran into the army of Ophir near the Tybor River Pass. The combined
Hyborian armies obliterated all of Acheron’s beautiful purple-towered cities,
razing them to the bedrock.
Hundreds of years of racial hatred exploded across
the length and width of Acheron. Extreme hatred of Set worship caused the
Hyborians to put to the sword every single serpent worshipper they encountered.
With the aid of better weapons, armor, and tactics, the men of Koth, Ophir ,
and Corinthia pushed southward and swiftly drove the Stygians from the fertile
uplands to enlarge their kingdoms. A Stygian army sent to take back the region
was defeated and chased back to Kuthchemes, which the Hyborians promptly
sacked. The few surviving Set worshipping Acheronians fled to the hills, to Zamora or back to their
original homeland in Stygia.
After the civil war concluded the Heart of Ahriman
was placed into a cave near the site of the bloodiest battle of the war, and
protected by demonic means. The cave was hidden by a temple dedicated to the
Hyborian god Mitra built over the site. In time, the victorious Hyborians built
Aquilonia’s capital city of Tarantia
around the temple.
The great wizard Xaltotun survived the civil war
and fled to Stygia, living in Khemi until jealous Stygian wizard-priests
poisoned him. With its last demon-tainted son dead, the direct lineage of the
Giant-Kings concluded. The Age of Acheron was over.
