Don't Take a Date to a Cursed Oasis!

 

cover art by Gil Kane (with some alterations by John Romita)

In the original Robert E. Howard stories, Conan is recorded as having visited the City of Thieves just once ("The Tower of the Elephant"), but other writers have brought him back to that city a number of times. Any place called the City of Thieves is just too ripe for possible adventures for many writers to ignore the place for long. 

Roy Thomas brought him back there in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian for several consecutive adventures after the Cimmerian had deserted from the Turanian army. One of these is "The Garden of Death and Life," from Conan #41 (August 1974). John Buscema is the artist.

Conan is planning a night of drinking and carousing. Naturally, something comes up to interfere with his plans.

A girl is being pursued by a mob. Partly because of his inate chivalry towards women and partially because he thinks she'll clean up nicely, Conan saves her. He has no real idea what is going on--most of the mob wants to kill her for unspecified reasons, but one guy is obsessed with either possessing her or destroying her.

Conan has to kill this last guy. And, even though he could have sworn the guy stabbed the girl before getting killed, she is unhurt. For someone of Conan's experience with supernatural threats, this should have been a clue that something wasn't adding up.

Anyway, he carves a way through the crowd and escapes from the city with the girl. Out in the surrounding desert, the girl--named Zhadorr--tells Conan about an oasis. They make for it, with Conan unsuccessfully trying to score with her during the journey, but she puts him off. He also notices that she goes off to be alone whenever he gives her food. He never sees her eat.

I sounded like I was making fun of Conan for not wondering about her earlier because of weird stuff like this, but Thomas actually builds up the tension nicely. There is something strange going on, but its not yet overt enough to indicate Zhadorr is something other than human. When everything hits the fan in a few pages, the build-up to it adds to the remarkable overall impact of the tale's denoument. 

They reach the oasis, where Conan notices a number of human skeletons spread out on the bottom of the water pool. Before he has a chance to process that, though, a group of bandits arrive to capture them.

One of them takes Zhadorr off into the bushes. Conan uses the old sharp-rock trick to cut his bonds, then rushes after them to rescue her. But she doesn't need rescuing. The bandit has been mysteriously skeletonized.

And soon, the other bandits and their horses are being stripped to the bone as well--by the giant tree in the center of the oasis. This, by the way, is effectively portrayed by one of the best two-page splash panels ever drawn. Buscema outdoes himself here:

The tree tries to eat Conan as well, but he manages to set fire to it. And Zhadorr? Well, she's still there as well. Sort of.

Thomas constructs an effective and legitimately creepy sword-and-sorcery/horror tale, with Buscema's art perfectly visualizing it. That splash panel alone was worth the price of the book.

Next week, we'll stay in the past, but jump forward to the 18th Century to visit with Ben Bowie.