And so it begins -it’s December 1932 and Weird Tales magazine offers quite a selection to those readers willing to spend 25 cents: there’s a Jules DeGrandin Story by the ever-popular Seabury Quinn, and stories by Edmond Hamilton, Vincent Starret and the second installment of Buccaneers of Venus (who gets the Allen St John cover), by Otis Adelbert Kline, plus the conclusion of a serialized reprint of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
The third story in the issue is a new novelette by Robert E. Howard, featuring a new character – Conan the Cimmerian, in his first outing, The Phoenix on the Sword.
And this is the first day of Cimmerian September.

In fact, Howard is pulling a fast one – his King Kull story, By this axe I rule has been rejected, and being a writer who pays his bills by selling stories, he has simply reworked it in a new story, featuring a new character.
Nice and smooth.

The plot is straightforward – the rogue Aquilonian aristocrat Ascalante is riding a group of upper class malcontents, who resent the fact that a barbarian, Conan, has taken the throne of the kingdom. The conspirators think they are in control, and Ascalante is their tool – but is in fact the contrary. Yet, Ascalante’s royal ambitions are undermined by his slave, the Stygian renegade wizard Thoth-Amon, who has plans of his own. In the middle of all this game of shadows sits (literally) Conan, a former mercenary turned usurper, and target of a murder plot.

This is the first Conan story, and it is a strange beast – sure, the Cimmerian is here, muscular, brooding and animated by a sort of barbaric nobility his courtiers lack. But some things are still here from Kull’s tenure; in his fight against those that would overthrow his rule Conan receive the help of a long death priest, who appears in a dream. Dreams and illusions are a common occurrence in Kull stories, while Conan will soon develop a healthy diffidence for all things magic.

It’s the priest Epemitreus that places the phoenix symbol on Conan’s sword, thus enabling him to deal with the thing that Thoth-Amon has summoned to do away with both the King and his Master.

The story is good, if somehow bogged down by two many silly names (for an Italian or anyone with a smattering of Latin, most Aquilonian names sound silly) and while the action, as Conan faces the traitors and turns them into dead meat, is strong and satisfying, the more solemn, melancholy tone of the Kull stories can still be felt. It is not necessarily a negative – but there will be better stories.

But it’s done – it’s December 1932, Conan is on the stage, and he’s here to stay.
This is the first day of the Hyborian Era.