The Conan Chronicles: Conan the Invincible, Conan the Defender, and Conan the Unconquered (Conan Series) - Softcover

Jordan, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765302888 ISBN 13: 9780765302885

Verlag: St. Martin's Press, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Three classic Conan novels from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wheel of Time

Before Robert Jordan conquered the bestseller lists with the Wheel of Time, he revived the legendary fantasy hero Conan the Cimmerian. These widely acclaimed adventures introduced the world-famous barbarian to a whole new generation of enthusiastic readers. Here are three powerful sagas, featuring all the storytelling magic and epic splendor that have made Robert Jordan one of the most beloved fantasy authors in history.

Conan the Invincible: Less than nineteen years old and new to the snares and enticements of civilization, the young Conan must join forces with a dangerously seductive female bandit to storm the palace of Amanar, a supremely evil necromancer, and confront the dreaded Eater of Souls.

Conan the Defender: As revolution brews in the shadowy streets of Belverus, Conan braves the traps and treacheries of the Royal Palace of the Dragon. Pursued by the luscious and shameless Sularia, the mighty warrior challenges a magic-spawned menace that cannot die: the invincible Simulacrum of Albanus.

Conan the Unconquered: Conan defies the sorcerous power of the Cult of Doom for the sake of a beautiful young woman known only as Yasbet. From the glory of fabled Aghrapur to the demon-haunted wastes of the Blasted Lands, Conan proves himself the greatest hero of a bygone era of high adventure.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina. He taught himself to read when he was four with the incidental aid of a twelve-years-older brother, and was tackling Mark Twain and Jules Verne by five. He is a graduate of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics. He served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army; among his decorations are the Distinguished Flying Cross with bronze oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and bronze oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm. A history buff, he has also written dance and theater criticism and enjoyed the outdoor sports of hunting, fishing, and sailing, and the indoor sports of poker, chess, pool, and pipe collecting.
Robert Jordan began writing in 1977 and went on to write The Wheel of Time®, one of the most important and best selling series in the history of fantasy publishing with over 14 million copies sold in North America, and countless more sold abroad.
Robert Jordan died on September 16, 2007, after a courageous battle with the rare blood disease amyloidosis.

ROBERT JORDAN (1948-2007) is best known for his internationally bestselling epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time®, which has sold over 40 million copies in North America and is currently being adapted for the screen. A native of Charleston, Jordan graduated from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics. He served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army and received multiple decorations for his service.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Tor Books is proud to present three of Robert Jordan's best full-length Conan novels, complete in their entirety, in one deluxe hardcover omnibus. Conan the Invincible: Less than nineteen years old, and new to the snares and enticements of civilization, the young Conan must join forces with Karela, a dangerously seductive female bandit, to storm the palace of Amanar, a supremely evil necromancer, and confront the dreaded Eater of Souls. Conan the Defender: As revolution brews in the shadowy streets of Belverus, Conan braves the traps and treacheries of the Royal Palace of the Dragon. Pursued by the luscious and shameless Sularia, the mighty warrior challenges a magic-spawned menace that cannot die: the invincible Simulacrum of Albanus. Conan the Unconquered: Conan defies the sorcerous power of the Cult of Doom for the sake of a beautiful young woman known only as Yasbet. From the glory of fabled Aghrapur, capital of Turan, to the demon-haunted wastes of the Blasted Lands, Conan proves himself the greatest hero of a bygone era of high adventure.

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The Conan Chronicles

By Robert Jordan

Tor Books

Copyright © 2006 Robert Jordan
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780765302885

The Conan Chronicles

Conan the Invincible

I

The icy wind whipping through the brown, sheer-walled chasms of the Kezankian Mountains seemed colder still around the bleak stone fortress that grew from the granite flank of a nameless mountain in the heart of the range. Fierce hillmen who feared nothing rode miles out of their way to go around that dark bastion, and made the sign of the horns to ward off evil at its mention.

Amanar the Necromancer made his way down a dim corridor that violated the very heartstone of the mountain, followed by those no longer human. He was slender, this thaumaturge, and darkly handsome, his black beard cropped close; but a vaguely serpentlike streak of white meandered through his short hair, and the red flecks that danced in his eyes drew the gaze, and the will, of anyone foolish enough to look deeply. His henchmen looked like ordinary men, at first glance and from a distance, but their faces were vaguely pointed, their eyes glinted red beneath ridged helmets, and their skins bore reptilian scales. The fingers of the elongated hands that held their spears ended not in nails, but in claws. A curved tulwar swung at the hip of every one except for him who marched close behind Amanar. Sitha, Warden of the S'tarra, Amanar's Saurian henchman, bore a great doubleedged ax. They came to tall doors set in the stone, both doors and stone carved with serpents in endless arabesques.

"Sitha," Amanar said, and passed through the doors without pausing.

The reptiloid warden followed close behind, closing the massive doors after his master, but Amanar barely noticed. He spared not a glance for the naked captives, a man and a woman, bound hand and foot, who lay gagged at one side of the column-circled room. The mosaicked floor bore the likeness of a golden serpent, surrounded by what might have been the rays of the sun. The mage's black robe was wound about with a pair of entwined golden serpents, their heads finally coming over his shoulders to rest on hischest. The eyes of the embroidered serpents glittered with what would not possibly be life. He spoke.

"The man, Sitha."

The prisoners writhed in a frenzy to break their bonds, but the scaled henchman, muscles bulging like a blacksmith's, handled the man easily. In minutes the captive was spreadeagled atop a block of red-streaked black marble. A trough around the rim of the dark altar led to a spout above a large golden bowl. Sitha ripped the gag away and stepped back.

The bound man, a pale-skinned Ophirian, worked his mouth and spat. "Whoever you are, you'll get naught from me, spawn of the outer dark! I'll not beg! Do you hear? No plea will crack my teeth, dog! I will not ... ."

Amanar heard nothing. He felt beneath his robe for the amulet, a golden serpent in the clutches of a silver hawk. That protected him, that and other things he had done, yet each time there was the realization of the power he faced. And controlled.

Those fools of Stygia, those who called themselves mages of the Black Ring, had so condescendingly allowed him to study at their feet, confident of his worshipful admiration. Until it was too late, none of them knew the contempt that festered in his heart. They prated of their power in the service of Set, Lord of the Dark, yet no man of them dared so much as lay a finger on the dread Book of Typhon. But he had dared.

He began to chant, and behind the altar a mist formed, red and golden, as a mist of flames. Beyond the mist blackness stretched into infinity. The Ophirian's tongue was stilled, and his teeth chattered in their place.

It was said that no human mind could comprehend the terrible knowledge contained in the book, or hold a single word of it without madness and death. Yet Amanar had learned. But a single page, it was true, before the numinous powers of it, wrenching at his mind, turning his bones to jelly, sent him grievously wounded and howling like a dog out of the city of Khemi into the desert. And in his madness, in that waterless waste beneath a burning sun, he had remembered thatpage still. Death could not come near him.

In the mists, from the mists, a shape coalesced. The Ophirian's eyes bulged in silence-stricken terror. The woman screamed into her gag. The golden head that reared above them in the swirling vapors--neither quite serpent nor lizard--was surrounded by a halo of a dozen tentacles longer than a man. The serpentine, golden-scaled body stretched back into the darkness, on beyond the reach of eye to see or mind to know. A bifurcate tongue flickered between fangs, and eyes holding the flames of all the furnaces that ever were regarded Amanar. Greedily, the mage thought, and fingered his amulet once more.

Across the sands he had stumbled, burning, drying, thirsting, remembering that page and unable to die. At last he came on Pteion the Accursed, fearhauntedruins abandoned in the days of dark Acheron, before Stygia was aught but a stretch of sand. In the nameless, forgotten cavern beneath that city he had found Morath-Aminee, bound there for rebellion against Set when those who now called themselves men walked on all fours and rooted beneath stones for grubs. With his memories of that page--would they never stop burning at him?--he found the means to release the god-demon, the means to keep it in rein, however tenuously, and the means of his own protection. He had found power.

"Morath-Aminee," he half-chanted, half hissed. "O Eater of Souls, whose third name is death to hear, death to say, death to know, thy servant Amanar brings these offerings to thy sacrifice."

He held out his hand. Sitha placed a golden-hilted knife, its blade gilded, in his grasp. The Ophirian opened his mouth to scream, and gurgled horribly as Amanar slit his throat. At that instant the golden tentacles of the god-demon struck at the man on the altar, clutched him where he lay amid the spreading pool of his own blood. The tentacles avoided the proximity of Amanar.

"Eat, O Morath-Aminee," the mage chanted. He stared into the eyes of the sacrifice, waiting the proper moment.

Horror grew on the Ophirian's face as he realized he was dying. And yet he did not die. His heart pumped; his life blood poured from his ruined throat, the rubiate liquor flowing over ebon marble, channeled to the golden vessel at the foot of the altar for later necromancies. But he was not allowed to die.

Amanar heard in his mind the satisfied sibilation of the god-demon feeding. The Ophirian's pale eyes filled with desolation as the man realized what was being taken from him besides his life. The mage watched those eyes become lifeless though yet alive, empty windows on a soulless depth. With care he made a precise slit in the twitching chest. His hand poised above it, and he met the Ophirian's despairing gaze.

"Thank me for the release of death," he said.

The Ophirian's lips labored to form the words, but no sound emerged. Only horrendous bubbles in the diminishing flow of blood from the chasm that had been his throat.

Amanar smiled. His hand thrust into the slit, caught the pulsing heart, and ripped it free. It beat one last time as he held it before the Ophirian's eyes.

"Die," the mage said. The god-demon released its hold, and the husk on the altar slumped at last in death.

Sitha appeared beside the mage with a golden plate, on which...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St. Martin's Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765302888
• ISBN 13: 9780765302885
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 512
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: RUE DE SEVRES; https://www.hachette.fr/; ; 1 AVENUE GUTENBERG; MAUREPAS CEDEX; 78319; Frankreich