"There is a serpent in your house, oh King. I have called you to me, to give you a weapon against him and his hell-hound pack." "The Phoenix on the Sword" was Robert E. Howard's first published Conan story. In tribute, Sanjulian conjures the mists of Conan's dark slumber, in swirling shades of deep crimson and billowing clouds of violet. What at first would seem to Conan a mere dream is at once revealed to be the mystical invocations of an ancient -- the bestowal of symbol to broadsword.
