Previously published as ‘A Foul Riddle,’ expanded and revised

Published as The Teeth of Gwahlur in Weird Tales in March, 1935

The Servants of Bit-Yakin is closer to pure adventure fiction than most of Howard’s work, with minimal allegory and few social commentaries. The story is good adventurous fun, and, if you are a feminist and want to hate Howard, and point out that he only stocks his stories with bimbos in distress, than read this and cite away.

Keep in mind when reading Conan that the stories of this ancient fantasy world are from different genres that were popular in Howard’s day: lost cities in Africa, elder evils in Asia, skullduggery in Europe, frontier adventure in America, and the pirate yarn. In this story we are present for another of Conan’s many African adventures. Just like Howard’s character was formed as a child through contact with blacks—including story tellers among them—the character of Conan is largely formed in his adventures among the Black Kingdoms of Howard’s mythic Hyborian Age, with some reference to his adventures with the black pirates in a handful of stories set in other climes.

Conan uses his reputation as a warrior to find employment with a mixed-race kingdom, blacks ruled by browns. Howard’s obsession with race-mixing is present even in this, possibly his least serious, tale. Conan seeks a mythic treasure of dragon teeth in competition with a sly dark fellow who deals in dancing girls and whips them naked in public. When he realizes that the sly enemy of his is conspiring to take the gems and have Conan “flayed alive” by the blacks, he does the mental math, realizes he will never be able to outsmart the Mսlatto rogue, and makes for the ancient sacral precinct where the jewels are hidden. Once there he finds that one of his adversary’s servant’s slave girls has been dressed up like a goddess to serve as an oracle and trick the faithful black priests out of their sacred relics. He knows this because he recognizes the shape of the girl’s butt! Just like rank Frazetta, whose art work made Conan a household word, Howard’s fictional barbarian is an ass man!

In this story, Conan is a quintessential “direct actionist” alpha male, or, as most women would say, “an asshole.” Physically superlative, Conan is no superman, but an impulsive aggressor bordering sometimes on oafdom.

Slapping her on the butt and declaring that she was now his co-conspirator, Conan and Muriela—his new sexual property—launch into dark temple intrigues that make for a good enough read not to ruin any more of the plot here. Muriela is a cute, helpless, darling bimbo, of the type that I have often known in my life, but, according to literary conventions, have never existed. Howard deserves some points for actually writing the sexist tale that critics would have us believe was his stock in trade. Muriela is just about the only female character Howard wrote without agency—just a dumb, sexy, broad who Conan endearingly calls a hussy, a trollop and a slut… and who a minor black villain calls a “traitress.”

Howard fills this tale, as others, with his belief that all men are men, but that some were born to lead and others to follow, including his consistent opinion that most black people are easily manipulated, with the results usually contributing to their own detriment:

“…and the credulous acolytes, black men all, would accept it…”

And, as always, Howard is obsessed with fallen civilizations and lost races, as if trying to will through his writing that fewer peoples had been scythed down by grim Fate:

“The rulers—princes and high priests—claimed descent from a white race which, in a mythological age, had ruled a kingdom whose capital city was Alkmeenon. Conflicting legends sought to explain the reason for that race’s eventual downfall, and the abandonment of the city.”

Bit-Yakin is a brilliant character, for whom Howard deserves credit for going beyond his normal efforts. Howard excelled at creating sorcerers, with his dire wizards the most dreadful of their fictional kind. In this tale he devoted this energy to creating a deceased character, a travelling wise man on a pilgrimage of solitude with his unique followers, who, many decades after his death, manages to inform and bedevil the evil men that swarm voraciously across the material world in quest for that which he spurned.

The Servants of Bit-Yakin, while poking fun at religious fanatics, crooks, kings, clinging women and even the protagonist, manages to evoke a sense of a dread antiquity, its malformed legacy stalking the world of men even as these same men plot relentlessly one another’s downfall. With the outrageous exception of Conan, these may be stock characters. But they are at least drawn from stock reality.