In Shadizar of Zamora, the crossroads of the world

In Shadizar of Zamora, the crossroads of the world is a phrase that first reaches Conan as a whispered warning in the arms of a witch, and later becomes the geographical and spiritual pivot of his entire saga. It is the name of the city that gathers all the peoples and riches of the Hyborian Age into one teeming, decadent whole, and it is the place where the barbarian from Cimmeria must learn the ways of civilization, theft, and love before he can face his ultimate enemy. The phrase carries a double edge: it promises discovery and fulfillment, yet its speaker insists that only a fool would seek what Conan seeks there, for the city is also a doorway to death.

The Whispered Prophecy

The words first come to Conan not from a map or a merchant, but from the lips of a witch he has just slain, or so he believes. In the aftermath of their violent coupling, as their naked bodies glisten in the firelight and her fingers claw at his back, she whispers a message no less ferocious than her lovemaking: "In Shadizar of Zamora, the crossroads of the world, you will find that which you seek. But you would be a fool to go.... Only fools seek their own death...." The warning is delivered in the very moment of climax, a fusion of ecstasy and menace that leaves Conan with a revulsion of horror when he opens his eyes a heartbeat later. The phrase thus enters the story as a riddle wrapped in a threat, spoken by a creature of the very darkness he hunts, and it plants in him the knowledge that his quest for the meaning of the twisted snakes upholding a black sun will lead him to a place of both treasure and peril.

The City of Thieves and Wonders

When Conan finally reaches Shadizar with his companion Subotai, the phrase proves true in its promise of a crossroads. The city surpasses the frontier town of Yazdir in size and variety as Yazdir surpassed the towns of Conan's pit-fighting days. He finds himself in a colorful throng, rubbing shoulders with merchants in rich robes, artisans hawking brass ornaments and gems, bearded farmers driving wains laden with wheat and pigs, stiff-backed soldiers, mobile-hipped whores, beggars, urchins, and priests. He sees squat Shemites with curly beards, lean Zuagirs in head cloths, kilted Brythunians, booted Corinthians, and turbaned Turanians, a sampling of all the diverse peoples of the earth. Yet the phrase also carries its darker truth: in the back streets he discovers crooked alleys swarming with hags and pimps, with painted children for sale to degenerates, where flesh is for sale or at least for rent, and where violence and sudden death lurk. The crossroads is thus a place of both splendor and rot, where every pleasure, however decadent, can be had for money, and where a man can be stabbed in the belly and left to writhe in the gutter.

The Call to Thievery

The phrase's promise of finding that which he seeks draws Conan into a life he had once despised. He had never in his life stolen anything more than a piece of fruit from a Cimmerian neighbor's tree, and until he met Subotai he had despised all thieves, for Cimmerian villagers did not steal from one another. But in Shadizar, with his money low and his chances of employment poor until he could better master the language of Zamora, he knows he must find some means of satisfying his leonine appetite. It is Subotai who whispers to him of fabulous riches, of the tribute of the believers from every Set cult in the kingdom—gold, drugs, jewels, wine, and women—but in particular jewels, for the Set worshippers prize polished precious stones, deep and unwinking like the eyes of the serpents they adore. The crossroads thus becomes the place where the barbarian's code bends, where necessity forces him into the role of thief, and where the path toward the cult of Set and its serpent master begins to unfold.

The Test of Strength

Shadizar is also where Conan first witnesses the terrible power of Thulsa Doom, the man who will become his night. In a garden demonstration, Doom calls a young girl to him, and she leaps from the wall to her death on the tiles below, her doll-like body broken at their feet. Doom laughs, his laughter spun through with a note of triumph, and declares: "That is strength, boy—that is power! It is strength against which the hardness of steel or the resilience of human flesh are as naught. What is steel, compared to the hand that wields it; what is the hand, without a mind to command it?" The phrase of the crossroads thus leads Conan not only to the city but to the very heart of the philosophical conflict that will define his life: the question of whether steel or the will that wields it is the true source of power. Doom's demonstration is meant to impress the stubborn youth whose body is in chains but whose soul remains free, yet it only hardens Conan's resolve.

The Return to the Crossroads

The phrase's final resonance comes at the moment of Doom's death, when Conan's sword sweeps up in a great arc and cleaves the swaying snake head from the human body. As the severed head rolls down the long flight of stairs to rest beside the fountain pool, Conan speaks half to himself: "My father was the light of day; Thulsa Doom, my night. Yet in one thing he spoke true. What matters is not the steel within the blade, but the steel within the man." The crossroads of the world, which had promised Conan that which he sought and warned him that only fools seek their own death, has delivered both: he has found the meaning of the twisted snakes and the black sun, and he has faced death and conquered it. The phrase thus bookends his journey, from the witch's whispered prophecy to the moment of his ultimate vengeance, and it stands as a testament to the city that forged him, the place where a Cimmerian boy became a man-slayer and a king.