The shaman's healing rite

The shaman's healing rite is the supernatural ordeal by which Conan, near death after his crucifixion on the Tree of Woe, is restored to full health among the burial mounds of dead kings beside the Vilayet Sea. Performed by an old shaman at the insistence of Valeria, who pledges her life for the Cimmerian's, the rite draws down angry spirits that try to carry Conan away during the night, and it ends with his wounds—even the holes in his palms—miraculously healed. The event marks Conan's physical and spiritual recovery, rekindles his bond with Valeria, and sets the stage for his final confrontation with Thulsa Doom.

The Wounded Man and the Setting

Conan awoke among the burial mounds of the dead kings, near the shores of the Vilayet Sea, with Valeria bending over him, bathing and salving his wounds. He had only a faint memory—or perhaps a dream—of sitting on Valeria's horse while she rode behind him, guiding the beast and steadying him each time he began to topple from the saddle. His hands were stiff, swollen, and inflamed; to move a finger was sheer agony. "Never to bear a sword again," he muttered. "I might as well be dead!" The endless hours on the Tree of Woe had so sapped the Cimmerian's store of animal vitality that those who tended him feared he might not recover. He burned with a raging fever, and his faith in his own strength was gone.

The old shaman shuffled to the doorway of the hut and asked, "Does he yet live?" Valeria replied, "Aye, but barely. Old man, he called you a wizard. Have you any magic that can help him now? Or do your gods owe you a favour?" The old man looked weary but resigned. "For such a spell, there is a heavy price. There always is for such a rite of magic. The spirits that haunt this sacred place and guard the tombs of kings exact their toll." Valeria answered without hesitation: "Whatever the price, I will gladly pay it! To work, sorcerer!"

The Rite Begins

A strange wind moaned, and shadows prowled amongst the tombs. Above the quicksilver surface of the Vilayet Sea, a gibbous moon showed the pallid face of a restless ghost, whose dark radiance illumined the barren earth between two of the larger monuments. In this uncouth place, while Valeria and Subotai watched with rapt attention, the shaman bound Conan's limbs with strips of sable cloth and veiled his inert body with a shroud-like material of the same funereal hue. With another strip he encircled the barbarian's head, carefully covering his bruised and sunburned eyelids. Upon this bandage, with deft strokes of a small brush, the old man painted a row of cryptic glyphs.

The wizard next dispatched Subotai to the seashore, bidding him to fetch a bucket of clear water. When the water was brought, the shaman squatted on a piece of carpeting to meditate and gather up his powers. Valeria, alert to every move the old man made, sensed that he was reaching deep into his soul to tap a dormant source of inner strength. Finally, the shaman roused himself from his mystic trance. He ceremoniously sprinkled the water over all of Conan's body, as he mumbled potent names beneath his breath. This done, he bid the Hyrkanian bind Conan's limbs securely to four stakes, driven deeply into the ground.

"Why so?" demanded Valeria. Sombrely, the shaman watched Subotai at work. "During the night," he said, "the spirits of this place, angered by my magic, will try to take the young man hence. If they succeed..." His voice trailed off. Valeria unsheathed her dagger and turned its blade until it glinted in the moonlight. "If your spirits bear him off, old man, you will soon follow." In the hushed darkness, the girl's fierce words assailed the moon with all the venom of a cornered cougar. The shaman merely shrugged, but a faint smile, at youthful ardour long forgotten, trembled on his lips.

The Night of the Spirits

Slowly the night dragged on, while the three held vigil among the ancient tombs. The uncaring moon climbed high in the velvet sky and picked her way among the stars. Southward, the Mountain of Power thrust up an ominous cone, black against the luminous darkness of the star-strewn sky. No cricket chirped. The silence was complete. Suddenly, Valeria gripped the Hyrkanian's wrist. Subotai, who had been dozing, swore as the girl's nails pierced his skin. Then he, too, stared at Conan.

The huge Cimmerian's shrouded form was heaving, moving uncannily, without volition, as if seized by giant, invisible hands. The ropes that held him tensed and groaned; the stakes creaked under the strain of enormous unseen forces. "They'll tear him apart!" wailed Valeria, as Conan's body twitched and thrashed about so violently that one stake was ripped from the ground. The shaman made no answer, but he began a strange chant pitched to a silent scream and moved his bony hands in mystical gestures.

Valeria leaped to her feet and threw herself on Conan's body, shouting imprecations at the night. As the frantic girl wrestled with unseen powers, snarling like a lioness protecting her cub, Subotai fumbled for his scimitar. Then, bounding forward, he slashed through the empty air above the Cimmerian's unconscious body and the girl who strove to weigh it down. To Valeria's surprise, the shrouded body slumped and lay motionless on its pallet. A wind sprang up from the sea and shadowy presences, borne aloft like shreds of mist, seemed to float away. "They have gone," sighed the shaman, shivering. "My spell was potent, and they failed." The look he cast upon Valeria was full of pity.

The Healing and the Vow

As the morning sun leaped above the ocean waves, the wizard removed the sepulchral wrappings from Conan's body. Subotai gasped. Valeria clapped her hands to her cheeks to curb the tears that welled up in her weary eyes. The giant Cimmerian awoke, yawned, and stretched. Then he studied his hands in sheer amazement. His cuts and bruises—even the holes in his palms—had healed as if his ordeal had never been. With a grin of delight, he held his hands before his face, turning them to study every angle. The wounds made by the nails had closed to small, well-healed scars; the fingers, which had been grotesquely swollen, were back to normal size. He clenched and unclenched his hands to see if they still functioned.

"Wizard, I owe you a great debt," the barbarian rumbled. Beaming, the old man nodded. Valeria, who had pledged her life for his, and who was wan with sleepless anxiety, tightened her encircling arms around the Cimmerian and kissed him repeatedly, saying: "My love is stronger than death. Neither deities nor demons from the nether regions can separate us! If I were dead, and you in peril, remember that I'd return from the abyss—from the very pits of Hell—to fight by your side...."

Significance and Aftermath

The healing rite stands as the pivotal reversal in Conan's arc: it restores the body that the Tree of Woe had broken and the spirit that the ordeal had sapped, converting his despairing cry that he might never bear a sword again into the renewed strength that carries him to the Mountain of Power. The event also deepens the bond between Conan and Valeria, whose willingness to pay any price and to throw herself bodily against unseen powers foreshadows the sacrifice she will later make. The rite's setting among the tombs of dead kings, beneath the looming cone of the Mountain of Power, ties the restoration of the hero to the very landscape of death and vengeance that dominates the final act of his story. The shaman's warning that the spirits "exact their toll" and Valeria's counter-threat that she would follow him to the grave if they succeeded frame the healing as a transaction with the supernatural world—one that leaves Conan owing a debt he acknowledges aloud, and that leaves Valeria's love, in her own words, stronger than death itself.