Thulsa Doom and Yasimina (priestess and master, intended marriage rejected)

The bond between Thulsa Doom and Princess Yasimina is the story's most intimate portrait of the cult's power and its ultimate cruelty. She is introduced as the missing daughter of King Osric, glimpsed by Conan in a veiled palanquin on a street in Shadizar, and later revealed in the temple of Set as a priestess of breathtaking loveliness, clad in a gossamer gown that accented her voluptuous form and golden flesh. She walks demurely a single step behind Doom, but the slumberous gaze with which she caresses her master is shot through with hidden fire. This is no captive; she is a devotee who has turned against her own father and the elder gods, a living embodiment of the cult's success in stealing away the young and corrupting them.

The Nature of the Bond: Priestess and Master

Yasimina's role is defined by total submission to Doom as both her spiritual lord and intended husband. When King Osric, trembling and querulous, reveals the cult's influence to Conan, Subotai, and Valeria, he speaks of his daughter as "the jewel of my kingdom, the joy of my old age" who has "fallen under the spell of Thulsa Doom." The king's fear is that she might bear a serpentine dagger pointed at his heart, as his own brother did after being ensorcelled. Yet Yasimina's devotion is not merely magical compulsion; it is a zealous faith. She kneels in humble adoration before Doom during the temple ceremony, and when Conan confronts her, she flings back at him: "It frightens me no more! For my lord will lead his minions to my rescue. My lord... and future husband, Thulsa Doom." Her loyalty is so complete that she anticipates his arrival as a rescue, even as she is tethered like an animal on a burial mound.

The cult's doctrine, as preached by Doom, frames this devotion as a sacred duty. He asks his followers whether they will "take life" for him, whether they will "slip the silken noose over the heads of Set's enemies," and whether they will "spill the heart's blood of the infidels, to give them the infinite benison of eternal peace." Yasimina is the highest example of this teaching: a princess who has abandoned her family, her station, and her former gods to serve the Wise Serpent. The relationship is thus not merely personal but ideological, a microcosm of the cult's war against the world.

The Political Dimension: A Marriage to Found an Empire

The intended marriage is not a private matter but a political instrument of conquest. The priest Yaro, speaking for Doom, approaches King Osric with the proposal: "My Lord, Thulsa Doom, the true prophet of Set the Eternal, wishes to honour your house by marriage with your daughter, the Princess Yasimina." When Osric recoils in fury, Yaro reveals the grand design: "It is the Grand Master's wish that, by this alliance, Zamora shall become the true kingdom of Set, and the centre of an ever-expanding empire." The marriage is thus a tool for the Great Cleansing, a way to legitimize the cult's takeover of the kingdom through dynastic union rather than outright conquest. Osric's refusal—"Whilst I am king, I shall never sanction this monstrous union, this hellish corruption of the marriage vows"—sets the stage for the assassination that follows, as Yaro's soft threat to the king's bodyguards makes clear the cult's willingness to remove obstacles.

The Rejection: Defilement and the Viper Arrow

The turning point of the relationship comes on the deserted battlefield after the Battle of the Burial Mounds. Yasimina, bound and bedraggled, sees Doom outlined against the star-decked sky, elegant in his reptilian armour, and trills with relief: "Master! I told them you would come for me. Unbind me now that I may come to you." But Doom's reply is stony and absolute: "That cannot be. They have defiled you, as they defiled my temple precincts." Her protestations of faithfulness—"I have been faithful to you, my lord, my father. Desert me not!"—are met with the cold verdict: "You are no longer fit to be my bride." She offers to become his slave, gladly, but Doom's response is to unwound a writhing viper from his neck and transform it into a deadly arrow, intending to kill her. The rejection is total and lethal; her devotion is answered with an execution attempt.

Only Subotai's intervention saves her. The Hyrkanian, careless of his wound, limps forward and interposes his shield between the viper-arrow and its intended victim. The arrow thumps into the wood, turns back into a snake, and falls writhing to the ground, where Subotai hacks it into pieces. Yasimina lays her head on her bound wrists and weeps hysterically, while Conan stalks forward to place himself between the princess and her tormentor. Doom, glancing at the Atlantean steel in Conan's fist, feels the cold hand of fear and rides off after the vanquished remnant of his guard.

The Aftermath: From Devotion to Horror

The rejection transforms Yasimina's devotion into a bewildered grief. Riding away from the citadel, she asks Conan: "I loved him, and he tried to kill me! Why did he that?" The question is unanswered; Conan merely shrugs and states the necessity: "So long as he lives, you are in danger—and my prayers for vengeance go unanswered. Doom must die." Her love has been shattered by the very master she worshipped, and she is left to confront the reality of his cruelty.

The final revelation comes in the great temple, where Doom mounts the dais to exhort the Faithful of Set. As Conan suspends the Eye of Set before Doom's face, the cult leader's true nature is exposed: his neck lengthens, his jaws elongate, his nose shrinks and disappears, his forehead retreats, his lips thin and vanish, and his dark eyes round into lidless orbs. Thulsa Doom bears the scaly serpent head of the ancient snake-men. Yasimina, watching from the shadows, utters a half-choked cry as tears of pity, mixed with horror and relief, course down her cheeks. The man she loved and served is revealed as a monster, and her relief is mingled with the horror of what she has devoted herself to. When Conan's sword clove the swaying snake head from the human body, the severed head rolled down the long flight of stairs to rest beside the fountain pool, and Yasimina's former master was no more.

Thematic Significance: The Cost of False Devotion

The Doom–Yasimina relationship is a parable of the cult's seductive power and its ultimate emptiness. Yasimina's devotion is genuine, even heroic in its intensity, yet it is directed toward a being who values her only as an instrument and discards her the moment she is compromised. Her arc—from adoring priestess to rejected bride to horrified witness—mirrors the cult's own trajectory from seductive promise to revealed monstrosity. The relationship also underscores the contrast between Doom's charismatic authority, built on illusion and death, and Conan's brutal honesty, built on steel and will. Where Doom offers eternal life in the embrace of the Wise Serpent, he delivers only death and betrayal; where Yasimina offers total submission, she receives only a viper's fang. In the end, her tears of pity and relief mark the death of her faith as surely as Conan's sword marks the death of her master.