Yaro

Yaro is the black priest of the Cult of Set in Shadizar, the second-highest figure in the serpent-worshipping hierarchy after Thulsa Doom himself. A man of gigantic size and black skin, he is described as a magnificent specimen of virile manhood, standing half-naked with hands raised and eyes closed as he intones the sonorous chants that break the silence of the cult's ceremonies. Valeria identifies him to Conan and Subotai during their infiltration of the cult's hidden temple, whispering that only the man called Doom stands higher in the cult. When Subotai asks whether Yaro is a Kushite, Valeria shrugs and notes that they say he is a thousand years old, so Bel and Ishtar alone know whence he hails.

Role in the Cult of Set

Yaro functions as the cult's chief officiant and Doom's principal lieutenant, leading the rituals that draw the young of Shadizar into the serpent faith. During the ceremony Conan and Subotai witness from a hidden chamber, Yaro kneels on a balcony above the assembled worshippers, and as he rises, the chanting fades to a whisper. The cultists beneath him are young persons of both sexes, their hoods shadowing their rapt faces and their long robes hiding their bodies. In the emerald light of the chamber, one of the group steps forward, discarding her hooded robe to reveal a beautiful young woman whose slender body is scarcely shielded by a gauzy wisp of fabric; she mounts a stone corbel that juts out like a spar from the side of the aperture, and as she moves, the solemn chanting swells in volume. The chamber below is littered with corpses, male and female, some fresh, others far gone in decay, still others reduced to skeletal remains, with rats fleeing squeaking before the intruders — evidence of the cult's sacrificial practices over which Yaro presides.

The Marriage Proposal to King Osric

Yaro's most significant political act comes when he seeks a private audience with King Osric, arriving at the palace while the king is enjoying a rare moment of pleasure. The chief chamberlain Choros announces his arrival, and Osric, baring his teeth in a mirthless grin, dismisses him as a dog to be bid back to his kennel. But when Choros persists, revealing that the matter concerns the Princess Yasimina, the king's face turns grey and his eyes grow dull. Osric agrees to the audience but orders the priest searched most thoroughly, warning that these snake-worshippers are cunning men and treacherous, and that in their hands the most unlikely object may become a deadly weapon. When Yaro steps closer to the throne and declares that Thulsa Doom, the true prophet of Set the Eternal, wishes to honour Osric's house by marriage with the Princess Yasimina, the king erupts in fury. Osric cries that Doom abuses the word honour, and when Yaro protests that marriage is an honourable estate, the king claws at his beard with a shaking hand, declaring that Yaro's effrontery surpasses all belief.

The Cult's Threat to the Kingdom

Yaro embodies the threat that King Osric describes in his audience with Conan, Valeria, and Subotai — the corruption of the kingdom's youth by the serpent cult. Osric laments that Thulsa Doom has long chafed at the presence of this demigod in his poor kingdom, with snakes in his beautiful capital and black towers with their black-hearted priests everywhere to the west and south, in Brythunia and Corinthia. The cult steals away the children and turns them into monsters, into reptiles like the snakes they worship, and the corrupted young raise their envenomed fangs against their very parents. Osric's own guards dare not stand against the cult, and his bravest warriors shrink from their duty. The king's brother, ensorcelled by the cult's witchcraft, thrust a serpent's fang dagger into their father's heart, and Osric fears his own daughter may bear such a dagger pointed at his heart. The cult's rituals, as Yaro leads them, are designed to produce exactly this kind of devotion — Doom's catechism asks who amongst the followers fears the warm embrace of death, whether they will strike true to the infidel heart whether it be friend, lover, or loved one in their former life, and whether they will spill the heart's blood of the infidels to give them the infinite benison of eternal peace.

Death at the Hands of His Own Followers

Yaro's end comes not by Conan's sword but by the violence of his own people. After Doom is killed, Conan tells Subotai that the fighting came to little — when the folk of Shadizar heard that Doom was dead, the black priest's followers turned on Yaro. Before Conan had a chance to sword him, his own people tore him limb from limb. The irony is complete: the man who led the cult's rituals of sacrifice and devotion, who stood second only to Doom in the hierarchy of the serpent god, is destroyed by the very followers whose loyalty he helped cultivate. The cult's power, built on the charismatic authority of Doom and the ritual discipline Yaro enforced, collapses in an instant once its master is gone, and its second-in-command becomes the first victim of the mob's fury. Subotai, who had been doing guard duty at the palace during the final confrontation, expresses regret that he was not beside Conan to witness the black priest's downfall, but Conan shrugs off the matter as one that came to little.