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"The Tower of the Elephant" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan infiltrating a perilous tower in order to steal a fabled gem from an evil sorcerer named Yara. Due to its unique insights into the Hyborian world and atypical science fiction elements, the story is considered a classic of Conan lore and is often cited by Howard scholars as one of his best tales.〔Patrice Louinet. ''Hyborian Genesis: Part 1'', pages 441 and 442, ''The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian''; 2003, Del Rey.〕 ==Plot summary== The story is set in the Zamorian "thief city", called by some Arenjun, or the City of Thieves. Howard's original text never called the city Arenjun – this was added by L. Sprague de Camp in his own introduction to the story.〔''Conan'' (Lancer, 1967)〕 Howard's only reference to the city was to call it the "thief city" in a letter to P. Schuyler Miller and John Drury Clark.〔 A young Conan is drinking in a rowdy tavern when he overhears a fat Kothic rogue describing a fabulous jewel called the "Heart of the Elephant." The jewel is kept in an eponymous tower by an evil sorcerer named Yara. When Conan presses the rogue for more information, insults are traded and a fight ensues. As they begin to fight, a candle is knocked over by bewildered onlookers plunging the tavern into darkness. In the resulting confusion, Conan slays the Kothian and escapes into the nighted streets of the city. After this tavern brawl, the Cimmerian sets out to steal the aforementioned jewel on a whim and encounters along the way Taurus of Nemedia, known as the "Prince of Thieves", who has similar designs. The two thieves agree to work together and, after battling lions in the tower gardens, scale the fabled spire. Upon reaching the top, Taurus is killed by the venomous bite of a gigantic spider that Conan in turn slays in a frenzied battle. Undaunted, Conan continues on into the eldritch tower and discovers a strange "trans-cosmic being" having the body of a man but with the oversized head of an elephant, possibly inspired by the Hindu God Ganesh. The creature, named Yag-Kosha, is a blind, tortured prisoner of the sorcerer Yara. Yag-kosha relates to Conan the pre-Cataclysmic saga of his alien people, their arrival on Earth and how he taught Yara the art of magic only to have his apprentice turn against him. At Yag-kosha's behest, Conan takes the Heart of the Elephant; slays the elephant-being in a mercy killing; extracts the heart from the corpse and, as instructed, drips its blood over the Heart of the Elephant; and, finally, uses the supernatural powers of the blood-infused jewel to shrink Yara and draw him into the jewel. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Tower of the Elephant」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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