"Rogues in the House" by Robert E. Howard (1934) Originally appeared in Weird Tales, January 1934. Plot: Conan is thrown in prison when a girl friend rats him out to the city guards. While waiting for death, a young nobleman named Murilo comes to offer him rescue, in exchange for killing the Red Priest, Nabonidus. Murilo panics and goes to Nabonidus' house and gets captured. Conan escapes prison and then gets vengeance on the girl who ratted him out (he kills her new lover then throws her in a cesspool). Feeling obligated to Murilo, Conan goes to Nabonidus' house through the sewer and finds Murilo and Nabonidus in the pits beneath the house. The priest's gorilla-like servant, Thak, has killed the guard dog, murdered Joka, the body guard and thrown his master into the pit. Nabonidus swears an oath to work with the other two and not hold a grudge. The three can watch Thak upstairs through a series of watch mirriors Nabonidus had installed. A group of nationalistic assassins come to the house and are destroyed by Nabonidus' grey lotus trap, which drives them insane so they kill each other. While Thak is busy with this, the three run upstairs but are unable to get into the rooms of the house. They devise a quick plan: Murilo will distract Thak long enough for Conan to stab him from behind. Conan and the apeman fight a desparate battle. With Thak dead, Nabonidus breaks his oath and tries to kill them. Conan kills him by throwing a stool at his head. Murilo is free of his enemy and Conan leaves town. Monsters: Thak - an ape-man from the eastern frontiers of Zamora. He has human intelligence but the body of a gorilla. his kind will eventually become human in 100,000 years by Nabonidus' opinion. Conan feels he has slain a man not a beast after their duel. History: Howard had many ape creatures in his fiction. Thak was probably inspired by Heu-Heu, the Monster (1924) from the novel by H. R. Haggard. There is also something of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan here too. Nabonidus' house of traps is quite "pulpy" in a 'Weird Menace' way. This story inspired part of the second Conan film, Conan the Destroyer (1984). Unfortunately the director made it boring with a lot of mirrors instead of Nabonidus' gas trap. Frank Frazetta's painting of Conan and Thak's fight is much better. The Red Priest's name may have inspired Lin Carter's character Ubonidus in "The Higher Heresies of Oolimar".
Barry Smith's version of Thak in Conan the Barbarian #11
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