The cult leader (...), raising his arms, continued his exhortation:
  - Will know that, on the difficult ways that you now will follow, tiredness and sadness can be your batch. The hunger and loneliness could be your companions and those which you love your enemies. However, everywhere Seth will open the way. And all those which dare to be opposed to him, you will kill them, until the whole world belongs to him.
  (...) On the dais, Doom stood tall and silent, holding aloft a lighted candle. His face was upturned as if to drink in the radiance of the flame. At his feet, one of the lesser priests resumed the ritual. To his hypnotic chant, the bodies of the worshipers swayed in rhythm, like half-coiled serpents weaving before a snake charmer.
  "Blind your eyes, mystic serpent," intoned the priest. "Kabil sabul; Kabil Kabil; Kabil hakim! Lift blind eyes to the moon. Whom call ye forth from the gulfs of night? What shadow falleth between the light and thee? Look into the eyes of such a one, O Father Set. Look and blast his soul to shriveled dust! Kill him, kill him, kill him! And all who love him, kill!"
  The rapt throng echoed: "Kill!"

   Before any of the slow-witted beast-men could react to the command, Conan held up the huge gem that he had stolen from the temple in Shadizar and repeated the words learned from the shaman.
  "Back, in the name of Set!" roared the Cimmerian. "Podozhditye, nazad! Back and restrain the others!"
At the sight of the crimson Eye of Set, the guards flinched, as from the flesh-tearing sting of a whip.

  In that instant, the Cimmerian flung up his left arm and suspended the Eye of Set an arm's length from the face of Thulsa Doom. Doom stared fixedly at the swinging jewel, then raised eyes wide with horror to meet Conan's vengeful glare.
  Before the frozen faces of the faithful, Doom's neck lengthened. His jaws elongated; his nose shrank and disappeared; his forehead retreated; his lips thinned and vanished. His dark eyes rounded into lidless orbs and a purple tongue flicked out to test the air. Thulsa Doom bore the scaly serpent head of the ancient snake-men — those timeless enemies of all mankind.
  As one, the congregation gasped. A shudder rippled through the silent throng. The princess, watching from the shadows, uttered a half-choked cry as tears of pity, mixed with horror and relief, coursed down her cheeks.
  Conan's sword sighed as it swept up in a great arc and clove the swaying snake head from the human body. The body fell backward and lay, writhing, like a trampled serpent, at the top of the wide steps. The severed head rolled slowly down the long flight of stairs and came to rest beside the fountain pool.

  Rousing himself, Conan turned to face the guards who, obedient to his last command, still held the assemblage at bay. Raising the Eye of Set once more, he said: "You who were guards of Doom, go back to the caves from which he called you... And find another source of meat. Go."
  As the beast-men melted away, Conan looked at the former followers of Thulsa Doom. Some stared dejectedly about them, as if they knew not where they were, nor how they came to be in this strange place. Some sobbed for their dead leader. Others wept for their lost Paradise, and their
moans undulated like the restless singing of the surf.
  Conan masked his pity with rough words: "I know you feel like orphans, but you all have homes to go to, and a welcome waiting there. I have none. Yet I'm content, and you should be so, too; for this night we are free. Go and get ready for the journey."
  The barbarian stood at the threshold of the temple, as Doom's children straggled down the long staircase. One by one, they tossed their lighted candles into the pool, to flicker for a moment before hissing into nothingness.
  After the last departed, Conan wiped clean the sword that had so long consumed his thoughts and dreams. Seating himself beneath the portal, he watched the little flames wink out. With his father's sword across his knees, he remembered the past and wondered what the future years might bring. Yasimina, who with the others had extinguished her candle —the symbol of Doom's intended conquest of the world — remounted the deserted stairs. She crouched on the step beside Conan, seeking his strength, and yet too humbled to risk disturbing his reverie. So they passed the weary night.

  As pale dawn heralded the break of a new day, Conan perceived a strange change in the scene before him. The stone steps had become pitted and eroded, as by ages of exposure to the elements. The garden shrubs and flowers all were wilted, and the pavement around the half-drained pool was marked by muddy footprints. The ceremonial roadway beyond lay cracked and flaking, as if some spell, dredged from the womb of time to hold it firm, were broken. Behind him, the façade of the cavern temple was crumbling; and, as he watched, bits of stone fell with a clatter to the doorsill.
  The tension had drained out of him; he felt at peace. But mingling with his sense of destiny fulfilled was an eagerness to begone from this foul place — to put the scene and all its memories behind him. Conan rose. The princess scrambled to her feet.
  "What now?" she asked.
  "Subotai and I will take you home," he answered gruffly. "Your father will be glad to see you."
  "My father is dead," said Yasimina. "A messenger from Shadizar arrived but five days past to say that he'd been slain by Yaro's minions."
  "Then you are queen and will be needed in Zamora to rule your troubled land."
  "But what of Yaro? He will not accept me on the throne."
  "I'll deal with Yaro, never fear. Now it is time to go."
  "But," the girl persisted, "there are other Towers of Set, and other leaders throughout Zamora. What of them?"
  Conan stood silent, thinking. At last he said: "Many will be broken and deserted, because their purpose died with Thulsa Doom. The cult may long continue here and there, for snakes are hard to kill. The worship of Set may even wax again; but not, I think, within our lifetime."
  Yasimina raised her anxious eyes to the barbarian's face and smiled.

CLOSE - CONAN’S HAND

holding his father’s broken sword, moving up in a swift arc and down, chopping into Thulsa Doom’s neck and shoulder...

THULSA DOOM AND CONAN

Doom sinks to his knees.

THULSA DOOM
You would kill your--father?

CLOSE - CONAN

He withdraws the blade and wheels it down with another mighty chop--and another.

THE CROWD

Each blow shakes them and drives them back.

CONAN

He pulls back the head of Thulsa Doom and the body falls back, sliding down the stairs. He stands full on, looking down on the thousands of lights, the head in one hand, his father’s broken sword in the other. Silence.

CONAN (voice over)
He was right--the answer was not in the blade but in the man... If my father was the light of day--Thulsa Doom was my night...

CONAN

He sits on the steps and watches as the lines form myriad patterns of light far below him.

CONAN (voice over)
They were his children and now they were like so many orphans--but like myself--they were free.