Border Fury: Travels in Cimmeria
by Bêlit Queen of the Black Coast
Hardship reveals the accuracy of one’s own self assessment. Nothing
brought the truth of my strengths and limitations to my awareness more than my
travels in Cimmeria. Never have I learned so much in such a short span of time.
Even the lowliest scribe of Aquilonia could tell you that learning, truly
acquiring knowledge, possesses a difficulty more brutal and painful than any
lash.
Cimmeria is a great teacher.
I never want to return.
**
Cimmeria is bordered to the north by a mountain range that
separates the land from Asgard and Vanaheim. To the east lies a broad set of
harsh hills that also border Hyperborea and the Border Kingdom
sandwiched between Nemdia and Brythunia and the hills of Cimmeria. The Bosnian
Marshes and Pictish wilderness complete the surroundings of my lover’s
homeland.
The voyage began when my then boyfriend Conan set off to
defend his family name. Initially, being totally smitten with this barbarian
from the north, I accompanied him on his obligated return home. Our travels
changed the way he looked to me.
Before Cimmeria, Conan appeared to me as a svelte and smooth
muscular champion, existing in a relaxed state yet always poised for action. On the day we set out from his home village to
pursue the marauders defaming Conan’s name, he seemed stiffer, more frigid, and
his every motion seemed a series of poses rather than smooth continuous motions.
When I looked at him sometimes his eyes
seemed too close together, other times they appeared too far apart. I worried
yet kept my concern hidden within my hooded cloak. At the time I attributed Conan’s
shifting features to the cold of the north which decelerated his nimble and
supple flow through the panels of landscape. Now, I wonder if perhaps it was
the spell of travel affecting my view of him and the immenseness of his pupils
and the effeminate features that the wilderness intensified in the features of
my lover. Yet we persevered and dared the Cimmerian wilderness.
For readers contemplating a sojourn into this dark land,
know that the even though the land is harsh, it remains constant in its cycles
of abuse and punishment. In the morning it rains for about an hour. Every
morning. Large rocks and larger rocks obstruct every path and snag the flimsy
of foot. It is as if the land itself is growing teeth to devour those foolish
enough to dare its maw.
The skies of Cimmeria provide scant comfort or opportunities
for alleviating gloom. While never blue, the most cheerful sky one can hope to
see above in Cimmeria is a dull grumpy gray. Often sinister shades of yellow
and tan wash the sky. The colors hint that the heavens are waiting to distribute
harsh rains, snow, high winds, a tornado, or a thick fog to cover a tracking
pack of wolves. The soul of Cimmeria resides with its acrid landscape and sky, yet
I realized that the somber gloom-enhancing colors contain the best aspects
about my sojourn in this northern land.
Lands and locations change people, and homelands even more
so. Upon returning to his home, my lover changed. The savage nobility I first
sensed about him changed to savage fatalism. This land and its people and their
attitude towards misfortune and hardship showed me that what I thought was
nobility was a giving up, a sad placid acceptance of pain, despair, cruelty,
and death. This acceptance of the Cimmerians didn’t fortify or ennoble their
souls, it eroded and destroyed them. And this attitude was working upon my
lover too. He says Cimmerians recognize their place in the world, but one’s
place in this land is under the twisting boot of their cruel god Crom. We must
leave these lands if I ever hope to hope again.
“…Just remember this is not a world you know” were the last
words my lover said to me before he set off to move faster to slay those who
slandered his name and brought more misery on an already miserable populace.
His departure was a relief, a welcomed freedom of solitude that gave me time to
think, to brood. Cimmeria has that affect on a traveler. Like riding through a
desert and finally topping a dune and spying an ocean with two birds soaring
uninhibited in a warm and welcoming soft yellow sky is the relief I felt at not
having to look at the changed face and demeanor of my lover. I know he cares
and wants to help, but the help he offered isn’t the kind I need. His absence
finally let the battle begin between me and Cimmeria. If this land wins, it
will devour me, whether physically or spiritually and it will forever cage the
strong spirit of Conan within its borders. If I can survive and escape this
land with Conan, then we can go to better more hospitable and profitable realms.
Then I win. If we escape, I triumph over this grating, miserable, and
unwelcoming land. And I take with me not only my lover, but the added realization
of the lessons the lands have to teach. When once again upon the decks of the Tigress, this knowledge will guide our
destinations and selections of those lands upon which we choose to land. For
now though, fellow travelers, know that while Cimmeria offers no joys, it does
give those who dare its borders a hard and dark Truth. 
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