Fantastic Science Fiction & Fantasy Stories volume 21, No. 6.

“The Witch of the Mists” is a fantasy short story by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, featuring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian created by Robert E. Howard. It was first published in the August 1972 issue of the magazine Fantastic, and in book form by Ace Books in the paperback collection Conan of Aquilonia in May 1977. The first British edition was published by Sphere Books in October 1978.

A decade and a half after the events of Conan the Conqueror, King Conan of Aquilonia is hunting with Prince Conn, his teenaged son and heir. The boy is captured by a band of Hyperborean warlocks, servants of the witch queen Louhi, as bait to lure Conan into a trap.

Conan travels north to Hyperborea for the first time since escaping captivity there during his own youth in “The Thing in the Crypt”. To reach the citadel of Pohiola, where his son is being held, Conan fights his way through desolate country, battling flesh-eating swamp people and braving near-starvation. He crosses the Hyperborean border, marked with a gigantic rune-inscribed skull, and ultimately enters the citadel.

Confronting Louhi, he is able to free his son, discovering in the process that his arch-enemy, the Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon, is behind the plot.

Contents

• 4 • Editorial (Fantastic, August 1972) • [Editorial (Fantastic)] • essay by Ted White
• 6 • The Forges of Nainland Are Cold (Part 1 of 2) • serial by Avram Davidson (book publication as Ursus of Ultima Thule 1973)
• 7 •  The Forges of Nainland Are Cold (Part 1 of 2) • interior artwork by Michael Kaluta [as by Mike Kaluta]
• 34 • The Witch of the Mists • [Conan] • novelette by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp
• 34 •  The Witch of the Mists • interior artwork by Roland
• 42 •  The Witch of the Mists [2] • interior artwork by Roland
• 51 •  The Witch of the Mists [3] • interior artwork by Roland
• 58 • Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
• 59 •  Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket • interior artwork by Joe Staton
• 72 • Allowances • short story by Barry N. Malzberg
• 73 •  Allowances • interior artwork by Billy Graham
• 79 • The Brink • short story by Bob Shaw
• 82 • Agony and Remorse of Rhesus IX • short story by Richard A. Lupoff (variant of Agony and Remorse on Rhesus IX) [as by Ova Hamlet]
• 83 •  Agony and Remorse of Rhesus IX • interior artwork by Dave Cockrum
• 89 • SF in Dimension: Mastery of Space and Time (1926-1935) • [Science Fiction in Dimension] • essay by Alexei Panshin and Cory Panshin
• 102 • Fantasy Books (Fantastic, August 1972) • [Fantasy Books (Fantastic)] • essay by Fritz Leiber
• 102 •   Review: I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein • review by Fritz Leiber
• 105 •   Review: New Worlds for Old by Lin Carter • review by Fritz Leiber
• 108 •   Review: Songs and Sonnets Atlantean by Donald S. Fryer • review by Fritz Leiber
• 115 • … According to You (Fantastic, August 1972) • [According to You (Fantastic)] • essay by Ted White

Notes

Vol 21, No 6. “The Witch of the Mists” is listed as “The Witches of the Mists” in the table of contents.
“All-Star 20th Anniversary Issue!” noted on the cover.