Written by Old Bluffer 3rd Feb 2010
Written by Kooshmeister
Toth-Amon is a wizard who protects the mystical Heart of Arhriman, a jewel Queen Taramis has sent Conan to acquire and which will in turn be used to obtain the jeweled horn of Dagoth. Like Taramis, Toth-Amon seeks to resurrect Dagoth and rule the world, so he competes against the Queen by transforming into a dragon made of mist and kidnaps Jehnna, Taramis' niece, and flies her to his castle made of crystal in the middle of a lake.
Turning human again, Toth-Amon lays the unconscious princess in a bed and explains that tomorrow she will go with him to use the Heart to obtain Dagoth's horn or somesuch nonsense.
Meantime, Conan and the others come looking for Jehnna and the Heart. In a suspenseful sequence, probably the best in the movie, the party sneaks into the crystalline castle without realizing Toth-Amon is scrutinizing them in a crystal ball:
"You're too late, my friends," he chortles, amused. "But come. Come anyway."
The party besides Conan consists of Jehnna's bodyguard, the hulking Bombatta, Conan's borderline useless comic relief sidekick Malak, wizard Akiro and untamed warrior woman Zula. The group makes it to the top of the castle where they find the Heart of Arhriman on display in a room where the walls are covered with curtains.
Apparently not seeing such an obvious roach motel, Conan goes right in and a pane of one-way mirrored glass slides into place behind him before the others can follow, effectively separating them. Suddenly the curtains raise to reveal the entire room has mirrored walls.
Reflected in each mirror except the one Conan's friends are currently trying to get through are mysterious-looking figures in red hooded cloaks. These step out of the mirrors and obtain corporeal form, then two begin walking around the room, clockwise and counterclockwise, joining with the other hooded figures and eventually one another. They do not increase in size and all this strange little bit of business seems to do is look cool.
The now one single figure then lifts up its hood to reveal the black-skinned face of an apelike beast (played by Toth-Amon's own actor Pat Roach in heavy makeup)! Immediately, Conan and the ape-creature begin having a good old-fashioned man vs. monster throwdown. One which the monster is dangerously close to winning, since although he can hit Conan, Conan cannot hit him back: his sword passes through the monster's body.
But the monster's fiendishly simplistic but nonetheless interesting weakness is revealed when Conan, backpedaling to avoid the beast's advances, bangs into a mirror with his sword, shattering it. The beast reels and roars in pain as a deep, bloody gash magically appears across its chest. Despite being easily tricked into getting trapped in this room to begin with, Conan isn't entirely stupid and soon gets the idea and begins smashing the mirrors wildly. More bloody slashes appear on the creature's body and finally it collapses and covers itself with its cloak, writhing in pain.
After more indiscriminate smashing of all reflective surfaces, Conan is left with only two mirrors. Choosing one at random he hurls his sword through it. A moment later, Toth-Amon himself emerges with Conan's blade hilt-deep in his stomach. The dying wizard calmly pulls the weapon from himself and approaches the pedestal upon which the Heart of Arhriman is displayed.
Earlier, Queen Taramis had told Conan that only Jehnna could touch the Heart with her bare hands, and we get to see why as Toth-Amon effectively commits suicide by grabbing the Heart, which causes his body to crystallize and light up, then disappear in a bright flash.
The others bust in through the one remaining mirror at this point thanks to Bombatta's mace, and while he and Conan go through the passageway Toth-Amon came out of to go and find Jehnna, the other three examine the unmoving form of the ape-monster, still covered with its cloak. Zula uses her spear to lift the cloak up, and she, Akiro and Malak reel back in surprise as only broken bits of glass are underneath!
