Duar the accursed

"Duar the accursed by Clifford Ball" is a sword-and-sorcery fantasy short story written in the early 20th century. It centers on a barbarian adventurer entangled with a proud queen, a demon-guarded tower, and a sinister jewel, exploring fate, power, and the pull between human love and cosmic destiny. Captured by Queen Nione of Ygoth, the scarred warrior Duar is cast into the Pits, where the sorceress Shar—claiming ties to an ancient Elder Race and to Duar’s forgotten past—frees him and urges him to seek the Rose of Gaon in the Black Tower. Duar slips from his cell, confronts Nione in her chambers, and persuades her to guide him past the city’s guards. In the tower’s depths he battles an invisible force amid heaps of skeletons drawn to the jewel’s fatal lure, and, prompted by Shar, shatters the Rose, dispelling the demon that fed on it. Shar reveals that Duar bears Elder blood and once served as a high priest, pleading for him to remember and join her in reclaiming the world. He cannot, and chooses instead the mortal path—returning to Nione—while Shar’s fading whisper reminds him of the greater dominion he has refused.