Four old friends from their youth visit Conan twenty years after their last meeting, but they visit not a barbarian from a distant northern country, as was before, but the king of Aquilonia, the ruler of the most powerful state in the West. The appearance of uninvited guests in the sovereign’s chambers is by no means accidental, for they came for an artifact that had haunted people for many millennia, but by the will of Providence, they ended up with nothing. The stone is missing. From this moment begins the continuation of the story of the Sharan stones, which, according to ancient legend, are a powerful artifact that protects its owner from magic. Whether this is true or not remains to be found out by Conan and his friends, who by coincidence are once again forced, as in the old days, to set off together on a dangerous journey to the shores of the Styx, for the Heart of Ahriman, stolen from the royal treasury, for which a real hunt has begun. I express special gratitude to sister Matveeva E.V. for help in writing the novel.