by Various
And now, as they still pursued their way, the pinnacles of the passgrew tall as giants, and were riven into the likeness of mighty limbsand bodies, some of which were headless and others with heads ofTyphoean enormity. And their shadows deepened between the travellersand the sun, to more than the umbrage of shadows cast by rocks. And inthe darkest depth of the ravine, Sir John and his followers met asolitary jackal, which fled them not in the manner of its kind butpassed them with leisurely pace and bespoke them with articulatewords, in a voice hollow and sepulchral as that of a demon, biddingthem to turn back, since the land before them was an interdictedrealm. All were much startled thereat, considering that this wasindeed a thing of enchantment, for a jackal to speak thus, and beingagainst nature, was fore-ominous of ill and peril. And the Armenianscried out, saying they would go no further; and when the jackal hadpassed from sight, they fled after it, spurring their horses like menwho were themselves ridden by devils.
Seeing them thus abandon him, Sir John was somewhat wroth; and also hewas perturbed by the warning of the jackal; and he liked not thethought of faring alone into Antchar. But, trusting in our Savior toforfend him against all harmful enchantments and the necromancies ofSatan, he rode on among the rocks till he came forth at length fromtheir misshapen shadows; and emerging thus, he saw before him a greyplain that was like the ashes of some dead land under extinguishedheavens.
At sight of this region, his heart misgave him sorely, and he mislikedit even more than the twisted faces of the rocks and the riven formsof the pinnacles. For here the bones of men, of horses and camels, hadmarked the way with their pitiable whiteness; and the topmost branchesof long dead trees arose like supplicative arms from the sand that hadsifted upon the older gardens. And here there were ruinous houses,with doors open to the high-drifting desert, and mausoleums sinkingslowly in the dunes. And here, as Sir John rode forward, the skydarkened above him, though not with the passage of clouds or thecoming of the simoon, but rather with the strange dusk of midmosteclipse, wherein the shadows of himself and his horse were blottedout, and the tombs and houses were wan as phantoms.
Sir John had not ridden much further, when he met a horned viper, orcerastes, crawling toilsomely away from Antchar in the deep dust ofthe road. And the viper spoke at it passed him, saying with a humanvoice, "Be warned, and go not onward into Antchar, for this is a realmforbidden to all mortal beings except the dead."
Now did Sir John address himself in prayer to God the Highest, and toJesus Christ our Savior and all the blessed Saints, knowing surelythat he had arrived in a place that was subject to Satanical dominion.And while he prayed the gloom continued to thicken, till the roadbefore him was half nighted and was no longer easy to discern. Andthough he would have still ridden on, his charger halted in the gloomand would not respond to the spur, but stood and trembled like one whois smitten with palsy.
Then, from the twilight that was nigh to darkness, there came giganticfigures, muffled and silent and having, as he thought, neither mouthsnor eyes beneath the brow-folds of their sable cerements. They utteredno word, nor could Sir John bespeak them in the fear that came uponhim; and likewise he was powerless to draw his sword. And they pluckedhim from his saddle with fleshless hands, and led him away, halfswooning at the horror of their touch, on paths that he perceived onlywith the dim senses of one who goes down into the shadow of death. Andhe knew not how far they led him nor in what direction; and he heardno sound as he went other than the screaming of his horse far off,like a soul in mortal dread and agony: for the footfalls of those whohad taken him were soundless and he could not tell if they werephantoms or haply were veritable demons. A coldness blew upon him, butwithout the whisper or soughing of wind; and the air he breathed wasdense with corruption and such odors as may emanate from a brokencharnel.
For a time, in the faintness that had come upon him, he saw not thethings that were standing beside the way, nor the shrouded shapes thatwent by in funereal secrecy. Then, recovering his senses a little, heperceived that there were houses about him and the streets of a town,though these were but scantly to be discerned in the night that hadfallen without bringing the stars. Howbeit, he saw, or deemed, thatthere were high mansions and broad thoroughfares and markets; andamong them, as he went on, a building that bore the appearance of agreat palace, with a facade that glimmered vaguely, and domes andturrets half swallowed up by the lowering darkness.
As he neared the facade, Sir John saw that the glimmering came fromwithin and was cast obscurely through open doors and betweenbroad-spaced pillars. Too feeble was the light for torch or cresset,too dim for any lamp; and Sir John marvelled amid his faintness andterror. But when he had drawn closer still, he saw that the strangegleaming was like the phosphor bred by the putrefaction of a charnel.
Beneath the guidance of those who held him helpless, he entered thebuilding. They led him through a stately hall, in whose carven columnsand ornate furniture the opulence of kings was manifest; and thence hecame into a great audience-room, with a throne of gold and ebony seton a high dais, all of which was illumed by no other light than theglimmering of decay. And the throne was tenanted, not by any humanlord or sultan, but a grey, prodigious creature, of height and bulkexceeding those of man, and having in all its over-swollen form theexact similitude of a charnel-worm. And the worm was alone, and exceptfor the worm and Sir John and those beings who had brought himthither, the great chamber was empty as a mausoleum of old days, whoseoccupants were long since consumed by corruption.
Then, standing there with a horror upon him such as no man had everenvisaged, Sir John became aware that the worm was scrutinizing himseverely, with little eyes deep-folded in the obscene bloating of itsface, and then, with a dreadful and solemn voice, it addressed him,saying:
"I am king of Antchar, by virtue of having conquered and devoured themortal ruler thereof, as well as all those who were his subjects. Knowthen that this land is mine and that the intrusion of the living isunlawful and not readily to be condoned. The rashness and folly thouhast shown in thus coming here is verily most egregious; since thouwert warned by the peoples of Abchaz, and warned anew by the jackaland the viper which thou didst meet on the road into Antchar. Thytemerity hath earned a condign punishment. And before I suffer thee togo hence, I decree that thou shalt lie for a term among the dead, anddwell as they dwell, in a dark sepulcher, and learn the manner oftheir abiding and the things which none should behold with livingeyes. Yea, still alive, it shall be thine to descend and remain in thevery midst of death and putrefaction, for such length of time asseemeth meet to correct thy folly and punish thy presumption."
Sir John was one of the worthiest knights in Christendom, and hisvalor was beyond controversy. But when he heard the speech of thethroned worm, and the judgement that it passed upon him, his fearbecame so excessive that once again he was nigh to swooning. And,still in this state, he was taken hence by those who had brought himto the audience-room. And somewhere in the outer darkness, in a placeof tombs and graves and cenotaphs beyond the dim town, he was flunginto a deep sepulcher of stone, and the brazen door of the sepulcherwas closed upon him.
Lying there through the seasonless midnight, Sir John was companionedonly by an unseen cadaver and by those ministrants of decay who werenot yet wholly done with their appointed task. Himself as one halfdead, in the sore extremity of his horror and loathing, he could nottell if it were day or night in Antchar; and in all the term ofendless hours that he lay there, he heard no sound, other than thebeating of his own heart, which soon became insufferably loud, andoppressed him like the noise and tumult of a great throng.
Appalled by the clamor of his heart, and affrighted by the thing whichlay in perpetual silence beside him, and whelmed by the awesomenessand dire necromancy of all that had befallen him, Sir John was proneto despair, and scant was his hope of returning from that imprisonmentamid the dead, or of standing once more under the sun as a living man.It was his to learn the voidness of death, to share the abomination ofdesolation, and
to comprehend the unutterable mysteries of corruption;and to do all this not as one who is a mere insensible cadaver, butwith soul and body still inseparate. His flesh crept, and his spiritcringed within him, as he felt the crawling of worms that went avidlyto the dwindling corpse or came away in glutted slowness. And itseemed to Sir John at that time (and at all times thereafter) that thecondition of his sojourn in the tomb was verily to be accounted aworse thing than death.
At last, when many hours or days had gone over him, leaving the tomb'sdarkness unchanged by the entrance of any beam or the departure of anyshadow, Sir John was aware of a sullen clangor, and knew that thebrazen door had been opened. And now, for the first time, by thedimness of twilight that had entered the tomb, he saw in all itspiteousness and repulsion the thing with which he had abode so long.In the sickness that fell upon him at this sight, he was haled forthfrom the sepulcher by those who had thrust him therein: and, faintingonce more with the terror of their touch, and shrinking from theirgigantic shadowy stature and cerements whose black folds revealed nohuman visage or form, he was led through Antchar along the roadwhereby he had come into that dolorous realm.
His guides were silent as before; and the gloom which lay upon theland was even as when he had entered it, and was like the umbrage ofsome eternal occultation. But at length, in the very place where hehad been taken captive, he was left to retrace his own way and to farealone through the land of ruinous gardens toward the defile of thecrumbling rocks.
Weak though he was from his confinement, and all bemazed with thethings which had befallen him, he followed the road till the darknesslightened once more and he came forth from its penumbral shadowbeneath a pale sun. And somewhere in the waste he met his charger,wandering through the sunken fields that were covered up by the sand;and he mounted the charger and rode hastily away from Antchar throughthe pass of the strange boulders with mocking forms and faces. Andafter a time he came once more to the northern road by whichtravellers commonly went to Georgia; and here he was rejoined by thetwo Armenians, who had waited on the confines of Antchar, praying forhis secure deliverance.
Long afterwards, when he had returned from his wayfaring in the Eastand among the peoples of remote isles, he told of the kingdom ofAbchaz in the book that related his travels; and also he wrote thereinconcerning the province of Hanyson. But he made no mention of Antchar,that kingdom of darkness and decay ruled by the throned worm.
HOW TO COLLECT FANTASY FICTION
by Julius Schwartz
Part Two
The next task is more difficult: the question of back numbers of thecurrent magazines. Some back issues are almost impossible to secure.However, be sure to try the magazine publishers. If this fails, scourthe second-hand book and magazine stores. If they haven't the issues,leave a standing order with them. (They're eager for business andthey'll make an honest attempt to secure the desired issues for you.)Scan the discussions columns. Readers often offer to sell or tradeback numbers. Then try the large second-hand magazine dealers, such asCarl Swanson, Washburn, North Dakota and the Smith Book Co., Box 661,Lawrence, Massachusetts.
As a last resort advertise.
That takes care of all magazines that are now being published. Now wehave to contend with real difficulties. We're going to trail downfantasy stories that were published in magazines no longer sold atnewsstands! Chief among these defunct magazines is Astounding Stories,Strange Tales, and Wonder Stories Quarterly. (More details are neededwith these out-of-print magazines, so it'll be given whenever definiteinformation is known concerning them.) This periodical (AstoundingStories), a science fiction magazine, first appeared on the newsstandswith its January, 1930 issue and was discontinued but a short timeago, in March 1933. Its companion magazine, Strange Tales, publishedweird, fantastic fiction. Dates: September, 1931 to January, 1933.Wonder Stories Quarterly, science fiction, ran from Fall, 1929 toWinter, 1933, publishing only inter-planetary tales in the last twoyears.
(Next month Mr. Schwartz describes the less known fantasy magazines.)
* * * * *
Subscribe now and insure yourself of a monthly copy. Only a limitednumber are printed.
INFORMATION
(This department will answer any question about fantasy fiction. Thereis no charge, and you may use it freely.)
1. When did Miracle, Science and Fantasy Stories come out, how longwas it issued and what was the selling price?--Con Pankevich, Jr.
Miracle, Science and Fantasy Stories appeared in 1931. There were onlytwo bi-monthly issues, April-May which was on sale April 5th, andJune-July, which came out on May 15. Both issues had been printedbefore the first one was on sale. It sold for 20 cents per copy.
2. How many Amazing Stories Annuals were there, and for whatyears?--Con Pankevich, Jr.
The 1927 Amazing Stories Annual was the only one published.
3. In what issues of Amazing Stories did the Skylark storiesappear?--J. Smart
"Skylark of Space," by Edward E. Smith, Ph. D., appeared in theAugust, September and October 1928 issues of Amazing Stories, and itssequel, "Skylark Three" appeared in the same issues for 1930. Theformer story was collaborated on Lee Garby. Dr. Smith is now workingon his third story in this series, which will be published in Amazingsome time next year.
4. Who wrote "Cosmic Power?"--J. Sam Smart
"Cosmic Power," in the April, 1931 issue of Amazing, was by John C.Dare.
5. What were the stories in the first Amazing Stories Quarterly?--J.Sam Smart
"The Morn of Doom" by Earl L. Bell; "The Atomic Riddle" by Edward S.Sears; "When the Sleeper Wakes" by H. G. Wells (reprint); "The GoldenVapor" by E. H. Johnson; "The Puzzle Duel" by Miles J. Breuer, M.D.;and "The Terrors of the Upper Air" by Frank Orndoff.
6. What were the stories in the first Wonder Stories Quarterly?--J.Sam Smart
"The Shot Into Infinity" by Otto Willi Gail (translated from theGerman); "The Artificial Man" by Clare Winger Harris; "The HiddenWorld" by Edmond Hamilton; and "The Gravitational Deflector" by HarryD. Parker.
7. Please give me a list of the stories written by Nathan Schachner--J.Sam Smart
"Back to 20,000 A.D."o Wonder, March, 1931; "The Death Cloud"oAstounding, May, 1931; "The Dead-Alive"o Weird, April-May, 1931;"Exiles of the Moon"o Wonder, Sept., Oct., & Nov., 1931; "Emperor ofthe Stars"o Wonder, April, 1931; "In 20,000 A.D."o Wonder, Sept.,1930; "The Menace from Andromeda"o Amazing, April, 1931; "Pirates ofthe Gorm" Astounding, May, 1932; "Revolt of the Machines"oAstounding, July, 1931; "The Tower of Evil"o Wonder Quart., Summer,1930; "Venus Mines, Incorporated"o Wonder, August, 1931; "Slaves ofMercury" Astounding, Sept., 1932; "Emissaries of Space" Wonder Quart.,Fall, 1932; "The Time Express" Wonder, Dec., 1932; "Memory of theAtoms" Wonder, Jan., 1933; "The Eternal Dictator" Wonder, Feb., 1933;"The Robot Technocrat" Wonder, March, 1933; a series of stories in theApril, May, and June, 1933 issues of Wonder; "The Revolt of theScientists", "The Great Oil War," and "The Final Triumph;" and "FireImps of Vesuvius" Astounding, Oct. (All stories marked with o werecollaborated with Arthur Leo Zagat, and "The Memory of the Atoms" wascomposed with R. Lacher. Mr. Schachner's first story was "The Tower ofEvil.")
8. What happened to the sequel to "Thru the Dragon Glass," by A.Merritt?--David Stolaroff
For some unknown reason, Mr. Merritt never wrote a sequel to thisstory, although it could stand one very well. Perhaps he will writeone yet, even after all these years, if his fans are persistentenough. Reprint copies of this remarkable story, A. Merritt's first,can be purchased for ten cents a copy from Robert Scarlet, Jr., 87-36162nd St., Jamaica, Long Island, N.Y.
ABOUT AUTHORS
Some fan, after reading one of Jules Verne's tales in Amazing, wrotein claiming that he was a very promising author! Charles WillardDiffin and C. D. Willard is the same author.... The fastest writer:Arthur J. Burks. The slowest: Edward Elme Smith.... P. Schuyler Millerbecame a science fiction author as the result of a cover contest....You can't call Raymond Gallun a half-pint, anywa
y. (How did that punget into this column?)... The question is still unsatisfactorily: WHOis Anthony Gilmore???... Allen Glasser's "Captives in Space" in theJuly, 1932 "The Time Traveller" is a rejected entry of the November,1929 Science Wonder Stories cover contest.... Two of the titles of H.G. Winter's stories contain the word "ice," which seems quiteappropriate.... Sewell Peaslee Wright had a story in Weird yearsbefore Astounding.
CONTEST RESULTS
The winner of last month's cash prize contest is William Sykora, 35-5141st St., Long Island City, New York. Here is his answer to "Why doyou read fantasy fiction?"
"Why do I read fantasy fiction? I often wonder. The occult, thefantastic, have always held me with supreme, almost unholy,fascination. I have found that by constant practice, an all-excluding,all-consuming concentration bonds stronger than the strongest steel toall dismally horrible tales of the supernatural. The earthly ties thathold me mentally and morally to a workaday existence, are hypnoticallyrent asunder by a mesmerism born of steely sharp concentration. Thusdo I thrill--quake--and shudder with the delightful ecstasy of bizarreadventure through the awful expanse of the inconceivably terribleunknown universe, and I love it."
Because of lack of support, we will not present another cash prizecontest, until enough readers ask for one. If we receive enoughpetitions, we will take great pleasure in featuring another in thenear future.
