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Dweb” and “The Beast of Averoigne.” If, as with other tales known to have been
shortened for publication, some descriptive passages have been lost, those that remain possess a sullen splendor; the language is as gorgeously grim as that in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, and Tourneur’s The Revenger’s
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Tragedy at their most morose; and the pacing is perfectly gauged, like a great cres-cendo that begins with murmurs of disquiet and builds steadily, horror upon horror, with each more impressive than the last.
James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock have praised this work as “the apex of
incarnadined horror . . . the tale of a childhood injury avenged on a scale which would tax the visual resources of a major studio” (Cawthorn and Moorcock 96).
Curiously, Universal had considered both this story and “The Colossus of Ylour-
gne” from the Averoigne cycle as vehicles for horror films before the studio was sold, though it is doubtful that even current cinematic artistry could equal the work’s full range of shocking effects, which encompass every gradation of horror from the multitudinous grotesqueries of the charnel house to the sublimity of the scene in which the macrocosmic stallions of Thamagorgos take shape from the
clouds and spread their shadows for miles “like the evil gloom of eclipse,” their eyes
“half-way between earth and zenith, like baleful suns that glare down from soaring cumuli” ( RA 386). Each of these, let alone such intermediate individual horrors as Namirrha’s congress with demons and the powers of the outer spheres, an increasingly intrusive haunting by ghostly hooves, soul exchange, transformation, and the battle between splintered portions of the same psyche would provide sufficient material for most fantasists; but Smith aims at, and achieves a cumulative effect based on the interweaving of two major themes. His rich vocabulary, command of rhetoric, and use of striking visual and auditory imagery ensure that each of the components making up these patterns is thrilling in its own right as well as contributing to the awe-inspiring potency of the whole. The haunting of Zotulla’s palace, the murderous banquet, the trampling of the city of Ummaos, and the branding of Zotulla’s concubine are all expressions of Namirrha’s obsession with the trampling and scarring he suffered from Zotulla’s horse as a boy. Less obvious is the notion of those bitter enemies—the emperor Zotulla and the sorcerer Namirrha—being metaphorical twins or incomplete portions of a greater whole:2 Zotulla’s luxuries and turpi-tudes are referred to as “a twin marvel to the bruited necromancies of Namirrha”
( RA 367); his palace and that which Namirrha builds beside it are at the same level; the people of Ummaos, grown used to the presence of the sorcerer’s palace, brags of the infamies of both men; Zotulla is equally in thrall to the demon lord Thasaidon as Namirrha, though he serves him unwittingly and Namirrha rejects his own
“fatal fealty” ( RA 375); Namirrha briefly usurps the body of Zotulla; and in the end Namirrha battles furiously against his mirror-image, alternately deeming himself a sorcerer warring against an emperor, an emperor smiting a sorcerer, and a third man fighting an unknown foe.
Even more crammed with incident, but completely different in tone is “The
Voyage of King Euvoran” (written January 1933; first published in The Double Shadow, 1933), originally intended as part of the cycle set at the opposite end of man’s tenancy of earth. The tale’s grotesquerie and humor continues to lend it a flavor much closer to that of Hyperborea than to Zothique, but also makes for a
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welcome respite from the unrelievedly grim tales that had preceded it. Over several episodes, its titular king encounters a necromancer, ape-men, griffins, hordes of winged voracious vampires so numerous as to sink ships through their very weight, man-sized intelligent birds, and other prodigies; reacts with overweening pride and unthinking brutality at every turn; and suffers repeated losses in personnel, possessions, and dignity as a result. Deflationary jabs aimed at the king are frequent and amusing:
It was a tedious journey, and Euvoran was much annoyed by the huge and vicious
gnats of Sotar, which were no respecters of royalty, and were always insinuating themselves under his turban. ( AY 95)
Indeed, methinks that a stuffed king (since even the vermin have kings) will serve to enhance my collection. ( AY 103)
And the skin [of the bird he had slain] fit him well enough because of his pigeon-breast and his potbelly . . . ( AY 105)
Smith fills the tale with effective scenes of suspense and horror, but never leaves the wry, Swiftian smirk of satire far behind, as when Euvoran’s fleet limps away after a horrendous battle with the vampires, its decks covered with blood, corpses, and vast quantities of malodorous guano.
Unlike the tales that had preceded it, neither “The Weaver in the Vault” (writ-
ten 14 March 1935; first published Weird Tales, January 1934) nor “The Tomb-Spawn” (begun July 1933; first published Weird Tales, May 1934) is strong in plot or characterization. Both could be said to fall into what has been jokingly referred to as the “Here is an old legend . . . aargh, it got me!” school of weird fiction construction. Nonetheless, each of the tales is atmospheric and well-paced—once the need for a perfunctory exposition has been met—takes place amid surroundings of decaying grandeur, and introduces a fabulous and unique monstrosity. The grim
and magnificent climax of “The Weaver in the Vault,” featuring a beautiful, prismatic lattice spun from carrion, could also be viewed as a metaphor for the artist’s use of materials associated with death and decay to create works attaining to the dark sublime.
“The Witchcraft of Ulua” (written 22 August 1933; first published Weird Tales, February 1934) is a more ambitious tale of sorcery in which “erotic imagery was employed . . . to achieve a more varied sensation of weirdness” ( SL 219). Although “the net result” was intended to be “macabre rather than risqué,” the story was rejected as
“a sex story and therefore unsuitable for W.T.” ( SL 219), making it necessary for Smith to create a “slightly subtilized version” for publication ( SL 233). Although the expurgations forced upon Smith are not as extensive as they are for several of his other works, the fusion of macabre and erotic elements in the restored version make for a more consistently atmospheric and potent tale than the version commonly reprinted. Even the expurgated version, however, retains the catastrophic climax and
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such delightfully morbid conceits as this description of a sorcerer’s dwelling on the rim of the desert:
a house whose floor and walls were built of the large bones of dromedaries, and whose roof was a wattling composed of the smaller bones of wild dogs and men
and hyenas. These ossuary relics, chosen for their whiteness and symmetry, were bound securely together with well-tanned thongs, and were joined and fitted with marvellous closeness, leaving no space for the blown sand to penetrate. The house was the pride of Sabmon, who swept it daily with a besom of mummy’s hair, till it shone immaculate as ivory both within and without. ( AY 21)
Among the tales of Zothique, only the “The Dark Eidolon” rivals “Xeethra”
(written 21 March 1934; published Weird Tales, December 1934) in the dark magnificence of its conception and the mastery of its execution. Elements from Genesis, the Faust legend, the Arabian Nights, Vathek, and even H. P. Lovecraft’s stylish but self-pitying fable “The Quest of Iranon” (1921) all combine in a work remarkable for its pathos, and a range of effects vividly evocative of youth and decay, hope and despair, growth and ruin, the pastoral and the diabolical, the regal and the squalid, the mundane and the terrifying. Ultimately, Xeethra’s plight, unlike
Iranon’s, is not merely pitiful, it is tragic. The essence of tragedy as understood by the ancients is not the destruction of innocents by forces beyond their control, but the flaws or err
ors that lead the individual toward his own destruction; and it is these, just as much as the subtle temptations of the demon Thasaidon, that lead the tale’s hero again and again to “dust and dearth” ( RA 364). Much of the tale’s power resides in its author’s careful attention to verbal felicities which equal and are responsible for heightening its manifold wonders and threats. For instance, throughout Xeethra’s visit and flight from the mysterious cavern, Smith produces a cunning progression in his use of simile, which suggests an unwelcome truth behind the
sights and sounds that greet the young man (“his torch was extinguished by a hot gust that blew upon him like the expelled breath of some prankish demon” [ RA 349]; “There was no sound other than the sighing of leaves in the perfume-burdened wind: a sound like the hissing of many small hidden serpents” [ RA 349]), then focuses away from matters of similarity to those of probability (“Before him he heard a long rumbling as of summer thunder . . . or the laughter of colossi” [ RA 351]) as Xeethra tastes of the hellish fruit and begins to sense things he had never before even suspected.
If “The Empire of the Necromancers,” “The Isle of the Torturers,” and “Xee-
thra” all concern themselves on some level with prophecies and foreordination, the ne plus ultra in the depiction of inexorable fate is “The Last Hieroglyph” (written March–May 1934; first published Weird Tales, April 1935). Nushain’s horoscope forecasts a journey led by three guides through three of the four elements—earth, water, and fire—before a final encounter with the fourth element in the presence of “the most powerful and mysterious of the genii” ( RA 404). Smith ingeniously
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combines the concepts of the logos and astrology before carrying them to their
logical extreme, with individual symbols not only representing but also briefly incarnating every thing that ever existed on earth and in the heavens. One source for this tale appears amid the “marvellous illustrations” ( SL 138) Sidney Sime had created for Lord Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegāna (1905). Although he admitted he “never could work up much enthusiasm over Lord Dunsany’s work” in the book ( SL
138), it is not difficult to note resemblances between the final scene in Smith’s tale and Sidney Sime’s depiction of “the Thing that is neither god nor beast” (Dunsany 50), sitting upon the Rim of the Worlds, “whose book is the Scheme of Things”
(Dunsany 51) in which all beings and objects exist until the turning of the last page where their names are written.
This tale has, as Will Murray has so aptly put it, a “culminating resonance” (11), and nearly a year passed before Smith completed another work in the cycle. “Necromancy in Naat” (written 6 February 1935; first published Weird Tales, July 1936) is a fine amalgam of adventure, supernatural horror, and bittersweet love story, full of unusual characters and odd events, which ranks among the best works in this series.
Unfortunately, Weird Tales rejected the first version of the story, causing Smith to lament that he had been forced to “mutilate the ending” ( SL 289) in order to ensure publication. A perusal of the typed manuscript, recently recovered by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger, reveals much more extensive revision than Smith suggests: one 500-word passage describing the initial stages of Yadar’s search for his beloved has been reduced to a few lines, descriptive passages and those focusing on the characters’
mental states have been removed or pared to the bone, much detail near the conclusion has been discarded in order to limit the action to one viewpoint; and throughout, atmosphere has been sacrificed to speed of narration, and nuance to action.
Ever the craftsman, Smith is careful even in the truncated text to change word order and alter syntax in order the rebalance the rhythm of his prose. Curiously, however, the sad, sweet line that concludes the tale originated not with Smith’s first submission, but in the revision.
Further stories appeared at irregular intervals over the next twenty years, all good, but only a few capturing the height of astonishment and depth of pathos
seen in the series up to this time.
“The Black Abbot of Puthuum” (written before April 1935; first published
Weird Tales, March 1936), “The Death of Ilalotha” (written 16 March 1937; first published Weird Tales, September 1937), and “The Garden of Adompha” (written 31 July 1937; first published Weird Tales, June 1938), are all fine weird tales, full of novel phenomena, vividly evoked locales, carefully modulated suspense, and an
effective denouement, with each story focused on a distinct mixture of horrific, grotesque, and adventurous elements, with a leavening of eroticism. The same
could be said of “The Master of the Crabs” (written 3 August 1947; first published Weird Tales, March 1948), minus the erotic element.
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It is Smith’s free deployment of eroticism in the cycle’s final tale and verse
drama that restore the cycle to the level it had reached at its peak.
Steeped in the same dour beauty as John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” and
“Ode on Melancholy” (both 1819), as well as making free use of imagery from po-
ems such as Charles Baudelaire’s “La Géante” ( Les Fleurs du mal, 1857, which Smith had translated as “The Giantess”), “Morthylla” (written September or October 1952; first published Weird Tales, May 1953) is one of its author’s most melancholy and moving tales. The poet Valzain longs for a world more satisfying than the sensuality into which his fellows have abandoned themselves, and travels to a necropolis where
“dim, lengthened, and attenuate, his shadow went before him like a ghostly guide”
( RA 467). He fancies that the cemetery is “the gently sloping bosom of a giantess, studded afar with pale gems that were tombstones and mausoleums” ( RA 467), and is all too prone to “a dreamer’s acceptance of things fantastic elsewhere than in sleep” ( RA 469). As one might suspect, once he convinces himself the mysterious woman he has met beside the mausoleum has “turned all else to shadow” ( RA 470), then fails to heed her warnings to not “risk awakening from the dream” ( RA 469), he invites disillusionment, and gives way to despair. Smith then introduces a subtly varied recapitulation of Valzain’s initial encounter in the necropolis, turning dream into reality, and rewarding “one who, without positive belief, had longed vainly for visions from beyond mortality” ( RA 467, 472).
Smith’s final work in the cycle, one among “a few unpublished masterpieces”
( SL 373) of his final years, the short play entitled The Dead Will Cuckold You (written 1951/52, revised 1956; first published In Memoriam: Clark Ashton Smith, August 1963). It is in six brief scenes and written in blank verse with short passages of rhymed song and incantation. In language it is akin to the more morbid specimens of Renaissance revenge tragedy, but its structure owes at least as much to Lord Dunsany’s early fantasy plays. The play makes much use of a double-horned motif shared by the cuckold, the demon lord Thaisadon, and the fertility goddess Ililot, each of which confers a different curse, or blessing, upon those who evoke it.
Whereas the queen, who has no reason to fear the other two more than her mur-
derous husband and seeks a means of escape from
This palace where my feet forever pace
From shades of evil to a baleful sun ( SS 236)
successfully evokes the third, her husband, whose soul has been made “a cavern
where close-knotted serpents nest” through pride, jealousy, fear, brutality, and insecurity, dreads them all, without fully comprehending any of them—
In all my kingdom, or in Thasaidon’s
Deep tortuous maze of torments multi-circled,
There is no darker gulf than this shut room
Which reason cannot fathom, being shunted
From the blank walls of madness. ( SS 241)
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At the locked d
oor to his wife’s chamber wherein he has been told is the reanimated corpse of the man he had slain for fear of cuckoldry, he seeks only the most immediate means of ingress, choosing death by flame over a thwarted will or the possibility of embarrassment. He lacks the insight to recognize that
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one safe place; for where we are is hell,
And where hell is there must we ever be.
(Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, v. 121–23)
*
In a letter dated 22 May 1926, Smith praised his friend Benjamin De Casseres in lavish terms that could readily be applied to the imagination and level of accomplishment evinced by his own tales of Zothique:
You have a tremendous vision of the phantom-flux of time and matter, the
masques and mummeries of the infinite, and the ineluctable trans-substantiation of suns and monads . . . You break the bottles of the Djinns, you tear the swaddlings of Ialdabaoth and the mummy-cloths of Maya. You are a cosmic eagle who can
carry worlds aloft and let them drop in the carapace of God. ( SL 87)
Smith had planned on a broader reception and more widespread appreciation of
his story cycles than has yet materialized: “Printed on good paper and decently bound, I think that all of these tales would show up as fine literature, in no wise inferior to Dunsany or Cabell” ( SL 219). Scholarship, diligence, and renewed attention to the texts Smith intended to publish, rather than those forced upon him by the marketplace, are proving the truth of this statement to an ever wider audience.
His vision is a unique one, which has been ill-served for decades by those interested only in the contrasts his work bears to that of his contemporaries H. P.
Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. His long-held position as a shadow figure to two titans is undeserved. The author’s Zothique cycle, the largest, most varied, most exotic, and most deeply felt of his works is the ideal place for the reader to gain the acquaintance of one of the most conscientious and imaginative of fantasists ever to take up a pen under this or any sun.