The Last Hieroglyph

by Clark Ashton Smith

  Pegasus bridled and almost stopped in mid-flight.

  “My prophetic insight forbids me to oblige you. I cannot visit the century, and, in particular, the country, that you name. Any poets who are born there must do without me—must hoist themselves to inspiration by their own bootstraps, rather than by the steed of the Muses. If I ventured to land there, I should be impounded at once and my wings clipped. Later they would sell me for horse meat.”

  “You underrate their commercial acumen,” I said. “They’d put you in a side-show and charge a stiff entrance fee. You’re well known, in a way. Your name and picture are on sideboards at many gas-stations. A synonym for speed if nothing else.

  “Anyway, there is little inducement for me to return. I have been trying to drink myself out of it for years and decades. Why go back, after escaping? Why end up, as I will sooner or later, at the highly expensive mercy of doctors, hospitals and undertakers?”

  “You are certainly sensible, will you indicate a place and period more to your liking?”

  I mused awhile, reviewing all I could remember of both history and geography.

  “Well,” I decided at last, “some South Sea island might do, before the discovery by Captain Cook and the coming of the missionaries.”

  Pegasus began to accelerate his flight. Day and darkness shuttled by, sun, moon and stars were streaks above, and the regions below were blurred by inconceivable speed, so that I could not distinguish fertile from desert, land from water. We must have circled the earth innumerable times, through the birth and death of millenniums.

  Gradually the speed of the winged horse decelerated. A cloudless sun became stable overhead. A balmy subtropic sea, full of green islands, rolled softly on all sides to the horizon.

  Pegasus made an easy landing on the nearest island, and I slipped dizzily from his back.

  “Good luck,” he neighed. Then, stretching his wings once more, he soared toward the sun and disappeared with the suddenness of a time-machine.

  Feeling that Pegasus had abandoned me in a rather summary fashion, I peered about at my surroundings. At first sight I had been left in an uninhabited isle, on a coral reef lined with untrodden grass and rimmed with pandanus and breadfruit trees.

  Presently the foliage stirred and several natives crept forth. They were elaborately tattooed and armed with wooden clubs studded with sharks’ teeth. Judging from their gestures of fear and wonder, they had never seen a white man or a horse of any color, winged or unwinged. They dropped their clubs as they neared me, and pointed questioning fingers, a trifle shaky, at the skies where Pegasus had vanished.

  “Think nothing of it,” I said in my suavest and most reassuring tones. Remembering a vague religious upbringing, I made the sign of benediction.

  The savages grinned shyly, displaying an array of filed teeth only less formidable than the sharks’ incisors and molars that decorated their clubs. Plainly they were losing their fear and making me welcome to the island. Their eyes appraised me with inscrutable blandness, like those of innocent children who expect someone to feed them.

  I am penciling this account in a small notebook found in one of my pockets. Three weeks have passed since Pegasus left me among the cannibals. They have treated me well and have fattened me with all the abundance that the isle affords. With taro and roast pig, with breadfruit, cocoanuts, guavas, and many unknown delicious vegetables. I feel like a Thanksgiving turkey.

  How do I know they are cannibals? By human bones, hair, skin, piled or strewn about as animal remnants are in the neighborhood of slaughter-houses. Apparently they have moved their feasting places only when the bones got too thick. Bones of men, women, children, mixed with those of birds, pigs and small four-footed creatures. An untidy lot, even for anthropophagi.

  The island is of small extent, perhaps no more than a mile in width by two in length. I have not learned its name and am uncertain to which of the many far-flung archipelagos it belongs. But I have picked up a few words of the soft, many-vowelled language—mainly the names of foodstuffs.

  They have domiciled me in a clean enough hut, which I occupy alone. None of the women, who are comely enough and quite friendly, has offered to share it with me. Perhaps this is for therapeutic reasons—perhaps they fear I might lose weight if I were to indulge in amorous activity. Anyway, I am relieved. All women are cannibalistic, even if they don’t literally tear the meat from one’s bones. They devour time, money, attention, and give treachery in return. I have long learned to avoid them. Long ago my devotion to drink became single-hearted. Liquor at least has been faithful to me. It requires no eloquence, no flattery, no blandishments. To me, at least, it makes no false promises.

  I wish Pegasus would return and carry me off again. Truly I made a chuckle-headed choice in selecting one of the South Sea isles. I am weaponless; and I don’t swim very well. The natives could overtake me quickly if I stole one of their outrigger canoes. I never was much good at boating even in my college days. Barring a miracle, I am destined to line the gizzards of these savages.

  The last few days they have allowed me all the palm-wine I can drink. Perhaps they believe it will improve the flavor. I swig it frequently and lie on my back staring at the bright blue skies where only parrots and sea-birds pass. I cannot get drunk and delirious enough to imagine that any of them is the winged horse. And I curse them in five languages, in English, Greek, French, Spanish, Latin, because they cannot be mistaken for Pegasus. Perhaps, if I had plenty of high-proof Scotch and Bourbon, I could walk out of this particular time-plexus into something quite different… as I did from modern New York into the ancient palace of Medusa.

  Another entry, which I hardly expected to make. I don’t know the day, the month, the year, the century. But according to the belief of these misguided islanders—and mine—it was pot-day. They brought out the pot at mid-morning: a huge vessel of blackening battered bronze inscribed around the sides with Chinese characters. It must have been left here by some far-strayed or storm-wrecked junk. I don’t like to conjecture the fate of the crew, if any survived and came ashore. Being boiled in their own cooking-pot must have been a curious irony.

  To get back to my tale. The natives had set out huge quantities of palm-wine in crude earthen vessels, and they and I were getting ginned up as fast as we could. I wanted a share of the funeral feast, even if I was slated to afford the pièce-de-résistance.

  Presently there was a lot of jabbering and gesticulating. The chief, a big burly ruffian, was giving orders. A number of the natives scattered into the woods, and some returned with vessels full of spring-water which they emptied into the pot, while others piled dry grass and well-seasoned fagots around its base. A fire was started with flint and an old piece of metal which looked like the broken-off end of a Chinese sword-blade. It was probably a relic of the same junk that had provided the pot.

  I hoped that the user had broken it only after laying out a long file of cannibals.

  In a rather futile effort to raise my spirits, I began to sing the Marseillaise, and followed it with Lulu and various other bawdies. Presently the water was bubbling, and the cooks turned their attention to me. They seized me, stripped off my ragged clothes, and trussed me up adroitly, knees to chest and arms doubled at the sides, with some sort of tough vegetable fiber. Then, singing what was doubtless a cannibal chantey, they picked me up and heaved me into the pot, where I landed with a splash, and settled more or less upright in a sitting position.

  At least, I had thought they would knock me on the head beforehand rather than boil me like a live lobster.

  In my natural fright and confusion it took me some moments to realize that the water, which had seemed scalding hot, was in reality no warmer to the epidermis than my usual morning tub. In fact it was quite agreeable. Judging by the violence with which it bubbled beneath my chin, it was not likely to grow much hotter.

  This anomaly of sensation puzzled me mightily. By all rights I should be suffering agonies. Then, like a flash of lightni
ng, I remembered the passing sidelong flick of Medusa’s left eye and the apparent lack of effect at the time. Her glance had in no way petrified me—but in some strange fashion it must have toughened my skin, which was now impervious to the normal effects of heat; and perhaps also to other phenomena. Perhaps, to cause the mythic petrification, it was necessary to sustain the regard of both the Gorgon’s eyes.

  These things are mysteries. Anyway, it was as if I had been given a flexible asbestos hide. But, curiously enough, my keenness of touch was unimpaired.

  Through the veering smoke I saw that the cooks were coming back, laden with baskets of vegetables. They were all getting drunker; and the chief was the drunkest. He lurched about, waving his war-club, while the others emptied their baskets into the kettle. Only then did they perceive that things had not proceeded according to culinary rules. Their eyes grew rounder and they yelled with surprise to see me grinning at them from amidst the steaming ebullient contents. One of the cooks made a pass at my throat with a stone knife—and the knife broke in the middle. Then the chief stepped forward, shouting ferociously, and hoisted his toothed war-club.

  I ducked under water and to one side. The club descended, making a huge splash—and missed me. Judging from their outcries, some of the cooks must have been scalded by the flying water. The chief fared worse. Over-balanced by that mighty stroke, he lurched against the pot, which careened heavily, spilling much of the contents. Using my weight repeatedly against the side, I managed to overthrow the vessel, and rolled out in a torrent of water, smoke and vegetables.

  The chief, yowling from what must have been third-degree burns, was trying to extricate himself from the brands and embers into which he had fallen. Limping, he got to his feet after several vain attempts and staggered away. The other cooks, and the expectant feasters, had already decamped. I had the field to myself.

  Looking around, I noticed the broken-off sword which had been used in striking fire, and levered myself in its direction. Holding it clumsily, I contrived to work my wrist-fetters against the edge. The blade was still fairly sharp and I soon had my hands free. After that, it was no trick to untruss my legs.

  The wine had worn off but there were many unemptied pots of it still around. I collected two or three, and put some of the spilled vegetables to roast amid the glowing coals. Then, waiting comfortably for the cannibals’ return, I began to laugh.

  I was washing down a well-baked taro root with the second pot of wine when the first of them crawled out of the woods and fell prostrate before me. I learned afterwards that they were deprecating my anger and were very sorry they had not recognized me as a god.

  They have christened me in their own tongue. The-One-who-cannot-be-cooked.

  I wish that Pegasus would return.

  THE DART OF RASASFA

  Jon Montrose and his wife Mildred were passing Belaran, a sun obscured to earth-astronomers by a small dense nebula many million miles beyond Alpha Centauri. The sun’s existence had been discovered nine years previous by an expedition which had gone by to remoter spatial objectives. Jon and Mildred were the only crew of the space-flier Daedalus, in which they had left Earth two years before, and were making their maximum speed of several light-years a week by atomic power.

  In their reflectors Belaran, a white sun similar to our own, displayed a system of seven worlds. The tint was unusual—most suns in proximity to nebulae were blue or red. They were nearest to the fourth world when the trouble began—a sudden and violent veering toward the planet, which lay to starboard. Jon’s quick inspection showed that the steering apparatus was in good order. Some obscure magnetic force, not classified by their instruments, was drawing them downward to the unknown world, which soon revealed a conformation of plains and mountains below. The plains broadened, the mountains leapt upward with tops and slopes that assumed color and sharp definitude.

  “Gods! we’re going to crash!” Jon cried. He and Mildred watched helplessly as the vessel slanted past the high peaks with no visible snow and a lichen-like purplish vegetation. They dipped into a long steep ravine showing threads of water or other liquid at the bottom, and then landed on a sort of shelf, their prow plunging into soil and rocks deeply enough to hold the ship from sliding further.

  Stunned and shaken by the impact, the voyagers soon regained full consciousness. They had held instinctively to the steering seat, but were bruised and bleeding in places. No bones seemed to be broken. The engines were silent. Air blowing in their faces drew their attention to the manhole in the slanted wall. It had been forced half open, and their atmosphere was tempered by a cool fresh breeze from outside which seemed to have no deleterious effects but was perhaps a little higher in oxygen than that to which they were accustomed.

  Jon examined the atomic engines. They had been turned off automatically by a breakage in the rod which connected them with the steering-gear. The rod was made of carborundum and zysturium, the last-named a new element found on the moon and certain outer planets. How it had been broken, unless flawed, was a mystery: the alloy was harder than diamond.

  Unless the break could be mended, they would be powerless to resume their journey. Jon cursed in a low but vehement voice, remembering that they had neglected to bring along any spare parts, and wondering if the local landscape would afford the required materials. If so, they had a furnace for smelting and fusing and could mend the rod, even if rather crudely.

  He told Mildred the problem, adding: “There’s nothing to do but get out and hunt. Otherwise we’ll be stuck here till the Second Coming—of Christ, Beelzebub, or what have you.”

  He packed a knapsack with food and a thermos bottle of coffee, and gave it to Mildred. Then, carrying slung from his shoulders a pick and shovel and a complicated new instrument for detecting all known minerals and elements up to a depth of ten or more feet, he forced the manhole lid open enough to climb out and descend to the ledge on a crazily slanted ladder. His wife followed, having strapped the knapsack about her neck.

  They could now see much of the surrounding terrain. Far in the distance of the flat country below, towers or tall buildings glimmered. At their feet a series of rough projections in the stone made feasible their descent to the stream-bed where liquid pools and cascades gurgled between steep walls partly mantled with lichen or other short growth of the order of ice-plants.

  They climbed down to the stream-bed, testing each of the salients carefully before trusting their full weight upon it. The pools were indistinguishable from common water at close view but might contain poisonous elements. They did not pause to test it but stepped across the stream and began to ascend the opposite side, stopping many times to try the detection instrument, which showed only minerals and metals of ordinary kind, including traces of gold, silver, iron, and mercury.

  By slow degrees they worked diagonally toward the plain, crossing several ridges and streams, one of the latter a cataract which they had to circumnavigate laboriously. At last, on a downward slope, they found evidence of carborundum; and, not far away, a small deposit of zysturium. Jon started to dig. He had gone down about five feet and had struck the carborundum, Mildred stooping over him, when an interruption occurred. A heavy net of some clinging ropy material dropped over their heads and tightened. Beyond the meshes a group of incredible beings, reptile-headed but upright, bluish in color, with two hands and feet, were standing above them, holding the long handle of the net. One of these beings carried a sharp-pointed spear with which he touched them in turn, pricking through their clothes between the meshes. Unconsciousness quickly followed a spreading numbness at the touch of the spear.

  Mildred awoke in a dungeon-like roofed enclosure, lit sparsely by small globes in the walls which had the look of staring violescent eyes. She was lying on a low couch of some soft and colorless material. Beside her on the floor was a flattish bowl containing, she conjectured, some sort of food-stuff. Still dazed and sick, she did not feel tempted to taste it. Anyway, the odor was not appetizing: it suggested stale fish.<
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  She raised herself dizzily on her elbow. The floor seemed to reel, the lights in the walls to dance. Around a corner, swaying with the room’s apparent motion, walked three of the bluish reptile-headed beings. One of them strapped an apparatus like an electrode to her forehead and held the other end to his own. She noticed for the first time that his hands were four-fingered. She heard in her brain a weird buzzing which began to shape itself into sounds that she could not recognize as words until after an interval. Presently she surmised that the sounds were a telepathic attempt at translation into English from a radically different tongue, in which many letters were hissed rather than spoken. Certain words were well-nigh unpronounceable by the human mouth-structure.

  Mildred made out: “To temple you must go where waits Rasasfa… to sacrifice other person not yourself. Will result for us much benefit… much learning.”

  The sounds changed, becoming more rapid and less distinct, with a tone of stern command. Perhaps a hypnotic suggestion was being administered. At any rate she could not remember its nature or import when the being withdrew the instrument.

  Her captors drew her upright. Their clammy touch made her shudder. Mildred’s arms were supported while a reptile mask, not blue but whitish, was fastened over her face. She became aware for the first time that she had been quite naked, when a short pale dress was draped around her. Then they led her from the room through an open doorway and up several flights of coiling stairs and along endless dim corridors.

  Somewhere the hilt of a stained, blackish, upward-pointing knife was placed in her hand, and her fingers were clasped tightly around it by cold reptile pressure. She could not recall why, or for what purpose, she was to use it. But a strong sense of predestination was upon her, and a feeling that she would be enlightened in due time.

  Light opened before her at a turn in the corridor. She was led through a high broad doorway into a vast edifice where a reptile being, taller than any she had yet seen, stood before an open alcove which gave forth a golden glimmering. The alcove’s entrance looked like a huge broad keyhole. The being held in his hand a sickle-butted dart. The walls of the alcove behind him seemed inlaid with oblique oblongs of yellow mosaic, and the floor was partly littered with unnamable objects.