The End of the Story

by Clark Ashton Smith

  To their surprise, they found nothing in the bright expanse below that in any manner suggested the work of men or living beings. They had looked for towering cities of exotic aerial architecture, for broad thoroughfares and canals and geometrically measured areas of agricultural fields. Instead, there was only a primordial landscape of mountains, marshes, forests, oceans, rivers, and lakes.

  At length they made up their minds to descend. Though they were old, old men, with five-foot ermine beards, they brought the moon-shaped vessel down with all the skill of which they would have been capable in their prime; and opening the door that had been sealed for decades, they emerged in turn—Hotar preceding Evidon, since he was a little the elder.

  Their first impressions were of a torrid heat, of dazzling color and overwhelming perfume. There seemed to be a million odors in the heavy, strange, unstirring air—odors that were almost visible in the form of wreathing vapors—perfumes that were like elixirs and opiates, that conferred at the same time a blissful drowsiness and a divine exhilaration. Then they saw that there were flowers everywhere—that they had descended in a wilderness of blossoms. They were all of unearthly forms, of supermundane size

  and beauty and variety, with scrolls and volutes of petals many-hued, that seemed to curl and twist with a more than vegetable animation or sentiency. They grew from a ground that their overlapping stems and calyxes had utterly concealed; they hung from the boles and fronds of palm-like trees they had mantled beyond recognition; they thronged the water of still pools; they poised on the jungle-tops like living creatures winged for flight to the perfume-drunken heavens. And even as the brothers watched, the flowers grew and faded with a thaumaturgic swiftness, they fell and replaced each other as if by some legerdemain of natural law.

  Hotar and Evidon were delighted, they called out to each other like children, they pointed at each new floral marvel that was more exquisite and curious than the rest; and they wondered at the speed of their miraculous growth and decay. And they laughed at the unexampled bizarrerie of the sight, when they perceived certain animals new to zoology, who were trotting about on more than the usual number of legs, with orchidaceous blossoms springing from their rumps.

  They forgot their long voyage through space, they forgot there had ever been a planet called the earth and an isle named Poseidonis, they forgot their lore and their wisdom, as they roamed through the flowers of Sfanomoë. The exotic air and its odors mounted to their heads like a mighty wine; and the clouds of golden and snowy pollen which fell upon them from the arching arbors were potent as some fantastic drug. It pleased them that their white beards and violet tunics should be powdered with this pollen and with the floating spores of plants that were alien to all terrene botany.

  Suddenly Hotar cried out with a new wonder, and laughed with a more boisterous mirth than before. He had seen that an oddly folded leaf was starting from the back of his shrunken right hand. The leaf unfurled as it grew, it disclosed a flower-bud; and lo! the bud opened and became a triple-chaliced blossom of unearthly hues, adding a rich perfume to the swooning air. Then, on his left hand, another blossom appeared in like manner; and then leaves and petals were burgeoning from his wrinkled face and brow, were growing in successive tiers from his limbs and body, were mingling their hair-like tendrils and tongue-shaped pistils with his beard. He felt no pain, only an infantile surprise and bewilderment as he watched them.

  Now from the hands and limbs of Evidon, the blossoms also began to spring. And soon the two old men had ceased to wear a human semblance, and were hardly to be distinguished from the garland-laden trees about them. And they died with no agony, as if they were already part of the teeming floral life of Sfanomoë, with such perceptions and sensations as were appropriate to their new mode of existence. And before long their metamorphosis was complete, and every fiber of their bodies had undergone a dissolution into flowers. And the vessel in which they had made their voyage was embowered from sight in an ever-climbing mass of plants and blossoms.

  Such was the fate of Hotar and Evidon, the last of the Atlanteans, and the first (if not also the last) of human visitors to Sfanomoë.

  APPENDIX ONE:

  STORY NOTES

  Abbreviations Used:

  AWD August W. Derleth (1909-1971), Wisconsin novelist, Weird Tales author, and founder of Arkham House.

  AY The Abominations of Yondo (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1960).

  BB The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1979).

  BL Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley.

  CAS Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961).

  DAW Donald A. Wandrei (1908-1937), poet, Weird Tales writer and co-founder of Arkham House.

  EOD Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bio-Bibliography by Donald Sidney-Fryer et al. (West Kingston, RI: Donald M. Grant, 1978).

  FW Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940), editor of Weird Tales from 1924 to 1939.

  GL Genius Loci and Other Tales (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1948).

  HPL Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), informal leader of a circle of writers for Weird Tales and related magazines, and probably the leading exponent of weird fiction in the 20th Century.

  JHL Clark Ashton Smith Papers and H. P. Lovecraft Collection, John Hay Library, Brown University.

  LL Letters to H. P. Lovecraft. ed. Steve Behrends (West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1987).

  LW Lost Worlds (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1944).

  MHS Donald Wandrei Papers, Minnesota Historical Society.

  OD Other Dimensions (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1970).

  OST Out of Space and Time (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1942).

  PD Planets and Dimensions: Collected Essays. ed. Charles K. Wolfe

  (Baltimore: Mirage Press, 1973).

  PP Poems in Prose (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1965).

  RAA Rendezvous in Averoigne (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1988).

  RHB Robert H. Barlow (1918-1951), correspondent and collector of manuscripts of CAS, HPL, and other WT writers.

  RW Red World of Polaris. ed. Ronald S. Hilger and Scott Connors (San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2003).

  SHSW August Derleth Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin Library.

  SL Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith. ed. David E. Schultz and Scott Connors (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 2003).

  SS Strange Shadows: The Uncollected Fiction and Essays of Clark Ashton Smith. ed. Steve Behrends (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989).

  ST Strange Tales, a pulp edited by Harry Bates in competition with WT.

  SU The Shadow of the Unattained: The Letters of George Sterling and Clark Ashton Smith. ed. David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2005).

  TSS Tales of Science and Sorcery (Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1964).

  WS Wonder Stories, a pulp published by Hugo Gernsback and edited first by David Lasser and then Charles D. Hornig.

  WT Weird Tales, Smith’s primary market for fiction, edited by FW (1924-1940) and later Dorothy McIlwraith (1940-1954).

  The Abominations of Yondo

  The typescript of “The Abominations of Yondo” belonging to the L. Tom Perry Special Collections of the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University is dated February 5, 1925 (Roy A. Squires, the Glendale, California bookman who served as CAS’ literary executor for several years, offered for sale in his Catalog 6 a holograph manuscript given to R. H. Barlow that is dated February 3). It represents Smith’s first full-fledged effort in the realm of the weird tale, although the prose poems included in his 1922 collection Ebony and Crystal give testimony to the hold that the macabre exerted upon his imagination. Years later CAS would tell Samuel J. Sackett that he wrote both “Yondo” and “Sadastor” at the incitement of his correspondent H. P. Lovecraft1. At Smith’s request, HPL enthusiastically submitted it to Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright even though “it is obvious that he wants nothing purely fantastic, though I have hopes that
the sheer stylistic merit of ‘Yondo’ may help to ‘land’ it.”2 Wright returned it, describing it as “a fascinating bit, but a prose poem rather than a weird narrative.”3

  Smith’s poetic mentor, George Sterling, called the story “a magnificent exercise in imagination” but adding “I don’t advise you to devote much time to such things, however: the mind of man begins to smile at anything that is inherently absurd and outdated. Your faculties are far too fine to be wasted on

  such vacua.”4 After its rejection by WT, CAS asked Sterling to see if he could place it with the Overland Monthly, to which he contributed a regular column, “Rhymes and Reactions.” Sterling assented, although he called CAS “truly naive in imagining that you could have the ‘Yondo’ poem accepted by any magazine that pays! A few that don’t pay might take it.” He continued in this vein:

  All highbrows think the “Yondo” material outworn and childish. The daemonic is done for, for the present, so far as our contemporaries go, and imagination must seek other fields. You have squeezed every drop from the weird (and what drops!) and should touch on it only infrequently, as I on the stars. The swine don’t want pearls: they want corn; and it is foolish to hope to change their tastes.5

  Smith’s response showed that he felt confident enough to disagree with his mentor when he felt the need:

  I can’t agree with the high-brows that the “weird” is dead—either in poetry or anywhere else. They’re all suffering from mechanized imaginations. But, I, for one, refuse to submit to the arid, earth-bound spirit of the time; and I think there is sure to be a romantic revival sooner or later—a revolt against mechanization and over-socialization, etc. If there isn’t—then I hope to hell my next incarnation will be in some happier and freer planet. Neither the ethics or the aesthetics of the ant-hill have any attraction for me.6

  The story did appear in the April 1926 issue of the Overland Monthly, and was selected as the title story for Smith’s fourth story collection from Arkham House. Sterling told CAS that it “awoke many protests from the mentally infirm, I’m told,”7 presumably by editor B. Virginia Lee. This delighted Smith, who felt that “‘Yondo’ must have had a kick in it, after all, if it aroused so many protests.”8 He would enjoy telling this story to his friends for many years.

  1. CAS, letter to S. J. Sackett, June 30, 1949 (SL 360).

  2. HPL, letter to CAS, October 9, 1925 (Arkham House transcripts).

  3. FW, letter to CAS, October 21, 1925 (ms., JHL).

  4. George Sterling, letter to CAS, June 18, 1925 (SU 252).

  5. George Sterling, letter to CAS, November 28, 1925 (SU 263).

  6. CAS, letter to George Sterling, December 1, 1925 (SL 84, SU 264).

  7. George Sterling, letter to CAS, April 18, 1926 (SU 271).

  8. CAS, letter to George Sterling, May 8, 1926 (SL 85, SU 272).

  Sadastor

  The only known surviving manuscript of “Sadastor” is a holographic draft at JHL, which is undated. CAS mentions not having completed it as of March 20, 1925,1 then we hear no more of it until Lovecraft congratulates CAS for the tale’s completion and acceptance by WT, which published it in the July 1930 issue.2 It is possible that Smith put the story aside as a result of the disagreement with George Sterling over “The Abominations of Yondo,” only to complete it at a later date. This hypothesis is supported by Smith’s own log of “Completed Stories,” which lists “Sadastor” as its first entry, but omits “The Ninth Skeleton,” discussed below, and by remarks made to Donald Wandrei.3 It was included in OST and PP. A copy of OST corrected by CAS was compared with the manuscript to clarify any errors.

  1. CAS, letter to HPL, March 20, 1925 (SL 76).

  2. HPL, letter to CAS, December 8, 1928 (ms, JHL).

  3. Weird Tales has just accepted a prose-fantasy entitled ‘Sadastor,’ which was one of the odds-and-ends begun years ago and finished recently.” CAS to DAW, November 26, 1928 (ms, MHS).

  The Ninth Skeleton

  In July 1927 CAS went on a camping trip into the Sierra Nevada mountains around Donner Lake with his friends, Genevieve K. Sully and her daughters Helen and Marion. It was on this trip that Smith’s imagination was inflamed by the “foreboding and grotesque landscape”1 and the strange rock formations around Crater Lake. Mrs. Sully had already decided to use this trip as an opportunity to take CAS “to task for idleness,” encouraging him to begin writing short stories for magazines such as WT, to which task he made his pledge. He wrote Lovecraft that “I have some ideas for weird stories, and will try to work them out at the first opportunity. I think of utilizing the local milieu—one of my conceptions concerns a man who takes a stroll on Boulder Ridge, the long, rambling volcanic moraine on which I live, and suddenly finds that he has lost his way, and is wandering in a strange nightmare country, that affords all manner of discomforting and disagreeable scenes and incidents.”3 The only existing manuscript is an undated holograph draft. Steve Behrends4 dates the tale to after April 1928 but before August of that same year, since FW accepted it and published it in the September 1928 issue of WT. HPL wrote CAS that “Your ‘Ninth Skeleton” pleased me tremendously, & was undoubtedly the finest piece by far in the recent Weird Tales. It has a pervasive, haunting atmosphere, & all the magic & colouring of authentic dream.”5 “The Ninth Skeleton” was included in GL, CAS’s third Arkham House collection. This text is based upon GL, with the WT and holograph draft versions being closely consulted to correct any errors.

  1. Genevieve K. Sully, Letter in EOD p. 190.

  2. CAS, letter to HPL, c. January 27, 1931 (SL 145, LL 25).

  3. CAS, letter to HPL, [March 20, 1928] (LL 1).

  4. Steve Behrends, “An Annotated Chronology of Smith’s Fiction.” Crypt of Cthulhu No. 26 (Hallowmas 1984): 17. Rpt. in The Freedom of Fantastic Things, ed. Scott Connors (Hippocampus Press, 2006, 338-345).

  5. HPL, letter to CAS, August 31 [1928] (Arkham House transcripts).

  The Last Incantation

  This story was completed on September 23, 1929, and was accepted by FW on October 5, 1929; Smith was to receive fifteen dollars upon publication.1 It was published in WT for June 1930, and was included in LW. He described the story to Donald Wandrei thus: “My main intention and endeavour, just now, is the writing of a few short stories, in a weird, fantastic vein. One, ‘The Last Incantation of Malygris,’ which I am just beginning, deals with an old sorcerer who tries to evoke the dead sweetheart of his youth, with disastrous results.”2 A typescript presented to Genevieve K. Sully was used to establish the text.

  1. FW, letter to CAS, October 15, 1929 (ms, JHL).

  2. CAS, letter to DAW, August 26, 1928 (ms, MHS).

  The End of the Story

  The surviving holograph manuscript deposited at JHL is dated October 1, 1929. FW snapped the story up, offering Smith fifty dollars upon publication.1 It appeared in the May 1930 of WT, and was voted the best story in the issue by the readers. It was included in OST, which was originally to have been entitled The End of the Story and Other Tales. A copy of OST corrected by CAS was consulted along with the holograph manuscript in determining the text.

  1. FW, letter to CAS, October 18, 1929 (private collection).

  The Phantoms of the Fire

  The typescript at JHL is dated October 7, 1929. Smith received twenty dollars for it when it appeared in the September 1930 issue of WT.1It was later included in GL. Smith told Lovecraft that the story was “no favorite with me—I prefer nearly all my other tales.”2 HPL said of the tale “I rather like local colour myself, & think it often adds substance & verisimilitude to plots which would seem very thin & unconvincing without it.”3 As a resident of rural northern California, Smith was intimately familiar with the dangers posed by brush fires; he describes in vivid detail one such blaze in a letter to Mrs. Sully dated July 19, 1931(SL 155-157).

  1. WT, letter to CAS, July 29, 1930 (ms, JHL).

  2. CAS, letter to HPL, August 22, 1930 (SL 117, LL 10).

  3. HPL, letter to CAS, October 29
, 1929 (Arkham House transcripts).

  A Night in Malnéant

  “A Night in Malnéant” was completed on October 15, 1929, according to one of two typescripts at JHL (one in the CAS papers, and the other the original manuscript presented to HPL in the Lovecraft Collection.) FW rejected it, stating that while “I was rather charmed by this story… the plot thread is too slight and I fear that it would not go over with our readers. I may underestimate the artistic appreciation of our readers, but I think not.”1 Writing several years later of this rejection, CAS quoted Wright’s remarks to Virgil Finlay, adding that “Possibly [FW] is right in this. I doubt if any of my work will ever have a wide public appeal, since the ideation and esthetics of my tales and poems are too remote from the psychology of the average reader. It is reassuring, however, that my work should appeal so strongly to a few.”2 CAS revised the story “which I lightened of several paragraphs and sentences which really contributed nothing to the story’s development,”3 but to no avail. It would finally appear in an edited form in the September 1939 issue of WT, in which form it was reprinted in OST. Before that appearance, though, CAS submitted it to other magazines such as Trend4 before selecting it for inclusion in his self-published collection The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies. He describes the story in an advertising flyer for this as “The tale of a bereaved lover who sought oblivion in far wanderings, but found the phantom of his dead love awaiting him in a spectral city.” CAS presented the original typescript to HPL, who wrote him that “It has the true dream-quality in a phenomenally great degree, & seems full of the subtle Poe-Dunsany element which I vainly seek in most weird writing.”5 CAS ranked the story as his third favorite among those included in the pamphlet,6 and would include it in a proposed paperback collection of his stories, Far From Time, that he unsuccessfully marketed in the fifties. The text used follows The Double Shadow and the typescript given to HPL.