The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith

by Clark Ashton Smith

  Every so often he connected and slugged me dizzy. Then I ducked him, and began bicycling, but there was nowhere to go. I saw a small flash of daylight, overhead. There was an opening I’d naturally not seen when Emily took me down to the pit by night. I began to get the picture now. Some girl was leading the yokels along the cliff, and they’d stumble through and down into this stinking cave.

  I yelled at him, and pointed, but he wouldn’t listen. He bored in toward the sound. There was a spattering of glass. He tripped on the lantern. Just then I got in a good wallop.

  That, and the damp paving did it. There was a thump, and he stopped yelling. Then I heard the soggy splash.

  I struck a match. I was shaking all over, I was ready to park my fritters. Then a woman screeched, “So you did tell him, so you did drive him mad, ohhh—”

  By the light of the match I saw it was Emily. She had a pistol in one hand, and my flashlight in the other.

  “Go down after him! Go down and tell him the villagers are going to finish the blonde witch—he was mine, he would have been—I belonged here, she didn’t—go—go or I’ll shoot you—”

  Emily must have heard me yelling at Treganneth. She knew I had spilled the beans; that if I got loose, she was on the spot.

  The light blazed full in my eyes. I backed up a step. She laughed. The back of my legs was against the coping. I couldn’t see the gun, I couldn’t see a thing. I went wild like everyone else, and made a dive to catch her around the knees.

  She cut loose with the pistol, and she missed. Another shot, just as I stumbled and did get her about the knees. Before I could grab the gun, we toppled in a heap.

  Behind me, a woman screamed; a woman with a lamp. The lamp shattered on the stones, and the flashlight rolled clear. There was a tangle of legs and feet, and I couldn’t get up. Two dames were mixing it.

  One had bare legs. I tangled with a blanket shed in the show. The bare legs and the silk legs stumbled clear of me, and the flashlight, though I could see a white shape in the indirect glow. Diane and Emily toppled to the coping.

  “Hold it!” I yelled, and kicked clear of the blanket.

  I lunged, but I didn’t grab Diane in time. Emily went over the side. There wasn’t a thump this time; just a scream, the most horrible thing I’d ever heard. I pulled Diane away from the coping.

  She was hysterical, and couldn’t say anything. I threw the blanket around her, and reached for the flashlight lying on the floor. The switch lock disengaged, and I was shaking too much to make it stick again. Diane was saying, “Something happened to the lock, the door opened by itself. I slipped out to steal some of her clothes, and I saw her sneaking down, with a gun. So I followed her.”

  Then she hung on tight, and asked me what had happened. We were too shaky to crawl up the stairs. No sound came up from the pit.

  I said we were too weak to move.

  That’s what I thought until a gleaming grey haze came up out of the dark: that dragon head with the long spike in the forehead, those terrific coils. Treganneth was kicking and threshing in one loop of the monster; there were other men, in other coils. But that was pretty compared to what was on the unicorn spike.

  Emily was speared clean through. The gleaming horn came out just below her breast. She was clawing, but there was no sound; just that apparition rising, with her draped over its forehead. Only the spike kept her from slipping off. But where the point touched the ceiling of the vault, the living smoke began to fade.

  I said we were too sick to move. But when that thing began to thin out, I let out a yell and headed up the stairs, Diane and blanket included. Lucky she was hanging on. I wasn’t going back for anything.

  I stumbled into daylight. Diane slid from my arms, and steadied herself against my shoulder. We both shook our heads. “Baby, that didn’t happen. Don’t ever tell anyone it did. Come on—”

  I picked the lock of Emily’s room, and said, “Get some clothes, I’ll hunt the car keys.”

  Diane grabbed my hand. “You stay right here. Even if you turned your back, I’d not be alone in this awful place.”

  I turned my back all right. The joke was on Diane. She was too shaken to notice the mirror angle. But that’s not the payoff; that came after I’d bundled Diane into the old car and told the cops all about everything except the phantom monster.

  The whole village was turned inside out. From that, and from searching the castle, especially Emily’s room, we got the story. Treganneth’s brother and Emily’s husband had quarreled about her, and the two had finished each other. There were letters from yokels, promising they’d kill her if she quit them to team up with the new lord. As I said, women were scarce, and she’d been a widow for seven years, and the village boys liked her.

  So she started getting rid of her lovers, powdering her hair gilt, to make Diane, the witch in the tower, take the rap, when the lid blew off. With enough disappearances, something was bound to happen.

  We had this all doped out when we went down into that vault. Then we looked over the edge. And that, I say, was the payoff.

  There was a skeleton, a monstrous thing, in the pit. Some of the bones were joined, though most were scattered on a ledge, or sunk in the slime. When the tide was low, the dead reeked in the mud; at high tide, the water blanketed them. Now it was low tide, and awful.

  Treganneth was there, and so were the yokels. There were old skeletons, Treganneth’s brother and Polgate, the steward who had kicked about a lord playing with Emily.

  And Emily was there, speared on the horn that reached from the skull of the monoceros. There had been such a creature. That skull was what kept me from saying I must have been hypnotized.

  I had seen the ghost of a monster god that men had worshipped before King Arthur came to town; worshipped by Druids, worshipped by the ancestors of a woman who played for a lord, and lost. Now she belonged to a dead god. If it hadn’t been for that skull, I’d never have known that I had seen the ghost of a god, of his victims.

  Maybe that’s why Diane and I stuck together, when it was all over. It’s kind of fun telling each other we did see it, that we weren’t wacky.

  THE DEAD WILL CUCKOLD YOU

  A Drama in Six Scenes

  PERSONAE

  Smaragad, King of Yoros

  Queen Somelis

  Galeor, a wandering poet and lute-player, guest of Smaragad

  Natanasna, a necromancer

  Baltea, tiring-woman to Somelis

  Kalguth, Natanasna’s negro assistant

  Sargo, the King’s treasurer

  Boranga, captain of the King’s guards

  Waiting-women, court-ladies, courtiers, guards and chamberlains.

  THE SCENE:

  Faraad, capital of Yoros, in Zothique

  SCENE I

  A large chamber in the Queen’s suite, in the palace of Smaragad. Somelis sits on a high throne-like chair. Galeor stands before her, holding a lute. Baltea and several other women are seated on divans, at a distance. Two black chamberlains stand in attendance at the open door.

  Galeor (playing on his lute and singing):

  Make haste, and tarry not, O ardent youth,

  To find upon the night,

  Outlined in fuming fire,

  The footsteps of the goddess Ililot.

  Her mouth and eyes make fair the bourns of sleep,

  Between her brows a moon

  Is seen. A magic lute

  Foretells her with wild music everywhere.

  Her opened arms, which are the ivory gates

  Of some lost land of lote

  Wherefrom charmed attars flow,

  Will close upon you ’neath the crimson star.

  Somelis: I like the song. Tell me, why do you sing

  So much of Ililot?

  Galeor:

  She is the goddess

  Whom all men worship in the myrrh-sweet land

  Where I was born. Do men in Yoros not

  Adore her also? She is soft and kind,

  Ca
ring alone for love and lovers’ joy.

  Somelis:

  She is a darker goddess here, where blood

  Mingles too often with delight’s warm foam….

  But tell me more of that far land wherein

  A gentler worship lingers.

  Galeor:

  By a sea

  Of changing damaskeen it lies, and has

  Bowers of cedar hollowed for love’s bed

  And plighted with a vine vermilion-flowered.

  There are moss-grown paths where roam white-fleecèd goats;

  And sard-thick beaches lead to caves in which

  The ebbing surge has left encrimsoned shells

  Like lips by passion parted. From small havens

  The fishers slant their tall, dulse-brown lateens

  To island-eyries of the shrill sea-hawk;

  And when with beaks low-dipping they return

  Out of the sunset, fires are lit from beams

  And spars of broken galleys on the sand,

  Around whose nacreous flames the women dance

  A morris old as ocean.

  Somelis:

  Would I had

  Been born in such a land, and not in Yoros.

  Galeor:

  I wish that I might walk with you at evening

  Beside the waters veined with languid foam,

  And see Canopus kindle on cypressed crags

  Like a far pharos.

  Somelis:

  Be you more tacit: there are ears

  That listen, and mouths that babble amid these halls.

  Smaragad is a jealous king—(She breaks off, for at this moment King Smaragad enters the room.)

  Smaragad:

  This is a pretty scene. Galeor, you seem at home

  In ladies’ chambers. I am told you entertain

  Somelis more than could a dull sad king

  Grown old too soon with onerous royalty.

  Galeor:

  I would please, with my poor songs and sorry lute,

  Both of your Majesties.

  Smaragad:

  Indeed, you sing

  Right sweetly, as does the simorgh when it mates.

  You have a voice to melt a woman’s vitals

  And make them run to passion’s turgid sluice.

  How long have you been here?

  Galeor:

  A month.

  Smaragad:

  It has been

  A summer moon full-digited. How many

  Of my hot court-ladies have you already bedded?

  Or should I ask how many have bedded you?

  Galeor:

  None, and I swear it by the crescent horns

  Of Ililot herself, who fosters love

  And swells the pulse of lovers.

  Smaragad:

  By my troth,

  I would confirm you in such continence,

  It is rare in Yoros. Even I when young

  Delved deep in whoring and adultery. (Turning to the queen)

  Somelis, have you wine? I would we drank

  To a chastity so rathe and admirable

  In one whose years can hardly have chastened him.

  (The queen indicates a silver ewer standing on a taboret together with goblets of the same metal. Smaragad turns his back to the others and pours wine into three goblets, opening, as if casually, the palm of his free hand over one of them. This he gives to Galeor. He serves another to the queen, and raises the third to his lips.)

  See, I have served you with my royal hand,

  Doing you honor, and we all must drink

  To Galeor that he persevere in virtue,

  And he must drink with us. (He drinks deeply. The queen raises her goblet to her lips but barely tastes it. Galeor lifts the wine, then pauses, looking into it.)

  Galeor:

  How strangely it foams.

  Smaragad: Indeed, such bubbles seem

  To rise as if from lips of a drowning man

  In some dark purple sea.

  Somelis:

  Your humor is strange,

  Nor are there bubbles in the cup you gave me.

  Smaragad:

  Perhaps it was poured more slowly. (To Galeor)

  Drink the wine,

  It is old and cordial, made by men long dead.

  (The poet still hesitates, then empties his goblet at one draught.)

  How does it taste to you?

  Galeor:

  It tastes as I have thought that love might taste,

  Sweet on the lips, and bitter in the throat. (He reels, then sinks to his knees, still clutching the empty goblet.)

  You have poisoned me, who never wronged you. Why

  Have you done it?

  Smaragad:

  That you may never wrong me. You have drunk

  A vintage that will quench all mortal thirst.

  You will not look on queens nor they on you

  When the thick maggots gather in your eyes,

  And issue in lieu of love-songs from your lips,

  And geld you by slow inches.

  Somelis (descending from her seat and coming forward):

  Smaragad,

  This deed will reek through Yoros and be blazed

  Beyond the murky marches of the damned. (She sinks to her knees beside Galeor, now prostrate on the floor and dying slowly. Tears fall from her eyes as she lays her hand on Galeor’s brow.)

  Smaragad:

  Was he so much to you? Almost I have a mind

  That the bowstring should straiten your soft throat,

  But no, you are too beautiful. Go quickly,

  And keep to your bed-chamber till I come.

  Somelis: I shall abhor you, and my burning heart

  Consume with hate till only meatless cinders

  Remain to guest the mausolean maggots. (Exit Somelis, followed by Baltea and the other women. The two chamberlains remain.)

  Smaragad (beckoning to one of the chamberlains):

  Go call the sextons. I would have them drag

  This carcass out and bury it privily. (Exit the chamberlain. The king turns to Galeor, who still lives.)

  Think on your continence eternalized:

  You had not fleshed as yet your rash desire,

  And now you never will.

  Galeor (in a faint but audible voice):

  I would pity you,

  But there is no time for pity. In your heart

  You bear the hells that I have never known,

  To which the few brief pangs I suffer

  Are less than the wasp-stings of an afternoon

  Sweet with the season’s final fruit.

  (Curtain)

  SCENE II

  The king’s audience hall. Smaragad sits on a double-daised throne, a guard bearing a trident standing at each hand. Guards are posted at each of the four entrances. A few women and chamberlains pass through the hall on errands. Sargo, the royal treasurer, stands in one corner. Baltea, passing by, pauses to chat with him.

  Baltea:

  Why sits the king in audience today?

  Is it some matter touching on the state?

  Still thunder loads his brow, and pard-like wrath

  Waits leashed in his demeanor.

  Sargo:

  ’Tis a wizard,

  One Natanasna, whom he summons up

  For practice of nefandous necromancy.

  Baltea:

  I’ve heard of him. Do you know him? What’s he like?

  Sargo:

  I cannot wholly tell you. It’s no theme

  For a morning’s tattle.

  Baltea:

  You make me curious.

  Sargo:

  Well,

  I’ll tell you this much. Some believe he is

  A cambion, devil-sired though woman-whelped.

  He is bold in every turpitude, as those

  Hell-born are prone to be. His lineage

  Leads him to paths forbanned and pits abhorred,

  And traffic in stark nadir inf
amies

  Not plumbed by common mages.

  Baltea:

  Is that all?

  Sargo:

  Such beings have a smell by which to know them,

  As olden tomes attest. This Natanasna

  Stinks like a witch’s after-birth, and evil

  Exhales from him, lethal as that contagion

  Which mounts from corpses mottled by the plague.

  Baltea:

  Well, that’s enough to tell me, for I never

  Have liked ill-smelling men.

  (Enter Natanasna through the front portals. He strides forward, bearing a staff on which he does not lean, and stands before Smaragad.)

  Sargo:

  I must go now.

  Baltea:

  And I’ll not linger, for the wind comes up

  From an ill quarter. (Exeunt Sargo and Baltea, in different directions.)

  Natanasna (without kneeling or even bowing):

  You have summoned me?

  Smaragad:

  Yes. I am told you practice arts forbid

  And hold an interdicted commerce, calling

  Ill demons and the dead to do you service.

  Are these things true?

  Natanasna:

  It is true that I can call

  Both lich and ka, though not the soul, which roams

  In regions past my scope, and can constrain

  The genii of the several elements

  To toil my mandate.

  Smaragad:

  What! you dare avow it—

  The thing both men and gods abominate?

  Do you not know the ancient penalties

  Decreed in Yoros for these crimes abhorred?—

  The cauldron of asphaltum boiling-hot

  To bathe men’s feet, and the nail-studded rack