Showing posts with label pulp fantasy library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pulp fantasy library. Show all posts

Monday, April 4, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Doom That Came to Sarnath

The early part of H.P. Lovectaft's literary career is marked by the influence of the Anglo-Irish author, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany, better known to posterity simply as Lord Dunsany. Between 1905 and 1919, Dunsany wrote numerous short stories that are set in a fictional world, Pegāna, with its own imaginary history and geography. These stories laid much of the groundwork for the evolution of the nascent genre of fantasy into what we know today (without which the hobby of roleplaying would likely not have been possible). 

Nowadays, Lovecraft's Dunsanian period tends to be overlooked, particularly by those enamored of his later, more famous tales of the "Cthulhu Mythos" (itself a term never employed by HPL himself). To the extent that these earlier stories are remembered, they're often mistakenly taken to be part of his "Dream Cycle." To some extent, Lovecraft himself is to blame for this misapprehension, because of the allusions and references he makes to his Dunsanian tales in works like The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Likewise, Lovecraft's admirers have, as ardent fans so often do, attempted to impose upon his canon clear divisions whereby a work belongs in one category or another, despite the evidence that Lovecraft himself was far less rigid in his own thinking.

"The Doom That Came to Sarnath" is a good example of this phenomenon. Originally published in the June 1920 issue of the amateur fiction periodical, The Scot, the story was widely reprinted after Lovecraft's death, starting with the June 1938 issue of Weird Tales. Since I was unable to find an image of the issue of The Scot in which it premiered to accompany this post, I opted instead for the terrific cover of the 1971 Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, painted by Gervasio Gallardo. My own introduction to the story came in the 1982 Del Rey collection of the same name with a cover by Michael Whelan, but I think I like the Gallardo version better.

The story begins in a way that makes clear Lovecraft's intentions:
There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more.

As I read it, "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" is a myth or legend coming down to us from the distant past, as Lovecraft implies immediately thereafter:

It is told that in the immemorial years when the world was young, before ever the men of Sarnath came to the land of Mnar, another city stood beside the lake; the grey stone city of Ib, which was old as the lake itself, and peopled with beings not pleasing to behold. 

The story is filled with phrases like "when the world was young" that suggest to me at least that the reader isn't to understand the tale he tells as taking place in an imaginary or dream land but instead in the ancient and forgotten past of our own world, though, as we shall soon see, the matter is not cut and dried. Regardless, Lovecraft establishes that the beings of Ib were "in hue as green as the lake and the mists that rise above it" and "they had bulging eyes, pouting, flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice." One of the reasons I chose the cover above is because it features Gallardo's interpretation of what the beings of Ib looked like. 

In time, men to the land of Mnar and founded the city of Sarnath. They marveled at the sight of the beings Ib.

But with their marvelling was mixed hate, for they thought it not meet that beings of such aspect should walk about the world of men at dusk. Nor did they like the strange sculptures upon the grey monoliths of Ib, for those sculptures were terrible with great antiquity. Why the beings and the sculptures lingered so late in the world, even until the coming of men, none can tell; unless it was because the land of Mnar is very still, and remote from most other lands both of waking and of dream.

The hatred of the men of Sarnath grew and, in time, resulted in a war in which all of the beings of Ib were slain and their "queer bodies [pushed] into the lake with long spears, because they did not wish to touch them." The men of Sarnath likewise toppled the monoliths of Ib and cast them into the lake. The only evidence of Ib the men kept was

the sea-green stone idol chiselled in the likeness of Bokrug, the water-lizard. This the young warriors took back with them to Sarnath as a symbol of conquest over the old gods and beings of Ib, and a sign of leadership in Mnar.

The men placed the idol in one of their own temples, but, on the following night, 

a terrible thing must have happened, for weird lights were seen over the lake, and in the morning the people found the idol gone, and the high-priest Taran-Ish lying dead, as from some fear unspeakable. And before he died, Taran-Ish had scrawled upon the altar of chrysolite with coarse shaky strokes the sign of DOOM.

The story's titular doom does not come quickly and Lovecraft spends the remainder of the story describing the next thousand years of Sarnath's history, as it grows in power – and pride – within the land of Mnar, eventually becoming the capital of a mighty empire founded on hate and greed. Lovecraft presents these facts in a way that seemingly implies admiration of Sarnath and its glory, but it soon becomes clear that this is a mask for condemnation of its excesses and, by the end, Sarnath and its people pay the price for their past sins.

To call "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" a morality tale is probably simplistic. At the same time, Lovecraft is not at all subtle in his connecting the destruction of Ib with the later doom that befalls Sarnath. In any case, the story is luxuriously written, redolent with adjective-laden description that reminds a bit of Clark Ashton Smith, though utterly lacking in his black humor. Its almost Biblical rhythms and cadences practically demand that the story be read aloud. In the grand scheme of things, it's one of Lovecraft's minor works but it's nevertheless a successful one for which I have a strange affection.

Monday, March 28, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Pool of the Black One

If much of contemporary discussion of pulp fantasy literature is to be believed, there are only two kinds of these tales: ground-breaking stories that transcend their origins or worthless hackwork without any enduring value. Now, I have no difficulty in acknowledging the existence of these two categories and could easily cite examples of stories I've read that fall into each of them. For me, the problem lies not so much in the categories themselves as in the seeming inability of some to admit any middle ground between them. As with so many things, there are shades of gray.

I mention this because of the story I wish to bring to your attention today, Robert E. Howard's "The Pool of the Black One," which first appeared in the October 1933 issue of Weird Tales. No one, I think, considers this one of Howard's best Conan yarns, especially when compared to, say, "The Tower of the Elephant," which appeared earlier in the same year. At the same time, comparing "The Pool of the Black One" to Howard's unarguably best efforts is not only unfair but misses a larger point about the purpose of pulp fantasy literature (or any pulp literature, come to think of it), namely, escapism. 

Don't misunderstand me: I'd much rather that every Conan story were "Red Nails" rather than "The Devil in Iron." That this is not the case says little about the quality of "The Devil in Iron" than it does about our own expectation that every pulp fantasy tale be one that we can read again and again, finding something new in it each time. There's nothing wrong with ephemeral, unexceptional stories so long as we find them diverting while we're reading them. Put another way: not every work of literature must have enduring value to be worthy of our time. Sometimes – often even – it's enough that we enjoy it.

"The Pool of the Black One" begins memorably, with Conan climbing onto the deck of a pirate vessel, where the captain's mistress, Sancha, is sunning herself garbed only in a "short silk kirtle [that] veiled little of her voluptuous contours." 

But at that instant a sound reached her ears unlike the creaking of timbers, thrum of cordage and lap of waves. She sat up, her gaze fixed on the rail, over which, to her amazement, a dripping figure clambered. Her dark eyes opened wide, her red lips parted in an O of surprise. The intruder was a stranger to her. Water ran in rivulets from his great shoulders and down his heavy arms. His single garment—a pair of bright crimson silk breeks—was soaking wet, as was his broad gold-buckled girdle and the sheathed sword it supported. As he stood at the rail, the rising sun etched him like a great bronze statue. He ran his fingers through his streaming black mane, and his blue eyes lit as they rested on the girl.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "Whence did you come?"
Say what you will, but Conan can make quite an entrance. His arrival causes quite a stir on the vessel, a pirate ship whose name is the Wastrel we soon learn. Its captain, a Zingaran named Zaporavo, confronts the Cimmerian and asks him first his name and then "how did you get aboard my ship?" Conan replies in a delightfully laconic way, "I swam."

Zaporavo asks Conan,

"Why should I burden myself with every nameless vagabond that the sea casts up?" snarled Zaporavo, his look and manner more insulting than his words.

"A ship can always use another good sailor," answered the other without resentment. Zaporavo scowled, knowing the truth of that assertion. He hesitated, and doing so, lost his ship, his command, his girl, and his life. But of course he could not see into the future, and to him Conan was only another wastrel, cast up, as he put it, by the sea. He did not like the man; yet the fellow had given him no provocation. His manner was not insolent, though rather more confident than Zaporavo liked to see.

"You'll work for your keep," snarled the Hawk. "Get off the poop. And remember, the only law here is my will."

One might uncharitably call "The Pool of the Black One" formulaic. In the span of a couple of pages, Howard tells the reader exactly where he's taking this story. Zaporavo is a dead man walking and soon Conan will not only take his place as captain of this band of pirates but also his woman. Is it a bad story because of this? From a certain high-minded point of view, perhaps it is, but I think this perspective overlooks the pleasure to be found in seeing how a particular instance of a well-worn formula unfolds.

Conan soon wins the respect and admiration of the crew (and Sancha), much to Zaporavo's dismay. 

He mixed with the crew, lived and made merry as they did. He proved himself a skilled sailor, and by far the strongest man any of them had seen. He did the work of three men, and was always first to spring to any heavy or dangerous task. His mates began to rely upon him. He did not quarrel with them, and they were careful not to quarrel with him. He gambled with them, putting up his girdle and sheath for a stake, won their money and weapons, and gave them back with a laugh. The crew instinctively looked toward him as the leader of the forecastle.
In time, the Wastrel drops anchor off a mysterious island, where "the wind brought scents of fresh vegetation and spices." Zaporavo orders everyone ashore, except for Sancha, whom he commands to stay behind. She's understandably angered by this but nevertheless obeys. From her vantage point aboard the ship, she watches the pirates as they climb the trees along the beach and take the fruits from their branches. She also observes Zaporavo head into the jungle alone, followed not long after by Conan. This strange turn of events piques her interest and she decides to swim secretly to the island to find out what these two men are doing away from prying eyes.

Zaporavo, we're told, 

desired to learn if this island were indeed that mentioned in the mysterious Book of Skelos, whereon, nameless sages aver, strange monsters guard crupts filled with hieroglyph-carven gold. Nor, for murky reasons of his own, did he wish to share his knowledge, if it were true, with any one, much less his own crew.
For his part, Conan follows the captain solely for the purpose of killing him without any witnesses, which he succeeds in doing, as Howard already stated he would. Elsewhere, the crew fall fast asleep, seemingly as a result of the golden fruits they've eaten. This enables Sancha to make her way across the beach without anyone seeing her and then into the jungle, where she stumbles upon Zaporavo's dead body with a "gaping wound in his breast." 

The young woman is not shocked to see this and "did not weep or feel any need for weeping." Instead, she looks for Conan, assuming he would be nearby. Instead, she finds someone else.

Unbelieving horror dilated her brown eyes. Her red lips parted to an inarticulate scream. Paralysis gripped her limbs; where she had such desperate need of swift flight, she could not move. She could only shriek wordlessly.
As it turns out, the late Zaporavo was more right about the nature of this island than he would ever know. The remainder of the tale is spent chronicling Conan's exploration of the island and his discovery of just who dwells here and what their plans are for the hapless pirate crew and, of course, the beauteous Sancha.

"The Pool of the Black One" is a by-the-numbers Conan story, written because Howard needed money and he knew the kind of story that would be quickly accepted by Weird Tales. In that sense, it's nothing special and there are few surprises in its narrative. Nevertheless, I found it fun. It's simply a fast-paced, adventuresome yarn in which the reader gets to see Conan be Conan and all that that entails. Sometimes, that's enough.

Monday, March 21, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: Smoke Ghost

Fritz Leiber is an author who gets a lot of love on this blog and deservedly so. His tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are, I think, among only a handful of stories that can credibly be claimed as feeling like playing Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy roleplaying games. This is implicitly acknowledged by Gary Gygax himself, who not only included Leiber in Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, but called him, along with a small number of other authors, one of "the most immediate influences" upon the game. 

Leiber was a very prolific writer and his contributions to the canon of pulp fantasy are not limited to the adventures of the Twain. Indeed, one of his earliest published stories is set in 20th century Chicago and features a subject that some might consider horror. Nevertheless, I think it's an important and compelling tale that takes a staple of the fantastical literary tradition – the ghost story – and updates it for the modern era while also making it genuinely timeless.

"Smoke Ghost" appeared in the October 1941 issue of Unknown Worlds and tells the story of advertising executive Catesby Wran. One day, while dictating to his secretary, he asks the young man a very strange question.

"Have you ever seen a ghost, Miss Millick?" And she had tittered nervously and replied, "When I was a girl there was a thing in white that used out of the closet in the attic bedroom when you slept there, and moan. Of course it was just my imagination. I was frightened of lots of things." And he just said, "I don't mean that traditional kind of ghost. I mean a ghost from the world of today, with the soot of the factories in its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul. The kind that would haunt coal yards and slip around at night through deserted office buildings like this one. A real ghost. Not something out of books."

Miss Millick is confused by Wran's line of questioning, thinking that "he'd never been like this before." Nevertheless, he continued to ponder this topic.

"Have you ever thought what a ghost of our times would look like, Miss Hallick? Just picture it. A smoky composite face with the hungry anxiety of the unemployed, the neurotic restlessness of the person without purpose, the jerky tension of the high-pressure metropolitan worker, the sullen resentment of the striker, the callous viciousness of the strike-breaker, the aggressive whine of panhandler, the inhibited terror of the bombed civilian, and a thousand other twisted emotional patterns. Each overlying and yet blending with the other, like a pile of semi-transparent masks?"

I can't speak for anyone else, but I found this a powerful passage that remained in my mind for some time after reading it. It's little wonder that Miss Millick called it "an awful thing to think of." Undeterred by his discomfort, Wran keeps musing aloud about this topic.

"Yet, that's just what such a ghost or vitalized projection would look like, Miss Millick," he continued, smiling in a tight way. "It would grow out of the real world. It would reflect all the tangled, sordid, vicious things. All the loose ends. And it would be very grimy. I don't think it would seem white or wispy or favor graveyards. It wouldn't moan. But it would mutter unintelligibly, and twitch at your sleeve. Like a sick, surly ape. What would such a thing want from a person, Miss Millick? Sacrifice? Worship? Or just fear? What could you do to stop it from troubling you?"
Wran continues in this vein for some time, adding more and more details to his sketch of what a modern day ghost might be like. Leiber is at the absolute top of his game here. As the details pile up, we're left not just with a frightening picture of a 20th century specter but also of a mind slowly deteriorating under the weight of the terrifying thoughts it bears, the conclusion to them being this:

"It's a rotten world, Miss Millick," said Mr. Wran, talking at the window. "Fit for another morbid growth of superstition. It's time the ghosts, or whatever you call them, took over and began a rule of fear. They'd be no worse than men."
We soon learn that Wran's musings have a cause: he's been seeing a black figure wherever he goes, following him. Wran hopes that the figure is a manifestation of a psychosis, because the alternative – that it is real – is too awful to contemplate. "Good thing I'm seeing the psychiatrist tonight," Wran thinks to himself. Surely, if anyone can help rid him of this dreadful vision, it's Dr. Trevethick – or so he hopes. 

"Smoke Ghost" is not in the public domain, like many of the stories I discuss here, so I can't point readers to a place online where you can read it. The story is, however, included in many anthologies not just those specifically devoted to Fritz Leiber's short fiction. If anything I've written above intrigues you, I highly recommend you make an effort to find the story and read it. It is, in my opinion, one of the best ghost stories I've ever read, one that gets to the heart of why ghosts continue to haunt us, even in this age of materialism, science, and psychology. 

One of the accompanying illustrations by Edd Cartier

Monday, March 7, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: Atlantis: The Antediluvian World

A brief caveat: Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is not a work of fiction – at least not of an intentional kind. At the time it was published (1882), it was presented as speculative archeology, however dubious that claim might have been, even by the standards of its own time. More to the point, its author, Ignatius L. Donnelly, did not believe he was writing fiction but rather that he was advancing "several distinct and novel propositions" regarding "an Atlantic continent … known to the ancient world as Atlantis." He believed this so strongly that he continued to advance his theses for the remainder of his life, writing a sequel in 1883 and inspiring countless other writers in the ensuing decades. 

It's largely on this basis that I'm including it as this week's Pulp Fantasy Library post. Considered purely in terms of its influence on later fiction, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is an important product of human imagination and creativity, easily on par with the avowedly literary efforts of H.P. Lovecraft, or J.R.R. Tolkien. Indeed, if you've ever read a story involving Atlantis, whether it be Clark Ashton Smith's tales of Poseidonis, Robert E. Howard's Kull yarns, or even the adventures of Aquaman, to cite just a few, you owe a debt to Ignatius Donnelly and his obsession with proving that Atlantis was not only real but "the region where man first rose from a state of barbarism to civilization."

Donnelly himself is a fascinating fellow, in the way that only men from the past seem to be. Born in Philadelphia in 1831, he became a lawyer and moved to the Minnesota territory, where he attempted to found a cooperative farm and utopian community with several others. Though the farm failed, leaving him in debt, Donnelly managed to use his rhetorical skills to become Minnesota's second lieutenant governor after statehood. Later, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and to seats in both houses of Minnesota's state legislature. As a politician, he advocated for women's suffrage, a progressive income tax, and an eight-hour workday, among many other causes radical for their time. And, of course, he was also an advocate of the belief that Atlantis "is not a fable, as has been long supposed, but veritable history." Like Whitman, Donnelly contained multitudes.

Atlantis is a lengthy and ponderous book, divided into five parts, each consisting of six or more chapters. The tome begins with a chapter in which Donnelly lays out "the purpose of the book" by asserting the following theses:

1. That there once existed in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, a large island, which was the remnant of an Atlantic continent, and known to the ancient world as Atlantis.

2. That the description of this island given by Plato is not, as has been long supposed, fable, but veritable history.

3. That Atlantis was the region where man first rose from a state of barbarism to civilization.

4. That it became, in the course of ages, a populous and mighty nation, from whose overflowings the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, the Amazon, the Pacific coast of South America, the Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian were populated by civilized nations.

5. That it was the true Antediluvian world; the Garden of Eden; the Gardens of the Hesperides; the Elysian Fields; the Gardens of Alcinous; the Mesomphalos; the Olympos; the Asgard of the traditions of the ancient nations; representing a universal memory of a great land, where early mankind dwelt for ages in peace and happiness.

6. That the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Hindoos, and the Scandinavians were simply the kings, queens, and heroes of Atlantis; and the acts attributed to them in mythology are a confused recollection of real historical events.

7. That the mythology of Egypt and Peru represented the original religion of Atlantis, which was sun-worship.

8. That the oldest colony formed by the Atlanteans was probably in Egypt, whose civilization was a reproduction of that of the Atlantic island.

9. That the implements of the "Bronze Age" of Europe were derived from Atlantis. The Atlanteans were also the first manufacturers of iron.

10. That the Phoenician alphabet, parent of all the European alphabets, was derived from an Atlantis alphabet, which was also conveyed from Atlantis to the Mayas of Central America.

11. That Atlantis was the original seat of the Aryan or Indo-European family of nations, as well as of the Semitic peoples, and possibly also of the Turanian races.

12. That Atlantis perished in a terrible convulsion of nature, in which the whole island sunk into the ocean, with nearly all its inhabitants.

13. That a few persons escaped in ships and on rafts, and, carried to the nations east and west the tidings of the appalling catastrophe, which has survived to our own time in the Flood and Deluge legends of the different nations of the old and new worlds.

To anyone with even the slightest interest in the subject of Atlantis – or the decades of pulp fantasy musings on the subject – none of these propositions is the least bit surprising. At the time, though, they were bold and original, if not at all historically well-founded. Atlantis was a success for Donnelly and its ideas were disseminated widely, so much so that they now form an important substrate of both popular culture and esoteric beliefs. 

Growing up, the mother of two friends of mine, with whom I first began playing RPGs, had an extensive library of books that, at the time, we called "New Age." Among them was a copy of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, alongside the works of authors inspired by it, like Edgar "The Sleep Prophet" Cayce and various Theosophists. I'd sometimes take the books off her shelves and peruse them, looking for interesting sections that might inspire D&D adventures. Even as a kid, I found most them more than a little ridiculous, but Donnelly's book held my attention, perhaps because of its author's self-seriousness and obvious enthusiasm for the "revelations" he is imparting to his readers. It's not difficult to see why it caused a stir in its day or why its central theory, however implausible, continues to maintain a hold over the popular imagination almost a hundred and fifty years later.

Monday, February 28, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: Under the Pyramids

By the time he wrote most of the foundational stories of the Cthulhu Mythos for which he is remembered today, H.P. Lovecraft had already established himself as an important writer within the genre of weird fiction. So well regarded was he that, in early 1924, he was asked by J.C. Henneberger, the owner of Weird Tales magazine, to work as a ghostwriter for the world famous escape artist and illusionist Harry Houdini.

Houdini was a regular contributor in the first year of The Unique Magazine's existence, providing a column ("Ask Houdini"), along several works of short fiction (the latter ghostwritten, perhaps by Walter B. Gibson, creator of The Shadow). Despite this, Weird Tales was in bad financial shape and needed a blockbuster issue to get itself out of debt. Henneberger's plan was to release a special "anniversary issue" in May 1924 that sold for twice the usual cover price but contained "fifty distinct feature novels, short stories, and novelettes," including a lengthy one by Houdini.

So important was this story that Henneberger not only turned to Lovecraft to ghostwrite it – he was very regarded by the magazine's readership at the time – but he also paid him $100 in advance. This was a significant amount of money at the time and Lovecraft was perpetually in need of remuneration, all the more so now that he was about to be married and move to New York City. He called the story was commissioned to ghostwrite "Under the Pyramids," but it was retitled "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" upon its publication. The tale purports to be a first person account by Houdini of his experiences in Egypt in 1910, though the entirety of its content is fictitious and based on ideas proposed by Houdini and extensively expanded by Lovecraft.

"Under the Pyramids" is surprisingly compelling, drawing as it does on the mystique of ancient Egypt. If the story has a flaw that might explain its relative obscurity among readers today, it's that its first part is replete with historical, cultural, and geographical information, so much so that it sometimes reads more like an encyclopedia or travelogue rather than a work of fiction. Here's a relevant example of what I mean:

The Pyramids stand on a high rock plateau, this group forming next to the northernmost of the series of regal and aristocratic cemeteries built in the neighbourhood of the extinct capital Memphis, which lay on the same side of the Nile, somewhat south of Gizeh, and which flourished between 3400 and 2000 B.C. The greatest pyramid, which lies nearest the modern road, was built by King Cheops or Khufu about 2800 B.C., and stands more than 450 feet in perpendicular height.

And so on. 

In his defense, I suspect that Lovecraft's readers would have been fascinated by these details. One must remember that Howard Carter had discovered Tutankhamun's tomb only two years before the publication of "Under the Pyramids," creating a global sensation that reverberated throughout the 1920s. Furthermore, this enumeration of mundane details grounds the story in mundane reality, perhaps leading the unsuspecting reader to believe that the tale's second part will be similarly prosaic. 

Part two is where "Under the Pyramids" truly takes flight. Houdini is set upon by his local Egyptian guides, who bind him, hand and foot, and toss him into a "Stygian space" beneath the Temple of the Sphinx. One of these guides 

mocked and jeered delightedly in his hollow voice, and assured me that I was soon to have my "magic powers" put to a supreme test which would quickly remove any egotism I might have gained triumphing over all the tests offered by America and Europe. Egypt, he reminded me, is very old and full of inner mysteries and antique powers not even conceivable to the experts of today, whose devices had so uniformly failed to trap me.

Lovecraft is unrelenting in maintaining that the narrator is Harry Houdini and, as in the excerpt above, there are frequent references to his athleticism and skill at escapology. However, Houdini's abilities are of little avail in the face the increasingly fantastical things he witnesses in the darkness. 

I saw the horror and unwholesome antiquity of Egypt, and the grisly alliance it has always had with the tombs and temples of the dead. I saw phantom processions of priests with the heads of bulls, falcons, cats, and ibises; phantom processions marching interminably through subterraneous labyrinths and avenues of titanic propylaea beside which a man is as a fly, and offering unnamable sacrifice to indescribable gods. Stone colossi marched in endless night and drove herds of grinning androsphinxes down to the shores of illimitable stagnant rivers of pitch. And behind it all I saw the ineffable malignity of primordial necromancy, black and amorphous, and fumbling greedily after me in the darkness to choke out the spirit that had dared to mock it by emulation.

Lovecraft gives his imagination free rein in the second part of the tale, presenting a panoply of bizarre and suggestive imagery. The reader, like Houdini himself, is never sure whether what he is seeing is real or if it is in fact a waking dream brought on by the physical rigors of his current predicament. This possibility is buttressed by the fact that Houdini, after the fashion of a true Lovecraftian protagonist, faints not once but three times over the course of the story. I've seen some commentators, like S.T. Joshi, suggest that this was intended as a joke of some kind and I suppose it's possible, but, speaking for myself, I found it distracted from an otherwise captivating narrative.

Throughout "Under the Pyramids," Houdini is troubled by what he calls an "idle question," namely "what huge and loathsome abnormality was the Sphinx originally carven to represent?" I doubt anyone will be startled to learn that, before its conclusion, the tale presents an answer to this question and a satisfyingly lurid one at that. For me, though, it is the phantasmagoria of frightful sensations Houdini experiences that held my attention, such as this one:

From some still lower chasm in earth's bowels were proceeding certain sounds, measured and definite, and like nothing I had ever heard before. That they were very ancient and distinctly ceremonial I felt almost intuitively; and much reading in Egyptology led me to associate them with the flute, the sambuke, the sistrum, and the tympanum. In their rhythmic piping, droning, rattling and beating I felt an element of terror beyond all the known terrors of earth—a terror peculiarly dissociated from personal fear, and taking the form of a sort of objective pity for our planet, that it should hold within its depths such horrors as must lie beyond these aegipanic cacophonies. The sounds increased in volume, and I felt that they were approaching. Then—and may all the gods of all pantheons unite to keep the like from my ears again—I began to hear, faintly and afar off, the morbid and millennial tramping of the marching things.

If you're a fan of Lovecraft and his idiosyncratic style, "Under the Pyramids" is delightful. The story lacks some of the weightiness – and self-seriousness – of his Cthulhu Mythos efforts, but it nevertheless presents a clever weird tale that holds the reader's attention and contains a genuine surprise or two. Owing to the fact that I first encountered it early in my introduction to HPL, it's always been a favorite of mine; I hope others might find it as enjoyable.

Monday, February 21, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Price of Pain-Ease

Starting in 1968, Ace Books began collecting Fritz Leiber's stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, many of which had previously been published in various periodicals starting in the late 1930s, into a series of paperbacks. In addition, Leiber penned several new short stories intended to fill in the gaps in the chronology of the Twain's lives, two of which appear in the collection Swords Against Death (1970)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the captious nature of fantasy fans – or indeed fans of any sort – not all of these new tales have been well received. Some of the complaints focus on the content of the additions, which is a little less rollicking than earlier entries in the series, while others focus on their style, which is wordier. Both these complaints have merit, I think, which is why I can't wholly dismiss them as just the cantankerous grumblings of dyspeptic nerds. 

Yet, at least in the case of "The Price of Pain-Ease," these complaints sell the story short. Certainly, this story feels different from its predecessors, but, rather than detract from its place within the canon of Nehwon, I think that its differences strengthen it. Take, for example, the opening of the story:

The big barbarian Fafhrd, outcast of the World of Nehwon's Cold Waste and forever a foreigner in the land and city of Lankhmar, Nehwon's most notable area, and the small but deadly swordsman the Gray Mouser, a state-less person even in careless, unbureaucratic Nehwon, and man without a country (that he knew of), were fast friends and comrades from the moment they met in Lankhmar City near the intersection of Gold and Cash Streets. But they never shared a home. 

Overly fastidious devotees of Leiber's prose might deem the above in stark contrast with the fast-moving, buoyant tenor of his earlier works. There's no doubt that his style has changed between the publication of "Two Sought Adventure" in 1939 and 1970, but I don't see that as in any way diminishing the yarn he is about to spin, which is every bit as delightfully idiosyncratic – and, above all, human – as any other in the annals of Lankhmar. 

The Twain are still mourning the deaths of "their first and only true loves – Fafhrd's Vlana and the Mouser's Ivrian." who had been "foully murdered" in "Ill Met in Lankhmar" and this dark fact hangs like a cloud over the entire story. Drunk after an evening's revels at the Golden Lamprey inn, the friends stumble upon the little estate of Duke Danius, a local aristocrat presently away from the city.

It rested on six short cedar posts which in turn rested on flat rock. Nothing then would do but rush to Wall Street and the Marsh Gate, hire a brawny two-score of the inevitable nightlong idlers there with a silver coin and a big drink apiece and promise of a gold coin and bigger drink to come, lead them to Danius's dark abode, pick the iron gate-lock, lead them warily in, order them to heave up the garden house and carry it out – providentially without any great creakings and with no guards or watchmen appearing.

That's right: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, with the help of forty men, steal an entire house and transport it to an empty lot behind the Silver Eel tavern. It's a remarkable feat of thievery, even for the greatest thieves in all of Lankhmar, but it's only the beginning of the story. The pair then settle down to living in the Duke's garden home, which turns out to have been the nobleman's love nest, filled as it is with two thick-carpeted bedrooms and whose walls are festooned with erotic murals. It also holds a library of similarly "stimulating" books, which attracts Fafhrd's attention.

The theft was highly successful, they had no trouble from Lankhmar's brown-cuirassed and generally lazy guardsmen, no trouble from Duke Danius – if he hired house-spies, they botched their too-easy job. And for several days the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd were happy in their new domicile, eating and drinking up Danius's fine provender, making a quick run to the Eel for extra wine, the Mouser taking two or three perfumed, soapy, oily, slow baths a day, Fafhrd going every two days to the nearest steam-bath and putting in a lot of time on the books, sharpening his already considerable knowledge of High Lankhmarese, Ilthmarish, and Quarmallian.

Later, Fafhrd discovers a second library, whose books dealt "with nothing but death … at complete variance with the other supremely erotic volumes." The northerner then devotes himself as fervently to these tomes as he had to the more prurient ones he'd found earlier. The two comrades try to enjoy themselves and their stolen home.

However, they didn't invite any girls to their charming new home and perhaps for a very good reason, because after half a moon or so the ghost of slim Ivrian began to appear to the Mouser and the ghost of tall Vlana to Fafhrd, both spirits perhaps raised from their remaining mineral dust around-about, and even plastered on the outer walls. The girl-ghosts never spoke, even in the faintest whisper, they never touched, even so much as by the brush of a single hair; Fafhrd never spoke to Vlana to the Mouser, nor the Mouser to Fafhrd of Ivrian. The two girls were invariably invisible, inaudible, intangible, yet they were there.

After just a few days of these apparitions, both Fafhrd and the Mouser "were rapidly going mad" This compels the pair to seek out – secretly and separately from one another – the aid of "witches, witch doctors, astrologers, wizards, necromancers, fortune tellers, reputable physicians, priests even, seeking a cure for their ills … yet finding none." The apparitions continue and, one night, the Mouser flees from the wraith of Ivrian and into Fafhrd's room, which he finds empty. 

Worried, the Mouser heads over to the Silver Eel, where he asks the houseboy there if he'd seen his friend. "Yes," he replies. "He rode off at dawn on a big white horse." But Fafhrd doesn't own a horse. "It was the biggest horse I've ever seen. It had a brown saddle and harness, studded with gold." It's then that the thief notices "a huge jet-black horse with black saddle and harness, studded with silver." Throwing caution to the wind, he approaches the horses, mounts it, allowing it to carry him into the unknown, in the belief that it would lead him to Fafhrd – and perhaps an end to the apparitions that so trouble his sleep and his spirit.

I'm a sucker for moody, melancholic tales and "The Price of Pain-Ease" is very much that sort of story, dealing as it does with the Twain's attempts to get over the deaths of their lovers, deaths for which they blame themselves. The tale's moodiness unquestionably sets it apart from earlier entries in the series and that might not make it to everyone's taste. At the same time, there is plenty of humor – some of it dark – action, and camaraderie, all of which I strongly associate with Leiber's Nehwon works. This very much is a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story, but it's one written by an older, more experienced Leiber and both in content and style it shows – not that I mind in the slightest.

Monday, February 14, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Phoenix on the Sword

While writing last week's entry in this series, I realized that I had somehow never written a post about "The Phoenix on the Sword," the very first published yarn of Conan the Cimmerian," and I resolved to rectify the matter as soon as possible. As is well-known, "The Phoenix on the Sword" is a reworking of another story, "By This Axe I Rule!," which Howard wrote for the character Kull of Atlantis in 1929. Twice rejected at the time of its writing, REH set the tale aside for several years before he turned it into the debut of Conan, resulting in its publication in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales.

Like its immediate sequel, "The Scarlet Citadel," "The Phoenix on the Sword" is a story of Conan after he has become king of Aquilonia. Indeed, there's a remarkable degree of similarity between the two stories, at least when it comes to their overall plots. In both, a conspiracy consisting of noblemen aided by a sorcerer works to overthrow Conan and place one of their own on the throne. There the resemblance ends. 

"The Phoenix on the Sword" is likely the most quoted tale of Conan, beginning as it does with the following:

"KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen- eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."—The Nemedian Chronicles

Whatever else one can say about the story – or indeed about Robert E. Howard's work in general – I don't think there can be any question that the excerpt above is a remarkably evocative bit of writing. With just a handful of sentences, Howard firmly establishes his setting, its mood, and his protagonist. It's an amazing bit of literary economy and I can't help but be envious of how much he did with so few words. 

After this, the reader is introduced first to the outlaw Ascalante and then to the Rebel Four who have "summoned [him] from the southern desert." The Four are

Volmana, the dwarfish count of Karaban; Gromel, the giant commander of the Black Legion; Dion, the fat baron of Attalus; Rinaldo, the hare-brained minstrel

Each of the Rebel Four has his own reasons for wanting to see Conan, "a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land," dethroned, but all are united in wanting to see it done by any means necessary. That's why they have turned Ascalante, a ruthless bandit with a reputation for achieving what he sets out to do. Unbeknownst to them, Ascalante has his own plans.

As for me – well, a few months ago I had lost all ambition but to raid the caravans for the rest of my life; now old dreams stir. Conan will die; Dion will mount the throne. Then he, too, will die. One by one, all who oppose me will die – by fire, or steel, or those deadly wines you know so well how to brew. Ascalante, king of Aquilonia! How do you like the sound of it?

The outlaw boasts of his plan to his slave, a Stygian who bemoans his own fate.

"There was a time," he said with unconcealed bitterness, "when I, too, had my ambitions, beside which yours seem tawdry and childish. To what a state I have fallen! My old-time peers and rivals would stare indeed could they see Thoth-amon of the Ring serving as the slave of an outlander and an outlaw at that; and aiding the petty ambitions of barons and kings!"

This is one and only direct appearance of the wizard Thoth-amon in the Howardian canon. Yet, so memorable is this appearance, that it left a lasting impression on the minds of many pasticheurs, like L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, who then concocted the idea that he was somehow Conan's arch-nemesis. The Marvel Conan comics of Roy Thomas perpetuated this notion, from which it passed into the imaginations of many others.

While Ascalante and the Rebel Four plot against him, Conan is unhappily reflecting on his current situation as a barbarian ruling a civilized kingdom.

"When I overthrew the old dynasty," he continued, speaking with the easy familiarity which existed only between the Poitainian and himself, "it was easy enough, though it seemed bitter hard at the time. Looking back now over the wild path I followed, all those days of toil, intrigue, slaughter and tribulation seem like a dream.

"I did not dream far enough, Prospero. When King Numedides lay dead at my feet and I tore the crown from his gory head and set it on my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams. I had prepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.

Conan's last statement sums up well the plot of "The Phoenix on the Sword" and why it's so compelling. Conan is a good king; he rules Aquilonia and its people more fairly than his predecessor. Yet, he is a foreigner and a barbarian at that. Many of his subjects do not accept him as their ruler and now foolishly recall the tyrant Numedides with misplaced fondness. The conspiracy of the Rebel Four is built, at least in part, on Conan's lack of acceptance by a populace who do not fully understand how lucky they are to have this barbarian rule rather than one of their own. Conan knows this and laments it, just as he laments the way that his crown binds him and keeps him from the freedom he once enjoyed. This is powerful stuff and near-perfect grist for the pulp fantasy mill. It's not a perfect tale by any means, but it's well worth a read, if you've never had the chance to do so before. 

Monday, February 7, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Scarlet Citadel

I've never made any secret of my ambivalence toward the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie of John Milius, even though this is heresy in some quarters. Yet, for all that ambivalence, one of its images, that of an aged Conan, seated upon a throne, after he "became a king by his own hand," endures in my imagination. 

Partly, I think, this is because I find myself wanting to know more about Conan's time as king of Aquilonia. The character's first appearance, in the story "The Phoenix on the Sword," features him as already king and is generally considered one of Robert E. Howard's best tales of the Cimmerian. When I first read the story (which I thought I'd already written about, an oversight I'll have to correct soon), I was really struck by the picture it paints of a middle-aged Conan, forced to deal with political intrigue despite his preference for a straight-up fight. That's a rich vein to be mined for storytelling and I've thought more about the idea than is probably justified.

Besides "The Phoenix on the Sword," Howard wrote another tale of King Conan entitled "The Scarlet Citadel," which appeared in the January 1933 issue of Weird Tales. There are a number of similarities between the two stories, but there are also enough differences to keep them distinct. "The Scarlet Citadel" begins with Conan leading the knights of Aquilonia in battle in neighboring Ophir.

That day Conan, king of Aquilonia, had seen the pick of his chivalry cut to pieces, smashed and hammered to bits, and swept into eternity. With five thousand knights he had crossed the south-eastern border of Aquilonia and ridden into the grassy meadows of Ophir, to find his former ally, King Amalrus of Ophir, drawn up against him with the hosts of Strabonus, king of Koth. Too late had he seen the trap. All that a man might do he had done with his five thousand cavalrymen against the thirty thousand knights, archers and spearmen of the conspirators.

Amalrus, we later learn, had lured Conan into Ophir under the pretext of requesting aid from Conan against Koth, which had supposedly invaded. Ever the loyal ally, Conan rushed to Ophir's aid, apparently never considering the possibility that the call for help was but a stratagem for luring him away from Aquilonia. The mastermind of this plan is "the lean vulture Tsotha-lanti," a sorcerer "clad only in silken robes, his great black eyes glittering from a face that was like that of a bird of prey."

Of this Kothian wizard dark tales were told; tousle-headed women in northern and western villages frightened children with his name, and rebellious slaves were brought to abased submission quicker than by the lash, with the threat of being sold to him. Men said that he had a whole library of dark works bound in skin flayed from living human victims, and that in the nameless pits below the hill whereon his palace sat, he trafficked with the powers of darkness, trading screaming girl slaves for unholy secrets. He was the real ruler of Koth. 

How's that for the introduction of a villain? Equally impressive is his first encounter with Conan, after the Aquilonians have been defeated and the Cimmerian is the only one among them left alive.

"I offer you life, Conan," said Tsotha, a cruel mirth bubbling at the back of his voice.

"I give you death, wizard," snarled the king, and backed by iron muscles and ferocious hate the great sword swung in a stroke meant to shear Tsotha's lean torso in half. But even as the hosts cried out, the wizard stepped in, too quick for the eye to follow, and apparently merely laid an open hand on Conan's left forearm, from the ridged muscles of which the mail had been hacked away. The whistling blade veered from its arc and the mailed giant crashed heavily to earth, to lie motionless. Tsotha laughed silently.

"Take him up and fear not; the lion's fangs are drawn." 

Tsotha-lanti used a ring with a poisoned needle embedded in its underside to incapacitate Conan. Thus temporarily paralyzed, the Cimmerian is brought to as a prisoner to the titular Scarlet Citadel. There, the three conspirators, including the faithless Amalrus, make plain their intentions.

"Our desires are spoken quickly, king of Aquilonia," said Tsotha. "It is our wish to extend our empire."

"And so you want to swine my kingdom," rasped Conan.

"What are you but an adventurer, seizing the crown to which you had no more claim than any other wandering barbarian?" parried Amalrus. "We are prepared to offer you suitable compensation –"

"Compensation!" It was a gust of deep laughter from Conan's mighty chest.

"The price of infamy and treachery! I am barbarian, so I shall sell my kingdom and its people for life and your filthy gold? Ha! How did you come to your crowns, you and that black-faced pig beside you? Your fathers did the fighting and the suffering and handed their crowns to you on golden platters. What you inherited without lifting a finger – except to poison a few brothers – I fought for.

"You sit on satin and guzzle wine the people sweat for, and talk of divine rights of sovereignty – bah! I climbed out of the abysss of naked barbarians to the throne and in that climb I spilt my blood as freely as I spilt that of others. If either of us has the right to rule men, by Crom, it is I! How have you proved yourselves my superiors?"

It's a terrific exchange, filled with passion and indignation. I have little doubt that Howard poured more than a little of himself into it, with his disdain for the "high and mighty" who looked down on men of modest means such as himself. The anger behind it is palpable and suffuses the rest of the story, as Conan eventually frees himself from captivity and then sets about avenging himself upon those who would steal his throne and immiserate his people. 

"The Scarlet Citadel" is a fine pulp fantasy yarn, one that shows off not just the writing skills of Robert E. Howard but also the virtues of Conan as king of Aquilonia. Re-reading it, I found myself once again yearning for more stories of this sort, stories that show the kind of ruler Conan had become and what he was willing to do for the people of Aquilonia, whose lot he had improved by his reign. Even so, "The Scarlet Citadel" is a good read and one I highly recommend. It may well be one of Howard's best tales of Conan.

Monday, January 31, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Flower-Women

Clark Ashton Smith clearly had a fondness for the character of Maal Dweb. After the completion of "The Maze of the Enchanter," he penned a second story set on the alien world of Xiccarph, entitled "The Flower-Women." Like its predecessor, the story met with resistance from the editor of Weird Tales, Farnsworth Wright, who called it "well done" but deemed it "a fairy story rather than a weird tale proper." Lovecraft, who was ardent admirer of many of Smith's efforts, didn't think much of this particular yarn either, calling it "below par" in a contemporary letter to R.H. Barlow. 

Wright eventually changed his opinion and "The Flower-Women" was published in the May 1935 issue of Weird Tales. The story opens with Maal Dweb experiencing intolerable ennui, an emotional state he resolves to alleviate.

"There is but one remedy for this boredom of mine," he went on — "the abnegation, at least for a while, of that all too certain power from which it springs. Therefore, I, Maal Dweb, the ruler of six worlds and all their moons, shall go forth alone, unheralded, and without other equipment than that which any fledgling sorcerer might possess. In this way, perhaps I shall recover the lost charm of incertitude, the foregone enchantment of peril. Adventures that I have not foreseen will be mine, and the future will wear the alluring veil of the mysterious. It remains, however, to select the field of my adventurings."
I doubt I'm alone in finding this set-up quite compelling – and reminiscent of the kind of thing a high-level D&D character might do after finding his most recent adventures insufficiently challenging. Maal Dweb then consults his magical orreries and resolves to pay a visit to the farthest planet of the star system, Votalp.

Votalp, a large and moonless world, revolved imperceptibly as he studied it. For one hemisphere, he saw, the yellow sun was at that time in total eclipse behind the sun of carmine; but in spite of this, and its greater distance from the solar triad. Votalp was lit with sufficient clearness. It was mottled with strange hues like a great cloudy opal; and the mottlings were microscopic oceans, isles. mountains, jungles, and deserts. Fantastic sceneries leapt into momentary salience, taking on the definitude and perspective of actual landscapes, and then faded back amid the iridescent blur. Glimpses of teeming, multifarious life, incredible tableaux, monstrous happenings, were beheld by Maal Dweb as he looked down like some celestial spy.

By means of "a deep and hueless cloud," which affords Maal Dweb "access to multiple dimensions and deeply folded realms of space conterminate with far worlds," the mighty sorcerer makes his way to Votalp. There, he makes his way into a valley where heard "an eerie, plaintive singing, like the voices of sirens who bewail some irredeemable misfortune."

The singing came from a sisterhood of unusual creatures, half woman and half flower, that grew on the valley bottom beside a sleepy stream of purple water. There were several scores of these lovely and charming monsters, whose feminine bodies of pink and pearl reclined amid the vermilion velvet couches of billowing petals to which they were attached. These petals were borne on mattress-like leaves and heavy, short, well-rooted stems. The flowers were disposed in irregular circles, clustering thickly toward the center, and with open intervals in the outer rows.  
Maal Dweb approached the flower-women with a certain caution; for he knew that they were vampires. Their arms ended in long tendrils, pale as ivory, swifter and more supple than the coils of darting serpents, with which they were wont to secure the unwary victims drawn by their singing. Of course, knowing in his wisdom the inexorable laws of nature, he felt no disapproval of such vampirism; but, on the other hand, he did not care to be its object.

I find it interesting that, while Maal Dweb is the protagonist of this tale, Smith does not shy away from the fact that he is an evil man. His ready acceptance of vampirism contrasts with the reactions of more traditional pulp fantasy protagonists, who would likely view the flower-women as frightful creatures. Instead, Maal Dweb finds them "lovely and charming." There isn't a hint of fear or condemnation, only the recognition that he must be wary of them. 

The sorcerer nevertheless forgets himself and falls prey to their "wild and sweet and voluptuous singing, like that of the Lorelei." He finds that the melody "fire[s] his blood with a strange intoxication" and he is soon drawn to the flower-women. Once in their presence, he regains something of his mental faculties and uses his "power of divination" to learn more about them. He then discovers that five of their kind had been uprooted over the course of five successive mornings by "certain reptilian beings, colossal in size and winged like pterodactyls, who came down from their new-built citadel." Known as the Ispazars, these reptile-men were themselves magicians of no mean talent, as well as "masters of an abhuman science."

Now, through an errant whim, in his search for adventure, he had decided to pit himself against the Ispazars, employing no other weapons of sorcery than his own wit and will, his remembered learning, his clairvoyance, and the two simple amulets that he wore on his person.

"Be comforted," he said to the flower-women, "for verily I shall deal with these miscreants in a fitting manner."

With that, "The Flower-Women" suddenly becomes a different story, one in which the villainous Maal Dweb, the tyrant of six worlds, becomes more than the protagonist of the story. To the flower-women, at least, he becomes a hero, as the remainder of the story chronicles his efforts on their behalf, avenging the destruction of their kind by the Ispazars. It's quite a startling thing to read and I found myself wondering whether or not Smith had intended this shift, however subtle, to point toward a change in Maal Dweb's character. Even if that wasn't his intention, he does seem to signal an intention to tell more stories of Maal Dweb's adventures among the worlds he rules.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. "The Flower-Women" is the second and last story of Xiccarph. No further stories of the magician ever appeared and, so far as I know, there's no evidence any more were planned. It's a pity, as Maal Dweb is a genuinely interesting character, and I can't help but wonder what more might have awaited him. In just two stories, he went from antagonist to protagonist to something approximating a hero. That's the kind of transformation that few writers could pull off, but Clark Ashton Smith made a good start of it here. 

Monday, January 24, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Death of Malygris

The final story of Smith's Poseidonis cycle was, appropriately, "The Death of Malygris." By his own account, he was pleased with the tale, particularly for its inclusion of "much genuine occultism and folklore." The editor of Weird Tales, the redoubtable Farnsworth Wright, didn't think much of the story and rejected it as "more like a prose poem than a story" – a common criticism of Smith's tales he rejected. H.P. Lovecraft, on the other hand, admired it, calling it "splendid" in a letter to Robert Bloch. Smith would later re-submit "The Death of Malygris" to Wright, who was more well inclined this time. He not only published the story in the April 1934 issue of Weird Tales, but even commissioned Smith to provide an accompanying illustration as well.

The sorcerer Malygris, who had previously appeared in "The Last Incantation" (ironically, the first episode of the Poseidonis cycle), had long exercised power over Susran, capital of Poseidonis, power greater than that of even its king, Gadeiron. Recently, rumors arose that Malygris had at long last died, a claim denied by the other wizards of the city, but one that Gadeiron and his chief advisor, the magician Maranapion, hoped to be true. Because Malygris was a "master of illuding shows, of feints, and beguilements," Gadeiron believes that the old sorcerer pre-emptively made use of his enchantments to hide the fact that he has died, so that, even in death, he might still lord it over the people of Susran. For this reason, the king addresses the assembled wizards.

"Not idly have I called ye to this crypt, O sorcerers of Susran: for a work remains to be done. Verily, shall the corpse of a dead necromancer tyrannize over us all? There is mystery here, and a need to move cautiously, for the duration of his necromancy is yet unverified and untested. But I have called ye together in order that the hardiest among ye may take council with Maranapion, and aid him in devising such wizardry as will now expose the fraud of Malygris, and evince his mortality to all men, as well as to the fiends that follow him still, and the ministering monsters."

Seven of the twelve wizards agree to assist Maranapion in this endeavor. Two others, the brothers Nygon and Fustules, conceived an "audacious plan" of their own. During the next night, they carefully stole into the tower of Malygris, which they soon found devoid of any guardians or protections. Emboldened by this, they sought out the chamber of Malygris, at the center of which contained his "chair of primeval ivory" upon which sat "the old archimage … peering with stark, immovable eyes."

Nygon and Fustules felt their awe return upon them, remembering too clearly now the thrice-baleful mastery that this man had wielded, and the demon lore he had known, and the spells he had wrought that were irrefragable by other wizards. The specters of these things rose up before them as if by a final necromancy. With down-dropped eyes and humble mien, they went forward, bowing reverentially. Then, speaking aloud, in accordance with their predetermined plan, Fustules requested an oracle of their fortunes from Malygris.

There was no answer, and lifting their eyes, the brothers were greatly reassured by the aspect of the seated ancient. Death alone could have set the grayish pallor on the brow, could have locked the lips in a rigor as of fast-frozen clay. The eyes were like cavern-shadowed ice, holding no other light than a vague reflection of the lamps. Under the beard that was half silver, half sable, the cheeks had already fallen in as with beginning decay, showing the harsh outlines of the skull. The gray and hideously shrunken hands, whereon the eyes of enchanted beryls and rubies burned, were clenched inflexibly on the chair-arms which had the form of arching basilisks.

"Verily," murmured Nygon, "there is naught here to frighten or dismay us. Behold, it is only the lich of an old man after all, and one that has cheated the worm of his due provender overlong."

Perhaps predictably for a Clark Ashton Smith yarn, the true situation is not as the wizard brothers believe it to be. One of the familiars of Malygris, the viper featured in "The Last Incantation," springs upon them, while a voice echoes "Fools! ye dared to ask me for an oracle. And the oracle is – death!"

Meanwhile, Maranapion, knowing nothing of the fates of Nygon and Fustules, led the seven remaining wizards in a series of "impious charms and unholy conjurations, and fouler chemistries" intended to prove that Malygris is indeed dead, as he suspected. They start with a spell of invultuation, the crafting of plasmic copy of Malygris, which they cursed with their spells so that, by the principle of sympathy, the body of Malygris might decay. Then, making use of "the blue, monstrous eye of the Cyclops" – a crystal ball – they watch as their enemy seated in the tower above Susran slowly rotted. 

Too easy, the reader might think and indeed it is. Malygris did not ascend to the heights of power in Poseidonis without being well prepared against the machinations of his foes, especially those as potent as King Gadeiron's wizardly advisors, as the reader soon discovers. "The Death of Malygris" is a story of hubris and revenge, filled with images of creeping doom and putrescence. It's thus a fitting end to the stories of Poseidonis, the last outpost of Atlantis.

Smith's own depiction of Malygris in his chair.

Monday, January 17, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Maze of the Enchanter

A characteristic of older fantasy that's fallen out of favor in recent decades is the more whimsical – or at least less rigorous – approach to world building than that evinced in, for example, Middle-earth and its legion of imitators. The action of many pulp fantasies occurred in weird worlds whose creators cared little for consistency, let alone plausibility. Clark Ashton Smith's Xiccarph is a world of this sort, an alien realm possessed of three suns and four moons. Consequently, its nights are short and its most abundant forms of life are a wide variety of deadly and toxic plants. 

Smith wrote only two tales of Xiccarph, the first of which was "The Maze of the Enchanter." He had a great deal of trouble selling the story, which suffered repeated rejections, first at the hands of Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, and then Astounding Stories and Esquire. Nevertheless, Smith was very pleased with it. In a letter to August Derleth, he described it as "ultra-fantastic, full-hued and ingenious, with an extra twist or two in the tail for luck." With no other outlet for the piece, he included it in The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies, a 30-page volume Smith self-published in June 1933. (An abbreviated version would eventually appear in Weird Tales under the title "The Maze of Maal Dweb" in October 1938.)

The story opens with a man named Tiglari, his "naked body smeared from crown to heel with the juice of a jungle plant repugnant to all the fauna of Xiccarph," surreptitiously attempting to enter :the ever-mysterious and terrible house of Maal Dweb." Maal Dweb, we learn, is a "half-demoniac sorcerer and scientist," who rules as a tyrant and whom Tiglari hopes to slay

not for himself but for the girl Athlé, his beloved and the fairest of his tribe, who had gone up alone that very evening by the causey of corundum and the porphyry stairs at the summons of Maal Dweb. [Tiglari's] hatred was that of a brave man and an outraged lover for the all-powerful, all-dreaded tyrant whom no man had ever seen, and from whose abode no woman came back; who spoke with an iron voice that was audible at will in the far cities or the outmost jungles; who punished the rebellious and the disobedient with a doom of falling fire that was swifter than the thunderstone. 
Tiglari is not alone is his "uncouth adoration" of Athlé. The warrior Mocair is the most formidable rival for the maiden's affections and Tiglari believed that he had already made his way to the home of Maal Dweb ahead of him. There was thus no time to delay, lest Mocair rescue Athlé rather than himself. 

Like any tyrannical sorcerer-scientist worthy of the name, Maal Dweb had protected his home with numerous traps, as well as monstrous guardians of many sorts, not least of them being "iron servitors … whose arms ended in long crescent blades of tempered steel." Against all these dangers, he was well prepared; he made his way past them all until he found himself in the sorcerer's harem, "peopled with all the girls that the enchanter had summoned to his mountain dwelling over the course of decades." 

In fact, it seemed that there were many hundreds, leaning or recumbent on ornate couches, or standing in attitudes of languor or terror. Tiglari discerned in the throng the woman of Ommu-Zain, whose flesh is whiter than desert salt; the slim girls of Uthmai, who are moulded from breathing, palpitating jet; the queenly amber girls of equatorial Xala; and the small women of Ilap, who have tones of newly greening bronze. But among them all, he could not find the lilied beauty of Athlé.

As he surveys the women, Tiglari notes that they "had been made the thralls of a death-like spell of immortal slumber," making them appear almost as if they were statues. He pressed on, toward a nearby chamber, in which he beheld a man reclining as if in sleep. 

The face of the man was a pale mask of mystery lying amid ambiguous shadows; but it did not occur to Tiglario that this being was any other than the redoubtable tyrannic sorcerer whom he had come to slay. He knew that this was Maal Dweb, whom no man had seen in the flesh, but whose power was manifest to all; the occult, omniscient ruler of Xiccarph, the overland of kings; the suzerain of the three suns and of all their moons and planets. 

Unfortunately for Tiglari, he soon learns that the man before him is an illusion, a mirrored image – another trap of Maal Dweb, who laughed at him, unseen, before asking, "What do you seek, Tiglari?" The young man boasted of his intention to find and free Athlé, to which the voice replied,

"Athlé has gone to find her fate in the labyrinth of Maal Dweb. Not long ago, the warrior Mocair, who had followed her to my palace, went out at my suggestion to pursue his search amid the threadless windings of that never to be exhausted maze. Go now, Tiglari, and seek her also … There are many mysteries in my labyrinth; and among them, mayhap, there is one which you are destined to solve." 

"The Maze of the Enchanter" is an unusual story om that, as Smith claimed in his letter to Derleth quoted above, there's a twist or two in its conclusion. I won't spoil it here, but will only say that the story's ending is not a happy one – unless one is Maal Dweb. Smith is almost unique in the history of pulp fantasy for sympathizing with his evil sorcerers, or at least presenting their thoughts and perspectives sympathetically. It's what sets him apart from both Lovecraft, whose antagonists' motives are largely inscrutable, and Howard, whose dark magicians are never portrayed as anything but villains to be cut down. It's one of the reasons I think Smith and stories like this are well worth reading: they do something different in a genre that is too often filled with banal imitation.

Monday, January 10, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: Vulthoom

Starting at least with the 1897 H.G. Wells novel, The War of the Worlds – and intensifying after the publication of A Princess of Mars in 1917 – the Red Planet and its inhabitants cane to occupy pride of place in "fantastic" literature of all sorts. Writers as different as Olaf Stapledon, Edmond Hamilton, C.S. Lewis, and Robert E. Howard, among many others, penned Martian tales, each presenting their take on Mars. Even Clark Ashton Smith got in on the act, producing a short cycle of three stories that use the Red Planet as its backdrop.

As one might expect, Smith's vision of Mars is dark and eldritch, a place of weird horrors and creeping doom. The first Martian tale, "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis," is one of his most well regarded works and is a good introduction to Smithian Mars, though many prefer the more gruesome "The Dweller in the Gulf." Regardless, both are worthwhile reads and I recommend them without any reservation.

The same cannot be said of "Vulthoom" in my opinion, despite its many fine qualities. First published in the February 1933 issue of Weird Tales, it's a strange conclusion to Smith's Martian stories, in that it's much more straightforwardly adventuresome take on the Red Planet, albeit one with a darker ending than one might have expected in the hands of another writer. Consequently, there are fewer chills than long-time CAS fans might wish, but the central conceit of the story is nevertheless a solid one that almost makes up for its deficiencies in other areas.

The story begins in a way that I think highlights my description of it as "adventuresome."

To a cursory observer, it might have seemed that Bob Haines and Paul Septimus Chanler had little enough in common, other than the predicament of being stranded without funds on an alien world.

Haines, the third assistant pilot of an ether-liner, had been charged with insubordination by his superiors, and had been left behind in Ignarh, the commercial metropolis of Mars, and the port of all space-traffic. The charge against him was wholly a matter of personal spite; but so far, Haines had not succeeded in finding a new berth; and the month's salary paid to him at parting had been devoured with appalling swiftness by the piratic rates of the Tellurian Hotel.

Chanler, a professional writer of interplanetary fiction, had made voyage to Mars to fortify his imaginative talent by a solid groundwork of observation and experience. His money had given out after a few weeks; and fresh supplies, expected from his publisher, had not yet arrived.

The two men, apart from their misfortunes, shared an illimitable curiosity concerning all things Martian. Their thirst for the exotic, their proclivity for wandering into places usually avoided by terrestrials, had drawn them together in spite of obvious differences of temperament and had made them fast friends.

This sounds to me like the beginning of a fairly typical pulp science fiction story of the era, though it does have the advantage of introducing readers quickly to its two protagonists and their predicament on Mars. Haines and Chanler soon encounter a huge example of one of the native Martian – the Aihai – who extends to them an invitation:

"My master summons you," bellowed the colossus. "Your plight is known to him. He will help you liberally, in return for a certain assistance which you can render him. Come with me."

"This sounds peremptory," murmured Haines. "Shall we go? Probably it's some charitable Aihai prince, who has gotten wind of our reduced circumstances. Wonder what the game is?"

"I suggest that we follow the guide," said Chanler, eagerly. "His proposition sounds like the first chapter of a thriller."

The giant Aihai, whose name we later learn is Ta-Vho-Shai, leads the two Earthmen to his master's home, which is located in a forgotten corner of the old city. More than that, it is located underground, which gives Chanler some pause, especially after a long elevator ride deep into the bowels of the planet.

"What do you suppose we've gotten into?" murmured Chanler. "We must be many miles below the surface. I've never heard of anything like this, except in some of the old Aihai myths. This place might be Ravormos, the Martian underworld, where Vulthoom, the evil god, is supposed to lie asleep for a thousand years amid his worshippers."

Overhearing this, Ta-Vho-Shai confirms that his mysterious master is, in fact, Vulthoom. Haines is initially dismissive, suggesting to his comrade a plausible explanation for what the Aihai had said to them.

"I've heard of Vulthoom, too, but he's a mere superstition, like Satan. The up-to-date Martians don't believe in him nowadays; though I have heard that there is still a sort of devil-cult among the pariahs and low-castes. I'll wager that some noble is trying to stage a revolution against the reigning emperor, Cykor, and has established his quarters underground."

"That sounds reasonable," Chanler agreed. "A revolutionist might call himself Vulthoom: the trick would be true to the Aihai psychology. They have a taste for high-sounding metaphors and fantastic titles."

Ta-Vho-Shai takes no further heed of the Earthmen's conversation and leads them into a cavern that is entirely empty but for "a curious tripod of black metal." The tripod bears a block of crystal and, upon it, what appears to be a frozen flower with seven petals – petals that Smith describes as "tongue-like." After a few moments, a voice seems to emanate from the bottom, "a voice incredibly sweet, clear and sonorous, whose tones, perfectly articulate, were neither those of Aihai nor Earthman."

"I, who speak, am the entity known as Vulthoom," said the voice "Be not surprised, or frightened: it is my desire to befriend you in return for a consideration which, I hope, you will not find impossible. First of all, however, I must explain certain matters that perplex you."

The voice then goes on to explain that he is himself an alien to Mars, a traveler from "another universe" whose ether-ship crashed on Mars eons ago. The kings and priests of the planet at that time saw him and the advanced technology he offered as threats to their power. They then spun dark tales about him, claiming he was an interplanetary demon and so, to protect himself, and the Aihai who were attracted to what he offered, he fled beneath the surface of Mars. Vulthoom knows the scientific secret of immortality after a fashion – alternating thousand-year periods of slumber and wakefulness for all eternity – and he offers this freely to those who would help him, such as the Aihai and even Earthmen like Haines and Chanler.

Indeed, this is why he has summoned the two of them to his subterranean refuge.

"I have grown weary of Mars, a senile world that draws near to death; and I wish to establish myself in a younger planet. The Earth would serve my purpose well. Even now, my followers are building the new ether-ship in which I propose to make the voyage."

Vulthoom is forthcoming with information about his plans and the role the two Earthmen will play in his achieving them, but I won't reveal them here. I will only say that they are not wholly to the liking of Haines and Chanler and the remainder of the story concerns their attempts to foil them.

The overall narrative of "Vulthoom" is one I imagine most readers, then and now, will have encountered many times before. Solely on that basis, I can't really recommend the tale. However, Vulthoom himself is a strangely compelling character, as is the concept behind him: an alien being who forms the basis for the Martian version of the Devil. Beyond that, though, what we mostly have is Smith's incomparable prose and that might not be enough to overcome the hackneyed plot of "Vulthoom." Much as I hate to say it, this is not one of Smith's best works; only completists interested in his Mars cycle will find it of lasting value.

Monday, January 3, 2022

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Last Incantation

January is the month of Clark Ashton Smith's birth – along with several other notable writers – so I thought I might devote the next five Mondays to works that are part of his lesser known story cycles, such as Mars, Poseidonis, and Xiccarph. These cycles contain fewer stories than those of Averoigne, Hyperborea, and Zothique, which may partly explain why they have received comparatively little acclaim. That's a shame, because they're every bit as rich in both ideas and hypnotic prose as his better known efforts.

A near-perfect case in point is "The Last Incantation," which first appeared in the June 1930 issue of Weird Tales. It's one of Smith's earliest published works of fiction and the influence of his years as a poet is quite evident. Indeed, the story is scarcely a story at all, being little more than a brief, melancholy vignette. Despite its concision, "The Last Incantation" is a thoughtful, heartfelt meditation on age and the limitations of memory. Re-reading it shortly after the turn of another year granted it a greater degree of poignancy than I had expected.

The tale concerns the magician Malygris, who dwelled in a tower "above the heart of Susran, capital of Poseidonis," the last outpost of the once-great civilization of Atlantis.

Malygris was old, and all the baleful might of his enchantments, all the dreadful or curious demons under his control, all the fear that he had wrought in the heart of kings and prelates, were no longer enough to assuage the black ennui of his days.

A long-time reader of Smith might well be tempted to roll his eyes upon reading this passage; he's already seen this many times before. Remember, though, how early CAS wrote "The Last Incantation." Consequently, Malygris is likely the first of Smith's sorcerers to be so afflicted and, as I will argue, his affliction is a truly moving one. 

We soon learn that Malygris has a familiar, who took "the form of a coral viper with pale green belly and ashen mottlings" and lived within the head of a unicorn that hung above the door to his chambers. The demon keeps watch over his master, as he attempts – and fails – to derive any pleasure from the power and possessions he has amassed after a long lifetime. He takes no joy in his present and sees little hope for a positive change in his future.

Then Malygris groped backward to the years of his youth, to the misty, remote, incredible years, where, like an alien star, one memory still burned with unfailing luster – the memory of the girl Nylissa, whom he had loved in days ere the lust of unpermitted knowledge and necromantic domination had entered his soul. He had well-nigh forgotten her for decades, in the myriad preoccupations of a life so bizarrely diversified, so replete with occult happenings and powers, with supernatural victories and perils; but now, at the mere thought of this slender and innocent child, who had loved him so dearly when he too was young and slim and guileless, and who died of a sudden mysterious fever on the very eve of their marriage, the mummy-like umber of his cheek took on a phantom flush, and deep down in his orbs was a sparkle like the gleam of mortuary tapers.

Feeling genuine emotion for the first time in so long, an idea occurs to Malygris and he asks his familiar:

"Viper, am I not Malygris, in whom is centered the mastery of all occult lore, all forbidden dominations, with dominion over the spirits of earth and sea and air, over the solar and lunar demons, over the living and the dead? If I so desire, can I not call the girl Nylissa, in the very semblance of all her youth and beauty, and bring her forth from the never-changing shadows of the cryptic tomb, to stand before me in this chamber, in the evening rays of this autumnal sun?

His familiar replies that he can indeed do this. Even so, Malygris hesitates and wonders aloud whether he should do this – a moment of doubt not common in Smith's haughty necromancers, who rarely question the probity of their actions.

The viper seemed to hesitate. Then, in a slow and measured hiss: "It is meet for Malygris to do as he would. Who, save Malygris, can decide if a thing be well or ill?"

"In other words, you will not advise me?" the query was as much a statement as a question, and the viper vouchsafed no further utterance.  

With that, Malygris casts aside his doubts and commits to "the ritual that summons the departed," so that he might once more see Nylissa, whom he had loved in his youth and whose memory, even now, quickens his heart and fills his soul with longing. 

Of course, this being a Clark Ashton Smith story, I do not think anyone will be surprised to learn that events do not go at all as Malygris had hoped. "The Last Incantation" differs from other similar stories (such as "Xeethra") in that Malygris suffers neither a grisly fate nor a divine curse. Rather, he learns a lesson – a painful one, to be sure, but a lesson nonetheless, one from which I think more of us, in this nostalgia-soaked age, might well profit.