"The Nameless Offspring"

by Clark Ashton Smith

 originally published Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, June 1932 

30 years ago Lady Agatha Tremoth pulled a Madeline Usher.  It seems she suffered from catalepsy but this time she was really a goner.  So her hubby John stuck her in the family tomb.  Oops!  A short time later she was wide awake and screaming.  And somehow had gotten the heavy coffin lid off of her, a neat trick since she was skinny and frail ... hmmm.  Anyway she kept claiming to have woken up to find something white and inhuman staring her in the face.  Well no one takes that too seriously.  But nine months later she dies giving birth to something distinctly not human.  And Sir John, so the story goes, locked it away in an iron-barred room in his manor and became a complete recluse.

Lo these 30 years later Henry Chaldane, son of Arthur, an old school friend of Sir John's, is making a motorcycle tour through England and gets caught in a pea-soup fog.  Stopping for directions and/or help, he comes across - surprise!  Tremoth Manor.  Henry is welcomed by Harper, Sir John's one remaining servant, and Sir John himself, who insists he spend the night, even though he must forgive the inhospitable nature of his house.  While being led to his room, Henry passes the infamous locked door, and hears something inside cut loose with a horrible scream. 

Henry spends a pretty sleepless night, listening to the thing in the locked room clawing at the walls.  He's also troubled by the fact that he saw Harper carrying what appeared to be putrescent meat up to feed it.  And by Sir John letting out with a loud groan during the wee hours.

Well Harper wakes Henry up late the next morning.  It seems Sir John snuffed it during the night.  He left some very specific instructions that he be cremated on a funeral pyre on the estate.  And Harper is to watch over him until that time.  So Henry volunteers to head into town and scare up some help for tomorrow.

Back at the manor, Harper asks Henry to sit up with him next to Sir John's corpse, to which he reluctanrly agrees.  But that thing is clawing at the wall again and before you can say "Abdul Alhzared" it's torn its way in - he gets only a glimpse of something white with canine fangs and clawed hands that goes on all fours - and then it's on Sir John, getting shot in the process and knocking over candles, thus starting a blaze.  So Henry gets Harper out and the two follow the clawed footprints from the house to the family crypt, wherein they lost track of whatever it was.

Man this thing's gothic with a capital "G".  And a lot of fun.  A very dark old house Poe mystery with a does of Lovecraftian ghoul-grue thrown in for good measure.  Hardly a classic but like I said, a lot of fun.

"The Tale of Satampra Zeiros"

by Clark Ashton Smith  

Originally published Weird Tales, November 1931   

Satampra Zeiros and his buddy Tirouv Ompallios are thieves living in the city of Uzuldaroum, current capital of Hyperborea.  Lately the thieving business hasn't been so hot, and they're down to just enough cash to get drunk in the hopes it will inspire a new heist scheme.  So that's what they do.

The booze kicks in and Satampra does indeed come up with a plan.  A day's journey away is the former capital, Commorium.  It seems Commorium was completely abandoned (in a single day!) centuries ago, and is now a ghost-city, slowly being absorbed into the surrounding jungle, a place everyone is afraid to go.  So afraid that the treasures of the old kings and such are still there, gathering dust.  Why don't they go snag it?

Agreeing this is an excellent idea, the two best buds head out the next day and head for Commorium, stealing from everyone they meet.  Finally their path takes them into an increasingly thick and menacing jungle, where everything's extreme - trees, flowers, and even beasties that watch them as they make their way through the creepers into Commorium.  The jungle is so dark and spooky that they start to get a little freaked out, so they get drunk again on some stolen booze and are soon convinced nothing can stand in their way.  So even though its dark when they arrive at Commorium, they plow on ahead.  

Commorium is well=preserved but utterly empty.  They explore the deserted streets until coming across a non-desrcipt square building they recognize as a temple.  Must be good stuff in there!  They head in.

The temple turns out to be a temple to Tsathoggua, and contains nothing but an unadorned stature of Toad Boy and a big-ass metal basin on three legs sitting in the middle of the room.  While looking over that statue and getting pissed at its lack of bejewelment, they begin to notice a nasty stink coming from the basin.  Unwisely deciding to go look, they find it full of black gloop - which seems to be moving.  The gloop suddenly forms itself into a liquid monster with "malignant" eyes which comes slithering out after them.  Wisely, S and T decide the thing to do is run like hell.  

They flee all night, with the monster chasing and seemingly toying with, them.  By dawn they realize they've been running in a circle as they arrive back at the temple.  Seeing no better choice, they run inside and slam and bolt the door. But the gloop monster finds some holes to slither in through, and now it's back in the (now-locked) room with them.  Satampra shouts "farwell, Tirouv Ompallios" - which translates into "you're on your own sucker!" and hides behind the statue.  Tirouv, having no other choices, tries to hide in the basin.  The gloop monster transforms itself into one big mouthy shape and swallows him, then goes to sleep in the basin.

After noting that it hasn't moved or made a sound for awhile, Satampra decides to split, sneaking over to the door and shooting the bolt - which makes enough noise to wake the gloop, which launches a tentacle, grabbing Satampra's wrist as he tries to flee.  He manages to escape - but now minus a hand.

What makes this little fable work is Smith's flowery language, his ability to vividly conjure up fantastic imaginary worlds and scenes, and his sarcastic humor.  Satampra is your basic classic loveable scumbag, and his willingness to throw his beloved boon companion under the bus at the first sign of being eaten by a cosmic gloop monster is priceless.  Not much plot here but a lot of fun!

"The Seven Geases"

 by Clark Ashton Smith 

originally published Weird Tales, October 1934

Lord Rabilar Vooz is a magistrate, cousin to the king hisself, in prehistoric Hyperborea.  One day he sets out with a band of retainers to the forbidding Eiglophian Mountains, a volcaninc range dominated by one Mount Voormithadreth, home of the hairy man-ape race called "voormis", which he intends to hunt.  The mountain is a spooky place, and it is said that many horrible things lurk in the caves under the mountains, including the bat-toad god Tsathoggua; but Rabilar, being a modern man, dismisses all that as mere superstition.

Rabilar, like the arrogant fuckwit he is, gets a bit lost in the mountains.  He also gets a bit of a surprise when he sees smoke rising from behind some tall rocks - as if someone were making a fire.  He follows the smoke and comes upon a nasty-looking old dude in a nasty-looking robe holding some kind of ceremony around a fire.

Mr. Nasty is a wizard named Ezdagor, and he's pretty put-out about Rabilar interrupting his ceremony.  So he puts Rab under a "geas", a spell which compels him to complete a task as ordered.  The task is to go into the bowels of the earth under the mountain, via the caves of the voormis, and offer himself as a sacrifice to Tsathoggua.  Rab tries to laugh this off but finds he can't laugh.  Or speak.  Or do anything other than make his way to his destination, guided by Raphthotis, Ezdagor's faithful archaeopteryx familiar.

Rab goes through the caves, harried by the voormis who manage to do only minor injury to him thanks to his armor, and makes his way down to Tsathoggua, who just ate and isn't interested.  So Tsath-o puts a new geas on him, sending him to Atlach-Nacha, who's too lazy to peel him out of hisd armor, and so geases him to go to visit the sorceror Haon-Dor, who also has no use for him and thus geases him to go see the Serpent People.  They too can't find a use for him, and geas him on to the Cavern of the Archetypes, where he is eaten several times by astral/mist-formed dinosaurs, before the archetypes, the original, evolved form of men (misty energy beings) insult him and geas him to go see Abhoth, who they consider all kinds of gross and therefore the only place for a turd like Rab.

Abhoth, a big slimy pool that breeds gross little monsters incessantly, also can't think of what to do with Rab.  So he puts on him the worst geas he can think of - sending him back to the surface world (well it's awful to Abhoth).

Rab starts his way back but falls through Atlach-Nacha's web and into a possibly bottomless gulf.  Poor Rab!

This is a rather tongue-in-cheek story, kind of a cross between a dark, surreal fairy-tale, and an EC comics story, had EC ever ventured into such territory.  You can almost hear The Old Witch or The Crypt-Keeper cackling away at the end.  Its kind of like a grim bedtime story you might read to your kid - if you had the Weirdest Kid in the World.  I know I would have dug it.  I leave it to you to speculate on what that says about me.

For all its tongue-in-cheek-ness, Smith's acidic prose and endless invention make this charming and a fun read.  And it its the one and only full appearance of Tsathoggua and Atlach-Nacha, both of whom I've always had a soft spot for.  I mean, come on - you can't beat a lazy toad-bat god!

"The Beast of Averoigne"

By Clark Ashton Smith

Originally published Weird Tales May 1933

Brother Gerome, "the humblest monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Pergion" happens upon an unusual sight late one evening - a red comet dropping off an unpleasant extraterrestrial passenger in the medieval French province of Averoigne.  It stands man-height, moves like a great snake, with glowing red eyes and bat-like teeth.  

Well this sets the abbey into a tizzy, but lots of praying and sprinkling of holy water avails them not, as first forest animals, then cattle, then people start turning up mutilated and drained of marrow.  Brother Theophile picks up the narrative, telling us of the extreme methods the monks go to (exorcism, mortification, taking their cell phones away) to stave off the monster - all to no avail either, as pretty soon its killing monks in their sleep right in the abbey!

Having no other viable options, the abbey turns to Luc le Chaudronnier, a sorcerer, who narrates the final third of the story.  Luc has a plan - to invoke the aid of demon that is imprisoned in a ring once the property of Eibon of Hyperborea -which among Smith-ian sorcerers would be the equivalent of bed sheets stolen from the Beatles hotel rooms.  He makes a deal with the demon that he'll free it, if it'll get out of Earth and take the Beast with it.  So the big night comes, the Beast creeps into the abbey, Luc smashes the ring, and out pops the demon which promptly hauls the snaky beast off to parts unknown - like real unknown.  Oh - but it leaves behind the body of Brother Theophile, who, it seems, it had possessed and was hiding in this whole time.  Poor Theo!

Woo this was a ride!  Very much a bit of Weird Tales fodder, it's Smith's purple prose that takes this pretty straightforward monster romp to a higher level, loading it with real atmosphere and dread, and Smith's trademark weird imagination.

 

"The Testament of Atthamaus"

by Clark Ashton Smith 

originally published Weird Tales, October 1932

Atthamaus, the former executioner of the city of Commoriom, tells us how that city came to be abandoned by its citizens.

A particularly dangerous outlaw called Knygathin Zhaum has been menacing the countryside, leading a band of hairy Voormis in raids that involve not merely theft and murder but rape and "anthropophagism" (that's cannibalism to the uninitiated).  Even worse, its said that he is somehow related to the black god Tsathoggua.  Blech!

Anyway, Knygathin is captured and brought to the city.  He turns out to be completely hairless, but with patterned skin like a snake.  There's also a subtle sense of bonelessness or some such to his appearance, which Atthamaus finds particularly repulsive.

Well the big day comes and Atthamaus cuts off Kny's head - which spills not blood but a bit of black ooze, and reveals no normal bone structure.  Nevertheless he's dead.

Or is he?  The next morning, Kny is up and around town, and he eats a merchant whole for breakfast!  In front of witnesses!  

Well, Kny is promptly recaptured and the Hyperborean equivalent of double indemnity laws are set aside so he can get a second beheading.  He is buried again in a more extreme arrangement, but again the next AM he's back, eating one of the judges who sentenced him.

Realizing this is a bad scene, people start to leave town.  Kny is captured and beheaded again, his bod sealed in a sarcophagus and his head separated and placed under guard.  But that night a liquid gloop monster ("a dark, ever-swelling mass of incognizable matter, frothing as with the venomous foam of a million serpents, hissing as with the yeast of fermenting wine, and putting forth here and there great sooty-looking bubbles that were large as pig-bladders. Overturning several of the torches, it rolled in an inundating wave across the flagstones and we all sprang back in the most abominable fright and stupefaction to avoid it." - jeezus I'd have leaped back too!)

The gloop reunites with the head and Knygathin Zhaum is out of traction/back in action once again.  And he proceeds to eat some more people.  There's a mass exodus from the city and, realizing it is impossible to defeat Kny, Atthamaus joins the fleeing crowds...

Again, a synopsis doesn't quite do this justice.  You have to read Smith's acidicly flowery prose to really get the full experience.  The story is dark and suspenseful and gruesome - and also funny as hell.  Classic C.A. Smith.

"Ubbo-Sathla"

by Clark Ashton Smith
originally published Weird Tales, July 1933

Paul Tregardis, an anthropologist and amateur occultist, with a considerable grounding in The Necronomicon and The Book of Eibon, is killing some time in a musty little antiques shop when he comes across an odd crystal sphere. Unable to learn more about it ("The dealer gave an indescribable, simultaneous shrug of his shoulders and his eye-brows." - I do wish I could visualize that), and believing that it just might be a fabled crystal once in the possession of a Hyperborean sorcerer named Zon Mezzamalech, Tregardis gives in, buys the thing, takes it home, and stares into it (hey - they didn't have TV in `33).

He enters into a fugue state in which his consciousness becomes one with Zon Mezzamalech (what - you didn't expect that Tregardis was going to be correct in his surmise?  How many of these stories have you read?).  It seems Zon had sought some tablets inscribed by the eldest, lost gods of the universe, containing secrets powerful beyond imagining.  These tablets are hidden, guarded by the "idiotic demiurge" Ubbo-Sathla, and only the crystal can locate them.

Tregardis is unsettled by his visions and experiences from the crystal gazing, and vows not to do it again.  Ha!  Of course he goes right back to it.  He views/experiences past lives stretching back to Hyperborea, and beyond, even into pre-human times.  Finally, he comes face-to-face with ol' Ubbo hisself:

"Headless, without organs or members, it sloughed from its oozy sides, in a slow, ceaseless wave, the amoebic forms that were the archetypes of earthly life. Horrible it was, if there had been aught to apprehend the horror; and loathsome, if there had been any to feel loathing. "

Now a formless, pre-human, pre-mammal, pre-dinosaur blob of glop, what once had been Zon Mezzamalech/Paul Tregardis crawls over the tablets, unable to read or do anything with them.  

Back in London, Tregardis is nowhere to be found....

Woo! What a tale.
Actually, for all my sarcasm, "Ubbo-Sathla" has always been something of a fave of mine.  A synopsis may make it sound very slight, and it has a lot in common with Long's "The Hounds of Tindalos", another fave.  But a synopsis doesn't give the purple poetic power of C.A. Smith it's due.  It had to be read to be appreciated.  Like all of Smith's best stuff, "Ubbo" casts an unearthly spell that's hard to dismiss.

"The Return of the Sorceror"

by Clark Ashton Smith
originally published Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, September 1931

Mr. Ogden, who's been out of work for awhile and needs money (and a first name), lands a gig helping do some translations from ancient Arabic for John Carnby, an eccentric fruit loop who lives in a dilapidated mansion in Oakland CA (which means it would have to be in the hills, kiddies!).  

Carnby's a creep who lives as a full-on black magician, with pentagrams painted on the floor and stuffed alligators hanging from the ceiling.  What he wants translated is a passage from The Necronomicon itself, one which explains how a dead sorcerer can rise from the dead, and even summon dismembered body parts back together to form a whole.  

Ogden thinks this whole setup is a little weird.  He also thinks the fact that the house is allegedly infested with extra-large rats, which Carnby seems to fear, is a bit off.  When he sees a severed human hand scuttling across the floor, he knows something is a bit off.

Alright, Carnby confesses - he killed his twin brother Helman out of jealousy (Helman was a more successful sorcerer) and cut him into pieces and buried/hid them in different places.  But yeah, now Helman is reassembling himself and coming back for revenge.  Carnby attempts an exorcism spell, but it fails, and the dismembered pieces of Helman converge on the room and take gruesome revenge...

Okay, this tale is completely in EC territory, right down to crawling sever limbs.  But CAS often had his tongue in his cheek, sometimes more firmly than others.  It's a gruesome little bit of black-humored horror and fun to read.

Incidentally, trivia buffs; "Return of the Sorceror" was adapted - quite effectively - for TV's Night Gallery in the early 70's, with Vincent Price as the Carnbys and Bill Bixby as Ogden. 

"The Door to Saturn"

by Clark Ashton Smith
originally published Strange Tales, January 1932

Morghi, high priest of Youndeh, comes to arrest Eibon, but finds him absent.  A search of the premises reveals a mysterious metal plate.  This plate is a doorway to the planet Cykranosh, known to us as Saturn.  It turns out Eibon has fled there.  Morghi follows him.

Morghi and Eibon are adopted by a friendly race called the Bhlemphroims, who have their faces in their abdomens.  Soon Eibon and Morghi learn that they are intended to be the mates, and then meals, of the literal mother of the race.  They escape and are taken in by the Ydheems, a similar race with more normal reproductive practices.  They live out their days there.

This is one of Smith's more humorous stories.  Quite absurd, but funny in its very weirdness and shaggy-dog punchline involving the god Hziulquoigmnzhah and his instructions to Eibon on their first meeting.

"The Coming of the White Worm"

by Clark Ashton Smith
originally published Stirring Science Stories, April, 1941

Evagh, a sorceror of Hyperborea, finds himself in a sticky situation, when his tower and the surrounding village are taken by a strange magic which freezes everything, and everyone.  Said magic emeges from a colossal floating iceberg which has sailed into the harbor.

Evagh is taken aboard the iceberg, which serves as the ship and home of a creature called Rlim Shaikorth, and six other powerful sorcerors, who have been abducted by RS and had their bodies now magically altered so that they can survive in RS's inhospitable environment.  In addition to sparing their lives, RS has promised them all the gift of mighty magical wisdom and knowledge.  In exchange for obeisance.

Oh, and did I mention that RS is a bit, gloopy white worm-thing?

Soon after, Evagh notices the number of his companions dwindling one-by-one.  He learns also that the magics that have altered him to allow him to live in RS's environment have made it impossible to live in earth's.  

So they sail around, freezing and destroying the world Evagh knew, while the RS's guests keep disappearing and he keeps getting bigger and fatter.

One day, Evagh finds himself alone, and RS asleep.  The voices of his vanished comrades inform him that, while RS has eaten both their bodies and their souls, their consciousness is active and can speak, while RS is asleep.  They tell him how to kill RS (which is pretty straightforward), but that doing so will cost Evagh his life as well.

Evagh hacks RS with his sword.  RS splits open and a seemingly endless supply of black gloop pours out of him, apparently drowning Evagh and destroying the floating iceberg-ship.

Weird stuff, man.  This sinister fairy tale from C.A.S.  is a favorite of some, but I don't consider it one of his most memorable (I first read it 30 years ago and couldn't remember a blessed thing about it, while there are other Smith stories I remember vividly).  An interesting oddity all the same, and Smith does Smith better than any of his imitators.