"Far Below"

by Robert Barbour Johnson
originally published Weird Tales, June/July 1939

A man has taken an unusual new job, working in the underground tunnels of the NYC subway system.
He is given an orientation by former Prof. Gordon Craig, who left a job at the Natural History Museum decades ago, to work for the Special Subway Detail.  

The job is to monitor and hunt down a race of ghouls that live in the tunnels.  Craig goes on about the sophisticated technology, money, and secretive nature of the organization, and of the horrors he's seen in the tunnels, and the effect the job has on the men who do it.  Including himself...

Told almost entirely through dialogue, this is a very effective little modern (for 1939) horror tale which builds up its atmosphere strongly as it rolls along.  Its very memorable and a genuine gem of supernatural spookery.

"The Stairs in the Crypt"

by Lin Carter

originally published Fantastic, August 1976


Avalzaunt the necromancer dies, and his mummified bod is interred in a crypt.  However, a few years later, life returns and he becomes a living dead thing.

 Avalzaunt enslaves the local ghouls, and sends them on errands of vengeance.  Eventually, he finds a way out of the crypt and begins to participate himself.  

One night he attacks the Abbott of Carmotha, and is slain with a ceremonial dagger which destroys the undead.

A minor but actually quite humorous bit of Smith-ian grue.

"The Shadow Kingdom"

by Robert E. Howard

originally published Weird Tales, August 1929
 
King Kull, the new king of Valusia, one of the seven great empires and the greatest power in the known world, is invited to come alone to a feast by Ka-nu, emissary of the Picts, a savage tribe allied to Valusia.
He tells him that a trusted emissary, Brule, will come to him in the night.

Brule turns up, shows Kull the maze of secret passages that riddle the palace, and reveals that all of Kull's guards have been killed, and their bodies hidden, while impostors stand sentry outside his rooms.  Kull's chief councillor, Tu, enters the room, expecting to find Kull asleep, intending to assassinate him.  A wide-awake Kull kills Tu, who turns out not to be Tu, but in fact a serpent-headed monster magically disguised as his advisor.

Brule reveals that the Serpent Men have been ruling Valusia from the shadows for hundreds of years, replacing the kings with Serpent Man impostors. 

The Serpent Man use illusions lead Brule and Kull into the room where a long-ago king Eallal was slain.  They realize the trap and manage to fight their way out to the Council Room, where a phony Kull is holding court.  The real Kull confronts and kills the Serpent Man, thus exposing their nefarious plans as well.  He vows to hunt down and destroy the race.

I first came across this near-classic in a comic book back in the early 70's.  It adapted perfectly.  Later, in my teens, I came across the original in a sword and sorcery anthology.  "The Shadow Kingdom" is early Howard, and his style has plenty of pulp in it, but the energy and atmosphere are all there.   Its a memorable, exciting, and suspenseful tale, among Howard's best.

"The Light from the Pole"

by Lin Carter
originally published Weird Tales #1, Zebra 1980

Pharazyyn, yet another Hyperborean sorceror starts to experience pretty much everything Evagh (his buddy) did in "The Coming of the White Worm".  Various bits of mystic investigation reveal that Rlim Shaikorth was only the hearld and harbinger of Aphoom Zah, an even worse entity.  Discovering there is no escape from his fate of being taken by Aphoom Zah, Pharazyn offs himself.

This little tale is little more than a blatant and shameless rehash of Smith's "Coming of the White Worm", only with less imagination.  

Of course, there's a reason for this - Carter took a fragment of an earlier draft Smith wrote for "Coming", finished it and published it as a "posthumous collaboration".  

I know Carter needed material to fill up the pages of his Weird Tales revival, but this is pretty sad.

"The Alkahest"

by Laurence J. Cornford
originally published The Book of Eibon, Chaosium, 2001

Verhadis is the most powerful sorceror in Hyperborea.  But he's also a right prick.  He even manages to summon and bind a Hound of Tindalos, which he can send against his rivals, thus ensuring he remains top dog.

Five other wizards decide to gang up on him.  And succeed.  This leaves an alchemist named Enoycla the big kahuna.  The remaining four, now in possession of the jewel housing the bound Hound, try to use it against him.  But Enoycla's alkahest experiment succeeds in driving the Hound off, and the jewel is buried in a bottomless pit.

Another amusing Smith pastiche.

"The Secret in the Parchment"

by Lin Carter
originally published Crypt of Cthulhu #54, Eastertide, 1988

Ptomeron, rejected by his love Zeetha, in prehistoric Ultima Thule, retires to a remote tower where he studies magic no one else will touch.

He constructs a device that focuses something called the "Z Light", allowing him to see into subterranean worlds.

Peering in, he finds a horde of maggot-like creatures crawling on a woman's body.  Zeetha's.

A rather grotesque little sketch by Carter.

"The Descent Into the Abyss"

by Lin Carter

originally published Weird Tales #2, Zebra, 1980

Haon-Dor, a sorceror of prehistoric times, and possibly not human, plans to enter the world of "gray-litten" Y'quaa in search of sorcerous wisdom.

 To get there, he needs some tablets said to be in the possession of Ubbo-Sathla, who's burbling away in the depths of Mount Voormithadreth.  So of HD goes to Mt. V.

His journey is eventful, sorta, as he meets Zulchequon, The Dark Silent One, Qumyagga, a shantak, Nug, King of the Ghouls, and K'Thugoul, The Original Shoggoth.  None of them even try to stop him, however.

Finally, he finds Ubbo-Sathla, who accidentally(?) tilts one of the tablets towards him.  What he sees causes HD to lose his shit, and he spends the rest of his days in the caves of Voormithadreth.

A shameless retread of Clark Ashton Smith's "The Seven Geases", lacking the Smith-ian charm.  In his introduction in the collection Book of Eibon, Robert M. Price's attempts to justify the tale as some sort of Bibilical scholarship, so to speak.  But it's bull.  Carter was really phoning it in with this one.