The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith (31 page)

Like froth upon a shallow pool. No finger

Of man may touch me. I can wave this staff

And ring myself with circles of tall fires

Spawned by the ambient space arcane. You fear me,

And you have reason. I know all the secrets

Of noisome deed and thought that make your soul

A cavern where close-knotted serpents nest.

Tell me, was there not yestereve a youth

Named Galeor, who played the lute and sang,

Making sweet music for an evil court?

Why have you slain him? Was it not through your fear

Of cuckoldom, thinking he pleased too much

The young Somelis? But this thing is known

To me, and I know moreover the dim grave

Where Galeor waits the worm.

Smaragad
(
standing erect, his features madly contorted
):

Begone! begone!

Out of my presence! Out of Faraad!

And here’s a word to speed you: when you entered

This hall, my sheriffs went to find your house

And seize Kalguth, your negro neophyte

For whom ’tis said you have the curious fondness

That I might keep for a comely ebon wench.

Ponder this well: Kalguth must lie by now

Embowelled in our dankest dungeon-crypt.

He will rejoin you if tomorrow’s sun

Meet you outside the city. If you linger,

I’ll give him to my sinewy torturers.

Natanasna:

King Smaragad, if young Kalguth be harmed,

Hell will arise and sweep your palace clean

With fiery besoms and with flails of flame. (
Exit Natanasna.
)

(
Curtain
)

SCENE III

The necropolis of Faraad. Dying and half-decayed cypresses droop over creviced headstones and ruinous mausoleums. A gibbous moon shines through wispy clouds. Enter Natanasna, humming:

A toothless vampire tugs and mumbles

Some ancient trot’s whitleather hide,

But he’ll fly soon to the abattoir

And the pooling blood where the stuck pig died.

(
Kalguth emerges from behind the half-unhinged door of a tomb close at hand. He carries a dark bag, which he lays on the ground at Natanasna’s feet.
)

Kalguth:
Greetings, O Master.

Natanasna:

It was well I sent you

To wait me here among the tacit dead—

Lugging you from your slumber at morning dusk

While none but blind-drunk bowsers were abroad.

As I prevised, the king took advantage

Of my commanded presence in his halls,

And sent his hounds to sniff for you. He’ll not

Venture to harry me, who have climbed too high

In magedom’s hierarchy, but would fang

His baffled spleen on one not fully armed

And bucklered with arts magical. We must

Depart from Yoros promptly, leaving it

To all its many devils, amid which

This king is not the least. (
He pauses, looking about him at the tombs and graves.
) It is a land

Where murder has made much work for necromancy,

And there’s a task to do before we go

That we be not forgotten…. I perceive,

My good Kalguth, that you have found the spot

Which my strix-eyed familiar did describe:

Those yonder are the yellowing cypresses

That death has pollarded, and this the tomb

Of the lord Thamamar, which sheltered you

Daylong from eyes still mortal…. See, where it bears

The lichen-canceled legend of his titles

And the name itself, half-blotted out. (
He paces about, peering closely at the ground, and holding his staff extended horizontally. Over a certain spot the staff seems to twist violently in his hand, like a dowser’s wand, until it points downward with the tip almost touching the earth.
)

This is

The grave that covers Galeor. The turf

Was lately broken here, and spaded back

With the grass turned upward. (
He faces in the direction of Faraad, whose towers loom indistinctly beyond the necropolis. Raising both arms, he intertwines his fingers with the thumbs pointing skyward in the Sign of the Horns.
)

By this potent Sign,

O jealous king who dreaded cuckoldom,

Murder shall not avert from your proud head

The horns of that opprobrium: for I know

A spell whereby the dead will cuckold you. (
Turning to Kalguth
)

Now to our ceremonies. While you set

The mantic censers forth, I’ll make the circles. (
Taking a short sword, the magic arthame, from under his cloak, he traces a large circle in the turf, and a smaller one within it, trenching them both deeply and broadly. Kalguth opens the dark bag and brings out four small perforated censers whose handles are wrought in the form of the double triangle, Sign of the Macrocosm. He places them between the circles, each censer facing one of the four quarters, and lights them. The necromancers then take their positions within the inner circle. Natanasna gives the arthame to Kalguth, and retains his magic staff, which he holds aloft. Both face toward the grave of Galeor.
)

Natanasna
(
chanting
):

Mumbavut, maspratha butu,

Varvas runu, vha rancutu.
*

Incubus, my cousin, come,

Drawn from out the night you haunt,

From the hollow mist and murk

Where discarnate larvae lurk,

By the word of masterdom.

Hell will keep its covenant,

You shall have the long-lost thing

That you howl and hunger for.

Borne on sable, sightless wing,

Leave the void that you abhor,

Enter in this new-made grave,

You that would a body have:

Clothed with the dead man’s flesh,

Rising through the riven earth

In a jubilant rebirth,

Wend your ancient ways afresh,

By the mantra laid on you

Do the deed I bid you do.

Vora votha Thasaidona

Sorgha nagrakronithona.
**

(
After a pause
)

Vachat pantari vora nagraban
***

Kalguth:

Za, mozadrim: vachama vongh razan.
****

(
The turf heaves and divides, and the incubus-driven Lich of Galeor rises from the grave. The grime of interment is on its face, hands, and clothing.

It shambles forward and presses close to the outer circle, in a menacing attitude. Natanasna raises the staff, and Kalguth the arthame, used to control rebellious spirits. The Lich shrinks back.
)

The Lich
(
in a thick, unhuman voice
):

You have summoned me,

And I must minister

To your desire.

Natanasna:

Heed closely these instructions:

By alleys palled and posterns long disused,

Well-hidden from the moon and from men’s eyes,

You shall find ingress to the palace. There,

Through stairways only known to mummied kings

And halls forgotten save by ghosts, you must

Seek out the chamber of the queen Somelis,

And woo her lover-wise till that be done

Which incubi and lovers burn to do.

The Lich:

You have commanded, and I must obey.

(
Exit the Lich. When it has gone from sight, Natanasna steps from the circles, and Kalguth extinguishes the censers and repacks them in the bag.
)

Kalguth:

Where go we now?

Natanasna:

Whither the first road leads

Beyond the boundary of Yoros. We’ll

Not wait the sprouting of the crop we’ve sowed

But leave it to lesson him, who would have crimped

My well-loved minion and my acolyte

For the toothed beds of his dark torture-chambers.

(
Exeunt Natanasna and Kalguth, singing:
)

The fresh fat traveler whom the ghouls

Waylaid in the lonesome woodland gloom,

He got away, and they’ll go now

For gamy meat in a mouldy tomb.

(
Curtain
)

*
Mumbavut, lewd and evil spirit,
Whereesoever thou roamest, hear me.

**
By (or through) Thasaidon's power
Arise from the death-time-dominion.

***
The spell (or mantra) is finished by the necromancer.

****
Yes, master: the
vongh
(corpse animated by a demon) will do the rest. (These words are from Umlengha, an ancient language of Zothique, used by scholars and wizards.)

SCENE IV

The queen’s bed-chamber. Somelis half-sits, half-reclines on a cushioned couch. Enter Baltea, bearing a steaming cup.

Baltea:

With wine that stores the warmth of suns departed,

And fable-breathing spices brought from isles

Far as the morn, I have made this hippocras

Slow-mulled and powerful. Please to drink it now

That you may sleep.

Somelis
(
waving the cup away
):

Ah, would that I might drink

The self-same draft that Galeor drank, and leave

This palace where my feet forever pace

From shades of evil to a baleful sun.

Too slow, too slow the poison that consumes me—

Compounded of a love for him that’s dead

And loathing for the king.

Baltea:

I’ll play for you

And sing, though not as gallant Galeor sang.

(
She takes up a dulcimer, and sings
):

Lone upon the roseate gloom

Shone the golden star anew,

Calling like a distant bell,

Falling, dimming into death.

Came my lover with the night,

Flame and darkness in his eyes—

Drawn by love from out the grave—

Gone through all the loveless day—

(
She pauses, for steps are heard approaching along the hall.
)

Somelis:

Whose footsteps come? I fear it is the king.

(
The door is flung open violently, and the fiend-animated Lich of Galeor enters.
)

Baltea:

What thing is this, begot by hell on death?

Oh! How it leers and slobbers! It doth look

Like Galeor, and yet it cannot be.

(
The Lich sidles forward, grinning, mewing and gibbering.
)

Somelis:

If you be Galeor, speak and answer me

Who was your friend, wishing you only well

In a bitter world unfriendly to us both.

(
Baltea darts past the apparition, which does not seem to have perceived her presence, and runs from the room.
)

But if you be some fiend in Galeor’s form,

I now adjure you by the holy name

Of the goddess Ililot to go at once.

(
The features, limbs, and body of the Lich are convulsed as if by some dreadful struggle with an unseen antagonist. Then, by degrees, the convulsions slacken, the lurid flame dies down in the dead man’s eyes, and his face assumes a look of gentle and piteous bewilderment.
)

Galeor:

How came I here? Meseems that I was dead

And men had heaped the hard dry earth on me.

Somelis:

There is much mystery here, and little time

In which to moot the wherefores. But I see

That you are Galeor and none other now,

The dear sweet Galeor that I thought had died

With all the love between us unavowed,

And this contents me.

Galeor:

I must still be dead,

Though I behold and hear and answer you,

And love leaps up to course along my veins

Where death had set his sullen winter.

Somelis:

What

Can you recall?

Galeor:

Little but night-black silence

That seemed too vast for Time, wherein I was

Both bounded and diffused; and then a voice

Most arrogant and magisterial, bidding

Me, or another in my place, to do

A deed that I cannot remember now.

These things were doubtful; but I feel as one

Who in deep darkness struggled with a fiend

And cast him forth because another voice

Had bade the fiend begone.

Somelis:

Truly, I think

There is both magic here and necromancy,

Though he that called you up and sent you forth

Did so with ill intent. It matters not,

For I am glad to have you, whether dead

Or living as men reckon bootless things.

’Tis a small problem now: Baltea has gone

For Smaragad, and he’ll be here full soon,