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The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith

Page 23

by Clark Ashton Smith


  On which to stretch their scalded stumps?

  Natanasna:

  Indeed

  I know your laws, and also know that you

  Have a law forbidding murder.

  Smaragad:

  What do you mean?

  Natanasna:

  I mean but this, that you the king have filled

  More tombs than I the outlawed necromancer

  Have ever emptied, and detest not idly

  The raising of dead men. Would you have me summon

  For witness here against you the grey shade

  Of Famostan your father, in his bath

  Slain by the toothed envenomed fish from Taur

  Brought privily and installed by you? Or rather

  Would you behold your brother Aladad,

  Whose huntsmen left him with a splintered spear

  At your instruction, to confront the fen-cat

  That he had merely pricked? Yet these would be

  Only the heralds of that long dark file

  Which you have hurried into death.

  Smaragad (half-rising from his seat):

  By all

  The sooted hells, you dare such insolence?

  Though you be man or devil, or be both,

  I’ll flay you, and leave your hide to hang in strips

  Like a kilt about you, and will have your guts

  Drawn out and wound on a windlass.

  Natanasna:

  These be words

  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 ris
es 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,

  Mammering for twofold murder. (She goes to the door, closes it, and draws the ponderous metal bars in their massive sockets. Then, with a broidered kerchief and water from a pitcher, she washes the grave-mould from Galeor’s face and hands, and tidies his garments. They embrace. He kisses her, and caresses her cheeks and hair.)

  Ah, your touch

  Is tenderer than I have known before….

  And yet, alas, your lips, your hands….

  Poor Galeor, the grave has left you cold:

  I’ll warm you in my bed and in my arms

  For those short moments ere the falling sword

  Shatter the fragile bolts of mystery

  And open what’s beyond.

  (Heavy footsteps approach in the hall outside and there is a babbling of loud, confused voices, followed by a metallic clang like that of a sword-hilt hammering on the door.)

  (Curtain)

  SCENE V

  The king’s pavilion in the palace-gardens. Smaragad sits at the head of a long table littered with goblets, wine-jars and liquor-flasks, some empty or overturned, others still half-full. Sargo and Boranga are seated on a bench near the table’s foot. A dozen fellow-revelers, laid low by their potations, lie sprawled about the floor or on benches and couches. Sargo and Boranga are singing:

  A ghoul there was in the days of old,

  And he drank the wine-dark blood
/>   Without a goblet, with never a flagon,

  Fresh from the deep throat-veins of the dead.

  But we instead, but we instead,

  Will drink from goblets of beryl and gold

  A blood-dark wine that was made by the dead

  In the days of old.

  (A silence ensues, while the singers wet their husky throats. Smaragad fills and empties his flagon, then fills it again.)

  Boranga (in a lowered voice):

  Something has ired or vexed

  The king: he drinks

  Like one stung by the dipsas, whose dread bite

  Induces lethal thirst.

  Sargo:

  He’s laid the most

  Of our tun-gutted guzzlers ’neath the board,

  And I’m not long above it…. This forenoon

  He held much parley with the necromancer

  Whose stygian torts outreek the ripened charnel.

  Mayhap it has left him thirsty. ’Twas enough

  For me when Natanasna passed to windward.

  I’m told the king called for incensories

  To fume the audience-hall, and fan-bearers

  To waft the nard-born vapors round and round

  And ventilate with moa-plumes his presence

  When the foul mage was gone.

  Boranga:

  They say that Natanasna

  And his asphalt-colored ingle have both vanished,

  Though none knows whither. Faraad will lose

  One bone for gossip’s gnawing. I would not give you

  A fig-bird’s tooth or an aspic’s tail-end feather

  For all your conjurers. Let’s bawl a catch. (They sing:)

  —There’s a thief in the house, there’s a thief in the house,

  My master, what shall we do?

  The fuzzled bowser, he called for Towser,

  But Towser was barking the moon.

  (Enter Baltea, breathless and disheveled.)

  Baltea:

  Your Majesty, there’s madness loose from hell.

  Smaragad:

  What’s wrong? Has someone raped you without leave?

  Baltea:

  No, ’tis about the queen, from whose bed-chamber

 

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