The Last Hieroglyph (62 page)

A poetic couplet that was entered a few entries before the above-quoted entry would appear in hindsight to have provided the germ of this idea:

For in your voice are voices from beyond the tomb.

And in your face a shadow risen from vast vaults.
³

The Relationship of Valzain and Famurza resembles that of CAS and his mentor, George Sterling.

Weird Tales
snatched this story up and published it in the May 1953 issue. The magazine would soon be reduced to digest size and would cease publication in little over a year. Smith included the story in
TSS.
Only a couple of pages of the typescript for “Morthylla” survive among Smith’s papers at JHL; most of the typescript perished in the September 1957 fire that destroyed Smith’s cabin.

1. CAS, letter to L. Sprague de Camp, October 21, 1952 (
SL
371 [misdated 1953 in this appearance]).

2.
BB
item 99.

3.
BB
item 94.

Schizoid Creator

P
sychoanalysis and psychiatrists were not subjects near to Clark Ashton Smith’s heart. In his 1934 essay “On Fantasy” he listed “Freudianism” as one of the chief forces working against the imagination in modern life, and in a 1949 symposium on science fiction he offered the quip “Sometimes I suspect that Freud should be included among the modern masters of science fiction!”
²
One of his epigrams states that “One can postulate anything, and people will accept it as religion, philosophy—or psychoanalysis.”
³

Smith gave full vent to his contempt for Freud’s minions in one of two stories he wrote early in the autumn of 1952, “Schizoid Creator.” As he described the tale to L. Sprague de Camp, it was “a fantastic satire that mixes black magic with psychiatric shock-treatment (the patient being a demon!).”
⁴
The “black magic” to which Smith refers is the use of the names of God to compel entities both demonic and divine to do the sayer’s will. Two consecutive items in Smith’s
Black Book
illuminate this further:

According to Jewish tradition, when Lilith refused to yield obedience to Adam, she uttered the Shemhamphorash, the ineffable name of Jehovah, and, by virtue of this, instantly flew away. This utterance gave her such power that even Jehovah could not coerce her.

According to widespread belief, the gods have kept their true names secret but other gods, or even men, should be able to conjure with them. To the Mohammedan, Allah is but an epithet in place of the Most Great Name; and the secret of the latter is committed to prophets and apostles alone. Those who know the Most Great Name can, by pronouncing it, transport themselves from place to place at will, can kill the living, raise the dead to life, and work other miracles.
⁵

Smith refers to “Shem-hamphorash, the nameless name,” in his last poem, “Cycles.”
⁶

The image of Satan caressing a flayed girl is a homage to his mentor, George Sterling. In his poem “A Wine of Wizardry” Sterling included the following lines:

But Fancy still is fugitive, and turns

To caverns where a demon altar burns,

And Satan, yawning on his brazen seat,

Fondles a screaming thing his fiends have flayed,

Ere Lilith come his indolence to greet,

Who leads from hell his whitest queens, arrayed

In chains so heated at their master’s fire

That one new-damned had thought their bright attire

Indeed were coral, till the dazzling dance

So terribly that brilliance shall enhance.
⁷

Smith submitted the story to
Fantasy Fiction
, a digest-sized competitor of
Weird Tales
that emulated the model of
Unknown Worlds
, where it appeared in the November 1953 issue. Only burned fragments survive of the typescript for this story, and what parts can still be read would seem to indicate that it was an earlier draft—there are differences with the published text, but the differences are cruder and less polished than what finally appeared. The current text is based upon the
Fantasy Fiction
text.

1.
PD
38: “In short, all pipe-dreams, all fantasies not authorized by Freudianism, by sociology, and by the five senses, are due for the critical horse-laugh.…”

2. CAS, letter to AWD, February 11, 1949 (
SL
358).

3. CAS,
The Devil’s Notebook.
Ed. Donald Sidney-Fryer and Don Herron (Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1990): p. 71.

4. CAS, letter to L. Sprague de Camp, October 21, 1952 (
SL
370). This letter is misdated 1953.

5.
BB
items 21 and 22.

6. CAS, “Cycles.” In
The Wine of Summer: The Complete Poetry and Translations Volume 2.
Ed. S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2008): p. 642.

7. George Sterling, “A Wine of Wizardry.”
The Thirst of Satan: Poems of Fantasy and Terror
. Ed. S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2003): 150–151.

Monsters in the Night

A
nthony Boucher (pseudonym of William A. P. White [1911–1968]) had given Clark Ashton Smith’s first two Arkham House collections favorable reviews, so when he became one of the founding editors of the
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
, he would appear to have been a reliable new market for Smith’s stories. Boucher even lived in nearby Berkeley, California, where Smith visited frequently to visit his friend George Haas, with whom Boucher was also acquainted.

Smith submitted “Thirteen Phantasms” to Boucher late in 1951. Boucher rejected the story on the grounds that it was too realistic, but took the time to offer Smith these observations, which unfortunately survive only in a burned fragment:

Personally I’ve been enjoying & admiring your fiction for twenty years & more—particularly that individually mordant humor that you display in such items as “The Monster of the Prophecy” and “The Weird of Avoosl Wutthuquan.” (I just checked & see that I misspelled that… but you’ll admit that’s doing well from memory!) But your type of highly elaborated & remote fantasy doesn’t [
burned
] to be what our readers want. They prefer a more simple treatment, a closer impingement of the fantastic [
burned
] people. [
remainder burned
]
²

He concluded the letter with an invitation to drop in for a drink if Smith were ever in Berkeley.

Smith must have experienced a sensation of
déjà vu
at reading this: it was as if Farnsworth Wright were speaking from the next world. When he next submitted a story to
F&SF
, it was with a newly written story that lacked many of his characteristic rhetorical flourishes.

“Monsters in the Night,” one of Smith’s most frequently anthologized stories, was the next story that Smith submitted to Boucher. He rejected it with these observations: “Sorry, but—nice idea, this werewolf-vs-robot, but I’m afraid it tips itself to the reader too early, & is too bluntly resolved.”
³
Boucher responded in a more positive manner after Smith rewrote the story and fixed those defects: “With a very slight change at the end, we want to accept ‘Monsters in the Night.’ Please advise if you approve of the following, which would replace your last two paragraphs on page 4: [. . . ] We think this is quite an effective windup to a highly unique story.”
⁴
Smith agreed to the change, leading to a story contract, a check for forty-five dollars, and the story’s appearance in the October 1954 issue of
F&SF
(under the title of “A Prophecy of Monsters,” which was obviously a nod by Boucher to one of his favorite Smith stories)
.
⁵
It was collected posthumously in
OD
.

Since Smith readily agreed to Boucher’s suggested changes, and since he had a history of being open to such suggestions, we have retained the published ending. For the curious, here is what Smith originally wrote:

“Who—what—are you?” quavered the werewolf.

“I am a robot,” said the stranger.

Several different drafts exist of this story. Our text is based upon the typescript dated April 11, 1953 on which CAS had crossed out “Monsters in the Night” and had written in its place “A Prophecy of Monsters,” along with “To Fantasy and Science Fiction” and “1100 words.”

1. See
FFT
pp. 61

2. Anthony Boucher, letter to CAS, December 6, 1951 (ms, JHL).

3. Anthony Boucher, note to CAS, April 18, 1953 (ms, private collection).

4. Anthony Boucher, letter to CAS, May 17, 1953 (ms, JHL).

5. Robert Mills, letter to CAS and attached legal contract, June 2, 1953 (ms, JHL).

Phoenix

A
ugust Derleth invited Clark Ashton Smith to contribute a story to an original science fiction anthology,
Time To Come
, that he was editing for Farrar, Straus and Young. Smith wrote a new story based upon a plot idea he had jotted down in the
Black Book
. Entitled “Phoenix,” it described “An expedition sent from the earth to the extinct sun, for the purpose of rekindling it by means of atomic fission. The expedition is trapped by the tremendous gravity of the dead, solid orb but accomplishes its purpose, after sending back to earth a rocket containing reports, messages, etc.”
¹
He completed the story sometime in September 1953 according to the typescript presented by Smith to George Haas, which was consulted for this text. It was collected posthumously in
OD.

1.
BB
item 81. The title itself may be found at item 78.

The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles

S
mith had entertained the idea of writing additional adventures of Satampra Zeiros when he plotted out a story in his
Black Book
that he called both “The Ancient Shadow” and “The Shadow from the Sarcophagus,” but the story never progressed beyond that stage.
¹
“The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles” was begun in October 1952, when he mentioned in a letter that he was working on the story,
²
but it was apparently not completed until just before April 25, 1957, when he announced its completion and submission to
F&SF
.
³
Anthony Boucher delivered the news of its rejection in person, probably when they gathered together at George Haas’ home in Berkeley, but he typed out a letter putting forth his criticism: “It’s good to see the return of Satampra Zeiros after 26 years; but I’m afraid I can’t feel that THE THEFT OF THE THIRTY-NINE GIRDLES is really fantasy. The only fantasy element lies in its Hyperborean setting, & the events themselves, in your words (p 6), ‘though extraordinary, are not beyond nature.’ Result: an entertaining crime story in an extravagantly exotic setting rather than, strictly, a fantasy.”
⁴
Smith submitted the story next to
Fantastic Universe
, but apparently editor Hans Stefan Santesson failed to appreciate its subtle humor. Donald A. Wollheim accepted the story for
Saturn Science Fiction
, a short-lived digest magazine, which published it under the less imaginative but also less suggestive title “The Powder of Hyperborea” in its March 1958 issue. It was collected posthumously in
TSS
.

Several different typescripts exist for this story, along with a holographic draft, but none of them appear to represent Smith’s final thoughts. We based our text upon the magazine appearance, although we did restore “Lament to Vixeela,” which we believe Smith removed on the theory that a 1950s-era sf magazine would not be a receptive venue for his poetry.

1.
BB
item 70. “The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles” may be found in a listing of possible titles at item 210.

2. CAS, letter to L. Sprague de Camp, October 21, 1952 (
SL
371). [letter was dated 195
3
].

3. CAS, letter to AWD, April 25, 1957 (ms, SHSW).

4. Anthony Boucher, letter to CAS, May 22, 1957 (ms, JHL).

Symposium of the Gorgon

T
his story was completed by Clark Ashton Smith on August 5, 1957. He submitted it to Anthony Boucher at the
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
and received the following response: “I like ‘Symposium of the Gorgon,’ but I fear it’s too absolute a fantasy for most modern tastes. Our readers seem to prefer a less tenuous liaison with reality, & a little more in the way of plot & character. This has the charm of verse, but not enough bones for fiction.”
¹
It was accepted by Hans Stefan Santesson for
Fantastic Universe
. “Symposium of the Gorgon” appeared in the October 1958 issue. Curiously enough, the cover features a Virgil Finlay cover depicting the Gorgon and her statuary victims, but it was not illustrating any scene from Smith’s story.

Smith expressed some of the same ideas, albeit less acerbically, in his poem “The Centaur.”

The Smith Papers at the John Hay Library has no less than two typescripts of “Symposium of the Gorgon,” as well as fragments of an autograph manuscript, but all of these are apparently earlier drafts that differ significantly from the published version. These versions are much less polished than the published version, and to perpetuate any of these changes would not be to Smith’s credit. Besides
Fantastic Universe
, the editors consulted the story’s appearance in
TSS
, but this version had a number of typographical errors.