Short Fiction · Chapters
Chapters explained
Chapter companions for Short Fiction by Clark Ashton Smith.
Chapter 1
The Malay Krise
A sword-dealer recounts to the narrator the story of Sultan Sujah Ali, a pirate who terrorized the Malay Peninsula and China Sea until the British captured him with the help of his jealous wife Amina. The krise (Malay knife) being sold is identified as the very weapon used by the Sultan in his final desperate fight.
Chapter 2
The Ghost of Mohammed Din
The narrator, a skeptic of the supernatural, wagers with his friend Nicholson that he can spend a night in a haunted bungalow in Hyderabad. The house, owned by Yussuf Ali Borah, was formerly occupied by Mohammed Din, a merchant found stabbed to death. Despite warnings and previous tenants' terrifying experiences, the narrator stays overnight, encounters the ghost of Mohammed Din, and fires his revolver without effect. The ghost leads him to a hidden box containing papers that implicate Ali Bagh in counterfeiting and likely in Mohammed Din's murder. The papers are turned over to the police, leading to Ali Bagh's conviction.
Chapter 3
The Mahout
John Hawley witnesses a mahout training an elephant to toss a dummy, later recognizing the same mahout during a royal procession where the elephant, Raja, hurls the Maharaja Krishna Singh to his death. A letter reveals the mahout is the son of a man executed by Krishna Singh, who sought revenge by becoming an elephant driver and training Raja to kill.
Chapter 4
The Raja and the Tiger
Bently, the new British Resident at Shaitanabad, initially finds the Raja cooperative and agreeable. After settling a land dispute, the Raja invites Bently on a tiger hunt at an ancient Jain cave temple. During the hunt, the Raja and a Rajput attempt to push Bently into a pit, but the tiger returns and kills them instead. Bently survives and later investigates the temple, uncovering evidence of the Raja's previous murders.
Chapter 5
The Last Incantation
The aged sorcerer Malygris, weary and disillusioned despite his immense magical power, summons the ghost of his long-dead beloved Nylissa. However, he finds that the apparition lacks the perfection of his memory, leading him to a profound realization about the vanity of magic, the loss of youth, and the delusiveness of memory.
Chapter 6
The Abominations of Yondo
The narrator, a heretic tortured by the Inquisitors of Ong, is released at the edge of the desert of Yondo, a place of cosmic desolation and supernatural horror. He struggles through a landscape of decay, ancient ruins, and monstrous entities, encountering a blind, spider-like creature and a procession of spectral figures, including a headless armored man and a mummified king with a demonic familiar. Overcome by terror, he flees back toward his tormentors.
Chapter 7
The Ninth Skeleton
Herbert Albert Adams sets out to meet his fiancée Guenevere on Boulder Ridge, but the sky darkens unnaturally and he loses his way in a nightmarish landscape. He encounters a field of ancient tombstones and is horrified to witness a procession of skeletons carrying infant skeletons. After counting eight, a ninth skeleton without an infant plucks at his sleeve, causing him to faint. He awakens to find Guenevere concerned, standing among the boulders of their rendezvous.
Chapter 8
The End of the Story
Christophe Morand, a young visitor at a monastery, becomes obsessed with a forbidden manuscript shown to him by Abbot Hilaire. Despite the abbot's warnings of dire peril, his curiosity is inflamed. The next morning, he learns from a monk that the nearby ruins of the Château des Faussesflammes are haunted by demons and witches. Overcome by an irresistible impulse, Christophe resolves to explore the ruins. He sneaks away from the monastery, finds the hidden entrance described in the manuscript, and descends into the vaults. After a short passage, he emerges into a strange, beautiful land unlike anything in Averoigne, with a golden river, laurel trees, and a distant marble acropolis, under a spring sky.
Chapter 9
Sadastor
The demon Charnadis tells a lamia the tale of his visit to the dying planet Sadastor, where he found the siren Lyspial weeping in a dwindling pool—the last remnant of her former ocean. Despite his offer to carry her to a newer world, she explains that she was born of that world's waters and must perish with them. Charnadis leaves her to her fate, finding solace only later in the embrace of a vampire on a young world, and offers the story to console the lamia in her own romantic woes.
Chapter 10
The Phantoms of the Fire
Jonas McGillicuddy returns home after three years to find his cabin and family destroyed by a forest fire. He witnesses a phantom vision of his wife and children before being engulfed in flames, only to awaken and learn from a neighbor that the fire occurred four days earlier and his family perished.
Chapter 11
Marooned in Andromeda
Mutineers are marooned on a desolate world in the Andromeda constellation, where they confront an alien landscape and a monstrous bird-like creature, only to be saved when the creature is killed by a giant vegetable anaconda.
Chapter 12
I
Three mutineers—Albert Adams, Chester Deming, and James Roverton—are marooned on an alien world by Captain Volmar after attempting to seize control of his interstellar vessel. Bound and confined, they are eventually released onto a strange planet with an acrid atmosphere, left to fend for themselves without weapons or provisions.
Chapter 13
II
Three mutineers, marooned on an alien world in the Andromeda galaxy, struggle to survive in a desolate, eerie landscape. They encounter strange luminescent microorganisms, a carnivorous plant-like organism, and are eventually approached by pygmy-like beings riding monstrous lizard-like creatures.
Chapter 14
Marooned!
Three mutineers—Roverton, Deming, and a third—are marooned on an alien world in the Andromeda galaxy. They struggle to adapt to the strange environment, experiencing eerie sounds, unusual gravity, and a growing sense of dread as they wait for dawn in the blue-green darkness.
Chapter 15
A Strange Land
The mutineers, stranded on an alien world in the Andromeda system, explore a desolate landscape illuminated by strange luminescence. They encounter bizarre flora and fauna, including carnivorous boulder-like organisms that trap flying insectoid creatures, and are eventually confronted by a group of pygmy beings riding giant lizard-like mounts.
Chapter 16
III
The mutineers are herded by pygmy-like creatures riding lizard-monsters across a desolate alien plain. They are forced to work, fed a strange paste, and eventually led into a cavern, uncertain of their fate.
Chapter 17
Captured!
The mutineers are captured by grotesque lizard-creatures and their cyclops-eyed riders, who herd them across a desolate alien landscape. They are forced to march at a brutal pace through a barren plain under a dim sun, with no signs of life or civilization, as they wonder what fate awaits them.
Chapter 18
A Conference
The mutineers, having been captured by pygmies, are led to a ravine settlement where they are forced to help process a strange food paste. After a meal and a night's rest, they wake to find a large assembly of pygmies engaged in a mysterious debate about their fate.
Chapter 19
IV The Brink of Doom
The mutineers, blinded by darkness, descend into a cavern where they encounter a monstrous, many-mouthed god worshipped by pygmies. Forced off a ledge, they fall into a pool and escape through a narrow underwater passage, floating through a swift current until they emerge into a sunlit lake.
Chapter 20
The Brink of Doom
The mutineers, having descended into a dark cavern, find themselves on a ledge above a stagnant pool. A monstrous, multi-mouthed creature rises from the water, and the pygmies, along with a lizard-monster, perform a ritual that suggests the men are to be sacrificed to the creature.
Chapter 21
Into the Stream!
Roverton, Adams, and a companion escape a monstrous entity with multiple mouths and eyes by swimming into a narrow cave. They are carried by a swift current through an underground world, facing darkness and uncertainty, until they finally see a light and emerge into a large lake.
Chapter 22
Into the Pouch
Roverton, Adams, and Deming, exhausted from swimming across a desolate lake, are captured by a giant bird-like creature and carried in its pouch. After a long flight, the bird is attacked and killed by a massive vegetable anaconda. The men escape the pouch only to be captured by carnivorous plant-monsters. Adams is eaten and then regurgitated, while Roverton and Deming are passed through the deadly jungle and finally flung unconscious onto a treeless plain.
Chapter 23
Into the Pouch
Three men—Adams, Deming, and Roverton—swim across a desolate lake beneath high cliffs, only to be captured by a giant bird-like creature with a massive pouch. They are carried in the pouch for a long, disorienting flight until the bird engages in a violent struggle, collapses, and dies, allowing them to escape through its open beak.
Chapter 24
A New Horror
Roverton, Adams, and Deming find themselves in a nightmarish jungle on an alien world, surrounded by carnivorous plant-monsters. Adams is devoured by a kraken-like plant but is later ejected, as human flesh proves indigestible. The survivors are passed through the jungle by the plants and eventually flung unconscious onto a treeless plain.
Chapter 25
VI: The Great Plain
Roverton and Deming recover from their violent expulsion from the carnivorous jungle and traverse a vast, eerie plain of resilient clay. They discover a table-like elevation with dead plant-monsters and alien ruins, including a monolith carved with bas-reliefs of an unknown race. Exhausted and without food, they rest in the ruins, their hope fading.
Chapter 26
Volmar Again!
Roverton and Deming, marooned on a hostile alien world, are attacked by a swarm of giant insects. After fighting them off with fire, Captain Volmar unexpectedly arrives in the space-flier, apologizes for his earlier harshness, and offers to take them back. He explains that the ship suffered casualties and engine trouble, and that the planet is uninhabitable. They accept and depart into space.
Chapter 27
The Uncharted Isle
A mariner discovers an uncharted island that defies geography and time, inhabited by a perplexed people obsessed with celestial calculations. He witnesses a horrific ritual sacrifice to a monstrous idol, flees in terror, and barely survives to tell his tale, though his sanity and the reality of his experience are doubted.
Chapter 28
Endnotes
This chapter contains endnotes that clarify the term 'Andromeda' as a section of the heavens and define a marine animal that gives off phosphorescence.
