She was running with effort now, her golden locks blowing free; heheard the quick panting of her breath, and saw a flash of fear in thelook she cast over her alabaster shoulder. The grim endurance of thewarrior had served him well. The speed ebbed from her flashing whitelegs; she reeled in her gait. In his untamed soul flamed up the firesof hell she had fanned so well. With an inhuman roar he closed in onher, just as she wheeled with a haunting cry and flung out her arms tofend him off.
His sword fell into the snow as he crushed her to him. Her supple bodybent backward as she fought with desperate frenzy in his iron arms. Hergolden hair blew about his face, blinding him with its sheen; the feelof her slender figure twisting in his mailed arms drove him to blindermadness. His strong fingers sank deep into her smooth flesh, and thatflesh was cold as ice. It was as if he embraced not a woman of humanflesh and blood, but a woman of flaming ice. She writhed her goldenhead aside, striving to avoid the savage kisses that bruised her redlips.
“You are cold as the snows,” he mumbled dazedly. “I will warm you withthe fire in my own blood—”
With a desperate wrench she twisted from his arms, leaving her singlegossamer garment in his grasp. She sprang back and faced him, hergolden locks in wild disarray, her white bosom heaving, her beautifuleyes blazing with terror. For an instant he stood frozen, awed by herterrible beauty as she posed naked against the snows.
And in that instant she flung her arms toward the lights that glowed inthe skies above her and cried out in a voice that rang in Amra’s earsfor ever after:
“_Ymir! Oh, my father, save me!_”
Amra was leaping forward, arms spread to seize her, when with a cracklike the breaking of an ice mountain, the whole skies leaped into icyfire. The girl’s ivory body was suddenly enveloped in a cold blue flameso blinding that the warrior threw up his hands to shield his eyes. Afleeting instant, skies and snowy hills were bathed in crackling whiteflames, blue darts of icy light, and frozen crimson fires. Then Amrastaggered and cried out. The girl was gone. The glowing snow lay emptyand bare; high above him the witch-lights flashed and played in afrosty sky gone mad, and among the distant blue mountains there soundeda rolling thunder as of a gigantic war-chariot rushing behind steedswhose frantic hoofs struck lightning from the snows and echoes from theskies.
Then suddenly the borealis, the snowy hills and the blazing heavensreeled drunkenly to Amra’s sight; thousands of fireballs burst withshowers of sparks, and the sky itself became a titanic wheel whichrained stars as it spun. Under his feet the snowy hills heaved up likea wave, and the Akbitanan crumpled into the snows to lie motionless.
In a cold dark universe, whose sun was extinguished eons ago, Amra feltthe movement of life, alien and unguessed. An earthquake had him in itsgrip and was shaking him to and fro, at the same time chafing his handsand feet until he yelled in pain and fury and groped for his sword.
“He’s coming to, Horsa,” grunted a voice. “Haste—we must rub the frostout of his limbs, if he’s ever to wield sword again.”
“He won’t open his left hand,” growled another, his voice indicatingmuscular strain. “He’s clutching something—”
Amra opened his eyes and stared into the bearded faces that bent overhim. He was surrounded by tall golden-haired warriors in mail and furs.
“Amra! You live!”
“By Crom, Niord,” gasped he, “am I alive, or are we all dead and inValhalla?”
“We live,” grunted the Aesir, busy over Amra’s half-frozen feet. “Wehad to fight our way through an ambush, else we had come up with youbefore the battle was joined. The corpses were scarce cold when we cameupon the field. We did not find you among the dead, so we followed yourspoor. In Ymir’s name, Amra, why did you wander off into the wastes ofthe north? We have followed your tracks in the snow for hours. Had ablizzard come up and hidden them, we had never found you, by Ymir!”
“Swear not so often by Ymir,” muttered a warrior, glancing at thedistant mountains. “This is his land and the god bides among yondermountains, the legends say.”
“I followed a woman,” Amra answered hazily. “We met Bragi’s men in theplains. I know not how long we fought. I alone lived. I was dizzy andfaint. The land lay like a dream before me. Only now do all things seemnatural and familiar. The woman came and taunted me. She was beautifulas a frozen flame from hell. When I looked at her I was as one mad, andforgot all else in the world. I followed her. Did you not find hertracks. Or the giants in icy mail I slew?”
Niord shook his head.
“We found only your tracks in the snow, Amra.”
“Then it may be I was mad,” said Amra dazedly. “Yet you yourself are nomore real to me than was the golden haired witch who fled naked acrossthe snows before me. Yet from my very hands she vanished in icy flame.”
“He is delirious,” whispered a warrior.
“Not so!” cried an older man, whose eyes were wild and weird. “It wasAtali, the daughter of Ymir, the frost-giant! To fields of the dead shecomes, and shows herself to the dying! Myself when a boy I saw her,when I lay half-slain on the bloody field of Wolraven. I saw her walkamong the dead in the snows, her naked body gleaming like ivory and hergolden hair like a blinding flame in the moonlight. I lay and howledlike a dying dog because I could not crawl after her. She lures menfrom stricken fields into the wastelands to be slain by her brothers,the ice-giants, who lay men’s red hearts smoking on Ymir’s board. Amrahas seen Atali, the frost-giant’s daughter!”
“Bah!” grunted Horsa. “Old Gorm’s mind was turned in his youth by asword cut on the head. Amra was delirious with the fury of battle. Lookhow his helmet is dinted. Any of those blows might have addled hisbrain. It was an hallucination he followed into the wastes. He is fromthe south; what does he know of Atali?”
“You speak truth, perhaps,” muttered Amra. “It was all strange andweird—by Crom!”
He broke off, glaring at the object that still dangled from hisclenched left fist; the others gaped silently at the veil he held up—awisp of gossamer that was never spun by human distaff.
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FANTASY BOOK
by Lester Anderson
“Gandle Follows His Nose” by Heywood Broun (Boni & Liveright 1926). OurScripps-Howard correspondent turns out a short allegorical fantasywhich concerns itself with the adventures of one Bunny Gandle who, when18 years of age, was taken, by his uncle, to the sorcerer Boaz,wherefrom he managed to escape with the cape of invisibility. We travelwith him to strange lands. We hear of his finding and the subsequentloss of the magic lamp, his victory over the God Kla, the repulsion ofthe armies of King Helgas, and his sojourn in the Land of the FlyingSword. We meet our old friend, Yom, the genie who is much perturbedwhen Gandle orders him to bring a poached egg, of all things. Yom,incidentally, tenders young Gandle some sage advice concerning Lifewhich the youth cannot grasp. Who can blame him, as the genie had 5694years of experience? The underlying current in this piece is that of“wishfulfilment,” which I think, was what Broun primarily had in mind.It makes novel reading from all angles.
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SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE
Part Six
by H. P. Lovecraft
(Copyright 1927, W. Paul Cook)
Through the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century, we behold agrowing mass of fugitive legendry and balladry of darksome cast; still,however, held down beneath the surface of polite and acceptedliterature. Chap-books of horror and weirdness multiplied, and weglimpse the eager interest of the people through fragments like DeFoe’s_Apparition of Mrs. Veal_, a homely tale of a dead woman’s spectralvisit to a distant friend, written to advertise covertly a badlyselling theological disquisition on death. The upper orders of societywere now losing f
aith in the supernatural, and indulging in a period ofclassic rationalism. Then, beginning with the translations of Easterntales in Queen Anne’s reign and taking definite form toward the middleof the century, comes the revival of romantic feeling—the era of newjoy in Nature, and in the radiance of past times, strange scenes, bolddeeds, and incredible marvels. We feel it first in the poets, whoseutterances take on new qualities of wonder, strangeness, andshuddering. And finally, after the timid appearance of a few weirdscenes in the novels of the day—such as Smollett’s _Adventures ofFerdinand, Count Fathom_—the released instinct precipitates itself inthe birth of a new school of writing; the “Gothic” school of horribleand fantastic prose fiction, long and short, whose literary posterityis destined to become so numerous, and in many cases so resplendent inartistic merit. It is, when one reflects upon it, genuinely remarkablethat weird narration as a fixed and academically recognized literaryform should have been so late of final birth. The impulse andatmosphere are as old as man, but the typical weird tale of standardliterature is a child of the eighteenth century.
(Next month we will give you a much longer installment of this article,in which Mr. Lovecraft takes up the third section, “The Early GothicNovel.”)
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YOUR VIEWS
You will remember that, in the closing statement in the last departmentof “The Boiling Point” last month, we asked you, the readers, to tellus what you think of horror stories. Is there any virtue to them? Whydo people delight in being horrified?—etc. suggested by Forrest J.Ackerman. H. P. Lovecraft honors us with the first opinion, which wepresent to you as follows:
“It can be said that anything which vividly embodies a basic humanemotion or captures a definite and typical human mood is genuine art.The subject matter is immaterial. It requires an especial morbidity toenjoy any authentic word-depiction, whether it is conventionally‘pleasant’ or not. Indeed, it argues a somewhat immature and narrowprospection when our judgment is by the mere conventional appeal of itssubject-matter or its supposed social effects. The question to ask isnot whether it is ‘healthy’ or ‘pleasant,’ but whether it is _genuine_and _powerful_.”
Have you another idea concerning the horror story? If so, let us knowwhat it is. However, if your opinion differs, don’t tell Mr. Lovecraftthat he is crazy or has a diseased mind for thinking as he does, orthis department will just become another ‘Boiling Point.’ Or bring upsomething new, if you will. This is your department, and anything youwish to say concerning weird fiction in general or any of its branchesin particular will be printed here. Here’s hoping to hear from you.
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REVENANT
by Clark Ashton Smith
I am the specter who returns Unto some desolate world in ruin borne afar On the black flowing of Lethean skies: Ever I search, in cryptic galleries, The void sarcophagi, the broken urns Of many a vanished avatar: Or haunt the gloom of grumbling pylons vast In temples that enshrine the shadowy past. Viewless, impalpable and fleet, I roam stupendous avenues, and greet Familiar sphinxes carved from everlasting stone, Or the fair, brittle gods of long ago, Decayed and fallen low. And there I mark the tall clepsammiae That time has overthrown, And empty clepsydrae, And dials drowned in umbrage never-lifting; And there, on rusty parapegms, I read the ephemerides Of antique stars and elder planets drifting Oblivionward in night. And there, with purples of the tomb bedight, And crowned with funeral gems, I hold awhile the throne Whereon mine immemorial selves have sate, Canopied by the triple-tinted glory Of the three suns forever paled and flown.
I am the specter who returns And dwells content with his forlorn estate In mansions lost and hoary Where no lamp burns; Who feasts within the sepulcher, And finds the ancient shadows lovelier Than gardens all emblazed with sevenfold noon, Or topaz-builded towers That throng below some iris-pouring moon. Exiled and homeless in the younger stars, Henceforth I shall inhabit that grey clime Whose days belong to primal calendars; Nor would I come again Back to the garish terrene hours; For I am free of vaults unfathomable And treasures lost from time: With bat and vampire there I flit through somber skies immeasurable Or fly adown the unending subterranes; Mummied and ceremented, I sit in councils of the kingly dead; And oftentimes for vestiture I wear The granite of great idols looming darkly In atlantean fanes; Or closely now and starkly I cling as clings the attenuating air About the ruins bare.
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THE WORDS IN THE SKY
(A True Experience)
by Kenneth B. Pritchard
On one evening in 1916, before the United States had entered the WorldWar, I happened to be out with my mother. The place was Bridgeport,Connecticut, near the corner of Main and State Streets. The stars wereshining, as usual, though I gave them no particular notice.
We had turned the corner and traversed several feet, when I chanced tolook up into the sky. Lo and behold, the stars had formed themselvesinto one great patch in the heavens, in the form of letters, and thoseletters spelled words!
I could read some, at the time, but I tugged at my mother’s arm andasked her what it said. I am hazy as to her answer. Perhaps she told methat there was nothing there, or ignored the childish gesture entirely.At any rate, I looked up again and the words were still there. I don’tbelieve that my mother even glanced at them.
You are anxious to learn what it said? Well, it took years for thatmemory to come back to me, but I now have it, in what I am fairly sureare the correct words. The exact ones do not make any difference, for Iam sure of their meaning. The message in the sky read, “The UnitedStates of America will run red with blood!”
A short time after peering at the stars, some invisible forces tookhold of them. The brilliant orbs were shifted as by a mighty hand. Theymoved like checkers on a vast board. And then, the stars ceased theirjourneyings; they were once more on their accustomed courses. I loweredmy head; the gigantic show was over!
Delusion, you say? I’m afraid I don’t agree with you.
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HOW TO WRITE A WEIRD TALE
by Hoy Ping Pong
Unlike its sister, the science fiction story, the weird tale needs aplot. To go about this, select the plot which has been used most since1926 and write your tale around it. I said _around_. Don’t touch theplot itself; editors won’t stand for that! Above all, _don’t_ invent anoriginal one. Readers won’t know what you’re talking about if you don’tuse one that has been plotted 6,438,900 and a fraction times, more orless. At this point, you can discard the plot altogether, because theeditor would send your brain-child back if you didn’t, on the groundsthat there are too many stories with plots in them as it is. They wouldrather have action.
Action—that is the keynote! The hero must dash hither and thither overthe landscape, saving the beautiful blue eyed heroine, who lisps inbaby-talk, from the snakey clutches of the villain who, incidentally,is about to let loose on the city a horde of terrible monsters. Wherehe got them from is none of your business, so you’d do much better toworry yourself about something else—where your next meal is comingfr
om, for instance. I would suggest that pre-historic monsters be used,for they are easier to account for than ones from other dimensions.Editors have an annoying habit of asking authors where their monsterscame from. You had better have the monsters destroy New York City. Theinhabitants of this city are so used to being destroyed that they nowtake it with a chuckle of droll humor. The tax payers might protest abit though, but don’t mind them.
Here to add a bit of flavor to the tale, bring in a new plot. Discardit and bring in a third. Throw that one away too. Plots are cheap—$1.75an acre in Missouri. Small plots will do. Then, while the stunnedreaders are still gasping over the plots, throw in a barrage of bigwords that none of them will understand, including Webster and ClarkAshton Smith. This will stupefy them.
About this time, put in something really weird and spine-chilling. Icemight do, but it melts too rapidly in warm climes, and a southernreader wouldn’t get his spine thoroughly chilled, so you had betterdevise something else.
As a final bit of advice, it would be best to have some sort ofrecommendation to the editor in order to have your story more readilyacceptable. So have your Uncle Silas, who has a friend that knows afriend who is an acquaintance with someone that knows the printer whopublishes the said editor’s magazine, put in a good word for you.
If this fails (as it undoubtedly will) take your brain-child to him inperson. This will save postage both ways, because editors never fail toreject manuscripts from beginners (I object—Editor). Don’t worry overthis tho. Let it lay around home a few weeks mellowing with age, andthen send it in again, untouched. This time it will be accepted. Maybe.