Clark Ashton Smith and Zothique, illuminated by a dim and tarnished sun
Image by Junior Peres Junior from Pixabay
I'm going to do a few articles on dark fantasy, grimdark and otherwise. My Cambion Chronicles series is heading in that direction, and what better way to explore dark fantasy that doing some dives into it?
Let's kick this off with one of my favourite writers, Clark Ashton Smith. (CAS) He was one of Lovecraft's contemporaries, and dare I say it, a better prose writer. If you haven't read his stuff before, you're in for a treat, especially if you dig his dense, poetical style. His work ranges across different story universes, but my favourite is the Zothique stories, set at the end of the world. In CAS's writings, our own Earth goes through many different ages, including a sword-and-sorcery Hyberborean age, the gothic stories of Averoigne, a few set in a modern age where the lives of contemporary people are touched by ancient gods and hidden monsters.
And at the end of the world, the last age belongs to Zothique. A dying earth, and exceedingly grimdark, setting.
On Zothique, the last continent on Earth, the sun no longer shone with the whiteness of its prime, but was dim and tarnished as if with a vapor of blood. New stars without number had declared themselves in the heavens, and the shadows of the infinite had fallen closer. And out of the shadows, the older gods had returned to man: the gods forgotten since Hyperborea, since Mu and Poseidonis, bearing other names but the same attributes. And the elder demons had also returned, battening on the fumes of evil sacrifice, and fostering again the primordial sorceries.
There's sixteen stories and a poem in the Zothique cycle. The main themes are of loss, aging and lessening of one's status and fortunes. Past glories will never come again. Bargains for power end badly. I find reading them back-to-back a bit like eating rich chocolate cake, and perhaps could be broken up with other tales.
In Zothique, main entity people bargain with is Thasaidon, lord of the seven underworlds, master of sorceries, particularly necromancy.
“Thasaidon is the master of all sorceries, and a giver of magic gifts to those who serve him and acknowledge him as their lord. Pledge your allegiance, promise your soul to him; and in fee thereof, the Demon will surely reward you. If it be your wish, he can wake again the buried past with his necromancy.” (From Xeethra, by Clark Ashton Smith)
Other setting elements are decaying cities, decadent kingdoms, and tombs filled forgotten horrors and kings. The Zothique stores are collected on Eldritch Dark, and there are sixteen in the set. Most of them end badly for the protagonist, or end with a near miss. The protagonists include greed treasure hunters, necromancers, and people trying to survive the dark, overwhelming horror of Zothique.
Probably the best ones I like are Xeethra (about a dark bargain with Thasaidon), The Isle of Torturers (which sounds like a good D&D adventure but is a really good revenge story, as much as Zothique allows it), Morthylla (tragic gothic romance), and possibly the most 'heroic' story, The Charnel God, where a man is trying to rescue his narcoleptic wife from priests of the death god.
I'd recommend checking out at least some of these stories writings, for the sheer dread and poetry of Zothique itself.