The Garden of Adompha

Clark Ashton Smith

Lord of the sultry, red parterres
And orchards sunned by hell’s unsetting flame!
Amid thy garden blooms the Tree which bears
Unnumbered heads of demons for its fruit;
And, like a slithering serpent, runs the root
That is called Baaras;
And there the forky, pale mandragoras,
Self-torn from out the soil, go to and fro,
Calling upon thy name:
Till men new-damned will deem that devils pass,
Crying in wrathful frenzy and strange woe.
—Ludar’s Litany to Thasaidon

It was well known that Adompha, king of the wide orient isle of Sotar, possessed amid his far-stretching palace grounds a garden secret from all men except himself and the court magician, Dwerulas. The square-built granite walls of the garden, high and formidable as those of a prison, were plain for all to see, rearing above the stately beefwood and camphor trees, and broad plots of multi-colored blossoms. But nothing had ever been ascertained regarding its interior: for such care as it required was given only by the wizard beneath Adompha’s direction; and the twain spoke thereof in deep riddles that none could interpret. The thick brazen door responded to a mechanism whose mystery they shared with none other; and the king and Dwerulas, whether separately or together, visited the garden only at those hours when others were not abroad. And none could verily boast that he had beheld even so much as the opening of the door.

(Continue Reading…)

Songs In A Lesser Known Key

by Mike Wood

I’m head down on the Formica-topped table beside the coffee machine, and I’m groaning. The band are taking five. Anne nudges my elbow. Anne’s our pianist.

“Don’t let Ralph get to you, Ed,” she says. “He’s an arse. He can’t help it.”

I sit up, lean back in my seat, and try to shake off the image of Ralph, bright red, screaming in my face, spit flying… Over a key signature for God’s sake.

“I’ve had it with this musical director shit, Anne. If it’s not Psycho Ralph, it’s the band’s finances. I still haven’t told the guys that I can only pay the leads for the next few gigs; the others will have to do it for the love. What they gonna say?”

I put my hand in my pocket and fish out my reed trimmer. It’s an obsession, the constant trimming, trying to get crap reeds to speak properly. The reed I’m using today is dull, needs work. I have a little pocketknife, very sharp, flat-bladed on one side, curved on the other for getting the reed’s profile just right.

Anne watches me for full on a minute. “You always start with the whittling when you’re stressed,” she says. (Continue Reading…)

Perfidious Beauty

by Eugie Foster

Beauty knelt over the cooling body of her husband, the prince.  The elegant clock in the foyer, carved from ebony and teak, struck the midnight hour.  The twelve tiny peals: the bells of heaven tolling, or the din of hell birds?  

One.  Two.  

Knife strokes shearing through flesh as easily as heated wax.  

Three.

Blood dark as despair and wet as sorrow in a spray across the marble tile.  

Four.  Five.  

The prince a discarded doll, head askew and half severed from his neck.  

Six.  

The gold of his hair, black now and matted with gore.  

Seven, eight, nine.  

The scald of his blood on her hands, her face, cooling in the wintry air, becoming sticky as old honey in a forgotten jar.  

Ten.  Eleven.  

Fierce joy.  Her wedding day promise to her lover achieved.  

Twelve.  

Grief, held in check these long weeks, released.  

Beauty crumpled to the floor, the sobs wracking, shaking her slender frame as though they would wring her apart.     (Continue Reading…)

Death Has Red Hair

by Greye La Spina

We three men were hugging the open fire closely. The raw chill of that November night had closed in around us and the blazing logs yielded grateful warmth.

Peter Murray was leaning forward in his chair, looking absentmindedly into the leaping flames that sent flickering shadows to dancing on the walls behind us. Hank Walters was staring at Peter and I was watching both my guests with curious speculation that had risen in me since that afternoon’s encounter.

I could have sworn that Hank’s black eyes held an expression at once envious and inimical as he bent his gaze sourly on Peter’s handsome, perplexed young face. I was both dismayed and sorry, for the older man possessed a weapon that might cut the brightness out of Peter’s life; Magda Farrar was his. foster-daughter and his ward, and to young Peter she symbolized and embodied everything desirable in life.

“Come out of it, you two,” growled I, irritated and uneasy at their silence. “This is a shooting party, not a wake.”

Peter’s bright blue eyes turned from the fire. He met my gaze and chuckled. (Continue Reading…)

Knock, Knock, Wolf

by P.G. Galalis

It was time to kill the sparrows.

Every autumn, after the last leaves fell and the bare trees rattled their bone song to an empty sky, the widow Clarabel started baking. Five parts flour, three parts water, a pinch of salt and emptins for leavening, plus a handful of the devil’s blend, finely ground. She would let the loaf go stale for a day, then scatter it about the field between her cottage and the forest.

A knock on the door was the worst sound in the world if you asked Clarabel, when beggars and travelers and all kinds of wretched, needy folk would flee winter in the high peaks. Fortunately, Clarabel had discovered that a lone cottage in a field of dead sparrows seldom received any visitors.  (Continue Reading…)

The Child-Feast of Harridan Sack

By Kaitlyn Zivanovich

I plant a whisper in my daughter’s hair when her shoulders shake and hunch up to her ears. It’s only a story, I say. I turn the page; I’ve resolved her fears. It’s only a story. That is what mothers say to their daughters. 

What kind of comfort is that?

It’s not a reassurance, or a consolation.

It’s a warning.

It’s a story, child. Pay attention, it is a story. (Continue Reading…)

The Hollow Tree

by Jordan Kurella

There are two kinds of secrets: those we keep from others, and those we keep from ourselves. 

My mother told me this after one of her too-silent nights with my father. She told me that the worst ones, the ones too terrible to believe, are the second kind. She told me she hoped I’d never have one of these kinds of secrets, as she leaned over and kissed my forehead. Only then did she go to her bed. Three days after that, my second sister came out of her, unbreathing. That time, she did not cry.

She told me, “Pira, you won’t cry either.”

She told me, “Pira, you have to be strong for me. I need you to always be strong.”

And so I was.

I was strong every day as my father served my mother’s pies through our bakery window, telling all our neighbors in Stowe that they were his. He smiled through his thick black beard, dripping with sweat and grease, joking with each person who came by each day. My father’s smile was a smile I had grown to hate. But the town hadn’t. They always said: “Silas Baker has such a wide smile to go with his sad eyes.”  They always said: “There are no pies sweeter than Silas Baker’s pies.” They always said: “He must make his pies so sweet for his lost daughters.” (Continue Reading…)

Charged

by Leanna Renee Hieber

My first memory is of being struck by lightning. It was exquisite.

I was standing in my grandfather’s field just before the storm broke. White hot arcs threaded across the whole of the charcoal English sky. Trembling with thrills, I wanted to reach up and touch the delicate vein-like threads of light. It would seem they wanted to touch me too.

“There’s nothing more wondrous than a good, riotous thunderstorm, my boy,” grandfather had said with a gamesome punch to my shoulder that landed too hard. But I learned that’s how one shows affection to a male child; with a touch of force.

That’s when the bolt anointed me. I stood riveted as my bones rattled and crackled, my blood boiled and a thousand angels screamed in my ears. When it was over, small wisps of smoke curled up from my hair and coat.

Grandfather stared at me in horror. “You should be dead, child.” He clapped me again on the back, a sting of shock passing between us upon contact, and walked away.

I wasn’t dead but he was right about one thing; I’ve yet to see or feel anything more wondrous than a sky full of electricity.

(Continue Reading…)