"The Death of Ilalotha" is a short story by American author
Clark Ashton Smith as part of his
Zothique
''Zothique'' is a collection of fantasy short stories by Clark Ashton Smith, edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the sixteenth volume of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1970. It was the firs ...
cycle, and first published in the September
1937 issue of ''
Weird Tales
''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, pri ...
''.
Plot
Amid festivities, Ilalotha who is next in succession to Queen Xantlicha dies of fatal passion. Lord Thulos who is in love with the queen discovers the body. Thulos is suspect since the queen poisoned King Archain and other lovers who do not please the queen. While servants dispatch the body to a necropolis near the palace, the queen and Lord Thulos plan to meet later. However, Thulos is concerned Ilalotha might be a witch. Later that night, Thulos awakes and remembers his appointment but worries he might be late. When he finds he is early, he decides to check the necropolis as he has suspicions Ilalotha might not be dead after all. Something dispatches Lord Thulos. Later, Queen Xantlicha goes to meet Lord Thulos but finds he is absent. Deciding he may have gone to check on Ilalotha, she goes to her tomb. There she finds an undead creature above the body of Lord Thulos. She then flees the tomb.
Reception
In the
1977
Events January
* January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
* January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...
book ''The Weird Tales Story'',
Robert Weinberg said "Clark Ashton Smith horrified in a grisly tale of love and sadism."
See also
*
Clark Ashton Smith bibliography
The following is a list of works by Clark Ashton Smith.
__TOC__
Short fiction
Prose poems
Novel
* ''The Black Diamonds'', written in 1907, published in 2002
Plays
* ''The Dead will Cuckold You'': A Drama in Six Acts (in verse). Written in ...
References
External links
*
Text of "The Death of Ilalotha"
Short stories by Clark Ashton Smith
Fantasy short stories
1937 short stories
Works originally published in Weird Tales
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