"The Last Hieroglyph " is a short story by American author
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Algernon Charles Swinburne ...
as part of his
Zothique cycle, and first published in the April
1935
Events
January
* January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims.
* ...
issue of ''
Weird Tales''.
Plot
Nushain the astrologer in Xylac charts a new horoscope which he copies down in a book. The horoscope foretells of a journey involving three guides to the house of Vergama, a god. A mummy appears in his written horoscope. Soon he is visited by a mummy who leads Nushain from his abode to the underworld. Nushain is accompanied by his black servant Mouzda and his dog Ansarath. Initially, he is overwhelmed by the underworld and flees back the way he came but ends up getting lost. The mummy finds him and leads Nushain to the shore of an unknown ocean. There they are visited by a merman and an uncrewed ship. The ship follows the merman as it sends them over a boiling ocean. The ship brings them to a wall of fire. A salamander beckons them to follow it through the wall and they do so. The salamander sends them to a staircase that ends with a house of great height. They find that it is the home of the god Vergama. Vergama shows them they are all characters in her book as she points to the three guides that led them here: the mummy, the merman, and the salamander. Turning a page, a great wind sweeps up the three as they find that they too are merely characters in Vergama's book.
Reception
In the
1981
Events January
* January 1
** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union.
** Palau becomes a self-governing territory.
* January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...
book ''
Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers'',
Will Murray
William Murray (born 1953) is an American novelist, journalist, short story, and comic book writer. Much of his fiction has been published under pseudonyms. With artist Steve Ditko, he co-created the superhero Squirrel Girl.
Biography
Early ...
called it an "ironic tale."
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 Democratic R ...
book ''The Weird Tales Story'',
Robert Weinberg called it "one of his typical entertaining fantasies of Zothique."
See also
*
Clark Ashton Smith bibliography
References
External links
*
Text of "The Last Hieroglyph"
Short stories by Clark Ashton Smith
Fantasy short stories
1935 short stories
Works originally published in Weird Tales
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