The Death of Malygris

This is one of the Poseidonis cycle which sits alongside Averoigne, Zothique and Hyperborea as one of the four cycles of tales produced by Ashton Smith, each with a different tone and literary background.

Poseidonis, a remnant of Atlantis, is the place where Ashton Smith weaves some of his darkest fantasies centred on death, necromancy and bodily and spritual corruption. The story here is simple enough - is the greatest and most evil necromancer in the land dead or not?

Out of this question arises a grim morality tale about power as one generation seeks to supplant another only to find that the ambiguously departed sorcerer has left behind him the means to turn the victory of the next generation to ashes - or rather to living show more corruption.

Rivalry for power is a repeated theme in Ashton Smith's stories. Those with power, especially those with magical power, show no propensity to give it up, share it or use it for the betterment of others. Power, like treasure, is to be accumulated and guarded.

This is a world of evil without any redeeming qualities. It is also a world where time and space can be shifted by powers even beyond death. It is in exploring such themes - desperate all-inclusive evil - that Ashton Smith shows his brilliance.

It also no accident that the cycle includes poems because Ashton Smith is at his most poetic in these stories. He takes great care over his language that usually errs just on the right side of the florid, building atmosphere with detailed descriptions around very simple story lines.

This particular story was published in Weird Tales in 1934 and fits well with the culture of terror that it tried to instil in its readers. The horror and the fantasy create a dream-like atmosphere that comes close at times to being poetically transcendent. show less