Avon Fantasy Reader No. 9 — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

aii ae) ' Dice ~ Tsien by Clark wAoliton Sct Clark Ashton Smith, recluse, sculptor, poet and master fantasist, lives, we are’ told, as a hermit in a remote mountainous area of California. In the silent, night-bound fastness of his home, the stars shine down with a brilliance and number that have made the region a favorite site of astronomers. It is not to be wondered that the very sensitive mind of the man whom the late H. P. Love- crajt liked to refer to as“ Klarkash-Ton, the Atlantean philosopher,” must often reflect in poetic reverie on the eerie and colorful life that fills the myriad worlds of the universe. We may never know the secrets of the millionfold planets that girdle the. stars, yet through such tales as “The Flower-Women” we manage to create for ourselves a glimpse of these manifold wonders. THLE,” said Maal Dweb, “I suffer from the frightful curse of omnipotence. In all Xiccarph, and in the five outer planets of the triple suns, there is no one, there is nothing, to dispute my dominion. Therefore my ennui has become intolerable.” The girlish eyes of Athlé regarded the enchanter with a gaze of undying astonishment, which, however, was not due to his strange avowal. She was the last of the fifty-one women that Maal Dweb had turned into statues in order to preserve their frail, corruptible beauty from the worm-like gnawing of time. Since, through a laudable desire to avoid monotony, he had resolved never to repeat again this particular sorcery, the magician had cherished Athlé with the affection which an artist feels for the final masterpiece of a series. He had placed her on a little dais, beside the ivory chair in his chamber of meditation. Often he addressed to her his queries or monologues; and the fact that she did not reply or even hear was to him a signal and unfailing recommendation. “There is but one remedy for this boredom of mine,” he went on—‘“the abnegation, at least for a while, of that all too certain power from which it springs. Therefore, I, Maal Dweb, the ruler of six worlds and all their moons, shall go forth alone, unheralded, and without other equipment than that which any fledgling sorcerer might possess. In this way, perhaps I shall recover the lost charm of incertitude, the foregone enchantment of peril. Adventures that I 3