SS4 18 Weaver in the Vault

Join us in Zothique for a trip into the catacombs to meet the Weaver in the Vault. We talk relics, dromedaries, potholing, earthquakes, spider gods, D&D, and Red Sonja.
Reader:  Simon Frazier Nash
Favourite words:  leman, terebinth, divagations, concamerated, benignant, mumia, vicinage, syanite.
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SPEAKER_03 0:10

Strange shadows. The carcass and Smith Podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

The instructions of Famorg, 59th King of Tasun, were minutely circumstantial and explicit, and moreover, were not to be disobeyed without the incurring of penalties that would make mere death a pleasant thing. Yanur, Grotara, and Thirlane Ludok, three of the king's hardiest henchmen, riding forth at morn from the palace in Mirab, debated with a thin semblance of jocosity whether in their case obedience or disobedience would prove the dire evil. The commission they had just received from Famorg was no less singular than distasteful. They were to visit Kaon Gaka, the long-forsaken seat of the kings of Tassoon, lying more than 90 miles to the north of Mirab amid the desert hills, and descending into the burial vaults beneath the ruined palace, they were to find and bring back to Mirab whatever remained of the mummy of King Tinaprees, founder of the dynasty to which Famorg belonged.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Greetings, pilgrims, and welcome to season four, episode 18 of Strange Shadows, the Clark Ashton Smith Podcast. The voice you just heard was friend of the show Simon Frazier Nash, reading the opening paragraph of today's story. I am one of your hosts, Rob Poynton.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

And I'm the other one, Tim Mendies. Yes, and I can't help but but thinking, I don't know about you, Rob, but the first thing I thought about this was it's kind of criminal that this story wasn't included in the original Appendix N, because it's the most DD thing I think I've ever read.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

You're totally right. And in fact, in my notes, I think four times I've written down DD with a little exclamation.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, you could have just put this out as a DD guide almost, couldn't you?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Oh, yeah, you absolutely could. Yeah, we're looking at another absolute corker today. We're back in Sotheik and we're looking at the Weaver in the Vault.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yes, and a little bit of a shorter story, this one, but no less rich in language for that. But before we get into our favourite words, just a few news items. I believe you are off gigging again, sir. Indeed, yes, we're doing a couple of gigs at the beginning of next month.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

We're gonna be at the Arches venue in Coventry on the 5th of June. And the 6th, we're gonna be at the Smokehouse in Ipswich. So yeah, come along and it promises to be a good night. And we've also just put out a CD, and there is a digital download of it on Band Camp called Static Whispers, which is eight tracks. So one of which is the shuttered room. So yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Oh, nice. Yes. I like that. Static Whispers, that's a cool name.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

ILF26 draws ever closer, crawling towards us like a gelatinous shogoth.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Slithering.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Slithering, yes. September the 19th in Oddly Moist Bedford, of course. You may have just seen our latest guest announcement go out over the socials. There's going to be uh trader announcements going out next week. We've got some very fine traders. And one thing we do kind of insist on, it's something that's very important to us. The traders who come in are people who make their own items. So they might be artists, authors, crafters. We provide a direct contact, we think, between uh the creators and the uh the fans.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Yeah, it's the the difference between that and your sort of standard Comic-Con kind of thing, which is all like you get the stalls where it's all just Funko Pops and color and action figures and all that kind of stuff, which is fine, if that but that's for them. Um, we want stuff that people have made.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yes. Oh, and of course, uh must mention Dorset Bob as well, who's going to be bringing his fantastic collection of really rare items for sale, old issues of weird towels and fanzines from the 60s and 70s and 80s, all sorts of wonderful stuff. I could spend all day browsing on that store, I tell you.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

It's dangerous. It's dangerous. I have to set myself a spending limit because I can go there for 10 minutes and there's a couple of hundred quids gone, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Yeah, there's the there's the shopping budget for next week.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Yeah, we're eating we're eating tuna and rice next week, Linda.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Who needs food when you've got issues of Crypt of Cthulhu, though? See, you know. And uh speaking of ILF, I've been out and about flyering lately, and I just want to give a shout out to the Close Encounters Comic Shop. They have three branches, they have one in Bedford, one in Peterborough, and one in Northampton. I particularly want to give a shout out to the chap in Northampton. Had a good chat with him when I popped in the other week. I think his name was Neil. Uh uh do forgive me if I got that wrong, but my memory for names, uh my memory for everything is sadly ailing as I advance into decrepitude. But uh yeah, Close Encounters, it's a great comic shop and bookstore. They sell some RPG things as well. I'll put their link up in the show notes below. And finally, speaking of being out and about, I'm gonna be presenting my We Want the Gold fantasy skirmish game, the Innsmouth Scenarios, at uh a few upcoming events. I'm gonna be at Continuum in Cranfield in Bedford, 24th to 27th of July. I'm gonna be at the Herewood gaming show up in Peterborough on September the 6th. And hopefully, I'm gonna be at Partisan, which is a big gaming show up in Newark on the 11th of October. And my rules did just get a very nice review from the miniature adventures YouTube channel, so I'll put a link into that below. It's nice when you put something out and it gets a good review, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Oh, it is, yeah, it is. Although, to be fair, one of my favourite reviews of all time was a terrible review, but it was about an anthology that I happened to be in, it wasn't singling me out, but it was somebody who'd bought this this horror anthology, uh, he calls from the forest from Erie River Publishing, and decided to read it to their children on a camping trip. Wow. And uh yes, not vetted it first, and the first story contained I'll never forget it because it's on the Amazon Review. I heard that they like to take it up the poop shoot. That was a screenshot on a save that review, I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, I mean, you know, do we have to be in the time of putting age things on books like they will at cinemas, or do you just rely on someone's common sense to read what a book is about before they perhaps read it out to their kids on a camping trip? Well, this is it. I mean, wouldn't you go for like the penguin book of ghost stories or the puffing book of ghost stories or that sort of thing, you know? Yeah, or even the old point horror things, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Yeah, you know, goosebumps. Goosebumps and all that, yeah. You're not gonna go for an adult horror anthology.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Well, as I say, you know, common sense is not that common, is it?

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah, brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Let's hope that didn't spawn uh there's a sort of slasher origin story in that somewhere, isn't there? I think there is, isn't there? Yeah, there is. Okay, let's get on to our favorite words. Now, a shortish story, but this is Zothik. So, as I mentioned at the start there, no shortage of Smithian fruity language. What are you gone for, sir?

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, I got a few. Um, um the first one I'm going for is lemon or le mon or lemon, the lemon, I think it is, which is a lover or sweetheart.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yes, very nice. My first pick is well, and I think we may have had this before. We may have had some of these before. We've done so many stories now, it's difficult to remember. Uh, but terabinth, which is a hardy, long-living deep-rooted tree that can survive droughts and regrow from its stump. Biblical writers used it as a profound metaphor for endurance and spiritual fortitude.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Mmm, nice. Yes, I had to look that one up. I wasn't familiar with that one at all. Now, the next one is one of those that I I was familiar with, but I haven't seen it in anything in like ever. It's divigations, which is the plural of divigate, which is to stray or digress. So in this context, it means meanderings or wanderings.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Nice. Yeah, right to check that one. Now, another one that I certainly didn't know was concamerated, and that's an archaic adjective meaning arched, vaulted, or divided into distinct chambers or cells. It's derived from the Latin word concameratus, meaning to arch over. It's primarily used to describe vaulted ceilings, architectural domes, or biological structures like multi-chambered snail shells.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yes, I that's another one I wasn't familiar with at all. Now, my next one is benignant, which is kindly or benevolent. I think we have had that one before, but it's one of those words that I want to try and work into things more often. So that's more of a mind refresher than anything.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

And now uh this word I thought was interesting, and I don't know if I've ever spoken about this before, and it's something that never struck me until I read this. Where does the phrase mummy come from? Because the obvious implication mummy, mother, mama, but of course it's nothing to do with that at all. And the word we have here is mummia or mummyah. That doesn't mean I'm mummier than you. Sort of battle between Christopher Lee and Boris Carlo. Well, I'm mummier than you. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Oh, like celebrity deathmatch, that'd be brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

So, mummia generally refers to a historical medical preparation made from ground-embalmed human bodies. Let's hope no kiddies are listening to this round the campfire. The infamous practice of medical cannibalism was prominent across European elites from the 12th to the 17th century. Doesn't that tie in neatly with some modern conspiracy theories? Wow. Doesn't it? Yeah. Driven by the false belief that preserved ancient Egyptian flesh held miraculous healing powers. So now we get into the origin of this. The term stems from the Arabic mummiya and Persian mum meaning wax. It initially referred to precious, naturally occurring mineral pitch or bitumen used as a remedy. Now this then there was a mistranslation because early medieval European translators confuse the Arabic texts, mistakenly concluding that mumia referred to the embalmed flesh of Egyptian mummies, many of which contained dark bitumen-like resin. So I'm presuming that that's where we get the term mummies from.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did have a look at that myself. I thought that was very interesting. But is it yeah, the parallel, it's almost like a precursor to the whole adrenochrome conspiracy theory, isn't it? It's uh quite interesting. Things don't change, do they? No, no. Yeah, the last one I'm gonna go for again. It's it's one of those words, it's quite obvious to know what it means, but I just love the sound of it. Vicinage. Meaning vicinity, but vicinage, it's just so much, it's Smith all over in it. Why say in the vicinity when you could say in the vicinage.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I want to sing, oh, we fade to gray, fade to gray. Yeah, visage. And I'm gonna finish with cyanite, which I think we may have mentioned before. Yeah, it's a coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock predominantly composed of alkali feldspar and dark coloured minerals like hornblende or pyroxene, visually similar to granite, but distinctly deficient in quartz, so not quite as sparkly. Nice. So, how's the publication history on this one, sir? Was it a hit or a miss?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

It was a hit, it was actually a palpable hit from what I gather. Smith finished the story on March the 15th, 1933, and like King Eurovan, it seems that it didn't start out as a Zothic story. I can't even remember how we're pronouncing it, so I'm just gonna call say Eurovan. There we go. Well, we had the Eurovision song contest of the weekend, so it seemed fitting, right? There's the true horror, isn't it? Just yeah, the story was originally started under the title The Ghoul from Mercury. There was a line in his black book, the synopsis of the original version. An entity like a gigantic fireball from some alien planet, which devours the corpses in graveyards and mugs, and even breaks into the mummy cases in museums. Wow. That sounds cool. Yeah, it is. And then he he later wrote another but more detailed plot synopsis, changing it to Zothic with the current title with a weaver in the vault. So yeah, it's interesting. I'd like to have seen if you'd have done an original draft how different it would have been.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, it's one of those things we talk about every now and again, isn't it? The the lost stories, because there was uh I think a full-length novel type thing. And I know we've mentioned one or two other ideas that never saw fruition.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah, well, interestingly, we were discussing this before we came on, weren't we? The Chaossian book of Ibon, there is a few posthumous collaborations with Smith. Yeah, so we're probably gonna look at them at some point. But yeah, Smith submitted it to Farnsmith Wright, and shock horror, it was snapped up.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Like Wright bit his hand off it for it, basically. He loved it. Um, he also he loved it so much, in fact, that he asked him to do an illustration for it as well, which he then did. He was paid fifty-two dollars for the story and the drawing, with seven dollars being for the picture. So it was like $45. Yeah. Something like that. It would have got that's not bad because considering it's a it's what it's 10 pages long.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

So it's not not the longest of his stories, is it?

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Yeah, so no, no, so yeah, he got a got a nice little sum out of that. Uh, it was published in the January 1934 issue. So it was interesting because it was taken later than several stories and published first.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah, that that you can see why it makes it so difficult for anyone who wants to chart the course of Smith's writing. Uh and that's why we're so lucky having these volumes, of course, but uh put edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger that put them in chronological order. Because it'd be very difficult otherwise, wouldn't it, if you were just going from weird towels or something.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Oh, it'd be nigh impossible, I think. It would be yeah, an absolute nightmare. I mean, even trying to track down like the readers' letters and things in the Erie, because sometimes you'd get like marches in sort of April's edition, but sometimes you wouldn't get them till like May or something. So trying to actually keep a line on where everything is is really actually quite tricky.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Now, August Derlith was very fond of this story and told Smith as such. Um, we got a nice little response from Clark Ashton Smith here. Uh, this is a letter dated the 10th of January 1934. I'm glad the weaver pleased you. I like the tale myself, particularly some of the atmospheric touches. In the drawing, I try to achieve composition as well as illustrative value. The lines of the figure are part of a set arrangement designed to create the feelings of incarceration, despair, and burdenous rigor. Why maybe I overdid it a little.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Burdenous rigor.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Burdenous rigor, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

I don't know if he overdid it because this is authentic, isn't it? Yeah. Well, it it it's that Smith again, it's a grim story in one sense, but written in such a poetic and evocative fashion that I I wouldn't say it waters down the grimness, but it what what what's the word?

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Well, I think it counterpoints it, really. It's like what I try and do in stories, like you're yeah, because it it makes it stand out more when you're having these moments of levity and satire, to then when you get the grim horror-y bits, it's kind of like because it catches you off guard, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Well, it it's not like I see in some types of horror fiction, it's not just relentlessly grim, is it? Which tends to put me off.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

No.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

We were talking earlier about humour in music, and now you see some bands, very successful bands, but they're so bloody earnest, you know. Crack a smile, make a make a joke of yourself, which all the best bands do, you know. The humour in so many other bands, it it just adds an extra dimension. And I think it's the same unremitting, unrelenting horror. It's a bit dull, I find.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

It's the problem I have with like the torture porn genre and things like that, like films like hostile and stuff like that. Yes, you become desensitized to it because it's just constant, and it's like after the first 20 minutes or something, it's like, oh, somebody just had their toe cut off.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

And kind of thing, you know, it's like all that kind of genre, and you get it with the extreme horror genre in books as well. It's like I get halfway through and I'm bored because you can't once you've gone to the top, you can't go anywhere else, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Well, that's it, it's almost like seeking to shock for the sake of shocking, rather than that that being an element of the story that adds to the atmosphere.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

I I suppose there's an element of you put yourself well, you said the word pawn. I mean, there it is, you put yourself in that position, perhaps. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I mean it's it's fetishized violence, isn't it, at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah. I'm just thinking what the sort of pawn that Smith would have wrote, hadn't he had he been given full reign, that would have been something, wouldn't it? Oh dear lord.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Well, I think like judging back, going jumping back, because uh I'm obviously we're gearing up for Teraticon next year, and so he's put me in charge of a uh weird fiction monster romance in weird fiction. So obviously, I've had to bring up the daughter Saturn. Yes, and uh it's like, yeah, if he if he could have got away with it, we'd have probably had uh like the earliest sort of monster fucker sort of stuff would have been Smith, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

In that story, yes, a prime example, probably very early example as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

So the weaver in the vault, as we heard at the beginning there, we have Famorg, the 59th King of Tassoon, has given orders to three of his soldiers, Yanur, Grotara, and Thurlane Ludok, three of the king's hardiest henchmen. Just out of interest, because I was just thinking, ah, fifty-nine kings, how long does that take? Well, there have been sixty-three monarchs of England and Britain over the last approximately twelve hundred years.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

So there you go. So fifty-nine, sixty kings, you're looking at about a thousand years or so. And I like the way this is described as a commission that's no less singular than distasteful. Basically, they've got to go and find the mummy of King Tenepres, the founder of the dynasty, and uh bring back whatever is left of them, even if it's only the skull or the dust of mummia into which he had crumbled.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

I like I like this because it mentions as well that, or maybe even the bone of a little finger. It put me in mind of holy relics.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

You know, you've got because you've got all them kind of things. So you see when you visit cathedrals and things like that. Here is the the you know, the a finger bone from a saint kind of thing. And I've always found it a very strange practice.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

It is, and they're put in reliquaries, aren't they? Which these fantastic boxes uh which are often inlaid with gold and all this kind of thing, and there's uh there's a blackened moldy toe in it in or something.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Exactly. That's a very strange practice. They used to take them on like battlefields and stuff, didn't they? It like to give good fortune, it's like the kind of like a lucky rabbit's foot, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Never that lucky for the rabbit, was it? No, never. Yes, and and you then you work out that uh you know Saint Peter actually had 37 toes or something. Yeah, that's the one, isn't it? Yeah, which is actually even more scary. But there we go. And I I like this comment as well from Yanur, tis an errand for hyenas rather than warriors. Oh, it is right. You you're going to you're you're carrying basically, you're going to pick up the dead. So there's a nice ghoulish element throughout this of what I thought ghouls even get a mention at one point, of course.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Which makes sense considering the original title.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Yes, yes, true, yeah. And I like that Yana here grumbled. Yannur in his black and spade-shaped beard, that immediately brought to mind the Assyrians. You know, those those sort of odd, kind of almost rectangular beards that you see in those old carvings and everything else. So that gave me a very visual picture of the sort of armour these guys might be wearing and all that sort of thing. Yes. And Yanur continues his grumbling. I thought actually this is interesting because this story is one of the few I can think of where people are told to go and do something. Normally these guys would be thieves or vagabonds of some sort.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah. Treasure seekers, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Mr. Tamprazeros or is looking for a uh something for his necromantic practices, you know. They have no choice, these guys. Yes. And in fact, even worse than that, if they fail, when they get back, they're for the chop. So if they fail, they even plan later on, well, we'll just keep on riding to wherever.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Yeah, because there's actually a late a lent lineage of people he's sent, isn't there? It's just like, oh yeah, several other I've sent several other people. None of them ever came back.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

It's like Christ, why why would I say yes then? You speculate they were either killed in their task or they failed and just thought, right, well, let's keep going. Yeah. Legged it. So Yanur is grumbling away. We get a little bit of world building here. By the god Yulalun, keeper of the tombs, I deem it an ill thing to disturb the peaceful dead. And truly it is not well for men to enter Khaongaha, where death has made his capital, and has gathered all the ghouls to do him homage. Couple of nice things in there. At first I thought we've got a band name, the peaceful dead.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Oh, yes. It could be a Grateful Dead tribute act, really, couldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

That's good. Yeah. And uh a place where death has made his capital. I think that's a nice image as well. Low Death has reeled himself uh what was the it's Poe, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Yes. Yeah, I mean I got sort of more Digian vibes from Yululan. It's the same kind of deal, right? Especially lording over ghouls. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

There you go, lording over ghouls again. You and you're lording. But these guys have got the job because they're the they're the tough guys, right? They're the they're the top that as I say, the hardiest warriors. The king knew well that there were no mortal beings in all mirar saving ourselves who would dare to enter the accursed vaults. Yeah, and then we get that little story about two centuries ago, King Mandis sent some people to retrieve the golden mirror of Queen Avaina for his favourite leman. He commanded two of his bravos to descend within the vaults where the mummy of Avaina sits enthroned in her separate tomb, holding the mirror in her withered hand. The Bravos went, but they did not return. That uh I've got a little bit of sort of mirror of Notocris vibes off of that.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

I got that as well. Yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

And there's a lot of sort of the gallows humour in this as well. Because yeah, they say to Yana now, Oh, thy towels were gladden those who await the siding of the executioner. So you have to be so miserable all the time.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Exactly. But I chide thee not. It is common knowledge that the catacombs are ridden with worse hauntings than those of litches or phantoms. Strange devils came there long ago from the mad, unholy desert of Gloth. And I've heard it told that the kings forsook Cheongaka because of certain shadows that appeared at full noon in the palace halls with no visible form to cast them. So, yeah, it's not the sort of place you really want to go for a jolly, is it?

SPEAKER_01 25:46

No, no. And this brought to mind two things. We've got Smith's World, Casual World Building again, just throw in a few names, but uh the names are such and the way they're introduced, you they pique your curiosity, don't they? Yeah. This is my first DD thing. Men say that the flesh of any who dare to touch the shadows or tread upon them became black and putrid like the flesh of month-hold corpses, all in a mere instant. So this this is something out of the monster manual for me.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah, that's pure dungeon master, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Before you stand the entrance to the catacomb of doubly do.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

A strange shadow moves. Yes, exactly. Uh Yanur, being a little more realistic here, perhaps, or maybe cynical. He said, Well, yeah, actually, the town's abandonment was mainly due to the failures of the wells and cisterns from which the water vanished following an earthquake that left the land riven with hell deep chasms. Oh, he's one of them.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

I think you'll find. I'm surprised. Yeah, he didn't he didn't start it off with that little phrase, but he should have done.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah, and and King Umgmini wasn't driven mad by the the whole mirror thing. He was seized by a violent madness when he inhale the infernal vapours issuing from the rent. So yes, yes. Uh Grotara adds, yeah, I couldn't believe that. And surely I must deem that Farmog has inherited the madness of his forefather. Me thinks that the royal house of Tarsoon rots and totters to its fall. Harlots and sorcerers swarm in the palace of Farmog like Charnell worms. And now in this Princess Lunalia of Zylac, whom he has taken to his wife, he has found a harlot and a witch in one. So we've got uh that little cross-reference to Xylac and necromancers and and all the rest.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

It's interesting because the way this is described, it really sort of it's almost a precursor to the Game of Thrones kind of setup, isn't it? Because all their kingdoms and dynasties, they're all mad and decadent and all that kind of thing. It makes me wonder if Mr. Martin had ever sort of delved into any of this kind of stuff. He must have done at some point, right? Surely, surely. Yeah. He must have read some of the Zothe stuff at some point because you know this is a fucking Targaryen, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 28:10

It is. Um what I like about all this is we're still in the first scene here. We're a few pages in, and these guys are just chatting. They've been into the royal chamber, you imagine, they've been given their assignment, and now they're just walking back to get all their stuff, and this is just them chatting. And obviously, they're not impressed with what's going on with Lunalia, the king's wife, new wife, and there's something of the the witchery or necromancer about her. And we even get this beware, admonished Thurlane Ludoc, for Lunalia is a vampire who lusts ever for the young and strong. And my turn may come next, though, Grotara, if fortune brings us back alive from this enterprise. I've seen her watching thee, and uh Grotara's response, I'd sooner mate with the wild lamia, protested Grotara in virtuous indignation.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

I like that. I'd sooner mate with a wild larmia. I like that. It's uh yeah, it's sort of Elizabeth Bathory vibes with this one, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 29:10

It's uh it it is because you then get even more sort of sinister. Thy aversion would help thee not, said Thelane Ludoc. For I know others who have drunk the potions.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Well, it was like Elizabeth Bathory, the whole you drug and bleed the maidens and bathe in their blood to stay young kind of thing, you know. It's the kind of echoes of that for me.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Yes, yes. But enough enough of all this nonsense, it's time to have a drink.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Yes. Yeah, I like that as well. I will quaff any drink if it not if it be not the filter brew of Queen Lunalia. I like this because it's it's very back and forth, like in a way you don't often get in Smith's stories. Because especially the scientific stuff, the dialogue is kept quite minimum.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Whereas this is all dialogue, this first like two or three pages, which is great because you get a real sense of these characters, they're quite well drawn.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

It's banter, isn't it? They're bantering back and forth. Absolutely, absolutely. So, uh suitably libated, and no doubt with all their equipment ready, they mount on swift, untiring dromedaries, and followed by a fourth camel bearing on its back a light wooden sarcophagus for the accommodation of King Tinepres. The three henchmen had soon left behind them the bright and noisy streets of Mirab and the fields of sesame, the crofts of apricot and pomegranate lying for miles about the city. I love that they've they've got three uh camels and dromedaries, they're different animals, right? I think there's a there's a difference.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

No, dromedary is a kind of camel.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Oh, it's a kind of camel, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But one's got a wooden sarcophagus.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

It's such a great image, isn't it? Camel with a sarcophagus on it.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

But how does that I'm trying to just visualize that, you know? Wouldn't you put it in a cart or something?

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Well you think so.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

So then we get the Smithian trip, which is a regular occurrence, you know, and as we say before, sometimes this is being drawn through the telescope to a distant star, sometimes it's stepping into a living flame and being transported somewhere else. This one's a little more mundane, but nonetheless it is a trip from A to B and uh as evocative as ever. On the first night they slept beneath the cold and crowding stars, and kept watch by turn lest a lion should come upon them unaware, or a viper should crawl among them for warmth. During the second day they passed amid steepening hills and deep ravines that retarded their progress. Here there was no rustling of serpent or lizard, and naught but their own voices and the shuffling of the camels to break the silence that lay upon all things like a mute malediction. Sometimes on the desiccating tours above them, against the darkly litten sky, they saw the boughs of century withered cacti or the bowls of trees that immemorial fires had blasted. Mute malediction. That's nice.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

Isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 32:20

And now here's here's something. I I researched this. It's not often you have to re research something like this. The second sunset found them in sight of Ka Kaongaka. So we know that that was ninety miles away because we were told that at the start of the story. They did 90 miles in two days.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

On a camel.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

On a camel. Well, apparently a camel, like dromedaries, can cover about sixty miles a day. Really? Yes, quite surprised me. They're better than horses.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Bloody hell.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

They can keep up speed for a much longer time than horses, apparently. I did not know that. Yeah. Very sturdy animals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yeah, I did not know that. Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Because I was thinking 90 miles in two days. Yeah. Blimey, you can't do that on British Rail.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Don't talk to me about British rail at the minute. 145 bloody pounds.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

And I like this little addition of Well Building, then they came then to a wayside shrine of Yucla, the small and grotesque god of laughter, whose influence was believed to be mainly benignant. They were glad to go no further that day, but took shelter in the crumbling shrine for fear of the ghouls and devils who might dwell in such a visionage to those accursed ruins. And they break out the booze again.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Of course they do.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

And the nice touch with that is they each have a swig themselves, but then they pour a libation in the twilight on the broken altar as like a little offering to the god. I thought that was a nice touch.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Another nice touch is that you get something he always does, which I really appreciate, is he just peppers in these little details that bring scenes to life. Because yeah, we get after a scanty meal of figs and dried goat flesh.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah, it just adds a bit more bit of colour to it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 34:14

You know.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yes. And I love this description here of the dawn. They slept on the worn and chilly flags about the altar, watching by turn as before. Grotara, who kept the third watch, beheld at last the paling of the close hung stars and aroused his companions in a dawn that was like a sifting of ashes through the cinder black darkness. Isn't that great?

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Yeah. His poetry is showing again.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Yes, yes, and that colour, the Smithian colour continues. They go into the ruins, into the hollow ringing streets of the city, like ragged purple cloaks, the shadows of the ruining houses were drawn close to their walls and portals. You know, it's just those little touches of colour that really uh well, it is it is painting with words, isn't it? That's Smith's great skill.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Yeah, absolutely. And I like that he just after that passage there, he just interjects a um disquiet by saying that everywhere the havoc of earthquake was manifest, and the fissured avenues and mounded mansions served to verify the tales that Yanur had heard concerning the reason of the city's abandonment. Yes, we learn a bit more about that in a bit, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yes, yes. And here is where I wrote D D again because the description could be out of a good D scenario. The ruined town, yes, uh the Fisher that clove that clove their path, and uh the wreckage of once lofty towers and balconies over which the warriors climbed with with much weariness, eyeing the shadows closely and loosening their swords in the sheath. And we get a little sort of jump scare with the pale with the sight of the pale and naked form of a Colossian female which they saw reclining on the blocks and rubble in a portico beyond the court. Luckily, it's not a she demon, it's just a huge marble statue. And again, couldn't help but thinking of the disinterment of Venus, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Yeah, of course. Yes. But uh yeah, you have to get a naked form in at some point, didn't he? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

And we get the lovely description of them going into the main hall, overturned tripods of green and copper, tables and tributs of splintered ebony, and the shards of gaily painted porcelains were mingled with the huge fragments of pedestals and fusts and entablatures. And upon a shivered dais of green blood spotted heliotrope, the tarnished silver throne of the kings careened amid the mutilated sphinxes carved from Jasper that kept eternal guard beside it. It's this lovely sort of mix of things, isn't it? There's like an Egyptian influence. Yes. We've already mentioned the Assyrian. It's um it strikes me that ancient world, uh again going back to those old movies, seem to be really colourful. Yes. Sumptuous. Sumptuous, yes. Yeah. Imagine about the hanging gardens of Babylon and all the different colours and everything. Everything's in technicolor.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Yes, technicolor. It's that yeah. I always almost get like Harry House and quality to it, you know, those deep hammer horror, especially, those deep reds and golds and all them, you know, colours that really pop on them old CRT TV screens, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yes, yes, totally. So the D adventure continues because they found they find an alcove which leads them to the stairs that lead downward to the catacombs. And uh they finish off the drink before they go down, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:04

I like that. A bit of Dutch courage, you know. I like that. I'm not going down there till I'm pissed.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

They get the torches lit. Yanu led the way daring the tenebra steps with drawn sword and a torch flaming smokily in his left hand. Again, that's a a D picture, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 38:23

You know? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

They go down through a series of wine cellars full of cracked and sharded jars. After many zigzag plungings of the stairs, they come to a vast corridor hewn in a nether cyanite below the level of the city streets. It stretched before them through illimitable gloom, its walls unshattered, and its roof admitting no crevice filtered ray. It seemed they had entered some impregnable citadel of the dead. So, yeah, this is the the tombs, right? The catacombs, the vaults, the tombs of the elder kings. And I thought this was a a lovely line as well, because they start poking around and you can kind of picture this every king or queen has their own little room, and there's a their name carved over the lintel on the door. Yeah. And they they they start they're putting the torch in through through these doors and read stumblingly the legend graven in stone, which told that the vault was that of King Archonil, and this is Yana. Verily, he said, We shall find nothing here other than the harmless dead. So now we've got the harmless dead.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Nice. I love Smith's line here. Then the wine he had drunk impelling him to a sort of bravado, he stopped before the portals and thrust his flickering flambeau into the tomb of Arcanil. But he is that drunken yeah, sod it, you know. Flickering flambeau. We've all been there, especially when holding something of that's on fire. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Well, yes. And the strange thing they discover is all of the where there should be corpses or mummies, um, there's just empty robes. In this case, an empty robe of sable and carmine, and a mitre-shaped crown of silver set with black sapphires, as if the dead king had doffed them and had gone away. So, no bodies. Not not even just no bodies, there's no dust, there's no not even the faintest odour of mortal decay. It's as though the bodies have just disappeared. Now, if this was um some other characters, the sight of the a crown of silver and black sapphires, well, they'd be quite happy with that, wouldn't they?

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Yeah, exactly. Satan Prazeros would be do dancing a little jig, I think, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Yeah, we say, lovely, we'll take that and we'll be off. Yeah. But this isn't their mission. So in a way, it's kind of um if they were their own agents, they would have pinched a couple of these things and probably got out okay, but because they're charged with a particular mission, that leads to their doom, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Yeah, absolutely. And I I like the fact that this sort of realization sobers them up because they're all stumbling around a bit pissed about this point, but then this sort of like hammer blow realization, oh crap, what are we gonna do? You know, it's uh yeah, so they're poking around now, shaking the shaking the clothing, just looking for anything. It's like a toenail will do at this point, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:33

And things get more forb foreboding. Presently, after they had verified the vacancy of more than a dozen tombs, they saw the glimmering of several steely objects before them on the floor of the corridor. These, on investigation, proved to be two swords, two helmets, and cuerses of a slightly antiquated type, such had formerly been worn by the warriors of Tasun. They might well have belonged to the unreturning Bravos sent by King Mandis to retrieve the mirror of Avaina. So there's confirmation of uh why they didn't come back.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

We've got another band name coming up here, because uh it says Yanu Grotara and Thurlin Ludok viewing these sinister relics were seized by an almost frantic desire to accomplish their errand and regain the sunlight. Sinister relics. That's a goth band. Yeah, that's a goth band.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Well, that could that could be a goth pink floyd tribute. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Oh god, relics, yeah, of course. Well, funnily enough, a lot of goth bands have covered see Emily play.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Yes, yes. Well, there's a case to be made for Sid being proto-goth, I think.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Oh, I yeah, I would have said so. Especially lyrically.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Yeah. So yeah, this puts the wind up on the bit, doesn't it? And as you say, they've they've sobered up and they're a bit like, well, all right, come on, let's let's just get this mission over with and and get the chuff out of here. And if we can't find the remains of Tinipris, then well, our only safety would lie in flight beyond the northern desert along the routes of caravans to Zulba Sahih or Xylac, both of which, of course, we've uh encountered before, we've been in before. It's something, isn't it? When either of those places is a place of refuge.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

Yeah, definitely. I mean, if you've read the other stories, that really puts the sort of cherry on it, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 43:28

It's like Yeah, especially Xyla. Yeah, Christ, yeah. I mean, Mordigian, you know, uh if if you're alive, I think you're all right. Don't go in his temple.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Yeah, yeah, don't nicki's dead bodies, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

And we we come into this part of the catacombs that seems to have been more damaged by earthquakes. There's more fractures, more of the chambers have fallen in. Nearing the hall's end, they were confronted by a chasm dividing both floor and roof and splitting the seal and lintel of the last. Chamber. The gulf was about four feet wide, and the torch of Yanur could not disclose its bottom. He found the name of Telepris on the lintel, whose antique inscription, telling the deeds and titles of the king, had been sundered in twain by the cataclysm. Then, walking on a narrow ledge, he entered the vault. Grotara and Sir Lan Ludoc crowded behind him, leaving the sarcophagus in the hall. Yeah, you forget you they're carrying this coffin with them. Yeah. And this one also is empty.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah, but things are about to take a turn for the very worst, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah, absolutely terrifying to anyone who's got sort of claustrophobia or you know, always think how people can go potholing and down into caves. I used to I used to do it.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Really?

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Yeah, my my my dad was a member of a caving club. Yeah, and used to we used to go potholing.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Squeeze through little gaps and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

Oh god, yeah. I used to cave dive as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Bloody hell. You're a braver man than me, sir. Yes, before the seekers could voice their disappointment and dismay, the silence about them was broken by a dull rumbling as of distant thunder. The stone trembled beneath their feet, the walls shook and wavered, and the rumbling noise in long, shuddering undulations grew louder and more ominous. The solid floor appeared to rise and flow with a continuous sickening motion, and then, as they turned to flee, it seemed that the universe came down upon them in a roaring deluge of night and ruin. I was thinking actually, Smith must have uh experienced earthquakes if he lived in California.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Absolutely. Yeah, you must have done. Yeah. I love that. A roaring deluge of night and ruin. This is incredibly goth, this story, isn't it? There's a lot of lines that I can I can nick and put in songs.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Absolutely. Long shuddering undulations. Oh, yeah. But that's very evocative of that when you see earthquakes. That that ripple across solid ground.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

That's that's a terrifying sight, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 46:04

Yeah, I think one of the most unsettling videos I've ever seen, it was an earthquake in Japan. Because you know, all their buildings are built on those kind of like they're almost almost like shock absorbers, suspension. And yeah, the ground sort of ripples around them, and the buildings are swaying with the motion. It's really strange. It's like, you know, when you're walking across a field of corn and the wind hits it, it's kind of like that.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

But it's really, really uncanny. It's weird. Yeah, it's that's when something acts like it shouldn't, something solid acts like a liquid, and that kind of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

So that's Feta Black, right? In that scene, if we're doing the uh the adaptation. And again, this is another one just prime for adaptation, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

I mean, come on, someone out there, come on. It's ripe for it, yeah. Rotara, waking in darkness, was aware of an agonizing burden, as if some monumental shaft were building on his crushed feet and lower legs. His head throbbed and ached as if from the stroke of a stunning mace. He found that his arms and body were free, but the pain in his extremities became insufferable, causing him to swoon anew when he tried to drag them from beneath their encumbrance. Terror closed upon him like the clutch of ghoulish fingers as he realized his situation. So basically he is pinned between a large slab or rock come across his legs and pretty much uh well at the very least pinned them, so he can't get out in effect. And it's there's no response from his companions. And of course he's in pitch black because the torches have gone out. So, you know, it just gets scary and scary.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Absolutely, and I thought this was really kind of grim, is because he's sort of feeling about to try and get his bearings, he finds like bits of jagged rock and all that, but then he puts his hand on a helmet. And it's like and it's all like bent and twisted. It's like, hmm. You can see where this is going.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Yes, yes. However, he is a stout chap. In spite of his predicament, the fierce nature of Groutara refused to yield itself to despair. He drew himself to a sitting position, and doubling forward, he contrived to reach the enormous block that had fallen across his nether limbs. He pushed against it with Herculean effort, raging like a trapped lion, but the mass was immovable. For hours it seemed, he strove as if with some monstrous cacodemon. His frenzy was calmed only by exhaustion. He lay back at length and the darkness weighed upon him like a live thing, and seemed to gnaw him with fangs of pain and horror. Hmm. So you think that things at this stage can't really get any worse, can they?

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Until delirium hovered near, and he thought that he heard a dim and hideous humming far below in the stony bowels of the earth. The noise grew louder, as if ascending from a rhythm hell. He became aware of a one unreal light that wavered above him, disclosing in doubtful glimpses the shattered roof. The light strengthened, and lifting himself a little, he saw that it poured from the earthquake chasm in the floor. It was a light such as he had never seen, a livid lustre that was not the reflection of lamp or torch or firebrand. Somehow, as if the senses of hearing and sight were confused, he identified it with the hideous humming. Something is on the way.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

Mm-hmm. Something is ascending from the depths. Yes. And I thought the interesting thing with this story, before well, we'll we'll talk about what the monster looks like or creature looks like in a moment, but this comes from the depths. This isn't a you know, you you might put in here you'd be tempted to say uh oh he he sees the lights that in the eyes reflected of a ghoul or something shining in the night, and he hears the ghoul creeping towards him. You know, that'd be bad enough, but this it's another Smithian creature, isn't it? Totally alien.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm gonna get into that in a bit um about what I think this is. But uh we're gonna get we'll get to that. But yeah, it's incredibly unsettling. It's a it is a an eldritch entity, shall we say?

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Nice, nice. A coldly shining, hueless globe, round as a puffball and large as a human head, had risen from the fissure and was hovering above it like a mimic moon. The thing oscillated with a slight but ceaseless vibratory motion. From it, as if caused by this vibration, the heavy humming poured and light fell in ever trembling waves. And this entity ignores him, it hovers for a few instants, and then floats slowly and horizontally over the upturned features of Yonua, who of course he can see now is dead.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

Yeah, I thought that was quite a gruesome image. The grizzled beard was dark and stiff with blood that had run down from the crushed cranium.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Yes, quite graphic, isn't he?

SPEAKER_02 51:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

And this globe descends upon the face and neck of the dead man, which appeared to melt away like tallow as the globe settled lower and lower. The humming deepened, the globe flamed with an eerie lustre, and its death like pallor was mottled with impure iris. It swelled and bloated obscenely, while the whole head of the warrior shrank within the helmet, and the plates of his curass fell as if the very torso were shrivelling beneath them. So we get an idea now of what has happened to all the uh the corpses and the remains in the catacombs here. Now he's he's seeing this thing in action, unfortunately. And this this thing grows, it becomes bulbous. I don't know about Rugos. It certainly it swells magnificently. Indeed. It was flushed with unclean ruby like a vampire moon. Vampire moon.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

Oh, that's a great name.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

That's a story, a book, a film, I don't know. A band. Yes, anything. Vampire moon. And this is where we get the weaver aspect now. It issued palpable ropes and filaments, pearly, shuddering into strange colours that appear to fasten themselves to the ruined floor and walls and roof like the weaving of a spider. Thickly and more thickly they multiplied, forming a curtain between Grotara and the chasm, and falling upon Thurlane Ludock and himself till he saw the sanguine burning of the globe as through arabesques of bowful opal. So he becomes meshed in this weird web, and this thing sort of shrinks back down to its normal size and then goes back down the pit. It's very strange, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Yeah, and what's even more strange is the kind of this aspect it has to the web, because it says it filled the entire tomb, it ran and glistened with a hundred changing hues, it dripped with glories drawn from the spectrum of dissolution, it bloomed with ghostly blossoms and foliages that grew and faded as if by necromancy. So yeah, it's kind of sprouting tendrils and all this kind of thing. It's it's yeah, it's very, very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

And that's a lovely subtle description there, the spectrum of dissolution. So that's going into your mauve's and purples and greens and all that kind of colour, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 53:46

Spectrum of dissolution sounds like a level from Quake. It does.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

And then we can only imagine what this poor guy is going through. After that there were ages of fever, thirst and madness, of torment and slumber, and recurrent strugglings against a massive block that held him prisoner. He babbled insanely, he howled like a wolf, or, lying supine and silent, he heard the multitudinous muttering voices of ghouls that conspi against him. Gangrening swiftly, his crushed extremities seemed to throb like those of a titan. He drew his sword with the strength of delirium, and endeavoured to saw himself free at the shins, only to swoon from loss of blood.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Oo shins. Ah yeah. We mentioned torture porn earlier, sore, in it.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Yes, and of course there's you know real life examples, right? Of people who've had their the the climber got his hand trapped in a boulder. Yes, that climber knife or something, you know. It's quite remarkable how resilient humans can be, and at other times so fragile, you know. And yeah, we we have no idea of how much time is passing. It could be hours, it could be days, but the thing eventually returns. And this time it came down in leisurely descent on the face of Thurland Ludoc. Again he saw it bloat obscenely like a blood flushed moon, fed with the wasting of the old warrior's body. Again, with dazzled eyes, he beheld the weaving of the web of impure iris patterned with deathly splendour, veiling the ruinous catacomb with its weird illusions. Again, like a dying beetle, he was meshed in its chill unearthly strands, and its necromantic flowers blooming and perishing, lattice the void air above him. Necromantic flowers.

SPEAKER_02 55:44

I can't help reading this and thinking of Silent Hill F, the recent Silent Hill game, because that's whole like um it's all like cherry blossoms growing out of bodies and out of faces and the Sakura and all that, and it in and the when the also other world transitions, you get the um like tendrils of foliage chasing you down the streets and things. It's really, really good game. But um, yeah, I it's so my brain is seeing this like that.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Yes. But it leaves him again, it returns once more to the chasm, and he has another period of time where he's tossing in the hells of fever or lay at the black undivine nadir of oblivion, but he's still alive and he is living by sheer virtue of his youth and giant strength. Once more toward the end, his senses cleared, and he saw for the third time the unholy light, and heard again the thrice odious humming. The weaver was poised above him, pal, shining and vibrant, and he knew that it was waiting for him to die. So this is uh this is a vulture, this is carrion, right? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Well it's it's spider behaviour, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:54

Because they catch a fly and then they'll give it a nip, and then they'll wait for it to die. Then suck its juices out. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

And we come to the inevitable conclusion because there's there's no uh there's no rescue coming in, right? International rescue isn't coming in, his colleagues are dead. I mean, you know, it is totally hopeless, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Oh, and now I've got uh Fuzzbox's international rescue stuck in my head.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Lifting his sword with weak fingers he sought to drive it away, but the thing hovered, alert and vigilant beyond his reach, and he thought that it watched him like a vulture. The sword dropped from his hand. The luminous horror did not depart. It drew nearer like an eyeless, pertinacious face, and it seemed to follow him, swooping through the ultimate night as he fell deathward. With none to behold the glory of its weaving, with darkness before and after, the weaver spun its final web in the tomb of Telepres. What a way to go.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

What a great story. That's one of my favourites. I love that story. Yeah. But now I want to have a discussion about the weaver.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

Alright. Okay. Let's have a let's have a debate. Yeah, so what do you what do you think it is? I don't know. He talks about a devil rising up from the depths. I can only think it's some sort of subterranean creature. But what does it feed on? It it's almost like it's escaped by chance because there's an earthquake. Perhaps it had been imprisoned down there. Is it coincidence that it's in these catacombs? I don't know. Uh uh have you got a sort of mythos idea for it? Are you heading that way?

SPEAKER_02 58:36

Yeah, I have. I have, I am, yes, because obviously this predates the seven geuses.

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

But there are definite parallels with Atlantis. Um, for instance, you know how like um you know how in um hyperborea sothogua is pronounced Sarthogua? And then obviously in Zothique it's Zothoqua Um with all the Q's and all that kind of thing. So things change as they go along. Now, this story is called the Weaver in the Bolt, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:10

One of Atlack Nature's names is the Spinner in Darkness. Ah, right, right. Now I'm wondering if it isn't if it isn't Atlechnatcher, is it an avatar of, or is it uh a uh servitor of? Because a hatchling. Yeah, because Atlechnacha has minions, the grey weavers. Ah yeah, sort of spider kin things served by the grey weavers, is old Atlanta. So I yeah, for me, I think this probably inspired Smith's creation of old Spiderface, because it it Atlanature is said to dwell in Mount Vormi Vormithod in um Hyperborea. So in the time of Zothik, with all the earthquakes and all the things, is the you know, you yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

Well, these these these things uh live for eons, right? And all we we see various iterations of them, as you say. Yeah, that's very interesting. Do you do we know what the first mention by Smith of Atlak was?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

Yeah, the seven gaiuses.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

Right, right. So that does postate this.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:24

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

Yeah, yes, and I mean uh a spider god is kind of um I'm not saying it's an obvious thing, but that's that's a very easy thing to go to, right? Because we have those in various mythologies around the world. Oh godcha. Uh and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, I mean, if you look at Tolkien, we've got Ungoli on and Shelob and all the rest. But Smith's version is it's just even weirder, isn't it? Than it's just a big spider, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:54

Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, and obviously with it being a great old one, I mean, how many different avatars of nihilethet have we seen or aspects of, you know, could this be an aspect of aspect uh at like nature or a servitor or whatever? I just love thinking about these things. I'm I'm making connections where there probably isn't any, but I I like making these little mythosy connections. In my take on the Smithos, it is, if that makes sense. People can disagree with me if they like, but I think it's a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

I can totally go with that, I can totally see that. And I like this vampiric aspect as well. Well, then of course, that is an aspect, as you say, of the the spider, and part of the whole thing of the Dracula, isn't it? Is you're enmeshed in his web. Exactly. In fact, a lot of the time people go willingly into the web.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

And I even think of that great opening scene from the uh the original Dracula, the 1930s, where he he walks through that huge spider web that's across the stairs. Oh, yeah, of course. And later on is crawling down the wall, isn't he? Yeah, definitely. And I think it's great that Smith takes all those aspects, but always brings in that extra weirdness, and and we're always beyond, as we've said, it's way beyond the man in a rubber suit or the giant snake or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:15

You know, yeah, yeah. Well, even that like naturus itself, when we get to it, it's the human face on it that makes it really uncanny, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:23

Yes, yes. Uh again, there's a DD thing, right? Because the drow, anyone who back in the day played the the vault of the drow and those uh those scenarios and campaigns would have uh would have met potentially. Well, you you didn't want to meet Lolt, the queen of the drow. Very unpleasant individual. But yeah, that I the the spider with the human face. I I wonder where that had been before. If if that came from something else. Nothing really springs to mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:55

That seems like something that would have come from Asian mythology. Thailand or somewhere like that, because they have a lot of them kind of things, like the snake with the face of a woman and shape-shifting foxes and all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:10

And I think Nancy was the spider goddess from Caribbean myth, wasn't it? But I think that was an African voodoo. I think that was just a I was like not a plain ordery spider, but uh or maybe maybe she had a human face as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

I think it was I think she could shape shift, I think she could appear humanoid. Yeah. I think. I'm not entirely sure on that. Don't quote me on that, but I think so. I think there was a shape-shifting aspect.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

Yeah. But what what do you think is the what's the purpose of the web here? Because it feeds and then it spreads this web. I have one theory on that. Go on. What do you do shortly after you've had a a big heavy meal? One excretes. One excretes. Yes. Maybe this is some sort of excretion? Because it shrinks back down again, doesn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:06

I couldn't help thinking as well because it seemed to pulse with life and things like that. Was it almost like refrigeration? Was it keeping his meal fresh? Oh because he was dying, wasn't he? Because he's crushed and he'd hack it at his shins and losing blood. Yeah. So maybe it was sustaining him long enough for him to get ready to come and have a feed. Oh, it could be. That's a nice one.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

Yeah. I like that little again, almost blinking you miss it, reference to his gangrenous limbs. They were they were gangrening, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

Well, you know, you're supposed to your meat is supposed to be a bit gamey, isn't it? That you're supposed to hang stuff up, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:42

Yeah, in the larder, yeah. Brace of Pheasants. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:46

Yes, very interesting. And as always, with even these quite short weird tales, there's plenty of speculation, let alone what the purpose of the mummy parts were going to be. There's some talk of that in the in the story as well for the queen. And the the this place just fascinates me. Um I could see a whole book, a whole series just set in this setting.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:11

Investigating the catacombs. There's that's like a DD campaign or a DD novel.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:16

Yeah, absolutely. It's like I said, the first thing I said on the top of the episode was it's DD, isn't it? I mean, and that's why I can like it's another one that it's a shame nobody's adapted it because this had just translates so well to the screen.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:31

In the style of those old sword and sorcery adventure movies that you got a glut of in the 80s. You know, you could do so do one of that, something like that really well with this.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

It's funny how it went, wasn't it? Sword and sorcery, because this I I would class this a sword and sorcery.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:48

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:49

Yeah. I mean, you know, the terminology and and genres back then it was you know fantasy fiction or weird fiction or sightly fiction, basically. But yeah, this this is a Sword and sorcery story. And we went from this and Tower of the Elephant and Fritz Lieber and all the rest to sort of glistening steroid blokes and pneumatic ladies.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:11

Oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

Just with really shit stories for the most part.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:16

Well, that's what always made me laugh. You had all these barbarian women with like silicon in buds. So when did they get them done? The local witch doctor or something. I mean, come on, people.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:27

I know. I I think I got chucked off of a Facebook group because they kept putting uh Red Sonya pictures up. Oh, yeah. Now, Red Sonia was a Robert E. Howard character, kind of, but she was uh historical fiction, 15th, 16th century, Siege of Vienna, all that kind of stuff. That's it. That somehow gets translated into a busty woman in a chain mail bikini. And there's a whole backstory that I'm not even going to go into because it's it's very exploitative and horrible. But you know, so when she is presented, it's uh yeah, the pneumatic woman. And my point is always, oh, I see she's wearing Hyborean age lipsticker makeup, yes, and has had a hair set or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

I remember because you do remember the the Sharp series.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:14

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:15

The original run of them were great, perfect. The historical accuracy was spot on because they hired real actors, it was all real, like as close to it as you could get. It was all the sealed knock guys. I know people who took part in the battles, you know, because it was real actors. Um, but when they kind of came back many years later and did them one set in India, the first one I couldn't help rolling my eyes because the woman, the love interest for Sharp turned up, right? And she had lip fillers, peroxide blonde hair, silicon knockers. And it was just like, oh, so see, historical accuracy has just gone straight out of the window now then.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

So you're just playing directly to that modern, modern look sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

Yeah, they weren't good, they weren't good. Challenge and the other one, they weren't good.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:06

And it's a general issue, isn't it? It's just the sexualization of the female characters you you see it in uh comic book superheroes and all the rest. Uh and in fact, I did see an interesting meme once of male superheroes drawn as though they were women, and the clothing is different, and the poses are different, and it's all very kind of flirtatious and everything else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:28

Oh, so that is hilarious. So yeah, some of those, I think it was the flash with the big bulge. Because the you know the the likers.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

Yeah, and and people say, right, oh, the excuse with all the the sort of Conan or that sort of artwork. Yeah, but Conan's not wearing anything, and there's a big buff guy and everything else. Yeah, but is is presented as a paragon of masculinity, it's not a sexual presentation, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:55

So it may be a subtle difference to some, but yeah. So the Red Sonya film that's just come out. I I don't even want to watch it because it just looks awful and oh, they made a new one. Yes, real generic fantasy. Because who was Red Sonia the original movie? Bridget Nielsen.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:13

Jane Fonk Bridget Nielsen, that's I mean that that was bad enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:16

That was off the back of Conan the Destroyer and all those things. And I enjoyed it for what it was, but yeah, it it's kind of campy, sort of you know, 80s. That had a giant spider in it. Indeed, it did, yeah. Quite a good one from what I remember. It was actually pretty good. That's the best thing in it, I think. I think it was, yeah. Okay, all right, so there we are, the weaver in the vault. Uh we are voting for Atlakna in some form or other or as aspect thereof. What do you think, dear listener? What is the weaver in the vault? Any ideas? What's that web all about? I'd be interested to know.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:54

Yeah, definitely be interested to hear some people's theories on that because it's one of those brilliant Smith stories that you can have so many different takes on it if you wanted.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:04

Yes. Do write in and let us know. Of course, you can get in touch via email, the insmoothbook club at outlook.com. You can post something up on our YouTube, or you can visit the Innsmouth Forum. Oh, and welcome to everyone who's just signed up to the Innsmouth Forum. By the way, I see we've had uh uh a new intake at the uh at the Gilman House over the last few weeks. Some new people signing in. So there's uh some real good discussions going on there now. And uh speaking of which, we're gonna take a little delve into the mailbag to finish. We're gonna uh brush aside the webs and the cobwebs and these strange pearlescent sticky strands that are before me.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:49

Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:51

And uh let's see, let's see what we've got. Now, I think we're looking here, these are postings about our last episode, which was Vulthum.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:00

Indeed, and the first one comes from Patreon from JB Lee. Ramsey Campbell mentioned Vulthum in one of his earliest stories in a mythos context. I absolutely believe the dweller in the gulf, Volthoom, and maybe even the Yovombis brain suckers would be considered mythos deities if their stories had been set on Earth. As it is, interplanetary kingpin of crime Volthoom wants these guys to be his drug dealers on the street. Lovecraft told Smith Volthoom was the only thing worthwhile in that issue, which also contained the shambler from the stars, young Robert Block's infamous tale. I'm also surprised Doctor Who didn't take this one on like Star Trek took on Arena. It's very much a Who sort of tale, I totally agree. As you guys saw as well, and way back in The Robots of Death, we learned the Doctor can resist gases, hence the way they escape in the conclusion. Yes, that's a very good point. Something mere humans, alas, can't do. And finally, amused to see you use one of my many Volfoom picks as a thumbnail. I can direct you to one I consider better. And then there's a link for Deviant Art.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

Excellent. Thanks, GB Lee. We'll put that link up in the show notes below. Uh we I do tend to sort of pick things. Uh I do a search for the stories we do and find a picture, and I very rarely credit them. I do apologize for that. It's uh it's something I should really do, is credit the artist. But uh yeah, JB has got an excellent collection of pictures on his deviant art there. Do go and take a look. And something just struck me there band name, the Yo Vombis Brainsuckers. That's a psychabilly outfit, right. Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:47

Oh, absolutely, yeah. Bit of rack into that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

Yeah. Meanwhile, on the Innsmouth Forum, Alta writes, gentlemen, a truly wonderful episode about one of CAS's most interesting creations. You mentioned Volfoom's inclusion among the distinguished group of great old ones. I looked through my RPG library and found entries about this great old one, along with a translation of a fragment of the story in Ye Book of Monsters 2 from 1995, but also in The Creature Companion from 1998. But probably in every edition imaginable, and in the latest Malleus Monstrum, I have one from 2022. The character himself is one of the more unique in the Cthulhu Mythos pantheon, deeply embedded in plant motifs. This gives us a certain diversity, not just slimy tentacles every time, right? On a different note, I wonder if the main character in the House on the Borderlands saw Valthume's awakening cycles. That's a very interesting point, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:52

Yeah, very much so. Yeah, because I I like to think, again, you know, sort of uh fan casting kind of thing. I like to think that when he went on that big voyage, he saw it all from the start, from Ubosaphla upwards, right? You know, the be the unbegotten source, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:09

Yes, and that's a good point about the tentacles as well. I mean, the only other mythos deity I can think of with uh sort of plant connections will be Shubby, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:20

And my great old one, yeah, Jorigathy has uh yeah, plant-like aspects, the miracle growth and all that.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:27

Of course, of course, yeah. But then I'm thinking even Shabby is basically a tree with tentacles, isn't it? Pretty much, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:36

I think that's why I um I've got a soft spot for Derlith's creations because obviously you had Ithaca, which was like a frosty ice giant Iwendigo thing, and Cathuga, which is a great sentient fireball, it was just a bit different, added a bit of an extra element to things.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:53

Well, he did kind of lean into that five elements, didn't he?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:57

Indeed, yeah, which is very controversial. But I mean, Brian Lumley used it as well. He went with the sort of Derleth uh way of doing it, and it worked really well in the Titus Crow series. It worked really well with that kind of occult detective setting. Yes, yeah, which if you think if you think about it, Dirleth and his solar poms, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:17

There's room for all of these interpretations, I think, because at the end of the day we we can't understand any of it. This is that the blind men with with the elephant description again, isn't it? You know, exactly. There's there's room for everything, I think. Uh there's al always room for a good joke, of course. And nils, friend Nils in California, never disappoints. Neils writes, what is the favourite underwear brand of the great old ones? Answer Fruit of Volthum. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:48

Bravo, bravo, Nils. We can always count on Nils from one pantster to another. Well played, sir. Well played. Indeed. Next up, we have a message in from Tobias who says, So, a quick question. Tim mentioned Dark Satanic Mills, and I wonder if he was referencing the song The Granulating Dark Satanic Mills by death metal band Carcass, or if this is a saying or reference I don't know about. Also, carry on carrion should definitely be a film. Absolutely. Could someone resurrect Vincent Price for this one? Yeah. Oh, that'd be so good, wouldn't it? Yeah, well, the Dark Satanic Mills, that is it is a saying over here in the UK, but it actually comes from William Blake's poem, Jerusalem. That was also known as And Did Those Feet in Ancient Times. That was the original poem, which was the preface to his epic Milton, a poem in two books. Now, yeah, the it's the second stanza. And did the countenance divine shine forth upon clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here among those dark satanic mills? It's a reference to the Industrial Revolution and all the death and grime that it wrought.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

Yes, Blake was one of the great London poets, and uh at the time he was writing, I think that this was really the birth of the Industrial Revolution, and London. We we can imagine what London was like in the Oh the smoke and oh god, he yeah, yeah. And uh yeah, it was set to music by Parry, and uh it's sort of like an unofficial national anthem, isn't it? Really? Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. But the the interesting thing is, well, A, it's a much better tune and words than our actual national anthem, which is so dirgy. Oh, I know, and no one knows anything beyond the first verse, and there's some quite dodgy lyrics in later. Oh, isn't there?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:45

Yeah. Well, well, put it this way, my a lot of my family being Scottish don't like it because there's a whole, you know, and with a mighty rush, rebellious Scots to crush, and all that kind of all that kind of business, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:59

But the the irony with Jerusalem that is uh you know sung by uh sort of some of the flag wavers, shall we call them? They've totally misunderstood the detonant and and the meaning.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:13

Completely missed the point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

And you know, any any book you can get, a good book on Blake, fascinating character, absolutely fascinating character. I'd uh highly recommend. I'm sure everyone knows Tiger Tiger Burning Bright in the Forest of the Night. Of course. Yeah, very interesting and uh a true visionary. Thank you, uh Tobias, for that. Over to YouTube, where Bondapavon, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, writes Love to see the long since departed double shadow podcast get a mention. Back twelve or so years ago, it was my only podcast, and I was always so sad it died off before they could get to the dark eyedolon. But I don't really miss it anymore because you guys do such a good job of going through CAS stories. Well, thank you very much for that. That's very kind of you to say. And the the Double Shadow was our major influence really on doing this, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:08

Yeah, it was kind of a conversation, wasn't it? It was like, oh, it's a shame they didn't that that it stopped when it did. And it was kind of like, well, should we do it? That's kind of where it came from, wasn't it, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:18

Yes. So I'm I'm glad to hear that you appreciate us and uh we're we're flying the the double shadow banner still.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:26

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thank you for that. That that's really, really you know, I've put a smile on my face hearing that that you'd appreciate it. So next up, we're sticking with YouTube, but we're jumping to uh the episode on genius lochi. And we have a message from Patrick Dodson 5686. I love the shape of water. It has a reveal at the end that Sally has fish ancestry. And I'm speculating that since the specimen has healing powers, they may be able to live forever under the sea. It's like a love story in Innsmouth. And while it removes the main horror from the story and makes the humans the villain, I think Del Toro definitely had the ending plot of Shadow Over Innsmouth in mind making it. Absolutely, yes, I couldn't agree more. In fact, we have it lined up to cover that in the A Monster in My Bed podcast that I do with Zoe. Because of course we do. Of course, you do. Yeah, but it is essentially Deep One romance. I mean, I wondered if you'd been reading any like Caitlin Kinn and or Ruth Anna Emris or some of them other authors that took that route with it. I do wonder. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:40

Totally. I I've heard that film spoken about recently on a few other places in quite demeaning terms, but I I enjoyed it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:50

It's one of the it's actually one of the few Del Toro movies I like.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:54

Well, I'm thinking perhaps the people were saying what they did because it's not really a horror movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:00

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:00

And I think people were perhaps expecting some sort of uh insmouthian terror or creature from the Black Black Lagoon kind of vibe, but he went a different route. I I thought it worked really well.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:11

Yeah, it's interesting because it is because obviously he did the Hellboy movies before that, and obviously there was Abe Sapien in that. Yes, yeah. And I wonder if obviously he you know he's a big fan of Lovecraft, a massive influence on him. So I think that Innsmouth parallel is, you know, I think yeah, it has to be really. So, you know, there you go. So yeah, thank you for that. That's uh yeah, I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:37

And finally, we have a missive in from our friend Mark Griffin over at 30 plus minutes with HP Lovecraft Podcast. Greetings. I'm currently on a Smithian trip at the Fungal Club. The satanic salamanders will be playing soon. The hoor is here are all heaven sent.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:55

Very good. Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:58

Voltoon made me think more about the debate over whether Mr. Smith was a partaker of the pharmaceuticals. Was he similar to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who penned Kublakan under the influence of opium? Or was he a Steve Ditko who produced trippy extra-dimensional imagery but never touched any mind-altering substances? Lovecraft praised Mr Smith for being austere. Cody Goodfellow, in the Emperor of Dreams documentary, expressed doubt. Mr Smith has wisely chosen posthumously to stay silent on the matter, playing both sides of the field. Quite appropriate. Or Fibes Returns Part Three. Oh yeah. A character with a similar name Volthoom exists over in the DC universe. Volto may have been a nod to Mr. Smith. Whether Gardner Fox the Creator read any Smithian Towels or not is unknown, but it's likely. He was familiar enough with Robert E. Howard to create his own cone and pastiche, crumb the barbarian. His Star Over the Conqueror, the Justice League of America's first adversary, was more or less a great old one. They even fought him in Providence. Given that Fox also wrote for Weird Tales, he would have less excuse to say he never heard of Mr. Smith. I will be in Europe in a few months. Maybe we can meet up at the horror bar in Prague, Mark. Thank you, Mark. Be lovely to nip over to the horror bar. I was in Prague a few years ago. I was just saying to Tim a little while back for some recording. Funnily enough, we used the same room about a day later that Killing Joke had been recording in.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:40

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

And uh while out there, I did get the chance to sample some absinthe. Absinthe in Prague doesn't get much better than that, does it?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:48

Nice. Interestingly, I'm I'm plotting going to Prague because I'm friends with the Prague Goth Band Cathedral in Flames, and uh we're plotting doing some they'll come over here, we'll go over there kind of gigs.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:00

Oh, excellent. Oh, excellent. Oh, it's it's a great place. Didn't really get much time to look around. You know what it's like when you're working, you know, it's studio 10 hours and all that stuff. But yeah, really uh atmospheric place. I really did like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:13

Yeah, I think just thinking about the Smith and the drugs, I think he had to at least smoke a bit the old uh wacky backy, because I mean, you know, the hashish eater and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it it's got a ring of authenticity to it, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:31

Well, if if if you'll pardon the pun, it was in the air at that time, wasn't it? Yeah, exactly. You know, we've had that wave of romantics, which of course they all look back on, and as you mentioned, their coloridge and opium and Keats and Byron uh and all the rest.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:47

You've also got to think about the actual circle he was a part of, people like George Sterling and DeCastris and all these guys, they were all doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:56

San Francisco, man. I mean exactly, you know, yeah. The 60s had roots that go back way further than people might imagine, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:04

All right, thanks everyone for getting in touch. As we say, we'd love to hear your comments, questions, and suggestions. So don't be shy. Do write in and let us know your thoughts. We'd like to welcome a new patron, Kenneth Crepin. Thank you very much for signing up and supporting the show. Should you wish to join Kenneth and our merry throng of patrons, check our Patreon site. Of course, as a member, you get access to bonus content for Strange Shadows and the Innsmouth Book Club. You get a quarterly copy of Innsmouth News PDF and free entry to the Innsmouth Literary Festival and any other sort of events or similar that we may be putting on. We've got some things in consideration at the moment. We're we're like a sort of old stew. Things take a long time to come to the boil, but we do get there in the end.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:53

At least we get there in the end. I know so many so many people who come up with these ideas and don't. So at least we do finally get there.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:01

Okay, thanks again for joining us, folks. We'll see you next time. Where I think we're covering the last story in volume four.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:10

Hmm. We are, yes, indeed. We're looking at The Flower Woman, another absolute classic.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:17

Yes, we're back in the world of plants again, aren't we?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:20

Uh, following that, of course, we're gonna do a season wrap-up. There's gonna be some more bonus content coming up. Those of you who listen to our recent bonus episode will have heard us talk about the Book of Jade that was that Wandry lent to Smith. I have actually got hold of a copy of the Book of Jade that is also filled with copious notes and biographical details. So I shall be putting out something on that in the near future as well. On that note, it's goodbye from me, Rob Lighton. That is goodbye from me, Tim Mendes.