“You have achieved in its fullest glamour the exact Dunsanian touch which I find it almost impossible to duplicate.... Altogether, I think [“The Tale of Satampra Zeiros”] comes close to being your high point in prose fiction to date…” —H.P. Lovecraft, in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith, December 3, 1929

Clark Ashton Smith was born on January 13, 1893. Not the luckiest day ever—and his life did not exhibit many instances of sheer luckiness—-but it was an extremely fortunate event for fans of the weird tale and of sword-and-sorcery. As I have pointed out elsewhere, CAS was a pioneer of the S&S genre. His “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” was the first sword-and-sorcery story he ever wrote. It is also, possibly, the most influential tale he told within that genre.

It would appear that Clark composed "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" (henceforth initialized as 'TToSZ') sometime during the summer or early fall of 1929. To put things in their S&S context, the first Solomon Kane tale, "Red Shadows" had appeared in Weird Tales in August of 1928. "The Shadow Kingdom" had seen print exactly a year later, in August 1929. Did Robert E. Howard's horrific, bloody yarn of Kull spark Smith's imagination?

For those DMR readers who have managed to not read CAS' classic tale, I urge you to go spend an entertaining half-hour doing so right now. It can be found here, at the Eldritch Dark website. If, for some inexplicable reason, the story is not worth your time, I'll gladly refund your money.

Be warned, ye spoilerphobes, spoilers shall presently follow.

The tale begins with Satampra Zeiros setting the framework for his story. Smith pulls it off with a style and finesse comparable to Howard, Leiber or Dunsany. Satampra and his long-time partner in crime, Tirouv Ompallios, are down on their luck, despite being the best thieves in all of Hyperborea.They resolve to plunder the abandoned and forbidden city of Commoriom, which is--temptingly--only a day's march away.

Their resolutions fortified by pomegranate wine, the two set out. They appropriate victuals and more wine before reaching Commoriom at dusk. They push on and encounter an ancient temple of the god, Tsathoggua. Forcing their way in, Satampra and Tirouv discover the temple to be almost bare, containing only a large, brazen basin in the center--full of black liquid--and a stone idol of Tsathoggua against the far wall.

Suddenly, the black, fetid liquid in the basin rears up, extruding tentacles and whatnot. The two thieves flee but are pursued and eventually herded back to the temple by the basin-thing. Only Satampra escapes, leaving his right hand behind.

A dark tale. Almost grimdark, in a way. However, how many S&S tales have you read where the protagonist(s) came away with nothing but their life/lives...and were glad of it? Plenty of them, I'm sure. Here is the thing, though: "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" was the first sword-and-sorcery story to ever tell such a tale.

I will dig into all of that more deeply in Part Two.