Weird Tales volume 31 number 03 (23 page)

NEXT MONTH

The Eyes of the Mummy

By Robert Bloch

►TptHAT young writing marvel, Robert -*- Bloch, has never written a stranger or more thrilling story than this. It is a story of Egypt, a gripping tale of flaming weird jewels in the eye-sockets of a withered mummy, an eery narrative that will hold your breathless interest to the end.

^TTIhis story rises to a climax so un-■*■ usual, so weird and fascinating as to make it unique in literature. This unforgettable tale will be published complete

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without' warning. From happiness we are

switched to misery and back again almost without knowing how it all happened. The trouble with striving constantly for this kind of atmosphere is that it defeats its own purpose. You are plunged into gloom with the story's first paragraph and are mentally prepared for anything that may happen. When 1 bought a volume of Poe's works some years ago, I naturally waded through those dealing in horror first. 'Waded' is the mot juste. By the time I had read three of them, I was so saturated with their atmosphere that they had lost all value as shockers. I have never finished the volume and I never will. (This is sacrilege but I can't help it.) People are constantly borrowing my books—sometimes they return them—but I have never had any one of them borrow the volume of Poe although it still retains its attractive red-and-black cover. I don't believe people like that kind of Htcratute. They like horror, mystery, even cruelty; but they like it dished up palatably. You can consign this to the editorial waste-basket if you like, but it is my sincere conviction that more stories of the Seabury Quirm type would sell more copies of WT."

Concise Comments

T. O. Mabbott writes from New York City: "My votes this month are for Roads, which has the truth of a legend about it, though curiously enough for Seabury Quinn, it struck me as deserving a cut or two to make the thing a little more compact; second: Valley of Boms —simple and wholly credible while being read, and, third, Toean AUtjan, where I wished for a stronger suggestion the tiger was sometimes a man, too."

James Whiting Saunders writes from Alexandria, Virginia: "In the January issue the best story is Ethan Brand. It is an almost timeless allegory, of course. Thank you for printing an American classic."

Paul L. McCleave writes from St. Petersburg, Florida: "The Sea-Witch was truly the 'tops' in the December Weed Tales. Nictzin Dyalhis (how'd he ever get that name, anyway ?) must have a thorough knowledge of the old Norse mythology."

Seymour Kapetansky writes from Detroit: "LOvecraft's Hypnos is one of the late master's obscure-weird pieces. A grand fictional yarn. I think that the reprint should contain

a Lovecraft as often as possible, and ditto the early Robert E. Howards. These men were the best weird writers; their work should appear often. That will be their best

memorial."

Harold F. Keating writes from Quincy, Massachusetts: "The Black Stone Statue by Mary Counselman is gorgeous. Most of her stories are excellent; but this was the best yet."

Howard Brenton MacDonald writes from Yonkers, New York: "The Sea-Witch was an exceptionally fine story. I am glad to see some author making use of the vast treasury of Norse mythology. Let's have more."

H. W. Marian writes from Union City, Tennessee: "In the December number Virgil Finlay is superb. Words fail me, and I can only attempt to express my appreciation for this new feature. These first two I have already framed and they occupy a position of honor in my room."

Andrew Galet writes from New York City: "I now have a double incentive for buying WT, but, please have Virgil Finlay's full-page drawing inside the back cover of your magazine. Not only will his illustrations be more fully appreciated but one could always tear the cover off and have the drawings framed."

Orin S. McFarland writes from Washington D. C: "I've read your magazine for the last six years and know there is nothing like it. Keep up the good work. There are a few stories that don't quite click, but so few diat all the good ones outshine, by far, any defect that your magazine may otherwise possess."

Flo M. Post writes from Guthrie, Oklahoma: "Tales of robots with human minds are just gibberish—and not weird gibberish eirher—whether they inhabit Mars, Venus, the Moon, or an Atlantis."

The Most Popular Story

Readers, it will help us to keep this magazine just as you like it to be, if you will let us know which stories you like best, and also which ones you dislike. In the January issue, as shown by your votes and letters, Seabury Qulnn's strange tale about Santa Claus easily won first place. Vennette Herron's story about the were-tiger came next

W.T.—8

COMING NEXT MONTH

AT THE core of the strange garden, where a circular space was still vacant amid the /% crowding growths, Adompha came to a mound of loamy, fresh-dug earth. Beside jC \- it, wholly nude, and pale and supine as if in death, there lay the odalisque Thulo-neah. Near her, various knives and other implements, together with vials of liquid balsams and viscid gums that Dwerulas used in his grafting, had been emptied upon the ground from a leathern bag. A plant known as the dedatm, with a bulbous, pulpy, whitish-green bole from whose center rose and radiated several leafless reptilian boughs, dripped upon Thulo-neah's bosom an occasional drop of yellowish-red ichor from incisions made in its smooth bark.

Behind the loamy mound, Dwerulas rose to view with the suddenness of a demon emerging from his subterrene lair. In his hands he held the spade with which he had just finished digging a deep and grave-like hole. Beside the regal stature and girth of Adompha. he seemed no more than a wizened dwarf. His aspect bore all the marks of immense age, as if dusty centuries had sered his flesh and sucked the blood from his veins. His eyes glowed in the bottom of pit-like orbits; his features were black and sunken as those of a long-dead corpse; his body was gnarled as some millennial desert cedar. He stooped incessantly, so that his lank, knotty arms hung almost to the ground. Adompha marveled at the strength of those arms; marveled that Dwerulas could have wielded the heavy shovel so expeditiously, could have carried to the garden on his back the burden of those victims whose members he had utilized in his experiments. The king had never demeaned himself to assist at such labors; but, after indicating from time to time the people whose disappearance would in no wise displease him, had done nothing more than watch and supervise the baroque gardening.

"Is she dead?" Adompha questioned, eyeing the luxurious limbs and body of Thuloneah wichout emotion.

"Nay," said Dwerulas, in a voice harsh as a rusty coffin-hinge, "but I have administered to her the drowsy and overpowering juice-cf the dedatm. Her heart beats impalpably, her blood flows with the sluggishness of that mingled ichor. She will not reawaken . . . saw-as a part of the garden's life, sharing its obscure sentience. I wait now your further instructions. What portion . . . or portions?"

"Her hands were very deft," said Adompha, as if musing aloud, in reply to the half-uttered question. "They knew the subtle ways of love and were learned in all amorous arcs. I would nave you preserve her hands . . . hut nothing else." . . .

A strange story indeed is this, written in the magic words of one of the greatest Living masters of weird fiction. What happened to Thuloneah when her arms were grafted to the dedaim tree makes a fascinating and unusual weird story of immense interest and power. It will be printed complete in the April issue of Wkird Tales:

THE GARDEN OF ADOMPHA

By Clark Ashton Smith

Also

THE TEMPLE DANCER

By Seabury Quinn An unusual story aboat a white girl in a Hindoo temple and the loving arms of the gracious lady that protected her on the nigh! when she was to become the Bride of Siva. THE EYES OF THE MUMMY FOREST OF E\TL

By Robert Bloch By John Murray Reynolds

A fascinating story of flashing jewels and an old A story of many thrills—a tale i>f weird adven-Egyptian tomb—a story with a strange and terrible tures and dire perils in the Dead Forest of climax. Sanaala.

THE DEVIL DEALS

By Carl Jacobi

An odd and curious story is this, about a fatal game of

cards, played with a most peculiar deck containing neither

spades, hearts, diamonds nor clubs.

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THE MOON TERROR, by A. G. DIMENSION, by Farnsworth Wright, is

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