The Empire of Necromancers by Clark Ashton Smith Review

This one was a strange one because I quickly recognized the problem: the lack of Chekov's Gun. I'll get into that in a moment. The story follows two necromancers, Mmatmuor and Sodsma who travel to this land called Tinarath to practice their dark arts. Unfortunately for them, they are thrown out and head to the dead land of Cincor where they begin to raise the dead. One of the aspects that is common among Lovecraftian-style of writing is that the stories don't go into details of the spells. It's like the opposite of Harry Potter where each spell has a name and a purpose and a way to cast them. Here, the spells are intentionally vague. The pair resurrect a few dead on the way to the city of Yethlyreom and reanimate many of the dead, including the royalty. The two plan to conquer the land that threw them out when the undead emperor, Illerio, begins to recall his memories. Now here's where the gun doesn't come into play, Illerio consults with an ancestor named Hestaiyon who informs him of a method to free the dead from the grip of the necromancers. This method involves a prophecy that is suddenly added to the story. There's no build up before or a warning to the necromancers to "beware the ancient prophecy." That's the problem, the solution to the issue is suddenlt "remembered." It's like a deus ex machina, a solution that comes from no where. If there was some kind of build up, I would forgive this story for its shortcomings but this lack of a major piece throws the whole thing into a wreck. At the end, Illerio recovers a brass key and a sword from a clay image of a god. inside is brass tablets with instructions on how to free the dead from the necromancers. Hestaiyon beheads the two magicians and leads the dead to the final abyss where the dead can rest. Hestaiyon also places a curse on the two necromancers so that they will never die but live in pieces. The dead then enter the abyss and seal the door from the inside with Mmatmuor and Sodsma still searching for the key to this day. Chekov's Gun would have fixed this issue of a Deus Ex Machina solution. If there was something in the narrative about a warning or something of the sort then the ending would have more of an ironic twist. "You should have listened" kind of meaning. And there is a bit of forewarning in that the necromancers are cast out of town since the people consider death to be sacred. This is another theme in Smith's stories but the message isn't delivered clearly. It's not a bad story but suffers from a lot of "and then" kind of story telling. It's liek the story is saying "and then the dead woke up." There's no preceding notion that the dead will wake up or something like build up towards this fact. The pair of necromancers raise the dead on their way to the town, it would have made sense if there were some clues to the dead becoming rebellious. Like refusing orders or something of the sort that gives the readers a hint that something is going wrong. A break from the necromancer's plan going right all the time. I often wonder why Lovecraft added Smith to his faux "Eldritch family tree" because the stories that Smith created pale in comparison to some of the other stories that were written at the time.