'The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan' – Clark Ashton Smith

Now that I've gone and dug my copy of 'The Emperor of Dreams' out of a pile of books, I think you'll be seeing a few more short stories featuring here in the future (and now). And because it worked so well, for me anyway, last week, all future reads will be chosen by opening the book at a random page. This week's 'Random Page Opening' takes us on a nine page trip to Hyperborea and a money lender who is more of a 'money keeper', for all the good that does him...

There's a guy who begs on Lewisham High Street and we have an understanding. If I have a decent amount of change on me then he's welcome to it. If I don't then no worries, we'll have a chat for a bit then get on with our business. Avoosl Wuthoqquan (and it's no good, I'm copying and pasting that name for the rest of this post...) would have done well to follow my lead. Instead, not only does Avoosl refuse to give the beggar any money at all (having had his dreams of making even more money interupted); when the beggar lays a curse on our money lender, Avoosl actually doubles down with the hard nosed attitude and offers some criticism of the quality of curse that he is receiving. You can tell it's not going to end well for Avoosl but I love the fact that he clearly doesn't care, he has money to make...

'Begone', said Avoosl Wuthoqquan, 'The weird is more than a trifle cryptic in its earlier clauses; and the final clause is somewhat platitudinous, I do not need a beggar to tell me the common fate of mortality.'

The next time I get into an argument, on the bus, and am told where to go; you can guess what my reply is going to be... ;o)

But anyway...

It's no surprise then where this story is going although I won't spoil it. 'The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan' comes across like a Hyperborean Fable warning of the perils of greed, Ashton Smith doesn't include a moral, at the end of the tale, but he may as well have done (although you could say that the very matter of fact ending serves as just that). It's pretty clear that this is a tale meant to educate. There's not a lot of room for much else, in nine pages, and that's fine. If that's all there is to a tale then why drag it out?

Or is that all there is to this tale? I'm not sure that it is.

While the destination is pretty clear, it's what Ashton Smith does with the journey that I suspect will stay with me the most from this tale. You would have thought that setting your tale in the age of Hyperborea would be as 'pre-history' as you'd get but Ashton Smith surprises us in how Avoosl Wuthoqquan's journey shows us that we can always go back a bit further...

Not only is the atmosphere gradually built up (with a great contrast to Wuthoqquan's not noticing the growing danger) but the slow movement from busy streets to sullen jungle really makes it clear that humans really haven't been around that long in comparison to what lurks beneath the trees. It's a sobering thought but strangely exhilarating at the same time as you realise there is a lot more to this world, and you want to learn more.

Avoosl Wuthoqquan's fate is clear from the moment the beggar's eyes flash and he opens his mouth to speak. That's only half of the story though and Ashton Smith makes clever use of the unfolding situation to show us that Hyperborea was old even at the time this story unfolded. I'll be searching out more of these particular tales and you can (should) read 'The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan' over Here.