'The Beast of Averoigne' – Clark Ashton Smith

I'm back at work today (after ten days off) and spent most of yesterday worrying about what I'm going to find, in my inbox, when I turn my work laptop back on... I'm hoping that my project managers all took last week off as well, and my inbox is empty, but we'll see..

I did finish off Sven Hassel's 'Legion of the Damned' yesterday but my mind was absolutely not on writing big reviews (or even medium sized reviews to be honest) so I thought I'd dig out 'The Emperor of Dreams' again and see if there was a suitable short story to post about. And there was, of course there was.

Remember the other day when I said that I fancied reading something set in Averoigne? Well, last night saw me ditch the 'open the book and see what short story jumps out' approach and instead, just go for whatever story had the word 'Averoigne' in the title, 'The Beast of Averoigne' as it happened. I'd completely forgotten but I had read this story before but that was seven and a bit years ago and all I could really remember was the title. So, kind of like going in cold then...

Something monstrous is on the prowl, in the province of Averoigne, and it's hunting live prey... No-one knows who will be next or even if they themselves will wake up safe in the morning. The sorcerer Luc le Chaudronnier is approached to track down the Beast before it kills again, a task he will accept but at what cost...?

I said it back then and I'll say it again now, I had no idea that 'Medieval Cosmic Horror' could be a thing until I read 'The Beast of Averoigne'; it is though and in Smith's hands, it makes for a gripping few pages. Not that gripping though... I'm not the quickest on the uptake but even I was able to untangle the mystery of the Beast pretty quickly. Smith does make it pretty clear to the likes of us, who have a fair idea of how cosmic evil may manifest itself, but what saves the story is that he also makes it very clear that the good people of Averoigne have no idea just what is passing over their heads. This makes for some chilling moments that really emphasise how silently the Beast can move and that nowhere is safe...

'And the fell deed was not discovered till daybreak, when the monk who slept nearest to Gerome awakened and saw his body, which lay face downward with the back of the robe and the flesh beneath in bloody tatters.'

'The Beast of Averoigne' is ten pages long, in my copy of 'The Emperor of Dreams' and Smith does a superb job of filling it with little moments like this, all brought into sharp relief by the claustrophobic feel of the province itself. If it's not a walled city, it's the encroaching darkness of the forest of Averoigne. It pushes at your senses and if that wasn't bad enough, the Beast is lurking and ready to pounce (and the Beast looks horrifying).

It's a good job then that Luc le Chaudronnier is a sorcerer that is willing to lend a hand out of a sense of civic duty, he doesn't even take up the offer of immunity from the Inquistion (which is odd, you would have thought that he'd jump at that, being a sorcerer and all). Maybe he figures that the Beast will seek him out next and wants to get things done quickly. Either way...

Chaudronnier is the link between medieval Averoigne and Hyperborean pre-history and Smith uses this to paint a broader picture with mention of the Beast's brethren not having visited Earth since 'the foundering of Atlantis'. Little throwaway lines, like that, are great at not only giving us more to go with (plot-wise) but they are absolutely brilliant at giving us little glimpses of the wider environs that Smith writes in and how these link his short stories.

While Lovecraft preferred to keep his main characters ignorant of the wider universe, and its denizens, Smith has no such leaning and so Chaudronnier is not only able to seek demonic assistance (as to the nature of the Beast) but he also quite happily turns the demon on the Beast in a fight to the death that the demon promises is the only way that the Beast can be defeated. This raises interesting questions around fighting evil with a greater evil (man really knows where he stands, in this universe, and what he may rely on) but the big question for me is... Was Chaudronnier being just a little bit naïve to release an actual demon on its word? Isn't the whole point of demons that they will say anything to gain their freedom? As it happens, the demon did do what it promised but if I was Chaudronnier, I'd be sleeping in a circle of salt tonight...

'The Beast of Averoigne' has its ups and downs then but is deliciously creepy in places and says enough about the province itself that I'm certainly looking to read more in this setting. Werewolves in the woods and a castle said to be haunted by vampires? Oh, go on then... ;o) I'd be interested though, to come back after having read a few more of Smith's stories and see where 'The Beast of Averoigne' sits in terms of telling a good story. I think there might be a few stories that are higher, at least for me anyway.