The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith by Clark Ashton Smith

him) ranks as a great and unique artist, particularly in view of all the profound changes that have happened just in the art or science of verse technique, that is, of prosody, in the English language. Smith remained true to the poetic tradition to which he was born, and which he learned, painstakingly, with genius and originality, to use from the time of his early adolescence until his death. Such a poet does not change his practice to suit the latest fad or fashion of the passing moment—a poetic tradition, moreover, inherited from hundreds of years of experimentation as well as of genuine achievement. At this late date in time one is constrained to admire such rare integrity, no less than the solid belief that he maintained in the poetic tradition that he received and that he mastered. As he was in life, so is Smith in death: sui generis .
    Tsathoggua Press rendered a real service by republishing this essay in January of 1997 as a separate booklet, thirty-three years after its first appearance, just as Silver Key Press, the English-language imprint of the French nonprofit small press La Clef d’Argent, renders a no less valuable service by republishing it again today. On behalf of Klarkash-Ton I personally give the successive publishers of this essay—Mirage Press, Tsathoggua Press, and Silver Key Press, and now Night Shade Books—all possible credit and gratitude.
    Donald Sidney-Fryer
    Westchester, Los Angeles, February 2007.

T HE A NIMATED S WORD

      he blade is not for sale, sahib, nay, not for ten times a hundred rupees.”
    Of Benares workmanship, sharply curved, razor-edged, with a jewel-studded hilt, and grooves down the blade containing those little pearls which are known as “the tears of the enemy,” the sword was one that a king might have been proud to own. But the price I had offered Pir Mohammed, a hundred rupees, was a high one even for such and I was greatly surprised when he refused to sell it. It was in his stock, with a number of other blades, of all kinds, from Hussaini scimitars to khitars and Malay krises and I had naturally assumed that it was for sale. I am an inveterate collector of curios, and certainly the sword would have been a valuable addition to my collection.
    “Why?” I queried.
    The old sword-dealer did not answer at once. A faraway look had come over his face at my question, as though something past and far distant had suddenly been called to mind. At last he spoke.
    “The tale is a strange one, sahib, and haply thou wilt not believe it. But if it is thy wish, then will I unfold it and thou shalt know why I will not sell the blade.”
    I begged him to tell it, and in his thin, quavering voice, with his hands caressing the hilt of the sword, he spoke:
    “Long ago, sahib, long ere the great earthquake in Kashmir, even before the Sepoy Mutiny, I dwelt in a large city of the Deccan, under the rule of one of its most powerful chieftains. I was but twenty at the time, but my father was dead and I had succeeded to a considerable fortune. I was a merchant, a dealer in rugs, as was my father before me and his father before him. I had no family and but one man whom I might call friend. This was a young Moslem of about my own age, a native of the same town. We had played together, learned the Koran under the same moolah, and, in short, had grown up together.
    His name was Ahmed Ali. His father, Shere Ali, was a horse-trader, and as he was, so was the son after him. When Shere Ali died we concluded to live together, and though we conducted our respective trades apart, we broke bread on the same table. No two men were ever truer to each other, sharing each other’s secrets and allowing no woman to come between us.
    One evening when Ahmed came home he brought with him a sword, the very same that you see before you. He said he had bought it of a Hindu in the bazaar, paying him much money for it.
    “He asked more,” said Ahmed, “but I refused to pay it and he gave in readily enough when