（外文电子版资料）Smith, Clark Ashton - The Charnel God.doc

The Charnel God Clark Ashton Smith Mordiggian is the god of Zul-Bha-Sair, said the innkeeper with unctuous solemnity. He has been the god from years that are lost to mans memory in shadow deeper than the subterranes of his black temple. There is no other god in Zul-Bha-Sair. And all who die within the walls of the city are sacred to Mordiggian. Even the kings and the optimates, at death, are delivered into the hands of his muffled priests. It is the law and the custom. A little while, and the priests will come for your bride. But Elaith is not dead, protested the youth Phariom for the third or fourth time, in piteous desperation. Her malady is one that assumes the lying likeness of death. Twice before has she lain insensible, with a pallor upon her cheeks and a stillness in her very blood, that could hardly be distinguished from those of the tomb; and twice she has awakened after an interim of days. The innkeeper peered with an air of ponderous unbelief at the girl who lay white and motionless as a mown lily on the bed in the poorly furnished attic chamber. In that case you should not have brought her into Zul-Bha-Sair, he averred in a tone of owlish irony. The physician has pronounced her dead; and her death has been reported to the priests. She must go to the temple of Mordiggian. But we are outlanders, guests of a night. We have come from the land of Xylac, far in the north; and this morning we should have gone on through Tasuun, toward Pharaad, the capital of Yoros, which lies near to the southern sea. Surely your god could have no claim upon Elaith, even if she were truly dead. All who die in Zul-Bha-Sair are the property of Mordiggian, insisted the taverner sententiously. Outlanders are not exempt. The dark maw of his temple yawns eternally, and no man, no child, no woman, throughout the years, has evaded its yawning. All mortal flesh must become, in due time, the provender of the god. Phariom shuddered at the oily and portentous declaration. Dimly have