survive a side trip into the Xanadu of Samuel Tay-
lor Coleridge, and return after some complicated
adventures. The final book in the series is Wall of
Serpents (1960), which combines two shorter
pieces, “Wall of Serpents” (1953) and “The Green
Magician” (1954). This time the action takes place
in the Finnish myth cycle, the Kalevala,and then
in a world based on Irish mythology. The first two
books were then combined as The Compleat En-
chanter(1975) and all three as The Complete Com-
pleat Enchanter (1989, also published as The
Intrepid Enchanter).
“In the Flesh”Clive Barker(1986)
There are two ways in which a horror writer can
make a distinct impression with a story. The most
common today is to take an old idea, perhaps with
a twist, and execute it so well that it becomes more
than just an imitation. The other is to come up
with something so original that it generates a fresh
new image in the reader’s mind. Best of all, of
course, is the story that takes an original idea and
handles it surpassingly well, as is the case with this
novelette, just one of several innovate stories Clive
BARKERproduced in the first few years of his writ-
ing career.
Cleve is a repeat offender, although not of vio-
lent crimes, serving a sentence in Pentonville
Prison. His new cellmate is Billy Tait, a strangely
intense young man who expresses a morbid inter-
est in the gravesites of prisoners who were hanged
in the prison more than a generation earlier. He
identifies himself as the grandson of Edgar Tait,
who killed his wife and children and then asked to
be executed, and asserts that Edgar recognized in
himself a bizarre ability to communicate with the
world of the dead that he wished to snuff out be-
fore his children could pass it on. Although Cleve
is understandably skeptical, he is also troubled by
dreams in which he visits a mystical city whose in-
habitants are all the souls of dead murderers.
When Billy finally locates his grandfather’s
grave, he has a fit, after which he begins to change.
Under cover of darkness, he calls forth his grandfa-
ther’s spirit, whose power eventually transforms
the younger man and allows him to disappear from
his cell and commit a double murder. Billy is now
entitled to enter the city of murderers physically,
but he is having second thoughts about his virtual
enslavement to Edgar’s will. When Cleve tries to
intercede, he wakens Edgar’s ire, and the guards
are shocked by the sudden appearance of a shad-
owy figure followed by Billy’s disappearance from a
locked cell. His dead body is later discovered when
his grandfather is exhumed, somehow having ma-
terialized inside the closed grave.
Even Cleve does not escape unscathed.
Haunted by dreams including one that promises
that he, too, will one day become a resident of the
dead city, he returns to a life of crime and eventu-
ally commits a murder that results in his own
damnation. Barker’s imaginary city is decidedly
creepy, Billy’s corruption and fall are chillingly de-
scribed, and Cleve’s hopeless despair leaves a lin-
gering aftertaste in the reader’s mind.“An Inhabitant of Carcosa”Ambrose Bierce
(1891)
Although many of the short stories by Ambrose
BIERCEare far more familiar to the general public
than this unusual and almost surreal vignette, it
had considerable influence on weird fiction writers
during the early part of the 20th century. The
rather ethereal narrator finds himself suddenly and
inexplicably standing on a barren plain, or waste-
land. There are neither birds nor animals in evi-
dence, the sun is concealed by an oppressive layer
of clouds, and there is an air of indistinct but per-
vasive menace.
There are many crumbling stones scattered
about, which he eventually recognizes as tomb-
stones and grave markers, although of such great
age that the burial plots themselves are no longer
identifiable. They are so old, in fact, that the nar-
rator compares them to artifacts of a long-forgot-
ten, prehistoric race. Although he does not recall
his own name, he remembers being seriously ill and
delirious and wonders how he managed to elude
those watching over him in order to reach such a
desolate place. He is also unaccountably aware
that he is near an ancient city, Carcosa.
Eventually, a wild animal appears, followed by
a man in primitive clothing speaking an unknown
language. Neither pay him any heed, and he con-176 “In the Flesh”