User:DoctorWho42/The Coming of the White Worm

"The Coming of the White Worm" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith as part of his Hyperborean cycle, and first published in the April 1941 issue of Stirring Science Stories.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Coming of the White Worm" was first published in the April 1941 issue of Stirring Science Stories. It was included in the December 1941 issue of Uncanny Tales, the books Lost Worlds (1944) and Hyperborea (1971).

Plot
Evagh, a warlock in Mhu Thulan, finds many omenous portents. He sees birds flying south from the north. Soon a galley from the north arrives with its oarsmen frozen solid. While Evagh instructs the fisher folk who find it to set driftwood on it for a pyre, everything but the oarsmen burn. Consulting a book by Pnom on spirits of the pole, Evagh falls asleep but awakens to find an iceberg nearby. The next day, Evagh finds that his house in on the iceberg. Two wizards Dooni and Ux Loddhan from Thulask welcome him and invite him to worship their god Rlim Shaikorth. Traveling to a great ice pinnacle, Evagh finds a great white worm. The worm is Rlim Shaikorth and it tells him that the iceberg is the floating citadel of Yikilth. Wherever Yikilth goes, a freeze wave engulfs all around it. However, worshippers of Rlim Shaikorth resist the freeze and remain immortal. As Yikilth floats about Hyberborea, Evagh learns about five other wizards who are Polarions. He does not understand them nor does Dooni or Ux Loddhan. Eventually, a worshipper disappears one by one until Evagh is the last. When Evagh visits Rlim Shaikorth, the worm sleeps and he does not know what ritual to perform. Soon he hears voices and learns the other worshippers were devoured by Rlim Shaikorth. If Evagh slays the worm, their souls would be freed but he would also die. Accepting his fate, Evagh slays the worm but a black boiling blood pours forth drowning everything in sight. A merchant galley sees from afar an ice pinnacle spewing forth the black blood as Yikilth is consumed entirely. As the iceberg melts away, all traces of it disappear. The sorcerer Eibon notes he has recorded the story from summoning Evagh's spirit.