User:DoctorWho42/The Demon of the Flower

"The Demon of the Flower" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith and first published in the December 1933 of Astounding Stories.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Demon of the Flower" was first published in the December 1933 issue of Astounding Stories. It was included in Lost Worlds (1944) and Xiccarph (1972).

Plot
On the planet Lophai, all life is second to the local flora. A giant flower known as the Voorqual is its supreme ruler and the priesthood offers sacrifices to it. The Voorqual has petals shaped like an open cup that devours its victims. However, a king Lunithi in the chief city Lospar decides to rebel against the Voorqual when his bethrothed Nala is selected as the next sacrifice. Recalling an old myth, he decides to seek advice from the Occlith, a sentient column of blue minderal, who lives in the white mountains of the desert Aphom. Journeying at night, Lunithi traverses the chasms and finds Occlith. While Occlith does not recommend killing the Voorqual, it says its weakness is a mineral poison from a nearby spring. Withdrawing the poison and returning to Lospar, Lunithi pours the poison into Voorqual's open cup petals and it dies. When Nala is ready for the sacrifice, she reveals to Lunithi that she is undergoing a metamorphosis. Soon she turns into the Voorqual and continues to subjugate Lophai.

Reception
In the 1998 book Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years, E. F. Bleiler remarks "a rather good story." In the 1981 book Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers, Will Murray noted "it is a peculiarity of Smith's fiction that the amoral flourish and the good become the victims of ironic fates."