User:DoctorWho42/The Flower-Women

"The Flower-Women" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith as part of his Xiccarph cycle, and first published in the May 1935 of Weird Tales.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Flower-Women" was first published in the May 1935 issue of Weird Tales. It was included in Lost Worlds (1944), the February 1949 issue of Avon Fantasy Reader, and Xiccarph (1972).

Plot
The tyrant of Xiccarph in his palace tells Athlé, one of the many women he has turned into statues, that he grows bored. While she does not respond, Maal Dweb decides on an adventure. Retiring to his planetarium, he finds the planet Votalp best suited for his caprice. Donning a disguise, the tyrant crosses a magic bridge that ends in a cloud and arrives at Votalp. On a mossy knoll, he discerns the local fauna who are half flower/half women. While they sing a song to lure victims into their embrace, Maal Dweb disregards them and follows another path. However, he learns the flower-women are mourning as one was ravaged by the reptilian wizards, Ispazars. The Ispazars who are winged like pterodactyls live in a citadel on the edge of the valley. There they have been conducting experiments he deems "abhuman."

Avenging one of their fallen, he hides in the petals of one of the flower-women when the Ispazars collect another specimen. During the next raid, he finds himself in the citadel of the Ispazars. Uprooted, the flower-woman he hid in dies. As he inspects their equipment, Maal Dweb finds that the Ispazars are working towards a next stage in evolution. When they arrive, he adds an ingredient to their cauldron. Engulfed in fumes, the Ispazars have devolved into serpents but Maal Dweb decides to spare one. Riding the Ispazar back to the portal, he returns to Xiccarph but the creature accidentally falls from the magic bridge.

Reception
In the 1981 book Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers, Will Murray called "The Maze of Maal Dweb" and "The Flower-Women" "sardonic tales." Reviewing Lost Worlds for the magazine Black Gate, Robert Burke Richardson remarked "The Flower Women," a tale of Maal Dweb of Xiccarph, ruler of six worlds and all their moons, has become one of my favorite Smith stories."