User:DoctorWho42/The Gorgon

"The Gorgon" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith and first published in the April 1932 of Weird Tales.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Gorgon" was first published in the April 1932 issue of Weird Tales. It was reappeared in the book Lost Worlds (1944).

Plot
An unnamed man peruses the streets of 20th century London after his love has died. He has a fascination for eldritch horrors. Stumbling across an old man, he is invited to see the head of Medusa. Remembering the myth, he asks the old man about being turned into stone from the sight of Medusa. However, the old man says a mirror can bypass that danger as long as he does not look directly at the head. He follows the old man to an old mansion. Asking the old man about how he acquired the head, he learns the old man won it in a game of dice with Perseus while time and space are not as they seem there. Led to a room full of black marble statues, he realises they are victims of Medusa. The old man forces him to look directly at Medusa but he refuses. In the ensuing fight, the old man is petrified and the unnamed man flees.