User:DoctorWho42/The Holiness of Azédarac

"The Holiness of Azédarac" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith as part of his Averoigne cycle, and first published in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Holiness of Azédarac" was first published in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales. It was included in the book Lost Worlds (1944) and the March 1971 issue of Bizarre Fantasy Tales.

Plot
Azédarac, who works in a Christian monastary in Averoigne, actually worships Azazel and other "Old Ones." He tells his apprentice Jehan Mauvaissoir that brother Ambrose has learned this secret. A tome called the Book of Eibon from Hyperborean ages is missing from his collection. Thus, Ambrose is making his way to Vyones to tell the archbishop the truth. Jehan promises to dispatch Ambrose before he can deliver the news. Meanwhile, Ambrose is riding a white donkey along a forest road but is troubled by thoughts of Azédarac's betrayal. A rider goes past Ambrose. As the evening goes into night, Ambrose decides to stay at a tavern inn. There, he is greeted by the rider who rode past earlier. Both of them are riding for the same place and the rider offers him to drink wine with him. The rider says his name is Sieur des Émaux. Ambrose lets his guard down and partakes in the wine. Noting his resemblance to Jehan, Ambrose finishes his drink as the inn falls away. Finding himself drawn up on an altar by druids, Ambrose wonders where he is. A woman appears and rescues Ambrose. Through the conversation, Ambrose learns the woman is a sorceress named Moriamos and he is seven centuries in the past. While Moriamos has the potions to send him back, she nevertheless entreats him to stay a while. When ambrose takes the potion to send him back to the future, he finds he arrives a few decades too late and Azédarac has been canonised as a saint. Ambrose takes another potion to bring himself back to the past and stays with Moriamos.