User:DoctorWho42/The Theft of the Thirty-nine Girdles

"The Theft of Thirty-nine Girdles" (or "The Powder of Hyperborea") is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Smith as part of his Hyperborean cycle. It was first published as "The Powder of Hyperborea" in the March 1958 issue of Saturn.

Publication history
According to Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sidney-Fryer, "The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles" was first published in the March 1958 issue of Saturn as "The Powder of Hyperborea". It was included in the books Tales of Science and Sorcery (1964) as "The Theft of Thirty-Nine Girdles" and Hyperborea (1971).

Plot
Satampra Zeiros at an older age looks back on his career as a thief. He remembers the theft with Vixeela (a past love) of thirty-nine golden chastity belts from a temple. In the temple of the moon god Leniqua, there are thirty-nine virgins. Access to the virgins is sold by high priests. At the age thirty-one, the virgins are sacrificed. Vixeela had escaped the temple before then. She joined forces with Satampra Zeiros. Zeiros decides a heist at the temple involving a food cart to hide the prize. A wizard Veezi Phenquor usually helps Zeiros melt down what he steals into ingots and so forth. He offers them a powder which will help with distraction. When they enter the temple from a forgotten tunnel, Zeiros pours the powder into the fire beneath the statue of Leniqua. It produces phantoms which causes everyone to run. The three find thirty-eight chastity belts. Vixeela takes the thirty-ninth from a ghost. They run into the high priest Marquanos who is wielding a bronze rod. Vixeela hits him with a belt. They hide in their homes for the next few days. Zeiros and Vixeela find a note beneath a gold cube. It says Veezi Phenquor had to leave with most of the gold because the police suspect him in the heist. The note recommends the two should do the same.

Reception
Amra's L. Sprague de Camp called it "humorous." Whispers's Fritz Leiber said it was "a charming bit of picaresque."