E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK® Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  INTRODUCTION, by Alexander Kreitner

  THE DREAMER OF ATLNAAT

  THE INFIDEL’S DAUGHTER

  THIRSTY BLADES

  THE SLAVE OF JUSTICE

  SHAYKH AHMAD AND THE PIOUS COMPANIONS

  ISMEDDIN AND THE HOLY CARPET

  THE FORGOTTEN OF ALLAH

  ONE ARABIAN NIGHT

  A JEST AND A VENGEANCE

  THE SULTAN’S JEST

  THE STRANGER FROM KURDISTAN

  APRICOTS FROM ISPAHAN

  THE HAND OF WRATH

  THE RAJAH’S GIFT

  SATAN’S DAUGHTER

  WELL OF THE ANGELS

  THE GIRL FROM SAMARCAND

  EVERY MAN A KING

  LADY OF THE MOONLIGHT

  The MEGAPACK® Ebook Series

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK® is copyright © 2016 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

  * * * *

  The MEGAPACK® ebook series name is a trademark of Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

  * * * *

  “The Dreamer of Atlânaat” was originally published in Weird Tales, July 1926.

  “The Infidel’s Daughter” was originally published in Weird Tales, December 1927.

  “Thirsty Blades” (written with Otis Adelbert Kline) was originally published in Weird Tales, February 1930.

  “The Slave of Justice” was originally published in Oriental Stories, February/March 1931.

  “Shaykh Ahmad and the Pious Companions” was originally published in Oriental Stories, Summer 1931.

  “Ismeddin and the Holy Carpet” was originally published in The Magic Carpet Magazine, January 1933.

  “The Forgotten of Allah” was originally published in The Magic Carpet Magazine, July 1933.

  “One Arabian Night” was originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, November 1934.

  “A Jest and a Vengeance” was originally published in Far Lands, Other Days (1975).

  “The Sultan’s Jest” was originally published in Weird Tales, September 1925.

  “The Stranger from Kurdistan” was originally published in Weird Tales, July 1925.

  “Apricots from Ispahan” was originally published in Weird Tales, December 1926.

  “The Hand of Wrath” was originally published in Weird Tales, November 1935.

  “The Rajah’s Gift” was originally published in Weird Tales, January 1925.

  “Well of the Angels” was originally published in Unknown, May 1940.

  “The Girl from Samarcand” was originally published in Weird Tales, May 1929.

  “Every Man a King” was originally published in Speed Adventure, Nov. 1943.

  “Lady of the Moonlight” (also published as “Death Spurs”)was originally published in Spicy Mystery Stories, December 1936.

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  E. Hoffmann Price has been a favorite author since I discovered the mammoth 1975 Carcosa House collection of his pulp stories, Far Lands, Other Days. He was a Weird Tales author, a contemporary of (and collaborator with) H.P. Lovecraft, and a writer of vast scope and talent. He published extensively in the pulp magazines, and we are working hard to put his fiction back into print. For more information on this particular volume, please see the introduction by Alexander Kreitner, which follows.

  Enjoy!

  —John Betancourt

  Publisher, Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidepress.com

  ABOUT THE SERIES

  Over the last few years, our MEGAPACK® ebook series has grown to be our most popular endeavor. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”

  The MEGAPACK® ebook series (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Shawn Garrett, Helen McGee, Bonner Menking, Sam Cooper, Helen McGee and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)

  RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?

  Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the MEGAPACK® ebook series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://wildsidepress.forumotion.com/ (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).

  Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.

  TYPOS

  Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.

  If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at [email protected] or use the message boards above.

  INTRODUCTION, by Alexander Kreitner

  Welcome to E. Hoffmann Price’s Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®! Wildside Press, in association with Mr. Price’s heirs, is dedicated to making this pulpsmith extraordinaire’s extensive body of work accessible once again to the public through its line of MEGAPACK® ebook collections.

  Edgar Hoffman Price (July 3, 1898—June 18, 1988) was a prolific pulp writer who got his start writing for Weird Tales and became a peripheral member of the Lovecraft Circle of weird fiction writers. He served in the military during World War I, and his time overseas and love of adventure and martial feats flavored his later pulp writings; an interest that was not at all hypothetical, as his life story can attest. He started out as a hobbyist, selling two stories to Weird Tales in 1924, but after leaving his job at the Union Carbide Corporation in 1932, Price became a professional “fictioneer” as he called it, writing extensively for the pulps until they began to fold in the early 1950s. His biggest claim to fame was being the only individual who personally met the “triumvirate” of Weird Tales authors: H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom he corresponded with for many years.

  This collection contains every story published featuring Price’s Kurdish holy man, Ismeddin. Price labels him as a “darvish,” an alternate spelling of the Sufi Muslim “dervish”, a man who chooses to become a beggar and an ascetic to become closer to God. The term “whirling dervish” comes from the spiraling dances the holy men use to place themselves in a trance state. Of course Price’s darvish is half-crazed, a master swordsman, and particularly good at stirring up trouble. However, the stories he appears in are notable for their themes of religious truths, justice and wisdom, and explorations of the nature of reality. Interestingly, Price originally conceived of his collaboration with Lovecraft as a swashbuckling team-up of sorts with Ismeddin and Randolph Carter in the Dream Lands, which later became the story “Through the Gates of the Silver Key,” most likely because Lovecraft expressed his fondness for the character of Ismeddin (“Silver Key” is available in The Tenth Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: E. Hoffmann Price). Also of note, this package contains the story “One Arabian Night,” wherein the milieu of Ismeddin crosses over with other Price series characters, the occult detective Pierre d’Artois and two-fisted adventurer Glenn Farrell (if you enjoy that story, please take a look at E. Hoffmann Pri
ce’s Pierre D’artois: Occult Detective & Associates MEGAPACK®, which will soon be available.)

  The rest of the stories in this collection all feature the theme or locale of Kurdistan, included with the goal (as Price told Lovecraft in a letter) of “making the public Kurd-conscious.” Whether he succeeded or not is the domain of historians, but his love of exotic locations and women (along with his deep interest in religion and truth) is evidenced in each tale here, and this approach continued throughout his pulp writing career, one that kept him in demand for quite a while, racking up—what he calculated to be—over 500 published stories to various pulp and slick magazines. Wildside Press is proud to make his work available again to readers. Due to the inaccessibility of much of Price’s work (he kept no manuscript archive and so we must resort to those original publication copies we can track down) we have decided to package the material into themed MEGAPACK®s, highlighting specific genres he worked in. Later volumes will be released as we gather further material (any collectors interested in aiding our endeavors by supplying photocopies from their collections are invited to contact Wildside Press through their website).

  We hope you enjoy these occult adventures and urge you to watch for future collections of Price’s work to be released in the near future. These include:

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Exotic Adventures MEGAPACK®

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Two-Fisted Detective MEGAPACK®

  E. Hoffmann Price’s War And Western Action MEGAPACK®

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Fantasy & Science Fiction MEGAPACK®

  The Tenth Golden Age Of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK: E. Hoffmann Price®

  E. Hoffmann Price’s Pierre D’artois: Occult Detective & Associates MEGAPACK®

  THE DREAMER OF ATLNAAT

  Originally published in Weird Tales, July 1926.

  Ismail, the chief wazir, sat at the foot of his master’s dais, reading from the chronicles of that great prince, the adornment of Islam, who had reigned magnificently in far-off Balkh nine hundred years ago.

  “A horse and a robe of honor for Giaffar al Barmaki, the Grand Wazir, the friend of the Calif, 40,000 dinars of gold.”

  And then a few lines farther down was another entry, dated several days later: “Reeds and naphtha for burning the body of the traitor Giaffar, four dirhems of silver.”

  And Ismail smiled; for as it was then, so could it be today: nine hundred years were but as a mist that obscured, rather than a hand that changed. Ismail smiled, and again read to himself of the swift fate that befell the friend of that just prince, nine hundred years ago in Balkh…a horse and a robe of honor…naphtha and reeds… Yes, and Haaj Isfendiyar, was he not the friend of the sultan, and the enemy of Ismail?

  Giaffar al Barmaki, friend of the just calif, had had an enemy…

  After ten years of high adventure, ten years of intrigue and device, Haaj Isfendiyar was able to pause for a moment’s respite, look back over the turbulent days of his ascent from obscurity, and contemplate the world from the shadow of the sultan’s favor. And as he sat there in the guardroom of the palace of Angor-lana, a little apart from his subordinates, as became the friend of the sultan and captain of a thousand horse, he relaxed long enough to stroke his curled black beard and feast himself on reminiscence.

  Ten years…ten years ago it was that a lean, hard-eyed young fellow with a nose like the beak of a bird of prey had sought audience of the sultan; sought, and gained audience, ragged and grimy as he was.

  “And where did you get that sword?” queried the sultan, eyeing the glittering scabbard and belt and embroidered pouch that were so out of keeping with the ragged garments and the unwashed wanderer whose erect form they enclosed.

  “I inherited them from an emir in Kurdistan,” replied the youth, returning the sultan’s stare, “along with his horse and other belongings.”

  “So! You lie as readily as you plundered…though perhaps you did inherit as a self-appointed heir…well, not bad at all; you should attain a high post at court. By the way, do you speak Persian?”

  “No, my lord. But there are Persian verses on the blade of my scimitar.”

  And to prove it, he unsheathed the weapon: a serious breach of etiquette, this drawing of arms in the sultan’s presence, and at times a fatal error. The fan-bearers behind the throne ceased fanning long enough to watch the bungler’s head roll across the tiled floor. But the sultan smiled, and the youth’s head remained on his shoulders.

  “Very good.” Then, to the captain of the guard, “Nourredin, here is a recruit for you. Instruct him, and at sunset post him at El Azir. And learn to speak Persian, young fellow!”

  Again the son of the old tiger of Angor-lana smiled. And so likewise did the captain, and also the fan-bearers. This, then, was the sultan’s gentle, jesting way of disposing of one so ignorant of court etiquette as to draw a weapon in the Presence!

  At noon the next day, when the captain and his men rode to inspect the outposts, they saw vultures hovering high over El Azir. But upon drawing nearer, they saw that the wanderer still rode his beat; still on post, but mounted on a different horse, a silver-white stallion of the princely desert breed.

  Between the vultures and the jackals, the bones of the recruit’s assailants had become hopelessly intermingled.

  And from that day on, the wanderer’s rise was rapid.

  Thinking of all this, Haaj Isfendiyar smiled, and stroked his curled beard, and contemplated the world from the shadow of the sultan’s favor. And then he nodded gravely to the wazir Ismail, his enemy, whose approach interrupted his play of reminiscence.

  “Es salaam aleika!” he greeted.

  “And with you, exceeding peace, Haaji,” returned the wazir. “My horse is in your stables, and the arms we wagered on the race have been left at your house. And here is the purse we agreed upon,” concluded Ismail, offering a heavy pouch, completing the payment of a ruinous wager.

  “Which leaves you even as I was ten years ago, save that I had arms and a horse, inherited from an emir. The gold I will keep; but go back and take your goods, and your horse also.”

  “You are generous as Hatim Tai,” acknowledged Ismail.

  “It is nothing,” countered Isfendiyar.

  For, serene in the shadow of the sultan’s friendship, he forgot for an instant that magnanimity adds to instead of detracting from enmity, forgot that the poet had counseled, “Yield naught to your foe, were he Rustum, the son of Zal…”

  “You have a trick, Haaji, of inheriting arms and horses. May I examine that poniard?” requested Ismail.

  “And why not?”

  “A remarkable weapon, Haaji. Doubtless it has not mate, but is truly matchless?”

  “It had a mate. But I lost it several years ago. And then I had my name inlaid on the blade of the remaining one.”

  “Wondrous workmanship,” commented Ismail, returning the weapon. Isfendiyar had poured himself a glass of Shirazi, twisted his mustache, and thought fondly of the emir whose heir he was. And thus it was that he did not note that the poniard which he received from Ismail was not the one bearing his own name, Isfendiyar, but rather its long-lost mate, identical to the line, save only that its blade was not engraved.

  * * * *

  Late that evening, the wazir Ismail sought the sultan, who had just completed his plans for the next day’s administration.

  “My lord, do not walk in the gardens tonight, as is your custom.”

  “And why not?”

  “There is one who will seek you with a knife.”

  The wazir handed the sultan a sheet of paper.

  “I found this note of warning among the petitions given me to submit to you at today’s audience. As you will note, it is anonymous; but there may be truth in it. I withheld it, for I did not wish to distract you before the day’s work was done.”


  “And so you would have me hide because someone threatens?”

  “I was about to suggest that my lord permit me to act as a decoy, for we are of the same stature. And some members of the guard could await in concealment, so that we could trap the assassin.”

  “And have it known that I hide in my house and fear to walk in my own gardens?” flared the sultan. “Nonsense! I will go at the usual hour!”

  “But—”

  “Enough! You may leave.”

  And Ismail departed, knowing well that further argument with the hotheaded prince would be wasted.

  “Reeds and naphtha, four dirhems of silver,” he murmured to himself, as he left the Presence.

  The sultan divested himself of his outer garment, donned a shirt of fine-linked mail, proof alike against pistol or knife, and then, once more dressed, he scrutinized the fine Persian script of the warning note.

  “If this is indeed in good faith, I shall meet and settle once for all with whoever seeks me tonight; and if it is a hoax,” reasoned the sultan, “then at least the writer shall not have the satisfaction of saying that a son of the old tiger kept to his house like a frightened child.”

  He smiled sourly, unfolded and reread the letter. From the city wall came the challenge of a sentry as he halted the new relief. It was time for the sultan’s promenade, time to meet the assassin.

  Once out in the garden, the hunted prince strolled as was his custom, with the nonchalance, the careless bearing of a monarch who seeks a moment’s respite from the cares of state. Careless indeed he seemed as he flicked his cigarette into the pool of a fountain that sprayed mistily in the moonlight, paused to examine a small plane-tree, planted with his own hands; but beneath this pose of relaxation were the tense nerves of him who stalks the tiger.

  “A hoax, no doubt…and if I ever find the perpetrator, Saoud will spend the rest of the day wiping up spilled blood. Still—”