1
Skull-Face
by Robert E. Howard
First published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, October-December 1929.
Contents
The Face in the Mist
The Hashish Slave
The Master of Doom
The Spider and the Fly
The Man on the Couch
The Dream Girl
The Man of the Skull
Black Wisdom
Kathulos of Egypt
The Dark House
Four Thirty-Four
The Stroke of Five
The Blind Beggar Who Rode
The Black Empire
The Mark of the Tulwar
The Mummy Who Laughed
The Dead Man from the Sea
The Grip of the Scorpion
Dark Fury
Ancient Horror
The Breaking of the Chain!
* * *
The Face in the Mist
"We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go."
- Omar Khayyam
The horror first took concrete form amid that most unconcrete of all things--a hashish dream. I was off on a timeless, spaceless journey through the strange lands that belong to this state of being, a million miles away from earth and all things earthly; yet I became cognizant that something was reaching across the unknown voids--something that tore ruthlessly at the separating curtains of my illusions and intruded itself into my visions.
I did not exactly return to ordinary waking life, yet I was conscious of a seeing and a recognizing that was unpleasant and seemed out of keeping with the dream I was at that time enjoying. To one who has never known the delights of hashish, my explanation must seem chaotic and impossible. Still, I was aware of a rending of mists and then the Face intruded itself into my sight. I