Lunalia's palimpsests

Clark Ashton Smith proposed the following for a story, "The Feet of Sidaiva": Sidaiva, court-dancer of Ummaus, famed throughout Zothique for the grace of her dancing and the beauty of her feet, incurs the jealousy of Princess Lunalia, daughter of King Phantur of Zylac. I propose that Clark Ashton Smith dropped hints toward its overall plot elsewhere.

The synopsis itself is early: we can tell that, from the orthography. The region "Zylac" by that spelling is elsewhere mooted in the synopsis "The Crabs of Iribos". That story, without "Zylac", would be released 1948 as "The Master of the Crabs". The baseline begins at a sea-port, Mirouane; but although in the "Iribos" synopsis Mirouane resides in Zylac, the published "Master" story does not tell the name of the land.

I see three stages in "Crabs"' evolution: first, Smith mooted it as a synopsis; then, he sketched its outline; last, he submitted the draught to a publisher. "Sidaiva" was mooted but not, to my knowledge, outlined.

According to Nightshade 5.332-3 "The Crabs" was mooted before "Colossus" in early 1932 but then absent place-names. I would add, by November 1932 Ashton Smith had settled on spelling Xylac for the protagonist's home in "The Charnel God" (4.311; the following months, Ummaos too is floated in "The Dark Eidolon"). So "Sidaiva" was mooted at the same time "Crabs" was sketched in outline: most likely 1932, and probably that summer.

In the stories published in 1933, we meet Lunalia twice. She is the consort of another king: Famorgh, whose seat is in Miraab of Tasuun. She plays a somewhat-active if offstage rôle as a sorceress born in Xylac, with no particular love of her new lord, in "Weaver In The Vaults" (4.316-17, March 1933). Then she is noted as the princess's mother in "Witchcraft of Ulua" (5.304, August 1933).

As for Famorgh, we have the fragment Mandor's Enemy. Famorgh is here 59th king in Tasuun - rather, he was. He left his kingdom to his son Mandor. Lunalia goes un-noted in this one. This story looks like it was headed to explain how Tasuun, with a presumably well-stocked necropolis, finally fell; Smith assumed its fall for "Eidolon" which (I expect) he was writing around the same time.

I find in "Weaver" that Lunalia and Famorgh both were absent from the Black Book synopsis, and entered the story only in March. I also find that in the published version two arguably-redundant plot choices: the Vaults are not in the necropolis of the present capital; and it is the queen who ultimately has ordered the mission.

"Ulua" is a mirror-image in this: there Lunalia does nothing. Famorgh is present as king but Lunalia exists only to be described as Ulua's mother. She may as well be dead as far as the story goes. UPDATE 12/6 - I think "Ulua" itself is "Tower of Istarelle" repurposed from Averoigne to Zothique.

Lunalia's phantom appearances in these two tales represent, I venture, palimpsests. Smith's first notion for "Weaver" was perhaps that the king wanted the remains of his ancestors moved to his present capital as relics. Then Smith set the story in Famorgh's and Mandor's Tasuun where, as Smith developed his characters, Lunalia would end up. This distorted the events. There wasn't any real damage done to "Weaver" as a story. In "Ulua", though, we readers really should like to know what Lunalia is up to or, if nothing, why not.

There are some stories Smith didn't particularly want to tell. "The Tower of Istarelle" ended up a mine for tropes and nothing more. From that store of ideas, we don't ever meet Istarelle again; as we end up meeting Lunalia - twice, and unnecessarily. In Zothique herself "Mandor's Enemy" was more than abandoned, it was overthrown: "Ulua" makes it impossible. And the less said of "Oracle of Sadoqua" the better.

I think that Smith wanted to tell Lunalia's story. In it, he hoped to tell of how she travelled from Xylac to become queen elsewhere. Smith by 1933 had settled on Tasuun for her new seat and Famorgh for her new king.

Smith just hadn't got around to the outline itself - unless it is hiding in his 1933 papers. Remember it took him until 1947 to get around to "Crabs".