Morthylla

"Morthylla" by Clark Ashton Smith presents a dark fantasy tale set in the decadent city of Umbri. The poet Valzain, exhausted by sensual excess at host Famurza's pleasure-house, departs seeking something beyond material existence. Famurza mockingly directs him toward a remote necropolis rumored to harbor Morthylla, a lamia princess dead three centuries. At the cemetery, Valzain encounters a woman claiming to be the immortal lamia, and falls into a series of nightly trysts with her amid the tombs. She maintains an ambiguous existence—neither fully phantom nor living—and tantalizingly withholds consummation, allowing only a brief bite to his throat. When business takes Valzain to the neighboring city of Psiom, he glimpses a woman bearing Morthylla's exact features, introducing unexpected ambiguity about his nocturnal companion's true nature. The narrative remains cut off mid-revelation.