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Shangri-LA, issue 4, January-February 1948
Page 9
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What I wrote must be imagined from the mirror of Catherine's reply7: Thanks for the further suggestions. I had already gone on past my stopping point when I wrote you, so can't use all your ideas, but have incorporated Dolf and the dancing-girl idea. It seems Nyusa is--sorry--really innately invisible, being the daughter of a Venusian woman and a Darkness which is worshipped by a queer race of slug-like, half-human beings which dwell under the Venusian city of Ednes. Incidentally, Ednes, the city wherein the Minge stood, is simply lifted bodily out of the middle of their ritual worship under a peculiar light which renders her visible in a dim, translucent way. And because of her mixed breed she has access into other worlds from which her masters bar her out by their own strange mental powers because she'd never return to dance for them if she once got away. Dolf guards her for the same reason. I think now that Nyusa's captors drive her too far sometime, and she realizes that after all she is half divine, and calls upon the strain of Darkness within her to burst the bonds they have imposed. Smith, attacked by Dolf as he hides in the temple watching the ritual dance, fights with the worshippers and kills the high priest, whereupon their power over Nyusa is weakened and she exerts her demi-divinity to escape. Thus, tho Smith doesn't get the fortune you suggested, he at least is spared the expense of buying her any clothes, which was a very practical idea on your part. Ackerman to MOORE: I have a suggestion about the ending. Shambleau stunned Smith, to this day he has probably not forgotten "it". Sweet, was the girl of the Scarlet Dream. While in the Black Thirst, he gazed upon beauty incredible. But Shambleau was to be shunned; and the girl of the Dream... Vaudir dissolved. So let the Nymph--Nyusa--just before she escapes...couldn't she--kiss Smith? A kiss never to be forgotten; a Kiss...so cool, with a depth drawn out of Darkness. And yet, a kiss of fire--from her Venusian strain--hot, alive, searing Northwest's lips. A kiss, of delicious demi-divinity...a fond caress of frozen flame. Making it, under your care, Catherine, a kiss smothering with extra-mundane emotion, leaving the readers gasping. Smith's reward, the kiss that becomes famous and concludes the story. MOORE to Ackerman: I do wish I had had your suggestion about the parting kiss before I finished. I wasn't able to expand the idea as fully as I'd have liked to, both because of the space-saving necessity and because to give it the attention it deserved I'd have had to write the story toward it from the beginning. It was a grand idea and would have given the story just the punch it needed at the end. Oh well, no story of mine is complete unless I leave out some major point until too late. I meant to make Shambleau's eyes shine in the dark, and to play up the idea of the Guardians in BLACK THIRST./ NYMPH OF DARKNESS was first published in the printed fan magazine, Fantasy Magazine, in the April 1935 issue, and professionally published, in an expurgated form, in the Dec. 1939 Weird Tales. # 9
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What I wrote must be imagined from the mirror of Catherine's reply7: Thanks for the further suggestions. I had already gone on past my stopping point when I wrote you, so can't use all your ideas, but have incorporated Dolf and the dancing-girl idea. It seems Nyusa is--sorry--really innately invisible, being the daughter of a Venusian woman and a Darkness which is worshipped by a queer race of slug-like, half-human beings which dwell under the Venusian city of Ednes. Incidentally, Ednes, the city wherein the Minge stood, is simply lifted bodily out of the middle of their ritual worship under a peculiar light which renders her visible in a dim, translucent way. And because of her mixed breed she has access into other worlds from which her masters bar her out by their own strange mental powers because she'd never return to dance for them if she once got away. Dolf guards her for the same reason. I think now that Nyusa's captors drive her too far sometime, and she realizes that after all she is half divine, and calls upon the strain of Darkness within her to burst the bonds they have imposed. Smith, attacked by Dolf as he hides in the temple watching the ritual dance, fights with the worshippers and kills the high priest, whereupon their power over Nyusa is weakened and she exerts her demi-divinity to escape. Thus, tho Smith doesn't get the fortune you suggested, he at least is spared the expense of buying her any clothes, which was a very practical idea on your part. Ackerman to MOORE: I have a suggestion about the ending. Shambleau stunned Smith, to this day he has probably not forgotten "it". Sweet, was the girl of the Scarlet Dream. While in the Black Thirst, he gazed upon beauty incredible. But Shambleau was to be shunned; and the girl of the Dream... Vaudir dissolved. So let the Nymph--Nyusa--just before she escapes...couldn't she--kiss Smith? A kiss never to be forgotten; a Kiss...so cool, with a depth drawn out of Darkness. And yet, a kiss of fire--from her Venusian strain--hot, alive, searing Northwest's lips. A kiss, of delicious demi-divinity...a fond caress of frozen flame. Making it, under your care, Catherine, a kiss smothering with extra-mundane emotion, leaving the readers gasping. Smith's reward, the kiss that becomes famous and concludes the story. MOORE to Ackerman: I do wish I had had your suggestion about the parting kiss before I finished. I wasn't able to expand the idea as fully as I'd have liked to, both because of the space-saving necessity and because to give it the attention it deserved I'd have had to write the story toward it from the beginning. It was a grand idea and would have given the story just the punch it needed at the end. Oh well, no story of mine is complete unless I leave out some major point until too late. I meant to make Shambleau's eyes shine in the dark, and to play up the idea of the Guardians in BLACK THIRST./ NYMPH OF DARKNESS was first published in the printed fan magazine, Fantasy Magazine, in the April 1935 issue, and professionally published, in an expurgated form, in the Dec. 1939 Weird Tales. # 9
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