"The Epiphany of Death" by Clark Ashton Smith

This story is a one-off in the city of Ptolemides, which is a city that does not appear in any other of Smith's writing. it was written as a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft.

And again we run into the ambiguity of name pronunciation. Tomeron? Tom-er-on? Tome-ron? To-mer-on? How do we even syllabify it, much less know whether the vowels are long or short? The author left us no clues, so it is impossible to guess. This is driving me crazy!! I didn't even pronounce it consistently during the course of this reading, not because I wasn't trying, but because the name is so completely indeterminate in its pronunciation, and you get to a point where you just can't be bothered any more. If authors want their names to be narrated correctly, they need to put in a hint somewhere in their text as to what is the intended pronunciation.

recondite: little known; abstruse

lacuna: unfilled space or interval; a gap

denouement: the climax of a chain of events, usually when something is decided or made clear

adit: a horizontal passage leading into a mine for the purposes of access or drainage.

adipocere: a grayish waxy substance formed by the decomposition of soft tissue in dead bodies subjected to moisture

Apparently niche has multiple accepted pronunciations. Interesting. I recall many years ago a cow-orker who was really big into French corrected my pronunciation on this word, apparently insisting on the French pronunciation instead of whatever I used. According to Merriam-Webster, the French pronunciation in English usage is quite recent (they didn't include it in their own dictionary until the 1960s and which was still controversial even at the start of the 21st century, although is apparently widely accepted today). I use here the older, non-French, pronunciation. It's still considered valid. Deal with it :P

The picture used is Die katakomben von San Gennaro dei Poveri in Neapel - eine kunsthistorische Studie (1877)

It's two guys in an ancient crypt. It'll have to do.

I did have some other ideas on types of images to search for that would have been appropriate, but couldn't find anything I liked.

To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/65/the-epiphany-of-death