PTOLEMIDES - The Epiphany of Death

One of the stranger and more enigmatic of Clark Ashton Smith’s works tied to Thurian-related lands and events, Ptolemides is ambiguous both in timeline and geography.

Never completed, its inclusion in The Thurian Cycle follows considerable research and informed speculation. I believe this fragment belongs to the later age of Thurian Stygia, set on one of its coastal islands—a doomed land, fated to be destroyed in the great cataclysm that reshaped the world.

From the material we have, Poseidonis and Lemuria dominate much of this cycle. Ptolemides stands alone—its sole narrative set in this forgotten territory.

Some may take issue with this tale serving as the final entry in The Thurian Cycle, but remember: real history is filled with gaps in even the grandest chronicles. Consider the many missing volumes of Titus Livius in The History of Rome.

So too must we imagine the libraries of that shattered world—vaporized, reduced to rubble, drowned beneath rising seas or crumbled into forgotten dust. It is a miracle any of these stories have endured into the modern era.