The White Sybil

"The White Sybil" is a fantasy short story by Clark Ashton Smith, first published in 1934. It is part of his Hyperborea series.
==Synopsis==
After traveling through distant and fantastic lands, a poet named Tortha returns to his home city of Cerngoth in the ice-covered Mhu Thulan. Although he's seen many marvels in his travels, none was more remarkable than the woman he once saw on Cerngoth's own streets, the legendary White Sybil, who is rumored to descend from the northern mountains of Polarion and walk through the Hyperborean cities, sometimes giving out prophecies.
Obsessed with her exotic beauty, Tortha finds out more about the Sybil. He learns of her supernatural nature, as she has been sighted "on the same day in places hundreds of miles apart", and that when encountered on the mountains, she invariably "disappeared quickly, like a morning vapor that melts among the crags".
One day, while traversing a flowery meadow on the northern mountains, Tortha sees the Sybil, who gestures for him to follow her. She moves up the mountainous terrain with ease, while Tortha follows with difficulty, enchanted by the sight of her.
Just as he reaches the ice-covered summit, Tortha is engulfed by a snowstorm and loses sight of the Sybil, thus breaking the spell and reminding him of his fatigue. When he opens his eyes, he is no longer on the mountains, but in an alien valley where the turf and trees are covered in delicate flowers, and the sky is uniformly luminous, with no sight of a sun, moon, stars, or clouds. He notices that he has no shadow, and neither do the trees, which also have no reflection on the stream. The place is utterly silent and there is no wind.
He finds the Sybil again in an arbor and forgets much of what occurs afterwards, remembering that she "greeted him in thrilling, mellifluous words of a tongue that he knew well, but had never heard", and told him of wonders and secrets, but didn't reveal her name or nature. Tortha confesses his love for her and she kisses his brow. As he embraces her, however, her body seems to change, feeling first as a frozen corpse or mummy, then as a truly ethereal thing without form or substance, until she finally vanishes.
The scenery also begins to fade away, the flowers crumbling to dust before the trees, the stream, the sky and even the ground turn into a snowstorm, with Tortha suspended in the air within. When the snow fades, he finds himself high in the sky, falling to the icy ground below.
Tortha survives the fall and his injuries are treated, but now has a permanent white mark on his brow where the Sybil had kissed him. One of the people who tend to him is a fair young woman named Illara, whom he believes to be the Sybil. He marries her and the two live happily, despite his delusion.
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:Clark Ashton Smith works