The Return of the Sorcerer

Publication and the Oakland household

The story appeared in Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror in September 1931. Its narrator, Mr. Ogden, responds to an advertisement requiring unusual scholarly qualifications, particularly knowledge of Arabic.

Carnby's house stands in a neglected suburban setting in Oakland. Isolation, disused grounds and a dark interior make the employment unsettling, but Ogden's lack of money gives him a strong practical reason to accept. He is not initially seeking forbidden power or deliberately testing a supernatural claim.

Sources: Clark Ashton Smith — The Return of the Sorcerer

The employer’s apparent project

Carnby says he is preparing a comparative study of sorcery and demon worship. Ogden is to arrange and type notes, locate references and translate material. The duties sound scholarly even though the study contains disturbing objects and occult apparatus.

The requirement that Ogden live in the house serves more than convenience. Carnby wants someone available at night and is visibly relieved by the prospect of company. He explains his brother's absence as a journey, postponing the disclosure that would make his behavior intelligible.

The typewriter stands among older magical objects, placing modern clerical labor beside an apparently antiquarian collection. Ogden enters the danger through a job rather than a ceremony of initiation.

Sources: Clark Ashton Smith — The Return of the Sorcerer

The Arabic Necronomicon

Carnby possesses what the narrative presents as an Arabic copy of the Necronomicon. He suspects that its Latin translation omits important material and needs Ogden to interpret the passages accurately.

The first concerns a dead sorcerer's ability to animate his remains in order to complete an unfulfilled action. Even dismemberment may fail to prevent that activity. The passage also specifies a limit: after the purpose is accomplished, the remains return to their former condition.

A second passage supplies an exorcism. The two translations consequently provide both an explanation of the danger and a possible means of resistance. The book does not produce a single undifferentiated effect merely by being opened; its different contents have different uses.

Sources: Clark Ashton Smith — The Return of the Sorcerer

Noises and the failed explanation

Ogden hears movement in the corridor, and Carnby attributes it to rats. A fleeting pale shape on the stairs already makes that explanation doubtful, but Ogden cannot identify what he has seen with confidence.

The next day brings signs that Carnby has attempted a ritual: aromatic traces and a partly concealed mark on the floor. His improved composure suggests hope that the translated formula has worked.

That hope fails when the movement returns. Ogden opens the door and sees separated human remains moving independently. The earlier sounds become retrospectively legible. The text lets him encounter partial evidence before allowing the employer's confession to explain it.

Sources: Clark Ashton Smith — The Return of the Sorcerer

John and Helman Carnby

John admits that he killed his twin brother Helman out of jealousy and fear of his superior occult attainments. He divided and buried the remains in different places, believing that this would prevent a return, while keeping the head locked inside the study.

Helman had warned that such measures would not stop him. His subsequent manifestations have terrified John through repeated harassment. The translation confirms what John has already begun to experience, rather than initiating a phenomenon that was previously absent.

John also admits why he hired Ogden: he needed the exorcism translated and could no longer endure being alone. The employment has concealed both a murder and an attempt to use another person's expertise as protection.

Sources: Clark Ashton Smith — The Return of the Sorcerer

The completed revenge

Ogden resigns and begins to pack, preferring the risk outside the study to continued association with his employer. Before he can leave, measured footsteps pass his room, followed by the sound of Carnby's door breaking and a scream.

He feels compelled to approach. A shadow reveals a headless figure using the same kind of surgical implement associated with the murder. The scene proceeds through sound, partial visibility and aftermath rather than a continuous close view of every action.

The figure then comes apart, leaving the remains of both brothers. The movement and compulsion cease, allowing Ogden to escape. This sequence corresponds to the translated passage's stated endpoint: the surviving will ceases its activity once its purpose is fulfilled.

Sources: Clark Ashton Smith — The Return of the Sorcerer

Borrowed book, independent story

Smith uses Lovecraft's invented Necronomicon within a plot of fraternal rivalry and retribution. The shared title supplies an intertextual connection without making the story's household or every formula part of an exhaustive, consistent book reconstructed from all authors.

Carnby's Arabic copy is especially significant because the relevant passages are said to be absent from the Latin text. The immediate problem is textual difference, not simply ignorance of a universally identical grimoire.

Ogden's role also complicates the usual image of the doomed occult seeker. He wants employment and later tries to withdraw. His knowledge exposes him to danger because another person withholds the circumstances in which it will be used. The story's scholarly horror is therefore also a story of manipulated labor and concealed responsibility.

Sources: Clark Ashton Smith — The Return of the Sorcerer