SOURCE: "The Chain of Forgomon" by Clark Ashton Smith (Weird Tales, December 1935)

DESCRIPTION: "We came ultimately to that sheer-falling gulf in which the spirit of Aforgomon is said to dwell. Lights, feeble and far-scattered, shone around it like stars on the rim of cosmic vastness, shedding no ray into the depths. There, in a seat of hewn stone overhanging the frightful verge, I was placed by the executioners; and a ponderous chain of black unrusted metal, stapled to the solid rock, was wound about and about me, circling my naked body and separate limbs, from head to foot..."

NOTES: Aforgomon is a god in a very ancient civilization before Atlantis. What he looks like exactly is not known, but his chain is said to be a bright light. Its touch is lethal.

HISTORY: This story is a classic Smith set-up, with the protagonist reaching back into time to discover his doom.