"The Voyage of King Euvoran" by Clark Ashton Smith

The final story of the Zothique cycle. Not necessarily the conclusion we might hope for, but perhaps a suitable metaphor for the final age of the earth?

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Euvoran... how to even break that name up into syllables? Eu-vo-ran? Eu-vor-an? Euv-o-ran? Euv-or-an? Who knows! And once you decide that, now you have to decide are the syllables long or short or other? Who knows! What a terrible name to give a main character, if you aren't going to give ANY hints on how to pronounce it. Ugh. I went back and forth with myself many times over the pronunciation, and didn't even really settle upon it until I started recording.

miniate: to paint with red lead or vermilion

involute: involved or intricate

skein: a tangled or complicated arrangement, state, or situation

flagitious: criminal; villainous

Yes, my text does have both the executioner and the torturer on the right side of the throne. Surely one of them was supposed to be left, and the online text puts the torturer to the left, but at that point it'd just be a random call. I left the recording with the error of the original.

What actually is vagrancy anyways? Being homeless and unemployed. Which often leads to such socially dubious behavior as begging, scavenging, and pickpocketing.

bastinado: a form of punishment or torture that involves caning the soles of someone's feet

saltation: leaping or dancing

volitation: the act or power of flying

malapert: boldly disrespectful to a person of higher standing

cubit: an ancient measure of length, approximately equal to the length of a forearm. It was typically about 18 inches or 44 cm

librate: oscillate or seem to oscillate.

adytum: the innermost sanctuary (of an ancient Greek temple)

faience: glazed ceramic ware, in particular decorated tin-glazed earthenware of the type which includes delftware and maiolica

byssus: a fine textile fiber and fabric of flax

gonfalon: a banner or pennant, especially one with streamers, hung from a crossbar

cassia: a tree, shrub, or herbaceous plant of the pea family, native to warm climates

sago: presumably referring to the sago palm, a species of gymnosperm in the family Cycadaceae, native to southern Japan including the Ryukyu Islands

lorikeet: arboreal parrots characterized by their specialized brush-tipped tongues for feeding on nectar of various blossoms and soft fruits, preferably berries. They occur in the South Pacific.

lyrebird: ground-dwelling Australian birds that compose the genus Menura, and the family Menuridae. They are most notable for their impressive ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment, and the striking beauty of the male bird's huge tail when it is fanned out in courtship display.

dinornis: an extinct genus of birds of New Zealand belonging to the moa family

phenicopter: flamingo

piacular: requiring expiation; sinful, heinous

argosy: a large ship

Stymphalian: of or relating to Lake Zaraka in Arcadia that according to Greek mythology was haunted by man-eating birds slain by Hercules

Aepyornis: an extinct genus of elephant bird formerly endemic to Madagascar

antic: grotesque or bizarre

covey: a small flock of birds

incult: uncultivated; naturally wild

hurly-burly: uproar; tumult

leveret: a young hare in its first year

misericordia: long, narrow knife, used from the High Middle Ages to deliver the death stroke (the mercy stroke, hence the name of the blade, derived from the Latin misericordia, "act of mercy") to a seriously wounded knight. The blade was thin enough to strike through the gaps between armour plates.

magniloquent: using high-flown or bombastic language

terraqueous: consisting or formed of land and water

nyctalops: one who is unable to see normally in dim light. Not sure I got the pronunciation quite right, but it seems to be rather an obscure word.

megapode: stocky, medium-large, chicken-like birds with small heads and large feet in the family Megapodiidae

ruddle: to color with or as if with red ocher

puissant: having great power or influence.

coir: a stiff coarse fiber from the outer husk of a coconut

tarboosh: a fez. Well, all fezes are tarbooshes, but not all tarbooshes are fezes. But you get the idea.

The picture used is an illustration by Boris Dolgov for the Weird Tales publication of "Quest of the Gazolba", a variant version of this story.

To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/238/the-voyage-of-king-euvoran