"The Maze of Maâl Dweb" by Clark Ashton Smith

Xiccarph - I got out my dictionary to look up words starting with the letter 'x', and it turns out in pretty much every case, that starting 'x' takes a 'zee' sound. Which makes me wonder why we bother then with the letter 'x' and don't just use a 'z' instead? I mean, sure, when it's in the middle of a word it might have its own distinct 'x' sound (e.g. exactly), so the letter is still needed as part of the alphabet, but when it starts a word, it's always a 'z' sound, so just spell it with a leading 'z' instead. *sigh* English...

decrescent: waning

coign: a projecting corner or angle of a wall or building

bole: tree trunk

corolla: the part of a flower that consists of the separate or fused petals and constitutes the inner whorl of the perianth

aigrette: a headdress consisting of a white egret's feather or other decoration such as a spray of gems

arabesque: an elaborate or intricate pattern

odalisque: an enslaved woman; a concubine in a harem

estrade: platform; dais

drolly: in a curious or unusual way that provokes dry amusement.

Laocoön: a Trojan priest who begged the Trojans to set fire to the Trojan horse, fearing it was a trick. Athena then struck him blind, and eventually sent sea serpents to strangle and kill him. Unfortunately, there seems to be disagreement over pronunciation of the name. I used the more common pronunciation, but your mileage may vary.

imbricated: overlapping

hieratic: normally this word would take on a meaning either of 'of or concerning priests', or 'of or in the ancient Egyptian writing of abridged hieroglyphics used by priests', but in this case it probably takes the less common meaning of 'highly stylized or formal'.

chancrous: a sore or ulcer at the site of entry of a pathogen, especially the initial lesion of syphilis

tunny: tuna, especially the bluefin

laving: washing against or over something

termini: figures of a human bust or an animal ending in a square pillar from which it appears to spring, originally used as a boundary marker in ancient Rome

The picture used is an illustration by Virgil Finlay for Weird Tales.

The follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/129/the-maze-of-the-enchanter

You can see the title of that link is different, yet it is at its core the same story as, say, this version here: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/130/the-maze-of-ma%C3%A2l-dweb

It turns out Smith privately published this story with the text of the first link, which is the one I am reading, and then the story was edited a bit and published in Weird Tales, which is what you see in the second link.

Despite published this story the next day after the introductory poem, the rest of the stories will be on the every-other-day schedule. Like with the Algernon Blackwood stories, a lot of these are on the longer side.