Clark Ashton Smith's The Testament of Athammaus, Read It Free

If you don't know Clark Ashton Smith, you're in for a pleasant jolt. In dark, weird fiction he's unsurpassed and quite likely to remain that way for some time to come.

eldritchdark.com makes his work available, free. Nothing to buy, sign up for, or any annoying spam to filter out of your mail.

His short story The Testament of Athammaus tops my list.

You can read it simply as a dark, hallucinogen drenched dream of a master linguist/storyteller, or as I have, many times, a parable about bloated governments even though the villain of the tale is a noxious criminal put to death numerous times by government, he returns, post execution, again and again to inflict himself on everyone.

More recommendations:

The Black Abbot of Puthuum
The Death of Ilalotha
The Last Hieroglyph
The Last Incantation
The Master of The Crabs
Sadastor
The Seven Geases
The Theft of The Thirty Nine Girdles
The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan