Sand Clown

The Sand Clown is the subject of many bizarre and frightening tales. Some mention human vices such as greed and arrogance; others cataclysmic wars that laid entire nations waste. New research has shed more light on the subject. The most intriguing figure in the many disparate accounts is not the Sand Clown, as one might expect, but the flawed genius Dravar Djezendek, whose recently translated journals have offered further revelations.

Dravar plied his trade in Cy, a city of antiquity. He acquired strange creatures, unravelled their genes, and combined selected strands to make stranger creatures still. Cy was filled with his creations. Some of these were dismal failures: when Fenton Bebberfesh asked him to provide the perfect partner, an owl knocked some contaminants into an uncovered vat, reducing an exquisite dream to a shapeless mass of protoplasm. Others were much more successful: when grafted to Miff Minko’s scalp, Dravar’s Violet Lampreys turned his unassuming client into a terrifying cybergoth who could see in pitch darkness, merge with the shadows and read other people’s minds.

Dravar’s more successful projects caught the eye of Jok von Boshki. He was a rich but lonely man who desperately wanted some genuine friends. He had the strange impression that clowns were universally loved and hoped to be remade as one. When Dravar voiced his reservations Boshki gave him an unlucky debtor to use as a test subject. Dravar’s sole account is brief: ‘Clown a failure. Terminated.’

Boshki asked no more of Dravar, which suggests this terse admission was a major understatement. Soon afterwards some malign force began to disrupt life in Cy. At first small insects fell to earth, grew pale and disintegrated. Birds followed, as did crops and livestock. The markets of Cy became silent and empty and many of its people fled. As hunger gradually weakened the rest, their skins turned a deathly white and their noses and lips grew red and inflamed. They appeared to lose their minds, and wandered the streets aimlessly, alternately laughing and sobbing as their flesh became brittle and crumbled away. Dravar is said to have stayed to the end, apparently pursuing a cure, though nothing more is known of him. Soon Cy was filled with fine white sand and after many centuries its ruins also disappeared – lost beneath the desert that has expanded ever since.

Many who set out to cross it disappeared or came back mad. Some spoke of a gigantic clown that erupted from the sands to swallow their companions whole. But the lure of the past is strong, and a new breed of adventurers – now better equipped and prepared – seeks to rediscover Cy and banish its dark legacy. The tale of Dravar Djezendek and the Sand Clown is not over yet…