The Worm Ouroboros, Eric Rücker Eddison [epub ebook reader txt] 📗

then this treaty a light benefit where now

we stand? Next, know that when I counselled you take the Demons in

their beds ‘stead of fall upon them in the Foliots’ hall, I did so

being advertised that the Red Foliot had commanded his soldiers to

turn against us or against the Demons, whichever first should draw

sword upon the other. And when I went forth from the hall it was, as

Corinius hath so deeply divined, to plot with the Red Foliot; but the

aim of my plotting I have shown you, on these articles of alliance.

And indeed, had I as Corinius vilely accuseth me practised with the

Red Foliot against Witchland, I had hardly been so simple as return

into the mouth of destruction when I might have bided safely in his

palace.”

 

Now when Gro perceived that the anger of the Witches against him was

appeased by his defence, wherein he spake cunningly both true words

and lies, he spake again among them saying, “Little gain have I of all

my pains and thought expended by me for Witchland. And better it were

for Witchland if my counsel were better heeded. Corund knoweth how, to

mine own peril, I counselled the King to wrastle no more after the

first bout, and if he had ta’en my rede, rather than suspect me and

threaten me with death, we should not be now to bear him home dead to

the royal catacombs in Carcë.”

 

Corund said, “Truly hast thou spoken.”

 

“In one thing only have I failed,” said Gro; “and it can shortly be

amended. The Red Foliot, albeit of our party, will not be won to

attack the Demons by fraud, nor will he suffer us smite them in these

Isles. Some fond simple scruples hang like cobwebs in his mind, and he

is stubborn as touching this. But I have prevailed upon him to make

them tarry here for three days’ space, while we put to sea this very

night, telling him, which he most innocently believeth, that we fear

the Demons, and would flee home ere they be let loose to take us at a

disadvantage on the high seas. And home we will indeed ere they set

sail, yet not for fear of them, but rather that we may devise a deadly

blow against them or ever they win home to Demonland.”

 

“What blow, Goblin?” said Corinius.

 

And Gro answered and said, “One that I will devise upon with our Lord

the King, Gorice XII., who now awaiteth us in Carcë. And I will not

blab it to a wine-bibber and a dicer who hath but now drawn sword

against a true lover of Witchland.” Whereupon Corinius leaped up in

mickle wrath to thrust his sword into Gro. But Corund and his sons

restrained him.

 

In due time the stars revolved to midnight, and the Red Foliot came

secretly with his guards to the Witches’ booths. The lords of

Witchland took their weapons and the men-at-arms bare the goods, and

the King went in the midst on his bier of spearshafts. So went they

picking their way in the moonless night round the palace and down the

winding path that led to the bed of the combe, and so by the stream

westward toward the sea. Here they deemed it safe to light a torch to

show them the way. Desolate and bleak showed the sides of the combe in

the wind-blown flare; and the flare was thrown back from the jewels of

the royal crown of Witchland, and from the armoured buskins on the

King’s feet showing stark with toes pointing upward from below his

bearskin mantle, and from the armour and the weapons of them that

bare him and walked beside him, and from the black cold surface of the

little river hurrying for ever over its bed of boulders to the sea.

The path was rugged and stony, and they fared slowly, lest they should

stumble and drop the King.

IV CONJURING IN THE IRON TOWER

Of the hold of Carce; and of the midnight

practices of King Gorice XII. in the ancient

chamber, preparing dole and doom for the lords of

Demonland.

 

WHEN the Witches were come aboard of their ship and all stowed, and

the rowers set in order on the benches, they bade farewell to the Red

Foliot and rowed out to the deep, and there hoisted sail and put up

their helm and sailed eastward along the land. The stars wheeled

overhead, and the east grew pale, and the sun came out of the sea on

the larboard bow. Still sailed they two days and two nights, and on

the third day there was land ahead, and morning rose abated by mist

and cloud, and the sun was as a ball of red fire over Witchland in the

east. So they hung awhile off Tenemos waiting for the tide, and at

high water sailed over the bar and up the Druima past the dunes and

mud-flats and the Ergaspian mere, till they reached the bend of the

river below Carcë. Solitary marsh-land stretched on either side as far

as the eye might reach, with clumps of willow and rare homesteads

showing above the flats. Northward above the bend a bluff of land fell

sharply to the elbow of the river, and on the other side sloped gently

away for a few miles till it lost itself in the dead level of the

marshes. On the southern face of the bluff, monstrous as a mountain in

those low sedgelands, hung square and black the fortress of Carcë. It

was built of black marble, roughhewn and unpolished, the outworks

enclosing many acres. An inner wall with a tower at each corner formed

the main stronghold, in the southwest corner of which was the palace,

overhanging the river. And on the southwest corner of the palace,

towering sheer from the water’s edge seventy cubits and more to the

battlements, stood the keep, a round tower lined with iron, bearing on

the corbel table beneath its parapet in varying form and untold

repetition the sculptured figure of the crab of Witchland. The outer

ward of the fortress was dark with cypress trees: black flames burning

changelessly to heaven from a billowy sea of gloom. East of the keep

was the water-gate, and beside it a bridge and bridgehouse across the

river, strongly fortified with turrets and machicolations and

commanded from on high by the battlements of the keep. Dismal and

fearsome to view was this strong place of Carcë, most like to the

embodied soul of dreadful night brooding on the waters of that

sluggish river: by day a shadow in broad sunshine, the likeness of

pitiless violence sitting in the place of power, darkening the

desolation of the mournful fen, by night, a blackness more black than

night herself.

 

Now was the ship made fast near the water-gate, and the lords of

Witchland landed and their fighting men, and the gate opened to them,

and mournfully they entered in and climbed the steep ascent to the

palace, bearing with them their sad burden of the King. And in the

great hall in Carcë was Gorice XI. laid in state for that night; and

the day wore to its close. Nor was any word from King Gorice XII.

 

But when the shades of night were falling, there came a chamberlain to

Lord Gro as he walked upon the terrace without the western wall of the

palace; and the chamberlain said, “My lord, the King bids you attend

him in the Iron Tower, and he chargeth you bring unto him the royal

crown of Witchland.”

 

Gro made haste to fulfil the bidding of the King, and betook himself

to the great banqueting hall, and all reverently he lifted the iron

crown of Witchland set thick with priceless gems, and went by a

winding stair to the tower, and the chamberlain went before him. When

they were come to the first landing, the chamberlain knocked on a

massive door that was forthwith opened by a guard; and the chamberlain

said, “My lord, it is the King’s will that you attend his majesty in

his secret chamber at the top of the tower.” And Gro marvelled, for

none had entered that chamber for many years. Long ago had Gorice VII.

practised forbidden arts therein, and folk said that in that chamber

he raised up those spirits whereby he gat his bane. Sithence was the

chamber sealed, nor had the late Kings need of it, since little faith

they placed in art magical, relying rather on the might of their hands

and the sword of Witchland. But Gro was glad at heart, for the opening

of this chamber by the King met his designs half way. Fearlessly he

mounted the winding stairs that were dusky with the shadows of

approaching night and hung with cobwebs and strewn with the dust of

neglect, until he came to the small low door of that chamber, and

pausing knocked thereon and harkened for the answer.

 

And one said from within, “Who knocketh?” and Gro answered, “Lord, it

is I, Gro.” And the bolts were drawn and the door opened, and the King

said, “Enter.” And Gro entered and stood in the presence of the King.

 

Now the fashion of the chamber was that it was round, filling the whole

space of the loftiest floor of the round donjon keep. It was now

gathering dusk, and weak twilight only entered through the deep

embrasures of the windows that pierced the walls of the tower, looking

to the four quarters of the heavens. A furnace glowing in the big hearth

threw fitful gleams into the recesses of the chamber, lighting up

strange shapes of glass and earthenware, flasks and retorts, balances,

hour-glasses, crucibles and astrolabes, a monstrous three-necked alembic

of phosphorescent glass supported on a bainmarie, and other instruments

of doubtful and unlawful aspect. Under the northern window over against

the doorway was a massive table blackened with age, whereon lay great

books bound in black leather with iron guards and heavy padlocks. And in

a mighty chair beside this table was King Gorice XII., robed in his

conjuring robe of black and gold, resting his cheek on his hand that was

lean as an eagle’s claw. The low light, mother of shade and secrecy,

that hovered in that chamber moved about the still figure of the King,

his nose hooked as the eagle’s beak, his cropped hair, his thick

close-cut beard and shaven upper lip, his high cheekbones and cruel

heavy jaw, and the dark eaves of his brows whence the glint of green

eyes showed as no friendly lamp to them without. The door shut

noiselessly, and Gro stood before the King. The dusk deepened, and the

firelight pulsed and blinked in that dread chamber, and the King leaned

without motion on his hand, bending his brow on Gro; and there was utter

silence save for the faint purr of the furnace.

 

In a while the King said, “I sent for thee, because thou alone wast so

hardy as to urge to the uttermost thy counsel upon the King that is

now dead, Gorice XI. of memory ever glorious. And because thy counsel

was good. Marvellest thou that I wist of thy counsel?”

 

Gro said, “O my Lord the King, I marvel not of this. For it is known

to me that the soul endureth, albeit the body perish.”

 

“Keep thou thy lips from overspeech,” said the King. “These be

mysteries whereon but to think may snatch thee into peril, and whoso

speaketh of them, though in so secret a place as this, and with me

only, yet at his most bitter peril speaketh he.”

 

Gro answered, “O King, I spake not lightly; moreover, you did tempt