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

from its hole,

strutting erect on its two legs that were the legs of a cock; and a

cock’s head it had, with rosy comb and wattles, but the face of it

like no fowl’s face of middle-earth but rather a gorgon’s out of Hell.

Black shining feathers grew on its neck, but the body of it was the

body of a dragon with scales that glittered in the rays of the

candles, and a scaly crest stood on its back; and its wings were like

bats’ wings, and its tail the tail of an aspick with a sting in the

end thereof, and from its beak its forked tongue flickered venomously.

And the stature of the thing was a little above a cubit. Now because

of the spells of King Gorice whereby he held it ensorcelled it might

not cast its baneful glance upon him, nor upon Gro, but it walked back

and forth in the candle light, averting its eyes from them. The

feathers on its neck were fluffed up with anger and wondrous swiftly

twirled its scaly tail, and it hissed ever more fiercely, irked by the

bonds of the King’s enchantment; and the breath of it was noisome, and

hung in sluggish wreaths about the chamber. So for a while it walked

before them, and as it looked sidelong past him Gro beheld the light

of its eyes that were as sick moons burning poisonously through a mist

of greenish yellow in the dusk of night. And strong loathing seized

him, so that his gorge rose to behold the thing, and his brow and the

palms of his hands became clammy, and he said, “My Lord the King, I

have looked steadfastly on this cockatrice and it affrighteth me no

whit, but it is loathly in my sight, so that my gorge riseth because

of it,” and with that he fell a-vomiting. And the King commanded that

serpent back into its hole, whither it returned, hissing wrathfully.

 

Now the King poured forth wine, speaking a charm over the cup, and when

the bright wine had revived Lord Gro, the King spake saying, “It is

well, O Gro, that thou hast shown thyself a philosopher indeed, and of

heart intrepid. Yet even as no blade is utterly tried until one try it

in very battle, where if it snap woe and doom wait on the hand that

wields it, so must thou in this midnight suffer a yet fiercer

furnace-heat of terror, wherein if thou be reduced we are both lost

eternally, and this Carcë and all Witchland blasted with us for ever in

ruin and oblivion. Durst abide this trial?”

 

Gro answered, “I am hot to obey your word, O King. For well know I

that it is idle to hope by phantoms and illusions to appal the Demons,

and that against the Demons the deadly eye of thy cockatrice were

turned in vain. Stout of heart are they, and instructed in all lore,

and Juss a sorcerer of ancient power, who hath charms to blunt the

glance of basilisk or cockatrice. He that would strike down the Demons

must conjure indeed.”

 

“Great,” said the King, “is the strength and cunning of the seed of

Demonland. By main strength have they now shown mastery over us, as

sadly witnesseth the overthrow of Gorice XI., ‘gainst whom no mortal

could stand up and wrastle and not die, till cursed Goldry, drunk with

spleen and envy, slew him in the Foliot Isles. Nor was there any

aforetime to outdo us in feats of arms, and Gorice X., victorious in

single combats without number, made our name glorious over all the

world. Yet at the last he gat his death, out of all expectation and by

what treacherous sleight I know not, standing in single combat against

the curled step-dancer from Krothering. But I, that am skilled in

grammarie, do bear a mightier engine against the Demons than brawny

sinews or the sword that smiteth asunder. Yet is mine engine perilous

to him that useth it.”

 

Therewith the King unlocked the greatest of those books that lay by on

the massive table, saying in Gro’s ear, as one who would not be

overheard, “This is that awful book of grammarie wherewith in this

same chamber, on such a night, Gorice VII. stirred the vasty deep. And

know that from this circumstance alone ensued the ruin of King Gorice

VII., in that, having by his hellish science conjured up somewhat from

the primaeval dark, and being utterly fordone with the sweat and

stress of his conjuring, his mind was clouded for a moment, in such

sort that either he forgot the words writ in this grammarie, or the

page whereon they were writ, or speech failed him to speak those words

that must be spoken, or might to do those things which must be done to

complete the charm. Wherefore he kept not his power over that which he

had called out of the deep, but it turned upon him and tare him limb

from limb. Such like doom will I avoid, renewing in these latter days

those self-same spells, if thou durst stand by me undismayed the while

I utter my incantations. And shouldst thou mark me fail or waver ere

all be accomplished, then shalt thyself lay hand on book and crucible

and fulfil whatsoever is needful, as I shall first show thee. Or

quailest thou at this?”

 

Gro said, “Lord, show me my task. And I will carry it, though all the

Furies of the pit flock to this chamber to say me nay.”

 

So the King instructed Gro, rehearsing to him those acts that were

needful, and making known unto him the divers pages of the grammarie

whereon were writ those words which must be spoken each in its due time

and sequence. But the King pronounced not yet those words, pointing only

to them in the book, for whoso speaketh those words in vain and out of

season is lost. And now when the retorts and beakers with their several

necks and tubes and the appurtenances thereof were set in order, and the

unhallowed processes of fixation, conjunction, deflagration,

putrefaction, and rubefication were nearing maturity, and the baleful

star Antares standing by the astrolabe within a little of the meridian

signified the instant approach of midnight, the King described on the

floor with his conjuring rod three pentacles inclosed within a

seven-pointed star, with the signs of Cancer and of Scorpio joined by

certain runes. And in the midst of the star he limned the image of a

green crab eating of the sun. And turning to the seventy-third page of

his great black grammarie the King recited in a mighty voice words of

hidden meaning, calling on the name that it is a sin to utter.

 

Now when he had spoken the first spell and was silent, there was a

deadly quiet in that chamber, and a chill in the air as of winter. And

in the quiet Gro heard the King’s breath coming and going, as of one

who bath rowed a course. Now the blood rushed back to Gro’s heart and

his hands and feet became cold and a cold sweat brake forth on his

brow. But for all that, he held yet his courage firm and his brain

ready. The King motioned to Gro to break off the tail of a certain

drop of black glass that lay on the table; and with the snapping of

its tail the whole drop fell in pieces in a coarse black powder. Gro

by the King’s direction gathered that powder and dropped it in the

great alembic wherein a green fluid seethed and bubbled above the

flame of a lamp; and the fluid became red as blood, and the body of

the alembic filled with a tawny smoke, and sparks of sun-like

brilliance flashed and crackled through the smoke. Thereupon distilled

from the neck of the alembic a white oil incombustible, and the King

dipped his rod in that oil and described round the seven-pointed star

on the floor the figure of the worm Ouroboros, that eateth his own

tail. And he wrote the formula of the crab below the circle, and spake

his second spell.

 

When that was done, yet more biting seemed the night air and yet more

like the grave the stillness of the chamber. The King’s hand shook as

with an ague as he turned the pages of the mighty book. Gro’s teeth

chattered in his head. He gritted them together and waited. And now

through every window came a light into the chamber as of skies paling

to the dawn. Yet not wholly so; for never yet came dawn at midnight,

nor from all four quarters of the sky at once, nor with such swift

strides of increasing light, nor with a light so ghastly. The candle

flames burned filmy as the glare waxed strong from without: an evil

pallid light of bale and corruption, wherein the hands and faces of

the King Gorice and his disciple showed death-pale, and their lips

black as the dark skin of a grape where the bloom has been rubbed off

from it. The King cried terribly, “The hour approacheth!” And he took

a phial of crystal containing a decoction of wolf’s jelly and

salamander’s blood, and dropped seven drops from the alembic into the

phial and poured forth that liquor on the figure of the crab drawn on

the floor. Gro leaned against the wall, weak in body but with will

unbowed. So bitter was the cold that his hands and feet were benumbed,

and the liquor from the phial congealed where it fell. Yet the sweat

stood in beads on the forehead of the King by reason of the mighty

striving that was his, and in the overpowering glare of that light

from the underskies he stood stiff and erect, hands clenched and arms

outstretched, and spake the words LURO VOPO VIR VOARCHADUMIA.

 

Now with those words spoken the vivid light departed as a blown-out

lamp, and the midnight closed down again without. Nor was any sound

heard save the thick panting of the King; but it was as if the night

held its breath in expectation of that which was to come. And the

candles sputtered and burned blue. The King swayed and clutched the

table with his left hand; and again the King pronounced terribly the

word VOARCHADUMIA.

 

Thereafter for the space of ten heart-beats silence hung like a

kestrel poised in the listening night. Then went a crash through earth

and heaven, and a blinding wildfire through the chamber as it had been

a thunderbolt. All Carcë quaked, and the chamber was filled with a

beating of wings, like the wings of some monstrous bird. The air that

was wintry cold waxed on a sudden hot as the breath of a burning

mountain, and Gro was near choking with the smell of soot and the

smell of brimstone. And the chamber rocked as a ship riding in a swell

with the wind against the tide. But the King, steadying himself

against the table and clutching the edge of it till the veins on his

lean hand seemed nigh to bursting, cried in short breaths and with an

altered voice, “By these figures drawn and by these spells enchanted,

by the unction of wolf and salamander, by the unblest sign of Cancer

now leaning to the sun, and by the fiery heart of Scorpio that flameth

in this hour on night’s meridian, thou art my thrall and instrument.

Abase thee and serve me, worm of the pit. Else will I by and by summon

out of ancient night intelligences and dominations mightier far than

thou, and they shall serve mine ends, and thee shall they chain with

chains of quenchless fire and drag thee from torment to torment

through