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

the deep.”

 

Therewith the earthquake was stilled, and there remained but a

quivering of the walls and floor and the wind of those unseen wings

and the hot smell of soot and brimstone burning. And speech came out

of the teeming air of that chamber, strangely sweet, saying, “Accursed

wretch that troublest our quiet, what is thy will?” The terror of that

speech made the throat of Gro dry, and the hairs on his scalp stood

up.

 

The King trembled in all his members like a frightened horse, yet was

his voice level and his countenance unruffled as he said hoarsely,

“Mine enemies sail at day-break from the Foliot Isles. I loose thee

against them as a falcon from my wrist. I give thee them. Turn them to

thy will: how or where it skills not, so thou do but break and destroy

them off the face of the world. Away!”

 

But now was the King’s endurance clean spent, so that his knees failed

him and he sank like a sick man into his mighty chair. But the room

was filled with a tumult as of rushing waters, and a laughter above

the tumult like to the laughter of souls condemned. And the King was

reminded that he had left unspoken that word which should dismiss his

sending. But to such weariness was he now come and so utterly was his

strength gone out from him in the exercise of his spells, that his

tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, so that he might not speak the

word; and horribly he rolled up the whites of his eyes beckoning to

Gro, the while his nerveless fingers sought to turn the heavy pages of

the grammarie. Then sprang Gro forth to the table, and against it

sprawling, for now was the great keep of Carcë shaken anew as one

shaketh a dice box, and lightnings opened the heavens, and the thunder

roared unceasingly, and the sound of waters stunned the ear in that

chamber, and still that laughter pealed above the turmoil. And Gro

knew that it was now with the King even as it had been with Gorice

VII. in years gone by, when his strength gave forth and the spirit

tare him and plastered those chamber-walls with his blood. Yet was Gro

mindful, even in that hideous storm of terror, of the ninety-seventh

page whereon the King had shown him the word of dismissal, and he

wrenched the book from the King’s palsied grasp and turned to the

page. Scarce had his eye found the word, when a whirlwind of hail and

sleet swept into the chamber, and the candles were blown out and the

tables overset. And in the plunging darkness beneath the crashing of

the thunder Gro pitching headlong felt claws clasp his head and body.

He cried in his agony the word, that was the word TRIPSARECOPSEM, and

so fell a-swooning.

 

It was high noon when the Lord Gro came to his senses in that chamber.

The strong spring sunshine poured through the southern window,

lighting up the wreckage of the night. The tables were cast down and

the floor strewn and splashed with costly essences and earths spilt

from shattered phials and jars and caskets: aphroselmia, shell of

gold, saffron of gold, asem, amianth, stypteria of Melos, confounded

with mandragora, vinum ardens, sal armoniack, devouring aqua regia,

little pools and scattered globules of quicksilver, poisonous

decoctions of toadstools and of yewberries, monkshood, thorn-apple,

wolf’s bane and black hellebore, quintessences of dragon’s blood and

serpent’s bile; and with these, splashed together and wasted, elixirs

that wise men have died a-dreaming of: spiritus mundi, and that

sovereign alkahest which dissolveth every substance dipped therein,

and that aurum potabile which being itself perfect induceth perfection

in the living frame. And in this welter of spoiled treasure were the

great conjuring books hurled amid the ruin of retorts and aludels of

glass and lead and silver, sand-baths, matrasses, spatulae, athanors,

and other instruments innumerable of rare design, tossed and broken on

the chamber floor. The King’s chair was thrown against the furnace,

and huddled against the table lay the King, his head thrown back, his

black beard pointing skyward, showing his sinewy hairy throat. Gro

looked narrowly at him; saw that he seemed unhurt and slept deep; and

so, knowing well that sleep is a present remedy for every ill, watched

by the King in silence all day till supper time, for all he was sore

an-hungered.

 

When at length the King awoke, he looked about him in amaze.

“Methought I tripped at the last step of last night’s journey,” he

said. “And truly strange riot hath left its footprints in my chamber.”

 

Gro answered, “Lord, sorely was I tried; yet fulfilled I your behest.”

 

The King laughed as one whose soul is at ease, and standing upon his

feet said unto Gro, “Take up the crown of Witchland and crown me. And

that high honour shalt thou have, because I do love thee for this

night gone by.”

 

Now without were the lords of Witchland assembled in the courtyard,

being bound for the great banqueting hall to eat and drink, unto whom

the King came forth from the gate below the keep, robed in his

conjuring robe. Wondrous bright sparkled the gems of the iron crown of

Witchland above the heavy brow and cheekbones and the fierce

disdainful lip of the King, as he stood there in his majesty, and Gro

with the guard of honour stood in the shadow of the gate. And the King

said, “My lords Corund and Corsus and Corinius and Gallandus, and ye

sons of Corsus and of Corund, and ye other Witches, behold your King,

the twelfth Gorice, crowned with this crown in Carcë to be King of

Witchland and of Demonland. And all countries of the world and the

rulers thereof, so many as the sun doth spread his beams over, shall

do me obeisance, and call me King and Lord.”

 

All they shouted assent, praising the King and bowing down before him.

 

Then said the King, “Imagine not that oaths sworn unto the Demons by

Gorice XI. of memory ever glorious bind me any whit. I will not be at

peace with this Juss and his brethren, but do account them all mine

enemies. And this night have I made a sending to take them on the

waste of waters as they sail homeward to manymountained Demonland.”

 

Corund said, “Lord, your words are as wine unto us. And well we

guessed that the principalities of darkness were afoot last night,

seeing all Carcë rocked and the foundations thereof rose and fell as

the breast of the large earth a-breathing.”

 

When they were come into the banqueting hall, the King said, “Gro

shall sit at my right hand this night, since manfully hath he served

me.” And when they scowled at this, and spake each in the other’s ear,

the King said, “Whoso among you shall so serve me and so water the

growth of this Witchland as hath Gro in this night gone by, unto him

will I do like honour.” But unto Gro he said, “I will bring thee home

to Goblinland in triumph, that wentest forth an exile. I will pluck

Gaslark from his throne, and make thee king in Zaje Zaculo, and all

Goblinland shalt thou hold for me in fee, exercising dominion over

it.”

V

KING GORICE’S SENDING

 

Of King Gaslark, and of the coming of the

sending upon the demons on the high seas; with

how the Lord Juss by the egging on of his

companions was persuaded to an unadvised

rashness.

 

THE next morning following that night when King Gorice XII. sat

crowned in Carcë as is aforesaid, was Gaslark a-sailing on the middle

sea, homeward from the east. Seven ships of war he had, and they

steered in column south-westward close hauled on the starboard tack.

Greatest and fairest among them was she who led the line, a great

dragon of war painted azure of the summer sea with towering head of a

worm, plated with gold and wrought with overlapping scales, gaping

defiance from her bows, and a worm’s tail erect at the poop. Seventy

and five picked men of Goblinland sailed on that ship, clad in gay

kirtles and byrnies of mail and armed with axes, spears, and swords.

Their shields, each with his device, hung at the bulwarks. On the high

poop sat King Gaslark, his sturdy hands grasping the great steering

paddle. Goodly of mien and well knit were all they of Goblinland that

went on that great ship, yet did Gaslark outdo them all in goodliness

and strength and all kingliness. He wore a silken kirtle of Tyrian

purple. Broad wristlets of woven gold were on his wrists. Darkskinned

was he as one that hath lived all his days in the hot sunshine: clean-cut

of feature, somewhat hooky-nosed, with great eyes and white teeth

and tightcurled black moustachios. Nought restful was there in his

presence and bearing, but rashness and impetuous fire; and he was wild

to look on, swift and beautiful as a stag in autumn.

 

Teshmar, that was the skipper of his ship, stood at his elbow. Gaslark

said to him, “Is it not one of the three gallant spectacles of the

world, a good ship treading the hastening furrows of the sea like a

queen in grace and beauty, scattering up the wave-crests before her

stem in a glittering rain?”

 

“Yea, Lord,” answered he; “and what be the other two?”

 

“One that I most unhappily did miss, whereof but yesterday we had

tidings: to behold such a battling of great champions and such a

victory as Lord Goldry obtained upon yonder vaunting tyrant.”

 

“The third shall be seen, I think,” said Teshmar, “when the Lord

Goldry Bluszco shall in your royal palace of Zajë Zaculo, amid pomp

and high rejoicing, wed the young princess your cousin: most fortunate

lord, that must be lord of her whom all just censure doth acknowledge

the ornament of earth, the model of heaven, the queen of beauty.”

 

“Kind Gods hasten the day,” said Gaslark. “For truly ‘tis a most sweet

lass, and those kinsmen of Demonland my dearest friends. But for whose

great upholding time and again, Teshmar, in days gone by, where were I

today and my kingdom, and where thou and all of you?” The king’s brow

darkened a little with thought. After a time he began to say, “I must

have more great action: these trivial harryings, spoils of Nevria,

chasing of Esamocian black-a-moors, be toys not worthy of our great

name and renown among the nations. Something I would enact that shall

embroil and astonish the world, even as the Demons when they purged

earth of the Ghouls, ere I go down into silence.”

 

Teshmar was staring toward the southern bourne. He pointed with his

hand: “There rideth a great ship, O king. And methinks she hath a

strange look.”

 

Gaslark gazed earnestly at her for an instant, then straightway

shifted his helm and steered towards her. He spake no more, staring

ever as he sailed, marking ever as the distance lessened more and more

particulars of that ship. Her silken sail fluttered in tatters from

the yard; she rowed feebly, as one groping in darkness, with barely

strength to stay her from drifting stern-foremost before the wind. So

hung she on the sea, as one struck stupid by some blow, doubting which

way her harbour lay or which way her course. As a thing which hath

been held in the flame of a monstrous candle, so seemed she, singed

and besmirched with soot. Smashed was her proud figurehead, and

smashed was her high forecastle, and burned and shattered the carved

timbers of the poop and