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

fair

weather.”

 

“Well, time shall wait for us if need be,” said Brandoch Daha. “So

mightily my desire crieth unto me from those horns of ice that, having

once looked on them, I had as lief die as leave them unclimbed. But of

thee, O Juss, I make some marvel. Thou wast bidden inquire in Koshtra

Belorn, and sure she were easier won than Koshtra Pivrarcha, going

behind Jalchi by the snowfields and so avoiding her great western

cliffs.”

 

“There is a saw in Impland,” answered Juss, “‘Ware of a tall wife.’

Even so there lieth a curse on any that shall attempt Koshtra Belorn

that hath not first looked down upon her; and he shall have his death

or ever he have his will. And from one point only of earth may a man

look down on Koshtra Belorn; and ‘tis from yonder unascended tooth of

ice where thou seest the last beam burn. For that is the topmost

pinnacle of Koshtra Pivrarcha. And it is the highest point of the

stablished earth.”

 

They were silent a minute’s space. Then Juss spake: “Thou wast ever

greatest amongst us as a mountaineer. Which way likes thee best for

our climbing up him?”

 

“O Juss,” said Brandoch Daha, “on ice and snow thou art my master.

Therefore give me thy rede. For mine own choice and pleasure, I have

settled it this hour and more: namely to ascend into the gap between

the two mountains, and thence turn westward up the east ridge of

Pivrarcha.”

 

“It is the fearsomest climb to look on,” said Juss, “and belike the

grandest, and for both counts I had wagered it thy choice. That gap

hight the Gates of Zimiamvia. It, and the Koshtra glacier that runneth

up to it, lieth under the weird I told thee of. It were our death to

adventure there ere we had looked down upon Koshtra Belorn; which

done, the charm is broke for us, and from that time forth it needeth

but our own might and skill and a high heart to accomplish whatsoever

we desire.”

 

“Why then, the great north buttress,” cried Brandoch Daha. “So shall

she not behold us as we climb, until we come forth on the highest

tooth and overlook her and tame her to our will.”

 

So they supped and slept. But the wind cried among the crags all night

long, and in the morning snow and sleet blotted out the mountains. All

day the storm held, and in a lull they struck camp and came down again

to Throstlegarth, and there abode nine days and nine nights in wind

and rain and battering hail.

 

On the tenth day the weather abated, and they went up and crossed the

glacier and lodged them in a cave in the rock at the foot of the great

north buttress of Koshtra Pivrarcha. At dawn Juss and Brandoch Daha

went forth to survey the prospect. They crossed the mouth of the steep

snow-choked valley that ran up to the main ridge betwixt Ashnilan on

the west and Koshtra Pivrarcha on the east, rounded the base of

Ailinon, and climbed from the west to a snow saddle some three

thousand feet up the ridge of that mountain, whence they might view

the buttress and choose their way for their attempt.

 

“‘Tis a two days’ journey to the top,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “If

night on the ridge freeze us not to death, I dread no other hindrance.

That black rib that riseth half a mile above our camp, shall take us

clean up to the crest of the buttress, striking it above the great

tower at the northern end. If the rocks be like those we camped on,

hard as diamond and rough as a sponge, they shall not fail us but by

our own neglect. As I live, I ne’er saw their like for climbing.”

 

“So far, well,” said Juss.

 

“Above,” said Brandoch Daha, “I’d drive thee a chariot until we come

to the first great kick o’ the ridge. That must we round, or ne’er go

further, and on this side it showeth ill enough, for the rocks shelve

outward. If they be iced, there’s work indeed. Beyond that, I’ll

prophesy nought, O Juss, for I can see nought clear save that the

ridge is hacked into clefts and steeples. How we may overcome them

must be put to the proof. It is too high and too far to know. This

only: where we would go, there have we gone until now. And by that

ridge lieth, if any way there lieth, the way to this mountain top that

we crossed the world to climb.”

 

Next day with the first paling of the skies they arose all three and

set forth southward over the crisp snows. They roped at the foot of

the glacier that came down from the saddle, some five thousand feet

above them, where the main ridge dips between Ashnilan and Koshtra

Pivrarcha. Ere the brighter stars were swallowed in the light of

morning they were cutting their way among the labyrinthine towers and

chasms of the ice-fall. Soon the new daylight flooded the snowfields

of the High Glacier of Temarm, dyeing them green and saffron and

palest rose. The snows of Islargyn glowed far away in the north to the

right of the white dome of Emshir. Ela Mantissera blocked the view

north-eastward. The buttress that bounded their valley on the east

plunged it in shadow blue as a summer sea. High on the other side the

great twin peaks of Ailinon and Ashnilan, roused by the warm beams out

of their frozen silence of the night, growled at whiles with

avalanches and falling stones.

 

Juss was their leader in the ice-fall, guiding them now along high

knife-edges that fell away on either hand to unsounded depths, now

within the very lips of those chasms, along the bases of the ice-towers. These, five times a man’s height, some square, some pinnacled,

some shattered or piled with the ruins of their kind, leaned above the

path, as ready to fall and overwhelm the climbers and dash their bones

for ever down to those blue-green secret places of frost and silence

where the chips of ice chinked hollow as Juss pressed onward, cutting

his steps with Mivarsh’s axe. At length the slope eased and they

walked out on the unbroken surface of the glacier, and passing by a

snow-bridge over the great rift betwixt the glacier and the mountain

side came two hours before noon to the foot of the rock-rib that they

had scanned from Ailimom.

 

Now was Brandoch Daha to lead them. They climbed face to the rock,

slowly and without rest, for sound and firm as the rocks were the

holds were small and few and the cliffs steep. Here and there a

chimney gave them passage upward, but the climb was mainly by cracks

and open faces of rock, a trial of main strength and endurance such as

few might sustain for a short while only: but this wall was three

thousand feet in height. By noon they gained the crest, and there

rested on the rocks too weary to speak, looking across the avalanche-swept face of Koshtra Pivrarcha to the corniced parapet that ended

against the western precipices of Koshtra Belorn.

 

For some way the ridge of the buttress was broad and level. Then it

narrowed suddenly to the width of a horse’s back, and sprang skyward

two thousand feet and more. Brandoch Daha went forward and climbed a

few feet up the cliff. It bulged out above him, smooth and holdless.

He tried it once and again, them came down saying, “Nought without

wings.”

 

Then he went to the left. Here hanging glaciers overlooked the face

from on high, and while he gazed am avalanche of iceblocks roared down

it. Then he went to the right, and here the rocks sloped outward, and

the sloping ledges were piled with rubbish and the rocks rotten and

slippery with snow and ice. So having gone a little way he returned,

and, “O Juss,” he said, “wilt take it right forth, and that must be by

flying, for hold there is none: or wilt go east and dodge the

avalanche: or west, where all is rotten and slither and a slip were

our destruction?”

 

So they debated, and at length decided on the eastern road. It was an

ill step round the jutting corner of the tower, for little hold there

was, and the rocks were undercut below, so that a stone or a man

loosed from that place must fall clear at a bound three or four

thousand feet to the Koshtra glacier and there be dashed in pieces.

Beyond, wide ledges gave them passage along the wall of the tower,

that now swept inward, facing south. Far overhead, dazzling white in

the sunshine, the broken glacier-edges and splinters jutted against

the blue, and icicles greater than a man hung glittering from every

ledge: a sight heavenly fair, whereof they yet had little joy,

hastening as they had not hastened in their lives before to be out of

the danger of that ice-swept face.

 

Suddenly was a noise above them like the crack of a giant whip, and

looking up they beheld against the sky a dark mass which opened like a

flower and spread into a hundred fragments. The Demons and Mivarsh

hugged the cliffs where they stood, but there was little cover. All

the air was filled with the shrieking of the stones, as they swept

downwards like fiends returning to the pit, and with the crash of them

as they dashed against the cliffs and burst in pieces. The echoes

rolled and reverberated from cliff to distant cliff, and the limbs of

the mountain seemed to writhe as under a scourge. When it was done,

Mivarsh was groaning for pain of his left wrist sore hurt with a

stone. The others were scatheless.

 

Juss said to Brandoch Daha, “Back, howsoever it dislike thee.”

 

Back they went; and an avalanche of ice crashed down the face which

must have destroyed them had they proceeded. “Thou dost misjudge me,”

said Brandoch Daha, laughing. “Give me where my life lieth on mime own

might and main; then is danger meat and drink to me, and nought shall

turn me back. But here on this cursed cliff, on the ledges whereof a

cripple might walk at ease, we be the toys of chance. And it were pure

folly to abide upon it a moment longer.”

 

“Two ways be left us,” said Juss. “To turn back, and that were our

shame for ever; and to essay the western traverse.”

 

“And that should be the bane of any save of me and thee,” said

Brandoch Daha. “And if our bane, why, we shall sleep sound.”

 

“Mivarsh,” said Juss, “is nought so bounden to this adventure. He hath

bravely held by us, and bravely stood our friend. Yet here we be come

to such a pass, I sore misdoubt me if it were less danger of his life

to come with us than seek safety alone.”

 

But Mivarsh put on a hardy face. Never a word he spake, but nodded his

head, as who should say, “Forward.”

 

“First I must be thy leech,” said Juss. And he bound up Mivarsh’s

wrist. And because the day was now far spent, they camped under the

great tower, hoping next day to reach the top of Koshtra Pivrarcha

that stood unseen some six thousand feet above them.

 

Next morning, when it was light enough to climb, they set forth. For

two hours’ space on that traverse not a moment passed but they were in

instant peril of death. They were not roped, for on those slabbery

rocks one man had