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

>and his levies out of Pixyland. Then shall ye fall upon them and never

make an end till the land be utterly purged of them, and all the lords

of Demonland be slain.”

 

Corinius said, “To hear is to obey, O King. Howsoever, not to

dissemble with you, I’d liever at ‘em at once, ‘stead of let them sit

awhile and refresh their army. Occasion is a wanton wench, O King,

that is quick to beckon another man if one look coldly on her.

Moreover, Lord, could you not by your art, in small time, with certain

compositions?–”

 

But the King brake in upon him saying, “Thou knowest not what thou

speakest. There is thy sword; there thy men; these my commands. See

thou perform them punctually when time shall come.”

 

“Lord,” said Corinius, “you shall not find me wanting.” Therewith he

did obeisance and went forth from before the King.

 

The King said unto Corund, “Thou hast manned him well, this

tassel-gentle. There was some danger he should so mislike subjection

unto thee in these acts martial as it should breed some quarrel should

little speed our enterprise.”

 

“Think not you that, O King,” answered Corund. “‘Tis grown like an

almanac for the past year, past date. A will feed out of my hand now.”

 

“Because thou hast carried it with him,” said the King, “in so

honourable and open plainness. Hold on the road thou hast begun, and

be mindful still that into thine hand is given the sword of Witchland,

and therein have I put my trust for this great hour.”

 

Corund looked upon the King with gray and quick eyes shining like unto

the eagle’s. He slapped his heavy sword with the flat of his

hand:“‘Tis a tough fox, O my Lord the King; will not fail his master.”

 

Therewith, glad at the King’s gracious words, he did obeisance unto

the King and went forth from the chamber.

 

The same night there appeared in the sky impending over Carcë a

blazing star with two bushes. Corund beheld it in an open space

betwixt the clouds as he went to his chamber. He said nought of it to

his lady wife, lest it should trouble her; but she too had from her

window seen that star, yet spake not of it to her lord for a like

reason.

 

And King Gorice, sitting in his chamber with his baleful books, beheld

that star and its fiery streamers, which the King rather noted than

liked. For albeit he might not know of a certain what way that sign

intended, yet was it apparent to one so deeply learned in nigromancy

and secrets astronomical that this thing was fatal, being of those

prodigies and ominous prognosticks which forerun the tragical ends of

noble persons and the ruins of states.

 

The third day following, watchmen beheld from Carcë walls in the pale

morning the armies of the Demons that filled the whole plain to

southward. But of the succours out of Pixyland was as yet no sign at

all. Gorice the King, according as he had determined, held all his

power quiet within the fortress. But for passing of the time, and

because it pleased his mind to speak yet face to face with the Lord

Juss before this last mortal trial in arms should be begun betwixt

them, the King sent Cadarus as his herald with flags of truce and

olive-branches into the Demons’ lines. By which mission it was

concluded that the Demons should withdraw their armies three bowshots

from the walls, and they of Witchland should abide all within the

hold; only the King with fourteen of his folk unarmed and Juss with a

like number unarmed should come forth into the midst of the bateable

ground and there speak together. And this meeting must be at the third

hour after noon.

 

So either party came to this parley at the hour appointed. Juss went

bare-headed but, save for that, all armed in his shining byrny with

gorget and shoulder-plates demasked and embossed with wires of gold,

and golden leg-harness, and rings of red gold upon his wrists. His

kirtle was of wine-dark silken tissue, and he wore that dusky cloak

the sylphs had made for him, the collar whereof was stiff with

broidery and strange beasts worked thereon in silver thread. According

to the compact he bare no weapon; only in his hand a short ivory staff

inlaid with precious stones, and the head of it a ball of that stone

which men call Belus’ eye, that is white and hath within it a black

apple, the midst whereof a man shall see to glitter like gold. Very

masterful and proud he stood before the King, carrying his head like a

stag that sniffs the morning. His brethren and Brandoch Daha remained

a pace or two behind him, with King Gaslark and the lords Zigg and

Gro, and Melchar and Tharmrod and Styrkmir, Quazz with his two sons,

and Astar, and Bremery of Shaws: goodly men and lordly to look on,

unweaponed all; and wondrous was the sparkle of their jewels that were

on them.

 

Over against them, attending on the King, were these: Corund king of

Impland, and Corinius called king of Demonland, Hacmon and Viglus

Corund’s sons, Duke Corsus and his sons Dekalajus and Gorius, Eulien

king of Mynia, Olis lord of Tecapan, Duke Avel of Estreganzia, the Red

Foliot, Erp the king of Ellien, and the counts of Thramnë and Tzeusha;

unweaponed, but armoured to the throat, big men and strong the most of

them and of lordly bearing, yet none to match with Corinius and

Corund.

 

The King, in his mantle of cobra-skins, his staff-royal in his hand,

topped by half a head all those tall men about him, friend and foe

alike. Lean and black he towered amongst them, like a thunder-blasted

pine-tree seen against the sunset.

 

So, in the golden autumn afternoon, in the midst of that sad main of

sedgelands where between slimy banks the weed-choked Druima deviously

winds toward the sea, were those two men met together for whose

ambition and their pride the world was too little a place to contain

them both and peace lying between them. And like some drowsy dragon of

the elder slime, squat, sinister, and monstrous, the citadel of Carcë

slept over all.

 

By and by the King spake and said: “I sent for thee because I think it

good I and thou should talk together while yet is time for talking.”

 

Juss answered, “I quarrel not with that, O King.”

 

“Thou,” said the King, bending his brow upon him, “art a man wise and

fearless. I counsel thee, and all these that be with thee, turn back

from Carcë. Well I see the blood thou didst drink in Melikaphkhaz will

not allay thy thirst, and war is to thee thy pearl and thy paramour.

Yet, if it be, turn back from Carcë. Thou standest now on the pinnacle

of thine ambition; wilt leap higher, thou fall’st in the abyss. Let

the four corners of the earth be shaken with our wars, but not this

centre. For here shall no man gather fruit, but and if it be death he

gather; or if, then this fruit only, that Zoacum, that fruit of

bitterness, which when he shall have tasted of, all the bright lights

of heaven shall become as darkness and all earth’s goodness as ashes

in his mouth all his life’s days until he die.”

 

He paused. The Lord Juss stood still, quailing not at all beneath that

dreadful gaze. His company behind him stirred and whispered. Lord

Brandoch Daha, with mockery in his eye, said somewhat to Goldry

Bluszco under his breath.

 

But the King spake again to the Lord Juss, “Be not deceived. These

things I say unto thee not as labouring to scare you from your set

purpose with frights and fairy-babes: I know your quality too well.

But I have read signs in heaven: nought clear, but threatful unto both

you and me. For thy good I say it, O Juss, and again (for that our

last speech leaveth the firmest print) be advised: turn back from

Carcë or it be too late.”

 

Lord Juss harkened attentively to the words of Gorice the King, and

when he had ended, answered and said, “O King, thou hast given us

terrible good counsel. But it was riddlewise. And hearing thee, mine

eye was still on the crown thou wearest, made in the figure of a

crab-fish, which, because it looks one way and goes another, methought did

fitly pattern out thy looking to our perils but seeking the while

thine own advantage.”

 

The King gave him an ill look, saying, “I am thy lord paramount. With

subjects it sits not to use this familiar style unto their King.”

 

Juss answered, “Thou dost thee and thou me. And indeed it were folly

in either of us twain to bend knee to t’other, when the lordship of

all the earth waiteth on the victor in our great contention. Thou hast

been open with me, Witchland, to let me know thou art uneager to

strike a field with us. I will be open too, and I will make an offer

unto thee, and this it is: that we will depart out of thy country and

do no more unpeaceful deeds against thee (till thou provoke us again);

and thou, of thy part, of all the land of Demonland shalt give up thy

quarrel, and of Pixyland and Impland beside, and shalt yield me up

Corsus and Corinius thy servants that I may punish them for the

beastly deeds they did in our land whenas we were not there to guard

it.”

 

He ceased, and for a minute they beheld each other in silence. Then

the King lifted up his chin and smiled a dreadful smile.

 

Corinius whispered mockingly in his ear, “Lord, you may lightly give

‘em Corsus. That were easy composition, and false coin too methinks.”

 

“Stand back i’ thy place,” said the King, “and hold thy peace.” And

unto Lord Juss he said, “Of all ensuing harm the cause is in thee; for

I am now resolved never to put up my sword until of thy bleeding head

I may make a football. And now, let the earth be afraid, and Cynthia

obscure her shine: no more words but mum. Thunder and blood and night

must usurp our parts, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this

great piece.”

 

That night the King walked late in his chamber in the Iron Tower

alone. These three years past he had seldom resorted thither, and then

commonly but to bear away some or other of his books to study in his

own lodging. His jars and flasks and bottles of blue and green and

purple glass wherein he kept his cursed drugs and electuaries of

secret composition, his athals and athanors, his crucibles, his

horsebellied retorts and alembics and bainsmaries, stood arow on

shelves coated with dust and hung about with the dull spider’s

weavings; the furnace was cold; the glass of the windows was clouded

with dirt; the walls were mildewed; the air of the chamber fusty and

stagnant. The King was deep in his contemplation, with a big black

book open before him on the six-sided reading-stand: the damnablest of

all his books, the same which had taught him aforetime what he must do

when by the wicked power of enchantment he had wanted but a little to

have confounded Demonland and all the lords thereof in death and ruin.

 

The open page under his hand was of parchment discoloured with age,

and the writing on the page was in characters of ancient out-of-fashion

crabbedness, heavy and black, and the great initial