The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison [best e reader for academics txt] 📗

The black rock of Galing stands at the end of the spur that runs down from the south ridge of Little Drakeholm, dividing Brankdale from Evendale. On three sides the cliffs fall sheer from the castle walls to the deep woods of oak and birch and rowan tree which carpet the flats of Moongarth Bottom and feather the walls of the gill through which the Brankdale beck plunges in waterfall after waterfall. Only on the northeast may aught save a winged thing come at the castle, across a smooth grass-grown saddle less than a stone’s throw in width. Over that saddle runs the paven way leading from the Brankdale road to the Lion Gate, and within the gate is that garden of the grass walk between the yews where Lessingham stood with the martlet nine weeks before, when first he came to Demonland.

When night fell and supper was done, Juss walked alone on the walls of his castle, watching the constellations burn in the moonless sky above the mighty shadows of the mountains, listening to the hooting of the owls in the woods below and the faint distant tinkle of cowbells, and breathing the fragrance borne up from the garden on the night wind that even in high summer tasted keen of the mountains and the sea. These sights and scents and voices of the holy night so held him in thrall that it wanted but an hour of midnight when he left the battlements, and called the sleepy house-carles to light him to his chamber in the south tower of Galing.

Wondrous fair was the great four-posted bed of the Lord Juss, builded of solid gold, and hung with curtains of dark-blue tapestry whereon were figured sleep-flowers. The canopy above the bed was a mosaic of tiny stones, jet, serpentine, dark hyacinth, black marble, bloodstone, and lapis lazuli, so confounded in a maze of altering hue and lustre that they might mock the palpitating sky of night. And therein was the likeness of the constellation of Orion, held by Juss for guardian of his fortunes, the stars whereof, like those beneath the golden canopy in the presence chamber, were jewels shining of their own light, yet with a milder radiance, as glowworms’ sheen or dead wood glimmering in the dark. For Betelgeuze was a ruby shining, and a diamond for Rigel, and pale topazes for the other stars. The four posts of the bed were of the thickness of a man’s arm in their upper parts, but their lower parts great as his waist and carven in the image of birds and beasts: at the foot of the bed a lion for courage and an owl for wisdom, and at the head an alaunt for faithfulness of heart and a kingfisher for happiness. On the cornice of the bed and on the panels above the pillow against the wall were carved Juss’s deeds of derring-do; and the latest carving was of the sea-fight with the Ghouls. To the right of the bed stood a table with old books of songs and books of the stars and of herbs and beasts and travellers’ tales, and there was Juss wont to lay his sword beside him while he slept. All the walls were panelled with dark sweet-smelling wood, and armour and weapons hung thereon. Mighty chests and almeries hasped and bound with gold stood against the wall, wherein he kept his rich apparel. Windows opened to the west and south, and on each window-ledge stood a bowl of palest jade filled with white roses; and the air entering the bedchamber was laden with their scent.

About cockcrow came a dream unto Lord Juss, standing by his head and touching his eyes so that he seemed to wake and look about the chamber. And he seemed to behold an evil beast all burning as a drake, busy in his chamber, with many heads, the most venomous that ever he the days of his life had seen, and about it its five fawns, like to itself but smaller. It seemed to Juss that in place of his sword there lay a great spear of fair workmanship on the table by his bed; and it seemed to him in his dream that this spear had been his all his life, and was his greatest treasure, and that with it he might accomplish all things and without it scarcely aught to his mind. He laboured to reach out his hand to the spear, but some power withheld him so that for all his striving he might not stir. But that beast took up the spear in its jaws, and went with it forth from the chamber. It seemed to Juss that the power that held him departed with the departing of the beast, so that he leaped up and snatched down weapons from the wall and made an onslaught on the fawns of that fell beast that were tearing down the woven hangings and marring with their fiery breath the figure of the kingfisher at the head of his bed. All the chamber was full of the reek of burning, and he thought his friends were with him in the chamber, Volle and Vizz and Zigg and Spitfire and Brandoch Daha, fighting with the beasts, and the beasts prevailed against them. Then it seemed to him that the bedpost carven in the likeness of an owl spake to him in his dream in human speech; and the owl said, “O fool, that shalt justly be put in great misery without end, except thou bring back the spear. Hast thou forgot that this only is thy greatest treasure and most worthiest thy care?”

Therewith came back that grim and grisful beast into the chamber, and Juss assailed it, crying to the owl, “Uncivil owl, where then must I find my spear that this beast hath hidden?”

And it seemed to him that the owl made answer, “Inquire in Koshtra Belorn.”

So tumultuous was