The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
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we stand? Next, know that when I counselled you take the Demons in
their beds ‘stead of fall upon them in the Foliots’ hall, I did so
being advertised that the Red Foliot had commanded his soldiers to
turn against us or against the Demons, whichever first should draw
sword upon the other. And when I went forth from the hall it was, as
Corinius hath so deeply divined, to plot with the Red Foliot; but the
aim of my plotting I have shown you, on these articles of alliance.
And indeed, had I as Corinius vilely accuseth me practised with the
Red Foliot against Witchland, I had hardly been so simple as return
into the mouth of destruction when I might have bided safely in his
palace.”
Now when Gro perceived that the anger of the Witches against him was
appeased by his defence, wherein he spake cunningly both true words
and lies, he spake again among them saying, “Little gain have I of all
my pains and thought expended by me for Witchland. And better it were
for Witchland if my counsel were better heeded. Corund knoweth how, to
mine own peril, I counselled the King to wrastle no more after the
first bout, and if he had ta’en my rede, rather than suspect me and
threaten me with death, we should not be now to bear him home dead to
the royal catacombs in Carcë.”
Corund said, “Truly hast thou spoken.”
“In one thing only have I failed,” said Gro; “and it can shortly be
amended. The Red Foliot, albeit of our party, will not be won to
attack the Demons by fraud, nor will he suffer us smite them in these
Isles. Some fond simple scruples hang like cobwebs in his mind, and he
is stubborn as touching this. But I have prevailed upon him to make
them tarry here for three days’ space, while we put to sea this very
night, telling him, which he most innocently believeth, that we fear
the Demons, and would flee home ere they be let loose to take us at a
disadvantage on the high seas. And home we will indeed ere they set
sail, yet not for fear of them, but rather that we may devise a deadly
blow against them or ever they win home to Demonland.”
“What blow, Goblin?” said Corinius.
And Gro answered and said, “One that I will devise upon with our Lord
the King, Gorice XII., who now awaiteth us in Carcë. And I will not
blab it to a wine-bibber and a dicer who hath but now drawn sword
against a true lover of Witchland.” Whereupon Corinius leaped up in
mickle wrath to thrust his sword into Gro. But Corund and his sons
restrained him.
In due time the stars revolved to midnight, and the Red Foliot came
secretly with his guards to the Witches’ booths. The lords of
Witchland took their weapons and the men-at-arms bare the goods, and
the King went in the midst on his bier of spearshafts. So went they
picking their way in the moonless night round the palace and down the
winding path that led to the bed of the combe, and so by the stream
westward toward the sea. Here they deemed it safe to light a torch to
show them the way. Desolate and bleak showed the sides of the combe in
the wind-blown flare; and the flare was thrown back from the jewels of
the royal crown of Witchland, and from the armoured buskins on the
King’s feet showing stark with toes pointing upward from below his
bearskin mantle, and from the armour and the weapons of them that
bare him and walked beside him, and from the black cold surface of the
little river hurrying for ever over its bed of boulders to the sea.
The path was rugged and stony, and they fared slowly, lest they should
stumble and drop the King.
IV CONJURING IN THE IRON TOWEROf the hold of Carce; and of the midnight
practices of King Gorice XII. in the ancient
chamber, preparing dole and doom for the lords of
Demonland.
WHEN the Witches were come aboard of their ship and all stowed, and
the rowers set in order on the benches, they bade farewell to the Red
Foliot and rowed out to the deep, and there hoisted sail and put up
their helm and sailed eastward along the land. The stars wheeled
overhead, and the east grew pale, and the sun came out of the sea on
the larboard bow. Still sailed they two days and two nights, and on
the third day there was land ahead, and morning rose abated by mist
and cloud, and the sun was as a ball of red fire over Witchland in the
east. So they hung awhile off Tenemos waiting for the tide, and at
high water sailed over the bar and up the Druima past the dunes and
mud-flats and the Ergaspian mere, till they reached the bend of the
river below Carcë. Solitary marsh-land stretched on either side as far
as the eye might reach, with clumps of willow and rare homesteads
showing above the flats. Northward above the bend a bluff of land fell
sharply to the elbow of the river, and on the other side sloped gently
away for a few miles till it lost itself in the dead level of the
marshes. On the southern face of the bluff, monstrous as a mountain in
those low sedgelands, hung square and black the fortress of Carcë. It
was built of black marble, roughhewn and unpolished, the outworks
enclosing many acres. An inner wall with a tower at each corner formed
the main stronghold, in the southwest corner of which was the palace,
overhanging the river. And on the southwest corner of the palace,
towering sheer from the water’s edge seventy cubits and more to the
battlements, stood the keep, a round tower lined with iron, bearing on
the corbel table beneath its parapet in varying form and untold
repetition the sculptured figure of the crab of Witchland. The outer
ward of the fortress was dark with cypress trees: black flames burning
changelessly to heaven from a billowy sea of gloom. East of the keep
was the water-gate, and beside it a bridge and bridgehouse across the
river, strongly fortified with turrets and machicolations and
commanded from on high by the battlements of the keep. Dismal and
fearsome to view was this strong place of Carcë, most like to the
embodied soul of dreadful night brooding on the waters of that
sluggish river: by day a shadow in broad sunshine, the likeness of
pitiless violence sitting in the place of power, darkening the
desolation of the mournful fen, by night, a blackness more black than
night herself.
Now was the ship made fast near the water-gate, and the lords of
Witchland landed and their fighting men, and the gate opened to them,
and mournfully they entered in and climbed the steep ascent to the
palace, bearing with them their sad burden of the King. And in the
great hall in Carcë was Gorice XI. laid in state for that night; and
the day wore to its close. Nor was any word from King Gorice XII.
But when the shades of night were falling, there came a chamberlain to
Lord Gro as he walked upon the terrace without the western wall of the
palace; and the chamberlain said, “My lord, the King bids you attend
him in the Iron Tower, and he chargeth you bring unto him the royal
crown of Witchland.”
Gro made haste to fulfil the bidding of the King, and betook himself
to the great banqueting hall, and all reverently he lifted the iron
crown of Witchland set thick with priceless gems, and went by a
winding stair to the tower, and the chamberlain went before him. When
they were come to the first landing, the chamberlain knocked on a
massive door that was forthwith opened by a guard; and the chamberlain
said, “My lord, it is the King’s will that you attend his majesty in
his secret chamber at the top of the tower.” And Gro marvelled, for
none had entered that chamber for many years. Long ago had Gorice VII.
practised forbidden arts therein, and folk said that in that chamber
he raised up those spirits whereby he gat his bane. Sithence was the
chamber sealed, nor had the late Kings need of it, since little faith
they placed in art magical, relying rather on the might of their hands
and the sword of Witchland. But Gro was glad at heart, for the opening
of this chamber by the King met his designs half way. Fearlessly he
mounted the winding stairs that were dusky with the shadows of
approaching night and hung with cobwebs and strewn with the dust of
neglect, until he came to the small low door of that chamber, and
pausing knocked thereon and harkened for the answer.
And one said from within, “Who knocketh?” and Gro answered, “Lord, it
is I, Gro.” And the bolts were drawn and the door opened, and the King
said, “Enter.” And Gro entered and stood in the presence of the King.
Now the fashion of the chamber was that it was round, filling the whole
space of the loftiest floor of the round donjon keep. It was now
gathering dusk, and weak twilight only entered through the deep
embrasures of the windows that pierced the walls of the tower, looking
to the four quarters of the heavens. A furnace glowing in the big hearth
threw fitful gleams into the recesses of the chamber, lighting up
strange shapes of glass and earthenware, flasks and retorts, balances,
hour-glasses, crucibles and astrolabes, a monstrous three-necked alembic
of phosphorescent glass supported on a bainmarie, and other instruments
of doubtful and unlawful aspect. Under the northern window over against
the doorway was a massive table blackened with age, whereon lay great
books bound in black leather with iron guards and heavy padlocks. And in
a mighty chair beside this table was King Gorice XII., robed in his
conjuring robe of black and gold, resting his cheek on his hand that was
lean as an eagle’s claw. The low light, mother of shade and secrecy,
that hovered in that chamber moved about the still figure of the King,
his nose hooked as the eagle’s beak, his cropped hair, his thick
close-cut beard and shaven upper lip, his high cheekbones and cruel
heavy jaw, and the dark eaves of his brows whence the glint of green
eyes showed as no friendly lamp to them without. The door shut
noiselessly, and Gro stood before the King. The dusk deepened, and the
firelight pulsed and blinked in that dread chamber, and the King leaned
without motion on his hand, bending his brow on Gro; and there was utter
silence save for the faint purr of the furnace.
In a while the King said, “I sent for thee, because thou alone wast so
hardy as to urge to the uttermost thy counsel upon the King that is
now dead, Gorice XI. of memory ever glorious. And because thy counsel
was good. Marvellest thou that I wist of thy counsel?”
Gro said, “O my Lord the King, I marvel not of this. For it is known
to me that the soul endureth, albeit the body perish.”
“Keep thou thy lips from overspeech,” said the King. “These be
mysteries whereon but to think may snatch thee into peril, and whoso
speaketh of them, though in so secret a place as this, and with me
only, yet at his most bitter peril speaketh he.”
Gro answered, “O King, I spake not lightly; moreover, you did tempt
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