The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
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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 cow-bells, 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
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 cock-crow 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!
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 Lord Juss’s dream that he was flung at waking out of
bed on to the deerskin carpets of the floor, and his right hand
clutched the hilt of his great sword where it lay on the table by his
bed, whereas in his dream he had beheld the spear. Mightily moved was
he; and forthwith clothed himself, and faring through the dim
corridors came to Spitfire’s chamber, and sat on the bed and waked
him. And Juss told him his dream, and said, “I hold myself clean of
all blame hereabout, for from that day forth this only hath been my
care, how to find my dear brother and fetch him home, and only then to
wreak myself on the Witches. And what was this spear in my dream if
not Goldry? This vision of the night kindleth for us a beacon fire we
needs must seek to. It bade me inquire in Koshtra Belorn, and till
that be done never will I rest nor so much as think on aught besides.”
Spitfire answered and said, “Thou beest our oldest brother, and I
shall follow and obey thee in all that thou wilt do or shalt ordain
hereof.”
Then fared Juss to the guest-chamber, where Lord Brandoch Daha lay asleeping, and waked him and told him all. Brandoch Daha snuggled him
under the bedclothes and said, “Let me be and let me sleep yet two
hours. Then will I rise and bathe and array myself and eat my morning
meal, and thereafter will I take rede with thee and tell thee somewhat
for thine advantage. I have not slept in a goose-feather bed and
sheets of lawn these many weeks. If thou plague me now, by God, I will
incontinently take horse over the Stile to Krothering, and let thee
and thine affairs go to the devil.”
So Juss laughed and left him in peace. And later when they had eaten
they walked in a plashed alley, where the air was cool and the purple
shadow on the path was dappled with bright flecks of sunshine. Lord
Brandoch Daha said, “Thou knowest that Koshtra Belorn is a great
mountain, beside which our mountains of Demonland would seem but
little hills unremarked, and that it standeth in the uttermost parts
of earth beyond the wastes of Upper Impland, and thou mightest search
a year through all the peopled countries of the world and not find one
living soul who had so much as beheld it from afar.”
“This much I know,” said Lord Juss.
“Is thine heart utterly bent on this journey?” said Brandoch Daha. “Or
is it not preposterous, and a thing to comfort our enemies, that we
should thus at the bidding of a dream fly to far and perilous lands,
rather than pay Witchland presently for the shame he hath done us?”
Juss answered him, “My bed is hallowed by spells of such a virtue that
no naughty dream flown through the ivory gate nor no noisome wizardry
hath power to trouble his sleep who sleepeth there. This dream is
true. For Witchland there is time enow. If thou wilt not go with me to
Koshtra Belorn, I must go without thee.”
“Enough,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Thou knowest for thee I tie my
purse with a spider’s thread. Then fare we must to Impland, and herein
may I help thee. For listen while I tell thee a thing. Whenas I slew
Gorice X. in Goblinland, Gaslark gave me along with other good gifts,
a great curiosity: a treatise or book copied out on parchment by
Bhorreon his secretary, wherein it speaketh of all the ways to Impland
and what countries and kingdoms lie next to the Moruna and the fronts
thereof, and the marvels that he found in those lands. And all that is
writ in this book was set down faithfully by Bhorreon after the
telling of Gro, the same which now hath part with the Witchlanders.
Great honour had Gro as then from Gaslark for his far journeyings and
for that which is written in this book of wonders; and this it was
that had first put in Gaslark’s mind to send that expedition into
Impland, which so reduced him and came so wretchedly to nought. If
then thou wilt seek to Koshtra Belorn, come home with me to-day and I
will show thee my book.”
So spake Lord Brandoch Daha, and Lord Juss straightway ordered forth
the horses, and sent messengers to Volle under Kartadza and to Vizz at
Darklairstead bidding them meet him at Krothering with what speed they
might. It was four hours before noon when Juss, Spitfire, and Brandoch
Daha rode down from Galing and through the woods of Moongarth Bottom
at the foot of the lake, taking the main bridle road up Breakingdale,
that runs by the western margin of Moonmere under the buttresses of
the Scarf. They rode slowly, for the sun was strong on their backs.
Glassy was the lake and like a turquoise, and the birch-clad slopes to
the east and north and the bare rugged ridges of Stathfell and
Budrafell beyond were mirrored in its depths. On the left as they
rode, the spurs of the Scarf impended from on high in piled bastions
of black porphyry like giants’ castles; and little valleys choked with
monstrous boulders, among which the silver birches crowding showed
like tiny garden plants, ran steeply back between the spurs. Up those
valleys appeared successively the main summits of the Scarf, savage
and remote, frowning downward as it were between their own knees:
Glaumry Pike, Micklescarf, and Illstack. By noon they had climbed to
the extreme head of Breakingdale, and halted on the Stile, a little
beyond the watershed, under the sheer northern wall of Ill Drennock.
Before them the pass plunged steeply into Amadardale. The lower reach
of Switchwater shone fifteen miles or more to the west, well nigh
hidden in the heat-haze. Nearer at hand in the northwest lay Rammerick
Mere, bosomed among the smooth-backed Kelialand hills and the
easternmost Uplands of Shalgreth Heath, with the sea beyond; and on
the valley floor, near the watersmeet where Transdale runs into
Amadardale, it was possible to descry the roofs of Zigg’s house at
Many Bushes.
When they came down thither, Zigg was out a-hunting. So they left word
with his lady wife and drank a stirrup cup and rode on, up Switchwater
Way, and for twelve miles and more along the
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