The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
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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
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