The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
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venom in the cup. They who work commonly such villany against their
enemies, as witness Recedor of Goblinland whom Corsus murthered with a
poisonous draught, shake still in the knees lest themselves be so
entertained to their destruction;” and snatching the cup he quaffed it
to the dregs, and dashed it on the marble floor before the Ambassador,
so that it was shivered into pieces.
And the lords of Demonland rose up and withdrew behind the flowery
hangings into a chamber apart, to determine of their answer to the
message sent unto them by King Gorice of Witchland.
When they were private together, Spitfire spake and said, “Is it to be
borne that the King should put such shame and mockery upon us? Could a
not at the least have made a son of Corund or of Corsus his Ambassador
to bring us his defiance, ‘stead of this filthiest of his domestics, a
gibbering dwarf fit only to make them gab and game at their tippling
bouts when they be three parts senseless with boosing?”
Lord Juss smiled somewhat scornfully. “With wisdom,” he said, “and
with foresight bath Witchland made choice of his time to move against
us, knowing that thirty and three of our wellbuilt ships are sunken
in Kartadza Sound in the battle with the Ghouls, and but fourteen
remain to us. Now that the Ghouls are slain, every soul, and utterly
abolished from this world, and so the great curse and peril of all
this world ended by the sword and great valour of Demonland alone, now
seemeth the happy moment unto these late mouth-friends to fall upon
us. For have not the Witches a strong fleet of ships, since their
whole fleet fled at the beginning of their fight with us against the
Ghouls, leaving us to bear the burden? And now are they minded for
this new treason, to set upon us traitorously and suddenly in this
disadvantage. For the King well judgeth we can carry no army to
Witchland nor do aught in his despite, but must be long months a-shipbuilding. And doubt not he holdeth an armament ready aboard at
Tenemos to sail hither if he get the answer he knoweth we shall send
him.”
“Sit we at ease then,” said Goldry, “sharpening our swords; and let
him ship his armies across the salt sea. Not a Witch shall land in
Demonland but shall leave here his blood and bones to make fat our
cornfields and our vineyards.”
“Rather,” said Spitfire, “apprehend this rascal, and put to sea to-day
with the fourteen ships left us. We can surprise Witchland in his
strong place of Carcë, sack it, and give him to the crows to peck at,
or ever he is well awake to the swiftness of our answer. That is my
counsel.”
“Nay,” said Juss, “we shall not take him sleeping. Be certain that his
ships are ready and watching in the Witchiand seas, prepared against
any rash onset. It were folly to set our neck in the noose; and little
glory to Demonland to await his coming. This, then, is my rede: I will
bid Gorice to the duello, and make offer to him to let lie on the
fortune thereof the decision of this quarrel.”
“A good rede, if it might be fulfilled,” said Goldry. “But never will
he dare to stand with weapons in single combat ‘gainst thee or ‘gainst
any of us. Nevertheless the thing shall be brought about. Is not
Gorice a mighty wrastler, and hath he not in his palace in Carcë the
skulls and bones of ninety and nine great champions whom he hath
vanquished and slain in that exercise? Puffed up beyond measure is he
in his own conceit, and folk say it is a grief to him that none hath
been found this long while that durst wrastle with him, and wofully he
pineth for the hundredth. He shall wrastle a fall with me!”
Now this seemed good to them all. So when they had talked on it awhile
and concluded what they would do, glad of heart the lords of Demonland
turned them back to the lofty presence chamber. And there Lord Juss
spake and said: “Demons, ye have heard the words which the King of
Witchland in the overweening pride and shamelessness of his heart hath
spoken unto us by the mouth of this Ambassador. Now this is our answer
which my brother shall give, the Lord Goldry Bluszco; and we charge
thee, O Ambassador, to deliver it truly, neither adding any word nor
taking away.”
And the Lord Goldry spake: “We, the lords of Demonland, do utterly scorn
thee, Gorice XI., for the greatest of dastards, in that thou basely
fleddest and forsookest us, thy sworn confederates, in the sea battle
against the Ghouls. Our swords, which in that battle ended so great a
curse and peril to all this world, are not bent nor broken. They shall
be sheathed in the bowels of thee and thy minions, Corsus to wit, and
Corund, and their sons, and Corinius, and what other evildoers harbour
in waterish Witchland, sooner than one little sea-pink growing on the
cliffs of Demonland shall do thee obeisance. But, that thou mayest, if
so thou wilt, feel our power somewhat, I, Lord Goldry Bluszco, make thee
this offer: that thou and I do match ourselves singly each against other
to wrastle three falls at the court of the Red Foliot, who inclineth
neither to our side nor to thine in this quarrel. And we will bind
ourselves by mighty oaths to these conditions, that if I overcome thee,
the Demons shall leave you of Witchland in peace, and ye them, and the
Witches shall forswear for ever their impudent claims on Demonland. But
if thou, Gorice, win the day, then hast thou the glory of that victory,
and withal full liberty to thrust thy claims upon us with the sword.”
So spake the Lord Goldry Bluszco, standing in great pride and
splendour beneath the starry canopy, and scowling terribly on the
Ambassador from Witchland, so that the Ambassador was abashed and his
knees smote together. And Goldry called his scribe and made him write
the message for Gorice the King in great characters on a roll of
parchment, and the lords of Demonland sealed it with their seals, and
gave it to the Ambassador.
The Ambassador took it and made haste to depart; but when he was come
to the stately doorway of the presence chamber, being near the door
and amongst his attendants, and away from the lords of Demonland, he
plucked up heart a little and turned and said: “Rashly and to thy
certain undoing, O Goldry Bluszco, hast thou bidden our Lord the King
to contend with thee in wrastling. For be thou never so mighty of
limb, yet hath he overthrown as mighty. And he wrastleth not for
sport, but will surely work thy life’s decay, and keep the dead bones
of thee with the bones of the ninety and nine champions whom he hath
heretofore laid low in that exercise.”
Therewith, because Goldry and the other lords scowled upon him
terribly, and the guests near the door fell to hooting and reviling of
the Witches, the Ambassador went forth hastily and hastily down the
shining stairs and across the court, as one who fleeth along a lane on
a dark and windy night, daring not to turn his head lest his eye
behold some fearsome thing prepared to clasp him. So speeding, he was
fain to catch up about his knees the folds of his velvet cloak richly
worked with crabs and creeping things; and huge whooping and laughter
went up among the common lag of people without, to behold his long and
nerveless tail thus bared to their unfriendly gaze. Insomuch that they
fell to shouting with one accord, “Though his mouth be foul he hath a
fair tail! Saw ye not his tail? Hurrah for Gorice who hath sent us a
monkey for his Ambassador!”
And with jibe and unmannerly yell the crowd hung lovingly upon the
Ambassador and his train all the way down from Galing castle to the
quays. So that it was like a sweet homecoming to him to come on board
his wellbuilt ship and have her rowed amain out of Lookinghaven. So
when they had rounded Lookinghaven-ness and were free of the land,
they hoisted sail and voyaged before a favouring breeze eastward over
the teeming deep to Witchland.
II THE WRASTLING FOR DEMONLANDOf the prognosticks which troubled
Lord Gro concerning the meeting
between the king of Witchland and
the Lord Goldry Bluszco; and how they
met, and of the issue of that wrastling.
“How could I have fallen asleep?” cried Lessingham. “Where is the
castle of the Demons, and how did we leave the great presence chamber
where they saw the Ambassador?” For he stood on rolling uplands that
leaned to the sea, treeless on every side as far as the eye might
reach; and on three sides shimmered the sea, kissed by the sun and
roughened by the salt glad wind that charged over the downs,
charioting clouds without number through the illimitable heights of
air.
The little black martlet answered him, “My hippogriff travelleth as
well in time as in space. Days and weeks have been left behind by us,
in what seemeth to thee but the twinkling of an eye, and thou standest
in the Foliot Isles, a land happy under the mild regiment of a
peaceful prince, on the day appointed by King Gorice to wrastle with
Lord Goldry Bluszco. Terrible must be the wrastling betwixt two such
champions, and dark the issue thereof. And my heart is afraid for
Goldry Bluszco, big and strong though he be and unconquered in war;
for there hath not arisen in all the ages such a wrastler as this
Gorice, and strong he is, and hard and unwearying, and skilled in
every art of attack and defence, and subtle withal, and cruel and fell
like a serpent.”
Where they stood the down was cut by a combe that descended to the
sea, and overhanging the combe was the palace of the Red Foliot,
rambling and low, with many little towers and battlements, built of
stones hewn from the wall of the combe, so that it was hard from a
distance to discern what was palace and what native rock. Behind the
palace stretched a meadow, flat and smooth, carpeted with the close
wiry turf of the downs. At either end of the meadow were booths set
up, to the north the booths of them of Witchland, and to the south the
booths of the Demons. In the midst of the meadow was a space marked
out with withies sixty paces either way for the wrastling ground.
Only the birds of the air and the sea-wind were abroad as then, save
those that walked armed before the Witches’ booths, six in company,
harnessed as for battle in byrnies of shining bronze, with greaves and
shields of bronze and helms that glanced in the sun. Five were proper
slender youths, the eldest of whom had not yet beard full grown,
black-browed and great of jaw; the sixth, huge as a neat, topped them
by half a head. Age had flecked with gray the beard that spread over
his big chest to his belt stiffened with studs of iron, but the vigour
of youth was in his glance and in his voice, and in the tread of his
foot, and in his fist so lightly handling his burly spear.
“Behold, wonder, and lament,” said the martlet, “that the innocent eye
of day should be enforced still to look upon the children of night
everlasting. Corund of Witchland
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