The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
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this is the empty guerdon, and this the period of thine ambition. But
come, take comfort for a season, since unto all dominions Fate hath
set their end, and there is no king on the road of death.”
So the Lord Juss, his heart dead within him for grief and despair,
suffered her take him by the hand and conduct him down a winding
stairway that led from that brazen floor to an inner chamber fragrant
and delicious, lighted with flickering lamps. Surely life and its
turmoils seemed faded to a distant and futile murmur, and the horror
of the void seemed there but a vain imagination, under the heavy
sweetness of that chamber. His senses swooned; he turned towards his
veiled conductress. She with a sudden motion cast off her mourning
cloak, and stood there, her whole fair body bared to his gaze, open-armed, a sight to ravish the soul with love and all delight.
Well nigh had he clasped to his bosom that vision of dazzling
loveliness. But fortune, or the high Gods, or his own soul’s might,
woke yet again in his drugged brain remembrance of his purpose, so
that he turned violently from that bait prepared for his destruction,
and strode from the chamber up to that roof where his dear brother sat
as in death. Juss caught him by the hand: “Speak to me, kinsman. It is
I, Juss. It is Juss, thy brother.”
But Goldry moved not, neither answered any word.
Juss looked at the hand resting in his, so like his own to the very
shape of the finger nails and the growth of the hairs on the back of
the hand and fingers. He let it go, and the arm dropped lifeless. “It
is very certain,” said he, “thou art in a manner frozen, and thy
spirits and understanding frozen and congealed within thee.”
So saying, he bent to gaze close in Goldry’s eyes, touching his arm
and shoulder. Not a limb stirred, not an eyelid flickered. He caught
him by the hand and sleeve as if to force him up from the bench,
calling him loudly by his name, shaking him roughly, crying, “Speak to
me, thy brother, that crossed the world to find thee;” but he abode a
dead weight in Juss’s grasp.
“If thou be dead,” said Juss, “then am I dead with thee. But till then
I’ll ne’er think thee dead.” And he sat down on the bench beside his
brother, taking his hand in his, and looked about him. Nought but
utter silence. Night had fallen, and the moon’s calm radiance and the
twinkling stars mingled with the pale fires that hedged that mountain
top in an uncertain light. Hell loosed no more her denizens in the
air, and since the moment when Juss had in that inner chamber shaken
himself free of that last illusion no presence had he seen nor
simulacrum of man or devil save only Goldry his brother; nor might
that horror any more master his high heart, but the memory of it was
but as the bitter chill of a winter sea that takes the swimmer’s
breath for an instant as he plunges first into the icy waters.
So with a calm and a steadfast mind the Lord Juss abode there, his
second night without sleep, for sleep he dared not in that accursed
place. But for joy of his found brother, albeit it seemed there was in
him neither speech nor sight nor hearing, Juss scarce wist of his
great weariness. And he nourished himself with that ambrosia given him
by the Queen, for well he thought the uttermost strength of his body
should now be tried in the task he now decreed him.
When it was day, he arose and taking his brother Goldry bodily on his
back set forth. Past the gates of brass Juss bore him, and past the
barriers of flame, and painfully and by slow degrees down the long
northern ridge which overhangs the Psarrion Glaciers. All that day,
and the night following, and all the next day after were they on the
mountain, and well nigh dead was Juss for weariness when on the second
day an hour or two before sundown they reached the moraine. Yet was
triumph in his heart, and gladness of a great deed done. They lay that
night in a grove of strawberry trees under the steep foot of a
mountain some ten miles beyond the western shore of Ravary, and met
Spitfire and Brandoch Daha who had waited with their boat two nights
at the appointed spot, about eventide of the following day.
Now as soon as Juss had brought him off the mountain, this frozen
condition of the Lord Goldry was so far thawed that he was able to
stand upon his feet and walk; but never a word might he speak, and
never a look they gat from him, but still his gaze was set and
unchanging, seeming when it rested on his companions to look through
and beyond them as at some far thing seen in a mist. So that each was
secretly troubled, fearing lest this condition of the Lord Goldry
Bluszco should prove remediless, and this that they now received back
from prison but the poor remain of him they had so much desired.
They came aland and brought him to Sophonisba the Queen where she made
haste to meet them on the fair lawn before her pavilion. The Queen, as
if knowing beforehand both their case and the remedy thereof, took by
the hand the Lord Juss and said, “O my lord, there yet remaineth a
thing for thee to do to free him throughly, that hast outfaced terrors
beyond the use of man to bring him back: a little stone indeed to
crown this building of thine, and yet without it all were in vain, as
itself were vain without the rest that was all thine: and mine is this
last, and with a pure heart I give it thee.”
So saying she made the Lord Juss bow down till she might kiss his
mouth, sweetly and soberly, one light kiss. And she said, “This give
unto the lord thy brother.” And Juss did so, kissing his dear brother
in like manner on the mouth; and she said, “Take him, dear my lords.
And I have utterly put out the remembrance of these things from his
heart. Take him, and give thanks unto the high Gods because of him.”
Therewith the Lord Goldry Bluszco looked upon them and upon that fair
Queen and the mountains and the woods and the cool lake’s loveliness,
as a man awakened out of a deep slumber.
Surely there was joy in all their hearts that day.
XXIX THE FLEET AT MUELVAHow the Lords of Demonland came again to
their ships at Muelva, and the tidings they
learned there.
FOR nine days’ space the lords of Demonland abode with Queen
Sophonisba in Koshtra Belorn and beside the Lake of Ravary tasting
such high and pure delights as belike none else hath tasted, if it
were not the spirits of the blest in Elysium. When they bade her
farewell, the Queen said, “My little martlets shall bring me tidings
of you. And when you shall have brought to mere perdition the wicked
regiment of Witchland and returned again to your dear native land,
then is my time for that, my Lord Juss, whereof I have often talked to
thee and often gladded my dreams with the thought thereof: to visit
earth again and the habitations of men, and be your guest in manymountained Demonland.”
Juss kissed her hand and said, “Fail not in this, dear Queen,
whatsoe’er betide.”
So the Queen let bring them by a secret way out upon the high snowfields that are betwixt Koshtra Belorn and Romshir, whence they came
down into the glen of the dark water that descends from the glacier of
Temarm, and so through many perilous scapes after many days back by
way of the Moruna to Muelva and the ships.
There Gaslark and La Fireez, when their greetings were done and their
rejoicings, said to the Lord Juss, “We abide too long time here. We
have entered the barrel and the bung-hole is stopped.” Therewithal
they brought him Hesper Golthring, who three days ago sailing to the
Straits for forage came back again but yesterday with a hot alarum
that he met certain ships of Witchland: and brought them to battle:
and gat one sunken ere they brake off the fight: and took up certain
prisoners. “By whose examination,” saith he, “as well as from mine own
perceiving and knowing, it appeareth Laxus holdeth the Straits with
eight score ships of war, the greatest ships that ever the sea bare
until this day, come hither of purpose to destroy us.”
“Eight score ships?” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Witchland commandeth
not the half, nor the third part, of such a strength since we did them
down last harvest-tide in Aurwath haven. It is not leveable, Hesper.”
Hesper answered him, “Your highness shall find it truth; and more the
sorrow on’t and the wonder.”
“‘Tis the scourings of his subject-allies,” said Spitfire. “We shall
find them no such hard matter to dispatch after the others.”
Juss said to the Lord Gro, “What makest thou of these news, my lord?”
“I think no wonder in it,” answered he. “Witchland is of good memory
and mindeth him of your seamanship off Kartadza. He useth not to idle,
nor to set all on one hazard. Nor comfort not thyself, my Lord
Spitfire, that these be pleasure-galleys borrowed from the soft
Beshtrians or the simple Foliots. They be new ships builded for us, my
lords, and our undoing: it is by no conjecture I say it unto you, but
of mine own knowledge, albeit the number appeareth far greater than
ere I dreamed of. But or ever I sailed with Corinius to Demonland,
great buildings of an army naval was begun at Tenemos.”
“I do very well believe,” said King Gaslark, “that none knoweth all
this better than thou, because thyself didst counsel it.”
“O Gaslark,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “must thou still itch to play at
chop-cherry when cherry-time is past? Let him alone. He is our friend
now.”
“Eight score ships i’ the Straits,” said Juss. “And ours an hundred.
‘Tis well seen what great difference and odds there is betwixt us.
Which we must needs encounter, or else ne’er sail home again, let
alone to Carcë. For out of this sea is no sea-way for ships, but only
by these Straits of Melikaphkhaz.”
“We shall do of Laxus,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “that he troweth to
do of us.”
But Juss was fallen silent, his chin in his hand.
Goldry Bluszco said, “I would allow him odds and beat him.”
“It is a great shame in thee, O Juss,” said Brandoch Daha, “if thou
wilt be abashed at this. If that they be in number more than we, what
then? They are in hope, quarrel, and strength far inferior.”
But Juss, still in a study, reached out and caught him by the sleeve,
holding him so a moment or two, and then looked up at him and said,
“Thou art the greatest quarreller, of a friend, that ever I knew, and
if I were an angry man I could not abear thee. May I not three minutes
study the means, but thou shalt cry out upon me for a milksop?”
They laughed, and the Lord Juss rose up and said, “Call we a council
of war. And let Hesper Golthring be at it, and his skippers that were
with him o’ that voyage. And pack up
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