The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
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make an end till the land be utterly purged of them, and all the lords
of Demonland be slain.”
Corinius said, “To hear is to obey, O King. Howsoever, not to
dissemble with you, I’d liever at ‘em at once, ‘stead of let them sit
awhile and refresh their army. Occasion is a wanton wench, O King,
that is quick to beckon another man if one look coldly on her.
Moreover, Lord, could you not by your art, in small time, with certain
compositions?–”
But the King brake in upon him saying, “Thou knowest not what thou
speakest. There is thy sword; there thy men; these my commands. See
thou perform them punctually when time shall come.”
“Lord,” said Corinius, “you shall not find me wanting.” Therewith he
did obeisance and went forth from before the King.
The King said unto Corund, “Thou hast manned him well, this
tassel-gentle. There was some danger he should so mislike subjection
unto thee in these acts martial as it should breed some quarrel should
little speed our enterprise.”
“Think not you that, O King,” answered Corund. “‘Tis grown like an
almanac for the past year, past date. A will feed out of my hand now.”
“Because thou hast carried it with him,” said the King, “in so
honourable and open plainness. Hold on the road thou hast begun, and
be mindful still that into thine hand is given the sword of Witchland,
and therein have I put my trust for this great hour.”
Corund looked upon the King with gray and quick eyes shining like unto
the eagle’s. He slapped his heavy sword with the flat of his
hand:“‘Tis a tough fox, O my Lord the King; will not fail his master.”
Therewith, glad at the King’s gracious words, he did obeisance unto
the King and went forth from the chamber.
The same night there appeared in the sky impending over Carcë a
blazing star with two bushes. Corund beheld it in an open space
betwixt the clouds as he went to his chamber. He said nought of it to
his lady wife, lest it should trouble her; but she too had from her
window seen that star, yet spake not of it to her lord for a like
reason.
And King Gorice, sitting in his chamber with his baleful books, beheld
that star and its fiery streamers, which the King rather noted than
liked. For albeit he might not know of a certain what way that sign
intended, yet was it apparent to one so deeply learned in nigromancy
and secrets astronomical that this thing was fatal, being of those
prodigies and ominous prognosticks which forerun the tragical ends of
noble persons and the ruins of states.
The third day following, watchmen beheld from Carcë walls in the pale
morning the armies of the Demons that filled the whole plain to
southward. But of the succours out of Pixyland was as yet no sign at
all. Gorice the King, according as he had determined, held all his
power quiet within the fortress. But for passing of the time, and
because it pleased his mind to speak yet face to face with the Lord
Juss before this last mortal trial in arms should be begun betwixt
them, the King sent Cadarus as his herald with flags of truce and
olive-branches into the Demons’ lines. By which mission it was
concluded that the Demons should withdraw their armies three bowshots
from the walls, and they of Witchland should abide all within the
hold; only the King with fourteen of his folk unarmed and Juss with a
like number unarmed should come forth into the midst of the bateable
ground and there speak together. And this meeting must be at the third
hour after noon.
So either party came to this parley at the hour appointed. Juss went
bare-headed but, save for that, all armed in his shining byrny with
gorget and shoulder-plates demasked and embossed with wires of gold,
and golden leg-harness, and rings of red gold upon his wrists. His
kirtle was of wine-dark silken tissue, and he wore that dusky cloak
the sylphs had made for him, the collar whereof was stiff with
broidery and strange beasts worked thereon in silver thread. According
to the compact he bare no weapon; only in his hand a short ivory staff
inlaid with precious stones, and the head of it a ball of that stone
which men call Belus’ eye, that is white and hath within it a black
apple, the midst whereof a man shall see to glitter like gold. Very
masterful and proud he stood before the King, carrying his head like a
stag that sniffs the morning. His brethren and Brandoch Daha remained
a pace or two behind him, with King Gaslark and the lords Zigg and
Gro, and Melchar and Tharmrod and Styrkmir, Quazz with his two sons,
and Astar, and Bremery of Shaws: goodly men and lordly to look on,
unweaponed all; and wondrous was the sparkle of their jewels that were
on them.
Over against them, attending on the King, were these: Corund king of
Impland, and Corinius called king of Demonland, Hacmon and Viglus
Corund’s sons, Duke Corsus and his sons Dekalajus and Gorius, Eulien
king of Mynia, Olis lord of Tecapan, Duke Avel of Estreganzia, the Red
Foliot, Erp the king of Ellien, and the counts of Thramnë and Tzeusha;
unweaponed, but armoured to the throat, big men and strong the most of
them and of lordly bearing, yet none to match with Corinius and
Corund.
The King, in his mantle of cobra-skins, his staff-royal in his hand,
topped by half a head all those tall men about him, friend and foe
alike. Lean and black he towered amongst them, like a thunder-blasted
pine-tree seen against the sunset.
So, in the golden autumn afternoon, in the midst of that sad main of
sedgelands where between slimy banks the weed-choked Druima deviously
winds toward the sea, were those two men met together for whose
ambition and their pride the world was too little a place to contain
them both and peace lying between them. And like some drowsy dragon of
the elder slime, squat, sinister, and monstrous, the citadel of Carcë
slept over all.
By and by the King spake and said: “I sent for thee because I think it
good I and thou should talk together while yet is time for talking.”
Juss answered, “I quarrel not with that, O King.”
“Thou,” said the King, bending his brow upon him, “art a man wise and
fearless. I counsel thee, and all these that be with thee, turn back
from Carcë. Well I see the blood thou didst drink in Melikaphkhaz will
not allay thy thirst, and war is to thee thy pearl and thy paramour.
Yet, if it be, turn back from Carcë. Thou standest now on the pinnacle
of thine ambition; wilt leap higher, thou fall’st in the abyss. Let
the four corners of the earth be shaken with our wars, but not this
centre. For here shall no man gather fruit, but and if it be death he
gather; or if, then this fruit only, that Zoacum, that fruit of
bitterness, which when he shall have tasted of, all the bright lights
of heaven shall become as darkness and all earth’s goodness as ashes
in his mouth all his life’s days until he die.”
He paused. The Lord Juss stood still, quailing not at all beneath that
dreadful gaze. His company behind him stirred and whispered. Lord
Brandoch Daha, with mockery in his eye, said somewhat to Goldry
Bluszco under his breath.
But the King spake again to the Lord Juss, “Be not deceived. These
things I say unto thee not as labouring to scare you from your set
purpose with frights and fairy-babes: I know your quality too well.
But I have read signs in heaven: nought clear, but threatful unto both
you and me. For thy good I say it, O Juss, and again (for that our
last speech leaveth the firmest print) be advised: turn back from
Carcë or it be too late.”
Lord Juss harkened attentively to the words of Gorice the King, and
when he had ended, answered and said, “O King, thou hast given us
terrible good counsel. But it was riddlewise. And hearing thee, mine
eye was still on the crown thou wearest, made in the figure of a
crab-fish, which, because it looks one way and goes another, methought did
fitly pattern out thy looking to our perils but seeking the while
thine own advantage.”
The King gave him an ill look, saying, “I am thy lord paramount. With
subjects it sits not to use this familiar style unto their King.”
Juss answered, “Thou dost thee and thou me. And indeed it were folly
in either of us twain to bend knee to t’other, when the lordship of
all the earth waiteth on the victor in our great contention. Thou hast
been open with me, Witchland, to let me know thou art uneager to
strike a field with us. I will be open too, and I will make an offer
unto thee, and this it is: that we will depart out of thy country and
do no more unpeaceful deeds against thee (till thou provoke us again);
and thou, of thy part, of all the land of Demonland shalt give up thy
quarrel, and of Pixyland and Impland beside, and shalt yield me up
Corsus and Corinius thy servants that I may punish them for the
beastly deeds they did in our land whenas we were not there to guard
it.”
He ceased, and for a minute they beheld each other in silence. Then
the King lifted up his chin and smiled a dreadful smile.
Corinius whispered mockingly in his ear, “Lord, you may lightly give
‘em Corsus. That were easy composition, and false coin too methinks.”
“Stand back i’ thy place,” said the King, “and hold thy peace.” And
unto Lord Juss he said, “Of all ensuing harm the cause is in thee; for
I am now resolved never to put up my sword until of thy bleeding head
I may make a football. And now, let the earth be afraid, and Cynthia
obscure her shine: no more words but mum. Thunder and blood and night
must usurp our parts, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this
great piece.”
That night the King walked late in his chamber in the Iron Tower
alone. These three years past he had seldom resorted thither, and then
commonly but to bear away some or other of his books to study in his
own lodging. His jars and flasks and bottles of blue and green and
purple glass wherein he kept his cursed drugs and electuaries of
secret composition, his athals and athanors, his crucibles, his
horsebellied retorts and alembics and bainsmaries, stood arow on
shelves coated with dust and hung about with the dull spider’s
weavings; the furnace was cold; the glass of the windows was clouded
with dirt; the walls were mildewed; the air of the chamber fusty and
stagnant. The King was deep in his contemplation, with a big black
book open before him on the six-sided reading-stand: the damnablest of
all his books, the same which had taught him aforetime what he must do
when by the wicked power of enchantment he had wanted but a little to
have confounded Demonland and all the lords thereof in death and ruin.
The open page under his hand was of parchment discoloured with age,
and the writing on the page was in characters of ancient out-of-fashion
crabbedness, heavy and black, and the great initial
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