The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (english readers txt) 📕

on that night she was when they came to Ishnain Nemartra. So be showed

this wonder to Brandoch Daha and Spitfire, and much they marvelled.

“You are much to thank me,” said Brandoch Daha, “that I kept you not a

full year awaiting of me. Beshrew me, but that seven days’ space

seemed to me but an hour!”

“Likely enow, to thee,” said Spitfire somewhat greenly. “But all we

slept the week out on the cold stones, and I am half lamed yet with

the ache on’t.”

“Nay,” said Juss, laughing; “I will not have thee blame him.”

The moon was high when they came to the salt lakes that lay one a

little above the other in rocky basins. Their waters were like rough

silver, and the harsh face of the wilderness was black and silver in

the moonlight; and it was as a country of dead bones, blind and

sterile beneath the moon. Betwixt the lakes a rib of rock rose

monstrous to an eminence crag-begirt on every side, with dark walls

ringing it round above the cliffs. Thither they hastened, and as they

climbed and stumbled among the crags a she-owl squeaked on the

battlements and took wing ghost-like above their heads. The teeth of

Mivarsh Faz chattered, but right glad were the Demons as they won up

the rocks and entered at last into that deserted burg. Without, the

night was still; but fires were burning in the desert eastward, and

others as they watched were kindled in the west, and soon was the

circle joined of twinkling points of red round about Eshgrar Ogo and

the lakes.

Juss said, “By an hour have we forestalled them. And behold how he

ringeth us about as men ring a scorpion in flame.”

So they made all sure, and set the guard, and slept until past dawn.

But Mivarsh slept not, for terror of hob-thrushes from the Moruna.

Of the Lord Corund’s besieging of the burg above

the lakes of Ogo Morveo, and what befell there

betwixt him and the demons; wherein is also an

example how the subtle of heart standeth at whiles

in great danger of his death.

WHEN the Lord Corund knew of a surety that he held them of Demonland

shut up in Eshgrar Ogo, he let dight supper in his tent, and made a

surfeit of venison pasties and heath-cocks and lobsters from the

lakes. Therewith he drank nigh a skinful of sweet dark Thramnian wine,

in such sort that an hour before midnight, becoming speechless, he was

holpen by Gro to his couch and slept a great deep sleep till morning.

Gro watched in the tent, his right elbow propped on the table, his cheek

resting on his hand, his left hand reaching forward with delicate

fingers toying now with the sleek heavy perfumed masses of his beard,

now with the goblet whence he sipped ever and anon pale wine of Permio.

His thoughts inconstant as insects in a summer garden flitted ever round

and round, resting now on the scene before him, the great form of his

general wrapt in slumber, now on other scenes sundered by great gulfs of

time or weary leagues of perilous ways. So that in one instant he saw in

fancy that lady in Carcë welcoming her lord returned in triumph, and

him, may be, crowned king of new-vanquished Impland; and in the next,

swept from the future to the past, beheld again the great sending-off in

Zajë Zaculo, Gaslark in his splendour on the golden stairs saying adieu

to those three captains and their matchless armament foredoomed to dogs

and crows on Salapanta Hills; and always, like a gloomy background

darkening his mind, loomed the yawning void, featureless and vast,

beyond the investing circle of Corund’s armies: the blind blasted

emptiness of the Moruna.

With such fancies, melancholy like a great bird settled upon his soul.

The lights flickered in their sockets, and for very weariness Gro’s

eyelids closed at length over his large liquid eyes; and, too tired to

stir from his seat to seek his couch, he sank forward on the table,

his head pillowed on his arms. The red glow of the brazier slumbered

ever dimmer and dimmer on the slender form and black shining curls of

Gro, and on the mighty frame of Corund where he lay with one great

spurred booted leg stretched along the couch, and the other flung out

sideways resting its heel on the ground.

It wanted but two hours of noon when a sunbeam striking through an

opening in the hangings of the tent shone upon Corund’s eyelids, and

he awoke fresh and brisk as a youth on a hunting morn. He waked Gro,

and giving him a clap on the shoulder, “Thou wrongest a fair morn,” he

said. “The devil damn me black as buttermilk if it be not great shame

in thee; and I, that was born this day six and forty years as the

years come about, busy with mine affairs since sunrise.”

Gro yawned and smiled and stretched himself. “O Corund,” he said,

“counterfeit a livelier wonder in thine eyes if thou wilt persuade me

thou sawest the sunrise. For I think that were as new and unexampled a

sight for thee as any I could produce to thee in Impland.”

Corund answered, “Truly I was seldom so uncivil as surprise Madam

Aurora in her nightgown. And the thrice or four times I have been

forced thereto, taught me it is an hour of crude airs and mists which

breed cold dark humours in the body, an hour when the torch of life

burns weakest. Within there! bring me my morning draught.”

The boy brought two cups of white wine, and while they drank, “A thin

ungracious drink is the well-spring,” said Corund: “a drink for

queasy-stomached skipjacks: for sand-levericks, not for men. And like it

is the dayspring: an ungrateful sapless hour, an hour for

stab-i’-the-backs and cold-blooded betrayers. Ah, give me wine,” he

cried, “and noon-day vices, and brazen-browed iniquities.”

“Yet there’s many a deed of profit done by owl-light,” said Gro.

“Ay,” said Corund: “deeds of darkness: and there, my lord, I’m still

thy scholar. Come, let’s be doing.” And taking his helm and weapons,

and buckling about him his great wolfskin cloak, for the air was eager

and frosty without, he strode forth. Gro wrapped himself in his fur

mantle, drew on his lambskin gloves, and followed him.

“If thou wilt take my rede,” said Lord Gro, as they looked on Eshgrar

Ogo stark in the barren sunlight, “thou’lt do this honour to

Philpritz, which I question not he much desireth, to suffer him and

his folk take first knock at this nut. It bath a hard look. Pity it

were to waste good Witchland blood in a first assault, when these vile

instruments stand ready to our purpose.”

Corund grunted in his beard, and with Gro at his elbow paced in

silence through the lines, his keen eyes searching ever the cliffs and

walls of Eshgrar Ogo, till in some half-hour’s space he halted again

before his tent, having made a complete circuit of the burg. Then he

spake: “Put me in yonder fighting-stead, and if it were only but I and

fifty able lads to man the walls, yet would I hold it against ten

thousand.”

Gro held his peace awhile, and then said, “Thou speakest this in all

sadness?”

“In sober sadness,” answered Corund, squaring his shoulders at the

burg.

“Then thou’lt not assault it?”

Corund laughed. “Not assault it, quotha! That were a sweet tale ‘twixt

the boiled and the roast in Carcë: I’d not assault it!”

“Yet consider,” said Gro, taking him by the arm. “So shapeth the

matter in my mind: they be few and shut up in a little place, in this

far land, out of reach and out of mind of all succour. Were they

devils and not men, the multitude of our armies and thine own tried

qualities must daunt them. Be the place never so cocksure, doubt not

some doubts thereof must poison their security. Therefore before thou

risk a repulse which must dispel those doubts use thine advantage. Bid

Juss to a parley. Offer him conditions: it skills not what. Bribe them

out into the open.”

“A pretty plan,” said Corund. “Thou’lt merit wisdom’s crown if thou

canst tell me what conditions we can offer that they would take. And

whilst thou riddlest that, remember that though thou and I be masters

hereabout, another reigns in Carcë.”

Lord Gro laughed gently. “Leave jesting,” he said, “O Corund, and

never hope to gull me to believe thee such a babe in policy. Shall the

King blame us though we sign away Demonland, ay and the wide world

besides, to Juss to lure him forth? Unless indeed we were so

neglectful of our interest as suffer him, once forth, to elude our

clutches.”

“Gro,” said Corund, “I love thee. But hardly canst thou receive things

as I receive them that have dealt all my days in great stripes, given

and taken in the open field. I sticked not to take part in thy notable

treason against these poor snakes of Impland that we trapped in

Orpish. All’s fair against such dirt. Besides, great need was upon us

then, and hard it is for an empty sack to stand straight. But here is

far other matter. All’s won here but the plucking of the apple: it is

the very main of my ambition to humble these Demons openly by the

terror of my sword: wherefore I will not use upon them cogs and stops

and all thy devilish tricks, such as should bring me more of scorn

than of glory in the eyes of aftercomers.”

So speaking, he issued command and sent an herald to go forth beneath

the battlements with a flag of truce. And the herald cried aloud and

said: “From Corund of Witchland unto the lords of Demonland: thus

saith the Lord Corund, ‘I hold this burg of Eshgrar Ogo as a nut

betwixt the crackers. Come down and speak with me in the batable land

before the burg, and I swear to you peace and grith while we parley,

and thereto pledge I mine honour as a man of war.”

So when the due ceremonies were performed, the Lord Juss came down

from Eshgrar Ogo and with him the lords Spitfire and Brandoch Daha and

twenty men to be their bodyguard. Corund went to meet them with his

guard about him, and his four sons that fared with him to Impland,

Hacmon, namely, and Heming and Viglus and Dormanes: sullen and dark

young men, likely of look, of a little less fierceness than their

father. Gro, fair to see and slender as a racehorse, went at his side,

muffled to the ears in a cloak of ermine; and behind came Philpritz

Faz helmed with a winged helm of iron and gold. A gilded corselet had

Philpritz, and trousers of panther’s skin, and he came a-slinking at

Corund’s heel as the jackal slinks behind the lion.

When they were met, Juss spake and said, “This would I know first, my

Lord Corund, how thou comest hither, and why, and by what right thou

disputest with us the ways eastward out of Impland.”

Corund answered, leaning on his spear, “I need not answer thee in

this. And yet I will. How came I? I answer thee, over the cold

mountain wall of Akra Skabranth. And ‘tis a feat hath not his fellow

in man’s remembrance until now, with so great a force and in