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

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.

Of 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