The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  Thirdly, what food should they take? With whom should they live and sleep? And should their heads be placed southwest, northwest, or only northeast? In all the Kingdom of Cards a series of problems so vital and critical had never been debated before.

  But the Three Companions grew desperately hungry. They had to get food in some way or other. So while this debate went on, with its interminable silence and pauses, and while the Aces called their own meeting, and formed themselves into a Committee, to find some obsolete dealing with the question, the Three Companions themselves were eating all they could find, and drinking out of every vessel, and breaking all regulations.

  Even the Twos and Threes were shocked at this outrageous behavior. The Threes said: “Brother Twos, these people are openly shameless!” And the Twos said: “Brother Threes, they are evidently of lower caste than ourselves!” After their meal was over, the Three Companions went for a stroll in the city.

  When they saw the ponderous people moving in their dismal processions with prim and solemn faces, then the Prince turned to the Son of the Merchant and the Son of the Kotwal, and threw back his head, and gave one stupendous laugh.

  Down Royal Street and across Ace Square and along the Knave Embankment ran the quiver of this strange, unheard-of laughter, the laughter that, amazed at itself, expired in the vast vacuum of silence.

  The Son of the Kotwal and the Son of the Merchant were chilled through to the bone by the ghostlike stillness around them. They turned to the Prince, and said: “Comrade, let us away. Let us not stop for a moment in this awful land of ghosts.”

  But the Prince said: “Comrades, these people resemble men, so I am going to find out, by shaking them upside down and outside in, whether they have a single drop of warm living blood left in their veins.”

  IV

  The days passed one by one, and the placid existence of the Island went on almost without a ripple. The Three Companions obeyed no rules nor regulations. They never did anything correctly either in sitting or standing or turning themselves round or lying on their back. On the contrary, wherever they saw these things going on precisely and exactly according to the Rules, they gave way to inordinate laughter. They remained unimpressed altogether by the eternal gravity of those eternal regulations.

  One day the great Court Cards came to the Son of the Kotwal and the Son of the Merchant and the Prince.

  “Why,” they asked slowly, “are you not moving according to the Rules?”

  The Three Companions answered: “Because that is our Ichcha (wish).”

  The great Court Cards with hollow, cavernous voices, as if slowly awakening from an agelong dream, said together: “Ich-cha! And pray who is Ich-cha?”

  They could not understand who Ichcha was then, but the whole island was to understand it by-and-by. The first glimmer of light passed the threshold of their minds when they found out, through watching the actions of the Prince, that they might move in a straight line in an opposite direction from the one in which they had always gone before. Then they made another startling discovery, that there was another side to the Cards that they had never yet noticed with attention. This was the beginning of the change.

  Now that the change had begun, the Three Companions were able to initiate them more and more deeply into the mysteries of Ichcha. The Cards gradually became aware that life was not bound by regulations. They began to feel a secret satisfaction in the kingly power of choosing for themselves.

  But with this first impact of Ichcha the whole pack of cards began to totter slowly, and then tumble down to the ground. The scene was like that of some huge python awaking from a long sleep, as it slowly unfolds its numberless coils with a quiver that runs through its whole frame.

  V

  Hitherto the Queens of Spades and Clubs and Diamonds and Hearts had remained behind curtains with eyes that gazed vacantly into space, or else remained fixed upon the ground.

  And now, all of a sudden, on an afternoon in spring the Queen of Hearts from the balcony raised her dark eyebrows for a moment, and cast a single glance upon the Prince from the corner of her eye.

  “Great God,” cried the Prince, “I thought they were all painted images. But I am wrong. They are women after all.”

  Then the young Prince called to his side his two Companions, and said in a meditative voice: “My comrades! There is a charm about these ladies that I never noticed before. When I saw that glance of the Queen’s dark, luminous eyes, brightening with new emotion, it seemed to me like the first faint streak of dawn in a newly created world.”

  The two Companions smiled a knowing smile, and said: “Is that really so, Prince?”

  And the poor Queen of Hearts from that day went from bad to worse. She began to forget all rules in a truly scandalous manner. If, for instance, her place in the row was beside the Knave, she suddenly found herself quite accidentally standing beside the Prince instead. At this, the Knave, with motionless face and solemn voice, would say: “Queen, you have made a mistake.”

  And the poor Queen of Hearts’ red cheeks would get redder than ever. But the Prince would come gallantly to her rescue and say: “No! There is no mistake. From today I am going to be Knave!”

  Now it came to pass that, while everyone was trying to correct the improprieties of the guilty Queen of Hearts, they began to make mistakes themselves. The Aces found themselves elbowed out by the Kings. The Kings got muddled up with the Knaves. The Nines and Tens assumed airs as though they belonged to the Great Court Cards. The Twos and Threes were found secretly taking the places specially resented for the Fours and Fives. Confusion had never been so confounded before.

  Many spring seasons had come and gone in that Island of Cards. The Kokil, the bird of Spring, had sung its song year after year. But it had never stirred the blood as it stirred it now. In days gone by the sea had sung its tireless melody. But, then, it had proclaimed only the inflexible monotony of the Rule. And suddenly its waves were telling, through all their flashing light and luminous shade and myriad voices, the deepest yearnings of the heart of love!

  VI

  Where are vanished now their prim, round, regular, complacent features? Here is a face full of lovesick longing. Here is a heart heating wild with regrets. Here is a mind racked sore with doubts. Music and sighing, and smiles and tears, are filling the air. Life is throbbing; hearts are breaking; passions are kindling.

  Every one is now thinking of his own appearance, and comparing himself with others. The Ace of Clubs is musing to himself, that the King of Spades may be just passably good-looking. “But,” says he, “when I walk down the street you have only to see how people’s eyes turn toward me.” The King of Spades is saying: “Why on earth is that Ace of Clubs always straining his neck and strutting about like a peacock? He imagines all the Queens are dying of love for him, while the real fact is—” Here he pauses, and examines his face in the glass.

  But the Queens were the worst of all. They began to spend all their time in dressing themselves up to the Nines. And the Nines would become their hopeless and abject slaves. But their cutting remarks about one another were more shocking still.

  So the young men would sit listless on the leaves under the trees, lolling with outstretched limbs in the forest shade. And the young maidens, dressed in pale-blue robes, would come walking accidentally to the same shade of the same forest by the same trees, and turn their eyes as though they saw no one there, and look as though they came out to see nothing at all. And then one young man more forward than the rest in a fit of madness would dare to go near to a maiden in blue. But, as he drew near, speech would forsake him. He would stand there tongue-tied and foolish, and the favorable moment would pass.

  The Kokil birds were singing in the boughs overhead. The mischievous South wind was blowing; it disarrayed the hair, it whispered in the ear, and stirred the music in the blood. The leaves of the trees were
murmuring with rustling delight. And the ceaseless sound of the ocean made all the mute longings of the heart of man and maid surge backward and forward on the full springtide of love.

  The Three Companions had brought into the dried-up channels of the Kingdom of Cards the full flood tide of a new life.

  VII

  And, though the tide was full, there was a pause as though the rising waters would not break into foam but remain suspended forever. There were no outspoken words, only a cautious going forward one step and receding two. All seemed busy heaping up their unfulfilled desires like castles in the air, or fortresses of sand. They were pale and speechless, their eyes were burning, their lips trembling with unspoken secrets.

  The Prince saw what was wrong. He summoned everyone on the Island and said: “Bring hither the flutes and the cymbals, the pipes and drums. Let all be played together, and raise loud shouts of rejoicing. For the Queen of Hearts this very night is going to choose her Mate!”

  So the Tens and Nines began to blow on their flutes and pipes; the Eights and Sevens played on their sackbuts and viols; and even the Twos and Threes began to beat madly on their drums.

  When this tumultous gust of music came, it swept away at one blast all those sighings and mopings. And then what a torrent of laughter and words poured forth! There were daring proposals and locking refusals, and gossip and chatter, and jests and merriment. It was like the swaying and shaking, and rustling and soughing, in a summer gale, of a million leaves and branches in the depth of the primeval forest.

  But the Queen of Hearts, in a rose-red robe, sat silent in the shadow of her secret bower, and listened to the great uproarious sound of music and mirth that came floating toward her. She shut her eyes, and dreamed her dream of lore. And when she opened them she found the Prince seated on the ground before her gazing up at her face. And she covered her eyes with both hands, and shrank back quivering with an inward tumult of joy.

  And the Prince passed the whole day alone, walking by the side of the surging sea. He carried in his mind that startled look, that shrinking gesture of the Queen, and his heart beat high with hope.

  That night the serried, gaily dressed ranks of young men and maidens waited with smiling faces at the Palace Gates. The Palace Hall was lighted with fairy lamps and festooned with the flowers of spring. Slowly the Queen of Hearts entered, and the whole assembly rose to greet her. With a jasmine garland in her hand, she stood before the Prince with downcast eyes. In her lowly bashfulness she could hardly raise the garland to the neck of the Mate she had chosen. But the Prince bowed his head, and the garland slipped to its place. The assembly of youths and maidens had waited her choice with eager, expectant hush. And when the choice was made, the whole vast concourse rocked and swayed with a tumult of wild delight. And the sound of their shouts was heard in every part of the island, and by ships far out at sea. Never had such a shout been raised in the Kingdom of Cards before.

  And they carried the Prince and his Bride, and seated them on the throne, and crowned them then and there in the Ancient Island of Cards.

  And the sorrowing Mother Queen, on the far-off island shore on the other side of the sea, came sailing to her son’s new kingdom in a ship adorned with gold.

  And the citizens are no longer regulated according to the Rules, but are good or bad, or both, according to their Ichcha.

  Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock (1860–1895) was a Baltic Swedish poet and writer known for his macabre fantasy and, as the Count of Bogesund, the heir to an Estonian estate. Stenbock has been acclaimed as the paragon of the decadent movement by some. His works often feature strange, supernatural, suicidal, and satanic themes. By the year 1885, Count Stenbock had developed very peculiar tastes as well as addiction to both alcohol and opium. He had a menagerie of exotic animals and lit his house with lamps made in the image of Buddha and Mary Shelley. Stenbock died after publishing only three volumes of poetry and one short story collection. “The Other Side: A Breton Legend” is a good example of his work, filled as it is with magical creatures and sinister danger.

  The Other Side: A Breton Legend

  Count Eric Stanlislaus Stenbock

  NOT THAT I LIKE IT, but one does feel so much better after it—“oh, thank you, Mère Yvonne, yes just a little drop more.” So the old crones fell to drinking their hot brandy and water (although of course they only took it medicinally, as a remedy for their rheumatics), all seated round the big fire and Mère Pinquèle continued her story.

  “Oh, yes, then when they get to the top of the hill, there is an altar with six candles quite black and a sort of something in between, that nobody sees quite clearly, and the old black ram with the man’s face and long horns begins to say Mass in a sort of gibberish nobody understands, and two black strange things like monkeys glide about with the book and the cruets—and there’s music too, such music. There are things the top half like black cats, and the bottom part like men only their legs are all covered with close black hair, and they play on the bagpipes, and when they come to the elevation, then—” Amid the old crones there was lying on the hearth rug, before the fire, a boy whose large lovely eyes dilated and whose limbs quivered in the very ecstacy of terror.

  “Is that all true, Mère Pinquèle?” he said.

  “Oh, quite true, and not only that, the best part is yet to come; for they take a child and—” Here Mère Pinquèle showed her fang-like teeth.

  “Oh! Mère Pinquèle, are you a witch too?”

  “Silence, Gabriel,” said Mère Yvonne, “how can you say anything so wicked? Why, bless me, the boy ought to have been in bed ages ago.”

  Just then all shuddered, and all made the sign of the cross except Mère Pinquèle, for they heard that most dreadful of dreadful sounds—the howl of a wolf, which begins with three sharp barks and then lifts itself up in a long protracted wail of commingled cruelty and despair, and at last subsides into a whispered growl fraught with eternal malice.

  There was a forest and a village and a brook, the village was on one side of the brook, none had dared to cross to the other side. Where the village was, all was green and glad and fertile and fruitful; on the other side the trees never put forth green leaves, and a dark shadow hung over it even at noonday, and in the nighttime one could hear the wolves howling—the werewolves and the wolf-men and the men-wolves, and those very wicked men who for nine days in every year are turned into wolves; but on the green side no wolf was ever seen, and only one little running brook like a silver streak flowed between.

  It was spring now and the old crones sat no longer by the fire but before their cottages sunning themselves, and everyone felt so happy that they ceased to tell stories of the “other side.” But Gabriel wandered by the brook as he was wont to wander, drawn thither by some strange attraction mingled with intense horror.

  His schoolfellows did not like Gabriel; all laughed and jeered at him, because he was less cruel and more gentle of nature than the rest, and even as a rare and beautiful bird escaped from a cage is hacked to death by the common sparrows, so was Gabriel among his fellows. Everyone wondered how Mère Yvonne, that buxom and worthy matron, could have produced a son like this, with strange dreamy eyes, who was as they said “pas comme les autres gamins.” His only friends were the Abbé Félicien, whose Mass he served each morning, and one little girl called Carmeille, who loved him, no one could make out why.

  The sun had already set, Gabriel still wandered by the brook, filled with vague terror and irresistible fascination. The sun set and the moon rose, the full moon, very large and very clear, and the moonlight flooded the forest both this side and “the other side,” and just on the “other side” of the brook, hanging over, Gabriel saw a large deep blue flower, whose strange intoxicating perfume reached him and fascinated him even where he stood.

  “If I could only make one step across,” he thought, “nothing could harm me if I only plucked that one
flower, and nobody would know I had been over at all,” for the villagers looked with hatred and suspicion on anyone who was said to have crossed to the “other side,” so summing up courage, he leaped lightly to the other side of the brook. Then the moon breaking from a cloud shone with unusual brilliance, and he saw, stretching before him, long reaches of the same strange blue flowers each one lovelier than the last, till, not being able to make up his mind which one flower to take or whether to take several, he went on and on, and the moon shone very brightly and a strange unseen bird, somewhat like a nightingale, but louder and lovelier, sang, and his heart was filled with longing for he knew not what, and the moon shone and the nightingale sang. But on a sudden a black cloud covered the moon entirely, and all was black, utter darkness, and through the darkness he heard wolves howling and shrieking in the hideous ardor of the chase, and there passed before him a horrible procession of wolves (black wolves with red fiery eyes), and with them men that had the heads of wolves and wolves that had the heads of men, and above them flew owls (black owls with red fiery eyes), and bats and long serpentine black things, and last of all seated on an enormous black ram with hideous human face the wolf-keeper on whose face was eternal shadow; but they continued their horrid chase and passed him by, and when they had passed, the moon shone out more beautiful than ever, and the strange nightingale sang again, and the strange intense blue flowers were in long reaches in front to the right and to the left. But one thing was there that had not been before, among the deep blue flowers walked one with long gleaming golden hair, and she turned once round and her eyes were of the same color as the strange blue flowers, and she walked on and Gabriel could not choose but follow. But when a cloud passed over the moon he saw no beautiful woman but a wolf, so in utter terror he turned and fled, plucking one of the strange blue flowers on the way, and leaped again over the brook and ran home.