The Worm Ouroboros

by E R Eddison

  But she stood over him, saying, “It shall be seen if thou be a true king. And be not deceived: if thou fail me here I’ll have no more of thee. This night we must away. Thou shalt raise Pixyland, which is now mine by right: raise power in thine own vast kingdom of Impland. Fling Witchland to the winds. What care I if she sink or swim? This only is the matter: to punish these vile perjured Demons, enemies of ours and enemies of all the world.”

  “We need ride o’ no journey for that,” said Corund, still putting off his boots. “Thou shalt shortly see Juss and his brethren before Carcë with three score hundred fighting men at’s back. Then cometh the metal to the anvil. Come, come, thou must not weep.”

  “I do not weep,” said she. “Nor I shall not weep. But I’ll not be ta’en in Carcë like a mouse in a trap.”

  “I’m glad thou’lt not weep, madam. It is as great pity to see a woman weep as a goose to go barefoot. Come, be not foolish. We must not part forces now. We must bide this storm in Carcë.”

  But she cried, “There is a curse on Carcë. Gro is lost to us and his good counsel. Dear my lord, I see something wicked that like a thick dark shadow shadoweth all the sky above us. What place is there not subject to the power and regiment of Gorice the King? but he is too proud: we be all too insolent overweeners of our own works. Carcë hath grown too great, and the Gods be offended at us. The insolent vileness of Corinius, the old dotard Corsus that must still be at his boosing-can, these and our own private quarrels in Carcë must be our bane. Repugn not therefore against the will of the Gods, but take the helm in thine own hand ere it be too late.”

  “Tush, madam,” said he, “these be but fray-bugs. Day-light shall make thee laugh at ’em.”

  But Prezmyra, queening it no longer, caught her arms about his neck. “The odd man to perform all perfectly is thou. Wilt thou see us rushing on this whirlpool and not swim for it ere it be too late?” And she said in a choked voice, “My heart is near broke already. Do not break it utterly. Only thou art left now.”

  The chill dawn, the silent room, the guttering candles, and that high-hearted lady of his, daunted for an instant from her noble and equal courage, cowering like a bird in his embrace: these things were like an icy breath that passed by and quailed him for a moment. He took her by her two hands and held her off from him. She held her head high again, albeit her cheek was blanched; he felt the brave comrade-grip of her hands in his.

  “Dear lass,” he said, “I cast me not to be odd with none of these spawn of Demonland. Here is my hand, and the hand of my sons, heavy while breath remaineth us against Demonland for thee and for the King. But sith our lord the King hath made me a king, come wind, come weet, we must weather it in Carcë. True is that saw, ‘For fame one maketh a king, not for long living.’”

  Prezmyra thought in her heart that these were fey words. But having now put behind her hope and fear, she was resolved to kick against the wind no more, but stand firm and see what Destiny would do.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  THE DEMONS BEFORE CARCE

  How Gorice the King, albeit so strong a sorcerer, elected that by the sword, and chiefly by the Lord Corund his Captain General, should be determined as for this time the event of these high matters; and how those twain, the King and the Lord Juss, spake face to face at last; and of the bloody battle before Carce, and what fruit was garnered there and what made ripe against harvest.

  Gorice the king sate in his chamber the thirteenth morning after these tidings brought to Carcë. On the table under his hand were papers of account and schedules of his armies and their equipment. Corund sate at the King’s right hand, and over against him Corinius.

  Corund’s great hairy hands were clasped before him on the table. He spoke without book, resting his gaze on the steady clouds that sailed across the square of sky seen through the high window that faced him. “Of Witchland and the home provinces, O King, nought but good. All the companies of soldiers which were appointed to repair to this part by the tenth of the month are now come hither, save some bands of spearmen from the south, and some from Estreganzia. These last I expect to-day; Viglus writeth they come with him with the heavy troops from Baltary I sent him to assemble. So is the muster full as for these parts: Thramnë, Zorn, Permio, the land of Ar, Trace, Buteny, and Estremerine. Of the subject allies, there’s less good there. The kings of Mynia and Gilta: Olis of Tecapan: County Escobrine of Tzeusha: the king of Ellien: all be here with their contingents. But there’s mightier names we miss. Duke Maxtlin of Azumel hath flung off’s allegiance and cut off your envoy’s ears, O King; ’tis thought for some supposed light part of the sons of Corsus done to his sister. That docketh us thirty score stout fighters. The lord of Eushtlan sendeth no answer, and now are we advertised by Mynia and Gilta of his open malice and treason, who did stubbornly let them the way hither through his country while they hastened to do your majesty’s commands. Then there’s the Ojedian levies, should be nigh a thousand spears, ten days overdue. Heming, that raiseth Pixyland in Prezmyra’s name, will bring them in if he may. Who also hath order, being on his way, to rouse Maltraeny to action, from whom no word as yet; and I do fear treachery in ’em. Maltraeny and Ojedia both, they have been so long of coming. King Barsht of Toribia sendeth flat refusal.”

  “It is known to you besides, O King,” said Corinius, “that the king of Nevria came in last night, many days past the day appointed, and but half his just complement.”

  The King drew back his lips. “I will not dash his spirits by blaming him at this present. Later, I’ll have that king’s head for this.”

  “This is the sum,” said Corund. “Nay, then, I had forgot the Red Foliot with’s folk, three hundred perchance, came in this morning.”

  Corinius thrust out his tongue and laughed: “One hen-lobster such as he shall scarce afford a course for this banquet.”

  “He keepeth faith,” said Corund, “where bigger men turn dastards. ’Tis seen now that these forced leagues be as sure as they were sealed with butter. Your majesty will doubtless give him audience.”

  The King was silent awhile, studying his papers. “What strength to-day in Carcë?” he asked.

  Corund answered him, “As near as may be two score hundred foot and fifty score horse: five thousand in all. And, that I weigh most, O King, big broad strong set lads of Witchland nigh every jack of ’em.”

  The King said, “’Twas not well done, O Corund, to bid thy son delay for Ojedia and Maltraeny. He might else have been in Carcë now with a thousand Pixylanders to swell our strength.”

  “I did that I did,” answered Corund, “seeking only your good, O King. A few days’ delay might buy us a thousand spears.”

  “Delay,” said the King, “hath favoured mine enemy. This we should have done: at his first landing give him no time but wink, set on him with all our forces, and throw him into the sea.”

  “If luck go with us that may yet be,” said Corund.

  The King’s nostrils widened. He crouched forward, glaring at Corund and Corinius, his jaw thrust out so that the stiff black beard on it brushed the papers on the table before him. “The Demons,” said he, “landed i’ the night at Ralpa. They come on with great journeys northward. Will be here ere three days be spent.”

  Both they grew red as blood. Corund spake: “Who told you these tidings, O King?”

  “Care not thou for that,” said the King. “Enough for thee, I know it. Hath it ta’en you napping?”

  “No,” answered he. “These ten days past we have been ready, with what strength we might make, to receive ’em, come they from what quarter they will. So it is, though, that while we lack the Pixyland succours Juss hath by some odds the advantage over us, if, as our intelligence saith, six thousand fighting men do follow him, and these forced besides with some that should be ours.”

  “Thou wouldst,” said the King, “await these out of Pixyland, with that else Heming may gather, afore we offer them battle?”

  Said Corund, “That would I. We must look
beyond the next turn of the road, O my Lord the King.”

  “That would not I,” said Corinius.

  “That is stoutly said, Corinius,” said the King. “Yet remember, thou hadst the greater force on Krothering Side, yet wast overborne.”

  “’Tis that standeth in my mind, Lord,” said Corund. “For well I know, had I been there I’d a fared no better.”

  The Lord Corinius, whose brow had darkened with the naming of his defeat, looked cheerfully now and said, “I pray you but consider, O my Lord the King, that here at home is no room for such a sleight or gin as that whereby in their own country they took me. When Juss and Brandoch Daha and their stinking gaberlunzies do cry huff at us on Witchland soil, ’tis time to give ’em a choke-pear. Which with your leave, Lord, I will promise now to do, other else to lose my life.”

  “Give me thy hand,” said Corund. “Of all men else would I a chosen thee for such a day as this, and (were’t to-day to meet the whole power of Demonland in arms) to stand perdue with thee for this bloody service. But let us hear the King’s commands: which way soe’er he choose, we shall do it right gladly.”

  Gorice the King sat silent. One lean hand rested on the iron serpent-head of his chair’s ann, the other, with finger outstretched against the jutting cheekbone, supported his chin. Only in the deep shadow of his eye-sockets a lambent light moved. At length he started, as if the spirit, flown to some unsounded gulfs of time or space, had in that instant returned to its mortal dwelling. He gathered the papers in a heap and tossed them to Corund.

  “Too much lieth on it,” said he. “He that hath many peas may put more in the pot. But now the day approacheth when I and Juss must cast up our account together, and one or all shall be brought to death and bane.” He stood up from his chair and looked down on those two, his chosen captains, great men of war raised up by him to be kings over two quarters of the world. They watched him like little birds under the eye of a snake. “The country hereabout,” said the King, “is not good for horsemanship, and the Demons be great horsemen. Carcë is strong, and never can it be forced by assault. Also under mine eye should my men of Witchland acquit themselves to do the greatest deeds. Therefore will we abide them here in Carcë, until young Heming come and his levies out of Pixyland. Then shall ye fall upon them and never 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 fore-run 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.”