Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances

by James Branch Cabell

  XIII

  What Helmas Directed

  Now the Count of Poictesme departs from Provence, with his lackeyscarrying his images, and early in April he comes to Helmas theDeep-Minded. The wise King was then playing with his small daughterMelusine (who later dethroned and imprisoned him), but he sent the childaway with a kiss, and he attentively heard Dom Manuel through.

  King Helmas looked at the images, prodded them with a shriveledforefinger, and cleared his throat; and then said nothing, because,after all, Dom Manuel was Count of Poictesme.

  "What is needed?" said Manuel.

  "They are not true to life," replied Helmas--"particularly this onewhich has the look of me."

  "Yes, I know that: but who can give life to my images?"

  King Helmas pushed back his second best crown, wherein was set thefeather from the wing of the miller's goose, and he scratched hisforehead. He said, "There is a power over all figures of earth and aqueen whose will is neither to loose nor to bind." Helmas turned towarda thick book, wherein was magic.

  "Yes, _queen_ is the same as _cwen_. Therefore Queen Freydis of Audelamight help you."

  "Yes, for it is she that owns Schamir. But the falcons are not nestingnow, and how can I go to Freydis, that woman of strange deeds?"

  "Oh, people nowadays no longer use falcons; and of course nobody can goto Freydis uninvited. Still, it can be managed that Freydis will come toyou when the moon is void and powerless, and when this and that has beenarranged."

  Thereafter Helmas the Deep-Minded told Count Manuel what was requisite."So you will need such and such things," says King Helmas, "but, aboveall, do not forget the ointment."

  Count Manuel went alone into Poictesme, which was his fief if only hecould get it. He came secretly to Upper Morven, that place of horriblefame. Near the ten-colored stone, whereon men had sacrificed to Vel-Tynoin time's youth, he builded an enclosure of peeled willow wands, andspread butter upon them, and tied them with knots of yellow ribbons, asHelmas had directed. Manuel arranged all matters within the enclosure asHelmas had directed. There Manuel waited, on the last night in April,regarding the full moon.

  In a while you saw the shadowings on the moon's radiancy begin to waverand move: later they passed from the moon's face like little clouds, andthe moon was naked of markings. This was a token that the Moon-Childrenhad gone to the well from which once a month they fetch water, and thatfor an hour the moon would be void and powerless. With this and thatceremony Count Manuel kindled such a fire upon the old altar of Vel-Tynoas Helmas had directed.

  Manuel cried aloud: "Now be propitious, infernal, terrestrial andcelestial Bombo! Lady of highways, patroness of crossroads, thou whobearest the light! Thou who dost labor always in obscurity, thou enemy ofthe day, thou friend and companion of darkness! Thou rejoicing in thebarking of dogs and in shed blood, thus do I honor thee."

  Manuel did as Helmas had directed, and for an instant the screamingswere pitiable, but the fire ended these speedily.

  Then Manuel cried, again: "O thou who wanderest amid shadows and overtombs, and dost tether even the strong sea! O whimsical sister of theblighting sun, and fickle mistress of old death! O Gorgo, Mormo, lady ofa thousand forms and qualities! now view with a propitious eye mysacrifice!"

  Thus Manuel spoke, and steadily the fire upon the altar grew larger andbrighter as he nourished it repugnantly.

  When the fire was the height of a warrior, and queer things werehappening to this side and to that side, Count Manuel spoke the orderedwords: and of a sudden the flames' colors were altered, so that greenshimmerings showed in the fire, as though salt were burning there.Manuel waited. This greenness shifted and writhed and increased in theheart of the fire, and out of the fire oozed a green serpent, the bodyof which was well--nigh as thick as a man's body.

  This portent came toward Count Manuel horribly. He, who was familiarwith serpents, now grasped this monster's throat, and to the touch itsscales were like very cold glass.

  The great snake shifted so resistlessly that Manuel was forced backtoward the fire and toward a doom more dreadful than burning: and thefirelight was in the snake's contemptuous wise eyes. Manuel was ofstalwart person, but his strength availed him nothing until he began torecite aloud, as Helmas had directed, the multiplication tables: Freydiscould not withstand mathematics.

  So when Manuel had come to two times eleven the tall fire guttered asthough it bended under the passing of a strong wind: then the flamesburned high, and Manuel could see that he was grasping the throat of amonstrous pig. He, who was familiar with pigs, could see that this was ablack pig, caked with dried curds of the Milky Way; its flesh was chillto the touch, like dead flesh; and it had long tusks, which possessedlife of their own, and groped and writhed toward Manuel like fat whiteworms.

  Then Manuel said, as Helmas had directed: "Solomon's provision for oneday was thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal,ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and a hundred sheep,beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow deer, and fatted fowl. But Elijahthe Tishbite was fed by ravens that brought him bread and flesh."

  Again the tall flames guttered. Now Manuel was grasping a thick heatlessslab of crystal, like a mirror, wherein he could see himself quiteclearly. Just as he really was, he, who was not familiar with suchmirrors, could see Count Manuel, housed in a little wet dirt with oldinveterate stars adrift about him everywhither; and the spectacle wasenough to frighten anybody.

  So Manuel said: "The elephant is the largest of all animals, and inintelligence approaches the nearest to man. Its nostril is elongated,and answers to the purpose of a hand. Its toes are undivided, and itlives two hundred years. Africa breeds elephants, but India produces thelargest."

  The mirror now had melted into a dark warm fluid which oozed between hisfingers, dripping to the ground. But Manuel held tightly to whatremained between his palms, and he felt, they say, that in the fluid wasstruggling something small and soft and living, as though he held a tinyminnow.

  Said Manuel, "A straight line is the shortest distance between twopoints."

  Of a sudden the fire became an ordinary fire, and the witches of Amneranscreamed, and Morven was emptied of sorcery, and Count Manuel wasgrasping the warm soft throat of a woman. Instantly he had her withinthe enclosure of peeled willow wands that had been spread with butterand tied with knots of yellow ribbon, because into such an enclosure thepower and the dominion of Freydis could never enter.

  All these things Manuel did precisely as King Helmas had directed.