Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances

by James Branch Cabell

  XXXII

  The Redemption of Poictesme

  When then these matters were concluded, and the future of Poictesme hadbeen arranged in every detail, then Miramon Lluagor's wife told him thatlong words and ink-bottles and red seals were well enough for men toplay with, but that it was high time something sensible was done in thismatter, unless they expected Niafer to bring up the baby in a ditch.

  The magician said, "Yes, my darling, you are quite right, and I will seeto it the first thing after dinner."

  He then said to Dom Manuel, "Now Horvendile informs me that you wereduly born in a cave at about the time of the winter solstice, of avirgin mother and of a father who was not human."

  Manuel replied, "Certainly that is true. But why do you now stir upthese awkward old stories?"

  "You have duly wandered from place to place, bringing wisdom andholiness to men--"

  "That also is generally known."

  "You have duly performed miracles, such as reviving dead persons and soon--"

  "That too is undeniable."

  "You have duly sojourned with evil in a desert place, and have therebeen tempted to despair and blaspheme and to commit other iniquities."

  "Yes, something of the sort did occur in Dun Vlechlan."

  "And, as I well know, you have by your conduct of affairs upon Vraidexduly disconcerted me, who am the power of darkness--"

  "Ah! ah! you, Miramon, are then the power of darkness!"

  "I control all dreams and madnesses, Dom Manuel; and these are the mainpowers of darkness."

  Manuel seemed dubious, but he only said: "Well, let us get on! It istrue that all these things have happened to me, somehow."

  The magician looked at the tall warrior for a while, and in the darksoft eyes of Miramon Lluagor was a queer sort of compassion. Miramonsaid, "Yes, Manuel, these portents have marked your living thus far,just as they formerly distinguished the beginnings of Mithras and ofHuitzilopochtli and of Tammouz and of Heracles--"

  "Yes, but what does it matter if these accidents did happen to me,Miramon?"

  "--As they happened to Gautama and to Dionysos and to Krishna and to allother reputable Redeemers," Miramon continued.

  "Well, well, all this is granted. But what, pray, am I to deduce fromall this?"

  Miramon told him.

  Dom Manuel, at the end of Miramon's speaking, looked peculiarly solemn,and Manuel said: "I had thought the transformation surprising enoughwhen King Ferdinand was turned into a saint, but this tops all! Eitherway, Miramon, you point out an obligation so tremendous that the lesssaid about it, the wiser; and the sooner this obligation is dischargedand the ritual fulfilled, the more comfortable it will be foreverybody."

  So Manuel went away with Miramon Lluagor into a secret place, and thereDom Manuel submitted to that which was requisite, and what happened isnot certainly known. But this much is known, that Manuel suffered, andafterward passed three days in an underground place, and came forth onthe third day.

  Then Miramon said: "All this being duly performed and well rid of, we donot now violate any messianic etiquette if we forthwith set about theredemption of Poictesme. Now then, would you prefer to redeem with theforces of good or with the forces of evil?"

  "Not with the forces of evil," said Manuel, "for I saw many of these inthe high woods of Dun Vlechlan, and I do not fancy them as allies. Butare good and evil all one to you of the Leshy?"

  "Why should we tell you, Manuel?" says the magician.

  "That, Miramon, is a musty reply."

  "It is not a reply, it is a question. And the question has become mustybecause it has been handled so often, and no man has ever been able todispose of it."

  Manuel gave it up, and shrugged. "Well, let us conquer as we may, sothat God be on our side."

  Miramon replied: "Never fear! He shall be, in every shape andattribute."

  So Miramon did what was requisite, and from the garrets and dustheaps ofVraidex came strong allies. For, to begin with, Miramon dealt unusuallywith a little fish, and as a result of these dealings came to them,during the afternoon of the last Thursday in September, as they stood onthe seashore north of Manneville, a darkly colored champion clad inyellow. He had four hands, in which he carried a club, a shell, a lotusand a discus; and he rode upon a stallion whose hide glittered like newsilver.

  Manuel said, "This is a good omen, that the stallion of Poictesme shouldhave aid brought to it by yet another silver stallion."

  "Let us not speak of this bright stallion," Miramon hastily replied,"for until this Yuga is over he has no name. But when the minds of allmen are made clear as crystal then a christening will be appointed forthis stallion, and his name will be Kalki, and by the rider upon thisstallion Antan will be redeemed."

  "Well," Manuel said, "that seems fair enough. Meanwhile, with this duskygentleman's assistance, I gather, we are to redeem Poictesme."

  "Oh, no, Dom Manuel, he is but the first of our Redeemers, for there isnothing like the decimal system, and you will remember it was in ourtreaty that in Poictesme all things are to go by tens forever."

  Thereafter Miramon did what was requisite with some acorns, and thesplutterings were answered by low thunder. So came a second champion toaid them. This was a pleasant looking young fellow with an astonishinglyred beard: he had a basket slung over his shoulder, and he carried abright hammer. He rode in a chariot drawn by four goats.

  "Come, this is certainly a fine stalwart fighting-man," says Manuel,"and to-day is a lucky day for me, and for this ruddy gentleman also, Ihope."

  "To-day is always his day," Miramon replied, "and do you stopinterrupting me in my incantations, and hand me that flute."

  So Manuel stayed as silent as that brace of monstrous allies whileMiramon did yet another curious thing with a flute and a palm-branch.Thereafter came an amber-colored champion clad in dark green, andcarrying a club and a noose for the souls of the dead. He rode upon abuffalo, and with him came an owl and a pigeon.

  "I think--" said Manuel.

  "You do not!" said Miramon. "You only talk and fidget, because you areupset by the appearance of your allies; and such talking and fidgetingis very disturbing to an artist who is striving to reanimate the past."

  Thus speaking, Miramon turned indignantly to another evocation. Itsummoned a champion in a luminous chariot drawn by scarlet mares. He wasgolden-haired, with ruddy limbs, and was armed with a bow and arrows: hetoo was silent, but he laughed, and you saw that he had several tongues.After him came a young shining man who rode on a boar with goldenbristles and bloodied hoofs: this warrior carried a naked sword, and onhis back, folded up like a cloth, was a ship to contain the gods and allliving creatures. And the sixth Redeemer was a tall shadow-coloredperson with two long gray plumes affixed to his shaven head: he carrieda sceptre and a thing which, Miramon said, was called an ankh, and thebeast he rode on was surprising to observe, for it had the body of abeetle, with human arms, and the head of a ram, and the four feet of alion.

  "Come," Manuel said, "but I have never seen just such a steed as that."

  "No," Miramon replied, "nor has anybody else, for this is the HiddenOne. But do you stop your eternal talking, and pass me the salt and thatyoung crocodile."

  With these two articles Miramon dealt so as to evoke a seventh ally.Serpents were about the throat and arms of this champion, and he wore anecklace of human skulls: his long black hair was plaited remarkably;his throat was blue, his body all a livid white except where it wassmeared with ashes. He rode upon the back of a beautiful white bull.Next, riding on a dappled stag, came one appareled in vivid stripes ofyellow and red and blue and green: his face was dark as a raincloud, hehad one large round eye, white tusks protruded from his lips, and hecarried a gaily painted urn. His unspeakable attendants leaped likefrogs. The jolliest looking of all the warriors came thereafter, with adwarfish body and very short legs; he had a huge black-bearded head, aflat nose, and his tongue hung from his mouth and waggled as he moved.He wore a belt and a necklace, and no
thing else whatever except theplumes of the hawk arranged as a head-dress: and he rode upon a greatsleek tortoise-shell cat.

  Now when these unusual appearing allies stood silently aligned beforethem on the seashore, Dom Manuel said, with a polite bow toward thisappalling host, that he hardly thought Duke Asmund would be able towithstand such Redeemers. But Miramon repeated that there was nothinglike the decimal system.

  "That half-brother of mine, who is lord of the tenth kind of sleeping,would nicely round off this dizain," says Miramon, scratching his chin,"if only he had not such a commonplace, black-and-white appearance,apart from being one of those dreadful Realists, without a scrap ofaesthetic feeling--No, I like color, and we will levy now upon theWest!"

  So Miramon dealt next with a little ball of bright feathers. Then a lasthelper came to them, riding on a jaguar, and carrying a large drum and aflute from which his music issued in the shape of flames. This championwas quite black, but he was striped with blue paint, and golden feathersgrew all over his left leg. He wore a red coronet in the shape of arose, a short skirt of green paper, and white sandals; and he carried ared shield that had in its centre a white flower with the four petalsplaced crosswise. Such was he who made up the tenth.

  Now when this terrible dizain was completed the lord of the sevenmadnesses laid fire to a wisp of straw, and he cast it to the winds,saying that thus should the anger of Miramon Lluagor pass over the land.Then he turned to these dreadful ten whom he had revivified from thedustheaps and garrets of Vraidex, and it became apparent that Miramonwas deeply moved.

  Said Miramon:

  "You, whom I made for man's worship when earth was younger and fairer,hearken, and learn why I breathe new life into husks from myscrap-heaps! Gods of old days, discrowned, disjected, and treated asrubbish, hark to the latest way of the folk whose fathers you succored!They have discarded you utterly. Such as remember deride you, saying:

  "'The brawling old lords that our grandfathers honored have perished, ifthey indeed were ever more than some curious notions bred of ourgrandfathers' questing, that looked to find God in each rainstorm comingto nourish their barley, and God in the heat-bringing sun, and God inthe earth which gave life. Even so was each hour of their living touchedwith odd notions of God and with lunacies as to God's kindness. We aremore sensible people, for we understand all about the freaks of the windand the weather, and find them in no way astounding. As for whatevergods may exist, they are civil, in that they let us alone in ourlifetime; and so we return their politeness, knowing that what we aredoing on earth is important enough to need undivided attention.'

  "Such are the folk that deride you, such are the folk that ignore thegods whom Miramon fashioned, such are the folk whom to-day I permit youfreely to deal with after the manner of gods. Do you now make the mostof your chance, and devastate all Poictesme in time for an earlyishsupper!"

  The faces of these ten became angry, and they shouted, "Blaerde ShayAlphenio Kasbue Gorfons Albuifrio!"

  All ten went up together from the sea, traveling more swiftly than mentravel, and what afterward happened in Poictesme was for a long while astory very fearful to hear and heard everywhere.

  Manuel did not witness any of the tale's making as he waited alone onthe seashore. But the land was sick, and its nausea heaved underManuel's wounded feet, and he saw that the pale, gurgling, glisteningsea appeared to crawl away from Poictesme slimily. And at Bellegarde andNaimes and Storisende and Lisuarte, and in all the strongly fortifiedinland places, Asmund's tall fighting-men beheld one or another of theangry faces which came up from the sea, and many died swiftly, as mustalways happen when anybody revives discarded dreams, nor did any of theNorthmen die in a shape recognizable as human.

  When the news was brought to Dom Manuel that his redemption of Poictesmewas completed, then Dom Manuel unarmed, and made himself presentable ina tunic of white damask and a girdle adorned with garnets and sapphires.He slipped over his left shoulder a baldric set with diamonds andemeralds, to sustain the unbloodied sword with which he had conqueredhere as upon Vraidex. Over all he put on a crimson mantle. Then theformer swineherd concealed his hands, not yet quite healed, with whitegloves, of which the one was adorned with a ruby, and the other was asapphire; and, sighing, Manuel the Redeemer (as he was calledthereafter) entered into his kingdom, and they of Poictesme received himfar more gladly than he them.

  Thus did Dom Manuel enter into the imprisonment of his own castle andinto the bonds of high estate, from which he might not easily get freeto go a-traveling everywhither, and see the ends of this world and judgethem. And they say that in her low red-pillared palace Suskind smiledcontentedly and made ready for the future.

  PART FIVE.

  THE BOOK OF SETTLEMENT

  TO

  JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

  Thus _Manuel reigned in vertue and honoure with that noble Ladye hiswyfe: and he was beloued and dradde of high and lowe degree, for he dyderyghte and iustice_ according to the auncient Manner, _kepynge hys landin dignitie and goode Appearance, and hauynge the highest place in hystyme._