Night's Sorceries

by Tanith Lee

  The girl’s long hair was black as pitch with the sheen of water. Her eyes, even in shadow, were the blue of the myosotis flower, and made him blink. At her side reclined the young man, and his eyes and hair were more lit than the lamplight. In his hands there was a lyre of crackpot design; incapable it looked of playing, yet from this he coaxed melodious improvisations, and as the girl lay in his arm, all at once he murmured this to her, and Beetle heard it:

  In the wasteland, under the tree,

  Bread and wine, and you, by me.

  And with our song that wasteland shall

  Heaven-on-earth become, and be.

  After which, the golden young man glanced toward Beetle and it seemed he winked. Beetle was nervously affronted, for he was certain he was well-concealed. No one could detect him. But surely he had been mistaken about the wink, for now the young man said to the young woman, “Let us go in, and leave the night outside to do as it wishes.” And at this she, too, seemed to regard Beetle amid the walnuts, but it was impossible she saw him. Both rose up and went into the cottage, and the door shut firm. In a minute more the lamp was doused.

  Beetle waited a great while, a century of ravening famine, before he tiptoed up into the garden and took some of the food from the table, and the earthenware jug which seemed full of a dark wine. Most of his real sustenance he had got by thieving from the priests; he had had to do it, and this theft did not bring him to any compunction, for though they were poor, those two, yet they had plenty, and looks and love besides. But after a gulp or ten, he did leave the jug among the roots of the walnut trees, before running away.

  Perhaps only by tipsy chance, since he had no luck, Beetle refound his dying fire, and the antique mule snoring beside it. Once there, Beetle swallowed the apples and cheese nearly whole, in case the cottagers came after him. They did not. In the morning they would suppose some wild thing had taken their food, and knocked down the jug—even that black hare Beetle, made mad by hunger, had fancied wore jewelry. . . .

  • • •

  Beetle was dreaming that the sun rose over the forest and the birds were making music like lyres. And there before him was not the decrepit mule, but a silvery horse trapped in saffron and gold, bells on its tasseled bridle, and bulging saddle-bags on either side of its sturdy flanks. In his dream Beetle was, reasonably enough, entranced. And getting to his feet, suffused with well-being and optimism, realized he wore a robe of thick silk embroidered all over, while on his feet were shoes so comfortable he would never have known he wore them, but for the color of their dyes. The rings on his fingers likewise would have blinded him if his eyes had not been, in the dream, so unnaturally strong and clear—

  “Well,” said Beetle to the morning, “This is a fine dream, but I had better wake up and resume my hopeless search for the mansion.”

  It then occurred to Beetle that he was quite awake.

  Discovering this, he fell down again and hid his head. He was waiting either for the false images to leave him, or the devil-being which had invented them to appear, and tear him in bits.

  Presently the noble horse approached Beetle instead, and began mildly nudging him.

  “Are you that mule?” Beetle asked the horse.

  The horse did not reply, only began to crop the grass. Beetle once more arose. At this another wave of health and vigor bashed him about the body, almost causing him to faint, for it was such an unaccustomed sensation.

  Nevertheless, feeling as he now did, Beetle did not find it easy to dally any longer with dread and timidity.

  “I will say only this,” said Beetle to the forest. “If these gifts last out, I shall resemble the richest man in my village.” And at this an abrupt thought sent him to investigate the saddlebags. Sure enough, there within them—along with some appetizing snacks—were a quantity of rubies, huge and unflawed. “It seems to me,” said Beetle, “that armed with this, I can return to the temple and tell them I have, after all, called at the mansion. I can render up these rubies as the gift of the lord and lady.”

  And with this cheerful resolve, Beetle got on the horse.

  “If my luck has changed, I shall unerringly and at once discover the road.”

  Swiftly, riding along at random, Beetle came on the road. It was no longer overgrown.

  Beetle rode the horse on to the paving and they trotted in the direction of the village.

  “In the wasteland under the trees!” sang Beetle, between eating and drinking, “with wine and bread and figs and cheese, I shall do whatever I please!”

  He went on in this way for a day or so, replenishing his stomach at will, making remarks to and cracking jokes at the forest, and singing. When night came and doused the light, Beetle lay out on the ground and was heartily amused by the noises of the animals. “My luck has changed,” said Beetle. The fact was he now felt so nourished and fit, he could not keep a pessimistic thought inside his head. And every time one tried to enter there, another wave of vitality would sweep it out again.

  Thus Beetle returned along the road. And as the horse went briskly, his homeward journey was more quickly accomplished than had been the other of setting forth.

  It was not until the pink stones of the village came distantly in sight, however, that the ultimate decision sprouted in Beetle. “I will give that temple nothing, for these valuables, like the robe and the mount, were meant for me. It would be ungrateful to let go of any of it. And whatever beings made this wonderful spell for me might be rightly angered and turn to punishing me—improbable as that seems. No, I will keep every pleasant thing, and only tell those priests the lord and lady granted me presents. And why should I not,” added Beetle, tickled by his wit, “pretend those two simple cottagers were just that lord and his mistress.”

  And with this final resolve Beetle came in grand style down the road and passed into the village.

  You may be sure that on the streets he was much stared at.

  “Who is that princely youth?” they exclaimed.

  And the good families, fallen on hard times, took down their eldest daughters off the shelves and dusted them.

  But the young man, tall and muscular and with the burnish of health on hair and skin and merriment in his large and shining eyes, rode away up the street toward the temple.

  “Ho. He is religious,” said the villagers, not exact as to how this boded.

  While the fane itself, where he had already been noted, flung wide its gates.

  As Beetle was riding through into the outer courtyard (where he had been left ten years before, a sobbing child), the Chief Priest himself gushed bustling down.

  “My lordly son,” cried the Priest, “you are welcome!”

  Beetle sat his horse and looked about. His fine eyes flashed with joy and the Chief Priest was greatly encouraged, until the young man spoke aloud.

  “Can it be you do not know me, father?”

  “Kn-know you, my peerless boy?”

  “Well, but I am your own Beetle, come home to your loving care.”

  Now, although an amazing change had been worked in and upon Beetle, the sort of alteration only mighty sorcery could compass, yet Beetle he was still. And after a long gazing silence, there was not a priest in that court who did not begin to see as much, not least the Chief of them, whose obese eyes had pupils like lance-points.

  “My son,” said he at length, “I perceive that you reached the objective whereto I sent you, in my compassionate wisdom. And that, though I believe you doubted I had your best fortune at heart when I did so, by now you will know that I did.”

  Beetle grinned.

  The Chief Priest picked up his skirts.

  “You will follow, my son Beetle, for I will now give you private audience.”

  “Certainly,” said Beetle. “However, I must warn every person present that neither my mount nor its accoutrements or bags are to be tampered with.
Those who so rewarded me for my visit are magicians and adepts at cursing—I even venture to think their curses are more effective than those of our own holy father. They have protected their gifts to me with such a bane that I dare not even repeat its ingredients. I only say again—beware!”

  And this mentioned, Beetle dismounted and swaggered into the inner sanctum after the Chief Priest.

  Where: “Speak!” commanded the latter.

  At which Beetle told his tale as follows.

  After an arduous journey, beset by wood-lions, lethal snakes and starvation, Beetle had reached an enchanted mansion, plainly of sorcerers. Its magnificence was beyond description; he would therefore not attempt to describe it. However, as he was marveling at the gate, an uncanny agent arrived—again, inadequate description should be dispensed with—and conducted Beetle into a delicious garden, where there sat a young prince and princess of peerless attraction.

  “Pray what were they like?” said the Chief Priest, rather put out at so far having received so little meat on his bone.

  Beetle drew a deep breath. He gestured with the assurance of a popular actor.

  “Father, though words are beggared by truth, I will give you my impressions. He was all golden, like the sun, and his eyes were golden—he was like the day at high noon. But she—oh, she—she was the daughter of night itself. Her skin was pale as the moon, her eyes like two blue stars, her hair the darkness. Yes, she was night’s child, but the day loved her, as they say the sun is in love with the moon. For he was Day, and there he sat beside her, and from the way he bent his eye on her it was evident she was all his desire. But no woman could have looked at him unmoved. Nor did she do so.”

  Having thus expounded, Beetle continued to inform the Chief Priest of how the young couple had greeted him with courtesy, and wined and dined him with such opulence that to recount it was beyond his limits. When the visit was at an end, they gifted Beetle with a suit of clothes and the horse he had returned upon, and with other hidden treasures he had sworn not to reveal and which, if touched without his authority, would blast the trespasser.

  For some minutes the Chief Priest sat pondering, while Beetle helped himself to oranges and sweetmeats from a dish.

  At last the Chief Priest said, gently chiding, “But my son, finding such favor with these . . . pious and kindly persons, did you not present to them the holy scroll and extol for them the qualities of this temple, which has been, these many years, home and family to you?”

  When the Chief Priest said this to him, Beetle felt a sharp spur of spite in his heart. Heeding it, he said, “But father, why else did you send me? I obeyed you in all things. But the lord and lady, it seems, never leave their house. Instead, they invite you to call on them, if you will.”

  Hearing that, the Chief Priest’s fat eyes bulged almost out of his face, and Beetle must pretend to choke on a nut to cover his laughter. For he pictured to himself the Priest lost in the forest as he had been, and unable to find any such spot as a mansion. And Beetle said to himself, After all, it is obvious I was successful from the way I have come back. But anyone can lose his way in the wood. I can give him just such directions as he gave to me, and let him have glee in them. As for the magic being which took pity on me, maybe it will pity him, too. But I doubt that. And once more he had to have a little choking fit, so the Chief Priest came caringly to pat him between the shoulders.

  • • •

  Next morning, an hour after dawn, the Chief Priest rode out into the forest, accompanied by two of his most familiar under-priests, and attended only by the boy Precious, who had been taken with them as a treat.

  At no time had any religious of the temple expressed doubt as to the mission. Seeing Beetle in his new magnificence, perhaps they were reminded of a saying of the area: Does the wasp make honey? It was no bad thing, when invited, to pay a call on generous eccentrics. For if an idiotic nobody was sent off with such gifts, what should be lavished on an erudite and holy priest?

  Beetle had ridden some days, provisioned only from a satchel. The three priests had brought with them an extra mule, laden by bags of this and that deemed necessary for comfort. Precious led this mule.

  All the first day then, the procession made its way along the road. They were much plagued by flies, attracted perhaps to the bulging food-bags or the perfume of Precious, but otherwise the time passed without incident.

  Then the sun westered and began to set, and a deep bronze burnish intensified the forest.

  “We shall camp there, in that glade beside the road,” announced the Chief Priest. “Put up the tent.”

  No sooner had they entered the glade, however, and begun to dismount from their mules, than a strange tremor of music came wafting to them out of the wood.

  Be certain, the three priests all cocked their ears at it, while Precious (who, let it be said, had all this while kept some unvoiced reservations concerning the venture) slunk behind a tree.

  Next minute, an odd passion overcame the five mules.

  First they snorted, then they bucked—so the saddles and bags fell off their backs, and the third dismounting priest, who had not yet reached the ground, did so in a manner unpleasing to him.

  Freed of their burdens the mules rushed across the glade, and then standing upright on their hind limbs, began to dance in a ring, often clapping their forehoofs with a neighbor’s.

  The priests stared at this silly and unnerving sight.

  At last the Chief Priest, who usually expected to have some sagacious comment on him for any event, remarked, “The nearness of magic, it is well known, can upset the behavior of the lower animals.”

  No sooner had he spoken than the mules gave over their dancing, and began instead ramblingly to graze.

  The light was now running away fast through the sieve of branches and leaves. Then came a series of spurts of it along the ground—and in the midst of these bounded a black shadow.

  The priests made pious signs, and the third of their number made as if to hurry off—but in another moment they had discerned before them nothing more fearsome than a large black hare, plainly a pet, for it was the gold and silver of its collar and earrings which had fired in the grass.

  And now the hare halted and bowed thrice to the priests, so its lovely ears swept the earth.

  Then, turning about, it loped along the glade, paused and looked back at them.

  “This is most gratifying,” said the Chief Priest. “For it would seem our prospective hosts have come out, after all, to meet us. Stupid Beetle, not surprisingly, misunderstood or wrongly imparted their wishes. The hare is their messenger, and we must follow it.”

  This then they did. Even Precious followed at a distance, equally afraid of being left alone in the forest.

  After a few minutes’ walk through the darkening avenues of the wood, a great light shone out and presently another glade opened, most extravagantly lit by lamps of colored glass that hung on chains of gold from the trees, or from poles of carved ivory planted where the trees were not. So beautiful and bright it had been made, this place, that all the birds thereabouts, who had just been retiring for the night, had come awake again, supposing the sun had risen early to catch them out, and begun hastily and wildly to sing a hundred twittering tunes. Another melody played about the glade, but this had no source.

  In the middle of the glade grew a single walnut tree, but its leaves were silver, and the green husks of the nuts seemed nothing less than emeralds. About the walnut, under canopies of gold, were set divans of crimson silk heaped by crimson cushions of satin.

  From one of these there now arose a young man and woman and clearly, from the descriptions of Beetle, these were the lord and his lady, the two magicians.

  The young man could not be other than a prince, so handsome and so sumptuously clad he was, in gold for his goldenness, and at his side a modest girl, seventeen years of age, garbe
d in silver and with sapphires in her cascade of midnight hair, and sapphires, too, in her eyes.

  “You are most welcome,” exclaimed the young prince. “Indeed, since our entertainment of your emissary, we have been anxiously awaiting you.”

  And the modest girl, properly keeping her place, smiled upon the priests, before lowering her adorable lashes.

  Soon enough then, the representatives of the temple had been seated on the couches. But when Precious approached, the prince abruptly waxed stern. “Your servant may not sit beside you, reverend father. He must sit over there, out of the light.”

  The Chief Priest did not argue. He waved Precious away in a lordly manner, and the despised creature sat down where bidden, in the shadow far from the warmth and comforts.

  The black hare had vanished, but now out of some mysterious part of the wood there issued a troop of striped marmosets, walking with the utmost decorum. And these came to the priests and washed their hands and feet in perfumed water, while others put out jugs of gold from which drifted the heady fumes of wine on which rose-petals had been sprinkled, and yet others arrived in a stately way bearing jeweled dishes of such worth the eyes of all three priests grew fat and glittered.

  A lavish repast was spread. And it was the young prince and princess themselves who now waited on the guests, garlanding their brows with myrtle, filling their golden goblets and heaping their plates—with obvious joy in the service, while they themselves took nothing. (But to Precious they only sent, by the paws of marmosets, a clay bowl of water and a wooden platter of herbs.)

  And as the feast went on, the sorcerer prince and princess sat and gazed respectfully at the priests, and the prince entreated the Chief of them for instruction on the nature of the gods, while she, so modest, never presumed to speak at all.

  Thus passed a large portion of the night, in eating and drinking, and in the intellectual and aesthetic monologue of the Chief Priest who, finding at long last an audience befitting him, spoke for some hours with hardly a hesitation, needing only now and then to lubricate his throat with wine. And such insights came to him during this talk, such enlightening gems, that he was filled himself by a humble pride and happiness which perhaps never before, since his childhood, had he ever felt. And for the hosts, they hung on every word as beautifully as the lamps hung on the trees about.