A Dreamer's Tales

by Lord Dunsany

  _In a letter from a friend whom I have never seen, one of those that readmy books, this line was quoted--"But he, he never came to Carcassonne." Ido not know the origin of the line, but I made this tale about it._

  CARCASSONNE

  When Camorak reigned at Arn, and the world was fairer, he gave a festivalto all the weald to commemorate the splendour of his youth.

  They say that his house at Arn was huge and high, and its ceiling paintedblue; and when evening fell men would climb up by ladders and light thescores of candles hanging from slender chains. And they say, too, thatsometimes a cloud would come, and pour in through the top of one of theoriel windows, and it would come over the edge of the stonework as thesea-mist comes over a sheer cliffs shaven lip where an old wind has blownfor ever and ever (he has swept away thousands of leaves and thousands ofcenturies, they are all one to him, he owes no allegiance to Time). Andthe cloud would re-shape itself in the hall's lofty vault and drift onthrough it slowly, and out to the sky again through another window. Andfrom its shape the knights in Camorak's hall would prophesy the battlesand sieges of the next season of war. They say of the hall of Camorak atArn that there hath been none like it in any land, and foretell that therewill be never.

  Hither had come in the folk of the Weald from sheepfold and from forest,revolving slow thoughts of food, and shelter, and love, and they sat downwondering in that famous hall; and therein also were seated the men ofArn, the town that clustered round the King's high house, and all wasroofed with red, maternal earth.

  If old songs may be trusted, it was a marvelous hall.

  Many who sat there could only have seen it distantly before, a clear shapein the landscape, but smaller than a hill. Now they beheld along the wallthe weapons of Camorak's men, of which already the lute-players madesongs, and tales were told at evening in the byres. There they describedthe shield of Camorak that had gone to and fro across so many battles, andthe sharp but dinted edges of his sword; there were the weapons of Gadriolthe Leal, and Norn, and Athoric of the Sleety Sword, Heriel the Wild,Yarold, and Thanga of Esk, their arms hung evenly all round the hall, lowwhere a man could reach them; and in the place of honour in the midst,between the arms of Camorak and of Gadriol the Leal, hung the harp ofArleon. And of all the weapons hanging on those walls none were morecalamitous to Camorak's foes than was the harp of Arleon. For to a manthat goes up against a strong place on foot, pleasant indeed is the twangand jolt of some fearful engine of war that his fellow-warriors areworking behind him, from which huge rocks go sighing over his head andplunge among his foes; and pleasant to a warrior in the wavering light arethe swift commands of his King, and a joy to him are his comrades' instantcheers exulting suddenly at a turn of the war. All this and more was theharp to Camorak's men; for not only would it cheer his warriors on, butmany a time would Arleon of the Harp strike wild amazement into opposinghosts by some rapturous prophecy suddenly shouted out while his hand sweptover the roaring strings. Moreover, no war was ever declared till Camorakand his men had listened long to the harp, and were elate with the musicand mad against peace. Once Arleon, for the sake of a rhyme, had made warupon Estabonn; and an evil king was overthrown, and honour and glory won;from such queer motives does good sometimes accrue.

  Above the shields and the harps all round the hall were the paintedfigures of heroes of fabulous famous songs. Too trivial, because tooeasily surpassed by Camorak's men, seemed all the victories that the earthhad known; neither was any trophy displayed of Camorak's seventy battles,for these were as nothing to his warriors or him compared with thosethings that their youth had dreamed and which they mightily purposed yetto do.

  Above the painted pictures there was darkness, for evening was closing in,and the candles swinging on their slender chain were not yet lit in theroof; it was as though a piece of the night had been builded into theedifice like a huge natural rock that juts into a house. And there sat allthe warriors of Arn and the Weald-folk wondering at them; and none weremore than thirty, and all were skilled in war. And Camorak sat at the headof all, exulting in his youth.

  We must wrestle with Time for some seven decades, and he is a weak andpuny antagonist in the first three bouts.

  Now there was present at this feast a diviner, one who knew the schemes ofFate, and he sat among the people of the Weald and had no place of honour,for Camorak and his men had no fear of Fate. And when the meat was eatenand the bones cast aside, the king rose up from his chair, and havingdrunken wine, and being in the glory of his youth and with all his knightsabout him, called to the diviner, saying, "Prophesy."

  And the diviner rose up, stroking his grey beard, and spakeguardedly--"There are certain events," he said, "upon the ways of Fatethat are veiled even from a diviner's eyes, and many more are clear to usthat were better veiled from all; much I know that is better unforetold,and some things that I may not foretell on pain of centuries ofpunishment. But this I know and foretell--that you will never come toCarcassonne."

  Instantly there was a buzz of talk telling of Carcassonne--some had heardof it in speech or song, some had read of it, and some had dreamed of it.And the king sent Arleon of the Harp down from his right hand to minglewith the Weald-folk to hear aught that any told of Carcassonne. But thewarriors told of the places they had won to--many a hard-held fortress,many a far-off land, and swore that they would come to Carcassonne.

  And in a while came Arleon back to the king's right hand, and raised hisharp and chanted and told of Carcassonne. Far away it was, and far and faraway, a city of gleaming ramparts rising one over other, and marbleterraces behind the ramparts, and fountains shimmering on the terraces. ToCarcassonne the elf-kings with their fairies had first retreated from men,and had built it on an evening late in May by blowing their elfin horns.Carcassonne! Carcassonne!

  Travellers had seen it sometimes like a clear dream, with the sunglittering on its citadel upon a far-off hilltop, and then the clouds hadcome or a sudden mist; no one had seen it long or come quite close to it;though once there were some men that came very near, and the smoke fromthe houses blew into their faces, a sudden gust--no more, and thesedeclared that some one was burning cedarwood there. Men had dreamed thatthere is a witch there, walking alone through the cold courts andcorridors of marmorean palaces, fearfully beautiful and still for all herfourscore centuries, singing the second oldest song, which was taught herby the sea, shedding tears for loneliness from eyes that would maddenarmies, yet will she not call her dragons home--Carcassonne is terriblyguarded. Sometimes she swims in a marble bath through whose deeps a rivertumbles, or lies all morning on the edge of it to dry slowly in the sun,and watches the heaving river trouble the deeps of the bath. It flowsthrough the caverns of earth for further than she knows, and coming tolight in the witch's bath goes down through the earth again to its ownpeculiar sea.

  In autumn sometimes it comes down black with snow that spring has moltenin unimagined mountains, or withered blooms of mountain shrubs gobeautifully by.

  When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the mountains;and yet she knows not where those mountains are.

  When she sings the fountains dance up from the dark earth, when she combsher hair they say there are storms at sea, when she is angry the wolvesgrow brave and all come down to the byres, when she is sad the sea is sad,and both are sad for ever. Carcassonne! Carcassonne!

  This city is the fairest of the wonders of Morning; the sun shouts when hebeholdeth it; for Carcassonne Evening weepeth when Evening passeth away.

  And Arleon told how many goodly perils were round about the city, and howthe way was unknown, and it was a knightly venture. Then all the warriorsstood up and sang of the splendour of the venture. And Camorak swore bythe gods that had builded Arn, and by the honour of his warriors that,alive or dead, he would come to Carcassonne.

  But the diviner rose and passed out of the hall, brushing the crumbs fromhim with his hands and smoothing his robe as he went.

  Then Camorak said, "There are many things t
o be planned, and counsels tobe taken, and provender to be gathered. Upon what day shall we start?" Andall the warriors answering shouted, "Now." And Camorak smiled thereat, forhe had but tried them. Down then from the walls they took their weapons,Sikorix, Kelleron, Aslof, Wole of the Axe; Huhenoth, Peace-breaker;Wolwuf, Father of War; Tarion, Lurth of the Warcry and many another.Little then dreamed the spiders that sat in that ringing hall of theunmolested leisure they were soon to enjoy.

  When they were armed they all formed up and marched out of the hall, andArleon strode before them singing of Carcassonne.

  But the talk of the Weald arose and went back well fed to byres. They hadno need of wars or of rare perils. They were ever at war with hunger. Along drought or hard winter were to them pitched battles; if the wolvesentered a sheep-fold it was like the loss of a fortress, a thunder-stormon the harvest was like an ambuscade. Well-fed, they went back slowly totheir byres, being at truce with hunger; and the night filled with stars.

  And black against the starry sky appeared the round helms of the warriorsas they passed the tops of the ridges, but in the valleys they sparklednow and then as the starlight flashed on steel.

  They followed behind Arleon going south, whence rumours had always come ofCarcassonne: so they marched in the starlight, and he before them singing.

  When they had marched so far that they heard no sound from Arn, and eveninaudible were her swinging bells, when candles burning late far up intowers no longer sent them their disconsolate welcome; in the midst of thepleasant night that lulls the rural spaces, weariness came upon Arleon andhis inspiration failed. It failed slowly. Gradually he grew less sure ofthe way to Carcassonne. Awhile he stopped to think, and remembered the wayagain; but his clear certainty was gone, and in its place were efforts inhis mind to recall old prophecies and shepherd's songs that told of themarvelous city. Then as he said over carefully to himself a song that awanderer had learnt from a goatherd's boy far up the lower slope ofultimate southern mountains, fatigue came down upon his toiling mind likesnow on the winding ways of a city noisy by night, stilling all.

  He stood, and the warriors closed up to him. For long they had passed bygreat oaks standing solitary here and there, like giants taking hugebreaths of the night air before doing some furious deed; now they had cometo the verge of a black forest; the tree-trunks stood like those greatcolumns in an Egyptian hall whence God in an older mood received thepraise of men; the top of it sloped the way of an ancient wind. Here theyall halted and lighted a fire of branches, striking sparks from flint intoa heap of bracken. They eased them of their armour, and sat round thefire, and Camorak stood up there and addressed them, and Camorak said: "Wego to war with Fate, who has doomed that I shall not come to Carcassonne.And if we turn aside but one of the dooms of Fate, then the whole futureof the world is ours, and the future that Fate has ordered is like the drycourse of an averted river. But if such men as we, such resoluteconquerors, cannot prevent one doom that Fate has planned, then is therace of man enslaved for ever to do its petty and allotted task."

  Then they all drew their swords, and waved them high in the firelight, anddeclared war on Fate.

  Nothing in the somber forest stirred or made any sound.

  Tired men do not dream of war. When morning came over the gleaming fieldsa company that had set out from Arn discovered the discovered thecamping-place of the warriors, and brought pavilions and provender. Andthe warriors feasted, and the birds in the forest sang, and theinspiration of Arleon awoke.

  Then they rose, and following Arleon, entered the forest, and marched awayto the South. And many a woman of Arn sent her thoughts with them as theyplayed alone some old monotonous tune, but their own thoughts were farbefore them, skimming over the bath through whose deeps the river tumblesin marble Carcassonne.

  When butterflies were dancing on the air, and the sun neared the zenith,pavilions were pitched, and all the warriors rested; and then they feastedagain, and then played knightly games, and late in the afternoon marchedon once more, singing of Carcassonne.

  And night came down with its mystery on the forest, and gave theirdemoniac look again to the trees, and rolled up out of misty hollows ahuge and yellow moon.

  And the men of Arn lit fires, and sudden shadows arose and leapedfantastically away. And the night-wind blew, arising like a ghost, andpassed between the tree trunks, and slipped down shimmering glades, andwaked the prowling beasts still dreaming of day, and drifted nocturnalbirds afield to menace timorous things, and beat the roses of thebefriending night, and wafted to the ears of wandering men the sound of amaiden's song, and gave a glamour to the lutanist's tune played in hisloneliness on distant hills; and the deep eyes of moths glowed like agalleon's lamps, and they spread their wings and sailed their familiarsea. Upon this night-wind also the dreams of Camorak's men floated toCarcassonne.

  All the next morning they marched, and all the evening, and knew they werenearing now the deeps of the forest. And the citizens of Arn kept closetogether and close behind the warriors. For the deeps of the forest wereall unknown to travellers, but not unknown to those tales of fear that mentell at evening to their friends, in the comfort and the safety of theirhearths. Then night appeared, and an enormous moon. And the men of Camorakslept. Sometimes they woke, and went to sleep again; and those that stayedawake for long and listened heard heavy two-footed creatures pad throughthe night on paws.

  As soon as it was light the unarmed men of Arn began to slip away, andwent back by bands through the forest. When darkness came they did notstop to sleep, but continued their flight straight on until they came toArn, and added there by the tales they told to the terror of the forest.

  But the warriors feasted, and afterwards Arleon rose, and played his harp,and led them on again; and a few faithful servants stayed with them still.And they marched all day through a gloom that was as old as night, butArleon's inspiration burned in his mind like a star. And he led them tillthe birds began to drop into the treetops, and it was evening and they allencamped. They had only one pavilion left to them now, and near it theylit a fire, and Camorak posted a sentry with drawn sword just beyond theglow of the firelight. Some of the warriors slept in the pavilion andothers round about it.

  When dawn came something terrible had killed and eaten the sentry. But thesplendour of the rumours of Carcassonne and Fate's decree that they shouldnever come there, and the inspiration of Arleon and his harp, all urgedthe warriors on; and they marched deeper and deeper all day into theforest.

  Once they saw a dragon that had caught a bear and was playing with it,letting it run a little way and overtaking it with a paw.

  They came at last to a clear space in the forest just before nightfall. Anodour of flowers arose from it like a mist, and every drop of dewinterpreted heaven unto itself.

  It was the hour when twilight kisses Earth.

  It was the hour when a meaning comes into senseless things, and treesout-majesty the pomp of monarchs, and the timid creatures steal abroad tofeed, and as yet the beasts of prey harmlessly dream, and Earth utters asigh, and it is night.

  In the midst of the wide clearing Camorak's warriors camped, and rejoicedto see stars again appearing one by one.

  That night they ate the last of their provisions, and slept unmolested bythe prowling things that haunt the gloom of the forest.

  On the next day some of the warriors hunted stags, and others lay inrushes by a neighbouring lake and shot arrows at water-fowl. One stag waskilled, and some geese, and several teal.

  Here the adventurers stayed, breathing the pure wild air that cities knownot; by day they hunted, and lit fires by night, and sang and feasted, andforgot Carcassonne. The terrible denizens of the gloom never molestedthem, venison was plentiful, and all manner of water-fowl: they loved thechase by day, and by night their favourite songs. Thus day after day wentby, thus week after week. Time flung over this encampment a handful ofmoons, the gold and silver moons that waste the year away; Autumn andWinter passed, and Spring appeared; and st
ill the warriors hunted andfeasted there.

  One night of the springtide they were feasting about a fire and tellingtales of the chase, and the soft moths came out of the dark and flauntedtheir colours in the firelight, and went out grey into the dark again; andthe night wind was cool upon the warriors' necks, and the camp-fire waswarm in their faces, and a silence had settled among them after some song,and Arleon all at once rose suddenly up, remembering Carcassonne. And hishand swept over the strings of his harp, awaking the deeper chords, likethe sound of a nimble people dancing their steps on bronze, and the musicrolled away into the night's own silence, and the voice of Arleon rose:

  "When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the mountainsand longs for the battle-shout of kingly men."

  And suddenly all shouted, "Carcassonne!" And at that word their idlenesswas gone as a dream is gone from a dreamer waked with a shout. And soonthe great march began that faltered no more nor wavered. Unchecked bybattles, undaunted in lonesome spaces, ever unwearied by the vulturousyears, the warriors of Camorak held on; and Arleon's inspiration led themstill. They cleft with the music of Arleon's harp the gloom of ancientsilences; they went singing into battles with terrible wild men, and cameout singing, but with fewer voices; they came to villages in valleys fullof the music of bells, or saw the lights at dusk of cottages shelteringothers.

  They became a proverb for wandering, and a legend arose of strange,disconsolate men. Folks spoke of them at nightfall when the fire was warmand rain slipped down the eaves; and when the wind was high small childrenfeared the Men Who Would Not Rest were going clattering past. Strangetales were told of men in old grey armour moving at twilight along thetops of the hills and never asking shelter; and mothers told their boyswho grew impatient of home that the grey wanderers were once so impatientand were now hopeless of rest, and were driven along with the rainwhenever the wind was angry.

  But the wanderers were cheered in their wandering by the hope of coming toCarcassonne, and later on by anger against Fate, and at last they marchedon still because it seemed better to march on than to think.

  For many years they had wandered and had fought with many tribes; oftenthey gathered legends in villages and listened to idle singers singingsongs; and all the rumours of Carcassonne still came from the South.

  And then one day they came to a hilly land with a legend in it that onlythree valleys away a man might see, on clear days, Carcassonne. Tiredthough they were and few, and worn with the years which had all broughtthem wars, they pushed on instantly, led still by Arleon's inspirationwhich dwindled in his age, though he made music with his old harp still.

  All day they climbed down into the first valley and for two days ascended,and came to the Town That May Not Be Taken In War below the top of themountain, and its gates were shut against them, and there was no wayround. To left and right steep precipices stood for as far as eye couldsee or legend tell of, and the pass lay through the city. ThereforeCamorak drew up his remaining warriors in line of battle to wage theirlast war, and they stepped forward over the crisp bones of old, unburiedarmies.

  No sentinel defied them in the gate, no arrow flew from any tower of war.One citizen climbed alone to the mountain's top, and the rest hidthemselves in sheltered places.

  Now, in the top of the mountain was a deep, bowl-like cavern in the rock,in which fires bubbled softly. But if any cast a boulder into the fires,as it was the custom for one of those citizens to do when enemiesapproached them, the mountain hurled up intermittent rocks for three days,and the rocks fell flaming all over the town and all round about it. Andjust as Camorak's men began to batter the gate they heard a crash on themountain, and a great rock fell beyond them and rolled into the valley.The next two fell in front of them on the iron roofs of the town. Just asthey entered the town a rock found them crowded in a narrow street, andshattered two of them. The mountain smoked and panted; with every pant arock plunged into the streets or bounced along the heavy iron roof, andthe smoke went slowly up, and up, and up.

  When they had come through the long town's empty streets to the lockedgate at the end, only fifteen were left. When they had broken down thegate there were only ten alive. Three more were killed as they went up theslope, and two as they passed near the terrible cavern. Fate let the restgo some way down the mountain upon the other side, and then took three ofthem. Camorak and Arleon alone were left alive. And night came down on thevalley to which they had come, and was lit by flashes from the fatalmountain; and the two mourned for their comrades all night long.

  But when the morning came they remembered their war with Fate, and theirold resolve to come to Carcassonne, and the voice of Arleon rose in aquavering song, and snatches of music from his old harp, and he stood upand marched with his face southwards as he had done for years, and behindhim Camorak went. And when at last they climbed from the third valley, andstood on the hill's summit in the golden sunlight of evening, their agedeyes saw only miles of forest and the birds going to roost.

  Their beards were white, and they had travelled very far and hard; it wasthe time with them when a man rests from labours and dreams in light sleepof the years that were and not of the years to come.

  Long they looked southwards; and the sun set over remoter forests, andglow-worms lit their lamps, and the inspiration of Arleon rose and flewaway for ever, to gladden, perhaps, the dreams of younger men.

  And Arleon said: "My King, I know no longer the way to Carcassonne."

  And Camorak smiled, as the aged smile, with little cause for mirth, andsaid: "The years are going by us like huge birds, whom Doom and Destinyand the schemes of God have frightened up out of some old grey marsh. Andit may well be that against these no warrior may avail, and that Fate hasconquered us, and that our quest has failed."

  And after this they were silent.

  Then they drew their swords, and side by side went down into the forest,still seeking Carcassonne.

  I think they got not far; for there were deadly marshes in that forest,and gloom that outlasted the nights, and fearful beasts accustomed to itsways. Neither is there any legend, either in verse or among the songs ofthe people of the fields, of any having come to Carcassonne.