The Iron Tempest

by Ron Miller

  Staggering back a few unsteady paces, the hermit pulled a vial made of thick, blue glass from somewhere within his moldy rags. Pulling its cork free with two of his three teeth, he flung the contents into Angelica’s face. Startled, she threw her hands up but it was too late: a viscous, stinging liquid splattered into her radiant eyes. She stood there as though stunned, motionless, frozen into that last position as though the hermit had somehow inverted Galatea’s metamorphosis. Then, as though the faint breeze from the sea had upset some delicate equilibrium, she collapsed to the ground.

  The hermit stared for a very long moment at the still figure that lay at his feet. Her breathing was so shallow and came at such long intervals that he feared for a moment that he might have overplayed his hand and murdered her—not that, in the short run, it would have made all that much difference to him. Still, he was pleased to see that the princess was in fact alive.

  Angelica, even unconscious, was so beautiful that even that hard, shriveled little knot that passed for the hermit’s heart—like a desiccated tuber—gave a twitch in response, in much the same way that even the most hardened gynethrope might find himself inadvertently touching the brim of his hat in deference to the unexpected appearance of a lovely woman. She lay as she fell, draped over the rough shingle as gracefully as a silken banner. The gossamer dress she’d worn throughout her odyssey had by now been reduced to tattered fragments, mere ribbons that clung to her body like wet tissue.

  The hermit licked his horny, chapped lips and fell to his knees beside the comatose princess as though before some holy altar. With quivering, worshipful fingertips, he touched Angelica’s gleaming prolongations. His bony hands were like skinny spiders, arachnid Hannos exploring remarkable archipelagoes. They danced like ecstatic lizards over her lips, her cheeks, her neck, her breasts.

  He was wheezing like a bellows and his atrophied heart strained under the whip of unaccustomed emotion. He paused from his sacrilegious explorations long enough to tear his decaying garments from his withered loins, exposing ancient genitalia in such a state of decomposition that their appearance would have only served to reassure Angelica—had she been awake to see them—of her perfect safety. The hermit glanced down at his traitorous organs in dismay, shock, disbelief and disappointment. He was like a knight whose enthusiasm for the joust is not shared by his weary jade. All the hermit desired was to prove himself a lover. Unfortunately, the years had undermined his aptitude—and the harder he tried, the worse things got. Like that disappointed knight, no matter what he tried he could not get his swaybacked plug to jump: in vain he shook the bridle, stabbed his spurs, thumped with his fist yet the stubborn nag refused to even lift its head in response.

  At last, the exhausted hermit collapsed beside the still-slumbering princess and soon he, too, was sound asleep. Fate, however, was not finished with either of them. When that cruel goddess schemes to undermine a mortal’s fortune for either contempt or sport, she likes to see the game to the finish.

  * * * * *

  Among the islands of the Hebrides is one called Ebuda. It is one of the most desolate of all of those remote rocks and almost destitute of inhabitants. There is good reason for this, for it is the place that Proteus chose to house his collection of sea monsters—a collection surely unique to this planet—not the least of which was the dreadful Orc. Historians all agree that at one time a powerful king once held sway over Ebuda and all of the surrounding islands. This king had (as might be expected) a daughter of surpassing beauty. Proteus needed to see this child but once and such love erupted in his clammy heart that the sea itself boiled around him. He watched her every day from the heavy surf that pounded the reefs protecting the little beach where the princess would romp and play with her companions. Never had he seen anything so beautiful. No sea creature possessed her grace, suppleness or lovely curves. The god’s patience was rewarded that one long-awaited day when the princess’ maids failed to accompany her. On that day he captured her and raped her.

  This was a worse than terrible crime for the innocent girl now carried in her womb a monster. Her father the king—a man almost perfect in his ignorance, pride and brutality—was merciless: not for a moment did he believe in his daughter’s blamelessness. That she had been unchaste with some man was all he permitted himself to believe—and he convinced himself that the defiler had of necessity to be some commoner, else why would the princess protect his name by such a fabric of obvious lies about libidinal mermen? Convinced that his name and house had been dishonored, he at last had the poor girl put to death, and with her the unborn child.

  Proteus, upon learning of this tragic misjustice, set loose in his rage all the monsters at his command. Ebuda was overwhelmed by every unspeakable terror as the god stood grimly watching, the surf pounding around his flanks as though he were some adamant pillar of rock. Nothing was allowed to remain alive, not an ox, a sheep or a horse, not a cat, a dog or a rat. It was a harvest of ferocity.

  The people of Ebuda fled before this savagery, taking refuge, ultimately, in the castle with the terrified king. Proteus’ hellish army pursued them to the very gates of the city. The people fought day and night to hold their ground but it soon became clear that their defense was going to be in vain. They were doomed sooner or later and with every passing moment it became ever more certain that it was going to be sooner.

  Finally, in despair, they consulted an ancient crone, well-known to be a seeress. The question was scarcely out of their mouths before she croaked her answer: Find a damsel, she said, as beautiful as the one who had recently graced the scaffold. Present her then to Proteus in the hope that a reasonable substitute might placate his anger. If he rejected their first offer, then they would have to offer others until, at last, they found the one who satisfied the god.

  This sounded reasonable to the mob, even if it did seal the fate of every maiden in the Hebrides. From that day, and every day thereafter, they took some poor girl to the late princess’ favorite beach and presented her to Proteus who, in no mood to readily forgive the Ebudans, gleefully passed her on to the Orc who, if his master spurned their beauty, was not about to spurn them as food.

  Still, the Ebudan’s plan worked to a degree: gradually all the monsters returned to the sea, leaving only the terrible Orc. What made the situation particularly tragic was that Proteus eventually lost interest in the game and never returned to Ebuda. The islanders, who never became aware of this, thereafter made their sacrifices only to the benefit of the monster’s appetite.

  Everywhere a woman’s life is hard, but in the Hebrides it was intolerable.

  It can readily be imagined that Ebuda’s own supply of maidens was soon exhausted. The cruel islanders had to look ever further for their victims and the neighboring islands were soon raided for their young women. No female long survived a shipwreck in the Hebrides and when the winds failed, the cunning hunters took it upon themselves to seek out their prey. In any boat they could lay their hands upon they scoured the coasts of the archipelago and nearby Caledonia, everywhere seeking provisions for the Orc’s stomach. They used whatever means they had at hand or could invent: if they could not flatter a woman to come with them they offered gold, if gold was refused they knocked them over the head and took them anyway. From everywhere they took them, from near and far, and soon the towers, dungeons and cells of Ebuda were filled.

  Now, it just happened that an Ebudan galley was cruising just off that same desolate strand where only moments before the lustful hermit had collapsed in despair. They had no hope of finding a woman in such an awful place, they were merely in search of some fresh water. Imagine the surprise, then, when, putting ashore with their empty casks and kegs, the sailors discover the unconscious Angelica, cradled in the arms of what at first they took to be an enormous spider but what they quickly realised was a shriveled old man.

  Even these hardened pirates, used as they were to seeing women of overwhelming beauty, were taken aback at the sight of Angelica and wondered, for a moment,
if it might somehow be a sacrilege to lay their rough hands on such a treasure. Angelica, were she conscious, would have been the first to encourage such doubts. After all, her beauty was such that the East had championed it against the West, King Sacripant had been ready to trade his kingdom for it and great Roland his honor and sanity (which is another story altogether)—was it now friendless, with no one to so much as utter a word in its defense?

  Apparently, since—after that momentary respite—Angelica is bound and carried aboard the waiting vessel, in her sleep oblivious to the wails of her fellow prisoners—not that she would have been very likely to have shown much pity. As an afterthought, the hermit is also carried away as a kind of curiosity. The sail is unfurled and the ship is soon on its way to the terrible island of Ebuda.

  It soon became clear from his curses that the hermit was not only responsible for Angelica’s coma but was no holy man. It didn’t prove difficult for the hardened pirates to persuade him to lift his spell over their prisoner. Angelica awake is even more awe-inspiring than Angelica asleep and the sailors involuntarily drew away from her, like mushrooms wilting in the glare of the sun. It was the first time in her life that her beauty served to protect her from harm. Where in the past it had only served to inflame kings and knights to thoughts of kidnapping and rape, it held these low creatures at bay in much the same way that a flaming brand will ward off a pack of hyenas. She immediately found an isolated place on the poop and spent most of the voyage to Ebuda sulking. There was little doubt that she could have used her influence to at least ease the discomfort of her fellow captives who, denied the luxury of the deck, were crowded together in the most shocking conditions in the ship’s hold. By this time, however, it should come as no great surprise that the thought never once occurred to her.

  Once arrived at that hateful island, her beauty again saved her, at least for short while. No one was anxious to waste such a earthly goddess as a lunch for the Orc and she was instead given a luxurious apartment in the castle itself, where the king kept an appreciative eye glued to her. Every day she watched with unmoved gaze as yet one more hapless girl was led from the dungeons and down the path that led to the shore and the massive stone pillar to which she would be chained. After a week of this, Angelica grew bored with the repetitiveness of the sight and set out to discover something more amusing to do. After some thought, she settled on the seduction of the king. He was a steely-eyed, flinty individual who stared at her perpetually but otherwise seldom spoke to her beyond the bare requirements of courtesy and had never approached her near enough to touch her. He was certainly an unpleasantly sexless man, but that would add a fillip of difficulty to the seduction that would be both diverting and good practice.

  Unfortunately, she never even got a fair start. Someone, no doubt some jealous courtier, had pointed out the illogic of Angelica’s continued stay of execution. If she were indeed so astonishing a beauty—which she was, of course—then perhaps she was just what Proteus had been looking for. And if that were true, wasn’t it therefore an awful waste to keep her lolling idly around the castle? The king could scarcely deny the sensibility of this and, with a reluctant sigh, ordered that Angelica’s name be added to the morning’s list.

  The princess, as might be expected, did not receive this alteration in her status with anything like fatalistic resignation. She had to be forcibly restrained and confined under guard to her apartment, where she spent the succeeding twenty-four hours alternately wailing and cursing.

  Come the dawn, half a dozen burly men—specially chosen for their inhibited libidoes, they were no more influenced by Angelica’s beauty than a team of oxen—carried the kicking, writhing, scratching, biting and spitting princess to the heavy cart that awaited its doomed passenger. The road to the beach was lined with Ebudans, all turned out to see their fabulous saviatrix. They were such a grim collection that even Angelica was sobered to a gloomy silence. There were hundreds—many more than she would have expected the denuded island to have been capable of supporting—all of them either men or boys or very ancient crones. There were no young women at all.

  The road wound down to a crescent-shaped beach at one end of which, where the rocky cliff curved down to meet the sea, loomed a massive tower of basalt that at first glance looked like the ruin of some prehistoric keep. The cart trundled slowly through the soft sand until it reached the base of the monolith. There Angelica was lifted to the ground and carried to where she could see a pair of chains hanging from massive staples driven into the glistening stone. She had to wade in cold water up to her ankles for the priviledge of being shackled—the heavy iron links were wrapped around each slender wrist and then secured with enormous bolts, her wrists together, bound high over her head. As a final ignominy—but with the practical motive of making the victim more inticing to Proteus—her gown was torn from her by one of the brutish guards, who performed the task with the practiced ease of a farmer shucking an ear of corn or a fisherman shelling a shrimp. Rather than try to hide herself in shame, turn herself away from the gaze of her executioners, Angelica drew herself up boldly and faced her enemies with such a look of supercilious contempt, scorn and loathing that it was they instead who turned away in shame and confusion. Only the king, who watched the preceding from his vantage at the head of the cliff, remained unmoved. That is difficult to believe, of course, especially for anyone who has ever seen the princess, even from a distance, but it is nevertheless true. It is possible, however, that the king’s extraordinarily passionless heart—whose beats occured at a precisely regulated sixty per minute, day and night—was compounded by extreme myopia. His perpetual angry squint may have been due less to monarchal authority than a mere desire to see at all.

  Angelica clothed was an object of supernatural beauty, but Angelica naked was like an oxyacetylene flame, a magnesium flare, a carbon arc, a solar prominence whose actinic rays threatened to blind anyone foolish enough to gaze directly upon it—and, indeed, several citizens complained of impaired vision for some months afterward.

  In unison the spectators uttered the same choral ahhhh! normally reserved for fireworks displays.

  The truth was that Angelica had no great fear of meeting Proteus. Whether her adversary be man or god, she was simply too confident of her power over any male, human or otherwise, to feel anything more than very put out.

  Unfortunately for both the islander’s hopes and Angelica’s expectations, Proteus had long since grown bored of his game. It had been years since he had last thought much about Ebuda and its maidens—almost all of whom had been fat, stupid farm girls. That the Ebudans had ever thought their pathetic offerings fair competition with the sea nymphs, mermaids and minor goddesses with whom he was normally surrounded amused him for a short while, but he had tempests and shipwrecks to deal with. The sacrifices kept his orc fed, however, and out of his hair, but even that minor convenience was soon forgotten.

  The upshot was that there never had been any chance of Proteus’ grudge against Ebuda being appeased by Angelica and the enormous head that was now rising above the crashing surf was certainly not that of any god.

  * * * * *

  Leaving Angelica for the moment to her terrible surprise, we find Rashid hurrying back from Alcina’s island as quickly as Papillon can carry him. Melissa had secured his release by means of that same magic ring Bradamant had taken from Brunello.

  When the beautiful sorceress had first appeared before the befuddled knight, as suddenly and as unexpectedly as a stage magician who had just risen through a trap door, he had thought that perhaps she was merely one more of Alcina’s lovely temptations—and a very nice one, too, if it came to that. But if Rashid was pleased by Melissa’s appearance, she was shocked by his. Instead of the armor or mail or simple broadcloth which he was accustomed to wearing, he was dressed in the most exquisite clothing: the soft, sensuous drapery of the pampered idler, silk and golden thread woven by Alcina’s own hands. A heavy gold chain hung lankly from his neck, its jeweled links dr
aped over his broad chest. His arms—once the manliest of Melissa’s long experience—were decorated with bracelets; pearls hung from two golden earrings. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of his pomaded, curled hair. It was as though he’d been paying a mincing, servile courtship all his life to the women of Valencia instead of being one of the most powerful warriors in the Moorish nation. Everything about him was sickly. Only his name remained unaltered—all else was corrupted and decayed.

  Melissa was disgusted.

  “What’s become of you?” she demanded.

  “Who are you to ask?” Rashid replied.

  “A friend of Lady Bradamant.”

  “Who?”

  “Can this be the man whose destiny I’ve foreseen? For whom I’ve predicted every imaginable act of courage? Could I have wasted so many years? Look at yourself! Do you think Alexander ever sank so low? Do you think this is how Caesar or Scipio became great? Whoever would have thought you capable of this? You’re nothing but Alcina’s slave. And she makes you advertise this when you wear her chains and jewelry and fine clothes. You follow her like a puppy, led by the nose.”