The Worm Ouroboros

by E R Eddison

  While Corund spake, the Lord Brandoch Daha went among the soldiers bidding them hold their peace and not murmur against Corund. But those that were most hot for action he sent about an errand preparing what he had in mind. So that when the Lord Corund ceased from his declaiming, all was ready to hand, and with one voice the soldiers of Lord Juss that stood upon the wall cried out and said, “This is thy word, O Corund, and this our answer,” and therewith flung down upon him from pots and buckets and every kind of vessel a deluge of slops and offal and all filth that came to hand. A bucketful took Corund in the mouth, befouling all his great beard, so that he gave back spitting. And he and his, standing close beneath the wall, and little expecting so sudden and ill an answer, fared shamefully, being all well soused and bemerded with filth and lye.

  Therewith went up great shouts of laughter from the walls. But Corund cried out, “O filth of Demonland, this is my latest word with you. And though ’twere ten years I must besiege this hold, yet will I take it over your heads. And very ill to do with shall ye find me in the end, and very puissant, proud, mighty, cruel, and bloody in my conquest.”

  “What, lads?” said Lord Brandoch Daha, standing on the battlements, “have we not fed this beast with pigwash enow, but he must still be snuffing and snouking at our gate? Give me another pailful.”

  So the Witches returned to their tents with great shame. So hot was Corund in anger against the Demons, that he stayed not to eat nor drink at his coming down from Eshgrar Ogo, but straight gathered force and made an assault upon the burg, the mightiest he had yet essayed; and his picked men of Witchland were in that assault, and he himself to lead them. Thrice by main fury they won up into the hold, but all were slain who set foot therein, and Corund’s young son Dormanes wounded to the death. And at even they drew off from the battle. There fell in that fight an hundred and four-score Demons, and of the Imps five hundred, and of the Witches three hundred and ninety and nine. And many were hurt of either side.

  Wrath sat like thunder on Corund’s brow at suppertime. He ate his meat savagely, thrusting great gobbets in his mouth, crunching the bones like a beast, taking deep draughts of wine with every mouthful, which yet dispelled not his black mood. Over against him Gro sat silent, shivering now and then for all that he kept his ermine cloak about him and the brazier stood at his elbow. He made but a poor meal, drinking mulled wine in little sips and dipping little pieces of bread in it.

  So wore without speech that cheerless and unkindly meal, until the Lord Corund, looking suddenly across the board at Gro and catching his eye studying him, said, “That was a bright star of thine and then shined clear upon thee when thou tookest this bout of shivering fits and so wentest not with me to be soused with muck before the burg.”

  “Who would have dreamed,” answered Gro, “of their using so base and shameful a part?”

  “Not thou, I’ll swear,” said Corund, looking evilly upon him and marking, as he thought, a twinkling light in Gro’s eyes. Gro shivered again, sipped his wine, and shifted his glance uneasily under that unfriendly stare.

  Corund drank awhile in silence, then flushing suddenly a darker red, said, leaning heavily across the board at him, “Dost know why I said ‘not thou’?”

  “’Twas scarce needful, to thy friend,” said Gro.

  “I said it,” said Corund, “because I know thou didst look for another thing when thou didst skulk shamming here.”

  “Another thing?”

  “Sit not there like some prim-mouthed miss feigning an innocence all know well thou hast not,” said Corund, “or I’ll kill thee. Thou plottedst my death with the Demons. And because thyself hast no shred of honour in thy soul, thou hadst not the wit to perceive that their nobility would shrink from such a betrayal as thy hopes entertained.”

  Gro said, “This is a jest I cannot laugh at; or else ’tis madman’s brabble.”

  “Dissembling cur,” said Corund, “be sure that I hold him not less guilty that holds the ladder than him that mounts the wall. It was thy design they should smite us at unawares when we went up to them with this proposal thou didst urge on me so hotly.”

  Gro made as if to rise. “Sit down!” said Corund. “Answer me; didst not thou egg on the poor snipe Philpritz to that attempt on Juss?”

  “He told me on’t,” said Gro.

  “O, thou art cunning,” said Corund. “There too I see thy treachery. Had they fallen upon us, thou mightest have thrown thyself safely upon their mercy.”

  “This is foolishness,” said Gro. “We were far stronger.”

  “’Tis so,” said Corund. “When did I charge thee with wisdom and sober judgement? With treachery I know thou art soaked wet.”

  “And thou art my friend!” said Gro.

  Corund said in a while, “I have long known thee to be both a subtle and dissembling fox, and now I durst trust thee no more, for fear I should fall further into thy danger. I am resolved to murther thee.”

  Gro fell back in his chair and flung out his arms. “I have been here before,” he said. “I have beheld it, in moonlight and in the barren glare of day, in fair weather and in hail and snow, with the great winds charging over the wastes. And I knew it was accursed. From Morna Moruna, ere I was born or thou, O Corund, or any of us, treason and cruelty blacker than night herself had birth, and brought death to their begetter and all his folk. From Morna Moruna bloweth this wind about the waste to blast our love and bring us destruction. Ay, kill me; I’ll not ward myself, not i’ the smallest.”

  “’Tis small matter, Goblin,” said Corund, “whether thou shouldst or no. Thou art but a louse between my fingers, to kill or cast away as shall seem me good.”

  “I was King Gaslark’s man,” said Gro, as if talking in a dream; “and between a man and a boy near fifteen years I served him true and costly. Yet it was my fortune in all that time and at the ending thereof only to get a beard on my chin and remorse at heart. To what scorned purpose must I plot against him? Pity of Witchland, of Witchland sliding as then into the pit of adverse luck, ’twas that made force upon me. And I served Witchland well: but fate ever fought o’ the other side. It was that counselled King Gorice XI. to draw out from the fight at Kartadza. Yet wanton Fortune trod down the scale for Demonland. I prayed him not wrastle with Goldry in the Foliot Isles. Thou didst back me. Nought but rebukes and threats of death gat I therefrom; but because my redes were set at nought, evil fell upon Witchland. I helped our Lord the King when he conjured and made a sending against the Demons. He loved me therefor and upheld me, but great envy was raised up against me in Carcë for that fact. Yet I bare up, for thy friendship and thy lady wife’s were as bright fires to warm me against all the frosts of their ill-will. And now, for love of thee, I fared with thee to Impland. And here by the Moruna where in old days I wandered in danger and in sorrow, it is fitting I behold at length the emptiness of all my days.”

  Therewith Gro fell silent a minute, and then began to say: “O Corund, I’ll strip bare my soul to thee before thou kill me. It is most true that until now, sitting before Eshgrar Ogo, it hath been present to my heart how great an advantage we held against the Demons, and the glory of their defence, so little a strength against us so many, and the great glory of their flinging of us back, these things were a splendour to my soul beholding them. Such glamour hath ever shone to me all my life’s days when I behold great men battling still beneath the bludgeonings of adverse fortune that, howsoever they be mine enemies, it lieth not in my virtue to withhold from admiration of them and well nigh love. But never was I false to thee, nor much less ever thought, as thou most unkindly accusest me, to compass thy destruction.”

  “Thou dost whine like a woman for thy life,” said Corund. “Cowardly hounds never stirred pity in me.” Yet he moved not, only looking dourly on Gro.

  Gro plucked forth his own sword, and pushed it towards Corund hilt-foremost across the board. “Such words are worse than sword-thrusts betwixt us twain,” said he. “Thou shalt see how I’ll welcome death.
The King will praise thee, when thou showest the cause. And it will be sweet news to Corinius and them that have held me in their hate, that thy love hath cast me off, and thou hast rid them of me at last.”

  But Corund stirred not. After a space, he filled another cup, and drank, and sat on. And Gro sat motionless before him. At last Corund rose heavily from his seat, and pushing Gro’s sword back across the table, “Thou’dst best to bed,” said he. “But the night air’s o’er shrewd for thine ague. Sleep on my couch to-night.”

  The day dawned cold and gray, and with the dawn Corund ordered his lines round about Eshgrar Ogo and sat down for a siege. For ten days he sat before the burg, and nought befell from dawn till night, from night till dawn: only the sentinels walked on the walls and Corund’s folk guarded their lines. On the eleventh day came a bank of fog rolling westward from the Moruna, chill and dank, blotting out the features of the land. Snow fell, and the fog hung on the land, and night came of such a pitchy blackness that even by torch-light a man might not see his hand stretched forth at arm’s length before him. Five days the fog held. On the fifth night, it being the twenty-fourth of November, in the darkness of the third hour after midnight, the alarm was sounded and Corund summoned by a runner from the north with word that a sally was made from Eshgrar Ogo, and the lines bursten through in that quarter, and fighting going forward in the mirk. Corund was scarce harnessed and gotten forth into the night, when a second runner came hot-foot from the south with tidings of a great fight thereaway. All was confounded in the dark, and nought certain, save that the Demons were broken out from Eshgrar Ogo. In a space, as Corund came with his folk to the northern quarter and joined in the fight, came a message from his son Heming that Spitfire and a number with him were broken out at the other side and gotten away westward, and a great band chasing him back towards Outer Impland; and therewith that more than an hundred Demons were surrounded and penned in by the shore of the lakes, and the burg entered and taken by Corund’s folk; but of Juss and Brandoch Daha no certain news, save that they were not of Spitfire’s company, but were with those against whom Corund went in person, having fared forth northaway. So went the battle through the night. Corund himself had sight of Juss, and exchanged shots with him with twirl-spears in a lifting of the fog toward dawn, and a son of his bare witness of Brandoch Daha in that same quarter, and had gotten a great wound from him.

  When night was past, and the Witches returned from the pursuit, Corund straitly questioned his officers, and went himself about the battlefield hearing each man’s story and viewing the slain. Those Demons that were hemmed against the lakes had all lost their lives, and some were taken up dead in other parts, and some few alive. These would his officers let slay, but Corund said, “Since I am king in Impland, till that the King receive it of me, it is not this handful of earth-lice shall shake my safety here; and I may well give them their lives, that fought sturdily against us.” So he gave them peace. And he said unto Gro, “Better that for every Demon dead in Ogo Morveo ten should rise up against us, if but Juss only and Brandoch Daha were slain.”

  “I’ll be in the tale with thee, if thou wilt proclaim them dead,” said Gro. “And nothing is likelier, if they be gone with but two or three on to the Moruna, than that such a tale should come true ere it were told in Carcë.”

  “Pshaw!” said Corund, “to the devil with such false feathers. What’s done shows brave enow without them: Impland conquered, Juss’s army minced to a gallimaufry, himself and Brandoch Daha chased like runaway thralls up on the Moruna. Where if devils tear them, ’tis my best wish come true. If not, thou’lt hear of them, be sure. Dost think these can survive on earth and not raise a racket that shall be heard from hence to Carcë?”

  CHAPTER XII

  KOSHTRA PIVRARCHA

  Of the coming of the Lords of Demonland to Morna Moruna, whence they beheld the Zimiamvian Mountains, seen also by Gro in years gone by; and of the wonders seen by them and perils undergone and deeds done in their attempt on Koshtra Pivrarcha, the which alone of all Earth’s mountains looketh down upon Koshtra Belorn; and none shall ascend up into Koshtra Belorn that hath not first looked down upon her.

  Now it is to be said of Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha that they, finding themselves parted from their people in the fog, and utterly unable to find them, when the last sound of battle had died away wiped and put up their bloody swords and set forth at a great pace eastward. Only Mivarsh fared with them of all their following. His lips were drawn back a little, showing his teeth, but he carried hims elf proudly as one who being resolved to die walks with a quiet mind to his destruction. Day after day they journeyed, sometimes in clear weather, sometimes in mist or sleet, over the changeless desert, without a landmark, save here a little sluggish river, or here a piece of rising ground, or a pond, or a clump of rocks: small things which faded from sight amid the waste ere they were passed by a half-mile’s distance. So was each day like yesterday, drawing to a morrow like to it again. And always fear walked at their heel and sat beside them sleeping: clanking of wings heard above the wind, a brooding hush of menace in the sunshine, and noises out of the void of darkness as of teeth chattering. So came they on the twentieth day to Morna Moruna, and stood at even in the sorrowful twilight by the little round castle, silent on Omprenne Edge.

  From their feet the cliffs dropped sheer. Strange it was, standing on that frozen lip of the Moruna, as on the limit of the world, to gaze southward on a land of summer, and to breathe faint summer airs blowing up from blossoming trees and flower-clad alps. In the depths a carpet of huge tree-tops clothed a vast stretch of country, through the midst of which, seen here and there in a bend of silver among the woods, the Bhavinan bore the waters of a thousand secret mountain solitudes down to an unknown sea. Beyond the river the deep woods, blue with distance, swelled to feathery hilltops with some sharper-featured loftier heights bodying cloudily beyond them. The Demons strained their eyes searching the curtain of mystery behind and above those foot-hills; but the great peaks, like great ladies, shrouded themselves against their curious gaze, and no glimpse was shown them of the snows.

  Surely to be in Morna Moruna was to be in the death chamber of some once lovely presence. Stains of fire were on the walls. The fair gallery of open wood-work that ran above the main hall was burnt through and partly fallen in ruin, the blackened ends of the beams that held it jutting blindly in the gap. Among the wreck of carved chairs and benches, broken and worm-eaten, some shreds of figured tapestries rotted, the home now of beetles and spiders. Patches of colour, faded lines, mildewed and damp with the corruption of two hundred years, lingered to be the memorials, like the mummied skeleton of a king’s daughter long ago untimely dead, of sweet gracious paintings on the walls. Five nights and five days the Demons and Mivarsh dwelt in Morna Moruna, inured to portents till they marked them as little as men mark swallows at their window. In the still night were flames seen, and flying forms dim in the moonlit air; and in moonless nights unstarred, moans heard and gibbering accents: prodigies beside their beds, and ridings in the sky, and fleshless fingers plucking at Juss unseen when he went forth to make question of the night.

  Cloud and mist abode ever in the south, and only the foot-hills showed of the great ranges beyond Bhavinan. But on the evening of the sixth day before Yule, it being the nineteenth of December when Betelgeuze stands at midnight on the meridian, a wind blew out of the northwest with changing fits of sleet and sunshine. Day was fading as they stood above the cliff. All the forest land was blue with shades of approaching night: the river was dull silver: the wooded heights afar mingled their outlines with the towers and banks of turbulent deep blue vapour that hurtled in ceaseless passage through the upper air. Suddenly a window opened in the clouds to a space of clean wan wind-swept sky high above the shaggy hills. Surely Juss caught his breath in that moment, to see those deathless ones where they shone pavilioned in the pellucid air, far, vast, and lonely, most like to creatures of unascended heaven, of wind and of fire all c
ompact, too pure to have aught of the gross elements of earth or water. It was as if the rose-red light of sundown had been frozen to crystal and these hewn from it to abide to everlasting, strong and unchangeable amid the welter of earthborn mists below and tumultuous sky above them. The rift ran wider, eastward and westward, opening on more peaks and sunset-kindled snows. And a rainbow leaning to the south was like a sword of glory across the vision.