The Worm Ouroboros

by E R Eddison

  Now was his strength near gone, as day drew again toward night and he climbed the last crags under the peak of Zora. And he, who had all his days drunk deep of the fountain of the joy of life and the glory and the wonder of being, felt ever deadlier and darker in his soul that lonely horror which he first had tasted the day before at his first near sight of Zora, while he flew through the cold air portent-laden; and his whole heart grew sick because of it.

  And now he was come to the ring of fire that was about the summit of the mountain. He was beyond terror or the desire of life, and trod the fire as it had been his own home’s threshold. The blue tongues of flame died under his foot-tread, making a way before him. The brazen gates stood wide. He entered in, he passed up the brazen stair, he stood on that high roof-floor which he had beheld in dreams, he looked as in a dream on him he had crossed the confines of the dead to find: Lord Goldry Bluszco keeping his lone watch on the unhallowed heights of Zora. Not otherwise was the Lord Goldry, not by an hairsbreadth, than as Juss had aforetime seen him on that first night in Koshtra Belorn, so long ago. He reclined propped on one elbow on that bench of brass, his head erect, his eyes fixed as on distant space, viewing the depths beyond the star-shine, as one waiting till time should have an end.

  He turned not at his brother’s greeting. Juss went to him and stood beside him. The Lord Goldry Bluszco moved not an eyelid. Juss spoke again, and touched his hand. It was stiff and like dank earth. The cold of it struck through Juss’s body and smote him at the heart. He said in himself, “He is dead.”

  With that, the horror shut down upon Juss’s soul like madness. Fearfully he stared about him. The cloud had lifted from the mountain’s peak and hung like a pall above its nakedness. Chill air that was like the breath of the whole world’s grave: vast blank cloud-barriers: dim far forms of snow and ice, silent, solitary, pale, like mountains of the dead: it was as if the bottom of the world were opened and truth laid bare: the ultimate Nothing.

  To hold off the horror from his soul, Juss turned in memory to the dear life of earth, those things he had most set his heart on, men and women he loved dearest in his life’s days; battles and triumphs of his opening manhood, high festivals in Galing, golden summer noons under the Westmark pines, hunting morns on the high heaths of Mealand; the day he first backed a horse, of a spring morning in a primrose glade that opened on Moonmere, when his small brown legs were scarce the length of his fore-arm now, and his dear father held him by the foot as he trotted, and showed him where the squirrel had her nest in the old oak tree.

  He bowed his head as if to avoid a blow, so plain he seemed to hear somewhat within him crying with a high voice and loud, “Thou art nothing. And all thy desires and memories and loves and dreams, nothing. The little dead earth-louse were of greater avail than thou, were it not nothing as thou art nothing. For all is nothing: earth and sky and sea and they that dwell therein. Nor shall this illusion comfort thee, if it might, that when thou art abolished these things shall endure for a season, stars and months return, and men grow old and die, and new men and women live and love and die and be forgotten. For what is it to thee, that shalt be as a blown-out flame? and all things in earth and heaven, and things past and things for to come, and life and death, and the mere elements of space and time, of being and not being, all shall be nothing unto thee; because thou shalt be nothing, for ever.”

  And the Lord Juss cried aloud in his agony, “Fling me to Tartarus, deliver me to the black infernal Furies, let them blind me, seethe me in the burning lake. For so should there yet be hope. But in this horror of Nothing is neither hope nor life nor death nor sleep nor waking, for ever. For ever.”

  In this black mood of horror he abode for awhile, until a sound of weeping and wailing made him raise his head, and he beheld a company of mourners walking one behind another about the brazen floor, all cloaked in funeral black, mourning the death of Lord Goldry Bluszco. And they rehearsed his glorious deeds and praised his beauty and prowess and goodliness and strength: soft women’s voices lamenting, so that the Lord Juss’s soul seemed as he listened to arise again out of annihilation’s waste, and his heart grew soft again, even unto tears. He felt a touch on his arm and looking up met the gaze of two eyes gentle as a dove’s, suffused with tears, looking into his from under the darkness of that hood of mourning; and a woman’s voice spake and said, “This is the observable day of the death of the Lord Goldry Bluszco, which hath been dead now a year; and we his fellows in bondage do bewail him, as thou mayst see, and shall so bewail him again year by year whiles we are on life. And for thee, great lord, must we yet more sorrowfully lament, since of all thy great works done this is the empty guerdon, and this the period of thine ambition. But come, take comfort for a season, since unto all dominions Fate hath set their end, and there is no king on the road of death.”

  So the Lord Juss, his heart dead within him for grief and despair, suffered her take him by the hand and conduct him down a winding stairway that led from that brazen floor to an inner chamber fragrant and delicious, lighted with flickering lamps. Surely life and its turmoils seemed faded to a distant and futile murmur, and the horror of the void seemed there but a vain imagination, under the heavy sweetness of that chamber. His senses swooned; he turned towards his veiled conductress. She with a sudden motion cast off her mourning cloak, and stood there, her whole fair body bared to his gaze, open-armed, a sight to ravish the soul with love and all delight.

  Well nigh had he clasped to his bosom that vision of dazzling loveliness. But fortune, or the high Gods, or his own soul’s might, woke yet again in his drugged brain remembrance of his purpose, so that he turned violently from that bait prepared for his destruction, and strode from the chamber up to that roof where his dear brother sat as in death. Juss caught him by the hand: “Speak to me, kinsman. It is I, Juss. It is Juss, thy brother.”

  But Goldry moved not, neither answered any word.

  Juss looked at the hand resting in his, so like his own to the very shape of the finger nails and the growth of the hairs on the back of the hand and fingers. He let it go, and the arm dropped lifeless. “It is very certain,” said he, “thou art in a manner frozen, and thy spirits and understanding frozen and congealed within thee.”

  So saying, he bent to gaze close in Goldry’s eyes, touching his arm and shoulder. Not a limb stirred, not an eyelid flickered. He caught him by the hand and sleeve as if to force him up from the bench, calling him loudly by his name, shaking him roughly, crying, “Speak to me, thy brother, that crossed the world to find thee;” but he abode a dead weight in Juss’s grasp.

  “If thou be dead,” said Juss, “then am I dead with thee. But till then I’ll ne’er think thee dead.” And he sat down on the bench beside his brother, taking his hand in his, and looked about him. Nought but utter silence. Night had fallen, and the moon’s calm radiance and the twinkling stars mingled with the pale fires that hedged that mountain top in an uncertain light. Hell loosed no more her denizens in the air, and since the moment when Juss had in that inner chamber shaken himself free of that last illusion no presence had he seen nor simulacrum of man or devil save only Goldry his brother; nor might that horror any more master his high heart, but the memory of it was but as the bitter chill of a winter sea that takes the swimmer’s breath for an instant as he plunges first into the icy waters.

  So with a calm and a steadfast mind the Lord Juss abode there, his second night without sleep, for sleep he dared not in that accursed place. But for joy of his found brother, albeit it seemed there was in him neither speech nor sight nor hearing, Juss scarce wist of his great weariness. And he nourished himself with that ambrosia given him by the Queen, for well he thought the uttermost strength of his body should now be tried in the task he now decreed him.

  When it was day, he arose and taking his brother Goldry bodily on his back set forth. Past the gates of brass Juss bore him, and past the barriers of flame, and painfully and by slow degrees down the long northern ridge which overhangs th
e Psarrion Glaciers. All that day, and the night following, and all the next day after were they on the mountain, and well nigh dead was Juss for weariness when on the second day an hour or two before sundown they reached the moraine. Yet was triumph in his heart, and gladness of a great deed done. They lay that night in a grove of strawberry trees under the steep foot of a mountain some ten miles beyond the western shore of Ravary, and met Spitfire and Brandoch Daha who had waited with their boat two nights at the appointed spot, about eventide of the following day.

  Now as soon as Juss had brought him off the mountain, this frozen condition of the Lord Goldry was so far thawed that he was able to stand upon his feet and walk; but never a word might he speak, and never a look they gat from him, but still his gaze was set and unchanging, seeming when it rested on his companions to look through and beyond them as at some far thing seen in a mist. So that each was secretly troubled, fearing lest this condition of the Lord Goldry Bluszco should prove remediless, and this that they now received back from prison but the poor remain of him they had so much desired.

  They came aland and brought him to Sophonisba the Queen where she made haste to meet them on the fair lawn before her pavilion. The Queen, as if knowing beforehand both their case and the remedy thereof, took by the hand the Lord Juss and said, “O my lord, there yet remaineth a thing for thee to do to free him throughly, that hast outfaced terrors beyond the use of man to bring him back: a little stone indeed to crown this building of thine, and yet without it all were in vain, as itself were vain without the rest that was all thine: and mine is this last, and with a pure heart I give it thee.”

  So saying she made the Lord Juss bow down till she might kiss his mouth, sweetly and soberly, one light kiss. And she said, “This give unto the lord thy brother.” And Juss did so, kissing his dear brother in like manner on the mouth; and she said, “Take him, dear my lords. And I have utterly put out the remembrance of these things from his heart. Take him, and give thanks unto the high Gods because of him.”

  Therewith the Lord Goldry Bluszco looked upon them and upon that fair Queen and the mountains and the woods and the cool lake’s loveliness, as a man awakened out of a deep slumber.

  Surely there was joy in all their hearts that day.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE FLEET AT MUELVA

  How the Lords of Demonland came again to their ships at Muelva, and the tidings they learned there.

  For nine days’ space the lords of Demonland abode with Queen Sophonisba in Koshtra Belorn and beside the Lake of Ravary tasting such high and pure delights as belike none else hath tasted, if it were not the spirits of the blest in Elysium. When they bade her farewell, the Queen said, “My little martlets shall bring me tidings of you. And when you shall have brought to mere perdition the wicked regiment of Witchland and returned again to your dear native land, then is my time for that, my Lord Juss, whereof I have often talked to thee and often gladded my dreams with the thought thereof: to visit earth again and the habitations of men, and be your guest in many-mountained Demonland.”

  Juss kissed her hand and said, “Fail not in this, dear Queen, whatsoe’er betide.”

  So the Queen let bring them by a secret way out upon the high snow-fields that are betwixt Koshtra Belorn and Romshir, whence they came down into the glen of the dark water that descends from the glacier of Temarm, and so through many perilous scapes after many days back by way of the Moruna to Muelva and the ships.

  There Gaslark and La Fireez, when their greetings were done and their rejoicings, said to the Lord Juss, “We abide too long time here. We have entered the barrel and the bung-hole is stopped.” Therewithal they brought him Hesper Golthring, who three days ago sailing to the Straits for forage came back again but yesterday with a hot alarum that he met certain ships of Witchland: and brought them to battle: and gat one sunken ere they brake off the fight: and took up certain prisoners. “By whose examination,” saith he, “as well as from mine own perceiving and knowing, it appeareth Laxus holdeth the Straits with eight score ships of war, the greatest ships that ever the sea bare until this day, come hither of purpose to destroy us.”

  “Eight score ships?” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Witchland commandeth not the half, nor the third part, of such a strength since we did them down last harvest-tide in Aurwath haven. It is not leveable, Hesper.”

  Hesper answered him, “Your highness shall find it truth; and more the sorrow on’t and the wonder.”

  “’Tis the scourings of his subject-allies,” said Spitfire. “We shall find them no such hard matter to dispatch after the others.”

  Juss said to the Lord Gro, “What makest thou of these news, my lord?”

  “I think no wonder in it,” answered he. “Witchland is of good memory and mindeth him of your seamanship off Kartadza. He useth not to idle, nor to set all on one hazard. Nor comfort not thyself, my Lord Spitfire, that these be pleasure-galleys borrowed from the soft Beshtrians or the simple Foliots. They be new ships builded for us, my lords, and our undoing: it is by no conjecture I say it unto you, but of mine own knowledge, albeit the number appeareth far greater than ere I dreamed of. But or ever I sailed with Corinius to Demonland, great buildings of an army naval was begun at Tenemos.”

  “I do very well believe,” said King Gaslark, “that none knoweth all this better than thou, because thyself didst counsel it.”

  “O Gaslark,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “must thou still itch to play at chop-cherry when cherry-time is past? Let him alone. He is our friend now.”

  “Eight score ships i’ the Straits,” said Juss. “And ours an hundred. ’Tis well seen what great difference and odds there is betwixt us. Which we must needs encounter, or else ne’er sail home again, let alone to Carcë. For out of this sea is no sea-way for ships, but only by these Straits of Melikaphkhaz.”

  “We shall do of Laxus,” said Lord Brandoch Daha, “that he troweth to do of us.”

  But Juss was fallen silent, his chin in his hand.

  Goldry Bluszco said, “I would allow him odds and beat him.”

  “It is a great shame in thee, O Juss,” said Brandoch Daha, “if thou wilt be abashed at this. If that they be in number more than we, what then? They are in hope, quarrel, and strength far inferior.”

  But Juss, still in a study, reached out and caught him by the sleeve, holding him so a moment or two, and then looked up at him and said, “Thou art the greatest quarreller, of a friend, that ever I knew, and if I were an angry man I could not abear thee. May I not three minutes study the means, but thou shalt cry out upon me for a milksop?”

  They laughed, and the Lord Juss rose up and said, “Call we a council of war. And let Hesper Golthring be at it, and his skippers that were with him o’ that voyage. And pack up the stuff, for we will away o’ the morn. If we like not these lettuce, we may pull back our lips. But no choice remaineth. If Laxus will deny us sea-room through Melikaphkhaz Straits, I trow there shall go up thence a crash which when the King heareth it he shall know it for our first banging on the gates of Carcë.”

  CHAPTER XXX

  TIDINGS OF MELIKAPHKHAZ

  Of news brought unto Gorice the King in Carcë out of the south, where the Lord Laxus lying in the straits with his armada held the fleet of Demonland prisoned in the Midland Sea.

  On a night of late summer leaning towards autumn, eight weeks after the sailing of the Demons out of Muelva as is aforewrit, the Lady Prezmyra sate before her mirror in Corund’s lofty bed-chamber in Carcë. The night without was mild and full of stars. Within, yellow flames of candles burning steadily on either side of the mirror rayed forth tresses of tinselling brightness in twin glories or luminous spheres of warmth. In that soft radiance grains as of golden fire swam and circled, losing themselves on the confines of the gloom where the massy furniture and the arras and the figured hangings of the bed were but cloudier divisions and congestions of the general dark. Prezmyra’s hair caught the beams and imprisoned them in a tawny tangle of splendour that swept
about her head and shoulders down to the emerald clasps of her girdle. Her eyes resting idly on her own fair image in the shining mirror, she talked light nothings with her woman of the bed-chamber who, plying the comb, stood behind her chair of gold and tortoise-shell.

  “Reach me yonder book, nurse, that I may read again the words of that serenade the Lord Gro made for me the night when first we had tidings from my lord out of Impland of his conquest of that land, and the King did make him king thereof.”

  The old woman gave her the book, that was bound in goatskin chiselled and ornamented by the gilder’s art, fitted with clasps of gold, and enriched with little gems, smaragds and margery-pearls, inlaid in the panels of its covers. Prezmyra turned the page and read:

  You meaner Beauties of the Night.

  That poorly satisfie our Eies.

  More by your number than your light.

  You Common-people of the Skies;

  What are you when the Moone shall rise?

  You Curious Chanters of the Wood.

  That warble forth Dame Natures layes.

  Thinking your Passions understood

  By your weake accents; what’s your praise

  When Philomell her voyce shall raise?

  You Violets that first apeare.

  By your pure purpel mantles knowne.

  Like the proud Virgins of the yeare.

  As if the Spring were all your own;

  What are you when the Rose is blowne?

  So, when my Princess shall be seene

  In form and Beauty of her mind.

  By Vertue first, then Choyce a Queen.

  Tell me, if she were not design’d

  Th’ Eclypse and Glory of her kind.

  She abode silent awhile. Then, in a low sweet voice where all the chords of music seemed to slumber: “Three years will be gone next Yule-tide,” she said, “since first I heard that song. And not yet am I grown customed to the style of Queen.”