Tenth Rune: The Mountain Dwarf
♦
(from the Tarinas Valtakirjas)
He addressed him to the trail –
Did the hero Eldukaris –
Of the evil King of Winter;
For the markings of his passage
Stood out clear and stark before him:
Withered were the forest grasses;
Bent and broken were the branches
Yea, and brown the leaves of oak-trees
Where the Winter King had touched them.
And upon the earth, his footsteps
As of beast-feet, clawed and twisted
Had left hoarfrost on the greensward
That the sun’s heat had not melted.
Eldukaris marked his passing,
And he tracked the trail upwards
To the passes of the mountains
And the jagged ice of snow-peaks.
As he clambered ever higher,
Never pausing for refreshment
Nor to rest his weary manu,
Forest verdure dropped behind him,
Soon the trees and grasses left him,
Naught but sand and rock to greet him,
And the azure ice-fields calling,
And the ice-tears thickly falling.
Then at length he reached the mountains,
And at last the trail foundered;
For the Ice-King’s frozen footsteps
Left no trace upon the root-rock.
All the mountain-stone was frozen,
And it did not mark his passage,
And so Eldukaris halted;
Cast his piercing glance about him;
And espied a hidden cavern,
‘Gainst the shoulder of the mountain.
Rude the cave-stones there before him,
With the smoke of fires rising
In the chill air of the mountains;
In the cold air of the evening.
Faint with hunger and exertion,
Eldukaris stumbled forward;
And he called out in the darkness,
To the dwellers in the cavern:
“Hail, the cave!” he cried, and wondered
If ‘twere man or beast that bode there;
For the stones were sharp and tumbled,
And he saw no sign or sigil.
“Hail the cave!” he cried. “I beg thee,
I am weak, and I am weary;
If you be a child of Bræa,
Know that I am cousin to you,
And give answer to my pleading;
I am failing, and I need you.”
At this plea, the dweller answered:
“Son of Bræa, come you forward;
Cousin, none; I am thy brother,
To my home, I bid you welcome.”
Thus came Eldukaris forward,
To the welcome thusly offered,
And he stepped across the threshold,
Unto wonders unimagined.
To the outside eye, the cavern
Stood as naught but stones of mountain;
From the inside, it was like unto
A palace of the Powers.
High the ceiling, strewn with crystal;
Broad the walls, bedecked with garnets.
Hung with tapestries fine-woven;
Lit by lamps of gold and silver;
And the flagstones brightly polished,
Strewn with reeds both fresh and verdant,
Beckoned weary wanderers onward
To a place of rest and succor.
But most wondrous to the hero
Was his host, who stood before him,
Half his height, but twice as broad, he
Stood with hands on hips, and chortled.
For his raiment was of iron,
Fine and linked like fishes’ scales,
Shod and capped with iron was he,
And his beard hung to his ankles.
“Fair mine host,” quoth Eldukaris,
“I am grateful for thy welcome,
For at night the hills grow chilling,
And the snow is swiftly falling.
But I pray thee, tell me of thee;
Whence thou comest to the mountains;
Art thou truly child of Bræa?
For thy kind is strange unto me.”
“Fair my guest,” the host said, laughing,
“We share mother, and share father.
For as thou wert got by Bræa
On the bosom of the sea-wave;
I was born here in the broad hills,
‘Neath the sky-vault, blue and blazing;
In the form of grey-hued maiden,
Mighty Bræa took her pleasure
Of the splendour of the mountains.
Open, yielding unto them,
Air took Earth unto her bosom.
Here lay Bræa as my mother;
Here the mountains were my father.”
“But the night is late, and snowfall
Frosts the heart and chills the spirit.
Come thou closer to the fire,
And address thee to mine kettle.”
Thus did Eldukaris enter
To the cavern warm and cheering,
Doffed his cloak and lesser raiment,
And before the fire, settled.
Swift his host disgorged his kettle,
Bringing meat and ale before him,
And as Eldukaris feasted,
Many marvellous tales unfolded.
Soon the fulsome pot was empty,
Soon his heavy head was nodding;
Then his host eschewed his tales,
Placed a woollen cloak around him;
Eldukaris gladly settled
To the stones beside the fire,
And himself he gave to slumber,
In the cavern’s warming bosom.
When he woke, the fire was ashen;
Cold the cavern as the mountains;
Dark the cavern as the midnight,
And the dwarf sat near him, laughing.
“Rune, my name is, son of Bræa,
And I am master of these mountains,
And when trespassers affront me,
Know thou that I treat them thusly.”
Eldukaris grimly noted then
That hand and foot he bound was;
That his cloak was taken from him,
And as helpless child, lay he.
Though he railed ‘gainst his captor,
Naught availed his mighty struggles;
Tightly knotted were his bond-ropes,
And his mouth was stopped with leather.
“Foolish Bræa-son,” quoth his captor,
“Know you now I rule this region;
At the will-sign of my master,
I am sovereign of the mountains.”
And as Eldukaris watched him,
Rune the Dwarf retrieved a sceptre
From the cloak-folds of his raiment,
And he flourished it, rejoicing.
“This I have from King of Winter!
This I have, that grants me power.
Know you now, o son of Bræa,
That unto thy doom art come thee.”
Then Rune’s eyes grew wide in wonder;
As Eldukaris shrugged his shoulders,
And with strength of wind-swept wave-depths,
Burst the binding ropes asunder.
“Fool thou art,” quoth Eldukaris,
“For as thou art born of mountain,
I am son of wind and ocean;
And as thou art proof ‘gainst water,
Naught avails the earth-wrought ‘gainst me.”
Quick then, as a lance of lighting,
Quicker still than glance of wonder,
Did the Wave-son leap upon him,
And the stone-rod reft he from him.
Rune the Dwarf shrieked then in anger;
Flung himself upon his prisoner;
But with naught but lift of finger –
&nbs
p; With the grey stone in his fingers,
Taken from the mother-waters –
Eldukaris struck and slew him,
“Good mine host,” laughed Eldukaris,
Stepping o’er Rune’s broken body,
“Let this be thy final lesson,
On the duty of good hosting.”
He retried the blood-washed beach-stone,
Set it gently in his pocket.
Lifted he the granite sceptre,
And he swung it ‘round him, whistling;
Soon the clouds were swiftly gathered,
And the air was filled with snowflakes;
For the storms obeyed the sigils
Given Rune by King of Winter.
With a gesture of his trophy,
Eldukaris broke the storm-front,
And the snow-flakes whispered softly,
Lighting on Rune’s broken carcass;
Covering his stiff’ning body,
‘Till there naught was left in cavern,
But a snow-mound cold and whitely.
Grinning at his newfound fortune,
Dressed in dry and warming raiment,
Bearing rod of King of Winter;
And with Rune’s fine cloak about him,
Eldukaris quit the cavern,
Left his broken foe behind him,
And new armed with strength and purpose,
Ventured higher through the mountains.
♦♦♦
Gwen’s Notes
So Eldukaris stayed overnight in Rune’s house, and when the dwarf pulled one little trick on him, the human beat him to death with a rock and stole his most precious possession.
This is history? This is legend? This is the stuff that epic myths are made of?
You want to know what the moral of this story is? It’s “humans make lousy house-guests.” Seriously, just don’t let them in your home, people – it’s not worth it.
Eleventh Rune: Palkinto Alfarranta
(The Prize of Alfarran)
♦
(from the Tarusta Lehtori Kultainen, by Ryskankanakis)
Alfarran of Eldendale was born to noble stead;
A scion of a mighty house, of Hara’s lineage bred.
That storied line she honoured, and vowed to serve it well,
Through ages when all Harad wept, her vow she honoured and she kept;
and keeping it, she fell.
Alfarran of Eldendale was yet of tender years
When Mærglyn, Biardath’s daughter, drowned the Elven realms in tears
The tears fell all unnumberèd o’er all that once-fair land;
And as Harad became a hell, Alfarran, child of fortune, fell
a slave to Mærglyn’s hand.
Alfarran of Eldendale toiled in the sunless dark,
Reft of her silken dresses, and bearing her mistress’ mark.
For long and long she laboured beneath that sunless sky;
Fettered and flogged, and starved for breath, she longed for escape, and she prayed for death,
but was ne’er vouchsafed to die.
Alfarran of Eldendale walked with that mighty flood
When dark-crazed Mærglyn forsook the deeps, baying for Elven blood.
Forth to the realm of Yarchian, Renewer of Elven pride;
Mærglyn marshaled her minions fell, warded by armour and clever spell,
and the Elf-hosts fled, or died.
Alfarran of Eldendale stood in her mistress’ train,
As Mærglyn strove with the Worldqueen, and the realm was rent in twain.
Ekhalra laughed as the dark elves fled from the darkness that she had spawned;
And she trampled her enemy’s lifeless shell, and fed on her flesh and her bones as well,
and she shattered Mærglyn’s wand.
Alfarran of Eldendale crawled from the wrack and ruin,
And hastened to Mærglyn’s fallen form, limned by the Mother Moon.
She spat in her mistress’ lifeless eye, but her own were dry of tears
As she stooped to the sward and she took in hand the heel of Mærglyn’s shattered wand
as a fee for her captive years.
Alfarran of Eldendale fled from that field of woe;
But nowhere in Harad was free of death, for everywhere trod the foe.
At length she came to the mountains, fleeing the blood-washed plain;
And, vanishing into a narrow pass, she fell in a swoon on the clean, green grass,
and surrendered to grief and pain.
Alfarran of Eldendale slept still like a child fair
When Hjalmar, Priest of the General, spied her sun-bright, moon-gilt hair.
Approaching, he woke her gently, and was lost in her emerald eyes
Then was stunned as she placed in his trembling hand the heel of Mærglyn’s shattered Wand;
her blood-bought prisoner’s prize.
Alfarran of Eldendale died in his arms that night;
And Hjalmar buried her there in state, ‘neath Lodan’s limning light.
He left no sigil nor marker stone, no cairn o’er-watching stands;
But the Elven folk still recall her tale, and rejoice that Alfarran of Eldendale
is at rest in her kinfolk’s lands.
♦♦♦
Gwen’s Notes
See, now, this is a nice poem. It tells a story, it has a beginning and an ending, it rhymes, and there’s a little bit both of triumph and of tragedy in it. Took a dragon to write it. Figures.
Twelfth Rune: Venite, Nymphae
(Come, Maidens)
♦
(the benediction of the Disciples of Miyaga)
Come;
Come, Maidens,
Come, Maidens, sing!
Hands high, hair free;
With vibrant, ringing voice
In springtime’s song, rejoice
Where Maidens’ mists in sunlight shine
Where grows the vibrant, verdant vine
Where waits Miyaga, maid divine
To sit in beauty’s majesty
That all may come, and all may see
The emerald eyes, like heart’s desire
The visage fair, that all admire
The scarlet mane, like kestrel’s wing
Of which Miyaga’s Maidens sing.
Come, Maidens, Sing;
Come, Maidens,
Come.
Come;
Come, Maidens,
Come, Maidens, dance!
Hands high, hair free;
With flying footsteps trace
The patterns trod in this deep place
Where stands the siege of heart’s desire
Where sits our Mistress, limned in fire
Where passions flame, and slaked, remain
To sate the appetites of all
Who heed Miyaga’s Maidens’ call.
Let pleasure be our Lady’s gain,
And weak and weary hearts entrance;
For this, Miyaga’s Maidens dance.
Come, Maidens, dance;
Come, Maidens,
Come.
Come;
Come, Maidens,
Come, Maidens, rise!
Hands high, hair free;
Forsake the deep and shadowed place,
With open eyes and hearts embrace
The verdant fields, and azure skies;
Obey your Mistress, fair and wise,
And flee the damning dark’s demise.
With spirit free and ever pure,
The depths of kindred souls allure;
With gift of body, heart and soul
And gift of love, make mortals whole.
By dint of Maiden’s peerless charms,
Magister, mage, and man-at-arms;
Priest and prophet, warrior wild;
Bard beloved, and rogue reviled;
Students of glory and despair;
Their minds and spirits and hearts ensnare.
Bring ye unto the world above,
>
Mistress Miyaga’s eager love,
And all that stand beneath the skies,
Capture and keep with ardent eyes;
For this, Miyaga’s Maidens rise!
Come, Maidens, rise;
Come, Maidens,
Come!
♦♦♦
Gwen’s Notes
I first heard this one under some pretty unique circumstances, which are described in detail in The Road Into Ruin. Or they will be, if a certain somebody ever gets off his fundament and writes the thing.
I’m not sure what to make of the Disciples of Miyaga. At first I thought they were garden-variety trollops, and then later I figured they were a school for courtesans. Then – after I met some of their higher-ranking members – I started to wonder whether they were professional concubines, or priestesses of some sort of cult. Lately it’s become obvious that they run an information and intelligence-trading service that spans the multiverse and that they pretty much run the world. I’ve come, therefore, to the conclusion that it’s probably best to avoid them altogether – which of course means passing up on the opportunity to criticize their liturgical prose.
Discretion, after all, is the better part of ending up as a greasy smudge on the floor. Never let it be said that I cannot take a hint.
Thirteenth Rune: The Lament of Fineleor
♦
(by Amalux Cantor, Versificator Regalis Elvorum)
Tales of the Wyrm, Volume 1 Page 9
