by E R Eddison
Even as all things have an end, he said at the last, ‘O my lady, mistress of hearts, here would I abide ever, abandoning all else for thy love sake. But my companions tarry for me in thine halls below, and great matters wait on my direction. Give me thy divine mouth once again, and bid me adieu.’
She was lying as if asleep across his breast: smooth-skinned, white, warm, with shapely throat leaned backward against the spice-odorous darknesses of her unbound hair; one tress, heavy and splendid like a python, coiled between white arm and bosom. Swift as a snake she turned, clinging fiercely about him, pressing fiercely again to his her insatiable sweet fervent lips, crying that here must he dwell unto eternity in the intoxication of perfect love and pleasure.
But when in the end, gently constraining her to loose him and let him go, he arose and clothed and armed him, that lady caught about her a translucent robe of silvery sheen, as when the summer moon veils but not hides with a filmy cloud her beauties’ splendour, and so standing before him spake and said, ‘Go then. This is got by casting of pearls to hogs. I may not slay thee, since over thy body I have no other power. But because thou shalt not laugh overmuch, having required me of that which was beyond the pact and being enjoyed is now slighted of thee and abused, therefore know, proud man, that three gifts I here will grant thee thereto of mine own choosing. Thou shalt have war and not peace. He that thou worst hatest shall throw down and ruin thy fair lordship, Krothering Castle and the mains thereof. And though vengeance shall overtake him at the last, by another’s hand than thine shall it come, and to thine hand shall it be denied.’
Therewith she fell a-weeping. And the Lord Brandoch Daha, with great resolution, went forth from the chamber. And looking back from the threshold he beheld both that and the outer chamber void of lady and sparrow-hawk both. And a great weariness came suddenly upon him. So, going down, he found Lord Juss and his companions sleeping on the cold stones, and the banquet ball empty of all gear and dank with moss and cobwebs, and bats sleeping head-downward among the crumbling roofbeams; nor was any sign of last night’s banqueting. So Brandoch Daha roused his companions, and told Juss how he had fared, and of the weird laid on him by that lady.
And they went greatly wondering forth of the accursed castle of Ishnain Nemartra, glad to come off so scatheless.
On that ninth day of their journey from Salapanta they came through waste lands of stone and living rock, where not so much as an earth-louse stirred with life. Gorges split the earth here and there: rock-walled labyrinths of gloom, unvisited for ever by sunbeam or moonbeam, turbulent in their depths with waters that leaped and churned for ever, never still and never silent. So was that day’s journey tortuous, turning now up now down along those river banks to find crossing places.
When they were halted at noon by the deepest rift they had yet beheld, there came one hastening to them and fell down by Juss and lay panting face to earth as breathless from long running. And when they raised him up, behold Mivarsh Faz, harnessed in the gear of a black rider of Jalcanaius Fostus and armed with axe and sword. Great was his agitation, and he speechless for lack of breath. They used him kindly, and gave him to drink from a great skin of wine, Zeldornius’s gift, and anon he said, ‘He hath armed countless hundreds of our folk with weapons taken from Salapanta field. These, led by the devils his sons, with Philpritz cursed of the Gods, be gone before to hold all the ways be-east of you. Night and day have I ridden and run to warn you. Himself, with his main strength of devils ultramontane, rideth hot on your tracks.’
They thanked him well, marvelling much that he should be at such pains to advertise them of their danger. ‘I have eat your salt,’ answered he, ‘and moreover ye are against this naughty wicked baldhead that came over the mountains to oppress us. Therefore I would do you good. But I can little. For I am poor, that was rich in land and fee. And I am alone, that had formerly five hundred spearmen lodging in my halls to do my pleasure.’
‘There’s need to do quickly that we do,’ said Lord Brandoch Daha. ‘How great start of him hadst thou?’
‘He must be upon you in an hour or twain,’ said Mivarsh, and fell a-weeping.
‘To cope him in the open,’ said Juss, ‘were great glory, and our certain death.’
‘Give me to think, but a minute’s while,’ said Brandoch Daha. And while they busked them he walked musing by the lip of that ravine, switching pebbles over the edge with his sword. Then he said, ‘This is without doubt that stream Athrashah spoken of by Gro. O Mivarsh, runneth not this flood of Athrashah south to the salt lakes of Ogo Morveo, and was there not thereabout a hold named Eshgrar Ogo?’
Mivarsh answered, ‘This is so. But never heard I of any so witless as go thither. Here where we stand is the land fearsome enough; but Eshgrar Ogo standeth at the very edge of the Moruna. No man hath harboured there these hundred years.’
‘Standeth it yet?’ said Brandoch Daha.
‘For all I wot of,’ answered Mivarsh.
‘Is it strong?’ he asked.
‘In old times it was thought no place stronger,’ answered Mivarsh. ‘But ye were as well die here by the hand of the devils ultramontane, as there be torn in pieces by bad spirits.’
Brandoch Daha turned him about to Juss. ‘It is resolved?’ said he. Juss answered, ‘Yea;’ and forthwith they started at a great pace south along the river.
‘Methought you should have been gotten clean away ere this,’ said Mivarsh as they went. ‘This is but nine or ten days’ journey, and ’tis now the sixteenth day since ye did leave me on Salapanta Hills.’
Brandoch Daha laughed. ‘Sixteenth!’ said he. ‘Thou’lt be rich, Mivarsh, if thou reckon gold pieces o’ this fashion thou dost days. This is but our ninth day’s journey.’
But Mivarsh stood stoutly to it, saying that was the seventh day after their departure when Corund first came to Salapanta, ‘And I fleeing now nine days before his face chanced on your tracks, and now out of all expectation on you.’ Nor for all their mocking would he be turned from this. And when, as they still pressed through the desert southward, the sun declined and set in a clear sky, behold the moon a little past her full: and Juss saw that she was seven days older than on that night she was when they came to Ishnain Nemartra. So be showed this wonder to Brandoch Daha and Spitfire, and much they marvelled.
‘You are much to thank me,’ said Brandoch Daha, ‘that I kept you not a full year awaiting of me. Beshrew me, but that seven days’ space seemed to me but an hour!’
‘Likely enow, to thee,’ said Spitfire somewhat greenly. ‘But all we slept the week out on the cold stones, and I am half lamed yet with the ache on’t.’
‘Nay,’ said Juss, laughing; ‘I will not have thee blame him.’
The moon was high when they came to the salt lakes that lay one a little above the other in rocky basins. Their waters were like rough silver, and the harsh face of the wilderness was black and silver in the moonlight; and it was as a country of dead bones, blind and sterile beneath the moon. Betwixt the lakes a rib of rock rose monstrous to an eminence crag-begirt on every side, with dark walls ringing it round above the cliffs. Thither they hastened, and as they climbed and stumbled among the crags a she-owl squeaked on the battlements and took wing ghost-like above their heads. The teeth of Mivarsh Faz chattered, but right glad were the Demons as they won up the rocks and entered at last into that deserted burg. Without, the night was still; but fires were burning in the desert eastward, and others as they watched were kindled in the west, and soon was the circle joined of twinkling points of red round about Eshgrar Ogo and the lakes.
Juss said, ‘By an hour have we forestalled them. And behold how he ringeth us about as men ring a scorpion in flame.’
So they made all sure, and set the guard, and slept until past dawn. But Mivarsh slept not, for terror of hob-thrushes from the Moruna.
XI
THE BURG OF ESHGRAR OGO
Of the Lord Corund’s besieging of the burg above the lakes of Ogo Morveo, and what befell
there betwixt him and the Demons; wherein is also an example how the subtle of heart standeth at whiles in great danger of his death.
WHEN the Lord Corund knew of a surety that he held them of Demonland shut up in Eshgrar Ogo, he let dight supper in his tent, and made a surfeit of venison pasties and heath-cocks and lobsters from the lakes. Therewith he drank nigh a skinful of sweet dark Thramnian wine, in such sort that an hour before midnight, becoming speechless, he was holpen by Gro to his couch and slept a great deep sleep till morning.
Gro watched in the tent, his right elbow propped on the table, his cheek resting on his hand, his left hand reaching forward with delicate fingers toying now with the sleek heavy perfumed masses of his beard, now with the goblet whence he sipped ever and anon pale wine of Permio. His thoughts inconstant as insects in a summer garden flitted ever round and round, resting now on the scene before him, the great form of his general wrapt in slumber, now on other scenes sundered by great gulfs of time or weary leagues of perilous ways. So that in one instant he saw in fancy that lady in Carcë welcoming her lord returned in triumph, and him, may be, crowned king of new-vanquished Impland; and in the next, swept from the future to the past, beheld again the great sending-off in Zajë Zaculo, Gaslark in his splendour on the golden stairs saying adieu to those three captains and their matchless armament foredoomed to dogs and crows on Salapanta Hills; and always, like a gloomy background darkening his mind, loomed the yawning void, featureless and vast, beyond the investing circle of Corund’s armies: the blind blasted emptiness of the Moruna.
With such fancies, melancholy like a great bird settled upon his soul. The lights flickered in their sockets, and for very weariness Gro’s eyelids closed at length over his large liquid eyes; and, too tired to stir from his seat to seek his couch, he sank forward on the table, his head pillowed on his arms. The red glow of the brazier slumbered ever dimmer and dimmer on the slender form and black shining curls of Gro, and on the mighty frame of Corund where he lay with one great spurred booted leg stretched along the couch, and the other flung out sideways resting its heel on the ground.
It wanted but two hours of noon when a sunbeam striking through an opening in the hangings of the tent shone upon Corund’s eyelids, and he awoke fresh and brisk as a youth on a hunting morn. He waked Gro, and giving him a clap on the shoulder, ‘Thou wrongest a fair morn,’ he said. ‘The devil damn me black as buttermilk if it be not great shame in thee; and I, that was born this day six and forty years as the years come about, busy with mine affairs since sunrise.’
Gro yawned and smiled and stretched himself. ‘O Corund,’ he said, ‘counterfeit a livelier wonder in thine eyes if thou wilt persuade me thou sawest the sunrise. For I think that were as new and unexampled a sight for thee as any I could produce to thee in Impland.’
Corund answered, ‘Truly I was seldom so uncivil as surprise Madam Aurora in her nightgown. And the thrice or four times I have been forced thereto, taught me it is an hour of crude airs and mists which breed cold dark humours in the body, an hour when the torch of life burns weakest. Within there! bring me my morning draught.’
The boy brought two cups of white wine, and while they drank, ‘A thin ungracious drink is the well-spring,’ said Corund: ‘a drink for queasy-stomached skipjacks: for sand-levericks, not for men. And like it is the day-spring: an ungrateful sapless hour, an hour for stab-i’-the-backs and cold-blooded betrayers. Ah, give me wine,’ he cried, ‘and noon-day vices, and brazen-browed iniquities.’
‘Yet there’s many a deed of profit done by owl-light,’ said Gro.
‘Ay,’ said Corund: ‘deeds of darkness: and there, my lord, I’m still thy scholar. Come, let’s be doing.’ And taking his helm and weapons, and buckling about him his great wolfskin cloak, for the air was eager and frosty without, he strode forth. Gro wrapped himself in his fur mantle, drew on his lambskin gloves, and followed him.
‘If thou wilt take my rede,’ said Lord Gro, as they looked on Eshgrar Ogo stark in the barren sunlight, ‘thou’lt do this honour to Philpritz, which I question not he much desireth, to suffer him and his folk take first knock at this nut. It hath a hard look. Pity it were to waste good Witchland blood in a first assault, when these vile instruments stand ready to our purpose.’
Corund grunted in his beard, and with Gro at his elbow paced in silence through the lines, his keen eyes searching ever the cliffs and walls of Eshgrar Ogo, till in some half-hour’s space he halted again before his tent, having made a complete circuit of the burg. Then he spake: ‘Put me in yonder fighting-stead, and if it were only but I and fifty able lads to man the walls, yet would I hold it against ten thousand.’
Gro held his peace awhile, and then said, ‘Thou speakest this in all sadness?’
‘In sober sadness,’ answered Corund, squaring his shoulders at the burg.
‘Then thou’lt not assault it?’
Corund laughed. ‘Not assault it, quotha! That were a sweet tale ’twixt the boiled and the roast in Carcë: I’d not assault it!’
‘Yet consider,’ said Gro, taking him by the arm. ‘So shapeth the matter in my mind: they be few and shut up in a little place, in this far land, out of reach and out of mind of all succour. Were they devils and not men, the multitude of our armies and thine own tried qualities must daunt them. Be the place never so cocksure, doubt not some doubts thereof must poison their security. Therefore before thou risk a repulse which must dispel those doubts use thine advantage. Bid Juss to a parley. Offer him conditions: it skills not what. Bribe them out into the open.’
‘A pretty plan,’ said Corund. ‘Thou’lt merit wisdom’s crown if thou canst tell me what conditions we can offer that they would take. And whilst thou riddlest that, remember that though thou and I be masters hereabout, another reigns in Carcë.’
Lord Gro laughed gently. ‘Leave jesting,’ he said, ‘O Corund, and never hope to gull me to believe thee such a babe in policy. Shall the King blame us though we sign away Demonland, ay and the wide world besides, to Juss to lure him forth? Unless indeed we were so neglectful of our interest as suffer him, once forth, to elude our clutches.’
‘Gro,’ said Corund, ‘I love thee. But hardly canst thou receive things as I receive them that have dealt all my days in great stripes, given and taken in the open field. I sticked not to take part in thy notable treason against these poor snakes of Impland that we trapped in Orpish. All’s fair against such dirt. Besides, great need was upon us then, and hard it is for an empty sack to stand straight. But here is far other matter. All’s won here but the plucking of the apple: it is the very main of my ambition to humble these Demons openly by the terror of my sword: wherefore I will not use upon them cogs and stops and all thy devilish tricks, such as should bring me more of scorn than of glory in the eyes of aftercomers.’
So speaking, he issued command and sent an herald to go forth beneath the battlements with a flag of truce. And the herald cried aloud and said: ‘From Corund of Witchland unto the lords of Demonland: thus saith the Lord Corund, ‘I hold this burg of Eshgrar Ogo as a nut betwixt the crackers. Come down and speak with me in the batable land before the burg, and I swear to you peace and grith while we parley, and thereto pledge I mine honour as a man of war.’
So when the due ceremonies were performed, the Lord Juss came down from Eshgrar Ogo and with him the lords Spitfire and Brandoch Daha and twenty men to be their bodyguard. Corund went to meet them with his guard about him, and his four sons that fared with him to Impland, Hacmon, namely, and Heming and Viglus and Dormanes: sullen and dark young men, likely of look, of a little less fierceness than their father. Gro, fair to see and slender as a racehorse, went at his side, muffled to the ears in a cloak of ermine; and behind came Philpritz Faz helmed with a winged helm of iron and gold. A gilded corselet had Philpritz, and trousers of panther’s skin, and he came a-slinking at Corund’s heel as the jackal slinks behind the lion.
When they were met, Juss spake and said, ‘This would I know first, my Lord Corund, how
thou comest hither, and why, and by what right thou disputest with us the ways eastward out of Impland.’
Corund answered, leaning on his spear, ‘I need not answer thee in this. And yet I will. How came I? I answer thee, over the cold mountain wall of Akra Skabranth. And ’tis a feat hath not his fellow in man’s remembrance until now, with so great a force and in so short a space of time.’
‘’Tis well enough,’ said Juss. ‘I’ll grant thee thou hast outrun mine expectations of thee.’
‘Next thou demandest why,’ said Corund. ‘Suffice it for thee that the King hath had advertisement of your farings into Impland and your designs therein. For to bring these to nought am I come.’
‘There was many firkins of wine drunk dry in Carcë,’ said Hacmon, ‘and many a noble person senseless and spewing on the ground ere morn for pure delight, when cursed Goldry was made away. We were little minded these healths should be proved vain at last.’
‘Was that ere thou rodest from Permio?’ said Lord Brandoch Daha. ‘The merry god wrought of our side that night, if my memory cheat not.’
‘Thou demandest last,’ said Corund, ‘my Lord Juss, by what right I bar your passage eastaway. Know, therefore, that not of mine own self speak I unto you, but as vicar in wide-fronted Impland of our Lord Gorice XII, King of Kings, most glorious and most great. There remaineth no way out for you from this place save into the rigour of mine hands. Therefore let us, according to the nature of great men, agree to honourable conditions. And this is mine offer, O Juss. Yield up this burg of Eshgrar Ogo, and therewith thy sealed word in a writing acknowledging our Lord the King to be King of Demonland and all ye his quiet and obedient subjects, even as we be. And I will swear unto you of my part, and in the name of our Lord the King, and give you hostages thereto, that ye shall depart in peace whither you list with all love and safety.’
