on the massive table, saying in Gro’s ear, as one who would not be
overheard, “This is that awful book of grammarie wherewith in this same
chamber, on such a night, Gorice VII. stirred the vasty deep. And know
that from this circumstance alone ensued the ruin of King Gorice VII.,
in that, having by his hellish science conjured up somewhat from the
primaeval dark, and being utterly fordone with the sweat and stress of
his conjuring, his mind was clouded for a moment, in such sort that
either he forgot the words writ in this grammarie, or the page whereon
they were writ, or speech failed him to speak those words that must
be spoken, or might to do those things which must be done to complete
the charm. Wherefore he kept not his power over that which he had
called out of the deep, but it turned upon him and tare him limb from
limb. Such like doom will I avoid, renewing in these latter days those
self-same spells, if thou durst stand by me undismayed the while I
utter my incantations. And shouldst thou mark me fail or waver ere all
be accomplished, then shalt thyself lay hand on book and crucible and
fulfil whatsoever is needful, as I shall first show thee. Or quailest
thou at this?”
Gro said, “Lord, show me my task. And I will carry it, though all the
Furies of the pit flock to this chamber to say me nay.”
So the King instructed Gro, rehearsing to him those acts that were
needful, and making known unto him the divers pages of the grammarie
whereon were writ those words which must be spoken each in its due
time and sequence. But the King pronounced not yet those words,
pointing only to them in the book, for whoso speaketh those words in
vain and out of season is lost. And now when the retorts and beakers
with their several necks and tubes and the appurtenances thereof were
set in order, and the unhallowed processes of fixation, conjunction,
deflagration, putrefaction, and rubefication were nearing maturity,
and the baleful star Antares standing by the astrolabe within a little
of the meridian signified the instant approach of midnight, the
King described on the floor with his conjuring rod three pentacles
inclosed within a seven-pointed star, with the signs of Cancer and
of Scorpio joined by certain runes. And in the midst of the star he
limned the image of a green crab eating of the sun. And turning to the
seventy-third page of his great black grammarie the King recited in a
mighty voice words of hidden meaning, calling on the name that it is a
sin to utter.
Now when he had spoken the first spell and was silent, there was a
deadly quiet in that chamber, and a chill in the air as of winter. And
in the quiet Gro heard the King’s breath coming and going, as of one
who hath rowed a course. Now the blood rushed back to Gro’s heart and
his hands and feet became cold and a cold sweat brake forth on his
brow. But for all that, he held yet his courage firm and his brain
ready. The King motioned to Gro to break off the tail of a certain drop
of black glass that lay on the table; and with the snapping of its
tail the whole drop fell in pieces in a coarse black powder. Gro by
the King’s direction gathered that powder and dropped it in the great
alembic wherein a green fluid seethed and bubbled above the flame of a
lamp; and the fluid became red as blood, and the body of the alembic
filled with a tawny smoke, and sparks of sun-like brilliance flashed
and crackled through the smoke. Thereupon distilled from the neck of
the alembic a white oil incombustible, and the King dipped his rod in
that oil and described round the seven-pointed star on the floor the
figure of the worm Ouroboros, that eateth his own tail. And he wrote
the formula of the crab below the circle, and spake his second spell.
When that was done, yet more biting seemed the night air and yet more
like the grave the stillness of the chamber. The King’s hand shook as
with an ague as he turned the pages of the mighty book. Gro’s teeth
chattered in his head. He gritted them together and waited. And now
through every window came a light into the chamber as of skies paling
to the dawn. Yet not wholly so; for never yet came dawn at midnight,
nor from all four quarters of the sky at once, nor with such swift
strides of increasing light, nor with a light so ghastly. The candle
flames burned filmy as the glare waxed strong from without: an evil
pallid light of bale and corruption, wherein the hands and faces of the
King Gorice and his disciple showed death-pale, and their lips black as
the dark skin of a grape where the bloom has been rubbed off from it.
The King cried terribly, “The hour approacheth!” And he took a phial of
crystal containing a decoction of wolf’s jelly and salamander’s blood,
and dropped seven drops from the alembic into the phial and poured
forth that liquor on the figure of the crab drawn on the floor. Gro
leaned against the wall, weak in body but with will unbowed. So bitter
was the cold that his hands and feet were benumbed, and the liquor from
the phial congealed where it fell. Yet the sweat stood in beads on the
forehead of the King by reason of the mighty striving that was his, and
in the overpowering glare of that light from the underskies he stood
stiff and erect, hands clenched and arms outstretched, and spake the
words LURO VOPO VIR VOARCHADUMIA.
Now with those words spoken the vivid light departed as a blown-out
lamp, and the midnight closed down again without. Nor was any sound
heard save the thick panting of the King; but it was as if the night
held its breath in expectation of that which was to come. And the
candles sputtered and burned blue. The King swayed and clutched the
table with his left hand; and again the King pronounced terribly the
word VOARCHADUMIA.
Thereafter for the space of ten heart-beats silence hung like a kestrel
poised in the listening night. Then went a crash through earth and
heaven, and a blinding wildfire through the chamber as it had been
a thunderbolt. All Carcë quaked, and the chamber was filled with
a beating of wings, like the wings of some monstrous bird. The air
that was wintry cold waxed on a sudden hot as the breath of a burning
mountain, and Gro was near choking with the smell of soot and the smell
of brimstone. And the chamber rocked as a ship riding in a swell with
the wind against the tide. But the King, steadying himself against the
table and clutching the edge of it till the veins on his lean hand
seemed nigh to bursting, cried in short breaths and with an altered
voice, “By these figures drawn and by these spells enchanted, by the
unction of wolf and salamander, by the unblest sign of Cancer now
leaning to the sun, and by the fiery heart of Scorpio that flameth in
this hour on night’s meridian, thou art my thrall and instrument. Abase
thee and serve me, worm of the pit. Else will I by and by summon out of
ancient night intelligences and dominations mightier far than thou, and
they shall serve mine ends, and thee shall they chain with chains of
quenchless fire and drag thee from torment to torment through the deep.”
Therewith the earthquake was stilled, and there remained but a
quivering of the walls and floor and the wind of those unseen wings and
the hot smell of soot and brimstone burning. And speech came out of the
teeming air of that chamber, strangely sweet, saying, “Accursed wretch
that troublest our quiet, what is thy will?” The terror of that speech
made the throat of Gro dry, and the hairs on his scalp stood up.
The King trembled in all his members like a frightened horse, yet was
his voice level and his countenance unruffled as he said hoarsely,
“Mine enemies sail at day-break from the Foliot Isles. I loose thee
against them as a falcon from my wrist. I give thee them. Turn them to
thy will: how or where it skills not, so thou do but break and destroy
them off the face of the world. Away!”
But now was the King’s endurance clean spent, so that his knees failed
him and he sank like a sick man into his mighty chair. But the room
was filled with a tumult as of rushing waters, and a laughter above
the tumult like to the laughter of souls condemned. And the King was
reminded that he had left unspoken that word which should dismiss his
sending. But to such weariness was he now come and so utterly was his
strength gone out from him in the exercise of his spells, that his
tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, so that he might not speak the
word; and horribly he rolled up the whites of his eyes beckoning to
Gro, the while his nerveless fingers sought to turn the heavy pages
of the grammarie. Then sprang Gro forth to the table, and against it
sprawling, for now was the great keep of Carcë shaken anew as one
shaketh a dice box, and lightnings opened the heavens, and the thunder
roared unceasingly, and the sound of waters stunned the ear in that
chamber, and still that laughter pealed above the turmoil. And Gro knew
that it was now with the King even as it had been with Gorice VII. in
years gone by, when his strength gave forth and the spirit tare him and
plastered those chamber-walls with his blood. Yet was Gro mindful, even
in that hideous storm of terror, of the ninety-seventh page whereon
the King had shown him the word of dismissal, and he wrenched the book
from the King’s palsied grasp and turned to the page. Scarce had his
eye found the word, when a whirlwind of hail and sleet swept into the
chamber, and the candles were blown out and the tables overset. And in
the plunging darkness beneath the crashing of the thunder Gro pitching
headlong felt claws clasp his head and body. He cried in his agony the
word, that was the word TRIPSARECOPSEM, and so fell a-swooning.
• • • • •
It was high noon when the Lord Gro came to his senses in that chamber.
The strong spring sunshine poured through the southern window, lighting
up the wreckage of the night. The tables were cast down and the
floor strewn and splashed with costly essences and earths spilt from
shattered phials and jars and caskets: aphroselmia, shell of gold,
saffron of gold, asem, amianth, stypteria of Melos, confounded with
mandragora, vinum ardens, sal armoniack, devouring aqua regia, little
pools and scattered globules of quicksilver, poisonous decoctions
of toadstools and of yewberries, monkshood, thornapple, wolf’s bane
and black hellebore, quintessences of dragon’s blood and serpent’s
bile; and with these, splashed together and wasted, elixirs that
wise men have died a-dreaming of: spiritus mundi, and that sovereign
alkahest which dissolveth every substance dipped therein, and that
aurum potabile which being itself perfect induceth perfection in the
living frame. And in this welter of spoiled treasure were the great
conjuring books hurled amid the ruin of retorts and aludels of glass
and lead and silver, sand-baths, matrasses, spatulae, athanors, and
other instruments innumerable of rare design, tossed and broken on
the chamber floor. The King’s chair was thrown against the furnace,
and huddled against the table lay the King, his head thrown back, his
black beard pointing skyward, showing his sinewy hairy throat. Gro
looked narrowly at him; saw that he seemed unhurt and slept deep; and
so, knowing well that sleep is a present remedy for every ill, watched
by the King in silence all day till supper time, for all he was sore
an-hungered.
When at length the King awoke, he looked about him in amaze. “Methought
I tripped at the last step of last night’s journey,” he said. “And
truly strange riot hath left its footprints in my chamber.”
Gro answered, “Lord, sorely was I tried; yet fulfilled I your behest.”
The King laughed as one whose soul is at ease, and standing upon his
feet said unto Gro, “Take up the crown of Witchland and crown me. And
that high honour shalt thou have, because I do love thee for this night
gone by.”
Now without were the lords of Witchland assembled in the courtyard,
being bound for the great banqueting hall to eat and drink, unto
whom the King came forth from the gate below the keep, robed in his
conjuring robe. Wondrous bright sparkled the gems of the iron crown
of Witchland above the heavy brow and cheek-bones and the fierce
disdainful lip of the King, as he stood there in his majesty, and Gro
with the guard of honour stood in the shadow of the gate. And the King
said, “My lords Corund and Corsus and Corinius and Gallandus, and ye
sons of Corsus and of Corund, and ye other Witches, behold your King,
the twelfth Gorice, crowned with this crown in Carcë to be King of
Witchland and of Demonland. And all countries of the world and the
rulers thereof, so many as the sun doth spread his beams over, shall do
me obeisance, and call me King and Lord.”
All they shouted assent, praising the King and bowing down before him.
Then said the King, “Imagine not that oaths sworn unto the Demons by
Gorice XI. of memory ever glorious bind me any whit. I will not be at
peace with this Juss and his brethren, but do account them all mine
enemies. And this night have I made a sending to take them on the waste
of waters as they sail homeward to many-mountained Demonland.”
Corund said, “Lord, your words are as wine unto us. And well we guessed
that the principalities of darkness were afoot last night, seeing all
Carcë rocked and the foundations thereof rose and fell as the breast of
the large earth a-breathing.”
When they were come into the banqueting hall, the King said, “Gro
shall sit at my right hand this night, since manfully hath he served
me.” And when they scowled at this, and spake each in the other’s ear,
the King said, “Whoso among you shall so serve me and so water the
growth of this Witchland as hath Gro in this night gone by, unto him
will I do like honour.” But unto Gro he said, “I will bring thee home
to Goblinland in triumph, that wentest forth an exile. I will pluck
Gaslark from his throne, and make thee king in Zajë Zaculo, and all
Goblinland shalt thou hold for me in fee, exercising dominion over it.”
V: KING GORICE’S SENDING
OF KING GASLARK, AND OF THE COMING OF THE SENDING UPON THE DEMONS
ON THE HIGH SEAS; WITH HOW THE LORD JUSS BY THE EGGING ON OF
HIS COMPANIONS WAS PERSUADED TO AN UNADVISED RASHNESS.
The next morning following that night when King Gorice XII. sat crowned
in Carcë as is aforesaid, was Gaslark a-sailing on the middle sea,
homeward from the east. Seven ships of war he had, and they steered
in column south-westward close hauled on the starboard tack. Greatest
and fairest among them was she who led the line, a great dragon of war
painted azure of the summer sea with towering head of a worm, plated
with gold and wrought with overlapping scales, gaping defiance from her
bows, and a worm’s tail erect at the poop. Seventy and five picked men
of Goblinland sailed on that ship, clad in gay kirtles and byrnies of
mail and armed with axes, spears, and swords. Their shields, each with
his device, hung at the bulwarks. On the high poop sat King Gaslark,
his sturdy hands grasping the great steering paddle. Goodly of mien and
well knit were all they of Goblinland that went on that great ship,
yet did Gaslark outdo them all in goodliness and strength and all
kingliness. He wore a silken kirtle of Tyrian purple. Broad wristlets
of woven gold were on his wrists. Dark-skinned was he as one that hath
lived all his days in the hot sunshine: clean-cut of feature, somewhat
hooky-nosed, with great eyes and white teeth and tight-curled black
moustachios. Nought restful was there in his presence and bearing, but
rashness and impetuous fire; and he was wild to look on, swift and
beautiful as a stag in autumn.
Teshmar, that was the skipper of his ship, stood at his elbow. Gaslark
said to him, “Is it not one of the three gallant spectacles of the
world, a good ship treading the hastening furrows of the sea like a
queen in grace and beauty, scattering up the wave-crests before her
stem in a glittering rain?”
“Yea, Lord,” answered he; “and what be the other two?”
“One that I most unhappily did miss, whereof but yesterday we had
tidings: to behold such a battling of great champions and such a
victory as Lord Goldry obtained upon yonder vaunting tyrant.”
“The third shall be seen, I think,” said Teshmar, “when the Lord Goldry
Bluszco shall in your royal palace of Zajë Zaculo, amid pomp and high
rejoicing, wed the young princess your cousin: most fortunate lord,
that must be lord of her whom all just censure doth acknowledge the
ornament of earth, the model of heaven, the queen of beauty.”
“Kind Gods hasten the day,” said Gaslark. “For truly ’tis a most sweet
lass, and those kinsmen of Demonland my dearest friends. But for whose
great upholding time and again, Teshmar, in days gone by, where were
I to-day and my kingdom, and where thou and all of you?” The king’s
brow darkened a little with thought. After a time he began to say, “I
must have more great action: these trivial harryings, spoils of Nevria,
chasing of Esamocian black-a-moors, be toys not worthy of our great
name and renown among the nations. Something I would enact that shall
embroil and astonish the world, even as the Demons when they purged
earth of the Ghouls, ere I go down into silence.”
Teshmar was staring toward the southern bourne. He pointed with his
hand: “There rideth a great ship, O king. And methinks she hath a
strange look.”
Gaslark gazed earnestly at her for an instant, then straightway shifted
his helm and steered towards her. He spake no more, staring ever as he
sailed, marking ever as the distance lessened more and more particulars
of that ship. Her silken sail fluttered in tatters from the yard; she
rowed feebly, as one groping in darkness, with barely strength to stay
her from drifting stern-foremost before the wind. So hung she on the
sea, as one struck stupid by some blow, doubting which way her harbour
lay or which way her course. As a thing which hath been held in the
flame of a monstrous candle, so seemed she, singed and besmirched with
soot. Smashed was her proud figure-head, and smashed was her high
forecastle, and burned and shattered the carved timbers of the poop and
the fair seats that were thereon. She leaked, so that a score of her
crew must be still a-baling to keep her afloat. Of her fifty oars, half
were broken or gone adrift, and many of the ship’s company lay wounded
and some slain under her thwarts.
And now was King Gaslark ware as he drew near that here was the Lord
Juss on her ruined poop a-steering, and by him Spitfire and Brandoch
Daha. Their jewelled arms and gear and rich attire were black with most
stinking soot, and it was as though admiration and grief and anger were
so locked and twined within them that none of these passions might win
forth to outward showing on their frozen countenances.
When they were within hailing distance, Gaslark hailed them. They
answered him not, only beholding him with alien eyes. But they stopped
the ship, and Gaslark lay aboard of her and came on board and went up
on the poop and greeted them. And he said, “Well met in an ill hour.
What’s the matter?”
The Lord Juss made as if to speak, but no word came. Only he took
Gaslark by both hands and sat down with a great groan on the poop,
averting his face. Gaslark said, “O Juss, for so many a time as thou
hast borne part in my evils and succoured me, surely right requireth I
have part of thine?”
But Juss answered in a thick, strange voice all unlike himself, “Mine,
sayest thou, O Gaslark? What in the stablished world is mine, that
am thus in a moment reived of him that was mine own heartstring, my
brother, the might of mine arm, the chiefest citadel of my dominion?”
And he burst into a great passion of weeping.
King Gaslark’s rings were driven into the flesh of his fingers by the
grip of Juss’s strong hands on his. But he scarce wist of the pain,
such agony of mind was in him for the loss of his friend, and for the
bitterness and wonder that it was to behold these three great lords of
Demonland weep like frightened women, and all their ship’s company of
tried men of war weeping and wailing besides. And Gaslark saw well that
their lordly souls were unseated for a season because of some dreadful
fact, the havoc whereof his eyes most woefully beheld, while its
particulars were yet dark to him, yet with a terror in darkness that
might well make his heart to quail.
By much questioning he was at last well advertised of what had
befallen: how they the day before, in broad noon, on such a summer sea,
had heard a noise like the flapping of wings outstretched from one
edge of the sky to another, and in a moment the calm sea was lifted
up and fell again and the whole sea clashed together and roared, yet
was the ship not sunken. And there was a tumult about them of thunder
and raging waters and black night and wildfire in the night; which
presently passing away and the darkness lifting, the sea lay solitary
as far as eye might reach. “And nothing is more certain,” said Juss,
“than that this is a sending of King Gorice XII. spoken of by the
prophets as a great clerk of necromancy beyond all other this world
hath seen. And this is his vengeance for the woes we wrought for
Witchland in the Foliot Isles. Against such a peril I had provided
certain amulets made of the stone alectorian, which groweth in the
gizzard of a cock hatched on a moonless night when Saturn burneth in a
human sign and the lord of the third house is in the ascendant. These
saved us, albeit sorely buffeted, from destruction: all save Goldry
alone. He, by some cursed chance, whether he neglected to wear the
charm I gave him, or the chain of it was broken in the plunging of the
ship, or by some other means ’twas lost: when daylight came again, we
stood but three on this poop where four had stood. More I know not.”
“O Gaslark,” said Spitfire, “our brother that is stolen from us, with
us it surely lieth to find him and set him free.”
But Juss groaned and said, “In which star of the unclimbed sky wilt
thou begin our search? Or in which of the secret streams of ocean where
the last green rays are quenched in oozy darkness?”
Gaslark was silent for a while. Then he said, “I think nought likelier
than this, that Gorice hath caught away Goldry Bluszco into Carcë,
where he holdeth him in duress. And thither must we straightway to
deliver him.”
Juss answered no word. But Gaslark seized his hand, saying, “Our
ancient love and your oft succouring of Goblinland in days gone by make
this my quarrel. Hear now my rede. As I fared from the east through
the Straits of Rinath I beheld a mighty company of forty sail, bound
eastward to the Beshtrian sea. Well it was they marked us not as we lay
under the isles of Ellien in the dusk of evening. For touching later at
Norvasp in Pixyland we learned that there sailed Laxus with the whole
Witchland fleet, being minded to work evil deeds among the peaceful
cities of the Beshtrian seaboard. And as well met were an antelope
with a devouring lion, as I and my seven ships with those ill-doers in
such strength on the high seas. But now, behold how wide standeth the
door to our wishes. Laxus and that great armament are safe harrying
eastward-ho. I make question whether at this moment more than nine
score or ten score fighting men be left in Carcë. I have here of mine
own nigh on five hundred. Never was fairer chance to take Witchland
with his claws beneath the table, and royally may we scratch his face
ere he get them forth again.” And Gaslark laughed for joy of battle,
and cried, “O Juss, smiles it not to thee, this rede of mine?”
“Gaslark,” said Lord Juss, “nobly and with that open hand and heart
that I have loved in thee from of old hast thou made this offer. Yet
not so is Witchland to be overcome, but after long days of labour only,
and laying of schemes and building of ships and gathering of hosts
answerable to the strength we bare of late against the Ghouls when we
destroyed them.”
Nor for all his urging might Gaslark move him any whit.
But Spitfire sat by his brother and spake privately to him: “Kinsman,
what ails thee? Is all high heart and swiftness to action crushed out
of Demonland, and doth but the unserviceable juiceless skin remain to
us? Thou art clean unlike that thou hast ever been, and could Witchland
behold us now well might he judge that base fear had ta’en hold upon
us, seeing that with the odds of strength so fortunately of our side we
shrink from striking at him.”
Juss said in Spitfire’s ear, “This it is, that I do misdoubt me of the
steadfastness of the Goblins. Too like to fire among dead leaves is the
sudden flame of their valour, a poor thing to rely on if once they be
checked. So do I count it folly trusting in them for our main strength
to go up against Carcë. Also it is but a wild fancy that Goldry hath
been transported into Carcë.”