heard their horse-hooves on the bridge, and looking forth beheld where
they galloped on the Way of Kings dim in the coppery light of a waning
moon rising over Pixyland. So sate she by the window of Corund’s lofty
bed-chamber gazing through the night, long after her brother and the
lords of Demonland and her brother’s men were ridden beyond her seeing,
long after their last hoof-beat had ceased to echo on the road. In a
while fresh horse-hooves sounded from the south, and a noise as of many
riding in company; and she knew it was young Hacmon back from Permio.
VIII: THE FIRST EXPEDITION TO IMPLAND
OF THE HOME-COMING OF THE DEMONS, AND HOW LORD JUSS WAS TAUGHT IN
A DREAM WHITHER HE MUST SEEK FOR TIDINGS OF HIS DEAR BROTHER.
AND HOW THEY TOOK COUNSEL AT KROTHERING, AND DETERMINED OF
THEIR EXPEDITION TO IMPLAND.
Midsummer night, ambrosial, starry-kirtled, walked on the sea, as the
ship that brought the Demons home drew nigh to her journey’s end. The
cloaks of Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha, who slept on the poop,
were wet with dew. Smoothly they had passage through that charmed
night, where winds were hushed asleep and nought was heard save the
waves talking beneath the bows of the ship, the lilting changeless
song of the steersman, and the creak, dip, and swash of oars keeping
time to his singing. Vega burned like a sapphire near the zenith, and
Arcturus low in the north-west, beaconing over Demonland. In the remote
south-east Fomalhaut rose from the sea, a lonely splendour in the dim
region of Capricorn and the Fishes.
So rowed they till day broke, and a light wind sprang up fresh and
keen. Juss waked, and stood up to scan the gray glassy surface of
the sea spread to vast distances where sky and water faded into one.
Astern, great clouds bridged the gates of day, boiling upwards into
crags of wine-dark vapour and burning plumes of sunrise. In the
stainless spaces of the sky above these sailed the horned moon, frail
and wan as a white foam-flower blown from the waves. Westward, facing
the thunder-smoke of dawn, the fine far ridge of Kartadza was like cut
crystal against the sky: the first island sentinel of many-mountained
Demonland, his topmost cliffs dawn-illumined with pale gold and
amethyst while yet the lesser heights lay obscure, lapped in the folds
of night. And with the opening day the mists swathing the mountain’s
skirts were lifted up in billowy masses that grew and shrank and grew
again, made restless by the wayward winds which morning waked in the
hollow mountain side, and torn by them into wisps and streamers. Some
were blown upward, steaming up the great gullies in the rocks below
the peak, while now and then a puff of cloud swam free for a minute,
floated a minute’s space as ready to sail skyward, then indolently
stooped again to the mountain wall to veil it in an unsubstantial
fleece of golden vapour. And now all the western seaboard of Demonland
lay clear to view, stretching fifty miles and more from Northhouse
Skerries past the Drakeholms and the low downs of Kestawick and Byland,
beyond which tower the mountains of the Scarf, past the jagged sky-line
of the Thornbacks and the far Neverdale peaks overhanging the wooded
shores of Onwardlithe and Lower Tivarandardale, to the extreme southern
headland, filmy-pale in the distance, where the great range of Rimon
Armon plunges its last wild bastion in the sea.
As a lover gazing on his mistress, so gazed Lord Juss on Demonland
rising from the sea. No word spake he till they came off
Lookinghaven-ness and could see where beyond the beaked promontory the
sound opened between Kartadza and the mainland. Albeit the outer sea
was calm, the air in the sound was thick with spray from the churning
of the waters among the reefs and swallowing shoals. For the tide ran
like a mill-race through that sound, and the roaring of it was plain
to hear at two miles’ distance where they sailed. Juss said, “Mindest
thou my shepherding of the Ghoul fleet into yonder jaws? I would not
tell thee for shame whenas the fit was on me. But this is the first day
since the sending came upon us that I have not wished in my heart that
the Races of Kartadza had gulped me down also and given me one ending
with the accursed Ghouls.”
Lord Brandoch Daha looked swiftly upon him and was silent.
Now in a short while was the ship come into Lookinghaven and alongside
of the marble quay. There amid his folk stood Spitfire, who greeted
them, saying, “I made all ready to bring three of you home in triumph
from your ship, but Volle counselled against it. Glad am I that I took
his counsel, and put by those things I had prepared. They had cut me to
the heart to see them now.”
Juss answered him, “O my brother, this noise of hammers in
Lookinghaven, and these ten keels laid on the slips, show me ye
have been busied on things nearer our needs than bay-leaves and the
instruments of joy since thou camest home.”
So they took horse, and while they rode they related to Spitfire all
that had befallen since their faring to Carcë. In such wise came they
north past the harbour, and so over Havershaw Tongue to Beckfoot where
they took the upper path that climbs into Evendale close under the
screes of Starksty Pike, and so came a little before noon to Galing.
The black rock of Galing stands at the end of the spur that runs down
from the south ridge of Little Drakeholm, dividing Brankdale from
Evendale. On three sides the cliffs fall sheer from the castle walls to
the deep woods of oak and birch and rowan tree which carpet the flats
of Moongarth Bottom and feather the walls of the gill through which
the Brankdale beck plunges in waterfall after waterfall. Only on the
north-east may aught save a winged thing come at the castle, across a
smooth grass-grown saddle less than a stone’s throw in width. Over that
saddle runs the paven way leading from the Brankdale road to the Lion
Gate, and within the gate is that garden of the grass walk between the
yews where Lessingham stood with the martlet nine weeks before, when
first he came to Demonland.
• • • • •
When night fell and supper was done, Juss walked alone on the walls of
his castle, watching the constellations burn in the moonless sky above
the mighty shadows of the mountains, listening to the hooting of the
owls in the woods below and the faint distant tinkle of cow-bells, and
breathing the fragrance borne up from the garden on the night wind that
even in high summer tasted keen of the mountains and the sea. These
sights and scents and voices of the holy night so held him in thrall
that it wanted but an hour of midnight when he left the battlements,
and called the sleepy house-carles to light him to his chamber in the
south tower of Galing.
Wondrous fair was the great four-posted bed of the Lord Juss, builded
of solid gold, and hung with curtains of dark-blue tapestry whereon
were figured sleep-flowers. The canopy above the bed was a mosaic of
tiny stones, jet, serpentine, dark hyacinth, black marble, bloodstone,
and lapis lazuli, so confounded in a maze of altering hue and lustre
that they might mock the palpitating sky of night. And therein was the
likeness of the constellation of Orion, held by Juss for guardian of
his fortunes, the stars whereof, like those beneath the golden canopy
in the presence chamber, were jewels shining of their own light, yet
with a milder radiance, as glow-worms’ sheen or dead wood glimmering in
the dark. For Betelgeuze was a ruby shining, and a diamond for Rigel,
and pale topazes for the other stars. The four posts of the bed were
of the thickness of a man’s arm in their upper parts, but their lower
parts great as his waist and carven in the image of birds and beasts:
at the foot of the bed a lion for courage and an owl for wisdom, and
at the head an alaunt for faithfulness of heart and a kingfisher for
happiness. On the cornice of the bed and on the panels above the pillow
against the wall were carved Juss’s deeds of derring-do; and the latest
carving was of the sea-fight with the Ghouls. To the right of the bed
stood a table with old books of songs and books of the stars and of
herbs and beasts and travellers’ tales, and there was Juss wont to lay
his sword beside him while he slept. All the walls were panelled with
dark sweet-smelling wood, and armour and weapons hung thereon. Mighty
chests and almeries hasped and bound with gold stood against the wall,
wherein he kept his rich apparel. Windows opened to the west and south,
and on each window-ledge stood a bowl of palest jade filled with white
roses; and the air entering the bed-chamber was laden with their scent.
About cock-crow came a dream unto Lord Juss, standing by his head and
touching his eyes so that he seemed to wake and look about the chamber.
And he seemed to behold an evil beast all burning as a drake, busy in
his chamber, with many heads, the most venomous that ever he the days
of his life had seen, and about it its five fawns, like to itself but
smaller. It seemed to Juss that in place of his sword there lay a great
spear of fair workmanship on the table by his bed; and it seemed to
him in his dream that this spear had been his all his life, and was
his greatest treasure, and that with it he might accomplish all things
and without it scarcely aught to his mind. He laboured to reach out
his hand to the spear, but some power withheld him so that for all his
striving he might not stir. But that beast took up the spear in its
jaws, and went with it forth from the chamber. It seemed to Juss that
the power that held him departed with the departing of the beast, so
that he leaped up and snatched down weapons from the wall and made an
onslaught on the fawns of that fell beast that were tearing down the
woven hangings and marring with their fiery breath the figure of the
kingfisher at the head of his bed. All the chamber was full of the reek
of burning, and he thought his friends were with him in the chamber,
Volle and Vizz and Zigg and Spitfire and Brandoch Daha, fighting with
the beasts, and the beasts prevailed against them. Then it seemed to
him that the bedpost carven in the likeness of an owl spake to him in
his dream in human speech; and the owl said, “O fool, that shalt justly
be put in great misery without end, except thou bring back the spear.
Hast thou forgot that this only is thy greatest treasure and most
worthiest thy care?”
Therewith came back that grim and grisful beast into the chamber, and
Juss assailed it, crying to the owl, “Uncivil owl, where then must I
find my spear that this beast hath hidden?”
And it seemed to him that the owl made answer, “Inquire in Koshtra
Belorn.”
So tumultuous was Lord Juss’s dream that he was flung at waking out
of bed on to the deerskin carpets of the floor, and his right hand
clutched the hilt of his great sword where it lay on the table by his
bed, whereas in his dream he had beheld the spear. Mightily moved was
he; and forthwith clothed himself, and faring through the dim corridors
came to Spitfire’s chamber, and sat on the bed and waked him. And
Juss told him his dream, and said, “I hold myself clean of all blame
hereabout, for from that day forth this only hath been my care, how to
find my dear brother and fetch him home, and only then to wreak myself
on the Witches. And what was this spear in my dream if not Goldry? This
vision of the night kindleth for us a beacon fire we needs must seek
to. It bade me inquire in Koshtra Belorn, and till that be done never
will I rest nor so much as think on aught besides.”
Spitfire answered and said, “Thou beest our oldest brother, and I shall
follow and obey thee in all that thou wilt do or shalt ordain hereof.”
Then fared Juss to the guest-chamber, where Lord Brandoch Daha lay
a-sleeping, and waked him and told him all. Brandoch Daha snuggled him
under the bedclothes and said, “Let me be and let me sleep yet two
hours. Then will I rise and bathe and array myself and eat my morning
meal, and thereafter will I take rede with thee and tell thee somewhat
for thine advantage. I have not slept in a goose-feather bed and
sheets of lawn these many weeks. If thou plague me now, by God, I will
incontinently take horse over the Stile to Krothering, and let thee and
thine affairs go to the devil.”
So Juss laughed and left him in peace. And later when they had eaten
they walked in a plashed alley, where the air was cool and the purple
shadow on the path was dappled with bright flecks of sunshine. Lord
Brandoch Daha said, “Thou knowest that Koshtra Belorn is a great
mountain, beside which our mountains of Demonland would seem but little
hills unremarked, and that it standeth in the uttermost parts of earth
beyond the wastes of Upper Impland, and thou mightest search a year
through all the peopled countries of the world and not find one living
soul who had so much as beheld it from afar.”
“This much I know,” said Lord Juss.
“Is thine heart utterly bent on this journey?” said Brandoch Daha. “Or
is it not preposterous, and a thing to comfort our enemies, that we
should thus at the bidding of a dream fly to far and perilous lands,
rather than pay Witchland presently for the shame he hath done us?”
Juss answered him, “My bed is hallowed by spells of such a virtue that
no naughty dream flown through the ivory gate nor no noisome wizardry
hath power to trouble his sleep who sleepeth there. This dream is
true. For Witchland there is time enow. If thou wilt not go with me to
Koshtra Belorn, I must go without thee.”
“Enough,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “Thou knowest for thee I tie my
purse with a spider’s thread. Then fare we must to Impland, and herein
may I help thee. For listen while I tell thee a thing. Whenas I slew
Gorice X. in Goblinland, Gaslark gave me, along with other good gifts,
a great curiosity: a treatise or book copied out on parchment by
Bhorreon his secretary, wherein it speaketh of all the ways to Impland
and what countries and kingdoms lie next to the Moruna and the fronts
thereof, and the marvels that be found in those lands. And all that is
writ in this book was set down faithfully by Bhorreon after the telling
of Gro, the same which now hath part with the Witchlanders. Great
honour had Gro as then from Gaslark for his far journeyings and for
that which is written in this book of wonders; and this it was that had
first put it in Gaslark’s mind to send that expedition into Impland,
which so reduced him and came so wretchedly to nought. If then thou
wilt seek to Koshtra Belorn, come home with me to-day and I will show
thee my book.”
So spake Lord Brandoch Daha, and Lord Juss straightway ordered forth
the horses, and sent messengers to Volle under Kartadza and to Vizz at
Darklairstead bidding them meet him at Krothering with what speed they
might. It was four hours before noon when Juss, Spitfire, and Brandoch
Daha rode down from Galing and through the woods of Moongarth Bottom
at the foot of the lake, taking the main bridle road up Breakingdale,
that runs by the western margin of Moonmere under the buttresses of
the Scarf. They rode slowly, for the sun was strong on their backs.
Glassy was the lake and like a turquoise, and the birch-clad slopes
to the east and north and the bare rugged ridges of Stathfell and
Budrafell beyond were mirrored in its depths. On the left as they
rode, the spurs of the Scarf impended from on high in piled bastions
of black porphyry like giants’ castles; and little valleys choked with
monstrous boulders, among which the silver birches crowding showed
like tiny garden plants, ran steeply back between the spurs. Up those
valleys appeared successively the main summits of the Scarf, savage and
remote, frowning downward as it were between their own knees: Glaumry
Pike, Micklescarf, and Illstack. By noon they had climbed to the
extreme head of Breakingdale, and halted on the Stile, a little beyond
the water-shed, under the sheer northern wall of Ill Drennock. Before
them the pass plunged steeply into Amadardale. The lower reach of
Switchwater shone fifteen miles or more to the west, well nigh hidden
in the heat-haze. Nearer at hand in the north-west lay Rammerick Mere,
bosomed among the smooth-backed Kelialand hills and the easternmost
uplands of Shalgreth Heath, with the sea beyond; and on the valley
floor, near the watersmeet where Transdale runs into Amadardale, it
was possible to descry the roofs of Zigg’s house at Many Bushes.
When they came down thither, Zigg was out a-hunting. So they left word
with his lady wife and drank a stirrup cup and rode on, up Switchwater
Way, and for twelve miles and more along the southern shore of
Switchwater. So dropped they into Gashterndale, and thence rounding the
western slopes of Erngate End came up on to Krothering Side when the
shadows were lengthening in the golden summer evening. The Side ran
gently west for a league or more to where Thunderfirth lay like beaten
gold beneath the sun. Across the Firth the pine-forests of Westmark,
old as the world, rose toward Brocksty Edge and Gemsar Edge: a
far-flung amphitheatre of bare cliff and scree shutting in the prospect
to the north. High on the left towered the precipices of Erngate End;
southward and south-eastward lay the sea. So rode they down the Side,
through deep peaceful meadows fair with white ox-eye daisies, bluebells
and yellow goatsbeard and sea campion, deep-blue gentians, agrimony and
wild marjoram, and pink clover and bindweed and great yellow buttercups
feasting on the sun. And on an eminence beyond which the land fell away
more steeply toward the sea, the onyx towers of Krothering standing
above woods and gardens showed milk-white against heaven and the clear
hyaline.
When they were now but half a mile from the castle Juss said, “Behold
and see. The Lady Mevrian hath espied us from afar, and rideth forth to
bring thee home.”
Brandoch Daha cantered ahead to meet her: a lady light of build and
exceeding fair to look upon, brave of carriage like a war-horse, soft
of feature, clear-browed, gray-eyed and proud-eyed: sweet-mouthed, but
not as one who can speak nought but sweetness. Her robe was of pale
buff-coloured silk, with corsage covered as by a spider’s web with fine
golden threads; and she wore a point-lace ruffle stiffened with gold
and silver wire and spangled with little diamonds. Her deep hair, black
as the raven’s wing, was fastened with pins of gold, and a yellow rose
that nestled in its coils was as the moon looking forth among thick
clouds of night.
“Doings be afoot, my lady sister,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “One King
of Witchland have we done down since we sailed hence; and guested in
Carcë with another, little to our content. All which things I’ll tell
thee anon. Now lieth our road south for Impland, and Krothering is but
our caravanserai.”
She turned her horse, and they rode all in company into the shadow of
the ancient cedars that clustered to the north of the home-meads and
pleasure gardens, stately, gaunt-limbed, flat-browed, bleak against
the sky. On the left a lily-paven lake slept cool beneath mighty
elms, with a black swan near the bank and her four cygnets dozing in
a row, their heads tucked beneath their wings, so that they looked
like balls of gray-brown froth floating on the water. The path leading
to the bridge-gate zig-zagged steeply up the mound between low broad
balustrades of white onyx bearing at intervals square onyx pots,
planted some with yellow roses and some with wondrous flowers, great
and delicate, with frail white shell-like petals. Deep, mysterious
centres had those flowers, thick with soft hairs within, and dark
within with velvety purple streaked with black and blood colour and
dust of gold.
The castle of Lord Brandoch Daha standing at the top of the mound was
circled by a ditch both broad and deep. The gate before the drawbridge
was of iron gilded and richly wrought. The towers and gate-house
were of white onyx like the castle itself, and on either hand before
the gate was a colossal marble hippogriff, standing more than thirty
feet high at the withers; and the wings and hooves and talons of the
hippogriffs and their manes and forelocks were overlaid with gold, and
their eyes carbuncles of purest lustre. Over the gate was written in
letters of gold:
Ye braggers an’ a’,
Be skeered and awa’
Frae Brandoch Daha.
But to tell even a tenth part of the marvels rich and beautiful that
were in the house of Krothering: its cool courts and colonnades rich
with gems and fragrant with costly spices and strange blooms: its
bed-chambers where, caught like Aphrodite in her golden net, the
spirit of sleep seemed ever to shake slumber from its plumes, and none
might be waking long in those chambers but sweet sleep overcame their
eyelids: the Chamber of the Sun and the Chamber of the Moon, and the
great middle hall with its high gallery and ivory stair: to tell of
all these were but to cloy imagination with picturing in one while of
over-much glory and splendour.
• • • • •
Nought befell that night save the coming of Zigg before sun-down, and
of those brethren Volle and Vizz in the night, having ridden hard in
obedience to the word of Juss. In the morning when they had eaten their
day-meal the lords of Demonland went down into the pleasaunces, and
with them the Lady Mevrian. And in an alley that was roofed with beams
of cedar resting on marble pillars, the beams and pillars smothered
with dark-red roses, they sat looking eastward across a sunk garden.
The weather was sweet and gracious, and thick dew lay on the pale
terraced lawns that led down among flower beds to the fish-pond in the
midst. The water made a cool mirror whereon floated yellow and crimson
water-lilies opening to the sky. All the greens and flower-colours
glowed warm and clean, but soft withal and shadowy, veiled in the gray
haze of the summer morning.
They sat here and there as they listed on chairs and benches, near a
huge tank or vase of dark green jade where sulphur-coloured lilies grew
in languorous beauty, their back-curled petals showing the scarlet
anthers; and all the air was heavy with their sweetness. The great jade
vase was round and flat like the body of a tortoise, open at the top
where the lilies grew. It was carved with scales, as it were the body
of a dragon, and a dragon’s head a-gaping reared itself at one end, and
at the other the tail curved up and over like the handle of a basket,
and the tail had little fore and hind feet with claws, and a smaller
head at the end of the tail gaped downwards biting at the large head.
Four legs supported the body, and each leg was a small dragon standing
on its hind feet, its head growing into the parent body as the thigh or
shoulder joint should join the trunk. In the curve of the creature’s
neck, his back propped against its head, sat the Lord Brandoch Daha in
graceful ease, one foot touching the ground, the other swinging free;
and in his hands was the book, bound in dark puce-coloured goatskin and
gold, given him by Gaslark in years gone by. Zigg watched him idly turn
the pages while the others talked. Leaning toward Mevrian he whispered
in her ear, “Is not he able and shapen for to subdue and put under him
all the world: thy brother? A man of blood and peril, and yet so fair
to behold that it is a marvel?”
Her eyes danced. She said, “It is pure truth, my lord.”
Now spake Spitfire saying, “Read forth to us, I pray thee, the book of
Gro; for my soul is afire to set forth on this faring.”
“’Tis writ somewhat crabbedly,” said Brandoch Daha, “and most damnably
long. I spent half last night a-searching on’t, and ’tis most apparent
no other way lieth to these mountains save by the Moruna, and across
the Moruna is (if Gro say true) but one way, and that from the Gulf of
Muelva: ‘a xx dayes journeye from northe by south-est.’ For here he
telleth of watersprings by the way, but he saith in other parts of the
desert be no watersprings, save only springs venomous, where ‘The water
riketh like a sething potte continually, having sumwhat a sulphureous
and sumwhat onpleasant savor,’ and, ‘The grownd nurysheth here no
plante nor herbe except yt bee venomous champinions or tode stooles.’”
“If he say true?” said Spitfire. “He is a turncoat and a renegado.
Wherefore not therefore a liar?”
“But a philosopher,” answered Juss. “I knew him well of old in
Goblinland, and I judge him to be one who is not false save only in
policy. Subtle of mind he is, and dearly loveth plotting and scheming,
and, as I think, perversely affecteth ever the losing side if he be
brought into any quarrel; and this hath dragged him oft-times to
misfortune. But in this book of his travels he must needs speak truth,
as it seemeth to me, to be true to his own self.”
The Lady Mevrian looked approvingly on Lord Juss and her eye twinkled.
For well it liked her humour to hear men’s natures so divined.