while he said, “It were black treachery. I’ll not credit it.”
But Lord Brandoch Daha answered him, “From his own lips I received
it, O Zeldornius. And thereto I plight my troth. This besides, that
Jalcanaius Fostus was turned from battling with thee nine years ago (as
he himself hath told me, and made firm his saying with most fearful
oaths), by intelligence brought him that Helteranius was in that hour
minded to take him in the rear.”
“Ay,” said Spitfire, “and unto this day he marcheth on Helteranius’s
track as thou on his.”
With those words spoken was Zeldornius grown yellow as old parchment,
and his white moustachios bristled like a lion’s. He sat silent awhile,
then, resting upon Juss the cold and steady gaze of his blue eyes, “The
world comes back to me,” he said, “and this memory therewith, that they
of Demonland were truth-tellers whether to friend or foe, and ever
held it shame to cog and lie.” All they bowed gravely and he said with
a great lowe of anger in his eyes, “This Helteranius deviseth against
me, it well appeareth, the self-same treachery whereof he was falsely
accused to Jalcanaius Fostus. There were no likelier place to crush
him than here on Salapanta ridge. If I stand here to abide his onset,
the lie of the ground befriendeth me, and Jalcanaius cometh at his
heels to gather the broken meats after I have made my feast.”
Brandoch Daha said in Juss’s ear, “Our peacemaking taketh a pretty
turn. Heels i’ the air: monstrous unladylike!”
But nought they could say would move Zeldornius. So in the end they
offered him their backing in this adventure. “And when the day is won,
then shalt thou lend us thy might in our enterprise, and aid us in our
wars with Witchland that be for to come.”
But Zeldornius said, “O Juss and ye lords of Demonland, I yield you
thanks; but ye shall not meddle in this battle. For we came three
captains with our hosts unto this land, and beheld the land, and laid
it under us. Ours it is, and if any meddle or make with us, were we
never so set at enmity one with another, we must join together in
his despite and bring him to bane. Be still then, and behold and
see what birth fate shall bring forth on Salapanta Hills. But if I
live, thereafter shall ye have my friendship and my help in all your
enterprises whatsoever.”
For awhile he sat without speech, his stark veined hands clenched on
the board before him; then rising, went without word to the door of
his pavilion to study the night. Then turned he back to Lord Juss, and
spake to him: “Know that when this moon now past was but three days
old I began to be troubled with a catarrh or rheum which yet troubleth
me; and well thou wottest that whoso falleth sick on the third day
of the moon’s age, he will die. To-night also is a new moon, and of
a Saturday; and that betokeneth fighting and bloodshed. Also the
wind bloweth from the south; and he that beginneth that game with a
south wind shall have the victory. With such uncertain blackness and
brightness openeth the door of Fate before me.”
Juss bowed his head, and said, “O Zeldornius, thy speech is sooth.”
“I was ever a fighter,” said Zeldornius.
Far into the night sat they in the tent of renowned Zeldornius,
drinking and talking of life and destiny and old wars and the chances
of war and great adventure; and an hour after midnight they parted, and
Juss and Spitfire and Brandoch Daha betook them to their rest in the
watch-tower on the ridge of Salapanta.
• • • • •
On such wise passed three days by, Zeldornius waiting with his army on
the hill, and the Demons supping with him nightly. And on the third
day he drew out his army as for battle, expecting Helteranius. But
neither that day nor the next nor the next day following brought sight
nor tidings of Helteranius, and strange it seemed to them and hard to
guess what turn of fortune had delayed his coming. The sixth night was
overcast, and mirk darkness covered the earth. When supper was done,
as the Demons betook themselves to their sleeping place, they heard
a scuffle and the voice of Brandoch Daha, who went foremost of them,
crying, “Here have I caught a heath-dog’s whelp. Give me a light. What
shall I do with him?”
Men were roused and lights brought, and Brandoch Daha surveyed that
which he held pinioned by the arms, caught by the entrance to the
fortalice: one with scared wild-beast eyes in a swart face, golden
ear-rings in his ears, and a thick close-cropped beard interlaced
with gold wire twisted among its curls; bare-armed, with a tunic of
otter-skin and wide hairy trousers cross-stitched with silver thread,
a circlet of gold on his head, and frizzed dark hair plaited in two
thick tails that hung forward over his shoulders. His lips were drawn
back, like a cross-grained dog’s snarling betwixt fear and fierceness,
and his white pointed teeth and the whites of his eyes flashed in the
torch-light.
So they had him with them into the tower, and set him before them, and
Juss said, “Fear not, but tell forth unto us thy name and lineage, and
what brings thee lurking in the night about our lodging. We mean thee
no hurt, so thou practise not against us and our safety. Art thou a
dweller in this Impland, or a wanderer, like as we be, from countries
beyond the seas? hast thou companions, and if so, where be they, and
what, and how many?”
And the stranger gnashed upon them with his teeth, and said, “O devils
transmarine, mock not but slay.”
Juss entreated him kindly, giving him meat and drink, and in a while
made question of him once more, “What is thy name?”
Whereto he replied, “O devil transmarine, pity of thine ignorance sith
thou know’st not Mivarsh Faz.” And he fell into a great passion of
weeping, crying aloud, “Woe worth the woe that is fallen upon all the
land of Impland!”
“What’s the matter?” said Juss.
But Mivarsh ceased not to wail and to lament, saying, “Out harrow and
alas for Fax Fay Faz and Illarosh Faz and Lurmesh Faz and Gandassa
Faz and all the great ones in the land!” And when they would have
questioned him he cried again, “Curse ye bitterly Philpritz Faz, which
betrayed us into the hand of the devil ultramontane in the castle of
Orpish.”
“What devil is this thou speakest of?” asked Juss.
“He hath come,” he answered, “over the mountains out of the north
country, that alone was able to answer Fax Fay Faz. And the voice of
his speech is like unto the roaring of a bull.”
“Out of the north?” said Juss, giving him more wine, and exchanging
glances with Spitfire and Brandoch Daha. “I would hear more of this.”
Mivarsh drank, and said, “O devils transmarine, ye give me strong
waters which comfort my soul, and ye speak me soft words. But shall I
not fear soft words? Soft words were spoke by this devil ultramontane,
when he and cursed Philpritz spake soft words unto us in Orpish: unto
me, and unto Fax Fay Faz, and Gandassa, and Illarosh, and unto all of
us, after our overthrow in battle against him by the banks of Arlan.”
Juss asked, “Of what fashion is he to look on?”
“He hath a great yellow beard beflecked with gray,” said Mivarsh, “and
a bald shiny pate, and standeth big as a neat.”
Juss spake apart to Brandoch Daha, “There’s matter in it if this be
true.” And Brandoch Daha poured forth unto Mivarsh and bade him drink
again, saying, “O Mivarsh Faz, we be strangers and guests in wide-flung
Impland. Be it known to thee that our power is beyond ken, and our
wealth transcendeth the imagination of man. Yet is our benevolence of
like measure with our power and riches, overflowing as honey from our
hearts unto such as receive us openly and tell us that which is. Only
be warned, that if any lie to us or assay craftily to delude us, not
the mantichores that lodge beyond the Moruna were more dreadful to that
man than we.”
Mivarsh quailed, but answered him, “Use me well, you were best, and you
shall hear from me nought but what is true. First with the sword he
vanquished us, and then with subtle words invited us to talk with him
in Orpish, pretending friendship. But they are all dead that harkened
to him. For when he held them closed up in the council room in Orpish,
himself went secretly forth, while his men laid hands on Gandassa Faz
and on Illarosh Faz, and on Fax Fay Faz that was greatest amongst us,
and on Lurmesh Faz, and cut off their heads and set them up on poles
without the gate. And our armies that waited without were dismayed
to see the heads of the Fazes of Impland so set on poles, and the
armies of the devils ultramontane still threatening us with death. And
this big bald bearded devil spake them of Impland fair, saying these
that he had slain were their oppressors and he would give them their
hearts’ desire if they would be his men, and he would make them free,
every man, and share out all Impland amongst them. So were the common
sort befooled and brought under by this bald devil from beyond the
mountains, and now none withstandeth him in all Impland. But I that
had held back from his council in Orpish, fearing his guile, hardly
escaped from my folk that rose against me. And I fled into the woods
and wildernesses.”
“Where last saw ye him?” asked Juss.
Mivarsh answered him, “A three days’ journey north-west of this, at
Tormerish in Achery.”
“What made he there?” asked Juss.
Mivarsh answered, “Still devising evil.”
“Against whom?” asked Juss.
Mivarsh answered, “Against Zeldornius, which is a devil transmarine.”
“Give me some more wine,” said Juss, “and fill again a beaker for
Mivarsh Faz. I do love nought so much as tale-telling a-nights. With
whom devised he against Zeldornius?”
Mivarsh answered, “With another devil from beyond seas; I have forgot
his name.”
“Drink and remember,” said Juss; “or if ’tis gone from thee, paint me
his picture.”
“He hath about my bigness,” said Mivarsh, that was little of stature.
“His eyes be bright, and he somewhat favoureth this one,” pointing
at Spitfire, “though belike he hath not all so fierce a face. He is
lean-faced and dark of skin. He goeth in black iron.”
“Is he Jalcanaius Fostus?” asked Juss.
And Mivarsh answered, “Ay.”
“There’s musk and amber in thy speech,” said Juss. “I must have more of
it. What mean they to do?”
“This,” said Mivarsh: “As I sat listening in the dark without their
tent, it was made absolute that this Jalcanaius had been deceived in
supposing that another devil transmarine, whom men call Helteranius,
had been minded to do treacherously against him; whereas, as the
bald devil made him believe, ’twas no such thing. And so it was
concluded that Jalcanaius should send riders after Helteranius to make
peace between them, and that they two should forthwith join to kill
Zeldornius, one falling on him in the front and the other in the rear.”
“So ’tis come to this?” said Spitfire.
“And when they have Zeldornius slain,” said Mivarsh, “then must they
help this bald-pate in his undertakings.”
“And so pay him for his redes?” said Juss.
And Mivarsh answered, “Even so.”
“One thing more I would know,” said Juss. “How great a following hath
he in Impland?”
“The greatest strength that he can make,” answered Mivarsh, “of devils
ultramontane is as I think two score hundred. Many Imps beside will
follow him, but they have but our country weapons.”
Lord Brandoch Daha took Juss by the arm and went forth with him into
the night. The frosted grass crunched under their tread: strange stars
blinked in the south in a windy space betwixt cloud and sleeping earth,
Achernar near the meridian bedimming all lesser fires with his pure
radiance.
“So cometh Corund upon us as an eagle out of the sightless blue,” said
Brandoch Daha, “with twelve times our forces to let us the way to the
Moruna, and all Impland like a spaniel smiling at his heel; if indeed
this simple soul say true, as I think he doth.”
“Thou fallest all of a holiday mood,” said Juss, “at the first scenting
of this great hazard.”
“O Juss,” cried Brandoch Daha, “thine own breath lighteneth at it, and
thy words come more sprightly forth. Are not all lands, all airs, one
country unto us, so there be great doings afoot to keep bright our
swords?”
Juss said, “Ere we sleep I will inform Zeldornius how the wind
shifteth. He must face both ways now, till this field be cut. This
battle must not go against him, for his enemies be engaged (if Mivarsh
say true) to give the help of their swords to Corund.”
So fared they to Zeldornius’s tent, and Juss said by the way, “Of
this be satisfied: Corund bareth not blade on the hills of Salapanta.
The King hath intelligencers to keep him advertised of all enchanted
circles of the world, and well he knoweth what influences move here,
and with what danger to themselves outlanders draw sword here, as
witness the doom fulfilled these nine years by these three captains.
Therefore will Corund, instructed in these things by his master that
sent him, look to deal with us otherwhere than in this charmed corner
of the earth. And he were as well take a bear by the tooth as meddle
in the fight that now impendeth, and so bring upon him these three
seasoned armies joined in one for his destruction.”
They passed the guard with the watchword, and waked Zeldornius and told
him all. And he, muffled in his great faded cloak, went forth to see
guards were set and all sure against an onslaught from either side. And
standing by his tent to give good night to those lords of Demonland, he
said, “It likes me better so. I ever was a fighter; so, one fight more.”
• • • • •
The morrow dawned and passed uneventful, and the morrow’s morrow. But
on the third morning after the coming of Mivarsh, behold, east and
west, great armies marching from the plains, and Zeldornius’s array
drawn up to meet them on the ridge, with weapons gleaming and horses
champing and trumpets blowing the call of battle. No greetings were
betwixt them, nor so much as a message of challenge or defiance, but
Jalcanaius with his black riders rushed to the onset from the west
and Helteranius from the east. But Zeldornius, like a gray old wolf,
snapping now this way now that, stemmed the tide of their onslaught. So
began the battle great and fell, and continued the livelong day. Thrice
on either side Zeldornius went forth with a great strength of chosen
men, in so much that his enemies fled before him as the partridge
doth before the sparrow-hawk; and thrice did Helteranius and thrice
Jalcanaius Fostus rally and hurl him back, mounting the ridge anew.
But when it drew near to evening, and the dark day darkened toward
night, the battle ceased, dying down suddenly into silence. Those lords
of Demonland came down from their tower, and walked among the heaps of
dead men slain toward a place of slabby rock in the neck of the ridge.
Here, alone on that field, Zeldornius leaned upon his spear, gazing
downward in a study, his arm cast about the neck of his old brown horse
who hung his head and sniffed the ground. Through a rift in the western
clouds the sun glared forth; but his beams were not so red as the ling
and bent of Salapanta field.
As Juss and his companions drew near, no sound was heard save from the
fortalice behind them: a discordant plucking of a harp, and the voice
of Mivarsh where he walked and harped before the walls, singing this
ditty:
The hag is astride
This night for to ride;
The devill and shee together:
Through thick and through thin,
Now out and then in,
Though ne’er so foule be the weather.
A thorn or a burr
She takes for a spurre,
With a lash of a bramble she rides now;
Through brakes and through bryars,
O’re ditches and mires,
She followes the spirit that guides now.
No beast for his food
Dares now range the wood,
But husht in his laire he lies lurking;
While mischeifs, by these,
On land and on seas,
At noone of night are a working.
The storme will arise
And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
The ghost from the tomb
Affrighted shall come,
Cal’d out by the clap of the thunder.
When they were come to Zeldornius, the Lord Juss spake saying, “O most
redoubtable Zeldornius, renowned in war, surely thy prognostications by
the moon were true. Behold the noble victory thou hast obtained upon
thine enemies.”
But Zeldornius answered him not, still gazing downwards before his
feet. And there was Helteranius fallen, the sword of Jalcanaius Fostus
standing in his heart, and his right hand grasping still his own sword
that had given Jalcanaius his bane-sore.
So looked they awhile on those two great captains slain. And Zeldornius
said, “Speak not comfortably to me of victory, O Juss. So long as that
sword, and that, had his master alive, I did not more desire mine own
safety than their destruction who with me in days gone by made conquest
of wide Impland. And see with what a poisoned violence they laboured my
undoing, and in what an unexpected ruin are they suddenly broken and
gone.” And as one grown into a deep sadness he said, “Where were all
heroical parts but in Helteranius? and a man might make a garment for
the moon sooner than fit the o’erleaping actions of great Jalcanaius,
who now leaveth but his body to bedung that earth that was lately
shaken at his terror. I have waded in red blood to the knee; and in
this hour, in my old years, the world is become for me a vision only
and a mock-show.”
Therewith he looked on the Demons, and there was that in his eyes that
stayed their speech.
In a while he spake again, saying, “I sware unto you my furtherance if
I prevailed. But now is mine army passed away as wax wasteth before the
fire, and I wait the dark ferryman who tarrieth for no man. Yet, since
never have I wrote mine obligations in sandy but in marble memories,
and since victory is mine, receive these gifts: and first thou, O
Brandoch Daha, my sword, since before thou wast of years eighteen
thou wast accounted the mightiest among men-at-arms. Mightily may it
avail thee, as me in time gone by. And unto thee, O Spitfire, I give
this cloak. Old it is, yet may it stand thee in good stead, since this
virtue it hath that he who weareth it shall not fall alive into the
hand of his enemies. Wear it for my sake. But unto thee, O Juss, give I
no gift, for rich thou art of all good gifts: only my good will give I
unto thee, ere earth gape for me.”
So they thanked him well. And he said, “Depart from me, since now
approacheth that which must complete this day’s undoing.”
So they fared back to the spy-fortalice, and night came down on the
hills. A great wind moaning out of the hueless west tore the clouds
as a ragged garment, revealing the lonely moon that fled naked
betwixt them. As the Demons looked backward in the moonlight to where
Zeldornius stood gazing on the dead, a noise as of thunder made the
firm land tremble and drowned the howling of the wind. And they beheld
how earth gaped for Zeldornius.
After that, the dark shut down athwart the moon, and night and silence
hung on the field of Salapanta.
X: THE MARCHLANDS OF THE MORUNA
OF THE JOURNEY OF THE DEMONS FROM SALAPANTA TO ESHGRAR OGO:
WHEREIN IS SET DOWN CONCERNING THE LADY OF ISHNAIN NEMARTRA,
AND OTHER NOTABLE MATTERS.
Mivarsh Faz came betimes on the morrow to the lords of Demonland, and
found them ready for the road. So he asked them where their journey
lay, and they answered, “East.”
“Eastward,” said Mivarsh, “all ways lead to the Moruna. None may go
thither and not die.”
But they laughed and answered him, “Do not too narrowly define our
power, sweet Mivarsh, restraining it to thy capacities. Know that
our journey is a matter determined of, and it is fixed with nails of
diamond to the wall of inevitable necessity.”
They took leave of him and went their ways with their small army. For
four days they journeyed through deep woods carpeted with the leaves
of a thousand autumns, where at midmost noon twilight dwelt among
hushed woodland noises, and solemn eyeballs glared nightly between the
tree-trunks, gazing on the Demons as they marched or took their rest.
The fifth day, and the sixth and the seventh, they journeyed by the
southern margin of a gravelly sea, made all of sand and gravel and no
drop of water, yet ebbing and flowing alway with great waves as another
sea doth, never standing still and never at rest. And always by day and
night as they came through the desert was a great noise very hideous
and a sound as it were of tambourines and trumpets; yet was the place
solitary to the eye, and no living thing afoot there save their company
faring to the east.
On the eighth day they left the shore of that waterless sea and came
by broken rocky ground to the descent to a wide vale, shelterless and
unfruitful, with the broad stony bed of a little river winding in the
strath. Here, looking eastward, they beheld in the lustre of a late
bright-shining sun a castle of red stone on a terrace of the fell-side
beyond the valley. Juss said, “We can be there before nightfall, and
there will we take guesting.” When they drew near they were ware,
betwixt sunset and moonlight, of one sitting on a boulder in their path
about a furlong from the castle, as if gazing on them and awaiting
their coming. But when they came to the boulder there was no such
person. So they passed on their way toward the castle, and when they
looked behind them, lo, there was he sitting on the boulder bearing his
head in his hands: a strange thing, which would cause any man to abhor.
The castle gate stood open, and they entered in, and so by the
court-yard to a great hall, with the board set as for a banquet, and
bright fires and an hundred candles burning in the still air; but no
living thing was there to be seen, nor voice heard in all that castle.
Lord Brandoch Daha said, “In this land to fail of marvels only for an
hour were the strangest marvel. Banquet we lightly and so to bed.”
So they sat down and ate, and drank of the honey-sweet wine, till
all thoughts of war and hardship and the unimagined perils of the
wilderness and Corund’s great army preparing their destruction faded
from their minds, and the spirit of slumber wooed their weary frames.
Then a faint music, troublous in its voluptuous wild sweetness, floated
on the air, and they beheld a lady enter on the dais. Beautiful she
seemed beyond the beauty of mortal women. In her dark hair was the
likeness of the horned moon in honey-coloured cymophanes every stone
whereof held a straight beam of light imprisoned that quivered and
gleamed as sunbeams quiver wading in the clear deeps of a summer sea.
She wore a coat-hardy of soft crimson silk, close fitting, so that she
did truly apparel her apparel and with her own loveliness made it more
sumptuous. She said, “My lords and guests in Ishnain Nemartra, there be
beds of down and sheets of lawn for all of you that be aweary. But know
that I keep a sparrow-hawk sitting on a perch in the eastern tower, and
he that will wake my sparrow-hawk this night long, alone without any
company and without sleep, I shall come to him at the night’s end and
shall grant unto him the first thing that he will ask me of earthly
things.” So saying she departed like a dream.
Brandoch Daha said, “Cast we lots for this adventure.”
But Juss spake against it, saying, “There’s likely some guile herein.
We must not in this accursed land suffer aught to seduce our minds, but
follow our set purpose. We must not be of those who go forth for wool
and come home shorn.”
Brandoch Daha and Spitfire mocked at this, and cast lots between
themselves. And the lot fell upon Lord Brandoch Daha. “Thou shalt not
deny me this,” said he to Lord Juss, “else will I never more do thee
good.”
“I never could yet deny thee anything,” answered Juss. “Art not thou
and I finger and thumb? Only forget not, whatsoe’er betide, wherefore
we be come hither.”
“Art not thou and I finger and thumb?” said Brandoch Daha. “Fear
nothing, O friend of my heart. I’ll not forget it.”
So while the others slept, Brandoch Daha waked the sparrow-hawk,
night-long in the eastern chamber. For all that the cold hillside
without was rough with hoar-frost the air was warm in that chamber and
heavy, disposing strongly to sleep. Yet he closed not an eye, but still
beheld the sparrow-hawk, telling it stories and tweaking it by the tail
ever and anon as it grew drowsy. And it answered shortly and boorishly,
looking upon him malevolently.