her, her head bent, her face turned a little away so that he saw only
the white curve of her neck and her cheek’s soft outline. All the air
was full of sunset, though no sun was there, but a scattered splendour
only, shed from the high roof of rock that was like a sky above them
self-effulgent. Very softly she began again to speak, the crystal
accents of her voice sounding like the faint notes of a bell borne from
a great way off on the quiet air of a summer evening. “Surely time past
is gone by like a shadow since those days, when I was Queen in Morna
Moruna, dwelling there with my lady mother and the princes my cousins
in peace and joy. Until Gorice III. came out of the north, the great
King of Witchland, desiring to explore these mountains, for his pride
sake and his insolent heart; which cost him dear. ’Twas on an evening
of early summer we beheld him and his folk ride over the flowering
meadows of the Moruna. Nobly was he entertained by us, and when we
knew what way he meant to go, we counselled him turn back, and the
mantichores must tear him if he went. But he mocked at our advisoes,
and on the morrow departed, he and his, by way of Omprenne Edge. And
never again were they seen of living man.
“That had been small loss; but hereof there befell a great and horrible
mischief. For in the spring of the year came Gorice IV. with a great
army out of waterish Witchland, saying with open mouth of defamation
that we were the dead King’s murtherers: we that were peaceful folk,
and would not entertain an action should call us villain for all
the wealth of Impland. In the night they came, when all we save the
sentinels upon the walls were in our beds secure in a quiet conscience.
They took the princes my cousins and all our men, and before our eyes
most cruelly murthered them. So that my mother seeing these things fell
suddenly into deadly swoonings and was presently dead. And the King
commanded them burn the house with fire, and he brake down the holy
altars of the Gods, and defiled their high places. And unto me that was
young and fair to look on he gave this choice, to go with him and be
his slave, other else to be cast down from the Edge and all my bones be
broken. Surely I chose this rather. But the Gods, that do help every
rightful true cause, made light my fall, and guided me hither safe
through all perils of height and cold and ravening beasts, granting me
youth and peaceful days for ever, here on the borderland between the
living and the dead.
“And the Gods blew upon all the land of the Moruna in the fire of their
wrath, to make it desolate, and man and beast cut off therefrom, for
a witness of the wicked deeds of Gorice the King, even as Gorice the
King made desolate our little castle and our pleasant places. The face
of the land was lifted up to high airs where frosts do dwell, so that
the cliffs of Omprenne Edge down which ye came are ten times the height
they were when Gorice III. came down them. So was an end of flowers on
the Moruna, and an end there of spring and of summer days for ever.”
The Queen ceased speaking, and Lord Juss was silent for a space,
greatly marvelling.
“Judge now,” said she, “if your foes be not my foes. It is not hidden
from me, my lord, that you deem me but a lukewarm friend and no helper
at all in your enterprise. Yet have I ceased not since ye were here to
search and to inquire, and sent my little martlets west and east and
south and north after tidings of him thou namedst. They are swift, even
as wingy thoughts circling the stablished world; and they returned to
me on weary wings, yet with never a word of thy great kinsman.”
Juss looked at her eyes that were moist with tears. Truth sat in them
like an angel. “O Queen,” he cried, “why need thy little minions scour
the world, when my brother is here in Koshtra Belorn?”
She shook her head, saying, “This I will swear to thee, there hath no
mortal come up into Koshtra Belorn save only thee and thy companions
these two hundred years.”
But Juss said again, “My brother is here in Koshtra Belorn. Mine eyes
beheld him that first night, hedged about with fires. And he is held
captive on a tower of brass on a peak of a mountain.”
“There be no mountains here,” said she, “save this in whose womb we
have our dwelling.”
“Yet so I beheld my brother,” said Juss, “under the white beams of the
full moon.”
“There is no moon here,” said the Queen.
So Lord Juss rehearsed to her his vision of the night, telling her
point to point of everything. She harkened gravely, and when he had
done, trembled a little and said, “This is a mystery, my lord, beyond
my resolution.”
She fell silent awhile. Then she began to say in a hushed voice, as
if the very words and breath might breed some dreadful matter: “Taken
up in a sending maleficial by King Gorice XII. So it hath ever been,
that whensoever there dieth one of the house of Gorice there riseth
up another in his stead, and so from strength to strength. And death
weakeneth not this house of Witchland, but like the dandelion weed
being cut down and bruised it springeth up the stronger. Dost thou know
why?”
He answered, “No.”
“The blessed Gods,” said she, speaking yet lower, “have shown me many
hidden matters which the sons of men know not neither imagine. Behold
this mystery. There is but One Gorice. And by the favour of heaven
(that moveth sometimes in a manner our weak judgement seeketh in vain
to justify) this cruel and evil One, every time whether by the sword or
in the fulness of his years he cometh to die, departeth the living soul
and spirit of him into a new and sound body, and liveth yet another
lifetime to vex and to oppress the world, until that body die, and the
next in his turn, and so continually; having thus in a manner life
eternal.”
Juss said, “Thy discourse, O Queen Sophonisba, is in a strain above
mortality. This is a great wonder thou tellest me; whereof some
little part I guessed aforetime, but the main I knew not. Rightfully,
having such a timeless life, this King weareth on his thumb that worm
Ouroboros which doctors have from of old made for an ensample of
eternity, whereof the end is ever at the beginning and the beginning at
the end for ever more.”
“See then the hardness of the thing,” said the Queen. “But I forget
not, my lord, that thou hast a matter nearer thine heart than this:
to set free him (name him not!) concerning whom thou didst inquire of
me. Touching this, know it for thy comfort, some ray of light I see.
Question me no more till I have made trial thereof, lest it prove but a
false dawn. If it be as I think, ’tis a trial yet abideth thee should
make the stoutest blench.”
XIV: THE LAKE OF RAVARY
OF THE FURTHERANCE GIVEN BY QUEEN SOPHONISBA, FOSTERLING OF THE
GODS, TO LORD JUSS AND LORD BRANDOCH DAHA; WITH HOW THE
HIPPOGRIFF’S EGG WAS HATCHED BESIDE THE ENCHANTED LAKE, AND
WHAT ENSUED THEREFROM.
Next day the Queen came to Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha and made
them go with her, and Mivarsh with them to serve them, over the meadows
and down a passage like that whereby they had entered the mountain, but
this led downward. “Ye may marvel,” she said, “to see daylight in the
heart of this great mountain. Yet it is but the hidden work of Nature.
For the rays of the sun, striking all day upon Koshtra Belorn and upon
her robe of snow, sink into the snow like water, and so soaking through
the secret places of the rocks shine again in this hollow chamber where
we dwell and in these passages cleft by the Gods to give us our goings
out and our comings in. And as sunset followeth broad day with coloured
fires, and moonlight or darkness followeth sunset, and dawn followeth
night ushering the bright day once more, so these changes of the dark
and light succeed one another within the mountain.”
They passed on, ever downward, till after many hours they came
suddenly forth into dazzling sunlight. They stood at a cave’s mouth
on a beach of sand white and clean, that was lapped by the ripples of
a sapphire lake: a great lake, sown with islets craggy and luxuriant
with trees and flowering growths. Many-armed was the lake, winding
everywhere in secret reaches behind promontories that were spurs of the
mountains that held it in their bosom: some wooded or green with lush
flower-spangled turf to the water’s edge, some with bare rocks abrupt
from the water, some crowned with rugged lines of crag that sent down
scree-slopes into the lake below. It was mid-afternoon, sweet-aired, a
day of dappled cloud-shadows and changing lights. White birds circled
above the lake, and now and then a kingfisher flashed by like a streak
of azure flame. That was a westward facing beach, at the end of a
headland that ran down clothed with pine-forests with open primrose
glades from a spur of Koshtra Belorn. Northward the two great mountains
stood at the head of a straight narrow valley that ran up to the Gates
of Zimiamvia. Vaster they seemed than the Demons had yet beheld them,
showing at but six or seven miles’ distance a clear sixteen thousand
feet above the lake. Nor from any other point of prospect were they
more lovely to behold: Koshtra Pivrarcha like an eagle armed, shadowing
with wings, and Koshtra Belorn as a Goddess fallen a-dreaming, gracious
as the morning star of heaven. Wondrous bright were their snows in the
sunshine, yet ghostly and unsubstantial to view seen through the hazy
summer air. Olive trees, gray and soft-outlined like embodied mist,
grew in the lower valleys; woods of oak and birch and every forest tree
clothed the slopes; and in the warmer folds of the mountain sides belts
of creamy rhododendrons straggled upwards even to the moraines above
the lower glaciers and the very margin of the snows.
The Queen watched Lord Juss as his gaze moved to the left past Koshtra
Pivrarcha, past the blunt lower crest of Gôglio, to a great lonely
peak many miles distant that frowned over the rich maze of nearer
ridges which stood above the lake. Its southern shoulder swept in a
long majestic line of cliffs up to a clean sharp summit; northward it
fell steeplier away. Little snow hung on the sheer rock faces, save
where the gullies cleft them. For grace and beauty scarce might Koshtra
Belorn herself surpass that peak: but terrible it looked, and as a
mansion of old night, that not high noon-day could wholly dispossess of
darkness.
“There standeth a mountain great and fair,” said Lord Brandoch Daha,
“which was hid in cloud when we were on the high ridges. It hath the
look of a great beast couchant.”
Still the Queen watched Lord Juss, who looked still on that peak.
Then he turned to her, his hands clenched on the buckles of his
breast-plates. She said, “Was it as I think?”
He took a great breath. “It was so I beheld it in the beginning,”
he said, “as from this place. But here are we too far off to see
the citadel of brass, or know if it be truly there.” And he said to
Brandoch Daha, “This remaineth, that we climb that mountain.”
“That can ye never do,” said the Queen.
“That shall be shown,” said Brandoch Daha.
“List,” said she. “Nameless is yonder mountain upon earth, for until
this hour, save only for me and you, the eye of living man hath not
looked upon it. But unto the Gods it hath a name, and unto the spirits
of the blest that do inhabit this land, and unto those unhappy souls
that are held in captivity on that cold mountain top: Zora Rach nam
Psarrion, standing apart above the noiseless lifeless snow-fields that
feed the Psarrion glaciers; loneliest and secretest of all earth’s
mountains, and most accursed. O my lords,” she said, “Think not to
climb up Zora. Enchantments ring round Zora, so that ye should not
get so near as to the edges of the snow-fields at her feet ere ruin
gathered you.”
Juss smiled. “O Queen Sophonisba, little thou knowest our mind, if thou
think this shall turn us back.”
“I say it,” said the Queen, “with no such vain purpose; but to show you
the necessity of that way I shall now tell you of, since well I know ye
will not give over this attempt. To none save to a Demon durst I have
told it, lest heaven should hold me answerable for his death. But unto
you I may with the less danger commit this dangerous counsel if it be
true, as I was taught long ago, that the hippogriff was seen of old in
Demonland.”
“The hippogriff?” said Lord Brandoch Daha. “What else is it than the
emblem of our greatness? A thousand years ago they nested on Neverdale
Hause, and there abide unto this day in the rocks the prints of their
hooves and talons. He that rode it was a forefather of mine and of Lord
Juss.”
“He that shall ride it again,” said Queen Sophonisba, “he only of
mortal men may win to Zora Rach, and if he be man enough of his hands
may deliver him we wot of out of bondage.”
“O Queen,” said Juss, “somewhat I know of grammarie and divine
philosophy, yet must I bow to thee for such learning, that dwellest
here from generation to generation and dost commune with the dead.
How shall we find this steed? Few they be, and high they fly above the
world, and come to birth but one in three hundred years.”
She answered, “I have an egg. In all lands else must such an egg lie
barren and sterile, save in this land of Zimiamvia which is sacred
to the lordly races of the dead. And thus cometh this steed to the
birth: when one of might and heart beyond the wont of man sleepeth
in this land with the egg in his bosom, greatly desiring some high
achievement, the fire of his great longing hatcheth the egg, and the
hippogriff cometh out therefrom, weak-winged at first as thou hast seen
a butterfly new-hatched out his chrysalis. Then only mayst thou mount
him, and if thou be man enow to turn him to thy will he shall bear thee
to the uttermost parts of earth unto thine heart’s desire. But if thou
be aught less than greatest, beware that steed, and mount only earthly
coursers. For if there be aught of dross within thee, and thine heart
falter, or thy purpose cool, or thou forget the level aim of thy glory,
then will he toss thee to thy ruin.”
“Thou hast this thing, O Queen?” said Lord Juss.
“My lord,” she said softly, “more than an hundred years ago I found
it, while I rambled on the cliffs that are about this charmed Lake of
Ravary. And here I hid it, being taught by the Gods what thing I had
found and knowing what was foreordained, that certain of earth should
come at last to Koshtra Belorn. Thinking in my heart that he that
should come might be of those who bare some great unfulfilled desire,
and might be of such might as could ride to his desire on such a steed.”
They abode, talking little, by the charmed lake’s shore till evening.
Then they arose, and went with her to a pavilion by the lake, built in
a grove of flowering trees. Ere they went to rest, she brought them the
hippogriff’s egg, great as a man’s body, yet light of weight, rough and
coloured like gold. And she said, “Which of you, my lords?”
Juss answered, “He, if might and a high heart should only count; but I,
because my brother it is that we must free from his dismal place.”
So the Queen gave the egg to Lord Juss; and he, bearing it in his arms,
bade her good-night, saying, “I need no other laudanum than this to
make me sleep.”
And the ambrosial night came down. And gentle sleep, softer than sleep
is on earth, closed their eyes in that pavilion beside the enchanted
lake.
• • • • •
Mivarsh slept not. Small joy had he of that Lake of Ravary, caring for
none of its beauties but mindful still of certain lewd bulks he had
seen basking by its shores all through the golden afternoon. He had
questioned one of the Queen’s martlets concerning them, who laughed at
him and let him know that these were crocodiles, wardens of the lake,
tame and gentle toward the heroes of bliss who resorted thither to
bathe and disport themselves. “But should such an one as thou,” she
said, “adventure there, they would chop thee up at a mouthful.” This
saddened him. And indeed, little ease of heart had he since he came out
of Impland, and dearly he desired his home, though it were sacked and
burnt, and the men of his own blood, though they should prove his foes.
And well he thought that if Juss should fly with Brandoch Daha mounted
on hippogriff to that cold mountain top where souls of the great were
held in bondage, he should never win back alone to the world of men,
past the frozen mountains, and the mantichores, and past the crocodile
that dwelt beside Bhavinan.
He lay awake an hour or twain, weeping quietly, until out of the giant
heart of midnight came to him with fiery clearness the words of the
Queen, saying that by the heat of great longing in his heart that
claspeth it must that egg be hatched, and that that man should then
mount and ride on the wind unto his heart’s desire. Therewith Mivarsh
sat up, his hands clammy with mixed fear and longing. It seemed to him,
awake and alone among the sleepers in that breathless night, that no
longing could be greater than his longing. He said in his heart, “I
will arise, and take the egg privily from the devil transmarine and
clasp it myself. I do him no wrong thereby, for said she not it was
perilous? Also every man raketh the embers to his own cake.”
So he arose, and came secretly to Juss where he lay with his strong
arms circling the egg. A beam of the moon came in by a window, shining
on the face of Juss, that was as the face of a God. Mivarsh bent over
him and teased the egg gently from his embrace, praying fervently the
while. And, for Juss was in a profound slumber, his soul mounting in
vision far from earth, far from that shore divine, to lone regions
where Goldry watched still in frozen mournful patience on the heights
of Zora, at last Mivarsh gat the egg and bare it to his bed. Very warm
it was, crackling to his ear as he embraced it, as of a power moving
from withinwards.
In such wise Mivarsh fell asleep, clasping the egg as a man should
clasp his dearest. And a little before dawn it hatched in his arms
and fell asunder, and he started awake, his arms about the neck of a
strange steed. It went forth into the pale light before the sunrise,
and he with it, holding it fast. The sheen of its hair was like the
peacock’s neck; its eyes like the changing fires of a star of a windy
night. Its nostrils widened to the breath of the dawn. Its wings
unfolded and grew stiff, their feathers like the tail-feathers of the
peacock pheasant, white with purple eyes, and hard to the touch as
iron blades. Mivarsh was mounted on its back, seizing the shining mane
with both hands, trembling. And now was he fain to descend, but the
hippogriff snorted and reared, and he, fearing a great fall, clung
closer. It stamped with its silver hoofs, flapping its wings, ramping
like a lioness, tearing up the grass with its claws. Mivarsh screamed,
torn between hope and fear. It plunged forward and leaped into the air
and flew.
The Demons, waked by the whirring of wings, rushed from the pavilion,
to behold that marvel flown against the obscure west. Wild was its
flight, like a snipe dipping and plunging. And while they looked, they
saw the rider flung from his seat and heard, some moments after, a dull
flop and splash of a body fallen in the lake.
The wild steed vanished, winging toward the upper air. Rings ran
outward from the splash, troubling the surface of the lake, marring the
dark reflection of Zora Rach mirrored in the sleeping waters.
“Poor Mivarsh!” cried Lord Brandoch Daha. “After all the weary leagues
I made him go with me.” And he threw off his cloak, took a dagger in
his teeth, and swam with great over-arm strokes out to the spot where
Mivarsh fell. But nought he found of Mivarsh. Only he saw near by on
an island beach a crocodile, big and bloated, that eyed him guiltily
and stayed not for his coming, but lumbering into the water dived and
disappeared. So Brandoch Daha turned and swam ashore again.
Lord Juss stood as a man stricken to stone. As one despaired he turned
to the Queen, who now came forth to them wrapped in a mantle of
swansdown; yet high he held his head. “O Queen Sophonisba, here is that
secret glome or bottom of our days, come when we sniffed the sweetness
of the morning.”
“My lord,” said she, “the flies hemerae take life with the sun and die
with the dew. But thou, if thou be truly great, join not hands with
desperation. Let the sad ending of this poor servant of thine be to
thee a monument against such folly. Earth is not ruined for a single
shower. Come back with me to Koshtra Belorn.”
He looked at the grand peak of Zora, dark against the wakening east.
“Madam,” he said, “thou hast little more than half my years, and yet
by another computation thou art seven times mine age. I am not light
of will, nor thou shalt not find me a fool to thee. Let us go back to
Koshtra Belorn.”
They brake their fast quietly and returned by the way they came. And
the Queen said, “My lords Juss and Brandoch Daha, there be few steeds
of such a kind to carry you to Zora Rach nam Psarrion, and not ye,
though ye be beyond the half-gods in your might and virtue, might have
power to ride them but if ye take them from the egg. So high they fly,
so shy they are, ye should not catch them though ye waited ten men’s
lifetimes. I will send my martlets to see if there be another egg in
the world.”
So she despatched them, north and west and south and east. And in due
time those little birds returned on weary wing, all save one, without
tidings.
“All have come back to me,” said the Queen, “save Arabella alone.
Dangers attend them in the world: birds of prey, men that slay little
birds for their sport. Yet hope with me that she may come back at last.”
But the Lord Juss spake and said, “O Queen Sophonisba, to hope and wait
lieth not in my nature, but to be swift, resolute, and exact whensoever
I see my way before me. This have I ever approved, that the strawberry
groweth underneath the nettle still. I will assay the ascent of Zora.”
Nor might all her prayers turn him from this rashness, wherein the
Lord Brandoch Daha besides did most eagerly second him.
Two nights and two days they were gone, and the Queen abode them in
great trouble of heart in her pavilion by the enchanted lake. The third
evening came Brandoch Daha back to the pavilion, bringing with him Juss
that was like a man at point of death, and himself besides deadly sick.
“Tell me not anything,” said the Queen. “Forgetfulness is the only
sovran remedy, which with all my art I will strive to induce in thy
mind and in his. Surely I despaired ever to see you in life again, so
rashly entered into those regions forbid.”
Brandoch Daha smiled, but his look was ghastly. “Blame us not overmuch,
dear Queen. Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure he shall
never hit the mark, yet as sure he is he shall shoot higher than who
aims but at a bush.” His voice broke in his throat; the whites of his
eyes rolled up; he caught at the Queen’s hand like a frightened child.
Then with a mighty effort mastering himself, “I pray bear with me a
little,” he said. “After a little good meats and drinks taken ’twill
pass. I pray look to Juss: is a dead, think you?”
Days passed, and months, and the Lord Juss lay yet as it were in
the article of death tended by his friend and by the Queen in that
pavilion by the lake. At length when winter was gone in middle earth,
and the spring far spent, back came that last little martlet on weary
wing, she they had long given up for lost. She sank in her mistress’s
bosom, almost dead indeed for weariness. But the Queen cherished her,
and gave her nectar, so that she gathered strength and said, “O Queen
Sophonisba, fosterling of the Gods, I flew for thee east and south
and west and north, by sea and by land, in heat and frost, unto the
frozen poles, about and about. And at the last came to Demonland, to
the range of Neverdale. There is a tarn among the mountains, that men
call Dule Tarn. Very deep it is, and men that live by bread do hold
it for bottomless. Yet hath it a bottom, and on the bottom lieth an
hippogriff’s egg, seen by me, for I flew at a great height above it.”
“In Demonland!” said the Queen. And she said to Lord Brandoch Daha, “It
is the only one. Ye must go home to fetch it.”
Brandoch Daha said, “Home to Demonland? After we spent our powers and
crossed the world to find the way?”
But when Lord Juss knew of it, straightway with hope so renewed began
his sickness to depart from him, so that he was in a few weeks’ space
very well recovered.
And it was now a full year gone by since first the Demons came up into
Koshtra Belorn.
XV: QUEEN PREZMYRA