light from without doors: an evil, pallid, bale-like lowe, such as
Gro had beheld in days gone by when King Gorice XII. first conjured
in Carcë. Corinius paused ere taking his seat. Goodly and stalwart he
showed in his blue silk cloak and silvered byrny. The fair crown of
Demonland, wherewith Corsus had been enforced to crown him on that
great night in Owlswick, shone above his light brown curling hair.
Youth and lustihood stood forth in every line of his great frame, and
on his bare arms smooth and brawny, with their wristlets of gold;
but somewhat ghastly was the corpse-like pallor of that light on his
shaven jowl, and his thick scornful lips were blackened, like those of
poisoned men, in that light of bale.
“Saw ye not this light aforetime?” he cried, “and ’twas the shadow
before the sun of our omnipotence. Fate’s hammer is lifted up to
strike. Drink with me to our Lord the King that laboureth with destiny.”
All drank deep, and Corinius said, “Pass we on the cups that each may
drain his neighbour’s. ’Tis an old lucky custom Corund taught me out of
Impland. Swift, for the fate of Witchland is poised in the balance.”
Therewith he passed his cup to Zenambria, who quaffed it to the dregs.
And all they, passing on their cups, drank deep again; all save Corsus
alone. But Corsus’s eyes were big with terror as he looked on the cup
passed on to him by Corund’s son.
“Drink, O Corsus,” said Corinius; and seeing him still waver, “what
ails the old doting disard?” he cried. “He stareth on good wine with an
eye as ghastly as a mad dog’s beholding water.”
In that instant the unearthly glare went out as a lamp in a gust of
wind, and only the flamboys and the funeral candles flickered on the
feasters with uncertain radiance. Corinius said again, “Drink.”
But Corsus set down the cup untasted, and stayed irresolute. Corinius
opened his mouth to speak, and his jaw fell, as of a man that
conceiveth suddenly some dread suspicion. But ere he might speak word,
a blinding flash went from earth to heaven, and the firm floor of the
banquet hall rocked and shook as with an earthquake. All save Corinius
fell back into their seats, clutching the table, amazed and dumb. Crash
after crash, after the listening ear was well nigh split by the roar,
the horror broken out of the bowels of night thundered and ravened in
Carcë. Laughter, as of damned souls banqueting in Hell, rode on the
tortured air. Wildfire tore the darkness asunder, half blinding them
that sat about that table, and Corinius gripped the board with either
hand as a last deafening crash shook the walls, and a flame rushed
up the night, lighting the whole sky with a livid glare. And in that
trisulk flash Corinius beheld through the south-west window the Iron
Tower blasted and cleft asunder, and the next instant fallen in an
avalanche of red-hot ruin.
“The keep hath fallen!” he cried. And, deadly wearied on a sudden, he
sank heavily into his seat. The cataclysm was passed by like a wind in
the night; but now was heard a sound as of the enemy rushing to the
assault. Corinius strove to rise, but his legs were over feeble. His
eye lit on Corsus’s untasted cup, that which was passed on to him by
Viglus Corund’s son, and he cried, “What devil’s work is this? I have a
strange numbness in my bones. By heavens, thou shalt drink that cup or
die.”
Viglus, his eyes protruding, his hand clutching at his breast,
struggled to rise but could not.
Heming half staggered up, fumbling for his sword, then pitched forward
on the table with a horrid rattle of the throat.
But Corsus leaped up trembling, his dull eyes aflame with triumphant
malice. “The King hath thrown and lost,” he cried, “as well I foresaw
it. And now have the children of night taken him to themselves. And
thou, damned Corinius, and you sons of Corund, are but dead swine
before me. Ye have all drunk venom, and ye are dead. Now will I deliver
up Carcë to the Demons. And it, and your bodies, with mine electuary
rotting in your vitals, shall buy me peace from Demonland.”
“O horrible! Then I too am poisoned,” cried the Lady Zenambria, and
she fell a-swooning.
“’Tis pity,” said Corsus. “Blame the passing of the cups for that. I
might not speak ere the poison had chained me the limbs of these cursed
devils, and made ’em harmless.”
Corinius’s jaw set like a bulldog’s. Painfully gritting his teeth he
rose from his seat, his sword naked in his hand. Corsus, that was now
passing near him on his way to the door, saw too late that he had
reckoned without his host. Corinius, albeit the baneful drug bound his
legs as with a cere-cloth, was yet too swift for Corsus, who, fleeing
before him to the door, had but time to clutch the heavy curtains ere
the sword of Corinius took him in the back. He fell, and lay a-writhing
lumpishly, like a toad spitted on a skewer. And the floor of steatite
was made slippery with his blood.
[Illustration: THE LAST CONJURING IN CARCË.]
“’Tis well. Through the guts,” said Corinius. No might he had to draw
forth the sword, but staggered as one drunken, and fell to earth,
propped against the jambs of the lofty doorway.
Some while he lay there, harkening to the sounds of battle without;
for the Iron Tower was fallen athwart the outer wall, making a breach
through all lines of defence. And through that breach the Demons
stormed the hold of Carcë, that never unfriendly foot had entered by
force in all the centuries since it was builded by Gorice I. An ill
watch it was for Corinius to lie harkening to that unequal fight,
unable to stir a hand, and all they that should have headed the defence
dead or dying before his eyes. Yet was his breath lightened and his
pain some part eased when his eye rested on the gross body of Corsus
twisting in the agony of death upon his sword.
In such wise passed well nigh an hour. The bodily strength of Corinius
and his iron heart bare up against the power of the venom long after
those others had breathed out their souls in death. But now was the
battle done and the victory with them of Demonland, and the lords Juss
and Goldry Bluszco and Brandoch Daha with certain of their fighting men
came into the banquet hall. Smeared they were with blood and the dust
of battle, for not without great blows and the death of many a stout
lad had the hold been won. Goldry said as they paused at the threshold,
“This is the very banquet house of death. How came these by their end?”
Corinius’s brow darkened at the sight of the lords of Demonland, and
mightily he strove to raise himself, but sank back groaning. “I have
gotten an everlasting chill o’ the bones,” he said. “Yon hellish
traitor murthered us all by poison; else should some of you have gotten
your deaths by me or ever ye won up into Carcë.”
“Bring him some water,” said Juss. And he with Brandoch Daha gently
lifted Corinius and bare him to his chair where he should be more at
ease.
Goldry said, “Here is a lady liveth.” For Sriva, that sitting on her
father’s left hand had so escaped a poisoned draught at the passing of
the cups, rose from the table where she had cowered in fearful silence,
and cast herself in a flood of tears and terrified supplications about
Goldry’s knees. Goldry bade guard her to the camp and there bestow her
in safe asylum until the morning.
Now was Corinius near his end, but he gathered strength to speak,
saying, “I do joy that not by your sword were we put down, but by the
unequal trumpery of Fortune, whose tool was this Corsus and the King’s
devilish pride, that desired to harness Heaven and Hell to his chariot.
Fortune’s a right strumpet, to fondle me in the neck and now yerk me
one thus i’ the midriff.”
“Not Fortune, my Lord Corinius, but the Gods,” said Goldry, “whose feet
be shod with wool.”
By then was water brought in, and Brandoch Daha would have given him
to drink. But Corinius would have none of it, but jerked his head
aside and o’erset the cup, and looking fiercely on Lord Brandoch Daha,
“Vile fellow,” he said, “so thou too art come to insult on Witchland’s
grave? Thou’dst strike me now into the centre, and thou wert not more a
dancing madam than a soldier.”
“How?” said Brandoch Daha. “Say a dog bite me in the ham: must I bite
him again i’ the same part?”
Corinius’s eyelids closed, and he said weakly, “How look thy womanish
gew-gaws in Krothering since I towsed ’em?” And therewith the creeping
poison reached his strong heartstrings, and he died.
• • • • •
Now was silence for a space in that banquet hall, and in the silence
a step was heard, and the lords of Demonland turned toward the lofty
doorway, that yawned as an arched cavern-mouth of darkness; for Corsus
had torn down the arras curtains in his death-throes, and they lay
heaped athwart the threshold with his dead body across them, Corinius’s
sword-hilts jammed against his ribs and the blade standing a foot’s
length forth from his breast. And while they gazed, there walked
into the shifting light of the flamboys over that threshold the Lady
Prezmyra, crowned and arrayed in her rich robes and ornaments of state.
Her countenance was bleak as the winter moon flying high amid light
clouds on a windy midnight settling towards rain, and those lords,
under the spell of her sad cold beauty, stood without speech.
In a while Juss, speaking as one who needeth to command his voice,
and making grave obeisance to her, said, “O Queen, we give you peace.
Command our service in all things whatsoever. And first in this, which
shall be our earliest task ere we sail homeward, to stablish you in
your rightful realm of Pixyland. But this hour is over-charged with
fate and desperate deeds to suffer counsel. Counsel is for the morning.
The night calleth to rest. I pray you give us leave.”
Prezmyra looked upon Juss, and there was eye-bite in her eyes, that
glinted with green metallic lustre like those of a she-lion brought to
battle.
“Thou dost offer me Pixyland, my Lord Juss,” said she, “that am Queen
of Impland. And this night, thou thinkest, can bring me rest. These
that were dear to me have rest indeed: my lord and lover Corund; the
Prince my brother; Gro, that was my friend. Deadly enow they found you,
whether as friends or foes.”
Juss said, “O Queen Prezmyra, the nest falleth with the tree. These
things hath Fate brought to pass, and we be but Fate’s whipping-tops
bandied what way she will. Against thee we war not, and I swear to thee
that all our care is to make thee amends.”
“O, thine oaths!” said Prezmyra. “What amends canst thou make? Youth I
have and some poor beauty. Wilt thou conjure those three dead men alive
again that ye have slain? For all thy vaunted art, I think this were
too hard a task.”
All they were silent, eyeing her as she walked delicately past
the table. She looked with a distant and, to outward seeming,
uncomprehending eye on the dead feasters and their empty cups. Empty
all, save that one passed on by Viglus, whereof Corsus would not drink;
and it stood half drained. Of curious workmanship it was, of pale
green glass, its stand formed of three serpents intertwined, the one
of gold, another of silver, the third of iron. Fingering it carelessly
she raised her glittering eyes once more on the Demons, and said, “It
was ever the wont of you of Demonland to eat the egg and give away the
shell in alms.” And pointing at the lords of Witchland dead at the
feast, she asked, “Were these also your victims in this day’s hunting,
my lords?”
“Thou dost us wrong, madam,” cried Goldry. “Never hath Demonland used
suchlike arts against her enemies.”
Lord Brandoch Daha looked swiftly at him, and stepped idly forward,
saying, “I know not what art hath wrought yon goblet, but ’tis
strangely like to one I saw in Impland. Yet fairer is this, and of more
just proportions.” But Prezmyra forestalled his out-stretched hand, and
quietly drew the cup towards her out of reach. As sword crosses sword,
the glance of her green eyes crossed his, and she said, “Think not that
you have a worse enemy left on earth than me. I it was that sent Corsus
and Corinius to trample Demonland in the mire. Had I but some spark
of masculine virtue, some soul at least of you should yet be loosed
squealing to the shades to attend my dear ones ere I set sail. But I
have none. Kill me then, and let me go.”
Juss, whose sword was bare in his hand, smote it home in the scabbard
and stepped towards her. But the table was betwixt them, and she drew
back to the dais where Corund lay in state. There, like some triumphant
goddess, she stood above them, the cup of venom in her hand. “Come not
beyond the table, my lords,” she said, “or I drain this cup to your
damnation.”
Brandoch Daha said, “The dice are thrown, O Juss. And the Queen hath
won the hazard.”
“Madam,” said Juss, “I swear to you there shall no force nor restraint
be put upon you, but honour only and worship shown you, and friendship
if you will. That surely mightest thou take of us for thy brother’s
sake.” Thereat she looked terribly upon him, and he said, “Only on this
wild night lay not hands upon yourself. For their sake, that even now
haply behold us out of the undiscovered barren lands, beyond the dismal
lake, do not this.”
Still facing them, the cup still aloft in her right hand, Prezmyra
laid her left hand lightly on the brazen plates of Corund’s byrny that
cased the mighty muscles of his breast. Her hand touched his beard, and
drew back suddenly; but in an instant she laid it gently again on his
breast. Somewhat her orient loveliness seemed to soften for a passing
minute in the altering light, and she said, “I was given to Corund
young. This night I will sleep with him, or reign with him, among the
mighty nations of the dead.”
Juss moved as one about to speak, but she stayed him with a look, and
the lines of her body hardened again and the lioness looked forth
anew in her peerless eyes. “Hath your greatness,” she said, “so much
outgrown your wit, that you think I will abide to be your pensioner,
that have been a Princess in Pixyland, a Queen of far-fronted Impland,
and wife to the greatest soldier in this hold of Carcë, which till this
day hath been the only scourge and terror of the world? O my lords
of Demonland, good comfortable fools, speak to me no more, for your
speech is folly. Go, doff your hats to the silly hind that runneth on
the mountain; pray her gently dwell with you amid your stalled cattle,
when you have slain her mate. Shall the blackening frost, when it hath
blasted and starved all the sweet garden flowers, say to the rose,
Abide with us; and shall she harken to such a wolfish suit?”
So speaking she drank the cup; and turning from those lords of
Demonland as a queen turneth her from the unregarded multitude, kneeled
gently down by Corund’s bier, her white arms clasped about his head,
her face pillowed on his breast.
• • • • •
When Juss spake, his voice was choked with tears. He commanded Bremery
that they should take up the bodies of Corsus and Zenambria and those
sons of Corund and of Corsus that lay poisoned and dead in that hall
and on the morrow give them reverent burial. “And for the Lord Corinius
I will that ye make a bed of state, that he may lie in this hall
to-night, and to-morrow will we lay him in howe before Carcë, as is
fitting for so renowned a captain. But great Corund and his lady shall
none depart one from the other, but in one grave shall they rest, side
by side, for their love sake. Ere we be gone I will rear them such a
monument as beseemeth great kings and princes when they die. For royal
and lordly was Corund, and a mighty man at arms, and a fighter clean of
hand, albeit our bitter enemy. Wondrous it is with what cords of love
he bound to him this unparagoned Queen of his. Who hath known her like
among women for trueness and highness of heart? And sure none was ever
more unfortunate.”
Now went they forth into the outer ward of Carcë. The night bore still
some signs of that commotion of the skies that had so lately burst
forth and passed away, and some torn palls of thundercloud yet hung
athwart the face of heaven. Betwixt them in the swept places of the
sky a few stars shivered, and the moon, more than half waxen towards
her full, was sinking over Tenemos. Some faint breath of autumn was
abroad, and the Demons shuddered a little, fresh from the heavy air
of the great banquet hall. The ruins of the Iron Tower smoking to
the sky, and the torn and tumbled masses of masonry about it, showed
monstrous in the gloom as fragments of old chaos; and from them and
from the riven earth beneath steamed up pungent fumes as of brimstone
burning. Ever busily, back and forth through those sulphurous vapours,
obscene birds of the night flitted a weary round, and bats on leathern
wing, fitfully and dimly seem in the uncertain mirk, save when their
passage brought them dark against the moon. And from the solitudes of
the mournful fen afar voices of lamentation floated on the night: wild
wailing cries and sobbing noises and long moans rising and falling and
quivering down to silence.
Juss laid his hand on Goldry’s arm, saying, “There is nought earthly in
these laments, nor be those that thou seest circling in the reek very
bats or owls. These be his masterless familiars wailing for their Lord.
Many such served him, simple earthy divels and divels of the air and of
the water, held by him in thrall by sorcerous and artificial practices,
coming and going and doing his will.”
“These availed him not,” said Goldry, “nor the sword of Witchland
against our might and main, that brake it asunder in his hand and slew
his mighty men of valour.”
“Yet true it is,” said Lord Juss, “that none greater hath lived on
earth than King Gorice XII. When after these long wars we held him as
a stag at bay, he feared not to assay a second time, and this time
unaided and alone, what no man else hath so much as once performed and
lived. And well he knew that that which was summoned by him out of the
deep must spill and blast him utterly if he should slip one whit, as
slip he did in former days, but his disciple succoured him. Behold now
with what loud striking of thunder, unconquered by any earthly power,
he hath his parting: with this Carcë black and smoking in ruin for his
monument, these lords of Witchland and hundreds besides of our soldiers
and of the Witches for his funeral bake-meats, and spirits weeping in
the night for his chief mourners.”
So came they again to the camp. And in due time the moon set and the
clouds departed and the quiet stars pursued their eternal way until
night’s decline; as if this night had been but as other nights: this
night which had beheld the power and glory that was Witchland by such a
hammer-stroke of destiny smitten in pieces.
XXXIII: QUEEN SOPHONISBA IN GALING
OF THE ENTERTAINMENT GIVEN BY LORD JUSS IN DEMONLAND TO QUEEN
SOPHONISBA, FOSTERLING OF THE GODS, AND OF THAT CIRCUMSTANCE
WHICH, BEYOND ALL THE WONDERS FAIR AND LOVELY TO BEHOLD SHOWN
HER IN THAT COUNTRY, MADE HER MOST TO MARVEL: WHEREIN IS A RARE
EXAMPLE HOW IN A FORTUNATE WORLD, OUT OF ALL EXPECTATION, IN
THE SPRING OF THE YEAR, COMETH A NEW BIRTH.
Now the returning months brought the season of the year when Queen
Sophonisba should come according to her promise to guest with Lord Juss
in Galing. And so it was that in the hush of a windless April dawn the
Zimiamvian caravel that bare the Queen to Demonland rowed up the firth
to Lookinghaven.
All the east was a bower for the golden dawn. Kartadza, sharp-outlined
as if cut in bronze, still hid the sun; and in the great shadow of the
mountain the haven and the low hills and the groves of holm-oak and
strawberry tree slumbered in a deep obscurity of blues and purples,
against which the avenues of pink almond blossom and the white marble
quays were bodied forth in pale wakening beauty, imaged as in a
looking-glass in that tranquillity of the sea. Westward across the
firth all the land was aglow with the opening day. Snow lingered
still on the higher summits. Cloudless, bathing in the golden light,
they stood against the blue: Dina, the Forks of Nantreganon, Pike
o’ Shards, and all the peaks of the Thornback range and Neverdale.
Morning laughed on their high ridges and kissed the woods that clung
about their lower limbs: billowy woods, where rich hues of brown and
purple told of every twig on all their myriad branches thick and
afire with buds. White mists lay like coverlets on the water-meadows
where Tivarandardale opens to the sea. On the shores of Bothrey and
Scaramsey, and on the mainland near the great bluff of Thremnir’s Heugh
and a little south of Owlswick, clear spaces among the birchwoods
showed golden yellow: daffodils abloom in the spring.
They rowed in to the northernmost berth and made fast the caravel.
The sweetness of the almond trees was the sweetness of spring in the
air, and spring was in the face of that Queen as she came with her
attendants up the shining steps, her little martlets circling about her
or perching on her shoulders: she to whom the Gods of old gave youth
everlasting, and peace everlasting in Koshtra Belorn.
Lord Juss and his brethren were on the quay to meet her, and the Lord
Brandoch Daha. They bowed in turn, kissing her hands and bidding her
welcome to Demonland. But she said, “Not to Demonland alone, my lords,
but to the world again. And toward which of all earth’s harbours should
I steer, and toward which land if not to this land of yours, who have
by your victories brought peace and joy to all the world? Surely peace
slept not more softly on the Moruna in old days before the names of
Gorice and Witchland were heard in that country, than she shall sleep
for us on this new earth and Demonland, now that those names are
drowned for ever under the whirlpools of oblivion and darkness.”
Juss said, “O Queen Sophonisba, desire not that the names of great men
dead should be forgot for ever. So should these wars that we last year
brought to so mighty a conclusion to make us undisputed lords of the
earth go down to oblivion with them that fought against us. But the
fame of these things shall be on the lips and in the songs of men from
one generation to another, so long as the world shall endure.”
They took horse and rode up from the harbour to the upper road, and
so through open pastures on to Havershaw Tongue. Lambs frisked on the
dewy meadows beside the road; blackbirds flew from bush to bush; larks
trilled in the sightless sky; and as they came down through the woods
to Beckfoot wood-pigeons cooed in the trees, and squirrels peeped with
beady eyes. The Queen spoke little. These and all shy things of the
woods and field held her in thrall, charming her to a silence that was
broken only now and then by a little exclamation of joy. The Lord Juss,
who himself also loved these things, watched her delight.
Now they wound up the steep ascent from Beckfoot, and rode into Galing
by the Lion Gate. The avenue of Irish yews was lined by soldiers of the
bodyguards of Juss, Goldry, and Spitfire, and Brandoch Daha. These, in
honour of their great masters and of the Queen, lifted their spears
aloft, while trumpeters blew three fanfares on silver trumpets. Then
to an accompaniment of lutes and theorbos and citherns moving above
the pulse of muffled drums, a choir of maidens sang a song of welcome,
strewing the path before the lords of Demonland and the Queen with
sweet white hyacinths and narcissus blooms, while the ladies Mevrian
and Armelline, more lovely than any queens of earth, waited at the head
of the golden staircase above the inner court to greet Queen Sophonisba
come to Galing.
• • • • •
A hard matter it were to tell of all the pleasures prepared for Queen
Sophonisba and for her delight by the lords of Demonland. The first
day she spent among the parks and pleasure gardens of Galing, where
Lord Juss showed her his great lime avenues, his yew-houses, his fruit
gardens and sunk gardens and his private walks and bowers; his walks of
creeping thyme which being trodden on sends up sweet odours to refresh
the treader; his ancient water-gardens beside the Brankdale Beck,
whither the water nymphs resort in summer and are seen under the moon
singing and combing their hair with combs of gold.