This tale was suggested by the reading of "The Voyages and Travels of
Sir John Maundeville," in which the fantastic realm of Abchaz and the
darkness covered province of Hanyson are actually described! I
recommend this colourful fourteenth-century book to lovers of fantasy.
Sir John even tells, in one chapter, how diamonds propagate
themselves! Truly, the world was a wonderful place in those times,
when almost everyone believed in the verity of such marvels.
Now in his journeying Sir John Maundeville had passed well to one side
of that remarkable province in the kingdom of Abchaz which was called
Hanyson; and, unless he was greatly deceived by those of whom he had
inquired the way, could deem himself within two days' travel of the
neighboring realm of Georgia.
He had seen the river that flowed out from Hanyson, a land of hostile
idolators on which there lay the curse of perpetual darkness; and
wherein, it was told, the voices of people, the crowing of cocks and
the neighing of horses had sometimes been heard by those who
approached its confines. But he had not paused to investigate the
verity of these marvels; since the direct route of his journey was
through another region; and also Hanyson was a place into which no
man, not even the most hardy, would care to enter without need.
However, as he pursued his wayfaring with the two Armenian Christians
who formed his retinue, he began to hear from the inhabitants of that
portion of Abchaz the rumor of an equally dread demesne, named
Antchar, lying before him on the road to Georgia. The tales they told
were both vague and frightful, and were of varying import: some said
that this country was a desolation peopled only by the liches of the
dead and by loathly phantoms; others, that it was subject to the
ghouls and afrits, who devoured the dead and would suffer no living
mortal to trespass upon their dominions; and still others spoke of
things all too hideous to be described, and of dire necromancies that
prevailed in Antchar even as the might of emperors doth prevail in
more usually ordered lands. And the tales agreed only in this, that
Antchar had been within mortal memory one of the fairest domains of
Abchaz, but had been utterly laid waste by an unknown pestilence, so
that its high cities and broad fields were long since abandoned to the
desert and to such devils and other creatures as inhabit waste places.
And the tellers of the tales agreed in warning Sir John to avoid this
region and to take the road which ran deviously to the north of
Antchar; for Antchar was a place into which no man had gone in latter
times.
The good knight listened gravely to all these, as was his wont; but
being a stout Christian, and valorous withal, he would not suffer them
to deter him from his purpose. Even when the last inhabited village
had been left behind, and he came to the division of the ways, and saw
verily that the highway into Antchar had not been trodden by man or
beast for generations, he refused to change his intention but rode
forward stoutly while the Armenians followed with much protest and
some trepidation.
Howbeit, he was not blind to the sundry disagreeable tokens that began
to declare themselves along the way. There were neither trees, herbs
nor lichens anywhere, such as would grow in any wholesome land; but
low hills mottled with a leprosy of salt, and ridges bare as the bones
of the dead.
Anon he came to a pass where the hills were strait and steep on each
hand, with pinnacled cliffs of a dark stone crumbling slowly into dust
and taking shapes of wild horror and strangeness, of demonry and
Satanry as they crumbled. There were faces in the stone, having the
semblance of ghouls or goblins, that appeared to move and twist as the
travellers went by; and Sir John and his companions were troubled by
the aspect of these faces and by the similitudes which they bore to
one another. So much alike, indeed, were many of them, that it seemed
as if their first exemplars were preceding the wayfarers, to mock them
anew at each turn. And aside from those which were like ghouls or
goblins, there were others having the features of heathen idols,
uncouth and hideous to behold; and others still that were like the
worm-gnawed visages of the dead; and these also appeared to repeat
themselves on every hand in a doubtful and wildering fashion.
The Armenians would have turned back, for they swore that the rocks
were alive and endowed with motion, in a land where naught else was
living; and they sought to dissuade Sir John from his project. But he
said merely, "Follow me, an ye will," and rode onward among the rocks
and pinnacles.
Now, in the ancient dust of the unused road, they saw the tracks of a
creature that was neither man nor any terrestrial beast; and the
tracks were of such unwonted shape and number, and were so monstrous
withal, that even Sir John was disquieted thereby; and perceiving
them, the Armenians murmured more openly than before.
And now, as they still pursued their way, the pinnacles of the pass
grew tall as giants, and were riven into the likeness of mighty limbs
and bodies, some of which were headless and others with heads of
Typhoean enormity. And their shadows deepened between the travellers
and the sun, to more than the umbrage of shadows cast by rocks. And in
the darkest depth of the ravine, Sir John and his followers met a
solitary jackal, which fled them not in the manner of its kind but
passed them with leisurely pace and bespoke them with articulate
words, in a voice hollow and sepulchral as that of a demon, bidding
them to turn back, since the land before them was an interdicted
realm. All were much startled thereat, considering that this was
indeed a thing of enchantment, for a jackal to speak thus, and being
against nature, was fore-ominous of ill and peril. And the Armenians
cried out, saying they would go no further; and when the jackal had
passed from sight, they fled after it, spurring their horses like men
who were themselves ridden by devils.
Seeing them thus abandon him, Sir John was somewhat wroth; and also he
was perturbed by the warning of the jackal; and he liked not the
thought of faring alone into Antchar. But, trusting in our Savior to
forfend him against all harmful enchantments and the necromancies of
Satan, he rode on among the rocks till he came forth at length from
their misshapen shadows; and emerging thus, he saw before him a grey
plain that was like the ashes of some dead land under extinguished
heavens.
At sight of this region, his heart misgave him sorely, and he misliked
it even more than the twisted faces of the rocks and the riven forms
of the pinnacles. For here the bones of men, of horses and camels, had
marked the way with their pitiable whiteness; and the topmost branches
of long dead trees arose like supplicative arms from the sand that had
sifted upon the older gardens. And here there were ruinous houses,
with doors open to the high-drifting desert, and mausoleums sinking
slowly in the dunes. And here, as Sir John rode forward, the sky
darkened above him, though not with the passage of clouds or the
coming of the simoon, but rather with the strange dusk of midmost
eclipse, wherein the shadows of himself and his horse were blotted
out, and the tombs and houses were wan as phantoms.
Sir John had not ridden much further, when he met a horned viper, or
cerastes, crawling toilsomely away from Antchar in the deep dust of
the road. And the viper spoke at it passed him, saying with a human
voice, "Be warned, and go not onward into Antchar, for this is a realm
forbidden to all mortal beings except the dead."
Now did Sir John address himself in prayer to God the Highest, and to
Jesus Christ our Savior and all the blessed Saints, knowing surely
that he had arrived in a place that was subject to Satanical dominion.
And while he prayed the gloom continued to thicken, till the road
before him was half nighted and was no longer easy to discern. And
though he would have still ridden on, his charger halted in the gloom
and would not respond to the spur, but stood and trembled like one who
is smitten with palsy.
Then, from the twilight that was nigh to darkness, there came gigantic
figures, muffled and silent and having, as he thought, neither mouths
nor eyes beneath the brow-folds of their sable cerements. They uttered
no word, nor could Sir John bespeak them in the fear that came upon
him; and likewise he was powerless to draw his sword. And they plucked
him from his saddle with fleshless hands, and led him away, half
swooning at the horror of their touch, on paths that he perceived only
with the dim senses of one who goes down into the shadow of death. And
he knew not how far they led him nor in what direction; and he heard
no sound as he went other than the screaming of his horse far off,
like a soul in mortal dread and agony: for the footfalls of those who
had taken him were soundless and he could not tell if they were
phantoms or haply were veritable demons. A coldness blew upon him, but
without the whisper or soughing of wind; and the air he breathed was
dense with corruption and such odors as may emanate from a broken
charnel.
For a time, in the faintness that had come upon him, he saw not the
things that were standing beside the way, nor the shrouded shapes that
went by in funereal secrecy. Then, recovering his senses a little, he
perceived that there were houses about him and the streets of a town,
though these were but scantly to be discerned in the night that had
fallen without bringing the stars. Howbeit, he saw, or deemed, that
there were high mansions and broad thoroughfares and markets; and
among them, as he went on, a building that bore the appearance of a
great palace, with a facade that glimmered vaguely, and domes and
turrets half swallowed up by the lowering darkness.
As he neared the facade, Sir John saw that the glimmering came from
within and was cast obscurely through open doors and between
broad-spaced pillars. Too feeble was the light for torch or cresset,
too dim for any lamp; and Sir John marvelled amid his faintness and
terror. But when he had drawn closer still, he saw that the strange
gleaming was like the phosphor bred by the putrefaction of a charnel.
Beneath the guidance of those who held him helpless, he entered the
building. They led him through a stately hall, in whose carven columns
and ornate furniture the opulence of kings was manifest; and thence he
came into a great audience-room, with a throne of gold and ebony set
on a high dais, all of which was illumed by no other light than the
glimmering of decay. And the throne was tenanted, not by any human
lord or sultan, but a grey, prodigious creature, of height and bulk
exceeding those of man, and having in all its over-swollen form the
exact similitude of a charnel-worm. And the worm was alone, and except
for the worm and Sir John and those beings who had brought him
thither, the great chamber was empty as a mausoleum of old days, whose
occupants were long since consumed by corruption.
Then, standing there with a horror upon him such as no man had ever
envisaged, Sir John became aware that the worm was scrutinizing him
severely, with little eyes deep-folded in the obscene bloating of its
face, and then, with a dreadful and solemn voice, it addressed him,
saying:
"I am king of Antchar, by virtue of having conquered and devoured the
mortal ruler thereof, as well as all those who were his subjects. Know
then that this land is mine and that the intrusion of the living is
unlawful and not readily to be condoned. The rashness and folly thou
hast shown in thus coming here is verily most egregious; since thou
wert warned by the peoples of Abchaz, and warned anew by the jackal
and the viper which thou didst meet on the road into Antchar. Thy
temerity hath earned a condign punishment. And before I suffer thee to
go hence, I decree that thou shalt lie for a term among the dead, and
dwell as they dwell, in a dark sepulcher, and learn the manner of
their abiding and the things which none should behold with living
eyes. Yea, still alive, it shall be thine to descend and remain in the
very midst of death and putrefaction, for such length of time as
seemeth meet to correct thy folly and punish thy presumption."
Sir John was one of the worthiest knights in Christendom, and his
valor was beyond controversy. But when he heard the speech of the
throned worm, and the judgement that it passed upon him, his fear
became so excessive that once again he was nigh to swooning. And,
still in this state, he was taken hence by those who had brought him
to the audience-room. And somewhere in the outer darkness, in a place
of tombs and graves and cenotaphs beyond the dim town, he was flung
into a deep sepulcher of stone, and the brazen door of the sepulcher
was closed upon him.
Lying there through the seasonless midnight, Sir John was companioned
only by an unseen cadaver and by those ministrants of decay who were
not yet wholly done with their appointed task. Himself as one half
dead, in the sore extremity of his horror and loathing, he could not
tell if it were day or night in Antchar; and in all the term of
endless hours that he lay there, he heard no sound, other than the
beating of his own heart, which soon became insufferably loud, and
oppressed him like the noise and tumult of a great throng.
Appalled by the clamor of his heart, and affrighted by the thing which
lay in perpetual silence beside him, and whelmed by the awesomeness
and dire necromancy of all that had befallen him, Sir John was prone
to despair, and scant was his hope of returning from that imprisonment
amid the dead, or of standing once more under the sun as a living man.
It was his to learn the voidness of death, to share the abomination of
desolation, and to comprehend the unutterable mysteries of corruption;
and to do all this not as one who is a mere insensible cadaver, but
with soul and body still inseparate. His flesh crept, and his spirit
cringed within him, as he felt the crawling of worms that went avidly
to the dwindling corpse or came away in glutted slowness. And it
seemed to Sir John at that time (and at all times thereafter) that the
condition of his sojourn in the tomb was verily to be accounted a
worse thing than death.
At last, when many hours or days had gone over him, leaving the tomb's
darkness unchanged by the entrance of any beam or the departure of any
shadow, Sir John was aware of a sullen clangor, and knew that the
brazen door had been opened. And now, for the first time, by the
dimness of twilight that had entered the tomb, he saw in all its
piteousness and repulsion the thing with which he had abode so long.
In the sickness that fell upon him at this sight, he was haled forth
from the sepulcher by those who had thrust him therein: and, fainting
once more with the terror of their touch, and shrinking from their
gigantic shadowy stature and cerements whose black folds revealed no
human visage or form, he was led through Antchar along the road
whereby he had come into that dolorous realm.
His guides were silent as before; and the gloom which lay upon the
land was even as when he had entered it, and was like the umbrage of
some eternal occultation. But at length, in the very place where he
had been taken captive, he was left to retrace his own way and to fare
alone through the land of ruinous gardens toward the defile of the
crumbling rocks.
Weak though he was from his confinement, and all bemazed with the
things which had befallen him, he followed the road till the darkness
lightened once more and he came forth from its penumbral shadow
beneath a pale sun. And somewhere in the waste he met his charger,
wandering through the sunken fields that were covered up by the sand;
and he mounted the charger and rode hastily away from Antchar through
the pass of the strange boulders with mocking forms and faces. And
after a time he came once more to the northern road by which
travellers commonly went to Georgia; and here he was rejoined by the
two Armenians, who had waited on the confines of Antchar, praying for
his secure deliverance.
Long afterwards, when he had returned from his wayfaring in the East
and among the peoples of remote isles, he told of the kingdom of
Abchaz in the book that related his travels; and also he wrote therein
concerning the province of Hanyson. But he made no mention of Antchar,
that kingdom of darkness and decay ruled by the throned worm.