cleared his throat, and had fidgeted a little, in the while that Toupan
was overlooking Koshchei’s handiwork. But when the Wardens and the Star
Warriors cried out to him for aid, then Koshchei, lifting never a
finger, said only:
“Eh, sirs, have patience! For I made all things as they are; and I know
now it is my safeguard that I made them in two ways.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_17._
_Epitome of Marriage_
══════════════════════════════════════════════════
BUT Miramon, in his ivory tower upon Vraidex, knew only that his wish
had been granted, for Gisèle had gone just as a bubble breaks, and she
was now somewhere in the middle of next week.
“And a good riddance, too!” said Miramon. He turned to Ninzian, that
smiling large philanthropist. “For did you ever see the like of such
outrageousness as her outrageousness!”
“Oh, very often,” replied this Ninzian, who too was married. Then
Ninzian asked, “But what will you do next?”
Said Miramon, “I shall wish to have back the secret and the solace of my
art.”
But to Ninzian this seemed less obvious. “You can do that, readily
enough, by releasing the third bee which my devices have procured for
you out of the land of Assyria. Yes, Miramon, you can in this manner get
back your art, but thus also you will be left defenseless against the
doom which is appointed. So, friend, by my advice you will, instead,
employ the cantrap as you at first intended, and you will secure for
yourself eternal life by wishing that Flamberge may vanish from this
world of men.”
And Ninzian waved toward the sword with which according to the
foreordainment of the Norns great Miramon Lluagor was to be killed by
his own son.
The fallen sorcerer answered, “Of what worth is life if it breed no more
dreams?” And Miramon said also, “I wonder, Ninzian, just where is the
middle of next week?”
Sleek Ninzian spoke, secure in his peculiar erudition. “It will fall
upon a Wednesday, but nobody knows whence. Olybrius states it is now in
Aratu, where all that enter are clothed like a bird with wings, and have
only dust and clay to eat in the unchanging twilight—”
“She would not like that. She had always a delicate digestion.”
“Whereas Asinius Pollio suggests, not unplausibly, that it waits beyond
Slid and Gjold, in the blue house of Nostrand, where Sereda bleaches the
unborn Wednesdays, under a roof of plaited serpents—”
“Dear me!” said Miramon, disconsolately rubbing at his nose, “now that
would never suit a woman with an almost morbid aversion to reptiles!”
“—But Sosicles declares it is in Xibalba, where Zipacna and Cabrakan
play at handball, and the earthquakes are at nurse.”
“She would be none the happier there. She does not care for babies, she
would not for one moment put up with a fractious young earthquake, and
she would make things most uncomfortable for everybody. Ninzian,”—and
Miramon cleared his throat,—“Ninzian, I begin to fear I have been a
little hasty.”
“It is the frailty of all you artists,” the man of affairs replied. “So
my advice, about Flamberge, is not to the purpose?”
“Well, but, you see,” said Miramon, very miserably, “or perhaps I ought
to say that, while of course, still, when you come to look at it more
carefully, Ninzian, what I really mean is that the fact is, as it seems
to me—”
“The fact is,” Ninzian returned, with a depressed but comprehending
smile, “you are a married man. So am I. Well, then, you have one wish
remaining, and no more. You can at will desire to have back again the
control of your lost magics or you can have back your wife to control
you—”
“Yes,” Miramon agreed, forlornly.
“And indeed,” sleek Ninzian went on, with that glib optimism reserved
for the dilemmas of one’s friends, “indeed it is in many ways a splendid
thing for you to have the choice clear cut. Nobody can succeed alike at
being an artist and a husband. I hold no brief for either career,
because I think that art is an unreasonable mistress, and I think also
that a wife is amenable to the same description. But I am certain no man
can serve both.”
Miramon sighed. “That is true. There is no marriage for the maker of
dreams, because he is perpetually creating finer women than earth
provides. The touch of flesh cannot content him who has arranged the
shining hair of angels and modeled the breasts of the sphinx. The woman
that shares his bed is there of course, much as the blanket or the
pillow is there, and each is an aid to comfort. But what has the maker
of dreams, what has that troubled being who lives inside the creature
which a mirror reveals to him, to do with women? At best, these animals
provide him with models to be idealized beyond the insignificant truth,
somewhat as I have made a superb delirium with only a lizard to start
on. And at worst, these animals can live through no half-hour without
meddling where they do not understand.”
Now Miramon kept silence. He was fingering the magic colors with which
he blazoned the first sketches of his dreams. Here was his white, which
was the foam of the ocean made solid, and the black he had wrung from
the burned bones of nine emperors. Here was the yellow slime of Scyros,
and crimson cinnabaris composed of the mingled blood of mastodons and
dragons, and here was the poisonous blue sand of Puteoli. And Miramon,
who was no longer a potent sorcerer, considered that loveliness and
horror which a moment ago he had known how to evoke with these pigments,
he who had now no power to lend life to his designs, and who kept just
skill enough it might be to place the stripings on a barber’s pole.
And Miramon Lluagor said: “It would be a sad happening if I were never
again to sway the sleeping of men, and grant them yet more dreams of
distinction and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth
and urbanity. For whether they like it or not, I know what is good for
them, and it affords to their starved living that which they lack and
ought to have.”
And Miramon said also: “Yet it would be another sad happening were my
poor wife permitted eternally to scold the shivering earthquakes in the
middle of next week. What does it matter that I do not especially like
her? There is a great deal about myself that I do not like, such as my
body’s flabbiness and the snub nose which makes ludicrous the face I
wear: but do I hanker to be transformed into a sturdy man-at-arms? do I
view the snout of an elephant with covetousness? Why, but, Ninzian, I am
astonished at your foolish talking! What need have I of perfection? what
would I have in common with anybody who was patient with me and thought
highly of my doings?”
Miramon shook his head, with some sternness. “No, Ninzian, it is in vain
that you pester me with your continuous talking, for I am as used to her
shortcomings as I am to my own shortcomings. I regard her tantrums with
the resignation I extend to inclement weather. It is unpleasant. All
tempests are unpleasant. Ah, yes, but if life should become an endless
clear May afternoon we could not endure it, we who have once been lashed
by storms would cross land and sea to look for snow and pelting hail.
Just so, to have Gisèle about keeps me perpetually fretted; but now that
she is gone I am miserable. No, Ninzian, you may spare your talking, you
need say no more, for I simply could not put up with being left to live
in comfort.”
Ninzian had heard him through without impatience, because they were both
married men. Now Ninzian, shrugging, said, “Then do you choose, Miramon,
for your wife and no more dreams, or for your art and loneliness?”
“Such wishing would be over-wasteful,” Miramon replied, as he dusted
away the third bee. “Since I can bear to give up neither my wife nor my
art, no matter how destroyingly they work against each other, I wish for
everything to be put back just where it was an hour ago.”
The third bee flew in a wide circle, and returned to the cross. The
knowledge which Miramon had lost was put back into his mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_18._
_Koshchei is Vexed_
══════════════════════════════════════════════════
EVEN as the knowledge which Miramon had lost was put back into his mind,
just so did life reawaken in all else which had perished in that hour.
Gauracy’s baleful sun was gone, and the dislodged and incinerated
worlds, with all their satellites, were revolving trimly in their proper
places, undamaged. And the gods who were worshiped in these worlds now
made a celestial rejoicing, because once more there were only seven
Pleiades. The Old Ones had sunk back into their sleeping; things, for
the while, stayed as they are; and even Toupan now seemed harmless
enough....
For the eyes were closed wherein lurked tireless and unappeasable
malignity, and a remembrance of all that which was before Koshchei’s
time, and an undivulged foreknowledge which withered Toupan shared with
brisk little Koshchei alone. Nobody could speak certainly about this:
yet it was whispered that both of these well knew that, in the end, the
Old Ones would return, and that only Toupan knew in what manner and at
what hour....
But above the gods who in the multitudinous heavens and paradises were
now rejoicing over their regained omnipotence, far higher than these
junketing gods stood the Star Warriors and the Wardens of the Worlds,
each in the appointed place, and each once more set in eternal
watchfulness over all things as they are. And the Star Warriors and the
Wardens of the Worlds said, soberly, to Koshchei:
“Sir, your protection is established. You are protected as the guide of
the things which exist and of the things which are not yet created. You
are protected as a dweller in the realm which goes round about Those who
are over Hidden Things. For now the Old Ones sleep again, and not any
new thing anywhere shall ever gain the mastery over you, who are our
only master: and all things as they are stay yours forever.”
Koshchei replied, rather absent-mindedly: “What need was there to worry?
Did I not make my creatures male and female? and did I not make the tie
which is between them, that cord which I wove equally of love and of
disliking? Eh, sirs, but that is a strong cord, and though all things
that are depend upon it, my weaving holds.”
They answered him, “Your weaving holds, sir, assuredly: yet you do not
rejoice, as we rejoice.”
“Why, but,” said Koshchei, “but I do so hate flat incivility! And after
overlooking my handiwork, the fellow might very well have said something
intelligent. Nobody minds an honest criticism. Just to say nothing—and
in that rather marked way, you know,—is stupid!”
For Koshchei also, they relate, was, in his fashion, an artist.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_19._
_Settlement: in Full_
══════════════════════════════════════════════════
BUT that lesser artist, Miramon Lluagor—once more a potent sorcerer, in
his ivory tower, and once more preëminent among the dream-makers of this
world,—knew nothing of how he had played havoc with the handiwork of
Koshchei who made things as they are. Miramon only knew that upon the
black stone cross were buzzing fretfully three bees, who had now no
luster and no power to grant wishes to anybody; and that his wife Gisèle
also was making noises, not fretfully but in a tearing rage.
“A pretty trick that was to play on me!” she said. “Oh, but I pity the
woman that is married to an artist!”
“But why do you perpetually meddle without understanding?” he replied,
as fretful as the accursed bees, as angry as the intolerable woman....
And they went on very much as before....
They went on very much as before, because, as Miramon put it, the Norns,
for all their strength, had not been able to contrive for him any doom
more inflexible than he, like every other married man who holds his
station unmurderously, had contrived out of his weakness. The way of
Miramon Lluagor’s death, said he, was set and inescapable, because he
was one of the Léshy: but the way of his life he blushed to find quite
equally set and inescapable, because he was also a husband. In brief, he
detested this woman; she pestered his living, she hampered his art, and
with her foolish notions about his art she had, now, frittered away his
immortality: but he was rather fond of her, too, and he was used to her.
Miramon, in any event, fell back upon his famous saying that the secret
of a contented marriage is to pay particular attention to the wives of
everybody else; and from this axiom he derived what comfort he could. He
might, he reflected, have been married to that sallow, crippled,
flat-faced Niafer, who in the South was upsetting all the familiar
customs of Poictesme with her unrelenting piety, and who was actually
imposing upon her associates that sort of reputable and common-sense way
of living which Gisèle at worst only talked about. Niafer, indeed,
seemed to be becoming wholly insane; for very curious tales reached
Miramon as to the nonsense which this woman, too, was talking, about—of
all mad fancies!—how that cockeyed husband of hers was to return by and
by, in another incarnation.... Or Miramon, instead of his lost comrade
Kerin of Nointel, might have been married to that chit of a Saraïde who
had managed so artfully to dispose of her husband, in some undetected
manner or another, and who was now providing poor Kerin with such a host
of extra-legal successors.... Yes, Miramon would reflect (in Gisèle’s
absence), he might—conceivably at least,—have been worse off. Yet, a bit
later, with her return, this possibility would seem more and more
dubious.
And—in fine,—they went on very much as before. And Miramon Lluagor was
preëminent among the dream-makers of this world, and he was a dreaded
lord: but in his own home he was not dreaded, and he, very certainly,
was not preëminent.
Then, when the time was due, fell the appointed doom of Miramon, and he
was slain by his son Demetrios with the charmed sword Flamberge. For
this thing, people say, had long ago been agreed upon by the Norns, who
weave the fate of all that live: to them it could not matter that
Miramon Lluagor was preeminent among the dream-makers of this world,
because the Norns do not ever sleep: and no sorcerer, through whatsoever
havoc and upsetment of Koshchei’s chosen economy, has, in the end, power
to withstand the Norns.
Then Demetrios went far oversea into Anatolia; and he married Callistion
there, and in yet other ways he won a fine name for his hardihood and
shrewdness. And in the years that followed, he prospered (for a while)
without any check, and, because of a joke about Priapos, he pulled down
one emperor of heathenry, to raise up in his stead another emperor with
superior taste in humor. Demetrios held wide power and much land, and
was a ruthless master over all the country between Quesiton and
Nacumera. He was supreme there, as upon Vraidex Miramon Lluagor had been
supreme. It was the boast of Demetrios that he feared nobody in any of
the worlds beneath or above him, and that boast was truthful.
Yet none of these preëminencies could avail Demetrios, when the time was
due, and when the doom of Demetrios fell in that manner and that instant
which the Norns had agreed upon, and when he who had put his father out
of life with the great sword was, in his turn, put out of life with a
small wire. For this thing also, people say, had been appointed by Urdhr
and Verdandi and Skuld as they sat weaving under Yggdrasill beside the
carved door of the Sylan’s House: and to this saying the didactic like
to add that no warrior, through whatsoever havoc and upsetment of human
economy, has, in the end, power to withstand the Norns.
Now it was this Demetrios who married, among many other women, Dom
Manuel’s oldest daughter Melicent, as is narrated in her saga.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK FOUR
COTH AT PORUTSA
“_Their land also is full of idols: they worship the work of their own
hands._”
—ISAIAH, ii, 8.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_20._
_Idolatry of an Alderman_
══════════════════════════════════════════════════
NOW the tale is again of Coth, and of how Coth went blustering westward
to fetch back Dom Manuel into his Poictesme, which, as Coth asserted,
skinny women and holy persons and lying poets were making quite
uninhabitable. It is probable that Coth thus more or less obliquely
referred to the Countess Niafer herself, as well as to Holy Holmendis
and to pious Ninzian and to the most virtuous but not plump Madame
Balthis, the wife of Ninzian, since these three nowadays were the
advisers of Dame Niafer in everything. It is certain that, even in these
early days, Dom Manuel had already become a legend; and the poets
everywhere were rehearsing his valor and his wisdom and his noble
excellencies in all the affairs of this life.
But Coth of the Rocks twirled his mustachios, and he disapprovingly
shook his great bald head, and he went very quickly away from all these
reformings of Poictesme and of the master whom his heart remembered and
desired. Coth of the Rocks traveled westward, without any companion,
faring alone by land and sea. Coth broke his journeying, first, at
Sorcha, and he companioned there with Credhê of the Red Brown Hair: he
went thence to the Island of Hunchback Women, and it was in that island
(really a peninsula) he had so much pleasure, and deadly trouble too,
with a harlot named Bar, the wife of Ögir. But in neither of these
realms did Coth get any sure news of Dom Manuel, although there was a
rumor of such a passing. Then, at Kushavati, in a twilit place of
rustling leaves and very softly chiming little bells, Coth found, with
the aid of Dame Abonde, the book of maps by which he was thereafter to
be guided.
Coth journeyed, in fine, ever westward, with such occasional stays to
rest or copulate or fight as were the natural concomitants of travel. In
some lands he found only ill-confirmed reports that such a person as Dom
Manuel had passed that way before him: in other lands there was no
report. But Coth had reason, after what Abonde had showed him in that
secluded place under the rustling leaves, to put firm faith in his maps.
So he went on, always westward, with varied and pleasant enough
adventures befalling him, at Leyma, and Skeaf, and Adrisim. He had great
sorrow at Murnith, in the Land of Marked Bodies, on account of a
religious custom there prevalent and of the girl Felfel Rhasif Yedua;
and—at Ran Reigan,—the one-legged Queen Zélélé held him imprisoned for a
while, in her harem of half a hundred fine men. Yet, in the main, Coth
got on handily, in part by honoring the religious customs everywhere,
but chiefly by virtue of his maps and his natural endowments. These last
enabled him amply to deal with all men who wanted a quarrel and with all
women whom he found it expedient to placate and to surprise: and as far
as to Lower Yarold, and even to Khaikar the Red, his maps served
faithfully to guide him, until Coth perforce went over the edge of the
last one, into a country which was not upon any map; and in this way
approached, though he did not know it, to the city of Porutsa.
Thus, it was near Porutsa that Coth found a stone image standing in a
lonely field which was overgrown with pepper plants. Among these plants,
charred thighbones and ribs and other put-by appurtenances of mankind
lay scattered everywhither rather dispiritingly: and before the image
were the remnants of yet other burnt offerings, upon a large altar
carved everywhere with skulls.
This image represented a seated and somewhat scantily clothed giant
carved of black stone: from its ears hung rings of gold and silver; its
face was painted with five horizontal yellow stripes; and a great
gleaming jewel, which might or might not be an emerald, was set in its
navel. Such was the limited apparel of this giant’s person. But in the
right hand of the image were four arrows, and the left hand held a
curious fan made of a mirror surrounded by green and yellow and blue
feathers. Coth had never before seen such an idol as this.
“However, in this unknown region,” Coth reflected, “there are,
doubtless, a large number of unknown gods. They may not amount to much,
but Dame Abonde has taught me that in religious matters a traveler loses
nothing by civility.”
Coth knelt. He tendered fealty, and he prayed to this image for
protection in his search for his lost liege-lord. Coth heard a voice
saying:
“Your homage is accepted. Your prayers are granted.”
Coth looked upward, still kneeling. Coth saw that the huge black image
regarded him with living eyes, and that the mouth of this image was now
of moving purple flesh.
“Your prayers are granted, full measure,” the image continued, “because
you are the first person of your pallid color and peculiar clothing to
come over the edge of the map and worship me. Such enterprise in piety
ought to be rewarded: and I shall reward it, prodigally. Bald-headed man
with long mustaches, I promise you, upon the oath of the Star Warriors,
even by the Word of the Tzitzi-Mimé, that you shall rule over all the
country of Tollan. So that is settled: and now do you tell me who you
are.”
“I am Coth of the Rocks, the Alderman of St. Didol. I followed Dom
Manuel of Poictesme, about whom the poets nowadays are telling so many
outrageous lies. I followed him, that is, until he rode westward to a
far place beyond the sunset. Now I still follow him, since to do that
was my oath: and I have come into the West, not to rule over this
outlandish place, but to get news of my master, and to fetch him back
into Poictesme.”
“You will get no such news from me, for I never heard of this Manuel.”
“Why, then, whatever sort of deity can you be!”
“I am Yaotl, the Capricious Lord, the Enemy upon Both Sides. This is my
Place of the Dead: but I have everywhere power in this land, and I shall
have all power in this land when once I have driven out the Feathered
Serpent.”
“Then let me tell you, Messire Yaotl, you might very profitably add to
this power at least such knowledge as is common to the run of civilized
persons. It is not becoming in any deity never to have heard of my
liege-lord Dom Manuel, who was the greatest of all captains, and who
founded the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, of which I had the honor
to be a member. Such ignorance appears strange in anybody. In a deity it
is perfectly preposterous.”
“I was only saying—”
“Stop interrupting me! What sort of god are you, who break in upon the
devotional exercises of people when they are actually upon their knees!
It is my custom, sir, whenever I go into a foreign country, to be civil
to the gods of that country; and I am thus quite familiar with the
behavior appropriate to a deity in such circumstances. When people pray
to you, you ought to exhibit more repose of manner and a certain
well-bred reticence.”
“Oh, go away!” said the image of Yaotl, “and stop lecturing me! Go up
into Porutsa yonder, where the Taoltecs live, and where it may be they
have heard of your Dom Manuel, since the Taoltecs also are fools and
worship the Feathered Serpent. And when you are emperor over the country
of Tollan, do you come back and pray to me more civilly!”
Coth rose up from his kneeling, in strong indignation. “I tendered
fealty in the liberal sense appropriate to religious matters. It was but
a bit of politeness recommended by Dame Abonde, and I did not mean a
word of it—”
The image replied: “Nobody cares what you meant, it matters only what
you have sworn. I have accepted your sworn homage; and the affair is
concluded.”
“—And upon no terms,” Coth continued, “would I consent to be emperor of
this outlandish place. For the rest, do you instantly tell me what you
meant by saying ‘the Taoltecs also are fools,’ because I do not
understand that ‘also.’”
“But,” said the image, wearily, “but you will have to be emperor, now
that I have sworn it upon the oath of the Star Warriors. I do not deny
that I spoke hastily: even so, I did say it, with an unbreakable oath;
and, here likewise, the affair is concluded.”
Coth replied, “Stuff and nonsense!”