shape in the landscape, but smaller than a hill. Now they beheld along
the wall the weapons of Camorak’s men, of which already the lute-players
made songs, and tales were told at evening in the byres. There they
descried the shield of Camorak that had gone to and fro across so many
battles, and the sharp but dinted edges of his sword; there were the
weapons of Gadriol the Leal, and Norn, and Athoric of the Sleety Sword,
Heriel the Wild, Yarold, and Thanga of Esk, their arms hung evenly all
round the hall, low where a man could reach them; and in the place of
honour in the midst, between the arms of Camorak and of Gadriol the
Leal, hung the harp of Arleon. And of all the weapons hanging on those
walls none were more calamitous to Camorak’s foes than was the harp of
Arleon. For to a man that goes up against a strong place on foot,
pleasant indeed is the twang and jolt of some fearful engine of war that
his fellow-warriors are working behind him, from which huge rocks go
sighing over his head and plunge among his foes; and pleasant to a
warrior in the wavering fight are the swift commands of his King, and a
joy to him are his comrades’ distant cheers exulting suddenly at a turn
of the war. All this and more was the harp to Camorak’s men; for not
only would it cheer his warriors on, but many a time would Arleon of the
Harp strike wild amazement into opposing hosts by some rapturous
prophecy suddenly shouted out while his hand swept over the roaring
strings. Moreover, no war was ever declared till Camorak and his men had
listened long to the harp, and were elate with the music and mad against
peace. Once Arleon, for the sake of a rhyme, had made war upon Estabonn;
and an evil king was overthrown, and honour and glory won; from such
queer motives does good sometimes accrue.
Above the shields and the harps all round the hall were the painted
figures of heroes of fabulous famous songs. Too trivial, because too
easily surpassed by Camorak’s men, seemed all the victories that the
earth had known; neither was any trophy displayed of Camorak’s seventy
battles, for these were as nothing to his warriors or him compared with
those things that their youth had dreamed and which they mightily
purposed yet to do.
Above the painted pictures there was darkness, for evening was closing
in, and the candles swinging on their slender chain were not yet lit in
the roof; it was as though a piece of the night had been builded in to
the edifice like a huge natural rock that juts into a house. And there
sat all the warriors of Arn and the Weald-folk wondering at them; and
none were more than thirty, and all were skilled in war. And Camorak sat
at the head of all, exulting in his youth.
We must wrestle with Time for some seven decades, and he is a weak and
puny antagonist in the first three bouts.
Now there was present at this feast a diviner, one who knew the schemes
of Fate, and he sat among the people of the Weald and had no place of
honour, for Camorak and his men had no fear of Fate. And when the meat
was eaten and the bones cast aside, the king rose up from his chair, and
having drunken wine, and being in the glory of his youth and with all
his knights about him, called to the diviner, saying, “Prophesy.”
And the diviner rose up, stroking his grey beard, and spake
guardedly—“There are certain events,” he said, “upon the ways of Fate
that are veiled even from a diviner’s eyes, and many more are clear to
us that were better veiled from all; much I know that is better
unforetold, and some things that I may not foretell on pain of centuries
of punishment. But this I know and foretell—that you will never come to
Carcassonne.”
Instantly there was a buzz of talk telling of Carcassonne—some had heard
of it in speech or song, some had read of it, and some had dreamed of
it. And the king sent Arleon of the Harp down from his right hand to
mingle with the Weald-folk to hear aught that any told of Carcassonne.
But the warriors told of the places they had won to—many a hard-held
fortress, many a far-off land, and swore that they would come to
Carcassonne.
And in a while came Arleon back to the king’s right hand, and raised his
harp and chanted and told of Carcassonne. Far away it was, and far and
far away, a city of gleaming ramparts rising one over other, and marble
terraces behind the ramparts, and fountains shimmering on the terraces.
To Carcassonne the elf-kings with their fairies had first retreated from
men, and had built it on an evening late in May by blowing their elfin
horns. Carcassonne! Carcassonne!
Travellers had seen it sometimes like a clear dream, with the sun
glittering on its citadel upon a far-off hill-top, and then the clouds
had come or a sudden mist; no one had seen it long or come quite close
to it; though once there were some men that came very near, and the
smoke from the houses blew into their faces, a sudden gust—no more, and
these declared that some one was burning cedarwood there. Men had
dreamed that there is a witch there, walking alone through the cold
courts and corridors of marmorean palaces, fearfully beautiful still for
all her four-score centuries, singing the second oldest song, which was
taught her by the sea, shedding tears for loneliness from eyes that
would madden armies, yet will she not call her dragons home—Carcassonne
is terribly guarded. Sometimes she swims in a marble bath through whose
deeps a river tumbles, or lies all morning on the edge of it to dry
slowly in the sun, and watches the heaving river trouble the deeps of
the bath. It flows through the caverns of earth for further than she
knows, and coming to light in the witch’s bath goes down through the
earth again to its own peculiar sea.
In autumn sometimes it comes down black with snow that spring has molten
in unimagined mountains, or withered blooms of mountain shrubs go
beautifully by.
When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the mountains;
and yet she knows not where those mountains are.
When she sings the fountains dance up from the dark earth, when she
combs her hair they say there are storms at sea, when she is angry the
wolves grow brave and all come down to the byres, when she is sad the
sea is sad, and both are sad for ever. Carcassonne! Carcassonne!
This city is the fairest of the wonders of Morning; the sun shouts when
he beholdeth it; for Carcassonne Evening weepeth when Evening passeth
away.
And Arleon told how many goodly perils were round about the city, and
how the way was unknown, and it was a knightly venture. Then all the
warriors stood up and sang of the splendour of the venture. And Camorak
swore by the gods that had builded Arn, and by the honour of his
warriors that, alive or dead, he would come to Carcassonne.
But the diviner rose and passed out of the hall, brushing the crumbs
from him with his hands and smoothing his robe as he went.
Then Camorak said, “There are many things to be planned, and counsels to
be taken, and provender to be gathered. Upon what day shall we start?”
And all the warriors answering shouted, “Now.” And Camorak smiled
thereat, for he had but tried them. Down then from the walls they took
their weapons, Sikorix, Kelleron, Aslof, Wole of the Axe; Huhenoth,
Peacebreaker; Wolwuf, Father of War; Tarion, Lurth of the War-cry and
many another. Little then dreamed the spiders that sat in that ringing
hall of the unmolested leisure they were soon to enjoy.
When they were armed they all formed up and marched out of the hall, and
Arleon strode before them singing of Carcassonne.
But the folk of the Weald arose and went back well-fed to their byres.
They had no need of wars or of rare perils. They were ever at war with
hunger. A long drought or hard winter were to them pitched battles; if
the wolves entered a sheepfold it was like the loss of a fortress, a
thunder-storm on the harvest was like an ambuscade. Well-fed, they went
back slowly to their byres, being at truce with hunger: and the night
filled with stars.
And black against the starry sky appeared the round helms of the
warriors as they passed the tops of the ridges, but in the valleys they
sparkled now and then as the starlight flashed on steel.
They followed behind Arleon going south, whence rumours had always come
of Carcassonne: so they marched in the starlight, and he before them
singing.
When they had marched so far that they heard no sound from Arn, and even
inaudible were her swinging bells, when candles burning late far up in
towers no longer sent them their disconsolate welcome; in the midst of
the pleasant night that lulls the rural spaces, weariness came upon
Arleon and his inspiration failed. It failed slowly. Gradually he grew
less sure of the way to Carcassonne. Awhile he stopped to think, and
remembered the way again; but his clear certainty was gone, and in its
place were efforts in his mind to recall old prophecies and shepherd’s
songs that told of the marvellous city. Then as he said over carefully
to himself a song that a wanderer had learnt from a goatherd’s boy far
up the lower slope of ultimate southern mountains, fatigue came down
upon his toiling mind like snow on the winding ways of a city noisy by
night, stilling all.
He stood, and the warriors closed up to him. For long they had passed by
great oaks standing solitary here and there, like giants taking huge
breaths of the night air before doing some furious deed; now they had
come to the verge of a black forest; the tree-trunks stood like those
great columns in an Egyptian hall whence God in an older mood received
the praise of men; the top of it sloped the way of an ancient wind. Here
they all halted and lighted a fire of branches, striking sparks from
flint into a heap of bracken. They eased them of their armour, and sat
round the fire, and Camorak stood up there and addressed them, and
Camorak said: “We go to war with Fate, who has doomed that I shall not
come to Carcassonne. And if we turn aside but one of the dooms of Fate,
then the whole future of the world is ours, and the future that Fate has
ordered is like the dry course of an averted river. But if such men as
we, such resolute conquerors, cannot prevent one doom that Fate has
planned, then is the race of man enslaved for ever to do its petty and
allotted task.”
Then they all drew their swords, and waved them high in the firelight,
and declared war on Fate.
Nothing in the sombre forest stirred or made any sound.
Tired men do not dream of war. When morning came over the gleaming
fields a company that had set out from Arn discovered the camping-place
of the warriors, and brought pavilions and provender. And the warriors
feasted, and the birds in the forest sang, and the inspiration of Arleon
awoke.
Then they arose, and following Arleon, entered the forest, and marched
away to the South. And many a woman of Arn sent her thoughts with them
as they played alone some old monotonous tune, but their own thoughts
were far before them, skimming over the bath through whose deeps the
river tumbles in marble Carcassonne.
When butterflies were dancing on the air, and the sun neared the zenith,
pavilions were pitched, and all the warriors rested; and then they
feasted again, and then played knightly games, and late in the afternoon
marched on once more, singing of Carcassonne.
And night came down with its mystery on the forest, and gave their
demoniac look again to the trees, and rolled up out of misty hollows a
huge and yellow moon.
And the men of Arn lit fires, and sudden shadows arose and leaped
fantastically away. And the night-wind blew, arising like a ghost, and
passed between the tree-trunks, and slipped down shimmering glades, and
waked the prowling beasts still dreaming of day, and drifted nocturnal
birds afield to menace timorous things, and beat the roses against
cottagers’ panes, and whispered news of the befriending night, and
wafted to the ears of wandering men the sound of a maiden’s song, and
gave a glamour to the lutanist’s tune played in his loneliness on
distant hills; and the deep eyes of moths glowed like a galleon’s lamps,
and they spread their wings and sailed their familiar sea. Upon this
night-wind also the dreams of Camorak’s men floated to Carcassonne.
All the next morning they marched, and all the evening, and knew they
were nearing now the deeps of the forest. And the citizens of Arn kept
close together and close behind the warriors. For the deeps of the
forest were all unknown to travellers, but not unknown to those tales of
fear that men tell at evening to their friends, in the comfort and the
safety of their hearths. Then night appeared, and an enormous moon. And
the men of Camorak slept. Sometimes they woke, and went to sleep again;
and those that stayed awake for long and listened heard heavy two-footed
creatures pad through the night on paws.
As soon as it was light the unarmed men of Arn began to slip away, and
went back by bands through the forest. When darkness came they did not
stop to sleep, but continued their flight straight on until they came to
Arn, and added there by the tales they told to the terror of the forest.
But the warriors feasted, and afterwards Arleon rose, and played his
harp, and led them on again; and a few faithful servants stayed with
them still. And they marched all day through a gloom that was as old as
night, but Arleon’s inspiration burned in his mind like a star. And he
led them till the birds began to drop into the tree-tops, and it was
evening and they all encamped. They had only one pavilion left to them
now, and near it they lit a fire, and Camorak posted a sentry with drawn
sword just beyond the glow of the firelight. Some of the warriors slept
in the pavilion and others round about it.
When dawn came something terrible had killed and eaten the sentry. But
the splendour of the rumours of Carcassonne and Fate’s decree that they
should never come there, and the inspiration of Arleon and his harp, all
urged the warriors on; and they marched deeper and deeper all day into
the forest.
Once they saw a dragon that had caught a bear and was playing with it,
letting it run a little way and overtaking it with a paw.
They came at last to a clear space in the forest just before nightfall.
An odour of flowers arose from it like a mist, and every drop of dew
interpreted heaven unto itself.
It was the hour when twilight kisses Earth.
It was the hour when a meaning comes into senseless things, and trees
out-majesty the pomp of monarchs, and the timid creatures steal abroad
to feed, and as yet the beasts of prey harmlessly dream, and Earth
utters a sigh, and it is night.
In the midst of the wide clearing Camorak’s warriors camped, and
rejoiced to see the stars again appearing one by one.
That night they ate the last of their provisions, and slept unmolested
by the prowling things that haunt the gloom of the forest.
On the next day some of the warriors hunted stags, and others lay in
rushes by a neighboring lake and shot arrows at water-fowl. One stag was
killed, and some geese, and several teal.
Here the adventurers stayed, breathing the pure wild air that cities
know not; by day they hunted, and lit fires by night, and sang and
feasted, and forgot Carcassonne. The terrible denizens of the gloom
never molested them, venison was plentiful, and all manner of
water-fowl: they loved the chase by day, and by night their favourite
songs. Thus day after day went by, thus week after week. Time flung over
this encampment a handful of noons, the gold and silver moons that waste
the year away; Autumn and Winter passed, and Spring appeared; and still
the warriors hunted and feasted there.
One night of the springtide they were feasting about a fire and telling
tales of the chase, and the soft moths came out of the dark and flaunted
their colours in the firelight, and went out grey into the dark again;
and the night wind was cool upon the warriors’ necks, and the camp-fire
was warm in their faces, and a silence had settled among them after some
song, and Arleon all at once rose suddenly up, remembering Carcassonne.
And his hand swept over the strings of his harp, awaking the deeper
chords, like the sound of a nimble people dancing their steps on bronze,
and the music rolled away into the night’s own silence, and the voice of
Arleon rose:
“When there is blood in the bath she knows there is war in the
mountains, and longs for the battle-shout of kingly men.”
And suddenly all shouted, “Carcassonne!” And at that word their idleness
was gone as a dream is gone from a dreamer waked with a shout. And soon
the great march began that faltered no more nor wavered. Unchecked by
battles, undaunted in lonesome spaces, ever unwearied by the vulturous
years, the warriors of Camorak held on; and Arleon’s inspiration led
them still. They cleft with the music of Arleon’s harp the gloom of
ancient silences; they went singing into battles with terrible wild men,
and came out singing, but with fewer voices; they came to villages in
valleys full of the music of bells, or saw the lights at dusk of
cottages sheltering others.
They became a proverb for wandering, and a legend arose of strange,
disconsolate men. Folks spoke of them at nightfall when the fire was
warm and rain slipped down the eaves; and when the wind was high small
children feared the Men Who Would Not Rest were going clattering past.
Strange tales were told of men in old grey armour moving at twilight
along the tops of the hills and never asking shelter; and mothers told
their boys who grew impatient of home that the grey wanderers were once
so impatient and were now hopeless of rest, and were driven along with
the rain whenever the wind was angry.
But the wanderers were cheered in their wandering by the hope of coming
to Carcassonne, and later on by anger against Fate, and at last they
marched on still because it seemed better to march on than to think.
For many years they had wandered and had fought with many tribes; often
they gathered legends in villages and listened to idle singers singing
songs; and all the rumours of Carcassonne still came from the South.
And then one day they came to a hilly land with a legend in it that only
three valleys away a man might see, on clear days, Carcassonne. Tired
though they were and few, and worn with the years which had all brought
them wars, they pushed on instantly, led still by Arleon’s inspiration
which dwindled in his age, though he made music with his old harp still.
All day they climbed down into the first valley and for two days
ascended, and came to the Town That May Not Be Taken In War below the
top of the mountain, and its gates were shut against them, and there was
no way round. To left and right steep precipices stood for as far as eye
could see or legend tell of, and the pass lay through the city.
Therefore Camorak drew up his remaining warriors in line of battle to
wage their last war, and they stepped forward over the crisp bones of
old, unburied armies.
No sentinel defied them in the gate, no arrow flew from any tower of
war. One citizen climbed alone to the mountain’s top, and the rest hid
themselves in sheltered places.
Now, in the top of the mountain was a deep, bowl-like cavern in the
rock, in which fires bubbled softly. But if any cast a boulder into the
fires, as it was the custom for one of those citizens to do when enemies
approached them, the mountain hurled up intermittent rocks for three
days, and the rocks fell flaming all over the town and all round about
it. And just as Camorak’s men began to batter the gate they heard a
crash on the mountain, and a great rock fell beyond them and rolled into
the valley. The next two fell in front of them on the iron roofs of the
town. Just as they entered the town a rock found them crowded in a
narrow street, and shattered two of them. The mountain smoked and
panted; with every pant a rock plunged into the streets or bounced along
the heavy iron roof, and the smoke went slowly up, and up, and up.
When they had come through the long town’s empty streets to the locked
gate at the end, only fifteen were left. When they had broken down the
gate there were only ten alive. Three more were killed as they went up
the slope, and two as they passed near the terrible cavern. Fate let the
rest go some way down the mountain upon the other side, and then took
three of them. Camorak and Arleon alone were left alive. And night came
down on the valley to which they had come, and was lit by flashes from
the fatal mountain; and the two mourned for their comrades all night
long.
But when the morning came they remembered their war with Fate, and their
old resolve to come to Carcassonne, and the voice of Arleon rose in a
quavering song, and snatches of music from his old harp, and he stood up
and marched with his face southwards as he had done for years, and
behind him Camorak went. And when at last they climbed from the third
valley, and stood on the hill’s summit in the golden sunlight of
evening, their aged eyes saw only miles of forest and the birds going to
roost.
Their beards were white, and they had travelled very far and hard; it
was the time with them when a man rests from labours and dreams in light
sleep of the years that were and not of the years to come.
Long they looked southwards; and the sun set over remoter forests, and
glowworms lit their lamps, and the inspiration of Arleon rose and flew
away for ever, to gladden, perhaps, the dreams of younger men.
And Arleon said: “My King, I know no longer the way to Carcassonne.”
And Camorak smiled, as the aged smile, with little cause for mirth, and
said: “The years are going by us like huge birds, whom Doom and Destiny
and the schemes of God have frightened up out of some old grey marsh.
And it may well be that against these no warrior may avail, and that
Fate has conquered us, and that our quest has failed.”
And after this they were silent.
Then they drew their swords, and side by side went down into the forest,
still seeking for Carcassonne.
I think they got not far; for there were deadly marshes in that forest,
and gloom that outlasted the nights, and fearful beasts accustomed to
its ways. Neither is there any legend, either in verse or among the
songs of the people of the fields, of any having come to Carcassonne.
_In Zaccarath_
“Come,” said the King in sacred Zaccarath, “and let our prophets
prophesy before us.”
A far-seen jewel of light was the holy palace, a wonder to the nomads on
the plains.
There was the King with all his under-lords, and the lesser kings that
did him vassalage, and there were all his queens with all their jewels
upon them.
Who shall tell of the splendour in which they sat; of the thousand
lights and the answering emeralds; of the dangerous beauty of that hoard
of queens, or the flash of their laden necks?
There was a necklace there of rose-pink pearls beyond the art of dreamer
to imagine. Who shall tell of the amethyst chandeliers, where torches,
soaked in rare Bhyrinian oils, burned and gave off a scent of
blethany?[1]
Footnote 1:
The herb marvellous, which, growing near the summit of Mount Zaumnos,
scents all the Zaumnian range, and is smelt far out on the Kepuscran
plains, and even, when the wind is from the mountains, in the streets
of the city of Ognoth. At night it closes its petals and is heard to
breathe, and its breath is a swift poison. This it does even by day if
the snows are disturbed about it. No plant of this has ever been
captured alive by a hunter.
Enough to say that when the dawn came up it appeared by contrast pallid
and unlovely and stripped all bare of its glory, so that it hid itself
with rolling clouds.
“Come,” said the King, “let our prophets prophesy.”
Then the heralds stepped through the ranks of the King’s silk-clad
warriors who lay oiled and scented upon velvet cloaks, with a pleasant
breeze among them caused by the fans of slaves; even their
casting-spears were set with jewels; through their ranks the heralds
went with mincing steps, and came to the prophets, clad in brown and
black, and one of them they brought and set him before the King. And the
King looked at him and said, “Prophesy unto us.”
And the prophet lifted his head, so that his beard came clear from his
brown cloak, and the fans of the slaves that fanned the warriors wafted
the tip of it a little awry. And he spake to the King, and spake thus:
“Woe unto thee, King, and woe unto Zaccarath. Woe unto thee, and woe
unto thy women, for your fall shall be sore and soon. Already in Heaven
the gods shun thy god: they know his doom and what is written of him: he
sees oblivion before him like a mist. Thou hast aroused the hate of the
mountaineers. They hate thee all along the crags of Droom. The evilness
of thy days shall bring down the Zeedians on thee as the suns of
springtide bring the avalanche down. They shall do unto Zaccarath as the
avalanche doth unto the hamlets of the valley.” When the queens
chattered or tittered among themselves, he merely raised his voice and
still spake on: “Woe to these walls and the carven things upon them. The
hunter shall know the camping-places of the nomads by the marks of the
camp-fires on the plain, but he shall not know the place of Zaccarath.”
A few of the recumbent warriors turned their heads to glance at the
prophet when he ceased. Far overhead the echoes of his voice hummed on
awhile among the cedarn rafters.
“Is he not splendid?” said the King.