_The Rune of the Elf King_
On the high balcony of his gleaming tower the King of Elfland stood.
Below him echoed yet the thousand steps. He had lifted his head to chant
the rune that should hold his daughter in Elfland, and in that moment
had seen her pass the murky barrier; which on this side, facing toward
Elfland, is all lustrous with twilight, and on that side, facing towards
the fields we know, is smoky and angry and dull. And now he had dropped
his head till his beard lay mingled with his cape of ermine above his
cerulean cloak, and stood there silently sorrowful, while time passed
swift as ever over the fields we know.
And standing there all blue and white against his silver tower, aged by
the passing of times of which we know nothing, before he imposed its
eternal calm upon Elfland, he thought of his daughter amongst our
pitiless years. For he knew, whose wisdom surpassed the confines of
Elfland and touched our rugged fields, knew well the harshness of
material things and all the turmoil of Time. Even as he stood there he
knew that the years that assail beauty, and the myriad harshnesses that
vex the spirit, were already about his daughter. And the days that
remained to her now seemed scarce more to him, dwelling beyond the fret
and ruin of Time, than to us might seem a briar rose's hours when
plucked and foolishly hawked in the streets of a city. He knew that
there hung over her now the doom of all mortal things. He thought of her
perishing soon, as mortal things must; to be buried amongst the rocks of
a land that scorned Elfland and that held its most treasured myths to be
of little account. And were he not the King of all that magical land,
which held its eternal calm from his own mysterious serenity, he had
wept to think of the grave in rocky Earth gripping that form that was so
fair forever. Or else, he thought, she would pass to some paradise far
from his knowledge, some heaven of which books told in the fields we
know, for he had heard even of this. He pictured her on some
apple-haunted hill, under blossoms of an everlasting April, through
which flickered the pale gold haloes of those that had cursed Elfland.
He saw, though dimly for all his magical wisdom, the glory that only the
blessed clearly see. He saw his daughter on those heavenly hills stretch
out both arms, as he knew well she would, towards the pale-blue peaks of
her elfin home, while never one of the blessed heeded her yearning. And
then, though he was king of all that land, that had its everlasting calm
from him, he wept and all Elfland shivered. It shivered as placid water
shivers here if something suddenly touches it from our fields.
Then the King turned and left his balcony and went in great haste down
his brazen steps.
He came clanging to the ivory doors that shut the tower below, and
through them came to the throne-room of which only song may tell. And
there he took a parchment out of a coffer and a plume from some
fabulous wing, and dipping the plume into no earthly ink, wrote out a
rune on the parchment. Then raising two fingers he made the minor
enchantment whereby he summoned his guard. And no guard came.
I have said that no time passed at all in Elfland. Yet the happening of
events is in itself a manifestation of time, and no event can occur
unless time pass. Now it is thus with time in Elfland: in the eternal
beauty that dreams in that honied air nothing stirs or fades or dies,
nothing seeks its happiness in movement or change or a new thing, but
has its ecstasy in the perpetual contemplation of all the beauty that
has ever been, and which always glows over those enchanted lawns as
intense as when first created by incantation or song. Yet if the
energies of the wizard's mind arose to meet a new thing, then that power
that had laid its calm upon Elfland and held back time troubled the calm
awhile, and time for awhile shook Elfland. Cast anything into a deep
pool from a land strange to it, where some great fish dreams, and green
weeds dream, and heavy colours dream, and light sleeps; the great fish
stirs, the colours shift and change, the green weeds tremble, the light
wakes, a myriad things know slow movement and change; and soon the whole
pool is still again. It was the same when Alveric passed through the
border of twilight and right through the enchanted wood, and the King
was troubled and moved, and all Elfland trembled.
When the King saw that no guard came he looked into the wood which he
knew to be troubled, through the deep mass of the trees, that were
quivering yet with the coming of Alveric; he looked through the deeps of
the wood and the silver walls of his palace, for he looked by
enchantment, and there he saw the four knights of his guard lying
stricken upon the ground with their thick elvish blood hanging out
through slits in their armour. And he thought of the early magic whereby
he had made the eldest, with a rune all newly inspired, before he had
conquered Time. He passed out through the splendour and glow of one of
his flashing portals, and over a gleaming lawn and came to the fallen
guard, and saw the trees still troubled.
"There has been magic here," said the King of Elfland.
And then though he only had three runes that could do such a thing, and
though they only could be uttered once, and one was already written upon
parchment to bring his daughter home, he uttered the second of his most
magical runes over that elder knight that his magic had made long ago.
And in the silence that followed the last words of the rune the rents in
the moon-bright armour all clicked shut at once, and the thick dark
blood was gone and the knight rose live to his feet. And the Elf King
now had only one rune left that was mightier than any magic we know.
The other three knights lay dead; and, having no souls, their magic
returned again to the mind of their master.
He went back then to his palace, while he sent the last of his guard to
fetch him a troll.
Dark brown of skin and two or three feet high the trolls are a gnomish
tribe that inhabit Elfland. And soon there was a scamper in the
throne-room that may only be told of in song, and a troll lit by the
throne on its two bare feet and stood before its king. The King gave it
the parchment with the rune written thereon, saying: "Scamper hence, and
pass over the end of the Land, until you come to the fields that none
know here; and find the Princess Lirazel who is gone to the haunts of
men, and give her this rune and she shall read it and all shall be
well."
And the troll scampered thence.
And soon the troll was come with long leaps to the frontier of twilight.
Then nothing moved in Elfland any more; and motionless on that splendid
throne of which only song may speak sat the old King mourning in
silence.