 Section 7 of Under the Sunset by Bram Stoker. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Castle of the King When they told the poor poet that the one he loved best was lying sick in the shadow of danger, he was nigh distraught. For weeks past he had been alone. She, his wife, having gone afar to her old home to see an aged grandsire ere he died. The poet's heart had for some days been oppressed with a strange sorrow. He did not know the cause of it. He only knew with the deep sympathy which is the poet's gift, that the one he loved was sick. Anxiously had he awaited tidings. When the news came, the shock, although he expected a sad message, was too much for him, and he became nigh distraught. In his sadness and anxiety he went out into the garden, which long years he had cultured for her. There amongst the bright flowers where the old statue stood softly white against the hedges of you. He lay down in the long uncut summer grass and wept with his head very low. He thought of all the past, of how he had won his wife and how they loved each other. And to him it seemed a sad and cruel thing that she was afar and in danger, and he not near to comfort her or even to share her pain. Many, many thoughts came back to him, telling the story of the weary years whose gloom and solitude he had forgotten in the brightness of his lovely home. How in youth a twain had met and in a moment loved. How his poverty and her greatness had kept them apart. How he had struggled and toiled in the steep and rugged road to fame and fortune. How all through the weary years he had striven with the single idea of winning, such a place in the history of his time, that he should be able to come and to her say, I love you, and to her proud relations I am worthy, for I too have become great. How amid all this dreaming of a happy time which might come, he had kept silent as to his love. How he had never seen her or heard her voice, or even know her habitation, lest knowing he should fail in the purpose of his life. How time, as it ever does to those who work with honesty and singleness of purpose, crown the labours and the patience of his life. How the world had come to know his name and reverence, and love it as of one who had helped the weak and weary by his example. Who had purified the thoughts of all who listened to his words, and who had swept away baseness before the grandeur and simpleness of his noble thoughts. How success had followed in the wake of fame. How at length, even to his heart, timorous with the doubt of love, had been born the thought that he had at last achieved the greatness which justified him in seeking the hand of her he loved. How he had come back to his native place, and there found her still free. How when he had dared to tell her of his love, she had whispered to him that she too had waited all the years, for that she knew that he would come to claim her at the end. How she had come with him as his bride into the home which he had been making for her all these years. How there they had lived happily, and had dared to look into the long years to come for joy and content without a bar. How he thought that even then, when though somewhat enfeebled in strength by the ceaseless toil of years and the care of hoping, he might look to the happy time to come. But alas for hope, for who knoweth what a day may bring forth. Only a little while ago his dear one had left him hail, departing in the cause of duty, and now she lay sick and he not nigh to help her. All the sunshine of his life seemed passing away, all the long years of waiting and the patient continuance in well-doing, which had crowned their years with love, seemed as but a passing dream, and was all in vain, all, all in vain. Now with the shadow hovering over his beloved one, the cloud seemed to be above and around them, and to hold in its dim recesses the doom of them both. Why, oh why, asked the poor poet to the viewless air, did love come to us? Why came peace and joy and happiness if the darkening wings of peril shadow the air around her, and leave me to weep alone? Thus he moaned and raved and wept, and the bitter hours went by him in his solitude. As he lay in the garden with his face buried in the long grass, they came to him and told him with weeping that tidings, sad indeed, had come. As they spoke he lifted his poor head and gazed at them, and they saw in the great dark tender eyes that now he was quite distraught. He smiled at them sadly, as though not quite understanding the import of their words. As tenderly as they could, they tried to tell him that the one he loved best was dead. They said, she has walked in the valley of the shadow, but he seemed to understand them not. They whispered, she has heard the music of the spheres, but still he comprehended not. Then they spoke to him sorrowfully and said, she now abides in the castle of the king. He looked at them eagerly as if to ask, what castle, what king? They bowed their heads and as they turned away weeping, they murmured to him softly, the castle of the king of death. He spake no word, so they turned their weeping faces to him again. They found that he had risen and stood with a set purpose on his face. Then he said sweetly, I go to find her, that where she abide her, I too may there abide. They said to him, you cannot go, beyond the portal she is and in the land of death. Set purpose, Sean, in the poet's earnest loving eyes, as he answered them for the last time. Where she has gone, there go I too, through the valley of the shadow shall I went my way. In these ears also shall ring the music of the spheres. I shall seek and I shall find my beloved in the halls of the castle of the king. I shall clasp her close, even before the dread face of the king of death. As they heard these words they bowed their heads again and wept and said, alas, alas. The poet turned and left them and passed away. They feign would have followed, but he motioned them that they should not stir, so alone in his grief he went. As he passed on he turned and waved his hand to them in farewell. Then for a while with uplifted hand he stood and turned him slowly all around. Suddenly his outstretched hand stopped and pointed. His friends looking with him saw where, away beyond the portal, the idle wilderness spread. There in the midst of desolation the mist from the marshes hung like a pool of gloom on the far off horizon. As the poet pointed there was a gleam of happiness, very, very faint it was, in his poor, sad eyes. Distraught with loss as if afar he beheld some sign or hope of the lost one. Swiftly and sadly the poet fared on through the burning day. The rest time came, but on he journeyed. He paused not for shade or rest. Never, even for an instant did he stop to cool his parched lips with an icy draught from the crystal springs. The weary wayfarers resting in the cool shadows beside the fountains raised their tired heads and looked at him with sleepy eyes as he hurried. He heeded them not, but went ever onward with set purpose in his eyes, as though some gleam of hope bursting through the mists of the distant marshes urged him on. So he fared on through all the burning day and all the silent night. In the earliest dawn when the promise of the still unrisened sun quickened the eastern sky into a pale light he drew an eye the portal. The horizon stood out blackly in the cold morning light. There as ever stood the angels who kept watch and ward an oh wondrous although invisible to human eyes they were seen of him. As he drew an eye they gazed at him pitchingly and swept their great wings out wide as if to shelter him. He spake and from his troubled heart the sad words came sweetly through the pale lips. Say ye who guard the land, has my beloved one passed hither on the journey to the valley of the shadow to hear the music of the spheres and to abide in the castle of the king. The angels at the portal bowed their heads in token of assent and they turned and looked outward from the land to where far off in the idle wilderness the dank mists crept from the lifeless bosom of the marsh. They knew well that the poor lonely poet was in quest of his beloved one so they hindered him not neither urged they him to stay they pitted him much for that much he loved they parted wide that through the portal he might pass without let so the poet went onwards into the idle desert to look for his beloved one in the castle of the king for a time he went through gardens whose beauty was riper than the gardens of the land the sweetness of all things stole on the senses like the odours from the aisles of the blessed the subtlety of the king of death who rules in the realms of evil is great he has ordered that the way beyond the portal be made full of charm thus those straying from the paths ordained for good see around them such beauty that in its joy the gloom and cruelty and guilt of the desert are forgotten but as the poet passed onwards the beauty began to fade away the fair gardens looked as gardens do when the hand of care is taken off and when the weeds in their hideous luxuriant choke as they spring up the choice of life of the flowers from cool alleys under spreading branches and from crisp sword which touched as soft as velvet the wanderers aching feet the way became a rugged stony path full open to the burning glare the flowers began to lose their odor and to dwarf to stunted growth tall hemlocks rose on every side infecting the air with their noisome odor great fungi grew in the dark hollows where the pools of dank water lay tall trees with branches like skeletons rose trees which had no leaves and under whose shadow to pause were to die then huge rocks barred the way these were only passed by narrow winding passages overhung by the ponderous cliffs above which ever threatened to fall and engulf the sojourner here the night began to fall and the dim mist rising from the far off marshes took weird shapes of gloom in the distant fastnesses of the mountains the wild beasts began to roar in their cavern lairs the air became hideous with the fell sounds of the night season but the poor poet he did not ill sights or sounds of dread onward he went ever i'm thinking of the terrors of the night to him there was no dread of darkness no fear of death no consciousness of horror he sought his beloved one in the castle of the king and in that eager quest all natural terrors were forgot so fared he onward through the live long night up the steep defiles he trod through the shadows of the huge rocks he passed unscathed the wild animals came around him roaring fiercely their great eyes flaming like fiery stars through the blackness of the night from the high rocks great pythons crawled and hung to seize their prey from the crevices of the mountain steeps and from cavernous rifts in the rocky way poisonous serpents glided and rose to strike but close though the noxious things came they all refrained to attack for they knew that the lonely sojourner was bound for the castle of their king onward still onward he went unceasing pausing not in his course but pressing ever forward in his quest when daylight broke at last the sun rose on a sorry sight there toiling on the rocky way the poor lonely poet went ever onwards unheeding of cold or hunger or pain his feet were bare and his footsteps on the rock strewn way were marked by blood around and behind him and a far off keeping equal pace on the summits of the rocky ridges came the wild beasts that looked on him as their prey but that refrained from touching him because he sought the castle of their king in the air wheeled the obscene birds who follow ever on the track of the dying and the lost hovered the bare-necked vultures with eager eyes and hungry beaks their great wings flapped lazily in the idle air as they followed in the wanderers track the vulture are a patient folk and they await the falling of their prey from the cavernous recesses in the black mountain gorge's crept with silent speed the serpents that their lurk came the python with his colossal folds and endless coils went looked forth cunningly the small flat head came the boa and all his tribe which sees their prey by force and crush it with the dread strictness of their embrace came the hooded snakes and all those which with their venom destroy their prey here too came those serpents most terrible of all to their quarry which fascinate with eyes of weird magic and by the slow gracefulness of their approach here came or lay in wait subtle snakes which take the color of herb or leaf or dead branch or slimy pool amongst which they lurk and so strike their prey unsuspecting great serpents there were nimble of body which hang from rock or branch these gripping tight to their distant hold strike downward with the rapidity of light as they hurl their whip like bodies from afar upon their prey thus came forth all these noxious things to meet the questing man and to assail him but when they knew he was bound for the dread castle of their king and saw how he went onward without fear they abstained from attack the deadly python and the boa towering aloft with colossal folds were passive and for the nonce became a stone the hooded serpents drew in again their venomous fangs the mild deep earnest eyes of the fascinating snake became lurid with baffled spleen as he felt his power to charm was without avail in its deadly descent the hanging snake arrested its course and hung a limp line from rock or branch many followed the wanderer onwards into the desert wilds waiting and hoping for a chance to destroy many other perils also were there for the poor wanderer in the desert idleness as he went onward the rocky way got steeper and darker lurid frogs and deadly chill mists arose then in this path along the trackless wilderness were strange and terrible things mandrakes half plant half man shrieked at him with despairing cry as helpless for evil they stretched out their ghastly arms in vain giant thorns arose in the path they pierced his suffering feet and tore his flesh as onward he trod he felt the pain but he heeded it not in all the long terrible journey he had but one idea other than his eager search for his beloved one he thought that the children of men might learn much from the journey towards the castle of the king which began so fair amidst the odorous gardens and under the cool shadow of the spreading trees in his heart the poet spake to the multitude of the children of men and from his lips the words flowed like music for he sang of the golden gate which the angels call truth pass not the portal of the sunset land pause where the angels at their vigil stand be warned and press not though the gates lie wide but rest securely on the hither side though odorous gardens and cool ways invite beyond our darkest valleys of the night rest rest contented pause whilst undefiled nor seek the horrors of the desert wild thus treading down all obstacles with his bleeding feet passed ever onwards the poor distraught poet to seek his beloved one in the castle of the king even as onward he went the life that is of the animal seemed to die away behind him the jackals and the more cowardly savage animals slunk away the lions and tigers and bears and wolves and all the braver of the fierce beasts of prey which followed on his track even after the others had stopped now began to halt in their career they growled low and then roared loudly with uplifted heads the bristles of their mouths quivered with passion and the great white teeth champed angrily together in baffled rage they went on a little further and stopped again roaring and growling as before then one by one they ceased and the poor poet went on alone in the air the vultures wheeled and screamed pausing and halting in their flight as did the savage beasts these two ceased at length to follow in air the wanderer in his onward course longest of all kept up the snakes with many a writhe and stealthy onward glide they followed hard upon the footsteps of the questing man in the blood marks of his feet upon the flinty rocks they found a joy and hope and they followed ever but time came when the awful aspect of the places where the poet passed checked even the serpents in their track the gloomy defiles whence issue the poisonous winds that sweep with desolation even the dens of the beasts of prey the sterile fastnesses which march upon the valleys of desolation here even the stealthy serpents paused in their course and they too fell away they glided back smiling with deadliest rancor to their obscene clefts then came places where plants and verger began to cease the very weeds became more and more stunted and inane farther on they declined into the sterility of lifeless rock then the most noxious herbs that grew in ghastly shapes of gloom and terror lost even the power to harm which outlives their living growth dwarfed and stunted even of evil they were compact of the dead rock here even the deadly upus tree could strike no root into the pestiferous earth then came places where in the entrance to the valley of the shadow even solid things lost their substance and melted in the dank and cold mists which swept along as he passed the distraught poet could feel not solid earth under his bleeding feet on shadows he walked and amid them onward through the valley of the shadow to seek his beloved one in the castle of the king the valley of the shadow seemed of endless expanse circled by the teeming mist no eye could pierce to where rose the great mountain between which the valley lay yet they stood there mount despair on the one hand and the hill of fear upon the other hitherto the poor bewildered brain of the poet had taken no note of all the dangers and horrors and pains which surrounded him save only for the lesson which they taught but now lost as he was in the shrouding vapor of the valley of the shadow he could not but think of the terrors of the way he was surrounded by grizzly phantoms that ever and on arose silent in the mist and were lost again before he could catch to the full of their dreading port then there flashed across his soul a terrible thought could it be possible that hither his beloved one had traveled had they come to her the pains which shook his own form with agony was it indeed necessary that she should have been appalled by all these surrounding horrors at the thought of her his beloved one suffering such pain and dread he gave forth one bitter cry that rang through the solitude that cleft the vapor of the valley and echoed in the caverns of the mountains of despair and fear the wild cry prolonged with the agony of the poet's soul rang through the valley till the shadows that peopled it woke for the moment into life in death they flitted dimly along now melting away and non springing again into life till all the valley of the shadow was for once peopled with quickened ghosts oh in that hour there was agony to the poor distraught poet soul but presently there came a calm when the rush of his first agony passed the poet knew that to the dead came not the horrors of the journey that he undertook to the quick alone is the horror of the passage to the castle of the king with the thought came to him such peace that even there in the dark valley of the shadow stole soft music that sounded in the desert gloom like the music of the spheres then the poor poet remembered what they had told him that his beloved one had walked through the valley of the shadow that she had known the music of the spheres and that she abode in the castle of the king so he thought that as he was now in the valley of the shadow and as he heard the music of the spheres that soon he should see the castle of the king where his beloved one abode thus he went on in hope but alas that very hope was a new pain that aired this he what not of hitherto he had gone on blindly wrecking not of where he went to what came an eye him so long as he pressed onward on his quest but now the darkness and the perils of the way had new terrors for he thought of how they might arrest his course such thoughts made the way long indeed for the moment seemed an age with hoping eagerly he sought for the end to come when beyond the valley of the shadow through which he fared he should see rising the turrets of the castle of the king despair seemed to grow upon him and as it grew they rang out ever louder the music of the spheres onward ever onward hurried in mad haste the poor distraught poet the dim shadows that people the mist shrank back as he passed extending towards him warning hands with long gloomy fingers of deadly cold in the bitter silence of the moment they seem to say go back go back louder and louder rang now the music of the spheres faster and faster in mad feverish haste rushed the poet amid the shrinking shadows of the gloomy valley the peopling shadows as they faded away before him seemed to wail in sorrowful warning go back go back still in his ears rang ever the swelling tumult of the music faster and faster he rushed onward till at last weary nature gave way and he fell prone to earth senseless bleeding and alone after a time how long he could not even guess he awoke from his spoon for a while he could not think where he was and his scattered senses could not help him all was gloom and cold and sadness a solitude reigned around him more deadly than oughty had ever dreamt of no breeze was in the air no movement of a passing cloud no voice or stir of living thing in earth or water or air no rustle of leaf or sway of branch all was silent dead and deserted amid the eternal hills of gloom around lay the valley devoid of all that lived or grew the sweeping mists with their multitude of peopling shadows had gone by the fearsome terrors of the desert even were not there the poet as he gazed around him in his utter loneliness longed for the sweep of the storm of the roar of the avalanche to break the dread horror of the silent gloom then the poet knew that through the valley of the shadow had he come that scared and maddened though he had been he had heard the music of the spheres he thought that now hard by the desolate kingdom of death he trod he gazed all around him fearing lest he should see anywhere the dread castle of the king where his beloved one abode and he groaned as the fear of his heart found voice not here oh not here amid this awful solitude then amid the silence around upon distant hills his words echoed not here oh not here till with the echoing and re-echoing rock idle wilderness was peopled with voices suddenly the echo voices ceased from the lurid sky broke the terrible sound of the thunder peel along the distant skies it rolled far away over the endless ring of the gray horizon it swept going and returning peeling swelling dying away it traversed the ether muttering now in ominous sound as a threats and anon crashing with the voice of dread command in its roar came a sound as of a word onward to his knees the poet sank and welcomed with tears of joy the sound of the thunder it swept away as a power from above the silent desolation of the wilderness it told him that in and above the valley of the shadow rolled the mighty tones of heaven's command then the poet rose to his feet and with new heart went onwards into the wilderness as he went the roll of the thunder died away and again the silence of desolation reigned alone so time wore on but never came rest to the weary feet onwards still onwards he went with but one memory to cheer him the echo of the thunder roll in his ears as it peeled out in the valley of desolation onward onward now the road became less and less rocky as on his way he passed the great cliffs sank and dwindled away and the ooze of the fens crept upward to the mountain's feet at length the hills and hollows of the mountain fastnesses disappeared the wanderer took his way amid mere trackless wastes where was nothing but quaking marsh and slime on on he wandered stumbling blindly with weary feet on the endless road over his soul crept ever closer the blackness of despair whilst amid the mountain gorges he had been wandering some small cheer came from the hope that at any moment some turn in the path might show him his journey's end some entry from a dark defile might expose to him looming great in the distance or even an eye him the dread castle of the king but now with the flat desolation of the silent marsh around him he knew that the castle could not exist without his seeing it he stood for a while erect and turned him slowly round so that the complete circuit of the horizon was swept by his eager eyes alas never a sight did he see nought was there but the black line of the horizon where the sad earth lay against the level sky all all was compact of a silent gloom still on he tottered his breath came fast and laboured his weary limbs quivered as they bore him feebly up his strength his life was ebbing fast on on he hurried ever on with one idea desperately fixed in his poor distraught mind that in the castle of the king he should find his beloved one he stumbled and fell there was no obstacle to arrest his feet only from his own weakness he declined quickly he arose and went onward with flying feet he dreaded that should he fall he might not be able to arise again again he fell again he rose and went on his way desperately with blind purpose so for a while went he onwards stumbling and falling but arising ever and pausing not on his way his quest he followed of his beloved one abiding in the castle of the king at last so weak he grew that when he sank he was unable to rise again feebler and feebler he grew as he lay prone and over his eager eyes came the film of death but even then came comfort for he knew that his race was run and that soon he would meet his beloved one in the halls of the castle of the king to the wilderness his thoughts he spoke his voice came forth with a feeble sound like the moaning before a storm of the wind as it passes through reeds in the gray autumn a little longer soon i shall meet her in the halls of the king and we shall part no more for this it is worth to pass through the valley of the shadow and to listen to the music of the spheres with their painful hope what boots it though the castle be afar quickly speed the feet of the dead to the fleeting spirit all distance is but a span i fear not now to see the castle of the king for there within its chiefest hall soon shall i meet my beloved to part no more even as he spoke he felt that the end was nigh fourth from the marsh before him crept a still spreading mist it rose silently higher higher enveloping the wilderness for far around it took deeper and darker shades as it arose it was as though the spirit of gloom were hid within and grew mightier with the spreading vapor to the eyes of the dying poet the creeping mist was as a shadowy castle arose the tall turrets and the frowning key the gateway with its cavernous recesses and its beatling towers took shape as a skull the distant battlements towered aloft into the silent air from the very ground where on the stricken poet lay grew dim and dark a vast causeway leading into the gloom of the castle gate the dying poet raised his head and looked his fast-failing eyes quickened by the love and hope of his spirit pierced through the dark walls of the keep and the gloomy terrors of the gateway there within the great hall where the grim king of terrors himself holds his court he saw her whom he sought she was standing in the ranks of those who wait in patience for their beloved to follow them into the land of death the poet knew that he had but a little while to wait and he was patient stricken though he lay amongst the eternal solitudes a far off beyond the distant horizon came a faint light as of the dawn of a coming day as it grew brighter the castle stood out more and more clearly till in the quickening dawn it stood revealed in all its cold expanse the dying poet knew that the end was at hand with a last effort he raised himself to his feet that standing erect and bold as is the right of manhood he might so meet face to face the grim king of death before the eyes of his beloved one the distant sun of the coming day rose over the horizon's edge a ray of light shot upward as it struck the summit of the castle keep the poet spirit in an instant of time swept along the causeway through the ghostly portal of the castle it swept and met with joy the kindred spirit that it loved before the very face of the king of death quicker than the lightning's flash the whole castle melted into nothingness and the sun of the coming day shone calmly down upon the eternal solitudes in the land within the portal rose the sun of the coming day it shone calmly and brightly on a fair garden where among the long summer grass lay the poet colder than the marble statues around him end of section seven