 CHAPTER XII Of the coming of the lords of demon-land to mourner Maruna, whence they beheld the Zimmy-ambient mountains, seen also by Gros in years gone by, and of the wonders seen by them, and perils undergone, and deeds done in their attempt on Kostra-pivracha, the witch alone of all earth's mountains looketh down upon Kostra-Beloin, and none shall ascend up into Kostra-Beloin, that hath not first looked down upon her. Now it is to be said of Lord Jus and Lord Brandoc the Har that they, finding themselves parted from their people in the fog, and utterly unable to find them, when the last sound of battle had died away, wiped and put up their bloody swords, and set forth at a great pace eastward. Only Mivosh fared with them of all their following. His lips were drawn back a little, showing his teeth, but he carried himself proudly, as one who, being resolved to die, walks with a quiet mind to his destruction. Day after day they journeyed, sometimes in clear weather, sometimes in mist or sleet, over the changeless desert, without a landmark, said here a little sluggish river, or here a piece of rising ground, or a pond, or a clump of rocks. All things which faded from sire to mid-the-west ere they were passed by a half-mile's distance. So was each day like yesterday, drawing to a moral light to it again, and always fear walked at their heel, and sat beside them sleeping, clanking of wings heard above the wind, a brooding hush of menace in the sunshine, and noises out of the void of darkness as of teeth chattering. So came they on the twentieth day to mourn a marooner, and stood it even in the sorrowful twilight by the little round castle, silent on ompren edge. From their feet the cliffs dropped sheer, strange it was, standing on that frozen lip of the marooner, as on the limit of the world, to gaze southward on a land of summer, and to breathe faint summer airs blowing up from blossoming trees and flower-clad alps. In the depths a carpet of huge treetops closed a vast stretch of country, through the midst of which, seen here and there in a bend of silver among the woods, the barvinan bore the waters of a thousand-secret mountain solitudes down to an unknown sea. Beyond the river the deep woods blew with distance, swelled to feathery hill-tops, with some sharper-featured loftier heights bodying plaudily beyond them. The demons strained their eyes, searching the curtain of mystery behind and above those foothills, but the great peaks, like great ladies, shrouded themselves against their curious gaze, and no glimpse was shown them of the snows. Only to be in mourn a marooner was to be in the death-chamber of some once lovely presence. Stains of fire were on the walls. The fair gallery of open woodwork that ran above the main hall was burnt through, and partly fallen in ruin, the blackened ends of the beams that held it jutting blindly in the gap. Among the wreck of carved chairs and benches, broken and worm-eaten, some shreds of figured tapestries rotted, the home now of beetles and spiders. Trees of colour, faded lines mildewed and damp with the corruption of two hundred years, lingered to be the memorials, like the mummaged skeleton of a king's daughter long ago untimely dead, of sweet gracious paintings on the walls. Five nights and five days the demons and Mivosh dwelt in mourn a marooner, enewered to portents till they marched them as little as men marked swallows at their window. And the still night were flames seen, and flying forms dim in the moonlit air. And in moonless nights unstarred, moans heard and gibbering accents, prodigies beside their beds, and ridings in the sky, and fleshless fingers plucking at just unseen when he went forth to make question of the night. Cloud and mist abode ever in the south, and only the foothills showed of the great ranges beyond Barvinan. But on the evening of the sixth day before Yule, it being the nineteenth of December, when Betelgoose stands at midnight on the meridian, a wind blew out of the northwest with changing fits of sleep and sunshine. Dare was fading as they stood above the cliff. All the forest land was blue with shades of approaching night. The river was dull silver. The wooded heights afar mingled their outlines with the towers and banks of turbulent deep blue vapor that hurtled in ceaseless passage through the upper air. Suddenly a window opened in the clouds to a space of clean, warm, wind-swept sky high above the shaggy hills. They just caught his breath in that moment, to see those deathless ones, where they shone pavilioned in the pollucid air, far vast and lonely, most like to creatures of unascended heaven, of wind and of fire all compact, too pure to have alt of the gross elements of earth or water. It was as if the rose-red light of sundown had been frozen to crystal, and these hewn from it to abide to everlasting, strong and unchangeable amid the welter of earth-born mists below, and too much of sky above them. The rift ran wider, eastward and westward, opening on more peaks and sunset-kindled snows, and a rainbow leaning to the south was like a sword of glory across the vision. Motionless, like hawks staring from that high place of prospect, just in brandocked ahar looked on the mountains of their desire. Just spake, haltingly, as one talking in a dream. The sweet smell, this gusty wind, the very storm thy foot standeth on, I know them all before. There's not a night since we sailed out of looking heaven, that I have not beheld in sleep these mountains, and known their names. Who told thee their names? asked Lord Brandocked ahar. My dream, just answered, and first I dreamed it in my own bed in Gaeling, when I came home from guesting with thee last June. And there be true dreams that had dreamed there. And he said, Sears, though, where the foothills part to a dark valley that runeth deep into the chain, and the mountains are bare to view from crown to foot. Mark where, beyond the nearer range, bleak visage precipices, cobweb street with huge snow corridors, rise to a rampart where the rock-towers stand against the sky. This is the great ridge of Kostra Pivrarcha, and the loftiest of those spires his secret mountaintop. As he spoke, his eye followed the line of the eastern ridge, where the towers, like dark gods going down from heaven, plunge to a parapet which runs level above a curtain of avalanche-fluted snow. He fell silent as his gaze rested on the sister-peak that east of the gap flamed skyward, and wild cliffs to an airy, snowy summit, soft lined as a maiden's cheek, purer than dew, lovelier than a dream. While they looked, the sunset fires died out upon the mountains, leaving only pale hues of death and silence. If thy dreams, said Lord Brandocked ahar, conducted thee down this edge, over the barvinum, through yonder woods and hills, up through the leagues of ice and frozen rock that stand betwixt us and the main ridge, up by the right road to the topmost snows of Kostra Belaun, that were a dream indeed. All this it showed me, said just, up to the lowest rocks of the great northbuttress of Kostra Pivrarcha, that must first be scaled by him that would go up to Kostra Belaun. But beyond those rocks not even a dream hath ever climbed. Out of the light feds I'll show thee our pass over the nearer range. He pointed where a glacier crawled betwixt shadowy walls down from a torn snow-field that rose steeply to a saddle. East of it stood two white peaks, and west of it a sheer first and long-backed mountain like a citadel, squat and dark beneath the wild skyline of Kostra Pivrarcha that hung in air beyond it. The Zia valley, said just, that runeth into barvinum, there lieth thou aware, under that dark bastion called by the God's Tethrach Namph. On the morrow Lord Brandoc de Harkent and Mivosh Faizon said, It is needful that this day we go down from Ompren edge. I would for no sake leave thee on the maruna, but is no walking matter to descend this wall. But thou a cragsman? I was born, answered he, in the high valley of Parashin, by the upper waters of the barun in Impland. There a boy's scarce toddle ere they can climb a rock. This climber frights me not, nor those mountains. But the land is unknown and terrible, and many lovely ones inhabit it, ghosts and eaters of men. O devil's transmarine and my friends, is it not enough? Let us turn again, and if the God save our lives we shall be famous for ever that came unto morna maruna and returned alive." But just answered and said, O Mivosh Faizon, know that not for fame are we come on this journey. For greatness already shadoweth all the world, as a great cedar tree spreading his shadow in a garden. And this enterprise, mighty though it be, shall add to our glory only so much as thou mightest add to these forests of the barvina and by planting of one more tree. But so it is, that the great king of which land, practising in darkness in his royal palace of carces such arts of grammary and sendings magical as the world hath not been grieved with until now, sent an ill thing to take my brother, the Lord Goldry Blusco, who is dear to me as my own soul. And there that dwell in secret sent me word in a dream, bidding me, if I would have tidings of my dear brother, inquire in Kostro-Beloin. Therefore, O Mivosh, go with as if thou wilt, but if thou wilt not, why, fairly well? For note but my death shall stare me from going thither. And Mivosh, be thinking him that if the manty cause of the mountain should devour him along with those two lords, that were yet a kindly affair than all alone to abide those things he whisked of on the maruna, put on the rope, and after commending himself to the protection of his gods, followed Lord Brandoc de Haar down the rotten slopes of rock and frozen earth at the head of a gully leading down the cliff. For all that they were earlier foot, yet was it high noon ere they were off the rocks, for the peril of falling stones drove them out from the gully's bed first onto the eastern buttress, and after, when that grew too sheer, back to the western wall. And in an hour or twain the gully's bed grew shallow and it narrowed to an end, whence Brandoc de Haar gazed between his feet to where, a few spears' lengths below, the smooth slabs curved downward out of sight, and the eye let straight from their clean-cut edge to shimmering treetops that showed tiny as mosses beyond the unseen gulf of air. So they rested awhile, then returning a little up the gully, forced away out onto the face, and made a hazardous traverse to a new gully westward of the first, and so at last plunged down a long fan of scree, and rested on soft fine turf at the foot of the cliffs. Little mountain gentians grew at their feet. The pathless forest lay like the sea below them. Before them the mountains of the Zia stood supreme, the white gables of his loggin, the lean dark finger of Tetrach Nampnant's shark lying back above the Zia pass pointing to the sky, and west of it jutting above the valley, the square bastion of Tetrach Nampnant's Serm. The greater mountains were for the most part sunk behind this nearer range, but Kostra bellowed and still towered above the pass. As a queen looking down from her high window, so she overlooked those green woods sleeping in the noonday, and on her forehead was beauty like a star. Behind them, where they sat, the escarpment reared back in cramped perspective, a pile of massive buttresses left with ravines leading upward from that land of leaves and waters to the hidden wintry flats of the maruna. That night they slept on the fell under the stars, and the next day, going down into the woods, came at dusk to an open glade by the waters of the broad bosomed Barvinan. The turf was like a cushion, a place for elves to dance in. The far bank, full half a mile away, was wooded to the water with silver birches, dainty as mountain nymphs, their limbs gleaming through the twilight, their reflections quivering in the depths of the mighty river. In the high air, day lingered yet, a faint warmth tinging the great outlines of the mountains, and westward up the river, the young moons stooped above the trees. East of the glade, a little wooded eminence, no higher than a house, ran back from the river bank, and in its shoulder a hollow cave. "'How smiles it to thee,' said Jus, be sure we shall find no better place than this thou seest to dwell in until the snows melt, and we may on. For though it be summer all the year round in this fortunate valley, it is winter on the great hills, and until the spring we were mad to essay our enterprise.' "'Why, then,' said Brandoc de Haar, turn we shepherds a while, thou shalt pipe to me, and I'll foot thee measures shall make the dryads think they're near went to school, and Mivar shall be a gott foot god to chase them, but to tell thee truth country wenches are long-grown tedious to me. "'Oh, it is a sweet life! But ere we fall to it, be think thee, or just! Time marcheth, and the world waggeth, what goeth forward in demon-land till summer become, and we home again?' "'Also my heart is heavy because of my brother's spitfire,' said just. "'Oh, it was an ill storm, and ill-de-lairs.' "'Aware with vain regretting,' said Lord Brandoc de Haar, for thy sake and thy brother's fared I on this journey, and it is known to thee that never yet stretched I out mine hand upon ought that I have not taken it, and had my will of it.' So they made their dwelling in that cave beside deep eddying barvinan, and before that cave they ate their yule feast, the strangest they had eaten all the days of their lives, seated not as of old, on their high seats of ruby or of opal, but on mossy banks where daisies slept and creeping time, lighted not by the charmed escarbuncle of the high-presence chamber in Gaeling, but by the shifting beams of a brushwood fire that shone not on those pillars crowned with monsters that were the wonder of the world, but on the mightier pillars of the sleeping beach-woods, and in place of that feigned heaven of jules self-effulgent beneath the golden canopy at Gaeling, there ate pavilioned under a charmed summer night, where the great stars of winter, or ryan, Sirius, and the little dog, were raised up near the zenith, yielding their known courses in the southern sky to Canopus and the strange stars of the south. When the trees speck, it was not with their winter voice of bear-bows creaking, but with whisper of leaves and beetles droning in the fragrant air. The bushes were white with blossom not with whorefrost, and the dim-white patches under the trees were not snow, but wild lilies and wood anemones sleeping in the night. All the creatures of the forest came to that feast, for they were without fear, having never looked upon the face of man. Little tree-apes, and popping-jeers, and tit-mouses, and coal-mouses, and wrens, and gentle round-eyed lemurs, and rabbits, and badgers, and door-mice, and pied squirrels, and beavers from the streams, and storks and ravens and bustards, and wombats, and the spider-monkey with her baby at her breast. All these came to gaze with curious eye upon those travellers, and not these alone, but fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses. The wild buffalo, the wolf, the tiger with monstrous paws. The bear, the fiery-eyed unicorn, the elephant, the lion and she-line in their majesty came to behold them in the fire-light in that quiet bled. "'It seems we hold court in the woods to-night,' said Lord Brandoc the Haw. "'It is very pleasant. Yet hold thee ready with me to put some fire-brands amongst them if need befall. It is likely some of these great beasts are little schooled in court-ceremonies,' just answered, and though lovers me do no such thing. There lieth this curse upon all this land of the bovenan, that whoso, whether he be man or a beast, slayeth in this land, or doeth here any deed of violence, there cometh down a curse upon him, that in that instant must destroy and blast him for ever off the face of the earth. Therefore it was I took away from Mivar's bow and arrows when we came down from Ompren edge, lest he should kill game for us, and so a worse thing befall him. Mivar sharkened not, but sat all a quake, looking intently on a crocodile that came ponderously out upon the bank, and now he began to scream with terror, crying, Save me! Let me fly! Give me my weapons! It was foretold me by a wise woman that a cock-a-drill serpent must devour me at last. Whereout the beasts drew back uneasily, and the crocodile, as small as wide, startled by Mivar's cries and violent gestures, lurched with what's feeding Mike back into the water. Now in that place, Lord Jus and Lord Branagh D'Harr and Mivar Shfaaz are bowled for four moons' space. Nothing there liked of meat and drink, for the beasts of the forest, finding the well-disposed, brought them of their store. Moreover, there came flying from the south, about the ending of the year, a martlet, which alighted in Jus's bosom, and said to him, The gentle Queen Sofonisba, fosterling of the gods, had news of your coming, and because she knew with you both mighty men of your hands and high of heart, therefore by me she sent you greeting. Jus said, O little martlet, we would see that Queen Faiz de Faiz, and thank her. He must thank her, said the bird, in Kostra bellowing. Branagh D'Harr said, That shall we fulfil. Thither only do our thoughts intend. Your greatness, said the martlet, must approve that word, and know that it is easier to lay under you all the world in arms than to ascend up a foot into that mountain. Thy wings were too weak to lift me, else I'd borrow them, said Branagh D'Harr. But the martlet answered, Not the eagle that flies against the sun may alight on Kostra bellowing. No foot may tread her, serve of those blessed ones to whom the gods gave leave ages ago, till they become that the patient years await. Men like unto the gods in beauty and in power, who of their own might and man, unholpened by magic hearts, shall force a passage up to her silent snows. Branagh D'Harr laughed. Not the eagle, he cried, but thou little flitter-jack! Note the tath feet, said the martlet. I have none. The Lord Branagh D'Harr took it tenderly in his hand, and held it high in the air, looking to the high lands in the south. The birches swaying by the barvenon were not more graceful, nor the distant mountain crags behind them more untamable to behold than he. Fly to the queen, he said, and say thou spakest with Lord Just beside the barvenon, and with Lord Branagh D'Harr of demon land. Say unto her that we be there that were for to come, and that we, of our own might and man, ere spring be well-turned summer, will come up to her in Kostra bellowing to thank her for her gracious sendings. Now when it was April, and the sun moving among the sides of heaven was about departing out of her airies and entering into Taurus, and the melting of the snows in the high mountains had swollen all the streams to spate, filling the mighty river so that he brimmed his banks and swept by like a tide-race, Lord Just said, now is the season propitious for our crossing of the flood of barvenon, and setting forth into the mountains. Willingly, said Lord Branagh D'Harr, but shall's walk it, or swim it, or take towards wings. To me that have many a time swum back and forth over thunder-first to wet my inappetite ere I break my fast, it is a small matter of this river-stream how so swift it runneth. But with our harness and weapons and all our gear that were for other matter. Is it for note that we are grown friends with them that do inhabit these woods, said Just? The crocodile shall bear us over barvenon for the asking. It is an ill fish, said Mivosh, and it so dislikes me. Then thou must hear abides, said Branagh D'Harr. But be not dismayed, I will go with thee. The fish may bear us both at a draught and knot-founder. It was a wise woman foretold it me, answered Mivosh, that such a kind of serpent must be my bane. Yet be it according to your will. So they whistled them up the crocodile, and first the Lord Just fared over barvenon, riding on the back of that serpent with all his gear and weapons of war, and landed several hundred paces downstream, for the stream was very strong. And thereafter the crocodile returning to the north bank took the Lord Branagh D'Harr and Mivosh Fass and put them across in like manner. Mivosh put on a gallant face, but rode as near the tail as might be, fingering certain herbs from his wallet that were good against serpents, his lips moving in urgent supplication to his gods. When they were come assured they thanked the crocodile and bared him farewell, and went their way swiftly through the woods. And Mivosh, as one new loosed from prison, went before them with a light step, singing and snapping his fingers. Now had they for three or four days a devious journey through the foothills, and thereafter made their dwelling for forty days space in the Zia Valley above the gorges. Here the valley widens to a flat floored amphitheater, and lean limestone crags tower heavenward on every side. High in the south, couched above great grey marines, the Zia Glacier wrinkle back like some dragon survived out of the elder chaos, thrusts his snout into the valley. Here, out of his caves of ice, the young river thunders, casting up a sprayer where rainbows hover in bright weather. The air blows sharp from the Glacier, and alpine flowers and shrubs feed on the sunlight. Here they gathered them good store of food, and every morning there were a foot before the sunrise to ascend the mountains and make sure their practice ere they should attempt the greater peaks. So they explored all the spurs of Tetrach, Namphe, and Islagan, and those peaks themselves. The rock peaks of the lower Nuanah range over looking Barvinan. The snow peaks of Islagan, Avsec, Kiyomse, Mersu, Burshnagin, and Borch, Mehetharsk, loftiest of the range, by all his ridges, dwelling a week on the marines of the Mehetharsk Glacier above the upland valley of Fawana, and westward the Dolomite group of Burgers-Arshra and the Great Wall of Shilak. Now were their muscles by these exercises grown like bands of iron, and their hardy as mountain bears and sure of foot as mountain goats. So on the ninth day of May they crossed the Zia Pass, and camped on the rocks under the south wall of Tetrach, Namphe, and Shark. The sun went down like blood in a cloudless sky. On either hand and before them the snow stretched blue and silent. The air of those high snow-fields was bitter-cold. A league and moor to the south a line of black cliffs bounded the Glacier basin. Over that black wall, twelve miles away, Kostra Belon and Kostra Pivracha, towered against an opal heaven. While they subbed in the fading light just said, the wall thou seest is called the Barriers of Mshir, though over it lieeth the straight way to Kostra Pivracha, yet it is not our way, but an ill way, for first that barrier hath till now been held unclimable, and saw proven even by half-gods that a launder said it. "'I await not thy second reason,' said Brandoc de Haar. "'Thou hast had thy way until now, and now thou shalt give me mine in this, to come with me to morrow, and show how thou and I make of such barriers a puff of smoke, if they stand in the path between us and our fixed ends.' "'Were it only this?' answered Jus, I would not gain, sir thee. But not senseless rocks a launder we set to deal with if we take this road. See as thou were the barriers ending the east against yonder monstrous pyramid of tumble crags and hanging glaciers that shuts out our prospect east away. Menk, sir, men, call it. But in heaven it hath a more dreadful name, Elamantissera, which is to say the bed of the Manticores. Nor, Brandoc de Haar, I will climb with thee what unscaled cliff thou list, and I will fight with thee against the most grisfulest beasts that ever grazed by the torturian streams. But both these things in one moment of time, that were a rash part and a foolish.' But Brandoc de Haar laughed and answered him, To nought else may I liken thee, or just but to the sparrow camel. To whom there said, Fly, and it answered, I cannot, for I am a camel. And when there said, Carry, it answered, I cannot, for I am a bird. "'Wilt thou egg me on so much?' said Jus. "'I,' said Brandoc de Haar, if thou wilt be assish.' "'Wilt thou quarrel?' said Jus. "'Thou knowest me,' said Brandoc de Haar. "'Well,' said Jus, thy counsel hath been wrought once and saved us, for nine times that it hath been wrong, and my counsel saved thee from an evil end. If ill be hapers, it shall be set down that it had from thy peevish will original.' And they wrapped them in their cloaks and slept. On the morrow they rose be times, and set forth south across the snows that were crisp and hard from the frosts of the night. The barriers, as it were but a stone's throw removed, stood black before them. Starlight swallowed up sides and distance that showed only by walking, as still they walked, and still that wall seemed no nearer nor no larger. Twice and thrice they dipped into a valley, or crossed a raised upfold of the glacier, till they stood at break of day, below the smooth blank wall frozen and bleak, with never a ledge in sight great enough to bear snow, barring their passage southward. They halted, and ate, and scammed the wall before them, and ill to do with it singed. So they searched for an ascent, and found at last a spot where the glacier swelled higher, a mile or less from the western shoulder of Elamanticera. Here the cliff was but four or five hundred feet high, yet smoothy now and illy now to look on, yet their likeliest choice. Some while it was ere they might get a footing on that wall, but at length brandocked a har, standing on just his shoulder, found him a hold where no hold showed from below, and with great travail fought a passage up the rocks to a stance some hundred feet above them, whence sitting sure on a broad ledge great enough to hold six or seven folk at a time, he played up Lord Jus on the rope, and after him it varsh. An hour and a half it cost them for that short climb. The north-east buttress of ill-stack was children's gruel to this, said Lord Jus. There's more aloft, said Lord brandocked a har, lying back against the precipice, his hands clasped behind his head, his feet a-dangle over the ledge. In thine ear, Jus, I would not go first on the rope again on such a pitch for all the wealth of implant. "'Will to repent and return,' said Jus. "'If thou wilt be last down,' he answered. "'If not, I'd leave a risk what works untried above us. If it proved worse, I am confirmed a-theist.' Lord Jus leaned out, holding by the rock with his right hand, scanning the wall beside and above them. An instant he hung so, then drew back. His square jaw was set, and his teeth glinted under his dark mustache or something fiercely, as a thunder-beam betwixt dark sky and sea in a night of thunder. His nostrils widened, as of a war-horse at the call of battle. His eyes were like the violet leaven-brand, and all his body hardened like a ball-string drawn as he grasped his sharp sword and pulled it forth, grating and singing from its sheath. Brandocked a har sprang a foot and drew his sword, Zaldonius' loom. "'What stirreth,' he cried. "'Thou looks'd ghastly. That look thou hadst when thou took us the helm, and our prose swung westward toward cartadza sound, and the fate of demon-land and all the world beside hung in thine hand for wail or bless.' "'There's little sword-room,' said Jus. And again he looked eastward and upward along the cliff.' Brandocked a har looked over his shoulder. Mivosh took his bow and set an arrow on the string. "'It hath scented us down the wind,' said Brandocked a har. Small town was there to ponder, swinging from hole to hole across the dizzy precipice, as an air-swingeth from bout to bout the beast drew near. The shape of it was as a lion, but bigger and taller. The colour a dull red, and it had prickles lancing out behind us of a porcupine. It's face a man's face, if ought so hideous might be conceived of humankind. With staring eyeballs, low-wrinkled brow, elephant ears, some wispy mangy likeness of a lion's man, huge bony chaps, brown blood-stained gubbet-tushes grinning between its bristly lips. Straight for the ledge it made. And as they braced them to receive it, with a great swing heaved a man's height above them, and leapt down upon their ledge from a loft betwixt Just and Brandocked a har, ere they were well aware of its changed course. Brandocked a har smote at it a great swashing blow, and cut off its scorpion tail. But it clawed Just's shoulder, smote down Mivosh, and charged like a lion upon Brandocked a har, who, missing his footing on the narrow edge of rock, fell backwards a great fall, clear of the cliff, down to the snow, and a hundred feet beneath them. As it craned over, minded to follow and make an end of him, Just smote it in the hinder-parts and on the ham, shearing away the flesh from the thigh-bone, and his sword came with a clank against the brazen claws of its foot. So, with a horrid bellow, it turned on Just, rearing like a horse, and it was three heads greater than a tall man in stature when it reared a loft, and the breadth of its chest like the chest of a bear. The stench of its breath choked Just's mouth, and his senses sickened, but he slashed it to thwart the belly, a great round-armed blow, cutting open its belly so that the guts fell out. Again he hewed at it, but missed, and his sword came against the rock and was shivered into pieces. So when that noisome vermin fell forward on him, roaring like a thousand lions, Just grappled with it, running in beneath its body, and clasping it, and thrusting his arms into its inward parts, to rip out its vitals, if so he might. So close he grappled it that it might not reach him with its murdering teeth, but its claws sliced off the flesh from his left knee downward to the ankle-bone, and it fell on him and crushed him on the rock, breaking in the bones of his breast. And just for all his bitter pen and torment, and for all he was well-nice stifled by the sore stink of the creature's breath, and the stink of its blood and puddings blubbering about his fearsome breast, yet by his great strength rassled with that fell-and-filthy man-eater, and ever he thrust his right hand, armed with the hilt and stump of his broken sword, yet deeper into its belly, until he searched out its heart and did his will upon it, slicing the heart asunder like a lemon, and severing and tearing all the great vessels about the heart, until the blood gushed about him like a spring. And like a caterpillar, the beast curled up and straightened out in its death spasms, and it rolled and fell from the ledge, a great fall, and laid by brand up to heart the foulest beside the fairest of all earthly beings, reddening the pure snow with its blood. And the spines that grew on the hindder parts of the beast went out and in like the sting of a new dead wasp that goes out and incontinually. It fell not clean to the snow, as by the care of heaven was fallen brand up to heart, but smote an edge of rock near the bottom, and that streaked out its brains. There it lain its blood, gaping to the sky. Now was just stretched first downward as one dead on that giddy edge of rock. Mivosh had saved him, seizing him by the foot and drawing him back to safety when the beast fell. The sight of terror he was, clotted from head to toe with the beast's blood and his own. Mivosh bound his wounds and laid him tenderly as he might back against the cliff. Then peered down a long while to know if the beast were dead indeed. When he had gazed down earnestly so long that his eyes watered with the strain, and still the beast stirred not, Mivosh prostrated himself, and made supplication, saying aloud, O schlimply, schlamphy, and shebamery, gods of my father and my father's fathers, have pity of your child, if as I dearly trough your power extendeth over this foreign forbidden country, no less than over Impland, where your child ever worshipped you in your holy place, and taught my sons and daughters to revere your holy names, and made an altar in minehouse, pointed by the stars in manner ordained from of old, and offered up my seventh-born son, and was minded to offer up my seventh-born daughter thereon, in meekness and righteousness according to your holy will, but this I might not do, since you vouchsafed me not a seventh-daughter, but six only. Wherefore I beseech you, of your holy namesake, strengthen my hand to let down this my companion safely by the rope, and thereafter bring me safely down from this rock, how soever he be a devil and an unbeliever. O, save his life, save both their lives, for I am sure that if these be not saved alive, never shall your child return, but in this far land starve and die like an insect that jureth but for a day. So prayed Mivosh, and be like the high gods were moved to pity of his innocence, hearing him so cry for help unto his mumbo-jumbles, where no help was, and be like they were not minded that those lords of demon-land should there die evilly before their time, unhonoured, unsung. How soever Mivosh arose and made fast the rope about Lord Jus, knotting it cunningly beneath the arms that it might not tighten in the lowering, and crush his breast and ribs, and so, with much ado, lowered him down to the foot of the cliff. Thereafter came Mivosh himself down that perilous wall, and albeit for many a time he thought his ban was upon him, yet by good cragsmanship spurred by cold necessity, he got him down at last. Going down he delayed not to minister to his companions, who came to themselves with heavy groaning. But when Lord Jus was come to himself, he did his healing art, both on himself and on Lord Brandoc de Ha, so that in a while they were able to stand upon their feet, albeit something stiff and weary and like to vomit, and it was by then the third hour past noon. While they rested, beholding where the beast-mantecora lay in his blood, Jus spake and said, It is to be said of thee, Lord Brandoc de Ha, that thou to-day hast done both the worst and the best, the worst when there was so stub and set to fare upon this climb which hath come within a little of spilling both thee and me. The best when as thou did smite off his tail. Was that by policy or by chance? Why, said he, I was never so poor a man of my hands that I need turn braggart, it was handiest to my sword, and it disliked me to see it wagging. Did ought lie on it? The sting of his tail, as it Jus, were competent for thine or my destruction, and it grazed but our little finger. Though speakers like a book, said Brandoc de Ha, else might I scarce know thee for my noble friend, being beread with blood as a buffalo with mire. Be not angry with me, if I am most at ease to windward of thee. Jus laughed. If thou be not too nice, he said, go to the beast and dabble thyself too with the blood of his bowels. Nay, I mock not, it is most needful. These be enemies not of Mankind only, but each of other, walking every one by himself, loathing every one his kind living or dead, so that in all the world there abideth not loathlier unto them than the blood of their own kind, the least smellware of they do abore as a mad dog aboreth water, and is a clinging smell. So are we, after this encounter, most sure against them. That night they camped at the foot of a spur of Avsec, and set forth at dawn down the long valley eastward. All day they heard the roaring of Manticores from the desolate flanks of Elamanticera, that shored now no longer as a pyramid, but as a long-backed screen, making the southern rampart of that valley. It was ill-going, and there somewhat shaken. There was nigh gone, when beyond the eastern slots of Elah they came where the white waters of the river there followed, thundered together with a black water rushing down from the south-west. Below the river ran east in a wide valley, dropping afar to tree-clad depths. In the fork above the water's meat the rocks enclosed a high green knoll, like some fragment of a kindlier clime that overlived into an edge of ruin. Here, too, said just, my dream walked with me. And if it be ill-crossing there where this stream breaketh into a dozen branching cataracts a little above the water's meat, yet well I think it is our only crossing. So ere the light should fade they crossed that perilous edge above the water-falls, and slept on the green knoll. That knoll just named Throsselgarth, after a thrush that waked them next morning, singing in a little wind-stunted mountain-thorn that grew among the rocks. Strangely sounded that homely song on the cold mountain-side, under the unhallowed heights of Elah, close to the confines of those enchanted snows which guard Kostra-Belahun. Nor sight of the high mountains had there from Throsselgarth, nor for a long while from the bed of that straight steeped glen of the black waters at which now their journey lay. Rugged spurs and buttresses shut them in, high on the left bank above the cataracts they made their way, buffeted by the wind that leaped and charged among the crags, their ears serted with the roaring sound of waters, their eyes filled with the spray-blown at-ward, and Mivosh followed after them. Silent they fared, for the way was steep, and in such a wind and such a noise of torrents a man must shout lustily if he will be heard. Very desolate was that valley, having a dark aspect and a gaspful, such as a man might look for in the infernal glens of Pyrrith-Legathon or Acheron. No living thing they saw, severed wiles high above them and eagle sailing down the wind, and once a beast's form running in the hollow mountain-side. This stood at Gheirs, lifting up its foul human platter-face, with glittering eyes bloody and greatest sources, scented its fellow's blood, started, and fled among the crags. So fared there for the space of three hours, and so, coming suddenly round a shoulder of the hill, stood on the upper threshold of that glen at the gates of a flat upland valley. Here they beheld a sight to darken all earth's glories, and strike dumb all her singers with its grandeur. Framed in the crags of the hillsides, canopied by blue heaven, Kostropivrarcha stood before them. So huge he was, that even here, at six miles' distance, the eye might not at a glance behold him, but must sweep back and forth as over a broad landscape, from the ponderous routes of the mountain, where they sprang black and sheer from the glacier, up the vast face, where buttress was piled upon buttress, and tower upon tower in a blinding radiance of ice-hung precipice, and snow-filled gully, to the lone heights, where, like spears menacing high heaven, the white teeth of the summit-ridge cleft the sky. From right to left he filled nigh a quarter of the heavens, from the graceful peak of Elinon, looking over his western shoulder, to whereon the east the snowy slopes of Jalki shut in the prospect, hiding Kostropelon. They camped that evening on the left moraine of the high glacier of Temoam. Long spidery streamers of cloud, filmy as the goers of the Lady's Vale, blue eastward from the spires on the ridge, signs of wild weather aloft. Just said, glassy clear is the air, that for runneth not fair weather. Well, time shall wait for us, if need be, said Brandoc de Haar, so mightily my desire cryeth unto me from those horns of ice that, having once looked on them, I had as leaf die as leave them unclimbed. But of thee, or just I make some marvel! There was bidden inquiring Kostropelon, and sure she were easier one than Kostropelon, going behind Jalki by the snow fields, and so avoiding her great western cliffs. There is a saw in Impland, and said just, Where of a tall wife? Even so there lieeth a curse on any that shall attempt Kostropelon, that hath not first looked down upon her, and he shall have his death, or ever he have his will, and from one point only of earth may a man look down on Kostropelon, and his from yonder unascended tooth of ice, where thou see as the last beam burned, for that is the topmost pinnacle of Kostropelon, and it is the highest point of the established earth. There was silent a minute's space. Then just spake, thou wast ever greatest amongst us as a mountaineer, which way likes thee best for our climbing up him? O just said Brandoc de Haar, on ice and snow thou art my master, therefore give me thy reed. For my own choice and pleasure I have settled it this hour or more, nearly to ascend into the gap between the two mountains, and thence turn westward up the east ridge of Pivraca. It is the fearsomeest climb to look on, said just, and be like the grandest, and for both counts I had wedged it thy choice. That gap hight the gates of Zimeambia, and the Kostroglacier that runneth up to it, lieth under the weird I told the oan. It were our death to adventure there, ere we had looked down upon Kostropelon, which done the charm is broke for us, and from that time forth it needeth but our own might and skill, and a high heart, to accomplish what soever we desire. Why, then, the great North Butrus, cried Brandoc de Haar, so shall she not behold us as we climb, until we come forth on the highest tooth and overlook her, and tame her to our will. So they supp'd and slept. But the wind cried among the crags all night long, and in the morning snow and sleet blotted out the mountains. All day the storm held, and in a lull they struck camp and came down again to Throsilgarth, and there abode nine days and nine nights, in wind and rain and battering hail. On the tenth day the weather abated, and they went up and crossed the glacier, and lodged them in a cave in the rock at the foot of the great North Butrus of Kostropelon. At dawn Jus and Brandoc de Haar went forth to survey the prospect. They crossed the mouth of the steep snow-choked valley that ran up to the main ridge betwixt Ashnilan on the west, and Kostropelon on the east, rounded the base of Ellinon, and climbed from the west to a snow saddle some three thousand feet up the ridge of the mountain, once they might view the Butrus and choose their way for their attempt. "'Tis a two-day's journey to the top,' said Lord Brandoc de Haar. "'If night on the ridge freezes not to death, I dread no other hindrance. That black rib that rises half a mile above our camp shall take us clean up to the crest of the Butrus, striking it above the great tower at the northern end. If the rocks be like those we camped on, hard as diamond and rough as a sponge, they shall not fail us but by our own neglect. As I live I ne'er saw their like for climbing.' "'So far, well,' said Jus. "'Above,' said Brandoc de Haar, "'I'd drive thee a chariot until we come to the first great kick of the ridge. That must we round or ne'er go further, and on this side it showeth ill enough, for the rocks shall have outward. If they be iced, there's work indeed. Beyond that I'll prophesy not, O Jus, for I can see not clear, save that the ridge is hacked into clefts and steeples. How we may overcome them must be put to the proof. It is too high and too far to know. This only. Where we would go, there have we gone until now. And by that ridge lyeth, if any were there lyeth, the way to this mountaintop that we cross the world to climb. Next day, with the first paling of the skies, they arose all three, and set forth southward over the crisp snows. They roped at the foot of the glacia that came down from the saddle, some five thousand feet above them, where the main ridge dips between Ashnilan and Kostrapivracha. How the brighter stars were swallowed in the light of morning, they were cutting their way among the labyrinthine towers and chasms of the ice-fall. Soon the new daylight flooded the snow-fields of the high glacier of Timon, dying them green and saffron and palest rose. The snows of his loggin glowed far away in the north, to the right of the white dome of Mshir. Elemantissera blocked the view north-eastward. The buttress that bounded their valley on the east plunged it in shadow blue as a summer sea. High on the other side, the great twin peaks of Eilinon and Ashnilan, roused by the warm beams out of their frozen silence of the night, growled at wiles with avalanches and falling stones. Just was their leader in the ice-fall, guiding them now along high knife-edges that fell away on either hand to unsounded depths, now within the very lips of those chasms, along the bases of the ice-towers. These, five times a man's height, some square, some pinnacled, some shattered or piled with the ruins of their kind, leaned above the path, as ready to fall and overwhelm the climbers, and dashed their bones forever down to those blue-green secret places of frost and silence, where the chips of ice chinked hollow as just pressed onward, cutting his steps with Mivash's axe. At length the slope eased and they walked out on the unbroken surface of the glacier, and passing by a snow bridge over the great rift between the glacier and the mountain side came two hours before noon to the foot of the rock rib that they had scanned from Eilinon. Now was brandocked hard to lead them. They climbed face to the rock, slowly and without rest, for sound and firm as the rocks were the holes were small and few, and the cliffs steep. Here and there a chimney gave them passage upward, but the climb was mainly by cracks and open faces of rock, a trial of man's strength and endurance such as few mats are stained for a short while only, but this wall was three thousand feet in height. By noon they agained the crest, and there rested on the rocks too weary to speak, looking across the avalanche-swecked face of Kostra Pivrarcha to the cornest parapet that ended against the western precipices of Kostra Belaun. For somewhere the ridge of the buttress was broad and level, then it narrowed suddenly to the width of a horse's back, and sprang skyward two thousand feet and more. Brandocked hard went forward and climbed a few feet up the cliff. It bulged out above him, smooth and holdless. He tried it once and again, then came down, saying, Sult without wings. Then he went to the left, here hanging glaciers overlooked the face from on high, and while he gazed an avalanche of ice-blocks roared down it. Then he went to the right, and here the rocks sloped outward, and the sloping ledges were piled with rubbish, and the rocks rotten and slippery with snow and ice. So having gone a little away he returned, and, oh, just, he said, we'll take it right forth, and that must be by flying, for hold there is none, or we'll go east and dodge the avalanche, or west where all is rotten and slither, and a slip where our destruction. So they debated, and at length decided on the eastern road. It was an ill step round the jutting corner of that tower, for little hold there was, and the rocks were undercut below, so that a stone or a man loosed from that place must fall clear at about three or four thousand feet to the Costa Glacier, and there be dashed in pieces. Beyond, wide ledges gave them passage along the wall of the tower that now swept inward facing south. Far overhead, dazzling white in the sunshine, the broken glacier edges and splinters jutted against the blue, and icicles greater than a man hung glittering from every ledge, a sight heavenly fair whereof they yet had little joy, hastening as they had not hastened in their lives before to be out of the danger of that ice swept first. Suddenly was a noise above them like the crack of a giant whip, and looking up there beheld against the sky a dark mass which opened like a flower and spread into a hundred fragments. The demons and Mivash hugged to the cliffs where they stood, but there was little cover. All the air was filled with the shrieking of the stones as they swept downwards like fiends returning to the pit, and with the crash of them as they dashed against the cliffs and burst in pieces, the echoes rolled and reverberated from cliff to distant cliff, and the limbs of the mountain seemed to writhe us under a scourge. When it was done Mivash was groaning for pain of his left wrist sore hurt with the stone. The others were scarredless. Just said to Brandoc de Haar, back, howsoever it disliked thee. Back there went, and an avalanche of ice crashed down the face which must have destroyed them had they proceeded. Though dust misjudged me, said Brandoc de Haar, laughing, give me where my life lieth on mine own might and man, then his danger meet and drink to me, and naught shall turn me back. But here on this cursed cliff, on the ledges whereup a cripple might walk at ease, we bet the toys of chance, and it were pure folly to abide upon it a moment longer. Two ways be left to us, said Just. To turn back, and that were our shame for ever, and to essay the western traverse. And that should be the bane of any serve of me and thee, said Brandoc de Haar, and if I were bane, why we shall sleep sound. Mivash, said Just, is not so bounden to this adventure. He hath bravely held by, as unbravely stood our friend. Yet here we become to such a pass. I saw misdoubt me, if it were less danger of his life to come with us, and seek safety alone. But Mivash put on a hardy face. Never a word he spake, but nodded his head, as who should say, forward. First I must be thy leech, said Just, and he bound up Mivash's wrist. And because the day was no far spent, they camped under the great tower, hoping next day to reach the top of Kostropivrach, that stood unseen some six thousand feet above them. Next morning, when it was light enough to climb, they set forth. For two hours' space on that traverse not a moment passed, but they were in instant peril of death. They were not roped, for on those slabbery rocks one man had dragged a dozen to perdition had he made a slip. The ledges sloped outward, they were piled with broken rock and mud. The soft red rock broke away at a hand's touch, and plunged at a leap to the glacier below. Down and up and along, and down and up and up again, they wound their way, rounding the base of that great tower, and came at last by a rotten gully, safe to the ridge above it. While they clowned, white wispy clouds which had gathered in the high gullies of Eilinon in the morning, had grown to a mass of blackness that hid all the mountains to the west. Great streamers ran from it across the gulf below, joined and boiled upward, lifting and sinking like a full-tided sea, rising at last to the high ridge where the demons stood, and wrapping them in a cloak of vapour with a chill wind in its folds, and darkness in broad noonday. They halted, for they might not see the rocks before them. The wind grew boisterous, shouting among the splinted towers. Snore swept powdery and keen across the ridge. The cloud lifted and plunged again like some great bird shadowing them with its wings. From its bosom the lightning flared above and below. Thunder crashed on the heels of the lightning, sending the echoes rolling among the distant cliffs. Their weapons, planted in the snore, sizzled with blue flare. Jus had counseled laying them aside, lest they should perish holding them. Crikeyed in a hollow of the snore, among the rocks of that high ridge of Kostropivracha, Lord Jus and Lord Brandoc de Haar and Mivarsh Faaz weathered that night of terror. When night came they knew not, but the storm brought darkness on them hours before sundown. Blinding snow and sleet and fire and thunder, and wild winds shrieking in the gullies till the firm mountain seemed to rock, kept them awake. They were near-frozen, and scarce desired ought but death, which might bring them ease from that hellish rounder-layer. May broke with a weak gray light, and the storm died down. Jus stood up weary beyond speech. Mivarsh said, Ye be devils, but of myself I marvel, for I have dwelt by snore mountains all my days, and many are what of that of being benighted on the snores in wild weather, and not warm but was starved by reason of the cold. I speak of them that were found, many were not found, for the spirits devoured them. Where at, Lord Brandoc de Haar laughed aloud, saying, O Mivarsh, I fear me that in thee I have but a graceless dog. Look on him, that in hardy-hood and bodily endurance against all hardships of frost or fire surpasseth me as greatly as I surpass thee. Yet is he wearyest of the three. Would snow why? I'll tell thee. All night he hath striven against the cold, chafing not himself only but me and thee to serve us from frostbite, and be sure naught else had saved thy carcass. By then was the mist grown lighter, so that they might see the ridge for an hundred paces or more, where it went up before them, each pinnacle standing out shadowy and unsubstantial against the next succeeding one more shadowy still, and the pinnacles showed monstrous huge through the mist, like mountain peaks in stature. They roped and set forth, scaling the towers or turning them, now on this side, now on that, sometimes standing on teeth of rock that seemed cut off from all earth else, solitary in a sea of shifting vapor, sometimes descending into a deep gash in the ridge with a blank wall rearing aloft on the further side, an empty air yawning to left and right. The rocks were firm and good, like those they had first climbed from the glacier, but they went but a slow pace, for the climbing was difficult and made dangerous by new snow and by the ice that glazed the rocks. As the day wore the wind was fallen, and all was still when they stood at length before a ridge of hard ice that shot steeply up before them like the edge of a sword. The east side of it on their left was almost sheer, ending in a blank precipice that dropped out of sight without a break. The western slope, scarcely less steep, ran down in a wide even sheet of frozen snow till the clouds engulfed it. Brandoc de Haar waited on the last blunt tooth of rock at the foot of the ice ridge. "'The rest is thine,' he cried to Lord Jus. "'I would not that any serve thou should tread him first, for he is thy mountain. Without thee I had never won up hither,' answered Jus, "'and it is not fitting that I should have that glory to stand first upon the peak when thine was the main achievement. Go thou before.' "'I will not,' said Lord Brandoc de Haar, and it is not so.' So Jus went forward, smiting with his axe great steps just below the backbone of the ridge on the western side, and Lord Brandoc de Haar and Mivar Shfaaz followed in the steps. Presently a wind arose in the unseen spaces of the sky, and tore the mist like a rotten garment. Spears of sunlight blazed through the rifts. Distant sunny lands shimmered in the unimaginable depths to the southward, seen over the crest of a tremendous wall that stood beyond the abyss, a screen of black rock buttresses seamed with a thousand gullies of glistening snow, and crowned as with battlements with a roar of mountain peaks, savage and fierce of form that made the eye blink for their brightness, the lean spires of the summit ridge of Kostropivrarcha, these that the demons had so long looked up to as in a distant heaven, now lay beneath their feet. Only the peak they climbed still reared itself above them, clear now and near to view, showing a bare beatling cliff on the north-east, overhung by a cornice of snow. Just marked the cornice, turned him again to his step-cutting, and in half an hour from the breaking of the clouds stood on that unascended pinnacle, with all earth beneath him. They went down a few feet on the southern side, and sat on some rocks. A fair lake studded with islands lay bosomed in wooded and cragged-girt hills at the foot of a deep-cut valley which ran down from the gates of Zimeambia. Eileenon and Ashnilam rose nearby in the west, with the delicate white peak of Akragosh showing between them, beyond mountain beyond mountain like the sea. Just looked southward, where the blue land stretched in fold upon fold of rolling country, soft and misty, till it melted in the sky. Thou and I, said he, first of the children of men, now behold with living eyes the fabled land of Zimeambia. Is that true, thinkest thou, which philosophers tell us of that fortunate land, that no mortal foot may tread it, but the blessed souls do inhabit it, and the dead that be departed, even there that were great upon earth and did great deeds when they were living, that scorned not earth and the delights and the glories thereof, and yet did justly, and were not dastards nor yet oppressors? Who knoweth, said Brandoc de Ha, resting his chin in his hand, and gazing south as in a dream? Who shall say ye knoweth? There were silent a while. Then just spake, saying, if thou and I come thither at last, oh my friend, shall we remember demon-land? And when he answered him not, just said, I had rather wrought on moon-mere under the stars of a summer's night, than be a king of all the land of Zimeambia. And I had rather watched the sunrise on the scarf, than dwelling gladness all my days on an island of that enchanted lake of ravery under Kostra-Beloin. Now the curtain of cloud that had hung till now about the eastern heights was rented to shreds, and Kostra-Beloin stood like a maiden before them, two or three miles eastward, facing the slanting rays of the sun. On all her vast precipices scarce a rock shored bare, so encrusted were they with a dazzling robe of snow. More lovely she seemed and more graceful in her airy poise, than there had yet beheld her. Just and Brandoc de Ha rose up, as men arise to greet a queen in her majesty. In silence they looked on her for some minutes. And Brandoc de Ha spurts, saying, Behold thy bride, or just. End of CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. Kostra-Beloin. How the Lord just accomplished at length his dreams behest, to inquire in Kostra-Beloin, and what manner of answer he received. That night they spent safely, by favour of the gods, under the highest crags of Kostra-Pivarcha, in a sheltered hollow piled round with snow. Dawn came like a lily, saffron-hued, smurched with smoke-gray streaks that slanted from the north. The great peaks stood as islands above a main of level cloud, out of which the sun walked flaming, a ball of red gold fire. An hour before his face appeared, the demons and Mivarcha were roped, and started on their eastward journey. Ill to do with us was the crest of the great north buttress by which they had climbed the mountain. Seven times worse was this eastern ridge, leading to Kostra-Beloin. Lena of back it was, flanked by more profound abysses, deeply aghashed, too treacherous and too sudden in its changes from sure rock to rotten and perilous. Piled with tottering crags, hung about with cornices of uncertain snow, girt with cliffs smooth and holdless as a castle wall, small marvel that it cost them thirteen hours to come down that ridge. The sun wheeled towards the west, when they reached a length that frozen edge, sharp as a sickle that was in the gates of Zimeambia. Weary there were, and ropless, for by no means else might they come down from the last great tower, served by the rope made fast from above. A fierce northeaster had swept the ridges all day, bringing snow-stones on its wings. Their fingers were numbed with cold, and the beards of Lord Brandoc de Haar and Mivosh Fass stiff with ice. Too weary to halt, they set forth again, just leading. It was many hundred perces along that ice-edge, and the sun was near setting, when they stood at last within the stone's throw of the cliffs of Kostra-Beloin. Since before noon avalanches had thundered ceaselessly down those cliffs. Now in the cool of the evening all was still. The wind was fallen, the deep blue sky was without a cloud. The fires of sunset crept down the vast white precipices before them, till every ledge and fold and frozen pinnacle glowed pink colour, and every shadow became an emerald. The shadow of Kostra-Pivrachar lay cold across the lower stretches of the face on the Zimeambian side. The edge of that shadow was as the division betwixt the living and the dead. What does though think on said just to Brandoc de Haar, that it leaned upon his sword surveying that glory? Brandoc de Haar started and looked on him. Why, said he, on this, that it is likely thy dream was but a lure, sent thee by the king to tempt us onto mighty actions reserved for our destruction? On this side, at least, is very certain there lieth no way up Kostra-Beloin. What of the little marthlet said just, who, whilst we were yet a great way off, flew out of the south to greet us with a gracious message? Well, if it were not a devil of his, said Brandoc de Haar, I will not turn back, said just, thou needest not to come with me. And he turned again to look on those frozen cliffs. No, said Brandoc de Haar, nor thou with me. Thou wilt make me angry if thou wilt so violently rest my words. Only fare not too securely, and let that axe still be ready in thine hand, as is my sword, for kindly a work than step-cutting. And if thou embrace the hope to climb her by this war before us, then hath the king's enchantery made thee fair. Why then was the sun gone down? Under the wings of night uplifted from the east, the unfathomable heights of air turned a richer blue, and here and there, most dim and hard to see, throbbed a tiny point of light, the greater stars opening their islands to the gathering dark. Gloom crept upward, brimming the valleys far below like a rising tide of the sea. Frost and stillness waited on the eternal night to resume her reign. The solemn cliffs of Kostra-Beloin stood in tremendous silence, pale against the sky. Just came backward a step along the ridge, and laying his hand on brandon to horse, be still, he said, and behold this marvel. A little at the face of the mountain on the Zimmiambian side, it was as if some leavings of the afterglow had been entangled among the crags and frozen curses of snow. As the gloom deepened, that glow brightened and spread, filling the rift that seemed to go into the mountain. It is because of us, said Just in a low voice, she is a fire with expectation of us. No sound was there, serve of their breath coming and going, and of the strokes of Just's axe, and of the chips of ice chinking downwards into silence as he cut their wail on the ridge. And ever brighter, as night fell, burned that strange sunset light above them. Perilous climbing it was for fifty feet or more from the ridge, for there had no rope, the wear was hard to see, and the rocks were steep and iced, and every ledge deep in snow. Yet there came surf at length, up by a steep short gully, to the gully's head, where it widened to that rift of the wondrous light. Here my two walker breasted, and Lord Just and Lord Brandoc de Haar took their weapons and entered a breast into the rift. Mivash was fair to call to them, but he was speechless. He came after, close at their heels like a dog. For somewhere the bed of the curve ran upwards, then dipped at a gentle slope deep into the mountain. The air was cold, yet warm after the frozen air without. The rose-red light shone warm on the walls of the floor of that passage, but none might say whence it shone. Strange sculptures glimmered overhead, bull-headed men, stags with human faces, mammoths and behemoths of the flood. Vast forms and uncertain carved in the living rock. For hours Just and his companions pursued their way, winding downward, losing all sense of north and south. Little by little the light faded, and after an hour or two they went in darkness, yet not in utter darkness, but as of a starless night in summer, where all night long twilight lingers. They went a soft pace, for fear of pitfalls in the way. After a while Just halted and sniffed the air. I smell new morn hair, he said, and flower-sense. Is this my fantasy, or canst thou smell them too? I, and have smelt it this half-hour past, answered brand up to heart. Also the passage wideneth before us, and the roof of it goeth higher as we journey. This, said Just, is a great wonder. They fared onward, and in a while the slope slackened, and they felt loose stones and grit beneath their feet, and in a while soft earth. They bent down and touched the earth, and there was grass growing, and night dew on the grass, and daisies folded up asleep. A brook tinkled on the right. So they crossed that meadow in the dark, until they stood below a shadowy mass that bulked big above them. In a blind wall so high the top was swallowed up in the darkness, a gate stood open. They crossed that threshold, and passed through a paved court that clanked under their tread. Before them a flight of steps went up to folding doors under an archway. Lord Brandock to heart felt mevarsed pluck him by the sleeve. The little man's teeth were chattering together in his head for terror. Lord Brandock to heart smiled and put an arm about him. Just had his foot on the lowest step. In that instant came a sound of music playing, but of what instruments they might not guess. Great thundering chords began it, like trumpets calling to battle, first high, then low, then shuddering down to silence. Then that great call again, sounding defiance. Then the keys took new voices, groping in darkness, rising to passionate lament, hovering and dying away on the wind, still not remade but a roll as of muffled thunder, long, low, quiet, but menacing ill. And now out of the darkness of that induction burst a mighty form, three ponderous blows, as of breakers that plunge and strike on a desolate shore. A pause, those blows again. A grinding pause, a rushing of wings as a furious steaming up from the pit. Another flight of them dreadful in its deliberation. Then a wild rush upward and a swooping again, confusion of hell, raging serpents blazing through night sky. Then on a sudden out of a distant key, a sweet melody, long drawn and clear, like a blaze of lost sunshine piercing the dust clouds above a battlefield. This was but an interlude to the terror of the great main thing that came into mulchless strides up again from the deeps, storm into a grand climacteric of fury, and passing away into silence. Now came a majestic figure, stately and calm, born of that terror, leading to it again. Battlings of these themes in many keys, and at last the great triple blow, thundering in new strength, crushing old joy and sweetness as with a mass of iron, battering the roots of life into a general ruin. But even in the main stride of its outrage and terror, that great power seemed to shrivel. The thunderblasts crashed weaklier, the harsh blows rattled the rye, and the vast frame of conquest and destroying violence sank down panting, tottered and rumbled ingloriously into silence. Like men held in a trance, those lords of demon land listened to the last echoes of the great sad chord where that music had breathed out its heart, as if the very heart of wrath were broken. But this was not the end. Cold and serene as some chaste virgin vowed to the gods, with clear eyes which seemed nought below high heaven, a quiet melody rose from that grave of terror. Weak it seemed at first, a little thing after that cataclysm. A little thing, like spring's first bud peeping after the blasting rain of cold and ice. Yet it walked undismared, gathering as it went beauty and power. And on a sudden the folding doors swung open, shedding a flood of radiance down the stairs. Lord Joss and Lord Brandock Nahar watched, as men watched for a star to rise, that radiant portal. And like a star indeed, or like the tranquil moon appearing, they beheld after a while one crowned like a queen, with a diadem of little clouds that seemed stolen from the mountain sunset, scattering soft beams of rosy brightness. She stood alone under that mighty portico, with its vast shadowy forms of winged lions, in shining stone black as jet. Youthful she seemed, as one that hath but just bidden adieu to childhood, with grave sweet lips, and grave black eyes, and hair like the night. Little black marplets perched on her either shoulder, and a dozen more skimmed the air above her head. So swift a wing that scarcely the eye might follow them. Meantime, that delicate and simple melody mounted from height to height, until in a while it burned with all the fires of summer, burned as summer to the uttermost ember, fierce and compulsive in its riot of love and beauty. So that, before the last triumphant chords died down in silence, that music had brought back to just all the glories of the mountains, the sunset fires on Costa Belon, the first great revelation of the peaks from Moana Maruna, and over all these, as the spirit of that music to the eye made manifest, the image of that queen so blessed fair in her youth, and her clear brows sweet solemn respect and promise, in every line and pause of her fair form, virginal dainty as a flower, and kindled from withinward, as never flower was, with that divinity before the face of which speech and song falls silent, and men never catch their breath and worship. When she spoke it was with a voice like crystal. She said, I must be and praise to the blessed gods, for lo, the years depart, and the fertid years bring forth as the gods ordain, and ye be those that were for to come. Surely those great lords of Demonland stood like little boys before her. She said again, I not ye, Lord Jus and Lord Brand of Dahar of Demonland, come up to me by the way banded to all mortals else, come up into Costa Belon. Then answered Lord Jus for them both, and said, surely Lord Queen Sophanizba, we be there thou ne'er-must. Now the Queen carried them into her palace, and into a great hall where was her throne instead. The pillars of the hall were as vast towers, and there were galleries above them, tier upon tier, rising higher than sight could reach, for the light of the gentle lamps in their stands that lighted the tables on the floor. The walls and the pillars were of a somber stone unpolished, and on the walls strange portraitures, lions, dragons, knickers of the sea, spread eagles, elephants, swans, unicorns and other, lively-made and richly set forth with curious colours of painting, all of giant size beyond the experience of humankind, so that to be in that hall was as it were to shelter in a small spot of light and life, canapid, vaulted, and embraced by the circumambient unknown. The Queen said on her throne, that was bright like the face of a river ruffled with wind under a silver moon. But for those little mortals she was unattended. She made those lords of Demonland sit down before her face, and there were brought forth by the agency of unseen hands, tables before them, and precious dishes filled with unknown viens. And there played a soft music, made in the air by what unseen art there knew not. The Queen said, Behold, Ambrosia, which the gods do eat, and nectar which they drink, on which meat of wine myself do feed, by the bounty of the blessed gods, and the server thereof weary if not, and the glow thereof and the perfume thereof, gaieth not for ever. So they tasted of the Ambrosia, that was white to look on and crisp to the tooth, and sweet, and being eaten revived strength in the body more than a surfeit of bullock flesh, and of the nectar that was all a foam and coloured like the inmost fires of sunset. Surely somewhat of the peace of the gods was in that nectar divine. The Queen said, Tell me, why are you come? Surely there was a dream sent to me, O Queen Sophanisba, through the gate of Horn, and it bade me inquire hither after him my most desire, for want of whom my whole soul languisheth and sorrow this year gone by, even after my dear brother, the Lord Goldry Bluscoe. His words ceased in his throat, for with the speaking of that name the firm fabric of the palace quivered like the leaves of a forest under a sudden squall, colour went from the scene, like the blood chased from a man's face by fear, and all was of a pallid hue, like the landscape which one beholds of a bright summer day, after lying with eyes closed for a space face upward under the blazing sun. Bold grey and cold, the warm colours burnt to ashes. With all followed the appearance of hateful little creatures issuing from the joints of the perving-stones and the great blocks of the walls and pillars, some like grasshoppers with human heads and wings of flies, some like fishes with stings in their tails, some fat like toads, some like eels are wriggling with poppy-dogs' heads and asses ears, loathly walls, exiles of glory, scaly and obscene. The horror passed, colour returned. The Queen sat like a graven statue, her lips pointed. After a while she said, with a shaken voice, lowened with downcast eyes, Sir, you demand of me, a very strange matter, such as where with never hitherto I have been acquainted. As you are noble, I beseech you speak not that name again. In the name of the blessed gods, speak it not again. Lord just was silent. Not good ways, thoughts within him. In due time a little martlet by the Queen's command brought them to their bed-chambers, and there in great beds soft and fragrant they went to rest. Just worked long in the doubtful light, troubled at heart, that lengthy fell into a troubled sleep. The glimmer of the lamps mingled with his dreams and his dreams with it, so that scarcely wist whether asleep or waking, he beheld the walls of the bed-chamber, disparted Sunday, disclosing a prospect of vast paths of moonlight, and a solitary mountain peak standing naked out of a sea of cloud that gleamed white beneath the moon. It seemed to him that the power of flight was upon him, and that he flew to that mountain, and hung in air beholding it near at hand, and a circle as the appearance of fire round about it, and on the summit of the mountain the likeness of a burg or citadel of brass that was green with eld and surface-battered by the frosts and winds of ages. On the battlements was the appearance of a great company, both men and women, never still, now walking on the wall with hands lifted up as in supplication to the crystal lamps of heaven, now flinging themselves on their knees, or leaning against the brazen battlements to bury their faces in their hands, or standing at gaze as night-walkers gazing into the void. Some seemed men of war, and some great courtiers by their costly apparel, rulers and kings and kings' daughters, grave bearded counsellors, youths and maidens and crowned queens, and when they went, and when they stood, and when they seemed to cry aloud bitterly, all was noiseless even as the tomb, and the faces of those mourners pallid as in dead corpses pallid. Then it seemed to just that he beheld a heap of brass, flat-roofed, standing on the right, a little higher than the wall, with battlements about the roof. He strove to cry aloud, but it was as if some devil gripped his throat, stifling him, for no sound came. For in the midst of the roof, as it were on a bench of stone, was the appearance of one reclining, his chin resting in his great right hand, his elbow on an arm of the bench, his cloak about him gorgeous with cloth of gold, his ponderous two-handed sword beside him with its heart-shaped ruby pommel, dark Lewis blend into the moonlight. What otherwise looked he than when just last beheld him, on their ship before the darkness swallowed them? Only the ruddy hues of life seemed departed from him, and his brows seemed clouded with sorrow. His eye met his brothers, but with no look of recognition, gazing as if on some far point in the deeps beyond the starshine. It seemed to just that even so would he have looked to find his brother Goldry as he now found him, his head unbent for all the tyranny of those dark powers that held him in captivity, keeping like a god his patient vigil, heedless alike of the laments of them that shared his prison, and of the menace of the houseless night about him. The vision passed, and Lord just perceived himself in his bed again, the cold morning light stealing between the hangings of the windows, and dimming the soft radiance of the lamps. Now for seven days they dwelt in that palace. No living thing they encountered save only the queen and her little marklets, but all things desirous were ministered unto them by unseen hands, and all royal entertainment. Yet was Lord just heavy at heart, for as often as he would question the queen of Goldry, so she would ever put him by, praying him earnestly not a second time to pronounce that name of terror. At last, walking with her alone in the cool of the evening, on a trodden path of a meadow where Asphodel grew, and other holy flowers beside a quiet stream, he said, So it is, O Queen Suffinisba, that when I first came hither and spake with thee, I well thought that by thee my matter should be well sped, and it's not thou then promise me thy goodness, and grace from thee thereafter? This is very true, said the queen. Then why, said he, when I would question thee of that I make most store of, would thou always daft me and put me by? She was silent, hanging her head. He looked side long for a minute at her sweet profile, the grave clear lines of her mouth and chin. Of whom must I inquire, he said, if not of thee, which art queen in Costa Veloan and must know this thing? She stopped and firstened with dark eyes that would like a child's for innocence, and like a god's for splendour. My lord, that I have put thee off, ascribe it not to evil intent. That were an unnatural part indeed, in me, unto you of demon-land, who have fulfilled the weird and set me free again, to visit again the world of men, which I so much desire, despite all my sorrows I therefore filled in elder time. Or shall I forget you are at enmity, with the wicked need-house of witch-land, and therefore doubly pledge my friends? That the event must prove, oh queen, said Lord Jus, or so ye mourner maruna, crats she, so ye it in the wilderness? And when he looked on her still dark and mistrustful, she said, Is this for God? And me thought it should be mentioned, and remember as made thereof, unto the end of the world. I pray thee, my lord, what age art thou? I have looked upon this world, and said, Lord Jus, for thrice ten years. And I, said the queen, but seventeen summers. Yet that same age had I when thou was born, and I grant I a before thee, and his before him. For the gods gave me youth for evermore, when they brought me hither after the realm-rape that befell our house, and lodged me in this mountain. She paused and stood motionless. Her hands clasped lightly before her, her head bent, her face turned a little away, so that he saw only the white curve of her neck, and her cheeks soft outlawed. All the air was full of sunset, though no sun was there, but a scattered splendour only, shed from the high roof of rock that was like a sky above them, self effulgent. Very softly she began again to speak, the crystal accents of her voice sounding like the faint moats of a bell, born from a great way off, on the quiet air of a summer evening. Surely time past is gone by like a shadow since those days, when I was queen in morning maruna, dwelling there with my lady mother, and the princes my cousins in peace and joy. Until Gerais the third came out of the north, the great king of witchland, desiring to explore these mountains, for his pride's sake and his insolent heart, which cost him dear. It was on an evening of early summer we beheld him and his folk, ride over the flowering meadows of the maruna. Nobly was he entertained by us, and when we knew what way he meant to go, we counseled him turned back, and the mantacores must tear him if he went. But he mocked at our advisers, and on the maruna departed, he and his, by way of ompren edge, and never again were they seen of living man. That had been small loss. But hereof there befell a great and horrible mischief, for in the spring of the year came Gerais the fourth, with a great army out of water-ish witchland, saying with open mouth of defamation that we were the dead king's murderers, we that were peaceful folk, and would not entertain an action should coal as villain for all the wealth of Impland. Even the night they came, when all we said the sentinels upon the walls were in our bed secure, in a quiet conscience. They took the princes, my cousins, and all our men, and before our eyes most cruelly mirthed them, so that my mother seeing these things fell suddenly into deadly swoonings, and was presently dead. And the king commanded them burn the house with fire, and he break down the holy altars of the gods, and defiled their high places. And unto me that was young and fair to look on he gave this choice, to go with him and be his slave, other else to be cast down from the edge, and all my bones be broken. Surely I chose this rather. But the gods that do help every rightful true cause, made light my fall, and guided me hither safe through all perils of height and cold and ravining beasts, granting me youth and peaceful days for ever, here on the borderland between the living and the dead. And the gods blew upon all the land of the maruna in the fire of their wrath, to make it desolate, and man and beast cut off therefrom, for a witness of the wicked deeds had gharized the king. Even as gharized the king made desolate our little castle and now are pleasant places. The face of the land was lifted up to high airs, where frosts do dwell, so that the cliffs of ompren edge down which ye came, are ten times the height they were when gharized the third came down them. So was an end of flowers on the maruna, and an end there of spring and of summer days for ever. The queen ceased speaking, and Lord Just was silent for a space, greatly mortalling. "'Judge now,' said she, "'if your false be not my false. It is not hidden from me, my Lord, that you deem me but a lukewarm friend and no helper at all in your enterprise. Yet have I ceased not, since you were here, to search and to inquire, and sent my little mortlets west and east and south and north, after tidings of him thou namest. They are swift, even as wingy thoughts circling the established world, and they return to me on weary wings, but with never a word of thy great kinsmen. Just looked at her eyes that were moist with tears. Truth sat in them like an angel. "'O queen,' he cried, "'why need thy little minions scour the world, when my brother is here in Kostra-Beloan?' She shook her head, saying, "'This I will swear to thee, there hath no mortal come up into Kostra-Beloan, serve only thee and thy companions these two hundred years.' But just said again, "'My brother is here in Kostra-Beloan. My eyes beheld in that first night, hedged about with fires, and he is held captive on a tower of brass on a peak of a mountain. There be no mountains here,' said she, "'said this in whose womb we have our dwelling.' "'Yet so I beheld my brother,' said just, under the white beams of the full moon.' "'There is no moon here,' said the queen. So Lord just rehearsed to her his vision of the night, telling her point to point of everything.' She harkened gravely, and when he had done, trembled a little, and said, "'This is a mystery to my Lord, beyond my resolution.' She fell silent awhile. Then she began to say in a hushed voice, as if the very words and breath might breed some dreadful matter, taken up in ascending maloficial by King Garais XII. So it hath ever been, that when so ever there dyeth one of the house of Garais, there riseth up another in his stead, and so from strength to strength, and death weak enough not this house of which land, but like the dandelion weed being cut down and bruised, it springeth up the stronger. Dost I know why?' He answered, "'No.' "'The blessed gods,' said she, speaking yet lower, have shown me many hidden matters, which the sons of men know not, neither imagine. They hold this mystery. There is but one Garais, and by the favour of heaven, that moveeth sometimes in a manner our weak judgment, seeketh in vain to justify. This cruel and evil one, every time, whether by the sword or in the fullness of his years he cometh to die, departeth the living soul and spirit of him into a new and sound body, and liveth yet another lifetime to vex and to oppress the world, until that body die, and the next in his turn, and so continually, having thus in a manner life eternal. Just said, thy discourse, O Queen Sophanisba, is in a strain above mortality. This is a great wonder, thou tellest me. Whereof some little part I guessed a foretime, but the men I knew not. Rightfully, having such a timeless life, this king weareth on his thumb that worm or roboros, which doctors have from of old made for an end sample of eternity, whereof the end is ever at the beginning, and the beginning at the end for evermore. See then the hardness of the thing, said the Queen. But I forget not, my lord, that thou hast a matter nearer thine heart than this. To set free him, name it not, concerning whom thou didst inquire of me. Knowing this, know it for thy comfort, some ray of light I see. Question me no more till I have made a trial thereof, lest it prove but a false dawn. If it be as I think, it is a trial yet abideth thee, should make the stoutest blench. CHAPTER XIV Of the furtherance given by Queen Sophonisba, fosterlinger of the gods, to Lord Justin, Lord Brandoc de Ha, with how the Hippogriff's egg was hatched beside the enchanted lake, and what ensued therefrom. Next day the Queen came to Lord Justin, Lord Brandoc de Ha, and made them go with her, and Mivash with them to serve them, over the meadows and down a passage, like that whereby they had entered the mountain, but this led downward. You may marvel, she said, to see day-light in the heart of this great mountain. Yet it is but the hidden work of nature. For the rays of the sun striking all day upon Costa Belorin, and upon her robe of snow, sink into the snow-like water, and so soaking through the secret places of the rocks, shine again in this hollow chamber where we dwell, and in these passages cleft by the gods, to give us our goings out and our comings in. And as sunset followeth broad day with coloured fires, and moonlight or darkness followeth sunset, and dawn followeth night, mushering the bright day once more, so these changes of the dark and light succeed one another within the mountain. They passed on, ever downward, till after many hours, they came suddenly forth into dazzling sunlight. They stood at a cave's mouth, on a beach of sand white and clean, that was lapped by the ripples of a sapphire lake, a great lake, sawn with eyelets craggy, and luxuriant with trees and flowering growths. Many armed was the lake, winding everywhere in secret reaches behind promontories that were spurs of the mountains that held it in their bosom. Some wooded or green with lush, flower-spangled turf to the water's edge, some with bare rocks abrupt from the water, some crowned with rugged lines of cried that sent down scree slopes into the lake below. It was mid-afternoon, sweet-air, a day of dappled cloud-shadows and changing lights. White birds circled above the lake, and now and then a king-fisher flashed by like a streak of azure flame. That was a westward-facing beach, at the end of a headland that ran down cloaked with pine forests, with open primrose-blades, from a spur of Costa Belón. Northward the two great mountains stood at the head of a straight narrow valley that ran up to the gates of Zimmiambia. Vaster there seemed than the demons had yet beheld them, showing at but six or seven miles' distance a clear 16,000 feet above the lake, nor from any other point of prospect were they more lovely to behold, Costa Privracha like an eagle armed, shadowing with wings, and Costa Belón as a goddess fallen adreaming, gracious as the morning star of heaven, wondrous bright with their snows in the sunshine, yet ghostly and unsubstantial to view seen through the hazy summer air. Olive trees, gray and soft outlined like embodied mist, grew in the lower valleys, woods of oak and birch, and every forest tree clothed at the slopes, and in the warmer folds of the mountain-sides, belts of creamy-roaded dendrons straggled upwards even to the moraines above the lower glaciers and the very margin of the snows. The queen watched, Lord Jus, as his gears moved to the left past Costa Privracha, past the blunt lower crest of Goglio, to a great lonely peak many miles distant that frowned over the rich meadows of nearer ridges which stood above the lake. Its southern shoulders swept in a long majestic line of cliffs up to a clean, sharp summit. Northward it fell steeply or away. Little snow hung on the sheer rock faces, save where the gullies cleft them. For grace and beauty scarce might Costa Belon herself surpass that peak. But terrible it looked, and as a mansion of old night, that not high noonday could wholly dispossess of darkness. There, standeth the mountain great and fair, said Lord Brandoc de Haar, which was hidden a cloud when we were on the high ridges, it hath the look of a great beast cauchent. Still the queen watched Lord Jus, who looked still on that peak. Then he turned to her, his hands clenched on the buckles of his brass plates. She said, Was it as I think? He took a great breath. It was so I beheld it in the beginning, he said, as from this place. But here are we too far off to see the citadel of brass, or know if it be truly there. And he said to Brandoc de Haar, This remaineth that we climb that mountain. That can ye never do, said the queen. That shall be shown, said Brandoc de Haar. List, said she, Nameless is yonder mountain upon earth, for until this hour, serve only for me and you, the eye of living man hath not looked upon it. But unto the gods it hath a name, and unto the spirits of the blessed that do inhabit this land, and unto those unhappy souls that are held in captivity on that cold mountaintop, Zorarach namsaryon, standing apart above the noiseless lifeless snow fields that feed the Psaryon glaciers, loneliest and secretest of all earth's mountains, and most accursed. O my lords, she said, think not to climb up Zorarach, and chantments ring round Zorarach, so that ye should not get so near as to the edges of the snow-fields at her feet, ere ruin gathered you. Just smiled. O Queen Sophanizba, little thou knowest our mind if thou think this shall turn us back. I say it, said the Queen, with no such vain purpose, but to show you the necessity of that way I shall now tell you of, since well I know ye will not give over this attempt. To non-serve to a demon dourst I have told it, lest heaven should hold me answerable for his death. But unto you, I may, with the less danger commit this dangerous counsel, if it be true, as I was taught long ago, that the Hippogriff was seen of old in demon-land. The Hippogriff, said Lord Brandoc de Ha, what else is it than the emblem of our greatness? A thousand years ago they nested on Nevedale halls, and there abide unto this day in the rocks the prince of their hooves and talons. He that rode it was a forefather of mine, and of Lord Just. He that shall ride it again, said Queen Sophanizba, he only of mortal men may winters order Rach, and if he be man enough of his hands may deliver him we what of out of bondage. O Queen, said Just, somewhat I know of grammary and divine philosophy, yet must I bow to thee for such learning, that dwellest here from generation to generation, and thus commune with the dead. How shall we find this steed? Few there be, and how they fly above the world, and come to birth but one in three hundred years? She answered, I have an egg. In all lands else must such an egg lie barren and sterile, save in this land of Zimeambia, which is sacred to the lordly races of the dead. And thus cometh this steed to the birth, when one of might and heart beyond the want of man sleepeth in this land with the egg in his bosom, greatly desiring some high achievement. The fire of his great longing hatcheth the egg, and the hippogriff cometh out therefrom, weak-winged at first as thou hast seen a butterfly new hatched out his chrysalis. Then only mayst thou mount him, and if thou be manny now to turn him to thy will, he shall bear thee to the uttermost parts of earth unto thine heart's desire. But if thou be all but less than greatest, beware that steed, and mount only earthly courses. But if thou be all too dross within thee, and thine heart falter, or thy purpose cool, or thou forget the level aim of thy glory, then will he toss thee to thy ruin. Thou hast this thing, O Queen? said Lord Jus. My lord, she said softly, more than a hundred years ago I found it, while I rambled on the cliffs that are about this charmed lurk of ravery. And here I hid it, being taught by the gods what thing I had found, and knowing what was for ordained, that certain of earth should come at last to Kostra belawing. Thinking in my heart that he that should come might be of those who bear some great unfulfilled desire, and might be of such might as could ride to his desire on such a steed. They abode, talking little, by the charmed lurk's shore till evening. Then they arose and went with her to a pavilion by the lurk, built in a grove of flowering trees. There they went to rest, she brought them the Hippogriff's egg, great as a man's body, yet light of weight, rough and coloured like gold. And she said, which of you, my lords? Jus answered, he, if might and a high heart should only count, but I, because my brother it is that we must free from his dismal place. So the Queen gave the egg to Lord Jus, and he, bearing it in his arms, bade her good night, saying, I need no other lordenum than this to make me sleep. And the ambrosial night came down, and gentle sleep, softer than sleep is on earth, closed their eyes in that pavilion beside the enchanted lake. Mivosh slept not. Small joy had he of that lake of ravery, caring for none of its beauties, but mindful still of certain lewd bulks he had seen basking by its shores all through the golden afternoon. He had questioned one of the Queen's marklets concerning them, who laughed at him and let him know that these were crocodiles, wardens of the lake, tame and gentle toward the heroes of bliss who resorted thither to bear them to sport themselves. But should such an one as thou, she said, adventure there, there would chop thee up at a mouthful. This saddened him, and indeed little ease of heart had he since he came out of Impland, and dearly he desired his home, though it was sacked and burnt, and the men of his own blood, though they should prove his foes. And well he thought that it just should fly with brandock to Haar, mounted on Hippogriff to that cold mountaintop, where souls of the great were held in bondage. He should never win back alone to the world of men, past the frozen mountains and the manticors, and past the crocodile that dwelt beside Barvinan. He lay awake an hour or twain, weeping quietly, until out of the giant heart of midnight came to him with fiery clearness the words of the Queen, saying that by the heat of great longing in his heart that claspeth it must that egg be hatched, and that that man should then mount and ride on the wind unto his heart's desire. Therewith Mivosh sat up, his hands clammy with mixed fear and longing, and seemed to him, awakened alone among the sleepers in that breathless night, that no longing could be greater than his longing. He said in his heart, I will arise and take the egg-privilege from the devil-transmarine and clasp it myself. I do him no wrong thereby, for said she not it was perilous. Also every man raked the embers to his own cake. So he arose, and came secretly to Jus, where he lay with his strong arms circling the egg. A beam of the moon came in by a window, shining on the face of Jus, that was as the face of a god. Mivosh bent over him, and teased the egg gently from his embrace, praying fervently the while. And, for Jus was in a profound slumber, his soul mounting in vision far from earth, far from that shore divine, to long regions where gold rewatched still in frozen mournful patience on the heights of Zola. But last Mivosh got the egg, and buried it to his bed. Very warm it was, crackling to his ear as he embraced it, as of a power moving from withinwards. In such wise Mivosh fell asleep, clasping the egg as a man should clasp his dearest. And a little before dawn it hatched in his arms, and fell asunder, and he started awake, his arms about the neck of a strange steed. It went forth into the pale light before the sunrise, and he with it, holding it fast. The sheen of its hair was like the peacock's neck, its eyes like the changing fires of a star of a windy night, its nostrils widened to the breath of the dawn, its wings unfolded and grew stiff, their feathers like the tail feathers of the peacock pheasant, white with purple eyes, and hard to the touch as iron blades. Mivosh was mounted on its back, seizing the shining man with both hands, trembling. And now as he fainted descend, but the hippogriff snorted and reared, and he, fearing a great fall, clung closer. It stamped with its silver hoofs, flapping its wings, ramping like a lioness, tearing up the grass with its claws. Mivosh screamed, torn between hope and fear. It plunged forward and leaped into the air and flew. The demons, worked by the whirring of wings, rushed from the pavilion, to behold that marvel flown against the obscure west. Wild was its flight, like a snipe dipping and plunging, and while they looked, they saw the rider flung from his seat, and heard, some moments after, a dull flop and splash of a body fallen in the lake. The wild steed vanished, winging toward the upper air. Rings ran outward from the splash, troubling the surface of the lake, mooring the dark reflection of Zoro Rach, mirrored in the sleeping waters. Poor Mivosh, cried Lord Brandoc de Haar, after all the weary leagues I made him go with me. And he threw off his cloak, took a dagger in his teeth, and swam with great over-armed strokes out to the spot where Mivosh fell. But naughty found of Mivosh. Only he saw nearby, on an island beach, a crocodile, big and blotted, that eyed him guiltily, and stared not for his coming, but lumbering into the water, dived and disappeared. So Brandoc de Haar turned and swam ashore again. Lord Just stood as a man stricken to storm. As one despaired he turned to the Queen, who now came forth to them wrapped in a mantle of swans down. Yet high he held his head. O Queen Sophanizba, here is that secret glow more bottom of our dears, come when we sniff the sweetness of the morning. My Lord said she, the flies hemmary, take life with the sun and die with the dew. But thou, if thou be truly great, join not hands with desperation. Let the sad ending of this poor servant of thine be to thee a monument against such folly. Earth is not ruined for a single shower. Come back with me to Kostropelon. He looked at the grand peak of Zora, dark against the workening east. Madam, he said, thou hast little more than half my years, and yet by another computation thou art seven times mine age. I am not light of will, nor thou shall not find me a fool to thee. Let us go back to Kostropelon. They break their fast quietly, and returned by the way they came. And the Queen said, My Lord's just and brand up the heart. There be few steeds of such a kind to carry you to Zora Rakh and Amsaryon, and not ye, though ye be beyond the half gods in your might and virtue, might have power to ride them, but if ye take them from the egg. So high they fly, so shy they are, ye should not catch them, though ye worded ten men's lifetimes. I will send my mortals to see if there be another egg in the world. So she dispatched them, north and west and south and east. And in due time those little birds returned on weary wind, all save one, without tidings. All who have come back to me, said the Queen, save Arabella alone. Dangers attend them in the world. Birds of prey, men that slay little birds for their sport. Yet hope with me that she may come back at last. But the Lord just spake and said, O Queen Sophonisba, to hope and wait, lyeth not in my nature, but to be swift, resolute, and exact, whensoever I see my way before me. This have I ever approved, that the strawberry groweth underneath the nettle still. I will assay the assent of Zora. Nor might all her prayers turn him from this rashness, wherein the Lord Brandoc de Har besides did most eagerly second him. Two nights and two days they were gone. And the Queen abode them in great trouble of heart in her pavilion by the enchanted leg. The third evening came Brandoc de Har back to the pavilion, bringing with him just that was like a man at point of death, and himself besides deadly sick. Tell me not anything, said the Queen. Forgetfulness is the only sovereign remedy, which with all my art I will strive to induce in thy mind and in his. Surely I despair'd ever to see you in life again, so rashly entered into those regions for bid. Brandoc de Har smiled, but his look was ghastly. Blemmer's not over much, dear Queen. Who shoots at the midday sun, though he be sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he is, he shall shoot higher than who aims but at a bush. His voice broke in his throat. The whites of his eyes rolled up. He caught at the Queen's hand like a frightened child. Then, with a mighty effort mastering himself, I pray bear with me a little, he said, after a little good meets and drinks take and tour pass. I pray look to Jus. Is a dead think you? Days passed, and months. And the Lord Jus lay yet, as it were, in the article of death, tended by his friend, and by the Queen in that pavilion by the lake. At length, when winter was gone in Middle Earth, and the spring far spent, back came that last little martlet on weary wing. She there had long given up for last. She sank in her mistress's bosom, almost dead indeed for weariness. But the Queen cherished her and gave her nectar, so that she gathered strength and said, O Queen Sof and Isba, fostling of the gods, I flew for thee east and south and west and north, by sea and by land, in heat and frost, on to the frozen poles, about and about. And at the last came to Demonland, to the range of Neverdale. There is a tarn among the mountains, that men call dual tarn. Very deep it is, a men that live by bread do hold it for bottomless. Yet hath it a bottom, and on the bottom lieth an Hippogriff's egg, seen by me, for I flew at a great height above it. In Demonland, said the Queen, and she said to Lord Brandoc de Haar, it is the only one. He must go home to fetch it. Brandoc de Haar said, home to Demonland? After we spent our powers and crossed the world to find the way. But when Lord just knew of it, straight away with hope, so renewed, began his sickness to depart from him, so that he was in a few weeks' space very well recovered. And it was now a full year gone by, since first the demons came up into Kostra-Beloan.