The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories - Lord Dunsany
And the dreams of Rold said to him: 'Thy knees are tied, thou art
fallen in a marsh,' and Rold stood still before the sword. Then the
soul of the warrior wailed among Rold's dreams, as Rold stood before
the sword.
'Welleran is crying for his sword, his wonderful curved sword. Poor
Welleran, that once fought for Merimna, is crying for his sword in
the night. Thou wouldst not keep Welleran without his beautiful
sword when he is dead and cannot come for it, poor Welleran who
fought for Merimna.'
And Rold broke the glass casket with his hand and took the sword,
the great curved sword of Welleran; and the soul of the warrior said
among Rold's dreams: 'Welleran is waiting in the deep ravine that
runs into the mountains, crying for his sword.'
And Rold went down through the city and climbed over the ramparts,
and walked with his eyes wide open but still sleeping over the
desert to the mountains.
Already a great multitude of Merimna's citizens were gathered in the
desert before the deep ravine with old swords in their hands, and
Rold passed through them as he slept holding the sword of Welleran,
and the people cried in amaze to one another as he passed: 'Rold
hath the sword of Welleran!'
And Rold came to the mouth of the ravine, and there the voices of
the people woke him. And Rold knew nothing that he had done in his
sleep, and looked in amazement at the sword in his hand and said:
'What art thou, thou beautiful thing? Lights shimmer in thee, thou
art restless. It is the sword of Welleran, the curved sword of
Welleran!'
And Rold kissed the hilt of it, and it was salt upon his lips with
the battle-sweat of Welleran. And Rold said: 'What should a man do
with the sword of Welleran?'
And all the people wondered at Rold as he sat there with the sword
in his hand muttering, 'What should a man do with the sword of
Welleran?'
Presently there came to the ears of Rold the noise of a jingling up
in the ravine, and all the people, the people that knew naught of
war, heard the jingling coming nearer in the night; for the four
armies were moving on Merimna and not yet expecting an enemy. And
Rold gripped upon the hilt of the great curved sword, and the sword
seemed to lift a little. And a new thought came into the hearts of
Merimna's people as they gripped their grandsires' swords. Nearer
and nearer came the heedless armies of the four Kings, and old
ancestral memories began to arise in the minds of Merimna's people
in the desert with their swords in their hands sitting behind Rold.
And all the sentinels were awake holding their spears, for Rollory
had put their dreams to flight, Rollory that once could put to
flight armies and now was but a dream struggling with other dreams.
And now the armies had come very near. Suddenly Rold leaped up,
crying: 'Welleran! And the sword of Welleran!' And the savage,
lusting sword that had thirsted for a hundred years went up with the
hand of Rold and swept through a tribesman's ribs. And with the
warm blood all about it there came a joy into the curved soul of
that mighty sword, like to the joy of a swimmer coming up dripping
out of warm seas after living for long in a dry land. When they saw
the red cloak and that terrible sword a cry ran through the tribal
armies, 'Welleran lives!' And there arose the sounds of the exulting
of victorious men, and the panting of those that fled, and the sword
singing softly to itself as it whirled dripping through the air.
And the last that I saw of the battle as it poured into the depth
and darkness of the ravine was the sword of Welleran sweeping up and
falling, gleaming blue in the moonlight whenever it arose and
afterwards gleaming red, and so disappearing into the darkness.
But in the dawn Merimna's men came back, and the sun arising to give
new life to the world, shone instead upon the hideous things that
the sword of Welleran had done. And Rold said: 'O sword, sword!
How horrible thou art! Thou art a terrible thing to have come among
men. How many eyes shall look upon gardens no more because of thee?
How many fields must go empty that might have been fair with
cottages, white cottages with children all about them? How many
valleys must go desolate that might have nursed warm hamlets,
because thou hast slain long since the men that might have built
them? I hear the wind crying against thee, thou sword! It comes
from the empty valleys. It comes over the bare fields. There are
children's voices in it. They were never born. Death brings an end
to crying for those that had life once, but these must cry for ever.
O sword! sword! why did the gods send thee among men?' And the
tears of Rold fell down upon the proud sword but could not wash it
clean.
And now that the ardour of battle had passed away, the spirits of
Merimna's people began to gloom a little, like their leader's, with
their fatigue and with the cold of the morning; and they looked at
the sword of Welleran in Rold's hand and said: 'Not any more, not
any more for ever will Welleran now return, for his sword is in the
hand of another. Now we know indeed that he is dead. O Welleran,
thou wast our sun and moon and all our stars. Now is the sun fallen
down and the moon broken, and all the stars are scattered as the
diamonds of a necklace that is snapped off one who is slain by
violence.'
Thus wept the people of Merimna in the hour of their great victory,
for men have strange moods, while beside them their old inviolate
city slumbered safe. But back from the ramparts and beyond the
mountains and over the lands that they had conquered of old, beyond
the world and back again to Paradise, went the souls of Welleran,
Soorenard, Mommolek, Rollory, Akanax, and young Iraine.
The Fall of Babbulkund
I said: 'I will arise now and see Babbulkund, City of Marvel. She is
of one age with the earth; the stars are her sisters. Pharaohs of
the old time coming conquering from Araby first saw her, a solitary
mountain in the desert, and cut the mountain into towers and
terraces. They destroyed one of the hills of God, but they made
Babbulkund. She is carven, not built; her palaces are one with her
terraces, there is neither join nor cleft. Hers is the beauty of the
youth of the world. She deemeth herself to be the middle of Earth,
and hath four gates facing outward to the Nations. There sits
outside her eastern gate a colossal god of stone. His face flushes
with the lights of dawn. When the morning sunlight warms his lips
they part a little, and he giveth utterance to the words "Oon Oom,"
and the language is long since dead in which he speaks, and all his
worshippers are gathered to their tombs, so that none knoweth what
the words portend that he uttereth at dawn. Some say that he greets
the sun as one god greets another in the language thereof, and
others say that he proclaims the day, and others that he uttereth
warning. And at every gate is a marvel not credible until beholden.'
And I gathered three friends and said to them: 'We are what we have
seen and known. Let us journey now and behold Babbulkund, that our
minds may be beautified with it and our spirits made holier.'
So we took ship and travelled over the lifting sea, and remembered
not things done in the towns we knew, but laid away the thoughts of
them like soiled linen and put them by, and dreamed of Babbulkund.
But when we came to the land of which Babbulkund is the abiding
glory, we hired a caravan of camels and Arab guides, and passed
southwards in the afternoon on the three days' journey through the
desert that should bring us to the white walls of Babbulkund. And
the heat of the sun shone upon us out of the bright grey sky, and
the heat of the desert beat up at us from below.
About sunset we halted and tethered our horses, while the Arabs
unloaded the provisions from the camels and prepared a fire out of
the dry scrub, for at sunset the heat of the desert departs from it
suddenly, like a bird. Then we saw a traveller approaching us on a
camel coming from the south. When he was come near we said to him:
'Come and encamp among us, for in the desert all men are brothers,
and we will give thee meat to eat and wine, or, if thou art bound by
thy faith, we will give thee some other drink that is not accursed
by the prophet.'
The traveller seated himself beside us on the sand, and crossed his
legs and answered:
'Hearken, and I will tell you of Babbulkund, City of Marvel.
Babbulkund stands just below the meeting of the rivers, where
Oonrana, River of Myth, flows into the Waters of Fable, even the old
stream Plegathanees. These, together, enter her northern gate
rejoicing. Of old they flowed in the dark through the Hill that
Nehemoth, the first of Pharaohs, carved into the City of Marvel.
Sterile and desolate they float far through the desert, each in the
appointed cleft, with life upon neither bank, but give birth in
Babbulkund to the sacred purple garden whereof all nations sing.
Thither all the bees come on a pilgrimage at evening by a secret way
of the air. Once, from his twilit kingdom, which he rules equally
with the sun, the moon saw and loved Babbulkund, clad with her
purple garden; and the moon wooed Babbulkund, and she sent him
weeping away, for she is more beautiful than all her sisters the
stars. Her sisters come to her at night into her maiden chamber.
Even the gods speak sometimes of Babbulkund, clad with her purple
garden. Listen, for I perceive by your eyes that ye have not seen
Babbulkund; there is a restlessness in them and an unappeased
wonder. Listen. In the garden whereof I spoke there is a lake that
hath no twin or fellow in the world; there is no companion for it
among all the lakes. The shores of it are of glass, and the bottom
of it. In it are great fish having golden and scarlet scales, and
they swim to and fro. Here it is the wont of the eighty-second
Nehemoth (who rules in the city today) to come, after the dusk has
fallen, and sit by the lake alone, and at this hour eight hundred
slaves go down by steps through caverns into vaults beneath the
lake. Four hundred of them carrying purple lights march one behind
the other, from east to west, and four hundred carrying green lights
march one behind the other, from west to east. The two lines cross
and re-cross each other in and out as the slaves go round and
round, and the fearful fish flash up and down and to and fro.'
But upon that traveller speaking night descended, solemn and cold,
and we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and lay down upon the sand
in the sight of the astral sisters of Babbulkund. And all that night
the desert said many things, softly and in a whisper, but I knew not
what he said. Only the sand knew and arose and was troubled and lay
down again, and the wind knew. Then, as the hours of the night went
by, these two discovered the foot-tracks wherewith we had disturbed
the holy desert, and they troubled over them and covered them up;
and then the wind lay down and the sand rested. Then the wind arose
again and the sand danced. This they did many times. And all the
while the desert whispered what I shall not know.
Then I slept awhile and awoke just before sunrise, very cold.
Suddenly the sun leapt up and flamed upon our faces; we all threw
off our blankets and stood up. Then we took food, and afterwards
started southwards, and in the heat of the day rested, and
afterwards pushed on again. And all the while the desert remained
the same, like a dream that will not cease to trouble a tired
sleeper.
And often travellers passed us in the desert, coming from the City
of Marvel, and there was a light and a glory in their eyes from
having seen Babbulkund.
That evening, at sunset, another traveller neared us, and we hailed
him, saying:
'Wilt thou eat and drink with us, seeing that all men are brothers
in the desert?'
And he descended from his camel and sat by us and said:
'When morning shines on the colossus Neb and Neb speaks, at once the
musicians of King Nehemoth in Babbulkund awake.
'At first their fingers wander over their golden harps, or they
stroke idly their violins. Clearer and clearer the note of each
instrument ascends like larks arising from the dew, till suddenly
they all blend together and a new melody is born. Thus, every
morning, the musicians of King Nehemoth make a new marvel in the
City of Marvel; for these are no common musicians, but masters of
melody, raided by conquest long since, and carried away in ships
from the Isles of Song. And, at the sound of the music, Nehemoth
awakes in the eastern chamber of his palace, which is carved in the
form of a great crescent, four miles long, on the northern side of
the city. Full in the windows of its eastern chamber the sun rises,
and full in the windows of its western chamber the sun sets.
'When Nehemoth awakes he summons slaves who bring a palanquin with
bells, which the King enters, having lightly robed. Then the slaves
run and bear him to the onyx Chamber of the Bath, with the sound of
small bells ringing as they run. And when Nehemoth emerges thence,
bathed and anointed, the slaves run on with their ringing palanquin
and bear him to the Orient Chamber of Banquets, where the King takes
the first meal of the day. Thence, through the great white corridor
whose windows all face sunwards, Nehemoth, in his palanquin, passes
on to the Audience Chamber of Embassies from the North, which is all
decked with Northern wares.
'All about it are ornaments of amber from the North and carven
chalices of the dark brown Northern crystal, and on its floors lie
furs from Baltic shores.
'In adjoining chambers are stored the wonted food of the hardy
Northern men, and the strong wine of the North, pale but terrible.
Therein the King receives barbarian princes from the frigid lands.
Thence the slaves bear him swiftly to the Audience Chamber of
Embassies from the East, where the walls are of turquoise, studded
with the rubies of Ceylon, where the gods are the gods of the East,
where all the hangings have been devised in the gorgeous heart of Ind,
and where all the carvings have been wrought with the cunning of the
isles. Here, if a caravan hath chanced to have come in from Ind or
from Cathay, it is the King's wont to converse awhile with Moguls or
Mandarins, for from the East come the arts and knowledge of the world,
and the converse of their people is polite. Thus Nehemoth passes on
through the other Audience Chambers and receives, perhaps, some
Sheikhs of the Arab folk who have crossed the great desert from the
West, or receives an embassy sent to do him homage from the shy
jungle people to the South. And all the while the slaves with the
ringing palanquin run westwards, following the sun, and ever the sun
shines straight into the chamber where Nehemoth sits, and all the
while the music from one or other of his bands of musicians comes
tinkling to his ears. But when the middle of the day draws near, the
slaves run to the cool groves that lie along the verandahs on the
northern side of the palace, forsaking the sun, and as the heat
overcomes the genius of the musicians, one by one their hands fall
from their instruments, till at last all melody ceases. At this
moment Nehemoth falls asleep, and the slaves put the palanquin down
and lie down beside it. At this hour the city becomes quite still,
and the palace of Nehemoth and the tombs of the Pharaohs of old face
to the sunlight, all alike in silence. Even the jewellers in the
market-place, selling gems to princes, cease from their bargaining
and cease to sing; for in Babbulkund the vendor of rubies sings the
song of the ruby, and the vendor of sapphires sings the song of the
sapphire, and each stone hath its song, so that a man, by his song,
proclaims and makes known his wares.
'But all these sounds cease at the meridian hour, the jewellers in
the market-place lie down in what shadow they can find, and the
princes go back to the cool places in their palaces, and a great
hush in the gleaming air hangs over Babbulkund. But in the cool of
the late afternoon, one of the King's musicians will awake from
dreaming of his home and will pass his fingers, perhaps, over the
strings of his harp and, with the music, some memory may arise of
the wind in the glens of the mountains that stand in the Isles of
Song. Then the musician will wrench great cries out of the soul of
his harp for the sake of the old memory, and his fellows will awake
and all make a song of home, woven of sayings told in the harbour
when the ships came in, and of tales in the cottages about the
people of old time. One by one the other bands of musicians will
take up the song, and Babbulkund, City of Marvel, will throb with
this marvel anew. Just now Nehemoth awakes, the slaves leap to their
feet and bear the palanquin to the outer side of the great crescent
palace between the south and the west, to behold the sun again. The
palanquin, with its ringing bells, goes round once more; the voices
of the jewellers sing again, in the market-place, the song of the
emerald, the song of the sapphire; men talk on the housetops,
beggars wail in the streets, the musicians bend to their work, all
the sounds blend together into one murmur, the voice of Babbulkund
speaking at evening. Lower and lower sinks the sun, till Nehemoth,
following it, comes with his panting slaves to the great purple
garden of which surely thine own country has its songs, from
wherever thou art come.
'There he alights from his palanquin and goes up to a throne of
ivory set in the garden's midst, facing full westwards, and sits
there alone, long regarding the sunlight until it is quite gone. At
this hour trouble comes into the face of Nehemoth. Men have heard
him muttering at the time of sunset: "Even I too, even I too." Thus
do King Nehemoth and the sun make their glorious ambits about
Babbulkund.
'A little later, when the stars come out to envy the beauty of the
City of Marvel, the King walks to another part of the garden and
sits in an alcove of opal all alone by the marge of the sacred lake.
This is the lake whose shores and floors are of glass, which is lit
from beneath by slaves with purple lights and with green lights
intermingling, and is one of the seven wonders of Babbulkund. Three
of the wonders are in the city's midst and four are at her gates.
There is the lake, of which I tell thee, and the purple garden of
which I have told thee and which is a wonder even to the stars, and
there is Ong Zwarba, of which I shall tell thee also. And the
wonders at the gates are these. At the eastern gate Neb. And at the
northern gate the wonder of the river and the arches, for the River
of Myth, which becomes one with the Waters of Fable in the desert
outside the city, floats under a gate of pure gold, rejoicing, and
under many arches fantastically carven that are one with either
bank. The marvel at the western gate is the marvel of Annolith and
the dog Voth. Annolith sits outside the western gate facing towards
the city. He is higher than any of the towers or palaces, for his
head was carved from the summit of the old hill; he hath two eyes of
sapphire wherewith he regards Babbulkund, and the wonder of the eyes
is that they are today in the same sockets wherein they glowed when
first the world began, only the marble that covered them has been
carven away and the light of day let in and the sight of the envious
stars. Larger than a lion is the dog Voth beside him; every hair is
carven upon the back of Voth, his war hackles are erected and his
teeth are bared. All the Nehemoths have worshipped the god Annolith,
but all their people pray to the dog Voth, for the law of the land
is that none but a Nehemoth may worship the god Annolith. The marvel
at the southern gate is the marvel of the jungle, for he comes with
all his wild untravelled sea of darkness and trees and tigers and
sunward-aspiring orchids right through a marble gate in the city
wall and enters the city, and there widens and holds a space in its
midst of many miles across. Moreover, he is older than the City of
Marvel, for he dwelt long since in one of the valleys of the
mountain which Nehemoth, first of Pharaohs, carved into Babbulkund.
'Now the opal alcove in which the King sits at evening by the lake
stands at the edge of the jungle, and the climbing orchids of the
jungle have long since crept from their homes through clefts of the
opal alcove, lured by the lights of the lake, and now bloom there
exultingly. Near to this alcove are the hareems of Nehemoth.
'The King hath four hareems--one for the stalwart women from the
mountains to the north, one for the dark and furtive jungle women,
one for the desert women that have wandering souls and pine in
Babbulkund, and one for the princesses of his own kith, whose brown
cheeks blush with the blood of ancient Pharaohs and who exult with
Babbulkund in her surpassing beauty, and who know nought of the
desert or the jungle or the bleak hills to the north. Quite
unadorned and clad in simple garments go all the kith of Nehemoth,
for they know well that he grows weary of pomp. Unadorned all save
one, the Princess Linderith, who weareth Ong Zwarba and the three
lesser gems of the sea. Such a stone is Ong Zwarba that there are
none like it even in the turban of Nehemoth nor in all the
sanctuaries of the sea. The same god that made Linderith made long
ago Ong Zwarba; she and Ong Zwarba shine together with one light,
and beside this marvellous stone gleam the three lesser ones of the
sea.
'Now when the King sitteth in his opal alcove by the sacred lake
with the orchids blooming around him all sounds are become still.
The sound of the tramping of the weary slaves as they go round and
round never comes to the surface. Long since the musicians sleep,
and their hands have fallen dumb upon their instruments, and the
voices in the city have died away. Perhaps a sigh of one of the
desert women has become half a song, or on a hot night in summer one
of the women of the hills sings softly a song of snow; all night
long in the midst of the purple garden sings one nightingale; all else
is still; the stars that look on Babbulkund arise and set, the
cold unhappy moon drifts lonely through them, the night wears on; at
last the dark figure of Nehemoth, eighty-second of his line, rises
and moves stealthily away.'
The traveller ceased to speak. For a long time the clear stars,
sisters of Babbulkund, had shone upon him speaking, the desert
wind had arisen and whispered to the sand, and the sand had long
gone secretly to and fro; none of us had moved, none of us had
fallen asleep, not so much from wonder at his tale as from the
thought that we ourselves in two days' time should see that wondrous
city. Then we wrapped our blankets around us and lay down with our
feet towards the embers of our fire and instantly were asleep, and in
our dreams we multiplied the fame of the City of Marvel.
The sun arose and flamed upon our faces, and all the desert glinted
with its light. Then we stood up and prepared the morning meal, and,
when we had eaten, the traveller departed. And we commended his soul
to the god of the land whereto he went, of the land of his home to
the northward, and he commended our souls to the God of the people
of the land wherefrom we had come. Then a traveller overtook us
going on foot; he wore a brown cloak that was all in rags and he
seemed to have been walking all night, and he walked hurriedly but
appeared weary, so we offered him food and drink, of which he
partook thankfully. When we asked him where he was going, he
answered 'Babbulkund.' Then we offered him a camel upon which to
ride, for we said, 'We also go to Babbulkund.' But he answered
strangely:
'Nay, pass on before me, for it is a sore thing never to have seen
Babbulkund, having lived while yet she stood. Pass on before me and
behold her, and then flee away at once, returning northwards.'
Then, though we understood him not, we left him, for he was
insistent, and passed on our journey southwards through the desert,
and we came before the middle of the day to an oasis of palm trees
standing by a well and there we gave water to the haughty camels and
replenished our water-bottles and soothed our eyes with the sight of
green things and tarried for many hours in the shade. Some of the
men slept, but of those that remained awake each man sang softly the
songs of his own country, telling of Babbulkund. When the afternoon
was far spent we travelled a little way southwards, and went on
through the cool evening until the sun fell low and we encamped, and
as we sat in our encampment the man in rags overtook us, having
travelled all the day, and we gave him food and drink again, and in
the twilight he spoke, saying:
'I am the servant of the Lord the God of my people, and I go to do
his work on Babbulkund. She is the most beautiful city in the world;
there hath been none like her, even the stars of God go envious of
her beauty. She is all white, yet with streaks of pink that pass
through her streets and houses like flames in the white mind of a
sculptor, like desire in Paradise. She hath been carved of old out
of a holy hill, no slaves wrought the City of Marvel, but artists
toiling at the work they loved. They took no pattern from the houses
of men, but each man wrought what his inner eye had seen and carved
in marble the visions of his dream. All over the roof of one of the
palace chambers winged lions flit like bats, the size of every one
is the size of the lions of God, and the wings are larger than any
wing created; they are one above the other more than a man can
number, they are all carven out of one block of marble, the chamber
itself is hollowed from it, and it is borne aloft upon the carven
branches of a grove of clustered tree-ferns wrought by the hand of
some jungle mason that loved the tall fern well. Over the River of
Myth, which is one with the Waters of Fable, go bridges, fashioned
like the wisteria tree and like the drooping laburnum, and a hundred
others of wonderful devices, the desire of the souls of masons a
long while dead. Oh! very beautiful is white Babbulkund, very
beautiful she is, but proud; and the Lord the God of my people hath
seen her in her pride, and looking towards her hath seen the prayers
of Nehemoth going up to the abomination Annolith and all the people
following after Voth. She is very beautiful, Babbulkund; alas that
I may not bless her. I could live always on one of her inner
terraces looking on the mysterious jungle in her midst and the
heavenward faces of the orchids that, clambering from the darkness,
behold the sun. I could love Babbulkund with a great love, yet am I
the servant of the Lord the God of my people, and the King hath
sinned unto the abomination Annolith, and the people lust
exceedingly for Voth. Alas for thee, Babbulkund, alas that I may not
even now turn back, for tomorrow I must prophesy against thee and
cry out against thee, Babbulkund. But ye travellers that have
entreated me hospitably, rise and pass on with your camels, for I
can tarry no longer, and I go to do the work on Babbulkund of the
Lord the God of my people. Go now and see the beauty of Babbulkund
before I cry out against her, and then flee swiftly northwards.'