Kesrick, page 5
“Comite ferro!”* cried the young knight, aiming a vicious blow at the immense and blubbery monster, which unfortunately missed.
In the very next instant, the Rosmarin had knocked him from the saddle of the Hippogriff with a well-timed swipe of its huge flippers, and the astounded knight found himself in the surf, soaked to the skin, gargling cold salt water, with the monster looming above him.
VII
THE MONSTER FROM THE SEA
Rising spluttering from the shallows, Kesrick bravely strode deeper into the boiling surf and engaged the Rosmarin in battle. The receding tide sucked at his feet and dragged at his knees, making his stance uncertain and putting him at a distinct disadvantage in the conflict; on the other hand, the immense, blubbery Rosmarin was in the shallows, which put the monster also at a disadvantage, so perhaps the disadvantages were equal.
He hewed lustily, dealing mighty strokes with his enchanted sword, but naught seemed to disincline the Rosmarin from the contest. The irresistible steel of Dastagerd sheared away slabs and chunks of Rosmarin meat, but none of these injuries seemed to give the maritime monster the slightest pause. Although blood flew in every direction and turned the churning surf to carmine, the monster continued its attack with unabated vigor, seemingly tireless, its clashing jaws coming ever closer and closer to the knight’s flesh, guarded though it was behind a longcoat of mail.
Far up the strand, well beyond the reach of the hungry surf, Arimaspia and the sorcerer Pteron watched the battle closely. The Scythian Princess, in an agony of apprehension, clasped her hands in the warm valley between her perfect breasts, breathing prayers to Thamimasadas, and to any other divinity of the Scythian pantheon who might be amenable to her beseechings.
Pteron, who stood protectively at her side, and who observed the conflict no less closely than did the Princess, stood, of course, prepared to intervene with his magical powers at any instant when he deemed the young knight to be in deadly peril of his life, for the sorcerer had conceived of a considerable and avuncular affection for this Kesrick of Dragonrouge, and would not stand idly by and contemplate with tranquility his destruction; nonetheless, he was determined to permit the Hero ample opportunity to demonstrate his prowess without the aid of the Art Sorcerous.
Kesrick, in the meantime, now soaked to the very skin in icy waters, puffing and blowing like a walrus, was engaged in beating back the ferocious Rosmarin. Although with every stroke of Dastagerd he sheared away slabs of blubbery flesh, reeking with hot gore which stained the roiling waters, he soon discovered that none of his mightiest strokes so much as slowed the tireless monster. True, it bellowed wrathfully at every slice, but continued to press forward with bared and slavering fangs, not in the least bothered by the several pounds of meat which Kesrick had thus far removed from its huge and rotund shape.
But, just as Kesrick was faltering and on the very verge of falling back toward the beach, there occurred one of those chance accidents which are the delight, as they are often the salvation, of the authors of mere fiction.
For, apparently having gathered its strength from the distance of the Boreal Pole itself, there came at that instant driving in toward the northern shores of the continent, a billow of such height and weight and of such tremendous and irresistible force, as to knock Kesrick off his feet; but, fortunately, it was of such force that it drove the Rosmarin, helplessly squalling and flopping its flippers, high upon the shore.
And on the dry land, obviously, the monster was virtually helpless. For, as the mighty wave receded into the bosom of the deep, and as Kesrick came wading grimly up the slope toward the sandy place where the monster roared and wallowed, helpless to move its enormous bulk (which, all the while, steamed with slimy gore from many wounds inflicted upon its person by Dastagerd), the knight wearily, but with immense satisfaction, perceived that his dreadful adversary was rendered helpless and thoroughly indefensible.
Farther up the strand, in the shelter of the rocks, the Princess of Scythia, wringing her white hands desperately, uttered a fervent prayer of thanksgiving to her gods, while Pteron breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he did not have cause to intervene in this shining moment of heroism and monster-fighting to rescue his young protégé.
“Even with such puissance did Sir Rogero slaughter the dreadful Orc, to effect the rescue of the beautiful Princess Angelica!” breathed Princess Arimaspia, her perfect, and very naked, breasts heaving with every panting breath she took, her limpid eyes shining with adoration.
Pteron, who had called the riderless Hippogriff to him with a piercing whistle, now tethered the beast to a stunted pine which grew between the rocks, and turned to smile cynically at the maiden. With the measure of his advanced age he was long past any of the passions of the flesh, save perhaps for the pleasures of a well-spread table or a bottle of excellent vintage, therefore he viewed her tumultuously heaving bosom unmoved.
“Quite likely so, Highness,” he remarked. Although urged to do so from his malicious humor, he refrained from pointing out to the maiden that it had been a chance billow of unusual strength that had bestowed the laurels of victory upon the brows of her handsome hero, rather than any noteworthy prowess of his own. But, then, he was a gentleman, born and bred, and tact was, as he himself often observed, his specialty.
As they watched, an exhausted Kesrick of Dragonrouge dragged himself, soaking wet and chilled to the bone, out of the squalling surf and began to clamber up the prostrate bulk of the stranded monstrosity. Such was the size of the beached Rosmarin, that it took the knight some considerable time to ascend its girth to the point at which he imagined its heart to be, providing, of course, that such hideous creatures possess the organ.
He poised the point of his blade above the breast of the recumbent Rosmarin, and was about to plunge it home with the last of his depleted vigor, when not only Sir Kesrick, but the Princess Arimaspia and even the sorcerer Pteron were frozen with amazement to hear the sea monster utter an imprecation in a deep, slobbering tone, but nonetheless in distinctly human language.
“Slay me not, O Brother of Lions, for I am the most unfortunate of the servants of heaven, being imprisoned within the body of this hideous monster and unable, for such are the weaknesses of the flesh, to oppose the dictates of its furies and of its loathsome and despicable appetites!”
Kesrick was petrified with astonishment, but soon recovered, nor did the point of his ensorcelled blade for one instant waver from its position above the vital organ of the Rosmarin.
“Vile monstrosity,” he declared in ringing, if slightly breathless, tones, “dare you attempt to evade the just punishment of your innumerable crimes against humankind by means of prevarication and subterfuge? Know that the enchanted steel of Dastagerd, Sword of Undoings, is poised at this instant to sever the bonds of life, and to plunge your atrocious spirit into the depths of that Lake of Fire which a merciful and omniscient Providence has created for the purging of such beings as yourself!”
“Eloquently spoken!” breathed Pteron to himself; for, as an old connoisseur of the heroic sentiments, he admired nothing quite so fully as a well-turned and polished phrase. The Princess, whose eyes were aglow with admiration, shot him an indignant glance of reproof, and he fell silent, this being not entirely his scene, as yet.
The prostrate Rosmarin goggled its bulging eyes up at the grim face of the young knight who stood athwart its breast, and stared into his face with an appeal nigh irresistible to such chivalric souls as that which burned with the breast of Kesrick.
“I am naught but a lowly miscreant,” groaned the monster, “transformed by enchantment into this hideous and bestial form which now lies helpless before your steel! But hear me out, O Fountain of Hospitality, and, if I may, I may yet persuade you that a human heart beats within this ghastly corse!”
It was then that the sorcerer strode forth to where the young knight of Dragonrouge stood panting and dripping astride the recumbent monster.
“A word, Sir Kesrick, if I may!” said the sorcerer, lifting one hand. “It is not given, of nature, for such monsters as yonder Rosmarin to possess the divine gift of articulate speech! I must presume, therefore, that something of what the creature says we may assume to be the truth; that is, that it is in sooth an unfortunate mortal transmogrified by the Art Sorcerous into the likeness of a monster. And in this case, as chivalric gentlemen, we should, at very least, listen to the protestations of the loathsome creature, before dispatching it to whatever horrid punishment Providence hath reserved for it and its like!”
“Very well, then,” sighed Kesrick, every limb aching with fatigue and shivering with cold from the icy winds which blew upon his sopping-wet body. “I will permit the Rosmarin to explain its predicament, while reserving judgment until we have heard the monster out. Speak on, malformed lump of loathsomeness, for we will hear you out, at very least, for the code of chivalry demands nothing less from its exponents!”
Turning its goggling eyes upon them, the Rosmarin thereupon addressed his audience in deep, hoarse, and croaking tones, as follows:
“I was not always as you see me now, for once I was one Gaglioffo, a Paynim, born in the westernmost parts of Libya, beyond the Moghreb. Life, my masters (and beauteous mistress) is hard for one so misfortunate as to be born devoid of grace, prowess, beauty, wealth, or noble birth; we unfortunate ones born devoid of these, the noblest gifts of heaven, must perforce find a living as we may, hence it was that I, in my poverty, turned to the burglaring profession, and attempted, in the hugeness of my heart, to redistribute the wealth of the World from the very rich to the very poor, among the which I venture to name myself, Gaglioffo.”
“Continue, unfortunate soul,” bade the sorcerer.
“Finding myself unaccountably in the northern parts of the World,” continued the Rosmarin, “I entered into the country of the Hyperboreans, and, hearing of the inordinate riches possessed by one Abaris, repaired at once to his abode. He was then, as I was given to understand, absent upon a world-spanning mission, gathering wisdom from among the savants and sages of many distant realms. I had but just entered his palatial residence, and had chosen but a few gewgaws and trinkets wherewith to lighten the burthen of mine poverty, when this very Abaris unexpectedly returned, finding me, as one might say, in the very act!”
“Ah,” murmured the Magister interestedly. “Pray continue in your discourse.”
“The estimable Abaris, most uncharitably, viewed my purloining of a few superfluous treasures in the direst of attitudes,” groaned the Rosmarin. “And, in short, transformed me into a sea-monster as you see me now, and flung me into the depths of the Frozen Sea, to fare as best I might. My informants,” the monster added ruefully, “had not seen fit to explain to me that Abaris was a powerful enchanter, or I might well have seriously reconsidered my thieving schemes.”
“I recall this Hyperborean,” murmured Pteron to the young knight; “we were schoolboys together at Domdaniel; he was always jealous of his possessions, and I recall me well one time I wished to borrow his Arthame, but he would not lend it me. A selfish and proud fellow, by Aipolos, Merodach and Tuisco!”
“By Zaqqum, the Tree of Hell, and by the Well of Zamzam, but I have been prisoned in this grisly form long enough!” wept the unfortunate Gaglioffo. “I pray you, Sovereign of the Age and King of Time, of your sorcerous art, to free me from this accursed flesh, permitting me to attire my soul once again in the swart but comely form in which Dame Nature at birth ornamented me!”
The sorcerer was not insensitive to the Rosmarin’s plight, and as both Sir Kesrick of Dragonrouge and the Princess Arimaspia of Scythia begged him to accede to the request, the sorcerer, somewhat reluctantly, determined to try.
“The misfortunate fellow is little more than a mean burglar and a vile rogue,” declared the sorcerer virtuously, and somehow managing to ignore the fact that he himself was present upon the scene for thieving motives, “but, if you two will indeed have it so, I will attempt to disenchant the monster with whatever-poor skills my mine Art affords.”
At these welcome words, the Rosmarin lay back with a hoarse groan of relief, and called upon the Mighty Mahoum to succor it in the extremity of its need, and to lend his miraculous aid to the thaumaturgical powers of the sorcerer.
Seating herself daintily upon a boulder, the Scythian Princess looked on with keen interest, for she had never before in her sixteen years of life witnessed a disenchantment.
VIII
DISENCHANTING GAGLIOFFO
While Sir Kesrick held the helpless Rosmarin at bay with the keen point of Dastagerd against the monster’s breast, the sorcerer Pteron bustled over to where the Magic Horse stood patiently awaiting the next command of its master, and began rummaging through the wicker baskets slung across the ebony withers of his ensorcelled steed, muttering absentmindedly under his breath.
“Now let me see,” the sorcerer muttered to himself as he rummaged, “powdered mandrake root, dried wing of bat, pickled eye of newt … hm, hm! … wherever did I put that magic wand? I remember tucking the dratted thing in here somewhere—ah, there we are! Now, what else, what else …”
Erelong he had found the various instruments and ingredients required for the operation of magic, and came down the beach to where the monstrous Rosmarin lay on its back, goggling hopefully over one shoulder at him, with Kesrick still astride its breast.
“We shall have you back in your proper shape in the proverbial jiffy, my good fellow,” the sorcerer assured it in brisk and businesslike terms. Kesrick and Arimaspia, who were fascinated at the prospect of witnessing a disenchantment, seated themselves upon nearby boulders in order to overlook the spectacle.
Pteron produced several bottles, flasks and tin boxes of powders from his wicker baskets and mixed the contents of these together, tossing the finished potion down the open throat of the recumbent monster. Having imbibed of the concoction, it could be seen that the monster promptly fell into a deep and seemingly dreamless sleep.
Thereupon, the sorcerer next built a small fire from a dry bundle of pungent-smelling herbs, and seated himself upon the sands, legs folded beneath him tailor fashion. Once the small fire was burning brightly, with tall, licking tongues of flame shooting up, he scattered upon the blaze a handful of powder from a small box; instantly, the flames produced a thick coil of violet mist, which was as richly fragrant as the most odorous of incenses.
This mist gathered about the heaving bulk of the helpless Rosmarin like a cloud, concealing its hideous body from their view. Pteron then began intoning the rhythmical words of a magical verse, spoken in a language none of them had ever heard before, while bending his lean body back and forth over the blaze, as if drinking in the strangely colored smoke.
“Fascinating!” breathed Arimaspia to the knight in low tones.
“And very instructive,” he whispered in reply.
The chanting voice ceased; the incantation, or de-incantation, now seemed completed. They waited with breathless anticipation for the final revelation.
The sorcerer bowed once more over the flames of his miniature bonfire, which had died to glowing coals. Then he climbed, somewhat stiffly, for his joints ached from the clammy sea air, to his feet, and stood regarding the cloud-shrouded form, which appeared to have shrunk noticeably in size.
He flung his arms above his head in a ritual gesture.
“Yeowa!” he cried in a loud, commanding voice.
The violet cloud swirled—boiled—seethed—contracted—then dissipated.
Where the huge body of the Rosmarin had lain there now sprawled on his back the body of a Paynim!
He was black as soot, and even uglier than the Rosmarin had been, with thick, blubbery lips, goggling eyes, now squeezed tightly shut, a fat wobbling paunch and bowed legs. He was naked to the waist, save for an open vest of red felt, and his lower limbs were covered with voluminous pantaloons, gathered tightly about the ankles. A gaudy sash was tied about his belly and red slippers with up-curling toes were upon his feet. His head was crowned with a huge tarboosh of crimson stuff, and gold hoops bobbled in his ears.
He seemed to be a Moor, as far as they could tell.
“Open your eyes,” commanded Pteron. The Paynim did so, staring about fearfully. Then he glanced down at his ugly body with every expression registering delight; hugging himself ecstatically, the Paynim rolled over the wet sand, ending between the feet of the sorcerer which he covered with blubbering, happy kisses.
“O Sovereign of Time, O King of the Age!” the Paynim crooned in tones of delight.
“Have I, in sooth, restored you to your true form?” inquired the sorcerer. Nodding his head so violently that the motion threatened at any moment to dislodge his tall tarboosh, the sooty Paynim indicated that it was so.
“Very good, then,” said Pteron, a slight smile of satisfaction visible upon his features. “I’ve never used a de-incantation before, and am delighted to learn that it resulted satisfactorily!” Packing up his bottles and herbs and powders, he replaced these in the wicker panniers slung across the ebony hindquarters of the Magic Horse, while Gaglioffo crouched on the sand before the Frankish knight and the Scythian Princess, trying to cover their feet with slobbering kisses, which Kesrick endured as best he could, while the Princess withdrew her bare feet disdainfully.
“Filthy creature, you would have devoured me!” she cried in disgust. At which the Paynim nodded humbly.
“Yes, Queen of Blossoms, or even worse! As was the case (Mahoum forgive me!) with your delectable three sisters—”
“Come!” said Pteron commandingly, “the past is the past, let us forget it and turn to present matters. Both yourself, despicable Paynim, and Sir Kesrick there, are soaked to the skin. Let us repair to the upper ground, seek shelter, warm ourselves before a fire, and perhaps enjoy a spot of lunch, before proceeding to the fulfillment of our quest!”
