The Witch-Woman Trilogy

  “Do you give me, then,” said the leper, “those golden rings which glitter in your ears.”

  “Very willingly,” said Alfgar, for it seemed to him this was light toll.

  But now the white bull lowed: and the leper nodded his veiled head as though in assent.

  “—Only, now that I think of it,” said the leper, “I must ask for more than those two gold rings. For my own ears, as you can observe, are not pierced: and unless I have pierced ears, then those rings will be of no use to me.”

  Alfgar saw that this was wholly logical; and yet this logic did not please him. Nevertheless, when the leper had told all his asking, Alfgar replied:

  “I may not deny you that which is asked in the name of my own god, to whom I owe all homage except the homage of belief; and I grant your asking. Moreover, I have heard the music of Ettarre, and I wish to keep in my memory only the music of Ettarre, and I would not have it marred by my hearing any other noises.”

  So the leper touched the ears of Alfgar with strong hands, and the outcast King went down into the cave of Clioth. Then the leper rose, and put off his red robe, and in the likeness of a very old, lean man he went away to resume that labor which has not any ending.

Chapter IX. The Way of Worship

  THE tale says then that in the cave of Clioth was not absolute darkness, but, instead, a dim blue glowing everywhere, as though the gleam of decay were intermingled here with the gleam of moonshine. Upon both sides of the cave showed a long row of crumbling altars; and every altar was inscribed with the device of one or another god.

  Thus upon the first altar that Alfgar came to was engraved: “I am the Well-doer. I only am the Lord of the two horns, the Governor of all living, and the Conqueror of every land.” But upon the next altar you read: “I am the Beneficent. I ordained created things from the beginning. There is no other god save me, who am the giver of winds to all nostrils, and the bestower of delight and ruin to every kind.”

  The device upon an altar of square-hewn granite said: “I am that I am. I am a jealous god: my thoughts are tempests. Thou shalt have no other god before me.” Yet upon an altar of green malachite carved with four skulls was written: “I am the Warrior, the far-darting Slayer of all life and the Slayer of death also. No other god is my peer: through me the sun is risen, and I alone reign over the place where all roads meet.”

  Such were the devices upon these altars, and upon yet other altars showed yet other devices, but no living man might say to what gods any of these altars had been erected, for all these gods had long ago passed down into Antan. And about each of these altars yet knelt the ghosts of the dead, still worshipping where no god was, because in every age is born, to the troubling of that age, a man, or it may be two men, who will not forsake their gods.

  So in that dim blue gleaming did Alfgar come to the ruined altar of the god of Ecben. He knelt there, among ghosts of all which once had been most dear to Alfgar. Beside him knelt his sister Gudrun, who had died when they both were children. Hilda also was there, and young Gamelyn. Yonder knelt Alfgar’s father—superb and slightly dull-witted, and more great-hearted than any person was nowadays,—punctiliously intent upon his religious duties, as became a properly reared monarch of the old school. And beside the father of Alfgar that long-dead queen who had been Alfgar’s mother now turned toward her son that proud and tender gazing which he so well remembered. But she did not remember. There was no recognition in the eyes of Alfgar’s mother as she seemed to look beyond and through that Alfgar who was not any longer the King of Ecben, but only an aging vagabond upon whom was the mark of the witch-woman.

  And a vague host of other persons whom he had known and loved, at Sorram and at Tagd, when Alfgar was but a boy, knelt there in a blue gleaming. But all were waving pale phantoms, and no one of them appeared aware of Alfgar. These ghosts all gazed beyond and through him, as though he too were a ghost, in the while that they worshipped. Thus did they all keep faith, unthriftily, with that god who now had no gifts for his faithful, and who could no longer aid them, and whom no living person honored any more save only Alfgar, who knew over well that he knelt among the dead to honor a dead god.

  “O little god of Ecben,” Alfgar said, “it is right that I should bring to you an unthrifty giving of pity and of love and of all reverence. It is needful that I should not forsake you. It is very certain that in no quarter of this earth may I find any god whom I can serve true-heartedly save you alone. . . . For to the North reigns Odin; Zeus triumphs in the South; and Siva holds the East. To the West rule Kuri and Uwardowa, and Rsgi also, who are Three in One. And the power of these gods is known, where your forever ended power is not known any longer, and where your name is forgotten.”

  Then Alfgar said: