The Witch-Woman Trilogy

  Then Madoc sang yet another of the songs which he had written with the quill from the wing of the Father of All Lies. He sang of how much good there is in even the very worst of us, and of that priceless spark of divinity which glows in every human breast and needs but properly to be fostered.

  The well-nourished beasts that once had been poets arose forthwith, and each lurched clumsily about upon his hind legs. “Let us be worthy, yet, even yet, of that heritage which we have denied! Let us abandon this wicked market-garden wherein are only ease and gluttony, let us discomfort the world’s ease everywhere with right-thinking and with every other high-minded kind of intrepid morality!”

  So they babbled and floundered about Madoc, who all the while sang on exaltedly and thought what silly creatures seemed these bemired and madly aspiring overfed animals.

  But Dame Maya winced to see her fair name as a competent wife thus imperiled, now that all her transfigured husbands were in revolt. She hastily told Madoc the way to the Waste Beyond the Moon: he ended his singing: and the domestic animals fell back contentedly into the incurious sloth and the fat ease of the wise woman’s market-garden, out of which Madoc passed toward his allotted doom.

PART THREE. OF MADOC IN THE MOON

  Le chevalier Madoc lui dit: Vous voir est ce aidé pouvait m’arriver de plus agréable, et je voudrais être avec vous jusqu’a la mari.— Cela peut bien être, dit la jeune fille.

16. LEADS TO THE MOON

  All that which Maya of the Fair Breasts had commanded Madoc performed, with his sword and a forked rod and a cup and a five-pointed talisman. This magic brought to him a monster shaped like a feathered lion, but eight and one-half times as large, and having the head and wings of a fighting-cock. Upon the breast of the hippogriffin grew red plumage; its back was of a dark blue color; and its wings were white.

  Such was the gaily tinted steed upon which Madoc rode, along strange and unhealthy highways. The spirits of the air beset him: sylphs beckoned to this fine young fellow; Lilith, that very dreadful and delicious Bride of the Serpent, pursued him a great way, because she liked the appearance of Madoc. Nevertheless, he won unhurt to the pale mists and the naked desert space behind the moon.

  Ettarre was at her accursed music: the gray place throbbed with it: it seemed the heartbeat of the universe, and the winds that moved between the stars were attuned to its doubtfulness and discontent.

  “Turn, witch, and die!” cried Madoc furiously, as he came toward Ettarre with his sword drawn.

  She made an end of her skirling music, she rose, and now for the first time he saw the face of Ettarre. Then Madoc knew it was not hatred which had drawn him to her.

17. MORE LUNAR HAPPENINGS

  He put her lips away from his lips. Madoc saw that the desert place was changed. About them now was a quiet-colored paradise: lilies abounded everywhere, and many climbing white roses also were lighted by the clear and tempered radiancy of early dawn. White rabbits were frisking to every side. Instead of that music which was all a doubtfulness and a discontent, you could now hear doves calling to their mates very softly.

  “Love has wrought this lovely miracle,” Ettarre remarked, without any sign of disapproval.

  Madoc replied: “Love has brought beauty into this place. Now also shall my ever-living love bring liberty to you, and loose you from all bonds excepting only my embraces.”

  Ettarre answered: “I like your appearance: your embrace is strong and comforting: but there can be no liberty for me until the 725 years of my post-lunar music-making are ended. No man may alter any word of the Norns’ decree: and they have decreed that for 725 years my master Sargatanet shall retain me here as his scholar and his prisoner.”

  Madoc said, jealously: “What else has this Sargatanet taught you save music? No, do you not tell me that, but do you tell me instead the way to your music-master, whom I intend to discharge.”

18. TRUISMS COME

  Thereafter hand in hand they passed toward Sargatanet where he sat under a vine which bore fruit of five different colors. Kneeling before the porphyry throne of Sargatanet at that instant were the five lords of hunger and fire and cold, of darkness and of madness. To each of these he was assigning the vexations to be completed during that week.