Back to The Book of Ninety and Nine Doomed Cities
|
There was once a she-maiden of the Lake Bemmel, a beautiful roan, with teeth like a Human, and a voice like a Yishuvli. She was pious after the fashion of her people, and generous, and strong-willed, and could send a coracle shooting across the reedy surface of the Cooraban Sea as fast as any other of the Lake Bemmel, though they were ever so thick-thewed and great-chested. The Lake Bemmel have no kings or masters, but still among them there are some clans which are accounted greater than others, and she was of a noble clan among them, whose elders knew the secret tongue and kept weapons used in the old wars.
Wherever she went she sang, and her voice was as beautiful as ten beautiful things. She sang the songs of her people, which praise their gods, and celebrate each day and season in its turn, and mourn lost lovers who have gone off to the wars. At dawn she would sing to welcome the sun, and her song was sometimes carried far through the mists that lay on the water, and would be heard by the people who dwelt on the shores of the lake, who took it for the song of a god. Her name was Corrhae, which has one meaning in the common tongue of Mir, and another in the secret tongue of the Lake Bemmel.
Corrhae was desired by all the he-maidens of her people, but she spurned them all, deflecting their advances with a laugh, for she was interested only in the lake, and the stars, and the cold wind on her face, and the play of her limbs as they gripped the oars. In the summer she would swim through the clear waters with the grace of a Cirilman, and the sun would paint her hair with silver. In winter she would run swifter than hope across the glassy ice, paying little heed to the cold, till her coat was thick with snow. She was in love with life itself, and needed the love of no lesser being .
Now there was on the shore of the great lake where lived the people of Corrhae a harbour town, which was named Prsilin, and was made all out of the wood of bronze mallus trees, which surrounded it on all sides. The mallus tree is a thick and heavy timber, treacherous to cut, and growing quickly again from hewn stumps buried in the snow. The people who would live among mallus trees, and make their living from their timber, must be a hard and heavy people, patient and cruel in their struggle with the forest.
How different the Lake Bemmel, who live upon the ever-changing waters, where one can reach out and touch the horizon!
How different from the Bemmel and Fip and Argandarr of Prsilin, where every made thing is hacked with terrible labour from the unrelenting forest; where a hand’s breadth distant is only a wall of trees, and thick brambles that must be burnt twice a year!
There were two young Bemmel of Prsilin, whose names have been forgotten, who were coarse and yet decadent, cruel and yet weak. They did no work, but lived off the labour of their betters, for their kinsmen were wealthy. They would sometimes hear the singing of Corrhae from afar off the lake, as they fished from the jetties of Prsilin, or lay at ease in their lodgings. And at rare times, when the Lake Bemmel would come in to Prsilin to trade baskets of pearls and anguilliform scales, they would hear her voice among them, and see her among them, taking no part in the buying and selling but gazing about her with wonder. And they saw that she was beautiful, and they desired her, and they hated her because they desired her.
Many among the people of Prsilin thought ill of the Lake Bemmel, because they lived free upon the waters, and at ease, while the lot of the people of Prsilin was hard. And at times, when some number of them were gathered together after another day of toil, they would grumble to one another. “We work like Nathians in these woods, breaking our backs from dusk to dawn, while these barbarians do nothing but take their ease upon the waters, making merry and singing foolish songs.” One would say: “There is no justice in the world, that we should be made to work, while they are not.” And another would say: “They should be made slaves and set to work, that they might learn the value of an honest day’s labour, and that we might rest at last.”
And at these times the two Bemmel youths, though they did little enough work themselves, would voice their agreement to these sentiments. Then both be quiet, and lick their lips, and think of one among the Lake Bemmel which they would most especially like to enslave, and what work they might set her to.
It happened that one day these two cheated a wandering one of the Raghalnash, buying with counterfeit obols one of the curious instruments it had brought with it from Dnarland. This instrument was of black enamelled stuff as hard as stone, and richly decorated in night colours with arabesques and follies. It was made in the shape of one of the forest animals of Dnarland, and was used for making music. This music it made of its own volition when it was turned in a certain way; and it was a kind of music not known in Prsilin, a music of Dnarland, cold and dark and distant as Orenbis, the constellation of the Solitary Star. Once the two Bemmel had found the knack of working this instrument, they took it to a deserted part of the lakeshore in the quiet before the dawn, and waited there until they could hear the singing of Corrhae. Then they tuned it so that it would play along with her, and spill its music out onto the lake. So as Corrhae rowed across the lake she heard her own song repeated after her in the thick bitter-smelling manner of Dnarsong. When she sang quickly, it sang quickly; when she stopped, it stopped; and the song of the instrument chased hers backwards and forwards over the lake. And though Corrhae had never heard such music before, she found it not unpleasing. So she was curious, and followed the sound, and found the instrument on the shore, with the two Bemmel whose names have been forgotten. And she said to them: “What manner of thing is this, that sings a thing again after I have sung it? And why does it sing so strangely?”
“It is a gift we have brought for you,” said one.
“It is a magic thing,” said the other.
“We have heard your voice many times across the water and desired to give you this instrument, made by the sorcerors of Dnarland, so that if you wish you may accompany your voice with its sound.”
“You sound just like all the others!” laughed Corrhae. “What need have you men of Prsilin to woo me with fancy presents? Are there not enough she-folk of your own place?”
“No, you misunderstand us,” said one of the Bemmel youths.
“All we wish is to give you this instrument, and you need never see us again,” said the other.
“It is only that your song has touched our souls, and changed them.”
At this Corrhae relented, and rising from her coracle came forward to take the instrument, saying: “A gift is a gift, and it is rude to refuse it.”
But the youth snatched the instrument away from Corrhae, and when she stretched out her arms to take it they laid hands upon her, and held her. And though she fought fiercely with them they overmastered her, and dragged her into the forest, and bound her hindankles so that she could not flee.
“We have another gift for you,” said one. .
“We will teach you what need the men of Prsilin have to woo with you presents,” said the other.
Then they outraged Corrhae in that place, first one and then the other, so that her blood and tears were mingled in the mud. And they tied her to a mallus tree, that they might keep her a slave, and went into the town to drink strong drinks and boast of their deeds to others of like soul to themselves.
But Corrhae was strong, having lived her life upon the lake, and the two cruel deceivers were only idlers of the town, weak of soul and body, so she had soon loosed her bonds. Then with great effort she dragged herself to the shore, where she was found by some of her own people.
When next the Lake Bemmel came to the markets of Prsilin, the elders of Corrhae’s clan spoke to the elders of Prsilin, saying “Hand over to us these two youths, that we may tear their flesh with iron hooks, as is our custom.” But the elders of Prsilin refused the lake Bemmel, and said: “Such is not our custom. For it is only the word of your she-maiden against that of these two youths, and they are not slaves, but freemen of good families.” And the elders of Prsilin looked haugthily down upon the elders of the Lake Bemmel, for they were hard of heart as the great bronze mallus trees, and thought no kind thought toward the shiftless people of the lake. Then the Lake People came less and less to the markets of Prsilin in the following season, for they knew they could find no justice there.
The seed of her attackers took root in the womb of Corrhae, and she swelled with the fruit of her outrage. Her misery was great to bear such a child, and she obtained from a woman of another clan certain medicines to convulse her womb, and rid herself of it. As such practices wereagainst the will of the Elders of the Lake Bemmel, she swallowed the medicines and went out alone in her coracle one evening to a still part of the lake. Her ill-luck was that her womb was greatly rent by the violence of its convulsions, and with the half-made foal poured out her life’s blood, pooling black in her coracle as the sun failed. There was no one near to save her, and she knew that she soon must die.
So Corrhae drew herself up and faced north over the starlit waters, and took the body of her child, and cast it into the water. As she did so, she called out in prayer to Nochazom pse Rhatham, God of the North, who is seldom worshipped by the Lake Bemmel, for those who seek favours from her are rarely rewarded.
“Hear my cries, O Nochazom, Master of the Tempests, Sender of the Night-Glaives, Protector of those that dwell in the lands beyond the forest. I offer you my child, that you may take vengeance upon the one who fathered it, and on his companion, and one all who have sheltered them from the rightful vengeance of my clan. Hear my cries, O God of Rhatham, Destroyer of the Wicked, friend to those against whom every man’s hand is turned, nearest to the soul of Mostagom.”
Corrhae felt her life ebbing swiftly from her, and called out again. “I bring you another offering also, so that you will avenge me on my enemies. Take it, I beg of you, O my Goddess, and bring down your wrath upon Prsilin.”
Then with the last of her strength she threw herself from her coracle into the lake and was drowned; and in the morning three fishers of her clan found it floating empty, filled with blood.
It is said that nothing happened that night, or the night after, save that some dwellers in Prsilin were troubled with dreams, and kept awake by fear of unknown evils. But the next night it is said the mist that often forms on the lake at sunset in that season formed uncommonly thick, so that one end of a coracle might hardly be seen from another; and this mist flowed out from the lake, and covered the city of Prsilin. Every tower was buried deep in the mist, and nothing of the city could be seen. Neither did any sound escape from Prsilin to the ears of the dwellers on the Cooraban Sea, but when the mist lifted with the coming of the sun, there was no trace of the city that had been there, only a great field of torn earth, as though it had been ploughed with mountains.
The Lake Bemmel call the place where Prsilin had been the Field of Nochazom, and did not come to land there; and the shallow arm of the lake where Corrhae’s boat was found they call Psaerrhae, the Bay of Blood. This tale they tell as a warning to those who would live too much alone, or think too much on foreign things and seek the company of those who are not of the Lake Bemmel.
|