The Enchantress of World's End

I really do not know! I have forgotten long ago; but very much older than you would think reasonable. I remember Julius Caesar and Hannibal, and I once saw Semiramis riding in a procession full of dancing girls and feather-fans. I can remember what Salisbury Plain looked like before Stonehenge. I watched the fall of Babylon and the burning of Persepolis, and I once discussed the circumference of the world with Ptolemy. I remember the first ship and the first city. I think I can remember the discovery of fire, but I’m not quite certain whether it was a caveman named Og who discovered it, or another named Ak; Og had blue eyes and yellow hair, as I recall; he was probably a Cro-Magnon……

The voice of the Old Dragon lulled them into a dreamy daze; curled up on Dzimdazoul’s paw, Phadia was fast asleep, his thumb tucked into his mouth, worn out from the excitements of the day. Ganelon and Grrff sat on the cavern floor, listening as the Old Dragon talked of things long ago and far away, another world, another age. Grrff understood little of what the great creature said, but listened anyway, enthralled.

I remember before the poles changed; I remember Ultima Thule. And I knew Hercules, or rather, one of the forty wandering heroes whose various exploits got mixed up in the story of Hercules. I saw the Crusades; I knew Roland, yes, and Oliver; I watched the Ice Age come and go…….I saw the first dog, while the Northern Lights glimmered overhead and the ice lay deep across Europe.

I used to spend my winters in the palace of Prester John. I saw the Huns come riding out of Asia, and the Mongols, and the Turks; the Tartars, too. I remember the death of the last mastodon and of the last wooly mammoth.

And I remember Siegfried.

“How is it, Grandfather, that you have lived so long?” asked Ganelon sleepily.

I was the first living thing which the Demiurge made, after the creation of the world itself—Theos-Pater, was that his name?—I think he loved me for that I was his first; at any rate, he let me live longer than any other thing. In the Beginning there were only Behemoth and Leviathan and I. Leviathan lived in the sea; Behemoth roamed the great plains; and I resided in the caverns underneath the world……. they died young, my mighty brothers. There was not enough in the world for them to eat, so Dyaus-Ptah, or whatever his name was, took their lives away from them. But I was his first living creature, and he could not bear to take my life back; so he arranged it that I fed only on gems and precious minerals, whereof the world hath a great plenty … then, I think, he just forgot about me, and laldabaoth never knew I was even there … later on, of course, I found my way Here.

“Where is ‘here’?” murmured Silvermane, sleepily. “This isn’t Gondwane, is it?” The Old Dragon shook his heavy head ponderously.

This is the Halfworld: some call it Faerie. ‘Tis a midregion outside of the world, yet part of it in a certain sense. And connected with many other worlds as well. Here death cannot ever come, because we are outside of Time and beyond the reach of Change. Here Arthur sleeps, and Charlemagne and Barbarossa, and Ogier; and here Merlin dreams the world away, lonely in Brociliande—

The deep, hissing, thunderous voice slowed to a halt. The Old Dragon peered down at them with huge, curious, wise eyes; they were asleep, all three. The Tigerman slept on his back, his paws lifted before his furry chest. He snored, a kind of purring sound.

Sleep, now, little ones … I had forgotten how easily you manlings weary … sleep! No harm can come to you here, and I will watch over your rest, said the Old Dragon.