Unlike Thilfri his twin sister, Lansenet reached Kapgar Kûm by daylight. The sun was out and bright, but as he rode up the Giants’ Road she grew misty and a deep gloom fell, a noontide darkness. He came to the turning of the downward path and, still driven by his anger, descended the mountainside without hesitation. At the Eastern Gate, he stopped not to think, but led Damarâw to a grove growing on an outthrust hill beyond the Giants’ Road, and tethered him there to graze: it seemed a more wholesome and a safer place. Indeed it was the hill under which of old was the realm of Kabadkabâ, which was never defiled by the Giants’ Wars, though it was later ruined by the Hawkheaded Ones, whom mortals fear. There Damarâw waited, enduring doughtily his unwished-for return to Kapgar.
Lansenet took no leisure but leapt to the gateway. He intoned the rune straightly, and the doors swung wide. Now the stupefying mist belched forth in almost bodily form, but with a sudden memory of words spoken before, he put hand to helm, and found the hinged visor fixed upon it. He swung the visor down, and felt his face unclouded and his vision clear. Like his sister, but far more rapidly, he strode down the Eastern Incline, into the murky mist and the glowering gloom. He came to the fork in the road and saw Gebren hanging before him. Scarcely pausing to read the words thereon, he turned his spear and with its butt-end smote seven times upon the great disc. With a flash of foresight he set the spear forward again. For hardly had the last golden echo faded away than Gulgrudur was upon him. First there surged a blast of misty vapour so strong that Lansenet could barely keep his footing, then came the vast Mouth, sliding down and filling the passage from floor to roof. It seemed a great ring of moist flaccid flesh, and behind it were two fangs facing forward, not long but squat. No eyes or legs were to be seen, just a pulsating, gaping maw, thrusting forward, full of menace, and behind it a deep dark throat like a pit.
Then Lansenet saw that the deadly vapour did not flow, as he had supposed, from the dark throat. It streamed forth out of fissures in the two small fangs. The breath of the monster drove it forth. So, careless of life, Lansenet leapt lightly within the great circle of the monster’s maw. His mailed feet sank into unguessable slime in the trough of the great mouth, but now he was beyond the reach of the venomous cloud. He drew back the spear, and with all his strength, hurled it forward into the noisome darkness of the hideous throat. A great shudder ran through the monster’s body. Lansenet felt himself swung upwards as the jaws began to close. He swept out the Green Rider’s sword, whose name he did not know, and cried to it:
Berutagsê, berutagsê! Marwë fe-ilmat!
Greensword, greensword! great is my need!
May your point puncture and penetrate flesh,
May your edge enter the ancient neathworm
And your might dispel the misty darkness.
Setting all his mind upon it, he held the Greensword firmly above him to stave off the slavering upper jaw that descended to crush him. The point pierced the roof of the mouth and was driven, by Gulgrudur’s own might, deep into the ganglion of nerves and sinews that served the monster for a brain. Suddenly the jaws ceased to close and the whole beast quivered in great convulsions. Lansenet twisted out the sword and slipped from between the fangs. Turning, he beheld, in the half light of the blue-flamed lanterns, the loathsome eyeless head collapsed upon the cavern floor, the mouth lying open with the fangs exposed.
Exultant now and mindful of need, he struck at one of the two fangs with the Greensword, and with a few blows it cracked and broke from the blubberlike gum. In the cavity revealed in the fang’s root there could be seen a great sac of venom from which the vapour was shot. Then he smote the other fang likewise, and it broke away and fell. Then moved by an impulse from he knew not where, he picked up the two fangs, one in each hand, took off the Green Rider’s helm, and clapped one fang to each side of it; and behold! they cleaved to it by some hidden power. He replaced the helm on his head, and as he steadied it there, to his amazement, a voice spoke softly in his ears, a wholesome voice that he knew at once.
Fear not, Lansenet, faithful rider!
Through the Sleeper’s fangs I will send counsel.
Though I name a deed that is never so strange
Fare straightly forth and swerve not at all,
By daring all, redeem Thilfri.
Then Lansenet said:
Brílë Mazéget Malvân Gyerdhet Fâdhéri ’lur!
Mazéget Malvân túvat’ Magyerdhet Fên!
Truly the Fangs of the Sleeper are the Horn of Fâdhéri,
The Fangs of the Sleeper against the Horns of the Pit!
As it is written in the Lay of the Grey Sleeper:
The wroth warrior comes riding up
Remarks the mist massing on high,
The sun wreathed in the dusty sky.
Sheathless weapon shining in hand
He spurs warhorse through waiting land,
On stones clatters in clammy silence
And treads the ground of the Grey Sleeper
The challenge dins on dim rock-walls,
Breaks the quiet of the coiled Sleeper
Breather baneful of bleak oblivion
Filler of fields with fires of cold
Lulling dully all lands living.
A gong stands here — Gebren its name —
That mailèd knight, mallet wielding
Beats that metal with might of hand
Cries his coming to conquer wrong.
The Sleeper, creeping, casts forth coldfire,
Grey sleep-streams gathering thickly.
But Memory cast the closed helmet
And Foresight fashioned the fair warspear:
Mind’s weapons hew Haldo Malvan.
The Sheefra shudder, the shades wither;
Vanquished, Sleeper’s venom vanishes.
Mind-forgèd Sword, with Valour’s aid
Destroys darkness and spells of Sleep.
Then the helm lifts high the hewn fangteeth;
Outwitting even the White Hand’s keepers.
Never did Lansenet even think of departing from the dark place until the Rider’s voice spoke again.
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