Don Rodriguez; Chronicles of Shadow Valley — John Shaqi
Don Rodriguez; Chronicles of Shadow ValleyDunsany, Lord
Science
Don Rodriguez; Chronicles of Shadow Valley
Dunsany, Lord
Fantasy fiction, English; Magicians -- Fiction; Spain -- Fiction
At once the Professor stretched out his ebony wand, calling the green
flame higher. Then he put out his hands over the flame, without the
wand, moving them slowly with constantly tremulous fingers. And all at
once they heard him begin to speak. His deep voice flowed musically
while he scarcely seemed to be speaking but seemed only to be concerned
with moving his hands. It came soft, as though blown faint from
fabulous valleys, illimitably far from the land of Spain. It seemed
full not so much of magic as mere sleep, either sleep in an unknown
country of alien men, or sleep in a land dreamed sleeping a long while
since. As the travellers heard it they thought of things far away, of
mythical journeys and their own earliest years.
They did not know what he said or what language he used. At first
Rodriguez thought Moorish, then he deemed it some secret language come
down from magicians of old, while Morano merely wondered; and then they
were lulled by the rhythm of those strange words, and so enquired no
more. Rodriguez pictured some sad wandering angel, upon some
mountain-peak of African lands, resting a moment and talking to the
solitudes, telling the lonely valley the mysteries of his home. While
lulled though Morano was he gave up his alertness uneasily. All the
while the green flame flooded upwards: all the while the tremulous
fingers made curious shadows. The shadow seemed to run to Rodriguez and
beckon him thence: even Morano felt them calling. Rodriguez closed his
eyes. The voice and the Moorish spells made now a more haunting melody:
they were now like a golden organ on undiscoverable mountains. Fear
came on Morano at the thought: who had power to speak like this? He
grasped Rodriguez by the wrist. "Master!" he said, but at that moment
on one of those golden spells the spirit of Rodriguez drifted away from
his body, and out of the greenish light of the curious room; unhampered
by weight, or fatigue, or pain, or sleep; and it rose above the rocks
and over the mountain, an unencumbered spirit: and the spirit of Morano
followed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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