The stars were mirrored on the shore,
dark was the vast enchanted moor,
silent as cloud or wave or stone.
Robardin’s daughter walked alone.
A web of gold between her hands.
On shining spindle burning bright;
deserted lay the mortal lands
when Hastur left the Spheres of Light.
Then singing like a hidden bird,
Cassilda cast a secret word,
beside the waters clear and cold;
he heard her as he downward spun,
and through the fields of stars he came
treading the night where shadows run
till into water fell his flame.
The song was cast into the night,
the sun arose with doubled light;
he lay thrown up long the shore—
the sands were jeweled evermore—
and to the shores Cassilda came
and called him by a mortal name,
and at her heels Camilla fair
came flying in the glowing dawn,
a flowermaid with flaxen hair,
and found him when the mists had gone.
Cassilda paled and wept and fled,
Camilla knelt and raised his head;
he woke and saw blue eyes and gray
and saw the paler mortal day
and sheathed his sword’s immortal fire
immortal man’s entranced desire;
a hand to each, he faltering came
within the rocky mountain hall
where Alar tends the darkened flame
that brightened at Cassilda’s call.
White bread and wine and cherries red
brought by her doves through morning bright,
Camilla laid, and bowed her head,
he ate and drank by earthly light.
And as his brilliance paled away
into a dimmer mortal day,
Cassilda left her shining loom;
a starflower in his hand she laid,
then on him fell a mortal doom;
he rose and kissed Robardin’s maid.
The golden web unfinished lay,
Camilla darkened day by day,
Cassilda brightened into noon
(for mortal love comes soon, comes soon).
They wandered in the shining wood
and in the mortal sun they stood,
and watched the waters ebb and flow
and saw the silver wheel retrace
the skypath in the waves below,
a glory mirrored in each face.
Camilla’s tears, unshed aloud,
turned the gray waters into cloud;
where Hastur’s steps on sand and shone
the flowermaiden walked alone;
yet by her sister’s side she smiled,
and in her arms the golden child
the Son of Hastur, cradled bright,
wrapped in the web of tattered gold,
Cassilda’s son, the child of Light,
Camilla’s arms were first to fold.
The silver wheels of night had swung
where bright Avarra’s sickle hung,
and on the shores Cassilda sang,
and bell-bright harps of Hastur rang;
but in the mountain fall the flame
rushed to the roof in frightened red,
and from the hall Camilla fled,
for Alar called on Zandru’s name.
A fearful mist about him laid,
his eyes were darkened in the shade,
and Hastur’s glorious face did seem
a wavering distorted dream;
for when the God had left the stars
he roused again the evil strife;
and in the Darkest Heart there grew
knowledge of Hastur’s mortal life.
Into the heart of Alar fell
a splinter from the darkest hell;
and madness on him raging came;
he cried again on Zandru’s name,
and in the darkened fire he made
a darkly shining magic blade,
an evil spell upon it cast
wound with Terrors out of Night,
and runes he graved, darkly enmassed,
spells to put shadows into flight.
He saw no God, but daemon dread
in Hastur’s fair and shining head,
and in Camilla’s tears a sign
of evil thought and foul design;
he could not see the patterned plan
that gave a God to mortal wife,
that mortal love beyond a man
should bring down more than mortal life.
Silent he crept along the shore
where Hastur sand his mortal song
and while Camilla trembled sore
Cassilda’s joy blazed bright and strong.
The song was silent in the dark,
Camilla wept where none could mark,
but Hastur came, and bending low
raised up the maiden white as snow,
and on her pure and flowery face
a kiss of holy love he laid,
a blazing brother’s pure embrace
for sister of his lovely bride.
And joyously she knew his kiss,
and more than a lover’s was her loss,
and on the sands Cassilda smiles,
where smiling played her shining child,
then starlight hid her gleaming face,
and through the shadows Alar came,
and as they stood in long embrace
the witch-sword glittered cold with flame.
Evil was Alar’s magic art!
Camilla fell without a cry,
and Hastur, shielded by her heart,
knew he could die as mortals die,
and rising into blazing fire
immortal was in spent desire.
The sword lay broken on the shore,
but no man saw Camilla more;
by Zandru’s spells the sword was made
to banish only. not to slay,
and pierced by that accursed blade
to Shadow-realms she passed away;
and there she wandered long and drear,
and evermore they heard her cry
until the fading of the year
became a sadness and a sigh,
the silver leaves that fell like tears
the twilight dim with shadow-fears
dying upon a kiss to die.
Then Hastur son of Light had known
(for so had doomed his shining Sire
when first he fled the Realms of Fire)
once more his star must burn alone.
For on the earth he might not reign
if once he caused a mortal pain;
or in that hour he must return
to the far spheres that were his own;
for mortals many griefs do burn;
no more might be by Godlings sown.
And never to the misty lake
could shining Hastur come again;
nor did Robardin’s daughter take
a husband from the mortal men,
but when his star was spun alight
over the towers of the land,
she raised her mirrored eyes of light
and from the starry-mirrored sand
her songs from sphere of stars took flight.
At last she brought her shining child
wrapt in the tattered web of gold
high to the Tower in the Wild
where Astra dwelt in days of old.
And there they named him King and Lord,
and bade him keep the tattered cloak
torn from the loom that day she fled,
and all the shining fibers broke,
and on his shield, the cherry red,
and keep the doomed and fearful Sword.
They set Cassilda’s throne on high,
and Hastur’s crown within the sky;
they built a city in the Wild
fit for this rule, the kingly Child,
and singing of Camilla’s doom
they wrought for her an opal tomb.
And evermore the cloud waves break
along the fringes of the lake,
and tears and songs still whisper there
upon the still and misty air;
Cassilda singing in the light,
Camilla weeping in the night;
Hastur a star enshrined above
who mortal was for mortal love;
and Alar chained in the darkest night
never again to know the light;
bound to the King by magic art,
a she-wolf ever gnaws his heart.
The shining King of Hastur line
became your forefather and mine.