THE LIFE OF EIBON
according to Cyron of Varaad
by Lin Carter
The sorcerer Eibon, son of Milaab, was born in the city of Iqqua in the Year of the Red Worm. In that same year the doom whereof the White Sybil had spake a century before came down upon the famous city of Com-moriom and the King thereof, Lorquamethros, and all his folk, rose up and fled into the south to establish the city of Uzuldaroum amidst the jungles of Zesh in the land of Pharnath, abandoning forever splendid Commoriom to the abnormality Kyngathin Zhaum.
This Milaab had been Keeper of the Archives to Xactura, Prince of Iqqua, and long had he been high in the favor of that monarch. But when that the child Eibon had attained to his second lustrum, which was about the time of the death of King Lorquamethros, the ecclesiarchs of the goddess Yhoundeh drave forth the family of Milaab into exile amidst the wilderness of Phenquor with their persecutions, wherefrom the father of Eibon died not long thereafter and the homeless and orphaned child sought refuge with a friendly enchanter, one Zylac, to whom he was apprenticed in the year that King Pharnavootra succeeded to the throne of Uzuldaroum.
Now this Zylac was a celebrated magician who was then well-entered into the second century of his life, which by his art he had extended to an inordinate length as did Eibon himself in his own time. The mage was then in his one hundred eleventh year, having been born a year before the Sybil came into these parts out of the drear and frozen wastes of Polarion to prophesy concerning that which would in time befall great Commoriom, which is to say the Doom thereof. In his own youth the eminent Zylac had been the foremost of the disciples of Hormagor, the wizard of Abormis, whose curious history was writ down by Eibon in his Chapter the Seventh.
From his tenth into his three-and-twentieth year did Eibon dwell in the black house of Zylac, which arose on the westernmost shores of Mhu Thulan, the province being at that time barren and uninhabited of men. There did he study the arts of necromancy and the three kinds of magic under the tutelage of that savant who was accounted the foremost in all of Hyperborea during his age. And there in the house of Zylac did Eibon bethink himself secure forever from the vengeance of the inquisitors of Yhoundeh, for that he dwelt afar from the customary habitations of men.
When that it came to pass, in the fullness of time, that Zylac perished from his imprudent uses of the Zliogmish rituals, as Eibon hath related in his Chapter the First, the youthful sorcerer rose up and fled therefrom, leaving behind him the house of black gneiss on its solitary headland which overlooketh the cold waters of the boreal main. This I consider to have eventuated in the thirteenth year that Pharnavootra reigned in Uzuldaroum. Thus did Eibon commence his wanderings through many lands, at the first alone, but later in the company of a certain Zaljis whom he encountered in Oggon-Zhai. This youth was a fellow-seeker after dubious and occult knowledge, and together this twain sought wisdom wherever it might be found, whether in the eldritch fanes of age-forgotten Utressor or amongst the shadow-haunted tombs of Ulphar. Of the many and uncanny perils encountered by the twain beneath the puYple spires of Mnardis, and of that curious affliction which befell the aged king of Zaroul, I shall say naught: for of these matters hath Eibon himself aforetime writ.
It was in that year wherein the Empress Amphyrene was crowned that the sorcerer Eibon returned from his travelings to that drear and desolate promontory of Mhu Thulan which fronted upon the sea, and abode once more in the black house of Zylac which time had cleansed of its horror as all things are cleansed by the passage of the years.
And therein did he abide thereafter for all of the years of his life upon this Earth, as is well known amongst men. For by this time he waxed exceeding great in his fame, and was accounted as eminent as had been the thaumaturge Zylac before him. Throughout the one-and-thirty year reign of that Empress did Eibon strive mightily to perfect himself in his science; and it was in the Year of the Green Spider, when the old Empress succumbed and the Prince Consort ascended to the throne as Emperor Charnametros, that I, Cyron, did become apprenticed to the celebrated Eibon. I was then at the terminus of my fourth lustrum and from my natal city of Varaad in the land of Phenquor had I come to study at the feet of the master, for that all of my life had I heard sung the famousness of Eibon.
He was then in his five-and-sixtieth year and by that time was he reckoned the most potent and sagacious of the sorcerers of Hyperborea. For twenty years thereafter did I serve as his lowly apprentice, studying the arts of necromancy and the three kinds of magic, and ever did I find him to be the kindliest of men, as he was the wisest of teachers and the most accomplished of magicians.
In his person the Master Eibon was slight of build and sallow of complexion, with a round face for ever beardless, his lips adorned with thin and silken and drooping mustachios. His eyes were thoughtful and hooded and amused, and he held himself fastidiously aloof from the ways of men; however, he possessed a whimsical cast of mind and a mocking humor, and was much given to ironic drolleries. I bethink me that few things mattered aught to him, and fewer still he cared for overmuch; and little of life or of the world did he take very seriously, the least of all himself.
I can see him now, as oftentimes I saw him, a-strolling in his garden of curious trees, his slight form attired in thin robes of silk, bepatterned rose-and-golden after the manner of the weavers of Pnar. With his hands clasped behind his back he would saunter to and fro the length of his pleasaunce, all the while discoursing with subtle wisdom and wry wit upon some deep and arcane topic, his brows wrapt in the immense and voluminous, bescarfed tarboosh which he affected after the fashions of the days of his youth.
Full many were the disciples of Eibon who came to the house of black gneiss to study thaumaturgy at the master's feet. But of them all I believe that it was I, Cyron, was the dearest to his heart; and this belief I cherish within mine own. Throughout the empery of Charnametros, and the first years of Saphirion which followed, I abode in the tall house of Eibon. But in the eighth year of Saphirion's empery, when that I was attained to the age of forty, did I part in amicable fashion from my master and eloigned myself hence to the city of Varaad where I dwelt ever after, devoting my years to the practice of wizardry. Many were the merchants and artisans of that city, aye, and the lords and burghers, as well, who vied to purchase their charms and spells, their periapts and divinations, from the wizard Cyron that had learnt his craft from none other than the celebrated Eibon.
But no more shall I narrate in this vein, lest that it be said of me that I wrote more of the pupil than of the teacher.
Vardanax was the last of the Dynasty of the Uzuldarines to name himself by the name of Emperor. When he died in the tenth year after his coronation and his sister. Queen Cunambria, succeeded to the throne, it could be seen throughout the land that the cultus of Yhoundeh was grown vast and prodigiously powerful, for the hierophant and grand inquisitor of the elk goddess, one Morghi by name, didst proclaim it far and wide to the faithful that my master Eibon was a depraved and infamous heretic; the which he would else have forborne to do, in fear of Eibon, had he not felt himself secure and confident in the preeminence of his authority.
The inquisitor Morghi further caused it to be bruited about that my master was given to worship in secret and by stealthy ways the Abomination Tsathoggua, an obscure and suppressed divinity which had formerly enjoyed the celebrance of the aboriginal Voormis in prehuman cycles. These grunting and furry troglodytes, a dwindling vestige of primal Eons, yet lingered as survivors of a forgotten age in the mountainous or remote or bejungled parts of Hyperborea which were by the children of men shunned for that same reason.