The Knight of the Swords Part 15

Then Hanafax cried out in terror and disgust. "G.o.ds! They are things from the Pits of the Dog! Shefanhow!" He jumped behind Corum. "Keep them off me, Vadhagh! Aah!"

Hollow voices issued from the strangely distorted mouths: "Master. We will do your will. We will do the will of Kwll."

"Destroy that door!" Corum commanded. "Will we have our prize, master?" "What prize is that?" "A life for each of us, Master."

Corum shuddered. "Aye, very well, you'll have your prize."

The scythes rose up and the door fell down and the four creatures that were truly "Shefanhow" led the way into a narrow pa.s.sage.

"My kite!" Hanafax murmured to Corum. "We can escape on that." "A kite?"

"Aye. It flies and can take both of us." 138 The Shefanhow marched ahead. From them radiated a force that froze the skin.

They mounted some steps and another door was burst by the scythes of the cloaked creatures. There was daylight.

They found themselves in the main courtyard of the palace.

From all sides came warriors. This time they did not seem so reluctant to kill Corum and Hanafax, but they paused when they saw the four cloaked beings.

"There are your prizes," Corum said. *'Take as many as you will and then return to whence you came,"

The scythes whirled in the suns.h.i.+ne. The Rhaga-da-Kheta fell back screaming.

The screaming grew louder.

The four began to t.i.tter. Then they began to roar. Then they began to echo the screams of their victims as their scythes swung and heads sprang from necks.

Sickened, Corum and Hanafax ran through the corridors of the palace. Hanafax led the way and eventually stopped outside a door.

Everywhere now the screams sounded and the loudest screams of all were those of the four.

Hanafax forced the door open. It was dark within. He began to rummage about in the room. "This is where I was when I was their guest. Before they decided that I had offended Arioch. I came here in my kite. Now > Corum saw more soldiers rus.h.i.+ng down the corridor toward them.

"Find it quickly, Hanafax," he said. He leapt out to block the corridor with his sword.

The spindly beings came to a halt and looked at his sword. They raised their own bird-claw clubs and began cautiously to advance.

Corum's sword darted out and cut a warrior's throat. He collapsed in a tangle of legs and arms. Corum struck another in the eye.

139.

The screams were dying now. Corum's foul allies were returning to their own plane with their prizes.

Behind Corum, Hanafax was dragging forth a dusty arrangement of rods and silk. "I have it, Prince Corum. Give me a short while to remember the spell I need."

Rather than being frightened by the deaths of their comrades, the Rhaga-da-Kheta seemed spurred on to fight more fiercely. Partly protected by a little mound of the slain, Corum fought on.

Hanafax began to call out something in a strange tongue. Corum felt a wind rise that ruffled his scarlet robe. Something grabbed him from behind and then he was rising into the air, over the heads of the Rhaga-da-Kheta, speeding along the corridor and into the open.

He looked down nervously.

The city was rus.h.i.+ng past below them.

Hanafax dragged him into the box of yellow and green silk. Corum was sure he would fall, but the kite held.

The ragged, unkept figure beside him was grinning.

"So the will of Arioch can be denied," Corum said.

"Unless we are his instruments in this," said Hanafax, his grin fading.

The Fourth Chapter

IN THE FLAMELANDS.

Corum got used to the flight, though he still felt uncomfortable. Hanafax hummed to himself while he chopped at his hair and whiskers until a handsome, youngish face was revealed. Apparently without concern, he discarded his rags and drew on a clean doublet and pair of breeks he had brought with him in his bundle.

"I feel a thousand times improved. I thank you, Prince Corum, for visiting the City of Arke before I had entirely 140.

rotted away!" Corum had discovered that Hanafax could not sustain his moods of introspection but was naturally of a cheerful disposition.

"Where is this flying thing taking us, Sir Hanafax?"

"Ah, there's the problem," Hanafax said. "It is why I have found myself in more trouble than I sought. I cannotumguide the kite. It flies where it will."

They were over the sea now.

Corum clung to the struts and fixed his eyes ahead of him while Hanafax began a song which was not complementary either to Arioch or to the Dog G.o.d of the Eastern Mabden folk.

Then Corum saw something below and he said drily, "I would advise you to forget the insults to Arioch. We appear to be flying over the Thousand-League Reef. As I understand it, his domain lies somewhere beyond that."

"A fair distance, though. I hope the kite brings us down soon."

They reached the coast. Corum screwed up his eyes as he tried to make it out. Some of the time it seemed to consist of water alonea kind of huge inland seaand some of the time the water vanished completely and only land could be seen. It was s.h.i.+fting all the time.

"Is that Urde, Sir Hanafax?"

"I think it must be the place 'Urde' by its position and appearance. Unstable matter, Prince Corum, created by the Chaos Lords."

"The Chaos Lords? I have not heard that term used before."

"Have you not? Well, it is their will that rules you. Arioch is one of them. Long since there was a war between the forces of Order and the forces of Chaos. The forces of Chaos won and came to dominate the Fifteen Planes and, as I understand it, much that lies beyond them. Some say that Ord&r was defeated completely and all her G.o.ds vanished. They say the Cosmic Balance tipped too far in one direction and that is why there are so many arbitrary events taking place in the world. They say that once the world was round 141.

instead of dish-shaped. It is hard to accept, I agree."

"Some Vadhagh legends say it was once round."

"Aye. Well, the Vadhagh began their rise just before Order was banished. That is why the Sword Rulers hate the old races so much. They are not their creation at all. But the Great G.o.ds are not allowed to interfere too directly in mortal affairs, so they have worked through the Mabden, chiefly . . ."

"Is this the truth?"

"It is a truth," Hanafax shrugged. "I know other versions of the same tale. But I am inclined to believe this one."

"These Great G.o.dsyou speak of the Sword Rulers?"

"Aye, the Sword Rulers and others. Then there are the Great Old G.o.ds, to whom all the myriad planes of Earth are merely a tiny fragment in a greater mosaic." Hanafax shrugged. "This is the cosmology I was taught when I was a priest. I cannot vouch for its truth."

Corum frowned. He looked below and now they were crossing a bleak yellow and brown desert. It was the desert called Dhroonhazat and it seemed entirely waterless. By an accident of fate he was being borne toward the Knight of the Swords faster than he had expected.

Or was it an accident of fate?

Now the heat was increasing and the sand below s.h.i.+mmered and danced. Hanafax licked his lips. "We're getting dangerously close to the Ramelands, Prince Corum. Look."

On the horizon Corum saw a thin, flickering line of red light. The sky above it was also tinged red.

The kite sped nearer and the heat increased. To his astonishment, Corum saw that they were approaching a wall of flame that stretched as far as he could see in both directions.

"Hanafax, we shall be burned alive," he said softly.

"Aye, it seems likely."

"Is there no means of turning this kite of yours?"

"I have tried, in the past. It is not the first time it has 142 taken me away from one danger and into a worse one > The wall of fire was now so close that Corum could feel its direct heat burning his face. He heard it rumble and crackle and it seemed to feed on nothing but the air itself.

"Such a thing defies naturel" he gasped.

"Is that not a fair definition of all sorcery?" Hanafax said. "This is the Chaos Lords' work. The disruption of the natural harmony is, after ah*, their pleasure."

"Ah, this sorcery. It wearies my mind. I cannot grasp its logic."

"That is because it has none. It is arbitrary. The Lords of Chaos are the enemies of Logic, the jugglers of Truth, the molders of Beauty. I should be surprised if they had not created these Flamelands out of some aesthetic impulse. Beautyan ever-changing beautyis all they live for."

"An evil beauty."

"I believe that such notions as 'good' and 'evil' do not exist for the Chaos Lords."

"I should like to make it exist for them." Corum mopped his sweating head with his coat sleeve.

"And destroy all their beauty?"

Corum darted an odd look at Hanafax. Was the Mabden on the side of the Knight? Had he, in fact, trapped Corum into accompanying him?

"There are other, .quieter kinds of beauty, Sir Hanafax."

"True."

Everywhere below them now the flame yelled and leaped. The kite began to increase its height as its silk started to smolder. Corum was certain it would soon be destroyed by the fire and they would be plunged into the depths of the flame wall.

But now they were above it and, in spite of the silk's suddenly springing alive with little fires and Corum's feeling he was being roasted in his armor Like a turtle in its sh.e.l.l, they now saw the other side of the wall.

143.

A piece of the kite fell blazing away.

Hanafax, his face a bright red, his body running with sweat, clung to a strut and gasped, "Grasp a beam, Prince Corum! Grasp a beam!"

Corum took hold of one of the beams beneath his body as the burning silk was ripped from the frame and fluttered into the fires below. The kite dipped and threatened to follow the silk. It was losing height rapidly. Corum coughed as the burning air entered his lungs. Blisters appeared on his right hand, though his left hand seemed immune.

The kite lurched and began to fall.

Corum was flung back and forth during the crazy descent, but he managed to keep his hold on the strut. Then there was a cracking sound, a mighty thump, and he lay amidst the wreckage on a surface of flat obsidian, the wall of flame behind him.

He raised his bruised body upright. It was still unbearably hot and the flames sang close to his back, rising a hundred feet or more into the air. The fused rock on which he stood was green and glistened and reflected the flame, seeming to writhe beneath his feet. A little distance to his left ran a sluggish river of molten lava, a few flames fluttering on its surface. Everywhere Corum looked was the same s.h.i.+ning rock, the same red rivers of fire. He inspected the kite. It was completely useless. Hanafax was lying amongst its struts cursing it. He got up.

"Well," he kicked at the blackened, broken frame, "you'll never fly me into any more dangers!"

"I think this danger is all we need," Corum. said. "It could be the last one we'll ever face.*'

Hanafax picked up his swordbelt from the wreckage and tied it round his waist. He found a singed cloak and put it on to protect his shoulders. "Aye, I think you could speak truth, Prince Corum. A poor place to meet one's end, eh?"

"According to some Mabden legends," Corum said, "we might already have met our ends and been consigned 144.

here. Are not certain Mabden netherworlds said to be made of eternally burning flame?"

Hanafax snorted. "In the East, perhaps. Well, we cannot go back, so I suppose we must go forward."

"I was told that an Ice Wilderness lay toward the north," Corum said. "Though how it does not melt being so near to the Flamelands, I do not know."

"Another quirk of the Lords of Chaos, doubtless."

"Doubtless."

They began to make their way over the slippery rock that burned their feet with every step, leaving the wall of flame behind them, leaping over rivulets of lava, moving so slowly and so circuitously that they were soon exhausted and paused to rest, look back at the distant flame wall, mop their brows, exchange daunted looks. Thirst now plagued them and their voices were hoa.r.s.e.

"I think we are doomed, Prince Corum."

Corum nodded wearily. He looked up. Red clouds boiled above, like a dome of fire. It seemed that all the world burned.

"Have you no spells for bringing on rain, Sir Hanafax?"

"I regret not. We priests scorn such primitive tricks."

"Useful tricks. Sorcerers seem to enjoy only the spectacular."