The Knight of the Swords Part 6

He saw his sisters and his cousin suffering the same fate as his mother. Again his path to them was blocked by something invisible.

He struggled to get through, but now the Mabden were slitting the girls' throats. They quivered and died like slain fawns.

Corum began to weep.

He was still weeping, but he lay against a warm body and from somewhere in the distance came a soothing voice.

His head was being stroked and he was being rocked back and forth in a soft bed by the woman on whose breast he lay.

For a moment he tried to free himself, but she held him tight.

He began to weep again, freely this time, great groans racking his body, until he slept again. And now the sleep was free from dreams . . .

He awoke feeling anxious. He felt that he had slept for too long, that he must be up and doing something. He half raised himself in the bod and then sank down again into the pillows.

It slowly came to him that he was much refreshed. For the first time since he had set off on his quest, he felt full of energy and well-being. Even the darkness in his mind seemed to have retreated.

So the Margravine had drugged him, but now, it seemed, it had been a drug to make him sleep, to help him regain his strength.

But how many days had he slept?

He stirred again in the bed and felt the soft warmth of another beside him, on his blind side. He turned his 66.head and there was Rhalina, her eyes closed, her sweet face at peace.

He recalled his dreaming. He recalled the comfort he had been given as all the misery hi him poured forth.

Rhalina had comforted him. He reached out with his good hand to stroke the tumbled hair. He felt affection for heran affection almost as strong as he had felt for his own family.

Reminded of his dead kin, he stopped stroking her hair and contemplated, instead, the puckered stump of his left hand. It was completely healed now, leaving a rounded end of white skin. He looked back at Rhalina. How could she bear to share her bed with such a cripple?

As he looked at her, she opened her eyes and smiled at him, He thought he detected pity in that smile and was immediately resentful. He began to climb from the bed, but her hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Stay with me, Corum, for I need your comforting now.'*

He paused, looked back at her suspiciously.

"Please, Corum, I believe that I love you."

He frowned. "Love? Between Vadhagh and Mabden? Love of that kind?" He shook his head. "Impossible. There could be no issue."

"No children, I know. But love gives birth to other things . . .**

"I do not understand you."

"I am sorry," she said. "I was selfish. I am taking advantage of you." She sat up in bed. "I have slept with no one else since my husband went away. I am not u Corum studied her body. It moved him and yet it should not have. It was unnatural for one species to feel such emotion for another . . .

He reached down and kissed her breast. She clasped his head. They sank, again, into the sheets, making gentle love, learning of one another as only those truly in love may.

67.After some hours, she said to him, "Corum, you are the last of your race. I will never see my people again, save for those retainers who are here. It is peaceful in this castle. There is little that would disturb that peace. Would you not consider staying here with meat least for a few months?"

"I have sworn to avenge the deaths of my folk," he reminded her softly, and kissed her cheek.

"Such oaths are not true to your nature, Corum. You are one who would rather love than hate, I know."

"I cannot answer that," he replied, "for I will not consider my life fulfilled unless I destroy Glandyth-a-Krae. This wish is not so hate-begotten as you might think. I feel, perhaps, like one who sees a disease spreading through a forest. One hopes to cut out the diseased plants so that the others may grow straight and live. That is my feeling concerning Glandyth-a-Krae. He has formed the habit of frilling. Now that he has killed all the Vadhagh, he will want to kill others. If he finds no more strangers, he will begin to kill those wretches who occupy the villages ruled by Lyr-a-Brode. Fate has given me the impetus I need to pursue this att.i.tude of mine to its proper conclusion, Rhalina."

"But why go from here now? Sooner or later we will receive news concerning this Glandyth. When that moment arrives, then you can set forth to exact your vengeance."

He pursed his lips. "Perhaps you are right."

"And you must learn to do without your hand and your eye," she said. "That will take much practice, Corum."

"True."

"So stay here, with me."

"I will agree to this much, Rhalina. I will make no decision for a few more days."

And Corum made no decision for a month. After the horror of his encounters with the Mabden raiders, his brain needed time to heal and this was difficult with the constant reminder of his injuries every time he 68.automatically tried to use his left hand or glimpsed his reflection.

When not with him, Rhalina spent much of her time in the castle's library, but Corum had no taste for reading. He would walk about the battlements of the castle or take a horse and ride over the causeway at low tide (though Rhalina was perturbed by this for fear that he would fail prey to one of the Pony Tribes, which occasionally ranged the area) and ride for a while among the trees.

And though the darkness in his mind became less noticeable as the pleasant days pa.s.sed, it still remained. And Corum would sometimes pause in the middle of some action or stop when he witnessed some scene that reminded him of his home, the Castle Erorn.

The Margravine's castle was called simply Moidel's Castle and was raised on an island called MoideFs Mount, after the name of the family that had occupied it for centuries. It was full of interesting things. There were cabinets of porcelain and ivory figurines, rooms filled with curiosities taken at different times from the sea, chambers in which arms and armor were displayed, paintings (crude by Corum's standards) depicting scenes from the history of Lywm-an-Esh, as well as scenes taken from the legends and folktales of that land, which was rich in them. Such strange imaginings were rare amongst the Vadhagh, who had been a rational people, and they fascinated Corum. He came to realize that many of the stories concerning magical lands and weird beasts were derived from some knowledge of the other planes. Obviously the other planes had been glimpsed and the legend makers had speculated freely from the fragments of knowledge thus gained. It amused Corum to trace a wild folktale back to its rather more mundane source, particularly where these folktales concerned the Old Racesthe Vadhagh and the Nhad-raghto whom were attributed the most alarming range of supernatural powers. He was also, by this study, offered some insight concerning the att.i.tudes of the Mabden of the East, who seemed to have lived in awe 69.of the Old Races before they had discovered that they were mortal and could be slain easily. It seemed to Corum that the vicious genocide engaged upon by these Mabden was partly caused by their hatred of the Vadhagh for not being the great seers and sorcerers the Mabden had originally thought them to be.

But this line of thought brought back the memories and the sorrow and the hatred, and Corum would become depressed, sometimes for days, and even Rhalina's love could not console Him then.

But then one day he inspected a tapestry hi a room he had not previously visited and it absorbed his attention as he looked at the pictures and studied the embroidered text.

This was a complete legend telling of the adventures of Mag-an-Mag, a popular folk hero. Mag-an-Mag had been returning from a magical land when his boat had been set upon by pirates. These pirates had cut off Mag-an-Mag's arms and legs and thrown him overboard, then they had cut off the head of his companion, Jhakor-Neelus, and tossed his body after that of his master, but kept the head, apparently to eat. Eventually Mag-an-Mag's limbless body had been washed up on the sh.o.r.e of a mysterious island and Jhakor-Neelus's headless body had arrived at a spot a little further up the beach. These bodies were found by the servants of a magician who, in return for Mag-an-Mag's services against his enemies, offered to put back his limbs and make him as good as new. Mag-an-Mag had accepted on condition that the sorcerer find Jhakor-Neelus a new head. The sorcerer had agreed and furnished Jhakor-Neelus with the head of a crane, which seemed to please everyone. The pair then left the island loaded down with the sorcerer's gifts and went on to fight his enemies.

Corum could find no origin for this legend in the knowledge of his own folk. It did not seem to fit with the others.

At first he dismissed his obsession with the legend as being fired by his own wish to get back the hand and the 70.eye he had lost, but he remained obsessed.

Feelingembarra.s.sedbyhisowninterest,hesaid nothing of the legend to Rhalina for several weeks.

Autumn came to Moidel's Castle and with it a warm wind that stripped the trees bare and lashed the sea against the rocks and drove many of the birds away to seek a more restful clime.

And Corum began to spend more and more time hi the room where hung the tapestry concerning Mag-an-Mag and the wonderful sorcerer. Corum began to realize that it was the text that chiefly interested him. It seemed to speak with an authority that was elsewhere lacking in the others he had seen.

But he still could not bring himself to tax Rhalina with questions concerning it.

Then, on one of the first days of winter, she sought for him, and found him in the room and she did not seem surprised. However, she did show a certain concern, as if she had feared that he would find the tapestry sooner or later, "You seem absorbed by the amusing adventures of Mag-an-Mag," she said. "They are only tales. Something to entertain us."

"But this one seems different," Corum said.

He turned to look at her. She was biting her lip.

"So it is different, Rhalina," Corum murmured. "You do know something about it!"

She began to shake her head, then changed her mind. "I know only what the old tales say. And the old tales are lies, are they not? Pleasing lies."

"Truth is somewhere in this tale, I feel. You must tell me what you know, Rhalina."

"I know more than is on this tapestry," she said quietly. "I have been lately reading a book that relates to it. I knew I had seen the book some years ago and I sought it out. I find quite recent reports concerning an island of the kind described. And there is, according to this 71.book, an old castle there. The last person to see that island was an emissary of the Duchy, sailing here with supplies and greetings. And that was the last emissary to visit us . . ."

"How long ago? How long ago?**

"Thirty years."

And then Rhalina began to weep and shake her head and cough and try to control her tears.

He embraced her.

"Why do you weep, Rhalina?"

"I weep, Comm, because this means you will leave me. You will go away from Moidel's Castle in the wintertime and you will seek that island and perhaps you, too, will be wrecked. I weep because nothing I love stays with me."

Corum took a step back. "Has this thought been long in your mind?"

"It has been long in my mind."

"And you have not spoken it."

"Because I love you so much, Corum."

"You should not love me, Rhalina, And I should not have allowed myself to love you. Though this island offers me the faintest of hopes, I must seek it out."

"I know."

"And if I find the sorcerer and he gives me back my hand and my eye"

"Madness, Corum! He cannot exist!"

"But if he does and if he can do what I ask, then I will go to find Glandyth-a-Krae and I will kill him. Then, if I live, I will return. But Glandyth must die before 1 can know complete peace of mind, Rhalina."

She said softly, "There is no boat that is seaworthy."

"But there are boats in the harbor caves that can be made seaworthy."

"It will take several months to make one so."

"Will you lend me your servants to work on the boat?"

"Yes."

"Then I will speak to them at once."

And Corum left her, hardening his heart to the sight 72.of her grief, blaming himself for letting himself fall in love with the woman.

With all the men he could muster who had some knowledge of s.h.i.+pcraft, Corum descended the steps that led from below the castle floor down through the rock to the sea caves where the s.h.i.+ps lay. He found one skiff that was in better repair than the others and he had it hauled upright and inspected.

Rhalina had been right. There was a great deal of work to be done before the skiff would safely ride the waters.

He would wait impatiently, though now that he had a goalno matter how wildhe began to feel a lessening of the weight that had been upon him.

He knew that he would never tire of loving Rhalina, but that he could never love her completely until his self-appointed task had been accomplished.

He rushed back to the library to consult the book she had mentioned. He found it and discovered the name of the island.

Svi-an-Fanla-Brool. Not a pleasant name. As far as Corum could make out it meant "Home of the Gorged G.o.d." What could that mean? He inspected the text for an answer, but found none.

The hours pa.s.sed as he copied out the charts and reference points given by the captain of the s.h.i.+p that had visited Moidel's Mount thirty years before. And it was very late when he sought his bed and found Rhalina there.

He looked down at her face. She had plainly wept herself to sleep.

He knew that it was his turn to offer her comfort.

But he had no time . . .

He undressed. He eased himself into the bed, between the silks and the furs, trying not to disturb her. But she stirred.

"Corum?"

He did not reply.

He felt her body tremble for a moment, but she did not speak again.

73.He sat up in bed, his mind full of conflict. He loved her. He should not love her. He tried to settle back, to go to sleep, but he could not.

He reached out and stroked her shoulder.

"Rhalina?"

"Yes, Corum?"

He took a deep breath, meaning to explain to her how strongly he needed to see Glandyth dead, to repeat that he would return when his vengeance was taken.

Instead he said, "Storms blow strongly now around Moidel's Castle. I will set aside ray plans until the spring. I will stay until the spring."

She turned in the bed and peered through the darkness at his face. "You must do as you desire. Pity destroys true love, Corum."

"It is not pity that moves me."

"Is it your sense of justice? That, too, is . . ."

"I tell myself that it is my sense of justice that makes me stay, but I know otherwise."