The Chronicles of Corum (15 page)

"I am not sure I still have that power. If you speak truth, the Knight of the Swords has been taking that power away from the Vadhagh."

"Worry not, you have powers that are just as good." Shool reached over and patted Corum's strange new hand.

That hand was now responding like any ordinary limb. From curiosity, Corum used it to lift the jeweled patch that covered his jeweled eye. He gasped and lowered the patch again quickly.

Shool said, "What did you see?"

"I saw a place."

"Is that all?"

"A land over which a black sun burned. Light rose from the ground, but the black sun's rays almost extinguished it. Four figures stood before me. I glimpsed their faces and . . ." Corum licked his lips. "I could look no longer."

"We touch on so many planes," Shool mused. "The horrors that exist and we only sometimes catch sight of them—in dreams, for instance. However, you must learn to confront those faces and all the other things you see with your new eye, if you are to use your powers to the full."

"It disturbs me, Shool, to know that those dark, evil planes do exist and that around me lurk so many monstrous creatures, separated only by some thin, astral fabric."

"I have learned to live knowing such things—and using such things. You become used to almost everything in a few millenia."

Corum pulled a creeper from around his waist "Your, garden plants seem overfriendly."

"They are affectionate. They are my only real friends. But it is interesting that they like you. I tend to judge a being on how my plants react to him. Of course, they are hungry, poor things. I must induce a ship or two to put in to the island soon. We need meat. We need meat.

All this preparation has made me forgetful of my regular duties."

"You still have not described very closely how I may find the Knight of the Swords."

"You are right Well, the Knight lives in a palace on top of a mountain that is in the very center of both this planet and the five planes. In the top-most tower of that palace he keeps his heart. It is well guarded, I understand."

"And is that all you know? You do not know the nature of his protection?"

"I am employing you, Master Corum, because you have a few more brains, a jot more resilience, and a fraction more imagination and courage than the Mabden. It will be up to you to discover what is the nature of his protection. You may rely upon one thing, however."

"What is it, Master Shool?"

"Prince Shool. You may rely upon the fact that he will not be expecting any kind of attack from a mortal such as yourself. Like the Vadhagh, Master Corum, the Sword Rulers grow complacent. We all climb up. We all fall down." Shool chuckled. "And the planes go on turning, eh?"

"And when you have climbed up, will you not fall down?"

"Doubtless—in a few billenia. Who knows? I could rise so high I could control the whole movement of the multiverse. I could be the first truly omniscient and omnipotent God. Oh, what games I could play!"

"We studied little of mysticism amongst the Vadhagh folk," Corum put in, "but I understood all Gods to be omniscient and omnipotent."

"Only on very limited levels. Some Gods—the Mabden patheon, such as the Dog and the Horned Bear—are more or less omniscient concerning the affairs of Mabden, and they can, if they wish, control those affairs to a large degree. But they know nothing of my affairs and even less of those of the Knight of the Swords, who knows most things, save those that happen upon my well-protected island. This is an Age of Gods, I am afraid, Master Corum. There are many, big and small, and they crowd the universe. Once it was not so. Sometimes, I suspect, the universe manages with none at all!”

"I had thought that."

"It would come to pass. It is thought," Shool tapped Ms skull, "that creates Gods and Gods who create thought. There must be periods when thought—which I sometimes consider overrated—does not exist. Its existence or lack of it does not concern the universe, after all. But if I had the power—I would make the universe concerned!" Shool's eyes shone. "I would alter its very nature! I would change all the conditions! You are wise to aid me, Master Corum."

Corum jerked his head back as something very much like a gigantic mauve tulip, but with teeth, snapped at him,

"I doubt it, Shool. But then I have no choice."

"Indeed, you have not. Or, at least, your choice is much limited. It is the ambition I hold not to be forced to make choices, on however large a scale, which drives me on, Master Corum."

"Aye," nodded Corum ironically. "We are all mortal."

“Speak for yourself, Master Corum."

In Which Prince Corum achieves that which is both impossible and unwelcome

The First Chapter
 The Walking God

Corum's leavetaking from Rhalina had not been easy. It had been full of tension. There had been no love in her eyes as he had embraced her, only concern for him and fear for both of them.

This had disturbed him, but there had been nothing he could do.

Shool had given him a quaintly shaped boat and he had sailed away. Now sea stretched in all directions. With a lodestone to guide him, Corum sailed north for the Thousand-League Reef.

Corum knew that he was mad, in Vadhagh terms. But he supposed that he was sane enough in Mabden terms. And this was, after all, now a Mabden world. He must learn to accept its peculiar disorders as the norm, if he ware going to survive. And there were many reasons why he wished to survive, Rhalina not least among them. He was the last of the Vadhagh, yet he could not believe it. The powers available to sorcerers like Shool might be controlled by others. The nature of time could be tampered with. The circling planes could be halted in their course, perhaps reversed. The events of the past year could be changed, perhaps eradicated completely. Corum proposed to live and, in living, to learn.

And if he learned enough, perhaps he would gain sufficient power to fulfill his ambitions and restore a world to the Vadhagh and the Vadhagh to the world.

It would be just, he thought.

The boat was of beaten metal on which were many raised and assymetrical designs. It gave off a faint glow which offered Corum both heat and light during the nights, for the sailing was long. Its single mast bore a single square sail of samite smeared with a strange substance that also shone and turned, without Corum's guidance, to catch any wind. Corum sat in the boat wrapped in his scarlet robe, his war gear laid beside him, his silver helm upon his head, his double byrnie covering him from throat to knee. From time to time he would hold up his lodestone by its string. The stone was shaped like an arrow and the head pointed always north.

He thought much of Rhalina and his love for her. Such a love had never before existed between a Vadhagh and a Mabden. His own folk might have considered his feelings for Rhalina degenerate, much as a Mabden would suspect such feelings in a man for his mare, but he was attracted to her more than he had been attracted to any Vadhagh woman and he knew that her intelligence was a match for his. It was her moods he found hard to understand—her intimations of doom—her superstition.

Yet Rhalina knew this world better than he. It could be that she was right to entertain such thoughts. His lessons were not yet over.

On the third night, Corum slept, his new hand on the boat's tiller, and in the morning he was awakened by bright sunshine in his eyes.

Ahead lay the Thousand-League Reef.

It stretched from end to end of the horizon and there seemed to be no gap in the sharp fangs of rock that rose from the foaming sea.

Shool had warned him that few had ever found a passage through the reef and now he could understand why. The reef was unbroken. It seemed not of natural origin at all, but to have been placed there by some entity as a bastion against intruders. Perhaps the Knight of the Swords had built it.

Corum decided to sail in an easterly direction along the reef, hoping to find somewhere where he could land the boat and perhaps drag it overland to the waters that lay beyond the reef.

He sailed for another four days, without sleep, and the reef offered neither a passage through nor a place to land.

A light mist, tinged pink by the sun, now covered the water in all directions and Corum kept away from the reef by using his lodestoae and by listening for the sounds of the surf on the rocks. He drew out his maps, pricked out on skin, and tried to judge his position. The maps were crude and probably inaccurate, but they were the best Shool had had. He was nearing a narrow channel between the reef and a land marked on the map as Khoolocrah. Shool had been unable to tell him much about the land, save that a race called the Ragha-da-Kheta lived thereabouts.

In the light from the boat, he peered at the maps, hoping to distinguish some gap in the reef marked there, but there was none.

Then the boat began to rock rapidly and Corum glanced about him, seeking the source of this sudden eddy. Far away, the surf boomed, but then he heard another sound, to the south of him, and he looked there.

The sound was a regular rushing and slapping noise, like that of a man wading through a stream. Was this some beast of the sea? The Mabden seemed to fear many such monsters. Corum clung desperately to the sides, trying to keep the boat on course away from the rocks, but the waves increased their agitation.

And the sound came closer.

Corum picked up his long, strong sword and readied himself.

He saw something in the mist then. It was a tall, bulky shape—the outline of a man. And the man was dragging something behind him,. A fishing net! Were the waters so shallow, then? Corum leaned over the side and lowered his sword, point downward, into the sea. It did not touch bottom. He could make out the ocean floor a long way below him. He looked back at the figure. Now he realized that his eyes and the mist had played tricks on him. The figure was still some distance from him and it was gigantic—far huge'r than the Giant of Laahr. This was what made the waves so large. This was why the boat rocked so.

Corum made to call out, to ask the gigantic creature to move away lest he sink the boat, then he thought better of it. Beings like this were considered to think less kindly of mortals than did the Giant of Laahr.

Now the giant, still cloaked in mist, changed his course, still fishing. He was behind Corum's boat and he trudged on through the water, dragging his nets behind him.

The wash sent the boat flying away from the Thousand-League Reef, heading almost due east, and there was nothing Corum could do to stop it He fought with the sail and the tiller, but they would not respond. It was as if he was borne on a river rushing toward a chasm. The giant had set up a current which he could not fight.

There was nothing for it but to allow the boat to bear him where it would. The giant had long since disappeared in the mist, heading toward the Thousand-League Reef, where perhaps he lived.

Like a shark pouncing on its prey, the little boat moved, until suddenly it broke through the mist into hot sunshine.

And Corum saw a coast. Cliffs rushed at him.

The Second Chapter
 Temgol-Lep

Desperately Corum tried to turn the boat away from the cliffs. His six-fingered left hand gripped the tiller and his right hand tugged at the sail.

Then there was a grinding sound. A shudder ran through the metal boat and it began to keel over. Corum grabbed at his weapons and managed to seize them before he was flung overboard and carried on by the wash. He gasped as water filled his mouth. He felt his body scrape on shingle and he tried to stagger upright as the current began to retreat. He saw a rock and grasped it, dropping his bow and his quiver of arrows, which were instantly swept away.

The sea retreated. He looked back and saw that his upturned boat had gone with it. He let go of the rock and climbed to his feet, buckling his swordbelt around his waist, straightening his helmet on his head, a sense of failure gradually creeping through him.

He walked a few paces up the beach and sat down beneath the tall, black cliff. He was stranded on a strange shore, his boat was gone and his goal now lay on the other side of an ocean.

At that moment Corum did not care. Thoughts of love, of hatred, of vengeance disappeared. He felt that he had left them all behind in the dream world that was Svi-an-Fanla-Brool. All he had left of that world was the six-fingered hand and the jeweled eye.

Reminded of the eye and what it had witnessed, he shivered. He reached up and touched the patch that covered it.

And then he knew that by accepting Shool's gifts, he’d accepted the logic of Shool's world. He could not escape from it now.

Sighing, he got up and peered at the cliff. It was unscaleable. He began to walk along the gray shingle, hoping to discover a place where he could climb to the top of the cliff and inspect the land in which he found himself.

He took a gauntlet given him by Shool and drew it over his hand. He remembered what Shool had told him, before he left, about the powers of the hand. He still only half-believed ShooFs words and he was unwilling to test their veracity.

For more than an hour he trudged along the shore until he moved round a headland and saw a bay whose sides sloped gently upward and would be easily scaled. The tide was beginning to come in and would soon cover the beach. He began to run.

He reached the slopes and paused, panting. He had found safety in time. The sea had already covered the largest part of the beach. He climbed to the top of the slope and he saw the city.

It was a city of domes and minarets that blazed white in the light of the sun, but as he inspected it more closely Corum saw that the towers and domes were not white, but comprised of a multicolored mosaic. He had seen nothing like it.

He debated whether to avoid the city or approach it. If the people of the city were friendly, he might be able to get their help to find another boat. If they were Mabden, then they were probably unfriendly.

Were these the Rhaga-da-Kheta people mentioned on his maps? He felt for bis pouch, but the maps had gone with the boat, as had his lodestone. Despair returned.