The Chronicles of Corum (23 page)

“I am Jhary-a-Conel, a traveller. I am here through no particular wish of my own, but I would be grateful for a meal and somewhere to sleep.”

“Are you of Lywm-an-Esh?” Rhalina asked.

“I am of everywhere and nowhere. I am all men and no man. But one thing I am not - and that is your enemy. I am wet and I am shivering with cold.”

“How came you to Moidel when the causeway is covered?” Beldan asked. He turned to Corum. “I have already asked him this once. He did not answer me.”

The unseen stranger mumbled something in reply.

“What was that?” Corum. said.

“Damn you! It’s not a thing a man likes to admit. I was part of a catch of fish! I was brought here in a net and I was dumped offshore and I swam to this damned castle and I climbed your damned rocks and I knocked on your damned door and now I stand making conversation with damned fools. Have you no charity at Moidel?”

The three of them were astonished then - and they were convinced that the stranger was not in league with Glandyth.

Rhalina signed to the warriors to open the great gates. They creaked back a fraction and a slim, bedraggled fellow entered. He was dressed in unfamiliar garb and had a sack over his back, a hat on his head whose wide brim was weighed down by water and hung about his face. His long hair was as wet as the rest of him. He was relatively young, relatively good looking and, in spite of his sodden appearance, there was just a trace of amused disdain in his intelligent eyes. He bowed to Rhalina.

“Jhary-a-Conel at your service, ma'am.”

“How came you to keep your hat while swimming so far through the sea?” Beldan asked. “And your sack, for that matter?”

Jhary-a-Conel acknowledged the question with a wink. “I never lose my hat and I rarely lose my sack. A traveller of my sort learns to hold on to his few possessions - no matter what circumstances he finds himself in.”

“You are just that?” Corum asked. “A traveller?”

Jhary-a-Conel showed some impatience. “Your hospitality reminds me somewhat of that I experienced some time since at a place called Kalenwyr.

“You have come from Kalenwyr?”

“I have been to Kalenwyr. But I see I cannot shame you, even by that comparison...”

“I am sorry,” said Rhalina. “Come. There is food already on the table. I’ll have servants bring you a change of clothing and towels and so forth.”

They returned to the main hall. Jhary-a-Conel looked about him.

“Comfortable,” he said.

They sat in their chairs and watched him as he casually stripped off his wet clothes and stood at last naked before them. He scratched his nose. A servant brought him towels and he began busily to dry himself. But the new clothes he refused. Instead he wrapped himself in another towel and seated himself at the table, helping himself to food and wine. “I’ll take my own clothes when they’re dry,” he informed the servants. “I have a stupid habit concerning clothes not of my particular choosing. Take care when you dry the hat. The brim must be tilted just so.”

These instructions done, he turned to Corum with a bright smile. “And what name is it in this particular time and place, my friend?”

Corum frowned. “I fail to understand you.”

“Your name is all I asked. Yours changes as does mine. The difference is sometimes that you do not know that and I do - or vice versa. And sometimes we are the same creature - or, at least, aspects of the same creature.”

Corum. shook his head. The man sounded mad.

“For instance,” continued Jhary as he ate heartily through a piled plate of seafood, “I have been called Timeras and Shalenak. Sometimes I am the hero, but more often than not I am the companion to a hero.”

“Your words make little sense, sir,” Rhalina said gently. “I do not think Prince Corum understands them. Neither do we.”

Jhary grinned. “Ah, then this is one of those times when the hero is aware of only one existence. For the best, I suppose, for it is often unpleasant to remember too many incarnations - particularly when they coexist. I recognize Prince Corum for an old friend, but he does not recognize. me. It matters not.” He finished his food, readjusted the towel about his waist and leaned back.

“So you’d offer us a riddle and then will not give us the answer,” Beldan said.

“I will explain,” Jhary told him, “for I do not deliberately jest with you. I am a traveller of an unusual kind. It seems to be my destiny to move through all times and all planes. I do not remember being born and I do not expect to die - in the accepted sense. I am sometimes called Timeras and, if I am "of"

anywhere, then I suppose I am of Tanelorn.”

“But Tanelorn is a myth,” said Beldan.

“All places are a myth somewhere else - but Tanelorn is more constant than most. She can be found, if sought, from anywhere in the multiverse.”

“Have you no profession?” Corum asked him.

“Well, I have made some poetry and plays in my time, but my main profession could be that I am a friend of heroes. I have travelled - under several names, of course, and in several guises - with Rackhir the Red Archer to Xerlerenes where the ships of the Boatman sail the skies as your ships sail the sea - with Elric of Melnibone to the Court of the Dead God - with Asquiol of Pompeii into the deeper reaches of the multiverse where space is measured not in terms of miles but in terms of galaxies - with Hawkmoon of Köln to Londra where the folk wear jewelled masks fashioned into the faces of beasts.

I have seen the future and the past. I have seen a variety of planetary systems and I have learned that time does not exist and that space is an illusion.”

“And the gods?” Corum asked him eagerly.

“I think we create them, but I am not sure. Where primitives invent crude gods to explain the thunder, more sophisticated peoples create more elaborate gods to explain the abstractions which puzzle them. It has often been noted that gods could not exist without mortals and mortals could not exist without gods.”

“Yet gods, it appears,” said Corum, “can affect our destinies.”

“And we can affect theirs, can we not?”

Beldan murmured to Corum: “Your own experiences are proof of that, Prince Corum.”

“So you can wander at will amongst the Fifteen Planes,” Corum said softly.

“As some Vadhagh once could.”

Jhary smiled. “I can wander nowhere "at will" - or to very few places. I can sometimes return to Tanelorn, if I wish, but normally I am hurled from one existence to another without, apparently, rhyme or reason. I usually find that I am made to fulfil my role wherever I land up - which is to be a companion to champions, the friend of heroes. That is why I recognized you at once for what you are - the Champion Eternal. I have known him in many forms, but he has not always known me. Perhaps, in my own periods of amnesia, I have not always known him.”

“And are you never a hero yourself”?”

“I have been heroic, I suppose, as some would see it. Perhaps I have even been a hero of sorts. And, there again, it in sometimes my fate to be one aspect of a particular hero - a part of another man or group of other men who together make up a single great hero. The stuff of our identities is blown by a variety of winds - all of them whimsical - about the multiverse. There is even a theory I have heard that all mortals are aspects of one single cosmic identity and some believe that even the gods are part of that identity, that all the planes of existence, all the ages which come and go, all the manifestations of space which emerge and vanish, are merely ideas in this cosmic mind, different fragments of its personality. Such speculation leads us nowhere and everywhere, but it makes no difference to our understanding of our immediate problems.”

“I’d agree with that,” Corum told him feelingly. “And now, will you explain in more detail how you came to Moidel?”

“I will explain what I can, friend Corum. It happened that I found myself at a grim place called Kalenwyr. How I came there I do not quite remember, but then I am used to that. This Kalenwyr - all granite and gloom - was not to my taste. I was there but a few hours before I came under suspicion of the inhabitants and, by means of a certain amount of climbing about on roofs, the theft of a chariot, the purloining of a boat on a near-by river, escaped them and reached the sea. Feeling it unsafe to land, I sailed along the coast. A mist closed in, the sea acted as if a storm had blown up and suddenly my boat and myself were mixed up with a motley mixture of fish, snapping monsters, men and creatures I would be hard put to describe. I managed to cling to the strands of the gigantic net which had trapped me and the rest as we were dragged along at great speed. How I found breath sometimes I do not remember.

Then, at last, the net was upended and we were all released. My companions went their different ways and I was left alone in the water. I saw this island and your castle and I found a piece of driftwood which aided me to swim here...”

“Kalenwyr!” Baldan said. “In Kalenwyr did you hear of a man called Glandyth-a-Krae?”

Jhary frowned. “An Earl Glandyth was mentioned in a tavern, I think - with some admiration. A mighty warrior, I gathered. The whole city seemed preparing for war, but I did not understand the issues or what they considered their enemies. I think they spoke of the land of Lywm-an-Esh with a certain amount of loathing. And they were expecting allies from across the sea.”

“Allies? From the Nhadragh Isles, perhaps?” Corum asked him.

“No. I think they spoke of Bro-an-Mabden.”

“The continent in the west!” Rhalina gasped. “I did not know many Mabden still inhabited it. But what moves them to plan war against Lywm-an-Esh?”

“Perhaps the same spirit which led them to destroy my race,” Corum suggested.

“Envy - and a hatred of peace. Your people, you told me, adopted many Vadhagh customs. That would be enough to win them the enmity of Glandyth and his kind.”

“It is true,” Rhalina said. “Then this means that we are not the only ones who are in danger. Lywm-an-Esh has not fought a war for a hundred years or more. She will be unprepared for this invasion.”

A servant brought in Jhary’s clothes. They were clean and dry. Jhary thanked him and began to don them, as unselfconsciously as he had taken them off. His shirt was of bright blue silk, his flared panteloons were as bright a scarlet as Corum’s robe. He tied a big yellow sash about his waist, and over this buckled a sword from which hung a scabbarded sabre and a long poignard. He pulled on soft boots which reached the knee and tied a scarf about his throat. His dark blue cloak he placed on the bench beside him, together with his hat (which he carefully creased to suit his taste) and his bundle. He seemed satisfied. “You had best tell me all you think I need to know,” he suggested. “Then I may be able to help you. I have gathered a great deal of information in my travels - most of it useless...”

Corum told him of the Sword Rulers and the Fifteen Planes, of the struggle between Law and Chaos and the attempts to bring equilibrium to the Cosmic Balance. Jhary-a-Conel listened to all of this and seemed familiar with many of the things of which Corum spoke.

When Corum had finished, Jhary said: “It is plain that attempts to contact Lord Arkyn for help would, at this moment, be unsuccessful. Arioch’s logic still prevails on these five planes and must be completely demolished before Arkyn and Law can know real power. It is ever the lot of mortals to symbolize these struggles between the gods and doubtless this war which seems likely between King Lyr-a-Brode and Lywm-an-Esh will mirror the war between Law and Chaos on other planes. If those who serve Chaos win - if King Lyr-a-Brode’s army wins, in fact - then Lord Arkyn may yet again lose his power and Chaos will triumph. Arioch is not the most powerful of the Sword Rulers - Xiombarg has greater power on the planes she rules and Mabelode has even more power than Xiombarg. I would say that you have hardly experienced the real manifestations of Chaos’s rule here.”

“You do not comfort me,” said Corum.

“It is perhaps better, however, to understand these things,” Rhalina said.

“Can the other Sword Rulers send aid to King Lyr?” Corum asked.

“Not directly. But there are ways of manipulating these things through messengers and agents. Would you know more of Lyr’s plans?”

“Of course,” Corum told him. “But that is impossible.”

Jhary smiled. “I think you will discover that it is useful to have a companion to champions as experienced as myself in your employ.” And he stopped and reached into his bag.

He brought something out of the sack which, to their astonishment, was alive.

It seemed unruffled by the fact that it had spent a day at least inside the sack. It opened its large, calm eyes and it purred.

It was a cat. Or, at least, it was a kind of cat, for this cat had resting on its back a pair of beautiful black wings tipped with white. Its other markings were black and white, like those of an ordinary cat, with white paws and a white muzzle and a white front. It seemed friendly and self-possessed.

Jhary offered it food from the table and the cat ruffled its wings and began to cat hungrily.

Rhalina sent a servant for milk and when the little animal had finished drinking it sat beside Jhary on the bench and began to clean itself, first its face, paws and body and then its wings.

“I have never seen such an animal!” Beldan muttered.

“And I have never seen another like it in all my travels,” Jhary agreed. “It is a friendly creature and has often aided me. Sometimes our ways part and I do not see it for an age or two, but we are often together and he always remembers me. I call him Whiskers. Not an original name, I fear, but he seems to like it well enough. I think he will help us now.”

“How can he help us?” Corum stared at the winged cat.

“Why, my friends, he can fly to Lyr’s Court and witness what takes place there. Then he can return with his news to us!”

“He can speak?”

“Only to me - and even that is not speaking as such. Would you have me send him there?”

Corum was completely taken aback. He was forced to smile. “Why not?”

“Then Whiskers and I will go up to your battlements, with your permission, and I will instruct him what to do.”