The Chronicles of Corum (51 page)

"Will we wait long?"

"I do not know. Still the island looks as if it has game on it and the river has fish in it. We shall not starve while we wait."

"I think of Rhalina, Jhary—not to mention the fate of Bro-an-Vadhagh and Lywm-an-Esh. I grow impatient."

"Our only means of getting back to the Fifteen Planes is to enter the Vanishing Tower. Thus, we must await the pleasure of the tower."

Corum shrugged and began to wade through the ice-cold stream toward the island.

Suddenly Jhary shouted and pushed past Corum. "It is there! It is there already! Quickly, Corum!"

He ran to where a stone keep stood above the trees. It seemed an ordinary sort of tower. Corum could hardly believe that this was their goal.

"Soon we shall see Tanelorn!" cried Jhary jubilantly. He reached the other side of the island, with Corum running some distance behind him, and began to crash through the undergrowth.

There was a doorway at the base of the keep and it was open.

"Come, Corum!"

Jhary was almost inside the door now. Corum went more warily, remembering what he had heard of Voilodion Ghagnasdiak, the dweller in the tower. But Jhary, his cat as ever upon his shoulder, had gone through the door.

Corum broke into a run, his hand on his sword hilt. He reached the tower.

The door closed suddenly. He heard Jhary's yell of horror from within. He clung to the wood of the door, he beat on it.

Inside Jhary was calling, "Find the Three Who Are One whatever it is. It is our only hope now, Corum! Find the Three Who Are One!" There came a chuckle which was not Jhary's.

"Open!" roared Corum. "Open your damned door!"

But the door would not budge.

The chuckle was fat and warm. It grew louder and Corum could no longer hear Jhary's voice at all. The fat, warm voice said, "Welcome to the home of Voilodion Ghagnasdiak, friend. You are an honored guest."

Corum felt something happen to the tower. He looked back. The forest was disappearing. He clung to the handle, kept his feet on the step for a moment. His body was racked by painful spasms, one following closely upon the other. Every tooth in his head ached, every bone in his body throbbed.

And then he had lost his grip upon the tower and saw it vanish away. He fell.

He fell and landed on wet, marshy ground. It was night.

Somewhere a dark bird hooted.

The Eighth Chapter
 Into the Small Storm

Daybreak found Corum walking. His feet were weary and he was lost, but still he walked. He could think of nothing else to do and he felt bound to do something. Marshland stretched everywhere. Marsh birds rose in flocks into the red morning sky. Marsh animals slithered or hopped across the wet ground in search of food.

Corum selected another clump of reeds and made it his goal.

When he reached the clump of reeds he paused for a moment and then fixed his eye on another clump and began to make for that.

And so he progressed.

He was desolate. He had lost Rhalina. Now he had lost Jhary and thus his hope of finding either Rhalina or Tanelorn. And so he had lost Bro-an-Vadhagh and Lywm-an-Esh and he had lost them to conquering Chaos, to Glandyth-a-Krae.

All lost.

"All lost," he murmured through his numbed lips.

"All lost."

The marsh birds cackled and screeched. The marsh animals scuttled through the reeds, unseen as they ran on hasty errands.

Was this whole world a marsh? It seemed so. Marsh upon marsh.

He reached the next clump of reeds and he sat down on the damp ground, looking at the wide sky, the red clouds, the emerging sun. It was getting hot.

Steam began to rise over the marsh.

Corum took off his helmet. His silver greaves were grimed with mud, his hands were filthy—even the six-fingered Hand of Kwll was coated in mire.

Steam moved slowly over the marsh as if seeking something. He wet his face and lips with the brackish water, tempted to remove his scarlet robe and his silver byrnie and yet, for the moment, preferring their security should he be attacked by a larger marsh dweller than any he had so far seen.

Steam was everywhere. In places the mud bubbled and spat. The hot, damp air began to pain his throat and lungs and his eyelids became heavy as a great weariness came over him.

And it seemed to him that he saw a figure moving through the steam. A tall figure wading slowly through the boiling mud. A giant who dragged something heavy behind it. His head dropped to his chest and he raised it with difficulty. He no longer saw the figure. He realized that some marsh gas was making him drowsy, making him hallucinate.

He rubbed at bis eyes but only succeeded in making his mortal eye fill with mud.

And then he felt a presence behind him.

He turned.

Something loomed there, as white and intangible as the steam. Something fell upon him, entangling his arms and legs. He tried to draw his sword but he could not free himself. He was carried upward and other creatures struggled nearby, snapping and shouting. The heat began to disperse and then it was terribly cold, so cold that all the other creatures were suddenly silent. Then it was dark.

And then it was wet. He spat salt water from his mouth and cursed. He was free again and he felt soft sand beneath his feet and he waded waist-deep through the water, the silver helm still clutched in his hand, and fell upon a dark yellow beach, gasping.

Corum thought he knew what had happened to him, but he found it hard to believe. For the third time he had seen the mysterious Wading God and for the third time the gigantic fisherman had influenced his destiny—first by hurling him upon the coast of the Ragha-da-Kheta, second by bringing Jhary-a-Conel to Moidel's Mount, and third by saving him from the marsh world—a world, it now appeared, which must be on one of the Fifteen Planes—as this new world must be.

If it were a new world, of course, and not merely part of the same one.

Whichever it was, it was an improvement. He began to pick himself up.

And he saw the old woman standing there. She was a dumpy little woman and her red face was at once frightened and prim. She was soaking wet and ringing out her bonnet with her hands.

"Who are you?" Corum said.

"Who are you, young man? I was walking along the beach minding my own business when this terrible wave suddenly appeared and completely drenched me! It is none of your doing, is it?"

"I hope not, ma'am."

"Are you some mariner, then, who has been ship-wrecked?"

"That is the truth of it," Corum agreed. "Tell me, ma'am, where is this land?"

"You are near the fishing town of Chynezh Port, young sir. Up there," she pointed up the cliffs, "lies the great Balwyn Moor and then . . ."

"Balwyn Moor. Beyond it lies Darkvale, eh?"

The old woman pursed her lips. "Aye. Darkvale. None visits it these days, however."

"But that is the place of the Vanishing Tower?"

"So 'tis said."

"Is it possible to purchase a horse in Chynezh Port?"

"I suppose so. The horse breeders of Balwyn Moor are famous and they bring some of their best to Chynezh for the foreign trade—or did before the fighting."

"There is a war taking place?"

"Call it that. Things came out of the sea and attacked our boats. We have heard that folk have suffered much worse elsewhere and that we are relatively safe from the most dreadful of these monsters. But we lost half our menfolk and now none dares fish and, of course, no foreign ships put into our harbor to buy horses."

"So Chaos returns here, too," mused Corum. He sighed.

"You must aid me, old woman," he told her. "For I may in turn aid you and make these seas safe again. Now—the horse."

She led him along the beach and round a cliff and he saw a pleasant fishing town with a good, strong harbor and in the harbor were all their boats, their sails tightly furled.

"You see," she said. "Unless the boats go out again soon we of Chynezh Port shall starve, for fish is our livelihood."

"Aye." Corum put his mortal hand upon her shoulder.

"Now, take me to where I can purchase a steed."

She led him to a stable on the outskirts of the town, near the road which wound up the cliff toward the moor.

Here a peasant sold him a pair of horses, one white and one black, almost twins, with all the necessary gear. Corum had taken it into his head that he would need two horses, though he hardly knew why.

Riding the white horse and leading the black one, he began to ascend the winding road, making for Darkvale under the puzzled gaze of the old woman and the peasant He reached the top and saw that the road went on along the cliff until it disappeared into a wooded dale. The day was warm and pleasant and it was hard to believe that this world was threatened by Chaos too. It was very much like his own land of Bro-an-Vadhagh and parts of the coastline even seemed half familiar.

He became filled with a sense of anticipation as he entered the wood and listened to the birdsong in the trees.

It was very peaceful and yet something seemed strange. He slowed his horses to a walk, proceeding almost hesitantly.

And then he saw it ahead.

A black cloud on the road through the trees. A cloud which began to grumble with thunder and flash with lightning.

Corum reined in his horses and dismounted. From the neck of his byrnie he pulled out the crystal witch knife which the Lady Jane had given him. He strove to remember Bolorhiag's shouted words. Go to the point where you see a storm which is isolated. Take out the witch knife given you by the Lady Jane. Hold it so that it traps the lightning.

Then call upon the name of Elric of Melnibone and say that he must come to make the Three Who Are One . . , You are part of the same thing .. . The Third—the Many-Named Hero—will be drawn to the Two . . .

"Well," he said to himself, "there is nothing else for it.

In truth I'll need allies to go against Voilodion Ghagnasdiak in his Vanishing Tower. And if these allies are powerful, then so much the better."

With the crystal witch knife held aloft he stepped into the roaring cloud.

Lightning struck the witch knife and filled him with shivering energy. All about him was disturbance and noise.

He opened his mouth and cried,

"Elric of Melnibone! You must come to make the Three Who Are One! Elric of Melnibone! You must come to make the Three Who Are One! Elric of Melnibone!"

And then a fierce bolt of lightning came down and shattered the witch knife, flung Corum down to the ground.

Voices seemed to wail across the world, winds swept in all directions. He staggered upright wondering suddenly if he had been betrayed. He could see nothing but the lightning, hear nothing but the thunder.

He fell and struck his head. He began to raise himself to his feet.

And then mellow light filled the forest once more and the birds sang.

"The storm. It has gone." He looked about him and then he saw the man who lay on the grass. He recognized him. It was the man he had seen fighting on dragonback when he hung in Limbo. "And you? Are you called Elric of Melnibone?"

The albino got to his feet. His crimson eyes were full of a permanent sorrow. He answered politely enough.

"I am Elric of Melnibone. Are you to thank for rescuing me from those creatures Theleb K'aarna summoned?"

Corum shook his head. Elric was dressed in a travel-stained shirt and breeks of black silk. There were black boots on his feet and a black belt around his waist, which supported a black scabbard in which the albino sheathed a huge black broadsword carved from hilt to tip with peculiar runes. Over all this black was drawn a voluminous cloak of white silk with a large hood attached to it. Elric's milk-white hair seemed to flow over the cloak and blend with it.

" 'Twas I that summoned you," Corum admitted, "but I know of no Theleb K'aarna. I was told that I had only one opportunity to receive your aid and that I must take it in this particular place at this particular time. I am called Corum Jhaelen Irsei—the Prince in the Scarlet Robe—and I ride upon a quest of grave import."

Elric was frowning and looking about him. "Where is this forest?"

"It is nowhere on your plane or in your tune, Prince Elric. I summoned you to aid me in my battle against the Lords of Chaos. Already I have been instrumental in destroying two of the Sword Rulers—Arioch and Xiombarg—but the third, the most powerful remains..."

"Arioch of Chaos—and Xiombarg?" The albino looked unconvinced. "You have destroyed two of the most powerful members of the company of Chaos? Yet but a month since I spoke with Arioch. He is my patron..."

Corum realized that Elric was not as familiar as he with the structure of the multiverse. "There are many planes of existence," he said as gently as he could. "In some the Lords of Chaos are strong. In some they are weak. In some, I have heard, they do not exist at all. You must accept that here Arioch and Xiombarg have been banished so that effectively they no longer exist in my world. It is the third of the Sword Rulers who threatens us now—the strongest, King Mabelrode."

The albino was frowning and Corum feared that the willful prince would choose not to aid him after all. "In my—plane—Mabelrode is no stronger than Arioch and Xiombarg, This makes a travesty of all my understanding..."

Corum drew a deep breath. "I will explain," he said, "as much as I can. For some reason Fate has selected me to be the hero who must banish the domination of Chaos from the Fifteen Planes of Earth. I am at present traveling on my way to seek a city which we call Tanelorn, where I hope to find aid. But my guide is a prisoner in a castle close to here and before I can continue I must rescue him. I was told how I might summon aid to—help me effect this rescue.

. . . And I used the spell to bring you to me. I—" Corum hesitated a fraction of a second, for he knew that Bolorhiag had not told him this and yet he knew it was the truth he spoke—"was to tell you that if you aided me, then you would aid yourself—that if I was successful then you would receive something which would make your task easier..."

"Who told you this?"