Knight of the Swords

  "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 hoarse.

  "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."

  "I am afraid it is so.” Hanafax sighed. "What about your own powers? Can you not," he shuddered, "summon some kind of aid from whatever netherworld it is your horrid allies came?"

  "I fear those allies are only useful in battle. I have no true conception of what they are or why they come. I have come to believe that the sorcerer who fitted me with this hand and this eye had no clearer idea himself. His work was something of an experiment, it seems."

  "You have noticed, I take it, that the sun does not appear to set in the Flamelands. We can expect no night to come to relieve us."

  Corum was about to reply when he saw something move on a rise of black obsidian a short distance away. "Hush, Sir Hanafax . . ."

  Hanafax peered through the smoky heat. "What is it?"

  And then they revealed themselves.

  There were about a score of them, mounted on beasts whose bodies were covered in thick, scaly skin resembling plate armor. They had four short legs and cloven feet, a nest of horns jutted on heads and snouts, and small, red eyes gleamed at them. The riders were covered from head to foot in red garments of some shining material which hid even their faces and hands. They had long, barbed lances for weapons.

  Silently, they surrounded Corum and Hanafax.

  For a few moments there was silence, and then one of the riders spoke. "What do you in our Flamelands, Strangers?"

  "We are not here from choice," replied Corum. "An accident brought us to your country. We are peaceful"

  "You are not peaceful. You bear swords."

  "We did not know there were any inhabitants to these lands," Hanafax said. "We seek help. We wish to leave."

  "None may leave the Flamelands save to suffer a mighty doom." The voice was sonorous, even sad. "There is only one gateway and that is through the Lion's Mouth."

  "Can we not... ?"

  The riders began to close in. Corum and Hanafax drew their swords.

  "Well, Prince Corum, it seems we are to die."

  Corum's face was grim. He pushed up his eye patch. For a moment his vision clouded and then he saw into the netherworld once again. He wondered for a moment if it would not be better to die at the hands of the Flameland dwellers but now he was looking at a cavern in which tall figures stood as if frozen.

  With a shock Corum recognized them as the dead warriors of the Ragha-da-Kheta, their wounds now bloodless, their eyes glazed, their clothes and armor torn, their weapons still in their hands. They began to move toward him as his hand stretched out to summon them.

  "NO! These, too, are my enemies!" Corum shouted.

  Hanafax, unable to see what Corum saw, turned his head in astonishment.

  The dead warriors came on. The scene behind them faded. They materialized on the obsidian rock of the Flamelands.

  Corum backed away, gesticulating wildly. The Flameland warriors drew their mounts to a stop in surprise. Hanafax's face was a mask of fear.

  "No! I ..."

  From the lips of the dead King TemgoI-Lep came a whispering voice. "We serve you, Master. Will you give us our prizes?"

  Corum controlled himself. Slowly, he nodded. "Aye. You may take your prizes."

  The long-limbed warriors turned to face the mounted warriors of the Flamelands. The beasts snorted and tried to move back but were forced to stand their ground by their riders. There were about fifty of the Ragha-da-Kheta. Dividing into groups of two or three, their clawed clubs raised, they flung themselves at the mounted beings.

  Barbed lances came up and stabbed down at the Ragha-da-Kheta. Many were struck, but it did not deter them. They began to drag the struggling riders from their saddles.

  Pale-faced, Corum watched. He knew now that he was consigning the Flamelands warriors to the same netherworld from which he had summoned the Ragha-da-Kheta. And his actions had sent the Ragha-da-Kheta to that netherworld in the first place.

  On the gleaming rock, around which ran rivers of red rock, the ghastly battle continued. The clawed clubs ripped the cloaks from the riders, revealing a people whose faces were familiar.

  "Stop!" Corum cried. "Stop! That is enough. Kill no more!"

  Temgol-Lep turned his glazed eyes on Corum. The dead king had a barbed spear sticking completely through his body, but he seemed unaware of it. His dead lips moved. "These are our prizes, Master. We cannot stop."

  "But they are Vadhaghl They are like me! They are my own people!"

  Hanafax put an arm on Corum's shoulder. "They are all dead now, Prince Corum."

  Sobbing, Corum ran toward the corpses, inspecting the faces. They had the same long skulls, the same huge, almond eyes, the same tapering ears.

  "How came Vadhagh here?" Hanafax murmured.

  Now Temgol-Lep was dragging one of the corpses away, aided by two of his minions. The scaled beasts scattered, some of them splashing through the lava uncaringly.

  Through the Eye of Rhynn, Corum saw the Ragha-da-Kheta pull the corpses into their cave. With a shudder, he replaced the eye patch. Save for a few weapons and tatters of armor and clothing, save for the disappearing mounts, nothing remained of the Vadhagh of the Flamelands.

  "I have destroyed my own folk!" Corum screamed. "I have consigned them to a frightful doom in that netherworld!"

  "Sorcery has a way of recoiling suddenly upon its user," Hanafax said quietly. "It is an arbitrary power, as I said.”

  Corum wheeled on Hanafax. "Stop your prattling, Mabden! Do you not realize what I have done?"

  Hanafax nodded soberly. "Aye. But it is done, is it not? Our lives are saved."

  "Now I add fratricide to my crimes." Corum fell to his knees, dropping his sword on the rock. And he wept.

  "Who weeps?"

  It was a woman's voice. A sad voice.

  "Who weeps for Cira-an-Venl, the Lands That Are Now Flame? Who remembers her sweet meadows and her fair hills?"

  Corum raised his head and got to his feet. Hanafax was already staring at the apparition on the rock above them.

  "Who weeps, there?"

  The woman was old. Her face was handsome and grim and white and lined. Her gray hair swirled about her and she was dressed in a red cloak such as the warriors had worn, mounted on a similar horned beast. She was a Vadhagh woman and very frail. Where her eyes had been were white, filmy pools of pain.

  "I am Corum Jhaelen Irsei, Lady. Why are you blind?"

  "I am blind through choice. Rather than witness what had become of my land, I plucked my eyes from my head. I am Oorese, Queen of Cira-an-Venl, and my people number twenty."

  Corum's lips were dry. "I have slain your people, Lady. That is why I weep."

  Her face did not alter. "They were doomed," she said, "to die. It is better that they are dead. I thank you, Stranger, for releasing them. Perhaps you would care to release me, also. I only live so that the memory of Cira-an-Venl may live." She paused. "Why do you use a Vedragh name?"

  "I am of the Vadhagh—the Vedragh, as you call them—I am from the lands far to the south."

  "So Vedragh did go south. And is their land sweet?"

  "It is very sweet."

  "And are your folk happy, Prince Corum in the Scarlet Robe?"

  "They are dead,
Queen Oorese. They are dead."

  "All dead, then, now? Save you?"

  "And save yourself, my queen."

  A smile touched her lips. "He said we should all die, wherever we were, on whichever plane we existed. But there was another prophecy—that when we died, so would he. He chose to ignore it, as I remember.”

  "Who said that, Lady?"

  "The Knight of the Swords. Duke Arioch of Chaos. He who inherited these five planes for his part in that long-ago battle between Order and Chaos. Who came here and willed that smooth rock cover our pretty hills, that boiling lava run in our gentle streams, that flame spring where green forests had been. Duke Arioch, Prince, made that prediction. But, before he departed to the place of his banishment, Lord Arkyn made another."

  "Lord Arkyn?"

  "Lord of Law, who ruled here before Arioch ousted him. He said that by destroying the old races, he would destroy his own power over the five planes."

  "A pleasant wish," murmured Hanafax, "but I doubt if that is true."

  "Perhaps we do deceive ourselves with happy lies, you who speak with the accent of a Mabden. But then you do not know what we know, for you are Arioch's children."

  Hanafax drew himself up. "His children we may be, Queen Oorese, but his slaves we are not. I am here because I defied Arioch's will."

  Again she smiled her sad smile. "And some say that the Vedragh doom was of their own doing. That they fought the Nhadragh and so defied Lord Arkyn's scheme of things."

  "The Gods are vengeful," Hanafax murmured. "But I am vengeful, too, Sir Mabden," the queen said. "Because we killed your warriors?" She waved an ancient hand in a gesture of dismissal. "No. They attacked you. You defended yourselves. That is what that is. I speak of Duke Arioch and his whim—the whim that turned a beautiful land into this dreadful wasteland of eternal flame."

  "You would be revenged, then, on Duke Arioch?" Corum said.

  "My people once numbered hundreds. One after the other I sent them through the Lion's Mouth to destroy the Knight of the Swords. None did so. None returned."

  "What is the Lion's Mouth?" Hanafax asked. "We heard it was the only escape from the Flamelands."

  "It is. And it is no escape. Those who survive the passage through the Lion's Mouth do not survive what lies beyond it—the palace of Duke Arioch himself."

  "Can none survive?"

  The Blind Queen's face turned toward the rosy sky.

  "Only a great hero, Prince in the Scarlet Robe. Only a great hero."

  "Once the Vadhagh had no belief in heroes and such," Corum said bitterly.

  She nodded. "I remember. But then they needed no beliefs of that kind."

  Corum was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Where is this Lion's Mouth, Queen?"

  "I will lead you to it, Prince Corum."

  The Fifth Chapter

  Through The Lion's Mouth

  The queen gave them water from the cask that rested behind her saddle and called up two of the lumbering mounts for Corum and Hanafax to ride. They climbed onto the beasts, clasped the reins, and then began to follow her over the black and green obsidian slabs, between the rivers of flame.

  Though blind, she guided her beast skillfully, and she talked all the while of what had been here, what had grown there, as if she remembered every tree and flower that had once grown in her ruined land.

  After a good space of time she stopped and pointed directly ahead. "What do you see there?"

  Corum peered through the rippling smoke. "It looks like a great rock . . ."

  "We will ride closer," she said.

  And as they rode closer, Corum began to see what it was. It was, indeed, a gigantic rock. A rock of smooth and shining stone that glowed like mellowed gold. And it was fashioned, in perfect detail, to resemble the head of a huge lion with its sharp-fanged mouth wide open in a roar.

  "Gods! Who made such a thing?" Hanafax murmured.

  "Arioch created it," said Queen Oorese. "Once our peaceful city lay there. Now we live—lived—in caves below the ground where water runs and it is a little cooler."

  Corum stared at the enormous lion's head and he looked at Queen Oorese. "How old are you, Queen?"

  "I do not know. Time does not exist in the Flamelands. Perhaps ten thousand years."

  Far away another wall of flame danced. Corum remarked upon it.

  "We are surrounded by flame on all sides. When Arioch first created it, many flung themselves into it rather than look upon what had become of their land. My husband died in that manner and thus did my brothers and all my sisters perish."

  Corum noticed that Hanafax was not his usual talkative self. His head was bowed and he rubbed at it from time to time as if puzzled.

  "What is it, Friend Hanafax?"

  "Nothing, Prince Corum. A pain in my head. Doubtless the heat causes it."

  Now a singular moaning sound came to their ears. Hanafax looked up, his eyes wide and uncomprehending. "What is it?"

  "The Lion sings," said the Queen. "He knows we approach."

  Then from Hanafax's throat a similar sound issued, as a dog will imitate another's howling.

  "Hanafax, my friend!" Corum rode his beast close to the other's. "Is something ailing you?"

  Hanafax stared at him vaguely. "No. I told you, the heat . . ." His face twisted. "Aah! The pain! I will not! I will not!"

  Corum turned to Queen Oorese". "Have you known this to happen before?"

  She frowned, seeming to be thinking rather than displaying concern for Hanafax. "No," she said at last. "Unless . . ."

  "Arioch! I will not!” Hanafax began to pant.

  Then Corum's borrowed hand leapt up from the saddle where it had held the reins.

  Corum tried to control it, but it shot straight toward Hanafax's face, its fingers extended. Fingers drove into the Mabden's eyes. They pierced the head, plunging deep into the brain. Hanafax screamed. "No, Corum, please do not... I can fight it... aaaahr.”

  And the Hand of Kwll withdrew itself, the fingers dripping with Hanafax's blood and brains, while the lifeless body of the Mabden fell from the saddle.

  "What is happening?" Queen Oorese called.

  Corum stared at the mired hand, now once again his. "It is nothing," he murmured. "I have killed my friend."

  He looked up suddenly.

  Above him, on a hill, he thought he saw the outline of a figure watching him. Then smoke drifted across the scene and he saw nothing.

  "So you guessed what I guessed, Prince in the Scarlet Robe," said the queen.

  "I guessed nothing. I have killed my friend, that is all I know. He helped me. He showed me . . ." Corum swallowed with difficulty.

  "He was only a Mabden, Prince Corum. Only a Mabden servant of Arioch."

  "He hated Arioch!"

  "But Arioch found him and entered him. He would have tried to kill us. You did right to destroy him. He would have betrayed you, Prince."

  Corum stared at her through brooding eyes. "I should have let him kill me. Why should I live?"

  "Because you are of the Vedragh. The last of the Vedragh who can avenge our race."

  "Let it perish, unavenged! Too many crimes have been committed so that that vengeance might be won! Too many unfortunates have suffered frightful fates! Will the Vadhagh name be recalled with love—or muttered in hatred?"

  "It is already spoken with hatred. Arioch has seen to that. There is the Lion's Mouth. Farewell, Prince in the Scarlet Robe!" And Queen Oorese spurred her beast into a gallop and went plunging past the great rock, on toward the vast wall of flame beyond.

  Corum knew what she would do.

  He looked at the body of Hanafax. The cheerful fellow would smile no more and his soul was now doubtless suffering at the whim of Arioch.

  Again, he was alone.

  He gave a shuddering sigh.

  The strange, moaning sound once again began to issue from the Lion's Mouth. It seemed to be calling him. He shrugged. What did it matter if he perished? It would only mean that no more w
ould die because of him.

  Slowly, he began to ride toward the Lion's Mouth. As he drew nearer, he gathered speed and then, with a yell, plunged through the gaping jaws and into the howling darkness beyond!

  The beast stumbled, lost its footing, fell. Corum was thrown clear, got up, sought the reins with his groping hands. But the beast had turned and was galloping back toward the daylight that flickered red and yellow at the entrance.

  For an instant Corum's mind cooled and he made to follow it. Then he remembered the dead face of Hanafax and he turned and began to trudge into the deeper darkness.

  He walked thus for a long while. It was cool within the Lion's Mouth and he wondered if Queen Oorese had been voicing nothing more than a superstition, for the interior seemed to be just a large cave.

  Then the rustling sounds began.

  He thought he glimpsed eyes watching him. Accusing eyes? No. Merely malevolent. He drew his sword. He paused, looking about him. He took another step forward.

  He was in whirling nothingness. Colors flashed past him, something shrieked, and laughter filled his head. He tried to take another step.

  He stood on a crystal plain, and imbedded in it, beneath his feet, were millions of beings—Vadhagh, Nhadragh, Mabden, Ragha-da-Kheta, and many others he did not recognize. There were males and females and all had their eyes open; all had their faces pressed against the crystal; all stretched out their hands as if seeking aid. All stared at him. He tried to hack at the crystal with his sword, but the crystal would not crack.

  He moved forward.

  He saw all the Five Planes, one superimposed upon the other, as he had seen them as a child—as his ancestors had known them. He was in a canyon, a forest, a valley, a field, another forest. He made to move into one particular plane, but he was stopped.

  Screaming things came at him and pecked at his flesh. He fought them off with his sword. They vanished.

  He was crossing a bridge of ice. It was melting. Fanged, distorted things waited for him below. The ice creaked. He lost his footing. He fell.

  He fell into a whirlpool of seething matter that formed shapes and then destroyed them instantly. He saw whole cities brought into existence and then obliterated. He saw creatures, some beautiful, some disgustingly ugly. He saw things that made him love them and things that made him scream with hatred.