A captain of the Royal Guard came running to the roof. “We can hold the lower floors a few moments longer, Prince Corum, but that is all.”
Corum nodded. “Retreat as slowly as you can. We’ll join you soon.”
Rhalina said: “What did you think would happen down there, Corum?”
“I have a feeling that Xiombarg is exerting great pressures on this Realm since I destroyed Prince Gaynor. I thought she might have the power to turn those things upon me.”
“But she cannot personally come to this Realm,” Rhalina said. “We were told that. It would be to sin against the Rule of the Balance and even the Great Old Gods will not defy the Cosmic Balance so openly.”
“Perhaps,” said Corum. “But I am beginning to suspect that Xiombarg’s fury is so great she may attempt to break through into this Realm.”
“That will mean the end of us without doubt,” she murmured. “What is Arkyn doing?”
“Engaging himself with what he can. He cannot interfere directly in our aid -
and I suspect that he, too, prepares himself for Xiombarg. Come, we had best join the defenders.”
They were two flights down when they saw the retreating warriors vainly trying to force back the roaring barbarians who pressed blindly upwards, careless of the threat of death. The captain who had earlier addressed Corum spread his hands hopelessly. “There are more detachments elsewhere in the palace, but I fear they’re as hard-pressed as us.”
Corum looked at the steps which were crowded with the invaders. The wall of guards was thin and would soon break. “Then we must go to the roof,” he said,
“At least we will be able to hold them there a little longer. We must conserve our forces as best we can.”
“But we are defeated are we not, Prince Corum?” said the captain calmly.
“I fear so, captain. I fear so.”
And then, from somewhere, they heard a scream. It was not a human scream and yet it was plainly a scream of pure anger.
Rhalina covered her face with her hands. “Xiombarg?” she whispered. “It is Xiombarg’s voice, Corum.”
Corum’s mouth was dry. He could not answer her. He licked his lips.
The scream came again. But there was another sound with it - a humming which rose higher and higher in pitch until it hurt their ears.
“The roof!” Corum cried. “Quickly.” Gasping for breath they reached the roof and flung up their arms to protect their eyes against the powerful lights which swam in the sky and obscured the sun.
Corum saw it first. Xiombarg’s face, contorted with insensate fury, huge upon the horizon, her auburn hair flowing as clouds might flow across the sky, a mighty sword in her hand, large enough to slice the whole world in twain.
“It is she,” groaned Rhalina. “The Queen of the Swords. She has defied the Balance and she has come to destroy us.”
“Look there!” Jhary-a-Conel. cried. “That is why she is here. She has followed them to our Realm! They have escaped her. All her plans were thwarted and she defied the Balance in her impotence and her rage!”
It was the City in the Pyramid. It hovered in the sky over battered Halwyg-nan-Vake, its green light flickering and threatening to fade and then bursting into increased brilliance. From the City in the Pyramid came the whining sound they had heard.
Something left the city and flew down towards the palace. Corum turned away from the image of Xiombarg’s raging face and her waving sword and he watched the Sky Ship descend. In it was the King Without a Country. He held something in his arms.
The Sky Ship settled on the roof and the King Without a Country smiled at Corum. “A gift,” he said. “In return for your help to Gwlãs-cor-Gwrys...”
“I thank you,” Corum said, “but this is no time ---”
“The gift has powers. It is a weapon. Take it.”
Corum took the thing. It was a cylinder covered in peculiar designs and with a spade-grip at one end. The other end tapered.
“It is a weapon,” repeated Noreg-Dan. “It will destroy those at whom you point it.” “
Corum looked at the vision of Xiombarg, heard her screaming begin again, saw her raise the sword. He pointed it at her.
“No,” said the King Without a Country. “Not Xiombarg for she is a Great Old God - a Sword Ruler. Your mortal enemies.”
Corum rushed to the stairs and descended. The barbarians, King Lyr now leading them, had reached the last flight.
“Point it and press the handle,” called Noreg-Dan.
Corum pointed at King Lyr-a-Brode. The tall king was striding up the stairs, his braided beard fluttering, his bearing triumphant and all his huge Grim Guard behind him. He saw Corum and he laughed.
“Do you wish to surrender, last of the Vadhagh?” And Corum laughed back at him. “I am not the last of the Vadhagh, King Lyr-a-Brode, as this shows you.”
He pressed the grip and suddenly the king clutched at his chest, choked and fell backwards into the arms of his Guard, his tongue protruding from his lips, his grey braids falling over his eyes.
“He is dead!” shrieked the leader of the Grim Guard. “Our king! Vengeance!”
Waving his sword he rushed at Corum. But again Corum depressed the grip and he, too, died in the manner of his king. Corum pointed the weapon several times. Each time a Grim Guard fell until there were no more Grim Guards living.
He looked back at the King Without a Country. Noreg-Dan was smiling. “We used such things against Xiombarg’s minions. That is one of the reasons why she expresses such rage. It will take her time to create new mortal things to do her work.”
“But she has defied the Balance in one thing,” Corum said. “She may defy it in another.”
The monstrous, beautiful, furious face of the Queen of the Swords rose higher over the horizon and now her shoulders could be seen, her breasts, her waist.
“AH! CORUM! DREADFUL ASSASSIN OF ALL I LOVE!”
The voice was so loud that it made Corum’s ears throb with pain. He staggered backwards against the battlements, watching, transfixed, as the great sword filled the sky and Xiombarg’s eyes blazed like two mighty suns. She was engulfing the world with her presence. The sword began to fall and Corum readied himself for death. Rhalina rushed to his arms and they hugged one another.
Then: “YOU HAVE MOCKED THE RULING OF THE COSMIC BALANCE, SISTER XIOMBARG!”
Against the far horizon stood Arkyn, as gigantic as the Queen of the Swords.
Lord Arkyn of Law in all his godly finery, with a sword in his hand as large as Xiombarg’s. And the city and its inhabitants were more insignificant than a tiny ant-nest and its occupants would be to two humans confronting each other in a meadow.
“YOU HAVE MOCKED THE BALANCE, QUEEN OF THE SWORDS.”
“I AM NOT THE FIRST!”
“THERE IS ONLY ONE WHO HAS SURVIVED AND HE IS THE NAMELESS FORCE! YOU HAVE
RELINQUISHED YOUR RIGHT TO RULE YOUR REALM!”
“NO! THE BALANCE HAS NO POWER OVER ME!”
“BUT IT HAS...”
And the Cosmic Balance, that Corum had seen once before in a vision after he had banished Arioch of Chaos, appeared in the sky between Lord Arkyn and Queen Xiombarg, and it was so great that it dwarfed them.
“IT HAS,” said a voice that was not the voice of Xiombarg or Arkyn.
And the Balance began to tip towards Arkyn.
“IT HAS.”
Queen Xiombarg screamed in fear and it was a scream that shook the whole world and threatened to send it spinning from its course about the sun.
“IT HAS.”
The sword that was the symbol of her power was wrenched effortlessly from her hand and appeared for an instant in the bowl of the Balance which tilted towards Lord Arkyn.
“NO!” begged Queen Xiombarg. “IT WAS A TRICK - ARKYN PLANNED THIS. HE LURED
ME HERE. HE KNEW...”
Her voice was fading. “He knew... He knew...”
And the substance of Queen Xiombarg began to disperse.
It drifted away like wisps of cloud and then was gone.
For a moment the Cosmic Balance remained framed in the sky, then that, too, disappeared.
Only Lord Arkyn remained now, all clothed in white radiance, his white sword in his hand.
“IT IS DONE!” said his voice and it seemed that warmth flooded through all the world.
“IT IS DONE!”
Corum cried, “Lord Arkyn! Did you know that Xiombarg’s fury would be so great that she would risk the Wrath of the Balance and enter this Realm.”
“I HOPED IT. I MERELY HOPED IT.”
“Then much of what you have asked me to do was with this in mind?”
“AYE.”
Corum thought of all the bitterness he had experienced, all the strife. He thought of Prince Gaynor’s thousands of faces flickering before him...
“I could come to hate all gods,” he said.
“IT WOULD BE YOUR RIGHT. WE MUST USE MORTALS FOR ENDS WE CANNOT OURSELVES
ACHIEVE.”
And then Lord Arkyn had vanished also and all that was left were the circling Sky Ships of Gwlãs-cor-Gwrys sending down invisible death to the shrieking, terrified barbarians who were scattering now all over the churned lawns, avenues and gardens of Halwyg-nan-Vake.
Beyond the walls a few barbarians were fleeing, but the Sky Ships found them.
The Sky Ships found them all.
Corum noted that the Army of the Dog and the Army of the Bear had gone, as had the creatures of Chaos he had summoned to his aid. Had they been recalled by their masters - the Dog and the Horned Bear - or were they now occupying the Cavern of Limbo. He put a finger to his jewelled eye-patch but then dropped it. He could not bear, for a long time, to look upon that netherworld.
The King Without a Country came forward. “You see how useful the gift was, Prince Corum.”
“Aye.”
“And now Xiombarg is banished from her Realm only one more Realm has a Sword Ruler. Mabelode must fear us now.”
“I am sure that he does,” said Corum without joy.
“And I am no longer a King Without a Country. I can begin to rebuild my kingdom once I have returned to my own plane.”
“That is good,” said Corum tonelessly.
He went to the battlements and he looked down at the corpse-strewn city. A few of the citizens were beginning to emerge from their houses. The power of the Mabden barbarians was ended for ever. Peace had come to Arkyn’s Realm and peace, no doubt, would come to the Realm now to be ruled by his brother Lord of Law.
“Shall we return to Moidel in the sea?” Rhalina asked him softly, stroking his haggard face.
He shrugged. “I doubt if it exists. Glandyth would have razed it.”
“And what of Earl Glandyth?” Jhary-a-Conel stroked the chin of his purring, winged cat which sat again upon his shoulder. “Where is he? What became of him.”
“I do not think he is dead,” said Corum. “I think I shall encounter him again. I have served Law and performed all the deeds Arkyn asked of me. But I have still to take my vengeance.”
A Sky Ship came towards them. In its prow stood the old, handsome Vadhagh Prince Yurette. He was smiling as the ship of the air settled on the roof.
“Corum. Will you guest with us at Gwlãs-cor-Gwrys? I wish to speak on matters concerning the restoration of Vadhagh lands, of Vadhagh castles - so that your land may once again be called Bro-an-Vadhagh. We will send the remaining Mabden back to their original kingdom of Bro-an-Mabden and the pleasant forests and fields will bloom again.”
And, at last Corum’s gaunt face softened and he smiled.
“I thank you, Prince Yurette. We should be honoured to guest with you.”
“Now that we have returned to our own Realm, I think we shall cease our venturings for a while,” said Prince Yurette.
“And,” Corum added feelingly, “I hope that I, too, may cease my own venturings. A little tranquillity would be welcome.”
Far out across the plain the City in the Pyramid was beginning to descend to Earth.
Epilogue
Introduction
In those days there were oceans of light and cities in the skies and wild flying beasts of bronze. There were herds of crimson cattle that roared and were taller than castles.
There were shrill, viridian things that haunted bleak rivers.
It was a time of gods, manifesting themselves upon out world in all her aspects; a time of giants who walked on water; of mindless sprites and misshapen creatures who could be summoned by an ill-considered thought but driven away only on pain of some fearful sacrifice; of magics, phantasms, unstable nature, impossible events, insane paradoxes, dreams come true, dreams gone awry, of nightmares assuming reality.
It was a rich time and a dark time. The time of the Sword Rulers. The time when the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh, age-old enemies, were dying. The time when Man, the slave of fear, was emerging, unaware that much of the terror he experienced was the result of nothing else but the fact that he, himself, had come into existence. It was one of many ironies connected with Man (who, in those days, called his race Mabden).
The Mabden lived brief lives and bred prodigiously.
Within a few centuries they rose to dominate the westerly continent on which they had evolved. Superstition stopped them from sending many of their ships toward Vadhagh and Nhadragh lands for another century or two, but gradually they gained courage when no resistance was offered. They began to feel jealous of the older races; they began to feel malicious.
The Vadhagh and the Nhadragh were not aware of this.
They had dwelt a million or more years upon the planet, which now, at last, seemed at rest. They knew of the Mabden but considered them not greatly different from other beasts. Though continuing to indulge their traditional hatreds of one another, the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh spent their long hours in considering abstractions, in the creation of works of art and the like. Rational, sophisticated, at one with themselves, these older races were unable to believe in the changes that had come. Thus, as it almost always is, they ignored the signs.
There was no exchange of knowledge between the two ancient enemies, even though they had fought their last battle many centuries before.
The Vadhagh lived in family groups occupying isolated castles scattered across a continent called by them Bro-an-Vadhagh. There was scarcely any communication between these families, for the Vadhagh had long since lost the impulse to travel. The Nhadragh lived in their cities built on the islands in the seas to the northwest of Bro-an-Vadhagh. They, also, had little contact, even with their closest kin. Both races reckoned themselves invulnerable.
Both were wrong.
Upstart Man was beginning to breed and spread like a pestilence across the world. This pestilence struck down the old races wherever it touched them. And it was not only death that Man brought, but terror, too. Willfully, he made of the older world nothing but ruins and bones.
Unwittingly, he brought psychic and supernatural disruption of a magnitude which even the Great Old Gods failed to comprehend.
And the Great Old Gods began to know Fear.
And Man, slave of fear, arrogant in his ignorance, continued his stumbling progress. He was blind to the huge disruptions aroused by his apparently petty ambitions. As well, Man was deficient in sensitivity, had no awareness of the multitude of dimensions that filled the universe, each plane intersecting with several others. Not so the Vadhagh or the Nhadragh, who had known what it was to move at will between the dimensions they termed the Five Planes.
They had glimpsed and understood the nature of the many planes, other than the five, through which the Earth moved
Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralyzed body of the youthful poet who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed him of an exquisite existence they would never appreciate, ne
ver know they were taking.
"If they valued what they stole, if they knew what they were destroying," says the old Vadhagh in the story, "The Only Autumn Flower," "then I would be consoled."
It was unjust.
By creating Man, the universe had betrayed the old races.
But it was a perpetual and familiar injustice. The sentient may perceive and love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentient. The universe sees no distinction between the multitude of creatures and elements which comprise it. All are equal.
None is favored. The universe, equipped with nothing but the materials and the power of creation, continues to create: something of this, something of that. It cannot control what it creates and it cannot, it seems, be controlled by its creations (though a few might deceive themselves otherwise). Those who curse the workings of the universe curse that which is deaf. Those who strike out at those workings fight that which is inviolate. Those who shake their fists, shake their fists at blind stars.
But this does not mean that there are some who will not try to do battle with and destroy the invulnerable.
There will always be such beings, sometimes beings of great wisdom, who cannot bear to believe in an insouciant universe.
Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei was one of these. Perhaps the last of the Vadhagh race, he was sometimes known as the Prince in the Scarlet Robe.
This chronicle concerns him.
We have already learned how the Mabden followers of Earl Glandyth-a-Krae (who called themselves the Denledhyssi—or Murderers) killed Prince Corum's relatives and his nearest kin and thus taught the Prince in the Scarlet Robe how to hate, how to kill, and how to desire vengeance. We have heard how Glandyth tortured Corum and took away a hand and an eye and how Corum way rescued by the Giant of Laahr and taken to the castle of the Margravine Rhalina—a castle set upon a mount surrounded by the sea. Though Rhalina was a Mabden woman (of the gentler folk of Lywm-an-Esh), Corum and she fell in love. When Glandyth roused the Pony Tribes, the forest barbarians, to attack the Margravine's castle, she and Corum sought supernatural aid and thus fell into the hands of the sorcerer Shool, whose domain was the island called Svi-an-Fanla-Brool—Home of the Gorged God.