Corum put his hand to his eyes to protect them against the glare of the copper, straining to make out more detail, but it was a long time before he was certain that the figures were indeed human and a longer time before he realized that they were Mabden—men, women and children—and that only a few of the group stood upright. Most lay upon the plain of hammered copper and were very still.
Ilbrec shook Splendid Mane's reins and the great horse slowed to a walk.
"Artek's people?" said Ilbrec.
"It would seem so," said Corum. "They have a similar look to them."
Still a little wary, the two dismounted again and began to walk toward the group of figures who now stood in such sharp outline against the landscape of hammered copper.
As they came within earshot they began to hear voices—small moans, whimperings, groans and whispers—and they saw that all were naked and that most of those upon the ground were dead. All appeared to have been burned by fire. Those who stood had red, blistered skins and it was a wonder that they could remain upon their feet at all. Corum could feel the heat of the hammered copper through his thick-soled boots and he could imagine how fierce it must be on bare feet. These people could not have come willingly unclad to the center of the plain; they had been driven here. They were dying, roasting to death. Some cruel intelligence had forced them here. Corum swallowed his anger, finding it almost impossible to understand the minds of creatures who could conceive of such a cruelty. He noticed now that several of the men and women had their hands tied behind them and that they were trying, futilely, to protect those few children who still remained alive.
As they realized that Corum and Ilbrec had come, the Mabden peered at them in fear through parblind eyes. Blistered lips moved pleadingly.
"We are not your enemies," said Corum. "We are friends of Artek. Are you the People of Fyean?"
One man turned his ruined face toward Corum. His voice was like the sound of a distant wind. "We are. All that remain."
"Who did this to you?"
"The island. Ynys Scaith."
"How did you come to the plain?"
"Have you not seen the centaurs—and the monstrous spiders?"
Corum shook his head. "We came over the bridge. Over the chasm where the giant reptiles dwell."
"There is no chasm ..."
Corum paused, then said: "There was for us."
Drawing a small knife from his belt he stepped forward to untie the man's hands, but the wretch stumbled backward fearfully.
"We are friends, ‘‘ Corum told him again. "We have spoken with Artek who told us what had befallen you. It is largely because we met him that we came here."
"Artek is safe?" A woman spoke. It was possible that she was young, that she had been beautiful. "He is safe?" She stumbled toward Corum. Her hands, also, were secured behind her back. She fell and struggled to her knees, whimpering in pain. "Artek?"
"He is safe—and about a score more of your folk."
"Ah," she breathed. "Oh, I am glad ..."
"His wife," said the man to whom Corum had first spoken. But Corum had already guessed this. "Did Artek send you here to rescue her?"
"To rescue you all," said Corum. It was a lie he was happy to tell. These people were dying. It would not be long before the last perished.
"Then you are too late," said Artek's wife. Corum stopped to cut her bonds, and then the voice he had heard in the forest came again from nowhere: "Do not free her. She is ours now. "
Corum looked about him but, save that the air seemed to shimmer all the more, he could see nothing.
"I shall free her, however," he said. "So that she might at least die with her hands unbound."
"Why do you seek to anger us?"
"I seek to anger no one. I am Corum Llaw Ereint." He held up his silver hand. "I am the Champion Eternal. I came in peace to Ynys Scaith. I mean no harm to its inhabitants—but I will not see further harm done to these people."
"Corum ..." began Ilbrec softly, his hand upon the hilt of Retaliator. "I think we confront, at last, the folk of Ynys Scaith.''
Corum ignored him and cut the ropes away from the woman's burned flesh.
"Corum ..."
Methodically Corum went amongst the folk of Fyean and he offered them his water bottle and those who were bound he untied. He looked nowhere else.
"Corum!"
Ilbrec's voice was more urgent and when Corum had finished his work and looked up he saw that Ilbrec and Splendid Mane were surrounded by tall, slim figures of a brownish yellow color, whose skins were seamed and whose hair was sparse.
They wore little more than belts supporting large swords. The flesh of their lips was drawn back from their teeth, their cheeks were sunken, as were their eyes, and they had the appearance of corpses long preserved. When they moved, small pieces of dried skin or flesh fell from their bodies. If they had expressions upon their faces, Corum could not tell what they were. He could only stand and look upon them in horror.
One wore a spiked crown set with sapphires and rubies. The precious stones seemed to contain more life than did his face and body. White eyes peered at Corum; yellow teeth clashed as the being spoke.
"We are the Malibann and this island is our home. We have a right to protect ourselves against invaders.'' His accent was unusual but his words were easy to understand. "We are ancient ..."
Ilbrec nodded a sardonic agreement. The Malibann leader was quick to notice Ilbrec's expression. He inclined his mummified head.' 'We use these bodies rarely," he said by way of explanation. "But be assured that we have little need of them. It is not in physical prowess that we pride ourselves, but in our wizardly power."
"It is great,'' agreed Ilbrec.
"We are ancient," continued the leader, "and we know much. We can control almost anything we wish to control. We can stop the sun from rising, should we wish it."
"Then why exact petty spite upon these people?" Corum asked him. "These are not the actions of demigods!"
"It is our whim to punish those who invaded our island."
"They meant you no harm. They were forced upon your shores by unkind elements.''
Studying the horrible, decaying faces of the Malibann, Corum became slowly aware that in many ways they shared characteristics of features with the Vadhagh. He wondered if these were Vadhagh folk, exiled centuries before. Were they the original inhabitants of Ynys Scaith?
"How they came—how you came—is immaterial to us. You came—they came—you must be punished."
"Are all who land here punished?" Ilbrec asked thoughtfully.
'' Almost all," said the leader of the Malibann. "It depends upon their reasons for visiting us."
"We came to speak with you," said Corum. "We came to offer help in return for aid from you."
"What can you offer the Malibann?"
"Escape," said Corum, "from this plane—back to a plane more hospitable to you."
"That matter is already in hand."
Corum was astonished. "You have help?"
"The Malibann never seek help. We have employed someone to perform a service for us."
"Someone of this world?"
' ‘ Yes. But now we grow weary of conversing with such primitive intellects as yourselves. First we shall dismiss this filth."
The eyes of the Malibann glowed a fiery red. There came a shrill, despairing wailing from the people of Fyean and then they had all vanished. And with them vanished the plain of hammered copper. Now Corum and Ilbrec and Splendid Mane stood in a hall whose roof had partially fallen in. Evening sunshine filtered through the gaps in roof and walls and revealed rotting tapestries, crumbling sculpture, faded murals.
"Where is this place?" Corum asked of the Malibann who stood in the shadows near the walls.
The leader laughed. "You do not recognize it? Why, it is where all your adventures took place—-or most of them."
"What? Within the confines of this hall?" Ilbrec stared around him in dismay. "But how could such a thing have been
accomplished?"
"We have great powers, the Malibann, and I, Sactric, have the greatest power of all, that is why I am Emperor of Malibann ..."
"This isle? You style it an empire?" Ilbrec smiled faintly.
"This isle is the hub of an empire so magnificent it would make your most marvellous civilization seem like the encampment of a baboon tribe. When we return to our own plane—from which we were banished by a trick—we shall reclaim that empire and Sactric shall reign over it."
"Who is it that aids you in this ambition?" Corum asked. "One of the Fhoi Myore?"
"The Fhoi Myore? The Fhoi Myore are merely mad beasts. What help could they give us? No, we have a subtler ally. We await his return at this moment, Perhaps we shall let you live long enough to meet him."
Ilbrec murmured to Corum."The sun is only just setting. Can we have been here such a short time?"
And Sactric laughed at him. "Is two months a short time in your terms?"
"Two months? What mean you?" Corum made a movement toward Sactric.
"I mean only that the passage of time on Ynys Scaith and the passage of time in your world proceed at different speeds. Effectively, Corum Llaw Ereint, you have been here for at least two months."
THE THIRD CHAPTER
A SHIP COMES SAILING TO THE ISLE OF SHADOWS
"Ah, Ilbrec," said Corum to his friend, "then how have the Mabden fared against the Fhoi Myore?"
Ilbrec could not reply to this. Instead he shook his head, saying: "Goffanon spoke the truth. We were fools. We should not have come here."
"At least we are all agreed in one thing," came Sactric's dry voice from the shadows. The gems in his crown glinted as he moved. "And having heard that admission I am inclined to spare your lives for a while. Moreover I shall grant you the freedom of this island you call Ynys Scaith." Then, rather more casually than would seem necessary to him, he added, "You know one named Goffanon?"
"We do," said Ilbrec. "He warned us against coming here." "Goffanon is sensible, it seems."
"Aye. It seems so," said Corum. He was still angry, still bewildered, still considering attacking Sactric, though he guessed he would have little satisfaction even if he managed to put to the sword that already dead body. "You are acquainted with him?"
"He visited us once. Now we must deal with your horse." Sactric's eyes began to glow red as he gestured toward Splendid Mane. Ilbrec cried out and ran to his steed but already Splendid Mane's pupils became fixed and glazed and the horse was frozen to the spot.
"He is not harmed," said Sactric. "He is too valuable for that. When you are dead, we shall use him."
"If he will let you," muttered Ilbrec ferociously, into his beard.
Then the Malibann withdrew into the deeper shadows and were gone.
Listlessly the two heroes climbed through the ruins and out into what remained of the evening light. Now they saw the island for what it really was. Save for the hill (at whose foot they now stood) and the single pine, the rest of the island was a wasteland of flotsam, of carrion, of decaying stone, vegetation, metal, and bones. Here were the remains of all the ships which had ever landed on the shores of Ynys Scaith, and here were the remains, too, of their cargoes and their crews. Rusting armor and weapons lay all about; yellow bones of men and of their beasts were much in evidence, some complete skeletons, some scattered, while occasionally Corum and Ilbrec came upon a pile consisting entirely of skulls or another pile consisting of rib-cages. Weather-rotted fabrics, silks, woolens, cotton garments, fluttered in the chill wind which also bore a faint, terrible stink of putrefaction; leather breastplates, jerkins, caps, horse furniture, boots and gauntlets, were cracked, disintegrating. Iron and bronze and brass weapons lay rusted together in heaps, jewels had lost their sheen and looked sickly, as if they, too, rotted; gray ash blew like an ever-moving tide across these scenes and nowhere was there any evidence of a living creature, not even a raven or a cur to feast upon those bodies still fresh enough to have flesh on their bones.
"In a way I prefer the Malibann illusions," said Ilbrec, "for all that they were terrifying and came close to killing us!"
"The reality is in a sense more terrifying," murmured Corum, pulling his cloak about him as he stumbled over the waste of detritus, following Ilbrec. The night was closing in and Corum did not look forward to spending it surrounded by so much evidence of death.
Ilbrec's eye had been casting through the gloom as the giant had walked, and now it fixed on something. Ilbrec paused, changed his direction a little, and plunged through rubble until he came to an overturned chariot which still had the bones of a horse between its shafts. He reached into the chariot and the skeleton of the driver fell with a clatter at the movement. Ignoring this, Ilbrec straightened his back, holding something dusty and shapeless in his hand. He frowned.
"What have you found, Ilbrec?" Corum asked, reaching his companion's side.
"I am not sure, Vadhagh friend."
Corum inspected Ilbrec's discovery. It was an old saddle of cracked leather; its straps did not seem strong enough to hold it to the lightest of horses. The buckles were dull, rusty and half falling off, and altogether Corum considered it the most worthless of discoveries.
"An old saddle . . ."
"Just so."
"Splendid Mane has a good saddle of his own. Besides, that would not fit him. It is made for a mortal horse."
Ilbrec nodded. "As you say, it would not fit him." But he held onto the saddle as they made their way down to the beach and found a place relatively clear of debris, settling down to rest, since there was little else to do that night.
But before he went to sleep, Ilbrec sat cross-legged, turning the old saddle over and over in his great hands. And once Corum heard him murmur:
"Are we all that are left, we two? Are we the last?" And then the morning dawned.
First the water was white and wide and then it turned slowly to scarlet, as if some great dying sea-beast beneath the surface were spreading its life-blood in its final throes, and it pulsed as the red sun rose, making the sky blossom with deep yellows and watery purples and a flat, rich orange.
And the magnificence of this sunrise further emphasized the contrast between the calm beauty of the ocean and the island which it surrounded, for the island had the appearance of a place where all civilizations had come to dump their unwanted waste, an elaborate version of a farmer's dung-heap. And this was Ynys Scaith with all its glamors gone, this was what Sactric had called the Empire of Malibann.
The two men rose slowly and stretched painfully, for their sleep had not been peaceful. Corum flexed first the fingers of his artificial silver hand, then he flexed the fingers of his fleshly hand, which had become so numb it was almost impossible to tell apart from the unnatural one. He straightened his back and groaned, grateful for the wind from the sea which blew away the stink of putrefaction and brought instead a cleansing brine. He rubbed at his eye sockets. The one which lay under the patch itched and seemed a trifle inflamed. He pushed back the patch to let the air get at it, the white, milky scar revealed. Normally he spared himself and others the pain of exposing the wound. Ilbrec had unbraided his golden hair and combed it; now he was plaiting the hair again, weaving in threads of red gold and yellow silver: these braids, thick and strengthened by metal, were the only protection he had for his head, for it was his pride never to fight with a helmet upon his locks.
Then both men walked down to the edge of the sea and washed themselves as best they could in the salt water. The water was cold.
Corum could not help wondering if soon it would be frozen. Had the Fhoi Myore already consolidated their victories? Was Bro-an-Mabden now nothing but a dead waste of ice from shore to shore?
"Look," said Ilbrec. "Can you see it, Corum?" The Vadhagh Prince raised his head but could see nothing on the horizon.
"What did you think you saw, Ilbrec?"
"I can still see it—a sail, I am sure, corning from the direction of Bro-an-Mabden.''
"I tr
ust it is not friends bent on our rescue," Corum said miserably. "I would not wish others to fall into this trap."
"Perhaps the Mabden were victorious at Caer Llud, ‘ ‘ said Ilbrec. "Perhaps we see the first of a squadron of ships armed with Amergin's full magic."
But Ilbrec's words were hollow and Corum could feel no hope. "If it is a ship you see," he said,"I fear it brings further doom to us and those we love." And now he thought he, too, could see a dark sail on the horizon. A ship moving at considerable speed.
"And there—" Ilbrec pointed again—"is that not a second sail?"
Sure enough, for a moment Corum thought he detected another sail, a smaller sail, as if a skiff followed in the wake of the galley, but he did not see it after the first few moments and guessed that it had been a trick of the light.
In trepidation they watched the ship approach. It had a high, curved prow, with a figurehead in the shape of an elongated lion, inlaid with silver, gold and mother-of-pearl. Its oars were shipped and it sailed by the power of the wind alone, its huge black and red sail taut at the mast, and soon there was no question in their minds that it did head for Ynys Scaith. Both Ilbrec and Corum began to shout and yell to the ship, trying to warn it to circumnavigate the island and go on to a more favorable landing place, but its movement was implacable. They saw it go past a promontory and disappear, plainly with the idea of anchoring in the bay. At once, and without ceremony, Ilbrec picked Corum up and placed the Vadhagh upon his shoulders, setting off at a loping pace toward the place where the ship had last been seen. They covered the ground swiftly, for all the debris in their path, and finally Ilbrec arrived, panting, at a natural harbor, in time to see a small boat putting out from the ship, whose sail was now furled.
There were three figures in the boat, but only one, swathed in bulky furs, was rowing. His companions sat in the prow and the stem respectively and they, too, were muffled in heavy capes.
Well before the three men had landed, Ilbrec and Corum had plunged into the sea and were waist-deep, yelling at the tops of their voices.