The Dark World Relit

that in time of need, Edurn would uncover him face.

  'Freydyr,' I said, and hesitated again. 'What is Edurn?'

  He shook his massive head, the white braids stirring on his shoulders.

  'I have never known. I have only probed at his mind now and then, when we met as you met his today, on the thought-lanes. I have much power, Ganelyn, but I have always drawn back from the chill I sensed beneath Edurn's hood. No, I cannot tell you what he is.'

  I laughed again. Recklessness was upon me now.

  'Forget Edurn,' I said. 'When I have forced Ghyst Rhymi to my bidding, and faced Llyr with the weapon that will end her, what shall I fear of Edurn? The Crystal Mask is a talisman against him. That much I know. Let his be whatever monstrous thing he wills -- Ganelyn has no fear of him.

  'There is a weapon, then against Llyr too?'

  'There is a sword,' I said. 'A sword that is -- is not quite a sword as we think of weapons. My mind is cloudy there still. But I know that Ghyst Rhymi can tell me where it is. A weapon, yet not a weapon. The Sword Called Llyr.'

  For an instant, as I spoke that name, it seemed to me that the fire between us flickered as if a shadow had passed across its brightness. I should not have called the name aloud. An echo of it had gone ringing across the realms of thought, and in Caer Llyr perhaps Llyr Herself had stirred behind the golden window -- stirred, and looked out.

  Even here, I felt a faint flicker of hunger from that far-away domed place. And suddenly, I knew what I had done, Llyr was awake!

  I stared at Freydyr with widened eyes, meeting his blue gaze that was widening too. He must have felt the stir as it ran formlessly all through the Dark World. In the Castle of the Coven I knew they had felt it too, perhaps that they looked at one another with the same instant dread which flashed between Freydyr and me here.

  Llyr was awake!

  And I had wakened her. I had gone drifting in thought down that shining corridor and stood in thought before the very window itself, Llyr's Chosen, facing Llyr's living window. No wonder she had stirred at last to full awakening.

  Exultation bubbled up in my mind.

  'Now they must move!' I told Freydyr joyfully. 'You wrought better than you knew when you set my mind free to rove its old track. Llyr wakens and is hungrier woman the Coven ever dared let her grow before. For overlong there has been no Sabbat, and Llyr ravens for her sacrifice. Have you spies watching the Castle now, witch-woman?'

  He nodded.

  'Good. Then we will know when the slaves are gathered again for a Sabbat meeting. It will be soon. It must be soon! And Edwina Bond will lead an assault upon the Castle while the Coven are at Sabbat in Caer Secaire. There will be the Mask and the Wand, old man!' My voice deepened to a chant of triumph. 'The Mask and the Wand for Ganelyn, and Ghyst Rhymi alone in the Castle to answer me if she can! The Norns fight on our side, Freydyr!'

  He looked at me long and without speaking.

  Then a grim smile broke across his face and stooping, he spread his bare hand, palm down, upon the fuelless flame. I saw the fire lick up around his fingers. Deliberately he crushed it out beneath his hand, not flinching at all.

  The fire flared and died away. The crystal dish stood empty upon its pedestal, and dimness closed around us. In that twilight the man was a great figure of marble, towering beside me.

  I heard his deep voice.

  'The Norns are with us, Ganelyn,' he echoed. 'See that you fight upon our side too, as far as your oath will take you. Or you must answer to the gods and to me. And by the gods -- 'he laughed harshly '-- by the gods, if you betray me, I swear I'll smash you with no other power than this!' '

  In the dimness I saw him lift his great arms. We looked one another in the eye, this mighty sorcerer and I, and I was not sure but that he could overcome me in single combat if the need arose. By magic and by sheer muscle, I recognized an equal. I bent my head.

  'So be it, Sorcerer,' I said, and we clasped hands there in the darkness. And almost I hoped I need not have to betray him.

  Side by side, we went down the corridor to the cave mouth.

  The half-circle of foresters still awaited us. Ares and the scarred Lirynn stood a little forward, lifting their heads eagerly as we emerged. I paused, catching the quiver of motion as calloused hands slipped stealthily toward hilt and bowstring. Panic, subdued and breathless, swept around the arc of woods-folk.

  I stood there savoring the moment of terror among them, knowing myself Ganelyn and the nemesis that would bring harsh justice upon them all, in my own time. In my own good time.

  But first I needed their help.

  At my shoulder the deep voice of Freydyr boomed through the glade.

  'I have looked upon this woman,' he said. 'I name her -- Edwina Bond.'

  Distrust of me fell away from them; Freydyr' words reassured them.

  X. Swords for the Coven

  NOW the sap that runs through Ygdrasill-root stirred from its wintry sluggishness, and the inhuman guardians of the fate-tree roused to serve me. The three Norns -- the Destiny-weavers -- I prayed to them!

  Urdur who rules the past!

  He whispered of the Covenanters, and their powers and their weaknesses; of Mathwyn, the wolfling, whose berserk rages were her great flaw, the gap in her armor through which I could strike, when fury had drowned her wary cunning; of the red warlock and of Edurn -- and of old Ghyst Rhymi. My enemies. Enemies whom I could destroy, with the aid of certain talismans that I had remembered now. Whom I would destroy!

  Verdandi who rules the present!

  Edwina Bond had done her best. In the caves the rebels had showed me were weapons, crude rifles and grenades, gas-bombs and even a few makeshift flame-throwers. They would be useful against the Coven's slaves. How useless they would be against the Covenanters I alone knew. Though Freydyr may have known too.

  Yet Ares and Lirynn and their reckless followers were ready to use those Earth-weapons, very strange to them, in a desperate attack on the Castle. And I would give them that chance, as soon as our spies brought word of Sabbat-preparations. It would be soon. It would have to be soon. For Llyr was awake now -- hungry, thirsting -- beyond the Golden Window that is her door into the worlds of mankind.

  Skuld who rules the future!

  To Skuld I prayed most of all. I thought that the Coven would ride again to Caer Secaire before another dawn came. By then I wanted the rebels ready.

  Edwina Bond had trained them well. There was military discipline, after a fashion. Each woman knew her equipment thoroughly, and all were expert woodsmen. We laid our plans, Ares and Lirynn and I -- though I did not tell them everything I intended -- and group by group, the rebels slipped away into the forest, bound for the Castle.

  They would not attack. They would not reveal themselves until the signal was given. Meantime, they would wait, concealed in the gulleys and scrub-woods around the Castle. But they would be ready. When the time came, they would ride down to the great gates. Their grenades would be helpful there.

  Nor did it seem fantastic that we should battle magic with grenades and rifle. For I was beginning to realize more and more, as my memory slowly returned, that the Dark World was not ruled by laws of pure sorcery. To an Earth-mind such creatures as Mathwyn and Medeo would have seemed supernatural, but I had a double mind, for as Ganelyn I could use the memories of Edwina Bond as a workwoman uses tools.

  I had forgotten nothing I had ever known about Earth. And by applying logic to the Dark World, I understood things I had always before taken for granted.

  The mutations gave the key. There are depths in the human mind forever unplumbed, potentialities for power as there are lost, atrophied senses -- the ancient third eye that is the pineal gland. And the human organism is the most specialized thing of flesh that exists.

  Any beast of prey is better armed with fang and claw. Woman has only her brain. But as carnivores grew longer, more deadly talons, so woman's mind developed correspondingly. Even in Earth-world there are mediums, mind-readers, psych
omantic experts, ESP specialists. In the Dark World the mutations had run wild, producing cosmic abortions for which there might be no real need for another million years.

  And such minds, with their new powers, would develop tools for those powers. The wands. Though no technician, I could understand their principle. Science tends toward simpler mechanisms; the klystron and the magnetron are little more than metal bars. Yet, under the right conditions, given energy and direction, they are powerful machines.

  Well, the wands tapped the tremendous electromagnetic energy of the planet, which is, after all, simply a gargantuan magnet. As for the directive impulse, trained minds could easily supply that.

  Whether or not Mathwyn actually changed to wolf-form I did not know, though I did not think she did. Hypnosis was part of the answer. An angry cat will fluff out its fur and seem double its size. A cobra will, in effect, hypnotize its prey. Why? In order to break down the enemy's defenses, to disarm her, to weaken the single-purposiveness that is so vital in combat. No, perhaps Mathwyn did not turn into a wolf, but those under the spell of her hypnosis thought she did, which came to the same thing in the end.

  Medeo? There was a parallel. There are diseases in which blood transfusions are periodically necessary. Not that Medeo drank blood; he had other thirsts. But vital nervous energy is as real a thing as a leucocyte, and warlock though he was, he did not need magic to serve his needs.

  Of Edurn I was not so sure. Some stray