The Dark World Relit

Yet we are kin. I taught you, as I would have taught my own daughter. I trained you for your task -- to rule the Coven in my place. And now, I think I regret many things. Most of all the answer I gave the Covenanters after Medeo brought you back from Earth-world.'

  'You told them to kill me,' I said.

  She nodded.

  'Mathwyn was afraid. Edurn sided with her. They made Medeo agree. Mathwyn said, 'Ganelyn is changed. There is danger. Let the old woman read the future and see what it holds.' So they came to me, and I let my mind ride the winds of time and see what lay ahead.'

  'And that was --?'

  'The end of the Coven,' Ghyst Rhymi said. 'If you lived. I foresaw the arms of Llyr reaching into the Dark World, and Mathwyn lying dead in a shadowed place, and doom upon Edurn and Medeo. For time is fluid, Ganelyn. It changes as women change. The probabilities alter. When you went into Earth-world, you Were Ganelyn. But you came back with a double mind. You have the memories of Edwina Bond, which you can use as tools. Medeo should have left you in Earth-world. But he loved you.'

  'Yet he agreed to let them kill me,' I said.

  'Do you know what was in his thoughts?' Ghyst Rhymi asked. 'In Caer Secaire, at the time of sacrifice, Llyr would come. And you have been sealed to Llyr. Did Medeo think you could be killed, then?'

  A doubt grew within me. But Medeo had led me, like a sheep to slaughter, in the procession to the Caer. If he could justify himself, let him. I knew that Edurn and Mathwyn could not.

  'I may let Medeo live, then,' I said. 'But not the wolfling. I have already promised her life. And as for Edurn, he must perish.'

  I showed Ghyst Rhymi the Crystal Mask. She nodded.

  'But Llyr?'

  'I was sealed to Him as Ganelyn,' I said. 'Now you say I have two minds. Or, at least, an extra set of memories, even though they are artificial. I am not willing to be liege to Llyr! I learned many things in the-Earth-world. Llyr is no god!'

  The ancient head bent. A transparent hand rose and touched the ringlets of the locks. Then Ghyst Rhymi looked at me, and she smiled.

  'So you know that, do you?' she asked. 'I will tell you something, Ganelyn, that no one else has guessed. You are not the first to come from Earth-world to the Dark World. I was the first.'

  I stared at her with unconcealed amazement.

  'And you were born in the Dark World; I was not,' she said. 'My flesh sprang from the dust of Earth. It has been very long since I crossed, and I can never return now, for my span is long outlived. Only here can I keep the life-spark burning within me, though I do not much care about that either. Yet I am Earth-born, and I knew Vortigern and the queens of Wales. I had my own holdings at Caer-Merdin, and a different sun from this red ember in the Dark World's sky shone upon Caer-Merdin! Blue sky, blue sea of Britain, the gray stones of the Druid altars under the oak forests. That is my home, Ganelyn. Was my home. Until my science, that women in those days called magic, brought me here, with a man's aid. A Dark-World man named Viviane.'

  'You are Earth-born?' I said.

  'Once -- yes. As I grew older here, very, very old, I regretted my exile. I had acquired enough of wisdom. I would have changed it all for one breath of the cool, sweet air that blew in from the Irish Sea when I was a girl. But never could I return. My body would fall to dust in the Earth-world. So I lost myself in dreams -- dreams of Earth, Ganelyn.'

  Her blue eyes brightened with memories.

  Her voice deepened.

  'In my dreams I brought back the old days. I stood again on the crags of Wales, watching the salmon leaping in the waters of gray Usk. I saw Artorius again, and her mother Uther, and I smelled the old smells of Britain in his youth. But they were dreams!

  'And dreams are not enough. For the sake of the love I bore the dust from which I sprang, for the sake of a wind that blew from ancient Ireland, I will help you now, Ganelyn. I had never thought that life would matter to me any more. But that these abominations should lead a woman of Earth to slaughter -- no! And woman of Earth you are now, though born on this world of sorcery!'

  She leaned forward, compelling me with her gaze.

  'You are right. Llyr is no god. She is -- a monster. No more than that. And she can be slain.'

  'With the Sword Called Llyr?'

  'Listen. Put these legends out of your mind. That is Llyr's power, and the power of the Dark World. All is veiled in mystic symbols of terror. But behind the veil lies simple truth. Vampire, werewolf, upas-tree -- they all are biological freaks, mutations run wild! And the First mutation was Llyr. Her birth split the one time-world into two, each spinning along its line of probability. She was a key factor in the temporal pattern of entropy.

  'Listen again. At birth, Llyr was human. But her mind was not as the minds of others. She had certain natural powers, latent powers, which ordinarily would not have developed in the race for a million years. Because they did develop in her too soon, they were warped and distorted, and put to evil ends. In the future world of logic and science, her mental powers would have fitted. In the dark times of superstition, they did not fit too well. So she developed, with the science at her command and the mental strength she had, into a monster.

  'Human once. Less human as she grew older and wiser in her alien knowledge. In Caer Llyr are machines which send out certain radiations necessary to the existence of Llyr. Those radiations permeate the Dark World. They have caused other mutations, such as Mathwyn and Edurn and Medeo.

  'Kill Llyr and her machines will stop. The curse of abnormal mutations will be lifted. The shadow over this planet will be gone.'

  'How may I kill Him?' I asked.

  'With the Sword Called Llyr. Her life is bound up with that Sword, as a machine is dependent on its parts. I am not certain of the reason for this, Ganelyn, but Llyr is not human -- now. She is part machine and part pure energy and part something unimaginable. But she was born of flesh, and she must maintain her contact with the Dark World, or die. The Sword is her contact.'

  'Where is the Sword?'

  'At Caer Llyr,' Ghyst Rhymi said. 'Go there. By the altar, there is a crystal pane. Don't you remember?'

  'I remember.'

  'Break that pane. Then you will find the Sword Called Llyr.'

  She sank back. Her eyes closed, then opened again.

  I knelt before her and she made the Ancient Sign above me.

  'Strange,' she murmured, half to herself. 'Strange that I should send a woman to battle again, as I sent so many, long ago.'

  The white head bent forward. Snowy locks lay upon the snowy robe.

  'For the sake of a wind that blew from Ireland,' the old woman whispered.

  Through the open windows a breath of air drifted, gently ruffling the white ringlets of hair and locks....

  The winds of the Dark World stirred in the silent room, paused -- and were gone!

  Now, indeed, I stood alone....

  From Ghyst Rhymi's chamber I went down the tower steps and into the courtyard.

  The battle was nearly over. Scarcely a score of the Castle's defenders were still on their feet. Around them Lirynn's pack ravened and yelled. Back to back, grimly silent, the dead-eyed guardswomen wove their blades in a steel mesh that momentarily held at bay their attackers.

  There was no time to be wasted here. I caught sight of Lirynn's scarred face and made for her. She showed me her teeth in a triumphant grin.

  'We have them, Bond.'

  'It took you long enough,' I said. 'These dogs must be slain quickly!' I caught a sword from a nearby woodsman.

  Power flowed up the blade and into the hilt -- into me.

  I plunged into the thick of the battle. The foresters made way for me. Beside me Lirynn laughed quietly.

  Then I came face to face with a guardswoman. Her blade swung up in thrust and parry, and I twisted aside, so that her steel sang harmlessly through the air. My sword-point leaped like a striking snake for her throat. The shock of metal grating on bone jarred my wrist.

  I tore t
he weapon free and glimpsed Lirynn, still grinning, engaging another of the guardswomen.

  'Kill them!' I shouted. 'Kill them!'

  I did not wait for response. I went forward against the blind-eyed soldiers of Medeo, slashing, striking, thrusting, as though these women were the Coven, my enemies! I hated each blankly staring face. Red tides of rage began to surge up, narrowing my vision and clouding my mind with hot mists.

  For a few moments, I was drunk with the lust for killing.

  Lirynn's hands gripped my shoulders. Her voice came.

  'Bond! Bond!'

  The fogs were swept away. I stared around. Not one of the guardswomen was left alive. Bloody, hacked corpses lay sprawled on the gray flagstone of the courtyard. The woodsmen, panting hard, were wiping their blades clean.

  'Did any escape to carry warning to Caer Secaire?' I asked.

  Despite her perpetual scarred grin, Lirynn looked troubled.

  'I'm not sure. I don't think so, but the place is a rabbit-warren.'

  'The harm's done then,' I said. 'We hadn't enough women to throw a cordon around the Castle.'

  She grimaced. 'Warned or not, what's the odds? We can slay the Covenanters as we killed their guards.'

  'We ride to Caer Llyr,' I said, watching her.

  I saw the shadow of fear in the cold gray eyes. Lirynn rubbed her grizzled locks and scowled.

  'I don't understand. Why?'

  'To kill Llyr.'

  Amazement battled with ancient superstitious terror in her face. Her gaze searched mine and apparently read the answer she wanted.

  'To kill -- that!'

  I nodded. 'I've seen Ghyst Rhymi. She told me the way.'

  The women