Chronicles of Corum (43 page)

"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 trust 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.

"Go back! Go back! This is a land of terror!" cried Ilbrec.

"This is Ynys Scaith, the isle of shadows. All mortals who land here are doomed!" Corum warned them.

But the bulky figure continued to row and his companions made no sign that they had heard the shouted words, so that Corum began to wonder if the Malibann had already enchanted the newcomers.

At last Corum and Ilbrec reached the boat itself as it came close to the shore. Corum clung to the side while Ilbrec towered over the boat, looking for all the world like the sea-god his father had been in the legends of the Mabden.

"It is dangerous," boomed Ilbrec. "Can you not hear me?"

"I fear they cannot," said Corum. "I fear they are under a glamor, just as we were."

And then the figure in the prow pushed back his hood and smiled. "Not at all, Corum Jhaelen Irsei. Or, at least, extremely unlikely. Do you not recognize us?"

Corum knew the face well. He recognized the old, handsome features framed by long, grey ringlets and the thick, grey beard; he recognized the hard, blue eyes, the thick, curved lips, the golden collar, inset with jewels, at the throat and the matching jewels on the long, slender fingers. He recognized the warm, mellow voice which was full of a profound wisdom gained at considerable expense of time and mental energy. He recognized the Wizard Calatin whom he had first met in Laahr forest when he had sought the spear, Bryionak, all that long time ago in what seemed to him now to be a happier period of his life.

And at the moment Corum recognized his old enemy Calatin, Ilbrec said in a voice which shook:

"Goffanon! Goffanon!"

For sure enough the bulky figure who had rowed the boat was none other than the Sidhi dwarf, Goffanon of Hy-Breasail, and there was a glassy look in his eyes and his face was slack; but he spoke and said:

"Goffanon serves Calatin again."

"He has you in his power! Oh, I knew that I did not welcome that sail."

Then Corum said urgently: "Even you, Calatin, cannot survive on Ynys Scaith. The people here have enormous powers for the making of lethal illusions. Let us all return to your ship and sail away from here, there to settle our disputes in a pleasanter clime.’'

Calatin looked around him. He looked at the third figure in the boat who had not revealed his face but kept it thoroughly hidden in his hood. "I find nothing to say against this island," he said.

"It is because you do not see it for what it is," Corum insisted. "Make a bargain, Calatin, to take us back to your ship
..."

Calatin shook his head and smoothed his grey beard.' I think not. I am tired of sailing. I have never been at my best while crossing water. We shall disembark."

"I warn you, wizard," grumbled Ilbrec, "that the moment you set foot on this land, you are as doomed as all the other wretches who preceded you."

"We shall see. Goffanon, drag the boat high onto the beach so that I shall not wet my garments when I leave the boat."

Obediently Goffanon clambered from the boat and began to haul it through the water and thence onto the beach while Corum and Ilbrec watched helplessly.

Then Calatin stepped elegantly onto the beach and looked around him, stretching his arms so that the surcoat, covered all over in occult symbols, was revealed. He took a deep, appreciative breath of the tainted air, then snapped his fingers, whereupon the other figure, still completely muffled and unrecognizable, rose from the seat in the stern and joined Calatin and Goffanon.

For a moment they stood there, confronting one another with the boat separating them.

"I hope that you are fugitives," said Ilbrec at last. "From the Mabden victory over the Fhoi Myore."