Elder Isles 2: The Green Pearl (58 page)

Kul stirred. He groaned and drew himself up into a sitting position. Glyneth anxiously searched his face; to her relief she saw only the Kul whom she loved and trusted.

Glyneth asked: “Do you remember your dreams?”

After a moment Kul said: “They are gone now. I do not want to remember them.”

“Perhaps we should stop to rest, until you feel stronger.”

“I need no rest. We must travel as far and as fast as we can.”

The wole ran on: league after league, across the blue grass. To the south a few two-legged wolves appeared from time to time, to appraise the wole and consult wisely among themselves, then to bound away through the trees.

Travel, rest, travel: across the Tang-Tang Steppe, a landscape whose aspect at last began to seem familiar. They passed the tall manse of the robber knight, whom Visbhume had tricked with his mirror; on this occasion no one came forth from the manse. Over the western horizon appeared the shadowy loom of mountains, and presently the River Mys swept down from the north to flow parallel to their course. The two-legged wolves, which had kept warily apart, became joined by a new troop whose elders, gesturing toward the wole, seemed to counsel bolder tactics. The band gradually closed in to run on either side of the wole, and also at the rear. One darted close and tried to gnaw at one of the wole’s legs; the wole kicked the creature forward and trampled it without losing the rhythm of its stride.

Wearily Kul rose to his feet and took up his sword, and for a space the wolves drew back. Then, deciding that Kul posed no instant menace, they returned to bound close alongside, while two jumped up on the rug behind the pergola. Glyneth was ready with the tube and blew a fire-mite at the closest. It struck the creature’s chest in a flash of blue and orange flame; the creature howled loud, and tumbled from the wole, to bounce here and there in wild convulsions. Glyneth aimed the tube at the second wolf, but it sagely hopped to the ground and ran skipping to the side.

After a few minutes the wolves loped off to the south and gathering in a circle discussed tactics, with much nodding of long-nosed faces and snapping in and out of thin black tongues. Meanwhile, Kul urged the wole to its best speed, and ahead, where the mountains began to swell up from beside the river, stood the hut.

The wolves loped once again to the attack. In accordance with their plan, they came up on both sides of the wole and jumped up to throw themselves on Kul. He chopped with his sword, hacking at reaching sucker-arms and heads, and cleared the space to the right, only to find the wolves surging upon his back from the left. Glyneth sent down fire-mite after fire-mite, until over the top of the pergola came a hairy arm to seize her around the neck, and a grinning long-nosed face looked closely into hers. She gasped and tore herself free and blew a fire-mite into the black mouth, and the creature departed, now concerned only with its own woeful destiny.

The hut was only a hundred yards distant, but the wolves had pulled Kul from the wole, which came to a confused and trembling halt while the wolves crowded in upon Kul. Finally, they carried him down and seethed over him in a yelping furry mass.

Kul found strength; he heaved himseif erect, to stand with sucker-arms clamped all over his body. Cursing and kicking, he tore himself free, then, lunging with his sword on high, seemed for a moment the Kul of old. But the wolves had tasted his blood and would not be denied. With snaps and yells they flung themselves upon Kul; he hacked and slashed, but his strokes were drained of force. He called to Glyneth: “Set up your house; secure yourself! I am done.”

Glyneth looked frantically from side to side, then jumped to the ground and prepared to do Kul’s bidding.

In the doorway of the hut appeared a tall man with dust-blond hair. Glyneth looked up incredulously and her knees went limp with joy. “Shimrod!”

“The portal is open, but not for long. Come.”

“You must save Kul!”

Shimrod stepped out on the plain. He held up his hand; from his fingers came darts of black fire, which, striking the wolves, shrivelled them to wisps of gray ash. A few fled shrieking to the east; the black darts followed them and struck them down one by one, and all were gone.

Glyneth ran to Kul and tried to support his swaying form. “Kul! We are saved! Shimrod has come!”

Kul looked around with dull eyes. He croaked: “Shimrod, I have done your bidding, to my best ability.”

“Kul, you have done well.”

“In truth, I am already dead; now I will lie down and become still.” Kul sank to his knees.

Glyneth cried out: “Kul, do not die! Shimrod will make you strong again!”

Kul spoke huskily: “Dear Glyneth, go back to Earth. I cannot come with you. I am a motley thing, held together with red blood, and now all my blood is gone. Glyneth, goodbye.”

Glyneth raved: “Kul, only a few moments more! Do not die! I love you dearly and I cannot leave you here! Kul? Can you speak?”

Shimrod took her arm and raised her to her feet. “Glyneth, it is time to go. You cannot help Kul; he is about to return to his matrices and it is better that you come with me. Kul’s body is dead but his love for you is very much alive. Come.”

SHIMROD LED GLYNETH TO THE HUT. She halted. “On the wole are two great swords; please, Shimrod, bring them with us.”

Shimrod led her to the door. “Go through the gate. I will go for the swords. But do not go out; wait for me in the hut.”

Numbly Glyneth stepped through the door and entered the hut. For an instant she looked back over her shoulder toward Kul. After a single glimpse she turned her head away.

Something was different. She breathed deeply. This was the air of Earth; it carried the beloved odor of her own foliage and her own soil.

Shimrod came into the hut, staggering under the weight of the two swords. He laid them upon the table and, turning to Glyneth, took her hands. “You loved Kul, and properly so; had you not I would think you heartless and unnatural, which is foolishness since I know your loving nature too well. Kul was a magical being, constructed from two patterns: the syaspic feroce and a barbarian pirate from a far moon, named Kul the Killer. These two patterns, superimposed, made a terrible creature, relentless and indomitable. To give it life, and a soul, with love and loyalty for you, we gave it the blood of someone who loves you. Indeed, he gave almost all his blood and also the whole strength of his soul. Kul is dead but these are alive.”

Glyneth, crying and smiling at the same time, asked: “And who was this person who loves me? Am I to know? Or must I guess?”

“I doubt if you need to guess.”

Glyneth looked at him sidelong. “You love me and Dhrun loves me, but I think that you are speaking of Aillas. … Is he outside?”

“No. I gave him no hint that the quaver was open. If you were not at the hut or if you had come to harm, he would only be tortured all over again. Kul did not fail and Murgen did not fail; and you are here. Now I will bring Aillas here by magic. You may come out when I call you.”

Shimrod departed the hut. Glyneth went to the table and looked down upon the swords Zil and Kahanthus, and her mind went back to Tanjecterly and the long way to Asphrodiske. For a moment she wondered as to Visbhume.

A minute passed. From outside she heard voices, and started to go out, then, remembering Shimrod’s instructions, waited.

Shimrod called: “Glyneth! Are you there? Or have you gone back to Tanjecterly?”

Glyneth went to the door and into the dappled sunlight of the forest. Beside a carriage Aillas waited for her.

Shimrod carried the swords to the carriage and said: “I will await you at Watershade; do not loiter along the way!” He went off through the forest and was gone.

Aillas came forward and took Glyneth in his arms. “My beloved Glyneth, I will never let you leave me again.”

After a moment he released her and looked carefully into her face.

Glyneth, smiling, asked: “Why do you look at me so?”

“Because under my very eyes you have become the most beautiful and appealing of all maidens alive.”

“Truly, Aillas? Despite my soiled clothes and dirty face?”

“Truly.”

Glyneth laughed. “Sometimes I despaired of attracting your attention.”

“No fear of that now. In fact I am afflicted with all the tremors and doubts of the uncertain lover. I am anxious to learn of your adventures. How did your paladin Kul serve you?”

“He served me so well that I came to love him too! I should say, I came to love that part of Kul which was you. I saw glimpses of the feroce and of Kul the Killer and both frightened me; and then always you seemed to appear and set things right.”

Aillas said ruefully: “I seem to have done much which I do not remember… . Well, no matter. Kul brought you back to me, so I must not be jealous. Here is our carriage. Let us be away to Watershade, and the happiest banquets the old stones have ever known.”

Epilog

THE GREEN PEARL is locked in a bottle and Tamurello’s guise, the skeleton of a crouching weasel in green aspic, is probably the least comfortable of any he has yet known… . The Forest of Tantrevalles shades a deep dank soil; somewhere under this mold lies the carcass of a snake which in better times used the name Visbhume; he no longer tippety-taps and moves and jerks to the rhythms of a propulsive inner music; and sometimes one wonders in cases like this: here is the dead thing; where has the music gone?

Tamurello and Visbhume are extraordinary folk, beyond a doubt, and both have come to grief. Still, the Elder Isles abound with remarkable folk, whose ambitions often transcend the advisable and sometimes even the possible.

As an example the Ska renegade Torqual might be cited. He has survived his wounds and now mends his strength in his inaccessible castle. Here he thinks bitter thoughts and forms gloomy plots, and he has vowed revenge upon the young Troice warrior who worked such grievous mischief upon him.

Queen Sollace of Lyonesse fervently hopes to build a cathedral. Father Umphred assures her that if King Casmir were converted to Christianity, he might be more sympathetic to the cathedral. Queen Sollace agrees, but how to convert King Casmir? Perhaps with the aid of some holy relic. Several centuries before, Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail down to the Elder Isles from Glastonbury Abbey; for Queen Soilace’s purposes the Holy Grail would serve very well, and Father Umphred enthusiastically agrees.

King Casmir is still perturbed by the prediction of Persilian the Magic Mirror and still lacks knowledge as to the identity of Suldrun’s first-born son.

The Princess Madouc of Lyonesse occupies an unenviable position. King Casmir knows her to be a changeling, with none of his blood flowing in her veins. Still, she may serve him some useful purpose when she reaches marriageable age. Madouc, by the very nature of things, is a strange little creature, with even less patience than the tragic Princess Suldrun for the conventions of the court at Haidion.

Glossary I

THE ELDER ISLES during the course of ten thousand years had known incursions, migrations, armed invasion, as well as the coming and going of traders to their commercial depots, at Ys, Avallon, Domreis and Bulmer Skeme: all founded by foreign traders.

From every direction came the newcomers: pre-glacial folk with identities lost to history; what indigenes they discovered can only be a matter of speculation. Later came Kornutians, Bithynians, a remarkable folk known as the Golden Khaz, and presently contingents of Escquahar (precursors elsewhere to the Basques, the Berbers of Morocco, the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and the Blue Men of Mauretania).

Then later, and sometimes in a succession of waves: Pelasgians, blond Sarsele from Tingitana, Danaans and Galicians from Spain, Greeks from Hellas, Sicily and Low Gaul; a few shiploads of Lydians turned away from Tuscany; Celts from all directions under a host of names; and in due course Romans from Aquitania, who toyed with the idea of conquest but presently departed, taking with them the Christian doxology. A few Goths and Armoricans settled along the shores of Wysrod, while new bands of Celts from Britain and Ireland took advantage of weak Daut rulers to establish the Kingdom of Godelia. Finally, from Norway by way of Ireland* came the Ska, who settled on Skaghane and other of the Outer Isles, from which they moved into North Ulfland.

•See Glossary II. this book. Also see LYONESSE 1: Suldrun’s Garden, Glossary III.

Glossary II

THE HISTORY OF THE SKA was an epic in itself. Originally the indigenous inhabitants of Norway since before the ice-age, they were expelled by invading Aryan Ur-Goths and driven south to Ireland where they entered Irish history as the Nemedians.

The Ur-goths, now supreme in Scandinavia, adopted Ska folk-ways and in due course sent hordes back into Europe: Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Gepids, Lombards, Angles, Saxons, and other German tribes. Those who remained in Scandinavia called themselves ‘Vikings’ and using boats built after the Ska designs, ranged the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the navigable rivers of Europe.

The Ska, defeated in Ireland by the Fomorians, again were compelled to migrate. They sailed south from Ireland to Skaghane, westernmost of the Elder Isles, where they found an environment much to their liking.

At a Grand Moot, they bound themselves by three great vows, which are basic to any understanding of the complex and contradictory Ska character:

First: Never again would the Ska be driven from their homeland. Second: The Ska were at war with all the world’s peoples: so it had been demonstrated; so it was. Third: The blood of the Ska race ran pure. Interbreeding with Otherling sub-folk was a crime as abominable as treachery, cowardice or murder.

Glossary III

AiLLAS HAD BEEN THE LOVER of Casmir’s daughter, Suldrun, and the father of their son, Dhrun, who had been taken by the fairies of Thripsey Shee and replaced with the half-fairy changeling who became the Princess Madouc of Lyonesse.

Happily for King Casmir’s peace of mind, he knew nothing of these facts and so was mightily perplexed by the prophecy uttered by the magic mirror Persilian, to the effect that Suldrun’s first-born son before his death would sit on the throne Evandig and also in honour and authority at the Board of Notables, the ancient ‘Gairbra an Meadhan’… this table in fact, the model for the Round Table of King Arthur of Cornwall, still two generations in the future.