Madouc

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Upon returning to Castle Haidion, King Casmir went into virtual seclusion. He attended no court functions, received no visitors, granted no audiences. For the most part he kept to his private chambers, where he paced up and down the length of his parlour, pausing occasionally by the window to look out over the town and the gray-blue Lir beyond. Queen Sollace dined with him each night, but Casmir had little to say, so that more often than not Sollace lapsed into plaintive silence. After four days of brooding, Casmir summoned Sir Baltasar, a trusted counsellor and envoy. Casmir gave Sir Baltasar careful instructions and sent him off on a secret mission to Godelia.

Upon the departure of Sir Baltasar, Casmir resumed many of his former routines, though his mood had changed. He had become terse, sharp in his commands, bitter in his judgments, and those who ran afoul either of Casmir or his justice now, more than ever, had cause for regret.

In due course Sir Baltasar returned, dusty and haggard from hard riding. He reported at once to King Casmir: "I arrived at Dun Cruighre without incident. The town lacks all grace; you might well hesitate to stable your horses in the royal palace."

"King Dartweg would not receive me immediately. At first I thought his motives to be sheer Celtic perversity, but later I learned that he was entertaining certain grandees from Ireland, and all were drunk. Finally he agreed to receive me, but even then he kept me standing to the side of his hall while he settled a dispute dealing with the breeding of a cow. The wrangling went on for an hour and was interrupted twice by dog fights. I tried to follow the litigation but found it beyond my understanding. The cow had been freshened by a prize bull without authorization and free of charge, by reason of a break in the fence; the cow owner not only refused to pay the stud fee, but beseeched a penalty for the illicit advantage taken of his cow by the amorous bull. King Dartweg was now gnawing a bone and drinking mead from a horn. He adjudicated the case in a manner I still find perplexing, but which must have been equitable, since it pleased no one.

"I was at last brought forward and presented to the king, who was quite drunk. He asked me my business; I said that I wished a private audience, that I might deliver the confidential messages entrusted to me by Your Highness. He waved high the bone upon which he was gnawing and declared that he saw no reason for ‘fiddle-faddle'; that I must speak out brave and bold like a good Celt. Stealth and furtive timidity were useless, he claimed; and secrecy was pointless, since everyone knew my business as well as I knew it myself; indeed, he could give me his answer without my so much as hinting of my mission; would that be suitable? He thought so, since it would expedite affairs and enlarge the time for tilting of the horn.

"I maintained as much dignity as was possible under the circumstances, and stated that protocol compelled me to request a private audience. He handed me a homful of mead and told me to swallow all at a single draught, and this I managed to do, thereby gaining King Dartweg's favor, and allowing me to mutter my message into his ear.

"In the end I spoke with King Dartweg on three occasions. Each time he sought to fill me full of strong mead, apparently hoping that I should become foolish and dance a jig, or babble my secrets. Needless to say, the attempt was fruitless, and in the end he began to find me a dull fellow, drunk or sober, and became surly. At our last meeting he blurted out his fixed and settled policies. In essence, he wants the fruits of victory with none of the risks. He will join our cause gladly, once we demonstrate that we have gained the upper hand over our enemies."

"That is certainly a policy of caution," said Casmir. "He has everything to gain and nothing to lose."

"He acknowledged as much, and said that it was in the best interests of his health, since only a program of this sort allowed him to sleep well of nights.

"I spoke of the need for a specific undertaking; he only waved his hand and said that you were not to worry on his account. He claimed that he would know the precise instant when the time was ripe and then he would be on hand in full force."

King Casmir grunted. "We are listening to the voice of an opportunistic braggart! What next?"

"From Dun Cruighre I journeyed by ship to Skaghane, where I met a dozen frustrations but gained no profit. The Ska are not only inscrutable and opaque in their conversation, but large in their manner. They neither want nor need alliances, and have a positive aversion for all folk but themselves. I broached the matter at hand, but they brushed it aside, giving neither ‘yes' nor ‘no', as if the matter were arrant nonsense. From Skaghane I bring back no news whatever."

Casmir rose to his feet and began to pace back and forth. He spoke, more to himself than to Sir Baltasar: "We are assured only of ourselves. Dartweg and his Celts in the end will serve us, out of greed. Pomperol and Blaloc will stand rigid, paralyzed by fear. I had hoped for distraction, or even rebellion, among the Ulfs, but they merely crouch like sullen animals in their high glens. Torqual, despite my great expense, has done nothing. He and his witchwoman are fugitives; they maraud along the moors by night, and take cover by day. The peasants consider them ghouls. Sooner or later they will be brought to bay and slaughtered like wild beasts. No one will mourn them."

II

Shimrod sat in his garden, somnolent in the shade of a bay tree. His garden was at its best. Pink hollyhocks stood like shy maidens in a row along the front of his manse; elsewhere blue delphinium, daisies, marigolds, alyssum, verbena, wallflowers, and much else grew in casual clumps and clusters.

Shimrod sat with eyes half closed, letting his mind wander without restraint: through follies and fancies, along unfamiliar landscapes. He came to an engaging notion: if odors could be represented by color, then the scent of grass could be nothing else but fresh green. In the same way, the perfume of a rose must inevitably be rendered by velvet red, and the scent of he liotrope would be a ravishing lavender purple.

Shimrod conceived a dozen other such equivalences, and was surprised how often and how closely his colors, derived by induction, matched the natural and irrefutable color of the object from which the odor originated. It was a remarkable correspondence! Could it be ascribed to simple coincidence? Even the acrid tang of the daisy seemed perfectly consonant with the white, so prim and stark, of the flower itself!

Shimrod smiled, wondering whether similar transferences, involving the other senses, might exist. The mind was a marvellous instrument, thought Shimrod; when left to wander untended, it often arrived at curious destinations. Shimrod watched a lark flying across the meadow. The scene was tranquil. Perhaps too tranquil, too serene, too quiet. It was easy to become melancholy thinking how quickly the days slipped past. What was lacking at Trilda was the sound of conviviality and happy voices.

Shimrod sat up in his chair. The work must be done, and sooner was better than later. He rose to his feet and after a last look around Lally Meadow went to his workroom. The tables, once stacked high with a miscellany of articles, were now greatly reduced of their burden. Much of what remained was stubborn stuff, obscure, arcane, or intrinsically complex, or perhaps it had been rendered incomprehensible by Tamurello's eery tricks.

To one of the articles still under investigation Shimrod had given the name ‘Lucanor', after the Druidic god of Primals.*

Lucanor-the magical artifice, or toy-consisted of seven transparent disks, a hand's-breadth in diameter. They rolled around the edge of a circular tablet of black onyx, at varying speeds. The disks swam with soft colors, and occasionally showed pulsing black spots of emptiness, coming and going apparently at random.

A Druidic myth relates how Lucanor, coming upon the other gods as they sat at the banquet table, found them drinking mead in grand style, to the effect that several were drunk, while others remained inexplicably sober; could some be slyly swilling down more than their share?

The disparity led to bickering, and it seemed that a serious quarrel was brewing. Lucanor bade the group to serenity, stating that the controversy no doubt could be settled without recourse either to blows or to bitterness. Then and there Lucanor formulated the concept of numbers and enumeration, which heretofore had not existed. The gods henceforth could tally with precision the number of horns each had consumed and, by this novel method, assure general equity and, further, explain why some were drunk and others not. "The answer, once the new method is mastered, becomes simple!" explained Lucanor. "It is that the drunken gods have taken a greater number of horns than the sober gods, and the mystery is resolved." For this, the invention of mathematics, Lucanor was given great honour.

Shimrod found the disks a source of perplexity. They moved independently of each other, or so it seemed, so that in their circuit of the tablet, one might pass another, and in turn be overtaken by still a third. At times two disks rolled in tandem, so that one was superimposed upon the other, as if an attraction held them together for a few instants. Then they would break apart and each would once more roll its own course. At rare intervals, even a third disk might arrive while two disks rolled together, and for a space the third disk also would linger, for a period perceptibly longer than if just two disks were together. Shimrod once or twice had observed what would seem to be a very rare chance, when four disks chanced to roll together around the tablet, and then they clung together for perhaps twenty seconds before parting company.

Shimrod had placed Lucanor on a bench where it could catch the afternoon sunlight, and also where it most efficiently distracted him from his other work. Was Lucanor a toy, or a complex curio, or an analog representing some larger process? He wondered if ever five of the seven disks might roll in unison, or six, or even all seven. He tried to calculate the probability of such concurrences, without success. The chances, while real, must be exceedingly remote, so he reflected.

At times, when a pair of disks rolled together, their black spots, or holes, might develop simultaneously and sometimes overlapped. On one occasion, when three disks rolled in unison, black spots grew on each of the three, and by some freak, they were superimposed. Shimrod squinted through the aligned holes as the disks rolled past; to his surprise he saw flickering lines of fire, like far lightning. The black holes disappeared; the disks parted company, to roll their separate courses as before.

Shimrod stood back in contemplation of Lucanor. The device undoubtedly served a serious purpose-but what? He could arrive at no sensible theory. Perhaps he should bring Lucanor to the attention of Murgen. Shimrod temporized, since he would far prefer to resolve the puzzle himself. Three of Tamurello's ledgers remained to be deciphered; there might be a reference to Lucanor in one or another of the tomes.

Shimrod returned to his work, but continued to watch the seven disks, causing him such distraction that at last he put a low-order sandestin on watch for unusual coincidences, and then took Lucanor to a far corner of the workroom.

The days passed; Shimrod found no reference to Lucanor in the ledgers, and gradually lost interest in the disks. One morning, Shimrod took himself to his workroom as usual. Almost as soon as he passed through the door, the sandestin monitor called out an alarm: "Shimrod! Attend your disks! Five roll together in congruence!"

Shimrod crossed the room on swift strides. He looked down in something like awe. For a fact, five of the disks had joined to roll as one around the periphery of the tablet. Further, the disks showed no disposition to separate. And what was this? A sixth disk came rolling to overtake the five, and as Shimrod watched, it edged close, shuddered, merged into place with the others.

Shimrod watched in fascination, certain that he was witnessing an important event or, more likely, the representation of such an event. And now the seventh and last disk came to join the others, and the seven rolled as one. The single disk changed in color, to become marbled maroon and purple-black; it rolled lethargically, and showed no disposition to break apart. At the center a black spot grew dense and large. Shimrod bent to look through the hole; he saw what appeared to be a landscape of black objects outlined in golden fire.

Shimrod jerked away from Lucanor and ran to his workbench. He struck a small silver gong and waited, looking into a round mirror. Murgen failed to acknowledge the signal. Shimrod struck the gong again, more sharply. Again: no effect.

Shimrod stood back, face drawn into lines of concern. Murgen occasionally went to walk on the parapets. Infrequently, he left Swer Smod, sometimes by reasons of urgency, sometimes for sheer frivolity. Usually he notified Shimrod of his movements.

Shimrod struck the gong a third time. The result was as be fore: silence.

Troubled and uneasy, Shimrod turned away, and went back to stare at Lucanor.

III

Along the crest of the Teach tac Teach, from the Troagh in the south to the Gwyr Aig Rift in the north, a line of crags stood in a stern sequence, each more harsh and forbidding than the next. At about the center Mount Sobh raised a trapezoidal jut of granite high to split the passing clouds; Arra Kaw, next to the north, was if anything even more harsh and desolate.

Where the high moors broke against the base of Arra Kaw five tall dolmens, the ‘Sons of Arra Kaw', stood in a circle, enclosing an area forty feet in diameter. Where the westernmost stone gave a measure of protection against the wind, a rude hut had been built, of stones and sod. Clouds raced across the sky, passing in front of the sun to send shadows fleeting across the dun moors. Wind blew through gaps between the five Sons, creating a soft wailing sound which sometimes throbbed and fluttered to the changing force and direction of the wind.

Before the hut a small fire burned fitfully below an iron kettle which hung from a spindly tripod. Beside the fire stood Torqual, looking bleakly down into the blaze. Melancthe, impassive, if somewhat wan, and wrapped in a heavy brown cloak, knelt across from Torqual, stirring the contents of the kettle. She had cut her hair short and wore a soft leather casque which clasped her glossy dark curls close to her face.

Torqual thought he heard a calling voice. He jerked around, cocked his head to listen. He turned to Melancthe, who had raised her head. Torqual asked: "Did you hear the call?"

"Perhaps."

Torqual went to a gap between the Sons and peered out across the moors. Ten miles to the north the crag known as Tangue Fna reared even higher and more steeply than Arra Kaw. Between the two crags spread high moors, dappled by moving cloud shadows. Torqual saw a hawk, sliding eastward down the wind. As he watched, the hawk uttered a wild cry, almost inaudible.

Torqual allowed himself to relax, reluctantly, so it seemed, as if he were not averse that someone should dare attack him. He turned back toward the fire, and halted in frowning puzzlement. Melancthe, her face rapt, had risen to her feet and was walking slowly toward the hut. In the gloom behind the doorway Torqual was startled to observe the shape of a woman. Torqual stared. Was his mind playing hith tricks? The shape seemed not only nude, but also distorted, insubstantial and illuminated as if by a dim green glow.

Melancthe, on stiff legs, stepped into the hut. Torqual started to follow, but halted by the fire to stand irresolute, wondering if he had seen correctly. He listened. For a moment the wind ceased its noise and from the hut he seemed to hear the murmur of voices.

The situation could no longer be ignored. Torqual started for the hut, but before he could take three steps Melancthe emerged, walking with a firm step and carrying a short-handled implement formed of greenish-silver metal which Torqual had never seen before. He took it to be an ornamental hatchet, or a small halberd with a complex blade to one side and a four-inch spike to the other. A similar spike protruded from the tip. Melancthe approached the fire, walking with a slow and measured tread, her face stern and somber. He watched her come with dour suspicion; this was not Melancthe as he knew her! Something untoward had occurred.

Torqual spoke curtly: "Who is the woman in the hut?"

"There is no one there."

"I heard voices and I saw a woman. Perhaps she was a witch, since she lacked both substance and clothing."

"So it may be."

"What is that~weapon, or tool, you are carrying?"

Melancthe looked at the implement as if seeing it for the first time. "It is a hatchet thing."

Torqual held out his hand. "Give it to me."

Melancthe, smiling, shook her head. "The touch of the blade would kill you."

"You touch it and you are not dead."

"I am inured to green magic."

Torqual went on long strides to the hut. Melancthe watched impassively. Torqual looked into the gloom: right, left, up and down, but discovered nothing. He returned thoughtfully to the fire. "The woman is gone. Why did you speak with her?"

"The whole story must wait. As of this instant, I can tell you this: an event of importance has occurred, for which plans have long been made. You and I must go now to do what needs to be done."

Torqual said harshly: "Speak in clear terms, if you please, and leave off your riddles!"

"Exactly so! You shall hear not riddles, but definite orders." Melancthe's voice was heavy and strong; she stood with head thrown back, eyes showing a green glitter. "Arm yourself and bring up the horses. We leave this place at once."

Torqual glowered across the fire. He controlled his voice with an effort. "I obey neither man nor woman. I go where I choose, and do only as I find needful."

"The need has come."

"Ha! The need is not mine."

"The need is yours. You must honour the compact you made with Zagzig the shybalt."

Torqual, taken aback, frowned across the fire. He said at last: "That was long ago. The ‘compact', as you put it, was only loose talk over wine."

"Not so! Zagzig offered the most beautiful woman alive, who would serve you as you wished and wherever you went, so long as you defended her and her interests in time of need. To this you agreed."

"I see none of this need," grumbled Torqual.

"I assure you that it exists."

"Explain it, then!"

"You shall see for yourself. We ride to Swer Smod, to do what needs be done."

Torqual stared in new astonishment. "That is fateful folly! Even I fear Murgen; he is supreme!"

"Not now! A way has opened and someone else is supreme! But time is of the essence! We must act before the way closes! So come, while power is ours! Or do you prefer skulking your life away on these windy moors?"

Torqual turned on his heel. He left the area and saddled the horses and the two departed the five Sons of Arra Kaw. At best speed they rode across the moor, at times outracing the cloud shadows. Arriving at a trail, they veered to the east and followed the trail down the mountainside: back, forth, across tumbles of scree, down declivities and gullies, at last to come out upon the bulge of a bluff overlooking Swer Smod. They dismounted and clambered down the hillside afoot, halting in the shadow of the castle's outer walls.

Melancthe took the leather casque from her head and wrapped it around the head of the halberd-hatchet. She spoke, in a voice harsh as stone grinding on stone. "Take the hatchet. I can carry it no farther. Do not touch the blade; it will suck out your life."

Torqual gingerly took the black wood handle. "What am I to do with it?"

"I will instruct you. Listen to my voice but, henceforth, do not look back, no matter what happens. Go now to the front portal. I will come behind. Do not look back."

Torqual scowled, finding the venture ever less to his taste. He set off around the wall. Behind him he heard a soft sound: a sigh, a gasp, then Melancthe's footsteps.

At the front portal Torqual halted to survey the forecourt, where Vus and Vuwas, the devils who guarded the postern, had contrived a new entertainment to help while away the time. They had trained a number of cats to perform the function of war-chargers. The cats were caparisoned with gay clothes, fine saddles and a variety of noble emblems, that they might serve as proper steeds for knightly rats, themselves well-trained and clad in shining mail and gallant helmets. Their weapons were wooden swords and padded tourney lances; as the devils watched, placed wagers and cried out in excitement, the rat knights spurred their cat chargers and sent them springing down the lists in the effort to unseat each other.

Melancthe stepped through the portal; Torqual started to follow. A voice behind him said: "Go easy and quiet; the devils are intent upon their game; we shall try to slip by unnoticed."

Torqual stopped short. The voice said sharply: "Do not turn! Melancthe will do what is needful; so she justifies her life!"

Torqual saw that Melancthe was now as before: the pensive maiden he had first met in the white villa by the sea.

The voice said: "Go now, and quietly. They will not notice." Torqual followed Melancthe; they went unseen along the side of the forecourt. At the last moment, the red devil Vuwas, his rat and cat having been defeated, swung away in disgust and so glimpsed the intruders. "Hoa!" he cried out. "Who thinks to pass, on sly knees and long toes? I smell evil at work!" He called his associate. "Vus, come! We have work to do!"

Melancthe spoke in a metallic voice: "Go back to your game, good devils! We are here to assist Murgen in his wizardry, and we are late, so let us pass!"

"That is the language of interlopers! Folk of virtue bring us gratuities! That is how we distinguish good from evil! You would seem to represent the latter category."

"That is a mistake," said Melancthe politely. "Next time we will surely do better." She turned to Torqual. "Go at once; ask Murgen to step out and certify our quality. I will wait and watch the jousting."

Torqual sidled away as Vus and Vuwas were momentarily distracted. "Start a new course at the lists!" called Melancthe. "I will place a wager. Which is the champion rat?"

"Just a minute!" cried Vus. "What is that disgusting green shadow which dogs your back?"

"It is of no consequence," said Torqual. He hastened his pace and so arrived at the tall iron door. The voice behind him said, "Bare the edge of the hatchet and cut the hinges! Take care not to damage the point; it must serve another purpose!"

A cry of sudden anguish sounded from the forecourt. "Do not look back!" grated the voice. Torqual had already turned. The devils, so he discovered, had fallen upon Melancthe, and were chasing her back and forth across the yard, kicking with taloned feet and striking out with great horny fists. Torqual stared, irresolute, half of a mind to interfere. The voice spoke harshly: "Cut the hinges! Be quick!"

From the side of his eye Torqual glimpsed the distorted semblance of a woman, formed from a pale green gas. He jerked away, eyes starting from his head, stomach knotted in revulsion.

"Cut the hinges!" rasped the voice.

Torqual spoke in a fury: "You impelled me this far by reason of my idle words with Zagzig! I will not deny them, since nothing remains of my honour save the sanctity of my word. But the compact concerned Melancthe, and now she is beyond need. I will not serve you; that again is my word, and you may rely upon it!"

"But you must," said the voice. "Do you want inducement? What do you crave? Power? You shall be king of Skaghane, if you choose, or all the Ulflands!"

"I want no such power."

"Then I will drive you by pain, though it costs me dear in strength to do so, and you shall suffer sadly for my inconvenience."

Torqual heard a thin hissing sound of great effort; he was gripped at the back of his head, behind his ears, by sharp pincerlike fingers; they pressed deep and the pain caused his sight to go dim and his mind to segment into irresolute parts. "Cut the hinges with the edge of the hatchet; be careful of the point."

Torqual drew the leather away from the curved green-silver blade and slashed at the iron hinges. They melted like butter under a hot knife; the door fell open.

"Enter!" said the voice, and the pincers applied new pressure. Torqual stumbled forward into Swer Smod's entry hail. "Ahead now! Down the gallery at best speed!"

With eycs starting from his head, Torqual went at a shambling run down the gallery and so arrived at the great hall.

"We are in time," said the voice with satisfaction. "Go forward."

In the hall Torqual came upon a curious scene. Murgen sat stiff and still in his chair, gripped by six long thin arms, putty-gray in color, sparsely overgrown with coarse black hairs. The arms terminated in enormous hands, two of which gripped Murgen's ankles; two more pinioned his wrists; the final two covered his face, leaving only his two gray eyes visible. The arms extended from a slit or a notch opening into another space directly behind Murgen's chair. The aperture admitted, along with the arms, a faint suffusion of green light.

The voice said: "I now give you surcease from pain. Obey precisely, or it will return a hundredfold! My name is Desmei; I command great power. Do you hear?"

"I hear."

"Do you notice a glass globe dangling from a chain?"

"I see it."

"It contains green plasm and the skeleton of a weasel. You must climb upon a chair, cut the chain with the hatchet and with great care bring down the globe. With the point of the hatchet, you shall puncture the globe, allowing me to extract the plasm and therewith restore my full strength. I will seal the bubble once more, and compress and close Murgen into a similar bubble. Then I will have achieved my aims, and you shall be rewarded in such style as you deserve. I tell you this so that you may act with precision. Do I make myself clear?"

"You are clear."

"Act then! Up with you! Cut the chain, using all delicacy."

Torqual climbed upon a chair. His face was now on a level with the weasel skeleton inside the glass globe. The beady black eyes stared into his own. Torqual raised the hatchet and, as if accidentally, slashed at the glass bubble, so that green plasm began to seep out. From below came a horrid scream of fury: "You have broken the glass!"

Torqual cut the chain and allowed the globe to fall; striking the floor it broke into a dozen pieces, sending green plasm spurting in all directions. The weasel skeleton uncoiled painfully from its ‘hunched position and scuttled to hide under a chair. Desmei hurled herself to the floor and gathered as much of the green plasm as possible, and so began to assume physical form, showing first the outlines of internal organs, then a fixing of her contours. Back and forth she crawled, sucking up seepages of the green with her mouth and tongue.

A sibilant voice came to Torqual's ears: "Take the hatchet! Stab her with the point! Do not hesitate, or we will all be in torment forever!"

Torqual seized the hatchet; a swift step took him to Desmei. She saw him coming and cried out in fear. "Do not strike!" She rolled away and pulled herself to her feet. Torqual was after her, and followed her step by step, hatchet held before him, until Desmei backed into a wall and could retreat no further. "Do not strike! I will be nothing! It is my death!"

Torqual thrust the point through Desmei's neck; her substance seemed to be sucked into the blade of the hatchet, which swelled in size as Desmei shrank and dissipated.

Desmei was gone.' Torqual was left holding a heavy short-handled hatchet with a complicated blade of silver-green metal. He turned and brought the hatchet back to the table. Tamurello, the weasel skeleton, had emerged from under the chair; he had grown in size until now he stood as tall as Torqual. From a cabinet, Tamurello brought out a board four feet long and two feet wide, on which rested the simulacrum of a strange gray creature, human in general configuration, with glistening gray skin, short hairy neck, heavy head with smeared features and the filmy eyes of a dead fish. A hundred gelatinous ribbons bound the creature to the board, restraining every twitch of movement.

Tamurello looked at Torqual. "Can you name this thing, which is only an image of reality?"

‘No.

"I will tell you then. It is Joald, and Murgen has given his life to the restraint of this thing, despite the forces which try for its liberation. Before I kill Murgen, he shall watch me destroy his earnest effort, and he shall know that Joald arises. Murgen, do you hear me?"

Murgen made a throaty sound.

"Little time remains before the way closes and the arms draw back. But there is time enough for all, and first, I will liberate the monster. Torqual!"

"I am here."

"Certain bonds hold Joald in check!"

"I see them."

"Take your sword and cut the bonds, and I will sing the chant. Cut!"

From Murgen came a thin keening sound. Torqual daunted, stood hesitant.

Tamurello croaked: "Do my bidding; you will share with me my wealth and magical power; I swear it! Cut!"

Torqual came slowly forward. Tamurello began to chant monosyllables, of the most profound import. They tore the air and incited Torqual into half-hypnotic motion. His arm lifted; his blade gleamed on high. Down came the blade! The strand binding Joald's right wrist parted.

"Cut!" screamed Tamurello.

Torqual cut; the ribbons binding Joald's elbow parted with a hiss and snap! The arm pulsed and twisted.

"Cut!"

Torqual raised the sword and cut the strand at Joald's neck. Tamurello's chant reverberated through the castle, so that the stones sang and hissed.

"Cut! Cut! Cut!" screamed Tamurello. "Murgen, oh Murgen! Taste my triumph! Taste, and weep bitter tears, for the waste I shall do to your pretty things!"

Torqual cut the ribbon binding Joald's forehead, while Tamurello intoned the great spell: the most terrible chant yet heard in the world. Deep in the ocean Joald took sluggish cognizance of his loosened bonds. He strained against the remaining filaments; he heaved and kicked, and struck the submarine pillars which ultimately prevented the Teach tac Teach from sliding into the sea, and the land shuddered. Joald's enormous black right arm was free; he raised it high, groping and clutching with monstrous black fingers, that he might achieve the destruction of the Elder Isles. The arm broke the surface; sheets of green ocean cascaded down to churn up foam. By dint of an awful struggle Joald thrust the top of his head above the surface, where it became a sudden new island, with bony ridges cresting along the center; waves two hundred feet high surged away in all directions.

At Trilda, Shimrod struck the silver gong yet again, then turned away and went to a box hanging on the wall. He opened the front panels, spoke three words and applied his eye to a crystal lens. For a moment he stood rigid; then, stumbling back, he ran to his cabinet, buckled on his sword, pulled a cap down upon his head and went to stand on a disk of black stone. He uttered a spell of instant transfer and in a trice stood in the forecourt of Swer Smod. Vus and Vuwas still toyed with the bloody rag that once had been Melancthe. At their behest the torn body jerked back and forth in a grisly jig, while they chortled and complimented the indefatigable vitality of the thing. They gave Shimrod a pair of quick suspicious glances, just long enough to recognize him, and in any case were bored with their routine duties and so allowed him to pass without challenge.

Shimrod stepped through the broken doorway, and at once felt the force of Tamurello's chant. He ran down the gallery and burst into the great hail. Murgen sat as before, constricted by the six arms from Xabiste. The weasel skeleton, as it chanted the great spell, seemed to be altering shape and taking on substance. Torqual, standing beside the table, took note of Shimrod's arrival. He stood glowering, sword raised on high.

Shimrod cried out: "Torqual! Are you mad that you obey Tamurello?"

Torqual spoke in dull voice: "I do what I choose to do."

"Then you are worse than mad, and you must die."

"It is you who shall die," said Torquai in a voice of fate.

Shimrod came forward with drawn sword. He hacked down upon the weasel skeleton, and cleaved it to the fragile pelvis. The chant abruptly stopped, and Tamureilo was a heap of twitching bone-splinters.

Torqual looked at the simulacrum of Joald, now writhing against his remaining bonds. Torqual muttered under his breath:

"So this is the purpose of my life? I am mad indeed."

Shimrod swung his sword in an arc which would have taken Torqual's head from his torso had it struck home; Torqual jerked aside. Emotion came upon him in a frenzy; he flung himself at Shimrod with such wild energy that Shimrod was forced back upon the defensive. So the two fought, in a mutual fury: slash, hack, thrust.

Beside the table the scatter of bones had pulled together to form a random construction with the glittering black eyes looking out, one low, the other high. A spindly arm clawed at the hatchet, raised it high, while from the tangle of bones came a croaking voice chanting the great spell.

Shimrod dodged back from Torqual, threw a chair to impede him, then cut at the arm holding the hatchet. The arm splintered; the hatchet fell to the floor. Shimrod picked up the hatchet and as Torqual charged upon him, flung it into Torqual's face. Torqual's head and face shriveled and disappeared; his sword fell clattering to the floor, followed by his body.

Shimrod turned back to the table. The way into Xabiste was closing; to Shimrod's horror the arms, rather than disengaging, were drawing Murgen, chair and all, back through the slit.

Shimrod hacked at the thin gray arms. The hands fell to the floor, fingers clenching and unclenching. Murgen was free. He stood erect, and stepping forward, looked down at Joald. He uttered four plangent words. Joald's head lolled back; the arm dropped down beside the hulking torso.

In the Atlantic, the island created by the appearance of Joald's black pate sank beneath the surface. The arm fell with an enormous splash, creating a wave four hundred feet high which rolled toward the coast of South Ulfland. It struck full into the estuary of the Evander and sent a monstrous wall of water rushing up the valley, and the fabulous city Ys was lost.

Where Joald had lurched and kicked away the buttresses under Hybras Isle, the ground shuddered and sank, and Evander Vale, with its palaces and gardens, became an inlet of the sea.

North up the Ulfish coast, almost as far as Oaldes, the shore-side towns were drowned and the populations washed into the sea. When the waters became calm, Ys of the Ages, Ys the Beautiful, Ys of the Many Palaces, was sunk beneath the sea. In later times, when the light was right and the water clear, fishermen sometimes glimpsed the wonderful structures of marble, where nothing moved but schools of fish.

IV

There was heavy silence in the great hail at Swer Smod. Murgen stood immobile by the table; Shimrod leaned against the wall. On the table the Joald simulacrum lay inert. The splintered bones of the weasel skeleton lay in a heap, showing no vitality save for the glitter of two black eyes. On the table the blade of the hatchet-halberd had altered, swelling and becoming first globular, then gradually taking on the semblance of a human face.

After a moment Murgen turned toward Shimrod. He spoke in a heavy voice. "So now we have known tragedy. I cannot blame myself-but only because I cannot spare the energy. In truth, I fear that I became complacent, even arrogant, in the fullness of my strength and the certainty that no one would dare challenge me. I was wrong, and tragic events have occurred. Still, I may not allow myself to be injured by remorse."

Shimrod approached the table. "These things-are they still alive?"

"They are alive: Tamurello and Desmei, and desperately scheming for survival. This time I shall not dally with them and they shall fail." Murgen went to one of his cabinets and threw wide the doors. He worked at a whirling apparatus and in due course evoked a glare of pink light and a queer fluting voice: "Murgen, I speak across the unthinkable gulf!"

"I do the same," said Murgen. "How goes your war with Xabiste?"

"Well enough. We ordered the whorl Sirmish and flushed the green from Fangusto. However, at Mang Meeps they came in force; the place is now infested."

"A pity! But take cheer! I now give you two hybrid demons, Desmei and Tamurello, both reeking with green."

"This is a pleasant event."

"Just so. You may send a trendnl to take the pair, and to seek out any sops and seepages of green which they might have exuded."

For an instant the hall flickered with pink light; when it subsided the hatchet and the pile of bones were gone.

Murgen spoke: "Take the pair to the deepest pits of Myrdal, and seek out the hottest fires. There destroy them utterly, so that not even their last regrets linger in the flux. I will wait to learn of this final disposition."

"You must be patient!" said the effrit. "A deed worth doing is worth doing well! I shall be at least ten of your seconds, with another two seconds for my ritual cleansing."

"I will wait."

Twelve seconds passed. The effrit from Myrdal spoke once more. "The deed is done. Of the two demons neither jot, atom, breath, thought nor tittle remain. The pits of Myrdal burn hot."

"Excellent!" said Murgen. "I wish you continued success against the green." He closed the cabinet, and turned back to the table, where he reinforced the bonds which held Joald quiescent.

Shimrod watched with disapproval. "Joald should also be de stroyed."

Murgen spoke in a soft voice. "He is protected. Only this much is allowed to us, and then grudgingly."

"Who protects him?"

"Some of the old gods still live."

"Atlante?"

For a long moment Murgen said nothing. Then: "Certain names should not be named and certain topics are best not discussed."