The Sword of Rhiannon

XIX. Judgment of the Quiru

The whole world seemed hushed and still in the dawn as their barge went down to Sark. None of them spoke and none of them looked back at the vast white steam that still rolled solemnly up across the sky.

Carse felt numbed, drained of all emotion. He had let the wrath of Rhiannon use him and he could not yet feel quite the same. He knew that there was something of it still in his face, for the other two would not quite meet his eyes nor did they break the silence.

The great crowd gathered on the waterfront of Sark was silent too. It seemed that they had stood there for long looking toward Caer Dhu, and even now, after the glare of its destruction had died out of the sky, they stared with white, frightened faces.

Carse looked out at the Khond longships riding with their sails slack against the yards and knew that that terrible blaze had awed the Sea Kings into waiting.

The black barge glided in to the palace stair. The crowd surged forward as Ywain stepped ashore, their voices rising in a strange hushed clamor. And Ywain spoke to them.

“Caer Dhu and the Serpent both are gone—destroyed by the Lord Rhiannon.”

She turned instinctively toward Carse. And the eyes of all that vast throng dwelt upon him as the word spread, growing at last to an overwhelming cry of thankfulness. “Rhiannon! Rhiannon the Deliverer!” He was the Cursed One no longer, at least not to these Sarks. And for the first time, Carse realized the loathing they had had for the allies Gararch had forced upon them.

He walked toward the palace with Ywain and Boghaz and knew with a sense of awe how it felt to be a god. They entered the dim cool walls and it seemed already as though a shadow had gone out of them. Ywain paused at the doors of the throne room as though she had just remembered that she was ruler now in Garach’s place.

She turned to Carse and said, “If the Sea Kings still attack…”

“They won’t—not until they know what happened. And now we must find Rold if he still lives.”

“He lives,” said Ywain. “After the Dhuvians emptied Rold of his knowledge my father held him as hostage for me.”

They found the Lord of Khondor at last, chained in the dungeons deep under the palace walls. He was wasted and drawn with suffering but he still had the spirit left to raise his red head and snarl at Carse and Ywain.

“Demon,” he said. “Traitor. Have you and your hellcat come at last to kill me?”

Carse told him the story of Caer Dhu and Rhiannon, watching Rold’s expression change slowly from savage despair to a stunned and unbelieving joy.

“Your fleet stands off Sark under Ironbeard,” he finished. “Will you take this word to the Sea Kings and bring them in to parley?”

“Aye,” said Rold. “By the gods I will!” He stared at Carse, shaking his head. “A strange dream of madness these last days have been! And now—to think that I would have slain you gladly in the place of the Wise Ones with my own hand!”

That was shortly after dawn. By noon the council of the Sea Kings was assembled in the throne room with Rold at their head and Emer, who had refused to stay behind in Khondor.

They sat around a long table. Ywain occupied the throne and Carse stood apart from all of them. His face was stern and very weary and there was in it still a hint of strangeness.

He said with finality, “There need be no war now. The Serpent is gone and without its power Sark can no longer oppress her neighbors. The subject cities, like Jekkara and Valkis, will be freed. The empire of Sark is no more.”

Ironbeard leaped to his feet, crying fiercely. “Then now is our chance to destroy Sark forever!”

Others of the Sea Kings rose, Thorn of Tarak loud among them, shouting their assent. Ywain’s hand tightened upon her sword.

Carse stepped forward, his eyes blazing. “I say there will be peace! Must I call upon Rhiannon to enforce my word?”

They quieted, awed by that threat, and Rold bade them sit and hold their tongues.

“There has been enough of fighting and bloodshed,” he told them sternly. “And for the future we can meet Sark on equal terms. I am Lord of Khondor and I say that Khondor will make peace!”

Caught between Carse’s threat and Rold’s decision the Sea Kings one by one agreed. Then Emer spoke. “The slaves must all be freed—human and Halfling alike.”

Carse nodded. “It will be done.”

“And,” said Rold, “there is another condition.” He faced Carse with unalterable determination. “I have said we will make peace with Sark—but not, though you bring fifty Rhiannons against us, with a Sark that is ruled by Ywain!”

“Aye,” roared the Sea Kings, looking wolf-eyed at Ywain. “That is our word also.”

There was a silence then and Ywain rose from the high seat, her face proud and sombre.

“The condition is met,” she said. “I have no wish to rule over a Sark tamed and stripped of empire. I hated the Serpent as you did—but it is too late for me to be queen of a petty village of fishermen. The people may choose another ruler.”

She stepped down from the dais and went from them to stand erect by a window at the far end of the room, looking out over the harbor.

Carse turned to the Sea Kings. “It is agreed, then.”

And they answered, “It is agreed.”

Emer, whose fey gaze had not wavered from Carse since the beginning of the parley, came to his side now, laying her hand on his. “And where is your place in this?” she asked softly.

Carse looked down at her, rather dazedly. “I have not had time to think.”

But it must be thought of, now. And he did not know.

As long as he bore within him the shadow of Rhiannon this world would never accept him as a man. Honor he might have but never anything more and the lurking fear of the Cursed One would remain. Too many centuries of hate had grown around that name.

Rhiannon had redeemed his crime but even so, as long as Mars lived, he would be remembered as the Cursed One.

As though in answer, for the first time since Caer Dhu, the dark invader stirred and his thought-voice whispered in Carse’s mind.

“Go back to the Tomb and I will leave you, for I would follow my brothers. After that you are free. I can guide you back along that pathway to your own time if you wish. Or you can remain here.”

And still Carse did not know.

He liked this green and smiling Mars. But as he looked at the Sea Kings, who were waiting for his answer, and then beyond them through the windows to the White Sea and the marshes, it came to him that this was not his world, that he could never truly belong to it.

He spoke at last and as he did so he saw Ywain’s face turned toward him in the shadows.

“Emer knew and the Halflings also that I was not of your world. I came out of space and time, along the pathway which is hidden in the Tomb of Rhiannon.”

He paused to let them grasp that and they did not seem greatly astonished. Because of what had happened they could believe anything of him, even though it be beyond their comprehension.

Carse said heavily, “A man is born into one world and there he belongs. I am going back to my own place.”

He could see that even though they protested courteously, the Sea Kings were relieved.

“The blessings of the gods attend you, stranger,” Emer whispered and kissed him gently on the lips.

Then she went and the jubilant Sea Kings went with her. Boghaz had slipped out and Carse and Ywain were alone in the great empty room.

He went to her, looking into her eyes that had not lost their old fire even now. “And where will you go now?” he asked her.

She answered quietly, “If you will let me I go with you.”

He shook his head. “No. You could not live in my world, Ywain. It’s a cruel and bitter place, very old and near to death.”

“It does not matter. My own world also is dead.”

He put his hands on her shoulders, strong beneath the mailed shirt. “You don’t understand. I came a long way across time—a million years.” He paused, not quite knowing how to tell her.

“Look out there. Think how it will be when the White Sea is only a desert of blowing dust—when the green is gone from the hills and the white cities are crumbled and the river beds are dry.”

Ywain understood and sighed. “Age and death come at last to everything. And death will come very swiftly to me if I remain here. I am outcast and my name is hated even as Rhiannon’s.”

He knew that she was not afraid of death but was merely using that argument to sway him.

And yet the argument was true.

“Could you be happy,” he asked, “with the memory of your own world haunting you at every step?”

“I have never been happy,” she answered, “and therefore I shall not miss it.” She looked at him fairly. “I will take the risk. Will you?”

His fingers tightened. “Yes,” he said huskily. “Yes, I will.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her and when she drew back she whispered, with a shyness utterly new in her, “The ‘Lord Rhiannon’ spoke truly when he taunted me concerning the barbarian.” She was silent a moment, then added, “I think which world we dwell in will not matter much, as long as we are together in it.”

Days later the black galley pulled into Jekkara harbor, finishing her last voyage under the ensign of Ywain of Sark.

It was a strange greeting she and Carse received there, where the whole city had gathered to see the stranger, who was also the Cursed One, and the Sovereign Lady of Sark, who was no more a sovereign. The crowd kept back at a respectful distance and they cheered the destruction of Caer Dhu and the death of the Serpent. But for Ywain they had no welcome.

Only one man stood on the quay to meet them. It was Boghaz—a very splendid Boghaz, robed in velvet and loaded down with jewels, wearing a golden circlet on his head.

He had vanished out of Sark on the day of the parley on some mission of his own and it seemed that he had succeeded.

He bowed to Carse and Ywain with grandiloquent politeness.

“I have been to Valkis,” he said. “It’s a free city again—and because of my unparalleled heroism in helping to destroy Caer Dhu I have been chosen king.”

He beamed, then added with a confidential grin, “I always did dream of looting a royal treasury!”

“But,” Carse reminded him, “it’s your treasury now.”

Boghaz started. “By the gods, it is so!” He drew himself up, waxing suddenly stern. “I see that I shall have to be severe with thieves in Valkis. There will be heavy punishment for any crime against property—especially royal property!”

“And fortunately,” said Carse gravely, “you are acquainted with all the knavish tricks of thieves.”

“That is true,” said Boghaz sententiously. “I have always said that knowledge is a valuable thing. Behold now, how my purely academic studies of the lawless elements will help me to keep my people safe!”

He accompanied them through Jekkara, until they reached the open country beyond, and then he bade them farewell, plucking off a ring which he thrust into Carse’s hand. Tears ran down his fat cheeks.

“Wear this, old friend, that you may remember Boghaz, who guided your steps wisely through a strange world.”

He turned and stumbled away and Carse watched his fat figure vanish into the streets of the city, where they had first met.

All alone Carse and Ywain made their way into the hills above Jekkara and came at last to the Tomb. They stood together on the rocky ledge, looking out across the wooded hills and the glowing sea, and the distant towers of the city white in the sunlight.

“Are you still sure,” Carse asked her, “that you wish to leave all this?”

“I have no place here now,” she answered sadly. “I would be rid of this world as it would be rid of me.”

She turned and strode without hesitation into the dark tunnel. Ywain the Proud, that not even the gods themselves could break. Carse went with her, holding a lighted torch.

Through the echoing vault and beyond the door marked with the curse of Rhiannon, into the inner chamber, where the torchlight struck against darkness—the utter darkness of that strange aperture in the space-time continuum of the universe.

At that last moment Ywain’s facet showed fear and she caught the Earthman’s hand. The tiny motes swarmed and flickered before them in the gloom of time itself. The voice of Rhiannon spoke to Carse and he stepped forward into the darkness, holding tightly to Ywain’s hand.

This time, at first, there was no headlong plunge into nothingness. The wisdom of Rhiannon guided and steadied them. The torch went out. Carse dropped it. His heart pounded and he was blind and deaf in the soundless vortex of force.

Again Rhiannon spoke. “See now with my mind what your human eyes could not see before!”

The pulsing darkness cleared in some strange way that had nothing to do with light or sight. Carse looked upon Rhiannon.

His body lay in a coffin of dark crystal, whose inner facets glowed with the subtle force that prisoned him forever as though frozen in the heart of a jewel.

Through the cloudy substance, Carse could make out dimly a naked form of more than human strength and beauty, so vital and instinct with life that it seemed a terrible thing to prison it in that narrow space. The face also was beautiful, dark and imperious and stormy even now with the eyes closed as though in death.

But there could be no death in this place. It was beyond time and without time there is no decay and Rhiannon would have all eternity to lie there, remembering his sin.

While he stared, Carse realized that the alien being had withdrawn from him so gently and carefully that there had been no shock. His mind was still in touch with the mind of Rhiannon but the strange dualism was ended. The Cursed One had released him.

Yet, through that sympathy that still existed between these two minds that had been one for so long, Carse heard Rhiannon’s passionate call—a mental cry that pulsed far out along the pathway through space and time.

“My brothers of the Quiru, hear me! I have undone my ancient crime.”

Again he called with all the wild strength of his will. There was a period of silence, of nothingness and then, gradually, Carse sensed the approach of other minds, grave and powerful and stern.

He would never know from what far world they had come. Long ago the Quiru had gone out by this road that led beyond the universe, to cosmic regions forever outside his ken. And now they had come back briefly in answer to Rhiannon’s call.

Dim and shadowy, Carse saw godlike forms come slowly into being, tenuous as shining smoke in the gloom.

“Let me go with you, my brothers! For I have destroyed the Serpent and my sin is redeemed.”

It seemed that the Quiru pondered, searching Rhiannon’s heart for truth. Then at last one stepped forward and laid his hand upon the coffin. The subtle fires died within it.

“It is our judgment that Rhiannon may go free.”

A giddiness came over Carse. The scene began to fade. He saw Rhiannon rise and go to join his brothers of the Quiru, his body growing shadowy as he passed.

He turned once to look at Carse, and his eyes were open now, full of joy beyond human understanding.

“Keep my sword, Earthman—bear it proudly, for without you I could never have destroyed Caer Dhu.”

Dizzy, half fainting, Carse received the last mental command. And as he staggered with Ywain through the dark vortex, falling now with nightmare swiftness through the eerie gloom, he heard the last ringing echo of Rhiannon’s farewell.