The Dark World by Henry Kuttner (readnow txt) 📖

He had given up the fight. It was easier to come back to life — to let me question him — than to battle the singing strings that could cage a man’s very soul.

Under the white beard the old man’s lips moved.

“Ganelon,” he said. “I knew — when the harp sang — who played it. Well, ask your questions. And then let me die. I would not live in the days that are coming now. But you will live, Ganelon — and yet you will die too. That much I have read in the future.”

The hoary head bent slowly. For an instant Ghast Rhymi listened — and I listened too.

The last, achingly sweet notes of the harp died upon the trembling air.

Through the open windows came the muted clash of sword and the wordless shriek of a dying man.

XIII. War — Red War!

PITY FLOODED me. The shadow of greatness that had cloaked Ghast Rhymi was gone. He sat there, a shrunken, fragile old man, and I felt a momentary unreasoning impulse to turn on my heel and leave him to drift back into his peaceful abyss of thought. Once, I remembered, Ghast Rhymi had seemed a tall, huge figure — though he had never been that in my lifetime. But in my childhood I had sat at the feet of this Covenanter and looked up with awe at that majestic, bearded face with reverence.

Perhaps there had been more life in that face then, more warmth and humanity. It was remote now. It was like the face of a god, or of one who had looked upon too many gods.

My tongue stumbled.

“Master,” I said. “I am sorry!”

No light came into the distant blue gaze, yet I sensed a stirring.

“You name me master?” he said. “You — Ganelon? It has been a long time since you humbled yourself to anyone.”

The taste of my triumph was ashes. I bowed my head. Yes, I had conquered Ghast Rhymi, and I did not like the savor of that conquest.

“In the end the circle completes itself,” the old man said quietly. “We are more kin than the others. Both you and I are human, Ganelon, not mutants. Because I am Leader of the Coven I let Medea and the others use my wisdom. But — but — ” He hesitated.

“For two decades my mind has dwelt in shadow,” he went on. “Beyond good and evil, beyond life and the figures that move like puppets on the stream of life. When I was wakened, I would give the answers I knew. It did not matter. I had thought that I had lost all touch with reality. And that if death swept over every man and woman in the Dark World, it would not matter.”

I could not speak. I knew that I had done Ghast Rhymi a very great wrong in wakening him from his deep peace.

The blue stars dwelt on me.

“And I find that it does matter, after all. No blood of mine runs in your veins, Ganelon. Yet we are kin. I taught you, as I would have taught my own son. 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 Medea brought you back from Earth-world.”

“You told them to kill me,” I said.

He nodded.

“Matholch was afraid. Edeyrn sided with him. They made Medea agree. Matholch said, ‘Ganelon is changed. There is danger. Let the old man 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,” Ghast Rhymi said. “If you lived. I foresaw the arms of Llyr reaching into the Dark World, and Matholch lying dead in a shadowed place, and doom upon Edeyrn and Medea. For time is fluid, Ganelon. It changes as men change. The probabilities alter. When you went into Earth-world, you Were Ganelon. But you came back with a double mind. You have the memories of Edward Bond, which you can use as tools. Medea should have left you in Earth-world. But she loved you.”

“Yet she agreed to let them kill me,” I said.

“Do you know what was in her thoughts?” Ghast Rhymi asked. “In Caer Secaire, at the time of sacrifice, Llyr would come. And you have been sealed to Llyr. Did Medea think you could be killed, then?”

A doubt grew within me. But Medea had led me, like a sheep to slaughter, in the procession to the Caer. If she could justify herself, let her. I knew that Edeyrn and Matholch could not.

“I may let Medea live, then,” I said. “But not the wolfling. I have already promised his life. And as for Edeyrn, she must perish.”

I showed Ghast Rhymi the Crystal Mask. He nodded.

“But Llyr?”

“I was sealed to Him as Ganelon,” 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 beard. Then Ghast Rhymi looked at me, and he smiled.

“So you know that, do you?” he asked. “I will tell you something, Ganelon, 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 him with unconcealed amazement.

“And you were born in the Dark World; I was not,” he 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 kings 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, Ganelon._ Was_ my home. Until my science, that men in those days called magic, brought me here, with a woman’s aid. A Dark-World woman 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 boy. But never could I return. My body would fall to dust in the Earth-world. So I lost myself in dreams — dreams of Earth, Ganelon.”

His blue eyes brightened with memories.

His 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 his father Uther, and I smelled the old smells of Britain in her 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, Ganelon. I had never thought that life would matter to me any more. But that these abominations should lead a man of Earth to slaughter — no! And man of Earth you are now, though born on this world of sorcery!”

He leaned forward, compelling me with his gaze.

“You are right. Llyr is no god. He is — a monster. No more than that. And he 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. His birth split the one time-world into two, each spinning along its line of probability. He was a key factor in the temporal pattern of entropy.

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

“Human once. Less human as he grew older and wiser in his 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 Matholch and Edeyrn and Medea.

“Kill Llyr and his 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. His life is bound up with that Sword, as a machine is dependent on its parts. I am not certain of the reason for this, Ganelon, but Llyr is not human — now. He is part machine and part pure energy and part something unimaginable. But he was born of flesh, and he must maintain his contact with the Dark World, or die. The Sword is his contact.”

“Where is the Sword?”

“At Caer Llyr,” Ghast 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.”

He sank back. His eyes closed, then opened again.

I knelt before him and he made the Ancient Sign above me.

“Strange,” he murmured, half to himself. “Strange that I should send a man to battle again, as I sent so many, long ago.”

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

“For the sake of a wind that blew from Ireland,” the old man whispered.

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

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

Now, indeed, I stood alone….

From Ghast 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 Lorryn’s pack ravened and yelled. Back to back, grimly silent, the dead-eyed guardsmen 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 Lorryn’s scarred face and made for him. He showed me his 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 Lorryn laughed quietly.

Then I came face to face with a guardsman. His blade swung up in thrust and parry, and I twisted aside, so that his steel sang harmlessly through the air. My sword-point leaped