The Dark World by Henry Kuttner (readnow txt) 📖

I saw the black branches twist and writhe slowly —

Satisfied, their vigilance relaxed. They were motionless again. They — knew me.

Beyond that evil orchard the dark sky made the glowing ember of the sun more brilliant by contrast.

The trees stirred again.

Ripples of unrest shook the green. A serpentine limb, training a veil of leaves, lashed out — struck — whipped back into place.

Where it had been a darting shape ran forward, ducking and twisting — as the guardian trees struck savagely at it.

A man, in a tight-fitting suit of earth-brown and forest-green, came running toward me, his feet trampling the jewel-flowers. His hard, reckless face was alight with excitement and a kind of triumph. He was empty-handed, but a pistol-like weapon of some sort swung at his belt.

“Edward!” he said urgently, yet keeping his voice low. “Edward Bond!”

I knew him. Or I knew him for what he was. I had seen dodging, furtive, green-clad figures like his before, and an anger already familiar surged over me at the very sight of him.

Enemy, upstart! One of the many who had dared work their magic upon the great Lord Ganelon.

I felt the heat of rage suffuse my face, and the blood rang in my ears with this unfamiliar, yet well-known fury. My body stiffened in the posture of Ganelon — shoulders back, lip curled, chin high. I heard myself curse the fellow in a voice that was choked and a language I scarcely remembered. And I saw him draw back, disbelief vivid upon his face. His hand dropped to his belt.

“Ganelon?” he faltered, his eyes narrow as they searched mine. “Edward, are you with us or are you Ganelon again?”

V. Scarlet Witch

GRIPPED in my right hand I still held the sword. I cut at him savagely by way of answer. He sprang back, glanced at me over his shoulder, and drew his weapon. I followed his glance and saw another green figure dodging forward among the trees. It was smaller and slenderer — a girl, in a tunic the color of earth and forest. Her black hair swung upon her shoulders. She was tugging at her belt as she ran, and the face she turned to me was ugly with hate, her teeth showing in a snarl.

The man before me was saying something.

“Edward, listen to me!” he was crying. “Even if you’re Ganelon, you remember Edward Bond! He was with us — he believed in us. Give us a hearing before it’s too late! Aries could convince you, Edward! Come to Aries. Even if you’re Ganelon, let me take you to Aries!”

“It’s no use, Ertu,” the voice of the girl cried thinly. She was struggling with the last of the trees, whose flexible bough-tips still clutched to stop her. Neither of them tried now to keep their voices down. They were shouting, and I knew they must rouse the guards at any moment, and I wanted to kill them both myself before anyone came to forestall me by accident. I was hungry and thirsty for the blood of these enemies, and in that moment the name of Edward Bond was not even a memory.

“Kill him, Ertu!” cried the girl. “Kill him or stand out of the way! I know Ganelon!”

I looked at her and took a fresh grip on my sword. Yes, she spoke the truth. She knew Ganelon. And Ganelon knew her, and remembered dimly that she had reason for her hate. I had seen that face before, contorted with fury and despair. I could not recall when or where or why, but she looked familiar.

The man Ertu drew his weapon reluctantly. To him I was still at least the image of a friend. I laughed exultantly and swung at him again with the sword, hearing it hiss viciously through the air. This time I drew blood. He stepped back again, lifting his weapon so that I looked down its black barrel.

“Don’t make me do it,” he said between his teeth. “This will pass. You have been Edward Bond — you will be again. Don’t make me kill you, Ganelon!”

I lifted the sword, seeing him only dimly through a ruddy haze of anger. There was a great exultation in me. I could already see the fountain of blood that would leap from his severed arteries when my blade completed its swing.

I braced my body for the great full-armed blow!

And the sword came alive in my hand. It leaped and shuddered against my fist.

Impossibly — in a way I cannot describe — that blow reversed itself. All the energy I was braced to expend upon my enemy recoiled up the sword, up my arm, crashed against my own body. A violent explosion of pain and shock sent the garden reeling. The earth stuck hard against my knees.

Mist cleared from my eyes. I was still Ganelon, but a Ganelon dizzy from something more powerful than a blow.

I was kneeling on the grass, braced with one hand, shaking the throbbing fingers of my sword-hand and staring at the sword that lay a dozen feet away, still faintly glowing.

It was Matholch’s doing — I knew that! I should have remembered how little I could trust that shifting, unstable wolfling. I had laid hands upon him in his tower-room — I should have known he would have his revenge for that. Even Edward Bond — soft fool that he was — would have been wise enough not to accept a gift from the shape-changer.

There was no time now for anger at Matholch, though. I was looking up into Ertu’s eyes, and into the muzzle of his weapon, and a look of decision grew slowly in his face as he scanned mine.

“Ganelon!” he said, almost whispering. “Warlock!”

He tilted the weapon down at me, his finger moving on the trigger.

“Wait, Ertu!” cried a thin voice behind him. “Wait — let me!”

I looked up, still dazed. It had all happened so quickly that the girl was still struggling in the edge of the trees, though she cleared them as I looked and lifted her own weapon. Behind it her face was white and blazing with relentless hate. “Let me!” she cried again. “He owes me this!”

I was helpless. I knew that even at this distance she would not miss. I saw the glare of fury in her eyes and I saw the muzzle waver a little as her hand shook with rage, but I knew she would not miss me. I thought of a great many things in that instant — confused memories of Ganelon’s and of Edward Bond’s surged together through my mind.

Then a great hissing like a wind swept up among the trees behind the girl. They all swayed toward her more swiftly than trees have any right to move, stooping and straining and hissing with a dreadful vicious avidity. Ertu shouted something inarticulate. But I think the girl was too angry to hear or see.

She never knew what happened. She could only have felt the great bone-cracking sweep of the nearest branch, reaching out for her from the leaning tree. She fired as the blow struck her, and a white-hot bolt ploughed up the turf at my knee, I could smell the charring grass.

The girl screamed thinly once as the avid boughs writhed together over her. The limbs threshed about her in a furious welter, and I heard one clear and distinct snap — a sound I had heard before, I knew, in this garden. The human spine is no more than a twig in the grip of those mighty boughs.

Ertu was stunned for one brief instant. Then he whirled to me, and this time I knew his finger would not hesitate on the trigger.

But time had run out for the two woodspeople. He was not fully turned when there came a laugh, cool and amused, from behind me. I saw loathing and hatred flash across Ertu’s bronzed face, and the weapon whirled away from me and pointed toward someone at my back. But before he could press the trigger something like an arrow of white light sprang over my shoulder and struck him above the heart.

He dropped instantly, his mouth frozen in a snarling square, his eyes staring.

I turned, getting slowly to my feet. Medea stood there smiling, very slim and lovely in a close-fitting scarlet gown. In her hand was a small black rod, still raised. Her purple eyes met mine.

“Ganelon,” she murmured in an infinitely caressing voice. “Ganelon.” And still holding my gaze with hers, she clapped her hands softly.

Silent, swift-moving guardsmen came and lifted the motionless body of Ertu. They carried him away. The trees stirred, whispered — and fell silent.

“You have remembered,” Medea said. “Ganelon is ours again. Do you remember me — Lord Ganelon?”

Medea, witch of Colchis! Black and white and crimson, she stood there smiling at me, her strange loveliness stirring old, forgotten memories in my blood. No man who had known Medea could ever forget her wholly. Not till time ended.

But wait! There was something more about Medea that I must remember. Something that made even Ganelon a little doubtful, a little cautious. Ganelon? Was I Ganelon again? I had been wholly my old self when the woodspeople stood before me, but now I was uncertain.

The memories ebbed. While the lovely witch stood smiling at me, not guessing, all that had made me so briefly Ganelon dropped from my mind and body like a discarded cloak. Edward Bond stood there in my clothing, staring about the clearing and remembering with dismay and sick revulsion what had just been happening here.

For a moment I turned away to hide from Medea what my face must betray if she saw it. I felt dizzy with more than memory. The knowledge that two identities shared my body was a thought even more disturbing than the memory of what I had just done in the grip of Ganelon’s strong, evil will.

This was Ganelon’s body. There could be no doubt of it now. Somewhere on Earth Edward Bond was back in his old place, but the patterns of his memory still overlaid my mind, so that he and I shared a common soul, and there was no Ganelon except briefly, in snatches, as the memories that were rightfully mine — mine? — returned to crowd out Edward Bond.

I hated Ganelon. I rejected all he thought and was. My false memories, the heritage from Edward Bond, were stronger in me than Ganelon. I_ was_ Edward Bond — now!

Medea’s caressing voice broke in upon my conflict, echoing her question.

“Do you remember me, Lord Ganelon?”

I turned to her, feeling the bewilderment on my own face, so that my very thoughts were blurred.

“My name is Bond,” I told her stubbornly.

She sighed.

“You will come back,” she said. “It will take time, but Ganelon will return to us. As you see familiar things again, the life of the Dark World, the life of the Coven, the doors of your mind will open once more. You will remember a little more tonight, I think, at the Sabbat.” Her red smile was suddenly almost frightening.

“Not since I went into the Earth-world has a Sabbat been held, and it is long past time,” she went on. “For in Caer Llyr there is one who stirs and grows hungry for his sacrifice.”

She looked at me piercingly, the purple eyes narrowing.

“Do you remember Caer Llyr, Ganelon?”

The old sickness and horror came over me as she repeated that cryptic name.

Llyr — Llyr! Darkness, and something stirring beyond a golden window. Something too alien to touch the soil that human feet touched, something that should never share the same life