The Knight of the Swords Part 1

The Knight of the Swords.

Michael Moorc.o.c.k.

BOOK ONE.

In which Prince Corum learns a lesson and loses ct limb

INTRODUCTION.

In those days there were oceans of light and cities in the skies and wild flying beasts of bronze. There were herds of crimson cattle that roared and were taller than castles. There were shrill, viridian things that haunted bleak rivers. It was a time of G.o.ds, manifesting themselves upon our world in all her aspects; a time of giants who walked on water; of mindless sprites and misshapen creatures who could be summoned by an ill-considered thought but driven away only on pain of some fearful sacrifice; of magics, phantasms, unstable nature, impossible events, insane paradoxes, dreams come true, dreams gone awry, of nightmares a.s.suming reality.

It was a rich time and a dark time. The time of the Sword Rulers. The time when the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh, age-old enemies, -were dying. The time when Man, the slave of fear, was emerging, unaware that much of the terror he experienced was the result of nothing else but the fact that he, himself, had come into existence. It was one of many ironies connected with Man, who, in those days, called his race "Mabden."

The Mabden lived brief lives and bred prodigiously. Within a jew centuries they rose to dominate the westerly continent on which they had evolved. Superst.i.tion stopped them from sending many of their ships toward Vadhagh 9.and Nhadragh lands for another century or two, but gradually they gained courage when no resistance was offered. They began to feel jealous of the older races; they began to feel malicious.

The Vadhagh and the Nhadragh were not aware of this. They had dwelt a million or more years upon the planet which now, at last, seemed at rest. They knew of the Mabden but considered them not greatly different from other beasts. Though continuing to indulge their traditional hatreds of one another, the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh spent their long hours in considering abstractions, in the creation of works of art and the like. Rational, sophisticated, at one with themselves, these older races were unable to believe in the changes that had come. Thus, as it almost always is, they ignored the signs.

There was no exchange of knowledge between the two ancient enemies, even though they had fought their last battle many centuries before.

The Vadhagh lived in family groups occupying isolated castles scattered across a continent called by them Bro-an-Vadhagh. There was scarcely any communication between these families, for the Vadhagh had long since lost the impulse to travel. The Nhadragh lived in their cities built on the islands in the seas to the northwest of Bro-an-Vadhagh. They, also, had little contact, even with their closest kin. Both races reckoned themselves invulnerable. Both were wrong.

Upstart Man was beginning to breed and spread like a pestilence across the world. This pestilence struck down the old races wherever it touched them. And it was not only death that Man brought, but terror, too. Willfully, he made of the older world nothing but ruins and bones. Unwittingly, he brought psychic and supernatural disruption of a magnitude which even the Great Old G.o.ds failed to comprehend.

And the Great Old G.o.ds began to know Fear. And Man, slave of fear, arrogant in his ignorance, continued his stumbling progress. He was blind to the 10.huge disruptions aroused by his apparently petty ambitions. As well, Man was deficient in sensitivity, had no awareness of the mult.i.tude of dimensions that filled the universe, each plane intersecting with several others. Not so the Vadhagh nor the Nhadragh, who had known what it was to move at will between the dimensions they termed the Five Planes. They had glimpsed and understood the nature of the many planes, other than the Five, through which the Earth moved.

Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralyzed body of the youthful poet who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed him of an exquisite existence they would never appreciate, never know they were taking.

"If they valued what they stole, if they knew what they were destroying," says the old Vadhagh in the story, "The Onfy Autumn Flower," "then I would be consoled."

It was unjust.

By creating Man, the universe had betrayed the old races.

But it was a perpetual and familiar injustice. The sentient may perceive and love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentient. The universe sees no distinction between the mult.i.tude of creatures and elements which comprise it. All are equal. None is favored. The universe, equipped with nothing but the materials and the power of creation, continues to create: something of this, something of that. It cannot control what it creates and it cannot, it seems, be controled by its creations (though a few might deceive themselves otherwise). Those who curse the workings of the universe curse that which is deaf. Those who strike out at those workings fight that which is inviolate. Those who shake their fists, shake their fists at blind stars.

But this does not mean that there are some who will not try to do battle with and destroy the invulnerable.

There will always be such beings, sometimes beings 11.of great wisdom, who cannot bear to believe in an insouciant universe.

Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei was one of these. Perhaps the last of the Vadhagh race, he was sometimes known as The Prince in the Scarlet Robe.

This chronicle concerns him.

The Book of Corum

The First Chapter

AT CASTLE ERORN.

At Castle Erorn dwelt the family of the Vadbagh prince, Khlonskey. This family had occupied the castle for many centuries. It loved, exceedingly, the moody sea that washed Erorn's northern walls and the pleasant forest that crept close to her southern flank.

Castle Erora was so ancient that it seemed to have fused entirely with the rock of the huge eminence that overlooked the sea. Outside, it was a splendor of time-worn turrets and salt-smoothed stones. Within, it had moving walls which changed shape in tune with the elements and changed color when the wind changed course. And there were rooms full of arrangements of crystals and fountains, playing exquisitely complicated fugues composed by members of the family, some living, some dead. And there were galleries filled with paintings brushed on velvet, marble, and gla.s.s by Prince Khlonskey's artist ancestors. And there were libraries filled with ma.n.u.scripts written by members of both the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh races. And elsewhere in Castle Erora were rooms of statues, and there were aviaries and menageries, observatories, laboratories, 12.nurseries, gardens, chambers of meditation, surgeries, gymnasia, collections of martial paraphernalia, kitchens, planetaria, museums, conjuratoria, as well as rooms set aside for less specific purposes, or rooms forming the apartment of those who lived in the castle.

Twelve people lived in the castle now, though once five hundred had occupied it. The twelve were Prince Khlonskey, himself, a very ancient being; his wife Colatalarna, who was, in appearance, much younger than her husband; Hastru and JPholhinra, his twin daughters; Prince Rhanan, his brother; Sertreda, his niece; Corum, his son. The remaining five were retainers, distant cousins of the prince. All had characteristic Vadhagh features: narrow, long skulls; ears that were almost without lobes and tapered flat alongside the head; fine hair that a breeze would make rise like flimsy clouds about their faces; large almond eyes that had yellow centers and purple surrounds; wide, full-lipped mouths; and skin that was a strange, gold-flecked rose-pink. Then* bodies were slim and tall and well proportioned and they moved with a leisurely grace that made the human gait seem like the shambling of a crippled ape.

Occupying themselves chiefly with remote, intellectual pastimes, the family of Prince Khlonskey had had no contact with other Vadhagh folk for two hundred years and had not seen a Nhadragh for three hundred. No news of the outside world had come to them for over a century. Only once had they seen a Mabden, when a specimen had been brought to Castle Erorn by Prince Opash, a naturalist and first cousin to Prince Khlonskey. The Mabdena femalehad been placed in the menageries where it was cared for well, but it lived little more than fifty years and when it died was never replaced. Since then, of course, the Mabden had multiplied and were, it appeared, even now inhabiting large areas of Bro-an-Vadhagh. There were even rumors that some Vadhagh castles had been infested with Mabden who had overwhelmed the inhabitants and eventually destroyed 13.their homes altogether. Prince Khlonskey found this hard to believe. Besides, the speculation was of little interest to him or his family. There were so many other things to discuss, so many more complex sources of speculation, pleasanter topics of a hundred kinds.

Prince Khlonskey's skin was almost milk-white and so thin that all the veins and muscles were clearly displayed beneath. He had lived for over a thousand years and only recently had age begun to enfeeble him. When his weakness became unbearable, when his eyes began to dim, he would end his life in the manner of the Vadhagh, by going to the Chamber of Vapors and laying himself on the silk quilts and cushions and inhaling the various sweet-smelling gases until he died. His hair had turned a golden brown with age and the color of his eyes had mellowed to a kind of reddish-purple with pupils of a dark orange. His robes were now rather too large for his body, but, although he carried a staff of plaited platinum in which ruby metal had been woven, his bearing was still proud and his back was not bent.

One day he sought his son, Prince Corum, in a chamber where music was formed by the arranging of hollow tubes, vibrating wires, and shifting stones. The very simple, quiet music was almost drowned by the sound of Khlonskey's feet on the tapestries, the tap of his staff, and the rustle of the breath hi his thin throat.

Prince Corum withdrew his attention from the music and gave his father a look of polite inquiry.

"Father?"

"Corum. Forgive the interruption."

"Of course. Besides, I was not satisfied with the work." Corum rose from his cushions and drew his scarlet robe about him.

"It occurs to me, Corum, that I will soon visit the Chamber of Vapors," said Prince Khlonskey, "and, in reaching this decision, I had it in mind to indulge a whim of mine. However, I will need your help."

Now Prince Corum loved his father and respected his 14.decision, so he said gravely, "That help is yours, Father. What can I do?"

"I would know something of the fate of my kinsmen. Of Prince Opash, who dwells at Castle Sam in the East Of Princess Lorim, who is at Castle Crachah in the South. And of Prince f.a.guin of Castle Gal in the North."

Prince Corum frowned. "Very well, Father, if ..."

"I know, Son, what you thinkthat I could discover what I wish to know by occult means. Yet this is not so. For some reason it is difficult to achieve intercourse with the other planes. Even my perception of them is dimmer than it should be, try as I might to enter them with my senses. And to enter them physically is almost impossible. Perhaps it is my age ..."

"No, Father," said Prince Corum, "for I, too, have found it difficult Once it was easy to move through the Five Planes at will With a little more effort the Ten Planes could be contacted, though, as you know, few could visit them physically. Now I am unable to do more than see and occasionally hear those other four planes which, with ours, form the spectrum through which our planet directly pa.s.ses in its astral cycle. I do not understand why this loss of sensibility has come about"

"And neither do I," agreed his father. "But I feel that it must be portentous. It indicates some major change in the nature of our Earth. That is the chief reason why I would discover something of my relatives and, perhaps, learn if they know why our senses become bound to a single plane. It is unnatural. It is crippling to us. Are we to become like the beasts of this plane, which are aware only of one dimension and have no understanding that the others exist at all? Is some process of devolution at work? Shall our children know nothing of our experiences and slowly return to the state of those aquatic mammals from which our race sprang? I will admit to you, my son, that there are traces of fear in my mind."

Prince Corum did not attempt to rea.s.sure his father. "I read once of the Blandhagna," he said thoughtfully. "They were a race based on the Third Plane. A people 15.of great sophistication. But something took hold of their genes and of their brains and, within five generations, they had reverted to a species of flying reptile still equipped with a vestige of their former intelligenceenough to make them mad and, ultimately, destroy themselves completely. What is it, I wonder, that produces these reversions?"

"Only the Sword Rulers know," his father said.

Corum smiled. "And the Sword Rulers do not exist. I understand your concern, Father. You would have me visit these kinsmen of yours and bring them our greetings. I should discover if they fare well and if they have noticed what we have noticed at our Castle Erorn."

His father nodded. "If our perception dims to the level of a Mabden, then there is little point in continuing our race. Find out, too, if you can, how the Nhadragh fareif this dullness of the senses comes to them."

"Our races are of more or less equal age," Corum murmured. "Perhaps they are similarly afflicted. But did not your kinsman Shulag have something to say, when he visited you some centuries back?"

"Aye. Shulag had it that the Mabden had come in ships from the West and subjugated the Nhadragh, kilting most and making slaves of those remaining. Yet I find it hard to believe that the Mabden half-beasts, no matter how great their numbers, would have the wit to defeat Nhadragh cunning."

Prince Corum pursed his lips reflectively. "Possibly they grew complacent," he said.

His father turned to leave the chamber, his staff of ruby and platinum tapping softly on the richly embroidered cloth covering the flagstones, his delicate hand clutching it more tightly than usual. "Complacency is one thing," he said, "and fear of an impossible doom is another. Both, of course, are ultimately destructive. We need speculate no more, for on your return you may bring us answers to these questions. Answers that we can understand. When would you leave?"

"I have it hi mind to complete my symphony," Prince 16.Corum said. "That will take another day or so. I will leave on the morning after the day I finish it."

Prince Khlonskey nodded his old head in satisfaction. "Thank you, my son."

When he had gone, Prince Corum returned his attention to his music, but be found that it was difficult for him to concentrate. His imagination began to focus on the quest he had agreed to undertake. A certain emotion took hold of him. He believed that it must be excitement. When he embarked on the quest, it would be the first time in bis life that he had left the environs of Castle Erorn.

He attempted to calm himself, for it was against the customs of his people to allow an excess of emotion.

"It will be instructive," he murmured to himself, "to see the rest of this continent. I wish that geography had interested me more. I scarcely know the outlines of Bro-an-Vadhagh, let alone the rest of the world. Perhaps I should study some of the maps and travelers' tales in the library. Yes, I will go there tomorrow, or perhaps the next day."

No sense of urgency filled Prince Corum, even now. The Vadhagh being a long-lived people, they were used to acting at leisure, considering their actions before performing them, spending weeks or months in meditation before embarking on some study or creative work.

Prince Corum then decided to abandon his symphony, on which he had been working for the past four years. Perhaps he would take it up again on his return, perhaps not. It was of no great consequence.

The Second Chapter

PRINCE CORVM SETS FORTH.

And so, with the hooves of his horse hidden by the white mist of the morning, Prince Corum rode out from Castle Erorn to begin his quest.

The pale light softened the lines of the castle so that it seemed, more than ever, to merge with the great high rock on which it stood, and the trees that grew beside the path down which Corum rode also appeared to melt and mingle with the mist so that the landscape was a silent vision of gentle golds and greens and grays tinged with the pink rays of a distant, hidden sun. And, from beyond the rock, the sea, cloaked by the mist, could be heard retreating from the sh.o.r.e.

As Corum reached the sweet-smelling pines and birches of the forest a wren began to sing, was answered by the croak of a rook, and both fell silent as if startled by the sounds their own throats had made.

Corum rode on through the forest until the whisper of the sea dimmed behind him and the mist began to give way before the warming light of the rising sun. This ancient forest was familiar to him and he loved it, for it was here he had ridden as a boy and had been taught the obsolete art of war, which had been considered by his father as useful a way as any of making his body strong and quick. Here, too, he had lain through whole days watching the small animals that inhabited the forestthe tiny horselike beast of gray and yellow which had a horn growing from its forehead and was no bigger than a dog; the fan-winged gloriously colored bird that could soar higher than the eye could see and yet which 18.built its nests in abandoned fox and badger sets underground; the large, gentle pig with thick, curly black hair that fed on moss; and many others.

Prince Corum realized that he had almost forgotten the pleasures of the forest, he had spent so long inside the castle. A small smile touched his lips as he looked about him. The forest, he thought, would endure forever. Something so beautiful could not die.

But this thought put him, for some reason, in a melancholy mood and he urged his horse to a somewhat faster gait.

The horse was glad to gallop as fast as Corum desired, for it also knew the forest and was enjoying the exercise. It was a red Vadhagh horse with a blue-black mane and tail, and it was strong, tall, and graceful, unlike the s.h.a.ggy, wild ponies that inhabited the forest. It was mantled in yellow velvet and hung about with panniers; two spears; a plain, round shield made of different thicknesses of timber, bra.s.s, leather and silver; a long bone bow; and a quiver holding a good quant.i.ty of arrows. In one of the panniers were provisions for the journey, and in another were books and maps for guidance and entertainment.

Prince Corum himself wore a conical silver helm which had his full name carved in three characters above the short peakCorum Jhaelen Irseiwhich meant Corum, the Prince in the Scarlet Robe. It was the custom of the Vadhagh to choose a robe of a distinctive color and identify themselves by means of it, as the Nhadragh used crests and banners of greater complication. Corum wore the robe now. It had long, wide sleeves, a full skirt that was spread back over his horse's rump, and it was open at the front. At the shoulders was fixed a hood large enough to go over his helmet. It had been made from the fine, thin skin of a creature that was thought to dwell in another plane, forgotten even by the Vadhagh. Beneath the coat was a double byrnie made up of a million tiny links. The upper layer of this byrnie was silver and the lower layer was of bra.s.s.

19.For weapons other than bow and lance, Corum bore a long-hafted Vadhagh war-axe of delicate and intricate workmanship, a long, strong sword of a nameless metal manufactured on a different plane of the Earth, with pommel and guard worked in silver and both red and black onyx. His shirt was of blue samite and his breeks and boots were of soft brushed leather, as was his saddle, which was finished in silver.

From beneath his helm, some of Prince Corum's fine, silvery hair escaped and his youthful face now bore an expression that was half introspection, half excited antic.i.p.ation at the prospect of his first sight of the ancient lands of his kinfolk.

He rode alone because none of tie castle's retainers could be spared, and he rode on horseback rather than in a carriage because he wished to make the fastest possible speed.

It would be days before he would reach the first of the several castles he must visit, but he tried to imagine how different these dwelling places of his kinfolk would be and how the people themselves would strike him. Perhaps he would even find a wife among them. He knew that, while his father had not mentioned this, it had been an extra consideration in Prince Khlonskey's mind when the old man had begged him to go on this mission.

Soon Corum had left the forest and had reached the great plain called Broggfythus where once the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh had met in b.l.o.o.d.y and mystical battle.

It had been the last battle ever fought between the two races and, at its height, it had raged through all five planes. Producing neither victor nor defeated, it had destroyed more than two thirds of each of their races. Corum had heard that there were many empty castles across Bro-an-Vadhagh now, and many empty cities in the Nhadragh Isles which lay across the water from Castle Erorn.

Toward the middle of the day Corum found himself in the center of Broggfythus and he came to the spot that marked the boundaries of the territories he had roamed 20.as a boy. Here was the weed-grown wreckage of the vast sky city that, during the month-long battle of his ancestors, had careered from one plane to another, rupturing the fine fabric that divided the different dimensions of the Earth until, crashing at last upon the gathered ranks of the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh, it had destroyed them. Being of a different plane, the tangled metal and stone of the sky city still retained that peculiar shifting effect. Now it had the appearance of a mirage, though the weeds, gorse, and birch trees that twined around it looked solid enough.

On other, less urgent, occasions, Prince Corum had enjbyed shifting his perspective out of this plane and into another, to see different aspects of the city, but the effort took too much energy these days and at the present moment the diaphanous wreckage represented nothing more than an obstacle around which he was forced to make various detours, for it stretched in a circ.u.mference of more than twenty miles.

But at last he reached the edge of the plain called Broggfythus and the sun set and he left behind him the world he knew and rode on toward the Southwest, into lands he knew only from the maps he carried.

He rode steadily for three more days without pause until the red horse showed signs of tiredness and, in a little valley through which a cold stream flowed, he made camp and rested for a while.

Corum ate a slice of the light, nourishing bread of his people and sat with his back against the bole of an old oak while his horse cropped the gra.s.s of the river bank.

Corum's silver helm lay beside him, together with his axe and sword. He breathed the leafy air and relaxed as he contemplated the peaks of the mountains, blue, gray, and white in the distance. This was pleasant, peaceful country and he was enjoying his journey through it. Once, he knew, it had been inhabited by several Vadhagh estates, but there was no trace of them now. It was as if they had grown into the landscape or been engulfed by it. Once or twice he had seen strangely shaped rocks 21.where Vadhagh castles had stood, but they had been no more than rocks. It occurred to him that these rocks were the transmogrified remains of Vadhagh dwellings, but his intellect rejected such an impossibility. Such imaginings were the stuff of poetry, not of reason.

He smiled at his own foolishness and settled himself more comfortably against the tree. In another three days he would be at Castle Crachah, where his aunt the Princess Lorim lived. He watched as his horse folded its legs and lay down beneath the trees to sleep, and he wrapped his scarlet coat about him, raised the hood, and slept also.

The Third Chapter

THE MABDEN HERD.

Toward the middle of the following morning Prince Corum was awakened by sounds that somehow did not fit the forest. His horse had heard them too, for it was up and sniffing at the air, showing small signs of agitation.

Corum frowned and went to the cool water of the river to wash his face and hands. He paused, listening again. A thump. A rattle. A clank. He thought he heard a voice shouting further down the valley and he peered in that direction and thought he saw something moving.

Corum strode back to where he had left his gear and he picked up his helmet, settling it on his head, fixed his sword's scabbard to his belt, looped the axe onto his back. Then he began to saddle the horse as it drank from the river.

The sounds were stronger now and, for some reason, Corum felt disquiet touch his mind. He mounted his horse but continued to watch.

22.Up the valley came a tide of beasts and vehicles. Some of the creatures were clothed in iron, fur, and leather. Corum guessed that this was a Mabden herd. From the little he had read of Mabden habits, he knew the breed to be for the most part a migratory species, constantly on the move; as it exhausted one area it would move on, seeking fresh game and wild crops. He was surprised to note how much like Vadhagh arms and armor were the swords, shields, and helmets worn by some of the Mabden.

Closer they came and still Corum observed them with intense curiosity, as he would study any unusual beast he had not previously seen.