Chronicles of Corum (8 page)

Now that it was late afternoon and the cloud had dropped away from the face of the sun—which melted the frost a little, warmed the day and brought traces of the odor of spring to the landscape—Corum and the warrior princess Medhbh, nicknamed ‘of the Long Arm’ for her skill with snare and tathlum, rode horses out to the place which Corum called Erorn and she called Owyn.

Though it was spring, there was no foliage on the trees and barely any grass growing upon the ground. It was a stark world, this world. Life was fleeing it. Corum remembered how lush it had been, even when he had left. It depressed him to think what so much of the country must look like now that the Fhoi Myore| their hounds and their servants, had visited it.

They reined their horses near the edge of the cliff and looked at the sea muttering and gasping on the shingle of the tiny bay.

Tall black cliffs—old and crumbling—rose out of the water. The cliffs were full of caves, as Corum had known them at least a millennia before.

The promontory, however, had changed. Part of it had fallen at the center, collapsing into the sea in a tumble of rotting granite, and now Corum knew why little of Castle Erorn remained.

“There is what they call the Sidhi Tower—or Cremm’s Tower. See?” Medhbh showed him what she meant. It lay on the other side of the chasm created by the falling rock.’ ‘It looks man-made from a distance, but it is really nature’s work.”

But Corum knew better. He recognized the worn lines. True they seemed the work of nature, for Vadhagh building had always tended to blend into the landscape. That was why, in his own time, some travellers even failed to realize that Castle Erorn was there.

‘ ‘It is the work of my folk,” he said quietly.’ ‘It is the remains of Vadhagh architecture, though none would believe it, I know.” She was surprised and laughed. “So the legend has truth in it. It is your tower!”

“I was born there,” said Corum. He sighed. “And, I suppose, I died there, too,” he added. Leaving his horse, he walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The sea had made a narrow channel through the gap. He looked across at the remains of the tower. He remembered Rhalina and his family—his father Prince Khlonskey, his mother the Princess Colatalarna, his sisters Hastru and Pholhin-ra, his uncle Prince Rhanan, his cousin Sertreda. All dead now. Rhalina at least had lived her natural lifespan, but the others had been brutally slain by Glandyth-a-Krae and his murderers. Now none remembered them save Corum. For a moment he envied them, for too many remembered Corum.

“But you live,” she said simply.

“Do I? I wonder if perhaps I am no more than a shade, a figment of your folk’s desires. Already my memories of my past life grow dim. I can barely remember how my family looked.”

“You have a family—where you come from.”

‘ ‘I know that the legend says that I slept in the mound until I was needed, but that is not true. I was brought here from my own time— when Castle Erorn stood where ruins stand now. Ah, there have been so many ruins in my life …”

“And your family is there? You left it to help us?”

Corum shook his head and turned to look at her, smiling a bitter smile.

“No, lady, I would not have done that. My family was slain by your race—by Mabden. My wife died.” He hesitated. “Slain, too?” “No, she died of old age.” “She was older than you?” “No.”

”You are truly immortal, then?” She looked down at the distant

sea.

“As far as it matters, yes. That is why I fear to love, you see.” “I would not fear that.”

‘ ‘Neither did the Margravine Rhalina, my bride. And I think I did not fear it, for I could not experience it until it happened. But when I experienced the loss of her I thought I could never bear that emotion again.”

A single gull appeared from nowhere and perched on a nearby spur of rock. There had been many gulls here once.

“You will never feel that exact emotion again, Corum.”

‘True. And yet …”

“You love corpses?”

He was offended. “That is cruel …”

‘ ‘What is left of dead people is the corpse. And if you do not love corpses, then you must find someone living to love.”

He shook his head. “Is it so simple to you, lovely Medhbh?”

”I did not think that I said something simple, Lord Corum of the Mound.”

He made an impatient gesture with his silver hand.’ ‘I am not, ‘of the Mound.’ I do not like the implications of that title. You speak of corpses—that title makes me feel like a corpse that has been resurrected. I can smell the mold on my clothes when you speak of ‘the Lord of the Mound’.”

“The older legends said you drank blood. There were sacrifices on the mound during the darker times.”

“I have no taste for blood.” His mood was lifting. The experience of the fight with the Hounds of Kerenos had helped rid him of some of his gloomy thoughts and replaced them with more practical considerations.

And now he was reaching out to touch her face, to trace, with his hand of flesh, the line of her lips, her neck, her shoulder. And now they were embracing and he was weeping and full of

joy.

They kissed. They made love near the ruins of Castle Erorn while the sea pounded in the bay below. And then they lay in the last of the sunshine, looking out to sea.

“Listen.” Medhbh raised her head, her hair floating about her face.

He heard it. He had heard it a little while before she mentioned it, but he had not wanted to hear it.

“A harp,” she said. “What sweet music it plays. How melancholy it is, that music. Do you hear it?”

“Yes.”

“It is familiar …”

“Perhaps you heard it this morning, just before the attack?” He spoke reluctantly, distantly.

“Perhaps. And in the grove of the mound.”

‘ ‘I know—just before your folk tried to summon me for the first time.”

“Who is the harpist? What is the music?” Corum was looking across the gulf at the ruined tower that was all that remained of Castle Erorn. Even to his eyes it did not look mortal-built. Perhaps, after all, the wind and the sea had carved the tower and his memories were false. He was afraid.

She, too, now stared at the tower.

‘ ‘That is where the music comes from,” he said.’ ‘The harp plays the music of time.”

Garbed in fur, Corum set forth.

He wore a white fur robe over his own clothes and there was a huge hood on the robe to cover his helmet, all made from the soft pelt of the winter marten. Even the horse they had given him had a coat of fur-trimmed doeskin embroidered with scenes of a valiant past. They gave him fur-lined boots and gauntlets of doeskin, also embroidered, and a high saddle and saddle-panniers and soft cases for his bow, his lances and the blade of his war-axe. He wore one of the gauntlets on his silver hand, so that no casual eye would know him. He kissed Medhbh and he saluted the folk of Caer Mahlod as they stood regarding him with grave and hopeful eyes upon the walls of the fortress town. He was kissed upon his forehead by King Mannach.

“Bring us back our spear, Bryionak,” said King Mannach, “so that we may tame the bull, the black bull of Crinanass, so that we may defeat our enemies and make our land green again.”

“I will seek it,” promised Prince Corum Jhaelen Irsei, and his single eye shone brightly, with tears or with confidence, none could tell. And he mounted his great horse, the huge and heavy war-horse of the Tuha-na-Cremm Croich, and he placed his feet in the stirrups he had had them make for him (for they had forgotten the use of stirrups) and put his tall lance in the stirrup rest, though he did not unfurl his banner, stitched for him all the previous night by the maidens of Caer Mahlod.

“You look a great war-knight, my lord,” murmured Medhbh, and he reached down to stroke her red-gold hair and touch her soft cheek.

He said: “I will return, Medhbh.”

He had ridden southeast for two days and the riding had not been difficult, for he had ridden this way more than once and time had not destroyed many of the landmarks that had once been familiar to him. Perhaps because he had found so little and yet so much at Castle Erorn, he now headed for Moidel’s Mount where Rhalina’s castle had stood once. It was easy to justify this goal in terms of his quest, for Moidel’s Mount had once been the last outpost of Lwym-an-Esh and now the last of Lwym-an-Esh was Hy-Breasail. He would lose neither time nor direction by seeking out Moidel’s Mount, if that, too, had not sunk when Lwym-an-Esh sank.

South and east he rode, and the world grew colder. Showers of bright, bouncing hailstones capered on the hard earth, pattered on his armored shoulders and his horse’s neck and withers. Many times his road across the great, wild moot was obscured by sheets of this frozen rain. Sometimes it grew so bad that he was forced to take shelter where he could, usually behind a boulder, for there were few trees on the moor, save some gorse and stunted birch; and all the bracken and heather, which should have been flourishing at this season, was either Completely dead or feebly alive. Once deer and pheasant had been everywhere, and now Corum saw no pheasant and had seen only one wary stag—thin, mad-eyed—on the whole of his journey.

And the further east he rode, the worse the prospect of the land became, and soon there was heavy frost sparkling on every piece of vegetation and coverings of snow on every hilltop, on every boulder. And the land rose higher and the air grew thinner and colder, and Corum was glad of the heavy robe his friends had given him, for slowly the frost gave way to snow. Every way he looked the world was white and its whiteness reminded him of the color of the Hounds of Kerenos. And now his horse waded through snow up to its hocks and Corum knew that, if attacked, he would have great difficulty in fleeing any danger and almost as much in maneuvering to face it. But at least the skies remained blue and sharp and clear, and the sun, though giving little heat, was bright. It was the mist which made Corum wary, for he knew that with the mist might come the devil hounds and their masters.

And now he began to discover the shallow valleys of the moors and in the valleys the hamlets, villages and towns where once Mabden folk had lived. And every settlement was deserted.

Corum took to using these deserted places for his night camps. Hesitant to build a fire lest the smoke be seen by enemies or potential enemies, he found that he could bum peat on the flagstones of empty cottages so that the smoke dispersed before it could be detected from even a close distance. Thus he was able to keep both horse and himself warm and cook hot food. Without these comforts his ride would have been miserable indeed.

What saddened him was that the cottages still contained the funuture, ornaments and little trinkets of the folk who had lived in them. There had been no looting, for, Corum imagined, the Fhoi Myore had no interest in Mabden artifacts. But in some of the villages, the most easterly, there were signs that the Hounds of Kerenos had come a-hunting and found no shortage of prey. Doubtless that was why so many had fled and sought safety in the old, unused hill-forts like Caer Mahlod.

Corum could tell that a complex and reasonably sophisticated culture had flourished here—a rich, agricultural people who had had time to develop their artistic gifts. In the abandoned settlements he found books as well as painting, musical instruments as well as elegant metal-work and pottery. It saddened him to see it all. Had his battle against the Sword Rulers been pointless, then? Lwym-an-Esh, which he had fought for as much as he had fought for his own folk, was gone, and what had followed it was now destroyed.

After a while he began to avoid the villages and seek out caves where he would not be reminded of the Mabden tragedy.

But then one morning, after he had been riding for little more than an hour, he came to a broad depression in the moor, in the center of which was a frozen tarn. To the northeast of the tarn he saw what he at first took to be standing stones, all about the height of a man; but there were several hundred, whereas most stone circles were usually made up of hardly more than a score of granite slabs. As with everywhere else on this moor, snow was thick and covered the stones. Corum’s path took him to the other side of the tarn, and he was about to avoid the monuments (for such he judged them) when he thought he caught a movement of something black against the universal whiteness. A crow? He shaded his eyes to peer among the stones. No, something larger. A wolf, possibly. If it were a deer, he had need of meat. He drew the cover off his bow and strung it, swinging his lance behind him to give him a clear shot as he fitted an arrow to the string. Then, with his heels, he urged his horse forward.

As he drew closer he began to realize that these standing stones were not typical. The carving on them was much more detailed, so much so that they resembled the finest Vadhagh statuary. And that was what they were—statues of men and women poised as if in battle. Who had made them and for what purpose?

Again Corum saw the movement of a dark shape. Then it was hidden again by the statues. Corum found something familiar about the statues. Had he seen work like them before?

Then he recalled his adventure in Arioch’s castle and slowly the truth came. Corum resisted the truth. He did not want to know it.

But now he was close to the nearest of the statues and he could not avoid the evidence.

These were not statues at all.

These were the corpses of folk very much like the tall, fair folk of Tuha-na-Cremm Croich—corpses frozen as they prepared to do battle against an enemy. Corum could see their expressions, their attitudes. He saw the look of resolute courage on every face—men, women, quite young boys and girls—the javelins, axes, swords, bows, slings and knives still clutched in their hands. They had come to do battle with the Fhoi Myore, and the Fhoi Myore had answered their courage with this—an expression of contempt for their power and their nobility. Not even the Hounds of Kerenos had come against this sad army; perhaps the Fhoi Myore themselves had refused to appear, sending only a coldness—a sudden, awful coldness which had worked instantly and turned warm flesh into ice.

Corum turned away from the sight, the bow forgotten in his hands. The horse was nervous and was only too glad to bear him away around the banks of the frozen tarn, where stiff, dead reeds stood like stalagmites, like a travesty of the dead folk nearby. And Corum saw two who had been wading in the water and they too were frozen, appearing to be chopped off at the waist by the flat ice, their arms raised in attitudes of terror, They were a boy and a girl, both probably little older than sixteen years.

The landscape was dead—silent. The plodding of the horse’s hooves sounded to Corum like the tolling of a death-knell. He fell forward across his saddle-pommel, refusing to look, unable even to weep, so horror-struck was he by the images he had seen.

Then he heard a moan which at first he thought was his own. He lifted his head, drawing cold air into his lungs, and he heard the sound again. He turned and forced himself to glance back at the frozen host, judging it to be the direction from where the moan had come.

A black shape was clearly visible now among the white ones. A black cloak flapped like the broken wing of a raven.

“Who are you?” Corum cried, “that you weep for these?”

The figure was kneeling. As Corum called out, it rose to its feet, but no face or even limbs could be seen emerging from the tattered cloak.

“Who are you?” Corum turned his horse.

‘ Take me, too, Fhoi Myore vassal!’ ‘ The Voice was weary and it was old. “I know you and I know your cause.”

“I think that you do not know me, then,” said Corum kindly. “Now, say who you are, old woman.”

“I am Ieveen, mother of some of these, wife of one of these, and I deserve to die. If you be enemy, slay me. If you be friend, then slay me, friend, and prove myself a good friend to Ieveen. I would go now where my lost ones go. I want no more of this world and its cruelties. I want no more visions and terrors and truths. I am Ieveen and I prophesied all mat you see. That is why I fled when they would not listen to me. And when I came back, I found that I had been right. And that is why I weep—but not for these. I weep for myself and my betrayal of my folk. I am Ieveen the Seeress, but now I have none to see for, none to respect me, least of all myself. The Fhoi Myore came and struck them down. The Fhoi Myore left in their clouds with their dogs, hunting more satisfactory game than my poor clan, who were so brave and believed that the Fhoi Myore, no matter how depraved, how wicked, would respect them enough to offer them a fair fight. I warned them of what would befall them. I begged them to flee as I fled. They were reasonable. They told me I could go, but they wished to stay—that a folk must keep its pride or perish in different ways, each one dying within themselves. I did not understand them. Now I understand them. So slay me, sir.”

Now the thin arms were raised imploringly, the black rags falling away from flesh that was blue with cold and with age. Now the head covering dropped and the wrinkled face with its thin, gray hair was revealed, and Corum saw the eyes and wondered if, in all his travels, he had ever seen such misery as that which he saw in the face of Ieveen the Seeress.

“Slay me, sir!”

“I cannot,” said Corum. “If I had more courage I would do what you ask, but I have no courage of that sort, lady.” He pointed westward with his bow which was still strung. ‘ ‘Go that way and try to reach Caer Mahlod, where your folk still resist the Fhoi Myore. Tell them of this. Warn them. And thus you will redeem yourself in your own eyes. You are already redeemed in mine.”

“Caer Mahlod? You come from there? From Cremms-mound and the coast?”

“I am upon a quest. I seek a spear.”

‘ ‘The spear Bryionak?” Her voice now had a peculiar gasp in it. The tone was higher. And her eyes were now looking out beyond Corum as she swayed a little. ‘ ‘Bryionak and the Bull of Crinanass. Silver hand. Cremm Croich shall come. CremmCroich shall come. Cremm Croich shall come.” The voice had changed yet again to a soft chant. The lines seemed to leave her old face and a certain beauty was there now. ‘ ‘Cremm Croich shall come and he shall be called—called—called … And his name shall not be his name.”

Corum had been about to speak, but now he listened in fascination as the old seeress continued to chant. “Corum Llaw Ereint. Silver hand and scarlet robe. Corum is thy name and ye shall be slain by a brother …”

Corum had began to believe in the old woman’s powers, but now he found himself smiling. ” Slain I might be, old woman, but not by a brother. I have no brother.”

“Ye have many brothers, Prince. I see them all. Proud champions all. Great heroes.”

Corum felt his heart begin to beat faster and there was a tightness in his stomach. He said hastily:’ ‘No brothers, old woman. None.” Why did he fear what she said? What did she know that he refused to know?

‘ ‘You are afraid,” she said.’ ‘Then I see that I speak truth. But do not fear. You have only three things to fear. The first is the brother, of which I spoke. The second is a harp. And the third is beauty. Fear those three things, Corum Llaw Ereint, but nothing else.”

“Beauty? The other two are at least tangible—but why fear beauty?”

“And the third is beauty,” she said again. “Fear those three things.”

‘ ‘I’ll listen to this nonsense no more. You have my sympathy, old woman. Your ordeal has turned your mind. Go, as I said, to Caer Mahlod and there they will look after you. There you can atone for what makes you guilty, though I say that you should not feel guilt. Now I must continue my quest for the spear, Bryionak.”

‘ ‘Bryionak, Sir Champion, will be yours. But first you will make a bargain.”

“A bargain? With whom?”