The Sword and the Stallion - 06 (9 page)

"Never. An older race, like the Vadhagh, who were gradually superseded by Mabden. Living in virtual exile upon their island they became inbred and cruel—and they had already been inbred and cruel before the island became their only home."

"And what was this race called?"

"That I do not know." Ilbrec drew Kawanh's chart from inside his armor, inspecting the parchment closely and then leaning forward to murmur something in the ear of Splendid Mane.

Almost at once the horse began to alter its direction slightly, making for the northwest.

Gray clouds began to appear, bringing with them a light rain which was not particularly uncomfortable, and soon they had passed into the sunshine again. Corum found himself half-asleep as he clung to Ilbrec's belt, and he deliberately took the opportunity to rest his body and his mind as much as possible, knowing that he would need all his resources when they came to Ynys Scaith.

And now it was that the two heroes rode across the sea and came at length to Ynys Scaith: a small island, shaped like the peak of a mountain and shrouded by dark cloud where all about it the sky was blue and clear. They could hear the breakers booming on its bleak beaches, they could see the hill at the island's very center, and soon they saw the single tall pine standing upon the top of the hill; but of the rest of the island, though they rode still closer, they could make out little. With a soft word and a light movement of his hand Ilbrec reined in Splendid Mane, and the horse and its riders came to a halt while the sea swirled everywhere around them.

Corum adjusted his silvered, conical helm upon his head and leaned to tighten the straps of his greaves of gilded brass, at the same time shrugging his silver byrnie into a more comfortable fit upon his body. Over his shoulder went his quiver of arrows and his unstrung bow. Onto his left arm went his shield of white hide, and now he clenched a long-hafted war-axe in his silver hand, leaving his right hand free to clutch Ilbrec's belt or to draw his strange sword when the occasion demanded. In front of him Ilbrec threw back his heavy cloak so that the sun glanced off his golden, braided hair, his bronze armor and shield, and his bracelets of gold. He turned to look back at Corum, and his green-grey eyes were identical in color to the sea. And Ilbrec smiled. "Are you ready, friend Corum?"

Corum could not imitate the devil-may-care smile of the Sidhi; his own smile was a little grimmer as he inclined his head slightly. "Let us ride on to Ynys Scaith," he said.

So Ilbrec shook Splendid Mane's reins and the huge horse began to gallop again, the spray rising high into the air as they went faster and faster toward the isle of enchantments.

Now Splendid Mane was almost upon the beach, yet it was still impossible to define any clear images in the general, shadowy appearance of the island. There was a suggestion of heavy, tangled forest, of half-ruined buildings, of beaches littered with a variety of flotsam, of swirling mist, of large-winged flapping birds, of burly beasts prowling through the wreckage and the trees, but every time the eye seemed about to focus on something it would shift again and become dim. Once Corum thought he saw a great face, larger than Ilbrec's, staring at him from over a rock, but then both face and rock seemed to become a tree, or a building, or a beast. There was something unclean and dolorous about Ynys Scaith; it had none of the beauty of Hy-Breasail. It was almost as if this particular magic isle were the reverse of the first Corum had visited. Soft, unpleasant sounds issued from the interior; sometimes it was as if voices whispered to him. A smell of corruption was carried to his nostrils by an unpleasant wind. Ynys Scaith's chief impression was one of decay—of a soul in decay—and in this it had something in common with the Fhoi Myore. Corum was filled with foreboding. Why should the folk of Ynys Scaith throw in their lot with the Mabden? They would seem likelier to wish to help the Cold Folk.

Again Ilbrec reined in Splendid Mane, a foot or two from the shore, and he flung up his left hand, calling out:

"Hail, Ynys Scaith! We are willing visitors to your land! Would you welcome us?"

It was an old greeting, a traditional Mabden greeting, but Corum felt it would mean little to whomever dwelled in this place.

"Hail, Ynys Scaith! We come in peace to discuss a bargain with you!" called the gigantic youth.

There was a suggestion of an echo, but no other reply. Ilbrec shrugged. "Then we must visit the island uninvited. Poor courtesy . . ."

‘ 'Which could well be returned by the inhabitants,'' said Corum.

Ilbrec urged Splendid Mane forward and the horse's hooves at last touched the gray beach of Ynys Scaith, whereupon the forest ahead of them turned suddenly to blazing scarlet fronds, agitated and whimpering, rustling and chuckling. Looking back, Corum could no longer see the sea. Instead he saw a wall of liquid lead.

Deliberately, Ilbrec rode toward the fronds and, as he approached, they flattened themselves like supplicants hailing a conqueror. Splendid Mane, disturbed and unwilling to continue, snorted and set his ears back, but Ilbrec clapped his heels against the beast's flanks and on they went. No sooner had they crossed a few feet of these fronds than they sprang up again and the two heroes were surrounded by the plants which reached feathery fingers out and touched their flesh and sighed.

And Corum felt that the fronds reached through his skin and stroked his bones and he was hard put not to lash out at the things with his sword. He could understand the terror of the Mabden when confronted with such monstrous foliage, but he had experienced much more in his time and knew how to control his panic. He attempted to speak casually to Ilbrec, who also pretended to ignore the plants.

"Interesting flora, Ilbrec. I've seen nothing like it elsewhere upon this plane."

"Indeed it is, friend Corum." Ilbrec's voice shook only a little. "It seems to have some kind of primitive intelligence."

The whispering increased, the touch of the plants became more insistent, but the two rode steadfastly on through the forest, their eyes aching from the scarlet blaze.

"Could this be an illusion, even?" Corum suggested.

"Possibly, my friend. A clever one."

The fronds thinned, giving way to pavements of green marble which lay beneath an inch or two of yellowish liquid smelling several times worse than a stagnant pond. All kinds of small insect life existed in the liquid and occasionally clouds of flying things would rise out of it and hover around their heads as if inspecting them. To their right were several ruins: colonnades covered in festering ivy, partially collapsed galleries, walls of rotting granite and eroded quartz on which grew vines whose livid blooms emitted a sickly stench; while ahead of them they could see two-legged animals bending to drink the liquid, looking at them through glazed, white eyes before stooping to drink again. Something wriggled across Splendid Mane's path. Corum thought at first he had seen a pale snake, but then he wondered if the thing had not had the shape of a human being. He looked for it, but it had disappeared. An ordinary black rat swam steadily through the deeper reaches of the liquid; it ignored Ilbrec and Corum. Then it dived and disappeared through a narrow crack in the surface of the marble.

By the time they had reached the far side of this expanse the two-legged creatures had gone and Splendid Mane walked on a lawn of spongy grass which gave off disgusting sucking noises whenever the horse pulled its hooves free. So far nothing had menaced them directly and Corum began to think that the Mabden who had landed here had been victims of their own terrors instilled in them by such ghastly sights as these. Now his nose detected a stench not unlike that of cow dung, but rather stronger. It was a nauseating stench and he drew a scarf from under his byrnie and tied it around his mouth, though it made only the slightest difference. Ilbrec cleared his throat and spat upon the turf, guiding Splendid Mane toward a pathway of cracked lapis lazuli leading into a dark corridor of trees which were like and yet unlike ordinary rhododendrons. Large, dark, sticky leaves brushed their faces and soon the corridor had become pitch black, save for a few yellow lights which flickered in the recesses of the foliage on both sides of them. Once or twice it seemed to Corum that the lights revealed grinning faces whose features had been partially eaten away, but he guessed that his imagination, fed by the obscene visions of the recent past, was responsible for these sights.

"Let us hope this path leads us somewhere," murmured Ilbrec. "The stench gets worse, if anything. Could it be, I wonder, the distinctive odor of Ynys Scaith's inhabitants?"

' 'Let us hope not, Ilbrec. It will make communication with them that much more difficult. Do you know in what direction we head now?"

"I fear not," replied the Sidhi youth. "I am not sure if we go south, north, east, or west. All I know is that the branches above us are getting damnedably low and it would be wise if I, at least, dismounted. Will you take a grip on the saddle, Corum, while I get

off?"

Corum did so and felt Ilbrec get down from his saddle, heard the creak of harness and a jingle as Ilbrec took Splendid Mane's reins and began to plod on. Without the bulk of the giant to reassure him, Corum felt much more exposed to the dangers—imaginary, or otherwise—of this reeking arbor. Did he hear laughter from the depths on either side? Did he hear bodies moving menacingly, keeping pace with him, ready to pounce? Was that a hand which reached out and pinched his leg?

More lights flickered, but this time they were directly ahead.

Something coughed in the forest.

Corum took a firmer grip on his sword. "Do you feel we are watched, Ilbrec?"

"It is possible." The young giant's voice was firm, but tense.

"Everything we have seen speaks of a great civilization which died a thousand years ago. Perhaps there are no longer any intelligent inhabitants on Ynys Scaith?"

"Perhaps
..."

' 'Perhaps we have only animals to fear—and diseases. Could the air affect the brain and infest it with unpleasant thoughts, terrifying visions?"

"Who knows?"

And the voice which replied to Corum was not Ilbrec's voice. "Ilbrec?" whispered Corum, afraid that his friend had suddenly vanished. There was a pause. "Ilbrec?"

''I heard it also," said Ilbrec and Corum heard him move back a pace and reach out a huge hand to touch Corum's arm and squeeze it gently. Then Ilbrec raised his voice: "Were are you? Who was it that spoke to us?"

But there came no further reply and so they pressed on, corning at length to a place where thin sunlight broke through the branches and the tunnel
divided
into three separate paths. The shortest was the middle one for, though it was gloomy, the sky could be seen at its far end.

"This would seem the best," Ilbrec said, remounting. "What think you, Corum?"

Corum shrugged. "It is tempting—almost a trap," he said. "As if the folk of Ynys Scaith wished to lure us somewhere."

Ilbrec said: "Let them lure us, if they will."

"My feelings, too."

Without further comment, Ilbrec urged Splendid Mane into the tunnel.

Slowly the lattice above them opened out until the cracked path widened and they rode down an avenue of stunted bushes, seeing ahead of them tall, broken columns around which climbed the stems of some long-dead lichen, brown and black and dark green. And it was only when they had passed between those columns, carved with demonic creatures and grinning, bestial heads, that they realized they were now upon a bridge built over an immensely wide and dreadfully deep chasm. Once there had been a wall on either side of the bridge, but in most places the wall had fallen away and they could see down to the floor of the chasm, where a stretch of black water boiled and in which reptilian bodies of all descriptions threshed and snapped and yelled.

And over the bridge there now moaned a miserable wind, a cold, clinging wind which dragged at their cloaks and even seemed to threaten to toss them off the swaying stonework of the bridge and down into the chasm.

Ilbrec sniffed, tugging his cloak about him, looking over the edge with an expression of distaste upon his features.

"They are large, those reptiles. I have seen none larger. Look at the teeth they have in their mouths! Look at those glaring eyes, those boney crests, those horns. Ach! I am glad they cannot reach us, Corum!"

And Corum nodded his agreement.

"This is no world for a Sidhi," Ilbrec murmured.

"Nor a Vadhagh," said Corum.

· · ·

By the time they had reached the middle of the bridge the wind had increased and Splendid Mane found it difficult to push even his great bulk against it. It was then that Corum looked up and saw what he thought at first were birds. There were about a score of them, flying in a rough formation, and as they came closer he saw that they were not birds at all but winged reptiles with long snouts filled with sharp, yellow fangs. He tapped Ilbrec upon his shoulder, pointing.