The Sword Bearer (27 page)

The minutes crawled by, taking an eternity to turn themselves into hours. It was hot Flies buzzed round them continually, and eventually on his time off, John fell asleep in the bottom of the coracle. He woke as darkness fell, ashamed to realize that Mab had stood watch for several hours.

They set out two hours before midnight Mab wearing the Mashal Stone, invisibly paddling along the channels of the swamp while John lay on the bottom of the coracle. "Let me know when you feel the pain," Mab instructed him.

"I can feel it now."

"Badly?"

"No, but it's slowly getting worse."

"Good. That means we're going in the right direction."

From the bottom of the coracle John could see nothing except an almost full moon, veiled partly by the foul vapors arising from the swamp. He could hear Mab breathing heavily, and wished he had let him paddle. For a while they continued in silence.

"Mab, I think the pain's beginning to subside."

There was a pause. "We passed the entrance to another chan-nel a hundred yards back," Mab said thoughtfully. "Let's try it"

It is not easy to concentrate on pain or to tell whether it is getting better or worse. For a while John was uncertain. Then he said, "That's better, I think."

"Better?"

"I mean better because the pain's getting worse again. We must be on track"

"How bad is it?"

"Oh, not bad. Not bad at all—yet."

They continued in silence for several minutes, the coracle moving slowly and silently across the wierd landscape, with no visible means of propulsion. At last John said, "Hey, it's begin-ning to jump a bit!"

"Your shoulder?"

"Yes!"

"And I can see why!" Mab whispered.

"What d'you mean?"

"We're coming to a goblin sentry. Keep down. He looks
very
surprised."

John tensed, forgetting his pain which was still relatively slight. The coracle drifted for several seconds, then lurched gendy as it grounded. John could hear footsteps approaching. A moment later a shadow bent over the coracle. He found him-self staring into the face of a goblin sentry.

It is hard to say who was the more surprised. But they were given no time to enjoy the sensation. John had only the most fleeting impression of a three-eyed, two-nosed, pointy-eared visage before a heavy blow made the head jerk convulsively. The goblin lurched sideways and struck the side of the coracle as it fell.

John scrambled to his knees. "What happened?" he asked, staring over the side and looking for the goblin.

"I killed him with the edge of the paddle," Mab said as he pushed off and resumed his paddling.

"How d'you know he's dead? I don't see any sign of him."

"He dissolved. They all do when they die ... into a sort of green oily muck. Lie down again. How's your pain?"

John lay down and focused his attention on his shoulder again. "It's hard to say. It's not jumping anymore. I think it's about the same."

They proceeded in the same manner for about an hour and a half, during the course of which the invisible Mab dispatched four more sentries. The pain had grown steadily and by now was hard to bear. It drove all thoughts from John's mind but the consciousness of the pain itself.

"There are hordes of them," Mab whispered to him. "I can see where they're heading. There are droves, swarms, and they seem to be taking absolutely no notice of us."

John felt the coracle ground in the mud. Mab whispered, "Don't move. We'll just wait here until they're settled in their gathering. I can see where they are congregating from here."

For several minutes John lay on the floor of the coracle wishing the pain would go away. Then he heard Mab say, "Time to go. They've settled now. We must join them. I think your Nicholas Slapfoot has arrived."

They got out of the coracle together to stand on a path in the wet and misty moonlight. For a brief instant you might have seen them standing there, Mab still taller by a head, his white hair and beard flowing over the upper part of his velvet gown. Moonlight could not conceal the weariness on his haggard face nor the dullness of the pain on John's. They stood holding their wrists in front of them so that Mab could loop the chain that bore the Mashal Stone around them.

Instantly the landscape, such as it was, was wiped clean of the pair. You would only have seen an abandoned coracle, resting at the side of a narrow, muddy channel in a barren swamp. Here and there a naked tree bore silent witness to better days in the past Bubbles the size of soccer balls would ooze their way up in the vile mud to burst wetly, releasing a foul stench.

The path ahead of them was almost as invisible as themselves. Mab proceeded cautiously, testing each step with his staff. They no longer needed the pain in John's shoulder to guide them for from a mound ahead of them came the faint hubbub of many voices. But needed or not, the pain refused to subside.

In time they ascended the rise, reassured to find firmer footing but caudous because they knew that over the lip of the mound they would encounter the gathering of the goblins. The sounds from the crowd were now more powerful. As they topped the hill the hubbub suddenly subsided. Mab froze and John lurched against him.

They were looking down into an amphitheater filled with a sea of goblins of all shapes and sizes. The silence had arisen out of their fear of Nicholas Slapfoot, the Goblin Prince, who had ascended a dais in the center of the stage. With the aid of the Mashal Stone they saw the shark that John had seen in the cave.

The shark was addressing the crowd. "Can you hear what he's saying?" Mab asked, after a few moments.

"Not really. Something about the glory of darkness." He paused. "He's saying something now about goblin power— what's that?"

Mab did not reply. "Let's move cautiously among the gob-lins," he said after a moment. "We might be able to hear better lower down."

The crowd thinned round the edges and it was possible for them to worm their way silently and invisibly among the scattered goblins to a position where they could sit and hear the Goblin Prince more clearly. The goblins stared at him, entranced by the wild music of his speech and terrified by images Nicholas Slapfoot conjured up with an ability that gripped John in spite of his pain. "I never knew he could speak like that— and those
pictures!"
he whispered to Mab. Not only was the oratory awesome, but luridly colored images imprinted themselves magically in the air above the shark's head as the speech proceeded.

"This is how he keeps them in his grip of fear. He controls them by terror."

For more than an hour the Goblin Prince's frenzy continued to mount, as the weight of terror on the goblin multitude grew and grew. John's shoulder throbbed with every word Slapfoot spoke. He longed for the speech to end. Eventually a note of malice crept into the speaker's voice, "And we will show them as follows th' Changer, Mi-ka-ya, 'ow we treat deserters of th' true cause. Five 'undred years ago you sowed efel spawn in th' lake bed. Tomorrow th' efel spawn will ripen, and efel spawn by th' million will arise to destroy 'em and capture th' Sword Bearer..."

"Efel spawn?" John whispered. "What is he talking about?"

"Say no more," whispered Mab. "That is all we need to know. We must lose no time."

He pulled John to his feet, but at that moment a goblin could be seen hobbling across the dais toward Nicholas Slapfoot.

"I can't see properly," John whispered, "but it looks a bit like the creature that was on Tabby's back"

In that case we must move with extra speed," Mab hissed.

Quietly, yet as quickly as they could, they picked their way through the crowd. The speech had been interrupted. A hush filled the amphitheater. The chain that bound their wrists together was loosened, and in their hurry it slipped from them and fell to the ground. At once they were visible in the moonlight.

John turned, dived for the Mashal Stone and scrambled to his feet

"Quickly!" Mab hissed, stretching his hand to receive it.

"They've come among us!" Nicholas Slapfoot's voice rang over the amphitheater. "Th' Sword Bearer and th' magician— they're 'ere, right 'ere somewhere! Smell 'em out and capture 'em!"

Nicholas Slapfoot had not yet seen them, but the nearby goblins had. Yet they seemed to be transfixed with terror.

"Now—your wrist! Give me your wrist!" Mab cried.

John extended his left wrist alongside Mab's right, but at that moment a spear plunged deeply into the old man's back and he fell heavily against John.

A groan burst from him, and for a moment he struggled for breath. Then, enunciating carefully, he breathed, "It is mortal,
mortal,
John! I know it! Hold me up!"

John's arms were about him, sustaining him. Clumsily with his left hand the old man flung the chain that bore the Mashal Stone around the boy's neck, immediately making him invisible. To his horror John saw the point of the spear had emerged from the old seer's chest near his right shoulder. The nearby goblins remained immobile. One or two had risen to their feet, but still fear paralyzed them, fear made worse by the sudden appearance of both of them and now the disappearance of John.

Twenty yards away on their left the figure of a Matmon, the Matmon who had thrown the spear, was hurrying toward them.

"Bildreth!"John
gasped. He could clearly see the triumphant leer on the Matmon's twisted face. Suddenly he saw the hopelessness of their situation. The pain in his shoulder made it almost impossible to hold up the old seer.

"Go!" Mab gasped. "Do what I say!
You must leave me! The news must get through to Geburah or they will perish!
Now,
go! "

"What news, Mab?"

Bildreth had halved the distance between them, and the voice of Nicholas Slapfoot now rang out, "Thür 'e is! Seize 'im! Seize 'im!"

"Tell them
efel spawn,"
Mab breathed in a hoarse whisper. "They will know what to do. Now
go!
And here ..." he thrust his staff at John, "... this must not fall into goblin hands!"

"But I can't leave you here like this.
I can't do it.
Please, Mab. I want to be with you!"

Rage convulsed the old man's features. He no longer had voice or breath but he mouthed words and John read them clearly on his lips, "Fool! Fool! Go!" They were his last words. Suddenly the light of intelligence left his face. His head fell onto John's shoulder.

John laid him on the ground face down, shuddering at the sight of the spear. A sob convulsed him. He began to back away, hardly nodcing that now the goblins were moving toward Mab. Bildreth, who by now had reached them, plucked his spear from Mab's back. In rage, and still invisible, John raised the staff high and clubbed the Matmon to the ground with a single blow.

From behind, startled goblins bumped into him as they began to crowd around Mab, and with another sob John turned to make his way out of the amphitheater. Once he topped the rise he turned to stare in the direction of Mab but saw nothing but a mass of agitated goblins.

John had never known a sense of desolation like the one that filled him as he made his way down from the amphitheater. The occasional sob that burst from deep inside him had nothing to do with his shoulder pain or with self-pity. The emptiness within him was larger than himself. It was larger than the universe.

He had no difficulty in finding the coracle. Laying Mab's staff in the bottom of it he pushed off, clambered aboard and mechanically picked up the paddle. But instead of paddling he let the boat drift.

Mab had said his wound was
mortal.
Mortal. The word obsessed him. He supposed it had to do with death. Well, Mab was dead all right. He had not realized how much the old seer meant to him. Their relationship had begun stormily but had become a thing of joy. He thought of the many times they had fished together, laughed together. He owed his life to Mab. Mab's intervention had prevented his beheading. Mab had saved him from death in the swamp, from the hatred of Nicholas Slapfoot in the cave below the tower. Mab had rescued him from the Mystery's clutches.

Yet his loss was of Mab himself. Even if Mab had not done any of these things, yet he would still be as dear. Mab had fdled the space inside him, the space that was larger than himself and that now lay empty and desolate again.

The staff between his feet began to glow, slowly turning itself into a line of living blue fire. And from the burning rod a flaming blue pigeon emerged, to rise and hover ahead of the boat

He knew what he was meant to do, but for several moments he refused to move. Why should he follow the pigeon if Mab was dead? But then the old man's words sounded clearly in his memory,
"The news must get through to Geburah or they will perish!
... Tell them
efel spawn.
They will know what to do."

He followed the beautiful bird wearily. He had no sense of urgency, only a need to do what Mab had said. And as it had done on the previous occasion, the pigeon led him through the maze of drifting channels to the wide oudet that opened into the lake. Then, as before, it disappeared.