The Sword of Rhiannon

by Leigh Brackett

  “I salute you, Carse!” he whispered. “The Father of Lies himself could not do better.” He was beside himself with ecstasy.”

  “It is sublime. It is worthy of—of Boghaz!”

  Then he sobered and shook his head. “But it is also sheer insanity.”

  Carse took him by the shoulders. “As it was before on the galley—nothing to lose, all to gain. Will you stand by me?”

  The Valkisian closed his eyes. “I am tempted,” he murmured. “As a craftsman, as an artist, I would like to see the flowering of this beautiful deceit.”

  He shivered all over. “Flayed alive, you say. And then the Dhuvians. I suppose you’re right. We’re dead men, anyway.” His eyes popped open. “Hold on there! For Rhiannon all might be well in Sark but I’m only Boghaz, who mutinied against Ywain. Oh, no! I’m better off in Khondor.”

  “Stay, then, if you think so,” Carse shook him. “You fat fool! I’ll protect you. As Rhiannon I can do that. And as the saviours of Khondor, with those weapons in our hands, there’s no end to what we can do. How would you like to be King of Valkis?”

  “Well—” Boghaz sighed. “You would tempt the devil himself. And speaking of devils—” He looked narrowly at Carse. “Can you keep yours down? It’s an uncanny thing to have a demon for a bunk-mate.”

  Carse said, “I can keep him down. You heard Rhiannon himself admit it.”

  “Then,” said Boghaz, “we’d best move quickly before the Sea Kings end their council.” He chuckled. “Old Ironbeard has helped us, ironically enough. Every man is ordered to duty and our crew is aboard the galley, waiting—and not very happy about it either!”

  A moment later the guards in the inner room heard a piercing cry from Boghaz.

  “Help! Come quickly—Carse has thrown himself into the sea!”

  They rushed onto the balcony, where Boghaz was leaning out, pointing down to the churning waves below.

  “I tried to hold him,” he wailed, “but I could not.”

  One of the guards grunted. “Small loss,” he said and then Carse stepped out of the shadows against the wall and struck him a sledgehammer blow that felled him, and Boghaz whirled around to lay a second man on his back.

  The third one they knocked down between them before he could get his sword clear of the scabbard. The other two were climbing to their feet again with some idea of going on with the fight but Carse and the Valkisian had no time to waste and knew it. Fists hammered stunning blows with brutal accuracy and within a few minutes the three unconscious men were safely bound and gagged.

  Carse started to take the sword from one of them, and Boghaz coughed with some embarrassment.

  “Perhaps you’ll want your own blade back,” he said.

  “Where is it?”

  “Fortunately, just outside, where they made me leave it.”

  Carse nodded. It would be good to have the sword of Rhiannon in his hands again.

  Crossing the room Carse stopped long enough to pick up a cloak belonging to one of the guards. He looked sidelong at Boghaz. “How did you so fortunately chance to have my sword?” he asked.

  “Why, being your best friend and second in command, I claimed it.” The Valkisian smiled tenderly. “You were about to die—and I knew you would want me to have it.”

  “Boghaz,” said Carse, “your love for me is a beautiful thing.”

  “I have always been sentimental by nature.” The Valkisian motioned him aside, at the door. “Let me go first.”

  He stepped out in the corridor, then nodded and Carse followed him. The long blade stood against the wall. He picked it up and smiled.

  “From now on,” he said, “remember. I am Rhiannon!”

  There was little traffic in this part of the palace. The halls were dark, lighted at infrequent intervals by torches. Boghaz chuckled.

  “I know my way around this place,” he said. “In fact I have found ways in and out that even the Khonds have forgotten.”

  “Good,” said Carse. “You lead then. We go first to find Ywain.”

  “Ywain!” Boghaz stared at him. “Are you crazy, Carse? This is no time to be toying with that vixen!”

  Carse snarled. “She must be with us to bear witness in Sark that I am Rhiannon. Otherwise the whole scheme will fall. Now will you go?”

  He had realized that Ywain was the keystone of his whole desperate gamble. His trump card was the fact that she had seen Rhiannon possess him.

  “There is truth in what you say,” Boghaz admitted, then added dismally, “But I like it not. First a devil, then a hellcat with poison on her claws—this is surely a voyage for madmen!”

  Ywain was imprisoned on the same upper level. Boghaz led the way swiftly and they met no one. Presently, around the bend where two corridors met, Carse saw a single torch burning by a barred door that had one small opening in its upper half. A sleepy guard drowsed there over his spear.

  Boghaz drew a long breath. “Ywain can convince the Sarks,” he whispered, “but can you convince her?”

  “I must,” Carse answered grimly.

  “Well then—I wish us luck!”

  According to the plan they had made on the way Boghaz sauntered ahead to talk to the guard, who was glad to have news of what was going on. Then, in the middle of a sentence, Boghaz allowed his voice to trail off. Open-mouthed, he stared over the guard’s left shoulder.

  The startled man swung around.

  Carse came down the corridor. He strode as though he owned the world, the cloak thrown back from his shoulders, his tawny head erect, his eyes flashing. The wavering torchlight struck fire from his jewels and the sword of Rhiannon was a shaft of wicked silver in his hand.

  He spoke in the ringing tones he remembered from the grotto.

  “Down on your face, you scum of Khondor—unless you wish to die!”

  The man stood transfixed, his spear half raised. Behind him Boghaz uttered a frightened whimper.

  “By the gods,” he moaned, “the devil has possessed him again. It is Rhiannon, broken free!”

  Very godlike in the brazen light, Carse raised the sword, not as a weapon but as a talisman of power. He allowed himself to smile.

  “So you know me. It is well.” He bent his gaze on the white-faced guard. “Do you doubt, that I must teach you?”

  “No,” the guard answered hoarsely. “No, Lord!”

  He went to his knees. The spear-point clashed on rock as he dropped it. Then he bellied down and hid his face in his hands.

  Boghaz whimpered again, “Lord Rhiannon.”

  “Bind him,” said Carse, “and open me this door.”

  It was done. Boghaz lifted the three heavy bars from their sockets. The door swung inward and Carse stood upon the threshold.

  She was waiting, standing tensely erect in the gloom. They had not given her so much as a candle and the tiny cell was closed except for the barred slot in the door. The air was stale and dank with a taint of mouldy straw from the pallet that was the only furniture. And she wore her fetters still.

  Carse steeled himself. He wondered whether, in the hidden depths of his mind, the Cursed One watched. Almost, he thought, he heard the echo of dark laughter, mocking the man who played at being a god.

  Ywain said, “Are you indeed Rhiannon?”

  Marshal the deep proud voice, the look of brooding fire in the glance.

  “You have known me before,” said Carse. “How say you now?”

  He waited, while her eyes searched him in the half light. And then slowly her head bent, stiffly as became Ywain of Sark even before Rhiannon.

  “Lord,” she said.

  Carse laughed softly and turned to the cringing Boghaz.

  “Wrap her in the cloths from the pallet. You must carry her—and bear her gently, swine!”

  Boghaz scurried to obey. Ywain was obviously furious at the indignity but she held her tongue on that score.

  “We are escaping them?” she asked.

  “We are leaving Khondor to its fate,” Carse gri
pped the sword. “I would be in Sark when the Sea Kings come that I may blast them myself, with my own weapons!”

  Boghaz covered her face with the rags. Her hauberk and the hampering chains were hidden. The Valkisian lifted what might have been only a dirty bundle to his massive shoulder. And over the bundle he gave Carse a beaming wink.

  Carse himself was not so sure. In this moment, grasping at the chance for freedom, Ywain would not be too critical. But it was a long way to Sark.

  Had he detected in her manner just the faintest note of mockery when she bent her head?

  CHAPTER XV

  Under the Two Moons

  Boghaz, with the true instinct of his breed, had learned every rathole in Khondor. He took them out of the palace by a way so long disused that the dust lay inches thick and the postern door had almost rotted away. Then, by crumbling stairways and steep alleys that were no more than cracks in the rock, he led the way around the city.

  Khondor seethed. The night wind carried echoes of hastening feet and taut voices. The upper air was full of beating wings where the Sky Folk went, dark against the stars.

  There was no panic. But Carse could feel the anger of the city, and the hard grim tension of a people about to strike back against certain doom. From the distant temple he could hear the voices of women chanting to the gods.

  The hurrying people they met paid them little heed. It was only a fat sailor with a bundle and a tall man muffled in a cloak, going down toward the harbor. What matter for notice in that?

  They climbed the long, long steps downward to the basin and there was much coming and going on the dizzy way, but still they passed unchallenged. Each Khond was too full of his own worries this fateful night to pay attention to his neighbor.

  Nevertheless Carse’s heart was pounding and his ears ached from listening for the alarm which would surely come as soon as Ironbeard went up to slay his captive.

  They gained the quays. Carse saw the tall mast of the galley towering above the longships and made for it with Boghaz panting at his heels.

  Torches burned here by the hundreds. By their light fighting men and supplies were pouring aboard the long-ships. The rock walls rang with the tumult. Small craft darted between the outer moorings.

  Carse kept his head lowered, shouldering his way through the crowd. The water was alive with Swimmers and there were women with set white faces who had come to bid their men farewell.

  As they neared the galley Carse let Boghaz get ahead of him. He paused in the shelter of a pile of casks, pretending to bind up his sandal thong while the Valkisian went aboard with his burden. He heard the crew, sullen-faced and nervous, hailing Boghaz and asking for news.

  Boghaz disposed of Ywain by dumping her casually in the cabin, and then called all hands forward for a conference by the wine butt, which was locked in the lazarette there. The Valkisian had his speech by heart.

  “News?” Carse heard him say. “I’ll give you news! Since Rold was taken there’s an ugly temper in the city. We were their brothers yesterday. Today we’re outlaws and enemies again. I’ve heard them talking in the wine shops and I tell you our lives aren’t worth that!”

  While the crew was muttering uneasily over that, Carse darted over the side unseen. Before he gained the cabin he heard Boghaz finish.

  “There was a mob already gathering when I left. If we want to save our hides we’d better cast off now while we have the chance!”

  Carse had been pretty sure what the reaction of the crew would be to that story and he was not sure at all that Boghaz was stretching it too much. He had seen mobs turn before and his crew of convict Sarks, Jekkarans and others might soon be in a nasty spot.

  Now, with the cabin door closed and barred, he leaned against the panel, listening. He heard the padding of bare feet on the deck, the quick shouting of orders, the rattle of the blocks as the sails came down from the yards. The mooring lines were cast off. The sweeps came out with a ragged rumble. The galley rode free.

  “Ironbeard’s orders!” Boghaz shouted to someone on shore. “A mission for Khondor!”

  The galley quivered, then began to gather way with the measured booming of the drum. And then, over all the near confusion of sound, Carse heard that his ears had been straining to hear—the distant roar from the crest of the rock, the alarm sweeping through the city, rushing toward the harbor stair.

  He stood in an agony of fear lest everyone else should hear it too and know its meaning without being told. But the din of the harbor covered it long enough and by the time word had been brought down from the crest the black galley was already in the road stead, speeding down into the mouth of the fjord.

  In the darkness of the cabin Ywain spoke quietly. “Lord Rhiannon—may I be allowed to breathe?”

  He knelt and stripped the cloths from her and she sat up.

  “My thanks. Well, we are free of the palace and the harbor but there still remains the fiord. I heard the outcry.”

  “Aye,” said Carse. “And the Sky Folk will carry word ahead.” He laughed. “Let us see if they can stop Rhiannon by flinging pebbles from the cliffs!”

  He left her then, ordering her to remain where she was, and went out on deck.

  They were well along the channel now, racing under a fast stroke. The sails were beginning to catch the wind that blew between the cliffs. He tried to remember how the ballista defenses were set, counting on the fact that they were meant to bear on ships coming into the fiord, not going out.

  Speed would be the main thing. If they could drive the galley fast enough they’d have a chance.

  In the faint light of Deimos no one saw him. Not until Phobos topped the cliffs and sent a shaft of greenish light. Then the men saw him there, his cloak whipping in the wind, the long sword in his hands.

  A strange sort of cry went up—half welcome for the Carse they remembered, half fear because of what they had heard about him in Khondor.

  He didn’t give them time to think. Swinging the sword high, he roared at them, “Pull, there, you apes! Pull, or they’ll sink us!”

  Man or devil, they knew he spoke the truth. They pulled.

  Carse leaped up to the steersman’s platform. Boghaz was already there. He cowered convincingly against the rail as Carse approached but the man at the tiller regarded him with wolfish eyes in which there was an ugly spark. It was the man with the branded cheek, who had been at the oar with Jaxart on the day of the mutiny. -

  “I’m captain now,” he said to Carse. “I’ll not have you on my ship to curse it!”

  Carse said with terrible slowness, “I see you do not know me. Tell him, man of Valkis!”

  But there was no need for Boghaz to speak. There came a whistling of pinions down the wind and a winged man stooped low in the moonlight over the ship.

  “Turn back! Turn back!” he cried. “You bear—Rhiannon!”

  “Aye!” Carse shouted back. “Rhiannon’s wrath, Rhiannon’s power!”

  He lifted the sword hilt high so that the dark jewel blazed evilly in Phobos’ light.

  “Will you stand against me? Will you dare?”

  The Skyman swerved away and rose wailing in the wind. Carse turned upon the steersman.

  “And you,” he said. “How say you now?”

  He saw the wolf-eyes flicker from the blazing jewel to his own face and back again. The look of terror he was beginning to know too well came into them and they dropped.

  “I dare not stand against Rhiannon,” the man said hoarsely.

  “Give me the helm,” said Carse, and the other stood aside, the brand showing livid on his whitened cheek.

  “Make speed,” Carse ordered, “if you would live.”

  And speed they made, so that the galley went with a frightening rush between the cliffs, a black and ghostly ship between the white fire of the fiord and the cold green moonlight. Carse saw the open sea ahead and steeled himself, praying.

  A whining snarl echoed from the rock as the first of the great ballistas crashed. A sp
out of water rose by the galley’s bow and she shuddered and raced on.

  Crouched over the tiller bar, his cloak streaming, his face intense and strange in the eery glow, Carse ran the gauntlet in the throat of the fiord.

  Ballistas twanged and thundered. Great stones rained into the water, so that they sailed through a burning cloud of mist and spray. But it was as Carse had hoped. The defenses, invincible to frontal attack, were weak when taken in reverse. The bracketing of the channel was imperfect, the aim poor against a fleeting target. Those things and the headlong speed of the galley saved them.

  They came out into open water. The last stone fell far astern and they were free. There would be quick pursuit—that he knew. But for the moment they were safe.

  Carse realized then the difficulties of being a god. He wanted to sit down on the deck and take a long pull at the wine cask to get over his shakes. But instead he had to force a ringing laugh, as though it amused him to see these childish humans try to prevail against the invincible.

  “Here, you who call yourself captain! Take the helm—and set a course for Sark.”

  “Sark!” The unlucky man had much to contend with that night. “My Lord Rhiannon, have pity! We are proscribed convicts in Sark!”

  “Rhiannon will protect you,” Boghaz said.

  “Silence!” roared Carse. “Who are you to speak for Rhiannon?” Boghaz cringed abjectedly and Carse said, “Fetch the Lady Ywain to me—but first strike off her chains.”

  He descended the ladder to stand upon the deck, waiting. Behind him he heard the branded man groan and mutter, “Ywain! Gods above, the Khonds would have been a better death!”

  Carse stood unmoving and the men watched him, not daring to speak, wanting to rise and kill him, but afraid. Afraid of the unknown, shivering at the power of the Cursed One that could blast them all.

  Ywain came to him, free of her chains now, and bowed. He turned and called out to the crew.

  “You rose, against her once, following the barbarian. Now the barbarian is no more as you knew him. And you will serve Ywain again. Serve her well and she will forget your crime.”

  He saw her eyes blaze at that. She started to protest and he gave her a look that stopped the words in her throat.