Lyonesse

by Jack Vance

  "We will dine and drink well," said Aillas. "Still I must arrive at Madling Meadow before tomorrow's daybreak."

  The three supped on chickens stuffed with barley and onions and roasted to a turn, hearth-cake set to catch the drippings, a pot of fieldgreens simmered with bacon, a salad of cress.

  "If I ate so much every night, I would no longer care to chop logs in the morning," declared Graithe.

  "Pray the day will arrive!" exclaimed Wynes.

  "Who knows? Perhaps even before you expect it," said Aillas. "But I am tired and I must arise before sun-up."

  Half an hour before sunrise Aillas stood by Madling Meadow. He waited in the gloom under the trees until the first glint of rising sun showed in the east, then slowly started across the dew-wet grass, the gem in his hand. As he neared the hummock he began to hear small twitters and warblings in a register almost too high for his ear to perceive. Something slapped at the hand which carried the gem; Aillas only clenched his hand the tighter. Invisible fingertips tweaked his ears and pulled his hair; his hat was whisked away and flung high in the air.

  Aillas spoke in a gentle voice: "Fairies, kind fairies: do not treat me so! I am Aillas, father to my son Dhrun, whom you loved."

  There was a moment of breathless silence. Aillas continued toward the hummock, to halt twenty yards short.

  The hummock suddenly became misty, and underwent changes, as of images gathering and going, shifting in and out of focus.

  From the hummock came a red carpet, unrolling almost to where Aillas stood. Along the carpet came a fairy five feet tall, pale brown of skin, with an over-sheen of olive-green. He wore a scarlet robe trimmed with white weasel-heads, a fragile crown of gold strands and green velvet slippers. To right and left other fairies showed on the margin of visibility, never totally substantial.

  "I am King Throbius," stated the fairy. "You are indeed the father of our beloved Dhrun?" "Yes, your Majesty."

  "In that case, our love transfers in part to you, and you will find no harm at Thripsey Shee."

  "I give you my thanks, your Majesty."

  "No thanks are needed; we are honored by your presence. What is that which you hold in your hand?"

  Another fairy spoke softly: "Oh, the thrilling dazzle!" "Your Majesty, this is a magic gem, of enormous value!" Fairy voices murmured: "True, true. A fervent gem, of magic hue."

  "Allow me to hold it," said King Throbius, in a peremptory voice.

  "Your Majesty, ordinarily your wishes would command me, but I have been most solemnly instructed. I want my son Dhrun returned to me alive and well; then and only then may I relinquish the gem."

  From the fairies came murmurs of surprise and disapproval: "A naughty fellow!" "Just so, the mortals!" "One can never trust their gentility." "Pale and coarse as rats!"

  King Throbius spoke: "I regret to state that Dhrun is no longer resident among us. He grew into boyhood and we were forced to send him away."

  Aillas gaped in astonishment. "He is barely a year old!" "In the shee time jerks and skips like a may-fly. We never trouble to reckon it out. When Dhrun left, he was, in your terms, perhaps nine years old."

  Aillas stood silent.

  "Please give me the pretty bauble," coaxed King Throbius, in the voice he might use upon a skittish cow whose milk he hoped to steal.

  "My position remains the same. Only when you give me my son."

  "That is next to impossible. He departed some time ago. Now then"—King Throbius' voice became harsh—"do as I command or never will you see your son again!"

  Aillas uttered a wild laugh. "I have never seen him yet! What have I to lose?"

  "We can transform you into a badger," piped a voice.

  "Or a milkweed fluff."

  "Or a sparrow with the horns of an elk."

  Aillas asked King Throbius: "You promised me your love and protection; now I am threatened. Is this fairy honor?"

  "Our honor is bright," declared King Throbius in a ringing voice. He nodded crisply right and left in satisfaction, as his subjects called out endorsement.

  "In that case, I return to my offer: this fabulous gem for my son."

  A shrill voice cried out: "That may not be, since it would bring good luck to Dhrun! I hate him, most severely! I brought a mordet* on him."

  *A unit of acrimony and malice, as expressed in the terms of a curse.

  King Throbius spoke in the silkiest of voices: "And what was the mordet?"

  "Aha, harrumf. Seven years."

  "Indeed. I find myself vexed. For seven years you shall taste not nectar but tooth-twisting vinegar. For seven years you will smell bad smells and never find the source. For seven years your wings will fail you and your legs will weigh heavy as lead and sink you four inches deep into all but the hardest ground. For seven years you will carry all slops and slimes from the shee. For seven years you will know an itch on your belly that no scratching will relieve. And for seven years you will not be allowed to look upon the pretty new bauble."

  Falael seemed most distressed by the final injunction. "Oh, the bauble? Good King Throbius, do not taunt me so! I crave that color! It is my most cherished thing!"

  "So it must be! Away with you!"

  Aillas asked: "Then you will bring back Dhrun?"

  "Would you take me into a fairy war with Trelawny Shee, or Zady Shee, or Misty Valley Shee? Or any other shee which guards the forest? You must ask a reasonable price for your bit of stone.

  Flink!" "Here, sir."

  "What can we offer Prince Aillas to fulfill his needs?"

  "Sir, I might suggest the Never-fail, as carried by Sir Chil the fairy knight."

  "A happy thought! Flink, you are most ingenious! Go, prepare the implement, on this instant!"

  "On this instant it shall be, sir!"

  Aillas ostentatiously put his hand, with the gem, into his pouch. "What is a ‘Never-fail'?"

  Flink's voice, breathless and shrill, sounded beside King Throbius. "I have it here, sir, after great and diligent toil at your order."

  "When I require haste, Flink hurries," King Throbius told Aillas. "When I use the word ‘instant' he understands the word to mean ‘now.'"

  "Just so," panted Flink. "Ah, how I have toiled to please Prince Aillas! If he deigns me only one word of praise, I am more than repaid!"

  "That is the true Flink speaking!" King Throbius told Aillas. "Honest and fine is Flink!"

  "I am interested less in Flink than in my son Dhrun. You were about to bring him to me."

  "Better! The Never-fail will serve you all your life long, always to indicate where Lord Dhrun may be found. Notice!" King Throbius displayed an irregular object three inches in diameter, carved from a walnut burl and suspended from a chain. A protuberance to the side terminated in a point ripped with a sharp tooth.

  King Throbius dangled the Never-fail on its chain. "You will note the direction indicated by the white fairy-tooth? Along that slant you will find your son Dhrun. The Never-fail is failureproof and warranted forever. Take it! The instrument will guide you infallibly to your son!"

  Aillas indignantly shook his head., "It points north, into the forest, where only fools and fairies go. This Never-fail points the direction of my own death—or it may take me without fail to Dhrun's corpse."

  King Throbius studied the instrument. "He is alive, otherwise the tooth would not snap to direction with such vigor. As for your own safety, I can only say that danger exists everywhere, for you and for me. Would you feel secure walking the streets of Lyonesse Town? I suspect not. Or even Domreis, where Prince Trewan hopes to make himself king? Danger is like the air we breathe. Why cavil at the club of an ogre or the maw of an ossip? Death comes to all mortals."

  "Bah!" muttered Aillas. "Flink is fast on his feet; let him run out into the forest with the Never-fail and bring back my son."

  From all sides came titters, quickly stilled when King Throbius, not amused, thrust his arm upward. "The sun stands hot and high; the dew is going and the bees are first at our f
lower-cups. I am losing my zest for transactions. What are your final terms?"

  "As before I want my son, sound and safe. That means no mordets of bad luck and Dhrun my son in my safe possession. For this, the gem."

  "One can only do the reasonable and convenient," said King Throbius. "Falael shall lift the mordet. As for Dhrun: here is the Never-fail and with it our warranty: it shall lead you to Dhrun in life's full vigor. Take it now." He pressed the Never-fail into Aillas' hands, who thereupon released his grip on the gem. King Throbius snatched it and held it high. "It is ours!"

  From all sides came a suspiration of awe and joy: "Ah!" "Ah, see it glow!" "A lump, a lummox!" "Look what he gave for a trifle!" "For such a treasure he might have claimed a wind-boat, or a palanquin carried by racing griffins, with fairy maids in attendance!" "Or a castle of twenty towers on Misty Meadow!" "Oh the fool, the fool!"

  The illusions flickered; King Throbius began to lose his definition. "Wait!" cried Aillas. He caught hold of the scarlet cloak. "What of the mordet? It must be lifted!"

  Flink spoke aghast: "Mortal, you have touched the royal garment! That is an irredemptible offense!"

  "Your promises protect me," said Aillas. "The mordet of bad luck must be lifted!"

  "Tiresome," sighed King Throbius. "I suppose I must see to it. Falael! You, yonder, so industriously scratching your belly— remove your curse and I will remove the itch."

  "Honor is at stake!" cried Falael. "Would you have me seem a weathercock?"

  "No one will take the slightest notice."

  "Let him apologize for his evil side-glances." Aillas said: "As his father, I will act as surrogate and tender his profound regrets for those deeds which disturbed you."

  "After all, it was not kind to treat me so."

  "Of course not! You are sensitive and just."

  "In that case I will remind King Throbius that the mordet was his own; I merely tricked Dhrun into looking back."

  "Is that the way of it?" demanded King Throbius.

  Flink said: "Just so, your Majesty." "Then I can do nothing. The royal curse is indelible."

  "Give me back the gem!" cried Aillas. "You have not held to your bargain."

  "I promised to do all reasonable and convenient. This I have done; anything more is not convenient. Flink! Aillas becomes tiresome. On which hem did he seize my robe—north, east, south or west?"

  "On the west, sire."

  "The west, eh? Well, we cannot harm him, but we can move him. Take him west, since that seems to be his preference, as far as possible."

  Aillas was whirled up and away through the sky. Windy draughts howled in his ears; sun, clouds and earth tumbled across his vision. He lofted high in trajectory, then dropped toward glittering sunlit water, and alighted on sand at the edge of the surf. "Here is west as west may be," said a voice choking with merriment. "Think kindly of us! Were we rude, west might have been another half-mile."

  The voice was gone. Aillas, rising shakily to his feet, stood alone on a bleak promontory not far from a town. The Never-fail had been tossed on the wet sand at his feet; he picked it up before the surf could carry it away.

  Aillas organized his thoughts. Apparently he stood at Cape Farewell, at the far western edge of Lyonesse. The town would be Pargetta.

  Aillas held the Never-fail suspended. The tooth jerked about to point toward the the northeast.

  Aillas heaved a deep sigh of frustration, then trudged up the beach to Pargetta, hard under the Castle Malisse. He ate bread and fried fish at the inn, then, after an hour's wrangling with the hostler, he bought a hammer-headed gray stallion of mature years, with a willful disposition and no grace whatever, but still capable of good service if not used too hard, and—no small consideration—of a price relatively low.

  Never-tail pointed to the northeast; with half the day still ahead, Aillas set off along Old Street,* up the valley of the River Syrinx and into the fastnesses of the Troagh, the southern culmination of the Teach tac Teach. He passed the night at a lonely mountain inn and late the next day he arrived at Nolsby Sevan, market town and junction of three important roads: The Sfer Arct leading south to Lyonesse Town, Old Street, and the Ulf Passway winding north into the Ulflands, by way of Kaul Bo-cach.

  *Old Street, running from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Cantabria, had been laid by the Magdals two thousand years before the coming of the Danaans. According to popular lore every step along Old Street overlooked a battlefield. When the full moon shone at Beltane, ghosts of the slain came out to stand along Old Street and stare at their adversaries across the way.

  Aillas took lodging at the White Horse Inn and next day set off to the north along the Ulf Passway, at the best speed his obstinate mount would allow. His plans were not elaborate nor, by the nature of things, fully detailed. He would ride up the Passway, enter South Ulfland at Kaul Bocach, and proceed into Dahaut along the Trompada, somehow giving Tintzin Fyral a wide berth. At Camperdilly Corners he would leave the Trompada for the East-West Road: a route which according to the Never-Fail should take him more or less directly to Dhrun, if so much were allowed by the seven-year mordet.

  A few miles along the way Aillas overtook a band of itinerant peddlers bound for Ys and towns along the South Ulf coast. Aillas joined the group to avoid passing Kaul Bocach alone, so perhaps to be an object of suspicion.

  At Kaul Bocach there was unsettling news, brought by refugees from the north. The Ska had once more erupted across both North and South Ulfland, almost isolating the city Oaldes, with King Oriante and his paltry court, and the puzzle remained why the Ska used such forbearance toward the powerless Oriante.

  In another operation the Ska had driven east to the Dahaut border and beyond, to seize the great fortress Poelitetz overlooking the Plain of Shadows.

  Ska strategy presented no mysteries to the day sergeant at Kaul Bocach. "They intend to take the Ulflands, North and South, as a pike takes a perch. Can there be any doubt? A bite at a time: a nip here, a gnaw there, and soon the black flag flies from Tawzy Head to Cape lay, and someday they may be bold enough to try for Ys and Vale Evander, if ever they could take Tintzin Fyral." He held up his hand. "No, don't tell me! That's not the way of a pike with a perch; he takes all at a gulp. But it's all one in the end!"

  Somewhat daunted the peddlers took counsel in a grove of aspen trees, and finally decided to proceed with caution, at least as far as Ys.

  Five miles along the road the peddlers met a straggle of peasant folk, some with horses or donkeys, others driving farm carts loaded with household possessions, others going afoot, with infants and children: refugees, so they identified themselves, driven from their steadings by the Ska. One great black army, so they stated, had already stormed across South Ulfland, obliterating resistance, enslaving able men and women, burning the keeps and castles of the Ulfish barons.

  Again the peddlers, now in distress, took counsel, and once again decided to proceed at least as far as Tintzin Fyral. "But no farther until safety is assured!" declared the most sagacious of the group. "Remember: one step into the Vale and we must pay the Duke's tolls!"

  "On then!" said another. "To Tintzin Fyral, and we shall see how the land lies."

  The group continued along the road, only in short order to meet another band of refugees, who brought news of the most startling sort: the Ska army had reached Tintzin Fyral and even now had placed it under attack.

  There was no more question of going forward; the peddlers turned in their tracks and returned south far more briskly than they had come.

  Aillas remained alone on the road. Tintzin Fyral lay yet another five miles ahead. He had no choice but to attempt to discover a route to detour Tintzin Fyral: one which climbed into the mountains, over, then descended once more to the Trompada.

  At a small steep ravine choked with scrub-oak and stunted cedar, Aillas dismounted and led his horse up the faintest of trails toward the skyline. Harsh vegetation blocked the way; loose rocks rolled underfoot and the hammer-headed gray horse had
no taste for mountain climbing. During the first hour Aillas progressed only a mile. After another hour he arrived at the ridge of a spur which splayed out from the central crag. The route became easier and led in a direction parallel to the road below, but always climbing, up toward that flat-topped mountain known as Tac Tor: the highest point within range of vision.

  Tintzin Fyral could not be far away. Stopping to catch his breath, Aillas thought to hear far faint shouts. Thoughtfully he continued, keeping as much to cover as possible. Tintzin Fyral, he calculated, stood across Vale Evander, immediately beyond Tac Tor. He was approaching the scene of siege far closer than he had intended.

  Sunset found him a hundred yards below the summit, in a little dell beside a covert of mountain larches. Aillas cut himself a bed of boughs, tied his horse on a long tether near a rivulet seeping from a spring. Forgoing the comfort of a fire, he ate bread and cheese from his saddlebag. From his pouch he brought Never-fail and watched as the tooth swung to the northeast, with perhaps a trifle more easting than before.

  He tucked Never-fail into his pouch, shoved pouch and saddle-bags deep under a laurel bush and went out on the ridge to look around the landscape. Afterglow had not yet left the sky and a full moon of enormous dimensions rose from the black loom of Forest Tantrevalles. Nowhere could be seen gleam of candle or lamp, nor the flicker of fire.

  Aillas considered the flat summit, only a hundred yards above. In the half-light he noticed a trail; others had fared this way before, though not by the route he had come.

  Aillas followed the path to the summit to find a flat area of three or four acres, with a stone altar and five dolmens at the center, standing stark and quiet in the moonlight.

  Giving wide berth to the altar Aillas crossed the flat summit, to where the opposite brink dropped away in a cliff. Tintzin Fyral seemed so close that he might have flung a stone across and down to the roof of the highest tower. The castle was illuminated as if for a gala, windows aglow with golden light. Along the ridge behind the castle hundreds of small fires flickered red and orange; among them moved a company of tall somber warriors, to a number Aillas could not estimate. At their back, dim in the firelight, stood the gaunt frames of four large siege engines. Clearly here was no chance or capricious escapade.