The Sword of Rhiannon

XVI. Voice of the Serpent

Carse stood on the afterdeck with Boghaz. It was mid-morning. The calm still held and now the longships were close enough to be seen from the deck.

Boghaz said, “At this rate they’ll overhaul us by nightfall.”

“Yes.” Carse was worried. Under-manned as she was the galley could not hope to outdistance the Khonds under oars alone. And the last thing Carse wanted was to be forced into the position of fighting Ironbeard’s men. He knew he couldn’t do it.

“They’ll break their hearts to catch us,” he said. “And these are only the van. The whole of the Sea Kings fleet will be coming on behind them.”

Boghaz looked at the following ships. “Do you think we’ll ever reach Sark?”

“Not unless we raise a fair wind,” Carse said grimly, “and even then not by much of a margin. Do you know any prayers?”

“I was instructed in my youth,” answered Boghaz piously.

“Then pray!”

But all that long hot day there was no more than a breath of air to ripple the galley’s sails. The men wearied at the sweeps. They had not much heart for the business at best, being trapped between two evils with a demon for captain, and they had only so much strength.

The longships doggedly, steadily, grew closer.

In the late afternoon, when the setting sun made a magnifying glass of the lower air the outlook reported other ships far back in the distance. Many ships—the armada of the Sea Kings.

Carse looked up into the empty sky, bitter of heart.

The breeze began to strengthen. As the sails filled the rowers roused themselves and pulled with renewed vigor.

Presently Carse ordered the sweeps in. The wind blew strongly. The galley picked up speed and the longships could no more than hold their own.

Carse knew the galley’s speed. She was a fast sailer and with her great spread of canvas might hope to keep well ahead of the pursuers if the wind held.

If the wind held…

The next few days were enough to drive a man mad. Carse drove the men in the pit without mercy and each time the sweeps had to be run out the beat grew slower as they reached the point of exhaustion.

By the narrowest margin Carse kept the galley ahead. Once, when it seemed they were surely caught, a sudden storm saved them by scattering the lighter ships, but they came on again. And now a man could see the horizon dotted with a host of sails, where the armada irresistibly advanced.

The immediate pursuers grew from four to five, and then to seven. Carse remembered the old adage that a stern chase is a long one but it seemed that this one could not go on much longer.

There came another time of flat hot calm. The rowers drooped and sweated at the oars driven only by their fear of the Khonds and try as they would there was no bite in the stroke.

Carse stood by the after rail, watching, his face lined and grim. The game was up. The lean longships were putting on a burst of speed, closing in for the kill.

Suddenly, sharply, there came a hail from the masthead.

“Sail ho!”

Carse whirled, following the line of the lookout’s pointing arm.

“Sark ships!”

He saw them ahead, racing up under a fast beat, three tall war-galleys of the patrol. Leaping to the edge of the rowers’ pit, he shouted to the men.

“Pull, you dogs! Lay into it! There’s help on the way!”

They found their last reserves of energy. The galley made a desperate lurching run. Ywain came to Carse’s side.

“We’re close to Sark now, Lord Rhiannon. If we can keep ahead a little longer…”

The Khonds rushed down on them, pushing furiously in a last attempt to ram and sink the galley before the Sarks could reach them. But they were too late.

The patrol ships swept by. They charged in among the Khonds and scattered them and the air was filled with shouts and the twangings of bow strings, and the terrible ripping sound of splintering oars as a whole bank was crushed into matchwood.

There began a running fight that lasted all afternoon. The desperate Khonds hung on and would not be driven off. The Sark ships closed in around the galley, a mobile wall of defense. Time and again the Khonds attacked, their light swift craft darting in hornet-like, and were driven off. The Sarks carried ballistas, and Carse saw two of the Khond ships holed and sunk by the hurtling stones.

A light breeze began to blow. The galley picked up speed. And now blazing arrows flew, searching out the bellying sails. Two of the escort ships fell back with their canvas ablaze but the Khonds suffered also. There were only three of them left in the fight and the galley was by now well ahead of them.

They came in sight of the Sark coast, a low dark line above the water. And then, to Carse’s great relief, other ships came out to meet them, drawn by the fighting, and the three remaining Khond longships put about and drew off.

It was all easy after that. Ywain was in her own place again. Fresh rowers were put aboard from other ships and one swift craft went ahead of them to carry warning of the attacks and news of Ywain’s coming.

But the smoke of the burning longships astern was a painful thing to Carse. He looked at the massed sails of the Sea Kings in the far distance and felt the huge and crushing weight of the battle that was to come. It seemed to him in that moment that there was no hope.

They came in late afternoon into the harbor of Sark. A broad estuary offered anchorage for countless ships and on both sides of the channel the city sprawled in careless strength.

It was a city whose massive arrogance suited the men who had built it. Carse saw great temples and the squat magnificence of the palace, crowning the highest hill. The buildings were almost ugly in their solid strength, their buttressed shoulders jutting against the sky, brilliant with harsh colors and strong designs.

Already this whole harbor area was in a feverish sweat of activity. Word of the Sea Kings’ coming had started a swift manning of ships and readying of defenses, the uproar and tumult of a city preparing for war.

Boghaz, beside him, muttered, “We’re mad to walk like this into the dragon’s throat. If you can’t carry it off as Rhiannon, if you make one slip…”

Carse said, “I can do it. I’ve had considerable practice by now in playing the Cursed One.”

But inwardly he was shaken. Confronted by the massive might of Sark it seemed a mad insolence to attempt to play the god here.

Crowds along the waterfront cheered Ywain wildly as she disembarked. And they stared in some amazement at the tall man with her, who looked like a Khond and wore a great sword.

Soldiers formed a guard around them and forced a way through the excited mob. The cheering followed them as they went up through the crowded city streets toward the brooding palace.

They passed at length into the cool dimness of the palace halls. Carse strode down huge echoing rooms with inlaid floors and massive pillars that supported giant beams covered with gold. He noticed that the serpent motif was strong in the decorations.

He wished he had Boghaz with him. He had been forced, for appearance sake, to leave the fat thief behind and he felt terribly alone.

At the silvery doors of the throne room the guard halted. A chamberlain wearing mail under his velvet gown came forward to greet Ywain.

“Your father, the Sovereign King Garach, is overjoyed at your safe return and wishes to welcome you. But he begs you to wait as he is closeted with the Lord Hishah, the emissary from Caer Dhu.”

Ywain’s lips twisted. “So already he asks aid of the Serpent.” She nodded imperiously at the closed door. “Tell the king I will see him now.”

The chamberlain protested. “But, Highness—”

“Tell him,” said Ywain, “or I will enter without permission. Say that there is one with me who demands admittance and whom not even Garach nor all Caer Dhu may deny.”

The chamberlain looked in frank puzzlement at Carse. He hesitated, then bowed and went in through the silver doors.

Carse had caught the note of bitterness in Ywain’s voice when she spoke of the Serpent. He taxed her with it.

“No, Lord,” she said. “I spoke once and you were lenient. It is not my place to speak again. Besides”—she shrugged,—“you see how my father bars me from his confidence in this, even though I must fight his battles for him.”

“You do not wish aid from Caer Dhu even now?”

She remained silent, and Carse said, “I bid you to speak!”

“Very well then. It is natural for two strong peoples to fight for mastery when their interests clash on every shore of the same sea. It is natural for men to want power. I could have gloried in this coming battle, gloried in a victory over Khondor. But—”

“Go on.”

She cried out then with controlled passion. “But I have wished that Sark had grown great by fair force of arms, man against man, as it was in the old days before Garach made alliance with Caer Dhu! And now there is no glory in a victory won before even the hosts have met.”

“And your people,” asked Carse. “Do they share your feelings in this?”

“They do, Lord. But enough are tempted by power and spoils—”

She broke off, looking Carse straight in the face.

“I have already said enough to bring your wrath upon me. Therefore I will finish, for I think now that Sark is truly doomed, even in victory. The Serpent gives us aid not for our sakes, but as part of its own design. We have become no more than tools by which Caer Dhu gains its ends. And now that you have come back to lead the Dhuvians—”

She stopped and there was no need for her to finish. The opening of the door saved Carse from the necessity of an answer.

The chamberlain said apologetically, “Highness, your father sends answer that he does not understand your bold words and again begs you to wait his pleasure.”

Ywain thrust him angrily aside and strode to the tall doors, flinging them open. She stood back and said to Carse, “Lord, will you enter?”

He drew a deep breath and entered, striding down the long dim length of the throne room like a very god, with Ywain following behind.

The place seemed empty except for Garach, who had sprung to his feet on the dais at the far end. He wore a robe of black velvet worked in gold and he had Ywain’s graceful height and handsomeness of feature. But her honest strength was not in him, nor her pride, nor her level glance. For all his graying beard he had a mouth of a petulant greedy child.

Beside him, withdrawn into the shadows by the high seat, another stood also. A dark figure, hooded and cloaked, its face concealed, its hands hidden in the wide sleeves of its robe.

“What means this?” cried Garach angrily. “Daughter or not, Ywain, I’ll not stand for such insolence!”

Ywain bent her knee. “My father,” she said clearly, “I bring you the Lord Rhiannon of the Quiru, returned from the dead.”

Garach’s face paled by degrees to the color of ash. His mouth opened, but no words came. He stared at Carse and then at Ywain and finally at the cowled, hooded Dhuvian.

“This is madness,” he stammered at last.

“Nevertheless,” said Ywain, “I bear witness to its truth. Rhiannon’s mind lives in the body of this barbarian. He spoke to the Wise Ones at Khondor and he has spoken since to me. It is Rhiannon who stands before you.”

Again there was silence as Garach stared and stared and trembled. Carse stood tall and lordly, outwardly contemptuous of doubt and waiting for acknowledgment.

But the old chilling fear was in him. He knew that ophidian eyes watched him from the shadow under the Dhuvian’s cowl and it seemed that he could feel their cold gaze sliding through his imposture as a knife blade slips through paper.

The mind-knowledge of the Halflings. The strong extrasensory perception that could see beyond the appearances of the flesh. And the Dhuvians, for all their evil, were Halflings too.

Carse wanted nothing more at that moment than to break and run. But he forced himself to play the god, arrogant and self-assured, smiling at Garach’s fear.

Deep within his brain, in the corner that was no longer his own, he felt a strange and utter stillness. It was as though the invader, the Cursed One, had gone.

Carse forced himself to speak, making his voice ring back from the walls in stern echoes.

“The memories of children are indeed short when even the favorite pupil has forgotten the master.”

And he bent his gaze upon Hishah the Dhuvian.

“Do you also doubt me, child of the snake? Must I teach you again, as I taught S’San?”

He lifted the great sword and Garach’s eyes flickered to Ywain.

She said, “The Lord Rhiannon slew S’San, aboard the galley.”

Garach dropped to his knees.

“Lord,” he said submissively, “what is your will?”

Carse ignored him, looking still at the Dhuvian. And the cowled figure moved forward with a peculiar gliding step and spoke in its soft hateful voice.

“Lord, I also ask—what is your will?”

The dark robe rippled as the creature seemed to kneel.

“It is well.” Carse crossed his hands over the hilt of the sword, dimming the lustre of the jewel.

“The fleet of the Sea Kings stands in to attack soon. I would have my ancient weapons brought to me that I may crush the enemies of Sark and Caer Dhu, who are also my enemies.”

A great hope sprang into Garach’s eyes. It was obvious that fear gnawed his vitals—fear of many things, Carse thought, but just now, above all, fear of the Sea Kings. He glanced aside to Hishah and the cowled creature said:

“Lord, your weapons have been taken to Caer Dhu.”

The Earthman’s heart sank. Then he remembered Rold of Khondor, and how they must have broken him to get the secret of the Tomb and a blind rage came over him.

The snarl of fury in his voice was not feigned, only the sense of his words.

“You dared to tamper with the power of Rhiannon?” He advanced toward the Dhuvian. “Can it be that the pupil now hopes to outrival the master?”

“No, Lord.” The veiled head bowed. “We have but kept your weapons safe for you.”

Carse permitted his features to relax somewhat.

“Very well, then. See that they are returned to me here and at once!”

Hishah rose. “Yes, Lord. I will go now to Caer Dhu to do your bidding.”

The Dhuvian glided toward the inner door and was gone, leaving Carse in a secret sweat of mingled relief and apprehension.