He felt at ease; his mood was almost exalted, even though the water, at first cold, then tolerable, once more seemed chilly.
With disarming stealth, he began to feel comfortable again. Aillas felt at peace. It would be easy now to relax, to slide away into languor.
If he slept, he would never awaken. Worse, he would never discover who had thrown him into the sea. "I am Aillas of Watershade!"
He exerted himself; he moved his arms and legs to swim; and once again became uncomfortably cold. How long had he floated in this dark water? He looked up to the sky. The stars had shifted; Arcturus was gone and Vega hung low in the west... For a period the first level of consciousness departed and he knew only a bleary awareness which started to flicker and go out... Something disturbed him. A quiver of sentience returned. The eastern sky glowed yellow; dawn was at hand. The water around him was black as iron. Off to the side, a hundred yards away, water foamed around the base of a rock. He looked at it with sad interest, but wind and waves and current carried him past.
A roaring sound filled his ears; he felt a sudden harsh impact, then he was sucked away by a wave, picked up and thrown against something cruelly sharp. With numb arms and sodden fingers he tried to cling, but another surge pulled him away.
Chapter 10
DURING THE REIGNS OF OLAM I, Great King of the Elder Isles, and his immediate successors, the throne Evandig and the sacred stone table Cairbra an Meadhan occupied place in Haidion. Olam III, "the Vain," moved throne and table to Avallon. This act and its consequences came about as an oblique result of discord among the arch-magicians of the land. At this time they numbered eight: Murgen, Sartzanek, Desmei, Myolander, Baibal-ides, Widdefut, Coddefut and Noumique.* Murgen was reckoned first among his fellows, by no means to the satisfaction of all. Sartzanek in particular resented Murgen's austere inflexibility, while Desmei deplored his strictures against meddling with affairs of the countryside, which was her sport.
*Whenever the magicians met together, another appeared: a tall shape muffled in a long black cape, with a wide-brimmed black hat obscuring his features.
He stood always back in the shadows and never spoke; when one or another of the magicians chanced to look into his face they saw black emptiness with a pair of far stars where his eyes might be. The presence of the ninth magician
(if such he were) at first made for uneasiness, but in due course, since the presence seemed to affect nothing, he was ignored, save for occasional sideglances.
Murgen made his residence at Swer Smod, a rambling stone manse in the northwest part of Lyonesse, where the Teach tac Teach sloped down into the Forest of Tantrevalles. He based his edict on the thesis that any assistance rendered to a favorite must sooner or later transgress upon the interests of other magicians.
Sartzanek, perhaps the most capricious and unpredictable of all the magicians, resided at Faroli, deep inside the forest, in the then Grand Duchy of Dahaut. He long had resented Murgen's prohibitions, and contravened them as flagrantly as he dared.
Sartzanek occasionally conducted erotic experiments with the witch Desmei. Stung by the derision of Widdefut, Sartzanek retaliated with the Spell of Total Enlightenment, so that Widdefut suddenly knew everything which might be known: the history of each atom of the universe, the devolvements of eight kinds of time, the possible phases of each succeeding instant; all the flavors, sounds, sights, smells of the world, as well as percepts relative to nine other more unusual senses. Widdefut became palsied and paralyzed and could not so much as feed himself. He stood trembling in confusion until he dessicated to a wisp and blew away on the wind.
Coddefut made an indignant protest, exciting Sartzanek to such a rage that he put by all caution and destroyed Coddefut with a plague of maggots. Coddefut's entire surface seethed under an inchthick layer of worms, to such effect that Coddefut lost control of his wisdom and tore himself to pieces.
The surviving magicians, with the exception of Desmei, invoked pressures which Sartzanek could not repugn. He was compressed into an iron post seven feet tall and four inches square, so that only upon careful scrutiny might his distorted features be noted. This post was similar to the post at Twitten's Corner. The Sartzanek post was implanted at the very peak of Mount Agon. Whenever lightning struck down, Sartzanek's etched features were said to twitch and quiver.
A certain Tamurello immediately took up residence in Sartzanek's manse, Faroli, and all understood him to be Sartzanek's alter ego, or scion: in certain respects an extension of Sartzanek himself.*
Like Sartzanek, Tamurello was tall, heavy of physique, with black eyes, black curls, a full mouth, round chin, and a temperament which expressed itself in terms of vivid emotion.
*ln just such a fashion Shimrod was known to be an extension, or alter ego, of Murgen, though their personalities had separated and they were different individuals.
The witch Desmei, who had performed erotic conjunctions with Sartzanek, now amused herself with King Olam III. She appeared to him as a female clothed with a soft pelt of black fur and an oddly beautiful cat-like mask. This creature knew a thousand lascivious tricks; King Olam, befuddled and foolish, succumbed to her will.
To spite Murgen, Desmei persuaded Olam to move his throne Evandig and the table Cairbra an Meadhan to Avallon.
The old tranquility was gone. The magicians were at odds, each suspicious of the other. Murgen, in cold disgust, isolated himself at Swer Smod.
Difficult times came upon the Elder Isles. King Olam, now deranged, attempted copulation with a leopard; he was savaged and died. His son, Uther I, a frail and timid stripling, no longer enjoyed the support of Murgen. Goths invaded the north coast of Dahaut and looted Whanish Isle, where they sacked the monastery and burned the great library.
Audry, Grand Duke of Dahaut, raised an army and destroyed the Goths at the Battle of Hax, but suffered such losses that the Celtic Godelians moved east and took the Wysrod Peninsula. King Uther, after months of indecision, marched his army against the Godelians only to meet disaster at the Battle of Wa'nwillow Ford, where he was killed. His son, Uther II fled north to England, where in due course he sired Uther Pendragon, father to King Arthur of Cornwall.
The dukes of the Elder Isles met at Avallon to choose a new king.
Duke Phristan of Lyonesse claimed kingship by virtue of lineage, while the aging Duke Audry of Dahaut cited the throne of Evandig and the table Cairbra an Meadhan in support of his own claim; the conclave dissolved in acrimony. Each duke returned home and thereafter styled himself King of his own personal domain.
Instead of one there were now ten kingdoms: North Ulfland, South Ulfland, Dahaut, Caduz, Blaloc, Pomperol, Godelia, Troicinet, Dascinet and Lyonesse.
The new kingdoms found ample scope for contention. King Phristan of Lyonesse and his ally King Joel of Caduz went to war against Dahaut and Pomperol. At the Battle of Orm Hill, Phristan killed the old but stalwart Audry I and was himself killed by an arrow; the battle and the war ended indecisively, with each side charged with hatred for the other.
Prince Casmir, known as "the Popinjay," fought in the battle bravely but without recklessness and returned to Lyonesse Town as King. Immediately he abandoned his elegant postures for a hard practicality, and set himself to the task of strengthening his realm.
A year after Casmir became King, he married Princess Sollace of Aquitaine, a handsome blonde maiden with Gothic blood in her veins, whose stately mien disguised a stolid temperament. Casmir considered himself a patron of the magical arts. In a secret chamber he kept a number of curios and magical adjuncts, including a book of incantations, indited in illegible script, but which glowed dimly in the dark. When Casmir ran his finger over the runes a sensation peculiar to each incantation suffused his mind.