"It is beautiful," said Conim, "but I…"
"Wait," Shool emptied the larger sack on the lid of the chest, which had closed. He picked up the object and displayed it.
Corum gasped. It seemed to be a gauntlet with room for five slender fingers and a thumb. It, too, was covered with strange, dark jewels.
'That gauntlet is of no use to me," Corum said. "It is for a left hand with six fingers. I have five fingers and no left hand."
"It is not a gauntlet. It is Kwll's hand. He had four, but he left one behind. Struck off by his brother, I understand…"
"Your jokes do not appeal to me, Sorcerer. They are too ghoulish. Again, you waste time."
"You had best get used to my jokes, as you call them, Master Vadhagh."
"I see no reason to."
"These are the gifts. To replace your missing eye-I offer you the Eye of Rhynn. To replace your missing hand-the Hand of Kwll!"
Corum's mouth curved with nausea. “I’ll have nothing of them! I want no dead being's limbs! I thought you would give me back my own! You have tricked me, sorcerer!"
"Nonsense. You do not understand the properties these things possess. They will give you greater powers than any of your race or the Mabden has ever known! The eye can see into areas of time and space never observed before by a mortal. And the hand-the hand can summon aid from those areas. You do not think I would send you into the lair of the Knight of the Swords without some supernatural aid, do you?"
"What is the extent of their powers?"
Shool shrugged his young girl's shoulders. "I have not had the opportunity to test them."
"So there could be danger in using them?"
"Why should there be?"
Corum became thoughtful. Should he accept Shool's disgusting gifts and risk the consequences in order to survive, slay Glandyth, and rescue Rhalina? Or should he prepare to die now and end the whole business?
Shool said, "Think of the knowledge these gifts will bring you. Think of the things you will see on your travels. No mortal has ever been to the domain of the Knight of the Swords before! You can add much to your wisdom, Master Corum, And remember-it is the Knight who is ultimately responsible for your doom and the deaths of your folk…"
Corum drew deeply of the musty air. He made up his mind.
"Very well, I will accept your gifts."
"I am honored," Shool said sardonically. He pointed a finger at Corum and Corum reeled backward, fell amongst a pile of bones, and tried to rise. But he felt drowsy. "Continue your slumbers, Master Corum," Shool said.
He was back in the room in which he had originally met Shool. There was a fierce pain in the socket of his blind eye. There was a terrible agony in the stump of his left hand. He felt drained of energy. He tried to look about him, but his vision would not clear.
He heard a scream. It was Rhalina.
"Rhalina! Where are you?"
“I-I am here-Corum. What has been done to you? Your face-your hand…"
With his right hand he reached up to touch his blind socket. Something warm shifted beneath his fingers. It was an eye! But it was an eye of an unfamiliar texture and size. He knew then that it was Rhynn's eye. His vision began to clear.
He saw Rhalina's horrified face. She was sitting up in the bed, her back stiff with horror.
He looked down at his left hand. It was of similar proportions to the old, but it was six-fingered and the skin was like that of a jeweled snake.
He staggered as he strove to accept what had happened to him. "They are Shool's gifts," he murmured inanely. "They are the Eye of Rhynn and the Hand of Kwll. They were Gods-the Lost Gods, Shool said. Now I am whole again, Rhalina."
"Whole? You are something more and something less than whole, Corum. Why did you accept such terrible gifts? They are evil. They will destroy you!"
"I accepted them so that I might accomplish the task that Sbool has set me, and thus gain the freedom of us both. I accepted them so that I might seek out Giandyth and, if possible, strangle him with this alien hand. I accepted them because if I did not accept them, I would perish."
"Perhaps," she said softly, "it would be better for us to perish."
The Third Chapter
BEYOND THE FIFTEEN PLANES
"What powers I have, Master Corum! I have made myself a God and I have made you a demi-God. They will have us in their legends soon."
"You are already in their legends." Corum turned to confront Shool, who had appeared in the room in the guise of a bearlike creature wearing an elaborate plumed helmet and trews. "And for that matter so are the Vadhagh."
"We'll have our own cycle soon, Master Corum. That is what I meant to say. How do you feel?"
"There is still some pain in my wrist and in my head."
"But no sign of a join, eh? I am a master surgeon! The grafting was perfect and accomplished with the minimum of spells!"
"I see nothing with the Eye of Rhynn, however," Corum said. "I am not sure it works, sorcerer."
Shool rubbed his paws together. "It will take time before your brain is accustomed to it. Here, you will need this, too." He produced something resembling a miniature shield of jewels and enamelwork with a strap attached to it. "It is to put over your new eye."
"And blind myself again!"
"Well, you do not want to be forever peering into those worlds beyond the Fifteen Planes, do you?"
"You mean the eye only sees there?"
"No. It sees here, too, but not always in the same kind of perspective."
Corum frowned suspiciously at the sorcerer. The action made him blink. Suddenly, through his new eye, he saw many new images, while still staring at Shool with his ordinary eye. They were dark images and they shifted until eventually one predominated. "Shool! What is this world?"
"I am not sure. Some say there are another Fifteen Planes which are a kind of distorted mirror image of our own planes. That could be such a place, eh?"
Things boiled and bubbled, appeared and disappeared. Creatures crept upon the scene and then crept back again. Flames curled, land turned to liquid, strange beasts grew to huge proportions and shrank again, flesh seemed to flow and reform.
"I am glad I do not belong to that world," Corum murmured. "Here, Shool, give me the shield."
He took the thing from the sorcerer and positioned it over the eye. The scenes faded and now he saw only Shool and Rhalina-but with both eyes.
"Ah, I did not point out that the shield protects you from visions of the other worlds, not of this one."
"What did you see, Corum?" Rhalina asked quietly.
He shook his head. "Nothing I could easily describe."
Rhalina looked at Shool. "I wish you would take back your gifts, Prince Shool. Such things are not for mortals."
Shool grimaced. "He is not a mortal now. I told you, he is a demi-God."
"And what will the Gods think of that?"
"Well, naturally, some of them will be displeased if they ever discover Master Corum's new state of being. I think it unlikely, however."
Rhalina said grimly, "You talk of these matters too Hghtly, Sorcerer. If Corum does not understand the implications of what you have done to him, I do. There are laws which mortals must obey. You have transgressed those laws and you will be punished-as your creations will be punished and destroyed!"
Shool waved his bear's arms dismissively. "You forget that I have a great deal of power. I shall soon be in a position to defy any God upstart enough to lock swords with me."
"You are insane with pride," she said. "You are only a mortal sorcerer!'"
"Be silent, Mistress Rhalina! Be silent for I can send you to a far worse fate than that which you have just escaped! If Master Corum here were not useful to me, you would both be enjoying some foul form of suffering even now. Watch your tongue. Watch your tongue!"