Corum jerked his head back as something very much like a gigantic mauve tulip, but with teeth, snapped at him,
"I doubt it, Shool. But then I have no choice."
"Indeed, you have not. Or, at least, your choice is much limited. It is the ambition I hold not to be forced to make choices, on however large a scale, which drives me on, Master Corum."
"Aye," nodded Corum ironically. "We are all mortal."
“Speak for yourself, Master Corum."
BOOK THREE
In Which Prince Corum achieves that which is both impossible and unwelcome
The First Chapter
THE WALKING GOD
Corum's leavetaking from Rhalina had not been easy. It had been full of tension. There had been no love in her eyes as he had embraced her, only concern for him and fear for both of them.
This had disturbed him, but there had been nothing he could do.
Shool had given him a quaintly shaped boat and he had sailed away. Now sea stretched in all directions. With a lodestone to guide him, Corum sailed north for the Thousand-League Reef.
Corum knew that he was mad, in Vadhagh terms. But he supposed that he was sane enough in Mabden terms. And this was, after all, now a Mabden world. He must learn to accept its peculiar disorders as the norm, if he ware going to survive. And there were many reasons why he wished to survive, Rhalina not least among them. He was the last of the Vadhagh, yet he could not believe it. The powers available to sorcerers like Shool might be controlled by others. The nature of time could be tampered with. The circling planes could be halted in their course, perhaps reversed. The events of the past year could be changed, perhaps eradicated completely. Corum proposed to live and, in living, to learn.
And if he learned enough, perhaps he would gain sufficient power to fulfill his ambitions and restore a world to the Vadhagh and the Vadhagh to the world.
It would be just, he thought.
The boat was of beaten metal on which were many raised and assymetrical designs. It gave off a faint glow which offered Corum both heat and light during the nights, for the sailing was long. Its single mast bore a single square sail of samite smeared with a strange substance that also shone and turned, without Corum's guidance, to catch any wind. Corum sat in the boat wrapped in his scarlet robe, his war gear laid beside him, his silver helm upon his head, his double byrnie covering him from throat to knee. From time to time he would hold up his lodestone by its string. The stone was shaped like an arrow and the head pointed always north.
He thought much of Rhalina and his love for her. Such a love had never before existed between a Vadhagh and a Mabden. His own folk might have considered his feelings for Rhalina degenerate, much as a Mabden would suspect such feelings in a man for his mare, but he was attracted to her more than he had been attracted to any Vadhagh woman and he knew that her intelligence was a match for his. It was her moods he found hard to understand-her intimations of doom-her superstition.
Yet Rhalina knew this world better than he. It could be that she was right to entertain such thoughts. His lessons were not yet over.
On the third night, Corum slept, his new hand on the boat's tiller, and in the morning he was awakened by bright sunshine in his eyes.
Ahead lay the Thousand-League Reef.
It stretched from end to end of the horizon and there seemed to be no gap in the sharp fangs of rock that rose from the foaming sea.
Shool had warned him that few had ever found a passage through the reef and now he could understand why. The reef was unbroken. It seemed not of natural origin at all, but to have been placed there by some entity as a bastion against intruders. Perhaps the Knight of the Swords had built it.
Corum decided to sail in an easterly direction along the reef, hoping to find somewhere where he could land the boat and perhaps drag it overland to the waters that lay beyond the reef.
He sailed for another four days, without sleep, and the reef offered neither a passage through nor a place to land.
A light mist, tinged pink by the sun, now covered the water in all directions and Corum kept away from the reef by using his lodestoae and by listening for the sounds of the surf on the rocks. He drew out his maps, pricked out on skin, and tried to judge his position. The maps were crude and probably inaccurate, but they were the best Shool had had. He was nearing a narrow channel between the reef and a land marked on the map as Khoolocrah. Shool had been unable to tell him much about the land, save that a race called the Ragha-da-Kheta lived thereabouts.
In the light from the boat, he peered at the maps, hoping to distinguish some gap in the reef marked there, but there was none.
Then the boat began to rock rapidly and Corum glanced about him, seeking the source of this sudden eddy. Far away, the surf boomed, but then he heard another sound, to the south of him, and he looked there.
The sound was a regular rushing and slapping noise, like that of a man wading through a stream. Was this some beast of the sea? The Mabden seemed to fear many such monsters. Corum clung desperately to the sides, trying to keep the boat on course away from the rocks, but the waves increased their agitation.
And the sound came closer.
Corum picked up his long, strong sword and readied himself.
He saw something in the mist then. It was a tall, bulky shape-the outline of a man. And the man was dragging something behind him,. A fishing net! Were the waters so shallow, then? Corum leaned over the side and lowered his sword, point downward, into the sea. It did not touch bottom. He could make out the ocean floor a long way below him. He looked back at the figure. Now he realized that his eyes and the mist had played tricks on him. The figure was still some distance from him and it was gigantic-far huge'r than the Giant of Laahr. This was what made the waves so large. This was why the boat rocked so.
Corum made to call out, to ask the gigantic creature to move away lest he sink the boat, then he thought better of it. Beings like this were considered to think less kindly of mortals than did the Giant of Laahr.
Now the giant, still cloaked in mist, changed his course, still fishing. He was behind Corum's boat and he trudged on through the water, dragging his nets behind him.
The wash sent the boat flying away from the Thousand-League Reef, heading almost due east, and there was nothing Corum could do to stop it He fought with the sail and the tiller, but they would not respond. It was as if he was borne on a river rushing toward a chasm. The giant had set up a current which he could not fight.
There was nothing for it but to allow the boat to bear him where it would. The giant had long since disappeared in the mist, heading toward the Thousand-League Reef, where perhaps he lived.
Like a shark pouncing on its prey, the little boat moved, until suddenly it broke through the mist into hot sunshine.
And Corum saw a coast. Cliffs rushed at him.
The Second Chapter
TEMGOL-LEP
Desperately Corum tried to turn the boat away from the cliffs. His six-fingered left hand gripped the tiller and his right hand tugged at the sail.
Then there was a grinding sound. A shudder ran through the metal boat and it began to keel over. Corum grabbed at his weapons and managed to seize them before he was flung overboard and carried on by the wash. He gasped as water filled his mouth. He felt his body scrape on shingle and he tried to stagger upright as the current began to retreat. He saw a rock and grasped it, dropping his bow and his quiver of arrows, which were instantly swept away.