For an instant Corum's mind cooled and he made to follow it. Then he remembered the dead face of Hanafax and he turned and began to trudge into the deeper darkness.
He walked thus for a long while. It was cool within the Lion's Mouth and he wondered if Queen Oorese had been voicing nothing more than a superstition, for the interior seemed to be just a large cave.
Then the rustling sounds began.
He thought he glimpsed eyes watching him. Accusing eyes? No. Merely malevolent. He drew his sword. He paused, looking about him. He took another step forward.
He was in whirling nothingness. Colors flashed past him, something shrieked, and laughter filled his head. He tried to take another step.
He stood on a crystal plain, and imbedded in it, beneath his feet, were millions of beings-Vadhagh, Nhadragh, Mabden, Ragha-da-Kheta, and many others he did not recognize. There were males and females and all had their eyes open; all had their faces pressed against the crystal; all stretched out their hands as if seeking aid. All stared at him. He tried to hack at the crystal with his sword, but the crystal would not crack.
He moved forward.
He saw all the Five Planes, one superimposed upon the other, as he had seen them as a child-as his ancestors had known them. He was in a canyon, a forest, a valley, a field, another forest. He made to move into one particular plane, but he was stopped.
Screaming things came at him and pecked at his flesh. He fought them off with his sword. They vanished.
He was crossing a bridge of ice. It was melting. Fanged, distorted things waited for him below. The ice creaked. He lost his footing. He fell.
He fell into a whirlpool of seething matter that formed shapes and then destroyed them instantly. He saw whole cities brought into existence and then obliterated. He saw creatures, some beautiful, some disgustingly ugly. He saw things that made him love them and things that made him scream with hatred.
And he was back in the blackness of the great cavern where things tittered at him and scampered away from beneath his feet.
And Corum knew that anyone who had not experienced the horrors that he had experienced would have been quite mad by now. He had gained something from Shool the sorcerer besides the Eye of Rhynn and the Hand of Kwll. He had gained an ability to face the most evil of apparitions and be virtually unmoved.
And, he thought, this meant that he had lost something, too…
He moved on another step.
He stood knee deep in slithering flesh that was without shape but which lived. It began to suck him down. He struck about him with his sword. Now he was waist deep. He gasped and forced bis body through the stuff.
He stood beneath a dome of ice and with him stood a million Corums. There he was, innocent and gay before the coming of the Mabden, there he was moody and grim, with his jeweled eye and his murderous hand, there he was dying…
Another step.
Blood flooded over him. He tried to regain his feet. The heads of foul reptilian creatures rose from the stuff and snapped at his face with their jaws.
His instinct was to draw back. But he swam toward them.
He stood in a tunnel of silver and gold. There was a door at the end and he could hear movement behind it.
Sword in hand, he stepped through.
Strange, desperate laughter filled the immense gallery in which he found himself.
He knew that he had reached the Court of the Knight of the Swords.
The Sixth Chapter
THE GOD FEASTERS
Corum was dwarfed by the hugeness of the hall. Suddenly he saw his past adventures, his emotions, his desires, his guilts as utterly inconsequential and feeble. This mood was increased by the fact that he had expected to confront Arioch the moment he reached his court.
But Corum had entered the palace completely unnoticed. The laughter came from a gallery high above where two scaled demons with long horns and longer tails were fighting. As they fought, they laughed, though both seemed plainly near death.
It was on this fight that Arioch's attention seemed fixed.
The Knight of the Swords-the Duke of Chaos-lay in a heap of filth and quaffed some ill-smelling stuff from a dirty goblet. He was enormously fat and the flesh trembled on him as he laughed. He was completely naked and formed in all details like a Mabden. There seemed to be scabs and sores on his body, particularly near his pelvis. His face was flushed and it was ugly, and his teeth, I when he opened his mouth, seemed decayed.
Corum would not have known he was the God at all if it had not been for his size, for Arioch was as large as a castle and his sword, the symbol of his power, if it had been placed upright, would have stood as high as the tallest tower of Castle Erorn.
The sides of the hall were tiered. Uncountable tiers stretched high toward the distant dome of the ceiling, which, itself, was wreathed in greasy smoke. These tiers were occupied, mainly with Mabden of all ages. Corum saw that most were naked. In many of the tiers they were copulating, fighting, torturing each other. Elsewhere were other beings-mainly scaly Shefanhow somewhat smaller than the two who were fighting together. Arioch's sword was jet black and carved with many peculiar patterns. Mabden were at work on the sword. They knelt on the blade and polished part of a design, or they climbed the hilt and washed it, or they sat astride the handgrip and mended the gold wire which bound it.
And other beings were busy, too. Like lice, they scampered and crawled over the God's huge bulk, picking at his skin, feeding off his blood and his flesh. Of all these activities, Arioch seemed oblivious. His interest continued to be in the fight to the death in the gallery above.
Was this, then, the all-powerful Arioch, living like a drunken fanner in a pigsty? Was this the malevolent creature which had destroyed whole nations, which pursued a vendetta upon all the races to spring up on the Earth before his coming?
Arioch's laughter shook the floor. Some of the parasitic Mabden fell off his body. A few were unhurt, while others lay with their backs or their limbs broken, unable to move. Their comrades ignored their plight and patiently climbed again upon the God's body, tearing tiny pieces from him with their teeth.
Arioch's hair was long, lank, and oily. Here, too, Mabden searched for and fought over the bits of food that clung to the strands. Elsewhere in the God's body hair Mabden crept in and out, hunting for scraps and crumbs or tender portions of his flesh.
The two demons fell back. One of them was dead, the other almost dead but still laughing weakly. Then the laughter stopped.
Arioch slapped his body, killing a dozen or so Mabden, and scratched his stomach. He inspected the bloody remains in his palm and absently wiped them on his hair. Living Mabden seized the scraps and devoured them.
Then a huge sigh issued from the God's mouth and he began to pick his nose with a dirty finger that was the size of a tall poplar.
Corum saw that there were openings beneath the galleries and stairways twisting upward, but he had no notion where the highest tower of the palace might be. He began to move, soft-footed, around the hall.
Arioch's ears caught the sound and the God became alert. He bent his head and peered about the floor. The huge eyes fixed on Corum and a monstrously large hand reached out to grasp him.
Corum raised his sword and hacked at the hand, but Arioch laughed and drew the Vadhagh prince toward him.
"What's this?" the voice boomed, "Not one of mine. Not one of mine."
Corum continued to strike at the hand and Arioch continued to seem unaware of the blows, though the sword raised deep cuts in the flesh. From over his shoulders, from behind his ears, and from within his filthy hair, Mabden eyes regarded Corum with terrified curiosity.