Glandyth shrugged and turned to address his men.
"He hardly knows what he will show us soon, will he, Lads?"
The Mabden laughed.
"Prepare the board!" Earl Glandyth ordered. "I think we shall begin."
Corum saw them bring up a wide plank of wood. It was thick and pitted and stained. Near its four corners were fixed lengths of chain. Corum began to guess at the board's function.
Two Mabden grasped his arms and pushed him toward the board. Another brought a chisel and an iron hammer. Corum was pushed with his back against the board, which now rested on the trunk of a tree. Using the chisel, a Mabden struck the chains from him, then his arms and legs were seized and he was spread-eagled on the board while new rivets were driven into the links of chain, securing him there. Corum could smell stale blood. He could see where the board was scored with the marks of knives, swords, and axes, where arrows had been shot into it.
He was on a butcher's block.
The Mabden bloodlust was rising. Their eyes gleamed in the firelight, their breath steamed and their nostrils dilated. Red tongues licked thick lips and small, anticipatory, smiles were on several faces.
Earl Glandyth had been supervising the pinning of Corum to the board. Now he came up and stood in front of the Vadhagh and he drew a slim sharp blade from his belt.
Corum watched as the blade came toward his chest. Then there was a ripping sound as the knife tore the samite shirt away from his body.
Slowly, his grin spreading, Glandyth-a-Krae worked at the rest of Corum's clothing, the knife only occasionally drawing a thin line of blood from his body, until at last Corum was completely naked.
Glandyth stepped back.
"Now," he said, panting, "you are doubtless wondering what we intend to do with you."
"I have seen others of my people whom you have slain," Corum said. "I think I know what you intend to do."
Glandyth raised the little finger of his right hand while he tucked his dagger away with his left.
"Ah, you see. You do not know. Those other Vadhagh died swiftly-or relatively so-because we had so many to find and to kill. But you are the last. We can take our time with you. We think, in fact, that we will give you a chance to live. If you can survive with your eyes gone, your tongue put out, your hands and feet removed, and your genitals taken away, then we will let you so survive."
Corum stared at him in horror.
Glandyth burst into laughter. "I see you appreciate our joke!"
He signaled to his men.
"Bring the tools! Let's begin."
A great brazier was brought forward. It was full of red-hot charcoal and from it poked irons of various sorts. These were instruments especially designed for torture, thought Corum. What sort of race could conceive such things and call itself sane?
Glandyth-a-Krae selected a long iron from the brazier and turned it this way and that, inspecting the glowing tip.
"We will begin with an eye and end with an eye," he said. "The right eye, I think."
If Corum had eaten anything in the last few days, he would have vomited then. As it was, bile came into his mouth and his stomach trembled and ached.
There were no further preliminaries.
Glandyth began to advance with the heated iron. It smoked in the cold night air.
Now Corum tried to forget the threat of torture and concentrate on his second sight, trying to see into the next plane. He sweated with a mixture of terror and the effort of his thought. But his mind was confused. Alternately, he saw glimpses of the next plane and the ever-advancing tip of the iron coming closer and closer to his face.
The scene before him shivered, but still Glandyth came on, the gray eyes burning with an unnatural lust.
Corum twisted in the chains, trying to avert his head. Then Glandyth's left hand shot out and tangled itself in his hair, forcing the head back, bringing the iron down.
Corum screamed as the red-hot tip touched the lid of his closed eye. Pain filled his face and then his whole body. He heard a mixture of laughter, his own shouts, Glandyth's rasping breathing…
… and Corum fainted.
Corum wandered through the streets of a strange city. The buildings were high and seemed but recently built, though already they were grimed and smeared with slime.
There was still pain, but it was remote, dull. He was blind in one eye. From a balcony a woman's voice called him. He looked around. It was his sister, Pholhinra. When she saw his face, she cried out in horror.
Corum tried to put his hand to his injured eye, but he could not.
Something held him. He tried to wrench his left hand free from whatever gripped it. He pulled harder and harder. Now the wrist began to pulse with pain as he tugged.
Pholhinra had disappeared, but Corum was now absorbed in trying to free his hand. For some reason, he could not turn to see what it was that held him. Some kind of beast, perhaps, holding on to his hand with its jaws.
Corum gave one last, huge tug and his wrist came free.
He put up the hand to touch the blind eye, but still felt nothing.
He looked at the hand.
There was no hand. Just a wrist. Just a stump.
Then he screamed again…
… and he opened his eyes and saw the Mabden holding the arm and bringing down white-hot swords on the stump to seal it.
They had cut off his hand.
And Glandyth was still laughing, holding Corum's severed hand up to show his men, with Corum's blood still dripping from the knife he had used.
Now Corum saw the other plane distinctly, superimposed, as it were, over the scene before him. Summoning all the energy born of his fear and agony, he shifted himself into that plane.
He saw the Mabden clearly, but their voices had become faint. He heard them cry out in astonishment and point at him. He saw Glandyth wheel, his eyes widening. He heard the Earl of Krae call out to his men to search the woods for Corum.
The board was abandoned as Glandyth and his men lumbered off into the darkness seeking their Vadhagh captive.
But their captive was still chained to the board, for it, like him, existed on several planes. And he still felt the pain they had caused him and he was still without his right eye and his left hand.
He could stay away from further mutilation for a little while, but eventually his energy would give out completely and he would return to their plane and they would continue their work.
He struggled in the chains, waving the stump of his left wrist in a futile attempt to free himself of those manacles still holding his other limbs.
But he knew it was hopeless. He had only averted his doom for a short while. He would never be free-never be able to exercise his vengeance on the murderer of his kin.
The Seventh Chapter
THE BROWN MAN
Corum sweated as he forced himself to remain in the other plane, and he watched nervously for the return of Glandyth and his men,
It was then that he saw a shape move cautiously out of the forest and approach the board.
At first Corum thought it was a Mabden warrior, without a helmet and dressed in a huge fur jerkin. Then he realized that this was some other creature.
The creature moved cautiously toward the board, looked about the Mabden camp, and then crept closer. It lifted its head and stared directly at Corum.
Corum was astonished. The beast could see him! Unlike the Mabden, unlike the other creatures of the plane, this one had second sight.
Corum's agony was so intense that he was forced to screw up his eye at the pain. When he opened it again, the creature bad come right up to the board.
It was a beast not unlike the Mabden in general shape, but it was wholly covered in its own fur. Its face was brown and seamed and apparently very ancient. Its features were flat. It had large eyes, round like a cat's, and gaping nostrils and a huge mouth filled with old, yellowed fangs.