But there was a dark confusion in him. The veins of his temples stood out like knotted cords, and the blood throbbed in his brain. Pressure, as of something bursting, breaking its bonds, tearing itself free.
He did not know why he stepped forward, toward that door. He did not know why he cried out in a tone that was not his, “Open then, Child of the Snake!”
Boghaz let out a wailing shriek and crouched down in a corner, hiding his face. Ywain started up, astonished and suddenly pale. The door swung slowly back.
There was nothing behind it but darkness and a shadow. A shadow cloaked and hooded and so crouched in the lightless cabin that it was no more than the ghost of a shadow.
But it was there. And the man Carse, caught fast in the trap of his strange fate, recognized it for what it was.
It was fear, the ancient evil thing that crept among the grasses in the beginning, apart from life but watching it with eyes of cold wisdom, laughing its silent laughter, giving nothing but the bitter death.
It was the Serpent.
The primal ape in Carse wanted to run, to hide away. Every cell of his flesh recoiled, every instinct warned him.
But he did not run and there was an anger in him that grew until it blotted out the fear, blotted out Ywain and the others, everything but the wish to destroy utterly the creature crouching beyond the light.
His own anger—or something greater? Something born of a shame and an agony that he could never know?
A voice spoke to him out of the darkness, soft and sibilant.
“You have willed it. Let it be so.”
There was utter silence in the cabin. Scyld had recoiled. Even Ywain had drawn back to the end of the table. The cowering Boghaz hardly breathed.
The shadow had stirred with a slight, dry rustle. A spot of subdued brilliance had appeared, held by unseen hands—a brilliance that shed no glow around it. It seemed to Carse like a ring of little stars, incredibly distant.
The stars began to move, to circle their hidden orbit, to spin faster and faster until they became a wheel, peculiarly blurred. From them now came a thin high note, a crystal song that was like infinity, without beginning and end.
A song, a call, attuned to his hearing alone? Or was it his hearing? He could not tell. Perhaps he heard it with his flesh instead, with every quivering nerve. The others, Ywain and Scyld and Boghaz, seemed unaffected.
Carse felt a coldness stealing over him. It was as though those tiny singing stars called to him across the universe, charming him out into the deeps of space where the empty cosmos sucked him dry of warmth and life.
His muscles loosened. He felt his sinews melt and flow away on the icy tide. He felt his brain dissolving.
He went slowly to his knees. The little stars sang on and on. He understood them now. They were asking him a question. He knew that when he answered he could sleep. He would not wake again but that did not matter. He was afraid now but if he slept he would forget his fear.
Fear—fear! The old, old racial terror that haunts the soul, the dread that slides in the quiet dark—
In sleep and death he could forget that fear. He need only answer that hypnotic whispered question.
“Where is the Tomb?”
Answer. Speak. But something still chained his tongue. The red flame of anger still flickered in him, fighting the brilliance of the singing stars.
He struggled but the star-song was too strong. He heard his dry lips slowly speaking. “The Tomb, the place of Rhiannon…”
“Rhiannon! Dark Father who taught you power, thou spawn of the serpent’s egg!”
The name rang in him like a battle cry. His rage soared up. The smoky jewel in the hilt of the sword on the table seemed suddenly to call to his hand. He leaped and grasped its hilt.
Ywain sprang forward with a startled cry but was too late.
The great jewel seemed to blaze, to catch up the power of the singing, shining stars and hurl it back.
The crystal song keened and broke. The brilliance faded. He had shattered the strange hypnosis.
Blood flowed again into Carse’s veins. The sword felt alive in his hands. He shouted the name Rhiannon and plunged forward into the dark.
He heard a hissing scream as his long blade went home to the heart of the shadow.
IX. Galley of Death
Carse straightened slowly and turned in the doorway, his back to the thing he had slain but had not seen. He had no wish to see it. He was utterly shaken and in a strange mood, full of a vaulting strength that verged on madness.
The hysteria, he thought, that comes when you’ve taken too much, when the walls close in and there’s nothing to do but fight before you die.
The cabin was full of a stunned silence. Scyld had the staring look of an idiot, his mouth fallen open. Ywain had put one hand to the edge of the table and it was strange to see in her that one small sign of weakness. She had not taken her eyes from Carse.
She said huskily, “Are you man or demon that you can stand against Caer Dhu?”
Carse did not answer. He was beyond speech. Her face floated before him like a silver mask. He remembered the pain, the shameful labor at the sweep, the scars of the lash that he carried. He remembered the voice that had said to Callus, “Teach him!”
He had slain the serpent. After that it seemed an easy thing to kill a queen.
He began to move, covering the few short steps that lay between them, and there was something terrible about the slow purposefulness of it, the galled and shackled slave carrying the great sword, its blade dark with alien blood.
Ywain gave back one step. Her hand faltered to her own hilt. She was not afraid of death. She was afraid of the thing that she saw in Carse, the light that blazed in his eyes. A fear of the soul and not the body.
Scyld gave a hoarse cry. He drew his sword and lunged.
They had all forgotten Boghaz, crouching quiet in his corner. Now the Valkisian rose to his feet, handling his great bulk with unbelievable speed. As Scyld passed him he raised both hands and brought the full weight of his gyves down with tremendous strength on the Sark’s head.
Scyld dropped like a stone.
And now Ywain had found her pride again. The sword of Rhiannon rose high for the death stroke and quick, quick as lightning, she drew her own short blade and parried it as it fell.
The force of the blow drove her weapon out of her hands. Carse had only to strike again. But it seemed that with that effort something had gone out of him. He saw her mouth open to voice an angry shout for aid and he struck her across the face with his hilt reversed, so that she slid stunned to the deck, her cheek laid open.
And then Boghaz was thrusting him back, saying, “Don’t kill her! We may buy our lives with hers!”
Carse watched as Boghaz bound and gagged her and took the dagger from her belt sheath.
It occurred to him that they were two slaves who had overpowered Ywain of Sark and struck down her captain and that the lives of Matt Carse and Boghaz of Valkis were worth less than a puff of wind as soon as it was discovered.
So far, they were safe. There had been little noise and there were no sounds of alarm outside.
Boghaz shut the inner door as though to block off even the memory of what lay within. Then he took a closer look at Scyld, who was quite dead. He picked up the man’s sword and stood still for a minute, catching his breath.
He was staring at Carse with a new respect that had in it both awe and fear. Glancing at the closed door, he muttered, “I would not have believed it possible. And yet I saw it.” He turned back to Carse. “You cried out upon Rhiannon before you struck. Why?”