Carse felt the agony that convulsed that crouching shadow in his mind—agony of doubt, of fear—
And then suddenly that dark shadow seemed to explode through all Carse’s brain and body, to possess him utterly in every atom. And he heard his own voice, alien in tone and timbre, shouting, “Let the man’s mind live! I will speak!”
The thunderous echoes of that terrible cry died slowly and in the pregnant hush that followed Emer gave back one step and then another, as though her very flesh recoiled.
The jewel in her hands dimmed suddenly. Fiery ripples broke and fled as the Swimmers shrank away and the wings of the Sky Folk clashed against the rock. In the eyes of all of them was the light of realization and of fear.
From the rigid figures that watched across the water, from Rold and the Sea Kings, came a shivering sign that was a name.
“Rhiannon! The Cursed One!”
It came to Carse that even Emer, who had dared to force into the open the hidden thing she had sensed in his mind, was afraid of the thing now that she had evoked it.
And he, Matthew Carse, was afraid. He had known fear before. But even the terror he had felt when he faced the Dhuvian was as nothing to this blind shuddering agony.
Dreams, illusions, the figments of an obsessed mind—he had tried to believe that that was what these hints of strangeness were. But not now. Not now! He knew the truth and it was a terrible thing to know.
“It proves nothing!” Boghaz was wailing insistently. “You have hypnotized him, made him admit the impossible.”
“It is Rhiannon,” whispered one of the Swimmers. She raised her white-furred shoulders from the water, her ancient hands lifted. “It is Rhiannon in the stranger’s body.”
And then, in a chilling cry, “Kill the man before the Cursed One uses him to destroy us all!”
A hellish clamor broke instantly from the echoing walls as an ancient dread screamed from human and Halfling throats.
“Kill him! Kill!”
Carse, helpless himself but one in feeling with the dark thing within him, felt that dark one’s wild anxiety. He heard the ringing voice that was not his own shouting out above the clamor.
“Wait! You are afraid because I am Rhiannon! But I have not come back to harm you!”
“Why have you come back then?” whispered Emer.
She was looking into Carse’s face. And by her dilated eyes Carse knew that his face must be strange and awful to look upon.
Through Carse’s lips, Rhiannon answered, “I have come to redeem my sin—I swear it!”
Emer’s white, shaken face flashed burning hate. “Oh, father of lies! Rhiannon, who brought evil on our world by giving the Serpent power, who was condemned and punished for his crime—Rhiannon, the Cursed One, turned saint!”
She laughed, a bitter laughter born of hate and fear, that was picked up by the Swimmers and the Sky Folk.
“For your own sake you must believe me!” raged the voice of Rhiannon. “Will you not even listen?”
Carse felt the passion of the dark being who had used him in this unholy fashion. He was one with that alien heart that was violent and bitter and yet lonely—lonely as no other could understand the word.
“Listen to Rhiannon?” cried Emer. “Did the Quiru listen long ago? They judged you for your sin!”
“Will you deny me the chance to redeem myself?” The Cursed One’s tone was almost pleading. “Can you not understand that this man Carse is my only chance to undo what I did?”
His voice rushed on, urgent, eager. “For an age, I lay fixed and frozen in an imprisonment that not even the pride of Rhiannon could withstand. I realized my sin. I wished to undo it but could not.
“Then into my tomb and prison from outside came this man Carse. I fitted the immaterial electric web of my mind into his brain. I could not dominate him, for his brain was alien and different. But I could influence him a little and I thought that I could act through him.
“For his body was not bound in that place. In him my mind at least could leave it. And in him I left it, not daring to let even him know that I was within his brain.
“I thought that through him I might find a way to crush the Serpent whom I raised from the dust to my sorrow long ago.”
Rold’s shaking voice cut across the passionate pleading that came from Carse’s lips. There was a wild look on the Khond’s face. “Emer, let the Cursed One speak no longer! Lift the spell of your minds from the man!”
“Lift the spell!” echoed Ironbeard hoarsely.
“Yes,” whispered Emer. “Yes.”
Once again the jewel was raised and now the Wise Ones gathered all their strength, spurred by the terror that was on them. The electro-sensitive crystal blazed and it seemed to Carse like bale-fire searing his mind. For Rhiannon fought against it, fought with the desperation of madness.
“You must listen! You must believe!”
“No!” said Emer. “Be silent! Release the man or he will die!”
One last wild protest, broken short by the iron purpose of the Wise Ones. A moment of hesitation—a stab of pain too deep for human understanding—and then the barrier was gone.
The alien presence, the unholy sharing of the flesh, were gone and the mind of Matthew Carse closed over the shadow and hid it. The voice of Rhiannon was stilled.
Like a dead man Carse sagged against his bonds. The light went out of the crystal. Emer let her hands fall. Her head bent forward so that her bright hair veiled her face and the Wise Ones covered their faces also and remained motionless. The Sea Kings, Ywain, even Boghaz, were held speechless, like men who have narrowly escaped destruction and only realized later how close death has come.
Carse moaned once. For a long time that and his harsh gasping breath were the only sounds.
Then Emer said, “The man must die.”
There was nothing in her now but weariness and a grim truth. Carse heard dimly Rold’s heavy answer.
“Aye. There is no other way.”
Boghaz would have spoken but they silenced him.
Carse said thickly, “It isn’t true. Such things can’t be.”
Emer raised her head and looked at him. Her attitude had changed. She seemed to have no fear of Carse himself only pity for him.
“Yet you know that it is true.”
Carse was silent. He knew.
“You have done no wrong, stranger,” she said. “In your mind I saw many things that are strange to me, much that I cannot understand, but there was no evil there. Yet Rhiannon lives in you and we dare not let him live.”
“But he can’t control me!” Carse made an effort to stand, lifting his head so that he should be heard, for his voice was drained of strength like his body.
“You heard him admit that himself. He cannot dominate me. My will is my own.”
Ywain said slowly, “What of S’San, and the sword? It was not the mind of Carse the barbarian that controlled you then.”
“He cannot master you,” said Emer, “except when the barriers of your own mind weaken under stress. Great fear or pain or weariness—perhaps even the unconsciousness of sleep or wine—might give the Cursed One his chance and then it would be too late.”
Rold said, “We dare not take the risk.”
“But I can give you the secret of Rhiannon’s Tomb!” cried Carse.
He saw that thought begin to work in their minds and he went on, the ghastly unfairness of the whole thing acting as a spur.
“Do you call this justice, you men of Khondor who cry out against the Sarks? Will you condemn me when you know I’m innocent? Are you such cowards that you’ll doom your people to live forever under the dragon’s claws because of a shadow out of the past?
“Let me lead you to the Tomb. Let me give you victory. That will prove I have no part with Rhiannon!”