Boghaz’ mouth fell open in horror. “No, Carse, no! Don’t give it to them!”
Rold shouted, “Silence!”
Ironbeard laughed grimly. “Let the Cursed One lay his hands upon his weapons? That would be madness indeed!”
“Very well,” said Carse. “Let Rold go. I’ll map the way for him. Keep me here. Guard me. That should be safe enough. You can kill me swiftly if Rhiannon takes control of me.”
He caught them with that. The only thing greater than their hate and dread of the Cursed One was their burning desire for the legendary weapons of power that might in time mean victory and freedom for Khondor.
They pondered, doubtful, hesitating. But he knew their decision even before Rold turned and said, “We accept, Carse. It would be safer to slay you out of hand but—we need those weapons.”
Carse felt the cold presence of imminent death withdraw a little. He warned, “It won’t be easy. The Tomb is near Jekkara.”
Ironbeard asked, “What of Ywain?”
“Death and at once!” said Thorn of Tarak harshly.
Ywain stood silent, looking at them all with cool, careless unconcern.
But Emer interposed. “Rold goes into danger. Until he returns safely let Ywain be kept in case we need a hostage for him.”
It was only now that Carse saw Boghaz in the shadows, shaking his head in misery, tears running down his fat cheeks.
“He gives them a secret worth a kingdom!” wailed Boghaz. “I have been robbed!”
XIII. Catastrophe
The days that followed after that were long strange days for Matthew Carse. He drew a map from memory of the hills above Jekkara and the place of the Tomb, and Rold studied it until he knew it as he knew his own courtyard. Then the parchment was burned.
Rold took one longship and a picked crew, and left Khondor by night. Jaxart went with him. Everyone knew the dangers of that voyage. But one swift ship, with Swimmers to scout the way, might elude the Sark patrols. They would beach in a hidden cove Jaxart knew of, west of Jekkara, and go the rest of the way overland.
“If aught goes wrong on the return,” Rold said grimly, “we’ll sink our ship at once.”
After the longship sailed there was nothing to do but wait.
Carse was never alone. He was given three small rooms in a disused part of the palace and guards were with him always.
A corroding fear crept in his mind, no matter how he fought it down. He caught himself listening for an inner voice to speak, watching for some small sign or gesture that was not his own. The horror of the ordeal in the place of the Wise Ones had left its mark. He knew now. And, knowing, he could never for one moment forget.
It was not fear of death that oppressed him, though he was human and did not want to die. It was dread of living again through that moment when he had ceased to be himself, when his mind and body were possessed in every cell by the invader. Worse than the dread of madness was the uncanny fear of Rhiannon’s domination.
Emer came again and again to talk with him and study him. He knew she was watching him for signs of Rhiannon’s resurgence. But as long as she smiled he knew that he was safe.
She would not look into his mind again. But she referred once to what she had seen there.
“You come from another world,” she said with quiet sureness. “I think I knew that when I first saw you. The memories of it were in your mind—a desolate, desert place, very strange and sad.”
They were on his tiny balcony, high under the crest of the rock, and the wind blew clean and strong down from the green forests.
Carse nodded. “A bitter world. But it had its own beauty.”
“There is beauty even in death,” said Emer, “but I am glad to be alive.”
“Let’s forget that other place, then. Tell me of this one that lives so strongly. Rold said you were much with the Halflings.”
She laughed. “He chides me sometimes, saying that I am a changeling and not human at all.”
“You don’t look human now,” Carse told her, “with the moonlight on your face and your hair all tangled with it.”
“Sometimes I wish it were true. You have never been to the Isles of the Sky Folk?”
“No.”
“They’re like castles rising from the sea, almost as tall as Khondor. When the Sky Folk take me there I feel the lack of wings, for I must be carried or remain on the ground while they soar and swoop around me. It seems to me then that flying is the most beautiful thing in the world and I weep because I can never know it.
“But when I got with the Swimmers I am happier. My body is much like theirs, though never quite so fleet. And it is wonderful—oh, wonderful—to plunge down into the glowing water and see the gardens that they keep, with the strange sea-flowers bowing to the tide and the little bright fish darting like birds among them.
“And their cities, silver bubbles in the shallow ocean. The heavens there are all glowing fire, bright gold when the sun shines, silver at night. It is always warm and the air is still and there are little ponds where the babies play, learning to be strong for the open sea.
“I have learned much from the Halflings,” she finished.
“But the Dhuvians are Halflings too?” Carse said.
Emer shivered. “The Dhuvians are the oldest of the Halfling races. There are but few of them now and those all dwell at Caer Dhu.”
Carse asked suddenly, “You have Halfling wisdom—is there no way to be rid of the monstrous thing within me?”
She answered somberly, “Not even the Wise Ones have learned that much.”
The Earthman’s fists closed savagely on the rock of the gallery.
“It would have been better if you’d killed me there in the cave!”
Emer put her gentle hand on his and said, “There is always time for death.”
After she left him Carse paced the floor for hours, wanting the release of wine and not daring to take it, afraid to sleep. When exhaustion took him at last, his guards strapped him to his bed and one stood by with a drawn sword and watched, ready to wake him instantly if he should seem to dream.
And he did dream. Sometimes they were nothing more than nightmares born of his own anguish, and sometimes the dark whisper of an alien voice came gliding into his mind, saying, “Do not be afraid. Let me speak, for I must tell you.”
Many times Carse awoke with the echo of his screaming in his ears, and the sword’s point at his throat.
“I mean no harm or evil. I can stop your fears if you will only listen!”
Carse wondered which he would do first—go mad or fling himself from the balcony into the sea.
Boghaz clung closer to him than ever. He seemed fascinated by the thing that lurked in Carse. He was awed too but not too much awed to be furious over the disposal of the Tomb.
“I told you to let me bargain for it!” he would say. “The greatest source of power on Mars and you give it away! Give it without even exacting a promise that they won’t kill you when they get it.”
His fat hands made a gesture of finality. “I repeat, you have robbed me, Carse. Robbed me of my kingdom.”
And Carse, for once, was glad of the Valkisian’s effrontery because it kept him from being alone. Boghaz would sit, drinking enormous quantities of wine, and every so often he would look at Carse and chuckle.
“People always said that I had a devil in me. But you, Carse—you have the devil in you!”
“Let me speak, Carse, and I will make you understand!”
Carse grew gaunt and hollow-eyed. His face twitched and his hands were unsteady.
Then the news came, brought by a winged man who flew exhausted into Khondor.