He paused to let them grasp that and they did not seem greatly astonished. Because of what had happened they could believe anything of him, even though it be beyond their comprehension.
Carse said heavily, “A man is born into one world and there he belongs. I am going back to my own place.”
He could see that even though they protested courteously, the Sea Kings were relieved.
“The blessings of the gods attend you, stranger,” Emer whispered and kissed him gently on the lips.
Then she went and the jubilant Sea Kings went with her. Boghaz had slipped out and Carse and Ywain were alone in the great empty room.
He went to her, looking into her eyes that had not lost their old fire even now. “And where will you go now?” he asked her.
She answered quietly, “If you will let me I go with you.”
He shook his head. “No. You could not live in my world, Ywain. It’s a cruel and bitter place, very old and near to death.”
“It does not matter. My own world also is dead.”
He put his hands on her shoulders, strong beneath the mailed shirt. “You don’t understand. I came a long way across time—a million years.” He paused, not quite knowing how to tell her.
“Look out there. Think how it will be when the White Sea is only a desert of blowing dust—when the green is gone from the hills and the white cities are crumbled and the river beds are dry.”
Ywain understood and sighed. “Age and death come at last to everything. And death will come very swiftly to me if I remain here. I am outcast and my name is hated even as Rhiannon’s.”
He knew that she was not afraid of death but was merely using that argument to sway him.
And yet the argument was true.
“Could you be happy,” he asked, “with the memory of your own world haunting you at every step?”
“I have never been happy,” she answered, “and therefore I shall not miss it.” She looked at him fairly. “I will take the risk. Will you?”
His fingers tightened. “Yes,” he said huskily. “Yes, I will.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her and when she drew back she whispered, with a shyness utterly new in her, “The ‘Lord Rhiannon’ spoke truly when he taunted me concerning the barbarian.” She was silent a moment, then added, “I think which world we dwell in will not matter much, as long as we are together in it.”
Days later the black galley pulled into Jekkara harbor, finishing her last voyage under the ensign of Ywain of Sark.
It was a strange greeting she and Carse received there, where the whole city had gathered to see the stranger, who was also the Cursed One, and the Sovereign Lady of Sark, who was no more a sovereign. The crowd kept back at a respectful distance and they cheered the destruction of Caer Dhu and the death of the Serpent. But for Ywain they had no welcome.
Only one man stood on the quay to meet them. It was Boghaz—a very splendid Boghaz, robed in velvet and loaded down with jewels, wearing a golden circlet on his head.
He had vanished out of Sark on the day of the parley on some mission of his own and it seemed that he had succeeded.
He bowed to Carse and Ywain with grandiloquent politeness.
“I have been to Valkis,” he said. “It’s a free city again—and because of my unparalleled heroism in helping to destroy Caer Dhu I have been chosen king.”
He beamed, then added with a confidential grin, “I always did dream of looting a royal treasury!”
“But,” Carse reminded him, “it’s your treasury now.”
Boghaz started. “By the gods, it is so!” He drew himself up, waxing suddenly stern. “I see that I shall have to be severe with thieves in Valkis. There will be heavy punishment for any crime against property—especially royal property!”
“And fortunately,” said Carse gravely, “you are acquainted with all the knavish tricks of thieves.”
“That is true,” said Boghaz sententiously. “I have always said that knowledge is a valuable thing. Behold now, how my purely academic studies of the lawless elements will help me to keep my people safe!”
He accompanied them through Jekkara, until they reached the open country beyond, and then he bade them farewell, plucking off a ring which he thrust into Carse’s hand. Tears ran down his fat cheeks.
“Wear this, old friend, that you may remember Boghaz, who guided your steps wisely through a strange world.”
He turned and stumbled away and Carse watched his fat figure vanish into the streets of the city, where they had first met.
All alone Carse and Ywain made their way into the hills above Jekkara and came at last to the Tomb. They stood together on the rocky ledge, looking out across the wooded hills and the glowing sea, and the distant towers of the city white in the sunlight.
“Are you still sure,” Carse asked her, “that you wish to leave all this?”
“I have no place here now,” she answered sadly. “I would be rid of this world as it would be rid of me.”
She turned and strode without hesitation into the dark tunnel. Ywain the Proud, that not even the gods themselves could break. Carse went with her, holding a lighted torch.
Through the echoing vault and beyond the door marked with the curse of Rhiannon, into the inner chamber, where the torchlight struck against darkness—the utter darkness of that strange aperture in the space-time continuum of the universe.
At that last moment Ywain’s facet showed fear and she caught the Earthman’s hand. The tiny motes swarmed and flickered before them in the gloom of time itself. The voice of Rhiannon spoke to Carse and he stepped forward into the darkness, holding tightly to Ywain’s hand.
This time, at first, there was no headlong plunge into nothingness. The wisdom of Rhiannon guided and steadied them. The torch went out. Carse dropped it. His heart pounded and he was blind and deaf in the soundless vortex of force.
Again Rhiannon spoke. “See now with my mind what your human eyes could not see before!”
The pulsing darkness cleared in some strange way that had nothing to do with light or sight. Carse looked upon Rhiannon.
His body lay in a coffin of dark crystal, whose inner facets glowed with the subtle force that prisoned him forever as though frozen in the heart of a jewel.
Through the cloudy substance, Carse could make out dimly a naked form of more than human strength and beauty, so vital and instinct with life that it seemed a terrible thing to prison it in that narrow space. The face also was beautiful, dark and imperious and stormy even now with the eyes closed as though in death.
But there could be no death in this place. It was beyond time and without time there is no decay and Rhiannon would have all eternity to lie there, remembering his sin.
While he stared, Carse realized that the alien being had withdrawn from him so gently and carefully that there had been no shock. His mind was still in touch with the mind of Rhiannon but the strange dualism was ended. The Cursed One had released him.
Yet, through that sympathy that still existed between these two minds that had been one for so long, Carse heard Rhiannon’s passionate call—a mental cry that pulsed far out along the pathway through space and time.
“My brothers of the Quiru, hear me! I have undone my ancient crime.”
Again he called with all the wild strength of his will. There was a period of silence, of nothingness and then, gradually, Carse sensed the approach of other minds, grave and powerful and stern.
He would never know from what far world they had come. Long ago the Quiru had gone out by this road that led beyond the universe, to cosmic regions forever outside his ken. And now they had come back briefly in answer to Rhiannon’s call.
Dim and shadowy, Carse saw godlike forms come slowly into being, tenuous as shining smoke in the gloom.