The Sword of Rhiannon

by Leigh Brackett

  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  While he stared, Carse realized that the alien being had withdrawn from him so gently and carefully that there had been no shock.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.

  “Let me go with you, my brothers! For I have destroyed the Serpent and my sin is redeemed.”

  It seemed that the Quiru pondered, searching Rhiannon’s heart for truth. Then at last one stepped forward and laid his hand upon the coffin. The subtle fires died within it.

  “It is our judgment that Rhiannon may go free.”

  A giddiness came over Carse. The scene began to fade. He saw Rhiannon rise and go to join his brothers of the Quiru, his body growing shadowy as he passed.

  He turned once to look at Carse, and his eyes were open now, full of joy beyond human understanding.

  “Keep my sword, Earthman—bear it proudly, for without you I could never have destroyed Caer Dhu.”

  Dizzy, half fainting, Carse received the last mental command. And as he staggered with Ywain through the dark vortex, falling now with nightmare swiftness through the eerie gloom, he heard the last ringing echo of Rhiannon’s farewell.

  CHAPTER XX

  The Return

  There was solid rock under their feet at last. They crept trembling away from the vortex, white-faced and shaken, saying nothing, wanting only to be free of that dark vault.

  Carse found the tunnel. But when he reached the end he was oppressed by a dread that he might be once again lost in time, and dared not look out.

  He need not have feared. Rhiannon had guided them surely. He stood again among the barren hills of his own Mars. It was sunset, and the vast reaches of the dead sea bottom were flooded with the full red light. The wind came cold and dry out of the desert, blowing the dust, and there was Jekkara in the distance—his own Jekkara of the Low Canals.

  He turned anxiously to Ywain, watching her face as she looked for the first time upon his world. He saw her lips tighten as though over a deep pain.

  Then she threw her shoulders back and smiled and settled the hilt of her sword in its sheath.

  “Let us go,” she said and placed her hand again in his.

  They walked the long weary way across the desolate land and the ghosts of the past were all around them. Now, over the bones of Mars, Carse could see the living flesh that had clothed it once in splendor, the tall trees and the rich earth, and he would never forget.

  He looked out across the dead sea-bottom and knew that all the years of his life he would hear the booming roll of surf on the shores of a spectral ocean.

  Darkness came. The little low moons rose in the cloudless sky. Ywain’s hand was firm and strong in his. Carse was aware of a great happiness rising within him. His steps quickened.

  They came into the streets of Jekkara, the crumbling streets beside the Low Canal. The dry wind shook the torches and the sound of the Harps was as he remembered and the little dark women made tinkling music as they walked.

  Ywain smiled. “It is still Mars,” she said.

  They walked together through the twisting ways—the man who still bore in his face the dark shadow of a god and the woman who had been a queen. The people drew apart to let them pass, staring after them in wonder, and the sword of Rhiannon was like a sceptre in Carse’s hand.

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