The Sword Bearer

by John White

  Several times John began eagerly to talk, but Mab silenced him. For half an hour neither of them spoke.

  Then John said, "The moon. Look at the moon!" But Mab's eyes were on the miracle of the beautiful and luminous blue-gray bird that led them.

  The mist had largely cleared. "What about the moon?" he asked, staring at the pigeon.

  "You can see it now. The eclipse is passing! You can see light coming out from one side!"

  The eclipse was passing with astonishing speed. The moon seemed almost to eject itself from its coppery shadow. Silver light fell around them. Their channel was now wide and clear. Ahead of them they could see the lake and the path of moonlight leading to the island.

  Mab slowly stood. "The pigeon has left us," he said slowly. "But our way is now clear."

  He turned to look back at the swamp. "And the power of the tower is no more," he said quietly. "Yet the game is far from over. Indeed the worst danger may still be ahead of us. But at least we shall begin to have daylight again."

  17

  * * *

  The Sword

  of Geburah

  Mab raised his paddle and paused, staring at the eastern end of the lake. Drops from the paddle caught sparkles of moonlight as they fell. "Notice anything?" he asked John.

  John stared. "I see light on the horizon," he said eventually. Mab nodded. "I think we're watching the dawn. You made the tower sink, Sword Bearer, and now the planets are ordered again."

  "But I didn't think it was sinking. The Changer came, and he told me the words to say. But when I said them, nothing happened. At least I couldn't feel anything happening and .. ."

  "Something certainly was happening!"

  "I know. But I could feel nothing. I thought it hadn't worked."

  Mab slowly shook his head. "I could see the window of what I knew was your chamber descending swiftly into the swamp. When I called to you I was afraid you would be trapped. But I'm curious about the stone that was around your neck There is only one stone that has such powers, and I thought it was in Qhahdrun's possession. Let me see it."

  John handed to him the chain and the strange blue stone. Even in the moonlight it glowed with cobalt fire, lighting up the wrinkles in the old seer's face. "It is the Mashal Stone," he said slowly. "I last saw it four hundred years ago. Where did you find it?"

  "In the Goblin Prince's cave."

  "Does he know it is gone?"

  "I don't know. It was just lying on a sort of ledge. I used it

  to get away."

  The old seer looked at him curiously. "We never talked about what happened in the cave, did we?" he said thoughtfully.

  The sky in the east continued to lighten. A wisp of cloud was slowly being sketched in pink against the gray background. The horizon was now hard and distincL But John was not thinking of the dawn.

  "Mab," he said, "who is the Lord Lunacy?"

  "He is one of the forms that the Mystery of Abomination takes on."

  Quickly John described his experiences in the tower. "His head nearly filled that room I was in, but when I put the chain round my neck, it turned into a dragon's head."

  Mab raised his eyebrows. "That could well fit the prophecies. A dragon is to approach the Regents—"

  "Who are the Regents, Mab?"

  "The Regents are to be the true rulers in Anthropos, ruling by decree of the Changer, until Gaal comes."

  To John the whole thing seemed impossibly complicated. And one thing still bothered him.

  "What happened to the Lord Lunacy when the tower sank?"

  "I doubt that anything happened to him. His power in Anthropos has been curtailed. He can no longer control the courses of the planets. But I suspect we shall see a lot more of him before the Regents arrive. He wants to challenge the Changer, and he seems to think he can best do that by securing the loyalty of the Regents."

  John stared at him, troubled. "Is he stronger than the Changer?" he asked at length.

  Mab smiled and shook his head. "He is nothing but a pawn held between the Changer's forefingers and thumb."

  "Then why doesn't the Changer just get rid of him?"

  Mab waited so long before replying that John felt uncomfortable. When at last he spoke, his voice was heavy. "Sometimes, Sword Bearer, I wish I understood the ways of the Changer. But my mind has yet to penetrate them. Often he does things that make little sense to me, and his silences wound me. I suppose he owes none of us an explanation of his ways. I serve him, and I will serve none other for he has been gracious to me. But I find him hard to understand."

  John felt uneasy. "But will the Regents be okay?"

  Mab nodded. "Yes. We needn't be anxious about them. One thing you can count on with the Changer is his word. He never breaks it. It always comes to pass." He hesitated. "At least almost always ..." And again he dipped his paddle in the water. The look on his face was full of pain so that John was uncomfortable asking more.

  Yet in a little while Mab continued, talking slowly more to himself than to John. "Did he really promise me a son? Or did I just dream it? In any case it is folly to think of a son now. Of what use would I be to one if I am to die so soon?" He paused again before continuing. "Yet the longing refuses to leave me."

  By now light had crept across the whole sky. Silently John watched a large orange sun lift itself through the haze into the eastern sky. From time to time a gull's call echoed eerily across the water, but beyond that the only sound was the wash of water around Mab's paddle and a gurgling around the coracle. There was no breeze. The lake was calm.

  John sighed and Mab looked up at him. The gloom on the old man's face subsided, and a look of concern took its place. "These have been difficult days for you," he said slowly.

  John nodded, "I was thinking about my father."

  "Your father?"

  John sighed again. "I don't know where he is. He's a drunk. At least that's what the Lord Lunacy said. But you can't really trust what he says. He even had me confused about what I felt and believe myself. But he says my dad doesn't want me."

  "I find that hard to believe. All men want to have sons."

  John said nothing. He trailed a hand in the water and noted that it was cool. "I wish I knew," he said softly, "—about my father, I mean."

  "What about your mother?"

  "She's dead. I never knew her. My granma looked after me, but she died too. They were going to put me in an orphanage, but I ran away. Then the Changer brought me here."

  Mab stopped paddling and stared at him. He semed about to move forward and touch John, but changed his mind and condnued to stare.

  John's face was lit by the dull orange sun as it emerged over the horizon, magnified by the haze on the lake. Somehow it cheered and comforted him.

  "I'm sorry," Mab said at length. "Perhaps you can make use of me—for the time being anyway. I could hardly be a father— but if you could use a great, great, great—I'm not sure how many greats—grandfather, then I'd like to step into the role."

  But John never heard him. He was staring at the sun, wondering whether it was going to shine brightly again. Mab slowly resumed his paddling, and for another fifteen minutes they paddled in silence as the sun shook off the shackles of the earth.

  John's attention eventually shifted to the island. As they drew nearer he was almost sure he could see figures crowded along the cliff top. "They must be watching for us," he said.

  Mab smiled and said, "Yes. They're waiting to welcome us."

  The nearer they drew the clearer the figures became, and soon they could see the towering figure of Oso among the crowd of Matmon. Bjorn and Bjornsluv were there, and John was delighted to see Folly, who would run behind the watchers to peer at them, first from one side of the crowd, then from the other. Even Vixenia's small outline was visible.

  "Isn't it dangerous for them to be so near the edge of the cliff?" John asked anxiously.

  "It is a little," Mab replied, "but the Matmon seem to have no fear of heights."

  Su
ddenly the sound of Folly's braying rolled across the water to them, and immediately, as if Folly had given a signal, a roar of cheering broke from the throats of the watchers. Wonder stole across John's face. "Why are they cheering?" he asked. "They make it seem like we're royalty."

  For a moment Mab said nothing. When he did speak, there was something in his tone that John could not interpret "The night has gone," he said. "Both the earth and the moon were released last night The fires in the forest are dying out The tower is buried forever and its power broken—all because the Sword Bearer sent it to its doom!"

  "That's not true," John said, flushing. "I mean it was you who got the wine there. It's nice of you to say that but it's you they must be cheering. Think of all the risks you took You rescued me!"

  The cheering had become rhythmical, beating on their ears with a strange insistence. Soon they were able to distinguish the words, "The sword! The sword! The Sword Bearer's sword!"

  Shame and joy boiled tumultuously together in John's chest He rose shakily to his feet and drew the sword from its sheath. At once he was almost blinded by a piercing, pulsating blue light. He closed his eyes tightly, but his eyelids could not shut it out. Trembling he held the sword above his head. And as he did so the tower on the island became alive with light so that an arc of piercing blue flamed across the water between the tower and the sword.

  He never knew where the words came from. They rolled through his chest and throat before he could stop them. They echoed mightily against the cliffs as he cried, "The Sword of Gaal and the Sword of Geburah! The Sword of Gaal and the Sword of Geburah!"

  18

  * * *

  The Building

  of the Castle

  They spent two years on the island, building a castle around the mysterious tower. In fact the island became an island fortress since for the most part the castle wall followed the line of the cliff. Bjorn said, "Casdes are things we understand. This one will be impregnable. When the Regents come no evil power will be able to reach them here."

  During their first days on the island, in the flush of their triumph over the evil tower, they were by no means sure that a castle was needed. Two things made the Matmon change their minds. "You can't get rid of the Mystery of Abomination that easily," Mab assured them. "He never forgives. He never forgets. One setback will only make him more determined."

  More powerful than Mab's words was the column of night remaining over the swamp. No matter how clear the day or how brightly the sun shone, a black emptiness rose straight up from the swamp. Its appearance was hard to describe. As John put it, "It's not as if something black was there, but as if everything else had been taken away and only darkness left." Indeed most times it looked as if the fabric of the universe had split, enabling them to look through an opening into a terrifying void beyond. Yet on calm days, when the lake became a mirror, a shaft of reflected blackness plunged deep below the lake, a gargantuan maw, eager to devour.

  At first they thought the gap might close. But as one day followed another they came to realize that it was there to stay. Their battle was not over.

  Now when Matmon think of danger they think also of castles. They can build with unearthly industry, skill and speed, constructing in a month what men take a year to build. From a quarry on the southern shore of the island they hewed stone. Aguila and her cohorts brought giant eucalyptus trees from distant mountain forests. The island became the scene of noisy and feverish activity.

  Mab took little part in the activities. He was convinced that castle walls would prove useless against their own and the Regents' danger. "Remember," he told Vixenia and King Bjorn, "we have come here to welcome the arrival of the Regents and to celebrate their coming. We are not here to protect them. That is the Changer's business, not ours."

  Bjorn nodded. "Yes, and celebrate we will, for they are coming to reign over us in the name of Mi-ka-ya, and their reign will be a reign of peace and prosperity. But we must take pre-cautions. They are not here yet And our enemies are powerful."

  Mab preferred to spend part of his time on mysterious journeys he told no one about Otherwise he was teaching John about the powers of the Changer or else about how to fish in the lake from a coracle. John had never learned to fish, and enjoyed the experience thoroughly.

  John relished times on the lake with Mab. Gradually he forgot Mab's great age and began to feel as though the old man were his grandfather. Yet a curious restraint held him from talking anymore about his past, and he was relieved that Mab never sought to quesdon him. He felt ashamed about his parents, indeed they had never really seemed real to him, and now they seemed less real than ever. But the ring and the locket were a part of him, and from long habit he took pains to go on concealing them, however precious they might be.

  As they fished Mab would from time to time glance at the partly completed walls. "They work with skill. The castle will be a great one," he told John. "It could keep armies of Matmon out. But it will be of little value in facing our own particular danger. Stone fortresses cannot keep out evil."

  On one occasion as they talked together about the Changer the topic of John's door came up, the door through which he had entered the land. "You saw it again," Mab said, "and if I am not mistaken, you saw it from the outside. That could be important"

  John frowned. "I'm trying to think," he murmured. "It was when Gutreth and Bildreth first captured me. There was a number on the door—345. And the door was gray, like it had been painted. I've no idea what it was made of. Not wood. I'm sure it wasn't wood. Metal maybe."

  Mab frowned. "345?" he repeated. "It sounds significant But why? There's something about the number . . ." He continued to frown, shaking his head now and then. Several times after that they returned to the topic. But Mab was unable to make anything of the mysterious number.

  They would also talk of the tower and of the mysterious Garden Room where the Regents lived. "I don't see how you can have a garden inside a tower," John said.

  But Mab only replied, "I know you pretended not to be surprised, but you did see the large rooms inside the Gaal trees. So why not a garden in a tower?"

  The Matmon were not the only workers. In addition to lumber, Aguila and her eagles brought immense supplies of stores which had to be organized and taken care of. Aguila did more despite her continual pain and discomfort from her encounter with Old Nick Yet she worked without complaint. Throughout their time on the island, as each evening fell she brought their nightly feast. Just as their weariness had been melted away during the difficult days of their journey, so now on the island their limbs were strengthened and their spirits lifted. Every night their voices rang with songs and their bodies swayed as they danced with abandon under the stars.

  Mab never joined the dances. Always he would turn and stare at the gap in the stars over the swamp, wondering when evil would break through it again and what would happen when it did. John, whose heart was now much lighter than it had once been, would laugh and dance until he was too tired to go on. But when the dances were over he would sit and think about Grandma Wilson and brood, sometimes tearfully, over the problem of his missing father. Yet as time passed he did this less and less.

  The Matmon seemed to thrive on the hardest of labor. They sang as they worked. When they were not singing they would laugh and talk without ever slowing their pace. Sometimes John would watch them, and at other times he would engage in incomprehensible exchanges with Folly.

  The tower and the Scunning Stones remained objects of wonder for the Matmon. They would stare entranced at the tower for minutes at a time, touching the masonry, examining the joints of the stones and shaking their heads at the marvel of workmanship that so greatly exceeded their own.

  To them too the mystery of the Garden Room was a constantly recurring theme. They would look up at the upper windows, wondering whether the Regents would one day look out from them. They began to call the structure the Tower of Geburah, sensing a mysterious connection between it and John's sword. Still la
ter they began to refer to the island as the Island of Geburah.

  The Scunning Stones sadly became the scene of a tragedy. There were still a number of the Matmon who had never drunk of the wine of free pardon. These rebels, as they were called, worked well on the walls. But they tended to prefer their own company, and their leader continued to be the Matmon prince, Goldson. John had long since ceased to spend time with them. So he felt uneasy when one day he found three or four of them laughing with Goldson around the Scunning Stones.

  The energy that pulsated from the stones had convinced most of the company of the truth of Mab's account of them. But Goldson laughed at the notion of their being dangerous. "They're safe enough," he said. "If there are such beings as Regents, they will be in no danger. They will sit on them and look very powerful. And we will be impressed because we've all been led to believe there is danger."

  For a moment it looked as though he was about to sit on one of the stones himself, but one of his followers was quicker, leaping on to the seat of one of the stones with a merry shout.

  But his merriment lasted only a moment. A surge of energy seemed to envelop him and his clothing burst into flames. The small group around the stones stood transfixed in horror as the unfortunate being screamed with pain and terror. Then he shuddered convulsively and grew scorched and blackened. A moment later his flaming corpse tumbled sickeningly at their feet. No one ever again doubted the power of the stones, and many weeks passed before John could get the picture of the horrible event out of his mind.

  One thing that helped him was the arrival of a pig and a dog that had swum companionably together to the island, making their way into the tunnel below the tower. They told a tale of the cruelty and enchantment of a sorcerer whom they had displeased. The dog had been made to shiver and to itch, unable ever to be warm or to relax. And the pig had been put into an enchanted sleep.