The Sword Bearer

by John White

  Eventually he managed to get up and to breathe. Then, aching and dizzy, he groped for a torch, lit it and turned to fight. Folly was nowhere to be seen. But something was wrong. Now there seemed to be fire everywhere. Across the courtyard the whole sea of efel spawn was ballooning and exploding. There was heat in his face, heat every bit as intense as the heat at his back Titanic walls of fire had surrounded the whole island.

  "Leave your positions!" he heard Bjorn call. "Take shelter beneath the tower on the wharf."

  There were soon no efel spawn to be seen. Brilliant light from the fire walls illuminated the courtyard, and terrible heat scorched it John limped as well as he could in terror of the inferno that surrounded the island. Was the island itself on fire? Was the water of the lake burning?

  There was panic, jostling and confusion at the head of the ־steps that led down to the wharf. By some miracle no tragedy occurred and soon nearly eighty of them were crowded on the rocky wharf below the tower. All were weary, and all grateful for the coolness of the cavern and for their escape from the efel spawn. But what was the meaning of the fire? Had they been saved from one ordeal only to face a fiery death?

  "Seven dead, including Folly and Aguila," Bjorn said as the hubbub settled. "Deeply we mourn their loss. They sold their lives dearly and we owe them much." But the immediate excite-ment blunted the significance of his words to all of them. Certainly John did not take them in. And since they had nothing else to do, most of them squatted on the stone surface of the wharf. Those nearest the water would stoop to scoop it into their hands to drink and there was a regular shuffling as Matmon who had quenched their thirst made way for those who were still thirsty. In the cave all was stillness. No roar of fire could be heard, only the whispering echoes of their low voices.

  Bjorn had gone to the top of the stairs to see what was hap-pening. Soon he came down and called for silence. "Good tidings!" he said. "Or shall I say the tidings seem good. The fire has pulled back It surrounds us on all sides, but at a distance of fifty yards from the walls. The heat can no longer be felt Best of all, the water in the lake is free from efel spawn. The fire must have destroyed them!"

  There was an outbreak of excitement and of confused cheering. Matmon crowded eagerly to the stairway to see for themselves. John found himself pushed and jostled along with them up the steps, across the courtyard and up more steps onto the walls.

  It was an awesome, awesome sight Across a stretch of blood-tinged, black water, a curtain of fire rose from the lake five hundred feet into the air and extended in a sweeping circle round the island. The flames undulated with stately majesty. They were not the flickering flames of a fireplace but flames that waved upward in ponderous sweeping movements as though offering homage to the feeble moon.

  Spellbound they watched them for an hour while the curtain slowly extended and drew back from them. Then without warning, two hundred yards from the island, it disappeared in an instant. They rubbed their dazzled eyes and stared. The moon was again clear. Reflected moonlight glittered on the black waters. The efel spawn were no more.

  John joined Vixenia and the king and queen in the royal chambers. "The fire," Vixenia said, "—it was like the fire we would have asked for with the third stone. Where could it have come from?"

  "Rathson's idea was good. Would that he might have lived to see it work," Bjorn murmured.

  "But our grandson is no longer with us," Bjornsluv answered. "Yet the fire came. From whence?"

  "Surely not from the dead," the king said, looking startled.

  John had no stomach to talk about the dead. Now that the excitement was over, a weight of oppression rested on him. Grief for Mab rose fresh within him, twisting his heart and burning his eyes. Folly too was dead, and he struggled to come to terms with the fact "Well, we have a spare pross stone and nothing to do with it," he said bitterly.

  "No," Vixenia observed slowly. "We have no more pross stones. Mab the seer took the last one with him. We have no more unless we should some day find the fourth one he dropped in the cave."

  "The one he took did little good for him," Bjorn said.

  John's heart was beating wildly.

  "I'd forgotten about that. Yes, of course, he took it with him. You don't think ... ? No, that's impossible. His head simply flopped.. . . Oh, but was he really dead? What if. . ." Suddenly he rose to his feet " What if he's still alive and he used the stone? What if the fire walls came from him? What if he needs our help? Oh, whatever can we do?"

  There was a stunned pause. Suddenly John shouted, "His staff! I've got his staff in my room!" And without even excusing himself he turned and left them.

  It took him less than a minute to reach his chamber. Seizing the staff in a shaking hand he cried, "In the name of the Changer, my Changer, take me to Mab!"

  The staff vibrated gently in his hand and began to glow with blue light Relief and joy surged in him. He half-laughed, half-sobbed. His arm began to glow, then his whole body. The room vanished. He was drifting among whirling stars and suns. Brilliant lights flashed past him as the drifting became a rushing and the rushing a hurtling. Then suddenly he was surrounded by pale blue haze.

  Mab lay on a stretcher in front of him, his face pale, his eyes closed. Four goblins had been carrying the stretcher but had stopped and were staring at John. The blue glow shone from him. Suddenly he knew where he was. The Old Way. They were taking Mab somewhere. But where? He dared not pause.

  With one fierce movement he bent over Mab and plunged his free arm under the old man's waist drawing him to himself. Two of the goblins flung themselves on him. "In the name of the Changer," he cried, "take us back!" Again the whirling stars and planets and again the hurtling through space. But now there were four of them, John, Mab and two goblins.

  They stumbled to the floor in a lighted room. Somehow John managed not to fall on Mab. One of the demons was trying to choke him, but he struggled to his feet. The second had dropped to the ground and now crouched in front of him, ready to leap at him. The staff was still in his hand, and as a flash of blue fire leaped from it the goblin disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

  The flash had caused the goblin on his back to drop from him, and he swung round to face it. Like the second goblin it crouched to spring at him. John did not wait for the staff to act but swung it furiously at the creature's enormous skull, cracking it like an egg shell. It sank to the ground, melting into a slimy green patch.

  As the blue light faded from their bodies, only then did John realize that he was in the royal chambers, and that Vixenia and the king and queen were staring both at Mab and at himself in amazement

  Bjornsluv fell on her knees by Mab, who lay on his back on the floor, unconscious. Noting his pallor and the stains of blood and of mud on his robe, she swiftly pulled it from his shoulders and was surprised to find skilled bandaging around his wounds. She placed her ear over his chest and after a moment said, "His lung was not pierced. There is hope." Then she straightened her back, rose to her feet and said, "I have herbs. Let us also get some of that wine of free pardon into him. Let him be placed in my bedchamber so that I may attend to him myself during the night There is life in him yet and we may need his services."

  27

  * * *

  Battle of

  the Titans

  No one in all Anthropos possessed medical skills like Bjorns-luv's, and she exerted them to the full to save Mab. The next day he opened his eyes, and when he saw her he said, "So you too are at it!"

  "I too?"

  "A goblin physician bound my wounds and gave me herbs to keep death at bay."

  "Ah, yes. I wondered at the bandaging."

  "Their skill was great. . ."

  "But to what end? Why would they do you good?"

  "They wished to keep me alive to let me see the Goblin Prince put the Sword Bearer to death. How came I here? I gather he is alive?"

  "And well! He brought you here. And the perils that surrounded us were consumed by curtains of fire."

/>   A look of warm delight swept over Mab's face. "That is good. It is very good. So I was in time after all! I had thought it was all in vain!"

  He closed his eyes then and slept peacefully.

  As day succeeded day he gained more strength, but as Bjorns-luv herself admitted later, the presence of death never really departed from the room. Yet on the seventh day, Mab insisted that he rise from the couch in the queen's room. "I have dreamed of things that are to come," he said, "and I have somewhat more to do before I leave you all."

  An hour or so later, assisted by John and Bjorn, he went into the courtyard. Vixenia and Bjornsluv accompanied them, and Oso lay down nearby to observe. It was late afternoon, and the courtyard was deserted. Seven stone markers now were arranged in a circle around the Scunning Stones, placed there in honor of those who had perished in the battle. John had wept over two that had places of special honor—the stones for Folly, king of donkeys, and Aguila, sovereign over the eagles—the two who had given their lives to rescue the Sword Bearer.

  Mab sat on the well to rest. His face was gray, and his long white hair fell lifelessly over his shoulders. But his eyes burned with a strange urgency. "Doubtless you all feel that through the courage of John and myself, by the valor of Aguila and Folly, to say nothing of your planning and valiant fighting, you have all battled well against terribly superior odds. Is it not so?"

  Bjorn nodded but said nothing. Mab continued, "I now intend to show you that the odds are different from what you think." He raised his staff high. "Show them, Changer! Show them what mortal eyes so rarely see!"

  The staff vibrated, and blue light began to flash from it

  The scene around them faded. They seemed to stand on a plain, before a gate in a wall that almost reached the skies. And from the skies two seraphim descended, shining blue and tall as the walls themselves to stand as guards on either side of the gate. The earth shook as they reached the ground. Their faces and robes were molded in blue flame, while their voices were the thunderous notes of a vast pipe organ, as they cried, "See then, if you have eyes to see!"

  It took John's breath away. Bjorn and Bjornsluv stood beside him, their faces white, their eyes wide and staring, while Oso crouched on the ground hiding his head beneath his forepaws. And as they watched, a legion of angelic beings, flaming blue and armed with swords and whips of light, descended with claps of thunder to take their places on either side of them. The ground was shaken into waves and ripples by their ponderous weight and solidity. John and the king and queen stumbled against one another and fell in a heap together.

  "Stand then and see what the Changer is doing!" Mab cried from his perch on the well. "Behold what hereafter was hidden from you. Stand and see—so that after my death you will not forget!"

  Still shaking, the members of the little group rose to their feet and stared.

  "I have seen things no mortal eye should look upon," said the Matmon king. "I spoke foolish things with my mouth and I am ashamed."

  The company huddled together, awed by the gigantic size of the wall and gate, overwhelmed by the flaming giants whose voices were the thunder of cataracts. But John looked around him to make sure there was nothing he missed. And as he did so he caught sight of another wonder.

  "Look," he cried excitedly, "look at those clouds in the south! I bet we're in for a real storm. Gosh—I've never seen such clouds!"

  Glowering dark brown and ominous, the clouds from the direction of the swamp were scrambling madly upward, boiling ever high to tower miles above the earth. They began to move slowly and menacingly toward the island. John had always enjoyed seeing shapes in clouds—heads and faces, animals and benign creatures of mythology. But now he found himself Struggling not to see. For the shapes in the clouds were terrifyingly real.

  "They're just clouds," he muttered fiercely to himself. "They're only water vapor. There aren't any things in the clouds. It's only a storm, an ordinary thunderstorm."

  But his eyes refused to obey him. Horrified, he could not prevent himself from seeing a gargantuan black serpent whose coils wound and unwound in a slow orgy of desire. John shuddered and tried to turn away. But his eyes were trapped.

  "They're clouds, only clouds!" He was repeating the words aloud now, his voice cracked and his throat dry.

  One of the clouds was sprouting wings that covered a quarter of the copper sky. Between the wings a lion's head appeared. Limbs pushed outward and terrifying claws were thrust into space. "Oh no! A griffin!" The words that came from his throat seemed to belong to someone else.

  One by one clouds boiled themselves into monstrous shapes. Imperious phoenixes looked down disdainfully on the island. From the center a sinuously writhing dragon emerged, breathing red fire and lashing the forests of the mainland into flames with his tail.

  Jagged lightning flashed from the clouds. But it was lightning the like of which John had never seen. For there was no light in the lightning. Afterward John called the flashes darking or darkening, for they seemed like jagged cracks which split the sky to reveal the terror of blackness beyond it.

  Hot stirrings of air began to scorch his face. His neck was aching, his head strained back. With the roar and rush of mighty winds, the flaming blue seraphim and the host of angelic beings rose to meet them, swelling as they rose to match the size of the dragon. Hot wind flung John on his back. He caught a glimpse of Bjorn lying on the ground across the body of Bjornsluv. He wondered if they were dead. Vixenia cowered on the ground beside Oso. Only Mab remained at ease, seated on the well, his ancient, wrinkled face alight with exultation.

  Then John's head was split by a peal of thunder of a kind he had never heard before and would never hear again. Mab was hurled on the ground beside him as the flaming army engaged its foes. Flashes of red lightning blinded him so that he could no longer see what was happening. His body was tossed to and fro by hot wind and the terrifying shaking of the earth. His ears were deafened by screams, thunderclaps and roarings as the battle raged about him. Then with startling suddenness it ended.

  He sat still. After several moments he struggled to his feet and looked up. The clouds, still dark and ominous, were clouds and nothing more, clouds that were hurrying away from the island in the direction of the swamp, shrinking as they went. Behind them in a glory of blue light the angelic hosts were driving them, lashing them with awesome whips of light Soon they were lost from view.

  One by one the members of the little company picked themselves up. King Bjorn and his queen were quite unharmed. The giant walls and gate could no longer be seen. The tower, the keep and the castle walls were in their accustomed places. They were once more surrounded by the familiar courtyard.

  No one spoke. The vision had numbed their brains and stilled their tongues. The king and queen moved silently into the keep. Oso and Vixenia disappeared from view, and John and Mab were alone.

  It was then that John noticed that something had changed. The double doors to the tower, which had been closed by magical powers since first the tower was spoken into being, were now standing widely ajar.

  28

  * * *

  The Seven-Headed

  Dragon

  The wrinkles on Mab's forehead gathered themselves into a frown. For several minutes he stared through the open doors at the died floor inside the tower.

  "What can it mean?" he mused. "Surely something of great moment is about to take place. I saw nothing of this in my dreams. Or can it be that. . ." He paused and his frown deepened. "Can it be that something is direly amiss?"

  With John's help he moved toward the doors. "Let us close them," he said. The doors were iron embossed and of solid oak. He leaned against the doorpost as John seized one of them and pushed. But it might just as well have been set in cement. It could not be shifted.

  A shadow crossed Mab's face. "My own strength fails," he said quietly. "Would that I could assist you. But death claws at my bones."

  John felt a stab of fear. He used his shoulder as a sort of battering
ram, and then heaved with his back and his thighs, but his efforts were unavailing. "You're not dying," he panted fiercely. "It's the door. It just won't budge!"

  Mab shook his head wonderingly. "Then something mysterious is afoot," he said. John creeped cautiously inside the tower, peering at the stone walls of an empty room that formed the ground floor. Its high ceiling was crisscrossed with massive beams. The stones that formed the glass-smooth walls were irregular in shape, fitting together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with only hairline cracks to show where one stone joined another.

  Two diamond-paned windows admitted patterned shafts of afternoon sunlight on the floor. A stone stairway led up the lefthand wall to an opening in the ceiling. A second door which must have led down to the wharf was closed.

  Mab followed John into the room and stared in wonder at the cunning marvel of the closely fitted stones. "No human hand put these together," he said softly.

  "This place is prickling with magic," John replied.

  "Yes," the seer breathed, "and the power you sense is putting life and strength into my bones! It is not magic. It is the Changer's power."

  For several minutes they moved along the wall, fingering the smooth stones and trying in vain to feel the joints, commenting from time to time on the workmanship. Mab's body straightened. His step grew firmer as the minutes slipped by. Imperceptibly the room had grown slowly darker, until at last John said, "It must be getting late. It's nearly dark"

  The seer turned and strolled to the window. "It is no natural darkness," he stated after a moment "The Mystery of Abomination has changed its custom. Three weeks yet remain to full moon. Yet it is descending on the courtyard. This bodes ill for the cause."