The Bull and the Spear - 05 (12 page)

"I was looking for you," he said.

"Then you did know of my presence?"

"No. I saw smoke a day or so ago and I came to investigate it. I wondered what mortal could be daring the dangers of Laahr. Happily I got to you before the hounds could dine on your corpse. Without my horn, I could not, myself, have survived in these parts. Oh, and I have one or two other small sorceries to help me remain alive." Calatin smiled a thin smile. "It is the Day of the Sorcerer in this world, again. Once, only a few years since, I was deemed eccentric because of my interests. I was thought mad by some, evil by others. Calatin, they said, escapes from the real world by studying occult matters. What use can such things be to our people?" He chuckled. It was not an entirely pleasant sound to Corum's ears. ‘ 'Well, I have found some uses for the old lore. And Calatin is the only one to remain alive in the whole of the peninsula."

"You have used your knowledge for selfish ends alone, it seems," said Corum. He drew a skin of wine from his pack and offered it to Calatin, who accepted it without suspicion and who seemed to experience no rancor at Corum's remark. Calatin raised the skin to his lips and drank deeply before replying.

"I am Calatin," said the wizard. "I had a family. I have had several wives. I had twenty-seven sons and a grandson. They were all I could care for. And now that they are dead, I care for Calatin. Oh, do not judge me too harshly, Sidhi, for I was mocked by my fellows for many years. I divined something of the Fhoi Myore's coming, but they ignored me. I offered my help, but they laughed and rejected it. I have no cause to love mortals much. But I have less cause to hate the Fhoi Myore, I suppose."

' 'What became of your twenty-seven sons and your grandson?''

"They died together or individually in different parts of the world."

"Why did they die if they did not fight the Fhoi Myore?"

"The Fhoi Myore killed some of them. They were all upon quests, seeking things I needed to continue my researches into certain aspects of mystic lore. One or two were successful and, dying of their wounds, brought me those things. But there are still several things I need and, I suppose, shall not have now."

Corum made no response to Calatin’s statement. He felt faint. As the fire warmed his blood and brought pain to the minor wounds he had sustained, he began to realize the full extent of his tiredness. His eyes began to close.

"You see," Calatin continued, "I have been frank with you, Sidhi. And what quest are you upon?"

Corum yawned. "I seek a spear."

In the dim firelight Corum thought he saw Calatin's eyes narrow. "A spear?"

'' Aye.'' Corum yawned again and stretched his body beside the fire.

"And where do you seek this spear?"

"In a place that some doubt exists, where the race I call Mabden—your race—dares not go, or cannot go on pain of death, or . . ." Corum shrugged. "It is hard to separate one superstition from another in this world of yours."

"Is this place you go to this place which might not exist—an island?"

"An island, aye."

"Called Hy-Breasail?"

"That is its name.'' Corum forced sleep away, becoming a little more alert. "Do you know it?"

"I have heard it lies out to sea, to the west, and that the Fhoi Myore dare not visit it."

"I have heard that, also. Do you know why the Fhoi Myore cannot go there?"

"Some say that the air of Hy-Breasail, while beneficial to mortals, is deadly to the Fhoi Myore. But it is not the air of the island that endangers mortals. It is the enchantments of the place, they say, that brings death to ordinary men."

"Enchantments ...?’’ Corum could resist sleep no longer.

'' Aye," echoed the wizard Calatin thoughtfully,' 'enchantments of fearful beauty, it is said."

They were the last words Corum heard before he fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.

THE SIXTH CHAPTER

OVER THE WATER TO HY-BREASAIL

In the morning Calatin led Corum from the forest and they stood beside the sea. Warm sun shone upon white beaches and blue water, yet behind them the forest still lay crushed by snow.

Corum was not riding his horse; he was reluctant to mount the brave beast until its wounds had healed. But he had gathered his gear, including his arrows and his lances, and laid it upon his mount's back where the load would not irritate the wounds it had sustained in the previous night's fight. Corum's own body was bruised and aching, but he forgot his discomfort as soon as he recognized the shore.

' 'So," said Corum, ' 'I was merely a mile or two from the coast when those beasts attacked." He smiled ironically. "And there is Moidel's Mount." He pointed along the shore to where the hill could be seen, rising from a deeper sea than when Corum had last visited it—unmistakably the place where Rhalina's castle had stood, guarding the margravate of Lwym-an-Esh. "Moidel's Mount remains."

"I do not know the name you speak," said Calatin, stroking his beard and arranging his finery as if about to receive a distinguished visitor, "but my house is built upon that tor. It is where I have always lived."

Corum accepted this and began to walk on towards the mount .' 'I have lived there, too," he said. "And I was happy."

Calatin, with long strides, caught up with him. ‘ 'You lived there, Sidhi? I know nothing of that."

' 'It was before Lwym-an-Esh was drowned," Corum explained. ' 'Before this cycle of history began. Mortals and gods come and go, but nature remains."

"It is all relative," Calatin said. Corum thought his tone a little peevish, as if he resented hearing this truism. Nearing the place, Corum saw that once the old causeway had been replaced by a bridge, but now that bridge was in ruins, deliberately destroyed, it seemed. He commented on this to Calatin.

The wizard nodded. "I destroyed the bridge. The Fhoi Myore and the things of the Fhoi Myore are, like the Sidhi, reluctant to cross western water."

"Why western water?"

"I have no understanding of their customs. Have you any fear of wading through the shallows to the island, Sir Sidhi?"

"None," said Corum. "I have made the same journey many times. And do not draw too many conclusions from that, wizard, for I am not of the Sidhi race, though you seem to insist otherwise."

'' You spoke of Vadhagh and that is an old name for the Sidhi. ‘'

''Perhaps legend has confused the two races."

"You have the Sidhi look, nonetheless," Calatin said flatly. "The tide is retreating. Soon it will be possible to cross. We shall make our way along what remains of the bridge and enter the water from there."

Corum continued to lead his horse, following Calatin as he set foot on the stone bridge and walked as far as he could until he reached crude steps which led down into the sea.

"It is shallow enough," the wizard announced.

Corum looked at the green mount. There it was lush spring. He looked behind him. There it was cruel winter. How could nature be thus controlled?

He had difficulty with the horse. Its hooves threatened to slip on the wet rocks. But eventually both rider and horse were shoulder deep in the water and feeling with their feet for the remains of the old causeway below. Through the clear sea Corum could just make out the worn cobblestones that might have been the same ones he had stepped on a thousand or more years past. He remembered his first coming to Moidel's Mount. He remembered the hatred he had had then, of all Mabden. And he had been betrayed by Mabden many times.

The wizard Calatin's cloak floated out behind him on the surface of the water as the tall old man led the way.

Slowly they began to emerge from the sea until they were two-thirds of the way across and the water was only up to their shins. The horse snorted with pleasure. Evidently its soaking had soothed its wounds. It shook its mane and dilated its nostrils. Perhaps the sight of the good, green grass on the slopes of the tor also improved its spirits.

Now there was no trace at all of Rhalina's castle. Instead, a villa had been built near the top—a villa two stories high, made of white stone that sparkled in the sunshine. Its roof was of gray slate. A pleasant house, thought Corum, and not a typical one for a man who dabbled in the occult arts. He recalled his last sight of the old castle, burned by Glandyth in revenge.

Was that why he felt so suspicious of this Mabden, Calatin? Was there something of the Earl of Krae about him? Something in the eyes, the bearing, or perhaps the voice? It was foolish to make comparisons. Calatin did not have an agreeable manner, it was true, but it was possible that his motives were kindly. He had saved Corum's life, after all. It would not be fair to judge the wizard on his outward and seemingly very cynical comportment.

Now they began to climb the winding track to the top of the mount. Corum smelled the spring, the flowers and the rhododendrons, the grass and the budding trees. Sweet-scented moss covered the old rocks of the hill; birds nested in the larches and the alders and flew about among the new, bright leaves. Corum had another reason now to be grateful to Calatin, for he had become profoundly weary of the deadness of the previous landscape.

And then they came to the house itself. Calatin showed Corum where he could stable his horse and then flung open wide a door so that Corum could go first into the place. The ground floor consisted mainly of one large room. Its wide windows were filled with glass and looked out on one side to the open sea and on the other to the white and desolate land. Corum observed how clouds formed over the land but not over the sea; they remained in one place, as if forbidden to cross an invisible barrier.

Corum had observed little glass in any other part of this Mabden world. Calatin had found benefits, it appeared, in his studying of ancient lore. The roofs of the house were high and supported by stone beams, and the rooms of the house, as Calatin showed it to him, were filled with scrolls, books, tablets and experimental apparatus—truly a wizard's lair.

Yet there was nothing sinister, to Corum, in Calatin's possessions or, indeed, his obsessions. The man called himself a wizard, but Corum would have called him a philosopher, someone who enjoyed exploring and discovering the secrets of nature.

' 'Here," Calatin told him, ‘ 'I have almost everything saved from Lwym-an-Esh's libraries before that golden civilization sank beneath the waves. Many mocked me and told me that I filled my head with nonsense. My books, they said, were only the work of madmen who had preceded me and contained no more truth than my own work contained. They said that the histories were mere legends; that the grimoires were fantasies—fiction; that the talk of gods and demons and such was merely poetic, metaphorical. But I believed otherwise and I was proved correct.'' Calatin smiled coldly. ‘ "Their deaths proved me right,"—the smile changed— "though I did not have very much satisfaction in knowing that all who might have apologized to me are now slain by the Hounds of Kerenos or frozen by the Fhoi Myore."

"You have no pity for them, have you Wizard?" Corum said, seating himself upon a stool and staring through the window out to sea.

‘ Tity? No. It is not my character to know pity. Or guilt. Or any of those other emotions which other mortals care so much for."

"You do not feel guilty that you sent your twenty-seven sons and your grandson upon a fruitless series of quests?"

"They were not entirely fruitless. There is little more I seek now."

‘I meant that you must surely feel some remorse for the fact that they all died."

‘I do not know that all of them died. Some simply did not return. But yes, most did die. It is a shame, I suppose. I would rather that they lived. But my interest is more in abstractions—pure knowledge-—than the usual considerations which hold so many mortals in chains."

Corum did not pursue the subject.

Calatin moved about the big room complaining of his wet clothes but making no effort to change them. They had dried before he next spoke to Corum.

"You go to Hy-Breasail, you said."

"Aye. Do you know where the island lies?"

"If the island exists, yes. But all mortals who go close to the island, so it is said, are immediately put under a glamour—they see nothing, save perhaps a reef or cliffs impossible to scale. Only the Sidhi see Hy-Breasail as the island really looks. That, at least, is what I have read. None of my sons returned from Hy-Breasail."

"They sought it and perished?"