Генри Каттнер - Lands of the Earthquake

It was a clean blow. It should have lifted Guillaume’s head clear of his shoulders. But it did not. Sparks leaped out as if the blade had struck steel instead of muscle and flesh. There was a dazzling coruscation of jagged lights, and a ringing sound like a gong struck heavily, and Guillaume cried out in a strange, breathless voice, “ Dieu lo vult! Dieu —” as if that blow were what he had prayed for.

Then everything shifted inexplicably, indescribably, before Boyce’s eyes. The chamber that yet rang with lightning and thunder from the battle of enchanted blades fell suddenly silent. Guillaume was falling.

He fell slowly. The two–edged sword dropped from his slackened grip and clanged upon the flagstones. He sank to his knees and very deliberately seemed to float forward until he lay face–down upon the floor. Boyce heard the great sigh he gave as he collapsed.

It was as if deafness had suddenly been lifted from Boyce’s ears, then—for Kerak Castle awoke.

And on the painted table, Tancred sighed and stirred. All through the castle beneath them were stirrings and startled voices as the slumberers awoke. The air no longer shuddered to every motion Guillaume made. He was a normal man again, with only a human’s powers. And looking down at him, Boyce was surprised—but not entirely surprised—to see that from his neck a broken collar hung.

It was a collar of glass.

Tancred rose. Boyce, turning to face him, saw that the magician was breathing heavily as if he and not Boyce had fought that battle of the enchanted swords. Sweat was bright upon his brown forehead above the meeting brows, and his great chest heaved.

“It was you,” Boyce said softly, holding out the sword.

Tancred nodded. He was still almost too breathless to speak. He took the weapon from Boyce’s hand and drew a finger down the length of the blade, and Boyce saw something—some brightness, some strange aliveness—fade and go out in the wake of the moving finger.

“Yes,” Tancred said. “But without you, I must have failed. My thanks to you, du Boyce.” He slid the sword back into its scabbard and dropped it on the table. “Now as for him,” he said, nodding toward the prostrate Guillaume, “—as for him—I wonder.”

He dropped to one knee beside the fallen man, reached out a cautious finger to the shattered glass collar which had stopped that deadly final blow. He touched it—and there was a clear, ringing sound like a wineglass shattering. The collar leaped of its own volition and flew into a glittering powder, and was gone.

Guillaume stirred and moaned.

Gently Tancred turned the Crusader over. Guillaume’s head fell back and his thick throat worked convulsively.

“I—it was not I, Tancred—they sent,” he whispered.

“I know, Guillaume. No matter now. You’re safe.”

Guillaume scowled and shook his head a little, with infinite effort. “No—not safe. Godfrey—I must go back—”

Tancred laid a ringed hand over the Crusader’s mouth.

“Hush, Guillaume. You were possessed. You have no strength left even to tell us what happened. Wait.”

He rose wearily. Boyce, watching, was aware now for the first time of the strangeness of this tower–room. Until this moment he had been too preoccupied with the urgency of what was happening to see any more than the essentials of the place. Now he saw—the magical things.

There was the pool the castle woman had whispered of. It lay in a little alcove on the far side of the room, round, framed in bright tiles, and a tiny tide of its own surged slowly outward in rings from the center of the circle. And magic hung over it. Boyce could not have said why, but he could sense it in the air above the pool.

Shelves lining the walls were thick with things Boyce had no name for. He saw books in many languages, some of them he was sure not earthly languages. A harp hung on one wall, its bright strings rippling a little now and then as if invisible hands stroked them, giving out the faintest possible humming music, almost below the level of hearing. And in one louvred box in a corner he thought he caught a flicker of motion occasionally, as if some small being moved inside.

Tancred took a crystal goblet from a shelf. It was empty when he touched it, but by the time he had turned and bent to Guillaume, the goblet was half filled with something translucently red and pungent–smelling.

“Drink this,” Tancred said, kneeling and lifting Guillaume’s head. The Crusader obeyed. He seemed too exhausted to move of his own will or to question anything the mage might say. It was an unnatural exhaustion. There was about it something almost like the utter emptiness of the Oracle.

But after he had drunk, a little life came back into his face. He lifted himself weakly on one elbow and looked up urgently at Tancred. His voice was scarcely more than a whisper.

“Godfrey—” he said. “Prisoner—in the City. Help me, Tancred. I must go back to him.”

“Your strength is very little, Guillaume,” Tancred told him. “It will not last long. Tell us what happened while you can.”

Guillaume closed his eyes for a moment before he spoke.

“We went into the City as we had planned. I met my—my acquaintances there. They were eager to buy the secrets I offered them. We bargained. I—knew there was one close to the councils of the Sorcerer King. I waited for him—too long. I never saw his face, but his name is Jamai—he is a very evil man.”

Guillaume’s voice faded. He waited, gathering his strength, and then went on in a weaker voice.

“There are—factions in the City. The King—would not destroy us utterly. He hates us, Tancred, but for some—strange reason—he would destroy us one by one, not all together and Kerak with us. Jamai is his chief enchanter. He hates us too, and he has no scruples.

“Do you know, Tancred—there is a bond between Kerak and the City? Some bond that keeps the City from drifting on its way? The lands do move. The City has its course, like a ship. Jamai would be off on that course. He longs to cut the bond, whatever it may be, that holds them here.”

Tancred nodded.

“I think I can guess what it is.”

“He—will destroy Kerak,” Guillaume went on. “All this was—his doing. The King—did not guess. I was mistaken about Jamai. I tried to bargain—secretly. He took us both—Godfrey and me, I must go back for him.” Guillaume was silent for a moment, and his eyes clouded as he looked back into the past.

“He is hostage,” he said. “For my success here. I must release him, Tancred. He lies in—a strange prison. Strange—I cannot tell you how strange.”

“How was this magic done?” Tancred asked. “Do you know that?”

Guillaume nodded weakly.

“The collar,” he said. “I would have sworn it could not be—that I should wear the collar of a master. But I wore it. And the spell—was simple. Sleep ran out before me—as I came. It was not I…I think Jamai—or his mind—rode mine as a man rides a horse. He saw through my eyes. Until the collar broke—it was not I.”

He struggled to sit up.

“Now I must go back,” he said. “Godfrey—”

Tancred put out a hand and pressed him back.

“One will go for Godfrey,” he said. “Not you, Guillaume. But Godfrey shall be saved if mortal man can save him. Rest assured of that.”

Guillaume was not to be assuaged so simply. He lay back in obedience to Tancred’s hand, but his eyes were fiercely questioning.

“Who?” The voice was only a breath.

Across the Crusader’s body Tancred’s eyes met Boyce’s.

“The answer to your problems, du Boyce, does not lie in Kerak,” he said. “I have known that for many days. Will you seek it in the City?”