tap a generated current.
Diverting the life-force to Medea!
The shining mist-motes swirled faster. They closed in around us, bathing us in a swirling cloak. The gray shadowiness fell away from Edeyrn and Matholch. Dun-cloaked, cowled dwarf and lean, grinning wolfling stood there, watching.
Edeyrn's face I could not see, though the deadly cold crept from beneath the cowl like an icy wind. Matholch's tongue crept out and circled his lips. His eyes were bright with triumph and excitement.
A numbing, lethargic languor was stealing over me. Against my mouth as Medea's lips grew hotter, more ardent, as my own lips chilled. Desperately I tried to move, to grasp my sword-hilt. I could not.
Now the bright veil thinned again. Beyond Matholch and Edeyrn I could see a vast space, so enormous that my gaze failed to pierce its violet depths. A stairway led up to infinite heights.
A golden glow burned high above.
But behind Matholch and Edeyrn, a little to one side, stood a curiously-carved pedestal whose front was a single pane of transparent glass. It shone steadily with a cool blue light. What lay within I did not know, but I recognized that crystal pane.
Ghast Rhymi had spoken of it. Behind it must lie the Sword Called Llyr.
Faintly now – faintly – I heard Matholch's satisfied chuckle.
'Ganelon, my love, do not struggle against me,' Medea whispered. 'Only I can save you. When your madness passes, we will return to the Castle.'
Yes, for I would be no menace then. Matholch would not bother to harm me. As a mindless, soulless thing I would return to the Castle of the Coven as Medea's slave.
I, Ganelon, hereditary Lord of the Coven and the Sealed of Llyr!
The golden glow high above brightened. Crooked lightnings rushed out from it and were lost in the violet dimness.
My eyes found that golden light that was the Window of Llyr.
My mind reached out toward it.
My soul strained to it!
Witch and vampire-mutation Medea might be – or sorceress – but she had never been sealed to Llyr. No dark power beat latently in her blood as it beat in mine. Well I knew now that, no matter how I might renounce my allegiance to Llyr, there yet had been a bond. Llyr had power over me, but I could draw upon his power as well!
I drew on that power now!
The golden window brightened. Again forked lightnings ran out from it and were gone. A muffled, heavy drum-beat muttered from somewhere, like the pulse of Llyr.
Like the heart of Llyr, stirring from sleep to waking.
Through me power rushed, quickening my flesh from its lethargy. I drew on Llyr's power without measuring the cost. I saw fear flash across Matholch's face, and Edeyrn made a quick gesture.
'Medea,' she said.
But Medea had already sensed that quickening. I felt her body quiver convulsively against mine. Avidly she pressed against me, faster and faster she drank the energy that made me alive.
But the energy of Llyr poured into me! Hollow thunders roared in the vast spaces above. The golden window blazed with dazzling brightness. And around us now the sparkling motes of light paled, shrank, and were gone.
'Kill him!' Matholch howled. 'He holds Llyr!'
He sprang forward.
From somewhere a bloody figure in dented armor stumbled. I saw Lorryn's scarred face twist in amazement as he blinked at the tableau. His sword, red to the hilt, was bare in his hand.
He saw me with Medea's arms about my neck.
He saw Edeyrn.
And he saw Matholch!
A wordless, inarticulate sound ripped through Lorryn's throat. He lifted high the sword.
As I tore myself free from Medea's grip, as I sent her reeling away, I saw Matholch's wand come up. I reached for my own wand, but there was no need.
Lorryn's blade sang. Matholch's hand, still gripping the wand, was severed at the wrist. Blood spurted from cut arteries.
Howling, the shape-changer dropped forward. The lycanthropic change came upon him. Hypnotism, mutation, dark sorcery – I could not tell. But the thing that sprang at Lorryn's throat was not human.
Lorryn laughed. He sent his sword spinning away.
He met the wolfling's charge, bracing himself strongly and caught the thing by throat and leg. Fanged jaws snapped viciously at him.
Lorryn heaved the monster above his head. His joints cracked with the inhuman strain. One instant Lorryn stood there, holding his enemy high, while the wolf-jaws snarled and strove to rend him.
He dashed the wolf down upon the stones!
I heard bones snap like rotten twigs. I heard a scream of dying, terrible agony from a gaping muzzle from which blood poured.
Then Matholch, in his own shape, broken, dying, lay writhing at our feet!
XV. Lair of Power
MIRACULOUSLY THE WEAKNESS that had chained me was, gone. Llyr's strength poured through me. I unsheathed my sword and ran past Matholch's body, ignoring Lorryn who stood motionless, staring down. I ran to the pedestal with its blue-litten pane.
I gripped the sword's blade and sent the heavy hilt crashing against the glass.
There was a tinkling of pizzicato notes, a singing of thin goblin laughter. The shards fell clashing at my feet.
At my feet also dropped a sword. A sword of crystal, nearly five feet long – pommel and guard and blade all of clearest glass.
It had been part of the window. For within the hollow pedestal was nothing at all. The sword had been part of the pane, so that my breaking the crystal had released the weapon from its camouflaged hiding-place.
Along the sleek blade blue light ran. Within the crystal blue fires burned wanly. I bent and picked up the sword. The hilt was warm and alive.
The Sword Called Llyr in my left hand, the sword with blade of steel in my right, I stood upright.
Paralyzing cold breathed past me.
I knew that cold.
So I did not turn. I swung the steel sword under my arm, snatched the Crystal Mask from my belt, and donned it. I drew the Wand of Power.
Only then did I turn.
Through the Mask queer glimmers and shiftings ran, distorting what I saw. The properties of light were oddly altered by the Mask. But it had its purpose. It was a filter.
Matholch lay motionless now. Beyond his body Medea was rising to her feet, her dark hair disordered. Facing me stood Lorryn, a stone man, only his eyes alive in his set, white face.
He was staring at Edeyrn, whose sleek dark head I saw. Her back was toward me. The cowl had been flung back upon her shoulders.
Lorryn sagged down, the life going out of him. Bonelessly as water he collapsed.
He lay dead.
Then slowly, slowly, Edeyrn turned.
She was tiny as a child, and her face was like a child's too, in its immature roundness. But I did not see her face, for even through the Crystal Mask burned the Gorgon's glare.
