The Plague Knight and Other Stories Read online

  The pale wizard nodded thoughtfully, his slanted eyes hooded, and I had the discomfiting feeling that he'd heard my thoughts as clearly as the words I'd spoken aloud. Then he pointed. "Another dead man." And so it was, cut into several fragments like the others. As the day wore on, we found a dozen more.

  Around dusk, the mist-creature began to flit excitedly back and forth, shot up to Elric, circled his head twice, and darted away again. "Has it found Kingsfire?" I asked.

  "Not yet, but it's found something." The sylph led us down a slope, through a stand of yews, and onto a narrow, overgrown trail that ran between two standing stones. I glanced between the moss-covered menhirs, then blinked and looked again, certain that my eyes were playing tricks. But beyond the monoliths the path meandered up a hillside that didn't seem to exist unless one was peering between them.

  "My God," I said, "a portal to Faerie."

  Elric grinned. "You've brought me luck, my friend. If we hadn't been seeking Kingsfire, Xiombarg knows how long I would have wandered before I stumbled on a gate from your plane to the next."

  As I've already indicated, I didn't fear even pureblood faeries the way many Christians do. Still, at that moment I remembered all the bogle tales I'd ever heard about the fate of mortals who intruded on the Fair Folk uninvited, and a chill slid up my spine. "Is the sword in there?"

  He nodded, his demonic eyes glinting. "Afraid?"

  I took a deep breath. "Not enough to turn back." He smiled, whether in approval or mockery I couldn't tell, and gestured to the sylph. It floated between the stones, and we followed.

  My first good look at the fabled land of Faerie, which scarcely a living man had ever seen, was both ominous and disappointing. Trouveres sing about a Summer Country, where the weather is always pleasant and everything is verdant and lovely, albeit, often with a malevolent, dangerous beauty. But the realm beyond the menhirs was even colder than the one we'd just departed, as though we'd walked from autumn into winter. The grass was brittle and brown, the trees bare and excruciatingly gnarled, like bodies twisted and maimed by a master torturer. A shroud of dark gray clouds obscured the sunset, and a faint stink of corruption hung in the air. Elric grimaced and said, "I've seen more fearful vistas, but few drearier," and I agreed with him.

  A few minutes later, we found the bodies of two frail-looking gnomes, hairless, gray-skinned creatures with beetle-browed, spotted heads that reminded me of toadstools. The murderer had mutilated them as thoroughly as their human counterparts.

  We made camp when night fell, and discovered that we'd have to dispense with a fire. The sticks on the ground looked suitable for burning, but squished to sodden mash when we picked them up. So we simply bundled up as best we could, even Elric now shivering as the air grew steadily colder. Somewhat to my surprise, he consented to share my stale black bread, dried apples, and the last of my sour yellow wine; evidently he didn't subsist entirely on magic.

  "What did this garrulous 'angel of the Lord' look like?" he asked as we finished our repast.

  "I didn't see it," I said, "only heard about it.”

  He cocked his head quizzically, his countenance a deathly blue-green in the foxfire of the sylph hovering above us. "You seem too hardheaded to embark on a quest on the strength of what was, to you, no more than a tavern tale."

  I shrugged. "It's not as if I had anything else to do. The year I won my spurs, the Pope—both Popes, actually--called for a Truce, and, their kingdoms ravaged by decades of war and plague, the princes of Christendom agreed to it. I suppose that was a blessing for most folk, but not for newly dubbed knights lacking both reputations and connections. I couldn't find a lord willing to add me to his retinue, so I supported myself by tourneying. That was all right so long as I won, but this year, I started to lose, until now I don't dare enter the lists again. I don't have the money to ransom Ebony"--hearing his name, the destrier snorted--"and my arms if someone else unhorses me."

  “But now you stand ready to reverse your fortunes with a single stroke,” Elric said. "What will you do when you hold the Lionheart's sword? Conquer the world?"

  I laughed. "No, a kingdom will content me, as long as it's wealthy and comes with a beautiful queen."

  He frowned, and I belatedly remembered the queen he served, the one likely to perish if his own quest succeeded. "You know," he murmured, "I've possessed the kind of power you seek." The black blade purred, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. "It carries its own set of griefs and dire imperatives. However strait your circumstances, you have freedom, and clean hands. I hope you appreciate--"

  My fists clenched. "I appreciate that I haven't sent my mother a penny in months. She's living on charity if she hasn’t starved. I appreciate that my servant—my friend--Geoff lies sick with the ague, and I can't afford the physick he needs to recover. And I appreciate that soon I'll have no choice but to sell my steed and mail, and after that I won't be a knight anymore. I don't care to hear you discourse on the benefits of poverty, Lord Elric, for I don't believe you're conversant with the subject. Whatever your sins and calamities, it's plain you grew up rich, and even if your purse has occasionally emptied since, I doubt you've ever had much trouble filling it. Hell, I imagine you can conjure gold out of the ground if you need to!"

  He sat silent for several heartbeats, then said, "I apologize. You're right, no one knows how onerous another man's burden is, and I'm presumptuous to tender advice unbidden. I'll take first watch." He rose and strode away.

  I watched him for a time, a shadow slipping through the contorted trees, then fell into a doze. The next thing I knew, a hand was gripping my shoulder.

  "Wake up," Elric whispered. "I heard footsteps."

  "The killer?"

  "I don't know," he said with a reckless grin. "Let's go find out."

  I threw off my blanket, jumped to my feet, and snatched up my sword and shield. Then we walked into the darkness. As we advanced, I heard something tramping through the brush. A second later, a horn blew, a tinny blat like the toot of a child's toy trumpet. Pursuing the sounds, quickening our pace, we trotted toward a massive willow. Unlike most of the trees in the dying forest, this one retained a portion of its foliage.

  "Do you see anything?" Elric asked.

  "No," I replied, and then the willow's limbs crashed down on our heads, coiled around our bodies and wrenched us into the air.

  We carried our blades in our hands, but clasped in the willow’s embrace, we couldn’t swing them. Its grip tightened agonizingly, inexorably, its bark abrading my skin, till I feared it would crush us to pulp. A band of squealing goblins like those whose corpses we'd discovered scurried out of the bushes and lifted long spears to skewer us.

  I sucked in a breath and whistled with all my might. Hoof beats pounded, then Ebony exploded into the midst of the gnomes, rearing, biting, battering, kicking backward. The dwarfish creatures screamed and scattered.

  Elric bellowed another cacophonous incantation. The sylph streaked out of the dark and sped around and around us, somehow creating a roaring vortex. Suddenly, I couldn't catch my breath. For a few moments I was afraid I was going to suffocate, but then the whirlwind tore the branches clutching us to splinters and dispersed as abruptly as it formed. My comrade and I fell heavily to the ground, and the tree froze into immobility again. Glancing up, I saw that our misty ally had disappeared, and realized it had given its life to save us.

  His white face a mask of rage, Elric raised his sword and stalked after the gnomes. Gripping his shoulder, I gasped, "No need to kill them."

  He sneered. "Are you craven? They tried to murder us. They're been murdering your people by the score."

  "I don't think so," I said. "For one thing, we found dead goblins too. For another, they lack the stature, the brawn, and the proper weapons to inflict the wounds we saw. I wouldn't be surprised if they only attacked us because they saw a tall figure with a huge sword prowling through the night and mistook you for the killer. And even if that's not the case,
where's the honor in slaughtering them needlessly? My God, they're puny, they wouldn't stand a chance in a fair fight."

  The fury drained out of his face. "You're right." The black sword snarled. The white-haired sorcerer shuddered as if with palsy, his hands trembling so that for a second I doubted he'd be able to slip the weapon back into its sheath.

  "Are you all right?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said, averting his gaze. "Stormbringer has a will of its own, and it likes to kill. Sometimes, if I disappoint it, I have to exert myself to remind it which of us is master."

  Not knowing what to say to that, I returned to the situation at hand. "I wonder if the goblins know who the murderer is. I wish we could persuade them to talk to us."

  "So do I, but it doesn't seem likely."

  "Oh, I don't know. I'll wager they're listening to us right now. What if we pledge not to harm them, and lay down our arms?"

  He gaped at me. "For whatever reason, they did just try to kill us."

  I grinned back. “Afraid?” He burst out laughing, pulled his baldric over his head, and laid the black sword--Stormbringer--on the ground. Secure in the knowledge that Ebony would guard them till we returned, I set my own blade and shield beside it. Then Elric took my arm and we strolled farther into the trees.

  When we'd walked about fifty paces, the goblins crept warily into view, encircling us with lances leveled. Behind them cowered other sorts of faeries, goat-legged fauns and a woman no larger than a mouse, with an extra set of arms, feelers sprouting from her chitinous brow, and veined, translucent wings.

  After a moment another gnome, this one unarmed, pushed through the ring of spearmen. From the sigils painted on his hands and head, and the clanking amulets dangling from his neck, I surmised he was the magician who'd animated the willow. "I'm called Blue Morel," he said in a reedy voice.

  "This is Sir Martin Rivers of England," my companion replied, "and I'm Prince Elric of Melnibone. Do you have a quarrel with us?"

  "No," Blue Morel said, "and we beg pardon. Sir Martin was correct, when we glimpsed you, we thought Tyrith had found our hiding place, so we drew you into the trap we had prepared. Once we noticed there were two of you, we should have realized our mistake, but by that time we were too panicked to reason."

  "Who is Tyrith?" I asked.

  "Until he went mad, he was king of the forest," the goblin said. "Now he stalks the wood, and your earthly wood beyond, killing everyone he finds, and infecting our land itself with his morbidity."

  "Tyrith's most likely an elemental," Elric told me, "albeit of different ilk than our poor sylph, his essence and well-being, or lack of it, linked to his particular domain." He turned back to Blue Morel. "I believe I can guess the rest. Unable to overcome the king yourselves, you remembered he stole his sword from a mortal monarch. So, knowing most of Martin's people mistrust faeries too much to heed their blandishments or pleas, you summoned a spirit that could pass for a seraph and dispatched it to Augsburg to announce that the blade could be found in the lands to the east, all in the hope that some human knight puissant enough to vanquish your oppressor would come seeking it, and slay him in the course of claiming his prize."

  Blue Morel nodded. "I realize it was despicable to lure your folk to their deaths. But we're desperate."

  I stared at Elric. "How did you know?"

  "I didn't, really, but once we discovered that one of these wights is a nigromancer, it seemed the most likely possibility. In my experience, genuine divinities rarely appear to the general populace unless they intend to annihilate it. So now that you know the truth, what do we do?"

  "Finish what we started," I replied. "I don't care whether God's will or a faerie's deceits led me here. Kingsfire is still Kingsfire. Any captain in Europe will offer a high place to the man who recovers it, and warriors and investors will flock to me if I decide to found a Company of my own." Also, I pitied the Fair Folk and wanted to help them.

  I expected Elric to advance the hypothesis, impossible to dismiss out of hand once one grasped something of Stormbringer's peculiar nature, that it was ownership of Richard's sword that had driven Tyrith mad. Indeed, I had counter-arguments marshaled in my head. But he simply said, "Then if Blue Morel will direct us to Tyrith's famous wooden castle, let's be off. If His Majesty isn't home, we'll lie in wait."

  The faeries cheered.

  We reached Tyrith's fortress around midnight. In the darkness it was solid black, a pillar of shadow in the center of an enormous clearing. Surely it was an edifice only an entity "linked to his particular domain" could have erected, for it was both a keep and a colossal living tree. In happier times, it had probably been magnificent, but now it was as gnarled and blighted as the rest of the ailing forest.

  Leaving Ebony outside, Elric and I warily advanced through a lofty double gate, both leaves warped and the one on the right hanging askew, into a cavernous hall. A whitish sap or ichor oozed from cracks in the walls and ceiling, and the maggoty, segmented bodies of two score faeries lay scattered among the broken tables and benches. The reeks of animal and vegetable putrescence combined to form the most sickening stench I'd ever smelled, and for a few seconds I was sure I was going to vomit.

  Elric swallowed. "Let's keep moving," he said.

  So we started to search the stygian keep, the smoldering runes on Stormbringer's blade, occasionally augmented by sprays of luminous blossoms sprouting from sconces and patches of phosphorescent fungus, providing just enough light to see by. Everywhere we found further evidence of Tyrith's dementia and the tree-castle's decline. Fey servants cut down at their labors. More shattered furniture, broken statues, shredded books. Sections of floor decaying into slime, cancerous tangles of wood blocking corridors and stairs, and sheets of mold rioting across paintings and tapestries.

  Until, after what seemed an eternity, we heard a high, sweet music up ahead. A sound too pure to flow from a human throat, unlike but somehow akin to Stormbringer's dreadful wail.

  I repressed a shiver, then forced myself to slink forward, Elric creeping at my side. Rounding a corner, we found the door from which the singing issued.

  Beyond it was a large bedchamber, its ornately carved canopy bed, sumptuous carpets, and intricately woven wall hangings as ruinous as everything else in the citadel. Inhumanly tall and gaunt, naked and filthy, Tyrith was pacing restlessly back and forth, his pale green skin and emerald hair attesting to his kinship with the land as eloquently as his deformities--one arm longer than the other, scabrous, bark-like tumors on his breast and thighs, pustulant lesions on his genitals—demonstrated the virulence of his affliction. The crooning sword, he carried on his shoulder. Despite its name, I didn’t think Kingsfire’s crimson radiance much resembled flame. It looked more like a splash of blood, or the color of Elric's eyes.

  "Tyrith of Faerie," the Melnibonean quavered, startling me so badly that I jumped. "I call on you to yield yourself to us. I swear by my gods, we have no wish to harm y--" The mad king screamed and charged us.

  I blocked his first blow with my shield. The next instant, Elric leaped at him and drove him backward. Blades rang, exchanging blows too fast to follow, howling a dissonant duet. Then Stormbringer flickered in and out of Tyrith’s breast. The elemental fell, his green blood gushing. Its voice failing, Kingsfire flew from his hand to clatter on the floor.

  I started toward it, then hesitated. What if it had driven Tyrith insane?

  Well, even if it did, the process had taken a hundred and fifty years. I wouldn't live that long. Sneering at my timidity, I advanced again.

  But Elric reached Kingsfire first, lifted it off the floor and released it, and crooning again, it floated unsupported. The Melnibonean gripped his own glaive in both hands, swung it over his head and whipped it down. Stormbringer roared. The ruby sword screamed and shattered into a hundred pieces.

  Aghast, I could only assume that Elric had played me for a fool, that Kingsfire—the destruction of Kingsfire--had been the goal of his own quest all along. I shouted
, "Whoreson!" and came on guard.

  The pale wizard whirled, his teeth bared and his scarlet eyes blazing with a rage as mad as Tyrith’s. And at that moment, my own wrath crumbling into dismay, I penetrated a secret that had hitherto eluded me.

  Stormbringer absorbed the strength, perhaps the very souls, of those it slew, passing along a measure of this stolen vitality to its possessor. Alas, the more life it drank, the greater its influence over Elric became, and now, gorged on Kingsfire's essence, it ruled him. Delighting in death, it was eager to kill again, and I was the only prey at hand.

  More terrified of losing my life to that raven blade than I'd ever been of any other peril, I cut at Elric's head. He sidestepped with pantherish celerity, then hacked at me, shearing away the top half of my shield.

  After the first few seconds, I knew I couldn't defeat him, not fighting chivalrously. Perhaps I was as skillful a swordsman, but I couldn't match the ogreish strength now coursing through his arm. So I cast away the remainder of my shield, which was virtually useless in any case, to empty my hand, and retreated toward a certain section of floor.

  Stormbringer wailed and bellowed, flashed at me again and again, and for a moment I was certain that I'd never reach my objective. Then I trod in something slippery. Dropping beneath a blow that could have decapitated me, I scooped up a wad of the ubiquitous muck and threw it at Elric's eyes.

  Luck was with me, I hit them square, then lunged to run him through. Stormbringer deflected the thrust and slashed unerringly at my face. Caught by surprise, I barely managed to parry, but the stroke snapped my sword at the hilt.

  As I scrambled backward, dodging blow after blow so narrowly that the black blade often glanced screeching off my armor, I realized my mistake. Stormbringer was a living thing with senses of its own. Useless to blind the swordsman unless one blinded the glaive as well.