At Trilda, Shimrod struck the silver gong yet again, then turned away and went to a box hanging on the wall. He opened the front panels, spoke three words and applied his eye to a crystal lens. For a moment he stood rigid; then, stumbling back, he ran to his cabinet, buckled on his sword, pulled a cap down upon his head and went to stand on a disk of black stone. He uttered a spell of instant transfer and in a trice stood in the forecourt of Swer Smod. Vus and Vuwas still toyed with the bloody rag that once had been Melancthe. At their behest the torn body jerked back and forth in a grisly jig, while they chortled and complimented the indefatigable vitality of the thing. They gave Shimrod a pair of quick suspicious glances, just long enough to recognize him, and in any case were bored with their routine duties and so allowed him to pass without challenge.
Shimrod stepped through the broken doorway, and at once felt the force of Tamurello's chant. He ran down the gallery and burst into the great hail. Murgen sat as before, constricted by the six arms from Xabiste. The weasel skeleton, as it chanted the great spell, seemed to be altering shape and taking on substance. Torqual, standing beside the table, took note of Shimrod's arrival. He stood glowering, sword raised on high.
Shimrod cried out: "Torqual! Are you mad that you obey Tamurello?"
Torqual spoke in dull voice: "I do what I choose to do."
"Then you are worse than mad, and you must die."
"It is you who shall die," said Torquai in a voice of fate.
Shimrod came forward with drawn sword. He hacked down upon the weasel skeleton, and cleaved it to the fragile pelvis. The chant abruptly stopped, and Tamureilo was a heap of twitching bone-splinters.
Torqual looked at the simulacrum of Joald, now writhing against his remaining bonds. Torqual muttered under his breath:
"So this is the purpose of my life? I am mad indeed."
Shimrod swung his sword in an arc which would have taken Torqual's head from his torso had it struck home; Torqual jerked aside. Emotion came upon him in a frenzy; he flung himself at Shimrod with such wild energy that Shimrod was forced back upon the defensive. So the two fought, in a mutual fury: slash, hack, thrust.
Beside the table the scatter of bones had pulled together to form a random construction with the glittering black eyes looking out, one low, the other high. A spindly arm clawed at the hatchet, raised it high, while from the tangle of bones came a croaking voice chanting the great spell.
Shimrod dodged back from Torqual, threw a chair to impede him, then cut at the arm holding the hatchet. The arm splintered; the hatchet fell to the floor. Shimrod picked up the hatchet and as Torqual charged upon him, flung it into Torqual's face. Torqual's head and face shriveled and disappeared; his sword fell clattering to the floor, followed by his body.
Shimrod turned back to the table. The way into Xabiste was closing; to Shimrod's horror the arms, rather than disengaging, were drawing Murgen, chair and all, back through the slit.
Shimrod hacked at the thin gray arms. The hands fell to the floor, fingers clenching and unclenching. Murgen was free. He stood erect, and stepping forward, looked down at Joald. He uttered four plangent words. Joald's head lolled back; the arm dropped down beside the hulking torso.
In the Atlantic, the island created by the appearance of Joald's black pate sank beneath the surface. The arm fell with an enormous splash, creating a wave four hundred feet high which rolled toward the coast of South Ulfland. It struck full into the estuary of the Evander and sent a monstrous wall of water rushing up the valley, and the fabulous city Ys was lost.
Where Joald had lurched and kicked away the buttresses under Hybras Isle, the ground shuddered and sank, and Evander Vale, with its palaces and gardens, became an inlet of the sea.
North up the Ulfish coast, almost as far as Oaldes, the shore-side towns were drowned and the populations washed into the sea. When the waters became calm, Ys of the Ages, Ys the Beautiful, Ys of the Many Palaces, was sunk beneath the sea. In later times, when the light was right and the water clear, fishermen sometimes glimpsed the wonderful structures of marble, where nothing moved but schools of fish.
IV
There was heavy silence in the great hail at Swer Smod. Murgen stood immobile by the table; Shimrod leaned against the wall. On the table the Joald simulacrum lay inert. The splintered bones of the weasel skeleton lay in a heap, showing no vitality save for the glitter of two black eyes. On the table the blade of the hatchet-halberd had altered, swelling and becoming first globular, then gradually taking on the semblance of a human face.
After a moment Murgen turned toward Shimrod. He spoke in a heavy voice. "So now we have known tragedy. I cannot blame myself-but only because I cannot spare the energy. In truth, I fear that I became complacent, even arrogant, in the fullness of my strength and the certainty that no one would dare challenge me. I was wrong, and tragic events have occurred. Still, I may not allow myself to be injured by remorse."
Shimrod approached the table. "These things-are they still alive?"
"They are alive: Tamurello and Desmei, and desperately scheming for survival. This time I shall not dally with them and they shall fail." Murgen went to one of his cabinets and threw wide the doors. He worked at a whirling apparatus and in due course evoked a glare of pink light and a queer fluting voice: "Murgen, I speak across the unthinkable gulf!"
"I do the same," said Murgen. "How goes your war with Xabiste?"
"Well enough. We ordered the whorl Sirmish and flushed the green from Fangusto. However, at Mang Meeps they came in force; the place is now infested."
"A pity! But take cheer! I now give you two hybrid demons, Desmei and Tamurello, both reeking with green."
"This is a pleasant event."
"Just so. You may send a trendnl to take the pair, and to seek out any sops and seepages of green which they might have exuded."
For an instant the hall flickered with pink light; when it subsided the hatchet and the pile of bones were gone.
Murgen spoke: "Take the pair to the deepest pits of Myrdal, and seek out the hottest fires. There destroy them utterly, so that not even their last regrets linger in the flux. I will wait to learn of this final disposition."
"You must be patient!" said the effrit. "A deed worth doing is worth doing well! I shall be at least ten of your seconds, with another two seconds for my ritual cleansing."
"I will wait."
Twelve seconds passed. The effrit from Myrdal spoke once more. "The deed is done. Of the two demons neither jot, atom, breath, thought nor tittle remain. The pits of Myrdal burn hot."
"Excellent!" said Murgen. "I wish you continued success against the green." He closed the cabinet, and turned back to the table, where he reinforced the bonds which held Joald quiescent.
Shimrod watched with disapproval. "Joald should also be de stroyed."
Murgen spoke in a soft voice. "He is protected. Only this much is allowed to us, and then grudgingly."
"Who protects him?"
"Some of the old gods still live."
"Atlante?"
For a long moment Murgen said nothing. Then: "Certain names should not be named and certain topics are best not discussed."