Andrew Offutt - The Sign of the Moonbow

No apprehension was on Cormac’s companions now. True, all had had time more than adequate to grow worse than anxious about him, and were full of nervous queries. They helped him and the Daneirans aboard. The latter stared, remarking red hair and blond; blue eyes and green; fair skin.

After a moment of consideration, Cormac raised a hand. “Wait,” he said, and he removed his weapon-belt… Then he bent double: The Daneirans watched with wide dark eyes while he executed a strange little wiggle. Down onto his shoulders in a rush of clinks and jingles slithered his mail, and off over his head to form a small pile of blueblack on Quester’s deck. The Gael gathered it up, barely a couble handful now for all its twoscore pounds, and spread it on a rowing bench where struck the waning sun.

“Lest it be splashed,” he said-and rebuckled his weapon-belt about his hips.

“Ye left long hours ago, Wolf,” the Dane rumbled. “Now ye return with a regular retinue-including the girl ye wrested from the Norsemen. It’s much worriment we’ve wasted over your worthless hide.”

“And I perceive it’s no bathing ye’ve done, yet,” Samaire said, stepping back a pace from the man in the sweat-dark tunic. He’d not been still long enow for it to dry after his race down the hill and his encounter with the four men in the forest.

Their nervousness and wonder did not abate once he’d told them of his going to Daneira, and the attack, and the power of Cathbadh. No, they’d seen no evidence of fire nor smoke, and smelled none either. They gazed with respect on the old man. It was Bas who reacted more to the identity of the Daneirans than to the knowledge of Cathbadh’s sorcerous prowess.

“The Tuatha de Danann!” the druid repeated, in a low voice of wonder.

Samaire sent looks askance at Sinshi, who remained close by Cormac despite his sweat and its odour. He affected not to note the questioning glances Samaire directed at him.

The Gael was, in truth, more than uncomfortable. Sinshi’s attachment to him was worse than obvious, and both cloying and embarrassing. Yet how could he be harsh with the elfin creature, so quiet and gentle and filled with gratitude-and fascination with the tall, grey-eyed man unlike any she had ever seen? She had experienced horror far beyond any other who might have been assaulted as she’d been, for elsewhere victims of attack and attempted rape by barbarians at least knew of the existence of such men and such dangers. And… Cormac was warmed by the flattery of her attentions.

The three young escorts from Daneira, meanwhile, were gazing upon Samaire in much the same entranced way-hovering. Only one, Cormac had learned, was a family man. That is to say he had a wife, and their marriage of two years, though they were childless.

On Quester’s deck and not dripping as were his escort, Cathbadh leveled a cold stare on the poor moaning figure of pity who writhed moaning at the mast.

“We be not impressed by your sorcerous illusion, ancient mage of evil. Assume your own form.”

Thulsa Doom did not; instead the girl he was whimpered, “O please… great and kind grandfather… please.”

Clamping his jaws, Cathbadh strode to the pleading girl. He spoke words none knew, and set his staff crosswise against her sword-impaled chest. He pressed.

“Assume your true form, creature of the dark! The ancient Mother of All commands it-see her sign, the crescent of the moon and the bow of the warrior huntress!”

The skewered girl ceased her laments. Through that small body ran a quiver of rage. A little hand leaped clawing for the Daneiran-and changed in air, fingers lengthening and going all bony. The girl’s form became that of a tall thin man in a robe dark as night. Her hair and the flesh of her face dissolved before the eyes of all, like obscuring fog of the night before the light of the sun.

The awful death’s head of Thulsa Doom stared at them, and gnashed its teeth.

The bony hand spasmed ere it reached Cathbadh. It twitched, jerked, fell back-and then Thulsa Doom cried out in rage and pain.

Both his arms dropped limply.

The servant of Danu lowered his staff, set its end against the deck. He braced it so that the gold-wrought symbol of the goddess lay against the monster’s chest. Opening the pouch at his belt, Cathbadh took forth a slender chain of silver links. Thulsa Doom quivered in fruitless attempts to move, then, whilst Cathbadh slipped the silver necklace over the shining skull.

Onto the chest of Thulsa Doom dropped the Moonbow of Danu, and there it rested, undisturbed by breathing, for he who was dead and yet not dead breathed not.

Cathbadh turned. “Cormac,” he said, and he beckoned.

Cormac went to him while the others were as if frozen, staring. They were fearful in the presence of mighty contesting sorcerers-one of whom could control him they had thought more powerful than any. They saw Cathbadh clutch Cormac’s arm they heard a groan escape the Gael and saw him commence to shudder.

A terrible jolt went through Cormac mac Art at the first touch of the old man’s hand. Cormac’s head spun. The world rocked. Not just he, not just the ship, but sea and sky and all the world seemed to rock and shudder about him. He felt as he had not since that day on Ladhban when lightning had struck less than an arm’s length from him. His teeth chattered. He shivered. Awful images and impossible memories seemed to sweep through his mind like a flurry of autumn leaves before a northerly gale. No voluntary movement was possible to him.

“Be linked,” Cathbadh said quietly and without intended drama. “Be linked, as slave and master.”

Over Cormac’s head with one hand, his fingers propping it open, he lowered a necklace of silver links identical to that he had placed on Thulsa Doom. A few moments longer the Daneiran wizard held Cormac’s arm, and Thulsa Doom’s as well. Then he released both.

The Gael staggered as full normalcy returned to him and his brain cleared, all in an instant.

Deepset, narrowed grey eyes like Nordic ice stared into the black glims of Cathbadh of Daneira. “What have you-”

“Attend me,” Cathbadh interrupted. “Him you call Thulsa Doom is bound to you. He is your creature, so long as ye live-and so long as both of ye do wear this metal of mortal power against inhumanity and the emblem of the Mother of All. For’ she is the giver of life and the nourisher of life, Danu of the moon-while he is of the dead and the dark that fears the moon’s silver light.”

Cormac swallowed, regained control of himself. He touched the pendant on his chest, then lifted the Moonbow and slid it down within his tunic. When he turned his gaze on the death’s head wizard, Cormac’s face was sinister. Thulsa Doom stood stiff at the mast. The blaze of hate and malice seemed to have left the red lights in the black pits of his eye sockets.

“So long as we both do wear these chains and sigils?”

“Aye. He is yours to command and hold, with mind and words alone.”

“Then we must take care that he lose not his jewellery,” Cormac said darkly.

The Gael stepped forward. A few twists, a knotting of slim silver links, and he had tightened the necklace of control about the mage’s neck so that it would not slip off.

Instantly Thulsa Doom became a serpent that squirmed erect and lashed its tail. The huge head thrust at Cormac-who, after an instant of withdrawal, spat into its staring ophidian eyes.

The silver necklace did not slide along the reptilian body.

“The knot is unnecessary,” Cathbadh said. “The chain of control can be removed, but not by Thulsa Doom. Command him.”

“Resume your own form, filthy creature from the pits! I’d have thought over the span of eighteen times ten times a hundred centuries, ye’d have tired of the form of a serpent!”