Andrew Offutt: The Sign of the Moonbow

“Be careful, my friend. I love her.” Balan looked down. “Danu help me-for what you say is true. For me her rule will be a life of joy and misery, each giving way to the other. For Moytura, she is considerably the lesser of two evils. I cannot be her husband. No man can control a queen, and I’ll not be my wife’s subject! ”

“Balan: attend me, and hold rein on yourself whilst ye hear my words. She sleeps… deeply, for I asked Dithorba for a sleeping potion and gave it her. Easy man,” Cormac cautioned, as Balan showed reaction. “The more fool yourself, Balan, an ye are not by her side when she wakes-on the morrow and every morrow after.”

“I like not your drugging her, but I’ll not dispute those words.”

Cormac was smiling. “Go there. Ye’ll be finding that she has a gift of me, Balan… a certain necklace of silver. Lovers may wish to wear a sign, an identical piece of jewellery,” he went on, lifting from his breast the sign of the Moonbow he’d so long worn. “This one is for you, then.” He slipped it over Balan’s head.

“Balan, be wise. Methinks ye be fit to rule here. Love for a woman is on ye, and she loves ye but has had her head turned a bit by a stranger. She rules Moytura… and now ye rule her, for she cannot remove her Chain of Danu or order its removal. Keep them both in place, Balan, and rule both Riora and the people of Danu! All will be happier for it-aye, Riora included!”

Balan was staring as the two men left him in quest of Dithorba’s quarters in the palace. Gazing after them, fingering the silver chain and its sigil, Balan commenced to smile…

Dithorba was not happy at being roused from his sleep. Had the potion not worked? Aye, Cormac assured him, and he explained. Then he stated his intention, and made his request, and Dithorba agreed. One by one he mind-conveyed the saviours of Moytura to the tunnel just outside the precints of his land.

“I shall say nothing, Cormac mac Art. But five in Moytura have had knowledge of the Chains of Danu. Tarmur Roag, and the queen herself, and the lord Balan, and my apprentice. Nor will he say aught of it, an Balan is… wise.”

“And Riora can not.”

“Aye.”

“Advise the queen, Dithorba… and the king.”

“Fare well, Wulfhere Skull-splitter. Farewell, Cormac mac Art. Danu shed her light on you, both.” And Dithorba Loingsech was not there.

The two men walked, not without weariness on them. When at last they came to the mouth of the cavern in the hill of Bri Leith, they saw that it was night outside. Nor were they saddened; retreating a little way, they lay down on unyielding earth and stone, and they slept as thought they were in the finest of palace beds.

“Cormac,” Wulfhere said on the morrow as they emerged from the cavern, “ye do realize… with him gone forever, we have no hope of returning to our own dimension.

“Aye. We must be seeing what this land holds for a pair of scarred sea-wolves, Wulfhere!”

A few paces down the hill under the misty sun of Eirrin, they glanced at each other, and they looked back.

The Doorway to the People of Danu had vanished.

Wulfhere shook his head. “Here we be, and the Doorway gone, and with all we’ve done, it’s nothing we have to show for it but these two cloaks woven of cloth made by worms! ”

Cormac mac Art but smiled, and as he walked the Chains of Danu that had been worn by Tarmur Roag and Dithorba clinked in the pouch at his belt.