Andrew Offutt - The Undying Wizard

“The huge… what?” Samaire asked.

“The Roman influence,” Cormac said. “He speaks of the throne. So you gave ground because ye must, in horror I’ve no doubt, and ye lost your balance and fell back into the lord’s chair.”

“Aye!” Osbrit nodded madly. “And-and… he drew back. He turned from me! I saw Dyfnwal thrust into him… I saw the point of Dyfnwal’s sword emerge at that man’s back! ”

With a great shudder Osbrit sagged. Samaire gripped his arm and the man beside her held the Briton up merely by his presence; Osbrit leaned weakly against lean young Ros mac Dairb, nor did either seem to take note.

At last, dully, Osbrit regained life, and talked on.

“They… they killed them all. All my companions. All… all of them. No Norsemen fell or bled, no Dane, none of them, and they must have numbered a score. Then in the midst of the red carnage they’d wrought, they… they turned. All of them, as though one had given a signal, though none spoke. They turned to face me. They stared. None spoke. They looked upon me like hungry wolves just beyond the firelight, staring in, waiting, hoping… Gods! O mother… in awful silence they just stared at me thus, and none spoke ever, or so much as frowned . Like masks their faces were, with burning pale fires for eyes. I… sat. Behl’s Name, Fire of Life, I could do naught else! I admit it-nay, I swear it: I was frozen with fear! There must have been a score-”

“Sixteen Norse,” Cormac mac Art said in a quiet, dull voice, and he knew horror at his own thoughts, hearing his own matter-of-fact tone and chilled by it, “and… six Danes, I should say.”

Wulfhere stared at him with wide eyes. “Cormac!”

Cormac met those blue eyes. “Aye.” His gaze returned to what had been a man and was now a frightmad, gibbering creature for pity. “Osbrit… and then…”

“I remained where I was. And then… Fire of Life! I swear it by the sun and the moon-they vanished! Like smoke, like mist in the morning sun.”

Cormac laid a hand on the man’s shoulder; he did not drop it there, but laid hand on the other in commiseration, in a strange, understanding tenderness. “I believe you, Osbrit. Think. Describe others…”

Osbrit described two Norsemen, to be interrupted by Wulfhere; with an oath, the Dane swore he’d cloven the head of one of those Vikings from crown to chin, three months agone.

Cormac nodded. He accepted what he must, and turned to Bas.

“It is a castle of dark sorcery, my lord Bas. The Britons were attacked by men already slain… when last we were here! And when we left, those same slain slayers lay on the floor within. Now there is no sign of them. Only the Briton dead. And the throne… somehow it be safe from their attack.”

Bas was silent in thought. None broke that reverie.

“Such things,” Bas said, “are said to be possible… to have been possible. We druids have no such power, nor do we covet it. It is black sorcery, the sorcery of death, the Old Magick. To raise the dead against the living… to cheat the dead of their rest and return for any purpose… Behl protect and Crom defend! It is too horrible. It is against all that is decent on the ridge of the world. Kull’s or no, this is a place of evil!”

“It’s not Kull’s evil, I’m thinking. Will ye go in with me?”

“Cormac! No!”

Cormac ignored Samaire and her hand on his arm. He continued to look questioningly on the. greenrobed servant of Celtic and Gaelic gods, Bas of Tir Conaill who had been a noble of Eirrin.

Bas nodded. He looked about, seeming taller with purpose. He fingered his mistletoe pendant. “Who among ye bears oak? Be there the All-healer among us, an t’uil: Mistletoe?”

“The haft of my ax be oak,” a man said, and so called another, hefting his shiny-bladed ax. Hopefully Ros mac Dairb bared a lunula from under his mailcoat; another drew forth, almost embarrassedly, a dried old sprig of mistletoe from his sword scabbard. His wife, he claimed, had insisted on his carrying it…

Bas took the mistletoe, and an oak-hafted ax Cormac thought too light for war. Its owner had a Briton sword now, given him by Wulfhere in a moment of camaraderie the night previous.

Of course the druid wore a lunula, a moon-disk on a cord woven of gold wire about his neck. Larger it was than those of the three men present who also wore them, and surely more potent. Bas looked at Cormac, who wore the usual Celtic torc, and no other jewellery; the leather band about his right wrist was a brace for his sword-arm, not decoration.

“Yourself?”

Cormac gestured helplessly, in some embarrassment. He had little to do with gods, and never had, nor did he encumber himself with their trappings. Bas only put his hands on the other Gael, mistletoe to flesh, and murmured to himself-and to his gods. All heard the names, Behl of the shining sun and great Crom who was older than Eirrin, and the Dagda-the Good God-his son mac Og, and others as well.

Bas’s voice rose and his words became discernible: “…who protected Cuchulain and the first mac Art, Cormac Mor, and the great Finn… protect this Cormac mac Art too, for no more loyal servant of your reveredness exists on all the ridge of the sprawling world.”

Cormac looked around at the others. “Remain without. Bas and I go within, armed by our faith and his knowledge.”

“I go with you, Cormac mac Art,” Brian na Killevy said, a not-unhandsome young man whose face, Cormac felt, was so smooth because fair young Brian could raise no fur on it. The youth’s hair was the colour of flax.

Another young man pressed forward. “It’s not here I’ll be remaining whilst my captain go into danger.” Ros mac Dairb said, just as firmly.

Samaire said only, “No. I choose not to remain without.” Her lower lip pushed forth, nor did it tremble; Cormac knew the sign.

Wulfhere’s rumble summed up: “Lead on Druid. We go where you go; I go where Cormac goes. Damn you, son of an Eirish pig-farmer, I owe you this life!”

“No,” Cormac said. “No. Wulfhere, ye must stay here with these men, who will not object to being termed… indifferent sailors.” He looked at Brian and Ros, like eager-eyed pups when the master makes hunting preparations. “It’s death inside, and sorcerous death at that. I would not bring the red blood on your bodies for it, south or north, east or west.”

“Would be grief to me all my days, Cormac mac Art, if I went not with you after I’ve declared!” Brian of Killevy in Airgialla showed in his face that he’d not remain outside. “And ye know,” he grinned, “I love to fight!”

“And I, son of Art,” Dairb’s son Ros said, a fair young man and lean, with a golden bush of hair like a halo. “And unless the sky fall on me, or the earth gave way beneath these feet, I will not move from your side.”

“Ye be insane both,” Cormac said. “And ye honour your mothers and your people. Very well. It’s this we know: if we be set upon within, it’s no living hands will bring steel upon us, but dead men. No. You two are ordered to go up onto the gallery which I shall show you, and there remain. On your oath.”

Neither looking very happy, the two young men agreed. Cormac looked at Wulfhere. “An we shriek and scream and there be the clangour of arms, come not within. Wulfhere old cleaver of skulls, d’ye hear?”

If Ros and Brian were young dogs eager for the hunt, Wulfhere was an old hunting hound, envious, morose; saddened that he was to be left behind. Stiffly, sadly he said, “Aye.” His right forefinger scratched within his beard.

“If such be the case, if ye hear us attacked and we come not forth… take these men from this place, Wulfhere. And slay a fine calf to the end that this dread Samaire-heim joins her mother Atlantis beneath the eternal sea. You’re agreed?”