Andrew Offutt - The Undying Wizard

Unenthusiastically as before: “Aye.”

Cormac nodded. “Bas… Brian… Ros…”

The three stood ready. Bas muttered, but naught that he said was understood by any present.

“Wulfhere?”

“The All-father’s one eye be upon you, bloodbrother.”

Cormac nodded shortly. “Wulfhere… seize Samaire, and hold her fast! ”

Though he’d paid her no mind while he issued his instructions, Samaire was unprepared for this treachery. For a moment she was still in shock. Then she started forward, her grass-green eyes widening.

The man who towered behind her, topping her height by more than the length of her two hands combined, enfolded her in arms that were like tree limbs. Instantly she was kicking and squirming.

“NO! Cormac! No no -Wulfhere, you ugly goatsmelling bull-let me GO!”

Wulfhere held fast. Without a word, Cormac and his trio turned to the castle. They passed between the pillars, and were lost to sight.

Behind them Samaire still combined pleading and demanding in no small voice as Cormac pointed to the stairs and issued swift instructions to Brian and Ros. They all ascended. The younger men went round and out onto the gallery; Cormac and Bas descended into the prodigious expanse of the castle’s high-domed main hall.

Great pillars rose from the tiled floor, propping the gallery and the semi-floor that ran all about the walls, ten feet and more above the floor. The walls were engraved and indited with scenes not discernible until one went close, so that all appeared to be mere decor. The bodies of eighteen Britons still strewed the floor, in pools and splashes of the blood that was solely theirs, amid weapons and pieces of their corpses. Full forty good paces away, back of the sprawling hall’s center, rested the carven throne. Despite the lofty pillars, the closely-etched walls, the decorated ceiling; despite even the dead, that regal throne dominated the hall and the castle; it surveyed all and seemed to own all.

Bas stopped suddenly as if he’d run into some barrier Cormac could not see. The druid looked all about, then lifted oak and mistletoe at the ends of green-robed arms.

“Hail O warming Sun in your bright rising, our shield of gold and our eternal heat-fire; give us good fortune! Hail O Behl lord of earth and sky; You we call now upon to perform a work only you can! A work of the Light to hurl down foul work that comes from the Dark!”

Bas began walking forward, among the corpses toward the throne.

“Soothe pains until they are painless… let the dead sink in rightful unpained slumber with woundy hurts smarting no more… let them rest and begin the Ring of Return, not as shades bearing evil but as Rightful Men in your Name!”

Cormac stood still, feeling a horripilation on him, as the man in the forest-green robe advanced into the immense room, walking amid corpses without looking down to guide his steps, without stilling his voice. But his steps were guided; his feet touched neither blood nor sheared away member nor corpse nor fallen weapon, and Cormac knew that the god was upon the druid.

“Agron, slaughter’s noble mistress: attend us not!

“Shadowy Scathach who did tutor Cuchulain of Muirthemne, grant us invincibility as ye did him!

“Cu Roi mac Dairi, twice-noble master of sorcerers, note ye here Cormac mac Art-lend him your sword!

“Go along now those unneeded, come along now those we need, and perform for the sons of men the work of laying the dead, the word of the Light against the Dark! Hear us, warming Sun in your bright rising! Let not this mortal blood be spilled-we BEG! Let not evil strike down these fair mortal forms-WE PLEAD! Behl, Crom, Cu Roi, Great Dagda… behold your servant Cormac, behold your servant Bas, behold- an t’uil! ”

Bas lifted high the all-healing mistletoe to the unseeing walls and the high-domed ceiling and, Cormac fervently hoped, to observant gods. All-healer was the wax-green plant that grew not from the ground but magickally on the sacred oaks in Eirrin, and in Gaul, and in Britain, and put forth its pure white berries: an t’uil!

“By mistletoe and oak, by Sun and moon, by fire and water we call for help, we pledge the good, the Light; we abjure the Dark of sorcerous evil; we proclaim that we be not ready to face Donn, Lord of the Dead, that so well we like this land we are not ready to view splendid I-breasil…”

Cormac’s voice rose, and it seemed of its own accord, for he had no thought of speaking whilst holy words were intoned. The words merely… emerged.

“And I pledge body and brain,” mac Art said, “spear and sword, voice and arms, to drive out from our fair green Eirrin those raven-robed, raven-tongued usurpers and proclaimers of the New Faith!”

Cormac frowned, shocked and astonished he’d spoken so.

Bas had stopped still at that sudden interruption of his speaking to his gods. But then, there amid the gory dead of Britain, he nodded, and bent, and took up a sword and a dagger. These he held high, one across the other so that they formed the execution symbol of the Romans and the priests of Rome.

“Behold the Cross, symbol of slow and agonized Death!” he cried, and dashed down the two blades with a great clang.

The druid was at pains to tread upon the broken cross as he resumed his slow trek to the throne. Now he muttered, and Cormac, understanding no word, knew that Bas spoke in the Old Tongue that only druids knew.

“In the name of the Sun and the moon,” Cormac said, rather haltingly, wondering how to pray, wondering if indeed the gods of his fathers would listen to such a red-handed dealer of death as he. “This I say truly and swear by the gods the great clans of Eirrin swear by: All foemen I face. And this I ask: if foes must come, let them be of living flesh, that I may fight as a man fights.”

At the far end of the sprawling room, ringed about by pillars with squared decor of bronze and gilt, the stately chair rested. From it, Cormac remembered, had one of his own men swept a fine bale of rich cloth, to cover one of their dead. Now green-robed Bas reached that kingly seat, and turned, and sat. Cormac stared, taken aback.

Kings Cormac had seen, and kings he had served, and on him by kings had treachery been done. But only one had he seen who looked so kingly, so made for such a chair, as this Bas mac Miall of the Northern ui-Neill of Tir Conaill; grandson of a king, brother of a king, brother in law to Eirrin’s Highking-and by choice Druid of the Old Faith.

Then, as the seated Bas spoke on, droning now, Cormac took note of that rich and outsized chair.

It was of wood, bound with bronze, decorated in silver and onyx and gold itself, and all the decor in squared figures, for those of Atlantis and Valusia of old never broidered with reminders of their dread enemy: the sons of the Great Serpent, who owned the earth before man.

But the chair… the chair itself… that huge highbacked throne of wood…

Cormac mac Art strode out amid the gore and weapons and ghastly remains littering the floor, treading with care to avoid the awful clutter. He turned, and looked up. From the gallery at the front of the castle, Brian and Ros gazed down upon him.

“Go ye together. Remain together!” Cormac gestured. “Go along that corridor until ye come to a room piled with booty like the treasure trove of an Eastern prince. Gather what your arms can carry, and proceed back, and down, and out the door into the sun. An ye succeed unchallenged, return for more. WAIT! If aught amiss occurs… if it’s foemen ye see… drop the booty, lads, and RUN! Draw ye no sword and stand to fight-FLEE, for heed me: it’s fleeing mac Art will be!”

Without waiting for an answer, he whirled again and strode, a dark and lean man in rustling chain who stepped over a headless body and a cloven shield and then an armless hand as he paced to the stately chair where sat Bas.