Andrew Offutt - The Undying Wizard

The head of Bas the Druid whipped toward the woman. “Aye, fetch the rope, ignorant blowze. And note well that my hands are not pinned down-bend to me and I’ll tear your head from your shoulders!”

Cormac’s swift-flicking eyes caught Samaire’s shiver, and he doubted her. But in that he erred against her.

Samaire drew the dagger that had never left her sheath whilst she had thought herself naked and beaten. “Then I shall have to be pinning your hands to the earth, one by one!”

The teeth of Bas of Tir Connail clashed in rage-and then the lips fell away from those teeth, and again there was only the fearsome skull with its teeth that seemed ever to grin. Skull-set eyes burned in a face that was bare white bones…

Next instant it was changing, growing new skin, and slitted eyes, and a snouted mouth from which a long forked tongue flickered and plunged. The flattened head that was bigger than her hand lashed at Samaire, and instinct made her flinch away.

Cormac was hard put to hold down, with point of sword, what Thulsa Doom had now become: a serpent. A writhing thick cable of muscle it was that lashed and snapped its cold slender barrel of a body.

“Cormac,” Samaire called, and there was a shrill pleading note to her voice that ascended toward hysteria. “I-I cannot bind a serpent! ”

“No,” the Gael said grimly. “But I can lean on this good glaive so that-”

With a sibilant hiss of waist-thick body, the serpent hurled itself halfway up the sword. As it dropped back, the scaly form twisted and wrenched wildly. These were not death-throes, but a fresh attempt at escape. Partway through its barrel form Cormac’s sword sliced-and then its tail lashed. Thicker than his wrist it was, and it slammed against his shins with every bit of force Thulsa Doom could concentrate there.

Cormac fell sidewise. His hand on the sword twisted, and the blade sliced crosswise a bit more…

But such was not the escape scheme of a man who had survived unbelievable centuries. With Cormac fallen on his side and striving to maintain grip on pommel to hold the impaling brand in place, the wizard resumed his own form once more.

Hands that were like steel cables and hardly less cold clamped the Gael’s wrist. Hand and pommel were slicked with the sweat of both exertion and instinctive horror; no supreme effort was required to force away the fallen man’s fingers.

Thulsa Doom was rising triumphantly to his feet even as he drew the blade bloodlessly from his abdomen. Raising the sword, he turned to loom over his fallen enemy.

Both Cormac’s feet struck the wizard’s knees with sufficient force to cripple a normal man for life. But Thulsa Doom was neither a normal man nor alive-nor yet dead. He was hurled backward against the cavern wall, and the sword went flying-but the sorcerer did not fall.

“Damn you!” The skullface’s voice was little above a whisper in its rage, and filled with the most baleful hatred. The eyes that seemed to burn in that mask of death followed Samaire’s rush to snatch up the sword.

“And damn you , pigeon-chested wench … ye should be on your knees and babbling like the pretty-faced little girl ye are, not mindful of what you’re about. Next time, carrot-tressed bitch, it will be no mere illusion I work to amuse myself with you-I will whip you till the blood flows like a mountain stream rushing after the rain!”

“Pretty faced little girl is it,” she said, whirling up Cormac’s sword. “Monster!” And she rushed the mocking wizard.

Thulsa Doom vanished and Samaire crashed into the wall of stone and earth.

Chapter Fifteen:

The Wizard’s Challenge

“HO! Cormac old wolf-where have ye been , man?”

Wulfhere’s cry was as that of a parent nervous over a supposedly lost child; relief and happiness were mingled with irritation and a touch of accusation. Others lifted their heads or whirled about to look on the man and woman coming along the beach toward them. They had emerged from the defile leading to the castle, the black-haired Gael and the Leinsterish woman whose hair was a spray of gold and bronze and new brass in the sunlight.

“Working up a terrible hunger and thirst,” Cormac called equably, and looked about.

The ships with their furled sails and banked oars were here, Britonish and Eirish, drawn up close on the beach like allies. Judging from the small quantity of litter left on the sand, the last of the booty was being stored aboard Quester . Helmets and armour were spread on the beach, while men in tunics, some dark with sweat, handed up their loads or reached down from the long boat to accept it. Autumn or no, the sun was bright and warm.

Cormac and Samaire continued to stride toward them, seeming oddly martial with him in his clinking mailcoat and her in her leather armour. They did carry their helmets. Mac Art’s eyes roamed about, bright and intent, taking in the scene and considering, planning, re-acclimating himself to reality and the mundane after… horror.

“Are all here?”

Wulfhere nodded and swept a brawny arm. “Aye. Osbrit works with us. It was that or be bound, and he prefers a bit of labour to bonds. The druid is yon, at the business of talking to your gods.” The Dane smiled. “Odin hears too, surely!”

Cormac glanced in the direction indicated by Wulfhere’s nod. There was nothing dramatic to be seen, no lean tall priest standing atop a promontory with outstretched arms and the wind flapping white robe and flowing beard. Instead, in his robe of dark olive girt with a brown-dyed cord, Bas of Tir Connail stood a little way down the beach, nor was there wind to stir his jetty hair or robe. Gazing out to sea he was, past the murderously rearing offshore rocks that were like vicious teeth ever ready to chew ship and crew. His arms were not a-gesture, or even upraised. He merely stood, gazing seaward. Cormac could not see the druid’s mouth, but assumed his lips were moving.

If prayer and spelling be of value , Cormac thought, we need all of both Bas knows!

He came up to Wulfhere, who stood a little way from the ships, supervising-probably having convinced them a lookout was needed.

“All has been brought away from the castle?”

“This is the last of it. We’ve searched for ye, Cormac, as best we could! Where-”

“Has aught… untoward happened?”

The Dane shook his head, noting from Cormac’s eyes that the question was not so casual as it might have sounded. He’d get his explanation later, and answered rather than repeated his own question. “No.”

“Nothing?”

“No. Should it have done?”

“Much untoward has befallen us since last we saw ye, Wulfhere. Methought the mage had been busy enow with the two of us so that ye’d not been troubled. But-”

“Ye’ve seen him? Him , himself?” “Aye.”

“It’s much we’ve been through,” Samaire said.

Cormac nodded. “It’s to be feared, and talked of.” Cormac’s voice was passing quiet; he spoke for Wulfhere’s ears only. “The sorcerer is still here, and he cannot be slain. Not for the lack of our trying!”

“He-has no face,” Samaire said, not without a bit of shudder in her voice.

“No f-” Wulfhere broke off, staring from one to the other of them.

“A skull,” the Gael told him. “And more… Since yester even, when last I saw ye, it’s several faces I’ve seen him wear. A serpent’s, and Samaire’s, and that of Bas, and… yours, Wulfhere.” Cormac swallowed and reached out to touch the other man’s great knotty arm, as if to assure himself his old friend was indeed yet alive and unscathed.

Wulfhere clamped his jaws and his eyes blazed. He too sought reassurance; his hand rose to touch his fiery beard, then tarried there to scratch within the curling long hairs. “He… this ghoulish raiser of the dead imitates others? He wore my face?”