Andrew Offutt: The Undying Wizard

“Bas,” he said, “what have ye done? What know ye now that we must needs know?” He glanced aside; Thulsa Doom was there once more, and the eye-spots in the deeply cratered sockets glowed rage-red.

“I was able to protect us all during our waking hours. And Quester and all aboard, for it’s of Eirrin this ship is, and my powers are strongest on our own soil and with those that were born there-human or no. And… there are other things. Let me keep their knowledge; the telling ye of them will avail ye naught and may weaken me-and empower him.”

They looked at the undying wizard.

The ship wallowed slowly along, towing Amber Rowan seaward from the isle of horror and death. Aboard sat its pitifully tiny crew; a druid, a weaponwoman, and three weapon-men-one of them but little past his first beard-growth. The woman suffered of a thigh bearing a large and lurid bruise.

These were Quester’s crew. Quester carried but one passenger.

He stood helpless where Cormac had forced and imprisoned him in ghastly impalement, for only so could Thulsa Doom be held. The picture he presented was monstrous and horrible. The owner of any eyes not cognizant of the situation or of Thulsa Doom’s powers and nature would have been shocked at the seeming cruelty of his captors.

As Wulfhere had done southward from Britain, the mage stood against the thick mast. He was bound there, but not with ropes. Cords could not hold a man not alive and who could assume the form of a slithering serpent; nor could leather or chains of iron or steel. Two sword-pommels stood out from the erect body of the wizard. Thulsa Doom was held in the only way he could be held; impaled and pinned to the motionless and unmovable. The swords nailed him to the mast.

No blood flowed.

“I will tell ye of what I read on those castle walls,” Bas said, and their gazes returned to him, leaving the wizard’s dreadful aspect and plight with more than willingness.

“Those pictures did speak, then!” Wulfhere glanced at Cormac, remembering how when first they’d come here the Gael had gone to those walls as if preternaturally drawn. Cormac had stared at them long, and his eerie remembering had come upon him.

“Aye, the pictures and certain markings. Runes. Some of what I learned I will tell you of… later. But this-this I shall enjoy speaking in his presence, that he will know we know the means of destroying him. For it is only vengeful and hateful I feel toward ye, Thulsa Doom, who exist only in vengefulness and hate. The wall told of how ye may be slain again , Skull-face, and permanently! ”

The death’s-head mage snarled like an animal, and the teeth of that dread faceless skull clashed and ground in frustration and overweening hatred.

“That skull,” Bas said, staring not at his companions but at Thulsa Doom, “severed and wrapped in good leather, must be put into the hands of a crowned woman. She-”

Thulsa Doom writhed and strained and gnashed his teeth with a clack and clash. The ship was suddenly amove, rocking with much noise of slapping sloshing waters. Such was the fury-heightened strength of the sorcerer from the past. Another sound came from him, a hiss-and an enormous serpent replaced him at the mast. It sought to writhe and whip and tear itself free of the impaling swords. Cormac came hurriedly to his feet, pulling steel partway out of scabbard. But the reptile was no more able to escape those bonds like gigantic nails than the manshape. That form the mage resumed.

Again, Thulsa Doom disappeared.

“It is strange,” Brian said, and there was a quaver in his voice he sought to conceal. “In such a short while have I learned to accept the impossible; I do not even gooseflesh now at his vanishing!”

The boat lurched so wildly that Samaire slid along the rowing-deck and groaned at the leap of pain in her leg. Cormac staggered. Water splashed high. The Gael looked about. There was no wind.

“He is not gone from us,” Bas the Druid said.

“A crowned woman , though,” Wulfhere said. “Of what value be that-no such exists!”

Bas made a gesture. “Perhaps such does, or will. Meanwhile, we know how to hold him against the day we find her-or until I devise another means.”

“More sorcery,” Brian said, little above a whisper.

Bas only looked upon him with coolly wide grey eyes. “Will ye hear the rest?”

“We will,” Cormac said.

Samaire added, “Please.”

“This crowned woman must then pound the skull into dust, with a hammer of iron.”

“Iron?”

“Aye, so I believe the ancient picture-writing tells us. Mayhap there was no steel in the days of Atlantis.”

Cormac’s face was grim and hopeful. “But-a crowned woman! Where rules a woman?”

“Nowhere,” Samaire said, with a sigh. Her face went reflective.

“Then-”

“Then,” Bas began. But he gave pause at a renewed turmoil. Their craft rocked violently. When it abated, eyes were fearful and knuckles white from gripping handholds as though to keep from being hurled off the ridge of the world.

Bas began anew, “Then we must keep him our prisoner, as our duty to all humankind, for dead Thulsa Doom cannot otherwise be slain.”

As they sat in tight-lipped silence, the ship on that calm sea rocked as though gale-struck. Then it was still, and Thulsa Doom reappeared, helpless at the mast.

“Dam-m-mnnnye!” he ground out.

The eyes of Bas were very bright and wide, and he looked skyward. His fingers fingered the symbols of his gods and their powers, which were those of nature. The others felt that he wrestled now with Thulsa Doom, whose powers were of else than nature.

Then Samaire was calling out. “There was a little island-there! It-it’s gone!”

Her companions looked about, and in a babble of voices they agreed that she was right. The sea had changed; the world had changed. Bas turned from them, paced in his woods-green robe to the wizard.

“May ye be damned! It’s again and again ye’ve tried, tried amain, and it’s both failure and success ye’ve grasped, isn’t it? Ye did break through into your other dimension-but ye’ve brought us with ye, into a different world!”