Andrew Offutt - The Undying Wizard

Bas lifted his brows. “Cannot? Still, this far on our way-and you will not tell me? ”

Cormac gave his head a jerk. “No no, Lord Bas of Tara. Cannot, I said, and it’s cannot I meant; Druid or no, be assured that had I meant ‘will not’ I’d have spoke it so. It’s enough years I’ve spent asea that I have an animal’s sense of direction. Though there were changes in the seascape… land rose even as we sailed, and-”

“Land rose?”

Samaire shuddered in memory. “Aye. In fire and thunder! Rock and ash mingled with flame vomited up to slash the clouds and rain down upon us. The winds from that eruption of angry gods drove us far to the south and west, and we missed by mere fingerlengths smashing into a new isle even as it rose from the sea bottom!”

“So that,” Cormac said, “we returned by a somewhat different route, from far off our course. What I know is how we came to the isle that Wulfhere named Samaire-heim. Even so we cannot approach it as we did afore…”

The Gael trailed off. The face of the druid showed thorough confusion; Samaire was smiling.

“Wulfhere Skullsplitter,” she told the druid, “is a Dane. A huge great towering oak of a man with hair and a beard-oh, a great full beard, Bas-like uncarded wool dyed red. He and Cormac are… were…”

“Companions asea,” Cormac swiftly interjected. Most knew he’d been a reaver, a pirate, and he saw no reason to remind Bas, whose sister was the wife of Eirrin’s High-king. “When first we see land ahead, we must swing well to the west. For full ahead lies a combination of horror and death, a whirlpool called the Ire of Manannan, and then the Wind Among the Isles. We discovered them not ere they discovered us, to our dismay. Many jagged little rock-isles cluster there, and the wind that howls among them is insane. First we were whirled and spun and dunked and hurled helpless as a child’s boat when he tires and tosses stones at it. Three-and-twenty of us there were aboard Wolfsail ; when we awoke on the beach of a tiny, rocky isle on no maps, we were but nine. The sea ate the rest, and our ship.

“We found a castle on that island, Druid, a prodigious towering pile of superbly-stacked stones more thousands of years old than I’d care to say-or than ye’d believe.”

Bas was staring, with more than interest now in his expression, in his entire attitude. His fingers toyed idly with the sprig of dried mistletoe he wore about his neck.

“Think ye so, descendant of Gaels?”

The two descendants of Gaels stared at each other, warrior and priest.

“What… found you there, Cormac mac Art?”

“Booty! A treasure-trove. The castle had been found afore us, and was the lair of a band of Norse reavers. We awaited them. When they came, they had as captive the Princess Samaire and her brother Prince Ceann. Their murdering, throne-thieving brother had arranged for these his younger siblings to fall into the hands of those men of Norge.”

“Ah-it was thus you and Samaire met and linked destinies.”

“We knew each other long before, twelve years and more agone, when she was but a girl and I a boy, a weapon-man in the employ of her father.”

Bas nodded. He had heard the tale. First, because of the plotting of a fearful High-king, Cormac’s father had been slain. The boy, well trained and big for his age, had fled his native Connacht, to serve in Leinster under an assumed name. Later discovered there, he’d been forced to flee that kingdom too… and then Eirrin. For twelve long years he’d been an exile. There was a story that he had crossed the King of DalRiada, too, up in Alba. A man to rouse the fickleness of men and gods, was Cormac of Connacht.

He was speaking on: “None of the Vikings survived. Of us, only Wulfhere and I did-and Samaire and Ceann. And the Norsemen’s ship. It was no easy mater, but the four of us reached Eirrin aboard that ship.”

“When last we saw it,” Samaire said, with a reminiscent sadness in voice and face, “Wulfhere plied it alone, on a northerly bearing, ‘twixt Eirrin and Britain.”

Bas was shaking his head. “What lifetimes of adventure and horror ye’ve crowded into your short term in this body, son of Crom Cruach! Oh… and sith I note how ye call my lord and lady the prince and princess of Leinster by their given names, Cormac, call me Bas.”

“It’s Lord Bas ye be, or should. Ye gave up much to don druidic robes, man!”

“I gained much, Cormac.”

Again they gazed upon each other in silence for a time, and not without admiration and respect. Then Bas spoke.

“And so this voyage is to take ye back to this isle your Danish friend named Samaire-heim, and carry off the rest of the Norsemen’s sword-gains.”

“It is, Lor-Bas. That be the reason we few sail on a ship large enough to bear twice our number. Were the Lord Cumal Uais not so… cautious, we’d have two ships and more armed escort. The pr-Samaire and Ceann, ye see, need the wealth.”

“It’s no comment I’d be making on what seems implicit in that, Cormac, my lady-”

“Samaire,” she corrected, the orange-haired warrior. “No comment is necessary, Bas. My brother Ceann and I are what we are. When our father died, Leinster’s throne passed to his eldest. Within the year he was dead-slain, we know, by our brother Feredach’s scheming. Next it was us Feredach the Dark did treachery upon. Mayhap it’s grateful we should be that he did not have us slain. He is our older brother, and so Ceann and I have no claim on the throne.”

“While Feredach lives,” Cormac added.

Bas nodded, taking no note of Cormac’s sinister addition to Samaire’s words. “All this I know, sweet lady; I was present during the drama of accusation at the Council of Kings on Tara Hill but a month agone. Nor still will I comment, nor on Cormac’s dark remark. But… Cormac. Why am I along on this quest?”

“Why-ye asked to come!” Samaire blurted.

Cormac almost smiled. “Nay, so I told you, and it’s apology I make, dairl-Samaire. It was I asked my lord Bas the Druid to accompany us. There is sorcery on that isle, or was, and any who believe druids know naught but such as oak and mistletoe and the rites of Behltain and Samain be a fool before the gods.”

Bas neither smiled, nor affirmed nor denied; that was affirmation enow.

“The castle, Cormac,” he said, after a time of silence. “It is older than old?”

“Men of Atlantis builded it, Bas.”

“Ye know this.”

“I know it.”

Bas looked at neither of them, but straight ahead, and he spoke as if to himself.

“A castle of Atlantis… There is a story, a story passed down through thousands and thousands of generations of druids. It speaks of Kull, King of Valusia and an Atlantean born, and another man, a mage. Through some means Kull was able to best this wizard, who is variously said to have been a servant of the serpent god far more ancient than Atlantis… and to be immortal… and to be already dead but not dead, alive yet not alive, a man stronger than the grave, whose true face was that of death itself: a fleshless skull. There is a story… It is to these climes Kull is said to have sailed, where again he met that dread sorcerer. With the latter now was a legion of allies: serpents . Perhaps the serpent-god himself, who ruled the earth before we men came up from the seas… or, as some say it, down from the trees! Thus man met serpent again in a last great battle, and King Kull prevailed…”

“Gods of my ancestors,” Samaire murmured, “against such a foe- how? ”

The closing of Cormac’s fingers on her arm deeply indented the flesh, and made her flinch. Hush , that sudden squeeze and grip bade her, without a spoken word.