The Mists of Doom cma-1

by Andrew J Offutt

  Nor had Cormac mac Art done aught else. His mind would not clear, nor would it consent to remain on any one of his several worries. Of no avail the years of words and mental exercises drilled into him by Sualtim whose counsel was ever that one should get to know oneself, and then to control him one thus knew, to make him the better-and no animal merely reacting.

  There had been too much, and all at once. The thrill of bracing that huge bear had been enow. Sure and such a feat deserved to be followed only by a basking in the bright glow of praise, followed by earned sleep. Yet close on the heels of that encounter and that accomplishment had come the… the rune-sent vision, the samha.

  Cuchulain! Sure and Cormac knew the tales, which he had heard far more than once. He had dreamed of those times, of those days of great and incredible deeds. But this-!

  Had his mental state, the decline in mental and physical heightening from their peak following the slaying of the bear… had these and the eyeseizing, mind-dulling effect of the fire merely sent him into a sort of trance? Had he but seemed to see, to feel himself a participant in those tales of, the Hound of Chulan the Smith?

  Or… had Edar’s words held the truth? Cormac, the druid had said, had about him the look of a man remembering his past lives.

  Was that what I was about? Was I Cuchulain-or rather am I? Is it possible?

  Certainly few in Eirrin questioned the ancient Celtic assertion of immortality by way of the return of the basic life force in a new body. Reincarnation was a part of religion and life. A man came onto the earth, and trod the ridge of the world for a while. The while was called a lifetime. Its length varied. Then he was gone for a time again to that Other Place, Donn’s realm. Thence he returned to begin anew as an infant, the offspring of new parents, a new personality with a new name in a new body. Nor did he remember his previous lives, save in occasional snatches and glimpses. Thus was explained the inexplicable: genius in this or that trade, or at singing, or at any of the arts or skills.

  Cormac’s taking to weapons and combat seemed instinctive. Perhaps. And perhaps it was the continuing ability of another life, or lives. So had Sualtim suggested, and few argued with the druids.

  Whatever the explanation-if one indeed existed-that strangeness of the “remembering” had been enough, of itself. For Cormac had felt the pain and pangs of dying, physical and mental, with him unable to prevent that death or even take one more foe with him…

  And then had appeared Sualtim. To the matter of the bear and the matter of the Remembering was added still a third jarring experience.

  Never before had the druidic tutor of his boyhood appeared to him thus, and the man himself not there. Yet Cormac was certain had been no trick of his mind. Illusion, perhaps-but of Sualtim’s mind, of Sualtim’s devising, of Sualtim’s sending. All through the night had Cormac mac Art worried over the meaning of the druid’s all too few words. And still he did, as he and Midhir allowed their mounts to pick up their pace to a trot toward the outer wall of Glondrath.

  Aye… and Cormac had known fear, too. He still did.

  Treachery, Sualtim had said. Treachery-by whom, from whom? Against whom? To what malignant purpose? For how could treachery be benign, or even neutral?

  Even more troublesome to his youthful mind was the dread question: Had the treachery succeeded in its doing and its purpose?

  He would find out soon enough. Around him bird sang their gladness of spring’s coming, and he heard them not. The horses were nearing the tall wall of oak and earth. Men gazed down upon the riders, men in armour and, under their helms, faces that Cormac well knew. Dour and drawn were the faces of the two weapon-men on Glondrath’s eastern wall, showing little warmth of welcome to their commander and their chieftain’s son.

  Much of his weariness left mac Art, then. A new energy of excitement came on him, born of apprehension and foreboding-and fearfulness.

  The way was opened to the two, without a word. They passed within.

  “Brychan!” Cormac called. “What’s amiss?”

  The two guards exchanged a look. One said, “Amiss?”

  Cormac’s stare was nigh onto a glare. “Ye heard ‘me aright.”

  Brychan tucked under his lip; his companion made reply. “The druid will tell ye, son of Art.”

  Brychan could not help himself. “How-how knew ye aught was amiss, son of Art?”

  Cormac but looked at him; Midhir glowered. The weapon man set his teeth in his lower lip and busied himself with the gate’s closing.

  The, horses paced into the sprawling townlet that had grown up around the fortress-become-manorhouse. There the main granary. There the other. There the stables. Near it the milk-sheds. There the creamery and buttery, there the cozy home of Midhir and his wife Aevgrine, and there doored mounds over underground storage chambers. Two large smokehouses. The barracks, sprawling, and homes of workmen and maids, drovers and churls, planters, the smith and armourer, the tanner and the horse-manager. Dogs yapped, wagged their tails, and some came running. Cormac’s mount whickered. A woman lugging her wash looked his way, met his eyes, looked a greeting with what seemed embarrassment, looked away. Children were clamorously at play-or work, for that life began at six or seven and sometimes earlier. Yet they seemed subdued, and they hushed at sight of the two riders.

  Taller, huger, somehow darker and more gloomily foreboding, loomed the old fortress itself, the house of Art; the fortress-house that had been the home of Cormac mac Art through his memory.

  Other people avoided his eyes, or looked away. None smiled. A chill came on Cormac’s very bones.

  Something was sore amiss.

  From the house of great oaken beams came Sualtim. Aye, and he wore his white robe as he had in his bodiless appearance to mac Art in the early hours of the previous night. Normally Sualtim, and indeed druids in general, wore their robes of deep forest green; the green of the leaves of the oak sacred to Behl.

  “Sualtim! Where is my father?”

  “Within, lad. Midhir: I would take Cormac in. Will ye be seeing to the horses?”

  Midhir glanced about, caught the eye of a youth of eleven or so. Midhir beckoned. Then he returned his eyes-to the druid, even while Cormac slid from his horse. He alit with a clanky jingle of armour and the thwock of leather-shod, wooden swordsheath against his leg.

  “Cormac,” Midhir said, and when the youth turned and looked questioningly up at him, “your buckler.”

  Cormac gave his longtime trainer a look-and came about to fetch his shield from the saddle. The two had left behind their spears, awkward and indeed dangerous in a fast-walk-night ride through the woods.

  “Druid,” Midhir said, as he threw his right leg over. He slid from his horse without glancing to the ground. “Are ye saying that ye want me not with ye two?”

  The boy came in response to Midhir’s beckoning gesture; to him Midhir handed over the horses. “Give them good care, Curnan. It’s weary and doubtless hungry they are, but too hot to turn free in this chill.” And Midhir looked again at Sualtim.

  Sualtim opened his mouth above the thin though very long beard of grey-flecked white. Ere he could speak, Cormac did.

  “Nay,” the son of Art said. “Come ye with us, Midhir.” He started past Sualtim, to the greathouse.

  “My pupil,” the druid began, from long habit, and paused to amend. “Cormac… wait.”

  The youth, half-wheeled on the old man who remained straight though age was at work to fold his shoulders inward.

  “Ye bespoke treachery, mentor,” Cormac said, forgetting he’d not told Midhir of the words of his vision. “No one we’ve seen here has behaved naturally. It’s ill or wounded my father is-”

  “I but want to go in at your side, son of Art.”

  And so they went. Within, in silence, they walked past the mournful face of Branwen with her deep belly, and then of Conor her nigh-bald husband, and Midhir followed them through the fortress-house to the door of the chamber of Art mac Comail. Was then a hand from the cold bed of
a winterbound loch grasped at Cormac’s heart, for Sualtim did not knock.

  Not even the druid, not even Cormac, entered the presence of the stern military Art mac Comail without knocking.

  Cormac knew then, with his belly going light within him, that he’d be finding druids within the room, and Art lying still and cold in death, and he was right.

  His eyes swam-and it was as if they sent a signal to all within Glondrath. Throughout the house and the entire rath then the keening began, for such was the way of Eirrin, and all had but awaited the arrival of the son to begin their clamorous mourning of his father’s death.

  Some sons hated their fathers, often with reason. Some loved those who had sired them, equally with reason. Some sons were like shadeflowers all their lives, pale and as if delicate in their lack of forcefulness and accomplishment. Those were indeed sons all their days; sons of fathers, as opposed to men, who were also sons. Aye, and shadeflowers they were indeed, for the great light-blotting shadows of their fathers lay long and oppressive over them. Of these some sought to emerge into the light; others, like fearful rabbits, did not. When those fathers died, many of those sons, those permanent sons, subjects, were so unaccustomed to the light of freedom and decision and deeds that they were as blinded. Unequipped and unable to cope were they; such “men” became never men and were useless. Others kicked up their heels in the sudden freedom of the father-to which they were unaccustomed, and with which they were unable to cope. No longer controlled, they were unbridled. And they too were useless.

  The sons of other men somehow emerged from the shadow naturally, perhaps realizing that they had been aided by their fathers and perhaps not. They became men.

  And for some the shadows were foreshortened, removed; the great oaks fell before the coming of their time. Many of them sought the father, Father, all their lives. Religion helped; the religion of the Priests of Rome was for them, as it was for all who sought slavery or indeed were slaves, for among them had it been born. Some few of these sons who were early rendered fatherless became men. Perhaps they realized they were fortunate never to have been overshadowed, or to have joined the ranks of the seekers of Father. And for them and their presence in it the world, too, was fortunate.

  It remained to be seen into which category Cormac mac Art would enter. Mac Art he was and would remain, though there was no longer an Art.

  Art was dead. His son was alive, very alive.

  He was not one with those who loved their fathers to fault. He was not one of those consumed with love for the father. Nor was he one of the many who hated the man who both sired and tyrannized-or ignored-him. For Art had been neither ineffective nor tyrant; each bred hatred. Consummate respect had been on Cormac, for Art; his fourteen years of life and his deed had reflected it. He’d He’d had much to prove; Art was to be respected, and to be impressed; he was worthy. And too his son was not the sort to be a basker in the light of another-or a delicate flower either, to dwell tranquilly in another’s shade.

  Cormac would not exult in Art’s death. It did not occur to him that a son were the better for breaking free of the shade or having it removed from off his life.

  Nor would he grive to excess and know despondence. It was not in him, and respect and love were never the same. As Art had been stern, and military and gruff, and busy so that Cormac had spent much time with the weapon-man Midhir and the sage druid Sualtim. Cormac had indeed respected more than loved his father; sought his approbation more than his attention and demonstrations of paternal love.

  All of which was to say that Art’s son Cormac had had a quite normal relationship with his father, though he was blessed in having one worthy of respect and who did not generate hatred. Few such peopled the ridge of the world. Siring sons, as Sualtim had pointed out in warnings to the boy as he approached puberty, were a simple matter. Being father to them was something else again.

  Cormac had wept, but not in despair. And he had put by his weeping; there was not time for it just now. Such luxuries must be deferred. Just now…

  Art was dead and laid out white on his bed, as had been his wife but two years agone. But was no disease or accident that had laid low Art son of Comal and called him hence to await rebirth and return.

  Sualtim had found him yester eve, on the westward side of the barracks. The throat of the master of Glondrath had been slashed open. Nor were there footprints, or other traces of the slayer.

  The druid and the women of Glondrath had washed the dead man, and his hair, and had dressed him in his cerements. So he had lain until the arrival of Cormac and Midhir. And Midhir had made a weapon-man’s pronouncement; Art’s throat had been cut, with the blade of a dagger, not a sword or broad blade of a spear.

  These few facts the three exchanged and mulled over now, in a dim-lit room within the greathouse. Cormac’s tears had begun to seep again, though he made no sound, Outside, the death-keening rose loud and eerie. Was the way of Eirrin.

  “Was someone he knew and trusted, sure,” Midhir said, the words emerging between teeth that were set together. “For no enemy would have got so close as to slit the throat of such a warrior!”

  “Aye,” Sualtim said. Catching Cormac’s eye, he looked pointedly at the young man’s beer, that made of wheat and honey. “Aye,” the druid repeated. “Aengus mac Domnail bethought him that he saw a man clambering over the rath-wall a short time before I discovered the bo-discovered the lord Art.”

  Midhir’s head jerked up and his face was instantly alert. “Ah.” Aengus was his second, as Midhir himself had been second to Art.

  “Aengus is after taking out a company of men yester night, to search. Nor have they returned.”

  Cormac sat in silence whilst he gave listen, nor would he use the beer to dull and ease his mind. The while he thought of Art, and of the past, and of himself, and the tears flowed down his cheeks. The sons of Eirrin were men, and sureness of it was on them; they’d no need to hold back or disguise their tears.

  Cormac knew himself to be alone now. These two discussed a dead man. He was-he had been Cormac’s only kin. He had not known the sister who died, at less than a year of age, a year before his birth. He hardly remembered the brother on whom illness and death had come, in his third year, when Cormac was but one. His mother was two years dead; in winter she died, as so many did. He was alone. He felt that alone-ness, and knew it would become loneliness.

  Despair he would combat, and reject, for he remembered the words of his father on that subject, after the death of Cormac’s mother Sobarche. Despair was not worthy. That he had of his father, and he would keep all that he had of that good and noble man. Was Art too had told him that Eirrin had need of weapon-men, that Connacht did, and so he must observe Midhir, and listed to Midhir, and practice with him. Too, Art had said that the world had need of men who thought, and particularly of such men of weapons, so that he had bade Cormac listen to Sualtim, and made the boy subject to the druid who had earned; the sobriquet Fodla for his wisdom. A man should not draw blade and leap, Cormac had beep told, and told. A man should think, and consider, and let his own self decide, rather than his glands. And then were it called for, he should draw blade and leap-and if possible with the absolute ferocity of a hungry and cornered wolf. Were best not to kill, he had been told, unless it were necessary. If it were-then kill, and kill swiftly.

  Someone had thought, and considered, and drawn blade, and slain Art, swiftly.

  On this Cormac was reflecting when they heard the horses outside, and then the voices and tramp of men.

  Was Aengus, with all his company. They had found naught. In the noonday sun he looked worse than unhappy, for all his freckles that vanished not with the winter; shame was on the face of Aengus Domnal’s son, as for some failure of his own.

  Midhir allowed himself to well into a rage that would build to loud railing against his second; Aengus’s face and downcast manner helped, of course, for they were all of them sore in need of an object for their wrath.

  A ver
y young man put his hand on the shoulder of Aengus Domnal’s son.

  “Thank you, Aengus,” he said, and his eyes were on Midhir, and they were clear of tears and blue-grey as sword-steel.

  Aengus looked both sad and grateful. Midhir subsided. They stared at mac Art then, the two stout weapon-men and the long-gowned druid. They saw him anew, and his words now heightened their new feeling for him.

  “Sualtim: my father is dead and the slayer escaped. The rath mourns. Prepare him for burial, on the morrow. Midhir: send messengers throughout the land about, and to the king in Cruachan, that Art is dead and his son burying him on the morrow. See that none of those with Aengus go; they have done their best, and are weary.”

  He looked at them a moment, and then Cormac turned and re-entered the house.

  Sualtim nodded. “I will prepare Art, and prepare for the funerary rites,” he said, though not for the ears of Cormac. “No need for the couriers, Midhir; that I was thinking of this morning and I saw them dispatched.” He gazed solemnly on Midhir and Aengus. “See that no mention is made of this to Cormac. He too thought of it; let it be his word.”

  The two men nodded, but they were gazing after the youth-become-man, not at the druid. So big and accomplished Cormac was for his years, and him coming to manhood so suddenly, and his hard encounter with the bear to be swallowed up by this tragedy, the way that he’d never feel the good glory of it was his due. And now, now he was master of Glondrath, and he both knew it and had shown it.

  And, they all realized… surely he was in danger.

  Amid the keening and the intoning of words in a language far older than Eirrin, Cormac remained silent. Solemn, stern, their life-symbolizing robes of forest green laid aside for the pure colourlessness of white, Sualtim and several assisting druids said the ancient words, their voices rising from mere murmur to volume that was nigh-shouting, and descending again.

  Cormac stared dully, stricken, while his father was buried. The belief that Art would be back was a sustaining comfort, but provided little relief for grief and its normal companion, self-pity. Art would not be Art again. He would return as an infant and would bear the new name of that father. Even should his and Cormac’s life-paths cross, they’d know each other not.