The Sign of the Moonbow cma-7

by Andrew J Offutt

Again Cormac mac Art was heartily welcomed and profusely thanked for having saved Consaer and “this nubile young maid who is so necessary and valuable to our people.”

  He wondered-was she valuable because she was nubile, or was there more he did not know? While the matter was intriguing in its cryptic nature to the Gael and thus of considerable interest, he set it aside in his mind, with other questions to be asked later.

  He was hardly comfortable. He had watched at work a most potent mage indeed-and the man had then collapsed and had to be carried here like- one dead. Once again Sinshi was treating his arm as a possession-though at least she remembered, and confined her viny clinging to the shield-arm! Too, Cormac mac Art was not comfortable in the presence of any king. He had known several, and all had betrayed him, including that former High-king of Eirrin itself. Cormac mac Art had served royalty and he had been served badly in return. He was no lover of kings.

  Sinshi crowded her rescuer. Her little hands seemed bent on piercing his armour, so closely and tightly did she cling, her hands so small against the Gael’s mailed sleeve and muscular arm.

  “You are twice welcome here,” Uaisaer, king, said. “What would ye have of us?”

  “Lord king, my thanks-”

  “I am called Uaisaer.”

  Cormac nodded. Not such a bad king at that, mayhap-though he stood back and allowed an old man to fight his battles without so much as ordering his people to withdraw or attack. Still-with such a man as Cathbadh about, what need was there of armour and shields, walls and royal orders?

  “My thanks, Uaisaer. In truth, it’s others I have with me, a druid of Eirrin and a woman-” Sinshi’s hands tightened-“and two men, and-”

  “Such as yourself?” The king was most interested.

  “Aye, weapon-men, one of Eirrin and-oh. No, Lord k-Uaisaer, not with my hair and skin. The hair of one, whose name is Brian, is flax, and the other, him who is of the Danes and taller than I, constructed like a barrel, has hair and beard on him like the red of the rowan-berry. With us too is… a captive. A dread mage of evil, of whom I would talk with Cathbadh.”

  “Ah. Well, I see that Flaen has brought his master’s chest, and is tending him as none other can. The king of a grateful people offers food and drink.”

  Cormac smiled. King over a village! Aye-and food and drink. The goat’s milk he had never tasted.

  “Fetch milk for Cathbadh,” Flaen said, “girl.”

  “We have grapes,” Uaisaer said, “and too we have ale.”

  “Ale? There be ale in Daneira?”

  The king looked both astonished and a bit hurt. “We are men!” he said, and it was answer enow.

  Though she was obviously not anxious to depart Cormac’s presence, Sinshi looked away before the gaze of her king and hurried from the little house. Cormac flexed his arm and glanced anxiously over at the unconscious priest-wizard. The old man’s night-black eyes flickered open even as he looked. They fixed on the Gael.

  “Now, Cormac mac Art, ye know why none was affrighted.”

  “Now I do, protector and saviour of Daneira! Were there more like yourself on the ridge of the world, it would be a peaceful place and it’s another life I’d have led-and a shepherd I’d probably be!”

  Cathbadh smiled wanely. “But understand that one out there was sore afraid, Cormac. That one was I. Today I have done what I have never done afore.”

  Cormac went to the cot, squatted beside it. “And-ye be not ill, Protector of Daneira?”

  “Weakened. Drained, like a squeezed waterskin,” the old man said. “Never have I had to call on such powers. The small pigskin bag from the chest, Flaen,” he said, and looked again at Cormac. “Though those who look on see only the power, the manifestation of the goddess and ancient knowledge passed from one to one to another and so down to me, there is much labour in… what I did. It is exhausting. I lay unconscious?”

  “You did: Was I bore ye here. And it’s glad I am ye be recovering, Cathbadh of Daneira. Memory will be on me as long as on the the people ye saved from the Norse this day.”

  Cathbadh’s face clouded. “Not quite all. A girl not quite nubile died with them-and two childbearers.” He sighed. Glancing at Flaen’s movement, the old man’s eyes brightened, though Cormac had noted they had seemed not so weak as his body. The Gael-turned to follow their gaze.

  The chest or casket Flaen had fetched was old, very old, of unbound wood and decorated only with an etched moon-sign. From it he had taken a small pouch of russet-hued pigskin, and opened its strings.

  “Master,” he said, extending it.

  “Come, I must needs sit up,” Cathbadh said, and received swift aid from the Gael. “Ahhh. Weak, weak as an infant.”

  “It’s more need ye have for the ale Sinshi brings than I,” Cormac said. “And for red meat, methinks.”

  Cathbadh was dipping his fingers into the pouch. Flaen said, “For such as my master and I, intoxicants are used, not quaffed in the way of other men. He will soon have a bit of milk. Nor do we eat meat, at all.”

  Cormac shook his head. “It is no simple matter, this business of serving Danu and protecting her… city. No ale and no meat either!”

  Though he was no such great tippler as Wulfhere, Cormac mac Art was hardly an enemy of ales or wines-and he could not imagine living without meat.

  “It is no simple matter,” Cathbadh agreed. He looked up at Flaen. “Ye know, Flaen, that I shall not long survive this day’s work. Your time approaches, and I wish for you that no such need is pressed upon you as on me today-ever.”

  Flaen sank down beside the cot. “Master!”

  “Cathbadh!” That from the king, who stood silent and unassuming as no ruler Cormac had ever known or dreamed of. Nor did Uaisaer wear so much as a band about his head, much less a crown.

  “Come, friends both-all three,” Cathbadh said. “Ye well know our geas and our limits, and the rewards and penalties for such as we.” Taking a pinch of finely crushed leaves from the pouch, he stared at them, muttered unintelligible words.

  There was silence in that room then, and into it came Sinshi, bearing what was surely a sore insult to goats: a goatskin bag of goat’s milk. In her other hand a larger, fatter skin sloshed most pleasantly. Beautifully turned and carven mugs of wood there were in the house of Cathbadh, and them smooth and shiny as sword-steel.

  Soon they were lifting well-filled mugs each to the other, a king over a few hundreds of people, and the man who served their deity and protected them at peril to his own resources, and a weapon-man of Eirrin. One cup contained milk.

  They drank, and soon Cormac mac Art felt of far more cheer.

  “Cathbadh, there is a place I must go, and my friends awaiting. And… another. Now I hold hope that ye can be helping us, an ye be recovered enow to hear of the evil we hold captive.”

  “Ah,” Cathbadh said, less weakly still, having eaten twice of the herbs from the little russet pouch and, having quaffed. fresh rich milk. He sat up the straighter. “Daneira is in the debt of this man, Flaen, and hear him! We are fortunate that he has some need of us.” He turned, clear, coal-dark eyes on the Gael. “Cormac mac Art?”

  “An ye can accept this, Master Cathbadh-”

  “I am called Cathbadh, Cormac.”

  “A king called by name and a genius among wizards the same!” Cormac exclaimed. He shook his head, and his lips drew back in a tiny smile. “On all the ridge of the world is no other place such as Daneira, and may none ever find ye!”

  “May your words be naught but truth,” the crownless king said, from behind the Gael. And he drank again, of the ale of Daneira.

  Cormac fixed Cathbadh with his slit-eyed gaze. “An ye can accept this, Cathbadh… on my ship is a most powerful mage, dedicated to evil. Divers forms can this one assume-and he cannot be slain, nor held by means other than the ghastliest of inhuman impalement. So is he held fast now, with my companions in constant dread lest he break somehow free. He is a creator of illusions, this one, who can assume the
form of any man or woman, and a serpent as well.”

  Cathbadh interrupted. “A serpent?”

  Cormac blinked in surprise. “Aye.”

  “Ah. A mage long upon the earth, is this one, and dedicated to naught but the doing of evil. Though it’s the image of humankind he wears, it is all humankind he hates and plots against.”

  “Ye know him, then?”

  Cathbadh shook his head. Black eyes glittered. “I know his kind. Many stories have come down, Cormac mac Art, over thousands of years from one servant of Danu to the next. Comal de Danann I am called, and so I am: Slave of Danu! But I had not thought that such as this one ye describe yet lived on this earth.”

  “He does not live, Cathbadh. It’s dead he is-and thus he cannot be slain. But yet he does live, in some way not understandable to such as I. If knowledge were with ye of some means by which he could be held captive, whilst we seek his final doom-”

  “A servant of the serpent god and he dead and yet alive; Undead! Ah, but he can be slain!”

  “Cathbadh! You can do this?”

  The old man shook his head. “I cannot, Cormac de Gaedhel; Cormac of the Gaels. Nay, for of old it was said that only a woman enthroned could be the ultimate death-giver of such.”

  Cormac’s shoulders slumped. Suddenly he wished for all of him that this damned uncrowned King Uaisaer were a woman or that he had rescued not the daughter of a carpenter but a princess, like a self-respecting hero.

  “Cormac.”

  The Gael looked morosely into the wizard-priest’s eyes.

  “Be of cheer,” Cathbadh said, and lifted his cup with its remainder of thick milk. “He can be held, or rendered rather powerless. I have the means. I have the means to make even such as you powerless, Cormac, or myself-in the mind. What boots the freedom of the body, an the mind belongs not to him who dwells in that body? Ye know that we all do but temporarily reside in these forms we wear, as a man lives in a house, and when it burns or falls into rot, he moves into another?”

  Excitement was on mac Art, and he nodded several times. “Aye! Sinshi-please ye lovely dairlin’-be there more ale?”

  I should not have said those words, Cormac mac Art thought, as she happily refilled his fine wooden mug-and took again his arm, pressing her hip close to his mail-skirted thigh. He glanced down at the shining top of that black-crowned little head. A sensuous little tawny maid, by Crom of Eirrin!

  “What it is with such as this one ye describe,” Cathbadh said, “is that he need not wait for action of the gods upon his death, but can transfer his mind, himself, into another body of his own choosing. As he has doubtless done thousands of times.”

  “That body he wears now,” Cormac said grimly, “has no face, only a skull without flesh.”

  Cathbadh frowned. “I can hold him, Cormac of the Gaels. I can give ye the means to hold him. I shall. Flaen, no argument-I go with Cormac.”

  “Ah, Protector of Daneira,” Cormac said with a grateful fervor he seldom expressed, “great wizardpriest of Danu… it’s better news and more hope ye offer me than I’ve known in a moon’s worth of days.”

  Flaen was shaking his head. “Master-”

  “All of us will be most pleased,” Cathbadh said, ignoring his apprentice, “to be able to do this for ye, Cormac of the Gaels-and for Consaer and Sinshi who were lost to us but for yourself.”

  Chapter Five:

  The Chains of Danu

  Three strong young men of Daneira accompanied Cormac mac Art and Cathbadh through the woods of the Isle of Danu. Woodsmen’s axes the three carried in their belts, and stout staves in their hands, staves the length of their bodies. A staff carried the wizard-priest too, though his was for a different purpose, and tipped with a golden image combining a hunter’s bow with a three-quarter moon-cresent. His ceremonial robe of lacquered leaves Cathbadh had left behind, to walk the forest in stout leathern leggings and a sideslit tunic, green in hue, to the knees.

  With them too went Sinshi daughter of Duach, for the elf-like young woman clung to mac Art as a grapevine clamps and entwines the tree it climbs in quest of the sunlight. Nor would she be left behind.

  Along the way betwixt village and sea. Cormac posed the query he’d set aside till now, when there was time and no press of other business.

  “It’s of Eirrin I am, a Gaelic descendant of Celts who have been long on this earth. Yet so too seem to be the people of Daneira out of Eirrin… but not latterly.”

  “Aye.” Cathbadh walked energetically enow for an old man, after his collapse and his partaking of his wizard’s herbs and goat’s milk. “And it is no brag I make in saying that my people preceded the Celts onto the world as they did onto Eirrin’s shores-as Danu had her followers ere Behl of the sun was born.”

  Cormac saw only trouble in discussing that matter, and avoided it. “Then… when came the Daneirans from Eirrin’? Who are ye; whence are ye, Cathbadh?”

  “Why Cormac… can ye not see? We are of the goddess Danu.”

  “Aye, of course I know ye follow the old goddess, but-” Cormac broke off. “Ye mean… of old? In Eirrin afore we-ye be of the Tuatha de Danann?”

  Cathbadh chuckled. “So I’ve said. The People of Danu. So ye’ve observed.”

  “Cathbadh! The Tuatha de Danann were rulers of Eirrin when the Celts came, the sons of Mil… there have been no People of Danu in Eirrin for nigh a thousand of years!”

  “That is partially true, Cormac. In truth, the time has been less than ten hundreds of years, and it’s on Eirrin ye mean we’ve not been, not in. Aye, we of this isle are Tuatha de Danann. And this walking requires my breath, as will the ford we must presently make.

  Cormac saw only trouble in discussing that matter, and avoid edit. “Then… when came the Daneirans from Eirrin? Who are ye; whence are ye, Cathbadh?”

  Cormac walked in silence, marveling.

  Revelation after revelation! These strange small people were those who anciently ruled Eirrin-who were Eirrin, Eiru-and were supplanted and conquered by my people! Some think them only legend-and none has any idea that they fled here, to this tiny isle that has been an unmenacing paradise to them. The Tuatha de Danann-the People of Dana! Here, surviving!

  And too there was the other astonishment: the man walking beside him was of age eighty years and seven. The de Danann were remembered as a people of great powers of magic-and so they have proven! Or at least this one has, striding-well, walking strongly and without footgear-through the forest, at an age well past that when most lie in their graves. Blood of the gods, what a people!

  A certain morose longing stole into the Gael’s mind then, with the wistful thought: Would that their ruler were a woman!

  Still… an I can control Thulsa Doom as Cathbadh said, we need not be constantly fearful of his wresting free of our bonds and destroying us with his evil. It’s the rest of my life I could spend at the task of finding a woman who rules in this world of men…

  In silence then the six made their way to their goal, and they reached the waterfall and thus the two ships anchored below, in the rockbound inlet.

  Seeing the approach of Cormac and strangers who knew naught of him, Thulsa Doom instantly took: the form of a slim, elfin-faced young woman-Sinshi! With a shriek, Sinshi herself drew away from her rescuer for the first time. What she saw with her own eyes was her double, writhing and moaning at the mast with two terrible swords of steel standing forth from her slim body. And there nearby was the redbearded giant, even taller than Cormac whose boon companion he was-this same Cormac was leader among the foul monsters who so tortured a girl just like herself!

  “Cathbadh,” Cormac said quietly, with only a glance at Sinshi who had both let’ go his arm and shrunk away among the three men of her own people. “It’s but one woman there is aboard my ship, she there in the flaming hair and tall black boots. Samaire. That at the mast is the ancient and unslayable mage I told ye of-Thulsa Doom. In past he has approached me in the likeness of Samaire, and in the form too of the giant ye
see. As him, my weapon-companion for years and years, my blood-brother, in truth, the monster attacked me so that I was forced to defend-and slay. It was then he struck grue and dismay in me, for he vanished ere I knew what and who he was. He dies not. Now he seeks to, gain sympathy from you, for-”

  Cathbadh was nodding. “Aye,” he said, and spoke loudly enough for Sinshi and the escort to hear. “For it’s no double Sinshi daughter of Duach has; I know every person of the Daneirans. And that be your precise image, Sinshi, see-even to the stain at the knee of your leggings!”

  They six stood staring at that image of sorcerous horror, and she sobbed out a piteous moan.

  “Danu be my light,” Sinshi herself said, in a little gasp of ritual. “But she looks so-”

  “He,” Cathbadh corrected.

  “It,” Cormac said through tightpressed teeth.

  “Cormac!” That from Wulfhere, for the six had emerged at water level and could hear and be heard, and now seen by other than the undying wizard.

  Then Samaire saw, and she too cried out, and Brian, while Bas smiled and lifted a hand in greeting and benison all at once. Sinshi had returned to Cormac’s side as he made his way to the ship. They must wade the last few yards, and Cathbadh unblushingly suffered himself to be carried above the water by the three men of Daneira. Noting the water rose above Sinshi’s chest, Cormac picked her up, bade her hold up the skirts of his mail without a thought for the weight of that linked chain, and made his way out to Quester. She clung close, her breath warm on his cheek. Nor was it without nervousness and apprehension that four of the five from Daneira approached that ship to whose mast was bound the image of Sinshi.

  No apprehension was on Cormac’s companions now. True, all had had time more than adequate to grow worse than anxious about him, and were full of nervous queries. They helped him and the Daneirans aboard. The latter stared, remarking red hair and blond; blue eyes and green; fair skin.

  After a moment of consideration, Cormac raised a hand. “Wait,” he said, and he removed his weapon-belt… Then he bent double: The Daneirans watched with wide dark eyes while he executed a strange little wiggle. Down onto his shoulders in a rush of clinks and jingles slithered his mail, and off over his head to form a small pile of blueblack on Quester’s deck. The Gael gathered it up, barely a couble handful now for all its twoscore pounds, and spread it on a rowing bench where struck the waning sun.