The Celtic Mirror

by Louis Phillippi

  “However, before you learn our language,” Brigid continued as the servant disappeared, “you shall have some history. Much may be a repetition of what Ian has already told you, I’m afraid.” Her dark eyes drew him once again. He broke contact only with effort, to avoid being drawn into them, to avoid losing his will in their depths.

  “I’d like to ask some specific questions first,” he said, trying hard to regain control of the situation. “Who are the Viks? I know they’re your enemy. But beyond that?”

  “Vik is not the name of a single people; it is a concept, a...a...bloody philosophy. The Viks are the descendants of those tribes that destroyed Holy Rome and its provinces: Vandals, Ostrogoths, Huns, Mercians, Alani, Visigiths, Suevi,” she catalogued, pronouncing each name with disgust.

  “Then, from the northlands came the Vikings, burning, looting. That was the language they all understood best; the wanton rape and exploitation of peaceful lands.” She rose and began to pace in front of the couch, looking down at Morgan with a composed face, her voice angry. “The rapers, the looters, somehow they joined together and formed a confederacy dedicated to their mutual benefit and to the detriment of all other people.”

  Her fingers touched a heavy gold ring, which hung from a chain about her neck as her words took Morgan back through the centuries. Morgan felt himself growing unaccountably angry as well. He began to hate the Viks in a way he could never hate the dead bin Laden’s disciples.

  “Over the long years, they pillaged their way through the vestiges of Rome’s collapsed Empire and invaded our ancestral islands. The choice was clear to my people. To fight was to disobey Lord Nero’s injunctions as my brother is now doing to his peril; as he would have you foreigners do in our stead!”

  Morgan grew uncomfortably aware of his new uniform, but she turned away from him and again stared, instead, at the ordered garden outside her window.

  She watched for a moment without speaking, and Morgan sat quietly, wanting to go to her side, but afraid to intrude. When Brigid turned, her passions appeared to him to be under an iron control, but when she slowly lowered herself next to Morgan she radiated a fierce heat that he could feel on his bare leg.

  “So my people left,” she continued, as if she had never paused. “They left in their boats while the dragon ships landed on the opposite shores. Most of the peoples of the islands fled: Picts, Celts, even some of the mainland Gaels joined the exodus. We then knew the extent of this continent, you see. Our sailors were better sailors than the Viking raiders, and because they carried, not the sword, but the Wheel of Life, my people were allowed to remain here unmolested.”

  “The Indians didn’t oppose the landings?” Morgan asked, recalling the fierce opposition encountered by early European settlers across the Mirror void.

  “Indians? I do not know the people. But there were the Micmac, the Passamaquoddy, and the Malecite. These nations succored us in those first difficult years. We survived—and thrived. For over two hundred years we found peace. The men and women of the new Free States, safe from Vik attacks, grew more creative than they had been on the home islands, but when the first new dragon ship landed, they knew their time of happiness had ended forever.”

  “Why didn’t your ancestors simply get rid of the crew and destroy all traces of the ship? Prevent word from getting back?”

  “That very thing was done by our young men over the objections of the elders and the priests. The ship with its crew was captured easily enough and taken to the port of Londinium. The ones who questioned the captives learned that the barbarians had exhausted the enslaved lands and were a-Viking to seek new populations to exploit and new riches to wrest from rightful owners. And while they were held in chains, it was discovered that they so hated us that there was little chance to negotiate with them.”

  “Why should they hate you? A soldier doesn’t have to personally hate the man shooting at him in order to fight back.” Morgan had often respected the skills and fighting qualities of the men he saw in his rifle sights.

  “No!” she cried. “They hated us because of our skin, because of our hair, our eyes. They hated us because we had become racially corrupt in their sight.” She lifted her hands to Morgan’s eyes.

  He saw no flaw in the smooth, copper skin he wanted to touch.

  “We committed a great crime, according to them, by merging and becoming one with those who walked this land before us. Less than half of my blood comes from the united lands of our past. The rest wells from the forests and plains of this land. The blond young men, who looked like angels but thought like devils, saw us as beasts, fit only to serve. So, some of our dark, young men killed the fair-haired young men and burned their boat, and incurred a terrible punishment. The invasion in force came sooner than expected. Far too few of my ancestors survived the journey past the Shining Mountains that divide the waters. We again conceded our old territories to the invaders and took the new.”

  “But they came again, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. They always come. But the last time there were those who swayed the priesthood, defied Holy Nero, and took a military stand. We have been long taught that it is wrong to kill. The Writings tell us that, even if the enemy is certain to destroy us. Sometimes I have questioned what has been written, since I cannot believe that the gods mean us to utterly perish. I have asked for wisdom in this, but the things I have been shown are not clear.” She touched the mirror briefly, and Morgan thought he saw a movement on its surface that was quickly gone. It was as if a hand had been gently placed upon a pool of still waters, a momentary disturbance.

  “Morgan, I know you have killed men in battle. That I have seen. But I do not despise you for it, for it was not a thing that you enjoyed. I only do not understand is how a man can be a good man and yet kill other men.”

  “My Lady,” he began carefully, trying to make her understand, wondering how she had seen what he had done over a decade ago. “I killed men in a war that many of my own countrymen abhorred, but I fought because my government had ordered me to fight. I won’t argue the morality of that with you, but at the time I believed that I was trying to effect a change for the good through that spilling of enemy blood. I’ve spent many sleepless nights wondering whether my actions were really that purely motivated, whether I was a coward or a hero. But I do feel this. There are things worth fighting for, worth dying for. Nero walked in my world, too, but it appears that he was not the same man known here. He taught us to hate and oppose tyranny instead of lying down before it.

  “I don’t reject a doctrine that asks for love and understanding,” he declared, feeling love for the enigmatic young woman but not understanding.

  “But I do know that anyone embracing love and peace in a world ruled by barbarians is open and vulnerable to destruction, just like your people. I believe the, ah, gods mean us to be soldiers as well.”

  He looked at her, abruptly drained, feeling purged of seething emotions that needed to be released into the open once again. A thoughtful silence descended upon the room and the two who sat looking through the paneless window.

  Morgan felt that he had planted a seed that might be nurtured by reflection and circumstance, yet her stoic face gave him no clue to her inward reactions. He rose deliberately, his doubts clouding his thinking like fog, and poured himself another goblet of wine, warmer since the ice had melted, and saw her eyes following him. They held a message that he could not decipher.

  “You say there are things worth dying for. If you truly believe that,” she whispered, “you might find it in your heart to forgive the House of Connach.” Her eyes softened, and Morgan noticed that the nearly black irises held flecks of gold. Her next words plunged him into a private hell that contained no forgiveness.

  “Your friend, John Wiscombe is dead, Kerry Morgan. Shortly after Ian had you brought here, he took his own life.” The next words were spoken so quietly that Morgan had to strain in order to hear them. “That, too, I saw.”

  He stared at her
in horror. No wonder Connach had been so frustratingly evasive with him. Connach and his favorite toy had teamed up to destroy the one man who had meant more to Morgan than his own father, the man who had given Morgan his humanity back after a terrorist bomb had taken it away from him.

  The room and all of its contents blurred in front of him, but he noticed that when she looked into his eyes with something like sympathy, she swiftly turned away, as if repelled by what she had divined there.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Got anything to drink around here?” Morgan demanded belligerently, knowing full well that neither the booze nor the belligerence would make him feel any better. He did not give a damn.

  “I try to please,” Evans answered with raised eyebrows. He produced a dusty stone bottle and placed it in front of his seething guest. Morgan took it with a grunt of thanks and filled a mug with Celtic gasoline, disappointed that the cup was not twice as large. A large anodyne was the prescription he wrote for himself.

  He drained the contents in two swallows and banged the mug on the tabletop.

  “Hey! Take it easy,” Evans cautioned. “That stuff’s lethal. Besides,” he added lamely, “you’ve got all night to pass dead brain cells through your kidneys.”

  “Sorry,” Morgan said grimly, and poured another killing dose. “I’m just following doctor’s orders.”

  The other poker players arrived while Morgan was attempting to absorb his second mug of native whiskey with a cold deliberation. They walked cautiously around him and converged on the round table where Evans had set out a ragged and limp deck of cards.

  Morgan was not in the mood to be ignored, but his grief for John Wiscombe was too private to be shared with near strangers so he stuffed it into that dark and spacious corner of his soul where he housed all of his other personal nightmares. He would nurture it until the time he would find Connach alone, and with his own dagger loose in its sheath. He tapped the again-empty mug on the table, marking time like clockwork inside a bomb. He would bury Wiscombe’s ghost in time, but the anger in its alcoholic amplification needed release. It came from a direction that even surprised Morgan.

  “Why is that bastard Connach treating us like dog meat where his beloved sister is concerned? He warned all of you off, too, didn’t he?” he snarled.

  When nobody answered quickly enough, Morgan lunged at the table and scattered the cards out of Greenfeld’s hands.

  “I can best answer that.”

  Connach!

  Morgan turned slowly to face his sometime friend, reaching with his right hand for the blade at his side. His fingers touched the cinglium. There was nothing on the hanger! He jerked his eyes to the man who had resumed shuffling the tired cards. Morgan’s dagger lay on the table in front of Greenfeld. The Jew raised an innocent face and smiled toothily at Morgan. Morgan returned the wry smile with a half salute despite the outpouring of rage that had consumed him only seconds earlier. Greenfeld inclined his head in Connach’s direction.

  Connach was dressed as a civilian, and his face was tired, pale, and lined with fatigue. Behind him stood Castillo, who always looked as if he was still in dress uniform; he probably did even if he was wearing only his skivvies. He threw Morgan a curt warning glance before pouring a pair of whiskies, handing one to Connach. Connach half-drained his before collapsing into a chair with an expressive sigh.

  “I owe each of you gentlemen an apology,” Connach said wearily, running his hands across his face. “More than that. First I kidnap you, practically lock you up in this complex away from most outside contact, and then threaten you if you look at my sister in a normal human fashion.” Color slowly returned to his ashen face as the spirits worked their magic. “I won’t apologize very sincerely for the kidnapping. In fact, I won’t apologize at all. We need you here. We need you desperately, and we need what you brought over with you.” Connach gestured toward Castillo with his drink. “Tony already knows the details of the military operation I am going to try to sell to the Council, and you’ll be let into the whole thing as soon as that happens—a day, no more than two.”

  Morgan watched him sullenly, still conscious of his empty scabbard and a heart full of vengeance. He was not impressed.

  “As for my sister, I can only ask you to try and understand that my grandfather and Brigid are the only family that this ‘bastard, Connach,’ has left. And if I seem too ready to defend her honor, you must also appreciate Brigid’s unique position in this society. You come from a much different setting than ours. Your American morality and social structure are as alien to us as a culture from out of this galaxy, despite a common heritage.” He gestured with his drink and rose slowly to his feet, giving emphasis to his words. “The union of the few remaining Free States is built on two principles. The first is spiritual. The second is the integrity of the clans and the leadership of the High Chief of those clans. Today, my family heads the clans of Reged.

  “In the face of the dangers that have threatened our existence for the past three generations, it is imperative that the clan chiefs stop bickering with each other in our time-honored fashion and form a united front. But,” he shrugged his shoulders tiredly, “people are people everywhere, and families, like people, disagree with one another and vie for power and position—sometimes at the expense of the State. But families that are in constant competition with one another will occasionally agree to bury their differences by accepting a different kind of union.”

  He sipped his drink and looked steadily at each man in turn. It seemed to Morgan that Connach’s eyes lingered longer on him than on the others. “My clan, the preeminent clan in Reged, decided, before my sister was born, to join forces with the clan, Cunneda, the most influential in Dumnonia, the second most powerful civitat of the Free States. With Reged and Dumnonia linked, the rest of the bickering civitates might fall into line.”

  Disturbed by the direction of Connach’s speech as well as by his presence in the room, Morgan nervously twisted the ring Brigid had given him to wear following the revelation of Wiscombe’s death. He rubbed the featureless blue stone with his thumb. The ring was still warm, as if it yet possessed something of her body heat, for it recently had rested between her breasts. The ring held his finger within its embrace as if made especially for him.

  “Wear it,” she had whispered, “and win the protection of Aiofe, spirit of the upper air. He had placed the ring on his finger at her insistence and had thought of little else but Brigid since. Visions of her had fought with thoughts of the dead Wiscombe for dominance in his brain all afternoon. That he could even momentarily forget John Wiscombe was disturbing, because he knew that revenge should remain uppermost in his overheated mind. He looked down at the ring. The blue oval caught him as it was caught in the joined tips of golden wings that formed the stone’s base. The ring held his gaze like the non-reflecting surface of Brigid’s mirror, brushed by satin-smooth hands. It took Connach’s voice to pull him from the vortex into which his consciousness was sliding, wanting desperately to slide.

  “Before she was a month old, my sister was betrothed to Martin Cunneda, scion of the Cunnedas. He had at that time just celebrated the second year of life.”

  Morgan’s body became encased in an unseen block of ice. Brigid was declared inaccessible to him, a pawn in a Celtic political game. He studied the prince. It was not a game to Connach; that much was clear. Connach was not enjoying himself. He looked wearier than Morgan had ever seen him. Carrying the load for the defense of a nation that desired no defense was obviously crushing him. Morgan forced pity for Ian Connach from his mind. Brigid had just been forbidden to him. He would not pity Connach. Instead, he made himself wonder how much of Ian’s weariness was the weight of his personal guilt for the murder of John Wiscombe, if the Celtic prince was capable of feeling guilt at all.

  Connach turned to face Morgan alone. He glanced at the ring Morgan wore and then smiled without humor.

  “My sister has spoken to me at great length today, my friend,” he said
in a soft voice meant for Morgan’s hearing alone.

  Morgan flinched at the word “friend.” It no longer applied.

  “The Lady Brigid is very private in her thoughts and normally difficult to draw out. Today she was unusually candid with me,” He smiled again, sadly—perhaps for all three of them. “She is most stubborn when she wants to be.” He extended his hand, but Morgan avoided it and the pale, sad eyes as well.

  Connach persisted. “You must not love her nor hate me, Kerry. Too much is at stake right now, and she is absolutely essential for any success we might enjoy.”

  Morgan mumbled some meaningless phrases that Connach evidently took for an agreement, for the nobleman clapped Morgan on the back, leaving the room with Castillo.

  Morgan cursed himself for a coward.

  That night Morgan slept fitfully, dreaming erotically of the Bubble Maiden who at last had a face he could recognize—Brigid’s. The Druid priestess’ shapeless robe had shrouded her young body from his waking eyes, but Morgan knew that the long, supple limbs and high, perfect breasts that he saw in the dream—had caressed in the dream—were real. Slowly, agonizingly, he struggled through a molasses-thick atmosphere, outstretched fingertips just touching warm skin as she was borne away from him by the beating of enormous swan’s wings. He strained to fly, to meet her in the air….

  He sat up, gasping for breath in the darkness. He had had a dream, no more. Yet he knew that it had been something more. Even fully awake, her face floated before him, silently mouthing his name. Thoroughly disorganized, he stumbled into the bathing chamber and held his head under a stream of cold water until the haunting image faded from his mind. She had fast become a dangerous obsession with him, he told himself. He toweled his dripping hair, feeling refreshed but remaining uneasy. He had two matters to settle with Connach in the morning, and thoughts of Brigid might interfere with both. The next time he met Connach, he vowed, his mind would be clear and his dagger would be where it belonged.