The Celtic Mirror

by Louis Phillippi

  “Would you like some more to drink, my pretty?” he asked the proto-dragon and poured more liquid down the man’s leg.

  The Druid’s deeply sunken eyes stared back at him with hatred but little strength.

  Thorkell always enjoyed these sessions. “What? No eager offers to assist your new masters to assimilate Reged without useless bloodshed? Bloodshed such as your more sensible citizens deplore as I do myself, I might add.”

  He walked casually around the sagging captive. Thorkell knew he was a handsome figure. He considered himself the personification of the Mercian ideal. He stood as tall as his old adversary, Ian Connach, but his own shoulders were broader, his neck thicker. His red uniform was cut perfectly to reveal his masculine strength to advantage. His face showed the same type of physical symmetry, as did his form, features fine and regularly molded. The Mercian lord’s lips were full and sensual, and the skin of his cheeks—despite the searing sun—had that freshly scrubbed look once seen in the children of the North . . . when there had been a true North.

  He knew that most women considered him quite beautiful, and he had heard hints that he was considered too pretty by most men. He smiled. He cared nothing for what people thought as long as they obeyed and feared him. The corners of his china-blue eyes crinkled in amusement.

  Those eyes contemplated the barely human rag before him. The frail, dark body filled him with loathing and disdain. It had been too easily broken. But, ah, he remembered, the spirit of that senior priest was another matter. Before the interrogation specialist had properly begun, that Maelgwynn had called upon his Horned God and had escaped in death. Thorkell felt distinctly cheated by Maelgwyn’s insolent and easy release. He flicked irritably at a fly with the whisk he always carried. His temples throbbed with the beginnings of one of his blinding headaches. They plagued him almost daily now… headaches that drove him to unreasoning and violent excesses in vain attempts to rid himself of personal pain by inflicting stronger pain upon others. It worked, but no longer as well as it once did.

  A cluster of bluebottle flies jockeyed for the best positions around the priest’s wounds, and Thorkell frowned. The window barriers had broken down once more, and a variety of air-borne vermin vigorously invaded the former High Chief’s palace. The failure of the screens had become a regularly expected annoyance, and of course, the Dumnonian filids took their time in diagnosing and treating the problems. Thorkell had to admit that even when the filids were persuaded to make repairs more expeditiously, the screens seldom held up long. He smiled at a new thought and tapped his thigh absently with the whisk. Let the weakling Druids fight me with flies. Flies and their Nero-sucking masters can be squashed. He stepped closer to the slack-jawed priest just as his headache crescendoed.

  “The Peace Party?” he began in a low, pleasant voice, trying to keep the pain at a reasonable level. Slick perspiration began to coat his forehead, but he kept his hands steady, he noted with pride. “Contact them for me,” he crooned, “and tell them that I offer a lasting peace to Reged. Tell them that I am ready to end this senseless standoff, eh?”

  The lolling head moved from left to right in negation.

  Aethelric Thorkell moved his mouth in a parody of a smile and cheerfully jammed the handle of his flywhisk into the priest’s swollen testicles. The animal cry made him smile again and his headache lessened almost immediately. The kraakthonen swelled its throat and croaked in reptilian harmony.

  “Take the garbage out,” Thorkell petulantly ordered the two muscular soldiers who supported the Druid.

  The priest was obediently dragged from the audience chamber, his toes curled under—losing flesh and blood in twin dark tracks. A moan, devoid of intelligence, trailed the Vulkanetruppen and their limp burden but was cut off from Thorkell’s hearing by the closing of the chamber’s bronze doors.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The ten-man work detail, guarded by two scowling soldiers, shuffled dispiritedly through the compound gates. Prodded, kicked and cursed by their guards, they passed by the manned sentry box with downcast eyes like every group of impressed laborers before them. The bored sentry paid scant attention to the familiar routine, but noted that the press gang that rounded up that bunch had found men that appeared far more physically fit than most of the Keltaner they caught in their snares. He soon lost all interest in the Keltik mongrels after they turned a corner and were gone from his sight.

  As the “impressed” workers entered a wide courtyard just inside the walls, Morgan heard a loud yell in the Mercian dialect, and he watched a bruised and bloody man scale the compound wall and drop into the street on the other side. A young Vulkannetruppen soldier pursued him. He stopped at the wall and peered through an arrow slit at the escaping man without giving any further alarm.

  He moved to the base of the thorny vine and stared hopelessly at the prisoner’s escape route. He seemed to notice the “work detail” and its guards for the first time.

  “Quickly!” The Mercian called to Morgan and Connach, “Head back to the street and stop the man who just escaped over the wall. Any way you can!”

  Connach waved his understanding, wheeled and darted to the street entrance, but by the time the Mercian guard reached the Celts, Connach was already returning.

  “You must be mistaken, Bogentrager. The street is empty.”

  “That’s impossible! The prisoner just now dropped over the wall. He could barely walk! He was naked!” He screamed.

  “You can check it out for yourself, Bogentrager,” Connach said politely but with an icy tone.

  The Mercian’s shoulders slumped. “Listen,” he said almost whimpering, “He was just about dead. He…he asked for water. I…I mean it was not wrong for me to give a dying man some relief, was it?” He stopped and looked around. “Say nothing about this to anyone. Understand? Nothing.”

  “What is it to me if a madman decides to jump a wall? Johannes and I saw nothing, nichts. But,” Connach said, smiling, “we might let something accidentally slip, unless ….”

  “Unless what?”

  “A kaasten of kief might just help us forget everything, eh, Johannes?” Connach gave a terrible stage wink that made Morgan almost laugh.

  “All right.” He seemed to deflate further. “When you’re ready, look me up in my barracks. Thor unit. The name’s Siegler.”

  “Maybe tomorrow, Bogentrager, maybe later. Have it ready.”

  Connach turned his back on the Mercian, ending the conversation and turned to his motley command.

  “ Move out, you scum!” The civilian work detail moved unenthusiastically toward the headquarters building with reluctant steps. Neither Morgan nor Connach looked back.

  Morgan knew that Connach relished playing his Mercian role. His helmet was pulled low over his eyes and he had a hard set to his mouth. There was danger in his swinging stride, and had Morgan not been an ally, he would have stepped across the street to avoid facing the hard-bitten, non-commissioned officer. It was obvious from the Vulkanetruppen soldier’s reaction that others felt the same.

  The guards at the rail stop had seemed almost eager to pass the labor squad through their checkpoint, refusing even a pretense of examining the non-existent authorization papers Connach was supposed to have carried. They had kept their lives by being sloppy in the performance of their duties. The occupation soldier was in a sad condition Morgan mused. Perhaps Thorkell’s particular house had already gone up in a puff of smoke. The victims just had no idea how badly they had been burned . . . or that they had been burned at all.

  The sentry posted at the side entrance to the High Chief’s occupied palace was as relaxed as his underground counterparts. Connach had merely growled a guttural, “Civilwerkdienst . . . civilian labor detail,” and they were passed through the high street wall and into Thorkell’s stronghold.

  The Vulkanetruppen were no different then, if the youngster who had stopped them with a story about the escaped prisoner was any example. Kids and incompetents! But kids and incomp
etents would fight if threatened sufficiently. Don’t let your guard down, Morgan, me lad!

  When the commandos were alone in the courtyard once more, Connach herded them through a side door, wheelbarrows and all. They passed through a kitchen area encountering indifference from the Suevian head cook and open hostility from the Celtic kitchen workers, directed at Morgan and Connach.

  After leaving the kitchen area, they crossed a seemingly endless succession of hallways and offices. The Dumnonian High Chief’s former palace was even grander than the House of Connach. Bustling clerical soldiers, some in red uniforms, some in green, hurried about on important paper missions and scarcely rewarded the slave labor force and its overseers with anything more than a disinterested glance. So far, Kirkpatrick’s partially-concealed appearance had raised no alarm.

  It seemed almost too easy to Morgan, and the short hairs on the back of his neck tingled in anticipation of a shouted challenge. It did not come. The island invaders marched openly and unchallenged through the lower level of the commandeered building and up a service stairway to the second floor, the level that had once contained the private offices of Dumnonia’s clan chiefs, according to Connach. The officers of the military occupation who had slithered into the vacated chamber like venomous snakes now inhabited the second level.

  Connach studied the offices as the unchallenged commandos openly passed down one corridor then another. “They’ve changed things around,” he complained to Morgan. “By their very presence, the good things have been altered. Ten years ago I could have told you to the centimeter . . . but now I don’t know.” He hesitated and peered closely at one section of the wall and halted the group near a closed door. The prince ran his hands lightly over the door’s wooden surface.

  Morgan looked at the neat runic inscription lettered on the top panel.

  “Someone’s hung his shield here,” he whispered to Connach. “This office is occupied.”

  “I can speak Mercian like I was born in Londstaadt,” Connach answered, bending over to inspect a small portion of the painted surface, “because I had a good teacher. But I never learned to read the damned language. Ha! I’ve found it!”

  Morgan bent to see Connach’s discovery. There, painted over, at about the level a ten-year-old might reach with a sharp object, was a crudely etched double-headed dragon.

  “A vandal from the House of Connach has beaten us here, I see,” Morgan said dryly.

  “Meet the artist.” Connach tapped on the door. There was no answer. “Wait out here,” he ordered and opened the door. “Guard them well, Bogentrager,” he said in Mercian and stepped inside.

  Morgan obediently “guarded” the Celtic workers as they stood in the busy corridor. He began to feel quite invisible—surrounded by the enemy but unseen.

  In seconds, Connach reopened the door. “First five in here,” he growled. “Johannes,” he added imperiously, loud enough for any curious passerby to hear “Guard the rest until I call for them.”

  Morgan clicked his heels in proper Mercian fashion and quickly counted off five commandos. Less than a minute later, the door opened again, and Connach called for the remainder. Morgan entered last, but as he eased the door shut, he observed an officer who seemed to be hurrying straight for the invaded office.

  “Get ready for trouble,” Morgan cautioned Connach, who was directing the last freedom fighter through a section of wall that stood open—a hidden passageway beckoning beyond. Almost as the warning was acknowledged, the door burst inward and a red-raced Oberkriegenfahrer glared at Connach, who stepped forward to meet him, blocking the tunnel mouth.

  Morgan edged to one side and knelt; extracting the dagger he had slipped into his boot. The officer’s attention was entirely directed at Connach as Morgan straightened with the Celtic blade held out of sight.

  “What are you men doing in my office?” the Mercian demanded gutturally, attempting to push past the saluting Schildtrager.

  Connach was impolitely immovable and dropped his unreturned salute. “Work detail,” he said politely. “The window barriers are down again.”

  “The palace window barriers are always breaking down, and no one had ever had to enter this office to repair them!”

  Morgan slipped around to the officer’s right side. Connach’s eyes signaled approval.

  “And where are your filids?” Thorkell’s man demanded. “I don’t see any.”

  Connach sighed and stepped aside. He pointed to the open panel. “In there.”

  The officer was thrown off balance by Connach’s sudden move and revelation. He took two involuntary steps into the killing zone. Connach kicked the outer door shut and Morgan, his timing perfect, clamped his left hand over the man’s mouth then pushed the point of his dagger into the man’s thick neck. Little pressure was required as the scalpel-sharp steel parted tissue with a touch. Quickly a dark puddle formed where the collar encircled the fleshy throat.

  “Don’t speak or this blade will exit through the back of your neck,” Morgan said, baring his teeth.

  “Get him into the tunnel,” Connach told Morgan in English.

  Morgan nodded and marched the frightened storm trooper through the open panel. The prisoner’s body gave off the sharp scent of terror, that most familiar of foxhole odors. The ten “filids” had already stripped off their disguises and were rearming themselves from the uncovered wheelbarrows. The captive stared into Coel Chulainn’s scarred face, and then sagged in Morgan’s grasp as he fully realized his fatal blunder.

  Connach quietly sealed the entrance after activating a light panel in the tunnel wall. He glanced significantly at Morgan and the prisoner. Something that Morgan had seen on other men flickered in his eyes. He knew what was to follow.

  “Finish him now, Kerry,” he said, again using English.

  The man stiffened in Morgan’s clutch. He could not have understood the words spoken, but he correctly sensed his fate in those four calmly spoken words. A moment later, understanding faded from his eyes forever as Morgan made a deft semi-circular motion with the razor-edged knife.

  Morgan lowered the corpse to the floor, the red of the soldier’s tunic masking the bright arterial blood that wetted it. He wiped his blade on the Oberkriegenfahrer’s trousers then peeled his borrowed, infested uniform from his own body. Connach followed suit. In seconds, dun colored smocks and gray-green uniforms littered the floor of the passageway like discarded cocoons.

  “Follow me,” Connach quietly commanded. “Kerry!”

  Morgan joined him as the prince led the small force down a long series of steps and into a narrow, twisting passageway.

  “What is this place? Catacombs?” Morgan suspected his speculations were wide of the mark since the walls were unadorned and no smell of decay tainted the air.

  “No. Cunneda’s great-grandfather constructed this when the palace was being built. It leads from his old office in the legislative structure to his private chambers in the clan apartments. It made his role as High Chief all that more effective, if he appeared mysteriously and suddenly in his office without being seen on the streets. Your own country’s mania for public exposure would have made the old man throw up. But then, he didn’t need to win any elections, either. The quadrirails eliminated the need for the tunnel and it was almost forgotten.” He smiled. “Almost, but for three small and meddlesome boys who enjoyed mystery and secrecy as much as old Cunneda.”

  “Do you think the mainland rebels have used it much?”

  “If they haven’t, I’ll kick Martin’s tail.”

  Morgan wondered how many times the panel had opened in the dead of the night and the Oberkriegenfahrer’s office had yielded its secrets to the agents of the resistance. As they walked down the century-old passageway, their boots sent soft echoes ahead and behind them. The steps thus multiplied became, for Morgan, the marching of a ghost legion come to free Caerwent from the Mercian stranglehold. Still, the Celts would need more than ghosts and reckless bravado to free themselves.

 
The freshness of the air made Morgan suspect that the tunnel had been very recently used. If Thorkell’s men had discovered the moving panel, Mercian soldiers might have been the ones doing the spying, Mercian soldiers might be observing the freedom fighters, might be waiting around the next twist of the passageway with crossbows at the ready. Morgan unslung Greenfeld’s M-16 and held it by the pistol grip, safety off. Connach watched him without comment but kept his pistol holstered.

  The floor inclined abruptly and then leveled off and ended at a door from which all handles had been removed. Morgan did not like that at all. Behind them lay the enemy headquarters guarded by the cooling corpse of the Mercian officer. To the front was a door without handles.

  Connach, however, did not appear to be worried. As Morgan watched, he moved decisively to the left of the door and rotated a knob set chest-high in the otherwise bare surface of the wall. He shrugged out of his pack and sank to a squatting position against the cool stones.

  “Now we wait,” he said to Morgan. “You might as well get comfortable, Kerry, because this could take some time.” He closed his eyes and dropped into a doze, unconcerned.

  Morgan watched him for several minutes and tried to stifle his own apprehensions. Finally, he leaned Greenfeld’s rifle against the wall and sat down next to Connach. He did not, however, close his eyes, and the M-16 could be reached in an instant.

  There was a soft sound of cloth against a stone and a long, expressive sigh as someone chose to share the corridor wall next to him. Morgan looked over at the acolyte. His young face was strained about the mouth, and his nostrils were pinched. The youth stared long at his hands, and Morgan saw that they were stained with blood.

  “You have been with the slain Mercian officer?” The slayer asked, feeling guilty.

  “Yes,” came the even softer reply. “I recited the prayer for the dead over him.”