The Celtic Mirror

by Louis Phillippi

  He turned to see what had caught her attention. An old woman and a boy about six-years old had stopped behind Morgan and were raptly studying them both. Across the street, another crone leaned on her windowsill with both elbows.

  Christ!” Morgan said in exasperation. “We’ve just become the Saturday matinee. In another segmentum we’d have drawn a crowd. I don’t think that would be too healthy.” He looked about quickly. People were beginning to converge on the corner. “Entertainment starved, I guess,” he said to no one. He pulled Brigid aside.

  “We’ve got to get out of here before the damned occupation cops arrive. Where can we go?”

  “Where lovers go to be alone,” she said. “The park.”

  He took her hand. Let’s go then,” he said hoarsely, hopefully. He had never wanted her more than he did that moment. He released her hand and slipped an arm around her waist.

  “No,” she said, removing his arm. “We’re going there to talk and to be undisturbed. No other reason.”

  He wanted to be angry with her, but he realized that she was right. Hurt yet trying hard to understand her position, he allowed himself to be led through Caerwent’s back streets and alleyways. She let him hold her hand to maintain the illusion that they were just another pair of lovers looking for privacy, but her fingers were stiff and unresponsive in his.

  For blocks, they both continued to feign a lighthearted appearance, hiding their own discomforts beneath the covering of inconsequential small talk, yet not really succeeding. A desperate plan began to form unbidden in Morgan’s mind, and he purchased a clay bottle of wine from a local shop, some bread and cheese from another in the hope that a normal set of props might re-ignite the feelings that Brigid had once felt for him. He could feel the heat from her body as she rode the shaky slidewalk that connected with the park, and it burned him. He could imagine her running her fingers up and down his back as she had done in Verulamium. He was aroused long before the soft park grasses replaced the slidewalk beneath the soles of his boots.

  “Brigid,” he said huskily, “forget Cunneda. We can leave overland and find a new place to begin again. Ian once charged me to protect you against the Viks. Let that be now.”

  He knew the answer she would give him before she parted her lips. She was constrained by honor to do the thing she thought to be best for her people. He should have been similarly constrained to serve as she did, without hesitation, since he had taken an oath to accept the Connach cause as his cause. Still, he was not convinced that binding Brigid to a Dumnonian homosexual and his homicidal lover would further Connach’s cause any more.

  “Kerry, I cannot.” She said, as he had expected.

  “You’re right,” he answered contritely and pretended to concentrate upon the overgrown park, the clustered flocks of children playing games with leather balls near the water’s edge. The wig made his scalp itch fiercely. The distractions helped, but he was all too aware of her musky female smell and her warm proximity. He took another look at her copper beauty and dragged the desperate plan he had formulated out of the plotting stage.

  He slipped Aiofe’s ring from his finger and held it tightly in his clenched fist as if pressure alone would enable him to contact the elusive spirit.

  Aiofe,” he prayed silently. “Help me save your daughter from herself!” He heard no answering voice in his head, no reassurance that he was in the right. He thought he felt the ring grow warmer and that it vibrated a kind of response. What he did know however was that if he could get Brigid to break her troth to Cunneda by making love to him then he might have a chance to save her from the arrogant bastard. He did not care if he accomplished it through hypnotic suggestion, magic, or rape. Brigid needed to reject the course upon which she was set.

  He opened his hand. “Brigid.”

  She looked at him then at the ring in his hand. Her eyes widened. “What are you doing with the ring?”

  He smiled at her. “Cheating,” he said. “Once you held the Winged Pendant in your hand to win me. Now it is my turn.”

  He picked the ring from his palm with two fingers and held it at eye level to her. She followed the movement of the ring with a concentration that pleased Morgan. When he was certain that the ring was completely the focus of her attention, he slowly and deliberately moved the ring finger of his left hand so that the tip just touched the circle of metal.

  She gasped as if he had touched her. Whatever was working was indeed working.

  “As you held the Pendant in your hand and invoked Aiofe’s aid, I hold this ring now and call upon your Winged Goddess to make you my lover once more.”

  He moved his finger inside the circle of gold and placed his other hand over it.

  “No!” She cried in alarm. “I cannot!”

  He squeezed more firmly with his right hand.

  Brigid cried out once again, but it was no longer a cry of protest.

  As he led her into an overgrown area of the park, he heard a faint rustling sound behind them that might have been wind in the leaves.

  Morgan did not make love to Brigid in the fern grotto where he had taken her. He had wanted to, but each time he touched her, the image of the foul-mouth Suevian intruded itself upon his thoughts, and he simply held her closely. In the end he gave her the ring to hold, and they talked. He had not violated her honor in any way, but she had moved farther from becoming counted as Cunneda’s possession than she would have through manipulated sex.

  “I will find a way to make Martin understand,” she promised him as they parted at the Street Gate. “He is not an evil man.”

  “Just make sure Glivas isn’t around when you try to reason with Cunneda,” Morgan cautioned.

  “Do not worry. I never say anything important when that one is present.” She handed Morgan the ring back. “Wear this again,” she whispered. “Though neither of us needs magic to make love, when the ring rests upon your finger and the pendant hangs around my neck, we’re made one in a manner that no other mortal can understand nor sunder.”

  Morgan replayed her pledge of love for him in his mind as he entered the darkened corridor deep beneath the House Cunneda, with the remembered pressure of Brigid’s lips lying like a ghostly promise upon his own. The absence of light in the passageway did not disturb him. He knew the way to the cubicle assigned to him as well as he had known Le Fay below decks, but when he muttered the automatic light-making prayer to Belenus and nothing happened, he became uneasy. That had happened only once before.

  An ophidian odor triggered his reaction before a cautious breathing registered fully in his brain. In complete possession of his faculties and blinded by nothing but the darkness, he reached into his boot. The dagger literally leaped into his fingers, and Morgan swung the razor-edged blade in an arc where his back had been one scant moment before.

  In mid-swing, his blade met resistance and jumped like a stick run against a picket fence. Wasting no time upon reflection, Morgan checked his motion and thrust hard between the slats of the “fence.”

  Steel rang upon the floor stones and a heavy thud told Morgan that his adversary had fallen.

  “Belenus!” He called loudly, “Make thou me a light!” Astonishingly, the ceiling lights responded to Morgan’s command, and he crouched, blade ready, to finish his attacker. It was not necessary.

  His adversary lay sprawled in death in the middle of the passageway, his blood dirtying Cunneda’s clean floor. Morgan’s dagger had sliced through the assassin’s pectoral muscle and had traced a bloody trail across his rib cage. The final thrust had pierced through to the heart.

  Morgan looked upon the short, powerful body of his would-be assailant. There was no mistaking the massive forearms or the crushing fingers.

  Glivas!

  He toed the arm that curled over the killer’s face, and it slid to the tiles with a nerveless flaccidity.

  “Oh, crap!” Morgan took a step backward.

  The dead eyes of a stranger stared opaquely at him.

  Connach s
eemed to be even more worried than Morgan when he examined the corpse. “It would have been better for us if Morgan had killed Glivas,” he said, looking at Martin Cunneda. “Isn’t that so?”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore!” The Dumnonian cried, spreading his hands out in front of himself as if warding off an evil only he could see. “Glivas has been gone since high sun.”

  “He has been gone more than this one time, I’m afraid,” Connach said acidly and turned to Morgan.

  “My own informants have told me that a Scatha assassin, who bears a very strong resemblance to Glivas, has been seen in audience with Thorkell.”

  Morgan could only point to the cooling body. “I thought that was Glivas until I uncovered his face.”

  Connach grunted. “The harbor worker who reported to us but a week ago has been slain by the Mercians, and Thorkell has placed the harbor unit on full alert.” He looked grimly at Morgan. “Glivas knew about these things,” he said. “Do you believe in coincidence, Kerry?”

  Morgan was blunt. “No.” Then he looked straight into Connach’s eyes. “Glivas knew just about everything. He could have told Thorkell about the Mirror and the troops Reged was sending, the entire resistance movement.”

  “We don’t think so,” Connach said. “I think Glivas was interested primarily in revenge. You, because you had deeply insulted him, and....”

  “Brigid, because she threatens...oh, Christ!” Morgan finished in a stunned voice as the full import of that admission revealed itself to him. Brigid, even with Aiofe’s assistance would not be able to withstand the dark power that filled Glivas.

  “You’d better check to see if Glivas is in his quarters,” Connach said to Cunneda who had a look of despair on his face. “Let’s hope to the gods that we’re wrong about him.”

  “Aye,” Cunneda answered and left hurriedly.

  “Give me your pistol, Ian,” Morgan said, reaching out his hand. “This isn’t the time to play fair.”

  Connach eyed him steadily. The prince unsnapped the flap of his military holster and withdrew his weapon. But instead of handing the pistol to Morgan, he turned to Castillo who was examining the poisoned blade dropped by the assassin.

  “Tony! Give Kerry your pistol!” To Morgan, he said, “She’s my sister. I’m going with you.”

  Morgan was relieved. He checked the automatic’s load. It held a full magazine of man-stoppers, long illegal on his world. “Let’s go!”

  Brigid’s cubicle was empty. Morgan had never been inside, but apparently Connach had. The nobleman quickly surveyed the little room with the familiarity of a frequent visitor.

  “There is no sign that she ever returned here after the two of you returned from your clandestine little walk.” His tone was biting. “Perhaps she simply walked through the Mirror back to Verulamium. Did you convince her to leave?” His eyes focused on Morgan as if he were taking his photograph.

  Morgan’s face grew hot. He gestured abruptly with pistol, making Connach wince. “You know me better than that. She was ready to fight to save Cunneda’s miserable hide. She was ready to die with the rest of her half-trained unit. You know that as well as I do!”

  Connach looked at him as if he had just passed a test. “I know that,” he said at last. “What are the choices here?”

  “Two,” Morgan snapped. “She either made it back here, or she didn’t. That asshole Glivas has gotten her somehow. I know that.” He did. He knew without any doubt that his Brigid had fallen victim to the assassin probably at the same time that he was engaged with Glivas‘s standin.

  “Look for some signs of a struggle,” he urged Connach. “She was heading straight for here, and her route was more direct than mine. It went right through the troop area. If something had happened between the street gate and here, someone would have noticed, Scatha magic or not.”

  Connach looked slowly around the cubicle. It contained only a bedroll and a pack that contained all of Brigid’s clothing. Everything was militarily neat, undisturbed.

  “There is no sign....”Connach said, then he bent down to pick up an object that lay wedged beneath the corner of the bedroll.

  “It happened here,” Connach said, extending his opened hand to Morgan.

  Morgan took the pendant from him. The heavy gold chain was still threaded through its ring, but the end links were distorted and open. The pendant had been torn from around Brigid’s neck!

  He looked from the sign she had left, to the brother who had found it. The adrenaline that pumped through his veins no longer made his limbs tremble. He was at that moment cooler and steadier than he had felt since he had faced death from the orca pod. He placed the barrel of his borrowed pistol against his cheek like a lover might place the hand of his sweetheart against his face. His eyes were mere slits as they met Ian’s.

  “Where would he take her?”

  Connach met his look but without the icy resolve that possessed Morgan.

  “There can only be one place,” he said. “The palace.”

  Morgan nodded. He had anticipated the answer. “Does Thorkell have reason to hate her?” He asked, already tracing the maze of underground passageways to the dead Oberkriegenfahrer’s office in his mind. Connach looked surprised.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Thorkell was a guest here, in the time between the wars.” He looked at Morgan, but it was obvious that he was not seeing the present. “She once laughed at him.” Connach laughed weakly. “It is stranger that I had forgotten the incident than that I have remembered it just now,” he said. “It could be the reason for all the hatred that has been directed toward the Free States in recent years.”

  Morgan knew Connach was reliving the past then and was no longer seeing him or Brigid’s tiny room. Morgan slipped off the safety. It was Thorkell. The palace. He turned to go when Connach’s voice made him turn again.

  “It was in the public baths that it happened. I had known what was happening, but I said nothing...would have said nothing...because so much was at stake then.” He looked at Morgan who did not understand.

  “Do you understand? I knew that Martin and Thorkell loved one another, but I could say nothing. Perhaps I had then hoped that their love for one another could have forged a bond or at least a lasting peace between our very different nations.

  “But Brigid laughed at him.” He shook his head sadly, reliving the consequences of the twelve-year-old’s superior laughter at finding two boys, only slightly older than her, entwined in a public bathhouse.

  “Thorkell hated her from that moment,” he said. “He hated all of us after that.”

  Morgan knew then that his instincts had been correct. “If Thorkell has her, I am going to get her back.”

  “No, Kerry,” Connach replied. “Thorkell may indeed have her, and he may know that we are going to try to capture Kettelmann’s boat, but he may not know that we are going to try to free all of the territory that they have captured from us. We cannot risk it!” He reached out and held Morgan by the shoulder. “She is only one soldier.” His face became stoic. “Even though she is my sister, I will not permit you to jeopardize everything!”

  Morgan reached the doorway in two rapid steps. He felt nothing then but contempt for Connach. “I don’t give a damn for your politics or your strategies.” When he looked at Connach he saw that his old friend was staring at him in disbelief. “Maybe a prince of the House Connach can abandon his sister,” he told Connach. “I can’t.”

  When Connach moved, it was quickly. It caught Morgan completely by surprise.

  The last thing Morgan heard before Connach’s pistol crashed down upon his skull was, “I have to.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Morgan circled warily. There was no mistaking his adversary this time. Glivas, his teeth filed into sharp points, his body covered in blue serpent scales, held a battleaxe in both hands. Morgan’s blood ran from the blade and dropped to the tiles.

  His head was a bloody mess, he knew, where the assassin’s weapon had grazed it
. Glivas had been teasing with the heavy weapon, but Morgan felt as if his head had been split like a round of rotten oak. The raging pain made him nauseous, and when he was forced to shake his head in order to clear the blood from his eyes, he nearly passed out.

  “I’m going to kill you, Morgan,” Glivas hissed. “There is no escape from me this time.” The Celt’s breath held the familiar oily smell that Morgan knew he should be able to identify.

  “You are going to die, foreigner, slowly, in small pieces, but you will surely die.”

  Morgan knew that Glivas spoke the truth. The only weapon Morgan possessed was the flare gun from Le Fay, but the trigger would not depress, no matter how much strength he used. The salt had finally gotten into it and had fused the simple mechanism.

  Glivas grinned hideously and shifted his grip on the ax. “I am going to kill you now.”

  Morgan’s threw his useless gun at Glivas who easily dodged the toss.

  The assassin continued his hypnotic weaving movement for a moment longer then turned it into a fierce lunge for Morgan. The big blade cut through the air with an audible sound, and Morgan jerked back. Overbalanced, he fell, striking his head against the hard tiles. Waves of pain and sickness fought for possession of him, both of them combining to render him completely helpless.

  Glivas laughed. It reminded Morgan of the creaking of leather. The oily smell became stronger as the assassin’s shadow blocked the light from Morgan’s eyes.

  “I’ve come to get you, Morgan!”

  Weaponless and desperate, Morgan reached up and grabbed for Glivas, not caring whether he reached wood, steel, or flesh in his last effort to avert death.

  What he touched was not any of the things he had expected, but he held on and pulled with the strength of a man with nothing left to lose. The assassin fell on him with a cry.

  “Damn it, Morgan!”

  Glivas’s voice was different. Was he snake or chameleon? Morgan opened his eyes.

  David Greenfield’s majestic nose filled Morgan’s blurry vision. Colored with the blue light of a glow light, it looked like a Picasso creation. The eyes and mouth that framed it were quite real and reflected anger.