The Celtic Mirror

by Louis Phillippi

  “Let go of my goddamned harness, Kerry!” Greenfeld shouted.

  Morgan loosened his grip and watched Greenfeld abruptly straighten up and stagger back a pace. He was dressed for combat and was weighted down by his gear, and he had to fight for his footing.

  “Connach sent me in here because he was afraid you’d go for him,” Greenfeld groused. “Glad you weren’t mad at me, ‘cause my Blue Cross has expired. If I’d known you’d go for me like that, I would have just shot you and told Connach that you wouldn’t wake-up.” He tugged at his web gear and slung his rifle.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” Morgan answered, wincing as he sat upright. His head ached where Connach had hit him. “I was dreaming and I thought you were Glivas.”

  Greenfeld sniffed. “Get your gear together. We’re moving out right away.”

  Morgan saw that he had already been dressed in his black tunic and pants and needed only to pull on his harness and weapons belt. “Who did this?” He asked. “You?”

  “Hell no. Connach did that himself before he rolled you onto your bedding. No way I’d try that, my jumpy friend.”

  Morgan fastened his web belt and opened the flap on his military holster. He extracted the pistol, checking its load. Satisfied, he slid the weapon back and inspected each item he was supposed to carry, and those few he was not supposed to have. The plastique and its detonator had not been disturbed.

  He was puzzled. “Why now?”

  “Because you were right. Since that bastard Glivas betrayed the Lady Brigid, Thorkell has to know everything about the capture of Kettelmann’s boat being the signal for a general uprising. At least that stands to reason if Glivas told him everything that he had been privileged to know.”

  “If he’s been sharing Cunneda’s bed,” Morgan said, “then there’s damned little that he doesn’t know.”

  Greenfeld, looking like a lumpy goblin in that eerie light checked Morgan’s fastenings. “Connach figured that everything has been compromised. That’s why he decided to reverse the order of things. We go for the Governor-General tonight, call for the rebellion as soon as we take him, then we go for the boat in the confusion.”

  Morgan felt for the substantial lump at the back of his head. His scalp was tender and his hair matted with dried blood. “Connach can go after Thorkell if he wants,” he said evenly, “but I’m looking for Brigid.” He touched Chulainn’s sword as he spoke. The hilt was as cold as he felt at that moment, knowing that neither Connach nor any other man could stop him from searching for her.

  Greenfeld was noncommittal. “Take it up with Connach when you see him.” He shifted his M-16. “Come on.”

  Morgan followed, occasionally fingering his sore scalp, his pistol, and the lump of explosive in his thigh pocket. “How long till dawn, David?”

  “Two hours.” Greenfeld’s voice held the faint suggestion of a tremor. Fear? Morgan wondered, or impatience for the action to start? Greenfeld had never shown fear before in Morgan’s presence, so Morgan opted for impatience as he followed him through the passageway.

  “How’s the arm?” He asked, trying to dispel his own internal apprehensions with a commander’s checklist. Greenfeld would be carrying all his own gear when the attack came. Gun bearers had gone out with Gunga Din.

  Greenfeld grunted. “The damned thing’s okay as long as I don’t push it too far.”

  Morgan grimaced. Both he and Greenfeld knew full well that that push too far would be required, and soon. With luck the arm might hold up. Might. Greenfeld’s mesh cast had been removed only two days before. Nero Germanicus had then administered a drug that he claimed had stimulated an accelerated healing of the bone tissue, but Greenfeld held the arm stiffly as he led the way.

  Despite the injured arm, Greenfeld carried himself with the grace of a professional fighting man. Since arriving in Caerwent, he had undergone a dramatic transformation. Always tending a little to fat, in recent weeks, Greenfeld had grown lean and hard, his scholarly manner decisive, more alive. You never know, thought Morgan, contemplating Greenfeld’s back, some people become gibbering idiots under pressure; others come to life and take huge pieces of it. Greenfeld looked as if he was ready to take some larger-than-life chunks.

  Morgan was ready to take some chunks of his own, all of them out of Connach if the prince again thwarted his attempt to search for Brigid.

  Connach and Cunneda both stood in the tunnel entrance, watching Greenfeld and Morgan as they entered the study where Cunneda preferred to hold his briefings. A stony stare was the only acknowledgement given by Cunneda, but Morgan was past caring about the homosexual Celt. He turned, instead, to Connach and tried to fake a smile. It felt false on his face and he was sure that it gave Connach little comfort.

  “Ian, I demand the right to….”

  “Yes, I know,” Connach answered wearily. “You demand the right to look for Brigid. Well, you’ve got it.”

  “Do you mean that?” Morgan was stunned.

  Connach nodded. “I’d rather know where you were anyway,” he said slowly. “I just hope to Belenus that you find her alive.” I also hope you know why I could not let you start looking for earlier and why I cannot search for her myself right now.”

  “I understand,” he said after a thoughtful pause. “But I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to like it, Kerry. Brigid’s capture and Glivas’s apparent defection have screwed up our chances to catch the Viks off guard, and our attack on Thorkell’s headquarters is the best shot we’ve got left.” Connach’s eyes glittered with hard humor, and he stepped forward and spoke to Morgan in English. “After a little theatrical peace that I’ve got to give,” he said, “you meet with Martin.”

  The hair rose on the back of Morgan’s neck. “That stupid fairy is about the most worthless....”

  “That stupid fairy can tell you where he thinks Thorkell has set up his torture chamber so you don’t have to run around asking directions like a fucking tourist!”

  Morgan flushed. “Sorry.” He clinched his left hand into a fist, feeling the ring. “Ian, let me have her pendant,” he said earnestly. “She may need the stone to give her strength when I find her.”

  Connach took the pendant out of a breast pocket and dropped it into Morgan’s opened palm. The chain had been repaired.

  “So you believe in our ‘hocus-pocus’ now?” Connach softened his expression so that his eyes looked a little less like ball bearings.

  “I don’t know what I believe in anymore, but she believes,” he said honestly. “That’s the important thing.”

  Connach merely grunted, then he laughed. “You and Castillo love to deny the evidence handed to you by the gods, don’t you? But I think you might be made a believer yet. Brigid can make you believe.” He turned as if to leave, then he stopped and pivoted to face Morgan. “Find her,” he said. “Bring her back, and I will support your claim as a virs nobilis to wed her.”

  Morgan raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Even against Martin Cunneda’s previous claims?”

  Connach’s made a wolf-like snarl. “Especially against that claim, now.”

  Morgan looked over at the Dumnonian aristocrat. Cunneda was earnestly conferring with his sub chiefs. In his black rig, carrying a slung rifle and the full harness, he fit the role he was playing.

  “What if he contests?” Morgan wondered how much steel Cunneda actually possessed, how far he might push to preserve his carefully cultivated facade.

  “Then,” Connach answered casually, “The two of you must fight to the death. It is our way.”

  It may be your way, Morgan thought, but it is not Brigid’s way. She is sick of all this killing, the love of killing. He would kill, if needed to rescue her, but he could never kill to win her. There could be no winning in that victory.

  Connach had evidently read his thoughts. “There is time to brood over that eventuality. First you must bring her from Thorkell’s dungeons. Now go and stand with the other officers while I give my best Churchillian vi
ctory oration.”

  Morgan nodded and took his place with the other officers and optios who would take leading roles in the storming of Thorkell’s stronghold.

  Connach began immediately, giving Morgan no time to reflect further on the impossibility of the task before him.

  “Now that all leaders are present, we will begin this final briefing before we go to meet the enemy face-on.” He checked his Shadow World watch with drama. “Clan Connach will depart the tunnel that leads into the old palace in exactly 50 segmenti, ‘Voodoo Time,’ and will seize, search, and secure the Governor-General’s headquarters building, including the officers’ quarters.”

  Connach maintained a compelling eye contact with his subordinates and emanated an aura of strength and fearlessness that had Morgan impressed despite his need to throttle the dungeon location from Cunneda and begin his search for Brigid. Most of the men around him were watching Connach with visible awe. The youngest warriors were the most affected. Morgan remembered the feeling well.

  Connach acted the kindly-but-stern leader/father-figure that would effectively exhort his warriors to be strong and to prevail over the godless enemy. In an almost hypnotic response, the young men who would be later ground into pieces by the great, bloody mill of war, would nod and smile, full of confidence in their own immortality and in their Prefect’s infallible judgment. Power would be taken from Connach as their armor and inspiration, where otherwise there would be nothing but fear and vulnerability.

  Morgan sighed, shrugged his shoulders and tried to slough off some of his cynicism. He, too, could use a little armor.

  Connach’s voice rang strongly in the paneled room. “No Vik officers are to be taken prisoner. Is that understood? We must cut off the snake’s head, not just wound it! The High Chief Cunneda and I will locate and destroy the Governor-General himself.”

  That last statement startled Morgan, but the mesmerized warriors murmured assent and understanding of their commander’s orders. Thy will be done.

  “Clan Connach will retain control of the Vik headquarters as soon as it is secured. Clan Cunneda will then take the armory and enlisted barracks, holding the grounds. This is to be accomplished before five hours. All other clans will move from here to their staging areas and wait for the detonations that will signal the beginning of the general uprising. Should the signal not come by five hours, commanders are authorized to issue independent orders at that time.”

  If those detonations did not come by five hours, the Clans Connach and Cunneda, Morgan included, would most likely have filled Cernunos’ Cauldron with their own blood.

  Connach raised both his arms and his voice for emphasis. “Do not wait for the signal after five hours! Attack! While you hurt the enemy from the front, the people of Dumnonia will be stabbing him from all sides.”

  Connach’s last words were still echoing in the room when the young priest, dressed like the other soldiers but unarmed, stepped forward and raised his own arms in supplication.

  “May Belenus and Taranis help us to smite the enemy and to drive him from this land. May we prove worthy of the victory that our gods will surely grant to us. Victory!”

  “Victory!” Echoed the warriors, and Morgan shouted as loudly as the rest.

  Then the brief hush that followed was exchanged for the sounds of battle preparation. Leather creaked as swords were eased in and out of their scabbards. Soldiers examined their weapons for the hundredth time. Their eagerness showed Morgan that they had never faced a real enemy before.

  The test would come, he knew, too soon for warriors who had just completed a hasty basic training. The practical experience of war would gain more candidates among them for the Cauldron than their youthful optimism would admit.

  He had no time to reflect on the state of his comrades’ meager preparation. At oh three fifty-five hours, Connach cut the tunnel lights, swallowing the fighters in a darkness, complete except for the muted glimmer of a single, masked glow light. The breathing of the freedom fighters sighed like giant bellows, and the acrid taint of body odor spiced the pregnant atmosphere. Morgan drew a breath of the pungent air and released it slowly.

  Don’t think he reminded himself. Be a machine from this moment on. Very unmachinelike thoughts of Brigid and horrifying visions of her captivity in Thorkell’s torture chambers twisted his thoughts and sped his heart rate.

  Brigid, he pleaded silently, clenching the ring. The stone felt cold and somehow vacant, and he succumbed for moment to self-pity and a despair that he would not find her...or that he would. Churning inside, he turned the stone inward and warmed it in his fist. Brigid, he urged, be alive for me.

  He closed his eyes tightly and tried to call up her face. An amorphous mist seemed to arise before his blind eyes. It was a product of his worry and concern he told himself. Yet it seemed to be taking on a definite shape when Connach’s soft whistle dispersed the apparition back into the far corners of Morgan’s troubled soul.

  He opened his eyes and pressed the illuminating stud on his watch. Four hours exactly!

  At that moment, Connach eased the wall panel inward and stood framed in a pale rectangle of lighter darkness, appearing as wraithlike as the vaporous presence that had touched Morgan only moments before.

  As Morgan watched, Connach silently entered the deserted office, located the dark lump that was the farspeaker unit and severed its cable. Morgan eased through after him. The shadowy shapes of the other members of the first-strike force loomed behind him like the ghosts of vanished Celtic warriors. At that moment he acutely felt the presence of the five hundred men and women of the clan forces who would walk to battle behind him. Connach had only to open the outer door, and like an insecticide from an unstopped bottle, the soldiers loyal to the Houses Connach and Cunneda would pour into the hidden chambers of the building, killing the roaches that infested it.

  Connach then pulled the cork, and Morgan poured himself eagerly into the hall.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Thorkell awoke in the predawn darkness with a roaring pain in his skull that filled every space behind his closed lids with searing red and white flashes. It left room for little else but a brute awareness of an agony that could not be ordered away. For the second time in his life the instrument of Mercian “foreign policy implementation” was genuinely frightened. The thing that had come to dwell inside his head now threatened to escape, and he was dimly aware that such an escape would spell an end beyond recall.

  The intolerable pain had been occurring with greater frequency following his terrifying encounter with the Scatha assassin. The intensity seemed to increase with each attack, yet he could imagine no greater intensity possible than the lightning bolt that shattered his brain at that moment. He raised trembling hands to his head. It was like touching proud flesh.

  He bit off a scream and brought his hands away. They were quite wet. His forehead and scalp were clammy with cold perspiration, and icy droplets crawled down his distorted face.

  He opened his eyes to relieve the pressure and immediately shrank back against his pillows, as a shadow among other shadows in his sleeping chamber seemed to move.

  “Odinn!” He cried silently inside the corridors of his brain, “Art thou the shadow of my own death, come to fetch me?”

  He shuddered in fear which increased his pain by several degrees. He knew that the indistinct shapes and vague lumps would soon become articles of furniture in the light that was even then beginning outside, yet until that light came to flood the chamber, they remained inky machines of torture, demonic figures, threatening inhabitants of the underworld. His nakedness, his agony, and his fear diminished him in size; and he was afraid to cross the dark floor.

  He took a gasping breath. A sound like a rope being drawn through a pile of dried leaves made his heart quicken. Red lightning struck with renewed violence behind his eyes, making his brain too large for his skull. He groaned aloud, unable to contain his agony. He craved a strong draught to contain his agony. He desperatel
y needed something to dull the pain, but the floor still held terrors for him that were not mere darkness-shrouded stools and tripods; they were the malevolent spirits of dead men who reached out their bony fingers for him. He cried aloud once again and covered his throbbing temples with his hands and tried to squeeze both pain and fear into a single, bright ball that became an unbearable focus.

  Then the warm body beside him stirred, perhaps in a dream, and some of the fear, but none of the pain, dissolved. Like a drowning man, Thorkell clutched for support, reaching his hands mindlessly under the covers to caress firm buttocks and thighs. A knot untied. He reached over a smooth wall of thigh and moved without thought to the triangle of tangled hair between his companion’s legs and touched half in desperation, half with rekindled lust. He felt his erection growing, demanding, and commanding, until it vied in power with the thing inside his head.

  The other made a guttural sound, still not awake, and turned over.

  Thorkell made an answering sound, not unlike that of a wounded animal and turned his own body, intending to supplement his hands with his lips and mouth. He struggled to replace his terror and pain with pleasure, all the while knowing that it would no longer work as it had in the past.

  As he had sensed that they would, the ax-strokes that were turning his brain into pulp increased as his erection grew harder. He pulled his head from his partner’s loins and ground his teeth together, attempting to stifle the scream that threatened. He was unsuccessful.

  “For the love of Odinn...wake up!” It was the cry of a damned soul.

  The other sat bolt upright; his paleface a light blur in the diffused light of the false dawn that was beginning to penetrate into the murky room. He appeared disoriented, but he turned when Thorkell’s practiced hand closed around his penis. Its hot softness increased both Thorkell’s desire and the rage inside his tormented skull.