The Return of Fursey

by Mervyn Wall

  “I feel as if countless men were hitting me on the head with hammers,” replied Fursey dolefully. “They strike with extraordinary regularity, and never miss a stroke. In addition, I feel as if there was a forest growing on my tongue.”

  “Go out and dip your head in the stream, while I snatch a few hours’ slumber. We have now an excellent and varied stock of magical armament at our disposal. When you come back, we’ll talk about that love philtre which you have set your heart on. You’ve been a good boy, and it’s only fitting that I should reward you.”

  Fursey wandered out into the lazy morning sunshine. Still only half awake, he made no attempt to assemble his scattered wits. “Drink is a curse,” he kept telling himself as he stumped with loosened knee-joints through the rocks and heather to where a small stream fell like a sheet of shivering glass into the excited pool below. He paused uncertainly on the brink; then he lay on his stomach and immersed his head in the pool. Oh, the pleasure of cold water on heated, throbbing temples! He scooped a handful of water on to the back of his neck, and raising himself slightly, let it run down the length of his spine. He shivered deliciously and immersed his head again. Then he lay for a long time on his stomach unwilling to move. It seemed to him that nothing was so excellent as the neighbourhood of water. He listened delightedly to the never-ceasing tinnient roar of the cascade and marvelled at the beauty of the silver drops which oozed from the peaty bank and fell to be lost in the mad, scintillant rush of waters below. “If only man were absent,” he said to himself, “how beautiful the world would be!” When he had drunk his fill, he rolled over on his back letting the points of the rushes tickle and prick his ears and cheeks. Slowly his wayward wits came home to roost.

  He had been painfully impressed on the preceding evening by the unexpected dissolution of Festus Wisenuts. It had been perturbing to see a well set-up, haughty gentleman, apparently the master of his fate, suddenly taking his departure without leaving as much as a souvenir; and as Fursey had crept on his hands and knees into bed, he had drunkenly resolved to abandon the profession of witchcraft before something equally deplorable happened to himself. But now, lying beside the stream in the timid morning sunlight, with an early bird on a nearby bush warbling for his delight, he was inclined to take a less pessimistic view of his situation. For one thing, he had been strangely pleased by Cuthbert’s reference to him as ‘a boy.’ Although it had never occurred to Fursey to worry about the shame of middle-age, there is no man of forty but is gratified at being reminded that he is still only a young fellow. Then, Cuthbert had practically promised to compound a love philtre for him at last. This had been tidings most grateful to his ear. He closed his eyes and smiled at the sky, his thoughts straying away to fasten on the image which was so frequently in the forefront of his mind, an image, not of the Maeve who stood in front of the fire stirring something, or looking worried because she could not lay her hand on the right pot at the right time, but of a Maeve who turned on him a gaze that was sweet, kind and understanding, a woman who spoke but little (and then only when spoken to), but who stood slender and graceful, her face demurely aglow with love for her lord and master.

  The bird, trilling on the bush, nearly burst himself in a final bravura crescendo, and deciding that he had had enough of it, fluttered off in search of worms. Fursey rolled over, gathered himself together, and getting to his feet, sauntered off among the rocks and the gorse, whistling blithely to himself. He did not return to the cave until it was early afternoon.

  “So you’ve untethered the cow,” remarked Cuthbert. “About an hour ago she had her head around the corner looking in at me.”

  “Yes,” replied Fursey, “I thought that on such a nice morning she might care to take a walk. I don’t imagine that there’s any danger of her getting herself lost: she’ll stay in the neighbourhood of the food supply.”

  The master sorcerer was busy at the back of the cave packing away the last of his new acquisitions.

  “Sit down, Fursey,” he said, “and give your best attention to what I have to say.”

  Fursey seated himself on a lump of rock and fixed his eyes expectantly on the pallid countenance of his master. Cuthbert paced for a few moments back and forward, his hands clasped behind his back and the black lock of hair nodding on his forehead. He paused at last and faced his apprentice.

  “Are you still desirous of magically influencing this woman so that she will love you?”

  Fursey nodded vigorously.

  “Very well. I now possess the ingredients for the composition of a most powerful philtre. The process is very concealed and recondite, and the manufacture of the potion will take three days. It is necessary that a man for whom a love philtre is made, should spend three days fasting, fed only on an occasional hair from the magician’s head. You must partake of no food other than one of my hairs, which I shall deliver to you on a plate of unblemished whiteness three times a day, at sunrise, at midday and at sunset. Are you prepared to do as I say and abstain from solid food?”

  Fursey nodded again, but with less enthusiasm.

  “There are vulgar methods of inducing love in a woman,” continued Cuthbert, “such as the placing under her pillow of a few flocks of wool soaked in bat’s blood, but such a method would scarcely be appropriate to the case.”

  “It would not,” said Fursey decidedly. “If Magnus saw me approaching her pillow, he’d have my life.”

  “Exactly,” replied the master sorcerer, “therefore a love philtre is best. I shall proceed at once to the manufacture of a bucketful; and when the process is complete, we shall bottle the mixture. You may take a bottle with you, and you must find some means of introducing the contents into her food. All that will then be necessary, is that you should be the first person on whom her eyes alight, after she has consumed the potion. I shall keep the remaining bottles myself for disposal at a fair price to possible customers harrowed by the pangs of unrequited love.”

  Fursey arose very satisfied, while Cuthbert placed a bucket in the corner and got immediately to work. During the three days which followed, Fursey lay outside in the open air or on his bed striving not to let his mind dwell on his emptiness. Three times a day Cuthbert plucked a hair from his head in a businesslike manner and laid it on a plate, which he presented to his apprentice. Fursey experienced considerable difficulty in swallowing the hair until he hit on the expedient of washing it down with a flagon of mead. Meanwhile, the cave was murmurous with soft-spoken incantations and perfumed with healthful herbs and incense. The sorcerer had begun by placing, by way of sympathetic magic, two twisted straws at the bottom of the bucket. To these he added an apple shot through and through with magic, and the hearts of two pigeons. He sat by the bucket for hours on end stirring the mixture while he invoked Venus and other beings of loose reputation. Each morning a fresh confection of powders was added, and the resultant paste subjected to heat and reinforced by another atmosphere. On the third afternoon Cuthbert announced that the philtre was ready, and the joyful Fursey sat down to a gargantuan meal while Cuthbert stood alongside in friendly chat.

  “We shall leave it to settle for a few days,” he said, “and then we shall proceed to bottle it. I advise you to give it to the lady in small doses. It is an exceptionally potent philtre, and it seems to me that your state of love is such that you are likely to succumb to anything in the nature of an impassioned embrace.”

  “Could we not bottle it now?” asked Fursey looking longingly at the bucket.

  “No,” replied Cuthbert shortly. “It must remain exposed to the airs for a few days so that it may acquire a certain consistency. As it is at present, it’s too watery. Its only effect would be to make the lady giggly and flirtatious. When we come back from the Sabbath it will be almost ready for use.”

  “The Sabbath!” exclaimed Fursey in sudden dismay.

  “Yes,” replied his master sternly. “To-morrow is May Eve. Surely you haven’t forgotten the Witches’ Sabbath at which you are to be initiated as a ful
ly-fledged sorcerer.”

  Fursey had indeed forgotten about the Sabbath, his mind in the previous few days had been so occupied with thoughts of love. He knew nothing of what happened at a Sabbath: he only knew that it was an orgy of wickedness at which no honest man would care to find himself. When he remembered that he was no longer an honest man, but one sworn to wickedness, he groaned aloud.

  “Where is it to be held?” he asked.

  “On the enchanted mountain of Slieve Daeane in the territory of Sligo.”

  “Is that far from here?”

  “About a hundred miles from here, in the north.”

  “And how do we get there, on horseback?”

  “No,” snapped Cuthbert, “we fly. Here is a box of magical ointment. You will find a broomstick at the back of the cave. You’d better start anointing it.”

  There was considerable bustle on the hillside the following morning as the wizards made their preparations. Some sat in the sun outside their caves anointing besoms and staves, while others indulged in short trial flights to and fro. Every now and then some elderly sorcerer who was stiff in the joints and out of practice, had to be extricated from a tree. Familiars had been summoned to assist in the preparations, and they ran back and forward between the rocks shouting encouragement and directing their masters to suitable landing grounds. They were a motley crew, foals, toads, rats and giant fowl; and there was one horse-faced creature whom Fursey didn’t fancy at all. Cuthbert’s own familiar, a monstrous cat called Tibbikins, sidled in and out of the cave leering obscenely at Fursey as he sat in the entrance putting an extra thick coating of ointment on the flimsy broom allotted to him, which seemed to him totally inadequate to bear his weight. The younger wizards gambolled and capered through the air at great speed, essaying every type of dangerous trick, looping the loop, victory rolls and even flying upside down. One fell off in mid-air, but his cloak spread wide as he fell, and he made a successful parachute landing. Fursey, sitting outside the cave, viewed the whole proceedings with misgiving.

  The wizards did not begin to take off until dusk. The date of the great quarterly assemblies of witches, Candlemas, May Day, Lammas and Hallowtide, were widely known; and at these times it was usual for the sturdier members of the clergy to prowl about the roads armed with slings and with their pockets full of stones. It was accounted a considerable feat to bring down a flying wizard; and many a cleric, otherwise undistinguished, owed his advancement to his good marksmanship. The wilier wizards, therefore, never began their airy journey until nightfall, and they sought to attain altitude as soon as possible. Cuthbert stood outside the cave watching admiringly as his fellows one after another took off and shot into the air.

  “Hurry up,” he said impatiently as the wretched Fursey emerged trailing his broom behind him.

  “Supposing I fall off?” said Fursey miserably.

  “If you fall off, it’ll serve you right,” snapped Cuthbert. “Throw your leg across and come on.”

  “The handle is very slippery,” complained Fursey, “and it’s not at all broad enough to support my person.”

  “I’ll leave you behind,” hissed Cuthbert, “unless you start at once. It’s only a matter of balance. You know what to do. You have only to wish the broom to take you to Slieve Daeane.”

  Fursey threw his leg tremblingly across the broomstick. As he did so, Cuthbert left the earth and shot into the sky. Fursey closed his eyes, mentally enunciated the direction, and was immediately precipitated into the aether. Fursey had made one long flight before, when he had carried off the comely Maeve to Britain, but night flying was quite new to him. It was by no means dark for there was an expansive moon overhead, and there was little danger of collision with other sorcerers as there was plenty of room in the sky. He could see them to left and right of him at vary­ing altitudes, their black cloaks flapping in the breeze and their faces intent as they leaned over their broomhandles. Not all rode on broomsticks; some favoured stout polished staves, and there were a couple of warlocks of distinguished appearance on buck goats. The riding of goats was accounted a difficult art, because when travelling at high speed one’s face was subjected to the constant whipping of their beards, with consequent reduction of visibility and increased danger of accident. Moreover, while they provided a more comfortable seat than a broom­handle, they were far less manoeuvrable in the air, and being of an obstinate and wanton disposition, they were quite capable, if annoyed, of turning their heads and trying to unseat their masters with their horns.

  Fursey had no time to watch the other members of the black armada, all his thoughts being devoted to the importance of not falling off. But gradually he acquired confidence. He had some moments’ anxiety when a wild goose joined him and flew alongside, turning her head from time to time to look at him and emit a squawk as if challenging him to race her. He was relieved when she fell behind, as he had feared that she might either collide with him or attempt to alight on his broom and so upset his balance. He increased his speed and soon caught up with Cuthbert, who was flying in a most peculiar fashion leaning over sideways so as not to miss the scenery below.

  “A lovely night,” shouted the master sorcerer above the rushing of the wind. “Do you see the River Shannon unwinding like a silver ribbon?”

  Fursey glanced down at the countryside far below. Dimly he discerned field, forest and lake beneath a blue moonlight web.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” shouted Cuthbert.

  “Wonderful,” gasped Fursey, “I wish I was down there.”

  “We must strive to gain altitude,” cried Cuthbert. “We have soon to hop our first line of mountains.”

  He rose steeply, and the terrified Fursey saw him disappearing into the blue. He followed suit wondering would he ever feel the kindly earth beneath his feet again. For three long hours they travelled until Fursey became so stiff with the cold that even his brain became benumbed. Mountain chain and lake uncurled themselves below. Again and again Cuthbert was lost in the darkness ahead when the moon gathered the straying clouds over her face. Fursey ceased to care whether Cuthbert was in sight or not. He knew that the broomstick, throbbing like a live thing between his knees, would bring him inevitably to his destination. He clung tightly with his knees and with his benumbed hands, and ceased to think. The intense cold induced drowsiness, and he must have fallen asleep; for he was startled suddenly by a hubbub of screams and shouts. When he opened his eyes he found that he was mounting a hillside at a height of about ten feet from the ground while four lank shepherds and a flock of sheep fled hell-for-leather before him. The sheep scattered, and the shepherds precipitated themselves over hedges and into bog-holes. Fursey reared the handle of the broom sharply and rose again into the sky.

  “That was a near one,” he muttered to himself. “I very nearly crashed.”

  He remained awake after that and soon was flying across the stone-studded pass between the Ox and Curlew Mountains. In the half-light he discerned ahead a great lake littered with wooded islands. The broomstick banked sharply and began to circle slowly as if seeking a landing place. Fursey peered down and saw below him a sprawling mountain of naked rock. It crept back from the lakeside into the darkness, a tumbled mass of low, rounded heights, glittering grey-blue as the bare schist caught the straggling moonlight. If ever a mountain looked enchanted, this one did. Fursey’s heart began to hammer as he beheld the great, hungry clefts, bespattered with patches of tawny grass, which ran hither and thither into the interior. As the broom circled lower and lower his eye caught the flash of water, and beside the water a wide circle of flaming torches. It was the landing ground. His broomstick drifted gracefully down into the shadow of the bare cliffs, and he found himself on the earth once more.

  “Broomsticks to be parked by the lakeside on the left,” shouted a tall man in black.

  Fursey’s legs were so stiff that he could scarcely stand, but he succeeded in staggering painfully in the direction indicated, and left his broom against a great crag by the water
’s edge. He gazed fearfully over the small, black lake. It was a forlorn and isolated spot. The tarn lay still and dead. There was none of the usual small movement of wind or water amongst the reeds or grasses at the edge. Fursey turned a white, frightened face and looked up at the bare, blue-grey cliff.

  “This way,” cried the man in black. “Familiars to be summoned, and stabled under the blasted oak fifty paces to the right.”

  Fursey moved as in a nightmare. The circle of torches shed little light where he now stood, but he was vaguely aware of shadowy figures moving and tumbling in the background beyond the fatal oaktree. Slowly he wound his way between the rocks. The word ‘familiar’ was still vibrating in his mind, and he suddenly realised that he would have to summon Albert. The thought afforded him a moment’s relief from his fright. It would be good to see someone he knew, even if it was only Albert. He stopped and whispered the name. The bear’s paws appeared resting on a boulder. They were followed slowly by the rusty hair of Albert’s person until finally the jaws and smoky red eyes of the familiar came into view.

  “Hullo,” said Albert.

  Fursey gazed at his familiar with amazement. He had expected to see a shadowy figure more like a wisp of smoke than a lusty elemental spirit, but here was a broad, plump Albert with an impertinent smile upon his snout. There was no evidence whatever of many months’ starvation.

  “You’ve been up to something,” said Fursey indignantly.

  Albert did not reply, but looked at his master roguishly.

  “I know what you’ve been doing,” said Fursey with a sudden flash of inspiration. “You’ve been knocking round with vampires. That’s what you’ve been at.”