Hands that were like steel cables and hardly less cold clamped the Gael’s wrist. Hand and pommel were slicked with the sweat of both exertion and instinctive horror; no supreme effort was required to force away the fallen man’s fingers.
Thulsa Doom was rising triumphantly to his feet even as he drew the blade bloodlessly from his abdomen. Raising the sword, he turned to loom over his fallen enemy.
Both Cormac’s feet struck the wizard’s knees with sufficient force to cripple a normal man for life. But Thulsa Doom was neither a normal man nor alive-nor yet dead. He was hurled backward against the cavern wall, and the sword went flying-but the sorcerer did not fall.
“Damn you!” The skullface’s voice was little above a whisper in its rage, and filled with the most baleful hatred. The eyes that seemed to burn in that mask of death followed Samaire’s rush to snatch up the sword.
“And damn you, pigeon-chested wench… ye should be on your knees and babbling like the pretty-faced little girl ye are, not mindful of what you’re about. Next time, carrot-tressed bitch, it will be no mere illusion I work to amuse myself with you-I will whip you till the blood flows like a mountain stream rushing after the rain!”
“Pretty faced little girl is it,” she said, whirling up Cormac’s sword. “Monster!” And she rushed the mocking wizard.
Thulsa Doom vanished and Samaire crashed into the wall of stone and earth.
Chapter Fifteen:
The Wizard’s Challenge
“HO! Cormac old wolf-where have ye been, man?”
Wulfhere’s cry was as that of a parent nervous over a supposedly lost child; relief and happiness were mingled with irritation and a touch of accusation. Others lifted their heads or whirled about to look on the man and woman coming along the beach toward them. They had emerged from the defile leading to the castle, the black-haired Gael and the Leinsterish woman whose hair was a spray of gold and bronze and new brass in the sunlight.
“Working up a terrible hunger and thirst,” Cormac called equably, and looked about.
The ships with their furled sails and banked oars were here, Britonish and Eirish, drawn up close on the beach like allies. Judging from the small quantity of litter left on the sand, the last of the booty was being stored aboard Quester. Helmets and armour were spread on the beach, while men in tunics, some dark with sweat, handed up their loads or reached down from the long boat to accept it. Autumn or no, the sun was bright and warm.
Cormac and Samaire continued to stride toward them, seeming oddly martial with him in his clinking mailcoat and her in her leather armour. They did carry their helmets. Mac Art’s eyes roamed about, bright and intent, taking in the scene and considering, planning, re-acclimating himself to reality and the mundane after… horror.
“Are all here?”
Wulfhere nodded and swept a brawny arm. “Aye. Osbrit works with us. It was that or be bound, and he prefers a bit of labour to bonds. The druid is yon, at the business of talking to your gods.” The Dane smiled. “Odin hears too, surely!”
Cormac glanced in the direction indicated by Wulfhere’s nod. There was nothing dramatic to be seen, no lean tall priest standing atop a promontory with outstretched arms and the wind flapping white robe and flowing beard. Instead, in his robe of dark olive girt with a brown-dyed cord, Bas of Tir Connail stood a little way down the beach, nor was there wind to stir his jetty hair or robe. Gazing out to sea he was, past the murderously rearing offshore rocks that were like vicious teeth ever ready to chew ship and crew. His arms were not a-gesture, or even upraised. He merely stood, gazing seaward. Cormac could not see the druid’s mouth, but assumed his lips were moving.
If prayer and spelling be of value, Cormac thought, we need all of both Bas knows!
He came up to Wulfhere, who stood a little way from the ships, supervising-probably having convinced them a lookout was needed.
“All has been brought away from the castle?”
“This is the last of it. We’ve searched for ye, Cormac, as best we could! Where-”
“Has aught… untoward happened?”
The Dane shook his head, noting from Cormac’s eyes that the question was not so casual as it might have sounded. He’d get his explanation later, and answered rather than repeated his own question. “No.”
“Nothing?”
“No. Should it have done?”
“Much untoward has befallen us since last we saw ye, Wulfhere. Methought the mage had been busy enow with the two of us so that ye’d not been troubled. But-”
“Ye’ve seen him? Him, himself?” “Aye.”
“It’s much we’ve been through,” Samaire said.
Cormac nodded. “It’s to be feared, and talked of.” Cormac’s voice was passing quiet; he spoke for Wulfhere’s ears only. “The sorcerer is still here, and he cannot be slain. Not for the lack of our trying!”
“He-has no face,” Samaire said, not without a bit of shudder in her voice.
“No f-” Wulfhere broke off, staring from one to the other of them.
“A skull,” the Gael told him. “And more… Since yester even, when last I saw ye, it’s several faces I’ve seen him wear. A serpent’s, and Samaire’s, and that of Bas, and… yours, Wulfhere.” Cormac swallowed and reached out to touch the other man’s great knotty arm, as if to assure himself his old friend was indeed yet alive and unscathed.
Wulfhere clamped his jaws and his eyes blazed. He too sought reassurance; his hand rose to touch his fiery beard, then tarried there to scratch within the curling long hairs. “He… this ghoulish raiser of the dead imitates others? He wore my face?”
“And body, and voice,” Cormac told him quietly. “And he fought as you fight.”
“Fought?”
“Aye-” Cormac broke off and almost smiled, eyebrows curving ruefully up. He was covering; he did not care to tell Wulfhere just now that he had… slain the Dane, only last night. “Heard ye that?”
The Dane went all fighting man and looked about. “What?”
“I heard it,” Samaire said. “Cormac’s stomach! Our bellies are angry, Wulfhere, and snarl like gryphons. We are long without food, and have endured much.”
“Ah. But ye must tell me-”
“In a little,” Cormac said. He glanced down the strand, at Bas. “Mayhap it were best to save our chatter yet awhile, till it’s off this misnamed isle we are, and asea. For now, though-an all provisions are on the ships, it’s onto the ships Samaire and I go. Hunger’s upon us Wulfhere, and we thirst.” He slapped the other man’s belly, unarmoured and tautening his tunic of faded red. “You understand that.”
“Aye, but-” Wulfhere broke off. He bobbed his head in a swift nod. “Feed your belly then, gluttonous son of a pig-farmer, an that’s all ye can think of. But it’s no need of armour ye have, in this unseasonable sun.
Cormac glanced skyward, squinting. Though the time of autumn was upon land and sea, Behl seemed not to know it. Closer to Samain, the sun seemed to celebrate Beltain. The Gael’s eyes dropped to lock onto the Dane’s.
“Haven’t I?”
Wanting no answer, Cormac and Samaire walked to Quester.
“Missed the work ye have, Captain,” Ros mac Dairb called, grinning. More seriously he added, “We’ve worried over ye.”
Cormac nodded, but made no answer to the implicit question despite the hopeful, even expectant gazes of the other men. Their hustle and bustle had come to pause; their converse and jibing jests had ceased.
“We’ve broke no fast since yester day,” Cormac said, reaching up to the ship drawn onto the sperkling sand. “Where be food stored?”
“And water,” Samaire said fervently, “or ale.”
They had returned into the Castle of Kull to find no one and nothing, not so much as a morsel of food or a discarded skin with the slosh of ale remaining in it. Nor had they tarried for the intimacy they both wanted, perhaps needed. The skull-faced wizard was still abroad, in addition to the hunger and thirst that drove them to hurry from castl
e and through the wall of rock to the shore.
Now, aboard Quester, they quaffed ale and chewed dried meat. Cormac regarded the empty skins. Too much space had of necessity been given over on this voyage to water and ale, with their attendant weight. Even so, they had expected to be aweigh again yesterday, and barren Samaire-heim offered nought to quench the thirst that slew more swiftly than hunger or even the fever born of one of those wounds that swelled and sent a red line out from themselves to bring babbling delirium upon a man.
The Gael jerked his head up and his hand actually started toward his pommel when Osbrit fared close. Cormac quelled the motion and Osbrit stared, having stopped very still.
“In peace, Osbrit Drostan’s son,” Cormac told the man in the feathered cap and streaky blue tunic, and the Gael’s face was pleasant enow. On the instant, he decided to speak and end their sapping suspense. “Has been a short time, indeed,” he said in no quiet voice, “since I fought him responsible for the deaths of your fellows and the… resurrection of mine. And he wore your face and form.”
Osbrit continued to stare, and like Wulfhere he put a hand to his own features. Cormac saw a tic come into the Briton’s face, while his raised hand was atremble. “Ye’ve… fought a mage.”
“Aye.” Cormac squeezed Samaire’s arm. “Both of us.”
“And ye be unscathed?”
“Our minds bear scars. Our bodies, none.”
“And… him?”
Cormac bit, chewed, looked at the other man. Around them, others had stopped all motion to stare at the Gael. They listened, Cormac knew, and he thought it best to say it. In enemy country, one did not hold back knowledge of the enemy, however fearsome; all must be ever on guard.
“I killed him.”
Osbrit’s eyes flared, then grew less wide than be tore. Osbrit smiled; a cheer rose and smiles flashed on Celtic faces round about.
Cormac rose from his seat on a rowing bench, and he raised the hand that held a gnawed brisket. The noise subsided; smiles remained, as did veneration in blue eyes and grey. It will soon die, he mused, with a sigh.
“I slew him, aye… six times.”
Sunny smiles faded as though cloud-darkened. A deathly silence enwrapped them all. Every man stared. Lips moved; no voice rose.
Cormac spoke for all ears, now.
“A wizard has stalked us like a plotting spider. Was he dragged back the dead themselves from their rest and set them against us. Was he last night came upon me in the form of Wulfhere and sought to slay me by a treacherous swift stroke of his ax-or what appeared to be Wulfhere, splitter of skulls. Was he sought me again, this time monstrously in the form of Samaire that I might be even more off guard, and sought to dagger me in the night. Was he seized her yester night, and inflicted a foul illusion on her so that she thought she was being whipped to death in sheets of blood.”
Cormac paused, looking around at faces gone pale even in the bright sunlight.
“His name be Thulsa Doom, and it’s older than old he is. Old? It’s dead he is; he died long ago! I slew him as Wulfhere, by a fall none could survive, though I but defended myself for then I did not understand his evil powers. As Samaire too I saw him die, in the same way. Corpses of those two, my boon sword-comrades and friends on all the ridge of the world, lay blood-splashed on rearing rocks a dozen shiplengths below. And both vanished in seconds, so that I knew they were the enemy.”
The faces of strong fighting men turned one to the other, and they frowned and muttered. Dead long ago… vanished corpses… the likenesses of others…
“I slew him later as you, Osbrit! And as Bas yonder too, and as a serpent. As his own dread self too I put death on him, for he flickered from guise to guise swift as the jagged god-spear flashes across the sky. With this steel, I slew them all-him all.” His sword scraped out to glitter and gleam in the sun, catching every eye. “Nor have I wiped it since plunging it through his several bodies.”
“Behl protect,” someone whispered. “He… cannot be slain?”
“So it seems,” Cormac told him, without apparent emotion.
“By all the gods!” Wulfhere’s voice came loudly. “Then what do we do, Wolf?”
Cormac looked at him. “We retain our armour and arms, and we depart this isle of sorcery with all swiftness!” He looked at them. “And we stay all in the sight of each-”
Cormac broke off to stare down the strand at the solitary figure- of Bas.
“Blood of the gods! We stay all in sight of each other-at all times!” he snapped, pouncing to the ship’s side. “Prepare both ships for sea. Sail or oars, we depart the instant they are in readiness!”
He swung over the side of the long boat and, with mailcoat clinking, he ran down the sandy shore to the druid. The others stared after him, shocked into brainless immobility. Until Wulfhere shouted, in a roar.
“Ye heard him! Wind or no, it’s a beautiful day for being asea! Prepare to depart this abode of Loki and fire-eyed Hel!”
“But a day since,” a grim-faced Bas said, “I bade ye never interrupt me and those I serve. Ye try me sore and risk godlike anger as well, son of Art.”
“To Bas and Behl and all the gods I make apology,” Cormac said, bowing his head-shallowly and briefly. “But there is reason, Bas, or I’d not have done and it’s thanking ye I’ll be for no further chiding of me like a father to a child, druid or no. Make no answer: attend. We must leave this place, Bas, and at once.”
Bas spoke with a coldness Cormac had not previously known: “So I was assured, and I was begging good seas and homeward winds, that we must not row all the way to Eirrin as we rowed nearly all the way to this… place.”
“Bas. No man must be apart from the others. None must leave the sight of all. Best indeed that we set sail in one ship-but I’ll not have one left here for him to use.”
Bas’s eyes flared and gleamed and his chin lifted attentively. “Ye’ve been long gone-ye’ve seen him?”
“Ah, Bas! I’ve seen him, aye!” And hurriedly, Cormac told of it, all of it, including that which Samaire had already related to him befell her, body and mind. Bas gave ear in silence, though his face spoke much. The druid’s expression changed many times during the other man’s hurried and abbreviated narrative.
At last that surprisingly strong hand came out to close on the other Gael’s mailed shoulder. “It’s much ye’ve endured, much ye’ve won past… won through, Cormac of Connacht. The gods have blessed ye, that ye’ve kept sanity through such a night! Samaire?”
“-keeps hers as well. The gods blessed us both long ago, with endurance and strength of mind.”
“Umm. And… but… what ye’ve told me is that at this moment you might be Thulsa Doom.”
“Or you, since I know I’m not he.”
The druid’s eyes went past Cormac’s, to the ships.
“Or… any man of those.”
“Aye, though I think not-now. Ye see why I durst not allow ye to remain here alone, Bas.”
Bas, considered, and shook his head slowly. “We must talk on this, when there be more time. But… your view of it is a sideward one, Cormac. I standing here alone am in no danger, and represent none to others. While all others are together, he could come upon me only in his own form-”
“Cutha Atheldane’s.”
“It’s if I were to go away from sight and then return… aye, then might I be this form-changing wizard. For it’s not bodies themselves he seizes, but the forms of bodies he assumes.”
Cormac nodded, having considered and seen and agreed ere Bas finished. “Well stated. Natheless-we leave this place, now.”
“Aye. Strand the monster here, forever, and hope he cannot move by means arcane.”
A frown came on the instant into Cormac’s face, and he wore it through every step back up the beach to the ships. Eleven men and a woman waited-all now in their armour and with weapons buckled on.
“We are ready to sail,” Wulfhere greeted him. “Or to row.”
Without speaking
, Cormac boarded Quester, though it still lay drawn up on the strand. He placed himself then so as to face them all; the Gaelic druid, the woman, the giant Dane, the Briton with his thong-held hair, and nine sons of Eirrin.
“Attend me now. The druid has said something that makes me think beyond myself-which is all I’ve considered since Princess Samaire and I drove the dark mage from us but a short time ago. Consider. We are here, and we know that he is here. Thulsa Doom, anciently dead and raiser of the dead; master of illusion, enemy of humankind, servant of the serpent-god time out of mind. We know of what he is capable-and mayhap of what he is not.” He half-turned to nod at the brooding pile of lock called Samaire-heim.
“Power he has, but it is not without limit. Somewhere there, he is. In the body of a slain man, a priest or druid or whatever it is the Norse call their wise men, though he has re-assumed his own form, his own face-a death’s head. He waits, Thulsa Doom does… waits for another body, another disguise.
“Let him wait until he rots!” Wulfhere rumbled, and there were nodded heads and sounds of “Aye.”
“But will he rot?” Cormac pursued. “Can he? And… consider. Does he wait until he rots as ye put it, or… until another ship haps all unsuspecting on this place?”
There was silence. They gazed at him, waiting.
“Is it right,” Cormac asked, “that we depart this place, knowing that someday, somewhere, even on our own soil, before our very hearths, we may have to face him again… Thulsa Doom?” He paused, shook his head. “Nay. It is not meet. It is I his quarrel is with. Ye must-”
Cormac broke off. He knew abruptly that he was no longer heard. Every eye was wide, and every gaze was directed past him. His stomach twisted and went acid. His nape prickled. Heat invaded his armpits and his heartbeat speeded.
Slowly, Cormac turned to face what held their gazes.
He stood not on the beach but atop the grim pile of granite rising above it. Tall and thin he was, in a night-dark robe that broke over his insteps. Its hood was up, so that his face was invisible in shadow, yet Cormac felt the predatory stare. An arm rose and a finger extended, a finger that was but skin drawn tautly over bone and knobby knuckles.
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