The Sign of the Moonbow cma-7

by Andrew J Offutt

  “The hill,” the Dane said. “And grass. Cormac-has the damp and our frustration got to ye, man?”

  Cormac looked again. The cave was there. With a glance at Wulfhere, he stepped forward. Within the hole in the hill of Bri Leith, he turned to look again at Wulfhere Hausakluifr, and him who appeared to be Bas the Druid.

  “Cormac!”

  Wulfhere’s eyes had gone wide. He hurled badly shaken glances this way and that. Cormac saw those eyes fall on him-and knew that Wulfhere saw him not, from a distance of less than a body length. Cormac mac Art remembered, and stepped forth. Waving aside the Dane’s excited demands as to what had happened to him, he explained: Cathbadh had advised that the Doorways to the Danans would reveal themselves to him who wore the Moonbow.

  “It is… there?”

  “It is there, Wulfhere.”

  “The… Doorway.”

  “Aye. The Doorway to the People of Danu. We have found our goal.” He looked again into the blackness that Wulfhere could not see. “Ye have but to tread in my tracks, and-”

  “Cormac mac Art.”

  It was the voice of Bas; both men turned to look at him-or rather, his likeness.

  “Forget this ill-advised adventure, Cormac mac Art. Ye know not what lies in that dark pit. Your own doom, perhaps. Think you a Gael will be welcomed by those the Gaels drove into this land’s subterranean depths, into the cold and the dark? Take from me this Chain of Danu; free me, and neither Wulfhere, nor Eirrin, nor any born of Eirrin anywhere will suffer the slightest from me-aye, you and yours will be the chosen people! And too any others ye name, elsewhere. Riches will be yours, Cormac mac Art… no more exile, no more wandering… shall there be again one named Cormac mac Art who rules supreme in Eirrin?”

  “Thulsa Doom! Hush. Say no more. Keep silent.”

  Knowing his commands were irresistible, Cormac turned from the mage at once. He found Wulfhere looking thoughtfully on him.

  “Ye’d not be king over this land, blood-brother?”

  “It’s nothing that one says and no promises of his I’d believe, blood-brother.”

  Slowly, Wulfhere nodded. “It is tempting, though.” The Dane was musing aloud.

  “Oh aye. Aye, temptation is on me. Doubtless others have been tempted. I hold myself no good man, Wulfhere.” Cormac held up his hands before his face, and there were scars on both. He examined the palms and dark long fingers. “It’s much blood these hands have spilled, Wulfhere.” The Gael’s voice was inordinately quiet. “Widows have been created to weep because of the son of Art of Connacht. Had that Art not been slain, murdered with treachery done on him, none can say what might have been. But… to be given the choice now of allying myself with purest evil, or of striving to rid this world of it… no choice exists, Wulfhere. It’s no bad man I am, either.” Cormac gestured to the cave invisible to the other. “We enter, Wulfhere. Is it still with me ye go?”

  Wulfhere was smiling. “Was you said the words, Cormac. I see no cave-but I can see where ye go, Wolf. And I follow.”

  At last the torches they’d brought would be put to use. Cormac entered the Doorway. Wulfhere followed. Aye, and now he could see: sunlit Eirrin behind, and the black darkness of the cave before. The huge Dane had to stoop even more than his friend, but this was no time to make complaint. With Thulsa Doom in the likeness of Bas of Tir Connail, they entered the cavern.

  They walked between gloomy walls of earth and stone, on a floor of the same. It was bare and hardpacked and dustless beneath their feet. Uplifted torches surrounded them in a bright yellow glow that was engulfed by darkness but a few paces ahead. They advanced; the dark retreated, but was ever there, lurking, waiting, closing in behind them as they ranged downward into the earth.

  Wulfhere glanced back, and his helmet clonked dully against a low ceil of solid stone. He saw only the darkness; they had followed the cavern downward, and its mouth had vanished.

  “How can people, live down here, in this blackness? Cormac… there cannot be people down here!”

  Cormac said nothing. Doubts plucked at his confidence and his hopes, too, but he’d go on until uncertainty became certainty-one way or another. An there be a crowned woman down here, he mused, sure it’s Queen of the Dark she is!

  So, and so. Let it be that, then. If such there were, he’d be finding her. Behind him paced Thulsa Doom in silence; last came Wulfhere Hausakluifr. Cormac walked on, leading the others ever deeper into the earth. A silence surrounded them, and it seemed ominous, brooding, a menace. Waiting. Silence and darkness swallowed them. The air grew heavy with the odour of damp loam.

  Their footsteps and the clink of chainmail were the only sounds, and close-pressing walls gave off echoes. Even their breathing seemed loud, echoic in this subterrene silence.

  Cormac mac Art knew not how long they’d paced forward, ever downward, but his back had begun to complain of having been so long bowed. Many minutes, he knew; many, many minutes. He was sure that Wulfhere suffered even more, by reason of his great height. But the Dane did not complain. Cormac realized, and appreciated. Wulfhere Skullsplitter was no child. He knew when not to jest or jape or make complaints.

  Aye-and surely the ceiling’s height is proof enow of the origin of this endless tunnel, added to the sorcerous invisibility of its mouth; this passage was constructed for people far shorter than I, than men of normal height… the Tuatha de Danann.

  “Cormac!” Wulfhere’s voice came in a rumblous whisper.

  “Aye.”

  Cormac’s voice, too, was cautiously low, for there was light ahead. They advanced toward the pallid grey glow. Now the walls ahead became visible, in a dim pearly light that seemed to have no source and yet was like… moonlight. It did not grow brighter as they approached, though they were soon able to see more clearly. The illumination was like that of earliest dawn just when the birds commence to sing, rather than the final blush at day’s end. Toward that light the three walked-and what they became able to see directly ahead was a blank wall of stone.

  Just as they reached that dead end of the passage they trekked, they saw that it was not; the tunnel split and went off at angles to left and right. In the broader space formed by the three openings in the earth, they paused, peering down each arm of the Y and looking at each other.

  There came help then in the matter of choosing: from. along the leftward passage came sound. It was that of weeping, in the naturally high voice of a woman or an adolescent.

  After the exchange of another glance-and one directed at Thulsa Doom-they turned and entered the channel to the left.

  Was it an omen of ill favour that the first sound they heard in this subterrene road to the tuatha de Danann was of sobbing; that the first person they met here inside Eirrin was deep in sadness?

  The passageway descended, angled-and they saw the weeper.

  She was a girl or young woman, huddled on the cavern floor, close to the far wall with her legs drawn up and her head in her hands.

  She was entirely naked but for a bracelet, which looked like bronze.

  Deciding as he had about Sinshi that this nude little weeper was more girl than woman, Cormac paused, lifted a hand to halt the others. His buckler was on his arm and his sword in his sheath. They gazed on the girl, whose head was down while she wept with quaking shoulders and yet little sound as though she strove not to be heard; nevertheless she had neither seen nor heard their approach. In silence, the three trespassers of under-earth stared.

  Never had Cormac mac Art seen anyone so pale.

  An infant, mayhap; a toddler never out of the house. As this girl of the Danans had never been out of the earth. No sun had ever touched that skin, nor that of her parents or their parents before them, nor indeed any of her forebears, for some five centuries. They and their arcane art had somehow brought with them the light of their goddess, for this chamber was brighter, as though bathed in moonlight. But not sunlight. Aye, the Danans, for so pale was this one that she had to be of those people of sub-Eirrin, des
pite her great difference from those of the Isle of Daneira.

  Though strange, the pearly colour of her hair, ever so faintly tinged with the palest slate blue, was far from distasteful. Cormac had seen ash-blonds afore, though hardly often, and he had seen too those whose hair went grey and even white ere they had lived long enough to gain the wrinkles of age; he thought such hair beautiful.

  This Danan’s hair was that hue all over her body, he saw, and she was superbly constructed-strangely no darker round her nipples than the inner shell of a mussel-and attractive by the standards of any people he knew, assuming they judged not beauty by the amount of flesh. Though true, he had not yet seen her face.

  Like those of Daneira, this sobbing Danan was slight, lightly boned and extremely short; five feet, if that tall.

  Cormac spoke quietly, with deliberate slowness and care for pronunciation.

  “Whatever it is that puts sadness on ye, we’ll not be adding to it.”

  Up came her head; wide went eyes more pale than ever Cormac had seen even among the Norse. Her sobs ended. Fine nostrils flared as with a little cry she drew back against a wall of rocky earth shored with both wood and stones. She stared, shrinking.

  “We bring you absolutely no harm,” Cormac said, uncomfortable in the role of gentleness; it was little practice he’d had. “D’ye understand my words?”

  Silent and huge-eyed, weird-eyed, she nodded. Her head was longish, her face thin and with pronounced bone-structure. Like those of a rabbit though nigh without colour, her eyes swiftly shifted their skittish gaze from one to the other of the three men before her. Cormac knew that they were even stranger to her than she to them; they expected the unusual. On impulse, he squatted. Even at a distance of two lengths of his body, he towered over the girl on the floor against the wall, her legs and arms drawn up defensively.

  “My name is Cormac mac Art. He of the red beard is Wulfhere. Wulfhere. This is… Thulsa. It’s from… above, that we’ve come. And in peace… oh.”

  He had forgotten. From between tunic and mailcoat he lifted the silver chain, with its pendent sign of the Moonbow.

  The girl gasped, stared. Her head came forward a trifle to peer at the sigil. Her gaze shifted to the chest of Thulsa Doom. She blinked and tucked her lower lip betwixt her teeth.

  “It is as friend of Danu and Her people I come, with my blood-brother and him who is my captive, bonded to me by the Chains of Danu.” Cormac smiled. “We are not monster Gaels come to eat ye! Indeed, we come bearing some gifts, and begging a boon.”

  Still she said naught, but only stared.

  “It’s slowly I’m talking because it’s apart our tongues have grown, your people’s and mine, across the hundreds of years. Please do the same. It’s of the Danans ye be?”

  Long he waited for her reply; at last she said, in a tiny voice, “Aye. Cor… Cormac mac… your hair! And his hair… and so tall ye be, all three!”

  Cormac showed her another smile, working very hard at being gentle and confidence-winning. “And to us ye be lovely small, child of Danu! I… it’s on me to ask…” He paused. “See us as friends of yourself, g-will ye be telling us your name?”

  She was staring past him with those positively unsettling eyes with less colour than the underside of a cloud. Abruptly realizing that it was not cold as he’d expected, so deep in the earth, he gave thought to the possibility that the Danans of sub-Eirrin wore no clothing. But her legs were drawn up and to one side, heels at her buttocks, thus concealing her privates in apparent modesty. Her arms remained across breasts that he had already seen were firm and high and pointy of tip, like cones of snow.

  He asked her again. Her gaze snapped to his face.

  “Oh! I make apology-I was staring… the beard of… of…”

  “Wulfhere,” the Dane rumbled, and she jerked a little.

  “Oh! And what a voice! Your beard is beautiful, my lord Wulfhere. I-my name is Erris. Of the de Danann, aye. It’s handmaid I am, to Queen Riora Feachtnachis of Moytura.”

  Queen Riora! This time Cormac’s smile was broad and genuine.

  Chapter Nine:

  Battle Beneath the Earth

  Cormac gazed smiling upon Erris the Danan, handmaiden to Riora, Queen of Moytura. His heart surged and he felt as if a breeze had arisen to blow warm air over him.

  A queen ruled here, beneath and within Eirrin; a crowned woman!

  The queen of Moytura… Moytura: Magh Tuiredh, the site of the long, long ago battle in which the Danans had put defeat on the Fir Bholgs, the first rulers of Eirrin. As for the other names, Erris and Riora; well, the sounds were familiar, though Rory-Rudraighe-was a man’s name. The naming of people had taken its own course here, he realized.

  Cormac mac Art twisted about to share an elated look with Wulfhere.

  Grinning, Wulfhere asked, “And do the people of Moytura wear no clothing?”

  Immediately Erris of Moytura erupted anew into tears. Cormac resisted the desire to get up and strangle the Dane…

  Rising, he pulled around the sizeable belt-pouch he wore, and fished within it while he approached Erris. He squatted before the small huddled form. His touch was gentle, and his hand on her shoulder looked like the shadows of night swallowing the wan glow of the moon. She looked up briefly, stricken and tear-stained; dropped her head to her hands again.

  He felt foolish, proffering the necklace from the Doom-heim trove. Jewels they had brought, aye, hopefully to deal with a queen. But of clothing-none. All, every scrap of cloth, Samaire and the others had taken to Tara. Yet now he remembered that he had that to offer her which would cover her nakedness, though he hated with a man’s instincts and urges to see it done. Naturally he and Wulfhere wore cloaks; they had wrapped themselves well in them, each night.

  He cupped his palm under the disk of his mantle’s brooch, drew forth the pin, and caught the disk in his palm. Setting them aside, he removed his cloak, placed it over her drawn-up form, to the chin. He tucked it around.

  She stilled her sobs, looked up sniffing. For a long while she gazed into his eyes.

  “You are kind,” she said.

  “Is it kindness to lend clothing to someone who has none? Here, here is the clasp to my cloak.” He considered. “Ye have done wrong, Erris Rioranacht? ye were stripped and…” He looked about, and it came to him. This was not Moytura-not yet! “And cast out!” he blurted.

  She nodded, her so-pale eyes watery and leaking tears down the cheeks of her thin face. Looking at him, she tugged the cloak up to cover all of her save her head-and her back, which was against the tunnel’s wall. She told him.

  Yes. She had been stripped, and cast forth-but not for wrongdoing. Because she was the queen’s favourite.

  Cormac frowned and a coldness grew around his heart.

  Erris of Moytura spoke more, and all elation faded from him, and from Wulfhere, until it had ceased to exist and it was only distress they knew.

  Riora of Moytura was daughter of Riora, queen. But a year ago the queen had died; her daughter was crowned. Riora, daughter of Riora, was queen of Danan Moytura.

  But Queen Riora did not rule in Moytura.

  Her cousin Cairluh had plotted with the mage, Tarmur Roag. Cairluh and Tarmur Roag had seized power in Moytura; they ruled.

  Cormac clutched at a fleeting and unlikely hope. “Cairluh is not… a woman’s name here, is it?”

  Erris shook her head and cloudlike hair flew. She looked at him without smiling, and there was less colour in her eyes than in the nails of his fingers.

  “Oh no,” Erris said, but she did not smile at his suggestion.

  Cormac sighed. “How is it then that the people of Moytura suffer a male cousin to rule in the place of her who is their rightful queen? Is your mistress so bad a ruler?”

  “She is not!” Erris snapped with some anger and much vehemence, and then she softened and explained.

  Tarmur Roag was a man of considerable power. A simulacrum of Riora, created or called up by Tarmur Roag in the quee
n’s precise likeness, ruled in her stead. She-or it, was controlled, of course, by Tarmur Roag and Cairluh.

  “Hmm. And-what differences have come of it? Does it matter who rules Moytura?”

  “Of course! My lady Riora is Queen!”

  Cormac nodded. Yes, yes, of course, but rulers came and went…

  “And Cairluh believes that with the power of Tarmur Roag we of Danu can rise up and overthrow… you who live above. The people are being stirred up to such a belief, and all-all, men and women and girls and boys-are being forced to train with weapons, to carry red death above along with the sorceries of Tarmur Roag!”

  Cormac thought: Aye, it matters who rules in Moytura within Eirrin! For even though it was a ridiculous thought, a futile concept that these people could conquer his, there’d be much, much blood shed in the trying of it. And he knew that the sons of Eirrin would not stop this time until no Danan remained alive in all the land-on or in the isle called Emerald.

  Clinks and a rustle announced the drawing close of Wulfhere. His voice was a hopeful croak. “The queen? What have the plotters done with your mistress?”

  New tears scudded down the white cheeks of Erris as she replied. Riora, the real Queen Riora, languished in misery of mind and body in her own dungeon, an ensorceled and pain-fraught captive who was mocked and teased and preyed upon by the torturemaster. He had made brag he’d get a child on her ere he ruined her face and body forever.

  With a long sigh, Cormac stared down, half-seeing. Gentle were the de Danann of the isle; not so these of Moytura of sub-Eirrin, whose queen’s demesne included a dungeon and a master of the tortures administered there! He twisted partway about to stare at the face and robe of Bas the Druid.

  Thulsa Doom.

  So long as he lived, Cormac mac Art was in danger, and so was all Eirrin, for it was Cormac who had brought the monster here, and him evil incarnate and a hundred and eighty centuries old. And it was only a queen could end the mage’s unnatural life that was not life at all but foul un-death. And Riora of Moytura was such a queen… and Riora of Moytura was dethroned and crownless.

  Queen Riora is… presently dethroned and crownless, Cormac thought.