The Sign of the Moonbow cma-7

by Andrew J Offutt

  Cormac hurled himself down and aside. He rolled. Suddenly the most important goal of his life was getting himself off the rough floor of stone and earth and into a vertical position.

  It had come again.

  Dark sorcery stalked him.

  Again, Donn, the Dark One, dread lord of the dead, roamed the world, and again his keen eyes had fallen on Cormac mac Art. Again it was not man or beast attacking him, but the mephitic manifestation of the malign power of some wrathful wizard; the uncanny horrors of sorcery; the death that affrighted and confounded even as it came seeking, like a loosed arrow that could not be met with sword and ax or even intelligence-born tactic, but could only be feared and avoided. And yet it was worse than any humming arrow, for such at least was the product of human hands as was the bow that loosed it and even the power that drove it.

  Here there was naught to attack, no place to hide and no hand or body at which to direct slaying steel.

  But what or who was the source of this attack?

  The Moonbow of Danu the Goddess still flashed dully on his breast, and its reversed mate hung still just below the collarbones of Thulsa Doom. Not from that master of frightsome illusions and the walking dead this unnatural assault, then; it was another who struck, and him invisible or directing from afar.

  A huge stone shaped like a mollusc of singular size came whizzing, and Cormac dodged convulsively.

  “Wulfhere! To your shield-side and along the wall to Dithorba! Erris-keep ye back, girl, for ye’ve no defense against this assault of rock! Thulsa Doom, move not so much as a fing-uh!”

  So intent was mac Art on his directions for the circumvention of the indefensible onslaught that he was caught by it; a knobby stone just bigger than Wulfhere’s fist slammed into his right bicep. Sleeve of linked steel rings saved him from shredded skin and broken bone, but his hand flexed and his sword dropped to clatter. Cormac staggered, getting his feet back and out of the way of his own dropped glaive. With his pain-filled eyes on the source of the silent, hair-raising attack, he bent for the sword.

  He paused while he reconsidered. Then he retrieved his sword-and sheathed it. Still in a crouch, staring at the cairn as though it were some snarling beast or Donn-sent demon, he backed two paces. He caught up a sword of one of the fallen Danans. As his fingers worked, shifting and shifting the pommel for the feel and balance of this brand shorter than his own, he glanced over at Wulfhere.

  As Cormac had bade, the Dane was moving warily along the wall, advancing toward the corner; thence he would move across the chamber’s rear wall to the corner in which Dithorba was bound.

  Cormac’s nape prickled; a chunk of granitic rock lifted without a sound from its piled fellows and went end-over-end at the huger target of the redbearded giant.

  “HO!” Wulfhere cried. “Practice does a man good!”

  With an almost preposterously expert sweep of his ax, the giant struck the rushing missile away-over an arm’s length from his body.

  Another followed close behind, rushing low. Cormac did not wait to see its effect; Wulfhere was prepared, sweating, though from neither heat nor exertion, mac Art rushed toward Dithorba. But the invisible attacker was not distracted. A rock came spinning his way, but a pair of inches above the ground, to catch his shin. He danced, saw another chunk of stone rush off at Wulfhere while still another lofted itself at him, and in dodging he fell.

  “Leave this place!” Dithorba’s voice was dry, crackly with age. “Ye cannot free me, so long as I wear the Moonbow points down; Tarmur Roag will put death on both of ye giants. Leave me; this is only death for ye both!”

  “Why made ye no reply be-uh-fore!” Wulfhere demanded with some petulance, briefly interrupting himself to fend away a platter-size stone. It scraped across his buckler with an ear-scratching noise.

  “Go!” Dithorba Loingsech cried. “I held my silence in hopes Tarmur would not know of your presence and the deaths of the guards he set to watch over me. He knows. More weapon-men will come. Go, go, ye cannot free me; ye cannot fight stones hurled by a powerful mage far from here!”

  “Augh!” Wulfhere crashed against the wall. precisely in his armoured stomach a skull-sized stone had struck the Dane, and he slid weakly down the rocky wall with a screeching of steel scales.

  “All we need do is pluck that necklace from round your neck, Dithorba Loingsech!” Cormac snarled, and like a vicious animal he used shield to bash away a flying shape of rock that twinkled as if set with a score of diamonds.

  “And these chains? Be not foolish, dark man-your comrade is already down and more guards are doubtless on their way!”

  Steel will cut silver chain very nicely, Cormac thought, but he said nothing.

  Three grey stones leapt up from the dwindled pile; they hurtled at him in a flurry, separating naturally.

  With his targe he smashed away the largest, though he heard stout wood crack; in stooping to meet that crotch-aimed lump of rock he bent under the second, which he heard hum past his ear. The third, aimed at his body, struck his helmet with a belling crash and a shower of shivered stone.

  His head ringing both at ears and within, Cormac fell and did not rise.

  “Wolf!” the Dane called in concern. He was getting himself grunting to his feet with the aid of wall and ax-helve. And two sorcery-driven stones rushed at him.

  Cormac’s blue-grey mantle fluttered and bare white legs flashed. Across the floor strewn with stones and corpses and slippery with blood raced Erris of Moytura in a lunatic dash-and in seconds she had reached the shackled mage. As her hands rose to his necklace he swiftly bent his head; the slave snatched away the chain and the Sign of the Moonbow. She hurled it to the floor of hardpacked earth.

  Immediately Dithorba went rigid and his eyes closed.

  A big flattened rock, just elevating to begin its assault on Wulfhere, clattered back onto the other stones remaining about Dithorba’s ankles. Nor did more stones move.

  Totally heedless of her nudity, made the whiter by the slate-hued cloak of Cormac mac Art, Erris squatted beside the fallen Gael. He was up on one forearm, twitching his head, staring dully down. His helmet was dented, though no blood seeped from beneath its rim.

  “An we… free Riora, Erris… it’s you… who’s made it possible.”

  “Oh please, please Cormac mac Art-be all right, get up get up oh please…”

  A great burly form loomed over her, squatted beside her. “What’s this? Be ye tired from this little fray, battle-brother? What ails ye?”

  Cormac looked at him. “I have a headache.”

  Wulfhere laughed gustily. Cormac detected the trace of hysteria that denoted relief on the Dane’s part. The man was unequipped to cope with an injury to someone he loved, and the men of his chill land were too sure of their masculinity to avoid stating love for another man. Nevertheless Wulfhere’s way was to lard on bluff jests as cover for nervous concern that made him most woefully uncomfortable.

  Work remained to be done, and Cormac willed himself to move. His pushing himself was accompanied by twinges in right upper arm and left thigh. His head seemed to tighten within a deep grey band and he staggered in a long moment of vertigo. Leaning on the Dane, he bent to retrieve the Danan sword he’d dropped. He frowned against the throbbing in his head as he straightened. Cormac turned to Dithorba.

  “See that ye move not, Dithorba Loingsech,” he said, and he went to the old man and caught his thin arm in a vising grip.

  Dithorba shrank and closed his eyes; the other man wielded sword. With five careful strokes of the Danan blade, Cormac freed the queen’s adviser of his four chains. He gazed a moment at the sword; held it up for Wulfhere’s eyes. The Danan blade was both bent and badly notched.

  “Hmp! Ruined, by Odin’s eye! My ax would have cut through thicker links of silver than those without taking note-much less bending!”

  “Iron,” Cormac said quietly. “All their swords are of iron, not steel.” He went to one knee beside a corpse, moved to another. “Iron!
All their helms, their armour… not steel, Wulfhere, but iron.”

  While he spoke and moved among the bodies, Erris moved to Dithorba. With more respect than self-consciousness, she removed Cormac’s cloak and swept it around the spindly old man. Naked, she stood with head deferentially bowed. Dithorba but nodded. He stood looking from one to the other of the strangers, rubbing his arms. Despite their being held immobile by Cormac while he struck through the chains, each stroke had brought a painful wrench. The shackles remained, though but one link of silver chain dangled from each.

  Danan and Gaelic eyes met.

  “Ye’ve come from above,” the dry, brittle old voice said. “A Gael, with that hair and skin and those eyes. We’ve not forgot what ye look like.”

  Cormac nodded.

  “But ye come not as enemy.” Dithorba glanced at Wulfhere. “And… you. A giant with hair the colour of the pain-rock that yields iron. Two from above-and not as enemies, but to set me free.” The old man shook his head and the plaited white beard stirred on his chest. Erris was a slave, and he took no note of her while she fussed with the cloak’s clasp.

  “Wulfhere-Erris has better use for his tunic than the man lying yonder with no wound on him,” Cormac said. “Dithorba Loingsech: my name is Cormac mac Art. Wulfhere the Dane is my battle-brother… my blood brother, though our mothers knew each other not. It is to release ye we’ve come here. It’s help we can provide each other, you and we.”

  Dithorba glanced at Erris, who was gazing with longing on the man of her people who lay dead among the others, him with neither wound nor blood on him, save at his nostrils. Reluctantly, Wulfhere went to that corpse.

  Dithorba said, “To rescue me, and aid each other. Why?”

  “Together,” Cormac said, meeting the old man’s light-eyed gaze levelly, “we must try to free your queen.” Cormac swung his right arm vigorously, against a stiffening of the bruised bicep.

  Dithorba stared for a time into the slitted eyes of the dark, scarred man. He nodded, briefly. “Aye-I’d set my life to that end. But… why yourself?”

  Turning, Cormac extended a pointing finger at the tall, dark-robed figure in the doorway. “There stands a mage of much power and evil, and as ye well know this holds him mine.” He touched the Moonbow on his chest. “It is because of him I must have… audience with Riora of Moytura, after she is enthroned with her crown upon her.”

  “I must be hearing more of this matter… that creature has no face!”

  “Ye’ve said Tarmur Roag knows of our presence here, and was he hurled those stones though he be not here to see us.”

  “I wore this chain,” Dithorba said, picking it up. “He saw ye through my eyes-whether I held them open or closed. But-”

  “Ye spoke of his sending weapon-men,” Cormac reminded. “Mayhap we’d best be getting ourselves elsewhere for talking.”

  Dithorba’s eyes widened and he blinked. “Aye! There’s been so much, so fast… it had actually fled my mind. Aye-armed men will be here in minutes!” And with those words, Dithorba Loingsech vanished.

  Chapter Eleven:

  The Dungeon of Moytura

  Wulfhere Skull-splitter rose from a denuded corpse. He held a tunic of some thin, shining cloth of a pearly opaline hue. “Here, girl, ye can don this or make covering of it-though I seem to have slipped with my dagger, and made a slit or two in places.” Then as he turned his grin faded and he blinked. “Where-Cormac! What’s happened to him we loosed?”

  “He… disappeared,” Cormac said dully.

  This time Erris’s concern was for covering herself, not the vanished mage or the manner of its accomplishment. She went naked to Wulfhere, took the tunic with a tiny word of thanks, and stepped past him. Though she’d been naked when they found her and but a few minutes agone denuded herself anew to clothe the queen’s adviser, she now kept her back turned while she slipped the soft, thin fabric of the tunic over her head.

  “Thor’s beautiful red beard,” Wulfhere said, “but I’d love to be asea again, facing only such trifles as gales, whirlpools, a few boatloads of ravening Frisians and Norse, and a simple sea-monster or three!”

  Cormac looked at the other man with complete empathy.

  Erris came to the side of the Dane, and looked up; the man towered a foot and a half above her. “Again I make thanks to you for my clothing, my lord Wulfhere-though your accidental slip of the dagger bares both my legs to the waist!”

  Before either man could comment, Dithorba was among them again.

  Exclamations greeted his reappearance; none was fully coherent. The loinclothed man in Cormac’s cloak lifted bony hands for silence.

  “I have been to my own chamber in the palace. It has been searched, and is empty. They have not found my secret room, though, and I took not even time to clothe myself. Erris! Come-we must show them how Dithorba travels!”

  Erris drew back, though Cormac saw that there was more nervousness on her than fear. Dithorba stretched forth a hand; slowly one of hers reached out to take it. Bony, wrinkled old fingers gripped smooth young ones no less white. There was no warning, no fading; the two Danans merely vanished. Cormac and Wulfhere jerked at the popping sound, as of two palms slapping together.

  The two weapon-men looked at each other.

  And Dithorba was back. He stretched forth a hand. “Cormac mac Art. Come.”

  “What… what have ye done, man? Where are ye after being?”

  “I’ve told you. My secret room in the palace is far from here. There Erris is safe and not unhappy that her handsome thighs are bared; there we can talk and plan. Come.”

  “Ye… ye have the ability to… to move yourself, by… some cantrip?”

  Dithorba shrugged bony shoulders on which Cormac’s cloak hung like a sail on a windless day. “Time grows short. I can take with me but one at a time. No, no spells or cantrips. I have… such ability to travel. I merely will myself to be elsewhere; someplace I have been and can see in my mind. And I am there. It’s my life you’re after saving, son of the Gaels; I cannot do harm on you! Come.”

  Cormac looked at Wulfhere. The giant’s mighty chest heaved a great sigh.

  “Methinks it’s either that we trust him, battlebrother, or remain here and see how many of Tarmur Roag’s Danans we can slay ere they give us our deaths.”

  “I see which of ye counsels well,” Dithorba said, and Wulfhere grinned.

  Cormac did not essay to answer the unanswerable. He took the Danan’s small, dry old hand.

  He knew an instant of complete mental dissociation, as though his brain were aswirl amid blinding sulphurous mists that would swallow it and choke him to death… and then his legs were jarred badly, as though he’d taken a downward step when he’d surmised himself on level ground. He straightened, feeling the spinning of his brain, the tingling that ran up his legs. As if coming from the dark into the light, he became aware-and was looking at Erris.

  “A law should be passed to force ye to wear a tunic such, slitted to your waist,” he told her inanely, and was instantly aware of it, for his brain had not yet been his own. He looked about.

  He was elsewhere.

  Dithorba had brought him hence from the chamber outside Moytura as swiftly and simply as that, and he was none the worse for the instantaneous transfer. They were in another room of stone, this one decorated and with a floor of handsome, well-fitted stones, smoothly polished. The walls were hung with draperies in rust-red bordered with silver; the cloth was the same fine, scintillant stuff of which Erris’s tunic was made-and indeed, Dithorba’s breechclout as well. Shelves and niches and an alcove had been fashioned into the stone itself; in them rested utensils and clothing, various closed pots and caskets of assorted sizes. There squatted a stone table; there a bench onto which were bound red pillows, there another, its pillows of blue. Light illuminated the room, without apparent source. Nor was Dithorba present-

  But he was, and with Thulsa Doom.

  “The giant bade me bring this one first-he’s n
igh attacked!” Dithorba said, and was not there.

  Without patience or peace of mind Cormac waited, and then here was Dithorba once more, with Wulfhere Hausakluifr. The Dane grunted; his legs bent and he nearly fell. Cormac saw that the shorter Dithorba had miscalculated for them both; Wulfhere had been conveyed here at a level different from the Danan and like Cormac had… arrived off balance.

  “We must not talk loudly, though as ye see, this chamber has no door. It is most privately mine; to my knowledge none other in Moytura possesses my ability to mind-travel. Yet we can be heard, for my apartment is just beyond that wall and through that one is a guardpost. Too, none can be sure of Tarmur Roag’s power; a man who either raised a lamia or created the queen’s exact likeness, even unto the voice and mannerisms, is not one to wager lives against. Finally… even stone walls can be broke through, should we be heard.”

  In seconds the wizard had clothed himself in a robe of the same cloth as the draperies that mitigated the cold grey roughness of stone walls. Cormac was able to assume that lichens existed here within the earth; the robe’s purple must have resulted from the action of stale urine on such growths. The rust colour of the drapes, he supposed, came from just that: rust, or the paint-stone from which came iron. The sleeves of Dithorba’s robe, which fell past his ankles, were round, open, and three-quarters the length of his arms. Wulfhere paid him no mind, but was staring unashamedly though shamelessly at Erris. She appeared not to notice, which Cormac mac Art assumed was a pose.

  Behind a drape Dithorba opened a wooden door; from within that little chamber he drew forth a leathern bag. It sloshed; Erris lost Wulfhere’s attention. Soon the three men were appreciatively wetting their throats with ale, at which Erris turned up her nose. Under other circumstances so might Cormac have done; the stuff was hardly of the best and he feared to ask what served as grain, beneath the earth where no sun shone.

  “I ask again, son of Gaels. Why came you two here?”

  “A wizard stalks this world, all the world, like a plotting spider,” Cormac said. He pointed at the long dark robe surmounted by the head of death itself. “Thulsa Doom. Anciently dead he is and raiser of the dead; master of illusion and enemy of all men; a servant of the serpent god he is, time out of mind.” And he told Dithorba of the wizard who was dead and yet not dead, and how they believed he could be slain for good and all. “Only the Chains of Danu hold him at bay now, or he’d be snarling like an animal-and worse.”