by David Drake
The giant stood. Mael smiled and brought his left hand around in a slow arc to the side, nothing threatening, just an easy motion to draw eyes away from his right hand and the dagger in his belt. He could slip the knife out and throw it point first, knowing that at seven feet he could bury it to the hilt in Fergus' chest. Mael knew also that while the dagger would kill the giant, it would assuredly not stop him. The sweeping counter-blow of the mace would literally tear Mael's head off if it connected. His fingers poised—
"Wait! " Veleda cried. Mael froze, turned his head toward her. She was white with the same fury that was shaking Diarmid, but the command in her voice was certain. "This isn't a fight between men," she said, "and I'll not stay to make it one. But I've one last thing to say before I leave, priest: men get the sort of gods they deserve." She wheeled her horse. "Mael," she added, "I'll wait for you at the top of the hill."
Mael and Diarmid both watched her ride off. Fergus simply grunted and flicked his mace back under the bench as easily as he had taken it out. "Wipe your mouth, Fergus," the priest said. Fergus stared at him blankly. Diarmid muttered, then daubed spittle from the slack chin. Then the giant sat down again.
"You aren't Christian, either," Diarmid said, "but you're not a witch. What brought you here?"
"I came to see the skull of the monster," Mael said. "The one the Unknown Hero slew."
"The monster which God Almighty slew at the behest of the Holy Padraic," the priest corrected him, sharply though without rancor.
Mael blinked. "Padraic killed one of the water monsters, too?" he asked in perplexity.
"There was only one of the creatures," snapped Diarmid, "a child of Satan—as all things heathen are. It pursued one of the followers of the Holy Padraic as he swam toward a coracle." The priest gestured vaguely toward the peat-black waters in which his own skiff bobbed at the end of the pier. "The Apostle prayed to God to save his disciple, and the hand of God struck down the monster in answer to the saint's prayer."
"I hadn't heard the story," Mael said mildly. Nor had his father, who had seen the relic before Padraic had returned to Ireland to preach in the year Mael was born. The year Loeghaire was born, that was, but he must not think of that . . . "Father," Mael said aloud to the stern-faced priest, "I've traveled a long way to see this skull."
"You'll find your journey to Hell much shorter unless you repent," the older man gibed, but he motioned his visitor to follow as he stepped into the shrine. Fergus stood also.
Diarmid crossed himself at the threshold. He looked at the giant. "Fergus," he said.
"I forgot, Father," Fergus said. He crossed himself carefully.
With Fergus' huge body blocking the doorway behind him, Mael's eyes took a moment to adjust. There was little enough to see. A wooden crucifix had been added above the altar. It was of rustic workmanship but was carven with surprising vigor. The Christ's eyes bulged as he writhed against the nails. Mael could almost hear the scream from his open mouth. The altar itself was of plain stone, the same slab that had been there when Mael had seen it as a boy. The casket on the altar was the same also. It was a foot and a half long and about a foot in width and depth, constructed of bronze-bound wood. It was so obviously ancient that Mael shot a quick glance to Diarmid to surprise signs of embarrassment at his lie about it being a relic of Padraic. There were no such signs. The priest was obviously sincere, even though his claim for Padraic being the monster-slayer was untrue on its face. Religion, Mael thought sourly. He grinned.
The design on the casket was a rendering of the monster. Its head formed the latch which opened from pressure on the plate set cunningly between its open jaws. The head of the beast was oval, with a blackish-green patina that even looked wet. Around it was a circular fringe like a stylized lion's mane or a gorgon's frill of snakes. The neck writhed around the edge of the casket to the left, while the pointed tail rejoined the head from the right side. Presumably, the creature's torso and limbs, if any, were inlaid on the back where they were out of sight for the moment.
Diarmid murmured a prayer, then reverently touched the latch. He lifted the lid of the chest.
The interior was padded with heavy scarlet wool—a trophy itself, cut from the cloak of a high Roman officer in the days when the conquest of Britain was still in doubt. The skull within was flat, about a foot long and nine inches broad. The brain case was small, no more than the size of a clenched fist. Mael realized that what he had originally taken for large eye sockets were only sinuses in the bone to lighten it. The real eyes had been set far back and to either side of the head. The sockets were smaller than a man's.
Most of the skull, in fact, was jaw, or attachment for the jaw muscles. The maxillaries were set with a pincushion of teeth, conical and rear-slanting. The longest—and they varied little from the mean—were only about half an inch long. Fish-eater, Mael thought. He suddenly remembered the big salamander he had once plucked from beneath a rock in a stream so cold it numbed his fingers. That one had been black, slimy, and almost blind, a squirming monster in its way, though only eight inches long. A beast of that sort and this size—well, it would be nothing to meet in the water, whatever its choice of diet.
"Behold the power of the hand of God," the priest was saying.
Mael nodded. There were three vertebrae in the casket along with the skull. Two of them were notched and the third was half-missing where a blade had severed it. That bone had other blade nicks in it. The hand of God should have sharpened its sword, Mael thought to himself, but that was unfair. The drag of the water would prevent a proper stroke, and the thick sheath of muscles and cartilage would dull any edge before it reached the bone.
"Thank you," Mael said aloud. Diarmid's deep eyes burned him as if the priest knew what his visitor was planning . . . but no, that was only Diarmid's normal expression. Men get the gods they deserve. . . . "A man beholds the relics of ancient heroes that he may follow in their footsteps," Mael added sententiously.
"Follow in the path of God,'' Diarmid corrected, but with a hint of approval in his voice. The priest gestured. The room brightened as Fergus moved away from the door. Mael stepped back into the sunlight, hearing the latch click as the priest closed the casket behind him. Blinking with the light, the exile mounted his horse which was nibbling such grass as it could find at the edge of the rhododendrons.
"Thank you," Mael repeated. As he rode back up the slope, he could hear Diarmid scolding Fergus again for missing a prayer. For some reason, the scene chilled him.
* * *
Veleda had built a small fire on the far side of the ridge, out of sight of the shrine. Mael unsaddled his horse without saying a great deal. He began to knead ash cakes from the barley flour they had bartered that morning. Veleda used her small knife to prepare a chicken for roasting. She skinned the bird instead of trying to pluck it without a pot in which to scald it first.
"He's crazy, isn't he?" Mael said at last. "Not the big one, he's just lack-witted . . . but that priest, that Diarmid, he—what he's saying is like he said the sun shines here at midnight. But he really believes it."
"Why does that bother you?" the woman asked, her hands still for the moment as she looked over at Mael.
He opened his palms. "I've never been much for gods," he said. "They may be, they may rule me and everything else—I don't know and I don't much care. I don't care much about Christians, either, in a way . . . but even when I, ah, left Ireland, they were turning everybody to them. Now this. They don't just convert the men, they convert the holy places that have been there as long as there've been men at all on the island. And they tell lies, and they believe their own lies!" Mael clenched his fists in frustration. "Why is everybody going crazy?" he demanded. "Or am I?"
Veleda smiled. She spitted the chicken on a twig. "Men don't want to die," she said quietly. "People don't want to die."
"Nobody wants to die!" Mael blazed. "And everybody dies anyway. What does that have to do with it? Padraic didn't bring all this about by threatenin
g to slit all the throats of those who wouldn't pray to his god."
"No, though that may come later," Veleda agreed. She laid her hands over Mael's, her fingertips touching his wrists. "Do you remember the Plague?"
"Yes," Mael said. The Plague had wracked Ireland only a few years after Mael was born. Limbs blackened and began to decay even before death; abscessed lungs filled with fluid and drowned sufferers; high fevers cooked brains and left behind inhuman things that died later as the rest of their systems disintegrated. Isolation had preserved Ireland for centuries from the diseases which ripped the Mediterranean Basin, but past safety was cold comfort when death began to ricochet back and forth between the narrow shores. "Yea." Mael repeated, "I don't think I'll forget that soon."
"Nobody will," Veleda said. "Most people come to religion for comfort, not truth. There are truths, but they're not for most people to know. Whole villages died then, from the Plague. Half the people on the island died, and the bodies rotted in the fields because there were too few hands left to bury them. The idea that cycles are infinite and that souls are reborn in other bodies—doesn't have any appeal after so much pain. Even though it's true. Especially because it's true."
Veleda began turning the chicken over the coals while her left hand still touched Mael, sending prickles up and down his arm. "The old faith could handle death in people's minds, but not death on that scale. You know that the emperors of Rome were worshiped as gods?" Veleda continued.
Mael nodded.
"That didn't start in Rome for a political reason," she said; "it started in Gaul, men bowing to the power that had slaughtered their kinsmen by tens of millions. And that would have happened here, people praying to death and disease because there was no other power in the land. Except that the Christians had come at the same time."
"Padraic didn't make the Plague stop," Mael argued. "Hell, he died himself just last year. A sailor in Massilia told me that when I asked for news from home."
"But death doesn't matter to Christians," Veleda explained. "They learn that this world is only a doorway to the real existence in their heaven. I don't know where that heaven is or what it is—but people don't need truth. They need a way out of a charnel house, and that Padraic and his teachings promised them."
Mael swore in frustration. He prodded at the coals to scatter fat that had dripped and flared up. The sky above them was growing dim as the sun set making the orange flames brighter. "You mean their god Christ is false," Mael said flatly.
"No." Frowning again, Mael looked up at Veleda. "No," she repeated, "I don't mean that at all. Padraic's truth wasn't my truth, but he had a power. His vision was beyond that of all but a few of the men who have ever lived. Even the little man here, Diarmid . . . Mad? Of course. But he has a window to truth of a sort. He knew me for what I am, though his twisted mind put twisted labels on what he saw.
"So I won't say their Christ is false. But sometimes I wonder at minds that can take comfort in a truth of death and torture and misery in this world."
Mael chuckled grimly. He shifted his seat a little so that he could lean back against the pine tree beside which they sheltered. "I always wanted to come home," he said. "Oh, I knew I didn't dare, but . . . I was looking for an excuse like this one that Arthur offered me. But now that I've seen Ireland again, I—well, I'll be glad enough to leave it to its Christians."
Chapter Five
Two hours after sunset, Mael slipped down the pathway afoot and alone. He would have liked to wait longer, but the moon would be rising soon. No light spilled from the priest's quarters. Probably Diarmid and the giant went to bed at sunset, vaunting a poverty that did not allow even an oil lamp. If they were awake praying instead, Mael knew he would have to take his chances. He touched his dagger hilt; they would all have to take their chances.
Mael had left his cloak behind with Veleda and the horses. His tunic and trousers were a dark blue, invisible in starlight. He had considered blackening his face and hands with mud but had decided against it. That was too clear a badge of crime to any chance-met traveler later, and Mael did not want to waste time washing if his theft was successful. Theft. Well, he'd done worse things in his life than steal from a holy place.
Before he entered the clearing, Mael crouched beside the rhododendrons that formed a solid palisade along the trail. A fitful breeze was blowing from behind him toward the water. He strained against it to hear any sounds that might be coming from the shrine. There was nothing, though a fish slapped the surface of the lough. Mael took a deep breath and stepped swiftly to the door of the building.
He had drawn his knife to force the latch, but that was unnecessary. A simple slide bolt on the outside held the door against the wind; there was no lock. Mael pushed the door open gently. At first he thought he heard a tiny tinkle of sound. He froze, but the sound was not repeated. He opened the door the rest of the way.
The casket was still on the altar under the tortured Christ. The room was otherwise empty. Mael's tautness eased. He had been more afraid than he would admit to himself that Diarmid would have removed the relic into his sleeping quarters overnight. Even worse, the priest or Fergus might have been waiting in the shrine. Mael stepped forward to take the casket and run. The room darkened.
Fergus stood blocking the doorway. The mace was in his right hand.
Mael cried out, slashing at the giant's eyes. Fergus bellowed and seized Mael with his left hand. The doughy fingers wrapped themselves in the front of Mael's tunic. He jerked upward as if Mael were weightless. Mael's bare head rang on a roof beam. The giant swung his mace to finish the smaller man, but the weapon caught in the narrow doorway. Flakes of rock spalled off the outside of the shrine.
Mael held his dagger in a death grip that had nothing conscious about it. Fergus flailed him against the walls of the stone room, roaring in his own mindless pain. Blood from his slashed face spattered over Mael and the shrine. The casket had been knocked from the altar. It lay on its side, still fastened.
"Out!" Diarmid cried. "Bring him out!"
Either the words penetrated or Fergus acted without hearing them. He stepped back, wrenching Mael through the doorway in the same motion. Mael's tunic ripped and the battered man flew free. Mael bounced numbingly on the ground. The dagger sprang from his hand. It fell, gleaming softly, a dozen feet downslope where the path continued toward the pier.
Diarmid darted into the fane to examine the precious relic. He came out with the casket a moment later. Snuffling in wild frustration, Fergus turned toward the priest for the first time since Mael had cut him. No major blood vessel had been severed, but a sheet of gore, black in the dimness, had spilled down the giant's face. It was collecting to drip from the rounded chin. Both eyeballs had been destroyed. Clear humor from the eyes emphasized the upper cheeks by washing the blood away from them. "Oh Christ, Christ!" Diarmid cried. "My son, my son!"
Mael tried to get up. He could not. His whole left side was numb, as much beyond his control as if it belonged to another man. The first shock had been to his skull. That and the repeated pounding of his body against the wall of the shrine had stunned both his muscles and nerves. He could see the sheen of his knife through a haze. He rolled toward it.
"Fergus!" the priest ordered. There was grief and rage in Diarmid's voice, but he was controlling them. The reliquary was under his right arm. His left hand guided his son's arms and weapon upward, then turned him to face Mael. The priest took a step forward, maneuvering the giant from the side. "Now!" the old man said, and he twitched at the mace arm. Fergus struck down with his full strength.
The soil was peat, compacted by the feet of pilgrims for ages. The wedge-shaped stone buried itself to its haft, brushing Mael's chest as it passed. Mael's good hand snatched up his dagger. Fergus effortlessly tore his mace free and started to take another step forward. "Back!" Diarmid cried, and Mael's blade snicked air an inch from the giant's right ankle as that foot halted.
Mael crawled backward, down the trail, putting anothe
r few feet between himself and the deadly mace. He used the heel of his right hand to propel him while the locked fingers still pointed the dagger at his enemies.
"A little forward, Fergus," the priest crooned. "No, no, boy. Don't lift your feet, slide them. That's right, now—"
Mael pivoted his body. His feet caught in the impenetrable wall of rhododendrons. The exile shouted, arching backward like a wingless insect. The mace thudded into the ground again. Fergus cleared it with a sideways flick that netted the head among the dense branches. He bawled angrily and tore the weapon free—into the tangled rhododendrons on the other side. Despite Diarmid's cries, Fergus began to slash his weapon from side to side, scattering stems and branches with every sweep. He paused only when an arc in front of him had been cleared and further strokes met no resistance.
The giant was breathing heavily. Still, he held the mace out at arm's length with no perceptible strain or weariness. Mael had scuttled a dozen feet further down the trail, temporarily out of danger. He was unable to take his eyes off the awesome destruction. Diarmid's hand touched Fergus inside the elbow. "A little forward," he said.
Mael's left side was still almost dead to him. A few prickles of sensation were returning, but he had no real feeling. In a way that was just as well. He had long since scraped away a patch of his trousers on the ground, and the skin of his thigh was rapidly going as well. Bluffing, Mael thrust himself up on his right knee and stabbed. "Back!" the priest ordered. Then, seeing the exile was still only half a man, Diarmid shouted, "Strike!" Fergus' blow was harmlessly short. Mael had bought a few more moments toward the time he would have full use of his limbs again. He backed further, to where the trail ended at the pier.
The breeze wrapped Mael in the effluvium of Fergus' body: hot, dry—the odor of an ox which has been plowing in the sun, not so much offensive as overpowering. Mael knew that he himself must stink of blood and fear like a pig in the slaughter pen. The moon had risen. It silhouetted his assailants, the giant and the black-robed priest. They hunched forward together.