Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 Canadian

by McIlwraith, Dorothy

  Cullan sensed again that hidden purpose in the Tuathan king's words, that mysterious purpose that somehow concerned himself. But he was too desperately anxious to sec Fand again to question.

  He followed Lugh inside the hollow copper tube. The Tuathan king touched and turned a gnurled knob upon the wall. Then from walls and floor and roof of the cube, blinding light seemed to explode upon them.

  Brian Cullan reeled. He no longer felt the floor under his feet, but felt as though he were being hurled headlong through

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  howling darkness. Vaguely, he felt Lugh's arm steadying him.

  "We approach Mruun!" Lugh's voice reached him. "Now keep close behind me, and speak not until I have spoken."

  Cullan seemed to himself to be hurtling behind Lugh swifter than thought, through cold, mist-shrouded night over heaving ocean. He knew that it was only his image ' that was so traveling, only a simulacrum of himself flung out by the Tuathan's deep mastery of atomic science.

  Yet it seemed he, the real Brian Cullan, who was thus rushing at nightmare speed over the night-shrouded sea. And ahead of them, looming up with incredible swiftness, towered a great island.

  CHROUDED in cold northern mists, **-* the stupendous crags of this island rose like black battlements of giants. Up there on the heights was a squat, dark, . ancient city of vast extent, dominated by the massive, ebon castle that perched on the highest cliffs.

  "Black Mrunn, the chief isle of the Fo-morian race," came Lugh's voice. "Remember, keep behind me as we enier Tethra's castle."

  They were rushing up through mist and night toward the black and massive pile. Cullan glimpsed dark, mailed For-mnrian warriors on its walls, warriors who cried out and pointed at them.

  Then he and Lugh were rushing through the thick stone walls of the castle, as though they did not exist. He had flashing glimpses of a labyrinth of dusky corridors and levels, as they drove through them.

  Then, suddenly, their rush slowed and stopped as he and Lugh entered a vast, vaulted black room filled with strange, ochre light.

  "The throne-chamber of Tethra," whispered Lugh, from in front of Cullan, "Aye, and there is he, and Fand."

  At the far end of the room upon a throne of carven black stone flanked by mailed guards, sat Tethra. He was a man past middle age, dark like all the Formorians but handsome and with something in his mocking face that seemed vaguely familiar to Cullan.

  Facing the taunting gaze of the Fo-morian ruler stood a slim, erect white figure at sight of whom Brain Cullan's heart jumped.

  "Fand I" he whispered chokingly. It was Fand as he remembered her, slender in her starwoven white gown, her dark hair bare. Her green eyes were brilliant with defiance, her dynamic white face stiff with loathing, as she faced Tethra.

  But a moment that tableau held for Cullan to witness, before it w"as interrupted.

  Into the throne-chamber raced Fo-morian guards.

  "Lugh and another have come! Their images rushed through the wall into the castle—"

  But Tethra was on his feet before they could finish, glaring swiftly around the thr one -chamber. He became rigid as he glimpsed Lugh gliding forward with Cullan close behind him.

  "Lugh's shape-sending science!" exclaimed the Fomorian king. "Fear not, my men! I expected it and have prepared against it."

  As he spoke, Lugh was swiftly moving his hand. From a heavy bracelet-instrument on his wrist, bolts of shining force like living lightning darted toward Tethra.

  But those dazzling bolts withered,

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  faded and vanished in the strange ochre radiance that filled the room. And Teth-ra laughed, his dark, mocking face triumphant;.

  "Said I not I was prepared?" he taunted. "Not thus easily do you catch me, Lugh. The shape-sending trick will not avail you now."

  "The Tuatha know other tricks," Lugh said ominously. "You hover on the brink of an abyss. Tethra. Send Fand and the Gateway back to us or it is war between Tuathans and Formorians that means your death."

  rpETHRA laughed mockingly. "Will -*• threats win that war for you? You are already defeated and you know it, Lugh. Long have you kept us barred out of that Earth from which you drove us. Now we go back there, for now we have the Gateway and soon we will have its secret."

  Fand spoke softly in her silver voice. "They will never have it, lord Lugh! Fear not that any torture can force it from me."

  "There are tortures of the mind that can transcend the terrors of the flesh," Tethra said smootlily. "And I know how lo wield them, Fand."

  "Aye," said Lugh darkly, "there are tortures of the mind. But two can play at using them, Tethra."

  "Bring on your forces and weapons if you so dare," Tethra challenged contemptuously. "My warriors have long desired to slay you and your lords, including that hulking Dagda who now skulks behind you."

  "It is not Dagda who is behind me," said Lugh quietly. "It is one who is not of the Tuatha at all."

  And Lugh's image suddenly moved

  aside, revealing Brian Cullan's mailed figure to their gaze.

  Tethra leaped up like a man stricken by appalling force. For a moment, as he stared at Cullan, his face was livid.

  "Cuchulain!" he cried hoarsely. "Cuchulain, here from the outerworld!"

  And from Fand came a glad, silver cry. "Cuchulain returned! I Atww,, you would come back!"

  She ran forward with wild gladness in her face, as Tethra still stood rigidly, stunnedly staring at Cullan's image.

  Lugh made a sudden movement. To Cullan, the whole throne-room seemed suddenly to vanish as he was withdrawn from it with incredible swiftness. He felt himself whirled back through darkness, and suddenly was standing again in the copper cube in Lugh's chamber at Thandara.

  He stood unsteadily, still wild with emotion at his glimpse of Fand ano-l**'^ peril, as Lugh briefly told Dagda and the other of their glimpse of her.

  Cullan interrupted, his voice hoarse. "We've got to do something to get her out of there, quickly!"

  "We will," Lugh said quietly. "Tethra knows now that I have weapons against him."

  "That devil didn't fear your weapons," Cullan said harshly. He added, puzzlcdly, "Though Tethra seemed almost to fear when he saw me, seemed to know mc Yet he has never seen me before."

  "He mistook you for your ancestor Cuchulain—and he knew Cuchulain loug ago when he and his Fomorians invaded Earth," said Lugh. The Tuatha king added, broodingly, "And seeing you made Tethra fear, indeed."

  Cullan was too agonized by apprehension for Fand to ponder the dark mystery 3—1

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  that be sensed again behind Lugh's words.

  "We go to Mruun at once, physically and with weapons?" he cried tensely.

  Lugh shook his head. "Not yet. The hosts of the Tuatha are not yet gathered. And I have still a weapon to use against Tethra before we join final battle. But it will take time."

  "Time? There is no time!" Cullan retorted passionately. "If you and your warriors won't go, I'm going to Mruun alone!"

  He turned to leave the chamber. But giant Dagda grasped him, and held him like a child despite his raging resistance.

  "Lock him up," Lugh ordered curtly. "And you guard him, Goban. He is valuable to us for he is part of my plan against Tethra."

  Struggling furiously, Cullan was carried bodily out of the chamber and down a cnrridor. Dagda tossed him into a small room, not unkindly.

  "Be not so impatient, outworlder," boomed the giant as he shut and locked the door. "There'll be battle enough for all of us, soon."

  Brian Cullan heard the huge Tuathan stride away, leaving Goban on guard outside the locked door. He stood in the small, yellow-lit room, trembling with frustrated rage and dread.

  There was a tiny window. He went to it looked out feverishly into the night. Diffused silver radiance now streamed down through the mists, from moons somewhere above the haze. The unreal light washed the gardens and bubble-buildings below this high citadel of
Thandara.

  Out in the harbor of the city he could see slim boats streaming in through the haze, in numbers. The Tuathan warriors

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  were gathering from all their isles for war.

  Cullan gained no hope from the sight. By the time this host was ready to go northward, it would be too late to save Fand from torture and death.

  CHAPTER IV /TJLLAN turned back from the win-^"* dow, his fists clenched and his dark face savage in the soft yellow light.

  "I'll not be locked here like a child while Lugh spins mysterious plots. If they won't go to Mruun, I will!"

  But how? How escape from this room, from the citadel ? T4e window was too small, the door locked. There was only one possibility.

  He went to the door and called through it, "Goban, I want you to come inside. I give my word not to try to overpower you."

  Goban's voice came doubtfully. "I do no doubt your word, Cuchulain. But—"

  "Man, the princess Fand's life hinges on it!" Cullan cried.

  That swept aside Goban's doubts, as he had known it would. The captain of Fand's guards, like all her warriors, had been fanatically devoted to her. Goban unlocked the door and entered the room.

  Cullan spoke rapidly. "Lugh told you that we had seen Fand a prisoner in Mruun. But he did not tell you of all her peril."

  Goban's face blanched as he listened to Cullan's tale of hearing Tethra threaten the Tuathan princess with imminent torture.

  "The devils of Fomoria!" raged the captain. "If they do that before we get there—"

  "They will have done it before your host arrives," pressed Brian Cullan.

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  "Unless a few men, unless you and I, go ahead with all speed to Mruun and snatch Fand away from them first."

  Goban gasped. "You and I go alone to black Mrmm? It would be useless, mad."

  "We would have a chance," Cullan insisted. "Tethra was startled, shaken, when he saw me. I think he fears me, or rather, Cuchulain. And I think we could secretly enter his castle. I saw all its interior ways as I went through it with Lugh in image."

  The Tuathan captain hesitated, torn by his throbbing loyalty to Fand and his larger fealty to Lugh.

  "The lord Lugh would slay me for breaking his command," Goban muttered. "But I will do it, Cuchulain ! Better that than to let the princess die without attempt to save her!"

  His decision made, Goban planned swiftly. "We can leave the citadel only by the way wc came—the boats below. Wait, while I see if the road is clear.

  Brian Cullan waited in tense impatience for minutes before Goban returned. The Tauthan captain handed him a flame-sword.

  Sheathing the weapon, Cullan followed the other out of the room. Goban had chosen a way down narrow, little-used stairs *nd passages. As they hastened downward, they could hear from elsewhere in the citadel the echo of excited voices, of hasty preparations.

  Without chailenge they reached the quay of the little inner harbor beneath the citadel, in which yellow light glistened off the dozen swift metal boats moored here.

  "Dagda's craft is the fastest by far, but it is chained and locked," whispered Goban. "We must take the one in which we came.' 1

  The Tuathan again took the helm, starting the atomic mechanism purring and steering the slim boat quickly out the water-tunnel.

  They emerged from the citadel into the silver mists. At once, Goban swung their craft in a wide circle to avoid the entrance to the main harbor of Thandara.

  Looking back toward that harbor^ Brian Cullan saw in it many boats gathered along the massive docks. Under the flare of brilliant lights, Tuathan warriors were loading heavy, spouted mechanisms into the boats.

  "They prepare the instruments of our science that will loose destruction," said Goban "The battle that comes will be terrible."

  IVTOW they were clear of the island and " the Tuathan swung then craft northward. At its highest speed it skimmed over the smooth swells of the sea, Cu&af?" peering tautly from its bows.

  Silver mists as of dreamlike moonlight shrouded all the world. Wisps and curls of the whitely radiant haze caught at their faces as their craft rushed on. Like dim ghost-ianrls vaguely bulked the islands through which they were passing.

  Cullan felt an ever-fiercer impatience, born of his dread for Fan
  Goban was feeling something of that same fierce excitement. For the Tuathan called to him above the rush of the wind, his voice high.

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  "I am glad, now! I was the only Ivar-rior in Eihne who did not die fighting for tlic princess, and now I redeem that shame."

  Silver moon-mists and vague islands rushed past, as they sped on and on toward the north. Soon there were no more islands to be glimpsed, only the spectral sea over whose low wave-crests the slim boat ran headlong.

  Hours passed, Cullan saw the Tuathan constantly consult instruments in the stern and guessed that Goban was correcting and checking their course toward Mruun. They had already come a great distance, he knew.

  The mists began to grow thicker, darker, colder. A chill that he had not before experienced on this world entered Brian Chilian's flesh from the wind. And ever darker, heavier, became the shroud-. ing haze.

  "We draw near toward Mruun!" Go-ban called finally. "Soon we may glimpse the cursed island."

  Cullan's hopes flared up exultant. But the Tuathan added warning. "By now, they'll have missed us at the citadel. And Lugh can follow swiftly."

  A bare few minntes later, there came such a sharp and startled cry from Goban, that Cullan whirled quickly around.

  Tall and somber in his silver mail and helmet, staring at them in stern accusation, Lugh stood in the speeding boat with them.

  Cullan suddenly understood. "Lugh's image ! The shape-sending—"

  "Aye, it is how I have followed you," Lugh said harshly. He threateningly raised his arm, on which glittered the bracelei-sliaped weapon that could loose

  lightning destruction. "Turn back at once toward fhandara!"

  "I'll not turn back!" flamed Brian Cullan. "You can kill me, but while I live, I'm going on to Fand."

  Lugh slowly lowered his arm. "I shall not kill you, for you are valuable in our struggle against Tethra in a way you do not know."

  He added sternly, "But you shall not reach Mruun. I thought you would defy mc, and so when we missed you T sent Dagda after you."

  The image of Lugh vanished abruptly with that ominous warning, withdrawn by that shape-sending science he had used to overtake them.

  Goban's voice was appalled. "Dagda and his warriors pursuing us? And their craft is far faster than this one!"

  "They'll not dare pursue us into Mrnun itself," Cullan encouraged. "If we can reach the Fomorian city in time—"

  npi-IFJR Tuathan boat could not go ■*■ faster, since already it was racing over the sea at its highest speed. Anxiously each few minutes now they peered back into the darkening mists, but saw no pursuers.

  Another hour passed thus, and another, Then far and high in the cold, dark mists ahead, Cullan descried gleams of dull ocher light. Beneath those lights bullrad vaguely the black battlements of lofty cliffs.

  "Black Mruun at last!" he exulted. "We'll steal in below the cliffs and then—"

  "Dagda comes!" yelled Goban, pointing backward.

  Out of the mists behind them was emerging the spectral shape of a rushing

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  Tuathan boat larger than their own. It held half a dozen warriors, with giant Dagda himself crouched at its prow,

  "Turn and try to lose tliem in the misls r" cried Brian Cullan, desperate at the last-minute menace to his hopes.

  Goban obeyed, swerving their racing craft so sharply that its gunwhalc dipped up sen. But turn and twist a
s they might, rhe other craft and Dagda's angry, booming voice hung close behind them.

  "No use, Cuchulain!" cried Go-ban hopelessly. "They'll board us in a moment. And we cannot fight our own—"

  He suddenly stopped, his face for a moment wild and startled as he peered through the mist beyond Cullaii.

  "The Fomorians!"

  A dozen sharklike metal craft were rushing out of the mists upon them from the direction of Mruun. Cullan glimpsed them, loaded with dark Fomorian warriors in black helmets and mall, yelling now in savage joy.

  There was no chance for either Cullan's nor Dagda's craft to escape the ring that suddenly closed upon them. Flame-swords flared and clashed, men screamed and died in the mist, as the boats came together.

  Cullan had his own sword out, triggering the deadly force into its blade as he struck across the gunwales at the wolfish, brutal figures looming through the mist. He «aw Fomorian faces twist in agony as his blade touched bodies and loosed the destroying force on them.

  "Slay not the outworlder Cuchulain!" 3 T elled a captain in the Fomorian boat attacking them. "Remember Tethra's orders.'"

  Take him alive to torture with Fand? Cullan struck fiercely at the dark warriors who now were piling into his boat

  He glimpsed Dagda's craft rammed and sinking, the bellowing TuaLhan giant pitched into the sea. Then, from his unguarded side, a Fomorian sword-hilt crashed against the base of his neck. And Brian Cullan felt himself sliding into blackness.

  He awoke, his head aching violently; to a silence that seemed amazing transition from the roar and shock of battle.

  Cullan opened his eyes. He was in a dark stone chamber, windowless but chill with icy mists, lighted by a pulsing ocher radiance.

  "Goban, what happened?" he stammered to the man supporting him. Then he saw that it was not Goban but huge Dagda, his shock head bare.

  "Goban died a warrior's death in the fight," boomed the giant. "So did my men—but the cursed Fomorians picked me out of the water like a helpless fish as I sank in my mail."

  Brian Cullen felt a pang, at the news of the brave Tuatha captain's death. Then he looked wonderingly around the dank room.

  "We're in the castle of Tethra?" he husked.