Cormac went to the cot, squatted beside it. “And-ye be not ill, Protector of Daneira?”
“Weakened. Drained, like a squeezed waterskin,” the old man said. “Never have I had to call on such powers. The small pigskin bag from the chest, Flaen,” he said, and looked again at Cormac. “Though those who look on see only the power, the manifestation of the goddess and ancient knowledge passed from one to one to another and so down to me, there is much labour in… what I did. It is exhausting. I lay unconscious?”
“You did: Was I bore ye here. And it’s glad I am ye be recovering, Cathbadh of Daneira. Memory will be on me as long as on the the people ye saved from the Norse this day.”
Cathbadh’s face clouded. “Not quite all. A girl not quite nubile died with them-and two childbearers.” He sighed. Glancing at Flaen’s movement, the old man’s eyes brightened, though Cormac had noted they had seemed not so weak as his body. The Gael-turned to follow their gaze.
The chest or casket Flaen had fetched was old, very old, of unbound wood and decorated only with an etched moon-sign. From it he had taken a small pouch of russet-hued pigskin, and opened its strings.
“Master,” he said, extending it.
“Come, I must needs sit up,” Cathbadh said, and received swift aid from the Gael. “Ahhh. Weak, weak as an infant.”
“It’s more need ye have for the ale Sinshi brings than I,” Cormac said. “And for red meat, methinks.”
Cathbadh was dipping his fingers into the pouch. Flaen said, “For such as my master and I, intoxicants are used, not quaffed in the way of other men. He will soon have a bit of milk. Nor do we eat meat, at all.”
Cormac shook his head. “It is no simple matter, this business of serving Danu and protecting her… city. No ale and no meat either!”
Though he was no such great tippler as Wulfhere, Cormac mac Art was hardly an enemy of ales or wines-and he could not imagine living without meat.
“It is no simple matter,” Cathbadh agreed. He looked up at Flaen. “Ye know, Flaen, that I shall not long survive this day’s work. Your time approaches, and I wish for you that no such need is pressed upon you as on me today-ever.”
Flaen sank down beside the cot. “Master!”
“Cathbadh!” That from the king, who stood silent and unassuming as no ruler Cormac had ever known or dreamed of. Nor did Uaisaer wear so much as a band about his head, much less a crown.
“Come, friends both-all three,” Cathbadh said. “Ye well know our geas and our limits, and the rewards and penalties for such as we.” Taking a pinch of finely crushed leaves from the pouch, he stared at them, muttered unintelligible words.
There was silence in that room then, and into it came Sinshi, bearing what was surely a sore insult to goats: a goatskin bag of goat’s milk. In her other hand a larger, fatter skin sloshed most pleasantly. Beautifully turned and carven mugs of wood there were in the house of Cathbadh, and them smooth and shiny as sword-steel.
Soon they were lifting well-filled mugs each to the other, a king over a few hundreds of people, and the man who served their deity and protected them at peril to his own resources, and a weapon-man of Eirrin. One cup contained milk.
They drank, and soon Cormac mac Art felt of far more cheer.
“Cathbadh, there is a place I must go, and my friends awaiting. And… another. Now I hold hope that ye can be helping us, an ye be recovered enow to hear of the evil we hold captive.”
“Ah,” Cathbadh said, less weakly still, having eaten twice of the herbs from the little russet pouch and, having quaffed. fresh rich milk. He sat up the straighter. “Daneira is in the debt of this man, Flaen, and hear him! We are fortunate that he has some need of us.” He turned, clear, coal-dark eyes on the Gael. “Cormac mac Art?”
“An ye can accept this, Master Cathbadh-”
“I am called Cathbadh, Cormac.”
“A king called by name and a genius among wizards the same!” Cormac exclaimed. He shook his head, and his lips drew back in a tiny smile. “On all the ridge of the world is no other place such as Daneira, and may none ever find ye!”
“May your words be naught but truth,” the crownless king said, from behind the Gael. And he drank again, of the ale of Daneira.
Cormac fixed Cathbadh with his slit-eyed gaze. “An ye can accept this, Cathbadh… on my ship is a most powerful mage, dedicated to evil. Divers forms can this one assume-and he cannot be slain, nor held by means other than the ghastliest of inhuman impalement. So is he held fast now, with my companions in constant dread lest he break somehow free. He is a creator of illusions, this one, who can assume the form of any man or woman, and a serpent as well.”
Cathbadh interrupted. “A serpent?”
Cormac blinked in surprise. “Aye.”
“Ah. A mage long upon the earth, is this one, and dedicated to naught but the doing of evil. Though it’s the image of humankind he wears, it is all humankind he hates and plots against.”
“Ye know him, then?”
Cathbadh shook his head. Black eyes glittered. “I know his kind. Many stories have come down, Cormac mac Art, over thousands of years from one servant of Danu to the next. Comal de Danann I am called, and so I am: Slave of Danu! But I had not thought that such as this one ye describe yet lived on this earth.”
“He does not live, Cathbadh. It’s dead he is-and thus he cannot be slain. But yet he does live, in some way not understandable to such as I. If knowledge were with ye of some means by which he could be held captive, whilst we seek his final doom-”
“A servant of the serpent god and he dead and yet alive; Undead! Ah, but he can be slain!”
“Cathbadh! You can do this?”
The old man shook his head. “I cannot, Cormac de Gaedhel; Cormac of the Gaels. Nay, for of old it was said that only a woman enthroned could be the ultimate death-giver of such.”
Cormac’s shoulders slumped. Suddenly he wished for all of him that this damned uncrowned King Uaisaer were a woman or that he had rescued not the daughter of a carpenter but a princess, like a self-respecting hero.
“Cormac.”
The Gael looked morosely into the wizard-priest’s eyes.
“Be of cheer,” Cathbadh said, and lifted his cup with its remainder of thick milk. “He can be held, or rendered rather powerless. I have the means. I have the means to make even such as you powerless, Cormac, or myself-in the mind. What boots the freedom of the body, an the mind belongs not to him who dwells in that body? Ye know that we all do but temporarily reside in these forms we wear, as a man lives in a house, and when it burns or falls into rot, he moves into another?”
Excitement was on mac Art, and he nodded several times. “Aye! Sinshi-please ye lovely dairlin’-be there more ale?”
I should not have said those words, Cormac mac Art thought, as she happily refilled his fine wooden mug-and took again his arm, pressing her hip close to his mail-skirted thigh. He glanced down at the shining top of that black-crowned little head. A sensuous little tawny maid, by Crom of Eirrin!
“What it is with such as this one ye describe,” Cathbadh said, “is that he need not wait for action of the gods upon his death, but can transfer his mind, himself, into another body of his own choosing. As he has doubtless done thousands of times.”
“That body he wears now,” Cormac said grimly, “has no face, only a skull without flesh.”
Cathbadh frowned. “I can hold him, Cormac of the Gaels. I can give ye the means to hold him. I shall. Flaen, no argument-I go with Cormac.”
“Ah, Protector of Daneira,” Cormac said with a grateful fervor he seldom expressed, “great wizardpriest of Danu… it’s better news and more hope ye offer me than I’ve known in a moon’s worth of days.”
Flaen was shaking his head. “Master-”
“All of us will be most pleased,” Cathbadh said, ignoring his apprentice, “to be able to do this for ye, Cormac of the Gaels-and for Consaer and Sinshi who were lost to us but for yourself.”
Chapter Five: