Dimension? What other dimension?
What is a “dimension”?
And Cormac saw…
…a death-duel with swords, all shrouded in a swirling eerie mist not of nature born. One man fought with a green-glowing blade, and his face was a pallid, awful skull… Thulsa Doom once again! The other man Cormac could not see… the other man was himself.
And they fought well and with the clangour of blades of steel within the mist, and the wizard’s flashing green glaive was ensorceled, so I (he? I? He? He is I; I was he; I am he!) contrived to switch swords, warned by some shade or god from without the machina and aye, he was stronger at once, for the enchanted green brand of the wizard drank the source of life and energy itself, and gave it to the wielder that he became ever more strong and virile.
Cormac spoke aloud, dully, sitting and staring down at the earth. His voice was that of an old and weary man.
“And I grew strong and he weak, until he was drained. Then sank he down into naught but dust for the fickle winds to play with. For dust he was or should have been afore, a man long dead, a servant of… a servantish minion of… ka nama kaa lajerama!”
Well away along the plain of the Castle of Atlantis, another robed man with knowledge arcane stood, ruminating. At sound of those words he whirled about. A great look of surprise, of astonishment was writ on his well-boned face… well-boned, but fleshy that face, and not unpleasant to look upon, while his robe was of Nature’s green, not night-dark like that of the mage whose age was measured in millenia. A servant of the gods of men was this man, not of rustling spiteful serpents who must ever hate the race possessed of voices and legs.
“Ka nama kaa lajerama,” Bas repeated. “La ka nam’an vorankh amarejal!” Sweat stood out on the druid’s brow as he stared at the hunched and slackfaced Cormac mac Art. “And he thinks he be but a descendant of that great ancient Kull, King Kull, that once and always King Kull! For it is all the same, Celt and Kelt, the Keltoi of the Greeks and the Celtii/Keltii of the Latins. All the same: Cormac and Kull, Cull and Kormak!”
The druid shook as with palsy. He murmured on, “And that I, I, Miall’s son Bas of Tir Conaill, am alive at this time, and him alive and abroad in goodly body once more. Aye… and menaced!”
Bas the Druid strode to the seated, bowed man. His hand fell gently on Cormac’s shoulder.
Up jerked a dark head, and eyes like ice from within the crevasses of their slits stared wildly up at Bas. “Tu! It’s he! We must-”
Cormac broke off. Bas waited a moment longer, feeling his own hand quiver on that powerful shoulder. He saw Cormac’s eyes come into focus. Then the druid said what he had come to say, what he must say.
“Cormac mac Art! You are in more danger than any man on earth, for a timeless master of evil and illusion has marked you for his own. Vengeance he seeks, not on you whom he knows not in this life, but on him ye once were. Cormac mac Art! I who was there too, as councillor and enemy of the same enemy… I shall not leave your side, for sword and prowess alone will not prevail against the one who seeks grim vengeance from a time so far removed from this that men have not the numbers to count the years!”
Cormac did not move; it was as if the powerful weapon-man did not hear, so lost was he in visions and memories that were not memories, and voices of the past that was never past, never wholly gone, but one more portion of the flowing river of the eternal present.
With a hand on the shoulder of ‘that seated, hunched man, Bas looked about. His chin rose and he put back his shoulders. The robe flapping like massy foliage in the wind, he strode to the far corner of the Castle of Atlantis. The druid looked into the gloom alongside it; he spoke into the gloom.
“Woman! One knows of tears shed, of fears that rise unbidden, of imagined gulf betwixt princess and exile! One knows of love, and who holds love for whom in a stout heart and firm, stubborn mind. Woman! Know that ye love not alone, know that ye are needed and that what ye do, weeping and nurturing fears and self-pity in the dark is an unworthy luxury-and an unaffordable one. Be ye woman indeed, Samaire of Leinster, or mere mewling whimpering girl? For there’s another who too would weep, were he able, and the better be for it.
“Woman-he needs us, this man, for that is coming which shall shake the roots of his soul and aye of the world itself, the foundation stones upon which is builded the ridge of the world-shall shake and echo among the dimensions that are, and it’s he will be at fulcrum, hated and menaced and tormented. Power ye have, Samaire of Leinster. For ye can add to that torture-and he to yours-or ye can be great.”
Bas peered into the shadows betwixt natural walls of granite and basalt and castle walls reared eighteen thousand years agone.
Bas said, “Decide!”
And Bas passed into the Castle of Atlantis.
The sun shed warmth and light on that castle, and on its valley and the man who sat as if struck by the hand of Death or powered over by the grim claws of age. He stared at the ground… and after a time there before his eyes were two small feet in unusual dark boots. Another voice came to his ears, and not, this time, from his mind or from Bas.
“It’s like children we are, my love,” that voice said, softly. A hand came onto his bowed head. “You hurt me, and so I sought to hurt you. Too there was confusion upon me. It’s companion I must be, hulking hero, boon companion. For I be no squirming flirting fluttering woman likely to swoon, but Samaire of Leinster, companion to Cormac mac Art. It’s destroyed I’d be an ye treated me as no more than comrade, but… when ye seek to protect me, it must be as companion, not something soft and vulnerable that belongs to you and that you want not marred.”
The woman in the tall soft boots and loose coat of mail heaved up a great sigh. “Thrust me from yourself no more, my love, my dairlin boy, for it’s no favour to me to force safety upon me whiles you face that which may slay you out of my sight. We must face together what is to be, as once we did here, as we did those Pictish raiders on Munster’s coast and again on our ship just yester day but three, as we did in the wood of Brosna, as we did in treacherous Cashel. Lovers, aye… but companions, Cormac, by night and day!”
He looked up. “Princess born, you must not say ‘my love’ to me.”
“Och! Fah, I say it by night, as do yourself… Companions by day and night, aye, and my love by night and day! Now come up, my love, and let us go inside this ancient keep you have made your own.”
My own, Cormac thought rising. The Castle of Kull of Atlantis… my own… my castle. My…
“My woman!” he said hoarsely, seizing her arms above the elbows.
Samaire strove for control, and she looked at him and spoke as coolly as she was able. “Of course. My man.”
They looked at each other a long while in the sunlight. Then, each with an arm about the other, they went for Bas, in the Castle of Atlantis.
Chapter Eight:
Footprints
“It was in this room that the man held her, Bas, that druid out of place among Vikings. Cutha Atheldane. Some plan he had for Samaire’s marriage to one of the Norse. As I think on it now, I remember me that we’ve talked not of that, Samaire and I; I’d forgot. I came upon them, and saw him staring into my eyes with a gaze sharp as a raven’s. Ere I knew what was afoot, it was Wulfhere I was looking upon!”
“Seemed to be looking upon,” Bas corrected, nodding without apparent surprise.
“Just so,” Cormac said. “I like to have died then, until Samaire made a great shout. Then it was like waking from a dream-fraught sleep. Not Wulfhere I saw then but the man Cutha Atheldane in his nightdark robe-almost upon me with a dagger naked in his hand. In avoiding his attack with my mind still befogged, I fell-here, across that chair. I only just saw him as he oped a door, here in this wall, and with Samaire fled within.”