“Forever, if need be,” the other Gael muttered.
“He will… attempt again?” This from the young man, a youthful weapon-man with flaxen hair and pale eyes.
“Yesssssss,” Thulsa Doom hissed in rage, and he vanished from Quester.
“He be still here,” Cormac son of Art said grimly.
Awestruck silence cloaked the little ship, despite Cormac’s words of certainty. The vanished wizard could assume the form of any man he had seen-or woman, as Cormac had learned in a night of horror on the island they’d quitted. Too, they had learned in manner dismaying that he could gain control of the very minds of some, so that they dully carried out his will. Yet none of those now aboard Quester had succumbed, though they’d been forced to slay their former companions-which was why only these five survived.
And why had none of them fallen under the illusionist’s mind-control, neither Bas the Druid nor Wulfhere the Dane nor Samaire Ceanncelaigh nor Brian na Killevy whom Cormac called I-love-to-fight?
“Mayhap we were too determined of purpose,” Bas said.
“Too staunch,” Cormac suggested.
“Too loyal to yourself,” Samaire said.
Young Brian nodded, for he adulated the tall and rangy Gael who had been a noble of Connacht in Eirrin, and weapon-man for the King of Leinster though not of age, and then of the King of Dal Riada in Alba when he was exiled from Eirrin’s shores, and then riever or reaver: pirate, and then Champion of Eirrin welcomed home by the High-King on Tara Hill and then captain of this expedition on behalf of Samaire and her royal brother; finally it was Cormac mac Art who had somehow conquered the unconquerable, slain again the dead men raised by Thulsa Doom-and at last he had conquered the undying wizard himself.
Brian I-love-to-fight saw Cormac as the man he hoped to emulate though knew he could never equal; Cormac mac Art saw Brian as the youth he had been, before the years had laced him, body and mind, with so many scars. Brian of Killevy was glad and proud to know the man and be in his company, for surely Art’s son of Connacht had been Eirrin’s great hero of old, the legendary Cuchulain himself of Muirthemne.
Samaire looked asea and pensiveness was on her. Loyal, she had said, but it was more.
Though it was companion she called herself, and weapon-companion to Cormac mac Art she was, she loved the man. Too, she knew that the words of Bas were true. Sureness was upon her that she had known Cormac in a life or lives lived out before this one. Though actual memory was not there, certain knowledge was.
Cormac glanced up at the mast. Thulsa Doom was there once more, and the eye-spots in the deeply cratered sockets glowed rage-red. Almost, Cormac smiled. Then he directed his gaze at Bas.
“Bas-what have you done? We’ve seen your powers prevail over his, in the matter of the wind and clouds. What know ye now that we must needs know?”
Bas’s black hair blew in the salted breeze. “I was able to protect us all during our waking hours. And Quester and all aboard, despite Thulsa Doom’s wizardry. For it’s of Eirrin this ship is, and my own powers are strongest on our own soil and with those that were born there, human or no. And… there are other things. Let me keep that knowledge. The telling of them will avail ye naught and may weaken me-and empower him.”
They looked at the death’s-head apparition at the mast.
He writhed, snarling.
He did not bleed.
“I will tell ye what I read on the walls of the castle of Kull,” Bas the Druid said, and the gazes of his companions returned to him, leaving the wizard’s dreadful aspect and plight with more than willingness.
“Those pictures did speak, then!” Wulfhere glanced at his longtime weapon-companion and fellow reaver, for Cormac had stared at those thrice-ancient walls as though preternaturally held fast by them. It was then the Gael’s remembering had come upon him. From time to time, confused and fearful until Bas had made explanation, Cormac mac Art remembered events of long, long, incredibly long before his birth.
Before his birth this time, the huge Dane mused, for how could he disbelieve the endless cycle of return, of death and rebirth, in which the sons of Eirrin held belief? Were, not they living evidence of that theory alien to the adherents of Odin/Woden and Thor/Thunor?
Aye, and Wulfhere Hausakluifr gave listen to the servant of Behl and Crom of Eirrin. With a great sigh that expanded his chest a prodigious number of inches, the Dane slid a horny fingernail up into his beard. Listening, pondering, Wulfhere scratched at the crust left by sea-breeze and salt spray.
“I read the pictures on the walls,” the druid said, “and certain markings. Runes. Some of what I learned I will tell you of, later. But this-this I shall enjoy speaking in his presence, that he will know we know the means of destroying him. For it’s only vengeful and hate-filled I am toward you, Thulsa Doom, who exist only in vengefulness and hate. The wall told of how ye may be slain again, Skullface, and permanently.”
The death’s-head mage snarled like a predatory beast. The teeth of that faceless, skinless skull clashed and ground in frustration and overweening hatred.
“That skull,” Bas said, staring not at his companions but at Thulsa Doom, “severed and wrapped in good leather, must be put into the hands of a crowned woman. She-”
Thulsa Doom writhed and strained and gnashed his teeth with a clack and clash. The ship was suddenly amove, rocking with much noise of slapping sloshing water. Yet the wind had not risen. Such was the fury-heightened strength of the sorcerer from the past. Another sound came from him, a hiss-and an enormous serpent replaced him at the mast.
The reptile sought to writhe and whip and tear itself free of the impaling swords. Cormac came hurriedly to his feet, pulling steel partway from scabbard. But the snake was no more able to escape those bonds like gigantic nails than the man-shape. That form the mage resumed-
And again, Thulsa Doom disappeared.
“It is strange,” Brian said, and there was a quaver in his voice he sought to conceal. “In such a short while have I learned to accept the impossible. I do not even gooseflesh now at his vanishing.
The boat lurched so wildly that Samaire slid along the rowing-deck and groaned at the leap of pain in one bruised leg. Cormac staggered. Water splashed high and white. The Gael looked about. The other ship was placid, stirred only by Quester’s bucking; there was no wind and the sea lapped softly.
“He is not gone from us,” Bas the Druid said.
“A crowned woman, though,” Wulfhere said. “Of what value be that information-no such exists!”
“More sorcery,” Brian said, little above a whisper. Bas only looked upon the youth with coolly wide grey eyes. “Will ye hear the rest?”
“We will,” Cormac said.
Samaire added, “Please.”
“This crowned woman must then pound the skull into dust, with a hammer of iron.”
“Iron?”
“Aye, so I believe the ancient picture-writings tell us. Mayhap there was no steel in the days, of Atlantis.”
Cormac’s face was grim and not hopeful. “But-a crowned woman! Where rules a woman?”
“Nowhere,” Samaire said, with a sigh. Her face went reflective.
“Then-”
“Then-” Bas began.
He gave pause at renewed turmoil. Their craft rocked violently. Water spurned high. The sky seemed to shimmer. When all abated, eyes were fearful and knuckles white from gripping handholds as though to keep from being hurled off the ridge of the world.