The Sign of the Moonbow

Prolog

A cadaverously thin man stood close against the ship’s mast, his back to it. His robe flapped in the breeze that drove the one-sailed craft across the sea that lapped south and east of Britain. Night-dark was that robe; tall was its wearer. He was bound in place, though not with ropes. Cords could not hold such a one able to assume slithering forms other than his own. Nor could he be prisoned with leather, or with chains of iron or steel.

Two sword pommels stood out from his chest and abdomen. He was held fast in the only way he could be held: impaled and pinned to the mast, motionless and unmovable. The swords nailed him to the mast.

No blood flowed.

He writhed, snarling.

It was not from lips those snarls emerged, for the doubly impaled man had no lips. Nor mouth, nor face he had; there was neither cartilage nor skin nor hair on the shining, grey-white skull that was his head. Yet within the shadowed holes that had been eye sockets, red lights burned, more like hellish and ever-maleficent flames than eyes. He writhed, and snarling sounds emerged from his lipless mouth.

He saw; he felt; he complained of cold, but not of pain.

He was neither alive nor dead. Dead, he lived. Yet he could not be slain, for he was not truly alive. Un-dead he had been for eighteen thousand years, escaping all the means that had slain so many others, the countless deaths he had personally wrought and callously caused. He could only be held-and only by this ghastly means.

The skewered man in the dark robe rode the foremost of two ships that slid over little known seas.

Each could loft a single sail, though the gentle breeze filled only the sail of the first. Each was constructed of overlapping planking in the clinker style. Each could ship over thirty oars, though neither did. Neither had as many as twenty aboard to man her oars, nor even ten. Many men lay dead in their dual wake, all victims of the power and machinations of the baneful captive with the skull for a face.

The second ship was without crew at all. All those who had sailed her hence down from Britain were dead; all she had borne out to sea now provided food for the plants and creatures on its floor. Unmanned, bearing the name Amber Rowan along her bluepainted side, she wallowed along at the end of thick plaited cables of rope, doubled and tripled. Her greyed sail was furled against a sudden change in the light breeze, whether of direction or force.

The towing ship was heavy laden, though it bore six persons-and one of those was the repugnant creature nailed to her mast. Not for so few was the using of oars. Green-streaked Quester was no merchant vessel, but bore considerable cargo.

The fine fabrics and the gold, the silver and jewellery of precious stones, the arms and armour and wrapped personal possessions of some twenty men were not trade goods.

All had been stolen-if aught could be called stolen that had been paid for in the scarlet coin of so many lives. The cargo had been the booty of murdering Norse reavers, all four months dead; it had been sought by three-and-twenty Britons, all dead over a fortnight. The cargo had been taken from the Norse pirates’ cache, and that on a tiny isle where stood a castle raised by men dead these hundred and eighty centuries.

The undead man was of long-sunken Atlantis. The survivors and possessors of the rich plunder, his captors, were four of the Eirrin-born and one of the land they called Loch-linn, home of the Danes, Dane-mark.

The Dane was a giant, red of hair and bushy unkempt beard, huge of chest and broad of shoulder. His arms were the size of the thighs of other men. He lounged at the tiller, his ax, shield, and coat of scale-mail nearby. Little effort was required of him. The sun was bright, the breeze steady and not swift, the ship slowed by the similar long boat she towed. When the sun was lower, he would use the sun-stick to check their course. By day, there was no other means.

One man was speaking. Like the fell writhing captive he was robed, though in the green of nature, and girt with a length of rope. A lunula hung on his chest, a half-moon of gold that returned the sun’s light in dull flashes. Above, mote closely fitting, he wore the twisted necklet of the Celts, a torc. He it was who had promised fair skies and good winds. His companions had learned to believe this servant of Behl and Crom, and to believe.

“In times more ancient than we count,” the green-robed druid told the others, “an exile from Atlantis found employment as weapon-man in a land called Valusia. Time came when he made challenge to the king, and brought defeat and death on him, and the Atlantean was king over Valusia. His name was Kull. Trusted counsellor to him was a man named Tu. Just that: Tu. I am… I was Tu, as I have been others since, in the endless cycle of birth and death and rebirth. And you, Cormac, who have been others as well, are and were Kull. For it is all the same, Celt and Keltoi and the Keltii of the Romans; Kull and Cormac, Cull and Kormak.”

The others looked at the man the druid addressed as Cormac.

Dark of hair and skin he was, like the druid, and with the same grey eyes though the druid’s held more blue; both men were Gaels, of Eirrin. A life fraught with hacking swords and venomously whining arrows and rushing battle axes had left scars that, with his narrowed deepset eyes, imparted a rather sinister aspect to the face of the man called Cormac. Yet he was loved by four of the six aboard, including the woman, and hated by one-the captive.

“I… remember,” Cormac said.

The Dane frowned, giving ear in silence. Their talk was alien to that which he had been taught, but others among the beliefs he’d held true had been shaken in this company, more than once. Father Odin… will I not dine and drink with you, but return once more in another body to live another life on this same Midgard? The redbeard looked not happy; one-eyed Allfather Odin made no reply.

“A great enemy and plotter against King Kull,” the druid said who had been Tu of Valusia, “was the mage and master of illusion, Thulsa Doom. In no less than four plots did Kull foil the wizard and put defeat on him, though in each wise Thulsa Doom prevailed for a time. On two occasions did the king like to lose his life to this unrelenting enemy. And eventually Kull and Tu and a mage on Kull’s behalf won the final victory-on the isle where we’re just after being.”

The others glanced back. But the isle of sorcery-wrought dread and evil, that isle of Kull’s sorcerously preserved castle, was long since left behind and lost to sight. Hours ago they had consigned to the sea the comrades they had lost to death there, of the power and plottings of their captive and the iresome illusions he created.

“There Thulsa Doom was-left,” the druid said, “trapped by sorcerous bonds: the bondage of a body without hands or feet or voice.”

“The serpent Cormac slew!” the Dane rumbled. “Four months agone that was, when he and I rescued Samaire from the Norsemen.”

Redbearded Dane looked at the red-maned woman he called Samaire. She was in her second decade of life and wore strange tall boots of black leather that rose up her thighs to vanish under her folded tunic. Her long hair gleamed orange and gold in the sunlight.

“And the vanishing?” she asked, this Samaire. “Those several times Thulsa Doom vanished, Bas, whilst we laboured to load our ships, and his disappearing even when impaled?”

“And returned, still impaled,” the youngest aboard said, and he glanced at the undying wizard. The youth sat on a rowing bench, near Cormac. His hair was very fair.

“Of old, Bas the Druid made reply, “Thulsa Doom effected escape into another dimension, a sort of world parallel to ours and not unlike it-and yet different. There he is invisible to eyes from this world of ours. Frown on; I can explain no better. This explains his disappearings. He seeks similar escape from us. But his body holds him. Sword driven through him into shield held him ashore, pinioned in the only way he can be held. Even then he took my form, and yours Samaire, and that of a serpent-and aye, he sought escape by disappearing. Was Cormac saw the key to this, holding captive even Thulsa Doom, and thus we must keep him pinned still.”

“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.

Bas commenced anew. “Then we must keep our prisoner, as our duty to all humankind, for dead Thulsa Doom cannot otherwise be slain.”

And he was fixedly, madly bent on horrid vengeance against Cormac mac Art-or him he had been in the distant past.

As they sat in tight-lipped silence, the ship on that calm sea rocked as though gale-struck. Groans rose as stomachs seemed to be wrenched, seemed to somersault. Then all was still but for the gentle breeze that swept Quester away from Kull’s isle they’d named Doom-heim, toward distant Eirrin. Thulsa Doom reappeared, helpless at the mast.

“Da-a-m-m-mnnn ye!” he ground out, and he was still.

Two ships that were in truth long boats slid across the sea in a gentle breeze, bearing history and horror.

The eyes of Bas were signally bright and wide, and he looked skyward. His hands fingered the symbols of his gods and their powers, which were those of nature, like the green of his robe. The others realized that he wrestled now with Thulsa Doom, whose powers were of darkness and illusion, rather than nature and the light.

Then Samaire was calling out. “There was a rocky little island-there! It-it’s gone!”

Her companions looked about, and in a babble of voices they agreed. The exiled princess of Leinster was right. The sea had changed; the world had changed. Bas turned from them, paced in his woods-green robe to the wizard.

“May ye be damned! It’s again and again ye’ve tried, tried amain and it’s both failure and success ye’ve grasped, isn’t it? Ye did break through into your other dimension-but ye’ve brought us with ye, into a different world!”