The Mists of Doom cma-1 Read online

  The Mists of Doom

  ( Cormac Mac Art - 1 )

  Andrew J. Offutt

  The Mists of Doom

  Andrew J. Offutt

  Introduction

  With Gratitude

  Though this novel appears as the fourth in the series, it is technically the first in that cycle of the Irish hero of the late fifth century, Cormac mac Art. Herein is chronicled all the information we have concerning Cormac’s early life, his youth, the death of his father and the orphaned youth’s employment in Leinster as warrior-and the events that led up to Cormac’s long series of adventures away from his beloved homeland; the reaver or pirate Robert E. Howard wrote of in Tigers of the Sea.

  If you are discovering Cormac for the first time, this is the beginning and the best place to begin the cycle. If you’ve been with us through Tigers of the Sea and Offutt’s Sword of the Gael, The Undying Wizard, and Sign of the Moonbow, you will surely welcome this look into Cormac’s origins-including his first meeting with Samaire of Leinster.

  Accounts of the later events of Cormac’s adventurous life were found and authenticated with relative ease. The stories had been passed down orally in the Irish tradition and more than one writer of the fifth through tenth centuries had written of his exploits: as commander of a crew of piratic reavers and the subsequent years as reaver with Wulfhere the Dane; of his adventures in Britain and Denmark and the little kingdom of Galicia; among the Tuatha de Danann within the Emerald Isle; of his crossing of life-paths with Arthur of Britain and with Hengist, among the first of those from oversea to carve out sword-lands in Britain to become England, of the matter of the sigil-ring of Egypt; of his perilous struggles with such sorcerers as Thulsa Doom, Tarmur Roag, Lucanor of Antioch, and others.

  Some of these adventures have appeared in the books previously mentioned; others are to follow as Offutt and Zebra Books continue to present the cycle for the modern reader.

  More difficult to unearth were the facts of his youth, before he became the famous reaver, bane of sorcerers, and Champion of Eirrin. The task of tracking down and assembling these accounts fell to my friend Geo. W. Proctor.

  Like Howard who first discovered and began chronicling the Cormac cycle, Proctor is a Texan and a lover of high adventure, particularly heroic fantasy. His own tales of weapon-men and images are included in my anthologies of new heroic fantasy, Swords Against Darkness, and he is working on his own novels.

  It was Geo. Proctor who tirelessly tracked down, along vermiculate paths leading into and through numerous sources, Macghnimhartha na Cormaic: The Youthful Deeds of Cormac. From a crumbling monastery near Cashel came the scraps of laboriously recopied-in Latin! -manuscript, Partha na Lagen, and realized that this “Partha (mac Othna) of Laigin or Leinster” was indeed Cormac, written of as his cloak-name or alias. From the musty library of an aged scholar-now deceased-living near Dublin that was Dubh-linn (and formerly Baile Atha Cliath or Ath-Cliath), came into Proctor’s hands the nigh-unreadable Longes mac Airt: the Exile of Art’s Son. In the Leinsterish archives is proudly recorded Tain Bo an Ard Riogh: The Cattle-Raid of the High-king or the Driving off of the High-king’s Kine.

  Laboriously Proctor checked and cross-checked, questioned and collected, compiled and discarded, and somehow pieced together the story of a heinous plot by High-king and priest… and the story of young Cormac. His work does shame on scholars and historians (whom in truth I have caught out in errors, in my own researches-while doubtless making errors of my own).

  Geo. and I were already in contact, and I am the chronicler and supposed expert. To me he sent his account-and two copies of his pages and pages of notes. Pleading gross ignorance of Gaelic, I asked him to compile it all into a sort of narrative, in outline form. (We agreed to leave out The Matter of the Queen’s Chamber, and the Story of the Twelve Picts, as being surely fanciful, apocryphal additions by later enthusiasts.)

  Proctor complied, and once I had rewritten his outline I obtained his approval of that version. It was also patiently explained to me that “Ceann” is not “Sean” but simply Ken and that the “family name” of the Leinsterish royal house, Ceannselaigh, would be pronounced simply KEN-sley. He also confirmed the name “Conan”: it is very old Irish, as are Crom and indeed the word amra, which means eulogy. Howard did like his Celts-I mean, Kelts.

  The volume, then, is my narrative based on an outline by Geo. W. Proctor of Tay-has, and we are all indebted to him.

  Andrew J. Offutt-Kentucky, U.S.A.

  Prologue:

  The Walker in the Fog

  Though the rain had ceased just before sundown, the clouds remained. The setting Eye of Behl rayed its gold and crimson across a sky of greys and deep slate. The spectacular effect lasted only a few minutes ere the sun was gone and the sky became a wash of slate and indigo and the absolute black of onyx. Night ruled. The imposing buildings standing aloofly apart atop the hill called Tara were become but shadows, some limned darkly against the sky, others spectrally pale.

  Fog and mist were permanent inhabitants of this land, which they and the forests had owned long before the coming of the Fir Bholgs, and then the Tuatha de Danann, and finally the Celts. It crawled the ground now, so that the peasantish houses huddled so closely all about the base of the hill were as if aswim in the cold fog. Some indeed were invisible beneath their dripping roofs of wattle and sod. No women or children were abroad, and few men. Even so close past sunset, many were already abed, for wakeful life and the work of the day began with Behl’s eastward appearance each morn, when pearl and nacre displaced the dark of night and were followed by rich gold. Thus came daily the manifestation of the god of the Celts, whether they abode here in this land, or over in Gallic or Frankish lands. For not yet had the new god, him of the Jews and then of Rome on which the sun had set, usurped the ancient power of Bel, or, depending upon where he was worshiped, Baal, or Beal, or Ba’al or Behl.

  This night, strangely, the fog rose up the hill among the houses of the nobles and even among the rath structures of the righ-danna, the many who in this way or that claimed kinship to the Ard-righ, the High-king. Aye, on this haunted night the fog eddied and crept even about that most noble lord’s own abode, the rig-thig.

  Through it, his feet and robed legs vanishing into the ever-moving gray, walked a man who neither strode nor strolled. Hooded he was, rendered bodiless by the robe and faceless by the night. Almost silently, picking his way with a long holly staff, he moved toward his goal.

  A peasant, in leggings and leathern stockings, a patched brown cloak and flapped cap of hareskin, touched his forehead when his path downward crossed that of the robed man ascending; the former was late wending homeward from the house of his lord who had spoken not complimentarily to him of the peasant’s care for his granary, for it was unpatched and the cats were hard-worked and fat from the catching of invading mice.

  “Lord Druid,” the peasant said by way of greeting, and no more, and kept walking.

  Nor did the druid in the hooded robe, the deep green of the forest, speak or otherwise acknowledge the respectful greeting. He but climbed on, a bottle-green phantom in the night of darkness and fog-damp and dripping eaves. His staff of holly made tiny sucking noises when he drew it up with each pace.

  “Some of those in the service of Crom and Behl,” the peasant muttered, but not so loudly as to be heard by aught of ears other than his own, “count themselves too high among mere men… other mere men,” he added, for all of his sea-bounded land were proud and few acknowledged themselves lowly-when they were not within lordly earshot.

  He wended on to his little house of stout wood and roof of wattle and thatch with its dangling, dripping tie-stones, and when his wife Faencha did chiding on
him for his tardiness, he was sharp with her. In a morose silence he ate his porkish supper and drank ale that was little more than barleywater whilst she overbusied her good self with her embroidery.

  The man in the druidic robe meanwhile approached the wall that had been raised about the splendid house of the High-king; of oak was the wall, and over half a foot in thickness.

  There he came upon two men in bronze-decorated helmets and close-pulled cloaks of scarlet wool. Their bare, fog-wet hands were fisted about the hafts of long spears, each banded twice with bronze. Nor said they aught, but only stared. The newcomer’s flowing sleeve whispered with the extending of his arm. They gazed on his fist, and at the signet there, and they nodded. The gate was opened respectfully for the faceless man, who passed through without the speaking of a word.

  “Good it is to see a druid abroad and wearing a ring of the High-king himself, Cairthide,” one of the sentries muttered, whilst they closed the gate, “and his wife and so many others believers in the New God.”

  “Good it is to be knowing a druid’s about at all, on such a night as this!” Cairthide said. His sigh emerged tremulously for he shivered. “A good night for hearth and ale-and locked door!”

  His companion coughed and sniffed.

  Through the grounds of the High-king strode the hooded man who seemed to have no legs. Outbuildings for storage and creaming and smithing and the housing of animals had been scattered randomly, so that it was no straight course he took. The fog was both thinner and lower to the wet wet earth as he approached the rising rig-thig, as though the high son of Laegaire was immune, respected even by the powers of earth and water and the sky that had come down this night to blanket the earth.

  At the very walls of the High-king’s manse, the walker in the fog was again challenged by two men. Helmeted they were, and mailed, armed with swords and bucklers with brazen decor, and long spears and each man draped in a cloak of dark red woollen. These stalwarts took note of the newcomer’s long walking-staff, that might have been a cudgel but for his druid’s robe.

  The robe-swathed man said no word, but again showed them his fist on which flashed a ring of gold and enamel and carbuncle.

  “Enter then, Lord Druid,” one sentry said, opening the great door.

  “And come ye in from such a surly night, Lord Druid,” the other said, with a smile, though he did not forget the respectful inclining of his head in its shining round helm.

  Robes of dark green rustled like fallen leaves; leather heels fell softly; the holly stick tapped once and then was lifted clear of the floor. Otherwise in silence, the visitor passed them by. From the wall he took a candle, which he waved a bit that it might flare the better while he paced through the dark defense-hall. On his way to the chamber he sought in that high house he saw only a woman abroad. She was not the wife of the High-king, and made a little obeisance as the cowled robe passed. It gave no sign of acknowledgement.

  A tawny-haired man in clean green leggings and blue smock of wool sat before the door the visitor approached. The door seemed to crawl with carven knotwork and fantastickal animals, lit and as if animated by the torch burning in a cresset of bronze to either side.

  “The lord High-king is receiving no visitors, Druid.”

  Once again the cowled man displayed his ring, and in silence. The other gazed upon it, blinking.

  For the first time, a voice emerged from the hood. In the middle range it was, and a bit strained as though its owner had need to cough. The voice betrayed too a certain shortness of breath, for Tara Hill was no brief or easy climb.

  “It is disrespectful ye be, boy, and not minded to hide it. That will come as ye gain in wisdom. Be ye follower of Iosa Chriost?”

  “Aye, Lord Druid,” the green-legged man said quietly, and belligerence was absent from his voice and manner. More, he had risen and taken a step aside. He stared at the darkness between the edges of the cowl, but the light of three glims showed him only the tip of a nose. The visitor did have a face, then.

  “Well-open it!”

  With apologetic face and attitude, the tawnyhaired man rapped twice, paused while he counted mentally to twice ten as his most noble lord had decreed, and opened the door. It swung inward. The young man turned back just in time to wrap his fingers automatically about the candle the visitor had thrust at him.

  With a whisper of his robes, the walker in the fog passed into a room alight with no less than four candles; servingmaids would certainly be at the collecting of that wax, later! He paused as if to make certain the door closed securely behind himself; it did. He was in a broad room of red yew, speckled with copper rivets and with floor-to-ceiling hangings on two walls, warmly dark and richly woven and broidered with scrollwork and fanciful animals and twining flowers.

  In a carven chair behind a table set near the dancing hearth-fire a man sat, and he lifted his russet-haired head to gaze upon his visitor. High was this man’s forehead, for his hair was thinning atop even as at the temple grey usurped the rusty red, and had departed to the breadth of two fingers beyond the hairline of his youth. Jowly his face, though he was paunchy, not fat. Fog-grey eyes fixed their stare on the intruder upon his guarded, fire-warmed solitude, the seated man alone in the loosegirt robe of silver-trimmed darkest blue, collared with beaver. On his chest a broad necktorc seemed to have grown, become a carcanet studded with jewels and traced with a design of honeysuckle vine picked out in red gold. The overgrown muin-torch depended even onto his pectorals. His ten fingers bore five rings, and one of gold and coral center-set with a large carbuncle; was the mate of the ring on the guest’s finger.

  The latter threw back his cowl with both hands, staff under his arm; the man by the fire smiled. His deep blue robe was split at each elbow and edged there with beaver fur; from those slashes emerged his arms in sleeves of white.

  “A fine disguise, Milchu. Come, warm yourself. Indech!”

  The seated man called out the last word, whereupon his visitor instantly restored his hood. Behind the door opened; the seated man looked past his guest.

  “Mulled ale-no, mulled wine, Indech. And knock first!”

  “At once, lord King.”

  The door closed solidly. The robed man called Milchu moved to the fire.

  “It’s no talking we’ll do till the wine’s after being brought, Milchu,” the king said. “Add a few oak knots if ye’re of a mind to. But it’s not for patience I’m known. Ye bring much information?”

  “Much information, High-” Milchu broke off in a cough-“king of Eirrin.”

  “Bodes it ill or else for Lugaid mac Laegair?”

  Clearing his throat repeatedly, Milchu tossed several chunky oaktree knots onto the fire. “When the wine comes, Lugaid mac Laegair.” His voice was strained; he coughed again.

  “No night for being abroad, robed or no,” High-king Lugaid said.

  And they were silent, the High-king fretting restlessly with the handle of a tall mug on the table before him. Moulded as a fanciful beast was that long thin handle, though the bear thus represented was necessarily long and thin of body, and its ears rose unnaturally long and pointed: The bronze tankard was inlaid about the base with two rows of rectangles in green and red enamel; superbly carven coral formed a knotwork design betwixt the rows of rectangles. Lugaid’s ringed fingers seemed to wrestle with the bronze bear.

  Come the knock they awaited; High-king Lugaid son of High-king Laegair loudly called “Enter” rather than wait those thirty or so heartbeats he had mandated as wait between knock and entry.

  Immediately Indech of the green leggings hurried a sizable pottery jug and two mugs over to the table. He bowed, set them down, looked his question. Receiving an equally silent reply by gesture, he poured both mugs full of dark golden liquid from which rose tendrils of steam. Indech glanced at the fire, seeing that it was blazing up all yellow and snapping. He looked again at his lord. Lugaid waved a hand: With another bow-and a glance at Milchu, who stood by the fire with his back to the room-In
dech departed the chamber with its rush-strewn floor and cold-absorbing hangings over the fine red wood of the yew-tree.

  The door closed on him. Milchu turned from the fire. Again with both hands he shot back the druidic cowl. He commenced loosing the laces at the robe’s throat; they ran down to a point approximately horizontal with his nipples.

  Then did he bare a pectoral pendant that was strange indeed, on the chest of a man in the robe of a druid of the Celts.

  The Egyptians of centuries agone had formed the device of the male triad and the woman’s parts; a loop atop two straight bars, one set perpendicular to the center of the other so that they formed three. Thus the male and female united, a symbol of the creation of life, and Life everlasting of the faith of Set and Horus and Osiris. After them the Romans used a similar design, formed of timbers, for the execution of criminals. Ankh, those of Egypt called it; the Sign of Life. Crux, those of the more latterly “world” conquerors termed it; the sign of Death. On it they had slain one Yeshua-Iesu in their tongue, changed in Eirrin to Iosa-for sedition and the stirring up of the common folk against the priests… and, far more seriously, against the togaed representatives of Rome’s might. Along with the fish, the sign’ was adopted by the Friends, later called Saints by some and Christians by others.

  Though they claimed that this cross, like the open one of old Egypt, represented and promised life everlasting, there were many and many who pointed out that the female was closed against life and further that the sign signified pain and slow death, and a dead god.

  Though he had curbed it in himself now, Lugaid had been known to refer to Iosa Chriost who was Jesus Christus as the Dead God, and the thought crossed his mind now as he gazed upon that which hung on Milchu’s chest.

  No druid wore the cross of Iosa Chriost.

  PART ONE

  THE KINGDOM OF CONNACHT