Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 Canadian (3 page)

"My thought is reaching through now to Lugh and Dagda," Goban whispered. "They will use the shape-sending to come here at once."

Suddenly, magically, two men appeared there m the death-Uttered hall beside them. Two tall Tuathan lords, one of them a giant.

The older man was Lugh, king of the Tuathar race, he whom the Celts of old had deemed greatest of gods—a man grave and gray with age. with somber, wrinkled face and piercing eyes. The other man., a huge, ficrce-eyed giant, was burly Daerda, warrior-lord of the race.

Cullan knew that he was not really seeing the two Tuatha lords. These were but images of them, hurled across distance by the "shape-sending" science of Lugh, images that could see and speak and wield certain powers.

"What reason for this urgent call—* Lugh began to Goban, and then checked himself as he saw Rrian Cullan. His face grew stem with wrath. "You have returned, outworlder? Did I not warn you the penalty was death i£ you violated my decree and came back into this world?" "Lord Lugh, look at these dead!" boomed the startled voice of giant Dagda, who had glanced across the corpse-strewn hall.

Goban spoke hastily. "The Fomorians have been here! They have taken the

princess Fand and slain all others here but myself."

Lugli's face stiffened, almost as though in dread, as he heard Goban's swift tale. He cried, "What of the Gateway mechanism?"

"I do not know but I fear they have taken it also," stammered Goban. "I was struck down here, and Cuchulain revived me when he came."

Lugh and Dagda—or their images— glided swiftly up the stair to the roo£ of the bubble palace. Cullan followed hastily with Goban.

He had been up here before. In the recess on this roof, he remembered, was situated that strange mechanism of other-world science which could be used to open the Gateway to Earth at will, and of which Fand was guardian.

DUT the mechanism was gone. That ■"-^ wonderful device of spinning crystals had been lifted from its bed, which now gaped empty.

"The Gateway in the hands of Teihra's Fomorians!" whispered Lugh. "It is what we have always feared and guarded against."

"They cannot operate it without knowing its secret," pointed out big Dagda. "And only Fand, beside yoursel f, knows that secret."

"Aye, but they have Fand," Lugh said somberly. "And Tethra's craft and tortures will surely win it from her in time."

He brooded for a moment. Then he told Goban, "Come at once to our citadel in Thandara. Great things impend, for now I think our long struggle with the dark ones of the north is rushing toward its climax."

He added, looking sternly at Brian

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Cullan, "Come you too, outworider. It may be that fate itself has brought you back to this world against my decree, to play a part in oar final war with darkness."

"Hell talte all your war3 and orders!" blazed Cullan. "I'm going after Fand!"

Lugh's eyes fixed him freezingly. "It may be that you will go, but it will be as I direct. Obey me, outworlder!"

He and Dagda, or their images, abruptly vanished. Cullan stood torn with indecision as Goban begged him to obey the order.

"Alone you could not even find black Mruun of the north," Goban insisted. "The lord Lugh's power only can recover Fand now." ^

That consideration was what impelled Brian Cullan finally to obey, despite his wild impatience. He followed Goban out of the palace and down through the silent deathly city to the docks.

He was moving toward the yawl, when Goban objected. "That outwodd craft of yours looks far too slow. Wc go in one of our own boats."

Cullan knew the tremendous speed of the slim, undecked metal boats of the Tuatha. He dropped into one after Goban, who went to the stern and touched the controls of the box-like generator of atomic power.

White fire jetted back under water from the stern, and the slim craft leaped out through the harbor like a frightened horse. Avoiding the thunderous falling water-spout by a swift turn of the tiller, Goban sent the boat skimming the yellow swells due westward through the golden mists.

The Tuathan captain seemed feverish with excitement over Lugh's promise ot

final war. But Cullan's mind could hold only one thought—memory of Fand in that last moment when she had clung to him and he had promised to return.

He had no eyes, in his agony of spirit, for the islands that took form in the golden mists and dropped behind them. The Isle of Silver with its argent rocks and burnished beaches, the strange Isle of Fire whose uprushing red flames glowed infernal through the haze, the other, farther isles that he vaguely recognized—he was blind now to their wonder. The golden mists darkened as night began to tall. The slim boat rushed on and on over the smooth yellow swells. Then far ahead in the dusking mists there loomed a larger island" The bubble-like domes of its city surrounded the shimmering, lofty spires of a mighty citadel. Lights were shining there, many boats moving, in feverish activity.

"Thandara, citadel of the Tuatha lords and heartland of our race!" Goban was crying to him. "It wdces for the last war with the Fomorians."

Thandara, fabled citadel of bae old Celtic gods! Cullan, crushed by his dread, could feel only a numbed wonder as they rushed toward it,

CHAPTER III fflUATHAN warriors were already coming from other islands, as was evidenced by the many boats speeding into the harbor of the dry. But Goban steered their own racing craft past the harbor, directly toward the point where the sheer, shimmering outer wall of the great citadel rose from the water edge.

There in the face of the wall was a water-gate opening directly into the citadel. In the deepening dusk, Goban deftly

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maneuvered their craft through the opening and down a water tunnel into a little interior harbor beneath the great structure. Here a sourceless yellow light illuminated a dozen other metal boats chained to a stone quay.

On the quay waited a giant figure in silver mail and helmet. Cullan instantly recognized Dagda's craggy, massive face and fierce eyes.

"The lord Lugh awaits you/' he boomed. "Already word has gone out to every island of our folk, and soon all will have gathered here."

"To go after Fand V Cullan asked with feverish hope.

Dagd? looked at him solemnlj'. "You may sec her sooner than )-ou think, out-worlder/'

They followed the bttrly giant up coiling silver stairs through shining iridescent corridors and chambers of soft, sonrcelr.Sis light. Kverywhere in the citadel they heard running feet, babel of excited voices, stir of intense activity.

The Tuathan giant led them at last into a high chamber that was not large. Around its pale rose-tinged walls stood implements and instruments of the Tuathan science, their purpose unguessable to Cullan. And here stood Lugh, straight and spare in his mail, his somber face darker than ever as he listened to Goban's quick elaboration of his tale.

"Aye, it is plain enough," Lugh said, finally. "Tethra has long coveted the Gateway. And when his plot to gain it through Mannanan failed, he struck directly and took both it and its guardian."

"What will they do with her? They'll not kill her ?" Cullan asked tensely.

"Not until they haye wrung the secret of the Gateway from her/' Lugh said

darkly. "And then—then at last Tethra and his evil horde will be free to go through^into your Earth.''

His voice deepened as he continued. "It is why we Tuatha long ago closed the way between worlds. Your people would be defenseless against the dark science of the Fomorians. Once before, ages ago in your time, they broke through into Earth under Tethra and began conquering your primitive races.

"We Tuatha forced the Fomorians that time to return to this world. And soon after, when the men of Earth revolted against our own wise rule, we returned ourselves into this world and closed the Gateway so that the Fomorians could not again invade your world."

Lugh's face was heavy with memory. "Since then, for many years of our time and for many ages of yours, we have kept the Gateway closed. Only a few times, when the forces of nature, happened to open the Gateway momentarily, have any from Earth come through. Your ancestor Cuchulain was one such, and it was because Fand gave him that ring you wear that you in turn were drawn into our world by such a chance opening of the way.

''But now the mechanism of the Gateway is in Tethra's hands. And when he forces its secret from Fand, he and his evil race will invade your world. I tell you that your folk of Earth will be defenseless before them I Your weapons of crude material science will be in vain, and the Fomorians will fasten an evil and hideous tyranny on all your race ("

Brian Cullan was chilled. He felt a fear such as he had not felt on that former occasion when Mannanan had plotted for; the Gateway.

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"fc/|"ANNANAN'S traitorous followers -'-*•*■ had been few, and whatever their powers he had not felt that so few could represent real danger to Earth. But these dark hordes of whom Ltigh spoke, armed with inhuman powers and sciences, pouring through into an Earth already battered by war—

"Then the only means of averting that disaster is to get Fand away from Teth-ra's grasp before he can secure her secret!" he argued.

Lugh looked at him steadily. "You love Fand. do you not? It is why you returned to this world against my decree r"

Cullan answered boldly. "I do love her, and it is why I returned. You can kill me, I know, but I'll not go back again to Earth!"

Dagda, the giant, uttered booming appreciation. "This outworlder has courage, Lugh! Let him stay, we can use him in this fight."

Lugh was looking strvngely at Cullan. "Yes, we can use him," he said slowly. "Fate itself has brought him back to use against Tethra. But let him not complain later when he learns all the tricks of fate."

To Brian Cullan there seemed something hidden, something ominous, in Lugh's words. But he was past caring for premonitions now.

"I'll complain at no risk or danger, if a can stay and fight my way to Fanr]!" he cried.

"We are going to Fand now," Lugh said unexpectedly. "In a few minutes you shall see and speak to her again, aye and to Tethra too in his castle in dark Mruiin."

Cullan was astounded. "In a few min-

utes? But Goben says that Mruun lies far in the cold mists of,the north?"

"We snail not go by ordinary means, this time," Lugh said. "You go with me, for I have a reason. But first, put on Tuathan mail."

Mystified, Brian Cullan discarded his clothes and donned the silver mail and helmet that were ready. When he had done so, he glimpsed himself in a mirror. His helmeted, dark head and mailed figure looked strangely different to him, from his former self.

"It is well," muttered Lugh, eyeing him. "You are indeed exact counterpart of your ancestor Cuchulain."

He led Cullan toward a looming device in a corner, a hollow copper tube atop which were mounted queer, shielded instruments.

Cullan began to understand. "Then only our imnges are to go? As you and Dagda came to Ethne?"

Lugh nodded. "Yes, we go by the shape-sending. This machine can fling a simulacrum of our physical bodies far and fast across any distance, and so we shall enter Mruun. And then—we shall see."

Cullan sensed again that hidden purpose in the Tuathan king's words, that mysterious purpose that somehow concerned himself. But he was too desperately anxious to sec Fand again to question.

He followed Lugh inside the hollow copper tube. The Tuathan king touched and turned a gnurled knob upon the wall. Then from walls and floor and roof of the cube, blinding light seemed to explode upon them.

Brian Cullan reeled. He no longer felt the floor under his feet, but felt as though he were being hurled headlong through

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15

howling darkness. Vaguely, he felt Lugh's arm steadying him.

"We approach Mruun!" Lugh's voice reached him. "Now keep close behind me, and speak not until I have spoken."

Cullan seemed to himself to be hurtling behind Lugh swifter than thought, through cold, mist-shrouded night over heaving ocean. He knew that it was only his image ' that was so traveling, only a simulacrum of himself flung out by the Tuathan's deep mastery of atomic science.

Yet it seemed he, the real Brian Cullan, who was thus rushing at nightmare speed over the night-shrouded sea. And ahead of them, looming up with incredible swiftness, towered a great island.

CHROUDED in cold northern mists, **-* the stupendous crags of this island rose like black battlements of giants. Up there on the heights was a squat, dark, . ancient city of vast extent, dominated by the massive, ebon castle that perched on the highest cliffs.

"Black Mrunn, the chief isle of the Fo-morian race," came Lugh's voice. "Remember, keep behind me as we enier Tethra's castle."

They were rushing up through mist and night toward the black and massive pile. Cullan glimpsed dark, mailed For-mnrian warriors on its walls, warriors who cried out and pointed at them.

Then he and Lugh were rushing through the thick stone walls of the castle, as though they did not exist. He had flashing glimpses of a labyrinth of dusky corridors and levels, as they drove through them.

Then, suddenly, their rush slowed and stopped as he and Lugh entered a vast, vaulted black room filled with strange, ochre light.

"The throne-chamber of Tethra," whispered Lugh, from in front of Cullan, "Aye, and there is he, and Fand."

At the far end of the room upon a throne of carven black stone flanked by mailed guards, sat Tethra. He was a man past middle age, dark like all the Formorians but handsome and with something in his mocking face that seemed vaguely familiar to Cullan.

Facing the taunting gaze of the Fo-morian ruler stood a slim, erect white figure at sight of whom Brain Cullan's heart jumped.

"Fand I" he whispered chokingly. It was Fand as he remembered her, slender in her starwoven white gown, her dark hair bare. Her green eyes were brilliant with defiance, her dynamic white face stiff with loathing, as she faced Tethra.

But a moment that tableau held for Cullan to witness, before it w"as interrupted.