Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 Canadian Read online

  Suddenly, Cullan's wild elation checked a little. The city was strangely still, strangely silent There was no sound but the distant boom of the falling water-sprout, and no figures moved in the streets of shimmering spheres. He could see none of the fair-haired Tuatha lords and ladies, none of the dark slaves who had served them.

  Fear grew swiftly in Brian Cullan's heart as he brought the yawl to the docks of worn yellow stone. He moored it hastily between the slim, burnished metal

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  boats that floated here. Then he leaped quickly up onto the dock.

  "Good God!" His exclamation came from lips stiffened by horror.

  *■ VHE dock was Uttered with slain men. ■*■ Most of them were Tuatha warriors, tall, fair-haired men in silver mail and helmets, lying with their glittering flame-swords still shining in their hands, their bodies blasted and blackened where enemy swords had touched them.

  But among them lay also many of those enemy warriors who had died fighting them. These were dark, stocky, brutal-looking men in black armor, men like the dark slaves whom the Tuatha had owned. There had been an Invasion and battle here in Ethne!

  "Fand!" cried Cullan agonized. He ran up the sloping streets toward the highest bubble-palace.

  Lost now on him were the beauty of shimmering domes and gorgeous gardens. Faery Ethne was a silent city of the dead. There were corpses everywhere in the streets, mostly Tuatha but no small number of the dark warriors.

  Cullan remembered as he ran what Fand had mentioned, fliat their slaves were prisoners taken in war with the dark, deadly enemies of the Tuatha, the Fomorians who dwelled far northward in this world.

  The Fomorians? The mysterious, malign race whose memory lived in Celtic legend as lords of evil who struggled against the Tuatha gods? They had been here in Ethne, had slain every soul. But Fand?

  Wild with dread, Brian Cullan reached the palace and burst inside. In here, in the great central hall that was like the interior of a white pearl, the dead

  Tuatha warriors were thickest. And out on the terrace where Fand and he had declared their love, and in the wondrous gardens below it, other dead bodies of the handsome Tuatha folk lay sprawled. Cullan searched frantically through the silent halls of death, but could not find Fand's body. He stood, wild with doubt and dread, feeling a ghastly loneliness in this still city of death.

  Cullan whispered through dry lips. "If those dark devils killed Fand—"

  He stopped and whirled. A slight sound had reached his ears. Were there still some of the Fomorians here ?

  Cullan stooped quickly aid snatched up a flame-sword from a dead warrior. He knew the weapon from previous use. As his fingers closed on its hilt, its slim blade glowed with shining force—force released from the condenser-chamber in the hilt, that would blast any living thing touched by the blade.

  He listened again, standing ready with the flaring sword in his hand, his lean, dark face taut and terrible. Then he went toward the heap of dead on the great stair, From there had come the sound. A man in that heap of corpses was stirring feebly. It was a tall Tuatha warrior, whose face was on one side blackened and scorched by the grazing touch of a flame-sword.

  Brian Cullan knew this man. It was Goban, captain of Fand's guards, a man at whose side he had fought against Mannanan's plotters two years — two days, here!—ago.

  With fierce impatience, he raised Goban to sitting position and sought to revive him. The Tuathan, he saw, had been stunned by the glancing touch Of a flame-sword and left for dead. Now, he opened his eves.

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  "Cuchulain!" cried Goban looking wildly up into Cullan's face, and calling him by the name all the Tuatha had called him because of his resemblance lo his long-dead ancestor. "Cuchulain, you've come back! But too late!"

  He choked the last words out in a groan, looking around the corpse-littered palace. "Goban, what has happened here?" cried Cullan hoarsely. "Where is Fand?" He spoke in the Tuatha language, so like the ancient Gaelic, that he had learned here before time.

  "The Fomorians have her — Tethra's dark warriors have taken her to black Mruun in the north!" groaned Goban. "They slew all here but me, and I should have died, too."

  Cullan's blood iced with dread. Fand a prisoner of the dealiest enemies of the Tuatha, the dark Fomorians whose evil had been legend even in Earth for ages? "It was that traitor Mannanan's doing," said Goban thickly. "The cursed one who was once Fand's husband."

  "Mannanan ?" cried Cullan. "But he was killed two years ago—two days ago, by your time—when we smashed his plot to seize the Gateway."

  "Aye," said Goban, "but it seems now that Mannanan's plot was not really his own. He was but a pawn in the hands of the Fomorians. Those black devils were the ones who really coveted the Gateway, so that they could go through into your Earth.

  "And when Mannanan's plot failed, Tethra's black horde acted quickly. They came to seize the Gateway mechanism and Fand, who is its guardian and knows the secret of its opening. They poured into Ethne last night from hundreds of boats and slew all in the city. They pressed the last of us into the palace as

  we sought to defend Fand.'*

  Goban/s eyes lighted fiercely. "You should have seen her, wielding sword with us like a tigress against the swarming dark ones. And as she fought, she cried, "If Cuchulain were but with us still!" That was all I heard before a sword grazed my face, and I fell stunned.''

  Brian Cullan's heart was bursting with wild emotion. And from his lips there broke a sound of rage that was almost a snarl.

  fPHAT strange resurgence of ancestral personality, of ancestral memory, that once before had made him Cuchulain reborn, was waking in him again.

  "We'll not stay here wailing her loss!" he cried. "We'll follow northward after them, even to Mruun!"

  The red rage was creeping ever-stronger across his brain, the terrible personality of the ancient Hound beginning again to dominate his maddening mind.

  To have lost Fand, by merely hours! To have spent those long months of toil and danger and deadly risk to win back to the Shining Land and her, only to find himself too late!

  "Wait, Cuchulain!" pleaded Goban. '"'We two could do nothing against all the Fomorians in black Mruun. The Tuatha of all the isles must be told of this. 1 must call, Lugh, lord of the Tuatha.''

  "Why didn't you call when danger first threatened?" Cullan demanded savagely.

  "There was no lime!" Goban protested. "The Fomorians burst in upon Ethne like a flood, a wave of death that rolled upon Ui in moments."

  Goban rose unsteadily to his feet with

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  Cullan's help, and staggered unsteadily across the hall to a pedestal on which was mounted a nest of coenceiitiic crystal globes. He peered intently into the globes.

  Light grew inside the coencentric crystals. Cullan knew he was witnessing some of the alien science of the Tua-thans, Sfi ancient science transcending the younger one of Earth.

  "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."