The Complete Compleat Enchanter (63 page)

Then he said, “Now, watch,” picked up his mug and set it to his lips.

Whoosh!
Out of Cathbadh’s cup a geyser of wine leaped as though driven by a pressure hose, nearly reaching the ceiling before it broke up to descend in a rain of glittering drops, while the guests at the head of the table leaped to their feet to draw back from the phenomenon. Cathbadh was a fast worker; he lifted his stick and struck the hurrying stream of liquid, crying something unintelligible in a high voice. Abruptly the gusher was quenched and there was only the table, swimming with wine, and serf women rushing to mop up the mess.

Cuchulainn said, “This is a very beautiful piece of magic, Mac Shea, and it is a pleasure to have so notable a druid among us. But you would not be making fun of us, would you?” He looked dangerous.

“Not me,” said Shea, “I only—”

Whatever he intended to say was cut off by a sudden burst of unearthly howling from somewhere outside. Shea glanced around rather wildly, feeling that things were getting out of hand. Cuchulainn said: “You need not be minding that at all, now. It will only be Uath, and because the moon has reached her term.”

“I don’t understand,” said Shea.

“The women of Ulster were not good enough for Uath, so he must be going to Connacht and courting the daughter of Ollgaeth the druid. This Ollgaeth is no very polite man; he said no Ultonian should have his daughter, and when Uath persisted, he put a geas on Uath that when the moon fills he must howl the night out, and a geas on his own daughter that she cannot abide the sound of howling. I am thinking that Ollgaeth’s head is due for a place of honor.” He looked significantly at his collection.

Shea said: “But I still don’t understand. If you can put a geas on someone, can’t it be taken off again?”

Cuchulainn looked mournful, Cathbadh embarrassed, and Laeg laughed. “Now you will be making Cathbadh sad, and our dear Cucuc is too polite to tell you, but the fact is no other than that Ollgaeth is so good a druid that no one can lift the spells he lavs, nor lay one he cannot lift.”

Outside, Uath’s mournful howl rose again. Cuchulainn said to Belphebe: “Does he trouble you, dear? I can have him removed, or the upper part of him.”

As the meal progressed, Shea noticed that Cuchulainn was putting away an astonishing quantity of the wine, talking almost exclusively with Belphebe, although the drink did not seem to have much effect on the hero but to intensify his somber courtesy. But, when the table was cleared, he lifted his goblet to drain it, looked at Belphebe from across the table, and nodded significantly.

Shea got up and ran around the table to place a hand on her shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pete Brodsky getting up, too. Cuchulainn’s face bore the faintest of smiles. “It is sorry to discommode you I am,” he said, “but this is by the rules and not even a challenging matter. So now, Belphebe, darling, you will just come to my room.”

He got up and started towards Belphebe, who got up, too, backing away. Shea tried to keep between them and racked his brain hopelessly for some kind of spell that might stop this business. Everyone else was standing up and pushing to watch the little drama.

Cuchulainn said: “Now you would not be getting in my way, would you, Mac Shea, darling?” His voice was gentle, but there was something incredibly ferocious in the way he uttered the words, and Shea suddenly realized he was facing a man who had a sword. Outside, Uath howled mournfully.

Beside him, Belphebe herself suddenly leaped for one of the weapons hanging on the wall and tugged, but in vain. It had been so securely fastened with staples that it would have taken a pry bar to get it loose. Cuchulainn laughed.

Behind and to the left of Shea, Brodsky’s voice rose, “Belle, you stiff, do like I told you!”

She turned back as Cuchulainn drew nearer and with set face crossed her arms and whipped the green gown off over her head. She stood in her underwear.

There was a simultaneous gasp and groan of horror from the audience. Cuchulainn stopped, his mouth coming open.

“Go on!” yelled Brodsky in the background. “Give it the business!”

Belphebe reached behind her to unhook her brassiere. Cuchulainn staggered as though he had been struck. He threw one arm across his eyes, reached the table and brought his face down on it, pounding the wood with the other fist.

“Ara!”
he shouted. “Take her away! Is it killing me you will be and in my own hall, and me your host that has saved your life?”

“Will you let her alone?” asked Shea.

“I will that for the night.”

“Mac Shea, take his offer,” advised Laeg from the head of the table. He looked rather greenish himself. “If his rage comes on him, none of us will be safe.”

“Okay. Honest,” said Shea and held Belphebe’s dress for her.

There was a universal sigh of relief from the background. Cuchulainn staggered to his feet. “It is not feeling well that I am, darlings,” he said, and picking up the golden ewer of wine, made for his room.

Four

There was a good deal of excited gabble among the retainers as Belphebe walked back to her place without looking to right or left, but they made room for Shea and Brodsky to join her. The druid looked shrewdly at the closed door and said: “If the Little Hound drinks too much by himself, he may be brooding on the wrong you are after doing him, and a sad day that would be. If he comes out with the herolight playing round his head, run for your lives.”

Belphebe said: “But where would we go?”

“Back to your own place. Where else?”

Shea frowned. “I’m not sure . . .” he began when Brodsky cut in suddenly, “Say,” he said, “your boss ain’t really got no right to be bugged up. We had to play it that way.”

Cathbadh swung to him. “And why, serf?”

“Don’t call me serf. She’s got a fierce geas on her. Any guy that touches her gets a bellyache and dies of it. Her husband only stands it because he’s a magician. It’s lucky we put the brakes on before the boss got her in that room, or he’d be ready for the lilies right now.”

Cathbadh’s eyebrows shot up like a seagull taking off. “Himself should know of this,” he said. “There would be less bloodshed in Ireland if more people opened their mouths to explain things before they put their feet in them.”

He got up, went to the bedroom door and knocked. There was a growl from within, Cathbadh entered, and a few minutes later came out with Cuchulainn. The latter’s step was visibly unsteady, and his melancholy seemed to have deepened. He walked to the head of the table and sat down in the chair again.

“Sure, and this is the saddest tale in the world I’m hearing about your wife having such a bad geas on her. The evening is spoilt and all. I hope the black fit does not come on me, for then it will be blood and death I need to restore me.”

There were a couple of gasps audible and Laeg looked alarmed, but Cathbadh said hastily: “The evening is not so spoilt as you think, Cucuc. This Mac Shea is evidently a very notable druid and spell-maker, but I think I am a better. Did you notice how quickly I put down his wine fountain? Would it not lift your heart, now, to see the two of us engage in a contest of magic?”

Cuchulainn clapped his hands. “Never was truer word spoken. You will do just that, darlings.”

Shea said, “I’m afraid I can’t guarantee . . .” but Belphebe plucked his sleeve and with her head close to his, whispered: “Do it. There is a danger here.”

“It isn’t working right,” Shea whispered back.

Outside rose the mournful sound of Uath’s howling. “Can you not use your psychology on him out there?” the girl asked. “It will be magic to them.”

“A real psychoanalysis would take days,” said Shea. “Wait a minute, though—we seem to be in a world where the hysteric type is the norm. That means a high suggestibility, and we might get something out of post-hypnotic suggestion.”

Cuchulainn from the head of the table said, “It is not all night we have to wait.”

Shea turned round and said aloud: “How would it be if I took the geas off that character out there training to be a bar-room tenor? I understand that’s something Cathbadh hasn’t been able to do.”

Cathbadh said, “If you can do this, it will be a thing worth seeing, but I will not acknowledge you can do it until I have seen it.”

“All right,” said Shea. “Bring him in.”

“Laeg, dear, go get us Uath,” said Cuchulainn. He took a drink, looked at Belphebe and his expression became morose again.

Shea said, “Let’s see. I want a small bright object. May I borrow one of your rings, Cuchulainn? That one with the big stone would do nicely.”

Cuchulainn slid the ring down the table as Laeg returned, firmly gripping the arm of a stocky young man, who seemed to be offering some resistance to the process. Just as they got in the door Uath flung back his head and emitted a blood-curdling howl. Laeg dragged him forward, howling away.

Shea turned to the others. “Now if this magic is going to work, I’ll need a little room. Don’t come too near us while I’m spinning the spell, or you’ll be apt to get caught in it, too.” He arranged a pair of seats well back from the table and attached a thread to the ring.

Laeg pushed Uath into one of the seats. “That’s a bad geas you have there, Uath,” said Shea, “and I want you to cooperate with me in getting rid of it. You’ll do everything I tell you, won’t you?”

The man nodded. Shea lifted the ring, said: “Watch this,” and began twirling the thread back and forth between thumb and forefinger, so that the ring rotated first one way and then the other, sending out a flickering gleam of reflection from the rushlights. Meanwhile Shea talked to Uath in a low voice, saying “sleep” now and then in the process. Behind him he could hear an occasionally caught breath and could almost feel the atmosphere of suspense.

Uath went rigid.

Shea asked in a low voice: “Can you hear me, Uath?”

“That I can.”

“You will do what I say.”

“That I will.”

“When you wake up, you won’t suffer from this howling geas anymore.”

“That I will not.”

“To prove that you mean it, the first thing you do on waking will be to clap Laeg on the shoulder.”

“That I will.”

Shea repeated his directions several times, varying the words, and making Uath repeat them after him. There was no use taking a chance on slip-ups. At last he brought him out of the hypnotic trance with a snap of the fingers and a sharp, “Wake up!”

Uath stared about him with an air of bewilderment. Then he got up, walked over to the table and clapped Laeg on the shoulder. There was an appreciative murmur from the audience.

Shea asked: “How do you feel, Uath?”

“It is just fine that I am feeling. I do not want to be howling at the moon at all now, and I’m thinking the geas is gone for good. I thank your honor.” He came down the table, seized Shea’s hand and kissed it and joined the other retainers at the lower part of the table.

Cathbadh said: “That is a very good magic, indeed, and not the least of it was the small geas you put on him to lay his hand on Laeg’s shoulder at the same time. And true it is that I have been unable to lift this geas. But as one man can run faster, so can another one climb faster, and I will demonstrate by taking the geas off your wife, which you have evidently not been able to deal with.”

“I’m not sure . . .” began Shea, doubtfully.

“Let not yourself be worried,” said Cuchulainn. “It will not harm her at all, and in the future she can be more courteous in the high houses she visits.”

The druid rose and pointed a long, bony finger at Belphebe. He chanted some sort of rhythmic affair which began in a gibberish of unknown language, but became more and more intelligible, ending with: “. . . and by oak, ash and yew, by the beauty of Aengus and the strength of Ler and by authority as high druid of Ulster, let this geas be lifted from you, Belphebe! Let it pass! Out with it! It is erased, cancelled and no more to be heard of!” He tossed up his arms and then sat down. “How do you feel, darling?”

“In good sooth, not much different than before,” said Belphebe. “Should I?”

Cuchulainn said, “But how can we know now that the spell has worked? Aha! I have it! Come with me.” He rose and came round the table, and in response to Shea’s exclamation of fury and Belphebe’s of dismay, added: “Only as far as the door. Have I not given you my word?”

He bent over Belphebe, put one arm around her and reached for her hand, then reeled back clutching his stomach with both hands and gasping for breath. Cathbadh and Laeg were on their feet. So was Shea.

Cuchulainn staggered against Laeg’s arm, wiped a sleeve across his eyes and said: “Now the American is the winner, since your removal spell has failed, and it was like to be the death of me that the touch of her was. Do you be trying it yourself, Cathbadh, dear.”

The druid reached out and laid a cautious finger on Belphebe’s arm. Nothing happened.

Laeg said: “Did not the serf say that a magician was proof against this geas?”

Cathbadh said, “You may have the right of it there, although, but I am thinking myself there is another reason. Cucuc wished to take her to his bed, while I was not thinking of that at all, at all.”

Cuchulainn sat down again and addressed Shea. “A good thing it is, indeed, that I was protected from the work of this geas. Has it not proved obstinate even to the druids of your own country?”

“Very,” said Shea. “I wish I could find someone who could deal with it.” He had been more surprised than Cuchulainn by the latter’s attack of cramps, but in the interval he had figured it out. Belphebe hadn’t had any geas on her in the first place. Therefore, when Cathbadh threw at her a spell designed to lift a geas, it took the opposite effect of laying on her a very good geas indeed. That was elementary magicology, and under the conditions he was rather grateful to Cathbadh.

Cathbadh said: “In America there may be none to deal with such a matter, but in Ireland there is a man both bold and clever enough to lift the spell.”

“Who’s he?” asked Shea.

“That will be Ollgaeth of Cruachan, at the court of Ailill and Maev, who put the geas on Uath.”