glance over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of a creature somewhat like a mosasaur, with flippers along its sides. Just behind the pointed, lizard-like head that reared from the water, a pair of arrows projected. Another had driven into its cheekbone, evidently aimed for the eye.
The instant of looking back brought Shea’s foot into contact with a boulder that lay with perhaps an inch projecting from the surface. Over it and down he went, head first into the water of the marge. The sinech’s jaws snapped like a closing bank-vault door on empty air, while Shea’s head drove down until his face plowed into the sand of the bottom. His eyes open under the water, he could see nothing but clouds of sand stirred up by the animal’s passage. The water swished around him as the sinech came in contact with solid ground and threshed frantically in its efforts to make progress.
The shoes of Iubdan kept pulling Shea’s feet up, but at last he bumped into the boulder he had stumbled over. His arms clawed its sides and his head came out of water with his legs scrambling after.
The sinech was still grounded, but not hopelessly so. It was making distinct progress toward Belphebe, who valiantly stood her ground, shooting arrow after arrow into the creature. The same glance told him that the spearmen of the Tuatha De Danaan had taken to their heels.
The monster, engrossed in Belphebe as its remaining opponent, threw back its head for a locomotive hiss. Shea, skating toward it, saw her bend suddenly and seize up one of the abandoned spears to distract it from him. Tugging out the sword of Nuada, he aimed for the sinech’s neck, just behind the head, where itlay half in and half out of water, the stiff mane standing up above Shea’s head. As he drove toward the creature, the near eye picked him up and the head started to swivel back.
In his rush, he drove the sword in up to the hilt, hoping for the big artery.
The sinech writhed, throwing Shea back and ejecting the sword. There was a gush of blood so dark it looked black, the animal threw back its head and emitted a kind of mournful whistling roar of agony. Shea skated forward on his magical shoes for another shot, almost stumbling over the neck, but reaching down to grasp a bunch of mane in his left hand, and climbing aboard, cutting and stabbing.
The sinech threw back its headviolently, it seemed to a height of thirty feet. Shea’s grip on the mane was broken, and he was thrown through the air. All he could thinkof was that he must hang on to the sword. He had hardly formulated this thought before his behind struck the water with a terrific splash.
When he got his head out against the resistance of the shoes at the other end of his anatomy, the sinech was creaming the water with aimless writhings, its long head low on the bank, and its eyes already glassed. The sword of Nuada had lived up to its reputation for giving mortal wounds, all right. Shea had to develop a kind of side-winding dog paddle to carry him into shallow water past the throes of the subsiding monster.
Belphebe waded out to help Shea to his feet, regardless of the wet. She put both arms around him and gave him a quick, ardent kiss, which instantly doubled him over with cramps. Behind her the Sidhe were trickling out of the wood, headed by King Briun, looking dignified, and Miach, looking both amazed and pleased.
Shea said, «There’s your job. Do you think that lets me out from under that geas you say I’ve got?»
Miach shook his head. «I am thinking it will not. A rare fine change you have made in the land of the Sidhe, but it is to the land of men you belong, and there you must do what is to be done. So we will just be going along to see if you can avert the fate that hangs over this Cuchulainn.»
X
Shea and Belphebe were bouncing along in a chariot on the route from the section of Tir na n-Og corresponding to Connacht to the other-world equivalent of Muirthemne inUlster. They had agreed with Miach, who was coming in another chariot, that this would be better than to re-enter as they had come and possibly have to fight their way through hostileConnacht, even though he was wearing the invincible sword of Nuada.
The country around seemed very similar to that from which they had come, though the buildings were generally poorer, and there were fewer of them. Indeed, none at all were in sight when they stopped at a furze- covered hill with a rocky outcrop near its base. Miach signalled his charioteer to draw up and said, «Here stands another of the portals. You are to draw off a little while I cast my spell, as this is not one of the holy days and a magic of great power is required.»
From the chariot, Shea could see him tossing his arms aloft and catch an occasional word of the chant, which was in the old language. A blackness, which seemed to suck up all the light of the day, appeared around the outcrop, considerably larger than the tunnel Shea himself had opened. The charioteers got downto lead the horses, and they found themselves on the reverse slope, with Cuchulainn’s stronghold of Muirthemne in the middle distance, smoke coming from its chimneys.
Shea said, «That’s queer. I thought Cuchulainn was at Emain Macha with the King, but it looks as though he came back.»
«By my thinking,» said Belphebe, «he is most strangely set on having his own will and no other, so that not even the prophecy of death can drive him back.»
«I wouldn’t.» began Shea, but was interrupted as a horseman suddenly burst from a clump of trees to the right, and went galloping across the rolling ground toward Cuchulainn’s stronghold.
Miach called from the other chariot, «That will be a warden, now. I am thinking the fine man there is expecting company and is more than a little ready to receive it.»
They went down a slope into a depression where the fold of the ground and a screen of young trees on the opposite side hid the view of Muirthemne. As they climbed the slope, the charioteers reined in. Glancing ahead, Shea saw that the saplings and bushes on the crest had all been pulled down and woven into a tangle. At the same time a line of men jumped out of cover, with spears and shields ready.
One of them advanced on the travelers. «Who might you be?» he demanded truculently, «and for why are you here?»
Miach said, «I am a druid of the Sidhe, and I am travelling with my friends to Muirthemne to remove a geas that lies on one of them.»
«You will not be doing that the day,» said the man. «It is an order that no druids are to come nearer to Muirthemne than this line until himself has settled his differences with the Connachta.»
«Woe’s me!» said Miach, then turned toward Shea. «You will be seeing how your geas still rules. I am prevented from helping you at the one place where my help would be of avail.»
«Be off with you, now!» the man said and waved his spear.
Behind her hand, Belphebe said to Shea, «Is this not very unlike them?»
Shea said, «By George, you’re right, kid! That isn’t Cuchulainn’s psychology at all.» He leaned toward the guard. «Hey, you, who gave the order and why? Cuchulainn?»
The man said, «I do not know by what right you are questioning me, but I will be telling you it was the Shamus.»
An inspiration struck Shea. «You mean Pete, the American?»
«Who else?»
«We’re the other Americans that were here before. Get him for us, will you? We can straighten this out. Tell him that Shea is here.»
The man looked at him suspiciously, then at Miach even more suspiciously. He pulled a little aside and consulted with one of his companions, who stuck his spear in the ground, laid the shield beside it, and trotted off toward Muirthemne.
Shea asked, «How comes Pete to be giving orders around here?»
«Because it’s the Shamus he is.»
Shea said, «I recognize the title all right, but what I can’t figure out is how Pete got away from Cruachain and got here to acquire it.»
He was saved from further speculation by the creaking of a rapidly driven chariot, which drew up on the other side of the hedge. From it descended a Pete Brodsky metamorphosed into something like the Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s court. His disreputable trousers projected from beneath a brilliantly red tunic embroidered in gold; he had a kind of leather fillet around his head and a considerable growth of beard; and at his belt swung not one, but two obviously home-made blackjacks.
