Miach was an apt pupil. At the third try he succeeded in making a man he did not like break out in a series of beautiful yellow splotches, and he was so delighted with the result that he promised Shea for the hunting of the sinech not only the sword of Nuada, but the enchanted shoes of Iubdan, that would enable him to walk on water. He explained that the reason for the overcharge in Shea’s magic was that the spells were in the wrong tongue; but, as the magic wouldn’t work at all without a spell of some kind and Shea didn’t have time to learn another language, this was not much help.
About the sinech itself he was more encouraging. He did a series of divinations with bowls of water and blackthorn twigs. Although Shea himself did not know enough of the magic of this continuum to make out anything but a confused and cloudy movement below the clear surface of the bowl, Miach assured him that in coming to this world of legendary Ireland, he had himself acquired a geas that would not allow his release until he had accomplished something that would alter the pattern of the continuum itself.
«Now tell me, Mac Shea,» he said, «was it not so in the other lands you visted? For I see by my divinations that you have visited many.»
Shea, thinking of how he had helped break up the chapter of magicians in Faerie and rescued his wife from the Saracens of theOrlando Furioso, was forced to agree.
«It is just as I am telling you, for sure,» said Miach. «And I am thinking that this geas has been with you since the day you were born without your ever knowing it. We all of us have them, we do, just as I have one that keeps me from eating pig’s liver, and a good man it is that does not have trouble with his geasa.»
Belphebe looked up from the arrow she was shaping. Her bow was a success, but finding seasoned material from which to build shafts was a problem. «Still, master druid,» she said, «it is no less than a problem to us that we may return to our own place late, and without our friend Pete. For this would place us deeply in trouble.»
«Now I would not be worrying about that at all, at all,» said Miach. «For the nature of a geas is that once it is accomplished, it gives you no more trouble at all. And the time you are spending in the country of the Sidhe will be no more than a minute in the time of your own land, so that you need not be troubling until you are back among the Gaels.»
«That’s a break,» said Shea. «Only I wish I could do something about Pete.»
«Unless I can see him, my divination will not work on him at all,» said Miach. «And now I am thinking it is time for you to try the shoes. King Fergus of Rury waseat up by this same sinech because he did not know how to use them, or another pair like them.»
He accompanied Shea to one of the smaller lakes, not haunted by sinechs, and the latter stepped out cautiously from the shore. The shoes sank a little, forming a meniscus around them, but they seemed to give the lake-water beneath a jellylike consistency just strong enough to support him. A regular walking motion failed to yield good results. He found he had to skate along, and he knew that, if he tripped over a wave, the result would be unfortunate. The shoes would not keep the rest of him from breaking through the surface and, once submerged, would keep his head down. But he found he could work up quite good speed and practiced making hairpin turns until night put an end to the operation.
Next morning they went out in a procession to Loch Gara, the haunt of the monster, with King Briun, Belphebe, and the assorted warriors of the Tuatha De Danaan. The latter had spears, but they did not look as though they would be much help. Two or three of them fell out and sat under trees to compose poems, and the rest were a dreamy-eyed lot.
Miach murmured a druid spell, unwrapped the sword of Nuada, and handed it to Shea. It was better balanced than his own broadsword, coming down to a beautiful laurel-leaf point. As Shea swung it appreciatively, the blade began to ripple with light, as though there were some source of it within the steel itself.
He looked around. «Look, King,» he said, «I’m going to try to do this smart. If you’ll cut down that small tree there, then hitch a rope to the top of that other tree beside it. We’ll bend down the second tree.»
Under his direction the Tuatha did away with one tree and bent the other down by a rope running to the stump of the first. This rope continued on, Shea holding the rest of it in a coil. «Ready?» he called.
«We are that,» said King Briun. Belphebe took up her shooting stance, with a row of arrows in the ground beside her.
Shea skated well out in the lake, paying out the rope, which dragged in the water behind him. The monster seemed in no hurry to put in an appearance.
«Hey!» called Shea. «Where are you, sinech? Come on out, Loch Ness!»
As if in answer, the still surface of the lake broke like a shattered mirror some fifty yards away. Through the surface there appeared something black and rubbery, which vanished and appeared again, much closer. The sinech was moving toward him at a speed which did credit to its muscles.
Shea gripped the rope with both hands and shouted, «Let her go!»
The little figures on shore moved around, and there was a tremendous tug on the rope. The men had untied the tackle, so that the bent tree sprang upright. The pull on the rope sent Shea skidding shoreward as though he were water-skiing behind a motorboat. An arrow went past him and then another. Shea began to slow down, then picked up again as a squad of King Briun’s soldiers took hold of the rope and ran inland with it as fast as they could. His theory was that the sinech would ground, and in that condition could be dispatched by a combination of himself, the soldiers with spears, and Belphebe’s arrows.
But the soldiers on the rope did not yank hard enough to take up all the slack before Shea slowed down almost to a stop. Still twenty yards from shore, he could see the sandy bottom below him, looking a mere yard down.
Behind him he heard the water boiling and swishing under the urge of the sinech’s progress. Shea risked a 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.»