Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/23

 He was still growling curses when the door was unlocked. Black-mailed Fomorian guards with flame-swords entered the room.

"You go before Tethra now," snapped their officer. And as Dagda started ominously toward him, he added, "Resist, and you die here."

Brian Cullan made no resistance. He walked amid the alert guards with the swearing giant, with desperate hope that at least each stride might take him nearer Fand.

Dank and cold, flooded with the weird ocher radiance, were the black stone corridors of the castle Mruun. They came finally into a vast, vaulted room that Cullan well remembered—Tethra's throne-room.

Tethra himself stood by his throne, amid guards and captains, but Cullan gave him no second glance. For running toward him flashed the slim white figure of Fand.

"Cuchulain, you've thrown your life away by following me here!" she cried, in his arms.

Tears blurred her brilliant green eyes and wet her white face. As he crushed her close he felt the shiver of dread in her pliant body, and knew that it was dread for him.

But Cullan felt an incredible, soaring joy.

He had won back to her through the dangers of two worlds, and somehow he would hold her.

"Fand! Fand!"

"They have us both, now," she whispered. "And they have the Gateway mechanism, down in the lowest level of this castle. And now—"

Cullan turned his head, and felt the raw red anger creep back into his mind as he met Tethra's gaze.

The Fomorian king stood, tall and dark in his black mail, eyeing Cullan's face with strange intentness. Again, it seemed to Cullan there was something vaguely familiar in Tethra's dark, strong, aging face.

"Cuchulain, in very truth!" whispered Tethra, incredulously. "But how can it be? Long ages have passed in the outworld since Cuchulain was born there."

Cullan answered harshly, fearlessly. "I am not the Hound. But he was my ancestor, long ago."

A strange, throbbing emotion showed in Tethra's eyes. His dark, sardonic face was not mocking now. It was yearning, glad.

"Now I understand!" he exclaimed. "Yes, you are Cuchulain reborn. In your veins flows his blood—and mine."

"Your blood?" Cullan cried, astounded. "Do you mean—"

"I was Cuchulain's father, long ago on Earth," said the Fomorian king. "Your forefather, my son!"

CHAPTER V

ULLAN was stunned, numbed. He saw shock and horror in Fand's white face as she looked up at him. He strove to open his mouth to deny.

But Tethra was speaking quickly, almost eagerly, his burning eyes clinging to Cullan's face as he spoke.

"It was half my lifetime ago, centuries ago in your time, that I led my Fomorians to invasion and conquest in your Earth. There I loved an Earth maiden and to us was born a son, that Setanta who later won for himself the name Cuchulain.

"When Lugh and his Tuathans drove