by C. E. Murphy
“And what do you see when you look at me?” Brigid wondered.
I glanced at her, tryin’ ta will the depth of sight back on. Glimmers shone all around her edges. Then it was like falling into a pool: her aura, all red and gold, splashed deep inside her, but when it hit her core it turned black an’ blue like somebody’d been beating on her. I blinked an’ the colors got clearer, until I could see the blackness was eating her away from the inside. I took a sharp breath, and she lifted her hand to stop me from talkin’. “So you do See,” she said like she’d been verifying it for herself.
“Darlin’…”
“Have no fear, Master Muldoon. I have the strength for what must be done.”
“But not more.”
“It will be enough.”
“You saved Jo’s life, didn’t you. By taking that hit.” The longer I looked, the easier it was to see how the magic inside her belonged to the Morrígan. It was death magic, dark an’ ugly, and I didn’t think an ordinary human, even one with Jo’s skills, coulda survived it. “Saved mine, too, by keeping her alive. Thanks.”
Brigid nodded an’ changed the subject. Guess I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t like thinking about my own mortality, an’ I was damned certain she had a lot more years to regret losing than I ever would. “You have the Sight,” she said, “and I see within you the strength of a spirit protector. You may not work magic, but you are imbued with it. What else might you know that will serve us in binding the cauldron? You know its eventual fate, but do you know how it comes to its end? How it is bound? How we might ourselves cast a spell to last through the aeons?”
I rubbed a hand through my hair and thought about it. Cernunnos looked over his shoulder at us, green fire magic pounding into my skull when his eyes met mine. I flinched up straight in the saddle, scowling hard at him. “Damned if I don’t. Jo and me came across a binding spell way back when this started. She don’t use magic like that, no spells and chants and stuff, but I think it’s ‘cause she don’t, not ‘cause she can’t. Anyway, this one…” Cernunnos turned away, shoulders thick like he was becomin’ the stag already. “This one we set in his name.”
“In his—in his name?” Brigid clawed her voice back from sounding like a fishwife and cleared her throat. “In Cernunnos’s name? You know a binding spell that calls on the god of the Wild Hunt?”
“No. I mean, yeah, it does ‘cause he’s the one we called on. Jo told me not to say it, not even joking, but—well, hell, darlin’, he was the only god I’d ever met. Who else was I gonna mention?”
“Was he there? At the breaking of the cauldron, was he there?”
“’a’course he was.” It took a couple seconds to catch up on why that might matter, an’ then I sat back into the saddle deep enough that Imelda pranced sideways. I said, “’a’course he was,” again, except this time I wasn’t feeling quite so pat. “Not when the binding was broken an’ the cauldron got stolen, but yeah, he was there when Jo destroyed it. That’s…that ain’t coincidence, is it.”
“I think it is not. And now the urgency seems greater to me than before.” She shouted a name I couldn’t grab hold of, some kinda harsh liquid sound that didn’t leave any kinda repeatable syllables in my mind. Cernunnos reined up hard, an’ Brigid snatched the reins from the boy rider’s hands to urge their mare forward. She and Horns started shouting at one another. Imelda pranced uncomfortably again, and I sat there like a damned fool for a minute before kicking her forward so I could hear their argument.
Turned out I didn’t get a chance. I rode up to ‘em, Cernunnos roared, “Enough!” an’ the whole of the Hunt leapt about forty miles in one step. The landscape changed, Knocknaree left far behind and low green mountains rolling up in front of me. A black pit opened up in the earth like a hell hole, and that, a’course, was where we were heading.
CHAPTER FOUR
Normal caves got a transition area, where sunlight slips through and fades until you’re standin’ in the dark. I rode into this one a few steps behind Cernunnos an’ Brigid, and watched ‘em disappear in front of me like they’d gone through some kinda portal. Same thing happened to me: one second I was in daylight, the next it was darker than night, no ambient light at all to soften the darkness. I only kept going forward ‘cause I knew there were another dozen guys behind me and I didn’t figure a pile-up at the cave mouth was on Bridey’s agenda. She and Cernunnos musta decided the same thing, ‘cause I could hear their horses on the rocky ground even if I couldn’t see a damned thing.
A few more steps in I remembered Jo had magicked me, and I did that hard blink that made the Sight turn on. It was like having a super power: the dark turned colors, black light glowing in the walls and deeper midnight pulsing ahead of us. Everything felt off-kilter, like this wasn’t a place living things were supposed to go, but the darker pulse was tugging at me, too. I wanted to go check it out, even when the smart part of my brain was telling me to turn tail and get the hell outta there. It seemed likely Jo spent a lotta time feeling this way, and I grinned even if we were heading for certain doom.
Cernunnos an’ Brigid were like flares ahead of me, him green an’ her fiery gold. I glanced at myself, which I hadn’t thought to do before. I knew Jo saw my aura as silver, but it was still a shock to see my own hands kinda glowing and shining with life. White spun around the edges of silver, blurring and blending into brightness that made me wonder if the guys behind me Saw this way, an’ if I was a big ol’ silver lug to their eyes. Jo had been real pleased about that, when she’d triggered the Sight in me. My grey eyes had turned silver, she said, when everybody else’s she’d tried it on had gone gold like hers did. Nice to know I held my own, even in mojo-land.
“It pulls at me.” Brigid sounded strained.
I nudged Imelda forward a few more steps, tryin’ ta catch up in the glow-in-the-darkness. “That’s what it does, doll. I didn’t much see the thing on my end of time, but Jo talked to me about it after she destroyed it. She said it makes you just wanna jump in. That it offers peace.”
Cernunnos gave a snort. “There is no peace to be had in his grasp.”
“I’m just reportin’ what the lady said, Horns. How the hell did they make that thing, anyway?”
“Through the sacrifice of a willing victim,” Brigid murmured. “The cauldron is forged from my sister’s soul.”
I spent a couple seconds wondering how that was possible, then remembered I’d just met an elf with a living silver arm, and that that wasn’t the strangest thing I’d seen by half. All I said was, “That’s how it’s destroyed, too, is with a willing soul. Why don’t we just do that now?”
Cernunnos turned, green fire blazin’ off him. “Do you wish to make that sacrifice yourself? Because I could not even if I wished to, Brigid’s soul belongs to another, and my riders are dead men. You are the only one among us who could make that choice.”
I clacked my teeth shut. The right thing to do was dive straight into the damned cauldron, and I knew it, but I sure as hell didn’t want to. Not even knowing it might save a few lives back on my end of time. Truth was, if Jo was at my side and I could say g’bye, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I’d promised her I’d be safe, and I hated breaking that promise. After a minute, Cernunnos, looking smug, turned away again, an’ I muttered, “Son of a bitch,” without meaning him at all.
“Willing is not enough,” Brigid said softly. “Even I, with my soul bound to another, might crawl in it willingly to break its spell. But it calls to me so strongly I think anyone who enters it does so willingly. Not wisely, perhaps, but willingly.”
I dropped my chin to my chest, remembering more clearly what Jo had said. “Innocent. Not just willing, but innocent.” This time saying, “Son of a bitch,” was due to relief that I hated feeling. I oughta be better than that, ‘cause it might break Jo’s heart, but I knew she’d forgive me for dying if I took the cauldron along with me. But while I mighta been a decent human being, I wasn’t an innocent one. Not much of anybody who fights in
a war is, no matter how hard you might try to keep your hands clean. And I hadn’t, because you don’t, not when your life and your buddies’ lives are hanging on it.
“Ah.” Brigid’s colors went dark with unhappiness. “Innocence, of course. And to sacrifice one unwillingly would only make us into the thing we stand against. How did Joanne—” Her breath was loud even over the horses’ hooves against the rocky floor. “No. Better not to wonder, and to be satisfied knowing it will one day be destroyed.”
“She had help.” I wasn’t gonna go into it any more than that, but something in Brigid’s aura relaxed, which made me feel better. A guy doesn’t like making pretty women tense if he can help it.
A clatter from behind us made the three—four, counting the silent kid—of us straighten an’ look back, for all that I didn’t know if Bridey and Horns could see anything. The cave’s mouth was a cut-away of light, still not lettin’ any seep in, and the last of the Hunt’s riders had just passed through it. Between one breath an’ the next, the air got thicker, like I was tryin’ ta breathe in coal dust.
“Now,” the boy rider said. His colors were muted compared ta Cernunnos, but they were the same emeralds an’ jades, overlaid with a yellowish concern. “Now we are in his realm, Father. We do not belong here. Keep me close, or risk yourself.”
I was learning all kindsa interesting things. I wondered if Jo had an inkling that Cernunnos’s safety was tied up in the kid’s, but I bet she did. It didn’t seem like the kinda thing she’d share, though. She wasn’t the type to go around telling people how to hunt a god. Not unless she was the one who needed to hunt it, I guessed, but even then I wasn’t sure she’d want to let everybody else know what was in her arsenal. She still had some wild ideas about keeping the rest of us safe, or doin’ it all herself. I guessed that was part of why I loved her, and prob’ly part of why Mike Morrison did too, even if it made us both crazy sometimes.
“What’s that mean,” I asked, to distract myself. “We’re in his realm now, I reckon you mean the Master, but—we ain’t gone that far.”
“Can you not feel it?” Brigid asked.
I could, a’course, the way the air was closing in around us an’ a chill was coming up, but Jo and me had talked a lot about this Master fella and she was pretty certain he came from a lot deeper in the elemental planes than a walk through Irish countryside could allow for. On the wrong side of time or not, the country outside that cavern entrance was what Jo called the Middle World, the one ordinary folk lived in all the time. There was an Upper World, too, where she’d met a thunderbird, an’ a Lower World where a lotta demons were trapped, among other things. After dealin’ with the wendigo she’d told me she’d fallen through the Lower World into another level that looked a lot like Hell to her, an’ that was a lot closer to where this Master was coming from. No way had we traveled that far, no matter how fast and wild the Hunt ran.
But in the middle of convincing myself of alla that, I tripped over the explanation. I looked around at the blackness tryin’ ta eat us all up, and said a word I’d learned in Korea that didn’t quite have a translation. Just as well, too. “I was thinking it looked like a hell hole when we rode up. You’re telling me it really is?”
“One of many. There are places on this earth where he has broken through and where his denizens are vomited up into our world.”
I wrinkled my nose like the image came with a smell. I wasn’t sure it didn’t, for that matter: the air sure wasn’t right. “So you’re saying it’s a hellmouth. That’s just dandy. I don’t suppose you got Buffy on hand to help deal with it?”
Their auras went flat. I guessed I couldn’t blame ‘em: Jo wouldn’ta known what I meant either, and she was at least from my end of time. Sometimes I thought the girl had deliberately stayed away from all the pop culture that talked about magic. Not consciously, maybe, but deliberately. When I’d met her she’d wanted nothing at all to do with magic, but over the past year it’d become clear she’d been aware earlier on in her life that it existed. I had to hand it to her: when Joanne ran away from something, she ran but good.
“It don’t matter,” I said as much to myself as Brigid. “Let’s get down there and lay this binding spell before any vampires claw their way outta the hellmouth to eat us.”
As soon as I said ‘em, I knew I was gonna regret those words forever. Maybe not straightaway, but it was the same as sayin’ “At least it ain’t raining,” and I knew better than to say something like that. Brigid’s aura sparked like she was telling me they’d known better than to say “At least it ain’t raining” in ancient Ireland, too, an’ then we made our way toward a dark light that started shining in front of us.
It didn’t get brighter, that light. It stayed steady until all of a sudden we were in a rough-hewn round room, and the weight of the cauldron pulled us toward it. It didn’t look like all that much: black iron beaten into shape with a hammer. It was big, I’d give it that, plenty big for a man to crawl into. I nudged Imelda a step toward it, then another, and each one got easier even though good sense told me they oughta be getting harder. But it was like huddling under a down comforter, too warm and heavy to throw off. Worse, I didn’t want to throw it off. My shoulders sank and my eyes got droopy. Another step or two and I could tip off Imelda’s back into the cauldron and nap, even if part of me was screamin’ that was a bad idea. I knew it was dangerous, but it was like swimming with the current: I wanted to go where it took me an’ not fight it. No wonder Jo had hated the thing. I shook myself and sat back to tell Imelda to stop. She did, her legs rigid and her body quivering like she was just waiting for the signal to get the hell outta there.
Cernunnos was even closer to the cauldron than I was, mesmerized by it. The stallion refused ta go any nearer, but the god leaned toward it, so drawn I could just about see ghostly hands inviting him in. Brigid said the name again, the one I couldn’t hear right, and Cernunnos snapped upright, then full-out retreated. No other word for it, and no grace or dignity to it either. He drove his heels into the stallion’s side and it jumped away, pressing itself up against a wall, as far from the cauldron as it could get.
Once Cernunnos was out of the way, the others crowded closer, led by the kid, whose face lit up with interest. Brigid finally took the reins again and guided the mare back toward Horns. She had to put her arm around the kid’s waist to keep him from getting off the horse, but even so, she kept the mare between Cernunnos an’ the cauldron. It made me wonder if it was easier for a mortal to resist the thing than an immortal, which didn’t make sense. I’d already pushed past the limits of threescore an’ ten, and the idea of crawling inside that cauldron scared the crap outta me. I reckoned if I was risking a guaranteed forever I could just about walk up and spit in its eye, but it didn’t look like Cernunnos was that certain.
A’course, it’d taken a near-immortal elf to create the cauldron. Maybe the longer the life, the more restful laying down the burden seemed. I figured that made me the least vulnerable rider in this room, which was an ugly thought. That said, somebody had to step up, or we were all gonna stand around here until people started jumping into the damned pot. “Horns!”
The god of the Wild Hunt flinched, then gave me a look that shoulda peeled the skin right off me. I grinned, showing teeth. “Can you keep that kid from riding off if you put him somewhere?”
Fury flew across his face. “Of course. I may be bound to him, but he lives by my sufferance.”
“Mmhnn. Kid, go stand in the…” I took a second to think about it. Jo always had some kinda logic and pattern to how she built power circles. “In the west,” I decided. “You can be the opposite power, setting sun opposing youth, which might oughta be the rising sun. An’ that puts…” I thought about it again, but Cernunnos interrupted.
“Me at the rising sun? I am the eldest here, and no doubt as his father am well suited to stand across from him.”
I said, “Yeah,” but I didn’t mean it. “Yeah, no. Because we gotta bind this thi
ng in your name, and I’m not sure you oughta be part of the circle if we’re gonna do that. Bridey, what do you think?”
From her expression, I couldn’t tell what she thought, except for maybe that I was surprising her. After a thoughtful look, she shook her head. “Only four of us here are truly living. The riders have crossed beyond, and while they may someday return to mortal flesh it is not now their chosen path. The boy, myself, yourself and the lord of the Hunt must stand at the points of our compass, and Cernunnos…yes,” she finally said. “Cernunnos at the east, not only to stand opposite his bloodline, but for the hope of a new day. You are correct,” she said to me. “It would be best to have him stand separate, so the spell might be bound to him without mortal taint, but—”
I heard the rest of what she said, but that handful of words caught me. Mortal taint. I was willing ta bet that was why the bindings had finally failed, back on my end of time. If the cauldron coulda been bound to Cernunnos alone, maybe his doorway to forever woulda held it until the end of time. Maybe nobody else woulda had to die if we could’ve bound it to the god alone.
But the fact of the matter was, he had a mortal son, an’ that tied him to the wheel of time too, so maybe there was never any hope of it being a permanent solution. Maybe we had to settle for good enough, an’ I got into my place at the southern edge of our circle holding on to that idea. Good enough would see it through a few thousand years, and while it was lousy that anybody else would die because we could only manage good enough insteada perfect, at least it was only a few people instead of hundreds or thousands.
Brigid’s command brought me back: “Begin the spell, Master Muldoon. We’ll repeat it and bring what we can to it ourselves.”
I grunted. “Just like that, huh?” The damned spell I’d read with Jo had a buncha nonsense about gates and things that didn’t mean anything to either of us, but I reckoned if I wanted this to work I had to make it mean somethin’. Cernunnos was over there at the east, nothing between him and the risin’ sun except a chunk of hell hole. I said, “Ah, hell,” and threw myself into it as best I could.