The Hunter's Moon

by O. R. Melling

  “Make way for Their Majesties! Make way for the King and Queen of Faerie!”

  rom their various corners of the hall, the others came to meet the King. Finvarra greeted them warmly, especially the newcomers whom Gwen presented.

  “Dearest Caitlín,” he said to Katie, kissing her hand. “The finest woman that ever went in the walls of a farm.” She colored with pleasure, for he used a Burren expression to honor her. “Have we mended your walls well? Have we kept guard over your herds?”

  “Your people have always been good to me, Sire.”

  “And you have always been a good neighbor to us.”

  He caught a stray tress of her red hair and tucked it back into place.

  “You put me in mind of my Tánaiste. Perhaps one day, my sweet, you will tire of mortal toil and join him in Faerie.”

  Katie’s eyebrows shot up like two birds leaving the branch.

  “Something to think about when the going gets rough,” the King whispered in her ear.

  “Hail, Maitiú,” he said, turning to Mattie who was holding his wife’s hand. “Your family are known to me from past generations. Your great-grandfather once stood before me, even as you do now. Did he keep the piece of gold he won from me in the wager over a hare and a tortoise?”

  Mattie’s eyes widened.

  “So that old tale was true! My granny always maintained he had drink taken that night, but no one could explain the beautiful coin. It was passed down to me. I have always cherished it.”

  The King of Faerie smiled.

  “You have kept faith with us, despite modern disbelief. A brave stance for a man of business.”

  Mattie squared his shoulders.

  “Some old beliefs hold up progress, but there’s no point in throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Why go blindly into the future with nothing at our back?”

  “Spoken like a champion!” Finvarra declared.

  “And good evening to you, mo chara,” he said to Miriam, who curtsied before him. “Have you enjoyed my feast?”

  “Very much, sir, thank you,” she said. Then her smile wavered. “But I think I know why you invited me.”

  There was sorrow in his eyes as he acknowledged her intuition.

  “It was not an easy thing you did when you gave your husband leave to answer our call. We are most grateful. I will do whatever is in my power to ensure this is not a final parting.”

  Miriam stiffened suddenly and turned to her husband.

  “The baby’s crying. I must go. You are in good company, my dearest. I can only hope and pray that they will bring you back to me.”

  Mattie kissed his wife even as she faded away, returning to her bed where she woke at the sound of a child’s cry.

  “Now, friends,” the King announced, “it is time we held our Council. A room has been prepared.”

  They followed him up a winding staircase into a great chamber at the top of the castle. It was a stern and spartan hall hung with weapons from every age. Tapestries depicted ancient battles. The fireplace burned whole logs. Vaulted windows looked out over the ramparts to the misty mountains. In the center of the room, flanked by high-backed chairs, was a table as round as the moon.

  “Like King Arthur’s!” Gwen cried, delighted.

  “As with his court,” said Finvarra, “we are a company of equals.”

  When all were seated, a solemn air fell over them. Granny, as Wise Woman, rose to address the gathering.

  “This is a Council of War. We are agreed that we will defy Crom Cruac. What remains to be decided is how and when. We’ll begin with the how of it. Finvarra?”

  “There are two gates to Faerie,” the King told them, “which mark the borders of our territory in time, though not in space. The White Gates of Morning are the entrance to Faerie. The Black Gates of Night are the exit. It is in the chasm beyond the Gates of Night that Crom Cruac lies. On the night of the sacrifice, the hostage passes through the gates. Once they go beyond we know naught what befalls them.”

  Findabhair shuddered, then took comfort as she looked around at her friends.

  “Crom Cruac is called ‘the Great Worm.’ Do we know anything else about him?” asked Katie. She wanted to know the worst, to be ready for it.

  Once again Finvarra answered.

  “I cannot recall a time when he did not exist. Yet, it must be said, my people were young and unknowing in the early days of the world. Our memories of that time are as dim as your own childhoods. This I do know. It was not Faerie that expelled Crom Cruac beyond our gates, though mortal tales would have it so. According to our own legends, he was chained there by the Archangels after a great war in the Empyrean, a realm higher than our own.”

  “Oh God, I hope he isn’t who I think he is,” Katie muttered. “I haven’t been to Mass in ages.”

  Mattie was thinking along the same lines. Only now was he considering the true nature of the beast. Though he had no intentions of turning back, he couldn’t help but ask.

  “Do we dare?”

  The Wise Woman’s look was sympathetic, but her voice was firm.

  “The mouse may look upon the cobra. The hare upon the hawk. There is no law in the universe that forbids this.”

  As the company absorbed her words, each faced the bottom line.

  “You mean we have the right to die trying,” Dara said.

  A silence fell till Findabhair spoke up.

  “We may not die!” she avowed. “It could be his destiny to die at this time and ours to do the deed.”

  “Well said, my Queen,” Finvarra saluted her.

  They sat tall in their chairs, like lords and ladies. The ghosts of old battles whispered from the tapestries. Camlann. Clontarf. The Fields of Culloden. The shadows of lost and noble causes. For better or worse, some wars had to be fought.

  “So be it,” Granny concluded. “Together we go beyond the Gates, to meet our destiny. There is only one question left. When?”

  “Crom Cruac chooses the time of the sacrifice,” Finvarra said. “It is our custom to await his summons.”

  “I’d rather not wait, thanks,” said Katie.

  “We should attack beforehand,” Mattie agreed. “Catch him off guard and possibly weaker.”

  Dara nodded. “We’re already breaking the rules. Why keep to an appointed time?”

  Excitement rippled around the table as they all concurred.

  “My former adversary has yet to speak,” Finvarra said. He regarded Gwen curiously. “What says the Captain of our company?”

  There was no humor or irony in the King’s words. He was evidently serious about the title he gave her. Gwen felt a flutter of panic. She tamped it down. Indeed. Wasn’t she the one who had brought them all together? Wasn’t it her decision to fight against the Hunter’s Moon? She was the Captain of the Company of Seven.

  She had remained quiet throughout the Council, studying the group, noting their strength and courage. Their morale was at its peak after the fairy feast. Like warriors of old who had been feted before battle, their spirits were high. She could feel the power in the circle. Newly joined together, they were at their best, before minor differences could weaken their unity.

  She knew that what she was about to propose hadn’t occurred to any of them yet. But both logic and instinct told her it was right. She took a deep breath, and stood up.

  “We go tonight. Not later, but this very minute.”

  It was as if a thunderclap had struck the room. They jumped to their feet, propelled by the truth. There were no preparations to make. There was no reason to delay.

  The night of the Hunter’s Moon had come.

  nch Castle was a dark and empty ruin once more. The Company of Seven stood alone outside the walls. The night was somber, barely lit by a pallid moon. The cold waters of Lough Swilly lapped against the shore. A gray mist straggled over the ground. In the distance a dog barked. The humans in the Company drank in this moment, aware they might never see their world again. The fairy glamour was gone. T
heir own clothes had returned, bringing with them a sense of vulnerability.

  “It’s all so sudden,” Findabhair said quietly. “It changes everything.”

  “Yeah,” Gwen sighed. “My crummy old life doesn’t look half-bad after all.” She glanced at Dara. “And just when things were getting good.”

  His jaw was clenched, the only sign he was anxious. As she leaned against him, he took her hand.

  “I’ve never felt less like a king,” he admitted. He gave her a long look. “I wish we’d had more time together.”

  “Me too.”

  It was one of those moments when everyone felt extremely fond of one another. They were courteous, even shy, as they exchanged last words and embraces.

  “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” Findabhair said to her cousin. “Sorry for being such a bollocks.”

  “Hang in there, cuz. Last one home’s a pumpkin.”

  Saluting Gwen, Mattie grinned his encouragement.

  “Oh captain, my captain.”

  And Katie gave her a big hug.

  “I knew we’d be friends till the end. I just didn’t think it would come so soon!”

  “This isn’t the end,” Gwen insisted, though she was less sure than she sounded.

  “Courage, noble hearts,” Granny said quietly. “We are not alone. Faerie will strengthen us before we go, for we must cross the Blessed Realm to reach Crom Cruac.”

  Finvarra inclined his head in agreement. Catching Findabhair’s hand, he led them to a grassy mound not far from the castle. As they drew closer, they saw the door in the hill. The archway was fashioned of two standing stones with a lintel stone overhead. It was covered with spiral motifs; some were like whorled eyes and others like snakes swallowing their own tails.

  Granny studied the carvings.

  “Ouroboros?” she murmured.

  “There are many entrances to Faerie,” Finvarra told them, “but my people favor these tumuli which have the nature of thresholds. Let us begin our journey.”

  He passed through the archway, with Findabhair close behind. One by one, each followed after. There was a moment when the stones seemed to close in on them, and each felt enclosed in a tomb that smelled of dank earth. Then with a final push, like life, like death, they came out on the other side.

  “Open one door and you find another,” the King said, when all had passed through.

  They stood in a milky void, as if inside a cloud. Towering before them was a gigantic white gate. The railings shone of pale alabaster, the great fluted arch was inlaid with ivory. The portcullis, which had begun to rise, had the silvery sheen of mother-of-pearl.

  “The pearly gates?” asked Gwen, surprised.

  Finvarra smiled.

  “Some mortal once glimpsed it and thought it so, the Gates of Heaven, but it is the White Gates of Morning that lead to my realm.”

  Whether it took seconds or aeons to cross that beautiful kingdom, they couldn’t know. Time meant nothing in a land suspended between morning and night, for it held the breadth of infinity within its borders. And whether the countryside swept past them like wind, or they traveled themselves at impossible speeds, they couldn’t be sure. For it seemed they were given hinds’ feet as they leaped over mountains, vast plains, and boundless seas. Everything shone with a startling clarity of light, an eternal summer’s day. For lo, the winter is past, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come.

  Tír Tairngire. Land of Promise. Magh Abhlach. Plain of the Apple Trees. Tír na nÓg. Kingdom of the Forever-Young. It was a country that refreshed the spirits of all who journeyed there, delighting the mind and nourishing the soul. The fair flowering place where there is no grief or sickness or death. The many-colored land of dreams and enchantment. The far green country under a swift sunrise.

  They sailed like birds on currents of air spiced with perfumes. Spikenard and saffron, calamus, and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes. They swam like sea creatures in the Land Below the Waves. When they ate of the fruit in an orchard of pomegranates, the fiery seeds burst on their tongues like cool flame. A fountain of gardens. A well of living waters. From every corner resounded sweet strains and airs, the music of the spheres, the song of forever.

  Only when they neared the end of their journey did they become aware of the changes that had been wrought upon them. As if they had passed through the waters of rebirth, or the purifying rite of a baptismal fire, each was transformed. They displayed the aspect of what they might be, no longer on the inside but shining without. Like a radiant garment, they wore the form that was their soul.

  In a white-and-gold gown woven with the signs of the zodiac, Granny reflected the wisdom of the ages. Two ivory horns upon her headdress clasped a golden disc that was the full moon. A silver serpent twined around her staff. She was the High Priestess.

  Dara stood with commanding majesty, in a tunic of royal purple with a gold-fringed cloak. At his side hung the archetypal sword. His shield was emblazoned with the mark of the pendragon. His crown was engraved with interlocking oak leaves, for he was Daire, the Oak King.

  At Dara’s right hand stood Mattie, the boar lord of the warrior band, the battering ram, the fury of battle. His shield was of black alder embossed with metal knobs. He gripped a lance that challenged the sky. His stance bespoke the indomitable pride of his ancestry, Champion of the Gael.

  How would Finvarra be enhanced? What could be brighter than the King of Faerie? In chain mail of woven light, he carried a golden sword and spear. From his shoulders unfurled two massive wings; not the gossamer appendages his race sported at times, but the swan’s span of feathered strength, ribbed with iron bone and muscle. He had become his higher self, the avenging Archangel.

  The three young women bore the three faces of the Goddess.

  Clothed in forest-green, Katie gripped the arc of a great bow in her hands. Over her shoulder was slung a quiver of arrows. Her burnt-red hair was pulled back to reveal a cool brow. She was the woman who needed no man, for she was strength and prowess herself, the Huntress.

  Findabhair was aglow in sunset colors, the ardent hues of the Goddess of Love. But she did not express love’s playful nature, nor its serenity. She exuded passion, the kind that shatters all order and bring empires to their knees. She carried two swords, one in each hand, for love can be double-edged and deadly.

  Gwen thought herself the most changed among them, though her friends did not agree. A heavy green mantle fell from her shoulders, and a golden torc ringed her throat. At her back hung a shield, round as the sun. In one hand she grasped a spear, while the wrist of the other held a hooded white falcon. Wild courage coursed through her veins. For she was a braveheart, a trueheart, the Celtic Warrior-Queen.

  Thus arrayed in the blessings of the Land of Ideals, the Company of Seven arrived at their destination. The place of their destiny.

  To kill a worm wherein there is terror, seven angels from Paradise may do so valiantly.

  As colossal as the portal that had granted them entrance, the Black Gates of Night loomed, the final exit. The dark gleam of ebony and obsidian sent a cold chill through them. All were suddenly filled with dread, for they heard the whisper in the deepest recesses of their minds.

  Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

  fter journeying through eternal day, they came to an abyss of endless night. No moon had ever glimmered here. No sun had ever risen to warm these shadows. Cheerless it was, with a cruel chill and the pall of darkness. Inchoate shapes moved in the gloom, taking form for a moment and then dissolving again. Nothing was solid or permanent. Bewildered, the Company put words on the landscape in an effort to understand. The sullen contours in the distance were a range of mountains. The ground underfoot was a rocky shore. Before them lay a tarn of black water.

  Whatever they named in their minds came into being and petrified, but there was no joy in the naming or in what it created. The lack of light and warmth was almost unbearable.
The cold seeped into their bones with a groping horror.

  For the six humans, this was an encounter with the deepest nightmare of their race. It was as if they had awakened in the dead of night to hear the pitiless secret uttered. At the heart of life is a void without purpose or meaning. There is no God. There is no love. All is emptiness and loneliness. Since time began, you have been abandoned.

  Even Finvarra was shaken. King of a bright country, he had always viewed night as a time for sport and play. But there were no bonfires here to encourage a dance, no stars to smile on merry capers, no nocturnal creatures calling him to join their revels. This dark land knew nothing of pleasure.

  For Gwen, the place was especially disturbing. She recognized the deathly cold that clutched at her heart, the breath of the thing that had come out of the lough. But there was no sign of the shadow, nor of the viperous terror she had glimpsed in its depths. There was nothing here but desolation.

  Is this the battle? she wondered to herself. Do we create the enemy? Is it a thing of the mind?

  Thinking along the same lines, Granny spoke out loud.

  “Perhaps the true test is to keep faith in the dark.”

  Her words broke the silence, like a stone dropped into a well. A tremor shook the still weight of the water, as if something below shuddered awake. Ripples crossed the oily surface. A bubbling sound could be heard. The agitation increased, till waves slapped ominously at the shore where they stood.

  As the lake convulsed, the Company felt its upheaval in the depths of their minds. Something wicked this way comes. A nameless terror seized them. They hardly dared to breathe. The suspense was torment in itself.

  But they didn’t have long to wait.

  Like the kraken from the deep, the Great Worm rose up with an eerie silence more dreadful than a scream. He was darker than the night itself. A thousand eyes glared from his body. Gargantuan and glittering, like a spray of cold stars, he appeared to have no head, no tail, no beginning or end. Crom Cruac, the Hunter.

  Each of the Company felt the bane of his stare. Merciless eyes pierced their being, burning their souls, reducing them to ashes. He saw all, knew all, extinguished all.