Chasing the Bard

by Philippa Ballantine

  At least now they had moved on to poetry and tale. The things Sive was learning were not Fey in the least; they were pure human thought.

  With each passing mortal month there was more to see between Sive and the young Shakespeare. She rarely stayed long in Mordant’s hall now, dipping back only to satisfy the requirements of the glamour he’d placed on her.

  Puck shuddered, but could not avoid noticing the way that Will’s leg brushed against Sive’s, the way his face, now springing forth a manly beard, blushed when she looked at him. In White Cat form, Puck had followed the youth backwards and forward from Henley Street to the river—not wanting to, but having to.

  No matter what Sive said, he cared about the young Shakespeare in a way that he’d never felt for a mortal. Puck had trafficked often with humans, but had never experienced the connection he had with Will. It was not just the young man’s Fey blood, but his gentle strength and truly kind heart that had won Puck’s admiration. Oh Will had the usual raging fiery dreams about Sive, but Will had never once pushed those boundaries between female and male, never gone beyond the reach of honour.

  Poor Will. Poor blinded Will. Puck shook his head. He wanted to do something to reveal his cousin’s real intentions, but knew very well that he could not. Sive might laugh, and call him irresponsible, but for all that he knew as well as any other Fey that their time was running out. Mordant’s power had been able to halt the malaise, but had replaced it with something else. Greyness was stealing over the Fey. Hard to pinpoint, but the sense of his home was fading. This boy might well be all that they had.

  Sive was certainly taking a great risk though. By spending so much time in the human realm, she chanced drawing Mordant’s attention. Whatever powers Will might grow into, they had not yet fully formed, and he was no match for him yet.

  Below Sive laughed at one of Will’s subtle jibes, and for a brief moment Puck forgot his torments. The dark fierce Fey he knew would never have laughed like that. Frowning he looped his legs over the branch and hanging down, focused on Sive. While she giggled like a young maid she had never been, her barriers were down for the swiftest of moments. Puck darted his Art beneath, probing, seeking some reassurance for William.

  Sive glanced up with eyes like thunderclouds. Art clashed on Art, and the weaker Fey rocked back on his perch. Almost losing his grasp on the tree, his body nearly forgot shape and form. By the time Puck had recovered, Sive had her attention once more fixed on Will, a finger tracing the line of text they were studying.

  But Puck had sensed something he had before only guessed. Whatever her protestations, Will was not the only one losing a heart in this spot by the river. It should have been an ill thing to Puck indeed, for Fey and human love was a terrible thing—it was a razor’s edge, on which someone would certainly be cut.

  In all of their history in this realm, in all of their stories of love between Fey and human, not one such affair had ended well. Far too many terrible occurrences waited for these two. Puck should have been at least a little jealous, because he had always been in love with Sive—but he was not, perhaps because he was also half in love with Will too.

  It was all too much for his Fey heart, steeped in the ways of fun and frivolity, to bear—all these maudlin thoughts and prophesies of doom. With Sive at his side Will did not need one very worn out cat, and Puck had a sudden longing to inhale the warm air of the Fey. Forcing himself not to look back at the two seated below, Puck tugged aside the Veil between the realms and slipped away.

  Much as he would have liked to walk the sunny hills of Auberon’s domain, such a move was not wise. Sive had told him how Auberon’s power had grown since his pact with Mordant, and even Puck was not game to test the ruler’s temper by showing his face.

  So instead Puck chose to appear in the scented misty vales of evening, the place where he'd been banished to. A cloud of dusky winged sprites sprang from some tall misty grass not far from where he had appeared. They must have been waiting. “Puck... Puck... Puck,” they twittered, in their voices like plucked lute strings, fluttering around and filling the air with the sound of their wings. “We missed you, we missed you! Trick, give us a trick.”

  He smiled, “Well, it’s nice to know someone did.” Feeling a stab of something that might have almost been loneliness, he tried to shake it off. Sometimes the human realm played with emotions.

  The evening was heavy over the hills though, and as the sprites crowded closer it enveloped Puck, wrapping him in further melancholy. He attempted to brush the sprites away, to hone in on the disturbance, but they swarmed closer, their wings and tiny bodies battering against him, like moths at a lit window. It wasn’t like they posed any danger, but he was perturbed by their persistence. Sprites were not strong in Art or will. Puck spluttered, and found that they had lost what little sense they had once possessed, as he caught a butterfly wing in the mouth. The sensation was entirely unpleasant.

  Finally both concerned and annoyed, he employed a thrust of raw Art to clear the path. The sprites tumbled over and over, caught by the unseen winds, their tiny bodies seeming to drop limp. Horrified Puck reached out and caught one frail body. Raising the sprite to eye level, he peered at it. It hung from his fingers with faded eyes that should have gleamed like uncut jewels. It was still murmuring ‘Puck’ to itself even as it dangled there, the pale sexless body offering no resistance, and indeed hardly able to breathe.

  A wave of fear washed through Puck. He had played with sprites as children, and they were energy personified, for even if you were quick enough to catch one, holding it was usually another story. They were the closest things to the Mother of All—so this change boded ill indeed. Tossing the sprite back to the air, he was at least glad to see it fly off.

  Since his last visit things had got worse. Sive had mentioned the strange lethargy in Mordant’s hall. Puck had never been one for complicated thoughts or plans and schemes. In his world life was for living, not for endless hours of examination—he lived so totally in the now that the sudden realization that there might be very few nows left hurt almost physically.

  With leaden feet, Puck found his way to the hall. About him the land whispered to itself, but was remarkably bereft of Fey life. Apparently Auberon had in a fit of magnanimity pardoned and recalled a great many of those banished, but still Puck sensed there were others in hidden halls that simply could not move.

  “Mother of All,” Puck murmured, “What has happened here?” Apart from Auberon, he had always thought that most Fey found him at least amusing, for they certainly always gathered around him enough. Truthfully he wasn’t used to being alone so that even a sharp curse from Birgit would be welcome after this.

  Down the sod steps, which had once been springy underfoot but now positively squelched, Puck went. The scent of smoke was strong down here, and that could not be a good thing.

  “Brigit?” No sound, his voice eerie and muffled in the gloom. The upper levels had not been lit, and the darkness was so complete that for a moment even his Fey eyes were baffled. Stubbing a toe on a stool lying in the corridor, he spat out an oath. “Damn it, old woman—what are you trying to do?”

  But if Brigit heard she made no reply, and how could she fail to hear when all was so still? Neither was Puck blind to the waves of Art filtering up from beneath his feet.

  He had almost forgotten that Brigit was of the same blood as Sive. In all her time in the evening realm, she had barely lifted Art to anything apart from the odd half-hearted Seeing. Puck wasn't born when the great works of Brigit and her sister were completed. The thin candy glass dome of the Fey hall had always existed to him, and the forging of the Court was a tale he had listened to in infancy. His mother was born after all such momentous events of the Fey were over, and her simple head filled with nothing more than dandelion thoughts. The tales of the past were all she had given to him before retreating to the wildness of their realm to play with the sprites. Hearing the stories however, was not like living them. To a creature of the n
ow they had meant little. To Puck, Brigit had always been a haggled old woman, with knotty hair, and a nasty attitude. But the present pulses of Art reminded him sharply that Brigit had, in her time, only been surpassed by Anu in strength, and made him suspect she had been hiding the remains of it beneath an ancient form.

  Puck stood undecided for a moment at the head of the last flight of stairs. This could be tricky. If she had chosen this moment to flex Art, he could be walking into a nasty, if not deadly, situation. Diplomacy was something that Puck had not had any experience with.

  “Do what you do best—go where you’re not wanted,” he decided, and barrelled down the stairs. Tucked almost cunningly behind his back, his hands did slowly shift into claws.

  Puck had expected Brigit to be twining smoke as she was wont to do while Seeing. It took him a moment to realize that she was in fact slumped in a chair against the far wall. In the hearth, an enormous fire was roaring, consuming huge amounts of living wood in a conflagration that denied all Fey reasoning. One only used a little of Mother’s gifts for a Seeing. Not only that, but the room was writhing with unleashed Art, given no form or direction by Brigit, ready to explode raw from the earth itself. Puck held his breath on reflex, for it was akin to a roomful of that dreadful gunpowder the humans had just discovered. Hurriedly he scampered to Brigit, but didn’t dare try to damp it down himself, Fey reflexes being pernicky things.

  Coughing into a sleeve, Puck gently rolled Brigit over, and cradled her head in his lap. Her arm fell to the side, and the grass green apple that had been in her hand dropped to the floor, rolling away into the smoke. Puck watched it go, aghast. He’d seen only one before, but there was no mistaking the fruit of the goddess. The two round crescents bitten into this one could mean only one thing; Brigit had tried to use it to gain a better Seeing.

  Puck looked down into the old, stubborn face. “You fool,” he whispered somewhat accusingly, but the grey lips did not move, and the eyes rolled back in the head and did not focus. Brigit’s shoulders under his hands shook, and Puck’s Art quivered too. It knew something was approaching. No, it was already here; Puck’s finger’s tightened their grip. Indeed something was feeding.

  Brigit’s flesh shifted, becoming waves of energy, and he could almost hear the sound of tearing. This was now becoming far too much like a nightmare for his liking, but he dare not summon Sive to a room so full of Art; anything might happen.

  Her mouth dropped open, and a thin vapour curled lazily out from deep within her throat, stinking of both chaos and fury. Whatever Brigit had found with Seeing, was not at all pleasant, and unless he could free her from it, she would be ripped apart. Puck, having no desire to return to Sive and explain the death of their aunt, swallowed the welling panic in his own throat.

  A sound very like a roar rocked the tiny room, and Brigit snapped from his grip like a piece of lightning struck iron. The air blossomed red and purple. Puck dived for cover as the Art exploded around him.

  7

  Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

  Even as he rolled for cover underneath Brigit’s upturned stool, Puck's feet got singed. Multi-coloured flashes danced on the inside of his eyelids, and the smell of his own burning hair was not welcome either. The room was bubbling and swirling with power. It bounced off the walls, zinged along the floor, and methodically exploded every one of the potions and lotions Brigit had lined the shelves with. The taste of the power was hers. It was a primitive Fey reflex, Art reacting in defence, but in the process it had managed to burn her nephew’s eyebrows off.

  Peeking over the stool now reduced almost to charcoal, Puck could see his aunt’s body shaking and near to buckling under the strain. While her Art might be strong enough to hold her attacker off, her body was only capable of taking so much punishment.

  Puck was all she had, a fact that would have made Brigit laugh out loud. Reliability was not the Trickster's strongest suit. How could he help her? But then the feeling of helplessness faded, to be replaced by strength of purpose that would have profoundly shocked all that knew him. Puck’s spine straightened, and the usual wicked gleam in his eye became a determined one.

  I have her blood, he reminded himself, I have the strength of Anu in me. But that still left a thorny question, what he should be doing to help?

  His nervous foot knocked against something round and hard. The innocuous seeming apple rolled from side to side, daring him to make a decision. Brigit might not be able to fight off her attacker by herself, but if he added his strength to hers...

  Before Puck could find sanity again, he scooped up the apple, buffed it lightly against his charred sleeve, and then in one swift gesture took a bite. Only one, but it was enough.

  The thick juice coated tongue and throat. He almost gagged on the rich flavour, so powerful it eclipsed all other senses. It boiled within Puck, swelling Art till his head pounded. The room expanded with colour and magic.

  Puck’s power was an essential part of his being, inextricably linked with his thoughts and character, so the effect of the juice was stunning. It separated and expanded his Art until it was no longer part of him. Now it was far a more angry and powerful serpent that writhed inside. Terrified of losing control, he plunged after Brigit into the Between.

  Puck had never been much of a walker of the ways; he had only skipped to the mortal realm in all his long life, and so the thundering chaos of the Between caught him unawares. The rolling misty paths of the Way of Worlds shredded thought until he wondered if his body would break. Then the realization hit him—only his spirit trod the Between.

  Somehow, Puck the Trickster was without his body. He tried not to panic, tried to remind himself that this was the best way, but he couldn’t help it—he was naked. His body was the best protection—his spirit couldn’t possibly be up to this.

  Right then and there, he would have turned tail and run, had he not see her. Not far ahead in the swirling Between, Brigit struggled with something. Her spirit, as lovely and young as her body had once been, was bent double and overshadowed by her attacker. Thick, powerful tentacles had wrapped themselves about his aunt’s spirit form, and then into her. The horrific sound of something tearing filled Puck’s ears. Whatever it was, it was feeding on her; he could almost see it grow in size with each heartbeat—soon nothing would remain of Anu’s sister.

  Some part of the Trickster found courage and spurred his spirit form towards the combatants. He did not, he dare not, look at the creature, it hurt him to even be near it, but he latched onto Brigit, and tugged mightily to free her. A great rumble shook the silver mists, but his aunt’s strength melded with his.

  The union of blood and unspoken love breached the final bounds the attacker had placed on her. A terrible shudder ran along his arms, and then both snapped clear of the Between, like falling into a bright well of pain.

  Puck opened his physical eyes, very glad to smell the smoke and feel the chill of the room. Brigit’s head moved on his knee, and he brushed back a silver curl. “It’s all right, old girl.”

  But it wasn’t, something in him knew. The eyes looking up at him misted with death, and her clutch on his fingers grew very cold. Her features had the appearance of wrinkled cloth. Her head was heavy on his knee. Puck’s tears fell on her parched lips as she strained to say something, but through the link that still lingered between them he knew—the creature had burrowed into her spirit, taken what it needed, and now death was only a moment behind.

  Brigit’s final thought reached him. Take my Last Breath.

  Anu had died far from kin, and they'd lost all that she had known and been. Brigit would not have the same said of her. Cupping her head, Puck stared down into the eyes that had seen the dawn of Fey, and loved and cared more than was safe. He didn’t feel worthy of her Last Breath—it should be Sive’s.

  Brigit shook her head, a graceful little smile curving near-blue lips, denying his feelings of unworthiness. And she Breathed her Last into the world.


  Puck had no time to think, or be rational, for he could not let all that Brigit was be in vain. The tearful nephew dipped his head and inhaled, drawing all that Brigit the Blessed had been into himself. The first-born Fey exploded in his head, and both knew no more.

  * * *

  In the King of Fey’s hall, they felt it. Auberon was dancing close to Moira, holding her in his arms, enjoying the restored power that flowed through his veins, and the heady aroma of his beloved. Perhaps he would summon the Fey steeds, and the entire court would tread the clouds to celebrate their renewed vigour, and then later his lady would wrap her long hair about him, and make him smile. A heady atmosphere of anticipation had him, and Moira’s copper curls smelt sweetly of honeysuckle. The day was as perfect as any he could remember, a golden echo of former times.

  And then the earth sobbed. The court screamed in alarm, and the Hall echoed with the musical shattering of hundreds of crystal glasses dropping at elegant feet. Fey landed against each other, in a storm of exquisite jewellery and ripped clothing. The Hall bucked, becoming an alien, horrifying place to those not used to change. Auberon and Moira fell against the wall as the ground continued its dance, rolling and shuddering under their feet, and then all was silence.

  The court lay still for a moment, all pale faces and wide eyes at what had happened; fear had dried their throats and stilled their laughter.

  Auberon helped the dishevelled Moira to her feet.

  “What was it, sire?” she whispered, perhaps afraid to wake the earth to anger again, her faith in their all-powerful lord obviously fled.

  The King did not answer, cocking his head and listening to the whispers that the realm was making. Masking the dry startled sobs now coming from the Court, he heard the faintest of sounds that had the greatest implication, the gentle hiss of rain amongst the green grass, in the eternal realm of summer. Frightened, the court followed him out of the gilded hall, and stood looking up in astonishment at the now grey sky. Never before had there been anything but sun and the odd misty cloud, but now the horizon filled with darkness, and the rain began to beat harder and faster down on them.