Chasing the Bard

by Philippa Ballantine

  The dark shadows that moved towards them were hard on the eye and difficult to judge. Alien claws and legs churned up the green earth.

  Sive pulled loose her sword, drawing her people’s gaze away from destruction, and let the cry she’d been holding in leap forward “A light arises. Forward the Folk!”

  It was from the Elder Days, the Dawn of worlds, and her mother’s battle cry. Auberon had whispered it to her through torn lips before surrendering himself to unconsciousness. That tortured face Sive kept in mind as she and her people leapt forward like greyhounds off the leash.

  Not one of them faltered, even in the teeth of the nightmare, and in a mass their Art came alive, for wherever the Fey went they were never unarmed. Art surged ahead in bright ribbons of light; silver blossomed from Sive, Puck’s strands of ochre arched to her left and a thousand other colours. Against the stench of the Unmaker, Fey music blossomed, and the light of Art blended to a blinding white.

  Where it touched the shadows got forced back, snarling and snapping like mad hounds, or if they were not quick enough simply unravelled to nothingness. It did good to all hearts that saw it.

  But the Fey brightness was very little compared to the power that rushed at them. Something that still lay beyond the open portal urged the howling darklings on. Driven to snarling, foaming fury they tumbled like a dark wave through and over the Art of the Fey, heedless of their brood lost to it.

  The physical battle was joined, and the combatants came fist to claw. Sive howled, the sound ripped from her deepest being belled out across the battlefield, and in it was the sound of ravens. Bright ecstasy consumed everything, even as a savage claw slashed her head. Still the pain could not reach her, and even as the sundered helmet fell apart and blood coursed down her neck, her immortal heart almost broke with joy. This was the way for a goddess to die.

  “Now quickly, Sive,” Puck’s voice in the chaos of battle sounded in her head, “Do what you need to.” She caught his gaze through the slashing weapons and heaving bodies. It wasn't a mistake—her aunt’s eyes looked back.

  But now was the time for action, not grief. Breaking loose from the press of attackers, Sive fell back to clear ground. A sudden vice like grip on her shoulder nearly ended in her slicing Macha from her shoulder. But the raven, even dishevelled and wounded, knew her proper place.

  Sive’s heart lightened a fraction. Move like the eagle, she reminded herself each moment is another Fey life. She broke open the Veil and moved into the mists of nothingness.

  The heaving Between wrapped itself about the raven and Fey, eerie in its sudden quietness. With Mordant’s creatures busy, Sive might have a chance. Mouthing a quick prayer to the Mother of All, Sive walked the misty ways to find the point where Three Realms joined.

  Macha crooned to herself, and hunkered down tighter on her mistress’ shoulder. Unhappy though the raven was, it was still good not to have to tread these paths alone. Clenching her teeth, Sive went on.

  She had never been to the Nexus, but the memory of Anu’s journey there made the finding of it easy. Still the sharp beauty of the place hit her hard, and when she saw the huge crystal stones her eyes burned with tears. Sive could only wish she had time to sit and look at the Mother’s wonder.

  “Forgive me, goddess,” she said, as she passed towards the central gleaming pillar.

  As Anu had noticed, each pinprick of light that radiated through it made her skin prickle. It was a disturbing and yet erotic feeling. But the question still remained: what should she do? No textbooks existed on how to undo the Mother’s work. No one had even mentioned how to break the realms apart.

  Only Art held a possible solution. Sive stepped forward, blinking her eyes against the swirl of colours the Nexus let out. Macha pressed her feathered head against her ear, and suddenly a conduit opened between Sive and goddess. Sive let a breath go, and let her Art have its way. It shot along her abused synapses like lightning, reminding her how half-alive she was when it was not there, and pushing back the tide of humanity that had been sneaking up on her. Not too far, Sive reminded herself, for she would need that too.

  By the light of her power Sive could see the thick bindings of the realms, like silver umbilical cords tying the Three together. They turned and spun to their own rhythms, weaving strange patterns on the surface of the king stone. Sive kept her eyes averted from the Shattered Realms’ light, but could see the dark canker that was beginning to spread.

  Not knowing what else to do, Sive reached out. Grasping the bindings, she could feel the pulse of life within them, but could not halt now. A deep breath, a summoning of all the Art she had, and with a scream she thrust at the ribbons of life. Her power flared like a sunburst in the misty Between, scalding the ether with its might. Sive’s insides burned, and her Art lay stripped bare. But still, only when she had no more to give did she let go. Head spinning, Sive tried to find herself in the barren space left behind. She had touched the Mother of All’s Art, and found the measure of her own tiny in comparison. Everything had gone into that moment, but the bindings of the realms remain unmoved by her efforts. So Sive lay shuddering in the mist, trying to think beyond the now, find the answer and save her people. And then like a gentle caress the voice reached her. “Daughter?”

  Of a thousand impossible things, this was one she could never have expected. Time held its breath as Sive looked up into her mother’s face.

  “What are you doing, Sive?” Anu’s violet eyes were as hard as gems, offering nothing like the welcome her daughter had often dreamed of.

  Stumbling to her feet, she reached for Anu, questions bubbling in her mind. Where have you been? What happened to keep you away from the Fey? Don’t you care about me?

  But Anu slipped back a little; nothing about her flawless features betraying any emotion. “The Realms must remain bound.”

  It was incredible how the elder Fey could be so callous. No one had ever found out what had happened to her in the Between, and now she stood there, not batting an eye at her daughter’s distress. A chill scampered up Sive’s spine, and she dropped the half-raised hand she had turned toward Anu.

  The two women now eyed each other as warily as any stranger. Then a hint of an icy smile twitched Anu’s mouth, like she’d was caught out—or more precisely the puppeteer realized he was found out.

  Sive swallowed hard, but managed to sound calm. “You didn’t ever think I’d be fooled by this, did you?”

  A sibilant laugh broke out of Anu’s throat, like a rough hand shattering a beautiful mask, and voice that followed could have sent weaker beings into insanity, “But this is your mother, Sive, why you haven’t even given her a kiss?” The perfect lips parted to reveal a void of darkness behind, which promised nothing but a need to swallow realms. In that emptiness the destroyer lived.

  Sive sidestepped the reaching arms. “My mother is dead.” She inched further away around the curve of the king stone.

  “True, true,” the Unmaker twitched Anu’s head in mockery of agreement. “She knew that I had marked her at the Sealing, so she disappeared into the Between. Gave up crown and children to save her realm, but she shouldn’t have bothered. For today it perishes.”

  Sive ground her teeth, but kept her anger in check.

  The Unmaker chuckled. “First, of course, her daughter dies.”

  He said it so conversationally the sudden lunge almost caught Sive flat-footed. She had been expecting her opponent to gloat a little more, but the Unmaker was not Mordant, and that mistake almost proved most expensive.

  The blow caught Sive’s half turned head, and knocked her feet from under her. Every bone rattled, her body spasmed against even this proxy touch from the Unmaker. This force of destruction horrified everything made by the Mother. It looked down at her for a moment, deciding her fate as calmly as a human crushing a fly. “No matter what the prophecy says, you are still more dangerous alive.”

  “Prophecy?” Sive stammered, hoping at least to get on her feet to meet death.


  Anu’s lips pursed, “It would be good to have control of the Between, to travel to more realms, but I cannot wait for your child, when you are causing so much trouble.”

  Sive could not understand what it meant, but was deeply angry that there would be no chance to discover the answer. Something flexed behind the eyes of her dead mother, and they changed to a deep void in which only pain and death awaited.

  * * *

  Brigit would not be silent. And it was quite difficult to tackle a battle while an undead Fey was rattling on in one’s head. Puck strained upwards with his sword, trying not to allow the flexing claws of his opponent to reach him. What could be keeping Sive?

  Surely separating the realms would not be taking this long? Already the line of Fey was breaking apart, and as they gave ground there were fewer and fewer of them.

  The Trickster couldn’t even give enough concentration to his aunt’s voice to understand what she was rattling on about. He was already bending at the waist, as a creature’s full weight pressed against his blade. The sound of its dark insect carapace on the steel was high-pitched, as unforgiving as the monster itself. Puck was going to snap in two at any moment. He dared to free one hand from his pommel, and groped for his ankle. His fingers found the silver dagger he’d stuck there at a whim. When he slammed said blade into the creature’s chest only inches from his own, it made a resounding shudder. The precious Fey blade sang and died in such a spot, but it did the job.

  Now the monstrous dead weight pushed him to the ground. Terrified of another of its kin taking the opportunity, he used all his best wriggling skills to get out from under it.

  In that heartbeat, Brigit finally made herself clear. The sudden bellow made his head ring. They’re leaving!

  So they were. Puck wiped his sweaty and bloody forehead, and watched in exhausted amazement as the grim tide ebbed back to the gap in the Between where they had come from. It could have only been a few minutes before, but it could have easily been hours in the Fey realm.

  Beside Puck, the survivors, numbering in the bare hundreds, let out a solid cheer; they had beaten them! The Trickster threw up his arms, and shook his sword at the sky. The Fey had triumphed.

  But as always Brigit had to spoil the moment.

  No, no you foolish boy! They are called back. Sive is in trouble; the Unmaker has need of all his power. That is why the horde has retreated.

  Swelled with fear for his cousin, Puck caught the shoulder of his nearest surviving soldier; Brenna with her hair matted and face bruised. “Pull back and regroup,” he told her. “Sive needs my help. If neither of us come back... do your best.”

  Once she would have laughed at any orders from the Trickster; now she nodded and did as bid.

  Quickly, lad, the Nexus. Brigit’s urgency gave wings to his tired body. His Art was limitless at the moment. He pulled open the Veil and crossed into the treacherous mists of Between. They thrashed and boiled around him as he ran with fear in his heart.

  Puck shifted skin, wearing his dark-haired man form, thickly muscled and capable of earning more respect. The Unmaker would not care either way, but it made him feel stronger.

  He’d tried to ignore his aunt’s dire warnings; he’d not taken any notice when she wailed into his brain that Sive was not the one to break the bonds. She had the blood, but only the Bard had the Mother’s gift to do it.

  Puck was angry with himself for ignoring the obvious; he’d let himself get carried along by his cousin, and now she would be the one to pay the price. The Unmaker was massing his power ready to strike at the dark goddess; the mists knew it, and so did the Trickster.

  He saw Sive, and his heart began to beat again, but then it was as if his eyes were melting in their sockets. Brigit had seen the Unmaker before, and it was just the same. And what further horror it was that it wore the shape of Anu.

  Scarcely knowing who it was that moved his body, Puck stepped between the Unmaker and his cousin. He was so terrified it was as if his brain might melt in his head. Only Brigit held him upright.

  Puck’s hands drew out the dim shape of the Great Seal. Not much remained of its power, the lines etched on it fading even by the second, but it might yet gain them a heartbeat.

  Make haste, cousin, Puck’s mind whispered to Sive’s, to the Fey while we can.

  Puck wasted no words on the Unmaker. He only held the worn stone seal up before him, in clenched white fingers that were no longer shaking.

  Anu’s lips peeled back in a hideous snarl. “That trinket won’t save you now, Brigit.”

  It was indeed his aunt’s voice that rang from Puck’s chest, but not the tired bitter tones he could remember, but the sweet and proud call of the Fey who had seen the dawn of worlds.

  The voice that bubbled up, rich with power and confidence, spoke words of such Art that even the Between Mists bucked in response. The part that remained of Puck did not know what they meant, but hoped they spelled safety.

  The seal in Puck’s hand hummed and white lines shot forth and drew themselves against Anu’s face. She cried out once, sounding like the aunt he recalled.

  But there was no time for horror or regrets. Puck grasped Sive’s hand, and with an odd gesture he threw an invisibility glamour over the both of them before tugging her into the Between.

  Puck’s heart got thrown into his throat, and abused Art flinched against the torrent of power Brigit had released like a storm about them. He dared not stop and think how she had done it.

  No time and no chance to fight, Brigit’s mind said into his, the Great Seal is close to breaking. Only enough remains to hold the Unmaker’s physical body in the Shattered Realm. Flee!

  Puck, obedient to his aunt, tugged Sive about like a whip at the end of his fingers, grown strong in both Art and muscle. They had reached the spot where the Fey pulsed through the edges of the mist.

  The Trickster had her by both hands, and a look held her still. “We have held them back as long as we can, cousin.” His hands tightened on hers. “Now we need Will.”

  Sive’s face came as close as it ever had to crumpling. “He won’t come.”

  Brigit was Seeing more than Puck could imagine, as if her lack of body only made her more powerful. The Bard’s path was clear to them both. “He will, cousin. We should be ready for him.”

  It was either sad or wondrous that Sive the Shining grasped such a small hope so easily.

  * * *

  The weather cleared for perhaps with the going of the shadow demon it was free. It was the sun climbing above the scattering cloud that reminded Will that he still breathed, and if he was going to be able to live with himself, he had to make his son’s death at least a little meaningful.

  They had buried Hamnet two days before, and although his friends would be expecting his swift return to London, he had already decided against it. Other far more risky dealings called.

  Anne was making a great show of getting on with things, though her grey skin and haunted eyes told of a far deeper pain. Will had little to give her; perhaps all he had ever been able to give her in this life had been the children. Sive had taken all the rest in that respect.

  And he had to reach his Fey lover. And though his Art was in full flowering, he knew nothing of how to part the Veil and step into the Fey realm. He had not paid much attention when Puck or Sive did.

  So there was only one place to go. Saddling his horse, and strapping his sword to his side, Will rode to Arden. The sweet chill air and the beauty of the day he recognized, but they did not touch him. The son he had lost still occupied his vision, and the dull heat of vengeance kept him company on the journey.

  Arden wood was still a place of magic, and even Will’s rise to adulthood hadn’t stripped it of that. As he reined his mount in, he recalled with sudden vividness that dramatic attack when he had been younger. Sive’s revelation had stripped that old glamour from his eyes.

  I have been nothing but a fool, Will thought, I have always been different. If I could have only seen
that, Hamnet might still be alive.

  Dismounting, he tied his horse to a nearby tree and breached the forest’s defences. He had an adult’s height, and an adult’s perceptions, but it all came back to him; the excitement turned to terror, and that wonderful clear moment where his Art called to him for the first time.

  A vital part of Will thrilled to its musky wood scents and hint of magic in the air. He had hoped that this alone would tell him how next to proceed, that he would know how to reach the Fey. But if the forest knew the answers it was not telling him.

  A profound lance of despair went through him, failure not something he knew much of. At this point it was close to crippling him. Will’s grief escaped him, and tears he would never have shed in front of even his own family fell to the waiting earth.

  The voice, when he finally heard it, was soft and tinged with the burr of the north. It was so low that he at first had taken it for the wind in the trees.

  “...But I knew, even then you’d be special, lad. Marked by the Mother and watched by fair folk. I knew...”

  Will brushed his hair back from his eyes and followed the voice to its origin. At first he almost missed the speaker as well. The old woman’s tattered and stained garments were brown, like the tree she rested against. She looked as old as the hills, but there she was, propped against the knotted tree as though it were a comfortable bed. She was turned away from him, and with her ancient face raised to the treetops it appeared as though these were her audience.

  “Don’t I know you?” Will ventured closer.

  She shifted a little, perhaps finding a better patch of bark to rest against, and smiled at the sky. “I would say you do, young William. It was me that guided you into the world over thirty years ago.”

  He recognized her now, old Bess the midwife. No one had seen her for many years, not since her granddaughter had taken over her work in the village. She couldn’t have been sitting here all this time, living off air and sunlight.