Worlds Without End s-18

by Caroline Spector

  But I'm wrong.

  There are some things you never get used to.

  The faeries danced around me, laughing. Cruel tricks are their stock and trade.

  "Did you like the dance, mother?" one of the spriggans asked.

  I couldn't answer because there was no breath in my chest. Tears stung my eyes. But I kept dancing.

  I couldn't stop.

  There's a car. She's driving it through rain-slicked streets. The headlights make yellow beams against the oily pavement. There's no other traffic. Every- thing is deserted.

  She stops for a red light. There's a tap against the passenger-side glass. She looks up. A pockmarked face appears at the window, broken fingernails trail across the wetness down to the door handle. Too late, she realizes that the doors are unlocked.

  She can't keep him out.

  11

  Where was Caimbeui?

  I couldn't stop dancing now. This was part of it. Part of the test. And perhaps a bit of revenge at the same time. I know they thought they had just cause, but that was part of the past, too.

  I looked down and saw that my dress had changed again. Glamour. Nasty tricks of the first water. I wore a long white dress made of rose petals. Not un- like the ones Alachia had favored in Blood Wood.

  I open my eyes. The faeries are gone. about, I notice that the trees have died. nothing more than hollowed-out stumps.

  As I look They are It's cold.

  Colder than it should be this time of year. Or any- time in Tfr na n6g.

  Looking up, I see that the sky has turned the color of old oysters. And the air smells of burnt flesh.

  I start to run down the hill, back to the town where Caimbeui and I left the car. The fields I run through are fallow, dead, and brown. Where there was once a cobblestone road, now only small jagged pieces of stone show against the dun-colored earth.

  A stillness hangs in the air. But this is not the si- lence of a quiet afternoon.

  The buildings I pass are crumbling. Finally, I come to the tavern where we stopped for lunch. No vehi- cles are parked outside. The windows are boarded up, but the door hangs open, listing on one hinge.

  I go inside.

  It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Broken chairs litter the floor. Glass crunches under my feet. There's no one here.

  I walk outside again.

  All around me, everything crumbles to dust.

  And I am alone.

  Tears streamed down my face. The spriggans grabbed my hands and spun me about harder and faster. The world revolved around me until all I saw was a blur of light and motion. Shutting my eyes, I tried to block it out.

  I open my eyes.

  We spin about under the azure sky, hands locked with one another.

  "Faster," he says.

  "You'll make yourself sick," I reply.

  "Faster."

  So we turn and turn until we both fall down onto the soft grass.

  "The sky is spinning," he says.

  I put my hand on his forehead. He is warm, but not unusually so. My hand looks so large against his tiny forehead. I can hardly believe that this creature, this small boy, came from me.

  He pushes my hand away, impatient again to be going. In a flash he is up and off and running. Chubby legs pump and I see he's beginning to lose his baby fat. In another few months he'll be a little boy, a baby no longer. And I find I can't bear the idea of his growing older. I would keep him like this forever.

  From high in the sky, a bird cries out. I look up, shadowing my eyes with my hand. It begins a slow descent, circling around and around. Black with yel- low wing-tips.

  I hear a shout and turn. The sky has turned dark as ink and rain slices down.

  Standing next to our small stone house are my son and an old man. Somehow I have missed something. Something important, something I must understand. Then the man drags my son into the house. The door slams shut. An eternity passes, and then a crimson pool seeps slowly under the door.

  Tears ran down my face.

  "Mother, did we make you weep?" asked one of the spriggans. He looked at me with a concerned ex- pression, then burst into laughter.

  "No, no," said another. "She only cries for her dead children. The rest of us must shift for our- selves."

  "That's enough of this nonsense," I said loudly. I was having trouble breathing. After all, I was getting awfully old for this sort of thing. "This is a ridicu- lous game. Tell me what I need to know. Now."

  This caused nothing but giggles from them.

  "You know it's no good demanding anything from us," they said. "We always do what we will. Disobe- dient children."

  And then they spun me around faster.

  The room is spinning. The fire in the hearth is hot and I feel as though it's burning my bare skin. I'm burning up. Hotter and hotter until I think I'll go mad from it. Maybe I already have.

  Pain blossoms bright inside me. I shut my eyes and see red against black. Hands touch me trying to soothe, but it is no use. There are some things for which there is no balm.

  Then the pain is over. They bring me something bundled up.

  I hold my arms out to receive this gift. I pull back the blanket. Inside is a horrible apparition.

  "This is not my baby," I cry. "What have you done with my baby?"

  They take the bundle away from me.

  "It's a changeling," says one in a voice she thinks 86

  is too soft for me to hear. "The faeries have stolen her baby."

  "You can't blame us. Mother," said the spriggan. "That was your own doing."

  "Oh, be quiet," I snapped. The spriggan skulked away.

  Sweat ran down my face. I was growing tired of their games.

  "Tell me where they are," I said.

  "Patience, Mother," they replied.

  I'm running away. The earth rushes below me as I fly. Cradled in my arms is a child. This is no changeling, but my own flesh and blood.

  At last we come to our home. Inside, the air is stale and musty. But that doesn't matter because we are home and safe.

  The storms come. Rain pounds against the roof and makes the windows "rattle. But we don't mind, we're warm and dry. Then I remember, someone is coming. Coming for us.

  The door slams open. He is here. But he's not the real threat. I don't realize this until it's too late.

  Foolish foolish woman.

  Something jerked me.

  Someone.

  Caimbeui had hauled me from the dance. Looking down, I saw I no longer wore the petal gown. Just my own gray sweater and black jeans. Orange streaks colored the sky to the east. 87

  "Why did you do that?" I asked.

  "I just now found you."

  "What?"

  "You went running off, and I couldn't find you for three days," he said angrily. "Do you think I enjoyed tramping all over this jerkwater place? I used up a hell of a lot of goodwill trying to figure out where they took you. Not to mention the energy."

  "Thanks," I said.

  "Thanks? Thanks. She said, 'Thanks.' Is that it?"

  He was beginning to annoy me. I was searching the ground trying to see if they'd left anything be- hind for me to go on. And all he was doing was blathering away.

  "Yes, thanks for coming after me. What do you want. Harlequin?"

  "Perhaps some gratitude," he said. "I've been all over Connaught looking for you. It's taken a hell of a lot of casting to locate you."

  "I hope you're up to some more," I said.

  "Why?" A suspicious look crossed his face.

  "Because the only way I know now to reach the Court is by calling up the Hunt."

  He looked a little pale. I was glad to see he still had some respect for the old ways.

  "The Chasse Artu?"

  "Yes," I said, feeling a little happier at the thought. "The Wild Hunt. It's been so long since I've called one, let alone two. We really must make preparations."

  "Are you mad? You can't possibly call up the Hunt yourself," he
said. There was a frightened look 88

  in his eye. "It would take more power than you or I possess, even combined, not to mention the time in- volved."

  I smiled. "Of course I can't call up the entire Hunt myself. No one could. But I can bring up the steeds. Come along. I'll sleep while you drive. By the way, where are we?"

  There is a barren plain. No grass grows here. No tree mars the vastness of land. Only the long unbro- ken earth stretching out beneath the sickly yellow

  sky.

  A moon hangs large and low. It casts a green glow and turns her skin the color of illness.

  Of death.

  12

  When I woke, it was getting near dark. The sun rested low on the horizon, showing its face for the first time since we'd come to the Tir. Caimbeui had turned the vid to some music station as he drove. The vid flickered and changed, turning his pale face a rainbow of colors.

  It took me a moment to orient myself. I felt groggy and irritated at the sensation. My scalp itched and my eyes felt gritty. A few hours of sleep to make up for the three days I'd missed weren't enough.

  "Where are we?" I asked.

  "Just south of Galway City," he replied.

  "Has it changed much?" I asked.

  "Has what changed?"

  "Galway City."

  "Compared to what?"

  "Compared to what it was before the Awakening." "A bit," he said. "The old ways have taken hold pretty firmly there."

  I pulled my bag out from under the front seat and began rummaging through it. Gum wrappers, ciga- rettes, shoelaces-then I found it: a small tin whis- tle. It rode on a thin copper necklace that I slipped over my head and nestled down between my breasts. I looked out at the passing countryside.

  It had gone wild here. No fences marked property lines. The roads were mostly unpaved, little more than dirt ruts. It reminded me of a time long ago, long before this world. Back when another world was young. No, it was me who was young then.

  I remembered what happened in that place so long ago. How could I ever forget? And now it seemed that the mistakes of the past would be repeated. This world would be torn apart unless I stopped them. Unless I stopped him.

  Just as the sun was setting, I saw the place. Stone tombs silhouetted against the red sky.

  "Pull over here," I said.

  Caimbeui slowed the car.

  "Are you sure?" he asked. "I can't feel any- thing…"

  "It'll do. This place is lousy with caims. The whole area is Awakened."

  A blast of cool air hit me when I opened the car door. The magic was heavy here. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Then I noticed a strange feeling I hadn't had in a time out of mind: excitement. Things couldn't be worse, yet I felt alive for the first time in years. Had the centuries finally worn me down? I knew they had for some of the others. Some until they resorted to terrible means to stop the emptiness.

  'But I had a reason to live. I knew my purpose. It was a sacred task. To keep the world safe. To protect it. To protect the people in it. Or so I'd told myself.

  As I started for the tombs, Caimbeui grabbed my arm.

  "Are you certain this is the only way?" he asked.

  I turned and looked at him. In the flat red twilight his face looked like the very vision of Lucifer. A dark, yet beautiful, angel.

  "Why, Caimbeui, I almost think you care," I said.

  He frowned. "Don't be flip," he said. "If Ysrth- grathe has found you… how can you be safe?"

  I reached up and touched his face. I can't describe how it felt, only that it felt like him. Like Caimbeui. My flesh remembered his as surely as it might re- member the smoothness of velvet or the scratch of sandpaper.

  "Nothing is safe anymore," I replied. "Besides, I've been alive for so long, it might be good to rest. Don't you ever want to just… stop?"

  "No," he said. An angry look crossed his face, and he pulled away from me. "It's always better to be alive. Life is better than death."

  I wanted to stay and argue with him, but there was no time. It almost made me laugh. After so many years, to have no time.

  Instead, I turned and began walking to the caims.

  The sun had disappeared and the sky was fading from scarlet into plum. The wind had died down, and the air was still. No birds sang. No leaves rus- tled. No animal noises carried to me.

  Once I reached the cairns, I turned to see if Caim- beui had followed me. He was a shadow against the fading light. I held my hands out to him and, after a moment, he took them. Though I didn't need him to call up the Hunt, I wanted him to be there with me.

  I closed my eyes and relaxed. In my youth, I had learned magic as part of the fabric of life. I saw it not as a force to be manipulated, but as integral to life itself. A thread broken here could cause some- thing there to unravel. Pulling threads together could create something where there had been nothing.

  But the mages today saw magic as something else. Their way of seeing the world was strange and alien to me. I objected to any kind of cybernetic enhance- ment. Machines can't create. They can only do what they're told.

  As I began to chant the words to the spell, I opened my eyes. The moon was dark and the stars had yet to appear. I couldn't see Caimbeul's face, but could just make out the shape of him before me.

  My eyes adjusted, and gradually I could see again. The granite of the cairns glowed ghostly pale. Caimbeul's face looked as though it floated in the air, unattached to his body. He joined me in saying the words to the spell. It was a strange duet, our words conjuring up the Hunt. I blew the whistle, and it made no sound that either I or anyone else in this world could hear.

  At first there was nothing but our voices breaking the silence. Then the wind began. It howled across the open fields and whistled through the tombs. Caimbeul's hair was pulled free of his ponytail and whipped across his face. The ground began to trem- ble.

  The magic flowed through me. Into me. It filled me and shook me. My muscles screamed with the agony of trying to hold this power. To mold it to my will. Sweat broke out across my face. It ran down my back and streamed over my breasts.

  It was terrible, this force. This chaos and madness which threatened to engulf me. It wracked my muscles. I felt as though it would rip me apart. Tear from me my soul. That it would allow the insanity of the past to come and claim me again.

  In the distance I could hear the thundering of hooves. I raised my voice, barely able to hear my- self. Barely able to force the words from my throat. Caimbeul's words were snatched away by the wind as he uttered them.

  The magic trembled in me, flew around me, pulled at the world and drew things from me. Terrible things. Apparitions from the past. Nightmares from the future. We stood there, trembling, and chanted the old words. Words of power. Until our voices grew hoarse and our throats were raw and our legs would barely support us.

  At last we stopped.

  Abruptly, the air was still and silent.

  I released Caimbeul's hand and turned. 94

  Below us, at the base of the hill where the cairns stood, was what we'd called.

  They looked up at us expectantly. Their eyes re- flected red iridescence. Black coats melted into black night.

  In the distance, I heard the howling of the hounds and wolves. The gabriel ratchets. Their cries were lonely, as though they realized that they'd been abandoned by the steeds which led them. At their head was a tall, cloaked form. Though I knew that this was the apparition who tended the beasts, its ap- pearance was so close to Ysrthgrathe's that, for a moment, I thought my enemy had come for me.

  A long, bony arm appeared from the depths of the apparition's cloak. It beckoned us. I glanced for a moment at Caimbeul. His lips were set in a hard line.

  "You don't have to come," I said. "What?" he replied. "And miss all the fun?"

  At the bottom of the hill we were gestured to two horses. These were the horses of the ancient Tuatha de Danaan. Created from fire, not earth, and able to live for hundreds of years
. I had not ridden one in a thousand years.

  As we tried to mount the horses, they began to dance away and reached back every now and again to nip us with their long, yellow teeth. I grabbed a handful of long mane to help pull myself up. I hoped I would have enough strength left in me for the ride I knew was ahead.

  There was no noise as we mounted. No rattle of harnesses. No sound at all. I turned to the master of the horses, who stood looking at me. "To the Seelie Court," I shouted over the din. The apparition nodded.

  Just then, I had a strange tingling sensation, as if someone unseen was watching me. I looked around, and there, in the distance, atop one of the far hills, were the hounds, stags and wolves. They swirled to- gether, writhing like a thousand snakes, and disap- peared from my sight. I shuddered at their terrible power.

  The horses lunged forward, jerking us in our seats. From then on we were no longer in control. As if we ever truly had been.

  We thundered down bare fields and into muddy flats. Fences were hurdled without a falter. Streams and meadows slipped away. Sparks flew as hooves struck rocky expanses. Lather foamed up on the horses, but they never slowed. My cheeks became chilled and chapped; my hands ached from holding onto the reins. Tears streamed from my eyes.

  We overtook cars on the road, causing accidents. Still we did not slow.

  Then we were at the shore. We pounded across the sand, plumes of it spraying into the air. Then into the tide, never slowing as we rode up and over the water. Galloping across the top of the ocean as though it were a puddle.

  Across the water I saw a misty turquoise glow. As we came closer, I saw that there was an island surrounded by this light. In moments we were on the beach thundering across the sand.

  This was not one of the Aran Islands, for we had passed those as we sped across the bay. This was one of the isles of fable. From legends I had helped create and had forgotten in the long expanse of time.

  This place must be Hy-Breasail, the island believed to rise from the sea only once every seven years. I barely had time to realize this before the Horses surged across the beach and went crashing into the forest.

  A path opened up before us. Whether it was there to begin with or the Horses created it as they went, I cannot say. The trail began to climb upward. We plunged on through the forest, shattering the silence with our passing, At last we burst forth into a great open plain and stopped.