Another shudder rocked her body. She had to shove the appalling image from her mind, force herself to focus solely on Finn and trust in his strength to resist. Yet uncertainty tormented her. She didn’t want to believe he might’ve succumbed already, but what if it spoke the truth? He should’ve come for her by now.
“You named him well…Emrys, the immortal. He will certainly live on forever through us, adding to our strength with his knowledge of the Elder race language,” the voice rasped with pleasure.
The name startled her. “How do you know that name?” she whispered.
Another malignant laugh coiled around her. “We know because we’re in his blood, shaping his thoughts, calling him home,” whispered the cruel presence.
A deeper understanding of what she’d learned from Rory seeped in. The poison had never been some sort of worsening condition in need of a cure. This was a possession. This evil thing had been hiding inside Finn all along. She felt violated, not just for herself but for Finn.
A persistent question pushed aside her revulsion. What or who exactly was speaking? The fable had said Mugloth’s union with Grandfather Oak had transformed the tree into a hellish monstrosity. The voice kept saying “we”, not I. Was Grandfather Oak part of this “we”? If so, she might have a fighting chance.
“We don’t ever speak to the offerings,” the voice continued, “but you are the exception. As the Shining One’s creator, your blood flows with his essence. After we drink your blood, your essence will make our call to him irresistible. He will need to be one with you, as he has since the moment of his inception.”
So Finn was resisting. But if she died, she knew he’d give up. She couldn’t let that happen. “I want to speak to Grandfather Oak,” she blurted out.
Her pulse quickened as several more roots slithered up through the dirt. “Grandfather Oak is here. His spirit is part of our greater whole.”
“No, I don’t believe Grandfather Oak is anywhere near here. If he was, he’d never have allowed centuries of senseless killings to take place,” she said, hoping to goad it into letting Grandfather Oak come forward as proof.
“There is nothing senseless about justice being carried out.”
Not the response she was looking for. She’d have to push harder. “Thousands, if not millions of innocent people have died because of you!”
“The only innocents in this world are nature’s tender creatures. Reckless, greedy humans abandoned the sacred laws. They’ve destroyed everything in their path, scarring entire continents in their gluttonous quest for more. You don’t hear how Earth weeps for her children. But her healing will begin now that Emrys has joined us. With our combined power, we will wage a holy war upon the barbarian horde, and out of it shall come a garden as unspoiled as the original.”
A chill streaked up her spine. She was frightened of this grand plan. Frightened for Finn, for her friends, for this world. “I’ll admit we humans are flawed, but we’re waking up. Where I come from lots of people respect nature, and they fight to protect Earth,” she said hurriedly, deciding it might be better to steer the conversation in a more positive direction. Maybe a glimmer of hope would draw Grandfather Oak out. “What of those who honor nature’s sacred laws? Would you also put an end to them? I know Grandfather Oak wouldn’t. He was too loving and forgiving for that.”
Silence. Scary silence.
Her pulse thudded loudly in her ears as her beating heart threw a brighter light on more roots snaking up into view.
“Nature does not suffer even them to live,” the voice seethed.
Terror pulsated along her nerve endings. The increasing impatience in the voice only confirmed Grandfather Oak no longer existed. If he did, he would’ve spoken to her by now. Her last chance was to make Mugloth see the error of his ways. “Not nature. You. Or should I say Mugloth? You’ve been lying to yourself, haven’t you? Grandfather Oak isn’t with you. He’s long dead. I’m sure you didn’t mean to, but it’s time you faced the fact that you killed his spirit with your hatred and rage. Nothing good has come from––”
“No! You are the liar!” the voice thundered, shaking the tree’s very foundation.
The roots thrashed and stabbed into her. Paralyzing pain shot through muscle and nerves as they burrowed beneath her skin. Nothing could save her now. Mugloth had begun to feed.
•
Mugloth’s dark tide crashed over Finn, sucking his awareness deep underground, down into the oak’s sprawling roots. He tried to remember what came before this black wave and why it was important to resist and push against the current. But the undertow was strong, pulling him toward the heart of something greater than his own existence. An immense power radiated from there, calling to him to unite with it––to become more.
“Emrys.”
The inescapable tug of his spirit name pulled Finn to the beating heart of the oak, where a denser, darker concentration of power resided. There was a seductive purity to the energy––an undiluted expression of purposeful rage unaffected by guilt or shame. He couldn’t help but open to it. The emanation offered too much freedom. As he yielded, his awareness expanded, bleeding beyond the borders of the oak and blending with the heartbeat of the earth, the ceaseless thrum of the ocean, the perpetual inhale and exhale of the wind’s breath.
And the soft noise of a shallow, dying gasp––a sound that troubled him.
Flashes of his past came and went in the form of blurred pictures as Finn pushed his senses throughout the tree until his dark sight found the source of the sound. The second he saw her face––Fate’s face––his memory returned in an instant and his consciousness slammed back into his body. A cry tore from his throat, a savage howl of agony that shuddered through him. Desperation coursed through his veins, firing him into action. He could save her if he hurried.
Something clamped down on him, squeezing his bruised and battered body. That’s when he realized he was being lifted off the ground by a tangled mess of writhing roots corded around his torso. Smaller tendrils skewered his skin, slowly drinking his blood. The tricky demon had lured his spirit out of his body, intending to drain him dry while nobody was home. And its two copper-topped minions stood by, looking annoyingly superior.
As light-headed as he was from blood loss, Finn knew what to do without having to think. He uttered the sacred names of the elements in the Elder race language. The roots tightened, trying to cut off his air but all he needed was a whispered gasp to engage the runes embedded in his skin and ignite the internal fire needed to fuel his voice. In the span of a second, the heat erupted in his gut, shooting into his chest and out his throat. His head flung back in the ecstasy of power flowing through him as he roared his command over the elements.
The wind answered his call first, thrashing at the enormous oak with furious gales. A mass of roiling clouds formed into being, smothering the clear dusky sky and plunging the island into absolute night. Thunder cracked as a bolt of lightning dead-eyed the oak on the scar Mugloth had made hundreds of years before. The roots binding Finn flailed spasmodically and let go. He dropped to the ground, glaring up at the red-haired boy and his sister.
Frightened, they slowly backed away.
“Aye, you should be scared,” he snarled, taking pleasure in their fear.
They broke into a run, following the other villagers who were also making a hasty retreat. The evil siblings were lucky he couldn’t bring himself to harm children.
A terrible cracking resounded behind him as the colossal tree split down the middle. Darting out from under the two halves crashing to the ground, Finn shot skyward into a sudden downpour of rain.
“You didn’t happen to sssee Fate down there while you were busssy bringing about the end of the world, did you?”
Startled, Finn whirled round to see a bird-sized dragonfly, white with amber bug eyes staring at him. “Oh, Sithias.” He swallowed hard, not wanting to deliver the dreadful news. “She’s underground.” He couldn’t bring himself to speak aloud that s
he was close to death.
Sithias worried his thin insect appendages together. “Oh no! We mussst sssave her!” He zigged to one side of Finn, staring down at the exposed blackened cavity of the oak’s trunk. Dark rivers of blood washed forth while crimson rivulets gushed along newly opened cracks in the hillside. “Sssir, I think I sssee her!”
Filled with a battling mixture of hope and fear, Finn descended, scanning for her amongst the multitude of bones entrenched in the thick, age-old layers of blood coating the great oak’s hollowed trunk. Time stopped for a heartbeat when he saw her lying within the trenches of the ghastly graveyard, so thickly covered in the black sludge and mud he almost didn’t see her. His chest tightened, forcing a strangled cry from him as he looked upon the crooked angles of her legs, the countless puncture wounds and her deathly pale face. Seeing her mutilated body and knowing the suffering she’d endured, riddled him with unbearable pain. He hadn’t saved her. He died inside knowing she must’ve thought he’d abandoned her.
A massive tangle of roots suddenly exploded up from the riven tree, bulking together into a monstrous form, its sprawling arms lashing at Finn. Maneuvering out of the way before it could grab hold, he climbed higher into the sky, shocked by this unexpected aberration of nature and furious that it blocked his way to Fate.
Digging in his pocket, he drew out his flute and blew a combination of rune notes to transform it into a wind sword with a blade as long as he was tall. He then launched himself at the root monster, slicing off one of its writhing arms.
Mugloth’s insidious voice filled his head. “She is with us now. Can you not feel her? Join us and you’ll be with her forever.”
Even as the rain pelted Finn’s face, the invitation disconnected him from all bodily discomfort and immediate concerns, lulling him into a drowsy stupor that enticed him to allow the honeyed darkness to flood over him. If he surrendered, the aching guilt and agony would be washed away and he’d have some little part of Fate with him.
Pain fired through Finn’s tenderized legs and torso as Mugloth grabbed hold, the roots coiling fast around him, jolting him out of the hypnotic state. He slashed his wind sword down on its arm, hacking like a madman.
Sithias zipped into view, his dragonfly wings working extra hard against the rain and wind. “Sssir! I retrieved Fate’sss body while you were creating a diversssion. That iss what you were doing, right? Becaussse for a moment there you ssseemed to be the one who wasss dissstracted.”
“Is she…?” Finn couldn’t say it.
“Oh, that’s what I came to tell you!”
Mugloth swatted at Sithias with his other arm––newly grown in short order.
Sithias yelped, zagging out of the way with only inches to spare.
Finn sliced again at Mugloth if only to pull his attention away from Sithias, but he felt polarized, afraid to hope he’d come to deliver good news and terrified he was going to confirm his worst fear.
The buzz of Sithias’s wings sounded near Finn’s ear. “She’sss alive!”
“Really?” Finn said, jerking his head in his direction.
“Barely, but yesss.”
All at once the soreness in Finn’s body fled. Strength and lightness returned. “Go take care of her, Sithias. I’m going to finish this.”
“Happy to, sssir.”
Mugloth roared and lunged at Sithias once again. Squealing, he zoomed out of reach. His grip loosened enough for Finn to lean forward and slash through his clenched fist. The slack roots fell off him as he landed in the slippery, blood-soaked mud. Scrambling to his feet, he looked up at the same moment Mugloth turned his attention back on him.
With his fanged mouth gaping wide enough to swallow him whole, Mugloth dove at Finn. Dodging to one side, he turned and swept his wind sword down, hewing off Mugloth’s knotted head in two strokes. Even as the body lurched backwards, more roots grew from the cut ends, reforming the misshapen head with astonishing speed.
That’s when Finn knew he was fighting an endless battle. Letting his wind sword die out, he slipped his flute back into his pocket and spoke in the clipped language of the Elder race. He thanked the storm elements for answering his call and released them from his control. Then he invoked his power over Air. Rune energy crackled and surged up through him, the spell-rich words streaming from his mouth in rippling heat waves.
As Mugloth shrank from the power in the words, he wormed his way back into Finn’s mind. “Emrys, you cannot destroy us. We’re in your blood. We’ll always be with you.”
The energy inside Finn sputtered. He glared up at the twisted, tangled behemoth swaying in place, its aggression curbed for the moment.
“Unite with us and you’ll become as immortal as the Earth, the Sea, the Sun and the Air. Be their champion, as you have for those undeserving, weak mortals.”
“If it’s a champion you want, you’ve got it. But it’ll be for the humans you’ve wreaked so much misery upon! You were a Druid! You were supposed to heal and protect, not kill!” he yelled, sensing a sudden shift between them. For the first time in centuries Mugloth was the one feeling fear, and in turn losing more and more control over Finn.
Mugloth raged and lurched at him, a long snarled arm slamming down where he stood.
Evading the blow, Finn shot up toward the night sky. The rain had vanished and the high winds were fast thinning the clouds, revealing glimpses of stars and a bright moon. A calm came over him as he looked down on the island, his gaze resting on the dim figures of Sithias and Gerdie huddled around Fate a safe distance away. His instinct to go to her pressed hard on him, but he had to finish this first.
Sucking in a deep breath, he invoked Air. The rune power burst into action. Heat and red-gold micro-sparks poured from his mouth, altering his voice into the same deafening roar of the giants of old. Distant winds shrieked in answer, disturbing the ocean’s surface as they rushed inland. They blasted into Mugloth and circled him, creating a solid wall of churning air. Mugloth’s bellow echoed out over the island as he beat against the air-bound prison building around him like an enormous tube.
Then Finn invoked Water, his gaze fixed on the moonlit ocean. In defiance of gravity, a titanic wave surged upward, a terrible roiling black serpent made only of the sea. The sound of so much rushing water was thunderous. As the massive body of water arced over the island, for a tiny fragment of time, the snaking river seemed suspended in the sky. Then it plummeted to earth, smashing into Mugloth like God’s fist. It seemed as if the entire ocean poured into the tube of pressurized air to drown Mugloth and his network of malignant roots.
As the deluge hammered the monster deep underground, his hold on Finn’s heart and mind worked loose. Mugloth was dying.
Pain unlike anything Finn had ever experienced seared through his entire being as Mugloth’s hooks and chains of hatred ripped away from his very soul, tearing through muscle and skin. Such agony should’ve left his spirit and body shredded, but in the instant of Mugloth’s death, Finn felt whole and unshackled. His oppressive prison had crumbled at last.
Strengthened and renewed, he spoke to Air and Water, expressing his gratitude as he set the elemental spirits free. The ocean yielded, collapsing over the island’s cove with a resounding splash. At last all was quiet, save for a soft breeze and the crashing of waves along the shores.
Finn hurled through the air and landed next to Fate. Sithias, having changed to human form but with wings, helped Gerdie to her feet and they stepped aside. As Finn knelt down, Fate’s broken legs and open wounds tore at him. Her face had been cleaned of most of the grime but her hair and clothes were matted in blood and mud. Gently, he gathered her up in his arms and held her close to his chest. Her skin was frighteningly cold. “It’s over, love,” he said softly in her ear. “It’s just me here. I’m free––we’re free. We can be together now.”
Her dark lashes fluttered against the delicate purpled hollows of her eyes as her forehead creased with the effort of waking. “Finn?” she whispered, her gaze un
focused as if she couldn’t quite see him.
“Aye, m’love, I’m here,” he replied, his voice cracking with fear. “We’ve got to get you inside now. Get you warm and take care of you.” He glanced up at Sithias and Gerdie. “Are they all at the inn?” He’d have to deal with the villagers first if they were lying in wait again.
“Ressst assured, the place isss dessserted,” Sithias told him.
“Yeah, they all scatted like a bunch of rats jumpin’ ship,” Gerdie said. “Except they took their boats to do it.”
Finn sighed. “Good.”
As he started to get up, Fate groaned in pain. “No…wait,” she pleaded. “It hurts too much to move. Just hold me.”
He desperately wanted to get her inside and start attending to her injuries but he couldn’t stand adding to her suffering in any way. “For a minute,” he told her.
She nuzzled her face against his chest. “You’re back. I can feel you,” she murmured, a tiny smile forming on her blue-tinged lips. “Captain of your soul again.”
“Aye, master of my fate.” He swallowed back the painful lump in his throat as she lifted a trembling finger to his mouth.
“I love you, Finn,” she whispered.
Tears filled his eyes. “And I love you,” he said, his voice breaking into a sob.
Her eyes closed and her hand dropped.
Finn’s heart lurched as he stared at her bloodless face. “Fate? Wake up.” He buried his face against her neck, probing with his senses as he chased her dwindling life force. “Don’t leave me, love. Not now. Not when we’re home free.”
“No! Not my missss!” Sithias wailed.
Gerdie took Fate’s hand, pressing her little fingers on her wrist. “Stop your panickin’, both of you. She’s not dead. But she will be if you don’t get her inside where I can start tendin’ to her cuts and breaks, and get some blood-buildin’ tonics in her.”
Fate's Fables Boxed Set (Fables 1 - 8): One Girl's Journey Through 8 Unfortunate Fairy Tales Page 39