This Present Past

by Traci Harding

  The light is a beam filled with tiny glowing spectres, spiralling into the shadows above and onto the matrix of Tiamat beyond, where they will be sped onto the next incarnation; this is my aspiration also. The opening from whence this stream rises appears to be the only breach in this oubliette for the dead. Yet, wrapping his wings around me once more, Kur delivers my soul inside Irkalla to be judged along with all those souls insane enough to brave the incarnation loop of humanity – the result of the Nefilim Pantheon deciding to incorporate an expiry date into human DNA.

  My vacated body follows in our wake, splattering on the stone floor of the mighty fortress. My carcass is quickly scavenged by all the critters and creatures who thrive in the shadows of this place, and I feel nothing but relief to see my Nefilim form perish.

  Now I stand before the great throne of Irkalla as my Grigori brothers have before me, but to my bemusement the throne is empty. I expected to confront my grandson, Ninazu, the ruling Lord of the Underworld, so where is he?

  The throne of judgement is situated opposite the one aperture in the massive colosseum-like structure of stone, and passages disappear into darkness to the left and right. These curve around the enclosed central arena from which light and the sounds of chaos pour in. I am drawn towards the spectacle of wonder and horror.

  Inside, the souls of the dead bleed through the walls and the majority take flight into the celestial vortex of light and mist extending upwards through a void above. But the downward slide of those souls damned into the abyss of darkness below is harrowing to witness, for I remember what awaits them there. The cycles of humanity are truly horrendous, but at least a soul is free to choose a path – in the dark universe there is no choice, and only the very strong-willed shall ever find a way out of there. And yet my Grigori brothers and I escaped, so there is always hope for the damned.

  I float on the edge of the abyss and with no doubt as to the outcome, I launch into the well, where I am thrilled by the joy of being uplifted into a peaceful space. I am aware of others rising alongside me, sparkling silver in the light that penetrates the murky shadows above.

  My almighty Grandfather. How interesting to see you here. I was beginning to think none of my relatives were ever going to evolve.

  One of the Nefilim ilk, face painted black, sits on the throne in the midst of a most magnificent wilderness. Ninazu?

  I haven’t gone by that name in a long time.

  I do not readily recognise the lad I once sent to the Underworld – was I still there? Had my wish to join my brothers been denied?

  No, no, he assures. This is not the primordial depths of Irkalla, clearly . . . but somewhere entirely different again. This is a realm of pure emotion and imagination. When I spied your soul passing through, obviously I wondered what on earth you were doing here. So I pulled you aside for a little catchup, before your memory is wiped clean of everything!

  But it is imperative that I remember—

  Ah! Your pantheon made the rules here, and no one, but no one, gets to remember anything from one incarnation to the next – otherwise humans might exceed their creators and we couldn’t have that, could we? If you want to remember then I’m afraid it’s back to being an immortal for you as that is the only means available.

  What have you done with the creatrix? Why is my banished grandson deciding my fate? This is not what I had been led to expect.

  I did nothing! Tiamat sent her only son, Kingu, to your great pantheon of twelve, warning of the demise of the Nefilim if they did not stop using her creation and everything in it as their personal property. But instead of heeding Kingu, your pantheon allowed him to be tortured and killed!

  This had not been my proudest moment, but in the pantheon majority ruled. Ultimately the tragic event drove me to abandon the mind-based consciousness stream of the Nefilim, and to seek an alternative route to redemption.

  When Kingu’s soul was returned to her matrix, Tiamat withdrew from this universe with him and left me to oversee the evolution of her creations, for she could no longer bear the betrayals. So . . . now we do things my way. He grinned broadly in conclusion. You wish to truly understand what it is to be human?

  Yes. I am resolved to this course; yet without knowledge of my Grigori brothers and where we came from, how will I recognise, unite and lead them?

  It is disturbing how pleased my host appears with my determination. Well then, let’s send you right back to the beginning of the consciousness stream, shall we? I shall start you out as an amoeba and see how it goes from there.

  With a wave of his hand and a great flash of light, I forgot everything.

  A mindless whirl of life experiences flash by, as endless and fruitless as the turning of a wheel. Yet even the most seemingly senseless, mindless cycle in existence is progressive, in both contributing to creation, and lending to greater understanding of some aspect of it. My first-hand experience of the evolution of sentient life on this globe may have been meant to test and punish me, but I now had an innate understanding of it all.

  Only once my soul bypasses animal consciousness do I begin to be recycled through the well of souls, forgetting all the knowledge between one life and the next as I bear witness to some of the most exacting times in human existence.

  But I am human; I feel and live everything that I can possibly imagine – for better or worse.

  Gwion.

  The name brings a flood of memories with it, all fragmented and so terrible that my panic robs me of breath. My consciousness comes to settle on a memory of my mistress when last I saw her, for it is her voice I hear.

  No what if. This is the moment of my need. You do this for me.

  It is soul crushing to realise I have failed her.

  I know my mistress is aware of me and of what has happened. For I, a mere mortal, now have access to cosmic knowledge beyond even her understanding. The Lord of the Otherworld will not stand for it, nor will any of his ilk – I am an abomination, and Keridwen is accountable.

  I sense her humiliation, her anger, disappointment and rage! New to the emotional realms, Keridwen refuses to accept responsibility for the misfortune she has brought upon herself, and seeks to expend her ill-will by placing blame on another.

  Yes, my mistress is coming for me and her revenge will be swift.

  So it was that,

  in the time it took to blink an eye,

  all knowledge of what had gone before, was mine!

  I understand what I am and why I am incarnate

  in this realm of infinite possibility!

  And, so it was that,

  in the time it took to draw breath and fail,

  my connection to the Sovereign Integral was lost in panic!

  For I realise I am trying to breathe through water –

  I am a little fish no more.

  ‘Gwion?’

  He was conscious, barely. At his side he felt pressure bearing down on his arm, squeezing fluid from his chest and throat. He spluttered as water rushed out of his mouth and sweet air found its way into his lungs.

  ‘Gwion!’

  He rolled onto his back, coughing and rubbing grit from his eyes. But once he found his focus, his vision was filled with Creirwy’s sweet face. She appeared harrowed and yet she was a glorious vision.

  ‘You’ve been missing for over a week! I feared you had perished.’ She placed her head on his chest and hugged him. ‘Where have you been!’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ His head was full of fog. ‘I had a dream about fish.’

  ‘You weren’t dreaming of fish, you were a fish, idiot!’ The sound of Morda’s grumpy old voice brought a smile to Gwion’s lips. ‘Does that not explain why you are stark bloody naked?’

  Now that he came to mention it, Gwion noted all the little twigs, sand and stones pressed against his backside, and as Creirwy withdrew, Gwion sat up and was grateful to find a large piece of cloth draped over his privates. The shock of his near death experience wore off and he began to tremble from cold.r />
  ‘Here.’ His lady threw a blanket around his shoulders.

  ‘Don’t baby him!’ Morda grouched. ‘Ask him what in the name of strife happened? The whole damn lake is poisoned! And yet he crawls out alive.’

  Gwion looked to Morda and was stunned. ‘You have eyes!’

  ‘Aye, and they don’t like what they see.’

  ‘It is a miracle.’ Creirwy touched Gwion’s chin and gently directed his attention back to her. ‘And not the only miracle at that.’

  His lady kissed him, lips hungry with passion – for the first time Creirwy was holding nothing back! But how could this be, without causing her pain?

  When their lips parted, she gazed back at him, elated. ‘Whatever you did . . . it broke my covenants with the Night Hunter; I am human.’ Her joy faded quickly to regret. ‘And now . . . you must flee Llyn Tegid and never return . . .’ Her tears began to flow. ‘The Lord of the Otherworld is demanding your life be forfeit and has sent Mother to see it is done.’

  Somehow, he knew this. Gwion’s eyes darted towards the lake where he was devastated to see nothing but water. ‘Holy mother of Gods . . . what happened?’

  ‘That’s what you need to tell us!’ Morda confronted him, and as Gwion was still seated, the wee man could look down on him. ‘Before I drag you back into that lake and drown you myself!’

  ‘Morda, you will not!’ Creirwy demanded he back off. ‘Go and check on Chiglas.’

  With a grunt and spit in Gwion’s direction, Morda left the lakeside and wandered up to the cottage – the lake and the building were not so far apart as they had once been.

  Gwion stood and stumbled around, bracing his head with one hand, and struggling to hold on his coverings with the other. He took a seat on a rock to try to obtain some mental clarity.

  ‘Morvran wouldn’t come,’ he began, and then horror struck at his heart. ‘Morvran?’ He looked to his lady, seeking answers on his whereabouts.

  Creirwy bit down on her lip, but didn’t manage to suppress the tears that welled in her eyes as she shook her head.

  Gwion gripped his heart, keeled over, and wailed out his pain. ‘I killed him, I killed them all.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Creirwy got down on her knees in front of him, to regain his full attention. ‘It was Mother attempting to play god that is the cause of whatever happened, and I shall never believe otherwise. It is she who has ruined our life here, not you!’

  Gwion was thankful for her view, but a memory of seeing Tacitus slammed into a wall made him wail again. ‘The potion began to bubble over and . . . I tried to capture the first drops in a vessel, but—’ He looked to his finger, but there was no scorch mark there any more. He shook his head, unable to say more; his heart was being pulverised by hurt and hate – most of which was aimed at himself.

  Creirwy embraced him, tight as she could, as if wanting to squeeze all the horror from his being. ‘You must go, my love.’ Tears were streaming down both their faces as she held his cheeks in her hands.

  ‘No . . .’ He didn’t have the strength or the will. ‘Let her kill me.’

  ‘Gwion, you listen to me.’ Her eyes bored into his soul. ‘Don’t you dare lay down your life for their vanity! They are no better than us, and it’s time humanity showed the Fey that we will not bow down to their whims any more! You are the only one who can beat them at their own game, I know it in my soul. You must survive.’

  In that moment Gwion so wanted to live up to her expectations; if he only believed it. ‘And you?’

  ‘I have a trove of treasures to aid my survival.’ She forced a grin. ‘The library survived.’

  ‘I might need clothes,’ Gwion suggested, but Creirwy shook her head.

  ‘With the mode of travel you need to employ you shan’t need them.’ She sniffled back her emotion. ‘You have my brother’s blood in you now and you must use his shifting skills to flee this place, this land!’

  Gwion was shaking his head at the mere suggestion.

  ‘Yes!’ she demanded. ‘Use it to conceal yourself amid flocks, or as a tree in a grove, a rock amid a landslide—’

  ‘I can do that?’

  ‘You’ve been a fish for a week without even trying. It will be instinct to you now.’ She nodded. ‘Choose animal forms with the fewest natural predators. Mother will surely exploit any advantage nature can provide to catch her prey so that she might return to the Night Hunter’s favour.’

  A shiver suddenly ran down Gwion’s spine as those new animal instincts were all alerted to the approach of danger.

  ‘What is it?’ Creirwy was concerned as Gwion held a finger to his lips and closed his eyes.

  In his mind’s eye he saw not Keridwen, but her view of the mountains she soared over in search of him. As the far bank of Llyn Tegid came into view, his time to procrastinate was at an end. ‘She is here.’

  Creirwy locked lips with him briefly and pushed him away. ‘Go!’

  To escape being seen, Gwion donned the form of a hare with long, strong legs, padded paws for speed, and ears with hearing so acute that he could hear the flutter of wings from miles away. He sprinted out of the valley and through many others, heart pounding all the while.

  Upon reaching a stream, he drank and then listened.

  The barking of a greyhound made all his fur stand on end. It was distant still, but quickly gaining ground – with a nose to follow his scent and legs that could match his speed.

  Time to trade overland speed for underwater propulsion. He dove into the stream assuming the form of a fish, which felt so familiar to him now that he wasted no time in joining the closest school. He felt safe among their number, until an otter bitch dived in among them, startling fish who broke to the left and right of him, leaving him as the sole target for the mighty mammal swiping at his tail.

  Thus, with only one option left open to him, Gwion raced to the surface and leapt out, sprouting the wings of a bird as he took to the sky.

  But Keridwen was better at this game of cat and mouse than Gwion was, and it wasn’t long before he felt the sharp talons of a hawk striking at his feathered back. He flew circles to elude her clutches and then shot headlong into a storehouse of wheat where he transformed into a grain and landed on the great pile beneath – identical to the millions of grains lying around him.

  But the hawk’s razor-sharp eyesight had not lost sight of him; his mentor transformed into a hen and came straight for him!

  Gwion was inside her before he could transform again, and if he did so now, he would surely tear Keridwen apart from within. Forced to choose between his own life and hers, Gwion could not bring himself to destroy the being that he had come to regard as the mother he never had. Keridwen was owed her revenge, and out out of love and respect for her, Gwion let go of his quest and of all he held dear, and allowed his soul to slide into the dark forgetfulness of the abyss.

  ONE DAY EVERY FULL MOON

  In the absence of family and immortality, life at Llyn Tegid was harsh. It was spring outside, but inside Creirwy’s chest it was the dead of winter. Pain within, suffering without – still anything was preferable to being Gwyn ap Nudd’s minion. She may have destroyed her own chance at happiness, but there was immense comfort in knowing she could not sabotage any more good lives by making deals with a cruel fiend.

  She was grateful for Morda, who helped with the chores and with wrangling Chiglas – who seemed to have taken to Morda since their wild ride together. With no access to magic, her child was far less threatening, yet they had not warmed to each other. To survive, there was tolerance, nothing more.

  It had been weeks since Gwion had fled her mother; neither had been seen since. She hoped this meant that her love continued to elude capture. Every moment, no matter what she was doing, in the back of her mind she was sending him strength to prevail. For some reason Gwyn ap Nudd feared Gwion, and her mother had revered him like no other human before him. There was more to Gwion’s current persecution than met the eye, she felt sure of it.
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  The next full moon evening, a knock on the door at dusk startled both Creirwy and Morda – they hadn’t had any visitors since that horrible day.

  ‘I shall see who it is, Lady.’

  As she had her hands full spooning mush into Chiglas’s mouth, she nodded gratefully.

  Morda left the dinner table and grabbed his axe en route, heading down the hall to open the front door.

  ‘Mistress!’

  Upon learning the identity of their guest, Creirwy’s hackles went up. She desperately wanted news of Gwion, but only if it was good news. If it were otherwise, Creirwy would never forgive her mother.

  ‘May I come in?’ Keridwen asked meekly – this was a new tone for her.

  ‘Of course.’ Morda was overjoyed by her presence – had Creirwy answered the door, her mother might not have got past it.

  ‘You have your eyes back,’ Keridwen noted.

  ‘Aye, Mistress, but I would gladly be blind again to restore what has been taken from you.’

  ‘Dear Morda, for your sake, I would not see it so.’

  Creirwy put aside her implements, wiped her hands, and stood to be imparted the news she’d been waiting for.

  ‘Dear daughter—’ Her mother’s voice was gentle like a soft summer breeze, but she would not be influenced by such glamour.

  ‘How fares Gwion?’

  Keridwen opened her mouth to respond.

  ‘Know that our future association depends on the answer. Is he dead, yay or nay?’

  ‘Nay,’ her mother replied wryly, and Creirwy breathed a sigh of relief – but before she could rouse a full smile, Keridwen added, ‘But he does not exist as he was, nor will he ever again.’ By the time she’d finished the sentence her words were decidedly agitated, and so was Creirwy.

  With the snap change of mood in the room, Morda retrieved Chiglas and made for outside.

  ‘What did you do?’ Creirwy demanded a straight answer.

  ‘Don’t use that tone with me, my girl—’

  ‘Or what?’ Creirwy challenged. ‘You will kill me? Go ahead! I would consider that a great kindness.’