The Defiler

by Steven Savile

  Even then his mind refused to believe; there was no familiar face, no salvation.

  His lungs burned, demanding air. He tried to open his mouth but the druid kept his hand clamped firmly over it as they rose up from the darkest part of the water.

  Then he felt the presence of the moon and knew they were just below the surface, breath tantalisingly close - but the druid would not let him rise and Ukko knew it was one last mocking trick of his drowned mind, taunting him with light where there was no light, with hope where there was none. He was dead, the light the air-starved part of his mind misinterpreting the blood vessels rupturing behind his eyes.

  So this is death? he thought, not liking it one little bit. It hurt. It wasn't supposed to hurt. His lungs burned, his throat felt as though a huge hand crushed down on his windpipe, and starved of air his brain refused to quiet. He had always imagined it would be peaceful. Fool of a dwarf, this is your punishment... an eternity of noise and hallucination, the madness of death. And then he remembered the gift of the Annfwyn, no life and no death. He could not drown beneath these waters, no matter how much they pained him. There was no comfort to be had in that thought, only the sure and certain knowledge that this pain would never end.

  His lungs cramped, violent convulsions wracking his body, and still they did not breach the surface until the shadow of the Night-Mare retreated, the Night Bringer giving up the hunt.

  Only then did the druid allow them to rise again, reborn.

  Ukko came up gasping and coughing up lungfuls of turgid black water, Myrrdin's arm around his waist. The druid's grip was the only thing that prevented him from being swallowed back beneath the water. It was a brutal return to the world of the flesh.

  The tidal pull of the currents had dragged them far away from the coracle, and further from the shore where Sláine's spirit still battled side by side with Gwalchmai and the Eighth, buying their freedom from this hellish place. The Huntress had relinquished her claim on Sláine's flesh and returned to the shore, content to consume his spirit. The coracle glided over the still waters, continuing its journey to landfall. They trod water, waiting for the boat, then lay inside it, feeling the waning moonlight give way to a colourless sun, as the coracle sailed on towards its destination.

  "Ynys Afallach," the druid said, as they came within sight of the sands of the beach and the green-grassed tops of the dunes as they ceded to the land. "The Isle of Apples, some call it, though in truth it is the Isle of Glass, home of the Wounded King. He was brought here after the Battle of Camdon Fields, where he was brought low by a mortal blow from his own son's blade. In this place his wounds cannot whiten, though neither can they end his life. He bleeds still but there is no death for him, no ageing, no release. In his pain he is tended by the White Sisters of Preiddeu, the mistresses of the Glass House."

  "You know a lot about him," Ukko said, grimacing as a wave of nausea clenched his guts.

  "I should, little man. I brought him here at the behest of the Crone."

  "Her again, meddling. When was this? No don't tell me, hundreds of years ago, right? How long is her reach? No, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I like to kid myself my life is my own."

  "Ninety-two years before I entered the tree," Myrrdin said, answering anyway. "She came to me the night before the battle, knowing which blow would prove fatal and bidding me open the way to the mists for Finvarra's passage to this place of the ever-living. It is funny, I remember her words clearly as though she spoke them only a moment ago: 'He must not die, druid. Not in this place. He has one last battle to ride out to, you will open the way for his return at the time of the kingdom's greatest need, giving hope to the hopeless. We will ride beside your champion, bringing freedom to the Isle of the Mighty.'"

  "She does that a lot, doesn't she? Make a few nonsensical predictions and vague promises while she's really manipulating everyone to her own sinister purposes. You think you'd learn."

  "I have, believe me, dwarf, I have; three centuries as her prisoner have a way of peeling the veneer from ones naïveté. She's treacherous, make no mistake. Her words twist around themselves in layers like an endless knot, the truth buried somewhere at their core, indecipherable. But for all that, never make the mistake of doubting her love of the land. She is older than all of us, as old as Tir-Nan-Og itself. It is the flesh of her sister-self. She will do anything to preserve it."

  "I still don't trust her."

  "And you are wise not to, my friend."

  A woman waited on the sands. She wore a simple white shift and stood barefoot, her toenails painted a shade of purple with some kind of lacquer. It was a remarkable splash of colour after the drabness of the other shore. Her hair was fair, the yellow of flax, part-braided, part-falling loose, cascading down the curve of her back and across her delicate shoulders. Her eyes lit up like the dawn as she saw Sláine lying between the druid and the dwarf. She was hauntingly beautiful, too beautiful to be a mortal woman, Ukko knew instantly. Her looks had more than his hackles rising.

  The bottom of the coracle ground against the sand, the wave receding so that it was beached.

  She held out a hand to them as they disembarked. "Finvarra bids you welcome to his home. He has instructed me to tend to you and your companions' every need. I am Leanan, Sister of Preiddeu, servant of the Wounded King. It is good to see you, Myrrdin. It has been too long since you walked among us. Modron has missed you, as have we all." Her smile was undeniably flirtatious until her eyes returned to Sláine's corpse. "I see you have brought the dead to our shores, Lord of the Trees, and yet you know there can be no death here."

  "It was necessary, Leanan."

  "I will have him taken to the hospice where his wounds will be tended by my sisters."

  "Oh no, I'm not going to let him out of my sight," Ukko said, moving to stand between the woman and Sláine. "Not until he's wide awake and slapping me around the lughole for letting him die in the first place. That's how it works, it is always my fault when he goes and does something heroic."

  "Well that's a pity, we had prepared food for you: a succulent brisket, with golden vegetables and roots, braised to perfection in their own juices. Baths are being drawn, even as we dally here, and your beds are being warmed."

  "Well," Ukko mused dubiously, "it would be a shame to waste such good hospitality. I suppose he's dead already so it isn't like anything worse can happen to him if I take you up on your kindness, is there? He'll still be dead to the world tomorrow morning, I can look in on him then. There, that's settled then. Good food, a hot soak and a warmed bed. I think I've died and gone to a much better place."

  Three more women came walking down the sands towards them, each as beautiful as Leanan, each startlingly different in their own way, opposites: hair dark as midnight, silver as the moon and fiery as the sun, lush, fulsome and curvaceous, lithe to the point of boyishness, tall, elfin, delicate, dark-skinned and pale, and yet each was undeniably beautiful for all those differences. They moved with grace on the shifting sands, their smiles as warm as Leanan's as they neared. Each wore the same simple white shift though their toenails were lacquered with different shades, as were their lips. There was something about the women that craved the eye, demanding attention Ukko was more than happy to lavish on them. His smile ran from ear to ear with lascivious glee. "A man could get drunk looking at this lot," he mumbled, rubbing his grubby little hands together like a miser eyeing a pile of coins.

  "Sisters," greeted Leanan, "our visitors have brought the dead to our door. They would have us tend to him."

  "The dead?" the red-headed woman said, cherry red rising beneath her porcelain skin. Ukko wasn't so wrapped up in her beauty that her tone was lost on him. He looked at Myrrdin to see if the druid knew what had her flustered. "What of the geas?"

  "All is as it should be, sister," the ebony-skinned woman said, bowing deeply to the druid. "Well met, Lord of the Trees."

  "Well met, Sister Luna," Myrrdin matched her bow. He bowed in turn to the remaining w
omen. "Sister Helios, Sister Solis, you are, as ever, a pleasure for my eyes."

  "Save your flattery, friend Myrrdin. We will tend to your friend."

  "My thanks, sisters."

  "And mine," Ukko piped up, pushing forwards to wrap Sister Luna in a suffocating embrace. He buried his face in the folds of her shift, sniffing deeply and savouring the fragrance of her femininity before he leaned back and looked up at her warm smile. His grin grew wider still. "Now, someone mentioned something about food? I don't mind telling you, I am starving. All this heroing works up an appetite."

  A few minutes later, Sister Helios returned with a makeshift stretcher.

  The women carried Sláine between them.

  "Tell me, Myrrdin," Leanan said, "his spirit, is it in this place, or in the realm of the living?"

  "He is on the far shore battling with the beasts of the Night Bringer's hunt."

  The woman inclined her head, "There is a story here, I sense."

  "A ballad, perhaps. The Lay of Sláine Mac Roth, son of the Sessair, champion of Danu."

  "He is touched by the Goddess?" She broke away from him, resentment robbing beauty from her eyes.

  "He is, but that does not change anything, sister. He needs the healing of your house. He has made the ultimate sacrifice for his people, his life in return for nothing more than a glimmer of hope for the women and children of his home."

  "It changes everything, druid, do not be so naïve. Finvarra will not welcome the intrusion of her aspects upon his prison."

  "He will bear it though, and we will leave. There is no need of conflict."

  "Would you take her mocking you so, Myrrdin? He is trapped here, in this no life, and it is her doing. By any reckoning he is an old man. He is tired. He harbours a deep and abiding hatred for those who robbed him of his destiny."

  "He would have died on that field if it wasn't for me, Leanan. You know that."

  "And so does he, Myrrdin. That was his destiny, to die and earn immortality. He is a proud man. You robbed him of it, always so eager to please that damned Goddess of yours. Now he knows no death, true, but he knows no life either. The wounds inside his mind fester even though wounds in his flesh don't. That is more punishment than you could ever imagine. One day perhaps he will repay that gift. Perhaps then you can judge him, but not before. Think on this, Lord of the Trees: centuries of hatred burn within the Wounded King, Myrrdin, and you are the focus of all that anger. Tread softly around him."

  "The events of the world gather momentum, Leanan. Destinies shaped centuries before are being fulfilled even as we walk along this beach. There is much I know, more I do not, but I suspect Finvarra's exile nears an end."

  "You mean to end his life? Is that why you brought death to our door?"

  "He is safe from me, my lady. You have my word."

  "What good is that? We trusted you once, and the Glass House was our reward. You cannot pretend you do not know the extent of the geas the Morrigan placed upon our sanctuary, to exist outside the boundaries of life and death, and yet you bring to us the one thing that could bring mortality here and simply expect us to heal your precious champion, no matter what the cost to us?"

  "I did not think..."

  "No, Myrrdin, you did not, not then, and not now. I was wrong when I said this place was our curse. You are our curse, my pretty one. It was always you."

  "The Land of the Young is dying, Leanan. Day by day, acre by acre. Sláine is her only hope. The hopes of centuries are converging around him; it is not about me, not about what I want."

  "That excuses nothing, druid. All things have their season, you of all people should know that. It is the way of life. If it is her time to die, so be it, the things we call gods die. We will tend him, even though doing so may damn us, Myrrdin. Perhaps then we will finally be free of this paradise."

  The Glass House perched like some giant predator atop the summit of the island's solitary mountain crag, its shadow leering down over Ynys Afallach.

  At first it seemed as though a second sun hung low in the sky; the facets of the huge crystalline construction caught and reflected and refracted so much light it ached to look at it. The Glass House blinded the pilgrims to the island - but that had always been its intent, to inspire reverence and awe, humbling the mendicants that had the temerity to approach.

  Even in the shadow of the great structure, Ukko was forced to shield his eyes when he looked upon the sheer majesty of the Wounded King's palace. It was a brilliant trick of the long sweeping arched construction that allowed the Glass House to be between the anvil of the sun and the eye of the beholder no matter when they approached it.

  Ukko counted seventeen spires, each, despite the bleached nature of the sun and the moon, suffused with a subtle variant of the visible spectrum, rose and lavender bleeding into topaz and azure. Each spire resembled either talon or fang; there were no smooth edges or polished curves. They were jagged spikes driven into - or rising out of - the crag. Each angle amplified the intensity of the light, in turn serving to mask some other facet of the incredible building.

  Still, the nearer they were the more details of the Glass House became apparent, the coronets and embrasures and hanging gables that leant the façade its predatory mien taking shape within the glare reflecting off its hundreds of angled surfaces. The windows were like wounds in its glass skin, raw shadows that marred the perfection of its face, the huge doors a gaping maw into its glass heart.

  To the left of the main house was a lake, to the right an orchard fruiting with rich ruby-red apples. The path to the house wound between the two, a tongue of well-trodden dirt. Thorns and ivy grew on either side of the path, though closer to the house they were trimmed back and shaped into topiaries and hedges. The topiaries resembled creatures, giants rooted to the landscape. The hedges themselves had been cultivated to grow along the lines of an elaborate maze. White flowers grew within the variegated green walls, flaunting their imperfection with a splash of light here and there. Wherever the tendrils of reflection from the Glass House failed to reach the landscape they returned to the drab greys and shades of black of the Annfwyn. It was as though the house itself breathed life into the island, setting it apart from everything else on this side of the mists.

  To Ukko it felt as though every one of the maze monsters scrutinised their approach.

  He did not like it, not one bit.

  There was no air within the Glass House; that was the first thing Ukko noticed, even though it wasn't exactly true. There was air, but it was dead air, stale, breathed. It lent the place the eerie quality of a mausoleum.

  He shivered as he crossed the threshold, chewing on his lip.

  "Nice place," he muttered. For all its majesty he couldn't have meant it less.

  They entered a wide reception hall with passageways leading off to the left, right and straight ahead, as well as two staircases cut into the glass wall on either side of the passage ahead of them, and a huge broad stairway to the left. Leanan ushered them towards the stairway. They followed her up onto one of the countless galleries within the Glass House, while the sisters bore Sláine's stretcher towards the hospice, hidden away somewhere else within the huge edifice. Her shadow stretched out behind her. Ukko touched the wall, trailing his curious fingers along the glass: it felt cold, like ice. There were no torches or oil lamps or other sources of light that he could see, and yet it was as bright within the Glass House as it was without - brighter even, suffused with the amplified light of the sun. He was left with the unnerving impression that it never grew dark within the Wounded King's palace - rather that Finvarra had somehow suspended the no-time of this place even more thoroughly than it already was, leaving them in the middle of one unending day.

  "Sister Urian will see to your needs, friend Ukko," Leanan said, snapping him out of his reverie. Ukko looked up from his fingers to see a big-titted vision of beauty smiling at him, the gentling touch of her hand on his arm banishing all doubts he had. He followed her down the passage to an o
pulent bed chamber, not even noticing that Myrrdin had been led away by Leanan in the opposite direction. Even the most primitive of his instincts were quelled by the sensation of Urian's hand lingering on his cheek, drawing him into the chamber.

  The centre of the room was dominated by an enormous crystal bathtub overflowing with soapy suds and steam. The heat coming off the water leant the room an almost lethargic feel. Ukko followed the Sister of Preiddeu into the chamber, enjoying the gentle sashay of her hips beneath the thin white shift, and the way certain creases clung to her body. It was mesmeric. Condensation from the heat peppered the walls. Sweat dripped from his brow into his eyes.

  Urian took his hand and guided him towards the tub, then as she pressed him up against it, let her fingers pick over the strings tying his shirt and unravel them slowly. He stared at her fingers, then beneath her fingers at the swell of her breasts pressing against him. She followed the direction of his eyes and smiled; it was a smile that was every bit as predatory as that of the Night Bringer's hellhounds. She lifted his arms and drew the shirt up over his head. A distant alarm went off in the back of Ukko's mind but her lips suckling at the warmth of the vein in his throat stifled it into silence almost as soon as it was chimed. He sighed, lost in the heat of her nearness. Urian reached down for the string cinching his filthy britches. His breath hitched in his throat as she untied the string and loosened the button. His britches fell around his ankles.

  "I thought it was food, bath, bed, not that I am complaining or anything, I've walked on three different worlds since I last had me some lovin', I'm just saying the woman on the beach promised food."

  Urian smiled and pulled her simple white shift up over her head, standing naked before him.