The Phantom Queen Awakes

by Mark S. Deniz

  ****

  The Raven Queen spoke not a word, though Maire choked in the billowing smoke and stretched out her hands towards the fire’s warmth. But still her hands remained icy cold, and she shook upon the spiral path.

  “Farewell,” she said, after she sensed that the smoke and flames were nearly gone, and turned to walk back up the stairs.

  “Alas,” said the Raven Queen, and Maire thought she could hear regret in her voice. “No mortal can step beneath these mounds and return to her sunlit home. Not without a dance or two; not until many turnings of the sun.”

  “Then I shall stay here and dance,” Maire said, allowing her flint and stone to drop, waiting for another touch of bone.

  It did not come. The Raven Queen laughed. “Farewell, then,” she said, and Maire heard the footsteps leaving, walking up through the mound.

  “Where do you go?” Maire shouted.

  “To collect my price, of course.”

  “You have no wings!”

  Laughter filled the frigid air. “Aye, I do not,” said the Raven Queen. “But birds can walk upon two feet.”

  The tears upon Maire’s cheeks felt like ice. Her voice seemed caught in her throat.

  “Did you truly think you could hold ravens so easily?”

  Three and three again.

  “Take my blood instead,” Maire cried.

  More laughter. “You would bargain then?”

  “I would,” she said.

  Maire felt icy hands upon her breasts; felt herself folded into a cold embrace. “You will need your sight for this,” she heard. And the Raven Queen pressed her lips to Maire’s eyes.

  ****

  Light: gray, the early gray light of morning, but light. She could see before her the shadowed forms of houses and grasses and weeds. She blinked, feeling dizzy with radiance, and blinked again. She hardly knew how to handle vision.

  It was not her village. She knew that, although she had not seen her own village since the fever. This place felt different, smelled different.

  A raven swept over her head, calling out. She hesitated and stepped into the house that stood before her.

  A small place, like the houses of her village, with three people huddled in the great room near the fire. They did not stir as she approached, and she did not look at them, drawn to the cloth hanging in the rear. She drew the material aside, and stared at the flushed and sweating face below.

  She bent down to kiss the girl upon her forehead. From above, she heard the ravens shriek.

  ****

  Afterword

  It’s probably best not to bargain with tricksters.

  This story grew from the old tales of journeys beneath the fairy mounds, from the warnings about bargaining with fairies and gods, and three black feathers I found on a parking lot, with a hint of blood on one.

  We have cats and alligators and eagles and hawks here; it is not always safe to be a black bird. No safer, at least, than travelling in other realms.

  ****

  Biography

  Mari Ness lives in central Florida, near bike trails haunted by old trees, new mansions, half crumbling homes, the occasional ostrich, and the not-so-occasional alligator. Her work has appeared in multiple print and online venues, including Fantasy Magazine, Ideomancer, Hub Fiction and Farrago’s Wainscot. She blogs about bad movies, evil squirrels, and other inconsequential and important things at http://mariness.livejournal.com.

  ****

  Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

  Gifts of the Morrigan

  Badb

  The third night the youth dreamed of her, he awoke in a cold sweat. He remembered little of his dream. Hair the color of a moonless night or a raven’s wing. The heat of his arms around her, the pressure of their bodies together. A wordless, bestial cry ― of fury or of passion, he did not know. A struggle, a clash of bodies for supremacy. A contest he had been losing, and to his horror, the losing had been pure ecstasy.

  Thus he awoke, sweat cold on his skin, but blood hot and pulsing in every vein. He felt as lathered as a hard-ridden mare, and there arose in him the desire to wash the too-pleasant nightmare from his body. He made his way to the river by the light of the stars and of the crescent moon. The cold waters soothed but did not extinguish the internal fires kindled by his dreams.

  As he bathed, a maiden came upon him, hair so dark it seemed to be one with the night itself, cloak billowing behind her like wings, though there was no wind. She brought her own cold from the north, with the burn of ice. Her beautiful face strained under a ferocious passion.

  “I have found you at last.” She drew a sword and pointed it at his neck. “I would slay you, if your fate permitted.”

  He gathered as much dignity as could a man floating naked in the water. “Why would you slay me? What crime have I committed?”

  He knew he should make away. Swim to the opposite shore and flee. But he was young and she was beautiful, and the spell of his dream was still upon him.

  “I have dreamed of you these past three nights. You have made me fall in love with you, my brave and beautiful youth. And for that, you shall die.”

  The words were spoken not as a curse. The maiden’s anger had faded. More like a prophecy or a terrible truth did they drop from lips red as apples. The young man rose from the water. The tip of her sword dropped. A hand went to the pins that held her garments in place.

  She was indeed lovely, and her wildness only added to her beauty. She grappled with him, and they fell on top of her garments, and the passion of their coupling was sweet as battle and bitter as love. The moment of ecstasy was like the cry of a bird taking flight.

  For a long while they lay in each other’s arms. Then horror descended on her face. She pulled her soiled garments from under him, gathered them about her. When he tried to stop her, tried to plead with her to be his forever, she slapped his face. Her nails scratched him, drew blood.

  “I will hate you forever, for I was a maiden and will be a maiden no more. I can never forgive you for making me love you. Pray that we never meet again.”

  She flew off into the night, disappearing as she had come. Her sword she left behind and he claimed it as his own, and well it served him as he went from triumph to triumph. The nail mark on his cheek scarred. And try as he might, he could never bring himself to pray the prayer she wished on him.

  ****

  Macha

  The warrior could not sleep. For two nights he had dreamed the same dream. Though he remembered little of it, he feared to sleep this third night. Instead, he girded on his sword, threw open his tent flap, and went out beyond the camp. He inspected the field of war by the light of the full moon.

  The smell of the previous day’s battle was rich and heavy in the air. Blood. Bodies. The excrement of men and horses. The war-stained land sang to him, string of harp and wail of pipe and beat of drum. If tomorrow it was fated that he die, it was well. If tomorrow saw victory for kith and clan, so much the better. Certainty reigned like peace in his soul.

  She came up from the earth, a dark shadow taking on solid form. As beautiful as before. He thought he was dreaming. Mayhaps he was.

  “I have found you again. How I wish that I had slain you under the crescent moon.”

  He was ensorcelled by her beauty, but he found his tongue at last. “How can you speak thus? Since that night you have burned in my heart. No other love have I enkindled there. I love only you.”

  Tears fell from her eyes, two dark rivers in fields of white. “You know not whom you love.”

  He took her in his arms. “My clan decreed that I must sire children, and I have done my duty by my wife. But I love only you.”

  He had misunderstood her words, and it enflamed her. She fell upon him in a passionate fury. Their limbs entwined. A hand removed the pins that held her garments. The sweet, sad struggle resumed and continued until the moon was sinking in the west. They rested in each other’s arms.

  From her fallen garments she took a golden torc. Lik
e plaited rose stems it was, and when she placed it around his neck, the thorns drew blood. On his brow she placed a hawthorn crown.

  “A bride of blood, I birth in pain the nation given you. I can never forgive you for making me love you. Pray that we never meet again.”

  She collapsed into the blood-soaked soil. A dark shape passed over the setting moon and a tremor shook him. He felt for the crown and laughed as he touched naught but his hair. Then he rubbed at his neck and pricked his finger on the golden torc that rested there. His clan won the battle that day and soon made him their chief. But try as he might, he could never bring himself to pray the prayer she asked of him.

  ****

  Morrigan

  The old man did not sleep much anymore. His hands trembled and his eyes were dim and he knew they plotted to take the clan away from him. He did not care. The night before, she had come to him in his sleep and he knew happiness, if only the happiness of dreams.

  That evening he sat on a chair in the garden under a waning moon. He smiled at the apple trees his long-dead wife had planted. She had been a good woman, but she was not her. No one was. A god or mortal, he knew not. He only knew she had been his one and only love. He would give his life for one more moment with her.

  And there she was, perched in the branches of the apple. She had not aged since last he had seen her, she was more beautiful than ever, and dark passion smoldered in her eyes.

  “I have come for you a last time, my love.” She slid down to the ground, walked to him like a she-wolf stalking her prey. “Would that I had slain you the first night we met.”

  She removed her garments and laid him upon the soft grass; they made love under the stars. He had not been with a woman in years; tonight it was like he was a young man again. Their love was a gentle and beautiful thing. And yet he wished for the wild maiden he had loved on the river bank.

  When they had finished, she stroked the scars on his cheek. Her touch still burned. He kissed her fingers. “Please, my love. Tell me your name.”

  Her smile held the sadness of the grave. “I am called by many names. Those whom I love may call me Anann.”

  He stroked her long black hair. “I have known no other like you, Anann.”

  She kissed his cheek. “A boon you may ask of me, Mabon mac Lugh, as I love you.”

  He spoke without reflection, in an instant, the words spilling out of his mouth. “Make me as I was when we first met. Let me never taste death. If such is in your power to grant, this is what I wish.”

  A wailing cry escaped her chest. She shook with silent sobs, tears falling like rain. “Please, ask for something else.”

  She pushed herself away from him, but he clung to her. With all his strength, the old man held her to himself. “If you can do this, you must grant me this boon. As you love me...”

  Her fury blazed in her eyes once more. “I can never forgive you for making me love you. You will regret such a gift. I pray you, ask for something else.”

  He shook his head. “Eternal youth, nothing else.”

  She pulled her garments about her, raising the hood of her cloak over her head. From her garments she drew forth a chalice. At her command, it filled with a wine that smelled of wormwood and apple blossoms. She held it out to him. Her tears fell into the chalice.

  “Do not weep.” He took the cup from her and drank deep. “Now we can be together forever.”

  As he spoke, the bloom of youth had already returned to him, his white hair turning brown, his week limbs growing strong, vigor coursing throughout his body. He smiled triumphantly, only to have his heart break as she ran from him.

  “For you!” He chased after her, arms outstretched. “I live only for you!”

  Her face stopped his chase. “You fool. You lovable, insufferable fool. How could you have asked for eternal youth? Had you died, I would have been yours forever. But I am Death. Now you are immortal, and never can we meet again.”

  The youth sank to his knees and let out a wordless, bestial cry that found its echo in the croaking of the raven that flew off into the night. Flew off, never to be seen by him again. Tears fell to the earth as he cursed himself and wished he had prayed the prayer she enjoined on him the first night they had met...

  ****

  Afterword

  ‘Gifts of the Morrigan’ is a meditation on what sort of man might fall in love with the triple goddess. The three scenes show the male counterparts to the three aspects of the goddess: youth, warrior, old man. If the Morrigan was ever fated to love a mortal man, what could she give but herself? Love, success in battle, death. And being a goddess, she would also know how a mortal man would respond to such gifts...

  ****

  Biography

  Donald Jacob Uitvlugt grew up in western Michigan and now lives in central Arkansas with his wife and dog. His short fiction has previously appeared in a number of print and online venues including SpaceWesterns.com, Renard’s Menagerie, ChiZine, and the anthologies In Bad Dreams, Malpractice, and Cinema Spec.

  ****

  C.E. Murphy

  Cairn Dancer

  Moonlight flowed down the river like ice, turning the water to a smooth, unbroken promise of power and danger. Even as a child, Mairaed had broken from other tasks to wander to the water’s edge, there to stand silent and unmoving until someone came to fetch her. Shouting her name was not enough: she couldn’t hear her parents, she once explained; not over the voices that sang down the river.

  They exchanged glances, then, her mother and her father, and after that it was always one of the wise women or the old men of the village who took her gently from the river’s side.

  The night her first woman’s blood came as a stuttering black smear on her thighs, Aine, the eldest of the wise women, visited their small stone home. She dressed Mairaed in the druid’s white she herself wore, and took her away. Mairaed, too blurry with sleep for excitement, stumbled in Aine’s wake until they reached the river, then came alive with a shock that still took her breath, even in memory. The water that cold night felt peppered with vitality, as though living blood prickled under its wet skin. Need coursed through her, stronger than even that which had sent her to the river’s edge so many times.

  It came as music; as a lament, an ancient tune whose words were lost to time. Only sweet harrowing notes remained, rising from within her and bursting toward the sky. She stood ankle-deep in the river, face turned upward as she sang with all her heart, and without a sound.

  “So it’s in you indeed. A blessing and a tragedy both,” Aine murmured, drawing Mairaed’s gaze to her. She was aged sixty summers or more, and Mairaed only a woman that night but for a heartbeat, it seemed the silver-haired elder was the girl, and Mairaed herself an ancient crone. In that brief window, Mairaed saw who Aine had been: the child, the wife, the mother, all long before Mairaed’s birth.

  She saw, too, a darkness in Aine’s breast, and saw the first thinness of strain come over the woman as a promise of hardship yet to come. A season: no more, and Aine would be gone from this earth, and from the brief spasm on the older woman’s face, Mairaed saw that she knew it. Knew, too, that Mairaed herself had seen it, and the woman’s hand was gentle on her hair for an instant. “A blessing and a tragedy both. Your eyes will see too much, for now and ever. Come, girl. The river is waiting for you.”

  ****

  It was not, in the end, the river which waited, not at all. It was instead the cairns, rough tall stone piles which housed the dead, and honored them. It was their song calling her down the length of the river, inviting her to their sacred place.

  “I didn’t know,” she said, that first night amongst the tall stone cairns. “I didn’t know they sang to us.”

  “Most don’t. It’s easier to let them go if you don’t know,” Aine replied. “Easier to think the spirit goes on, joins the world again, when almost no one hears the song. I don’t,” she added, and Mairaed turned from the cairns in surprise. “My aunt did, and when no one in my generation hea
rd the call, she taught me the dances so they might not be lost. My own daughter knows them for the same reasons, but it’s yourself they’re meant for.”

  A fist made itself known around Mairaed’s heart: a squeeze that took her breath and sent an ache through her body. Her palms cramped; the soles of her feet shuddered, and she sipped barely enough air to whisper, “The dances.”

  There was a need in her body, an answer to a question not yet spoken. Something crossed Aine’s face, not regret and not envy, but some cousin to them both, and a deep-set gratitude besides. Mairaed glimpsed understanding even as she looked back to the cairns: power called her here, a heady and exciting gift. Perhaps she could master it, but even so, she would always be its thrall. Her feet were moving already, called to the steps of an ancient dance she had never learned, and she kept only half an eye on Aine as the older woman moved ahead of her, showing her what her heart already knew.

  Like the music, it was a thing of more freedom and more constraint: it was what the wind might be, if it could be trapped in a box and followed. Moonlight made a path to dance on, leading her from one tall pile of stone to another, certain as the stars. Runes burned from the hearts of stone where she brushed them, the names and shapes of the dead carved into the earth’s bones, for all that no man had ever laid down any such markers. Each new step brought a howling from both within her and without, though neither had a voice she could hear, nor did she have breath to sing with even if she wished. There was only the lament, and the dance, and the dead.