“But I thought this was to allow humans to see faerie.” he said.
“Oh, come now.” I replied. “How many humans were ever able to see faerie without their permission, help or no? No, this magic is from before human memory.”
He pulled the necklace from his pocket. It was wilted and droopy. With a sigh, he slipped it over his neck. It hung there limp and pathetic, faded green and pink against his black leather jacket.
Sucker.
I hid my smile and went back to following the lights. Every time I thought we were about to catch up, they moved away. This went on until my patience began to wear thin. Then, all at once, we were at the top of a hill.
A group of oak trees stood to one side, their leaves mostly gone. A circle of toadstools ringed around the trees. Inside the ring, the lights flickered and bobbed about. They melted and changed shape, and eventually I saw what I had come for.
Dancing around the ring were an assortment of the strange and fearful creatures of faerie. Please, no laughing. I know that in recent times the idea of faerie has come to mean something other, and much more pleasant, than what it really was. But since the Awakening, I suspect that Disney notion has flown out the door.
For the most part they were dressed in rags or pieces of plants. Their thin, sinewy bodies were pulled and bent into grotesque shapes. With their mouths opened to smile, they revealed rows of sharp, pointed teeth. Some sported wings while others had antennae flowing back from their brows. They all had the pointed ears that we elves share. Giving rise, no doubt, to the rumors that they are our descendants.
Spriggans danced with leprechauns while fir darrigs tripped the unwary. Goblins and pixies tried to swing each other out of the circle. They whirled and danced and laughed. The shadows they cast flickered and strobed. It was Dante’s vision of Hell.
One of the dancers broke from the group and ran over to us. It grabbed my hand and pulled me forward.
“Welcome, mother.” it said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“What of my friend?” I asked.
“He is of no account right now.”
We were in the center of the ring. The sharp, wizened faces of the faeries jerked in and out of shadow. I had thought they were much smaller than me at first, but now I saw we were the same height. Or perhaps I was shrinking. Like Alice.
My feet moved along with the music now. I looked down and saw my jeans and sweater were gone, replaced by a long flowing gown made of silver silk. We spun around and around and suddenly . . .
* * *
I am on the deck of a large ship. It floats in the sky. Magic propels it. Magic that brings both good and evil to this world.
I’m dancing here.
Dancing with trolls. We sail through the dark night sky, laughing and dancing like children. One of the trolls is old and wizened. He wears a long robe embroidered with patterns. His flesh is wrinkled and thick like an elephant’s. But he is kind. And he is my friend.
The faces of these trolls flash before me, the memory of them clear and bright as day. I’d thought I’d forgotten them. But no, that was just a story I told myself.
Now I’m standing on the deck of the ship. It is the afternoon. The ship is in the middle of a battle. The trolls are fighting, but where is my friend? I go to look for him.
I find him below-deck lying in a pool of blood. He’s broken his leg. I have some knowledge of healing and I try to help him. But I’ve brought more than my healing magic along on this trip. I’ve brought him: Ysrthgrathe.
I know what happens next. I’ve played it out in my head so many times that I think I’ve grown numb from it.
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. Everything 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 Caimbeul?
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 unlike the ones Alachia had favored in Blood Wood.
* * *
I open my eyes. The faeries are gone. As I look about, I notice that the trees have died. They are nothing more than hollowed-out stumps. It’s cold.
Colder than it should be this time of year. Or anytime in Tír na nÓg.
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 Caimbeul 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 silence of a quiet afternoon.
The buildings I pass are crumbling. Finally, I come to the tavern where we stopped for lunch. No vehicles 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 yellow 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 expression, then burst into laughter.
“No, no.” said another. “She only cries for her dead
children. The rest of us must shift for ourselves.”
“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 ridiculous 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. Disobedient 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 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.
Caimbeul 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.
“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 behind 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 in his eye. “It would take more power than you or I possess, even combined, not to mention the time involved.”
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 unbroken 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 Tír. Caimbeul 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, cigarettes, shoelaces—then I found it: a small tin whistle. 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.
Caiinbeul slowed the car.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I can’t feel anything . .
“It’ll do. This place is lousy with cairns. 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, Caimbeul 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, Caimbeul, I almost think you care.” I said.
He frowned. “Don’t be flip.” he said. “If Ysrthgrathe 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 Caimbeul. My flesh remembered his as surely as it might remember 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 cairns.
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 rustled. No animal noises carried to me.
Once I reached the cairns, I turned to see if Caimbeul 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 something 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 enhancement. 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 tremble.
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.
Worlds Without End Page 6