by P. C. Cast
The watching creatures didn’t touch her or move to comfort or help her. They stood silently watching. Their restless wings the only outward sign of their tension.
Then the laboring woman’s screaming began anew with the raw terror of the doomed. As I watched, her pubis bulged outward—stretching…stretching…I had never imagined the human body could expand that much. Suddenly her groin exploded in a shower of blood that rained red droplets on the quivering wings of the waiting audience. Out of the gaping hole in the woman’s twitching body protruded a cylinder-shaped thing that seemed to be wrapped in thick wrinkled skin dyed the brilliant scarlet of new blood. My mind rebelled with shock and horror at the scene playing out below me, but my eyes refused to obey my command to close, just as my body refused to take me away. In the cavity of the woman’s ruined body the thing quivered. Something glinted amidst the hideous tube of flesh. Unwillingly, my eyes were drawn to that glinting; it sparkled wetly like light glistening off the sharpened blade of a freshly used knife.
My body floated down until I was only a few feet above the heads of the creatures.
Time seemed to slow. The creatures under me were frozen, as if an invisible hand had pressed a lifelike pause button. As I got closer, my eyes focused more clearly on the lump of deformed flesh still trapped in the woman’s body, and I realized that I was looking at a newborn creature. What I had mistaken for wrinkled flesh was really a pair of immature wings, which totally encased the embryonic body within—much like a cocoon would encase a caterpillar. The light of the tapers flickered off two appendages at the topmost point of the joined wings. They looked like talons and they were shiny with amniotic fluid and blood.
“Oh, my God!”
My exclamation ended the freeze-frame. A head snapped up in my direction and the creature’s eyes searched the air above the table.
“Take it to the incubating cavern!” His voice had a rough, breathy quality. His words sounded as if they had to fight to escape his throat.
A female winged creature rushed forward and plunged her hands into the open wound, carefully extracting the cocooned fetus. Before I could glimpse any more of it, the adult’s wings folded forward, completely covering the newborn. She quickly exited the room, followed by almost half of the other creatures who had observed the obscene spectacle. I watched them scurry away and my gaze was drawn to the benches that lined the walls. The figures sitting on the benches cowered back as the entourage rushed past them to the exit—I gasped with renewed horror, realizing that those people were women, human women, all in varying stages of pregnancy.
A hissing sound near the table caused my attention to be pulled away from them.
The male who had spoken was still looking up, and I felt my spirit body tremble. I tried to remain very still.
“Nuada, what is it?” one of the creatures asked tentatively.
“I do not know.” His rough voice spat the answer. “I can feel something here. I have felt this presence before, at MacCallan Castle just as we were defeating that lone warrior.” His wings stirred aggressively as his hot gaze raked the air around me. “I can almost see it…”
In one fluid stride he leaped up on the table, legs straddling the bloody body of the dead woman. He was now directly under me.
“Perhaps I can touch it.” He began to reach up toward me with one long arm, taloned fingers extended.
I felt a scream building in my chest and—
CHAPTER 11
“Aaaahhhhh!” The scream shot from my mouth with the force of an exploded land mine. I panicked in the darkness even though my frayed senses whispered to me that it smelled like springtime and horse, not blood and horror. But my mind was numb with terror and I struggled violently, kicking and biting against the bonds that had me trapped.
“Rhiannon! Stop, you are safe!” ClanFintan’s voice broke through the ice of my fear. I realized that I was back in the barn and I quit struggling, but adrenaline still coursed through my body. I was shaking uncontrollably.
“Oh, God. It was horrible.” His arms tightened around me.
“It was the Magic Sleep?”
I nodded my yes against his chest.
“The creatures again?”
“ClanFintan, I found the women.” He loosened his arms and I pulled back to look into his eyes. “They are in the castle by the mountain pass.”
“Guardian Castle,” he prompted.
“Yes, it has to be.”
“Have you never been there?”
“No, of course not.” I didn’t take time to wonder if Rhiannon had been. “But it’s large and square and situated at the base of a narrow pass.”
“That is Guardian Castle.”
“That’s where they are. They have the women, and, oh, God, they must be mating with them—” Here I had to stop and cover my face with trembling hands.
In one smooth motion ClanFintan stood and scooped me, still wrapped in the blanket, into his arms. He strode out into the comforting light of the campfires and deposited me gently back on my log.
“Throw me that wineskin,” he ordered a surprised, sleepy-looking Dougal, who tossed him the wine and blinked at me with worried eyes. “Drink.” He held the skin to my lips and I gratefully swallowed several gulps of the red liquid.
“Thank you.” I wiped my mouth and tried to control my trembling.
“Now tell me.” His voice was strong and reassuring. He reclined next to me and took my hand in his, squeezing gently. The other centaurs were all awake and listening. Their presence fortified me—I was safe with them.
I took a deep breath. “The women were there. At first I only noticed that they acted like zombies or like they were in shock. Then I heard the screaming and I followed the sound into a large room. A pregnant woman was tied to the top of a table. She was in labor. She was surrounded by a group of the creatures. While I watched, a…a…thing, a newborn creature, clawed its way out of her body. It was one of them.” My voice sounded raw to my own ears. I tightened my grip on ClanFintan’s warm hand. “And there were more pregnant women in the room. Many more. I saw them just sitting there, like their souls were already gone. Then one of the creatures sensed me and tried to grab me and I screamed and woke up back here.” I ended in a rush of breath, lifting the wineskin once more to my lips.
“One of them sensed you?” ClanFintan’s voice shot out the question.
“Yes, he said he could almost see me. He mentioned the night my father was killed. He said he had sensed me then, too.”
ClanFintan stood abruptly and began to pace back and forth in front of the fire.
“I did not think they could break through Epona’s protection, too.”
“Too—what do you mean by ‘too’?”
I watched him look pointedly at the listening centaurs. Then he turned slowly to face me. His face looked hard and remote, like it had the first time I met him. A shiver of foreboding fingered its way down my spine and I remembered his words outside MacCallan Castle: “They are through hiding.” Like he had known more about them than he had let on.
“ClanFintan, what is it?”
“Centaurs have known the Fomorian evil was loose upon Partholon for some time now.”
“You knew? But—”
Dougal stepped forward, his voice full of familiar concern. “My Lady, some of us knew and believed. Others would not believe the signs.”
I looked from Dougal to ClanFintan.
“What signs? What are you talking about?” My voice had an angry edge to it.
ClanFintan answered my anger with calm detachment. “You know that I have recently, just before we were betrothed, become head of the Fintan Herd. As you also know, my father was Herdsmaster before me.” I nodded like I knew what the hell he was talking about. He continued. “Almost one year ago my father began to behave oddly. At first there were only small changes. He developed new habits. For instance, he woke and slept at strange times. He changed some of his habits, just small things, which were only apparent to h
is family and close advisers. Then his trouble sleeping became more pronounced. He seemed uncharacteristically quiet, almost as if he was constantly preoccupied or deep in thought. Slowly, his problems became more obvious. Time progressed and he became more and more withdrawn. It was as if he was living in a dark world of his own making, where evil lurked behind every tree. Where old friends became objects of suspicion.” ClanFintan paused; the thought of his father’s degeneration was obviously painful, but he steadied himself and continued. “As you probably know, the Fintan Herd chooses their Herdsmaster as we choose our Shamans, not by blood but by a consensus and a spiritual calling. There is no dishonor to a centaur when, following a long term of rule, he steps aside to live out his remaining years as an honored adviser, allowing his younger and more capable replacement to assume his position. But if a centaur is forcibly removed because of…” ClanFintan’s eyes were haunted and he could not make himself finish the sentence. “There can be no greater dishonor.”
The centaur’s face hardened back into his mask of detachment. “The Herd was losing faith in their leader and he knew it, but it seemed he had lost the ability to control what was engulfing him. The situation became intolerable. It was only because of the great love and respect he had commanded for so many years that none moved against him. Then, the ghost of his former self, he called a Council of Warriors, which brought the heads of all the families together. He addressed them with only a shadow of his old dignity. He told of dreams and visions, which had followed him from his bed until they had absorbed him into their evil. Horrible twisted visions of blood and death. They centered around Guardian Castle, then reached out to engulf Partholon and the Centaur Plains, sucking us all into their darkness.” The centaur’s voice faded, his memories of that painful council meeting taking him far away.
“ClanFintan,” I spoke his name gently, empathizing with his grief over a fallen father.
His face softened for a moment, then he squared his shoulders and finished his story. “The rest tells itself easily. Half of the Council thought him mad and called for him to step down as Herdsmaster. The other half believed him and demanded action be taken to find the source of the evil. The vote was split exactly in half. They were deadlocked until they decided upon a compromise.” His full lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “They appointed me as Herdsmaster, replacing him. They were all in agreement on one thing—a Herdsmaster who was also High Shaman should be able to discover the truth.”
He stopped there, but intuition whispered to me that there was more I needed to know.
“So with all of this going on why were you so set on handfasting with me?”
“My father spoke to me in private after the Council appointed me in his stead. He was difficult to understand, but he kept insisting that I had to have Epona’s help to fight the evil. I had to be allied with Epona’s Beloved, following the ancient tradition of a centaur High Shaman being mated with Epona’s Chosen.” ClanFintan’s gaze never left mine. “Even though you had made it obvious that you had broken with tradition. He told me to go to your father and explain everything, that if I did the MacCallan would give his permission to wed you, even if you remained firm in your desire not to be bound to me, and that, out of your love and respect for your father, you would consent to our mating. You knew, of course, that they were comrades. My father had great respect for your father. I told him I would do as he wished, and then he spoke a single word—Fomorians. When that word left his lips it was as if he had been rendered speechless. The next morning he was found dead.”
“I’m sorry, ClanFintan. Your father was a great centaur.” Even though I hadn’t known him, I was sure it was true.
“Thank you.” His face softened for a moment. “Now we are both fatherless.”
“So that’s why you married me.” His sadness touched me, but I couldn’t help the feeling of loss his words had evoked. I knew it was ridiculous, but I felt betrayed. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”
His look darkened. “If you will remember our first betrothal meeting, you can answer that question for yourself. You gave me no opportunity to explain my reasons to you. You refused my suit, insulted me and left.”
I wanted to scream that it hadn’t been me, but I didn’t want to try to explain the whole mirror-dimension thing to him right now. Especially not in front of all of those frowning, sorrowful-looking centaurs. My common sense told me that I didn’t have any right to be angry and hurt. Rhiannon had been a raving bitch to ClanFintan. He had been right not to trust me/her. But my heart said something else. It felt bruised.
So I didn’t know what to say. We just looked at each other like two children who had had a fight and didn’t know how to make up.
I felt exhausted and sickened by what I had witnessed. I just wanted to sleep—and I meant really sleep. I sent a silent plea to Epona to please not send me on any more of those dream things tonight.
“I need to get some sleep.”
I stood up, keeping the blanket wrapped around my waist. I didn’t look at the centaurs, but I could hear them salute me formally as I left and their sweet “Good night, my Lady” followed me into the barn like a soft breeze. I snuggled back into my hay nest, squelching thoughts of how comfortable (and happy) I had been only a little earlier that night. I closed my eyes.
I had already known he had married me out of some sense of duty. Why was I so upset to hear him say it? And, I reminded myself, he hadn’t married me anyway. He had married Rhiannon, Goddess Incarnate and Beloved of Epona. I was just Shannon Parker, underpaid English teacher from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I didn’t belong here and I didn’t belong with him.
“Rhiannon?”
I hadn’t heard him approach and his voice made me jump. My eyes flashed open.
“I did not mean to startle you.” He sounded concerned. Probably worried about causing me to have a heart attack before I could fulfill my duty to him. And I didn’t mean that in the Biblical sense. I meant it in some obscure Epona sense. Sigh.
I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him and shrugged.
“You left before I could finish.”
I sighed again. “What else is there to say?”
“I wanted you to know that I do not think of you as I did before our handfast. I do not understand it, but you are different now.” His eyes were soft as they reflected the distant firelight. “There is one bit of good that this evil has caused. It has caused me to join with you. Good night, my Lady. I will be close by if you have need of me.”
Before I could answer, he turned and left the barn. I tried not to think too much about the rush of pleasure his words had given me. I thought instead that it would take me hours to fall asleep, but my eyes couldn’t have been closed more than a few minutes when I blissfully entered my DreamLand. This time I (thankfully) passed the rest of the night dreaming that I was spending a wonderful afternoon visiting a Godiva chocolate factory that doubled as a vineyard. Superman and Pierce were bickering over who was going to rub my feet and who was going to…
Well, you get the idea. (This time Superman won—and may I just share that he’s called super for more than just his ability to fly.)
CHAPTER 12
The tantalizing aroma of frying fish woke me. I yawned and stretched, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. Yanking on my pants, I shook out the blankets, slung my boots over my arm and made my way blearily out to find the source of the yummy smell.
“Good morning, my Lady.” ClanFintan looked bright eyed and bushy tailed (literally).
“Mornin’,” I muttered as I handed the shyly smiling Dougal my blanket mess and moved zombie-like to the edge of the nearest campfire. I’m not a morning person. Actually, I’m slightly suspicious of morning people. It’s exhausting to be perky before 9:00 a.m. There’s only a certain amount of perky that one individual can have over the course of one day. Morning people use up their perky too early and end up being just plain grumpy.
I didn’t see any fish frying. But I still smell
ed cooking food.
Trying to run my fingers through my out-of-control hair while I picked out pieces of hay, I raised my brows at ClanFintan. “Don’t I smell breakfast?”
“Yes, fish rolls.” He pointed to big rolled-up leaves that were stuck amidst the hot coals of the only campfire still smoldering.
Well, that sure cleared everything up.
He’s probably a morning person/horse/whatever.
Sigh. I pulled on my boots and headed toward the stream. Without looking over my shoulder, I said, “No, I don’t need any damn help.”
After finishing my morning necessaries, which included washing my face and rinsing my mouth out with cold water, and brushing vigorously with my finger (man, I sure missed my mint-flavored waxed dental floss—who’d have ever figured?), I felt semi-alive and awake.
The horsies were chomping contentedly on the fish that had been inside the rolled-up leaves. They were using the leaves as plates and picking flaky fish from the bone. I sat on my log seat next to where ClanFintan was reclining, and Connor handed me my own leaf plate of fish. It was wonderful. The fish’s head had been cut off (thank God—I don’t like it when my food looks at me) and its body had been stuffed with garlic.
“This is really great.”
“Thank you, my Lady.” Dougal and Connor spoke together.
“Are the rest of the guys hunting or something?”
“No. I sent them ahead to inform the warriors of your latest dream vision. They can travel more quickly than I can while I carry you.” He smiled at me, so I guessed my slowing him down didn’t piss him off. “They will notify the others who stayed with Epona and we will meet with all of them at your temple.”