A Quantum Mythology

by Gavin G. Smith

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ Elodie said nodding at the prone figure of the Alchemist/Berger. She stood up. ‘My copy had better be fucking dead as well,’ she told Scab

  ‘He is,’ the Alchemist managed, sitting up. ‘An Elite got him … her … whatever.’ Elodie and Vic glared at Scab.

  ‘What’s an Elite?’ Talia asked.

  ‘You can’t be surprised,’ Scab said to Elodie and Vic.

  The Alchemist stared at the headless human body, then looked up at Vic. ‘I don’t suppose you could shoot me as well?’

  Out in the red, black liquid flowed over the stump of the severed arm. It turned itself into a rough lozenge shape and started making its slow way home.

  24

  Ancient Britain

  He felt the point of the metal on his skin. He could sense the power in the dagger. If she chose to push the blade home he would die. He opened his eyes. She was looking down on him, straddling him under the furs that covered his cot. There were tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘You killed them all,’ she said. There might have been tears on her face, but her words were clear and strong.

  ‘Yes,’ Bress said, simply.

  ‘I hate you,’ she told him, meaning it. Britha had no reason to love him and he would not make excuses for his actions. There were none. He concentrated on ensuring that total control of the Lochlannach went to her when he died.

  Bress felt the point push against his skin, which was already hardening to deflect the iron blade infused with her blood. He could tell she wanted to do it. Bress almost wished she would. They’d had their night. Few explanations, little talking. He had taken her by the hand as they walked through the Lochlannach, who remained as still as stone. They spent the night finding out all they could about how to bring pleasure to each other. Uncaring, unrestrained, wild. Bress would have liked to put it down to pure carnal desire, but he knew there was something here, a far more deeply seated feeling that he was loath to admit to himself. He could practically hear Crom Dhubh’s laughter, a creeping violation in the back of his mind. He could sense the ghost of the crooked man’s amusement.

  He didn’t understand it. This woman should have been nothing to him, another victim, nothing more. He ought to have killed her the first time they met. Or enslaved her, or given her to Ettin. She was a mud-dwelling savage, a primitive, a mortal, no more capable of understanding what was happening to her and all those around her than his horse was. So why did he care?

  ‘What you did to those children,’ she spat. Ettin had enslaved them and shaped their flesh. He found it entertaining to take children and turn them into hunting animals, but that didn’t matter. Bress had controlled Ettin. He hadn’t said no. It was his responsibility, as if he had done it himself. He looked up at her and said nothing. There were so many reasons he should die now. He had committed crimes that would not come to fruition for millennia, and he would commit more unless he was stopped.

  ‘Do it,’ he whispered to her, his throat suddenly dry. Even with Fachtna’s blood in her – and that thought burned in him like hatred – he was pretty sure he could take the knife from her any time he wanted.

  ‘There is no honour, no glory, in this,’ she said. She was looking for something in his eyes. Bress was saddened. He could hear her faltering.

  ‘There is no honour or glory in anything I do. None here can stand against me. What I don’t destroy, I enslave.’

  ‘We stood against you.’ She was fierce again. He felt the dagger’s point break through his hardened skin.

  ‘You altered the form of this land’s destruction. You were merely a setback to my master’s plans. All you have done is drawn the matter out. There will be more suffering now.’ Could he goad her into killing him? he wondered. Would his words be enough? He saw her face harden and felt the iron point dig deeper into his flesh.

  ‘And will that change if I kill you?’ she demanded.

  ‘I am redundant now. Do what you will.’

  For a moment he thought she would do it. There was pressure on the dagger, but then she dropped it and stood up, more tears rolling down her cheeks. She grabbed her robe as she fled the hide tent. Bress watched her go. He could still feel the memory of her touch all over his skin.

  He tried to ignore the feeling of nausea as he turned to look at Crom Dhubh’s shadowy, indeterminate form in the tent’s shadows.

  ‘I’ll do what you want if you will leave her be.’

  Do kings bargain with slaves?

  ‘It is my experience that everyone does what they must.’

  You can have her after I know where the Ubh Blaosc is. Until then she belongs to me.

  ‘You’re going to send them, aren’t you? They see us only as food and a place to lay their eggs.’

  That is what you are, nothing more. To them, anyway. You want an end to all things. This is the cost.

  ‘She is strong, she might not come to you.’

  She does not look strong.

  He found Britha in the copse of trees close to the riverbank. One of the giants was standing in the river. The water frothed around him, the fast-flowing river coming up to the strange, gnarled figure’s waist. Bress knew the only time Britha had seen them up close before was when she had been fighting them: on the beach in the north, her home, and then again in the south, again on a beach. Britha, however, was ignoring the giant in favour of staring at one of the Lochlannach.

  Ettin picked the slaves who would become the Lochlannach. They were predominantly male, all strong and healthy and, where possible, fast. Few of them had been warriors, since most of the warriors had died in the fighting. Many had been spear-carriers, particularly in the north, but that didn’t matter. The ability to fight was given to them by the howling metal demons they drank down when they supped from the Red Chalice.

  Britha’s eyes were red but her face was dry. Bress did not think she was used to experiencing this kind of vulnerability.

  ‘I know this man,’ she said. ‘I forget his name but he is a landsman, one of the Ce from north of the Cirig lands.’ She started moving among the Lochlannach, studying them as she went. ‘This one’s name is Mealchionn, he is one of us, a fisherman. This one was a Cait warrior in the service of Calgacus of the Bitter Tongue. And she is one of the Fib from across the Tatha.’

  Bress followed her as she walked from person to person. She studied every face, pointing out the ones she knew before finally turning to him.

  ‘The demons lived in my flesh, and screamed, and snarled in my head, and I came back. So can they.’

  ‘Your lover blessed you with the blood of the Muileartach. They have received no such blessing,’

  ‘This is for the Muileartach.’ Britha spat on the ground. ‘And all gods.’ Then she looked him straight in the eyes. Brown eyes staring into pale, colourless, almost dead eyes. ‘It is a cage, a wicker man the size of your own body. The demons imprison you. Inside you can see everything they make you do. Is that how the magic of the Otherworld works? Does it have to be so cruel?’

  ‘No,’ Bress admitted quietly.

  ‘You are a cruel man, Bress. I have met men and women who enjoy their cruelty, but you do not. I think you would be cruel for an end, but I don’t see the purpose here.’

  ‘It was done for the sake of it …’ He looked as if he was about to say more, but didn’t.

  ‘Ettin?’

  ‘I’ll not make excuses.’

  ‘To feed Crom?’

  ‘He might see it that way.’

  ‘But they are still in there?’ He nodded. She moved closer, looking up at him but not touching him, her eyes narrowing. ‘Let them go.’

  ‘They would not be as they were. They have been made to do things. They saw things. They were tormented by what was in their blood.’

  ‘Just my people, then, the Pecht, that’s all I care about. It is my job to
protect them still. Let them go and I will stay here with you. There is nothing for me in the north any more.’

  Crom Dhubh was a strangely silent black smudge on the periphery of Bress’s vision. ‘As much as you would spit on the gods, you will come to serve him.’

  ‘Then you will kill me,’ she said evenly, her eyes never leaving his. He felt something catch in his throat. It took him a moment to realise that the sensation in his eye was a tear. He was starting to resent these strange emotions. They did not feel as if they should belong to him. He glanced to where he was sure Crom Dhubh was standing, in the periphery of his vision, but there was nothing. He sensed he was being manipulated but couldn’t be sure by whom. He struggled with the idea that it was Britha. She might be one of the learned among her people, but they were an unsophisticated race. He thought he could hear Crom Dhubh’s mocking laughter, but it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

  ‘My people,’ she said again.

  Bress nodded.

  Is this enough? she asked herself. This was all that was left of her people. She had failed to protect them. Perhaps she should have been sacrificed in punishment for her failure, blood and bone given to a land bereft of people. She should seek vengeance on Bress, but he appeared to be a slave. On Crom Dhubh, but he was a spent force, a ghost. She did not know what mattered now, other than the life that had been taken from her.

  They marched the Lochlannach far from the copse of woods on the banks of the Tros Hynt. She rode with Bress, feeling less like a dryw and more like nobility. They found a natural bowl in the land amongst rolling hills. Bress made the Lochlannach march down into the bowl, while he remained on the rim, looking down.

  ‘Their weapons?’ Britha asked.

  ‘I will excise the demons from them as well, otherwise the demons will still control them, and it would start all over again. They may keep them, though few will remember how to use them well. They must know, however, that to bear them against myself or the other Lochlannach will result in their deaths.’

  ‘They may welcome that,’ Britha said grimly as she looked down on the dozen men and one woman she had recognised among the ranks of the Lochlannach.

  ‘I can kill those who wish to die,’ Bress said, not looking at her, his voice devoid of emotion. Britha reached over and gripped his arm fiercely.

  ‘This has nothing to do with you now. You release them and go on your way,’ she told him fiercely.

  He thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘It is done.’ Bress wheeled his horse around and began to ride slowly away from Britha and her mount. The Otherworldly horses were such that they did not even flinch when the screaming started.

  Some screamed, most cried, a few remained silent, staring. One killed himself immediately and two attempted to follow Bress to attack him, but were still respectful enough of Britha’s position to obey her when she said no.

  Only one, the woman, attacked her. Under normal circumstances it would have been enough for her to be cast out. The first thing the woman had been made to do, after Ettin had forced her to drink from the Red Chalice, was to murder her four children, for sport. Britha disarmed her easily. After all, she was as one of the Fair Folk now. Then she held the woman as she shrieked and tore at Britha’s flesh.

  Bitter words were exchanged. Most headed north, a few didn’t. The woman, whose name was Derith, demanded that Britha kill her. The triple death, the hardest death, the greatest of the sacrifices. They found an oak, and in the dying grey light of dusk Britha felt the rock’s impact on the woman’s head run up her arm before she strangled her with her rope belt. Finally Britha pushed her dirk home between Derith’s shoulder blades.

  Only one, the warrior from the Cait, asked to be enslaved again, to continue to serve Bress. Britha wasn’t able to hide her disgust, for some of it was aimed at herself. She wondered how different she really was from the Cait warrior.

  Nails had drawn red lines on his skin that healed moments later. They were both covered in sweat and gasping for breath. She tried to drive unwanted thoughts from her head, but even as she threw herself down on the cot next to Bress, still feeling the residual warmth of the pleasure, she knew the thoughts would be waiting for her when she closed her eyes.

  She turned away from Bress. She wanted to hide these thoughts from him, but she knew it would be difficult lying naked next to him. She heard him shift to prop himself up on an elbow. She could feel his eyes on her.

  ‘What did they do to you?’ he asked, so quietly that she barely heard him. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to will herself not to cry. It didn’t stop the tears. At the back of her mind she was impressed that somehow he knew enough not to touch her, or try to comfort her. She said nothing for a while. Finally she rolled over to look at him. She had not wiped away the tears. They were hers. She should not be ashamed of them. There was so much more she could be ashamed of.

  ‘They stole a child from me.’

  Bress said nothing. He looked away from her. ‘Who was the father?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘The Muileartach.’ She had no idea why she said that. She had opened her mouth to say Fachtna. Bress jerked his head around to look at her. He felt for Crom Dhubh’s presence but could not sense it. He looked for the shadow, but did not see it.

  ‘Is it me you want, or power?’ he asked. There was no judgement in his question.

  Britha knew that she could reach over to touch him, to manipulate him, lie to him. Tell him what he wanted to hear.

  ‘I want my child back. They took her from me before she was even born. They took her from me because some of what the Muileartach was … is … it’s inside me. If power is required to get her back, then I will take it where I can.’

  Bress looked away from her again. ‘And you like it, don’t you?’

  She thought back to killing the warped bear at the siege of Andraste’s Crown. She thought back to her salmon leap when they fought the Lochlannach on the beach.

  ‘Yes,’ she finally said. ‘And I wield it well. Now tell me, do you think that is why I am here with you?’

  Bress considered the question. ‘In part—’

  Britha started to climb out of the cot. Bress grabbed her arm. She turned on him.

  ‘Mind yourself, warrior! Just because I have chosen to lie with you does not mean you can take liberties with me!’ she spat.

  ‘I think part of the reason you want me is because I have power.’

  Britha froze. It was true that she had lain with Cruibne for reasons of ritual, but despite the fact that he was ugly, covered in scars, more than a little fat and stank of too much meat and heather ale, she had enjoyed the experience. Was this the reason why? Even Cliodna had power. Bress was beautiful, but so was Fachtna, arguably more so, and less strange, but it was Bress she truly wanted. Fachtna had been easy, a convenience. She sagged.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Do you want me?’ Bress asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted weakly.

  ‘I’ll give you what you want. Only lie with me if you want.’

  ‘I said yes.’

  ‘You sound as if you wish it otherwise.’

  She turned on him, angry again. ‘Do you want to remind me of all the reasons I should hate you?’ she demanded.

  ‘I will remind you of that every time you look at me. There is no point pretending that I have not done what I have done.’

  ‘I want you to suffer and die,’ she said, in a small voice that Bress did not think sounded like her. ‘And I want you as my lover.’

  Bress nodded. ‘Fachtna’s here, isn’t he?’

  This time it was Britha who looked away. ‘Fachtna’s dead. I put a sword through him, his own. He killed a dryw, he had to die.’ Britha knew that Bress had probably killed or enslaved or sacrificed many dryw, as they would have attempted to negotiate with him when the black curraghs raided. She hoped he would not tell her this
now.

  ‘Then we should go to his body. He has something we want. If he has it, then we can try to get your child.’

  She nodded.

  ‘But if you want power, you will have to come with me to Oeth first.’

  ‘The Place of Bones?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘If you want power, that is where it will be found.’

  As they rode away from the camp, the curraghs were sinking into the fast-moving water of the Tros Hynt. She had stopped questioning the magics of the Otherworld.

  About twenty of the Lochlannach joined them on horseback. Bress left the rest of the Lochlannach at the camp.

  They headed north and east. The powerful horses covered the ground far swifter than the ponies Britha was used to. She was a skilled horsewoman, but she mostly found herself merely holding on.

  Every village and settlement they passed had been destroyed and carrion-eaters fed on the corpses of the livestock. After they rode by the first, Britha glanced over at Bress. He didn’t appear to have noticed the village, though it was clear the Lochlannach had been there before.

  The terrain became progressively higher as they made their way through long river valleys. The landscape was dominated by tall, rounded hills, many with rocky escarpments. Woodland and scattered farmland eventually gave way to heather-covered moorland. They spotted burial mounds and a stone circle as they travelled, proof that this land had been inhabited for a long time, and interfered with by the gods. It was at the stone circle she saw the only bodies, but they were long dead. They had been left for the ravens to slowly take to the Underworld, morsel by morsel.

  After a night’s rest, wrapped in Bress’s cloak and in his arms, they continued onwards. The light had just started to fade when they entered the long valley. At the west end Britha could make out a roughly dome-shaped hill surrounded by a number of smaller mounds. Even from this distance she could see the hill fort. Some of it was built on platforms suspended out over the sheer drop of the cliff. It was only when they got closer, however, that she saw the bodies hanging from the ramparts, and the reddish brown smears on the rock. She glanced over at Bress. Again he said nothing.