Fairy Dark

by Adam Golden

  The Light shone around them and Glyphs sprang into existence around the room.

  “Niamh,” Gawan pleaded.

  “Gawan, leave off,” Kyna said tiredly. “They’re coming. Right now. Listen. I can hear them on the stairs. The Archive might be gone. If there’s even a chance we can save something . . .”

  “Open yourselves to the Aether,” Niamh urged, “think on unity with those around you. The Light connects you, connects all of us.”

  Gawan held no Light, but he could see those that did. Some burned like beacons, others flickered alight slowly, hesitantly, but one by one they each opened themselves. Gawan sighed, a long, deflating sigh that drained the fight out of him. So be it then. He’d given his whole life in service to the Court, if this was the Court’s will. He reached out and took hold of the Light, filling himself to bursting with it. Maybe enough would burn away the panic.

  * * *

  Niamh wrestled the Glyph chains, twining them about the raw currents of energy that were pouring from the assembled Elders by the sheer force of will. The Light was a raging river being forced through a narrow cleft. And she was the cleft. The pressure and force was incredible. And the other . . . The power flowing from Maeve . . . It was so alien, hard edged and inflexible, yet so delicate. It was like juggling greased razors. The witch queen was insensate more often than not these days, but her power always leapt up, willing as soon as Niamh reached for it. The Pyski Eldest thought of the times when she’d been forced to brush the Dark queen’s mind in the course of the experiments. Maeve’s insights made the Champion project possible, but her mind . . .

  Whatever was left of Niamh’s ancient adversary lived only to exact vengeance. The crippled Spriggan lived inside an endless nightmarish delusion where she tortured the Pyski who had been Jogah again and again. The cruelty and hunger were revolting. And Niamh had used that hunger, stoked it and encouraged ‘to create a chance for my people!’ she told herself. What else could she do? The Eldest of the Pyski pulled more heavily from both powers twining them about each other, compressing and molding them as though she were complimentary metals mixed to build a chain.

  The Glyph Net snapped into existence, and Niamh saw herself from a dozen angles, experienced herself in a dozen minds, and felt each of her fellows’ consciousness expanding away from the small selves they’d been. The Eldest’s sense of “Niamh” was drifting. She was more . . . they were more. The individuals melded, the grains became the beach. Every dull ache, passing thought, nagging doubt, and half-buried anxiety of a dozen beings clicked together like the pieces of a puzzle, mixing and gelling to form something new.

  The Working took on a momentum all its own. A cyclone of Light crashed around the chamber, driven mad by the currents thrown off by the pulsing column of Dark at its center. Thirteen throats screamed with one voice as the Light scoured them clean, tearing down the wreckage of what they’d been to make the building blocks for what would be. A cloud of raw substance hung within the storm, suspended, waiting, anticipating.

  The Dark seeped into everything, as the Dark was wont to do. Snaking tendrils as thin as a whisper braided themselves through every fiber and speck of the form that was taking shape, and where that lattice of Dark guided and held the raw fury and brilliance of the Light in place, the whole was made stronger. The will of many who were one, pressed the pure potential in the chamber, molding and shaping it slowly. Understanding bloomed, and what they would make, what they would become, was made clear. The swirling dance of Light and Dark met a fevered crescendo, and then the storm was gone. The Light and Dark were gone. The Court, the attendants, their prisoner. All were gone, and there was only the one. The one who had once been many.

  She lay in the center of the chamber where the one called Maeve had lain before, but she wasn’t Maeve. During the Making, the will that had been part of the Dark queen had been more active than some. Especially during the shaping of the face. She knew the face looked much as the Dark Fae had looked in her youth before the hard lines of cruelty and bitterness. She wasn’t Maeve, she wasn’t Niamh, Malvyn, Gruaidh, or Gwen. Those individuals were gone, and though their knowledge and memories were inside her, she couldn’t separate them, couldn’t recall what it was to be any one of them. She was something else. Someone else.

  “Rhiannon.” The word drifted up from somewhere deep inside and she started as she heard her voice speak for the first time. An impression struck her, just a flash, just for an instant. Smiling eyes, bright, proud, violet eyes. “Rhiannon,” she said again.

  Boots pounded the corridor outside and memory washed over the newborn Pyski, memory and purpose. Her slim, nude form shimmered as it formed a suit of heavy plate of its own acord. The Light hummed with quiet fury inside her, and when the great doors shivered under the first blow, she braced her stance and waited. Let them come. They were not prepared. Not for her.

  * * *

  Rhainnon came to slowly, as though dragging herself to the surface of a warm soothing bath. She’d forgotten so much, blocked away so much, but it was back now. She remembered her birth, remembered all the lives that had gone to making her what she was, and she remembered the truth. She was Pyski, a creature of Light, but there was strong Dark there as well. It was as much a part of her as the Light. It made her what she was. The last Pyski Guardian opened her eyes on the brilliant infirmary and found a half-dozen women in gray robes gathered about her.

  “You recover,” one of them said in a strange clipped accent.

  It was not a question, yet Rhiannon nodded.

  The speaker nodded once, and in a single motion the six produced long slim blades from somewhere and held their needle points toward her threateningly. The speaker’s eyes now burned with a dangerous intensity. “Why have you come here?”

  Chapter 16

  Rhiannon chomped down on her tongue and winced as she tasted blood. Her body was moving entirely by instinct. She rolled backward off of the cot and away. Away from the weapons, away from Caoin. Away from the sound. The banshee’s spirit-form hovered above the cot the Guardian had just vacated. Her posture was rigid, and her face was locked in a rictus of horrifying despair as she hurled her lament out into the world.

  The Pyski wanted to throw her hands over her ears and flee or lie down on the floor and wail out her bitter heartbreak until she dried up and blew away, but she could do neither. Her would-be assailants were plotting something.

  Closest to the Banshee’s wailing form, the six gray-clad women fell hard when the assault began, and most were still writhing heaps, sobbing and blubbering where they fell. A pair of them had rallied somewhat, however, and Rhiannon could feel the telltale tingle of powerful forces being summoned. Caoin, immaterial as she was, was not immune to harm, and in her insensate condition the ghost would be defenseless.

  Rhiannon reflexively sought stillness, pushing herself away from the world while remaining just conscious enough of it to move herself around. She leapt off of the cold stone floor and pushed herself forward. She couldn’t change, and while the Light burned eagerly close, she hesitated. . .. Still not strong enough, she decided. Besides, I don’t need it for this. I know this. I AM this. Her feet barely touched the blankets of the cots she ran across, her body floating like a thing of air and gossamer as she moved.

  Another of the gray women was trying to push herself up off the floor on shaky arms. She was washed out, haggard looking, and the air around her reeked of bile and fresh urine. Rhiannon landed hard in the middle of the wretched creature’s back and she collapsed, her chin striking the stone with an audible crack. The Pyski rolled forward, scooped up a thick-bladed tulwar from the floor and came up in a ready crouch. The Pyski Huntress staggered as Caoin’s scream changed, became more frantic as the Banshee began to wail in a new kind of agony.

  A gray fog hung thick around the Banshee’s spectral form, and the Pyski could see Caoin’s frenzied twisting as she tried to escape whatever was happening in there. The sound coming from Rhiannon’s only fr
iend put the warrior in mind of the sound of a person being torn asunder.

  The two women who were maintaining the spell were on their feet, and the others, suddenly free of Caoin’s influence, were coming back to themselves. Rhiannon heard the wordless battlecry from her lips before she registered that she was moving. The heavy curved blade of the sabre in her hands flashed as she turned it in her grip and swung the blunt, curved inner edge like a scythe, knocking the legs out from under a sea-sick-looking ginger woman and battering her back to the floor.

  “Contain her!” one of the spellcasters, a tall severe-looking middle-aged woman with a shock of snow white in her short dark hair, barked. The others snapped to action at her call. Their faces and movements all transformed into hard-edged determination. There was the leader. They’d do as she did.

  The geometry of the fight played out a dozen ways before the Pyski champion’s mind’s eye. She had to end this quickly, had to save Caoin, and end it as bloodlessly as possible. She needed these people to talk to her, she needed their help, and she wouldn’t get it if she had to crack too many skulls.

  The two remaining assailants not maintaining the attack on Caoin converged on the Pyski from opposite sides. Rhiannon’s conscious self, her mission, her personality, and even her worry for Caoin, slid into the background. Her body moved with the effortless grace of a dancer performing a piece she’d practiced to perfection. A sharp kick aimed at her ankle met empty air as she pirouetted away and flowed into the redirection of a straight jab that should have broken her nose. Rhiannon’s stiff two-fingered jab to the puncher’s throat sent its owner spinning back into a guard as she heaved for a breath that was momentarily blocked.

  The girls—and they were still girls, for traces of the baby fat of youth still clung to their grimly set features—were excellent fighters. They were quick, precise and obviously used to attacking in tandem. They were outclassed from the start.

  Skilled and practiced as they were, Rhiannon was a master. It hummed in her blood, she was made for this. Every minute shift of posture or twitch of their eyes screamed intention at the Pyski as though they were calling out their strikes. She moved to counter before they themselves knew what they were going to do. She felt the world slow around her and a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. Rhiannon planted herself firmly and met every attempted strike with a lightning-quick counter just an instant before it would have landed.

  Time and time again she turned away blow after blow while barely moving at all. A hard-swung fist landed with a sharp smack in the palm of Rhiannon’s hand. The slim-boned Pyski warrior caught the wrist attached to that fist, pivoted and threw the larger female over her hip and into her still struggling partner.

  The two gray-clad fighters hadn’t even hit the floor before Rhiannon was moving. A short sharp burst of speed turned into a leaping roll, and Rhiannon streaked toward the two spellcasters like a hard-shot arrow. She struck the smaller of the two, a mousey looking thing who got an instant of horrified surprise before both of Rhiannon’s booted feet struck her chest and sent her careening into the wall. The Guardian rolled as she hit the floor and came up in a crouch with her stolen tulwar slanted across her body in guard.

  The opaque cloud around Caoin shuddered and collapsed the moment the mousey sorceress’s skull met stone, and the severe-faced witch with the white streak in her hair spun, hurling something dark toward Rhiannon. The Pyski saw Caoin react. “Be silent!” the Pyski pleaded as she dodged a bolt of sizzling shadow, rolled and came up filled with the Light. “Caoin,” she called. “Do nothing. But stay attentive.”

  The spectre grumbled something and looked peevish to Rhiannon, but she did as she was asked.

  The Pyski turned her attention to the last sorceress. “Why did you attack me?” she asked.

  “We did not.” The reply came back in a clipped Slavic accent that sounded strange to the Pyski’s ear. “Your Banshee initiated the first attack.”

  “After you threatened me with weapons,” Rhiannon said hotly.

  “Precautions were deemed necessary. Your reputation precedes you, Fae Hunter.” The hard-faced woman spat the last word like a curse, looking at Rhiannon through slitted, hostile eyes. “Many of us here are . . . what is that word you like so much? Darklings? Yes? There are many Darklings in Eamhna, and you will not be allowed to harm them.”

  “I have no interest in harming any of your people,” Rhiannon said, raising her hands in front of her without relaxing her stance or her hold on the Light one iota. “I came here tracking—”

  “We know whom you track,” the other said with a dismissive toss of her head. “Your vendetta is of no interest to us. The Bwgan is free to come and go as he pleases, so long as he follows our rules.”

  “He’s a monster!” Rhiannon screamed before she could contain herself. “How can you support—?”

  “We neither support nor oppose,” the sharp-featured woman said with an emphasis that cut Rhiannon off. “An Ainnir Airgid takes no sides. Light and Dark mean nothing here, and the conflicts of the outside do not touch this place. Those who find their way here are welcome, so long as they respect our dominion. Those who do not are removed.”

  “Is he here?” Rhiannon asked.

  The other shrugged. “If he were? Eamhna is sanctuary. Cerridwyn decreed it when she formed this place, and An Ainnir Airgid enforces that peace. If he walked through that door there in this moment . . .”

  “I’d kill him,” Rhiannon grated, “and put down anyone who tried to stop me.”

  She heard Caoin growl something unkind under her breath and shot the ghost a stubborn glare.

  “You will leave Eamhna immediately,” the sorceress declared, “and you will not return. On pain of death.”

  “I won’t,” Rhiannon declared, clutching at both her calm and the raging torrent of Light in her and barely keeping hold of either, “not until you tell me where he is.”

  “Gruaidh,” Caoin called, her voice warning, but Rhiannon could sense them already.

  The rest of the gray-clad women had recovered themselves, and the Pyski could sense others close by, ready to offer support. She was being surrounded, every one of them was a trained fighter and a practitioner of at least reasonable strength. None of them approached her natural ability on either front, but there were more of them. She wasn’t at her best, they knew it, and worse, the element of surprise was gone now. They’d seen her fight, the best of them would have her measure and they would be more careful this time.

  ‘I can’t just slink away. They know something. I know they do.’

  Maybe another lead would appear before the Bwgan used the Focus children to do . . . whatever it was he’d been working toward for more than a decade. Maybe, but maybe it wouldn’t. She knew for certain he’d been here, had harboured here. There were clues.

  She rooted herself as solidly as she could, adjusted her grip on the heavy saber, and heard Caoin sigh a long-suffering resolved sigh. Rhiannon hoped she wouldn’t have to kill any of them, not even the one with the white streak, but she wasn’t going easily.

  “What goes on here?” The question came softly and with the sound of genuine puzzlement.

  Rhiannon looked away from the hatchet-faced sorceress to find the one who’d spoken. A new pair of gray-clad women stood in the infirmary’s entrance, an older one baring a silver crozier, and a younger, timid-looking creature standing behind.

  “Prioress,” the white-locked sorceress said, her voice tight, though whether with concern or anger Rhiannon couldn’t decide. “As instructed, we came to investigate the intruder.”

  “Sister Hervor,” the staff-bearing elder interrupted with an exasperated click of her tongue, “you were asked to inquire with Sister Maire as to our guest’s condition, were you not?” Her manner and face were open, engaged and even friendly, the very picture of motherly concern and interest. The stony one, Hervor, nodded curtly, and her superior smiled indulgently before continuing, “And tell me, did the orders you receive
d include authority for an armed invasion of our infirmary? Or dispensation to contest arms within the sanctuary itself?”

  “The Fae Hunter attacked . . .” the stone faced Hervor started, but fell silent at the sharp crack of the Prioress’s staff on the stone floor.

  “Carefully Hervor,” the old woman said with another irritated click of her tongue. “A Daughter of Cerridwyn is not a tavern tough or a dockside brawler pounding out their frustrations on whomever they pass.” The old woman’s eyes slid to Rhiannon. “No matter how deserving their intended victim might be.” The crozier’s iron end cap rapped on the stone again. “Those here will report for morning meal preparation and midnight vigil for the next three weeks. And I would expect that each of you will report to Sister Confessor for voluntary penance and absolution,” the old woman intoned in a stronger voice than she’d used so far. “I go from here to speak with the Mistress at Arms. If she discovers weapons missing from the racks at that time, the penance for disobedience will be enacted.”

  Rhiannon saw several faces blanch at that, and wondered exactly what the penance entailed.

  “Go in peace daughters.”

  Several of the gray-clad women dashed from the room immediately, but one, the first one Rhiannon had subdued, hesitated in front of the Pyski and held out her hands palms up. “If you please, miss,” she said, voice meek and her manor nervous, but her eyes were hot. She was a fighter, one who’d been bested, and it smarted.

  Rhiannon understood, still, she almost refused to return the weapon. Rhiannon looked over the woman’s shoulder and saw the Prioress watching. Weighing her. She was reminded of Niamh, both of being around the Pyski Eldest and of being her. She remembered judging others as she was now being judged, remembered the burden of trying to lead a people as well as protect it, and she felt an odd sort of connection to this old anchorite woman. She let out a long quiet sigh, laid the tulwar across the young woman’s outstretched palms, and gave her a fractional nod before the girl spun and dashed away.