by Gavin Bennett (Changeling: The Dreaming | Fiction)
VI
"What a disgusting little dive," Elaine muttered, as the three of them sat in the Butterbox cafe. Adam sat in silence watching her while Mark sat back sneering at the passing customers.
"What are we doing here?" Adam whispered.
"Putting a smile of these losers faces."
At night, the Cafe was a hellish, plastic place. In the late evening, just before true night came down, it was worse, if anything. A tired waitress attempted to force a smile as a few young idiots, talking too loud, too macho, tried to be funny. Mark stood up and strolled towards the jukebox. A dozen sets of eyes strained towards him. A few of the men eyed him, sizing him up, wondering perhaps how much money he had, noting his thin figure and his open face. He inserted a coin and the machine whirred. "Come Together" snarled out of the speakers. Mark skipped in time to the bass riff back towards their table.
"Hey, you, faggot, turn that shit off." One of the men, safe in the company of his group, roared.
"Me?"
"Yeah, you." The man�s followers sniggered, anticipating a one sided fight.
"Sirrah," Mark bowed, "I am not a faggot, although perhaps I am a faerie."
"Little shit...c�mere." The man stood up and advanced on Mark.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, scum of the earth, and any other trash in earshot," Mark said, his arms outstretch, his face rapt, with all the passion of a preacher. "I am about to announce that this place is sealed off from the rest of the world. The only rules here are my rules, the only reality is my reality."
"What is that shit, shitface."
"Sir," said Mark. "Buy a dictionary. Your vocabulary is atrocious. I mean, shitface, is that the best you can do??"
"Bastard!" the man yelled and launched himself at Mark. He never got there. He ceased being and a large ugly toad bounced to the floor.
"Now," said Mark. "Who�s next?"
No one moved. Mark reached down and touched the greasy, filthy lino floor. A little blue lightening burned it away. Steam rose from the naked stone floor underneath.
"Adam," he said. "What we have here is a node, a magic place. That�s what brought you here. It called out to you. I�m going to wake it up."
No words could describe what followed as the two worlds brushed together and the veils between them opened for a little moment. Fire and light surged from the bare ground, bathing them, filling them with its sudden glow. Mark danced in the chaos, feeding the firefountain with a few drug-pushers and a few others he didn�t like the look of. Ghosts and little devils passed through the madness, sprites and hobgoblins and a thousand visions played out on the TV set. People died, had their hearts burned away. Others, driven mad by the shock of the new, fed themselves to the magic fire. In the light, Lycidas danced and sang like some terrible, mad god, dispensing a god�s mad justice...it was cruel, Adam remembered, it was arbitrary and vindictive, but hell, it was fun.
In the cold, hard light of morning, the cafe was gone. It had never been there. An old Victorian mansion stood in its place, the memory of the house that had been bulldozed to make that disgusting little place. The survivors, including the waitress, a few of the prostitutes, even two of the thieves walked out of that place with everything wiped clean. In the chaos, Mark had reached inside them and wakened their dreams again. Then, as an afterthought, he erased their criminal records, put money in their accounts and cast a veil over their memories.
"What did you do to them?" Elaine asked him as they stood in the dusty drawing room of the house.
"I gave them back thing which this place, this life had taken from them. They weren�t bad, just lost, dragged down into the tar those other scum make. So I cleaned off the tar. Compensation, if you like for loss of livelihood. It was in my power, right then, so I did. It cost me, yes, but I paid that debt with the other shits� souls."
A knock came on the heavy oak door. Mark strode off to answer it.Elaine turned away and whispered "It�s all so...fucked up. I can see the world, now; see it as it really is. There are monsters and demons waiting for us, ruling us, and stealing our souls. The world is dying, and something is killing it...oh shit, I don�t know. I can�t describe it."
"Its a world of night, Elaine," Adam said. "A world a baby eaters and black prophets and old things which should have been long dead haunting our nights. But even in that night, little candles are burning. We are the candles. Our blood sings with the memory of the world before the Flood. We are kin to angels and elves, pixie and troll. We have it in our power to make the world anew, and we shall." He laughed at himself, then, embarrassed. "I sound like a dork. Been around this twit too long."
"You�re pretty cool, you know that?" she said, and smiled.
The old oaken door opened and two men and a woman strode in, followed by Mark, who seemed grave. The first man, if such he could be called, was a slight slender lanky creature with tatty fire-red hair and a lazy goatee beard. He wore old, ripped Levi�s and an Army surplus jacket over an open grey cotton shirt, dark John Lennon shades and a Neil Young T-shirt. For all his appearance, it seemed as if it were all for modesty, as if he was hiding something from mortal sight. Beside him, a short, owlish, older fellow with tight greying hair, a full beard and a tattooed neck and hands. The woman was fey, that was obvious. A changeling like Anathea, probably. She had dark skin and black eyes, dressed in a sensible black skirt and white shirt. Around her neck hung a red gypsy scarf. She fingered it as she spoke to the other two.
"Well," said Mark, "This here," he waved at the woman, "is Fatima." Fatima smiled at Elaine, and then smirked at Adam. Mark continued: "She�s Romani, one of the Urme clan. She�s one of you. Over here," he gestured to the slender red head, "we have Ray, who is really cool, and a dab hand at shooting people. He�s the guvnor here." Mark said in stage cockney, "And finally," he said, waving to the old, owlish man, "We have "Leamon", a Verbena mage." Mark paused. "The Verbena are the survivors of the witches of old and the oral traditions of the druids and House Diedne of the Order of Hermes."
"We just came in here to see you guys," the man named Ray drawled. He sounded something like Jim Morrison, and reminded Elaine of Eric Stolz, but they were just vague resemblances. She had a recurring image of a Botticelli painting of an angel. Angel? The idea grew in some cold place in her mind, some old instinct to be feared. She put the thought aside and shook his hand. She glimpsed behind his shades, and saw some eternal flame behind there and it scared her.
"We came to summon you, Lycidas." The owlish man said softly. "A woman named Clotho Fae claims to have conned the location of one of the old fae cities out of some Nephandi dupe."
"Well," said Fatima, looking to Adam and Elaine, "So, she says. She is on our side, but...well, she is a hopeless degenerate..."
"My kinda girl," Ray drawled in a stage whisper.
"What I am saying is...it could be a trap."
"We have gone through all this shit before," Mark interrupted.
"Yes," Leamon agreed. "I was at the great council meeting in Berlin, and I heard all the arguments, far better ones than that, too, Fatima. We do what we must."
"Do you want us to go with you?" Elaine asked.
"No," said Mark. "We are all attached to the Merinita, so it's our business. Besides, you two know fuck all about anything yet, so I won�t risk you."
There was resentment and fear in their voices. None of them wanted to die. Only Ray stood out among them. He was relaxed, nonchalant. He was used to this sort of thing.
"We gotta go. Now." Ray said, at last. "I�ve still got the Strawman to go after, so the sooner we get this over with, the better. Look kids, we�ll meet again, sooner more than later, too."
"Yeah," said Mark. "Elaine. Adam. I�ll see you. Look after one another. You make a lovely couple. I�ll do my best to survive."
Fatima looked at Adam, then Elaine, and smiled sadly, then shook her head.
"If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride," is all she said. Leamon stayed silent. There was a strange light in his eyes, almost like lust, Elaine thought, but not for flesh and love and sex, but for blood. Compared to the others, the tall, graceful demi-gods who surrounded him, he seemed so banal, but of them all, he was most dangerous. He was a killer first and magic man second, and he looked upon the coming battle with relish.
Ray opened his right hand and a sword burned into life there, a sword made of no earthly metal, burning with lambent fire. The fire haloed him, casting a shadow far longer than it should. He turned away and cut into the empty air, and Adam stared at his back. There were wings there once, he realised. Three sets of terrible flame feather wings. Leandon walked past him, through a burning ring of blue fire, and was gone. Mark and Fatima waved back one last time, and Ray simply disappeared.
And they were gone, leaving only drifting dust in their wake. The Truebloods were alone, then in that ghost house. Outside, the sky had darkened to rain. Adam stood at the window for a moment, staring at the heavy, wet sky, wishing the sky was burning again, wishing he could see the dancing lights with open eyes. At length, Elaine took his arm and led him away, whispering all the while in an old language of memory and dream. VIII
The inside of the church was cool, and silent, a little refuge from the endless summer heat that hung outside. On the far horizon, fat, heavy storm clouds thickened and brooded, rumbling with distant thunder. From the church tower, you could see the world: London squatted on the western horizon, a black haze, just out of sight. The hills, a patchwork of fields tainted with light and shadow, shone like watercolours. The trees of the old woods whispered and creaked and waited. The air was thick and heavy outside, moist and humid, migraine weather, but inside, in the dark womb of the church, relief waited. It seemed such a sad lonely place, a forgotten church in a forgotten, empty town, silent in that dark noon. The cheap asphalt outside was slick and wet, and the few cars that passed hissed as their tyres melted into the road.
Two figures stood in that cool shadow, one was dark haired and emerald eyed, a tall, slender youth of mercurial mood and vast power, and the other seemed so much like a queen with her indigo eyes and red-gold hair. They were hunters, magical killers who stalked the night trailing monsters of all kinds, mortal and immortal. They had learned fast, seeking out the Gangrel and the magi of the Free Tremere Chantry; listening to the tales of the Fianna Garou in the Irish bars, venturing into the faerie freeholds and chimerical castles of the Changelings.They had been hunting for some time now. First there was that little piece in The Times about the disappearance, then that discharge into the Thames. Little mortal events, which had other reasons, other stories behind. Their hunts had taken them from the dark diseased ghettos in Croydon to the wide open spaces beyond the green belt, into the twisting tunnels of the Spiral Dancers, and from there, to the lands beyond this one. They were pursuing creatures named Foamhr, old things which had infected the world long before the Danu ever stood on British shores. These creatures served some thing named the Red Lord, a spirit who dwelled in the rotting husk of a dead god. They had had a companion, but she had betrayed them, and was killed by her masters. And now, they were here, to this old churchyard in Sussex, as Summer died.
The girl stared about the dusty, dusky nave, terribly cold. She looked to the boy, hoping somewhere that he was as scared as she was.
"Are you worried?" he asked.
"Yeah. What about you, Adam?"
"Yeah, me too. These are old evils." he recited, "There is a tale told of their making, by the Garou and the Fatae, about a horror in the heart of Russia an age ago, when human magicians made war on the fae, and turned to evil to destroy them. They corrupted a totem spirit of the Garou and made themselves like monsters. The Red Lord they called him, a spirit of winter and death and pain, a dying spirit of the ice ages. Some said that he was one of the Seven Sleepers, one of the Angelic creatures exiled to Earth before Eden was. Others say that he was one of the children of the Wyrm itself. Or that the magicians summoned him from his death sleep and made him mad. He called out to Annwn and Malfeas, and they answered him. He rose up from the depths of the Siberian Ice and drew evil to him. He and his servants made war upon the Faerie powers of Russia, that is the Seelie, Garou and Verbena of Russia, and the sky was made thick with blood and fire. Black things long hidden exploded from the bloodied soils of the Plains to the West. The cities of the fay were thrown down, and those left were murdered and left for the scavengers to maul. Fomori travelled from the west, and other corrupt powers followed them.
Terrible battles ranged across the Steppes. It is said that three tribes of the Garou ceased being, its warriors, its shamans, even its children decimated by the Servants and their allies. In desperation, the Kingdom of Ianthe sent messengers out across the world, crying for aid. They sent to the Kingdom Under the Floating Bridge; to the great cities of the Southern Ice, to the Realm of Hy-Brasail, still in its glory days before its fall. Too late the forces of Hy-Brasail came to the plains. The lands were wastes. Human villages were simply tiny atrocities. They found resistance occasionally, but the land was watchful, and evil followed them in the mist. At last they came to the Carpathians, where the Silver Fangs prepared their final defence against the shadow. In the night, the Kindred named Saulot came to them and prophesied: "Only once more will such an army march against the Night: Shadows will fall across a thousand ages hence until the final Twilight; Your age is passing, and the Wyrm turns. Look homeward, warriors. Gods and fighting men ye are, and for a little longer; floods are coming. Your enemy dwells close to Ararat. Fight well and you will cast him Down into the depths. But you will not kill him. He is protected. Horrors that were old when the world was young love him. They will haunt the night of the time of men until the very ends."
The forces of the Wyrm came upon them by night, but knights of the East saved the western powers, and they hid in the Carpathians until Winter ended and a terrible spring began. So it was in the stormy February, that the great hosts set off to Ararat where the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates lay.
At last the host threw down the Red Lord and Malfeas took him. The landscape was changed. The weather was cursed, as the Red Lord, mad with pain and lust brought on the last Ice Age. The Fay retreated to their broken cities and dying kingdoms and watched as the World changed. In that terrible Age, Hy-Brasail was laid waste, half its mass being claimed by the hungry waves. The Fay hid in the mountains, and built their refuges there. Some called the time between the Ice Ages the Age of Dreams, and now it was over.
The Servants travelled back towards the home of the Fomori. Other tales speak of them. They warred and intrigued and ruled. They subdued a mortal race, who paid homage to them - the FirBolgs. The FirBolgs named them the Foamwr, and worshipped them until they were cast down by the Tuatha DeDannan an age later.
Ages have passed since then. The Red Lord is now one of the masters of Malfeas. He harbours a deep hatred for the fay and their kin. His servants kidnap Changelings from the world and drag them down to him, where he sits on a throne made from their bones. The Foamwr are a homeless race now, wandering across the world in secret, murdering Garou and Faeries alike. They do the bidding of Malfeas and Annwn. They have made poor troubled Sarajevo their domain, a place where they can gather for a while and plot, before moving on. Now, they move to make it their own. They have changed in the black ages since. They are shapechangers: they wear mortal seemings, mostly, and the garb of monsters. Sometimes they wear their true forms, that of tall spectres with icy white skin and deathly fingers that conceal hideous claws. Their eyes are black, and their breath is frosty; their kiss brings despair and paralysis. Their master was a spirit of Blizzards in the time that blizzards were born, and when they gather, sharp hailstorms and biting winds follow them. Their bones are made of Dark Ice, ice corrupted into metal by their dread master, a magical thing which cuts any magical thing which touches it. The Ice can be found in the depths of Annwn, where the Unseelie make their spears with it, tempering it with human blood. It is whispered that they are gathering, now, in the Land of Annwn in Arcadia."
"Is that what that mad Irish fart told you?" the girl asked and laughed.
"Pretty much." The boy said and laughed a little too. He fell silent, staring at the crucifix. The church did not welcome his kind, and echoes of some other ages haunted it, of the time before the burning and the Departure. He hugged himself, trying to keep a chill out of his bones. The Christ figure seemed so horrible, like a weight hung over the world, a weight made of pain and sacrifice. The statue�s eyes were deer�s eyes, he thought.
"Adam..." the girl called, softly.
"Someone�s coming."
"Elaine..."
"What?"
"Oh never mind, let�s just play it by ear."
"Hello? Anyone there?" It was a woman�s voice, a little hoarse, a little old.
"Sorry," Elaine called, "We thought it was open."
"Oh, quite all right." the door opened, spilling a last ray of sun inside the church. The sky outside had darkened to deep blue, and the tired warm breeze carried rumours of storm.
The woman was somewhere in middle to old age, with grey hair and an old pinafore skirt. She had a kindly, bright face and quaint, old-fashioned spectacles.
"Young people...it�s nice to see them here." she mused to herself more than anyone else.
"It was open, and we came in, out of the heat."
"Oh, that�s fine, dearie. This is an old, old church, you know. The pagans built it, you know. The stonemasons, they used to take commissions from the priest or the bishop to carve a saint or a Christ, and they made images of their gods instead. Christianity only came to them when they forgot. That Christ is an image of Esus, a druidic wood god, or so I�m told."
"Really," Adam asked, staring at the deer�s eyes on the Crucifix.
"Oh, yes. It�s all quite fascinating," the woman said. "Tourists, are you?"
"In a way, yes..." Elaine answered.
"Pretty young things...I wish I was young again, you know. I would be running around too..."
Adam smiled faintly, and then looked away. There was a new chill in the air, a winter dark cold that lingered in the umbra of the nave.
"So what do you do?" the old woman asked.
"Well," Elaine said, laughing, "Adam is a bit of a singer...and I�m a...well...student." It was a fairly true description, Adam thought. He was a singer, of a sort, now, and she was a student, of a sort. He had spent the previous months making a name for himself in London�s folk clubs, an occupation which provided both a little money and contact with the Werewolves and Faerie changelings who frequented such places. Elaine was a student of all things magical, and for her it was an art.
The old woman coughed, a long painful, raking sound. In the stillness of the church it sounded terribly loud, and Adam could feel her pain. He handed her a handkerchief.
"Oh, I�m sorry..."she said, "It�s just these last few days, I�ve had this terrible chill. I must be getting old."
Elaine laughed. "Hardly!"
The old woman smiled, then coughed again. She reached her hands over her mouth, and then screamed. She began clawing at her skin, her old nails drawing blood. Adam caught her hand.
"It�s all right!! Elaine, what�s wrong with her?"
"No, it�s not all right," the woman shrieked.
Elaine stared at the woman. "Adam!!!"
"What?"
The woman fell silent, then reached up to her hairline calmly, and tore her face off. Her bloodstained hands were changing, her clothes burning away. The grey hair fell away, dripping gore and thick blood.
There was someone else, someone inside the woman.
"Anathea." Elaine whispered.
There was music at first, a music born of winter winds old before the world was young, and the chill nave suddenly knew the true cold. It was the wind echo of the first winter, when the snow was first made, and the things that named it walked the green world grown white. There was darkness too, the inky darkness of a winter night, before a storm blows in. Adam cried out, but his voice was lost in the new gale. For a little time, It seemed that they were standing on a cold hillside, under primeval stars, shivering in the cold wind, off brilliant, distant white-capped mountains. They held each other close, listening to the music, the sound of horns, grow closer.
"Hello, children," said a voice.
Behind them, in the midst of a huge, terrible grey host, she stood.
Elaine shivered. Something cold brushed by her. Long grey tendrils of mist reached in under the church door and swirled around the ruined remains of the old woman. It was those demon-ghosts, Elaine knew. Anathea stood at the centre of it all, her hair bound in starlight, her robes made from the finest spidersilk, her black eyes burning with hatred.
"She was nice, wasn�t she?" Anathea asked, almost laughing, watching Elaine�s horrified face.
"How did you do that?" Adam asked.
"Oh, I just had my pets eat her soul and her insides out, so that I could wear her skin."
"What do you want?" said Adam.
"You, dead. Or at least in great pain." Anathea said, and smiled.
"Humph," Adam said and laughed. "Run away."
"I know you could take me on, now. I am well aware. But, I did not come alone." She gestured and the church doors flung open. Outside, the storm was breaking, the huge thunderheads casting hailstones down onto the sleeping black earth. Lightning rippled amongst the huge clouds, and in that terrible light, Elaine could see figures, maybe six or seven, tall spirits with burning eyes and ice metal claws.
"Foamhr."
"Correct." said Anathea. "They knew you were hunting them, so they asked my masters for my help. It�s over, children. I have fulfilled my oath." Anathea smiled at Elaine.
"No. It�s not over. It�s never over." Adam said. A faerie sword leaped into existence in his hand, slashing out for the changeling. Anathea stepped back, too slowly and caught the sword-stroke in her belly. She crumpled to the ground, whimpering. Adam lifted his sword once more. He could kill her now, destroy her, but that wouldn�t be right. He turned away. Elaine was at the door now, watching, magical fire burning for her hands.
"We won�t be able to take them," she said. "Any one of them could have us both for breakfast."
"Well," he said grimly. "Fuck it, it�s been fun." He kissed her then, holding her tight, trying to remember every detail, the feel of her beside him, the warmth of her skin, the feel of her breath against his hair, everything. For a little while he allowed himself to remember. What it felt like to wake up beside her and know he wasn�t alone, what it felt like to hold her and hear her laugh? He knew the Foamhr were watching them, getting closer, but he didn�t care. He was human and fae, a magician and fell killer. He would give them one last dance and burn their stinking hearts out, and they would remember, know what it was like to see one of the star children in all their glory. When they sat in their chill towers, they would remember and they would doubt.
"I love you Elaine," he whispered, and then kissed her again. She murmured something back to him. He could feel the rime-cold from the Foamhr now as they gathered close, their claws glowing with dull anticipation. "Now, get out of here!!" He pushed her behind him and drew his sword.
He reached his sword to his forehead in salute. The first of the Foamhr, nearly seven feet tall with ice pale skin and black eyes, saluted him back. They were so like the elves, or Sidhe, he thought, beautiful and terrible, but so corrupt.
"Let�s play." Adam called and laughed.
Elaine couldn�t go, couldn�t leave. She hung back in the shadows of the altar, watching. Adam shone with magic as he danced and sang some wild song. The Foamhr were afraid of him, she knew. He was both human and fae, a blend of all the things they feared most in creation, not angels, not Garou, but humans and fae, perhaps the least, perhaps the greatest of all things.
Little by little though, his light dimmed. Little by little, his dance slowed. Little by little his song faltered. The Foamhr were fewer, now, maybe four remaining. But Adam was tiring, his magic burning out, his faerie strength failing. He slashed out one more time and another Foamhr fell, its body resolving itself into ice and gore. The final three closed in. Adam tried to lift his sword one more time, tried to cast off one more spell, but it was over. He smiled then bowed his head.
One of the Foamhr reached out for him and drove its ice claws straight into Adam chest, seeking his heart. Adam�s body slumped. The creature laughed, a laugh that fell into a thick pained gurgle as Adam lifted his sword one more time and drove it through the creature�s throat.
Elaine turned away, padding silently out of the church, past the tired and dazed Foamhr as they fed silently on Adam�s blood and entrails. She would not cry, she told herself, she would not cry. But already her eyes were damp and chill. The sky outside was bright and starry and a fresh autumnal breeze rode in from the north. She began working the magics that would carry her away from there. She didn�t feel the blade pierce her shoulders as she slumped into unconsciousness.
When she awoke, the ghosts were feeding. Anathea stood over her, her wound healing, her eyes filled with dark hate, the remaining Foamhr standing behind her, watching.
"My oath was that you would know true sorrow, little starflower." Anathea said. The ghost�s hands ran along her guts, under her ribcage, cutting and draining. They were reaching for her heart, she knew, so they could pull her soul out and eat it.
"What are these things?" Elaine asked, her breath coming in cold gasps now.
"They are a type of wraith known as a Spectre, twisted using my magic to affect magical things in the living world, as well as in the Underworld." Anathea turned away then, staring out into the rain-damp starry sky. The two Foamhr followed her outside, murmuring amongst themselves in some vile old language. They were fae of some sort, Elaine thought, vaguely, descended from angels and old spirits, but these things were as cruel as winter, and their inhumanity shone in their eyes. She could not hope to beat them, but she could beat Anathea, and she could destroy her pets. They were Spectres, ghosts really, humans once twisted by the storm of eternal night that wracked the lands of the dead. Hit them hard enough, and they would cease being.
Faerie magic was magic of fire and wind and the earth and living things, magic of lies and glamour and madness. Human magic was a magic of secrets and power. She had mastered both.
Anathea smiled at the two Foamhr. They would be departing soon, she hoped, winding their way back to the pits of Malfeas, or their home in the shadows of Sarajevo. The Merinita were interfering in the affairs of mortal and fae again, and she had undone them again. The Sidhe had actually passed onto the Earth last spring, bringing one amongst them who could pass between the worlds with ease, a mortal woman. The woman had then arranged that her own granddaughter be Awakened and initiated into the Merinita. Anathea had been charged with the girl�s turning, or murder. Her masters didn�t really care which.
Something screamed behind her. She turned, hoping to see the girl suffer a little more. Instead, the girl stood, haloed by lambent, magical fire, burning the shades of Anathea�s ghosts.
"It�s not over, Anathea."
"Yes, it is child," the Changeling said. Anathea motioned the two Foamhr forward.
Elaine smiled. She couldn�t win this, but those things would kill her, and then she would be free to follow Adam wherever he had gone. She closed her eyes and waited for the end, as the Foamhr�s ice-claws ripped her spine out.
It never came.
Three gunshots rang out in the night.
Elaine opened her eyes to see the two Foamhr slumped to the ground fighting some hideous pain inside them, and Anathea struggling to stay alive. Behind her, the creature named Ray, his clothes tattered and torn, his face bloodstained, waited. Beside him a poorly dressed man leaned heavily on an oaken staff. It was Mark, his face scarred and bruised, his hair matted with blood and sweat.
Ray opened fire again, hitting the two fallen Foamhr in the head.
"Die." He hissed. The gun clicked, empty. He threw it down and brought his sword into existence. Its fire was dulled and pale, its unearthly metal stained and scratched. With a single, ruthless motion, he sliced the Foamhrs� heads from their shoulders. Another movement and he rammed the sword into the still struggling form of the Changeling Anathea.
Elaine turned away. It was over.
Mark hobbled over to her, smiling grimly.
"Sorry, sorry..."
"What do you want?" Elaine said and tried not to sob.
"We came as quickly as we could." Ray said.
"Not quick enough. Adam�s dead." Elaine whispered. She stared down at his corpse, his pretty face ripped and torn away, his hair matted with gore. She looked away, staring at the cold stars above as they danced in the chill, damp sky.
"It was a trap, Elaine. The thing in the Himalayas. Twenty of us went. They came down upon us at night in Kathmandu... They got everyone... Only Ray, and me we managed to lose them in the Iraqi highlands. We�ve been running since, across the shadow world, into the Scar and past the Abyss..."
Elaine looked up at him.
"It was a trap here too," she said. Elaine stared at Ray. "You. Angel. That�s what you are, isn�t it?"
"I was, once... I was Larael of the Seraphim. I fell."
"Pity about you." Elaine snarled. "Look at you. You�ve stood there, like this, before, haven�t you? A few more sacrifices to the cause? What is your cause, anyway?"
Larael sighed, rubbing his tired, tired eyes.
"My...my people...my lodge, if you like, work to save the human race from the things that hide in the shadows of the world. This is a war...a war which began when the Universe was born, and will only end, when the Universe fades..."
"Elaine." Mark whispered. "I�m so sorry. Adam was my friend too."
"Yeah..." Elaine said. "You had best attend to your wounds. I want to be alone."
At dawn, they came. Elaine had spent the whole night in the churchyard, just walking and thinking, and she was fading fast when dawn greyed the sky. Mark had slept, the first true sleep he had had in months as Larael watched over them, his eyes cold. From the growing sun, came music, ethereal music of the lands beyond. A sunbeam lanced out over the hills, and on that path, the fay rode in.
They were not real, not this time, in this place, but they danced on the slivers of dreams and songs. Only Mark and Elaine saw them, truly, but Larael knew they were there too. At the head of the host, rode the woman named Julia, robed in magic and moonlight. Behind her came twelve Sidhe knights, wearing the token of the summer stars on their brows, carrying spears forged from faerie metal, tempered when the world was young.
"Hello, Granddaughter," Julia said. "And greetings to you Master Lycidas."
Mark bowed, but Elaine simply stood, staring into the dream that surrounded her, proud and grim, her face teared and red.
"The one named Adam has gone beyond," said one of the knights, the tallest. "And the one who was named Anathea has fallen into mortality, and away from the faerie lands. Her mortal form will perish ere the sun reaches noon."
"Good." Elaine said.
"Bind the witches� body into the earth, and allow the roots of the trees and the grass and the graves drain what is left of her away."
The tallest of the knight�s chanted and a mist came down, in that dreamtime and reached out into the mortal lands. The earth changed under the mist, softening like quicksand, pulling the mortal seeming of the Changeling Anathea into its maw. Fungus and algae grew upon the remains of the Foamhr, burning their hideous forms away from the good green earth.
"They were weak creatures," the tallest of the Knights said, whose name was Elenion, a Sidhe Lord of House Gwydion. "They were not full grown. An old Foamhr can duel one of the Lords of the Danu themselves. But the Trueblood did well, nonetheless."
"What happens...what happens when a faerie dies?" Elaine asked.
Julia said nothing, but looked to Elenion for his answer.
"No one knows," he said softly, a look of pain and fear in his ancient eyes. "It was once believed that faerie have no spirits, no souls...but anything with a name has a soul, the druids believed. I believe that too. There is a legend in Arcadia of a land beyond Annwn, a place where dead mortals sometimes travel; sometimes it is said that a dead Moonshadow will journey through there...some say to reincarnate, or to live again, or some even claim that they go to Heaven or to Hell. I do not know..."
The Knight fell silent.
"Say your farewells. We have a dream to give you." Julia commanded.
Larael watched the mage and the Trueblood for a long time as they spoke to some unseen thing. There was magic in the air, old elemental magic. There were faeries here, he knew, and he was not welcome.
"Elaine! Mark! Farewell."
The mage turned to him and waved, then looked back into the dreaming. Elaine simply stared at him for a long while and said: "I hope we do not meet again, Angel."
Larael unsheathed his sword and traced the sigil of passing in the air, and in a curtain of flames, he was gone.
IX
The light fades in the land of dreams. Shadows gather over the seas and lands of the Dreaming; over the mountains and high places where the lords of the Eagles and the Dragons still sleep; over the broken keeps of the Seelie nobles and the chilly citadels of the Unseelie. Darkness comes down on the carrion fields where banshees wail mourning songs for fallen warriors and Banes and other things feed on the corpses of the dead.
Night comes over the tower of the Sun; over the Green Chapel, and over the ancient cities of Somniare. And in the Oldest Garden, night falls, purple and chill.
The Oldest Garden lies at the heart of Faerie, but it is long deserted. In truth it has lain empty and unattended since the mortal world was young. The faded beauty waits in the shadow of the ancient castle, once a marvel in a world of wonders. It too lies empty and forlorn. A lord ruled here once, the greatest lord of the dreamtime. He has gone, now, some say on a journey into the infinite. Perhaps he will return, perhaps not. The Garden glitters in the moonlight; Luna�s silver strands casting long shadows; but no moon hangs in the fey skies. (Faerie lies close to the moon, and its denizens worship her as a queen). A chill wind blows through this overgrown, lonely place.
The Garden lies beside a crossroads; to the west lies the eternal ocean; to the east lies the place where the sun is born each morning. Travel north and you will come at last to the Spiral Tower, where the Unseelie Court gather, a dark places which looks out to the wastes of Annwn, which the Celtic Bards once named Hell. Travel south, and you will walk in fairer climes, warmed by the winds of spring and youth. At the end of that road lies the Citadel of the Stars, the Demesne of the Lord and Lady of the Seelie Court. The journey may take a few minutes, or you may walk �till the ends of forever. The land is bound by old rules, laid down by the Lord who created the Oldest Garden; his heirs rule the two courts, and the land bows to their whims.
If you stood at that crossroads on a night of Autumn fading, you would see a dreaming host come down the road from the Eternal Sea, twelve Faerie knights on horseback, followed by a trio of almost humans. One, a tall young man dressed in a black satin robe, a magician�s sigil about his neck; another a woman who was once old, and at last, a girl with indigo eyes. They had come to this place, wrapped in dreams and magic, and soon they would depart, with the dawning of the sun in their world. But that was many hours away as humans count time, and perhaps half an eternity could pass in Fayrie until then. The woman would stay, because although she was human once, had now given herself totally to the land of dreams. She was there whole, in body and soul; the other two were dreamers, there in spirit, if at all. They would remember little of this at dawn. Faerie guards its secrets jealously. Illusions shroud every truth, and chaos surges like moon driven tides.
The magician was amongst those who claim they know the secrets of Fayrie, one of those children of the sun, humans, who have watched Faerie since the ancient days. The Mages among them call themselves the Merinita, remembering the Faerie wizard of ages past. They know the truth, they claim; of the nine hosts, of the Scorched plains, of the war and the coming of the last winter.
As he watches he plans. He sees little futures for a time: he sees a battle for the gates of Faerie as the Moonshadows battle a mortal warlock who named himself the Strawman; he sees the girl Elaine presented before the Merinita as one of their own. He sees a war between the Faerie in the streets of an American city. Perhaps it is to come, perhaps it has passed. After a while, he simply lets go. Those visions are tenebrous things, like daydreams.
As for the girl, she still mourns, and her sad eyes see things that her hosts would desire hidden. Faerie is dying, killed from without from the fading of magic, burned from within by war. And even as it died, its enemies gathered, drooling for the land of dreaming wonder. He sees other things too. A mage in flight across Europe on a train of spirit; a recorder of horrors in a tower in the land of the dead; a gate made of silver opening. But above it all, the sky changes, the Northern Lights flicker and howl into the silence. The very stars are shifting in the heavens.
The woman watches them both, seeing what they see, and smiles. It has begun, she thinks. In their dreams, in all the dreams of human kind, a world waits to be born. Their story had no beginning. It shall have no ending. But even as Julia muses on that, a bitter chill wind reaps across the bare, dying land. Autumn was here, and winter could not be far behind.
