Fiddler Fair (anthology)

She half-dragged, half-guided the witch-girl towards that promise of light, with the beast bellowing ­behind them. The thought crossed her mind that if she dropped the girl and left her, the beast would probably be content with the witch and would not chase after Leonie. . . .

No, she told herself, and stumbled onward.

They broke into the light, and Leonie looked up—

And sank to her knees in wonder.

Elfrida fell beside the other girl, half blinded by tears of pain, and tried to get to her feet. The beast—she had to help Leonie up, they had to run—

Then she looked up.

 And fell again to her knees, this time stricken not with pain, but with awe. And though she had never felt power before, she felt it now; humming through her, blood and bone, saw it in the vibration of the air, in the purity of the light streaming from the Cup—

The Cup held in the hand of a man, whose gentle, sad eyes told of the pain, not only of His own, but of the world’s, that for the sake of the world, He carried on His own shoulders.

Leonie wept, tears of mingled joy and fear—joy to be in the Presence of One who was all of Light and Love, and fear, that this One was She and not He—and the thing that she held, spilling over the Light of Love and Healing was Cauldron and not Cup.

I was wrong— she thought, helplessly.

Wrong? said a loving, laughing Voice. Or simply—limited in vision?

And in that moment, the Cauldron became a Cup, and the Lady became the Lord, Jesu—then changed again, to a man of strange, draped robes and slanted eyes, who held neither Cup nor Cauldron, but a cup-shaped Flower with a jeweled heart—a hawk-headed creature with a glowing stone in His hand—a black-skinned Woman with a bright Bird—

And then to another shape, and another, until her eyes were dazzled and her spirit dizzied, and she looked away, into the eyes of Elfrida. The witch-girl—Wise Girl whispered the Voice in her mind, and Quest-Companion—looked similarly dazzled, but the joy in her face must surely mirror Leonie’s. The girl offered her hand, and Leonie took it, and they turned again to face—

A Being of light, neither male nor female, and a dazzling Cup as large as a Cauldron, the veil covering it barely dimming its brilliance.

Come, the Being said, you have proved yourselves worthy.

Hand in hand, the two newest Grail Maidens rose, and followed the shining beacon into the Light.

Once and Future

It was inevitable that the Holy Grail anthology would spawn an Excalibur anthology. I kept promising to write the story and things got in the way . . . like other deadlines! But bless their hearts, they held a place for me, and here is the story itself. It’s not at all like the Grail story; in fact, it’s not a very heroic story, which may surprise some people.

Michael O’Murphy woke with the mother of all hangovers splitting his head in half, churning up his stomach like a winter storm off the Orkneys, and a companion in his bed.

What in Jaysus did I do last night?

The pain in his head began just above his eyes, wrapped around the sides, and met in the back. His stomach did not bear thinking about. His ­companion was long, cold, and unmoving, but very heavy.

I took a board to bed? Was I that hard up for a sheila? Michael, you’re slipping!

He was lying on his side, as always. The unknown object was at his back. At the moment it was no more identifiable than a hard presence along his spine, uncomfortable and unyielding. He wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to find out exactly what it was until he mentally retraced his steps of the previous evening. Granted, this was irrational, but a man with the mother of all hangovers is not a rational being.

The reason for his monumental drunk was clear enough in his mind; the pink slip from his job at the docks, presented to him by the foreman at the end of the day. That would be yesterday, Friday, if I haven’t slept the weekend through.

He wasn’t the only bloke cashiered yesterday; they’d laid off half the men at the shipyard. So it’s back on the dole, and thank God Almighty I didn’t get serious with that little bird I met on holiday. Last thing I need is a woman nagging at me for losing me job and it wasn’t even me own fault. Depression piled atop the splitting head and the foul stomach. Michael O’Murphy was not the sort of man who accepted the dole with any kind of grace other than ill.

He cracked his right eye open, winced at the stab of light that penetrated into his cranium, and squinted at the floor beside his bed.

Yes, there was the pink slip, crumpled into a wad, beside his boots—and two bottles of Jameson’s, one empty, the other half full and frugally corked.

Holy Mary Mother of God. I don’t remember sharing out that often, so I must’ve drunk most of it myself. No wonder I feel like a walk through Purgatory.

He closed his eye again, and allowed the whiskey bottle to jog a few more memories loose. So, he’d been