It still lay within him, the depths of the great woods, buried beneath centuries of pain. Once noticed, the ancient strength of growing things flared up like a challenge. It lit him from the inside, showing all the cracks and flaws in his character, just as my own spiderweb of broken glass did to me. Herne howled and flung his arms up, an action of denial even as his hands curved as if to pull all the power and strength of the woods into himself. He stood frozen like that for what seemed a brief eternity, and then the lure of power was too great for him to resist. He grasped at it, and something fundamental changed in the world.
A roar surfaced, so loud it threatened my eardrums, so loud it seemed impossible that everyone could not hear it. It was the sound of welcome, of green things recognizing the touch of their protector, and it went on and on.
Even with the onslaught of power and welcome from the earth, it took a terribly long time to delve into Herne’s dearly held grievances and draw them out. But I had made him listen, for one brief moment. Long enough to begin a change somewhere deep within him, and once begun, I neither could nor would stop until the healing was complete. The power within me exulted, shooting sparks through my body that kept me on my feet much longer than I thought I could manage. There was joy in the healing, empty places inside me filling with relief and purpose that I’d never known I was missing.
I went at Herne mindlessly, stripping away lies: Richard had not betrayed him; Cernunnos had not abandoned him. Herne shrieked with rage and pain, fighting to cling to the lies and the life he’d built around them.
Adina. The essence of the woman rolled over me, through us, and for a moment it seemed like she stood with us at the carousel, expression sad. She had known, of course, that her husband had power, and more, that he had been in great pain. But she was no more able to see through the veil Herne constructed than I had been. I was grateful, very briefly, that I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t recognize Herne and his power instantly, even if I’d been convinced I could. Adina seemed to share a sad, wry smile with me, and then she was gone.
With her departure went the tangled remains of Herne’s pain. I realized with a shock that we were tearing down even the links that held soul to body, and drew back, alarmed.
“Let it go.” As with Cernunnos, I wasn’t sure if the words were spoken aloud or inside my head, but they were said with tired confidence. I hesitated, and Herne repeated himself more insistently: “Let it go.”
He stood in front of me, hands spread a little. The pale-skinned half god was gone. In his place was a woodling god, skin dark and gnarled as an oak tree, fingers knotty and a little too long. Looking at his face was difficult, like finding faces in tree trunks. The pale brown hair had thickened, darkened, flowing back from his face in knots and tangles. Even his colors, the otherworldly light from within, had deepened, into rich browns and dark greens, the color of good soil and summer leaves. In the half-light, only his eyes were the same, brilliant emerald-green. The betrayal in those eyes had been replaced by loss and an ancient sadness.
“Did you have the right to do this?” he asked, and his voice scraped, like rough bark being torn.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I couldn’t have if you hadn’t agreed. Hadn’t helped me. All I did was make you see.”
“I feel no peace,” the Green Man said. I tilted my head.
“I don’t think it comes that easily. Still, you’ve got all the time in the world.”
Herne laughed, wind through leaves. “Sever the last bonds,
I looked down at the shallowly breathing body. Only a few threads still held the tree spirit to the physical form. I put my hand on Herne’s chest and looked up at the godling one more time to be certain. He nodded.
I drew the rapier and swung it in a low phantom loop just above Kevin Sadler’s body. The threads leaped free, coiling up into Herne as fast as released springs.
A ball of pure light erupted, expanded beyond the carousel in a flare of shocking brilliance, as white as a nuclear bomb. It collapsed back in on itself in the same instant, and the Green Man was gone.
* * *
I woke up a little while later with Gary crouching over me. The Center was dark, the lights on the Space Needle blacked out. I wasn’t seeing in two worlds anymore, but the Wild Hunt still milled around, bearing with them their own unearthly light. “You’re dying,” I accused. Gary grinned.
“Not anymore.”
“Oh, good,” I said faintly. “How’d that happen?” I shifted a shoulder tentatively. The line of fire in my back had disappeared. “I missed something, didn’t I? What happened to the lights?”
“They went out when you grabbed Suzanne,” Gary answered, taking the questions in the opposite order. “All over the place.”
Oh. That maybe explained how I’d kept on my feet, metaphysically speaking. I’d borrowed the whole city’s power. I hoped I hadn’t hurt anybody. “And you’re not dead because…?”
“Big ball of light,” Gary reported. “Weirdest damned thing I ever saw. I could see you lying down on the job over here and standing nose to nose with Herne at the same time. You swung the sword and he lit up and you faded away. Thought you were dead. Then the light faded and everybody was patched up. Was that you or him?”
“I dunno.” I sat up carefully. Suzanne Quinley was kneeling by the extraordinarily ordinary body of Kevin Sadler, sightlessly rocking forward and back. I glanced at Gary, then climbed to my feet and walked to the girl in an almost straight line. “Suzanne?”
“My parents are dead, aren’t they,” she said in the same thin soprano I remembered from the theatre.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“He killed them. My sperm dad killed them.”
“Yeah,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say.
“Why?”
God. What a question. “Someone hurt him a long time ago,” I said slowly. “I think maybe it drove him insane. He was trying to protect himself from being hurt again.”
Suzanne swallowed and looked up at me, then climbed to her feet. “He was trying to steal my soul, wasn’t he? Could he do that? What was he?”
I rubbed my breastbone. “Do you really want the answer to that?”
She gave me a scornful look. “I saw what happened. He turned into a…spirit-thing. What was he?”
“A demigod,” Cernunnos said from a few yards away. His stallion stood stone still, radiating impatience to be off. “His name was Herne, and he was my son.”
“He still is your son,” I mumbled. “Just a little less corporeal.”
“So you’re my grandfather.” Suzanne ignored me. Cernunnos blinked, taken aback.
“We must go, Father,” the youngest Rider said quietly. Cernunnos glanced at the boy, then back at Suzanne.
“I am,” he agreed, and shot me a look of venom. “But I am bound to another world, granddaughter, and I cannot stay.”
“Will I ever see you again?” Suzanne sounded very young and alone. I bit my lower lip. Cernunnos looked back at the young Rider, who smiled.
“At the hour of your birth, each and every year until your mortal life ends, we will greet you, if only for a moment, niece. I will lead the Hunt to you. Only do not fear us, and all will be well.”
Suzanne lifted her chin and nodded, green eyes wide. “I’ll see you next year, then,” she whispered, and looked down at the body at her feet. Anger set her jaw, and she drew one foot back and kicked Kevin Sadler’s body in the ribs, hard. Then, chin lifted again, she stepped over the body with immense dignity and walked away from the carousel, pausing for one moment to put her hand on the nose of the pale horse she’d ridden. Then she stepped down and began walking across the Center grounds back toward the parking lot. It was only then that I noticed red-and-blue flashes of light and the approaching sound of sirens, and closed my eyes. It was all over but the yelling.
“Not quite yet,
“Oh, no,” I said out loud, and opened my eyes again. Standing on the carousel, I wasn’t at eye level with the god, but at least I didn’t have to crane my neck too badly to meet his eye. “Go away,” I said, and flapped a hand. “I won. Go ride. You don’t have a lot of time.”
“More than you think,” the young Rider said. “We count the days from dusk to dusk. Still, waste no more
