right now. “So I’m basically burning up all my energy trying to stay alive in a place that doesn’t allow life. And you’re the most external part of my energy, so you’re burning first. I’m sorry. All I’m trying to do is survive.”
God. I crouched, hands knotted more tightly. “You died a hundred years ago. I’m sorry, but you lost your chance. It’s way past time to stop fighting.” I didn’t even know how the thing could
It—she—kicked and flailed and screamed, a thin sound with almost no strength to it. I felt every punch and twist in my gut, part of me sharing her fight more literally than I liked. She got smaller, energy fading, and I curled her against my chest, mouth lowered against her head while I murmured apologies for refusing to save a life that wasn’t meant to be. I wasn’t even sure the magic would let me if I could reach it; it hadn’t let me heal Colin Johannsen, or even fix the thin cut on my cheek. Some things weren’t meant to be made better. Weary tears slid down my cheeks as Matilda shrank away. She hadn’t deserved to die a hundred years ago, and now she didn’t deserve to live. Somebody was going to pay, even if I had to walk into that damn cauldron myself, and smash it from within.
I whispered, “I’m sorry,” again at the last. Matilda winked out, and I was once more alone in the dark.
Only then did I wonder how Cernunnos would know it was time to free me.
CHAPTER 19
I was sitting with my arms looped around my knees, head lowered, when the light came back. It looked like a position of defeat, but I was thinking more in terms of least amount of energy expended. Being vewy vewy quiet while I waited for a god to drop in and perform a rescue seemed like the optimum choice. Besides, though I’d gotten a good night’s sleep, there was something almost soothing about total sensory deprivation. As long as it didn’t kill me, I kind of didn’t mind drifting in it for a while.
Energy came rushing back with the light, making me feel like I’d drunk three cups of my beloved amaretto- flavored coffee. I popped to my feet, totally invigorated, and discovered I stood on a little island of earth that was completely separated from the world around it. I mean totally: it, and therefore I, was floating a few inches above the ground. It, and therefore I, wobbled precariously when I leaped to my feet, and I spread my arms to keep from falling. “Holy shit! What’d you do?”
“I cut you away from this world as much as I removed you from your own.” My clod of earth thumped back down into place, and Cernunnos sank to the ground with it. He looked exhausted. As a god, he was ageless, but time had marked his face, drawing deep lines through sharp features. Even the stars in his hair seemed dimmer, making him grayer than ash, and the green fire in his eyes was dull, hardly even embers. “There was no other way to free you from your parasite.”
My skin tingled with enthusiasm that my thoughts didn’t share, power running at full tilt. I’d burned Matilda up, maybe, but that only meant she wasn’t draining me dry. Without her using my fuel, I felt over-primed, suddenly sharp and alive and edgy. “What happened to you?”
“A deeper magic than yours lent that creature the false hope of life, little shaman. You sustained it, fed it, but your mortal depth, rich as it may be, could never have given birth to it.” Cernunnos lifted his head as though it bore the full weight of his crown of horns. “I rule the Hunt, Siobhán Walkingstick. Death is my domain, and once, before the boy was born, I may have thought myself its master. I have learned better, and had never seen that which could force death to bend its knee.”
I whispered, “But you’re a god. What’s greater than that? What happened, Cernunnos? You look…” I trailed off, then let myself choose a weak word, one that came nowhere near the truth of how he looked: “You look tired.”
All around me, Tir na nOg reflected the state of its god. The mists were heavier, and green-leafed trees had turned to brown. The air smelled of dust and rotting earth, like a graveyard. I dropped to my knees and buried my fingers in the cracked dirt, much as I’d done very recently in my own garden, and wondered, half seriously, if this whole world was Cernunnos’s garden.
“Stripping your power from your black rider bared its genesis to me.” A glint of humor brightened his eyes, if only briefly. “Some things not even gods are meant to see, little shaman. Be glad it was I who cut you away from all the worlds, for if you’d tried it yourself, you would soon be buried here, in the soft damp earth of Tir na nOg.”
“But the ground is dry.” That seemed terribly important somehow, the bits of dirt that crumbled under the pressure from my fingers. This world’s peace was in its misty shadows and whispering trees. The vitality shouldn’t drain out of it like water through a sieve. “What did you see? The cauldron?”
“Its maker,” Cernunnos said, “its master.” He curled up on the yellowing grass, tucking his head around more like a deer than a man, as though seeking comfort and warmth from his own body. “The boy will take the lead in the Hunt, Siobhán Walkingstick, and it will, as ever, need its thirteenth to ride with it. Join them now, little shaman, thy life for mine.”
I lowered my head, fingers knotting deeper in the earth. My first journeys into the astral plane had brought me through a wonderland of color and spirit, from snowy, white blossoming trees to pathways cutting through mountains. There had been a cave off to my left, always off to my left, as though it was connected to my heart, and within that cave was a presence. I didn’t know who or what he was, only that he was infinitely powerful, and that he regarded me as an amusing trinket to be dealt with in some indeterminate future. His very existence compelled me to seek him out, though the first time I’d crossed through there I’d been just barely smart enough not to. The second time, my dead mother had utterly kicked my pansy ass to prevent me from going to him.
A banshee had named it the Master, right before I’d ripped its shrieky banshee head off. Since then, I’d barely encountered him in my astral travels, and nothing I’d faced had mentioned it. Not until now, anyway. Cernunnos hadn’t made the word
Something had made the cauldron, once upon a time. Something strong enough to kill a god, and the banshee’s master was a thing of death magic, feeding on blood and fear. It fit. It fit very well, and it filled me with rage that surpassed crimson and spilled to silver-blue and white.
“I’m sorry, my lord master of the Hunt.” My own voice sounded bewilderingly distant and hollow, as if it had been filtered through light and come out the other side stronger for its journey. “I’m sorry, but that’s just not going to happen. Tell me something. This thing you saw. Where was it?”
For the second time I wished I knew the god’s true name. The land was almost dead now, blackened and raw. All the trees were shadows of themselves, and the Hunt itself, dogs and Riders and rooks, stood amongst the thin stick forms, waiting on a changing of the guard. “Cernunnos, answer me!”
He caught a slow breath, the kind that spoke of unwelcome wakenings, then murmured, “Buried. Buried behind a wall of stone, and still a glance was enough to strip me down to this. I’m weary, little shaman. Let me rest.”
I dug my fingernails into the ground until dirt pushed back, making the quick hurt, and grated, “Not on my watch.”
All that lovely fresh revitalized power pulsed out of me in a heartbeat burst of oil-slick color. Once, then again, and again, every thump inside my chest pressing life back into dying soil. I didn’t know how big this world was, if it disappeared into the mist a few yards away and melted into nothing, or if it hung between the stars like another earth. I could never pour enough into a planet to ensure its survival, so I didn’t let myself think about it. My heartbeats started coming slower after a while, but the grass around my fingers grew deep, and the earth softened again.
I might very well have killed myself trying to rescue a world, if exhaustion hadn’t put me to sleep first.
