Caroline Spector - Worlds Without End

From high in the sky, a bird cries out. I look up, shadowing my eyes with my hand. It begins a slow descent, circling around and around. Black with yel- low wing-tips.

I hear a shout and turn. The sky has turned dark as ink and rain slices down.

Standing next to our small stone house are my son and an old man. Somehow I have missed something. Something important, something I must understand. Then the man drags my son into the house. The door slams shut. An eternity passes, and then a crimson pool seeps slowly under the door.

Tears ran down my face.

"Mother, did we make you weep?" asked one of the spriggans. He looked at me with a concerned ex- pression, then burst into laughter.

"No, no," said another. "She only cries for her dead children. The rest of us must shift for our- selves."

"That's enough of this nonsense," I said loudly. I was having trouble breathing. After all, I was getting awfully old for this sort of thing. "This is a ridicu- lous game. Tell me what I need to know. Now."

This caused nothing but giggles from them.

"You know it's no good demanding anything from us," they said. "We always do what we will. Disobe- dient children."

And then they spun me around faster.

The room is spinning. The fire in the hearth is hot and I feel as though it's burning my bare skin. I'm burning up. Hotter and hotter until I think I'll go mad from it. Maybe I already have.

Pain blossoms bright inside me. I shut my eyes and see red against black. Hands touch me trying to soothe, but it is no use. There are some things for which there is no balm.

Then the pain is over. They bring me something bundled up.

I hold my arms out to receive this gift. I pull back the blanket. Inside is a horrible apparition.

"This is not my baby," I cry. "What have you done with my baby?"

They take the bundle away from me.

"It's a changeling," says one in a voice she thinks 86

is too soft for me to hear. "The faeries have stolen her baby."

"You can't blame us. Mother," said the spriggan. "That was your own doing."

"Oh, be quiet," I snapped. The spriggan skulked away.

Sweat ran down my face. I was growing tired of their games.

"Tell me where they are," I said.

"Patience, Mother," they replied.

I'm running away. The earth rushes below me as I fly. Cradled in my arms is a child. This is no changeling, but my own flesh and blood.

At last we come to our home. Inside, the air is stale and musty. But that doesn't matter because we are home and safe.

The storms come. Rain pounds against the roof and makes the windows "rattle. But we don't mind, we're warm and dry. Then I remember, someone is coming. Coming for us.

The door slams open. He is here. But he's not the real threat. I don't realize this until it's too late.

Foolish foolish woman.

Something jerked me.

Someone.

Caimbeui had hauled me from the dance. Looking down, I saw I no longer wore the petal gown. Just my own gray sweater and black jeans. Orange streaks colored the sky to the east. 87

"Why did you do that?" I asked.

"I just now found you."

"What?"

"You went running off, and I couldn't find you for three days," he said angrily. "Do you think I enjoyed tramping all over this jerkwater place? I used up a hell of a lot of goodwill trying to figure out where they took you. Not to mention the energy."

"Thanks," I said.

"Thanks? Thanks. She said, 'Thanks.' Is that it?"

He was beginning to annoy me. I was searching the ground trying to see if they'd left anything be- hind for me to go on. And all he was doing was blathering away.

"Yes, thanks for coming after me. What do you want. Harlequin?"

"Perhaps some gratitude," he said. "I've been all over Connaught looking for you. It's taken a hell of a lot of casting to locate you."

"I hope you're up to some more," I said.

"Why?" A suspicious look crossed his face.

"Because the only way I know now to reach the Court is by calling up the Hunt."

He looked a little pale. I was glad to see he still had some respect for the old ways.

"The Chasse Artu?"

"Yes," I said, feeling a little happier at the thought. "The Wild Hunt. It's been so long since I've called one, let alone two. We really must make preparations."

"Are you mad? You can't possibly call up the Hunt yourself," he said. There was a frightened look 88

in his eye. "It would take more power than you or I possess, even combined, not to mention the time in- volved."

I smiled. "Of course I can't call up the entire Hunt myself. No one could. But I can bring up the steeds. Come along. I'll sleep while you drive. By the way, where are we?"

There is a barren plain. No grass grows here. No tree mars the vastness of land. Only the long unbro- ken earth stretching out beneath the sickly yellow

sky.

A moon hangs large and low. It casts a green glow and turns her skin the color of illness.

Of death.

When I woke, it was getting near dark. The sun rested low on the horizon, showing its face for the first time since we'd come to the Tir. Caimbeui had turned the vid to some music station as he drove. The vid flickered and changed, turning his pale face a rainbow of colors.

It took me a moment to orient myself. I felt groggy and irritated at the sensation. My scalp itched and my eyes felt gritty. A few hours of sleep to make up for the three days I'd missed weren't enough.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Just south of Galway City," he replied.

"Has it changed much?" I asked.

"Has what changed?"

"Galway City."

"Compared to what?"

"Compared to what it was before the Awakening." "A bit," he said. "The old ways have taken hold pretty firmly there."

I pulled my bag out from under the front seat and began rummaging through it. Gum wrappers, ciga- rettes, shoelaces-then I found it: a small tin whis- tle. It rode on a thin copper necklace that I slipped over my head and nestled down between my breasts. I looked out at the passing countryside.

It had gone wild here. No fences marked property lines. The roads were mostly unpaved, little more than dirt ruts. It reminded me of a time long ago, long before this world. Back when another world was young. No, it was me who was young then.

I remembered what happened in that place so long ago. How could I ever forget? And now it seemed that the mistakes of the past would be repeated. This world would be torn apart unless I stopped them. Unless I stopped him.

Just as the sun was setting, I saw the place. Stone tombs silhouetted against the red sky.

"Pull over here," I said.

Caimbeui slowed the car.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I can't feel any- thing…"

"It'll do. This place is lousy with caims. The whole area is Awakened."

A blast of cool air hit me when I opened the car door. The magic was heavy here. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Then I noticed a strange feeling I hadn't had in a time out of mind: excitement. Things couldn't be worse, yet I felt alive for the first time in years. Had the centuries finally worn me down? I knew they had for some of the others. Some until they resorted to terrible means to stop the emptiness.

'But I had a reason to live. I knew my purpose. It was a sacred task. To keep the world safe. To protect it. To protect the people in it. Or so I'd told myself.

As I started for the tombs, Caimbeui grabbed my arm.

"Are you certain this is the only way?" he asked.

I turned and looked at him. In the flat red twilight his face looked like the very vision of Lucifer. A dark, yet beautiful, angel.

"Why, Caimbeui, I almost think you care," I said.

He frowned. "Don't be flip," he said. "If Ysrth- grathe has found you… how can you be safe?"