Лорел Гамильтон - A Stroke Of Midnight

I understood then what he was offering, and with the Goddess riding me, I knew that his blood would return life to the land. He was Amatheon, a god of agriculture, but he was more than that. He was the spark, the quickening, that let the seed grow in the earth. He was that magic bridge between dormant seed, dark earth, and life. His “death” would bring that back to the land.

I shook my head. “I just saved his life, I will not take it now.”

Her voice came from my lips again. “He will not die as men die, but as the corn dies. To rise again, and feed his people.”

“I do not doubt that,” I said, “and if that is your will, so be it, but not by my hand. I work too hard to keep my people alive to start slaughtering them.”

“But this is not real death. This is vision and dream. It is not real flesh and blood that Amatheon offers you.”

Amatheon had opened his eyes and lowered his head and his sword. “The Goddess is right, Princess. This is not a real place, nor are we truly here. My death here would not be true death.”

“You have not seen the visions that I have seen, Amatheon. I dreamt of the chalice and woke with it solid and very real in my bed. I would not slay you here, and find your bleeding corpse in the hallway.”

“Will you leave the land barren?” the voice said, out of my mouth. Having both sides of the conversation coming out of my mouth was a little too psychotic for comfort. And this energy, this Goddess, felt heavier, not just a comforting presence.

“Why are you not happy with me?”

“I am very happy with you, Meredith, happier than I have been with anyone in a very long time.”

“I hear your words, but I feel your… impatience. You are impatient with me, and not about this.”

She thought her response, but I was mortal, and female, and I had to say it out loud. “You think I waste your gifts by trying to solve the murders.”

“You have your human police. Even now Cromm Cruach has them using their science for you.”

It took me a second to realize she was referring to Rhys, his original name.

“Not his real name,” she said with my mouth, “but the last true name he owned.”

“Rhys had a name older even than Cromm Cruach?”

“Once, though few remember.”

I started to ask the name, but I could feel her smile, and she said, “You are distracted by trivialities, Meredith.”

“Forgive me,” I said.

“I do not mean Cromm Cruach’s true name, I mean these deaths. They will be reborn, Child. Why do you mourn them so? Even true death is not an ending. Others can find your murderers and clues, but there are duties that only you can perform, Meredith, only you..”

“And what exactly would those duties be?”

She motioned at Amatheon. “Make my land live.”

Amatheon offered his sword up to me again, and closed his eyes. He put his neck back at an angle where I could have a clean strike.

“You’ve done this before,” I said.

He opened his eyes just enough to look at me. “In vision, and for truth.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Yes.” Then he closed his eyes, and lifted the sword up higher, as if that would make me take it sooner.

“He is a willing sacrifice, Meredith. There is no evil here.”

I shook my head. “How is that you, who have all eternity, are so impatient, and I, who have only a few decades, want to take the longer road?”

In that moment I felt her sigh, and her happiness at the same time. It had been a test of sorts, not of good versus evil, but of the direction this revival of power would take. She had offered me a quicker, more violent way to bring faerie back to its power. I knew with a knowledge as solid as the foundations of the world that Amatheon would die. It would be true death. The fact that he would rise from that grave, and be reborn to his “life,” did not change the fact that it would be my hand that slit his throat. My hand that spilled his blood hot across the earth, across my skin. I gazed down at him as he knelt, eyes closed, face peaceful.

I took the sword by the hilt, and lifted it from his hands. Those hands went to his sides, limp, only a slight tension in the fingers letting me know that he was fighting the impulse to guard himself from the blow.

He had gone from hating me for my mongrel blood to offering me up his pure sidhe flesh, and letting me spill that same pure blood in a hot wash across the ground.

I leaned over him and pressed my mouth to his. His eyes opened, wide and startled. I think the kiss surprised him more than any blow could have. I smiled down at him. “There are other ways to make the grass grow, Amatheon.”

He stared up at me, uncomprehending for a moment. Then the shadow of a smile caressed his lips. “You would refuse the call of the Goddess?”

I shook my head. “Never, but the Goddess comes in many guises. Why choose pain and death when you can have pleasure and life?”

The smile widened just a bit. He unbent his neck from its almost painful offering position, then looked from the sword in one hand to the chalice in the other. “What would you have of me, Princess, Goddess?”

“Oh, no,” she said, and this time it wasn’t my lips. There was a hooded figure not far from us, her feet not touching the bare soil. In fact she was misty, and try as I might, I could not see her clearly. The hand that held the hood close was neither old nor young nor in between. She was all women and no woman. She was the Goddess. “Oh, no, Amatheon, she has made her choice. I will leave her to that decision. She does not need me to finish this task.” She gave a small chuckle that held something of the dryness of an old woman’s voice, the rich melodious sound of a woman in her prime, and the lightness of a girl. “I do not often agree with Andais, but in this I might. Bloody fertility goddesses.” But she laughed again.

“I did not know that Andais still spoke with you, Goddess.”

“I did not stop speaking to my people, they stopped listening to me, and after a time, they could no longer hear my voice. But I never stopped speaking to them. In dreams, or that moment between waking and sleep, there is my voice. In a song, the touch of another’s hand in theirs, I am there. I am Goddess, I am everywhere, and in everything. I cannot leave, nor can you lose me. But you can leave me, and you can turn your back on me.”

“We did not mean to leave you alone, Mother,” Amatheon said.

“I was not alone, Child. I cannot be truly alone, but I can be lonely.”

“What can I do, Mother, to repent?”

“Repentance is an alien concept to us, Amatheon. But if you wish to make it up to me…”

“Yes, Goddess, with all my heart.”

“Make the earth live again, Amatheon. Spread your seed over that which is barren, and make it live again.” She began to fade like mist in the sun.

“Goddess,” he said.

Her voice floated to us. “Yes, Child.”

“Will I see you again?”

Just her voice now, young and old at the same time. “In the face of every woman you meet.” And she was gone.

He gazed at the spot where she had been, and only when I let the sword fall to the ground did he turn to me.

“What would you have of me, Princess? I am yours in any way you want me. Whether by my life, my blood, or my strong right arm, I will serve you.”

“You sound as if you’re about to pledge me your sacred honor like some knight of old.”

“I am a knight of old, Meredith, and if it is my honor you want, you may have it.”

“You told Adair you had no honor, that the queen had taken it with your hair.”

“I have touched the chalice and seen the face of the Goddess. Such blessings are not given to the unworthy.”

“Are you saying your honor is intact because the Goddess treated you as one who is honorable?”