C. E. Murphy - No Dominion - A Garrison Report

He couldn’t take the memories that were still on the way, the ones about Annie’s funeral, the ones about Joanne and Cernunnos and all the other things still lying in my future, but he could take everything up ‘til this minute. He could steal everything about my life that had made it something other than ordinary. My memories unraveled faster an’ faster, re-weaving themselves into a life a lot like my own, except without the touches of magic. I clawed at ‘em, tryin’ ta hold on, knowing it wasn’t right that Annie’s Pop had been a regular fella, but not able to remember what had made him different, an’ then losing hold of the idea that he’d been different at all.

It all fell apart, until the Korean War dreams were just nightmares like anybody got, until that trip we’d finally taken to Pamplona was only a vacation, and didn’t have nothing to do with chasing minotaurs through cobblestone alleys. Until the secret of Annie’s surviving almost being hit by a car was ‘cause she’d tripped over a stone, not ‘cause Cernunnos had knocked her aside, an’ until every last drop of magic had been squeezed outta my life.

Every last drop but Annie. He might be able to take her away from me, but he couldn’t take the magic we’d had together. Her kinda magic was the most ordinary, simple thing anybody ever had. She was the love of my life, and nothing could touch that. I held onta that as tight as I was holding her, and watched the clock click forward another minute.

The way my memory had it, she’d slipped into sleep a long while before death came knocking. But she was leaning forward, breathin’ hard—clear breaths, not coughing—and her muscles were bunching and loosing like she was running with that cheetah, or maybe with the stag. I got the idea the stag was gonna win, ‘cause cheetahs couldn’t keep up their top speed real long, but that was laying the limitations of a real animal on a spirit guide. Whatever was going on with the power animals, they were fighting for Annie, dragging her forward. That was my girl, holding on, making this whole thing her own fight, taking it on her own terms. A bright spark of hope crashed through me. Something was changing. At the last damned minute, just like Cernunnos had said. At the last chance. That was when to make the move.

I stood up, barely knowing I was doing it, and said, “Horns,” out loud, calling myself to his attention for the first time in fifty years. “Horns, I donno what’s gonna happen, I got nothin’, I got nothin ’, but we’re in overtime on the clock and my memories are slipping away—”

I was losing what I was saying even as I said it, sometimes wondering who I was even talking to. I sat with Annie again, folding her into my arms and whispering another prayer to the only god I knew. Half the time I didn’t know what I was saying, except I knew I was holding on to hope the same way Annie was. An’ seven minutes after she was s’posed to have left me, a church bell started ringing, marking out the transition into a brand new day. I put my mouth against Annie’s hair, murmuring, “Tis the witching hour of night, doll. Everything changes in the witchin’ hours.”

And Cernunnos came riding, up to the old inn-door.

There was no door on this or any other earth that was gonna stop him from coming in. Truth was, I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten in, poetry or no, ‘cause the wall just kinda melted away as he came through. Him an’ that big silver stallion, filling up our bedroom. It stamped its feet, making the floor rattle, an’ I swear to God that for all of the size of the thing, all of the presence of the god, I couldn’t hardly see either of ‘em. They kept slipping and sliding in my vision like they were imaginary, like they were marching through a dream.

Annie saw him, though, an’ gave a cry that most guys might not want to hear their girls make when another fella is in the room. All kinds of relief was in that sound, and a sob caught in her throat. I couldn’t hear nothin’ beyond that, ‘cause a growl was rising all around, like a big cat with its back up. If Cernunnos was talking, I couldn’t see it, either. There was silver light playing everywhere, an’ the god’s green eyes burning like fire. It was early in the year for him to be riding at all, but his horns were full like a stag’s in its prime, and Annie put her hands out to him—

—and at one minute after midnight, Cernunnos pulled me outta the life I’d been leading, an’ dropped me back into the heart of the Wild Hunt.

“What happened ? What the hell happened ? Horns !” I was back to myself, sitting on Imelda’s back and carryin’ Jo’s rapier at my side. I wasn’t wearing the mithrail armor anymore, but Horns had never planned on me keeping it anyway. The Hunt was gathered in what looked a lot like my front yard, though moonlight was shining through ‘em and neither the horses nor the hounds were making any kinda audible sound. Everything else was normal, except I couldn’t hardly remember the past couple minutes or make sense of the mess of memory that’d been my life. “There was light, goddamn it, Cernunnos, did Annie go into the damned light ?”

“She did.” The whole Hunt was movin’ around us, riders I’d known for half of forever now. The boy was on his gold mare, the two of ‘em the only point of stillness in the yard. Even Cernunnos was moving, his big stallion edgy and eying me like I was something new. Horns himself was looking like the cat that got the canary, green fire burning in his eyes an’ a wicked little smile curving his mouth. “She went into the light, Master Muldoon, and I think we can be assured that was not the fate the Devourer intended for her.”

“ Well where the hell does the light come out ?” I sounded a lot like Jo, asking crazy questions that couldn’t have answers, but I could barely see through the silver rising in my eyes and the sickness boiling in my belly. I’d spent the past four years remembering my whole life wrong, an’ after all of it I still didn’t know if I’d saved the girl. There wasn’t a goddamned thing that mattered if I hadn’t.

Some of the wickedness left Horns’s face an’ he shook his head. “I could not bring you there even if I wished to. You are not yet ready to take the final ride with me, and when you are I may be able to offer you a different path than the one you might imagine yours to take. Once I led thousands through the darkness, Master Muldoon. Now there are few who call for me in the end, but so long as they burn as brightly as you and your woman have burned, I will never fade from mortal memory.”

“This ain’t about you, Horns. Annie—you mean, Annie—” I ran outta words, my hands going numb on Imelda’s reins.

“There were other spirits who might have helped her through the last days of her sickness. Others with an affinity for the sagebrush which helps to clear the lungs and is sacred to healers. But the stag is more than my creature. It is a part of my essence, and she rejected the others that came and waited for the stag instead. Of course I came for her myself, though I bent time to do it.”

“We ain’t supposed ta be able to mess with the time line that way.” I didn’t have much voice, but Horns heard me clear enough, an’ looked like he thought I was joking.

“You weren’t supposed to steal her a few extra minutes of life, either, Master Muldoon. We waited until the very end for just these reasons, did we not? To risk all, and to strike a blow against the Devourer just far enough out of time that he could not retaliate. She lies beyond your reach now, but that has been true as long as you have known me. You spoke words to her, earlier. A poet’s words, I think, as you prepared to journey into the spirit realms.”