S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

They vanished, and he was Rudi Mackenzie once again, crying out with grief and loss for an instant.

Then he gained command of himself; what he had. . not seen, there was nothing for light to reflect off in that place, but somehow apprehended, fled like a dream. It was too big to remember.

Instead he was in a forest. A real forest, as far as he could tell, though not of trees he was very familiar with; he could see the great trunks rising around him like reddish pillars upholding the sky, smell a green spiciness, hear the trickle of falling water. Light speared down between the needled boughs so far above, and smaller plants reached for it. Birds whistled and chirped, and insects buzzed; a hummingbird circled him in blue iridescence and then departed. He turned and walked along the creek that tumbled over lustrous brown stream-polished stones, conscious that he was no longer wearing the battered, blood-spattered armor or the sweat-stinking arming doublet below; instead he was in kilt and knee-hose and schoon, saffron-dyed linen shirt and plaid pinned over his shoulder.

The sun was slanting to the westward, and the air grew a little colder. The light was golden-somehow, more real than a nugget of the metal itself, be it polished never so bright. He walked in a dream, but it was more real than the waking world. Suddenly he dropped his hand to the pommel of the Sword of the Lady at his right hip. It was thee, but. .

It feels. . at home. Without that sense that the world might rip around it. Here, the world itself is like that. More real, more itself. Myself it is that feels fragile and not-quite-real.

A fire flickered through the gathering dusk. He walked into the circle of its light, his feet soft on the duff and fallen ferns.

“Ladies,” he said, with a deep bow.

As once before on Nantucket, there were Three. This time he knew all the faces. The youngest was his sister Fiorbhinn, a maiden of a little more than twelve summers; slender but strong, breasts just beginning to bud beneath her pale gown, white-blond hair torrenting down on her shoulders, and a small harp on her knee. The huge pale blue eyes met his, depths within depths. .

He took a deep breath and looked at the others; Mathilda, her slightly irregular face beautiful as she looked down at the swaddled form of Órlaith on her knee, and his mother Juniper-but not the hale, graying figure of eight-and-fifty that he knew in this twenty-eighth year of the Change. This woman in tunic and arsaid was Juniper Mackenzie as she might be in the years of her deep age, hair snowy, face deeply lined, a little stooped as she leaned on the carved rowan staff of a High Priestess topped by the silver moon waxing and full and waning. The leaf-green eyes were nearly the same, warm and kind.

“Are-” he began, then stopped. Maiden, Mother, Crone, he thought. Of course. How otherwise?

Fiorbhinn laughed. “Of course we are who we seem. All our seemings. And not. Time is different here.”

“And there are no words for it all,” Rudi said patiently. “I’m no longer angry at that. Irritated, perhaps.”

All three of the Ladies smiled. The youngest spoke again:

“If we could explain-”

“You would, yes.” A thought occurred to him. “Was that place. . that place I was. . was that how this really is?”

His nod took in the forest, and the frosted glory of stars that was showing overhead, brighter and more colorful than any he had ever seen, even in glimpses beneath the black swaying shapes of the treetops.

His mother spoke. “No. That was the. . heaven, you might say. . the dream of the Powers behind the CUT. Behind many another dream of men. Dreams of order and of knowledge. . in the beginning.”

He blinked, shocked. Mathilda spoke: “You’ve been told before, that here this is not a war between good and evil.”

“It most certainly is in the world of common day!” Rudi said, and they all looked at him with fondness clear in their eyes.

“Yes, it is,” Juniper said. “That is the shadow it throws there, and those in the cave see it upon the wall. And it is true, what they see. But. . let me ask you: which is better, the utterly particular, or the absolutely infinite? Immanence or transcendence?”

“I’m tired of shadows!” Rudi said. “And-with respect-tired of moving amid forces the which I cannot understand!”

“You may understand if you will, brother,” Fiorbhinn. . possibly Fiorbhinn said, her voice as her name, truesweet. “That is why you are here, to make that choice.”

He looked up again, and the stars spoke ; if only he could read that vast slow dance it would be everything . Rest that was high adventure, infinite knowledge that was just a beginning, home and a journey without end. .

Mathilda spoke. “You have done everything you were born to do, my beloved,” she said. “Thus is the will of God fulfilled.”

“You have sung a good song,” Fiorbhinn added. “One that echoes even here.”

“You have earned homecoming, if you choose it,” his mother said, and there were tears in her eyes. “Homecoming beyond all sorrow, beyond all loss.”

Slowly, Rudi bowed his head in thought. “What is a man, if he should leave those he loves?” he said at last.

“I am here,” Mathilda said. “We all are. Time is different here, and choices.”

Rudi raised his eyes to the stars again, feeling himself begin to fall out among them. As one himself, a star in glory. . but that was only a symbol, a thing his mind clutched to give him words for something beyond words.

Then he lowered his eyes again, his smile crooked. “What is a man, if he puts aside his work?” he said. “I don’t ask you, Ladies, if it is finished. Just that I be given the time to do it, needed or no.”

Silently they rose and passed him, each pausing to press her lips to his forehead.

• • •

Sethaz staggered back, snarling. The Sword moved once more, and he gasped as the not-steel transfixed him, then half fell backward off it and dropped his shete as he went to one knee. A hand pressed to the blood welling out through the slit in his armor.

“I. .” he began.

Then the rage left his face, and he looked at the blood on his hand. “So. . pure. I wanted it to be. . pure.”

And he fell, features slack against the bloody stone, years seeming to melt from them. Until he was merely a man, dead among so many.

Rudi raised his eyes to the blue of the sky, and let the tears well past his closed lids.

Barony Harfang

County of Campscapell

(Formerly eastern Washington State)

High Kingdom of Montival

(Formerly western North America)

August 28th, Change Year 32/2030 AD

Órlaith Arminger Mackenzie wasn’t bored with the train ride, though they’d been travelling for days. There were too many interesting things to watch outside the windows. Besides, she was with her mother, and her father, and they were the most fun people in the world. And Butterball, her new pony, was in a car of his very own at the end of the train, and she could go and visit him any time she wanted, and ride him when they stopped to change teams or visit.

Also her puppy Maccon was back there. Maccon meant Son of a Wolf , but Maccon’s grandmother was Garbh. Garbh had been Uncle Edain’s dog on the Quest, and bards had made songs about her, which hardly ever happened with dogs, though it had with Da’s famous horse Epona. Maccon would be just as brave and loyal and fierce as Garbh had been, when he was big, and go on adventures with her. He was already brave for a puppy, and smart, too-he already knew her and licked her face whenever she came. Uncle Edain had said that he’d train them both up, and teach Maccon not to chew her shoes, which he’d done with her best shiny red silk ones.