C.E. Murphy - Walking Dead

Panic isn’t pretty, not even when you can’t actually see it taking place. I’d whined, bitched and complained about the gifts I’d been saddled with, but I was also kind of accustomed to them now, and finding a void inside me as black as the one surrounding me did nothing at all for my peace of mind. I bit back a scream, not wanting to feel it in my throat but be unable to hear it, and spun around in the darkness, trying to find any source of light or life.

And from a very far distance, something came. It was weak: fragile, even, crawling inch by inch toward me. I knew what it was long before it reached me, but misery and guilt and the human ability to look away kept me from going to it. I didn’t look away; that much I could give myself credit for, but I didn’t move, and wasn’t sure if it was weakness or strength that kept me from doing so.

Matilda Whitehead’s scrawny thought-form clawed its way through the dark, finally resting at my feet and twisting its neck to look up at me. It said, I’m dying, in words that only echoed in my ears, and I said, “I know,” out loud, not knowing if either of us would hear it.

Help me.

“I can’t.” Can’t, won’t, what’s the difference? The words tasted like ash in my mouth either way. “You’re feeding off my energy. We can’t both do that, and you’re already dead. How did you get here? I thought Cernunnos cut me off from everything.”

I’m part of you.

Presumably that was supposed to make sense. I looked down at the ghost-given-body, seeing her—its—scalp through too-thin hair. I was as exhausted standing over her as I’d been fighting her, but it was she who seemed to become smaller and more miserable as the minutes went on. After a while, that made sense. I closed my hands in loose fists, wishing I could undo all the things in the past few days that’d brought me to where I was 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.”

As am I!

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 be fighting. It was worse than cadaverous now. It was shrunken, all eyes and knobby joints and ill-fitting skin. “Even if you could come back, everything you know is long gone. You gave us everything you could to help solve your murder. It’s time to let go, Matilda. It’s time to rest.”

No! The silent word bordered on a sob. I could be a hard case, but I wasn’t anything like that hard. Consequences be damned, I reached for the pathetic little thing and pulled it into my arms. “Yes. Time to rest, sweetheart. Time to let go.”

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.

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.”