C.E. Murphy - Walking Dead

I lowered my head, fingers knotting deeper in the earth. My first journeys into the astral plane had brought me through a wonderland of color and spirit, from snowy, white blossoming trees to pathways cutting through mountains. There had been a cave off to my left, always off to my left, as though it was connected to my heart, and within that cave was a presence. I didn’t know who or what he was, only that he was infinitely powerful, and that he regarded me as an amusing trinket to be dealt with in some indeterminate future. His very existence compelled me to seek him out, though the first time I’d crossed through there I’d been just barely smart enough not to. The second time, my dead mother had utterly kicked my pansy ass to prevent me from going to him.

A banshee had named it the Master, right before I’d ripped its shrieky banshee head off. Since then, I’d barely encountered him in my astral travels, and nothing I’d faced had mentioned it. Not until now, anyway. Cernunnos hadn’t made the word master a title like the banshee had, but it resonated through me like a plucked bowstring.

Something had made the cauldron, once upon a time. Something strong enough to kill a god, and the banshee’s master was a thing of death magic, feeding on blood and fear. It fit. It fit very well, and it filled me with rage that surpassed crimson and spilled to silver-blue and white.

“I’m sorry, my lord master of the Hunt.” My own voice sounded bewilderingly distant and hollow, as if it had been filtered through light and come out the other side stronger for its journey. “I’m sorry, but that’s just not going to happen. Tell me something. This thing you saw. Where was it?”

For the second time I wished I knew the god’s true name. The land was almost dead now, blackened and raw. All the trees were shadows of themselves, and the Hunt itself, dogs and Riders and rooks, stood amongst the thin stick forms, waiting on a changing of the guard. “Cernunnos, answer me!”

He caught a slow breath, the kind that spoke of unwelcome wakenings, then murmured, “Buried. Buried behind a wall of stone, and still a glance was enough to strip me down to this. I’m weary, little shaman. Let me rest.”

I dug my fingernails into the ground until dirt pushed back, making the quick hurt, and grated, “Not on my watch.”

All that lovely fresh revitalized power pulsed out of me in a heartbeat burst of oil-slick color. Once, then again, and again, every thump inside my chest pressing life back into dying soil. I didn’t know how big this world was, if it disappeared into the mist a few yards away and melted into nothing, or if it hung between the stars like another earth. I could never pour enough into a planet to ensure its survival, so I didn’t let myself think about it. My heartbeats started coming slower after a while, but the grass around my fingers grew deep, and the earth softened again.

I might very well have killed myself trying to rescue a world, if exhaustion hadn’t put me to sleep first.

I woke up with a blade of grass tickling the inside of my nose and the green-eyed god of the Hunt standing above me with an expression of bemusement. “A patch,” he said, while I tried twitching my nose enough to dislodge the grass and go back to sleep. “A patch of earth, this courtyard and nothing more, but vitality begets vitality, shaman. Tir na nOg is healing, and from perhaps more than the maker’s pull.”

I said, “Yay me,” without really hearing him, and pulled the offending blade of grass out of the ground, throwing it away before rolling on my stomach. A new piece of grass stuck itself in my nose. I whimpered and rolled over further, rubbing my face like a tired baby. Cernunnos kept looking at me with bemusement. I could feel it. After a while what he’d said started to sink home, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to sort it out. “You mean it worked. You’re okay now.”

“I am,” Cernunnos said dryly, “as you say, ‘okay.’ And the mists are parting, shaman. The time to ride approaches.”

I’d gotten an upgrade. I was no longer a little shaman. Bully for me. Grown-up or not, I sat up still feeling like a sullen three-year-old, and scrubbed my hands through my hair. “Time to ride where? Oh. My world.”

Cernunnos nodded. “All Hallow’s Eve approaches, and we have souls to collect.”

“Well, I can’t go with you. I’ve got to…well, I mean, I guess I have to go with you to get home, but I can’t ride with you. I have to, like—” I waved a hand “—save the world.”

It had to be a godly knack, the ability to do something as mundane as offer a hand up and make the entire gesture ironic. Cernunnos did just that, pulling me to my feet. The bone crown was finally beginning to distort his temples, and I forgot about whining in favor of smiling at the oncoming change. “You really are getting better.”

“I am, and I owe thee a—”

I put my fingers over his mouth. “Stop that. The theeing and thouing. You’re right. It gets right under my skin.” And in a good way, but I didn’t want to say that out loud. “Stick with being normal. As normal as you can be, anyway.”

His lips curved under my touch and he took my hand away, folding my fingers over his own. “As you wish. I owe you a debt of thanks, a greater debt than can be easily repaid.” He examined my hand over his, then lifted his gaze again with a flick of his ashy eyebrows. “You made a choice in riding with us to this place.”

I’d already managed to forget that. Now, reminded, I pulled back, but the god held my hand more tightly. “That choice is unmade, for what you’ve done here. It will come again at the end of all your days, but you have no bargain to settle with me. Your soul is your own, gwyld, and I leave no marks on it.”

“Oh.” I managed to keep my feet, but I also managed, in one two-letter word, to stagger with relief. Amusement lit Cernunnos’s eyes, and I dragged a crooked nervous smile up. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome.” He passed me back my belongings—including the rapier—and tipped his head. The Hunt drifted out of the mists, once more at full strength and beauty. “Now, Siobhán Walkingstick, shall we ride?”

I’d ridden with the Hunt quite a few times by now, what with dashing here and there and back again to Tir na nOg and Babylon, and being chased down highways, which may not have strictly been riding with them, but which I counted for effect’s sake. Name dropper and drama queen, that was me: Oh , I’d say someday, all light and insignificant-like. Oh, Cernunnos and the Wild Hunt? I rode with them, back in the day. And then I’d give a brittle laugh to show what I thought of my careless youth, and how I was better and wiser now than I’d been when I’d done such foolish things. No one would believe me, of course; I wouldn’t even believe myself, but by that time I’d be far too late to live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.

It was just barely possible I’d been watching too many rockumentaries on MTV. I needed to get out more. Anyway, none of that mattered, because I couldn’t imagine sipping bitter dredges at the memory of this thing lost. If I ever looked back on that last ride with Cernunnos with anything other than exhilaration, the truth was, I was already dead and just hadn’t noticed yet.

The goddamn sky split open under our horses’ hooves. There was nothing for their feet to impact against, but I felt every step like a bolt through my body, the air itself breaking and rumbling under the Hunt’s weight. Wind tore tears from my eyes and froze in icy streaks along my temples. Speed flattened my hair against my head, and my ears, my face, my teeth ached with cold. I wore a grin I recognized from the inside, even though I’d only ever seen it from the outside. Drummers in rock bands got that grin: musicians given over completely to abandon and the beat and the spirit-bursting excess of joy that came from finding the edge of life and leaning way the hell over to see what was on the other side.