by C. E. Murphy
Joanne pressed her eyes shut like it was killing her to say no, but she shook her head. “I can’t. You know I can’t, Cernunnos. I’ve ridden with you three times already. Once more and…”
Cernunnos got a hunter’s smile and leaned down toward her. “And thou’rt mine,” he said softly enough I shouldna been able to hear, but I could. “Be mine, young shaman. Be mine, for thou hast no idea what we shall become.”
I looked away, uncomfortable. I didn’t belong watching these two doing their dance, and neither did Nuada.
Jo shook her head again and Cernunnos straightened in his saddle, making a face as if ta say, “Women.” But instead of saying it aloud he only said, “A pity,” not just to Jo, but to the rest of us too. “It would have been good to challenge the troublesome one so early in his bid for earthly power, but even I will not ride against death without a force for life at my side.”
Without quite meaning to, I opened my mouth and said, “I could go.”
All three of ‘em said, “What?”, and for a couple seconds I wondered that myself. Thing was, though, it needed doing. We’d gotten thrown to the wrong end of time, me an’ Jo, an’ a whole lot of things had gone wrong since we’d gotten here. A king had died, an avatar of evil called the Morrígan had cut my throat, and an avatar of good named Brigid had taken a hit for Joanne that woulda dropped her. To top it off, Brigid had realized Jo was the key to binding a death cauldron made by a guy we called the Master: somebody, or something, whose only purpose in existing was to corrupt and kill. We weren’t fooling ourselves. Binding the cauldron was gonna get his attention, and that meant there was gonna be a fight. We’d been planning to get ourselves to the other side of Ireland in order to do the binding and face the fight, but our only way across was Cernunnos.
An’ Jo had just made it real clear she couldn’t ride with him. But we were coming from the other end of time, so we knew the cauldron got bound. It got destroyed, too, eventually. On our end of time, after the binding spell started coming loose. So the binding happened, an’ that meant somebody had to go do the heavy lifting. I figured I was that somebody.
Jo, though, wasn’t having any of that, from how she looked. She came right at me, like being up close would make her extra clear. “No way. Not a chance. Are you nuts? We’re a million years out of time, Gary, and you want to go riding off with the Wild Hunt without me at your back? Are you crazy? Are you nuts?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Ain’t like I haven’t done it before.”
Joanne waved her hands in the air, voice rising as fast as they did. “With Morrison! And Suzy! And Billy! And that was in our own time! And—”
“And I didn’t have the Sight,” I interrupted. “And somebody’s gotta go, right? There’s a big fight brewing, and Brigid’s gonna be waiting for us, and we got no way to get there except Cernunnos. And you can’t ride with him.”
I was asking a question there, and she knew it. She gave the god a desperate glance, then shook her head as she looked back at me. “I can’t. I really can’t. Not if I want to live my life, Gary. Not if I want to go home to Morrison. If I ride with Cernunnos again I’ll never come back. He’s…” She swallowed, and that time I didn’t have to ask. Cernunnos was god of the Wild Hunt, master of beasts. I hated to say it, but Jo was suffering a case of genuine animal magnetism.
“All right, so you can’t go, so who knows, maybe it ain’t you the cauldron spell got bound to. Maybe it’s me. Besides.” I jerked my chin at Cernunnos, whose pointy face was smug. “Horns here ain’t gonna let anything happen to me, are you? ‘cause if he does, he’s gonna have you to reckon with, and I don’t figure that’s the kind of reckoning he’s looking for with you, Jo.”
Cernunnos smiled, real close to a leer. Joanne growled and turned on Cernunnos. “Help me out here. Your memory works both ways. I mean, it must, right? Because we’re way before you and I met the first time chronologically, but you still know who I am. So you should already remember it if Gary went gallivanting off with you in the past!”
I squinted one eye shut, tryin’ ta follow her logic, then gave up. I didn’t figure gods worried too much about when somethin’ happened. Linear time was for humans, mostly ‘cause we kept thinkin’ it would help us make sense of things. After seventy-four years I knew better, but I still hadn’t let go of today followin’ yesterday an’ chasin’ tomorrow.
Cernunnos shrugged. Jo said my shrug looked like plate tectonics ‘cause I had big shoulders. If I was plate tectonics, Cernunnos was the water ripplin’ over ‘em, smooth an’ fast. “Perhaps the past I remember most clearly is one the old man did not come here in.”
I grunted with offense. Being immortal meant he had to be older than me, so he had no place laying out words like old man, even if I called myself that from time to time. He ignored me and kept talking to Jo. “Of all mortals, you should realize there are paths not taken. Nothing is immutable, Joanne. Not even for a god.”
Jo bared her teeth like she was gonna take him by the throat. “Okay, okay fine, but you’re the one who said you needed a force for life—”
“He is as bright a force of life as I have seen, and never doubt that I have seen many, gwyld.” He threw out that word on purpose. Jo an’ I had looked it up ages ago. It meant shaman, or magic man, or druid, in old Irish, and Jo didn’t like him using it. Most of the time he humored her, so he was drivin’ home a point now. Her eyebrows pinched, sure sign she knew it, too. “More,” Cernunnos said, “he carries with him a spirit of tenacity, a creature of great age and soul. He—”
“That’s his spirit animal!” Joanne howled. “I helped him find that!”
“So much the better.” Cernunnos sounded like a cat who’d stole the cream. “It binds you together and adds some aspect of your strength to his.”
Joanne stomped a foot. I grinned at the ground, then tried to solemn up as she waved her hands again. “I said no! Just because I got you into this doesn’t mean you have to go gallivanting off across time and space to—”
“Save the world, doll? Like you done a hundred times or so now?”
My girl’s mouth snapped shut. I stepped up to her and put my hands on her shoulders. “I’ve told you I don’t know how many times, Joanie. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. You got me all tangled up in this crazy fantastic world of yours, and I ain’t never lived like I done the past year. You keep throwin’ yourself in headlong into you don’t know what, and you do it every time because you’re tryin’ ta make the world a better place. You keep saying you want to grow up to be like me. Kid, I wish I’d been young like you.”
All the fight went outta her, just like that. She had pretty green eyes and did her best to look tough most of the time, but right then her eyes softened and there wasn’t anything tough about her. She was just my girl, soft-hearted and hard-headed through and through. I squeezed her shoulders. “I’m doin’ this thing because it’s what you’d do if you could,” I told her, then winked. “Besides, this might be my one chance to kick death in the balls. You ain’t gonna stop an old man from that dance, are you?”
Jo laughed. She looked like she didn’t want to, but she laughed anyway, and hugged me and said what I knew she would: “Old man. I don’t see any old men here. Okay, Gary, but if you don’t come back…” She let me go, then repeated the threat, this time with a waggling finger at Cernunnos.
The god dipped his chin, eclipsing the setting sun and throwing the budding horns on his temples into relief. His voice went formal, making him seem just a little more alien, just a little more god-like, than he was when he sat and smirked. “You have my word, and that is not a thing I give lightly.”
Joanne thrust her jaw out, staring at him, then turned back to me all sharp and business-like to shove her rapier into my hands. “All right, fine. Here. You take this. You can use it, right? I mean, hell, you can do everything else.”
I took it with a chuckle and rotated my wrist, feeling its weight. The thing was b
alanced perfectly. I coulda held it on a fingertip and spun it around if my arms were long enough. “I’m better with a saxophone, darlin’, but I’ll make do. You sure, though? You might need it.”
Her jaw was still stuck out. “I’m not the one proposing to go face down the man himself. You need it more than I do. Gary, are you sure? Because this is nuts.”
“You can’t do it, sweetheart. It’s time you learn we’ll go into battle for you, even if you ain’t there.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Good generals don’t.” I pulled Jo close and kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you on the other side, darlin’.”
She backed up enough to gimme a fierce scowl. “Of time. Just the other side of time. No stupid heroics, okay, Gary? Not when I’m not there to save you.”
“I promise.” I gave her my best charming smile, then turned the same grin on Cernunnos. “Mind if I share your ride?”
He looked like I’d stuck him in the eye with a pin, and pointed at the boy rider beside him. “Share his. The mare is accustomed to mortal riders.”
“All right. You okay with that, kid?”
The boy offered me a hand. I took it to be polite, but he showed inhuman strength in pullin’ me up on the horse behind him. I shoved the rapier into a loop on the saddle and winked at Jo. “Go get ‘em, sweetheart.”
And then I rode off into the sunset.
CHAPTER TWO
There was nothin’ in the world like riding with the Wild Hunt. Dogs, big white fellas with red-tipped ears and huge mouths, ran in front of us and bayed like bloodhounds. Grey-beaked rooks chattered and scattered in the air around us, and the horses’ hooves pounded against the sky like they were running over cobblestones, loud warnings to anyone smart enough to get outta the way. Cernunnos rode in the lead, the rest of us like a flock of geese behind him, spread out in a V that shifted and mutated as we scrambled up clouds and down moonbeams. Even ridin’ double with the boy, I had a grin stuck to my teeth and couldn’t let it go.
Night came on full and fast, the way it does when you’re flying toward it. Clearer stars than I’d seen since I was a kid burned white against the blackest sky I could remember. There was nothing to compete with the Milky Way spreading out above us, no light pollution, no air pollution, no nothin’, just us and the stars and the grey-green forest way below. For half a heartbeat I thought it’d be okay to stay here, deep in the back end of forever, but I knew I’d never do it. Jo expected me to come home on the other end of time.
The kid I rode with had a voice as clear and sharp as the stars, loud enough to be heard over howling dogs and cawing rooks and clattering hooves: “Father, this will not do. Not if we ride to battle. The mare cannot abide, so burdened.”
“I ain’t that much of a burden!”
“You are if we must fight,” the boy said sourly. “Father.” He didn’t wait for Cernunnos to pay attention, just wheeled off, upward, toward the star path stretched across the sky. The dogs came our way, and then the birds, and finally the other riders. Cernunnos came after, and sent the kid a dagger glare as he took his place at the front of the ride again. I couldn’t help remembering what Jo had said, back in those first days when we’d first met and had first dealt with Horns: “And a child shall lead them.” Looked to me like Cernunnos might be lord of the hunt, but the kid was the boss of Pop. “Where we goin’?”
The boy said, “Home,” in his clear strong voice. I caught a glimpse of longing on Cernunnos’s face. Then he was ahead of us, riding fast for the stars, and the air got damned cold before I started wonderin’ whether I was gonna survive going where a god called home.
The answer was no, a’course I wasn’t, because the air got too thin an’ the stars got too close, but the Wild Hunt didn’t have to worry about things like that ‘cause they were magic. It turned out, as we burst through the stars and crashed into a blank empty space in the sky, that for here and now, so was I. It wasn’t just the Sight Jo had granted me, but also riding with the Hunt and being under the god’s protection. I’d ridden with him once before, just for a couple minutes, but that was him givin’ us a lift. This was real, and it went into my bones until I belonged with the Hunt. Until I felt the cold place between worlds edging under my skin, getting its hooks in. Until a pounding started in my heart, more than a heartbeat, more of a life pulse, the life of another world. I remembered that world, its misty forests and dew-damp meadows. I remembered the sharp smell of the sea in the air, and how the muted night colors of the ancient Ireland we’d just left behind reminded me of home. I remembered the loamy earth grabbin’ at me, holding me close as I sank into it, and I remembered how laughter carried through the air like crystal, a song of its own.
I remembered all of it, an’ when we burst through the walls between worlds to splash into shallow seas and ride for a silver shore, everything in my bones said I was home.
I grabbed the mare’s reins and hauled up. She reared, then stomped in a circle, shaking an angry head as the rest of the Hunt swung around us, swirlin’ and moving like fog. The boy took the reins back and stilled the mare while Cernunnos came out of the fog and met my eye. “What the hell are you doin’ to me?”
“You are not Joanne, to demand answers from me, old man.”
“Nah, I’m just her best buddy, and here to do you a favor.”
He went tight around the eyes just like anybody might do, ‘cept with him it did something uncanny to the horns distortin’ his temples. They hadn’t burst through the skin yet. Wouldn’t, I reckoned, for half a year or so, but they were still there, thick and visible and making him look more dangerous than your average Joe.
The thought made me grin. Maybe more dangerous than your average Joe, but I wasn’t so sure about more dangerous than my average Jo. “Knock it off,” I said. “We’re in this thing together, and we’re both doing it for Joanne, right? So no sense in tryin’ ta out-alpha each other. You got the magic mojo all over me anyway, and I know it, so lemme try again: What’s happening to me?”
He clenched and loosened his jaw, but it’s hard to pick a fight with a guy who’s apologizing. Which was what I was doing, even if not in quite so many words. Most humans didn’t like sayin’ I’m sorry very much, and I didn’t figure it got any easier if you were a god. Didn’t hurt my ego any to back down, and besides, I was on his territory. I guessed Cernunnos figured all that out too, ‘cause after a few more seconds of being cranky he flared his nostrils and muttered, “Two things, old ma—”
“All right, now look, Horns. You don’t call Jo “little shaman” anymore, so how ‘bout you stop callin’ me old man? I’m a spring chicken compared to you. Call me Gary. Or Muldoon. Somethin’. Just not “Old man.””
A buncha the riders looked the other way. Or in a lotta other ways, which made me think they were tryin’ not ta look at each other for fear of laughin’. Probably weren’t used to people saying “No” to their boss, but hell, I didn’t have much to lose, and there was nothing like being told you were old to make you feel that way.
Cernunnos said, “I shall endeavor to find something suitable to call you,” through clenched, pointed teeth. I gave him a nice big smile with my own pearlies on display, and asked once more for good measure: “So what’s goin’ on?”
“First,” he said, still through clenched teeth, “we are getting you a horse. The boy is right: in the battle that I see coming, being double-mounted would be a killing disadvantage.”
“All right. And second?”
“You can ride, can you not?” Cernunnos asked. “Unassisted?”
“Been through a rodeo or two.”
His expression went blank. I said, “Forget it. Point is, yeah, I can stay on a horse. What’s the second thing?”
“You are not yourself an adept. A magic user, one of the connected. Therefore the Hunt cannot long abide you unless you belong to my home, to Tir na nOg. In this moment, with the Sight visited upon you, with the spirit creature living within you, you may be bound to
the land because it knows she who gave you those gifts by a gift she will give it in the future. You may belong, a denizen of Tir na nOg, and as such ride with the Hunt. Welcome,” he said more softly. “You are of my people now.”
A sharp twist pulled at my heart. “You mean I ain’t human anymore?”
Quick as that, the gentleness fled. He snapped, “All the riders are human. All but myself and the boy, and he is half of one. Do not forget that.”
“All right. All right.” I raised one hand to accept it, and the boy twisted to look at me with an expression that said “Are we done now?”
I nodded. He urged the mare through the low surf up onto the damp sand. The Hunt followed, even Cernunnos, all of ‘em spreading out along the shore and half-disappearing into the mist. At the back of my heart I knew the land, an’ I said, “There’s no stables around here,” aloud.
“No, nor anywhere in this place. On your feet, Master Muldoon. Walk into the forest. You will not lose yourself there, but you may find a steed.”
Feeling a lot like Jo, I muttered, “Steed. Who says things like that?” But I dismounted, gave the mare a pat on her nose, and let my feet do the walkin’ up a quiet beach into a voiceless forest.
Forests sang, back home. They twittered and chirped and whistled, an’ they buzzed and whispered and cracked. Here all I heard was the sound of my own feet pressing against moss that sprang back again as soon as my weight left it, and my own breath sighing in and out of my chest. Cernunnos’s country was empty, lifeless, an’ felt like it’d been that way a long time. I said, “C’mon, sweetheart,” to the space between trees. “You out there waiting for me to ask nicely? I’m askin’. How ‘bout you and me go for a ride with Horns, and kick a bad guy in the teeth?”
