I saw how the eyes of all King Arthur’s men dwelled on the cauldron, but even then, I had no true understanding of what they planned to do. I blamed my unease on childish jealousy, and tried my best to suppress it.
My grandfather stood with some effort, for he was many centuries old now. He nodded at King Arthur and his men and raised his goblet.
“Welcome to my realm, my boy,” he said. “We are glad to meet you at last, for we have heard how you seek to bring peace to the land after a hundred years of bloodshed. We wish you well and are glad of the chance to forge strong bonds with you, who carry the blood of Llyr in your veins, even as we do. It is good that you should know us, for other races and other gods have come and we have been afraid that the old ways would be cast aside. May the Children of Llyr and the Children of Don flourish and stand strong, and may there be peace and plenty in the land!”
Goblets were drained with enthusiasm all round the room, though I noticed the strangers did not drink, just held their cups to their lips and pretended to taste the wine within. I smiled to myself. They believed the old superstitions that to eat or drink when in the land of the fay was to be trapped in that realm forever. What were they to do once the cauldron started pouring forth its bounty?
Except that it did not. When I and my eight sisters held hands and blew gently upon the cauldron, the water within barely trembled. A mutter of shock and consternation rose all round the room.
King Arthur turned on his sister. “Are all your tales of the cauldron of Annwn nothing but lies?” he hissed. “We have come all this way for a fairy tale?”
“There is a coward amongst us!” my father cried at the same moment. “The cauldron will not feed the craven.”
“Or the treacherous,” my grandfather said softly. He had heard King Arthur’s furious words, even if my father had not. “You think I did not notice that you refused to drink my toast? Even such fools as men hesitate to break the law of hospitality. You plan to steal my cauldron? And plunder the riches of my land? Is that the truth of it?”
“No, no!” Anna cried. “Arthur, you wouldn’t…” She cast a glance at me and I saw at once that she had been the one to tell him of our treasure, the cauldron that could feed and succor an army. I glared at her in sudden, bitter hatred.
My father had leapt to his feet, catching up his eating knife in one hand. “Treachery! You come with foul intent! The cauldron will not serve those with such base ambitions,” he cried. He was always impulsive, my father, quick to word and blow.
He lunged at King Arthur with his dagger, who dodged nimbly, seizing his own knife. There was a quick weave and duck and flurry of blows, and suddenly my father cried out and slumped to the floor. His blood sprayed across my face.
Trestles crashed against the flagstones as men leapt to their feet. All was confusion. My sisters screamed. I fell to my knees, cradling my father’s head. His hair was sticky with blood.
My grandfather bellowed and raised his walking stick, lashing King Arthur across the back. He stumbled with a cry, and one of his men struck my grandfather deep in the breast. He fell stiffly, his eyes wide open in shock. His head hit the stone with a clunk.
I sat silent, my ears filled with a rushing sound.
All round me men fought, with knife and chair leg and poker and platter.
Then Taliesen pulled a horn from his belt and blew it. The sound rang out above the clamor and at once I knew for whom he called. That little ship, bobbing at our jetty. Many warriors must be hidden there.
I tried to get to my feet, calling to my grandfather’s men. My men now. No one heeded me. I struggled to find a way through the heaving, struggling mass, but received such a blow to my head, I fell to my knees. That was when Thitis, my dear sweet baby, shrieked and rushed for me.
I swear he did not mean to do it. Even in the horror of that moment, as I saw his blade swing back, its sharp tip slashing across her throat, I swear his shock and grief were as great as mine. For a moment, our glances struck across her tiny, trampled body.
Perhaps that is why I cannot hate him, for I saw his face at that moment and knew that he felt the stretching of time and space to very breaking point, just as I did.
I reached for her, gathered her into her arms, felt her head loll back, lifeless. The pain that struck into my chest was so acute it was as if a spear had caught me there. I was struck mute and paralyzed. All around me men and fay died, but I could not hear, or see, or move. When my grief came it was as rage, a rage so dreadful flame burst from my hands and cleared a path before me.
So I came into my powers, with the blood of Thitis blurring my vision and the shrieks of the dying in my ears.
We prevailed in the end. Of the hundred and fifty men that had crouched in Prydwen’s bilge beside their boy king, only seven men survived, Taliesen the bard amongst them. We lost three hundred and seventy-three, and our king, and the king’s heir, and my innocence. It was a high cost to pay.
I could have had him executed. I could have fed his entrails to my hounds. Instead, I put my mouth to his wound and sucked out his blood. As he recoiled from me, I went out into the cold starry night and lay down in the embrace of the oak tree’s roots. I slept, I think, a little. My mind wandered in and out of dreams. I flew with a black-winged bird over the shadowed landscape of the future, I listened to the raven’s cry.
When I woke in the morning, I knew many things I had not known before. I rose and washed myself clean, and spat the brown dust of his blood from my mouth. I dressed myself as a queen of the fay, and I took from the armory a sword that had been forged by Gofannon himself, son of Don and master smith. It too was one of the treasures of Annwn.
I took it to Arthur. He was pale, bruised and shaken in his dark cell. He stood up when I came in and faced me with as much of his usual arrogance as he could muster, though he could not help the black dilation of his eyes at the sight of the heavy sword in my hands.
For a moment we faced each other. I stood no higher than his shoulder but I was at least as proud and in no way as frightened. Then slowly I offered him the hilt of the sword.
He took it wonderingly, unable to speak.
“I have seen what is to be,” I said. “You will need the sword. It is named Caledfwlch. Its blade shall never fail you and its sheath protects you from harm. Go from here and do not return. I shall not be so merciful again.”
“But why?” he stammered.
I took a while to answer. I would not let him see the heaviness of my grief, which lodged in my throat like a stone. “The tide is on the turn,” I managed at last. “The evil of the future that contains you alive is far less than the evil of a future with you dead. Though I wish I could tear out your heart for the gods you have abandoned, I know you…” I had to struggle for breath. “…I know you are the only one. Take your sword, take your ship, and leave my realm. Know that it is death for you to sail here again.”
But even as I said these words, I felt the chill of foreboding down my spine and knew that I lied. I did not tell him so, however, and so he took the sword and for another twenty years or more, he fought and triumphed with it.
But that is a tale for another telling. I have spoken here of death and the tasting of blood, but now it is time to show the bright face of the moon, the story of loving and the making of life. For I saw many things that night I lay in the grove with Arthur’s blood in my mouth. I saw it was time to close the doors between the worlds, else all the things of magic would be lost and broken in the times of change and upheaval that beset us. I saw it was time for me to lay aside my childhood and become a woman and a queen.
So, when the ashes of the dead had at last blown away on the wind, I set out with my nine hounds and I went to a place that I knew, where a road of the humans fords the River Alun in the shadow of the Mountain of the Mothers. Such places are often doorways into our world, and so I crossed the threshold and came out into the world of men. I undid my hair, removed all my clothes and sat on a stone, washing myself in
the river while my hounds howled about me.
Soon a man came riding along, as I had known he would. This man was Urien Rheged, and though he was not as young and strong as Arthur, he was lusty enough.
When he saw me, dressed only in my long black hair, he sent away all his men and came to me with long, heavy strides and seized me in his hot hands.
“What are you, witch-woman?” he said against my neck.
I said, “I am Margante, daughter to the King of Annwn, who is now dead. God’s blessing on the feet which brought you here.”
“Why?” he asked, and kissed me.
I had not expected his kiss to fire me, and so when I finally answered it was rather unsteadily. “I am fated to wash here until I should conceive a son by a Christian man.”
He laughed and said, “It is far too cold to sit here bathing day after day. Let me see what I can do to help you.”
And so there in the bracken, my son Owain and my daughter Morwyn were conceived, if not in love, at least in eagerness and pleasure.
A year later Urien came back to the Ford of Barking and took away my twin babes, that they may be raised in the way of men. This too was a bitter grief to me, and another resentment to store up against Arthur. For I loved my children and would have given much to keep them safe with me behind the locked doors of Annwn.
I knew, though, that the world of humans needed them. Owain and Morwyn carried with them all the gifts of healing, song and merriment that I could give them, as well as the more troubling gift of foresight. In time Owain would fall in love, betray that love, run mad in the forest and befriend a lion, but all of that is yet another tale. It is enough that you know he learned in the end that love is more important than valor, peace more important than war. For we of the Tylwyth Teg see time differently from you short-lived humans. In the small, black pip of an apple, we see the tree that will eventually flower and bear fruit.
Geisha Boy
By Kylie Chan
Dot stepped outside into the midday gloom. She scanned the area automatically. No visible threats. She latched the door, though there was little of value—that anyone would find, anyway—in the ex-sewage pipe she called home. But if she left it unlocked, someone in the undercity would take the steel bucket she used to collect acid rainwater.
Her body felt heavy, depleted. From lack of energy or too little…everything, she didn’t know. One of those she could fix. If the sun was out.
The other…well. She’d stopped hoping a long time ago. They deserved to live. She deserved to live. Just not together.
She tightened her faded blue cotton robe and pants, hiding the carapace and extra appendages that made her neighbors uncomfortable. Turning, she nearly walked into one of them: Mrs. Kensington. The thin, tired woman held a filthy, squalling baby and Dot resisted the urge to take the child from her and cradle it.
“Please?” Mrs. Kensington said.
“I have nothing for you,” Dot said. “It hasn’t rained in days. I don’t have enough to process yet.”
Kensington glanced up as if hoping to see through the buildings piled on buildings, to see the clouds and open air that only the Cadre and other overcity residents owned. Then she dropped her gaze and turned away. The baby stared over her mother’s shoulder from sunken, shadowed eyes.
Dot watched them go.
Nearby, a kid crouched, hiding something. Dot smiled faintly. There was a gap in the plate directly above her pipe where a telecoms tower stabbed through. A small spot of sunlight fell on the acid-etched concrete and kids squabbled over the patch of brightness. The boy thrust a handheld charger into that tiny square of light, shifting carefully as the sun above moved, occasionally checking around to make sure nobody would push him off.
With no time to waste, Dot released a couple of appendages, hoisted herself on top of her three-meter-tall pipe and clambered up the tower. She moved quickly; there was no telling how long the sun would stay out and she was starving. She reached the fifteen-centimeter-wide gap and shifted her carapace to make her body the same width as her head. She squeezed through the hole and squinted against the sunshine.
She hesitated for a moment, allowing all her eyes to adjust, then swarmed up the pole to reach a height where she was invisible to the overcity dwellers. The pole’s top was a prickly cluster of antennae and boosters. There, she put herself into position, and pulled her robe off. She spread her arms wide, released all her appendages and threw her head back, feeling the warmth of the real sun on her shell. The ultraviolet-activated fins sprang out from her back and her whole body turned black as the transdermal solar cells went to work.
Nobody in the clean, bright overcity below was aware of her presence. They floated through their world of glass and steel, well fed and healthy, entertained and educated. Oblivious—or uncaring—of the undercity’s desperation.
She looked down. Pain filled her.
The cherry trees were flowering; pink petals floated on the breeze and carpeted the lush grass of an overcity park. A couple of children—she homed in to see more clearly, and they were a boy and girl—threw petals at each other, laughing.
Just like her girls had. Her girls…
Everything shifted and suddenly she wasn’t a copied mind—a series of numbers in a genetically engineered weapon-body—anymore.
She was Lena: warm and human and in a different time and place altogether.
Now…then…she sat on a red blanket on a grassy hillside, and the warm breeze whipped cherry blossoms into little tornadoes. Her two little girls were laughing and tossing petals into the air. Paul lounged next to her, smiling his big, open smile.
Marika ran to him and flopped to the grass, panting. She gasped a few times, and Paul touched her shoulder gently, as if to say: whatever you want to say, we can wait for it. When she had caught her breath, she scrambled to her feet, grabbed a double handful of the petals, and threw them over her parents. She jumped and clapped, squealing, then ran back to Cesta. The pair grabbed hands and spun each other, around and around, until they both fell to the grass.
Lena sensed Paul watching her and turned to see him smiling.
“I want this time to go on forever,” he said. “I don’t want you to go into the Facility.”
She pulled at the grass. “This is the last one. Then it’s over. The constructs will have everything.”
“Not everything, I hope.” He stroked the side of her face. “Not…you.”
“Only my battle knowledge. There’s a war coming. If sharing my knowledge with the constructs will help protect our people, then it’s worth a little discomfort.” She gazed out over the hillside. “You knew what you were getting into when you married a soldier.”
He gestured towards the girls, who’d picked themselves up and were slowly returning to the picnic blanket. “Did you know what you’d be getting into when we started this, though?”
Marika fell into Lena’s arms, smelling of sweet girl and sunshine.
Lena held her close and smiled back at Paul. “The greatest gift I could give anyone. And after this last session, we’ll be sure it’s protected.”
“It’s a huge burden for one woman to carry.”
“It’s not one woman, it’s an army, and they’re not me, not even copies of me, just shadows.”
Cesta sat next to Paul and he put his arm around her. “I’m glad we have the real thing then.”
Lena buried her face into Marika’s hair. “Forever.”
A cloud passed before the sun and Dot slipped free of the flashback with a shiver that rattled her carapace. She cursed the fact that she’d left the pills at the pipe, and instead recited the sutra to try and make the memories go away. They were becoming more intense, and more frequent. She shouldn’t even have them. They belonged to Lena, but haunted her anyway.
She examined the overcity again. Maybe the girls were down there. Marika would be finished university now, and Cesta wouldn’t be far behind. She wondered what paths the girls had chosen; neither of them had
demonstrated their mother’s aptitude for battle. Marika had loudly expressed a desire to be a doctor when she’d been little, and Cesta had spent all her time drawing.
Was Marika healing the sick, and Cesta producing works of beauty to adorn the glossy walls of the overcity? Or maybe they had grown differently. Either way, they could be down there, strolling beneath the trees, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, living their peaceful lives with their mother and father—their real mother, not Dot.
Would it be possible to find out? The idea of knowing where they were sent a small thrill through her.
She shook her head. No. She was a fool. She couldn’t give in to that hope again. It led to madness.
After all, she was one of the few constructs lucky enough to still be alive. That ought to be enough.
An ultrasonic shot whizzed past her head and she ducked instinctively. What the fuck? She clamped down on the urge to shift gears into combat mode, yanked the fins down and her robe back on.
Another blast hit the steel of the pole, chipping off bits of metal, and she didn’t hesitate. She slid back down the pole as fast as she could, using appendages to slow her fall. The friction took the skin off her hands and shredded the fabric of her pants until the insides of her thighs were raw as well.
Another shot hit the pole just above her, and she ducked. This was too unevenly spaced to be an automatic defense program for the tower. But they were obviously not trying to kill her. She stopped for a moment, half-sheltered by an overhanging building, and searched for a sniper or drone. The urge to shred her attacker with her claws was almost overpowering.
The next ultrasonic hit her square on the left shoulder. Her left hand numbed and lost grip. She began to slide again. Faster. Unable to hold on with her appendages without doing serious damage to the metal. She hit the plate below hard, wriggled through the hole in the plate, and paused to catch her breath.
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