The Dark Thorn

by Shawn Speakman

  A whir of wings flew passed and Snedeker hovered in the air before Bran.

  “To find my own way in this world.”

  “The woods at night can be quite dangerous, outworlder,” the fairy said, looking darkly about him as if another bodach would appear at any moment. “You should not be here alone. You are lucky I found you.”

  “Fly back to camp,” Bran ordered, mostly annoyed.

  “You command me not, hotpie,” Snedeker said, crossing his arms, the wood of his face stubborn. “I am more than a hundred years older than you. You would do well to listen to me. Do very well.”

  “Have it your way then,” Bran said, moving a branch aside. “I can’t stop you.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Now it’s we?”

  “Yes, we,” Snedeker said.

  “You are good at getting yourself into trouble, aren’t you?”

  The fairy appraised Bran indignantly. Bran stared hard back at the creature and realized he didn’t know much about Snedeker other than the thievery he had attempted in the Cadarn.

  “Did Deirdre send you after me?” Bran asked.

  “Red doesn’t control me either,” Snedeker snorted. “Those who think they can quickly find I am less than agreeable.”

  “I was told fairies were not to be trusted.”

  “You keep poor company then.”

  “How did you become friends with Deirdre?” Bran asked, truly curious.

  “I wooed a woman.”

  “Deirdre?”

  Snedeker laughed, the twigs and moss of his body shaking. “You know nothing of fairies, do you, outworlder?”

  “Of course I don’t! Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked.”

  “Settle down, meatsack. I will answer your question,” Snedeker said, flying alongside Bran’s head and peering into the forward darkness. “I am a fairy of the Oakwells, the most respected fairy clan in the eyes of the Lady. The summer is long and hot and has been burning for centuries. Food grows short at times. The Firewillows live closer than my clan to Rhuddlan Teivi where many humans live. I borrowed one of their maids—only one—who supplied their clan with milk, oh…two decades back, when Red was a young girl.”

  “You borrowed a maid?”

  Snedeker flew in front of Bran only to turn with scolding face.

  “Yes. Borrowed.”

  “What happened then? The humans come after you?”

  “No, the Firewillows did,” Snedeker sputtered. “Even though they had plenty of milk, they would not share. Flaming slugs. They think they are the Lady’s favorites. Think they were there at the beginning of the Misty Isles, as her beloveds. The Oakwells know the truth!”

  “Sounds like you hate the Firewillows a lot,” Bran said.

  “They are sworn enemies,” Snedeker said. “As are the other clans.”

  “So you left and ended up in Mochdrev Reach.”

  “To bring my light and intelligence to Red’s life,” the fairy said snarkily.

  The trail leveled off where a thick forest pushed its way toward the cliff Bran had just climbed above. Massive fir trees with trunks as big around as an elephant thrust into the cool night air, reminding Bran of black and white pictures of the Pacific Northwest’s Old Growth taken by early loggers in Seattle. No sound met his arrival; the forest slept with depthless surety. All around him the Nharth departed without provocation. The smell of dried needles and sap warmed sweet by the heat of day embraced Bran as he took the first few steps along the flat path, his way forward lost to the trees after several dozen feet.

  In his hand, the Paladr goaded him gently to continue moving.

  “Well, why did you attack that bodach?” Bran asked. “It seems a bit out of character from what you’ve told me so far.”

  “Shhhh!” the fairy whispered.

  As the two passed the outer fringe of a lea, Snedeker stopped Bran with a silent warning gesture and pointed through the foliage. In the middle of the moonlit meadow and glowing like incandescent silver strolled a tall white doe, her neck long and elegant, her legs taut with nervous chiseled muscle. No impurity marring its beauty, the deer radiated innocence, the most beautiful animal Bran had ever seen.

  But the fairy did not point at the doe.

  From the far side of the lea, a tall shadow unnatural to the growth around it stood in the darkness, a statue in the midnight of the Snowdon. Unexpected thick bile rose up Bran’s throat, and he wanted to vomit. Fighting the sick feeling that washed over him, the black outline of the entity solidified into a thin, tall man sitting upon a massive horse the color of damp ashes. The rider made no sound or movement. Branches grew out of the shadow’s head until Bran realized they were multi-pointed horns bleached of color and very sharp. Every second that passed, the sense of wrongness about the creature and its mount intensified, forcing Bran to barely breathe, barely move, barely think.

  The reality of what bothered Bran about the apparition struck him like lightning. It was not a man straddling a horse.

  It was a centaur, like the woman Aife.

  But unlike the Horsemaster of the Seelie Court, sick power radiated from the horned fey across the meadow, the venom of the being infiltrating Bran. Trembling involuntarily, it was all Bran could do to not become ill.

  “Cernunnos,” Snedeker whispered from Bran’s shoulder.

  “Who?” he hissed.

  “The Erlking of the Unseelie Court,” the fairy whimpered.

  The centaur watched the doe graze the dewy grass, his eyes burning red like coals heated by bellows. The white deer seemed oblivious to what watched it, demurely feeding from the lea at its feet, its tiny tail flicking occasionally. A part of Bran wished to slink away—the nearby evil repellent to his heart—but he knelt, rooted in place, worry for the safety of the beautiful animal overcoming the instincts pounding in his blood to flee for his life.

  With an achingly slow movement, Cernunnos pulled free a black bow as tall as a man; his other hand drew forth a feathered obsidian arrow. The head of the bolt flickered putrid green as he knocked it against the string. The Erlking of the Unseelie Court drew back the doe’s death with a steady hand, fixing one baleful eye along the arrow.

  “No!” Bran shouted without heed.

  The glowing doe leapt ten feet in the air just as Cernunnos let go the string. The arrow shot like a bullet but harmlessly into the ground where the deer had been a moment before. The doe hit the lea bounding away, a blur of silver arcing through the night.

  In less than two seconds she was gone.

  The Erlking of the Unseelie Court, looking where the doe had vanished, strode slowly into the meadow beneath the moonlight, the horse chest rippling powerfully. He was taller than any Rhedewyr Bran had seen. Lank black hair fell over toned chest and arms, power radiating from him. The flaming eyes set within a narrow angular face never deviated from Bran. The dark weight of eons hung about the Erlking. At his feet a black stain of creatures skulked—tusked boars, slinking weasels, and other beasts of the night, all bearing red feral eyes that burned at Bran like the Erlking’s own.

  Snedeker shrank back, tugging on Bran’s shirt, frightened.

  It was all Bran could do to not to run.

  —Human—

  The scratching sound of the fey’s voice hung like an anvil upon the night air.

  —Do not fear me—

  Bran hesitated but remained crouched low, illness permeating the air.

  —Come to me, lad—

  The repulsive sickness left Bran; in its place was a desire to stand and touch the being in the meadow. He stood, suddenly unafraid, aroused by something he could not define. The heart in his chest quickened; the blood in his veins raced. The smell of his own sweat and rotting oak leaves filled his nose, left him dizzy and confused. The world shrunk, reduced to only the two of them. He lost his memory and identity; the will he owned vanished.

  In a flickering moment none of it mattered. Calm patience in the other replaced the fiery madness Bran thought
he had seen, the peace he found in the burning eyes stretching millennia and would continue to do so.

  He grew flushed as he did when riding with a redhead he couldn’t remember. To join the centaur and creatures at its feet meant a lifetime of terrible desires fulfilled in the shadows, fear lost forever. He had to but join the Erlking and become one with darkness.

  Something screamed in his ear but he did not care.

  He was about to step into the clearing when his right hand began to burn, warm at first but growing in intensity until it engulfed his entire arm in a conflagration.

  Looking down, a fairy ring about his finger shone with argent light, blinding in its pure radiance.

  Memories returned at once.

  Bran stopped but did not retreat, his courage bolstered.

  —A fairy ring. Clever. There is no reason to fear me as the stink of the bodach is on you. You are already dead. The bodach will slay you before the Dark Thorn reenters the world—

  Cernunnos laughed darkly then.

  “It failed earlier tonight,” Bran uttered willfully. “It will fail again. Next time, it will not be so lucky.” Not knowing why, Bran raised the fist bearing the Paladr.

  The crimson eyes of Cernunnos dimmed; the animals below him mewed lowly.

  —The Seelie Court, my long lost brethren, is broken. You will join them—

  With a dark look at the hand holding the Paladr and before Bran could gather courage enough to reply, Cernunnos shimmered and vanished. The beasts at his hooves lost their feral, manic appearance and faded from view in all directions. The sense of poisonous foreboding disappeared and true night resumed in the forest.

  “What were you doing?” Snedeker chastised angrily.

  “Where did he go?”

  “Away, thank the Lady!”

  “That was the Erlking of the Unseelie Court?” Bran asked.

  “The Shadow King, yes,” the fairy answered. “Safe we are. Those of the Unseelie Court lie in the space between sunlight and darkness. Rarely are the shadow seen. They hate humans, more than anything. Except perhaps my kind.” Snedeker shivered again.

  Following the jumping pull of the Paladr and trying to calm his racing heart, Bran turned from the meadow and continued along the narrow trail through the trees, wary of even the stars peaking at him through holes in the forest canopy. Nothing was ever what it seemed in Annwn. The Erlking of the Unseelie Court knew of the confrontation with the bodach and, like the beast, wanted Bran dead.

  One aspect of meeting Cernunnos remained fresh in his mind though.

  The Erlking of the Unseelie Court had been afraid.

  Afraid of the Paladr.

  The trail steepened. Soon a brook bubbled along his right, the water a slow moving black ribbon. Mist not born of the Nharth twisted like vapor snakes, reaching for Bran while the air grew chillier. Above, the half disc of the silver moon highlighted the craggy white extremes of the Snowdon and pooled thick shadows around Bran. With every step he took, the sound of water falling against obstinate rock became clearer.

  After what seemed like hours, Bran and Snedeker broke through the thick wood into an expansive opening beneath the stars, a carpet of thick grass spreading toward exposed rounded rock. The waterfall he had heard tumbled from a cliff face a short distance away to shake under his feet, the water a pane of glass before bouncing into the eddying pools of the brook. Copious ferns and moss grew along the rocky bank while fog stirred sluggishly above the water, the old trees surrounding the glen extending their limbs out over it as if to ward away the darkness. The waterfall captured the moonlight, diamonds twinkling and given the ability to fly.

  Nothing else moved. All was serene, a magic suspended over the land, infusing Bran with every breath he took.

  “Beautiful,” he breathed.

  Snedeker said nothing, mesmerized and hovering at his shoulder.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  With one shaking, leafy arm, Snedeker pointed at the falls.

  The silver shimmer on the falling water detached and floated forward, the reflection of moonlight given substance and freedom. The lights floated near the water like large fireflies, hovering as if waiting on the two visitors.

  “Lightbrands,” Snedeker murmured in awe. “What are they?”

  “The fairy servants of the Lady,” Snedeker whispered.

  “What happened to your clan being favored first?”

  Snedeker said nothing but instead dropped his head in respect. Five of the fairies separated from their brethren and floated upon the cool, wet air, their inner light brightening the shadowed shroud of the glen. Unlike Snedeker, who was made from bits of green leaves and peeled bark, the Lightbrands were smooth and naked, human-shaped figures glowing like celestial bodies freed from the stars. With wings fluttering like a blurred rainbow, they flew toward Bran unhindered.

  “Where did they come from?” Bran hissed.

  “Everywhere. From the water and light.”

  In moments, the fairies floated before his eyes in a line. Up close, they took on more human characteristics—high cheekbones, pointed ears, sharp chins and even toes. Three females and two males stared at Bran with blue eyes like oceans, white hair floating about their heads like silky halos. Wrinkled like a prune, the lead fairy came first, his long beard and wizened expression earnest.

  Bran barely breathed. Snedeker sat prostrate on his shoulder, eyes averted in reverence.

  The fairies began speaking then.

  “Courageous young knight.”

  “Overcame fear for what was right.”

  “Protected the innocent.”

  “Despite possible harm to self.”

  “The Lady speaks.”

  The last words became a litany that slowly blended into a sustained hum as the fairies sped around Bran, flying in an unending circle. Snedeker twitched on his shoulder, curled up in a ball. The fairies flew faster and faster, a smudge of white arcing light like a halo, a dizzying pace Bran couldn’t keep up with.

  The hum fell away altogether, leaving a beautiful warm voice.

  —Do you accept knighthood, Bran Ardall, line of Perceval?—

  The voice was unlike those of the fairies, soft and lilting but ancient and very far away, as if the speaker were muffled. It bore the wearied tenor of eons and wisdom, unconditional love given but burdened by hardship and pain. It struck directly at his heart, consoling his guilt with forgiveness. The world blurred as tears sprang to his eyes. The question waited, an answer needed. The Lady wanted him to become the Heliwr. He wavered for only a moment before the memory of Connal dying and being cast aside like bloodied fodder mingled with the fear that he would never amount to anything beyond a street rat.

  The warnings of Richard fell away. Bran chose his answer with conviction.

  “I will,” he said, and meant it with all his heart.

  Just then, shadows detached from the gloom, slinking toward him, a menagerie of rabbits, ferrets, boars, and other animals, their eyes burning feral desire. The animal slaves of Cernunnos. Soon they had the glen surrounded.

  Panic dampened the joy he felt being in the Lady’s presence.

  Azure light blossomed behind Bran.

  “Looks like you were wrong about needing help,” Richard said, moving to protect Bran’s back, Arondight a fiery swath. “You do have a knack for trouble, don’t you?”

  Bran peered wildly around. Cernunnos did not appear. The beasts instead simply watched. It seemed the Erlking wanted to spy on what transpired but nothing more.

  “I promise to keep them from you, whatever the cost,” the knight said. “Do what you must.”

  Bran nodded and squeezed the Paladr tightly.

  —Richard McAllister, my faithful knight, will you do what must be done to keep the office of Heliwr safe and see its duty carried out to fulfillment?—

  Bran could feel Richard tensing behind him.

  “I will, my Lady,” Richard said finally.

  —My paladins, it is done
—

  Heat blossomed in Bran’s hand and then chest, dizzying and in a rush. When his head cleared, the Lightbrands whirling about him had slowed, become distinct creatures again. Once stopped, each bowed in midair, clearly exhausted, before flying back toward the waterfall and their waiting companions.

  “Wait, I want answers!” Bran shouted, watching the Lightbrands disappear one by one like snuffed stars. “I don’t know what to do! What do I do with this seed? What happened to my father? Did he go through this? What do you mean by Perceval?”

  His questions echoed in the night.

  “Wait!” he roared.

  “They are gone,” Richard said.

  Bran wanted to chase after the fairies but suddenly found he could not move; his feet were anchored to the grass beneath him. Richard also began to struggle, similarly planted. Arondight vanished. Anger changed to dismay and then horror as Bran watched roots snake out of the ground and grip his boots; the tendrils did the same thing to Richard. They expanded until the two men were linked, the roots sprouting in various directions writhing up their legs as well as pushing deeper into the world every second that passed.

  Bran tried to scream, but found his throat paralyzed.

  Fighting his revulsion and losing, he became aware the heat in his chest pulsed also in the hand bearing the Paladr. He opened his fist. The seed winked silver at him as it invaded the skin of his palm, burrowing deep, vanishing into his body.

  He tried to pry it free but the Paladr was inexorable.

  A few moments later, it was gone inside him.

  Snedeker yelled, frenzied, but Bran couldn’t understand him.

  The heat increased throughout his body, the change begun at his feet continuing. What had been his two legs fused into one; what had been his two arms split into many. Broad shiny green leaves sprouted from his elongating fingers and transformed into gnarled limbs, while sharp black thorns like small daggers erupted along what had been his forearms. Both Bran and Richard grew tall and broad, branching out into the night and into the ground, feeling the life force of the world and all it contained.

  He could feel Richard fighting the transformation too, but the two were intertwined, the knight pulled into the magic that transformed Bran.