Dark Faery III: The Celestials

by Bridget McGowan

  Dark Faery III: The Celestials

  by Bridget McGowan

  Cover design by Jeffrey L. Price

  Copyright 2012 by Bridget McGowan

  For Patty S., who kept faith with the clans.

  I

  Teilo Feather and his wife, Jessica stood on the bank of the stream weeping. The bier pyre was almost out of sight, and most of the others had gone toward their homes. Moira Holly, High Priestess, had lived a good life. Respected by nearly everyone, she’d kept the goddess pacified through most of her life. Now she was gone.

  She’d known her end was near. A few weeks before, her daughter, Aoife, had been chosen to replace her, and had acted as High Priestess as Moira’s health deteriorated. Aoife sent the pyre on its way and left with the priestesses. She would mourn privately in the House of the Priestesses for a month, as befitted the daughter of a High Priestess. Teilo and Jessica’s son, Bran, a druid now, had escorted his aunt to begin her mourning.

  Bran at 25 was a serious young man. Three years earlier, at the end of his druid training, he’d jumped the Beltane fire as a stag, taking the beautiful Aness, a young priestess, as his conquest. He proved himself worthy of the goddess: Aness had produced a son. His cousin, Hugh – Aoife’s son – teased him, saying he’d taken long enough

  Hugh, to Aoife’s dismay, was a firebrand, dallying with any young Faery girl who would consent, without ever once having gone so far as having a paramour ceremony. He wasn’t interested in the Benevolent girls: his interests lay with the girls of the Celestial clan, and it had nearly cost him his apprenticeship. Hugh had chosen to study with the Celestials. His interests had always been in the stars.

  “What were you thinking? Or better yet, do you ever think, Hugh?” Aoife scolded when a complaint was brought to her.

  “It was nothing serious!” Hugh replied smirking.

  Aoife struck him across the face. “Do not stand there with a dolt’s grin on your face. Nothing serious indeed! You shame your family by playing the wanton. Would you take an innocent girl with you into the depths of depravity?”

  “Depravity? I did nothing depraved. It was all very innocent. And she wasn’t unwilling, Mother. You’re embarrassed because her father complained to you. You’re embarrassed because you’re so busy playing the high priestess. You’ve forgotten what life is like, what it’s like to be young.”

  “I am not as old as you imagine, Hugh. You were raised better than this. There are standards to be upheld, and for good reason!”

  “This you tell to a boy who has never met his own father.”

  “There is nothing debased about the way you came into being, Hugh.”

  “No, but other boys have fathers to look up to. I saw the looks on their faces when they talked about their fathers, things they imparted to them, times they had that I never experienced. The looks of pity they gave me because I had no father. No, I was led by the wing by the priestesses. They treated me like they could say nothing slightly untoward in my presence, else they might hear from the high priestess about curbing their thoughts.”

  She stared at him. This was all something new to her. He’d kept a world of anger and embarrassment of his own from her. Still, he couldn’t be allowed to carry a childhood grudge on his head like a crown.

  “It’s time you grew up, Hugh. If you can’t manage your own behavior, you will lose the apprenticeship. Then see the looks your friends will give you – if you still have any by then. You certainly won’t find the girls so willing, I assure you.”

  He had the decency to look chastised then. The idea that his carefree ways could cost him so dearly reached his innermost self. He wasn’t evil, after all.

  Hugh had grown into a charming young man: tall, like his Uncle Teilo, with light brown hair like his mother’s, and a smattering of freckles across his upturned nose. He had been surrounded by girls most of his life. Raised in the House of the Priestesses, the various novices had doted on him. He had learned how to flatter women to get what he wanted. As he reached maturity, classmates and girls he met in passing gave him more than a second look.

  His mother had her own home in the Merciful village, but since much of her time was spent in the duties of the village High Priestess, much of Hugh’s early life was spent in the House of the Priestesses when he wasn’t attending school. Many expected that one day he would become a druid, and he benefitted from a more rigorous education than what was usual for the village boys. But early in his teen years, if not well before, those in the religious community realized he was not meant for their life.

  Gareth Nightfire took Hugh on as an apprentice. He didn’t have the usual awe of the priestesses that others did. Many of the Celestials had doubts about the goddess. The Humans were something different to them, and they didn’t worship the earth, either. That was part of what attracted Hugh, although he never would have told his mother. The other thing was the preponderance of men. Growing up in the House of the Priestesses as the only son of the Mercifuls’ High Priestess, he had to seek out his Uncle Teilo for the company of a man, although his cousin, Bran, frustrated him with his piety.

  Gareth had a daughter, Astrid, who was a year or two younger than Hugh. He warned Hugh that Astrid was not open to his attention. He warned Astrid that Hugh was an apprentice, and not even of the clan – and also the son of a High Priestess – so there was no space for her in his life, despite anything he might say to the contrary.

  Gareth Nightfire, a lean, grizzled Faery with a neatly trimmed beard and moustache and shoulder-length auburn hair tied back in a ponytail, looked like a Faery professor, and carried more authority than the teachers at home. He reminded Hugh of a faithless druid. No, not faithless: he believed in the heavens, if not the goddess.

  Hugh began his apprenticeship feeling, for the first time in his life, in awe of someone. He followed Gareth, watching carefully, not daring to speak. Gareth started by taking him through the planetarium at the top of the highest tree in the Celestial village, showing him the parts of the telescope and explaining how it functioned. Since Hugh looked like he understood and asked no questions, Gareth brought him to the charts and began to explain the divisions of the heavens.

  “Do you understand?” Gareth asked after a few hours of teaching.

  “I think so,” Hugh replied. But when Gareth asked him to explain it back, the boy’s understanding proved sketchy.

  “Life will be pleasanter if you ask questions,” Gareth said. “How will I know what you don’t understand unless you speak up? I assure you, things will not go well for you if you damage the delicate instruments.”

  Hugh was dismissed for the day once he was able to demonstrate that he understood what he’d been taught so far.

  As he trudged back to his quarters – he was too despondent to fly – he thought about how dim-witted Gareth thought him. Perhaps I’ve been too mollycoddled living amongst priestesses, he thought. One of the few boys, and the only one who was the son of a priestess, he’d been gently treated, to say nothing of the latitude he’d been given as the youngest grandson of the late High Priestess.

  A girl from the Celestial village walked toward him. She smiled and he smiled back. He wondered what she was doing walking on the ground. Celestials lived high up in the trees, and they seldom walked.

  “Hello,” she said. “Are you the new apprentice?”

  “Yes. I’m Hugh Campion,” he said, using the name of the man who had jumped the fire with his mother. Technically, children of priestesses carried their mother’s name.

  “You’re from the Mercifuls.”

  “My mother is the High Priestess.”

  “I thought the High Priestess died.”

  “Her mother,
who was High Priestess did; now my mother has that position.”

  He wanted to spend time talking to this girl. She had a lilting voice, and her features attracted him: long red hair, turned-up nose with freckles marching across it, and large blue eyes. She was lithe, and was nearly his height. Her wings, which were unfurled, spread and relaxed as she talked, and he noticed a soap-bubble opalescence to them rather than the flat grey or white he often saw.

  “Do you like it here?” she asked.

  “Yes. It’s different, and takes getting used to. But I’m keeping you.”

  “No, it’s nice to meet people. I only wondered why you were walking.”

  “To give myself time to think over my lessons. I haven’t done as well today as I should have, I fear. What about you?” he asked.

  “I came down to discover why a Faery would walk on such a glorious evening. Well, I won’t keep you.”

  “Wait, what’s your name?”

  “Aurora Mercury,” she said, and flew up into the branches.

  He watched, but she winked out of sight.

  The homes of the Celestials were different from anything he was used to. They were far up in tree branches, and from the ground resembled bird nests or cocoons. Inside they were as roomy and sturdy as the houses of the Mercifuls and the Benevolents.

  Hugh lived with a family who were friends with Gareth. He thought it best if his apprentice didn’t live with his family since some days he’d need to be harsh with an apprentice. He didn’t wish to have any discord in his home caused by work.

  The Cloud family was pleasant, with two sons. Hugh wondered if Gareth was worried enough about Hugh’s reputation with the girls that he only felt safe having the boy live with a family with sons. Hugh didn’t mind. Kevin and Tomas were lively, and liked playing games as much as he did.

  They also liked music. Tomas played pan flute and bodhran. Kevin l sang. It was nice to have someone with similar interests at the end of the day. Kevin was himself an apprentice to Apollo Storm, the one who studied weather. Tomas was two years younger than Hugh and smaller, so he was often able to duck into and out of places without being seen. Others were often blamed for Tomas’s antics. If the trouble became too much, they found their revenge one way or another. Tomas didn’t complain. If others played pranks on him, he took it as his due. The blond Faery smiled no matter what.

  It was hard to dislike Tomas, and Hugh knew he’d found a kindred spirit. Mr. Cloud didn’t know Hugh well enough yet to know how he’d influence his son.

  The Clouds lived atop a fir tree in a cocoon-like structure. From the way the branches swayed in the wind, Hugh had, at first, thought the movement would become agony. But once inside he felt no movement of the structure at all.

  “Why do you live up here?” he asked when he’d first come.

  “It’s closer to the stars. Some Celestials study the sea. They live in crab-huts.”

  “Crab huts?”

  “The abandoned shells of Hermit Crabs. Of course, it’s essential that the huts be placed deep in the sand grasses, far enough from the sea not to be washed away, and hidden enough to escape the notice of Human children.”

  The life of the Celestials suddenly felt far more precarious than that of other Faery clans; they lived on the boundaries of Human lands.

  Tomas took Hugh to see the crab-hut village. He was fascinated by the homes, and when one of Tomas’s friends invited him into his own home, Hugh was able to see just how the sea people lived. These were not as spacious as the tree homes were.

  Mainly, crab-huts consisted of a single room. The families were small, with one or two children at most. The beds were attached to the walls and fastened flat against the walls when not in use. In the center of the hut stood the table, the main piece of furniture in their home. The hearth was against one side of the hut, with a hole in the ceiling just above it. To Hugh, the people seemed poor, with only the basic essentials to hand. Tomas’s friend assured him that most of the sea-faring families had buried driftwood cellars in which they stored their treasures. They only used what they needed at any particular time, he told Hugh, because the people were not the showy sort.

  II

  Simon, Flynn and Kele sat in a tree, Kele recounting for Flynn the story of Artemis’s rise to power. The story had been handed down by others, since neither Kele nor Simon had existed during Artemis’s light Faery days. It had been twenty years or more since their last run-in with Artemis, when he’d wanted to punish the upstart Flynn for daring to ask a question of his betters.

  Since that time they’d gone over the small sea a few times, and the light Faery in that part of the world assumed that the members of Shauna Faun had changed but the band name had not. They avoided Artemis’s lands, and no one spoke of that ill-fated time.

  “Do you remember Artemis, Flynn?” Kele asked. Flynn shuddered. “He’s nearly 900 years old now. He lived in the days of kings and courts, when Men and Faeries knew each other and lived in cooperation. But then the plagues came to Humans, and some blamed our kind for it, which was nonsense. But the light Faery knew enough to become scarce around Humans.

  “Artemis was treacherous. The son of a duke, he believed his father had been cheated out of his rightful inheritance, and made others’ lives miserable in consequence.”

  “How did he end up a dark Faery?” Flynn asked.

  “I’ll come to that,” Kele replied. “His father died, leaving him the duchy, but that wasn’t enough for him. He led an army against the prince in an attempt to kill him, or failing that, gain more land. He failed. He was captured and taken to the dungeon to await execution. He knew there was no justification for his actions, so he was praying for a means of escape from his fate.

  “Artemis never did anything quietly. A rogue Vampyre heard him. He told Artemis he could grant him his wish, and immortality into the bargain. He told him there was a price to be paid, but Artemis didn’t care. He wanted his freedom and immortality. The Vampyre obliged him. But he left him in his cell. When the prince’s men came in they thought him dead. They took him from the cell. One of the others saw some of the shuddering that happens over the first three days. The rogue killed that one outright and bound the body as Artemis’s was meant to be bound, then took Artemis with him. He didn’t have to go to the trouble of removing the prisoner from his cell and hide him, since the light Faery wouldn’t be searching for an escaped prisoner now. They put the now-dead guard on the bier and sent it down the stream, with no one the wiser. The guard may have been missed by his family, but no one else noticed.

  “The rogue taught Artemis the ways of the dark Faery. He was a hard taskmaster, and at times Artemis resented him. He believed himself better than his master. He bristled at being kept down. So he plotted. He made thralls and kept them hidden from his master. One night they were in Human lands ‘slumming’ as his master called drinking Human blood. Artemis had arranged for his thralls to cause a commotion that woke the Humans. The rogue bit as the Human woke, and he was hit. His neck was snapped, and he fell helplessly to the floor. The thralls lit a piece of paper from the fire and set him alight. The Human, seeing the flame, stomped it out. The thralls, unfortunately were killed when the Human stepped on them. Artemis didn’t spend a moment of remorse. He was glamoured and left unseen.

  “He found his current lair quickly and found willing thralls in runaways and the poorer sorts. He let them think he was a grand prince, as he’d always wanted to be. From time to time he returned to his light Faery home and took his own grander possessions. Occasionally he stole from the prince himself.

  “When he felt sure enough of his powers, he took his revenge on the prince. He didn’t sneak up unawares in a glamour. No, he dressed regally and showed himself to the prince, who was sure Artemis was a ghost. Artemis assured him he was not and that there was no escape for the prince.

  “A Vampyre bite can be as painful as the Vampyre wishes. The less preparation and the slower the draining, the greater the pain. Artemis let
his fangs slide into place for the prince to see, letting the full horror of what he intended to do sink in.

  “The prince screamed, but no one could save him. Artemis bit slowly and drank at his leisure, the prince struggling uselessly. When he was finally near death but too drained to survive, Artemis stopped. He closed the wounds so no one would realize what had happened. He left the prince to die slowly in agony.”

  “How do you know this?” Flynn asked.

  “There are always witnesses to such events. A prince is not without servants. They came, but when they saw what was happening, in fear for their own lives, they fled. One hid, thinking himself unknown to Artemis. He was wrong. Artemis easily found him as he was leaving, and grabbed the startled servant.

  “‘Say nothing of this,’ he said. The servant, in terror for his life, nodded. Artemis let him go and went off to his lair.

  The servant recovered himself and went to see if the prince was dead. He saw the shudders that wracked his body, the agony in the still-open eyes. He closed the prince’s eyes and left, thankful for his own life.

  “It took a few days before he found courage enough to tell anyone. Then a terror shuddered through the kingdom. The king had no other sons, but a short time later the prince’s wife gave birth to a son.

  “Artemis had looted the prince’s palace to make a palace of his own shelter. He found more thralls, and had them enlarge his lair and bring it to its current look. One of those he made a thrall was the servant he’d threatened. He used the excuse that the servant hadn’t kept his promise.”

  “What happened to him once the lair was finished?” Flynn asked.

  “Artemis rewarded him by making him a dark Fairy.”

  “Did he want to be one?”

  “No. He wanted nothing to do with Artemis, but he had no choice. Artemis kept him close. He was rewarded if he did well, punished if he did not. Artemis broke his will and made him a trusted servant.”