The Defiler

by Steven Savile

  The old man was dying.

  She cradled his head in her lap, stroking back his hair, soothing him into the long dark night of death.

  "He unmade us..." Finvarra managed, his words barely a whisper, falling away beneath the chorus of collapse all around them.

  "Shhh, my sweet king, save your breath," Leanan said gently, placing a kiss on each of the blind king's eyelids.

  "He broke... the... geas," wheezed Finvarra. "He has brought death into this realm and now everything is undone. Our sanctuary is collapsing. I am lost, sister. I cannot feel... anything. My body is gone. It is only what little residue of power remains that tethers me to this life. I am undone... is this death?"

  "Speak not so, my king."

  "I will not lie in the face of my mortality, sweet child. I am many things but I am not afraid. I have waited a long time to die. I have had longer than most to come to terms with my death," the bitterness in the old man's voice was harsh, "but I would not perish in this place, beneath the weight of the stones. I would die with the sun on my face, free."

  "I don't know if I can move you," Leanan confessed, her hand lingering on Finvarra's cheek.

  "Do it, sister. Once, so long ago now, the druid appeared to rob me of my glorious death, promising a greater destiny, and now he has returned to steal that destiny. This anonymous death, crushed beneath the weight of my prison, is all that remains. I will not die here. I would taste the air on my face one last time. Do that for me, sister. Take me down to the water. Let me die on my own terms."

  Tears streaked the soot and glass-dust on her cheeks as she dug frantically through the rubble trying to free Finvarra's legs.

  Above her and all around her, the Glass House succumbed to the stresses of entropy, every sound amplified now to the point of a scream within the crystalline structure. She cut her hand badly, slicing it on an edge of glass, deep to the bone, and barely noticed as she discarded it, reaching in again for the heaviest of the debris. She couldn't lift it off him. Sobbing, she did all she could, dragging Finvarra out from beneath the crush. He didn't make a sound despite the agony it must have been.

  She couldn't see through her tears, and didn't want to see. Everything she had known for years beyond counting was collapsing in on itself; even her own body. The weakness permeated her bones, making them brittle. She felt her heart in her chest, straining, her lungs withering with each diminished breath.

  She was dying the death she should have died so long ago.

  "Not yet," she pleaded, making a bargain with her bones, her heart.

  Leanan gathered the Wounded King into her arms and carried him out through the collapse. She wept, blind through the tears, as she staggered out into the light. The doorframe splintered, the arch supporting it shearing in two.

  "Soon," she promised, though whether it was to herself, death, or to the old man in her arms even she didn't know. She carried Finvarra down to the water's edge. "We're here," she told him, but it was too late, the life had left the old man. She looked down at him, knowing she had failed him at the last, at his blood on her hands, mingling with hers, at his ruined legs and crushed chest, and knew he had been dead even before she had dragged him out of the rubble.

  Leanan looked over her shoulder, for one last look at the Glass House before it became unrecognisable, then towards the last vestiges of the mist Myrrdin had opened into the Annfwyn, and took the first step into the water, and a second, until it came up to her waist. She cradled Finvarra close to her chest as the water rose up over his head to swallow him.

  And still she walked deeper, until the water rose up over her breast, to her throat.

  She took another step so that the water came up over her mouth and nose, giving herself and the body of her king to the black water.

  Modron was lost in the mist.

  She had fled the destruction of the Glass House, reaching the water before the gateway between today, tomorrow and yesterday had closed, and followed the Defiler and her beloved into the Annfwyn. For a moment she had seen the light of life blazing on the other side, and moved towards it only for it to flicker and fail, the light burning out and leaving her in grey darkness. She stumbled blindly through it, knowing even as she did that Myrrdin had closed the gateway, that she was trapped in this limbo between the El Worlds.

  She told herself she could bear it, trading one eternity for another, one curse for another. But it was a lie. She was not alone now. Their child grew inside her, little Mabon.

  For him she had to find a way out of the mists. She would not condemn the child to being born inside this hell.

  If that happened, Modron swore, she would never forgive Myrrdin.

  ELEVEN

  The Knucker streaked through the sky, the Land of the Young laid out like a blanket of patchwork colours stitched together and thrown over the hills and valleys. The great drake cast its shadow over the villages below, banking, huge wings unfurled, savouring the vitality of the world, revelling in the vibrancy of its colours, its pulse. The Knucker roared, a red lick of flame tonguing out of its snout as it swooped low enough for its talons to rake through the treetops.

  "CRONE!" Sláine bellowed from the back of the dragon, "CRONE!"

  But the witch did not manifest. Not one of her ever-present black birds joined them in the sky, even as they tried to shake them from the trees.

  "CRONE!"

  The air streamed through their hair buffeting and bullying the three riders as they clung to the back of the giant winged wyrm.

  Ukko hung on to Sláine's waist for grim life, his ugly little face contorting to the whims of the wind as the dynamics of the air pressure shifted around them, remaking it into a hundred different masks as they rose and plummeted from the sky.

  "I really don't like this!" the dwarf shouted over the wind as another barrage nearly lifted him out of the saddle. He dug his heels in.

  "CRONE!"

  The power of the earth flowed through Sláine with a heady vengeance, driving rationality from his mind. It sang in his veins. It surged through his heart. He was alive. He was one with the earth and sky, after so long cut off from it he was rapidly growing drunk on the love of his Goddess. This was his land. His home.

  "SHOW YOURSELF, CRONE!"

  The Knucker rose again, carrying them higher. Sláine saw the familiar outline of Murias, the amazing physicality of the town and its surrounds laid out on the green. The fast-flowing River Dôn was little more than a slash through the perfect emerald.

  Sláine was assailed by memories of Fionn and Dian and Núada and Niall and Cullen and Cormac, childhood lost.

  He could just make out the conical shaped tor and the rise of Lugh's Spike looming imperiously, a steely grey finger accusing the heavens, and found himself remembering the day of the Choosing. Now, with the gift of hindsight, it seemed as though all their fates had been cast that day despite the fact that they were only thirteen years old. He thought of Cullen. He didn't like remembering Wide Mouth. Guilt made him uncomfortable. No matter how fierce their rivalry had seemed, it had been little more than the petty jealousies of children in reality. It should never have been allowed to spiral out of control, to cost Wide Mouth his life. That forfeit was a harsh one for a child to pay, no matter that it had been meted out by another child. And it didn't matter that they had enacted some rite of passage, they had been children.

  The memory was a bitter one; friendship torn through lost innocence. It had never mattered who claimed the Daughter of Danu's devotion first, or who threw the javelin farthest, who ran the fastest or leapt highest, but it had felt so important back then when all it had ever been was just another way of goading Wide Mouth. No more, no less.

  Sláine could smell the mountains, the sudden rush of fragrances, the lavender and the oak, the pollen and the oast. He could hear the dead voices of his parents, Macha and Roth, ghosts on the wind.

  His gaze followed the dark slash of the river through the tufts of long grasses and brambles, drovers' paths and dry
-stone walls, the barrows and the cromlechs, hints of grey stone exposed by the savage slashes in the wild turf, past the nemeton to the straw roof and wattle walls of Grudnew's roundhouse. Sláine had forgotten just how truly breathtaking his home was. Before he could dwell upon memories of Niamh, the Knucker soared, the thermals carrying the beast away from the comfort of the home hearth, banking towards the forest where Sláine had first encountered the Crone, where he had chased the Maiden so full of lust and hope, and where ultimately he had learned the hardest lesson of his young life, watching the women of Murias put to the sword.

  For the first time in years he allowed himself to miss his friends, such was the weight of his homecoming. He took no joy from the memories. Remembering got in the way of what he had to do.

  "CRONE!" he called again, summoning the Morrigan. The wind ripped away his words. She did not answer him, not that he had expected her to come running at his beck and call. Sláine pounded the saddle horn in frustration. "YOU OWE ME, WOMAN!"

  "There is a place," Myrrdin said, his words strained as he struggled to maintain his grip in the saddle. The druid's face was troubled, and not merely by the wild flight of the drake. Something weighed heavily on his mind. "It is not far from here. They call it Magh Tuiredh, the plain of pillars."

  "I do not know it," Sláine said, knuckles a bloodless white as he clutched the saddle horn.

  "I will guide you, if you wish a confrontation with the Crone. She cannot resist you there. The power of the Earth Mother is at its strongest within the circle of stones. Blood was spilled there. Heroes's blood stains the earth there still, soaked deep. The blood is a mortal tie between you and the heroes of another age, Sláine. It is where Llew Silverhand lost his hand in battle against the creatures of the Fir Bolg, and near where Weyland the Smith forged its replacement. Like you, Llew was a champion of Danu. The Morrigan will come when you call. She will have no choice; she will be answering the blood call. Blood magic is strong. As champion of her sister you have a right of redress, she cannot ignore that."

  "Take me there."

  From above Magh Tuiredh looked like a field of teeth chomping out of the belly of the earth; diseased yellow and brown teeth.

  Sláine was struck by how similar it was to the dolmen of Carnac - but so much closer to home. He felt the draw of the stones in his blood as they banked and circled, spiralling lower. Slough Feg had gathered hundreds upon hundreds of dolmens to the sacred burial grounds of Carnac, souring the land as they leeched the vitality from it. That such a place could exist so close to Murias sent a chill bone-deep.

  The Knucker landed amid the barren stones.

  Even now it stank of death. Blood had seeped into the stones, sacrificed in battle to the unforgiving aspect of the war Goddess. Sláine slid down from the Knucker's back, grateful to have the ground beneath his feet once more. The draw of the stones on his blood intensified, like lightning coursing through his veins. It was so like - and yet unlike - Carnac. His flesh responded to the lure of the Earth Serpent, but where there it had drained him, weakening him to the point of collapse, here his blood thrilled to it.

  He threw his arms wide, moving between the broken dolmens, touching the grey stones, feeling the echoes of suffering, death and battle resonate back through his fingertips. He felt truly alive for the first time he could remember. Myrrdin and Ukko stood on the edge of the stones, as though fearful of violating their sanctity. Sláine harboured no such reservations. He moved from stone to stone, feeding off the residual energy still bound within them. For a moment it felt as though he could absorb even the trace memories of the rock, bringing to life in his mind all the things they had seen. He turned in a full circle, looking out over Magh Tuiredh, imagining it as the battlefield it had been. He savoured the sadness of the place. He saw bodies piled one atop another, guts unravelled, he saw skulls split in two, throats cut, arms clutching at dropped blades. He saw swords driven through ribcages, crows perched on their pommels, the silver blades thrust deep into the belly of the earth. The rancid stench of death rose up out of the ground to fill his nostrils. The wind rose. Sláine knelt, pressing his fingers into the dirt. It was moist with blood.

  He shook his head.

  The Sidhe had called him Defiler, a word that bordered on evil, the spoiling of innocence, and yet the slaughter of this place, the blood-soaked earth, the death of families and reason, all defiled the innocence of the earth. Still the place remained sanctified, devoted to Danu, albeit in her aspect as the war Goddess. She was not an innocent Goddess. She was as much the mother of war as she was the maiden of flowers or the old hag of the ravens. She was all stages of the sacred feminine, beautiful in all her incarnations. He was no different from these heroes. Myrrdin had said so himself, there was a link between his flesh and Llew Silverhand and all those other heroes of his people. It was the riastrad, the warp spasm. He was the earth itself; he felt the insidious sickness of Slough Feg's tainted sour. His flesh answered the call of theirs across the generations. When his musculature warped, the power of the Earth Serpent thundering through his flesh, he was no longer the man, Sláine, he was the champion of his Goddess, eternal: he was Cúchulainn, he was Bran the Blessed, he was Llew Silverhand. He was Sláine Mac Roth.

  Sláine looked to the sky, expecting to see the carrion birds circling, so rich was the illusion his mind painted for him.

  "Bring her to me, druid."

  Myrrdin nodded. "As you wish, champion. What you see and hear may not be pleasant, but it is necessary. I will invoke the pain of this place, stirring memories in the land best left forgotten. She is woven within these memories. She will answer your call. Remember, all that you see is memory, you cannot change anything, you cannot influence what has been, you cannot save lives that have been lost."

  "The past does not frighten me, druid, why should it? It cannot reach out to hurt us. The present is full of threats enough. The land is souring. Feg marches north with his damned skull swords, spreading his blight and scheming for Ragnarok. The Crone has been manipulating our every step for centuries, it seems. I would not be surprised to learn Feg himself dances to her piper's tune. So a few ghosts neither interest nor frighten me. I am only interested in the future of my people."

  "Good, my friend. There is wisdom in the single-mindedness of that thought, but do not be blinded by it. Our time together runs short; I can feel the truth of that on the aether. There is much that both of us must accomplish from here. And while our destinies cross, they are separate paths we must walk alone." They clasped hands in farewell. "I urge you to remember who it is you are meeting out there between the stones, Sláine. The Morrigan can speak sweetly and can promise she never speaks false. No lies spill from her lips, but seldom does a single word ring true. She has a way of twisting the truth so that it sounds appealing even when it is vile and murderous. Do not blindly offer promises, do not bargain with her, for no matter how good the bargain seems on the surface, no one ever emerges unscathed from negotiations with the Morrigan. We have what she desires, two pieces of her son's prison. She will attempt to lure you with promises of future glories, listen not to those honeyed words. Go with Danu, Sláine."

  Too late, Sláine thought to himself, as he watched the druid walk into the centre of the field. With a chalk stone drawn from within the folds of his cloak, Myrrdin paced the battlefield, drawing intricate symbols, some in Ogham, others in a script Sláine did not recognise, on the cracked and broken dolmens. He had lied, he did fear the unknown. Only a fool wouldn't and he was no fool. The druid marked out twelve standing stones and paced out a circle encompassing the six most distant, then uttering the beginnings of a long summoning ritual, moved from point to point within the circle before kneeling in the centre, equidistant from all points on the outer circle, and from all points on the inner circle. He murmured another strain of the invocation, taking a handful of the dirt from the ground and scattering it to each of the cardinal directions of the wind. The wind blew away his words.

  Slái
ne and Ukko stood silent sentry, watching the ritual unfold as slowly the sounds of battle rose around them. Sláine did not trust his senses fully, believing somehow the earth's magic had flooded his mind and the ghosts of the conquered he saw shimmering into existence all across Magh Tuiredh were no more than figments of his imagination or the melancholy of the land's great regret given substance through the strength of his blood.

  "What in the seven els?" Ukko muttered, backing away from the stones.

  A ghostly warrior, sky-clad, woad-dyed hair streaming wildly behind him, charged straight through the dwarf, stone axe raised high above his head. The ghostly warrior's death-cry was still on his lips as he faded into the aether. Ukko shuddered, knees buckling. He straightened, face pained, and made the sign of the Gallic cross over his chest. A heartbeat later another warrior, face sallow, aquiline, beneath close-cropped raven-black hair, emerged from Ukko's chest, a short stabbing sword in his hand. The memories of blood streamed over the leather strips of his kilt. His stomach was bare where leather armour had been sliced away; the muscles flapped open, lengths of ropy intestine spilling out between the bloody fingers of his left hand. Ukko couldn't look away as the soldier collapsed to his knees, showing the soles of his leather sandals before lurching sideways and collapsing. The mud of Magh Tuiredh swallowed his flesh, to the earth returned.

  He watched in mute horror as all across the battlefield more and more warriors rose, recalled to life by the druid's summons, only to fall, reliving their deaths, the battlefield ringing with their cries of death and suffering.