It had been many, many moons since such a babel had been heard, a cacophony of magic, true, wild magic, burning and whirling from being to being, and Avalbane gloried in every moment. The food and wine of the feast had not been prepared by, as usual, simple aiding magics and a generous helping of the brownies' hard labour, but pure magic. To look at a bird was to roast it; the dishes floated in at the flick of the head chef's long, gnarled fingers. Sparks of elemental power flickered around the most ephemeral of the fae; Avalbane was pleased to note how insubstantial their flesh looked, how much less human and solid and ungainly. There were more animal faces among the crowd, for those who had rediscovered a long-lost second form. He knew, from earlier exploration, that the infinite lake, home of the water fae, was again a fresh, sweet, glittering stretch of tranquillity, and that there was an equally infinite depth beneath it; a minor city-state where Nixen and Nerieds held sway. The underground fields which had inspired Elysian ideas bloomed in the heart of their summer, and Sutur, Lord of the Fire Giants, again brandishing his sword carved from flame, each spirit of his world caught in the true passions and dances of their wild element. The individual worlds within the Sithen were flourishing, and the Sidhe's chambers, their own miniature rooms created from their minds and souls, expanded and filled with their every wish again. The gold twining of the crown burned on his brow, and it was good, he was their heart of power. And he had news.
"My lords, ladies," he breathed, and such was his control over even the air of the Sithen that the voice carried to each and every ear, and the cacophony fell silent.
"I promised you that this would be but the beginning. Last night, I walked upon the deathworld of our Sithen, the world of darkness, and a form came unto me."
The silence was palpable. The land of death, which offered true death, even for the magic of the fae, had been unenterable for many decades now. Those who dared to walk close heard the screams of the tormented behind the frozen oak doors, but try as one might, should one wish, those doors would never move even an inch. That afternoon, curious, Avalbane had laid a finger on the brass ring of the door and it had simply fallen open at his touch, to reveal a wasteland beyond.
"The Lord of the Host, the Wild Hunter, appeared to me riding through the gloom upon the Night Mare that haunts the unwary and wicked human in sleep, and offered to me his fealty."
Avalbane stood, and drew from his robe a blade, throwing it onto the table nearest the dais. It shimmered with a dull blackness – not the blackness of the night, but of hell. To those nearest, it seemed they could almost hear the screams of tortured sleepers and those close to death at the hands of the dark hunter. Every neck craned to see, and he heard faint, muffled gasps.
"Majesty!" voices whispered, and he could hear the fear, now. This was the blade of the beings considered most evil and capricious of fae, that even the Sidhe themselves feared to have turned upon them.
A Sidhe rose now, sweeping to his feet, and Avalbane noted it was Caadman, a warrior-Sidhe, once a lord of battle. His heavy red armour, highly polished and ancient bronze, clinked as he stood. "Majesty, we thank you for the return to our strength. But...The Slaugh, the Host...they are...evil..."
Avalbane rose too, casting a brighter light to fall as a shadow might down the length of the hall. "Warrior Lord, Caadman, I hear your words, but what place is
there for petty designations such as 'evil' among us? The Host are warriors such as yourself. They root out the weak destroy them, free the strong from their burden. I had not thought to hear such words from your lips."
"The Wild Hunt once hunted us as indiscriminately as humans," Caadman persisted, a hand floating almost imperceptibly to his side, where his sword hung. "When they disappeared, when the death realm became sealed in the Sithen and the Hunt vanished from among us, we were safe. Battle is a noble thing, and blood shed is honourable. There is neither honour nor nobility in the Wild Hunt. They rip women from their beds, they gnaw the bones of the dead, they rip skin and flesh from any being crossing their path. They cannot be controlled."
YOU ARE READING
Swan on the Moor
FantasyPOSTED FOR REFERENCE. Aine and her mother were thrown from the Fae Sithen when Aine was nothing more than a child, for the crime of her being the daughter of a human father. Once her beautiful mother has wilted and died, Aine roams the moors alone...
