Jack of Ravens

12

The room in the farmhouse that doubled as the village tavern was small but warm. Lucia sat next to the fire, half-thinking of Church and Will, while watching her owl perched on the table. He had come when the Pendragon Spirit had first woken within her, and though she couldn’t fathom the owl’s depths, it had aided her on many occasions. Earlier she had dozed in front of the fire’s warm glow and crackle and dreamed that the owl transformed into a man with eerie bird-like features who had watched over her when she slept. It was both comforting and disturbing.

Stretching, she went to the window, hoping Church and Will would join them soon. She missed male company, and the Mocker, who shared the adjoining room with Niamh, did not count. The panes were frosted, so she threw the windows open to take a restorative breath of the cold night air.

The fields all around glowed in the moonlight under a covering of heavy snow. Myddle was a small settlement deep in the Shropshire countryside where the inhabitants hacked out a harsh living in the common fields and hedged pastures. At its centre was the medieval Church of St Peter, and it had once boasted its own red sandstone castle. It had fallen into ruin during the 280 years since it had been built to protect the locals against the Welsh raiders who came down from the hills Lucia could see in the distance. Lucia understood why Will had dispatched them to the safe house there with the Anubis Box: the isolation of empty fields and woods was all-encompassing.

Just as Lucia prepared to return to the fire she saw movement. A figure trudged through the snow across the fields to the edge of Myddlewood. Lucia could tell from the upright posture and green cloak that it was Niamh.

Lucia’s suspicion of the goddess had not diminished and so she grabbed her cloak and boots and set out in pursuit. The night was bitter and her breath clouded as she hurried past the church and along the winding lane out of the village. Niamh’s tracks were clear in the deep snow, but the going was hard and Lucia stumbled several times.

As she closed on Myddlewood, she became aware of a faint golden light and the distant mutter of voices. Oddly, the temperature felt as though it was growing warmer and her breath no longer clouded.

There was a gathering at the point where the fields met the woods. Lucia kept low along the line of the hedge until she reached a place where she had a clear view. At first what lay before her faded in and out of her perception: a dream, a shifting shadow. Even when it fell into relief there was a magical aspect to it, as though it was not quite there, or on the edge of forming.

Niamh stood before a group of around thirty Tuatha De Danann. They were all tall, proud and beautiful, but behind them was a man with the head of an ass, another who resembled a giant toad, a woman with horns, another with scales. Tiny beings that could stand on the palm of her hand fluttered in and out of the stark branches like fireflies.

The leader of the group wore an Elizabethan doublet and hose in deepest purple, studded with tiny diamonds that shimmered as he moved. He wore a headdress fitted with ram’s horns. Beside him was a woman as beautiful as she was otherworldly, with auburn hair and a dress of ultramarine.

‘We welcome you to this last gathering of the Seelie Court here in the Fixed Lands, sister,’ the leader said in a voice like the wind in the trees.

Niamh bowed her head gracefully. ‘It is always an honour to attend to the king and queen of the Seelie Court.’

‘You are far from your own court, sister, in these wild lands.’ The queen regarded Niamh curiously. ‘Have you also developed a taste for the pleasures and enchantments of Fragile Creatures?’

Niamh chose her words carefully. ‘I am intrigued by their machinations.’

‘Ah,’ the queen replied. ‘That is always how it begins.’

‘Of all the twenty great courts, ours has the longest relationship with Fragile Creatures,’ the king said. ‘We observed them when they crawled, mud-stained and wild-eyed, from caves. We danced with them in the days of the tribes. We tricked and teased, loved and lost. There are many in our court for whom the Fixed Lands pluck a string that resonates deep in the heart.’ The king looked out wistfully across the snowbound fields. ‘We will miss these dreaming lands of wild emotion and tranquil thoughts.’

‘The Seelie Court’s fondness for Fragile Creatures is well known in the Far Lands,’ Niamh said.

‘And despised by some,’ the queen noted. ‘Misunderstood.’

‘Then why do you abandon these green glades?’

‘The seasons are changing.’ The king held out one slender hand. Gold dust appeared to drift from his fingertips, and where it fell on the ground the snow retreated and the green vegetation of summer appeared. ‘An Age of Reason is approaching. There will be no place in the minds and hearts of Fragile Creatures for ones such as us.’

‘A sad time, then,’ Niamh said.

‘Yes, there is sadness,’ the king replied, ‘but in the spirit of our court we will meet this parting with celebration and joy. This beauteous moonlit night is a time for music to enchant the heart, for dance and play and food and drink and perfume and wonders beyond imagination. No more words now, sister. Let us leave behind this land we love with a festival of pleasure.’

At that moment, Lucia thought she could make out scores, if not hundreds, of the otherworldly beings stretching deep into the heart of Myddlewood, fading in and out of view as if they were falling somewhere between this world and the next.

The king held up his hand and when it fell, the air was suddenly filled with the most glorious and mesmerising music Lucia had ever heard. The members of the court began a dance that started slowly, but then grew faster and wilder as the music increased in intensity. Rich scents to excite the passions floated out from the now-summery branches, and magic held sway over all.

Lucia was caught up in the wonder of the vision, entranced by the music and the perfume, and it felt to her as if time had stopped, and there was only an everlasting now filled with astonishment and delight.

Engulfed by sensation, Lucia fell into a trance that would eventually become a deep, comforting sleep where the winter cold could not touch her. And so she was not aware of the five riders who came across the rolling countryside towards Myddle, scurrying black shapes moving across the pristine white.