Faery Worlds - Six Complete Novels (138 page)

A fog had blown in towards the end of the day, as if it knew what I was up to and was only helping to set the mood. Mom and Dad hadn’t been home yet when I made it back to the house, so I left them a note about going out with friends and that I would be back very late. I hoped whatever it was I was supposed to do to help Cade didn’t take all night. I made sure to have my cell phone on me, but I had a feeling that I wouldn’t get service in the Otherworld.

I shook my head and took a deep breath, puffing a little as I walked up the trail that would eventually plunge back down into the culvert where the dolmarehn was located. I was so fixated on going through with this; of walking into that cave and crossing over into the Otherworld, that I hadn’t noticed the sudden silence of the woods or the eyes that watched me from the overgrowth. I was so busy trying to ignore the warning voice in my head that told me I was acting too rashly, that I hadn’t thought this through, that I didn’t see the great black raven watching me with fire in its eyes.

Taking one more deep breath and pulling my thin jacket over my shoulders, I stepped over the broken branches and pushed aside the tree roots hanging in front of the cave like a screen. Shutting my wayward thoughts out of my mind, I stepped out of the white fog and into the blackness of nothingness.

My first impression of the cave to the Otherworld was total darkness. I blinked a few times, stretching my arms out tentatively in front of me. I nearly screamed when my trembling fingers brushed against something soft and stringy. After a few seconds of consideration, I realized it was only more roots hanging from the cave ceiling. It was a small space, after all, only just big enough for a normal sized adult to pass through without much trouble. Cade must have had to duck and make himself as small as he could whenever he passed this way.

The sudden thought of Cade rubbed painfully against my raw emotions. Some of my anger towards him started to fade away and my more compassionate side kicked in. Maybe he hadn’t wondered about my missed meeting because he had been in trouble. I hadn’t thought of that before. My stupid, selfish teenage heart was only concerned about its own welfare. Now I was beginning to worry. I picked up my pace, keeping my fingers crossed there weren’t any really big spiders in here or sudden drops that might result in a sprained ankle.

As I felt my way through the cave, using the wall to my right as a guide, I breathed deeply to keep my heartbeat at a normal pace. The air smelled and tasted like dust, mildew and eucalyptus oil at first, but after several minutes the temperature dropped dramatically and a cool, moist breath of air slithered past my face and caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. The scent of rain and wet stone and something that just felt ancient flooded my nose, and the darkness around me seemed to grow blacker. I started to shiver and I wanted to wrap my arms tightly around myself, but I was afraid to take my fingers from the earthen wall. I imagined that just a few small steps ahead of me there lay a great abyss, deeper than the earth itself, ready to swallow me whole.

I should have turned around then and there and gone straight home to think this whole hare-brained idea over again. After all, the only information I had to go on had been delivered by a Faelorehn woman I’d never met before. How did I know she wasn’t trying to make a fool out of me?
Go home Meg,
I told myself,
go home and think about this. Cade may need your help, but at least go back home and get your bow and arrows.

Cursing silently to myself for being so scatter-brained that I’d forgotten the very weapon I could use to fight the faelah, I started to turn and head back out the way I had come. I didn’t even get the chance to see the light pouring from the mouth of the cave several feet away. Something caught me and refused to let go. It wasn’t anything physical; it was as if some sixth sense inside of me had magnetic qualities and that another magnet, located in that great void I was sure stood gaping in front of me, had sensed its presence and was pulling it forward.

The sensation grew stronger and soon I felt myself being dragged forward. I grasped at the wall with my hands but it was no use. With a great cry and a rush of fear, the cold air intensified and swallowed me whole. To my great relief, I blacked out before I could experience anything else.

* * *

I can’t say how long I was out, nor can I describe the strange and terrifying dreams that haunted me while I lay unconscious. All I can say is that some undeterminable amount of time after being sucked into that black, cold void inside the cave, I woke up gasping for air as if I had stopped breathing altogether.

My head was killing me, I felt like I was going to throw up, and if I hadn’t known any better, I would have sworn I’d been in a horrible car accident. Every bone in my body hurt. I had no idea human beings had so many bones. Oh wait, scratch that, I wasn’t a human being.

Groaning, I tried to sit up. I still hadn’t opened my eyes. My eyelids were too tired to lift. Thick, damp, soft moss or grass gave under the pressure of my hand and a cool mist caressed my skin like a chilly blanket. I managed to push myself back a little, my shoulders coming into contact with what felt like a great granite gravestone. My stomach lurched again and fear shivered down my spine. If I was in a graveyard, I think I might just faint.

Finally, I managed to crack my eyes open, then blinked in surprise at what I saw. The sky was thick with heavy mist, but all around me, in a large circle, were tall, natural pillars of granite.

At first I had the ridiculous notion that the dolmarehn I had entered had thrown me onto the Salisbury Plain and smack center within Stonehenge, but as my senses returned I realized that that couldn’t be right and for a few reasons. First, I could almost see the tops of these stones and the monoliths at Stonehenge were much taller. Second, the circle couldn’t be more than fifteen feet in diameter. Third, and this was when that fear started clenching my stomach again, there was a gateway directly across the circle from me.

I knew it was a gateway because it had to be where I’d come from. It looked like those stone dolmens you see on the covers of photography books featuring Ireland; two large slabs of rock topped with a third, creating a doorway. This doorway was pressed into the side of a small hill and yawned black and menacing, as if the stones were merely outlining some deep cave. Above it, on the hilltop, stood an old gnarled oak tree.

Glancing around, I noticed more oak trees. I came to the conclusion that this gateway to the Otherworld sat on the highest point in the middle of a small oak grove, for the quiet trees stood all around, their eerie silhouettes scattered about in the fog.

I took a deep breath and scooted myself further up into a sitting position, using the closest stone as a backrest. It dawned upon me then that maybe I had been launched out of the dolmarehn and slammed up against this rock. That would explain the full-body ache. But why was I here . . . ? Oh right,
Cade
.

A quiet rustling soon drew my attention away from everything else. I squinted into the fog, my heart pounding as I wondered what might have caused the sound. Out of the mist, a black shape swooped down from the oak tree above the Otherworldly gate and came to rest atop one of the stone monoliths. It bent its neck and let out a long, mournful caw, sending goose bumps up my arms. It was the raven that had been stalking me for the past several months, I was certain.

In the next breath, the bird swooped down to join me and as it descended the strangest thing happened. Its feathers melted away and its legs grew longer. It was morphing into a figure before my very eyes, and by the time it landed on the ground it had become a woman dressed all in black. Her transformation from bird to woman had been so smooth and flawless that all I could do was gape. Yet, that wasn’t the only reason I was gaping. As she approached I got a good look at her face. Pale white, flawless skin, obsidian black hair, blood-red lips and violet eyes. It was the Faelorehn woman who had begged for my help: Cade’s girlfriend.

“Hello Meghan,” she said in a frighteningly calm voice. “I am so glad you could finally make it. Welcome to Eile.”

I can’t say how I did it, but somehow I managed to speak, asking the question I should have asked to begin with, “Who are you?”

She crossed her arms and arched one of those perfect eyebrows. If anything, her unearthly beauty and overwhelming presence was magnified here, on this foggy, wooded hillside full of stone columns.

“Oh, I have a few names,” she said nonchalantly. “Some call me Neaim, others Macha. I’ve also gone by Badb on occasion.”

I was confused. There was something familiar about those names, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I think it had mostly to do with my aching head, but I must admit a good deal of it was because of the fear I felt brewing in my heart. This woman was dangerous. I could feel that more than ever now, as if she had a hurricane brewing within her and she was just waiting to unleash it at the right time.

“But,” she continued, “you might know me best as the Morrigan.”

And at that moment it dawned upon me just how stupid and suicidal crossing into the Otherworld had really been.

“Where is Cade?” I whispered, my head lowered so she wouldn’t see my fear.
The Morrigan was Cade’s girlfriend!?
Just how much had he been keeping from me? And who must he be to be dating one of the most powerful of the Celtic deities?

“I have sent him off on a tedious mission so that we might have a little one on one time together,” the woman, no, the
goddess
, answered. “You see, I’ve been looking for you for a long time Meghan, and he was supposed to bring you directly to me if he ever found you. But he was becoming distracted, so naturally I reassigned him. Sorry about that little fib earlier, but you really were being very difficult. I had to get you to cross over somehow.”

Wait,
what?
What was she talking about? She had been looking for me? Oh wait, she was the raven . . . But
why
had she been looking for me? And what did she mean Cade was getting distracted? By what? And how had she reassigned him? I braved a glance at her, but her eyes were unreadable. Terrifying, sadistic and now those very eyes were phasing from violet to crimson.

“What sort of mission did you send him on?” I braved, my voice quavering a little. “And what do you want with me?”

The last conversation I’d had with Cade came screaming back into my mind.
“Some people would rather see you dead than risk learning whether or not you are a threat.”

Oh Meghan, what have you done . . . ?

“This conversation grows tiresome,” the Morrigan said rather boorishly, “time to finish the job Cade failed to do. Silly, sentimental little boy,” she continued as if I wasn’t there anymore. “I really must have a word with him about that.”

She started to wander off, the skirts of her black dress taking on a life of their own, stirring and mixing with the mist around her feet. I realized they were made of shadow and smoke and something else . . . death.

“Wait!” I croaked, reaching out with a trembling hand. What did she mean finish the job Cade had failed to do? And how could he be with someone like her? True, she was a beautiful goddess, but from what I’d learned from my research, she loved nothing more than to reign down war and strife upon those she ruled over. How could the Cade I know, the thoughtful, caring Cade, care about someone so twisted and cruel?
Because you don’t really know him at all, do you Meghan?
a little voice inside me said.
Perhaps he’s been playing you all along . . .

Despite my wretched state, my stomach had the nerve to give off a twinge of pain and regret when I conjured Cade to my thoughts. I knew my conscience was right, that Cade had probably used me, but it still hurt nonetheless.

The Morrigan turned her head and peered back at me from over her shoulder, her perfectly plucked, black eyebrow arched in annoyance once again.

“No, you miserable
fae strayling
, you do not address me,” she all but hissed. “I am the Queen of Darkness and I have decided you may no longer exist.”

Real fear gripped me then, not just at this terrifying being’s words, but at the fact that she seemed to grow larger in size, the darkness she so claimed as her own spreading out from her like a black mist to dance and mingle and curl along the ground and in the trees surrounding us.

I could have sworn I heard voices whispering then.

Beware Meghan! Beware!
they seemed to say.

It took me a whole five seconds to realize it was the oak trees.

Beware Meghan!
they warned. But I was afraid it was too late.

The Morrigan closed her eyes and let her shoulders relax; her arms to drift away from her body. She lifted her face to the grey sky and began chanting, a deep, resonant melody that made my blood freeze and my breath catch. The words she spoke were ancient, archaic, and although I couldn’t understand them, I knew their meaning.

The earth beneath me trembled slightly and the oaks, once so still and solemn in the mist, began quaking as if in fear. The sound of splitting rocks filled the air and the clouds above began to swirl. I decided right then and there that this whole strange scene had to be just another nightmare. Only, this one felt real.

A strange crackling began to blend with the cacophony of chanting, rumbling and rustling, and when I dared take a good look at the changing scene around me, I nearly screamed. Dark figures had started crawling from the small middens dotting the hillside, looking like some horrible horde of grotesque cicadas unearthing themselves after their seven years of dormancy.

The creatures that crawled forth out of the earth were something from a horror movie. Some looked like corpses of bony goblins, vaguely resembling human beings. They walked like spiders and insects, ropes of fur and hair hanging from their rotting flesh. Some had violent, red eyes while others seemed to have no eyes at all. Jagged teeth and long snouts, horns and leathery wings adorned the bedraggled gargoyle-like demons. As they drew closer to our stone circle, hissing and spitting and growling in rage, the Morrigan continued her endless chant, her cruel laughter tainting her ancient words as she called upon her minions to do her dirty work. A horrible smell soon followed them and I had to cover my mouth and nose to keep from gagging.