At 70 mph, the usual for the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Dame Bridgit Steadheart headed for Cumberland Gap Community Center, the freehold in which she’d been Sained nearly fifteen years before. That had been long ago, before the Cataclysm, the death of Olar Daan, her self-exile in Sylvania, and before she’d ever heard the name Baylor. Despite her grim mission, it was still a chance to see the place where she’d grown up and grown strong. Baron Kelvin Trembain ap Gwydion, as far as she knew, was still living and lord of the Barony of Crystal Hills, technically under the Duchy of Steel. However, most of the small rural baronies had been left to fend for themselves and few lords still knew to whom they held fealty.
Sneezles and Whomper, the possum pooka twins, would be young wilders by now, Bridgit reflected, and Ahmira, her 1st grade teach and court eshu, would be well into grumpdom. Teeth gritted and eyes locked on the road, the troll refused to even acknowledge the thought that her old master could have possibly fallen to the Forgetting. No matter that her oath bound her to him and to the entirety of House Gwydion; Cerdiwyn had been right about finding a new lord or land to serve. At first Bridgit just assumed she fought in the name of the Duchy of Sylvania and Duchess Elenora, but when Parliament made the decision to join the Kingdom of Apples, well, serving a kingdom and queen started to seem a lot more helpful.
To think, that she herself had seen Queen Mab at Parliament! The memory, however, was tinged with the sickening tickle of shame, because Bridgit carried with her the Dross that she knew she didn’t deserve. It had been charitable of the queen to reward those who’d sworn an oath to save her, but the troll felt guilty accepting it for having done nothing. Everyone was angry at Baron Manuel, Ellette, and Cerdiwyn for going on the quest themselves, though Bridgit understood much more after Parliament and said no words against them. It was with herself that she was enraged; her laziness and stupidity, paying attention to Daoud’s fight with everyone and the plans against Baylor when she should have been helping her nobles save the queen. Count Walker was right when he said that she was too stupid to even figure out why she’d been excluded.
This new mission, be it though a small one, gave her spirits rise. The image of that small room came back to Bridgit and raped her with its clarity; Count Walker’s reassuring presence despite her mistrust of the man, the pooka knight’s tail wagging under his chain mail, Ellette curled up in a corner, Elana listening patiently, and Cerdiwyn explaining everything as dread settled quietly upon the room. A horrible fatigued feeling bled and throbbed from her and Ellette, even from the satyr when she swore to scry the truth. The wheels were only beginning to turn, and even without enlightened visions, Bridgit knew that grief, death, and sacrifice would have to be weathered before anyone would be safe.
Her stomach tingled painfully at the thought of all that was said, and all that she realized, but Dame Bridgit Steadheart truthfully couldn’t recognize her own fear. Rather, she merged back into the right lane and dug a half-roll of Tums out of the glove compartment, crunching a couple and tossing her horns at their bitter taste. Something was very wrong with a noble house that treated their commoners as nothing more than slaves, and for the life of her, Bridgit couldn’t understand what might have made that arm of shining host fall so far.
The Community Center’s doors were unlocked, but the usual electricity of Glamour felt in every other freehold bathed the troll, even though it was noticeably weaker than the freeholds of Sylvania. A few children were playing basketball in the gym half of the building, their clothes stained and worn. Anyone who claimed Cumberland Gap had escaped Appalachia had never taken a good look at the town’s average income. Bridgit’s own mother had worked at a factory out in Pittsburgh while her father had been thrown in jail before she was born. She’d never met him.
Towards the back of the building, with the sliding wall half-drawn to separate the gym from the rec. room, two sandy-haired teens were playing checkers. When one of the children ran up to get their attention, the boy on the right reached up with his tail to king one of his pieces. The child prattled on to him as the one on the left placed one of his pieces in play. Bridgit sighed and smiled; nothing had changed.
“Hey, are you cheating?” the first boy demanded, twitching his whiskers.
“No. Are you cheating?” his brother replied.
“No.”
“You are both cheating most dishonorably.” Bridgit’s voice boomed suddenly through the room, startling the two pooka.
“Hey, wow! It’s…”
“Bridgit! How’re ya doing? Wait ‘til…”
“Everyone finds out you’re back!”
“Baron Kelvin’ll be glad to see ya!” Sneezles and Whomper traded off each other’s sentences.
Bridgit straightened her shoulders, remembering her duty. “Is my lord Baron here now? I come bearing a message from the Duchy of Sylvania.”
Whomper shook his head. “Naw, he’s at home, hasn’t been feeling the best of late…”
“Beginning to Forget, Ahmira says,” Sneezles finished.
“But he’ll be at the elementary school tomorrow, you could talk to him then, I wager.”
“Hey, Bridgit, where’s Sylvania?”
The troll allowed herself a grin. “Sylvania is a duchy far from here, on the eastern end of the state. Its where the city of Philadelphia is, and is a part of the Kingdom of Apples. My lady Duchess Elenora ap Gwydion rules there, and it is a beautiful place.”
Sneezles’ eyes shone. “A kingdom? With a king and queen?”
“Yes, and our queen, Mab of house Fionna, has just recently returned to us after having been lost on the Dreaming.”
“Are there other pooka at your freehold?” Whomper asked, a touch of melancholy hanging in his voice.
Bridgit almost winced. It had been hard losing so many in the Cataclysm, and then the attack of the gray dragons had also taken lives. The twin boys were almost 12, and their only memory of a kith-mate was a raccoon-pooka grump who they’d seen killed when they were just 6.
“Yes,” she answered, barely able to keep the emotion from her voice, “there are two. One is a Dog-knight who wears a sword and serves the duchy, and the other is a Monkey-child from the Kingdom of Willows. And there are many freeholds where I live, not just one.”
“Will you take us to see your kingdom someday?”
“Perhaps. Is Kia here?”
“No,” they answered in unison.
“Yes,” said the satyr as she stepped down from the small stage at the back of the room, “I’m here.”
Kia tossed her head, sweeping her silky brown hair behind her horns. She was tall for one of her kith, coming almost to Bridgit’s elbow, that and her fair skin belayed the faint remnants of British Isles stock. Most folks of the area were either light or dark; the pale skin/blonde hair/blue eyes of the old European settlers of the Appalachians, or the hewed tan/black hair/brown eyes of the last of Indian blood and those who’d married in. Then, there were mutts like Kia, with so much thrown in at such odd angles that it was impossible to pin down any one people. Kia, the beautiful mutt, who moved like dawn fog over the deep forest streams, breeze through the glens where trods drawn in down-fine grass could lead straight to Arcadia itself.
“It’s been a long time, Dame Bridgit Steadheart.”
“Aye, that it has, Kia Trodos.”
Whomper twiddled his hairy toes while the two just seemed to stand there. “A while ago, Ahmira was saying she wondered what became of you,” he said absently.
Though her friends and folk in Sylvania would never have believed it, Bridgit smiled warmly. “Where is Ahmira, actually?”
Kia gnawed her lip as her face turned somber. “It’s Sunday, Bridgit. She’s giving the Respects.”
The troll nodded solemnly. “I don’t forget. No matter where I am, I never forget.” Bridgit started walking towards the back door of the building. Only Sneezles followed.
“So, when you get back, come and have diner with us. We’re ordering pizza.”
“No we’re not! We’re having meatloaf,” Whomper countered.
“You’re both lying, I’m making fried chicken and biscuits. We’ll talk later, ok?” called Kia, but Bridgit was already out the door.
Sneezles walked with her as far as the edge of the woods on top of the hill. Then he stopped and turned back, mechanical foot slowing him down every other step. That was why when every other pooka got on Bridgit’s last nerve, she could still tolerate Sneezles; it was because of her that he had that mechanical foot and not a headstone, because it was Bridgit who pulled the then childling out of the talons of a gray dragon on that terrible day. Though he might never have said anything, he had his own way of thanking her for saving his life.
The view of the sloping hills was soothing in the late afternoon. Slowly, the horizon faded out into the foothills of the low mountains, and the sun’s rays began to fall slanted across the Barony of Crystal Hills. Bridgit walked silently though the thin woods, stopping respectfully when she saw what’d she’d expected to.
The old woman with rich coffee skin was sitting on a stump in the center of a circle of standing stones. There was no breeze to play with her colorful sari, she simply sat motionless in the silence. It was the Fallen Glen. There was nothing like it in any other freehold Bridgit had ever seen, perhaps nothing like it in any freehold in the world. The fae of the Cumberland Gap had their own mournful ritual born of time and isolation. Since the Cataclysm, and then after the attacks, everyone paid the Respects on Sunday. There was no one that had not lost a friend or lover, and the effects of that time branded all of them with a grim near-stoicism when talking about their home. Now, Bridgit stood at the edge of the heart of her fathomless past.
“It’s been a while, little stranger,” the woman said without opening her eyes.
The troll walked into the clearing. “I’m far from little.”
Ahmira smiled and stood. The years had worn her down, that was certainly true, but then, she’d never been the tallest eshu to start with. “You’re still little to me. When you were my student you were still small enough to hide in a cloak-cubby. Do you remember that? Ah, but that was before you changed. Now look at you, you wear a sword, and why those chains?”
“These are chains that bind me in my oath to rescue and serve Queen Mab. She had been missing in the Dreaming, but now is found and again rules Apples.”
“How pitiful, me; an eshu asking someone else for news of the wide world. I’d love to go on one last journey, but they all need me here.”
“Who’s still left?” Bridgit asked, sitting down Indian-style so her old teacher didn’t have to crane her neck to look her in the eye.
“Well, there’s myself, Sneezles and Whomper, Kia, Tiernan, and Baron Kelvin.”
“That few?”
Ahmira’s eyes softened, the pain bleeding out into her expression. “We’re dying here, Bridgit. It might be wild and beautiful in the woods and foothills, but our dreamers are poverty-stricken and desolate. They leave for bigger towns and our balefire grows weaker by the day. Baron Kelvin is old now, and mostly claimed by the Forgetting. I don’t want to abandon this freehold, but soon it will dissolve completely.”
The glen was silent. Bridgit felt sick from the guilt of leaving this place. The concerns of the mortal world had demanded she move east, but surely there was some way should have resisted, changed things. What was her strength if it couldn’t help the ones she cared about?
“After the war, I can bring you those who can change these things. There are powerful sorcerers in my duchy who might be able to revive the balefire.”
“What war?”
Indeed, what war? Neither the Duchy of Sylvania nor the Kingdom of Apples had formally declared against House Baylor. Were the rumors true; did they control the army and resources of all the Kingdom of Willow? Everyone knew about the giant worm that ate enslaved kithain, and the kidnapped nockers who were forced to toil for the corrupted house. And still, there were darker things that few knew or could even guess at. The situation was dire, though how far had words spread, to the Duchy of Steel, to the Kingdom of Grass?
“To the south, in Baltimore, is the base of a noble house that seeks to conquer Apples and take the crown of Concordia, since High King David has been presumed dead. House Baylor are guilty of the worst crimes against our kind; like the Nazis during WWII. My duchy lies north in their path to the throne, and as we are a part of Apples, we seek to prevent them from marching and defeat them if we may,” Bridgit replied.
The crone nodded. “I’d heard rumors, but I never thought…”
“I give you my word that it is true. That’s why I’m here, in fact. Has there been an eshu come this way? He would be heading west and you would know him by the burden he carried.”
“None have come through here in many months, however, you should ask Baron Kelvin tomorrow.”
They said no more for nearly an hour. Bridgit helped Ahmira give the rest of the Respects. Now, thirty-seven markers gave witness to the kithain lives lost in the Barony of Crystal Hills. Twenty-one were lost to the Mists during the Cataclysm, four gone naturally into the Forgetting, two claimed by Draggsh the Fang, nine taken in the battle with Harrrll the Gray, and further towards the trees, the marker for Olar Daan.
Bridgit dropped to her knees before the intricately carved mountain-stone. Would that he were here now! Olar Daan would have know what to do, he’d advise the nobles and they’d win the war. Brave, brave Olar Daan, bitten in half by the gray monster while his mortal shell collapsed in exhaustion. Her tears darkened the sweet earth where his body, the only one in the Fallen Glen, was buried.
“Help me, master. I’m not strong enough. I cannot give enough. There is danger, and I cannot save my friends. My family here is slowly dying, and I cannot help them. Come back, master, please, tell me what to do!”
“So you drink now?” Kia asked, handing Bridgit a beer.
Dinner at the freehold had been good; home-cooked and savory. She hadn’t eaten that well in a long time, and the meal improved her spirits enough to agree to stay at Kia’s apartment rather than bunk in the Community Center’s spare room.
“Why shouldn’t I? I’m 21, after all.”
The satyr smiled and leaned back in her blue beanbag chair. “Says the young Bridgit Steadheart, ‘Why am I always surrounded by such debauchery?’ and here she is downing a Miller Lite.”
“Screw you, Kia.”
Her eyebrows shot up playfully. “What, no court talk? No ‘Get thee screwed, foul enemy of the duchy!’? Or could it be that I know you too well for you to act like a pompous, constipated Klingon, and you I know you; so you’re being yourself for once?”
“Let me amend that. Fuck you, Kia.” Bridgit sighed and reached for another beer.
“What the hell is wrong with you? I haven’t seen you in four years, and you barely nod at me. We used to be so…close…” Kia trailed off when she saw Bridgit’s scowl deepen.
Placing the half-empty bottle on the table, the troll shifted to sitting on the floor next to her friend. “I’m sorry. A lot of things have happened since I left this barony, and a lot has changed with the world. I can hide from everyone else, but you always see in-between what I’m saying. I’m just not used to that.”
Taking a chance, Kia nestled her head on Bridgit’s strong arm, but the troll didn’t resist. “Don’t you have any friends in Saliva?”
“It’s Sylvania.”
“Whatever. Don’t you have anyone there you talk to?”
Bridgit thought of Miles, Wallow, Avril, Nigel, Sigmund, Erani, even Daoud and the nobles. They were her friends, it was true. Yet somehow, somehow she felt she was standing out in the open and everyone could see everything about her; they could see all her secrets. She trusted them with her life in battle, but why couldn’t she trust them with her story, her company? With mortals it was so easier, but after what’d happened a few weeks before she re-joined her kind in Sylvania, Bridgit found even them suspect.
“I am very busy with my duties for the war and the duchy. I have little time for such things.” The protective wall went up again, shielding her delicate, delicate heart.
Kia shoved away from her and stood. “Fine. You know what? Go ahead, be a dick! No matter what, I know you, Bridgit Steadheart of Crystal Hills. I was there when your mother died and I’m here now. You had real friends once, a long time ago, and I was one of them. But no, go on, be a stupid troll and ignore everyone that cares about you! After all, you’re too brave and brickheaded to actually care back!”
The brown Miller Lite bottle shattered in Bridgit’s hand, startling Kia and spraying beer onto the thick carpet. She was absolutely still save for the tight shaking of her right arm. The satyr’s eyes went wide as talons of ice clawed at the back of her neck.
“Honey, I didn’t mean…”
Bridgit opened her clenched fist and pulled the shards of glass out of her flesh.
“Here, let me do that…it’s bleeding…” she reached forward but the girl pulled away, lip threatening to curl into a feral snarl.
Bridgit slowly rose, shaking the glass from her clothes while the blood dripped from her fingers. “I am Dame Bridgit Steadheart of the Barony of Delchester, County of Laurels, Duchy of Sylvania, Kingdom of Apples. Never mistake me, and never believe that just because I didn’t say it or you didn’t see it, that I never loved.”
She disappeared into the spare room, leaving Kia standing by the blue beanbag chair. After many moments of silence, she whispered, “I believe you, because I know you once loved me.”
Drunkenly, Bridgit dreamed.
She was 6, a childling again, and it was summer. In fact, it was the last summer before her mother went off to Pittsburgh; the last time they had enough money for fun, which was why little Bridgit was standing next to the jungle gym at Paw-Paw Falls Day Camp, watching the other kids sob for their mothers and missing her own more than a little bit.
It was the summer after she changed, a time before her training had begun. That long lost, sun-warmed dream of childhood that the older troll had forced herself to forget out of shame for ever have been free of responsibilities. But for then, she was again the chatting, smiling, shining-faced little girl, and for her, the world of make-believe was as real as the town, highway, or her mom’s old Buick.
All the kids were being dropped off for the first day, and most were running around before they’d be herded into ‘tribes’ to begin activities. Bridgit smiled as she watched two of them get off the bus from the western counties. The girl was a young noble and with her, a dark-skinned boy. Just seeing them reminded her of home and the freehold. The troll ran over to where they were standing, more or less overwhelmed by everyone else.
“Hi! I’m Bridgit!”
The little boy, in overalls and a worn blue-and-white stripped shirt, narrowed his eyes and scowled. The little girl timidly smoothed her jumper and inched behind him.
“Hey, leave us alone! We didn’t do nothin’ to you!” he challenged.
Bridgit cocked her head and looked at them for a long moment. “Huh? I’m not gonna hurt you. We’re the same, see? You guys are just like me.”
“It’s ok, Arimingo. She’s right. Look, she’s blue, just like Mountain Man back at the freehold.”
Arimingo stared at Bridgit, then relaxed his stance. “Yeah, Vivian, I guess you’re right.”
“I’m Bridgit Steadheart of the Barony of Crystal Hills. I’m gonna be a knight someday,” she bubbled enthusiastically.
“Wow, I wish I could be knight!”
“Who says you can’t? I’m Vivian MacDade ap Gwydion, of the Barony of the Shanandoah Dream, and this is Arimingo.”
“Hi,” said the eshu, ‘is this your first time here too?”
Bridgit nodded. “Yup. My mom said it was a lot of money, but Baron Kelvin told me it’d be a lot of fun.”
“There’s a baron at my freehold too! He’s quite strong,” Vivian said, blushing, “but he’s betrothed to my cousin, and she’s of House Fiona. Is your mother one of us?”
“Nope. But she’s ok, ya know, my very favorite Dreamer. Hey look, you guys have a bird name-tag on just like me, I bet we’re going to be in the same tribe.”
Vivian glowed. “It’s a pretty bird, like the noble falcon of house Gwydion.”
“Haw, it’s just a bird cut out of green construction paper with your Autumn name on it,” teased Arimingo, shrugging innocently at the girl’s glare.
Adults gathered on the soccer field began bowing whistles, and the three looked up. Most of the children began to head over in that direction, as did Bridgit, but she turned around when her new friends held back timidly.
“C’mon! Don’t be scared, I bet this summer’s gonna be a lot of fun!”
Looking at each other and grinning, Arimingo and Vivian raced over to join the young troll, and the fae trio walked to the field.
The last day of summer camp at Paw-Paw Falls found a junior counselor who somehow ‘forgot’ to find three of the Hawk Tribe, and some young campers lying on Big Ol’ Hill and lazily watching the clouds.
“Are you excited for school, Bridgit?” Vivian asked.
“You bet! Baron Kelvin says he’s got a really special teacher for me who’s gonna show me everything ‘bout being a troll.”
“Yuck,” Arimingo stuck out his tongue and twisted up his face, “I hate school! Recess isn’t long enough and Storytime is only once a week. I wish I could go on an adventure and never come back until a dragon ate the whole place.”
Bridgit shrugged. “I guess, but my school’s not so bad, see ‘cause Baron Kelvin is the principal and my teacher from last year’s an eshu like you. She says that this year there’s gonna be two more Kithian to play with.”
For a while, they were content to bask in the late-summer sun in silence. Tiny pixies darted and played in the heads of the tall grass as afternoon spread over the Appalachian hills and valleys.
“Hey Bridgit, are we ever going to see you again?”
“I dunno. Maybe sometime you guys could come visit my freehold, or I could go over yours.”
The young noble sat up suddenly, eyes twinkling. “I know! Let’s become blood brothers, like in that movie we saw that day it rained. That way we’ll always be friends.”
“You can’t do that, you two are girls. You can’t be a blood brother if you’re a girl.”
“He’s right,” Bridgit said, “and besides, how’re we going to cut ourselves? None of us are even old enough to wear swords.”
Deflated, Vivian lay back down. “Yeah, I didn’t think about that.”
“How about if we promised that no matter what, we’d always be the best of friends?” Arimingo asked.
“Yeah! We can write to each other and everything! What do you think, Vivian?”
“That’s a great idea!”
The three kept idly talking, not really aware of what on oath was, nor even that they’d inadvertently sworn a minor one. The afternoon had been sunny but terrifying storm clouds were building on the horizon; no good can come of an oath sworn under fell skies. For Bridgit, however, the scene dimmed as the randomness of her drunken, sleeping mind closed the doorway that hadn’t been opened in a little over a decade. Those memories were buried behind everything that had happened since; the Cataclysm, her mother’s death, the gray dragons, Olar Daan’s death, her disgrace and despair, House Balor and war with the Kingdom of Willows. But, they say a troll’s soul never truly forgets an oath.
The older, dignified man was sitting at the desk in his office when Bridgit knocked respectfully on the door-jam.
“I already made the announcement that those with afternoon detention will be meeting in the downstairs lunchroom,” he answered without looking up from his work.
Hurt and concerned, the troll shifted her weight so that her chimerical chains rattled against the door-jam, and concentrated on seeing the man’s fading fae mien.
“My lord?”
At that, he stopped writing as a ghost of recognition swept up and through him. The man shivered slightly and looked about his office as if not sure as to which seeming was real. Bridgit stood in a regally decorated baronial office; with colorful tapestries, statues of griffins and dragons, and Trystyn, the ever-faithful faerie hound, sleeping at the feet of a grandly carved writing desk. The man, however, was struggling with himself to see beyond the office of a simple mortal administrator.
“Bridgit, isn’t it?”
Blinking to keep the relief from showing through her eyes, she walked into the office and took a knee before her baron.
“Yes, my lord. I return briefly on a mission from the Duchy of Sylvania.”
Baron Kelvin Trembain ap Gwydion smiled and stood. “Rise, my vassal. You’ve been gone a long time, and we feared you’d met your end out there.”
Bridgit rose slowly, then sat gingerly across from her lord’s desk in a chair she prayed would hold her frame. Trystyn woke and wagged his tail, sniffing at her boots and wuffing to be pet behind the ears.
“There were many things that kept my attention, my lord, and so I was unable to return here or make contact.”
Baron Kelvin leaned back in his chair. “And what brings you here today?”
“Forgive me, my lord, but have you heard of the recent events in the Kingdom of Willows?” The sidhe shook his head, so Bridgit continued. “The King is missing, so like High King David, and in his absence House Balor has risen to dominance, with their capital at Baltimore. They kidnap nockers and force them into slavery, with a giant bestial chimera-worm that they are fed to when at last they tire.
“Questors of my duchy had, like myself, undertaken a quest to foil this wickedness, and in their valiance rescued Queen Mab from the Dreaming where she had been held. As such, our Regent, Elenora ap Gwydion, was raised to Duchess and the Duchy of Sylvania became a part of the Kingdom of Apples once again. Through my own failings, I was not able to aid my fellows, and so I make amends by coming here in search of the once-companion of one of my friends. Pray, has there been an eshu journeyman come through here within the last few months?”
“There has been only one fair folk to come through this way recently, and she was a boggan graybeard,” replied the baron, rubbing his short-cropped beard, “I had heard dire rumors of something going on down south, but dismissed them as just that; rumors and nonsense. It appears I was quite wrong, I…”
And it was as if the wind shifted, for Baron Kelvin’s eyes clouded over and he froze in mid-sentence; his fae mien flickered and dimmed, bringing the man back to the fore.
“Excuse me, young lady, may I help you?”
Bridgit’s heart tightened, facing the truth of what was happening. “Yes, actually, sir. Can you tell me where the woman’s room is?”
“Straight down the hall and to the left, first door,” the man answered, becoming once more absorbed in the paperwork on the desk.
Shaking her head, the troll trudged down the hall and away from the office. Her lord wasn’t gone yet, though she knew he didn’t have long. How could there be such a world that forced loyal soldiers to go on without their king?
“You traitor! Why have you come back here?”
The sidhe with ice blue eyes and shocking white hair stood in front of the school’s ‘library’ exit, hand at the hilt of his ornate sword. He was Tiernan Carwl ap Fiona, a knight with whom Bridgit and Kia had grown up. His fineries were black, beautifully inlaid with red and silver woven into the designs, house crest on his upper left breast.
“Good afternoon, Tiernan,” Bridgit mumbled and prepared to walk on by.
“That’s Sir Tiernan, commoner.” The young knight stepped in her way. “Have you forgotten your place in the world? Just waltzing away and leaving me here to defend this place by myself, and then, coming back like some cock-of-the-walk to meet with the old man? I think you ought to take a knee, troll.”
Bridgit tried to step by, but Tiernan forced himself in her way. “I don’t owe you anything. If you want to be treated like a noble, well, you’d better start acting like one. Where I come from, nobles are honorable.”
His eyes narrowed in anger, and she knew she’d gone too far with the last comment. Swiftly, he backhanded her across the face, but Bridgit still stood stolidly before him.
“I said, take a knee, troll…” and Tiernan drew himself up to his full height, arms outspread, calling upon the Dreaming. Faced with the glory of a member of the shining host, the knight of Sylvania went down in respect, and against her own will. Gloating, he kicked her once in the head before sauntering off.
“Now get out of here before I decide to kill you for your treachery!”
“Slumber, watcher, till the spheres, six and twenty thousand years
Have revolv’d, and I return, to the spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon shall rise, to the axis of the skies;
Stars that soothe and stars that bless, with a sweet forgetfulness…”
~ H.P. Lovecraft, from ‘Polaris’
Swearing lightly, Bridgit sped down the Turnpike, bound for home. General Cogsworth had planned a raid against Baltimore, and if she didn’t hurry, they might leave without her. Her anger simmered but didn’t flare; she remembered what Tiernan had done, but that had been years ago, and she’d done her job and protected her friend. Still, she knew he’d end up lord of the Cumberland Gap freehold when Baron Kelvin was gone, and Ahmira would be the only buffer between him and the others. Sneezles and Whomper, he’d never liked, and then there was Kia…No! She shook her head to clear it.
The chimerical leviathan swooped down with a deafening cry and landed in front of Bridgit’s fast-approaching pick-up. She slammed on the brakes, but crashed into the thing with her mostly-chimerical car.
It only took an instant for the seat belt to tear under the sheer mass of the troll, and that long for Bridgit to call her fae self to the fore before crashing through the windshield and smashing onto the hot asphalt twenty feet ahead of her car. Pain coursed through her mortal shell, but she forced herself to her feet to look back and see the creature flying away and a six-car accident centered around her now-mangled pick-up. Frighteningly swift, the road raced up to smack her in the forehead.
Akai-dian ato’miine! Andreataal. Teldmao, teldmao. J’ian tôle. Oh, Desert Star! Laughing, He Wanders In The Desert. Oh god, oh god, I am afraid.
Darkness was all, but it was warm. The sand shifted under her feet in the pre-dawn, or twilight area before the mountains and under strange stars. This place was upside down, or two ways up, or all, all wrong. She felt her perceptions rock and spin, and she so wanted to go down on her knees and vomit up the thick, gray sludge until her soul was clean again.
Blinding sunlight over the bleached dunes and the thousands of red-and-black clad soldiers roaring their battle cry and charging. Water dropping and echoing in the carved rooms of that green-crystal hall when the stars fell.
She turned to the dark-skinned young man next to her, who smiled kindly and spoke without saying a word. “You know, you could understand the whole universe if you’d just stop and look back over your left shoulder.”
Darkness. All is good and true, and darkness is the only thing in existence that has no source. Tian’te, Al-Khavan.
Bridgit awoke with a fierce headache and feeling very ill. It was night on that deserted stretch of the Turnpike, and her car was gone. The mortals had been a-wash with the Mists and let her lie unconscious by the side of the road. Taking a deep breath, she tied her oath-chains around her waist so they wouldn’t swing, and began running. She knew she’d get there eventually.