The land indeed came to life. Green buds sprang from the trees, as the tree spirits for so long sleeping within them awoke again and stretched in the warm spring air.
Daffodils, moonflowers and roses grew along the path. Moss spread on the wet rocks, and grass sprouted green through the melting snow. Caer pointed at another flower. “What’s tha--”
A cracking sound pierced the air, as if a thousand axes worked to take down the wood. It came from the road before them.
“Vingólf!” Mab told her instructions to the horses.
The trees opened before them, revealing the place of the Ice Queen.
The ice covering the forest floor shattered as if the golems hacked the ice apart.
The body of the Witch Queen lay there no longer.
“No,” Caer cried, sliding off of her horse and kneeling on the muddy ground, letting tears fall down her face. “Evil keeps nothing sacred, nothing. They could not let her rest.”
Mab started forward and stopped.
“Why do you weep, my child?” a voice asked. Caer turned. Beren stood there, skin pale, her hair as the snow once covering the kingdoms, streaked with red, her white gown shimmering in the breeze.
“They have taken your body,” Caer wept, white hot anger for the demon rising again.
“Did you think when Belial fell I would linger in the tomb of my making?” Beren asked.
Caer saw the translucent sheen of the Ice Queen disappeared. Her mother, Beren, Witch Queen of Sul, once more walked in the flesh.
Caer leapt on her mother and held her close. She felt the beat of her mother’s heart, and warmth returned to her body.
“Weep no longer, my dearest daughter. For the time of winter ends, and the time of healing begins.”
*****
In the gardens of Idalir, Caer walked, listless and lost in thought. Her mother returned, and Miðgarðir breathed with the new life given to it, but a shadow clung in her heart.
Headred still lay in feverish dreams, and the damnable cold of the demon. He slept beyond their medicine, beyond the magic of the witches and the fairies. And it seemed now he, as she, passed beyond hope.
“What makes your heart sad?” Beren asked.
Caer’s empty eyes reflected her empty heart. “He fades from me.” She walked on.
“All things fade, Caer. ‘Tis the way of life.”
“‘Tis not the way of my heart.” Her breath rattled in her chest, her tears spent. He saved her, saved them all, and she damned him now for sacrificing his life and leaving her alone.
“Daughter,” Beren said, feeling her heart weep for Caer’s pain
“I will go to Fensalir,” Caer said, “and there I will dwell in my old earthen home. I will bear a child to continue the line of witches. But I will never love another.”
“If you feel so, do not accept this fate,” Beren said, her jaw set, boldness in her eyes. “Challenge the gods, Caer. Too many for too long have accepted evil and pain and death. Search your heart for the answers you seek.”
Caer felt a spark of light in her heart and felt as it disappeared. She remembered how Hünjjuerad shattered, and Belial’s cruel laughter as Headred fell. She remembered the last glimmer in his eyes before they closed, looking at her in sorrow, in pain, in love.
“I do not know how,” she whispered.
“His strength fails him,” Beren whispered as she watched Caer move past her.
Mab came up to stand beside her. “By the dimming of the sun, and the coming of twilight, he will pass.”
“You know this?”
Mab nodded.
In her heart, Beren said a prayer and hoped her daughter would find the answer.
*****
Waermund laughed as he ran through the melting winter.
Lord Belial fell, and he could at last return to the land of his birth, and seek forgiveness from Beren.
The Black Forests of Myrkviðr turned to night, but he ran on. He wondered what villages lay nearby, if they would take him in. He tripped over something half-buried and fell to the cold, melting snow.
Waermund scrambled, desperate to get away from the rotting corpse of the man uncovered by his flailing fall. He leaned against a thick tree trunk.
The trunk moved.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Gorga asked.
The traitorous sorcerer shook his head and whimpered.
The golem laughed. He hoped to feast on the leftovers of the nearby village in his escape, but far better would this meal be; new meat for him to eat.
“Nowhere I suppose,” Gorga said. “You’re not going anywhere ever again.”
Gorga began to eat. He didn’t know how long he lingered. The last sounds he ever heard were hoof beats, as the fairy’s arrows slammed into his back. He fell forward on the snow and his quarry.
“What of the other creature?” a human voice asked.
“Perhaps another golem,” a fairy voice said. “Let us burn the carcasses before they stain the ground with their foul stench.”
*****
Athellind dabbed a damp cloth on Headred’s feverish skin.
At times he would grow cold as the ice conjured by the demon, and at times he would grow so hot he could not be touched. Now the fever went, but soon he would be cold, and they would cover him to keep him warm.
At a knock on the door, Athellind turned. Caer watched her. “He grows fitful,” Athellind said. “He grows cold.”
“I know.” Caer crossed the room, taking his feverish hand.
“I cannot save him.” Athellind felt his forehead. “I fear his fate rests now in the hands of the gods.”
Caer gazed at his face, calm and serene as his body died, and felt her heart turn to dust, the stars vanquished and dead within her. The light disappeared altogether.
Athellind left. She glanced over her shoulder at the girl who stood in vigil, her hope crushed and her love lost. Victory, indeed, became as bitter as defeat.
Caer wondered if she should go. Nothing more could be done.
Look to your heart for the answers you seek…
Her mother’s words echoed, as her tears fell. Caer could find no more answers; hope vanished. It ended, and the demon at last won.
“Return to me, my love,” she whispered. “The demon fell, why do you yet sleep in dreams? Spring returns to Sul, yet your heart and soul remain in the cold winter.”
He did not move, and his flesh chilled beneath her touch.
“You too have lost all hope.” She cursed him for not coming back to her, and for sleeping on the path of death while she lived yet on the path of life.
She felt guilt for cursing him and felt it die, the cold in her body complete, coursing through her veins like a plague taking over her soul. A cold wind began to blow, and winter threatened them again.
She felt nothing now, nothing but sorrow.
She took Headred’s bag of salt and drew a circle around him. It pulsed brighter than the sun, showing through the windows.
“Let me in,” she whispered to him and to the gods, and stepped into the circle.
She entered a wooded glade, warm and sunny. She heard the birds and the waters of a stream nearby, the splashing of fish, the sounds of the creatures who lived here.
A unicorn grazed nearby. Caer saw something in her, something she recognized. The unicorn stared at the witch who came where she should not be.
A stag, white the clouds, bounded through the forest. He too stopped and stared at Caer. At last the knowledge came to her. Caer looked in his eyes in reverence and humbleness.
The stag and the unicorn bowed before her and moved on together.
“They are Cerdic and Cwen,” Headred’s voice sounded behind her.
She turned. His skin glowed, no longer wounded, no longer weary. His white clothes mirrored the white of the gods who lived here, and she feared this world he walked in.
“Why have you come here?” he asked, walking toward her.
She studied
him, fighting the tears threatening to overwhelm her. “The war passed,” she cried to him and to the gods. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And yet it lingers in you.”
“I cannot return.” His hands stroked the tears from her cheek. “I cannot return to life, my love.”
“You must return to me. To your lands, to your people.”
“I cannot,” he repeated. Tears slid down his face as he took her into his arms. “These are the lands where the gods dwell, where mortal souls go after death. I must now stay here.”
“Then here I will go,” she said.
The unicorn and the stag watched in silence.
“I will go with you to this world and suffer death, rather than a life alone without the one I love, a life of loneliness in a world with no place for me. I would rather die than live such a life.”
“A life grows within you,” he murmured, feeling her belly. “Our children would die with you, the lives we made would perish in your death. He gazed at her. “Go back to the place of the living.” The winds whipped and whispered to one another, in the lands of the gods. “One day we will meet again, when the gods wish it to be.”
She looked at her stomach and shook with tears, crying and screaming as the light of the circle diminished, and the room became dark. She did not stop for many hours.
Mab stood beside the door and watched Caer’s tears stain the floor stones. Her heart broke with sadness, for she knew what Caer saw.
Headred walked with the gods. He would not return.
“Ricam elthia, redan alis,” Mab whispered. A tear fell for the pain of another. “Dia soaf ben yen, dia soaf ben yen.”
The light came, to save us all. The battle is ended; the battle is ended.
Caer glanced at her, her eyes clouded and hollow. Headred, chilled and dying, did not move.
“Lamen.” With the last statement, sung in a whisper, Mab glanced once more at Caer. Saddened by the fate of the prophet, Mab returned to the hall, to see the sun while light still remained.
The meaning of her last word echoed in Caer’s mind.
So shall it be.
*****
Headred watched Cerdic and Cwen, the stag and the unicorn, in the land of Woden. They spoke to each other, not in words but in thoughts. He listened.
Should he stay? We already chose his fate…
We are gods. Fate can be changed…
It must be upheld…
As should love…
The time of trials passes…
The shadow came. And Headred saw the void of death.
Headred observed the endless shadow. Warmth returned to his skin, not burning and writhing heat, but an endless wave of comfort.
He wondered where he would go.
No. He would rather fulfill his destiny and know Caer lived.
She would be safe and alone.
He heard her scream, in pain and sadness, as the gods ripped her away from the dream he lingered in, the death he welcomed. His own sorrow took over, as he felt the twins he helped to make cry for their father’s fate.
He wished to go back to her, to them, and live again.
A glow in the distance grew larger. He saw movement in the light. Did he go now to the gods? No, someone in the lands of the living made this movement. Did he see a vision after death?
The light grew larger, and he saw a face.
Headred opened his eyes and blinked.
Athellind gazed down at him, white from shock, feeling his head as she began to laugh. Her face remained pale.
“Calm yourself, woman, before you faint on me.” He said, his voice hoarse as he tried to move. He seemed to be wrapped in too many clothes, and the heat felt overpowering.
“You awake,” she whispered and sank into a chair.
“I do,” he said and thought of the gods who spoke in the winds. He knew their decision.
Athellind tried to push him down as he struggled free of the blankets, pushing his feet over the bed.
“You have not eaten in four days!” she cried, fighting with him. “You must rest!”
“The gods sustained me, and they have restored me,” he said, taking her frantic hands. “I will do both, but first I must see Caer.”
She nodded as he headed into the hall.
He watched through the window as Caer walked in the herb house, listless and cold. The just-unfurled leaves wilted on the trees; the flowers died where they grew.
“Does not the flower bloom when the winter passes?” he asked, stepping onto the terrace.
Caer whirled. “I thought…” she whispered.
He caught her, and his strength failing, sank down into a stone bench.
“As did I,” he told her.
“You return to me,” she smiled.
Before them the spring came again.
Athellind watched as they embraced, and sighed, holding a cloth to her eyes. Beren patted her shoulder, and Mab looked pleased.
“Now Miðgarðir may begin again,” Mab said and turned to Beren. “How did you know to bind them? How did you know his destiny would be tied with hers, and he would be needed to face the dark against so well matched against the light?”
Beren smiled. “Love and light are one and the same,” she said. “Love conquers death and night; love’s light drives back the darkness binding the world. Love conquers shadows. I knew it would be the only way.”
And as they watched the lovers reunited, Miðgarðir breathed again.
*****
Time passed, as time always passes. Six months flew by.
Tears of joy and happy gestures greeted the young lovers. People lined the streets to see the daughter of the Queen and the prophet whom she would wed. The fairies paced the walls, waiting and wishing for home.
The fairies felt the call, as the summer dwindled and the autumn began. They felt the call of the south, from the silver palaces in golden glades beneath the fairy sidhes.
At last the time came for us--I, my sons Elric and Girth, and our people-- to return home.
The mortals lined the streets beside the procession, watching as the immortals passed at last from their walls, sprinkling the ground with rice and the petals of sweet flowers, some crying for the beauty leaving their midst.
And some rode with us on the road south, to make their final goodbyes…
*****
Caer thought of the wonders of Miðgarðir as they rode through the south, Headred’s arms gripping the reins of the magic horse they rode. He whispered words in meant for her alone.
She touched her stomach, the bulge showing the children growing there, and thought of the gods who blessed her children. In silence she thanked them for returning her love to her.
“Such soft fur you have,” Beoreth said to Huma as she rode beside him. The goat man walked tall and proud.
“’Tis the goat’s wool, me lady. Not so tough as the hides of my brethren.”
“And whither would thou go, my good centaur, when your people make amends with you?” Mab asked him.
Huma blushed and smiled. “I’ll go to me mother.” He walked closer to the Fairy Queen’s horse. “She’s not ashamed of her relations with a goat you know…”
Caer laughed as his voice continued on, relating the familiar tale, and knew happiness for the kingdoms and the people she loved.
“Ah,” Headred said, and quieted, guiding the horse along the path.
The trees opened and hills appeared. The road went on forever, into the hills, the fairy sidhes beneath which laid the golden glades and silver palaces of the immortal folk.
“Here we leave you,” Mab told her. “Mortals cannot walk in the place of the fairies.”
“But I…?” Caer questioned, memories of the sidhes swirling in her mind.
“Some have said their spirits walked in those places of twilight,” Mab explained. “Once your spirit walked there, but your body remained in Miðgarðir. No mortal body may walk in the silver palaces in the golden glades.”
&nbs
p; Caer nodded, accepting. “I feel sad for Belial,” Caer remarked. “I feel sorrow she chose her path, and did not fight. I feel sorrow for the life she endured because of Enyd’s selfishness, for not ending such a pitiful life when it began.”
“So do all feel sorry for Miðgarðir, and the evil she wreaked upon it,” Mab responded. “It would be wrong not to feel sorry for such a life, my child. But you must remember every child, every creature the gods give the power of the light and the dark, and within their hearts they must choose their destiny, for good or for evil. Enyd knew this, and knew it would be wrong to kill the unborn child, and not to let Belial choose for herself. The gods gave us their greatest gift in that choice.”
Caer looked at the road again and sighed.
“So long as the way remains open,” Mab continued, “you and your children will know the friendship of my people.”
“Will it always remain open?” Caer asked.
“The path goes on. The kingdom of Sul as you know it will endure for many ages to come; I have foreseen it, though the people may not always remember the gift of magic they bear. Time goes on, and it heals all wounds. The world, like an endless road, goes on forever.”
Caer smiled, and Mab returned the gesture. The humans and goat-man watched as the fairies disappeared into the sidhes.
The troop rode from the sidhes toward Ull.
They passed the hovel for so long Caer’s home. The windows gleamed. Her love laid there after she found him, where she healed him for the first time. A little girl played outside under the watchful eye of her mother, as Caer once played.
The girl and her mother looked at the troop as they passed and smiled.
“Do you remember our dreams as children?” Headred asked her. She nodded.
An age of Miðgarðir passed away. Sul once again became prosperous, free of the winter and the darkness of Belial. Caer gazed at Beren, Huma, Beoreth, and the man she loved who rode behind her, and as the safe havens passed away from her sight, she knew love.
Night turned to day and day to night as they rode on, closer to Ull with each whisper of the wind and the crunch of the leaves falling on their path.
Even now the lands changed, and what way the paths of history would take them, none knew.
They rode on the path of light with the fairies as they traveled south, and now they traveled north on the other road, the road leading to a door. Caer watched the trees, listened as the dryad Whista sang in the deep and ancient forest.
And one night, as the others slept under the full moon, Caer let the dryads and naiads lead her to their circle in the wood, and there she danced with them. In her womb two children danced, a child of magic and a child of prophecy, children who would change their world.