"Herne was a mortal. A prince in the world of a very long time ago . . ."
Ethan's voice echoing all around, Jack bend low over his mount's neck as the horse pounded through the trees and out into a wide-open clearing in the forest. As their horses cantered to a stop, he saw that they had become part of a hunting party, magnificently dressed and richly outfitted.
Jack felt the rustle of silk and, looking down, saw that he was clothed in a russet cape that draped behind him, trailing over his horse's back. The hems of his sleeves and pant legs were heavy with gold-hued seed pearls and amber. He looked at Ethan, who was clothed in a flowing, laced shirt and supple leather breeches and boots. Silver flashed at his wrists and throat as he leaned from his saddle, reaching for the reins of Jack's horse. He pulled them both to a stop at the fringes of the hunting party.
The rest of the hunters dismounted amid much laughter and merriment. Jack stared in open amazement at them, realizing with a start that they were not human. Like clouds of brilliant butterflies, they shimmered and shone in the dappled sunlight. Some even bore the delicate traces of jewl-bright wings unfurling behind them.
Ethan chuckled at his expression as he swung a leg over his mount's flank and dropped lightly to the ground. He reached up to help Jack do the same, steading him as his feet touched down on the mossy sward. He looked into Ethan's eyes and saw the wonder in his own reflected back at him.
"How . . . ," he began, but turned at the sound of a deep, booming laughter. It came from a tall, handsome man clothed in deep green and bearing the horns of a king stag on his bright helmet.
"That is Herne the Hunter," Ethan murmured in a low voice shaded with reverence. "The Faerie Folk call him the Horned One."
"I thought you said Herne was mortal," Jack whispered back.
"He is . . . at least, he was. At this point in his life."
Jack understood then that somehow Ethan had conjured up a vision from Herne's life, when the Hunter's had been a prince. "And the Faerie didn't - didn't - have a problem hanging out with him?"
Ethan smiled at his choice of words. "Faerie and mortal used to . . . 'hang out' together quite a lot. In the days before mortals grew fearful."
Isn't that because the Faerie grew frightening? Jack thought as Ethan took him by the hand, leading him toward the center of the meadow, where fine tables laden with a fantastic banquet stood.
"Can they see us?" Jack asked as they passed among the Faerie.
"No." Ethan shook his head. "They do not see us as we are - because we're not really here. They probably see us as companions of that long-ago day."
"How are you-"
"Magick. Auberon taught me small things - party tricks, compared with what Faerie can do - when I was a boy." He shrugged. "Things like conjuring visions. I had a certain aptitude for it, although, I confess, I've never really tried anything this complicated before. Now come . . . let's at least enjoy our time here while we still can. This is not a story with a happy ending."
About to ask him what he meant, Jack's breath caught in his throat at what he saw next.
How, Jack thought, could anything possibly go awry when the world has such creatures in it?
"Mabh!" Herne shouted in a joyous greeting, his voice filled with unmistakable warmth of his feelings for the woman, flame haired and fantastically beautiful, who stepped out from beneath the shadows of the trees. "My Queen! My love . . . "
Jack had never seen anyone with such fierce grace and majesty as the Faerie queen of the Autumn Court. Mabh was like all the poignant glory of the fall season distilled into a single being. She lifted her arms in welcome to the Horned One, and her smile filled the grove like sunshine.
Jack forgot Ethan's foreboding words. In fact, he forgot almost everything - he almost forgot that he'd ever had another life. - as day upon day passed blissfully in feasting and hunting and song. At night, Herne and his companions, Ethan and Jack among them, would lie on richly woven blankets under the stars, listening to the crackle of the bonfires and the strange, beautiful music of the Fae. By day, they would ride through the forests at great, reckless speed, whooping and laughing in sheer delight.
It seemed to Jack that time passed and, yet, time stood absolutely still.
Then came the day when Mabh, clothed in a midnight hued gown and smiling a secret smile, bent to kiss the Hunter Prince's brow as he lay on the mossy bank of a spring pool, his head in her lap, smiling up at her. All about them, the glittering coterie of Faerie royalty - Herne's hunting companions - lounged indolently, watching with idle amusement as the Faerie queen laughed and rose to her feet. With movements so graceful she seemed almost to dance, Mabh circled the pool. Lifting her voice in a chant of power, she pulled forth handfuls of glistening ocean-blue beads from hidden pockets in the folds of her skirts.
Propped up on one elbow, Ethan went stiff with tension, and Jack suddenly remembered what Ethan told him about this tale not ending well.
Her blue eyes sparkling, Mabh held both hands over the surface of the pool and, opening her fists, let fall the jewels into the spring. The surface of the water rippled and then boiled, foaming white and hissing steam. Rising to his feet and straining to see, Jack glimpsed something moving in the inky depths.
A kelpie emerged from the spring, called forth by the chant of the Darkling Queen. Jack glanced down at Ethan, speechless with apprehension, as Mabh cast her spell, enchanting the water spirit with her tailsmans, changing it with her magicks into a spirit of fire.
Ethan rose and watched with Jack as the creature writhed and whinnied and blurred like smoke, transforming from something that closely resembled the sweet-tempered animal back home in his apartment into a ferociously beautiful creature - a stallion with a coat as red as a sunset, and fiery, flashing hooves.
"My Queen," protested one of the Faerie hunters uneasily. "This is an impossibility! It should be-"
Mabh silenced him with a look.
Approaching her, Hernes eyes lit with joy at the sight of his lovers extravagant gift. The Hunter vaulted onto the back of the magnificent roan stallion. Mabh threw her arms into the air and laughed with an almost girlish delight as, together, the Hunter and his horse leaped into the sky, galloping swiftly over the treetops. In the forest glade there was a flashing blur of motion - like the beating of black wings - and Mabh disappeared. In her stead, a raven flashed through the spaces between the trees, following in the wake of the Horned One and his steed.
"This is unheard of," murmured the Fae who had uttered the protest. "To bestow a gift of such extravagant and dangerous magick upon a mortal . . . "
"Mabh is besotted," said the Faerie beside him, shaking her head.
"Oh, come! The Horned One is no mere mortal," said another, laughing as he mounted his own horse, hurrying to follow in Herne's wake.
Most of the other Faerie seemed to agree and, in a flurry of activity, swept forward to join in the merry chase of their mortal companion and his new prize. Caught up in the excitement and not wanting to miss a moment of the story, Jack ran for his own horse, Ethan at his heels.
The party galloped in pursuit of the Hunter. As the woods opened up into a wide expanse of rolling downs, all of the Faerie mounts leaped into the sky, their hooves pounding the air above the treetops as they took flight.
His heart in his mouth, Jack gripped the reins, white-knuckled, and hazarded a glance left and right. On either side of him, Herne's hunters rode, starry-eyed and ethereal in their beauty, with excitement-flushed cheeks, streaming hair, and expressions uniform in their fierce elation. Jack had never seen anything so glorious, never done anything so exciting as ride through the skies with that shining host.
The days and nights continued to pass in an intoxicating blur. Not only did Mabh give Herne the roan horse, she provided him and his companions with the most extraordinary quarry to hunt. The Darkling Queen commanded her minions capture Faerie beasts from her own lands in the Otherworld and set them loose to roam the forests of Herne's realm, all for the sake of her lover's sport. Magnificent animals: stag and boar and bear.
And what had once been folly and fun soon became a pursuit im deadly earnest. The hunters became consumed, riding in the chase with the mortal prince and his fantastic steed - huntsmen and -women, hounds and horses, riding with wild abandon above the forests of that ancient world.
The branches of the trees caught at Jack's clothing as the hinting party thundered to a stop. They were at the edges of a forest glade where a pure white monarch stag stood defiantly, held at bay in the clearing by a ring of enormous hunting hounds. For three days, Herne had led the hunt in a mad, exhilarating chase of this regal quarry.
Jack had been as caught up in the excitement as anyone, but now all he felt was a painful tightness in his chest. He watched helplessly as, urged on by his companions, the Horned One drew an arrow from the quiver on his back. Herne's missile flew with dead accuracy, striking unearringly, deep into the King Stag's throat. The snow-white creature bellowed and fell to it's knees, its blood flowing in a silver river down its hide to pool like molten metal on the grass.
The Faerie hunters cheered their prince's triumph and two beautiful Fae rushed up to Herne, throwing their arms around him, even as the image of the dying stag almost broke Jack's heart. Beside him, Ethan made a soft sound of protest. Jack looked over at him and saw his eyes flash with anger and sorrow at the sight of the downed beast.
Jack felt other eyes upon them and turned his head to see Herne staring at Ethan - and then, briefly, at him. The Hunter's brow creased in a furrow beneath the rim of his bright helmet. After a moment, he smiled and turned back to his companions, leaving Jack to wonder what he'd seen.
Herne approached the body of the stag, stopping at a distance of a few feet. There was a long, stretched moment of silence in the forest, for even the birds had stopped singing. Jack raised a shaking hand to his forehead and realized he'd been clutching the reins so hard they'd left red marks on his hands.
Suddenly the animal twitched and shuddered where it lay upon the ground. The majestic white creature drew breath again and churned its legs, lurching back up onto its feet. The stag pawed the turf and shook its head. Jack could scarcely beleive his eyes. It was alive again!
The Hunter lifted his bow in salute, and Jack looked over at Ethan, feeling the corners of his own mouth turn up in response to the wide smile that suddenly spread across Ethan's face as the stag bounded off once more, leaving nothing but a trace of silver blood on the grass.
The Faerie hunters cheered, and all was well. Herne turned back to his companions, flinging an arm over one of the beautiful huntresses's shoulders as the group burst into song. But in the corner of his eye, Jack saw a blurring of darkness flash through the trees - a raven, flying off into the depths of the forest, its cry echoing harshly.
Later, once the sun had set, a great, lavish banquet was spread out upon a high hill. Herne was particularly merry that night, calling for games and music; he was never alone, constantly surrounded by the shining Fae who doted on him. One lovely Faerie girl had removed Herne's horned helmet and was weaving a crown of leaves through is hair as he laughed at a story another hunter was telling.
Over on the other side of the hilltop, on a wide stretch of flat earth, a furious game of hurling - something resembling field hockey but played with a silver ball and wide-bladed sticks made from polished oak - was being played at full tilt. Jack's untutored eye could discern few if any rules as the battle for possession of the shining ball raged between the two groups of Fae. It seemed like gleeful, dangerous chaos to him, and he kept his distance. But he couldn't help noticing how Ethan drifted over to the margin of the pitch to watch them play. His expression turned wistful, and Jack guessed that he was thinking of his own childhood in the Otherworld where, no doubt, he had played this game or one like it.
Not wanting to intrude on his reminisce, Jack walked a little away from the revelers and stood at the edge of the hilltop. Looking down, he saw the lights of a small village nestled in the valley, bordered by the thick forest where they had hunted that day. The full moon illuminated the houses, and Jack could just make out the figures of two villagers emerging from their cottage to peer up at the hill. They can hear us, Jack realized, unsurprised, for the Fae's laughter and carousing had reached raucous levels.
Jack's skin prickled, and he looked up, toward the horizon, and saw Mabh standing alone on a barren hilltop in the distance. The Faerie queen's dark cloak spread out behind her on a cold wind as she watched Herne's festivities from afar.
Anger, palpable as a thundercloud, gathered around her. In her fist, she gripped a slender, silver-tipped spear. But Jack also thought he saw the Faerie queen's shoulders hunch beneath her cloak - as though Mabh wept.
Jack's heart went to her.
But as dawn approached, her sympathies for the Autumn Queen vanished. As Herne and hunters slept, full of meat and mead and sparkling Faerie wine, Jack awoke from an uneasy dream to see Mabh stalking silently among her lover's companions. Her lips moved, the breath hissing between her teeth, she knelt down before each sleeping Faerie hunter, tying charms around their throats. Blue, glittering charms.
Jack froze, realizing the queen was casting a terrible curse as she wove a path through the sleeping Fae. Once she had passed, Jack dared to sit up, and looked at the Faerie asleep on the ground. Horrified, he watched the exquisite beings amid whom he had been living change before his eyes - becoming terrible in their beauty. Dark. Dangerous. The queen's magicks had transformed them; no longer carefree, they were cruel looking even in sleep.
Creeping silently to the edge of the hunters' camp, Jack watched Mabh stride down the sloping hill to the forest below. Reaching the edge of the trees, the queen waved a hand and conjured an ugly, gaping rift in the wall between the mortal world where the hunters slept, showing glimpses of a dark, forbidding Otherworld realm beyond. Mabh put tow fingers to her lips and whistled - soundlessly, to Jack's ears. She was answered by a pack of vicious hounds - Black Shuck - who bounded out from the rift between worlds and into the forest.
Crouched at the edge of the hills precipice, Jack saw Mabh's hounds drive the hunters' noble quarry out from beneath the sheltering trees, herding them like cattle. As the Black Shuck snapped at the silvery heels and exquisite hides of the magical animals, Mabh waved her arm again and the shuck drove them through the rift. The sky began to lighten in the east just as the last of the quarry - the white King Stag - leaped through.
"She will hide them in her own lands, the Borderlands, in places where the sight of neither men nor Fae can find them." Ethan's voice was grim. He appeared out of the predawn mist at Jack's side, watching with him.
"And then what?" Jack asked, not sure if he really wanted to know. "What will happen now?"
"Mortal beasts are . . . no longer challenging to the hunters," Ethan said softly as he unclasped his cloak and draped it over Jack's shoulders.
He must have seen Jack shiver. He didn't tell Ethan it wasn't from cold.
"They will seek other prey," he said.
But as he spoke, the sun was already rising. The hunters were awakening.
Herne and the transformed Faerie greeted the day with bloodlust shining in their eyes. Mounting their horses, they set off at breakneck speed for the forest with a newfound grimness underscoring their elation. Ethan and Jack mounted their steeds, too, but kept well behind their now-frightening companions.
Searching everywhere for their enchanted quarry but finding none, the spell-ensnared Fae howled with madness and rage at their spoiled pursuits. Thundering to a halt at the ragged edge of the woods, they looked up and saw, atop the hill where they had camped, the Dark Queen standing, still as any statue.
Mabh smiled coldly and put a tall bronze war horn to her lips. Jack had to drop the reins of his horse and cover his ears as the queen blew three earth-shattering notes, calling the Wild Hunt to war.Hunt
Herne and his hunters seemed to go mad at the horn's terrible sound, tearing up into the sky and brandishing swords suddenly livid with flame. Some of the treetops caught fire as they passed, casting an orange glow on the bellies of low clouds and painting the Faerie with lurid, angry light. The Hunter and his once-beautiful companions, features now twisted with hate, turned malevolent eyes toward the human village that lay just to their west - the village Jack had observed during the night.
Horrified, he turned desperately toward Ethan, who grabbed the bridle on Jack's mount as his horse reared in distress. Kicking his heels into his own mount's flanks, he wheeled the horses and led Jack away from the Hunt as fast as their steeds would carry them.
"This can't be happening," he gasped, breathless, as they reached the cover of the forest and he called his charging horse to a stop, forcing Ethan to circle his mount and return to his side. "They're not going to kill those villagers? Ethan?"
Ethan couldn't answer.
"Oh, my God . . . ," Jack whispered, twisting his saddle to look back into the trees as he heard the first shrieks of haunted humans echoing down the wind.
"Mabh turned them from a hunting party into a deathless, death-mad war band," Ethan spat, his bitterness palpable. "Waking nightly with the rising of the moon to ride out with a singular purpose: to kill."
"But after that?" Jack whispered, pleading for a glimmer of hope. "What happens after that? It can't just end there. . . . "
"No." Ethan had grown very pale , and his voice sounded faint and far-off. He stared, his gaze unfocused, at the scudding clouds. "The High Courts of Faerie will finally be forced into action. They will gather together in council and - in an utterly rare accord between the Seelie and Unseelie kingdoms - Auberon the Winter King and Titania the King of Summer will combine their efforts and cast Herne down from the sky, from the back of his fearsome horse."
A sheen of sweat on his brow, Ethan pointed up into the sky suddenly full of shifting, thunderstorm hues - where the last, ghostly remnants of the vision he had conjured wavered before Jack's eyes. He daw another gaping rift open between the worlds and a great whirlwind of light and sound poured forth. Hee saw Herne thrown from his charger and watched as he plummeted to the earth far below, a falling comet.
Without his rider, the Roan Horse suddenly became nothing more than a lowly kelpie again. It vanished at a command from Auberon, leaving behind nothing but glittering purple jewels that twinkled briefly like stars in the night sky before disappearing themselves.
"And Mabh?" Jack asked, his throat dry.
"Confined by Auberon and Titania to her own realm, where she remains," Ethan murmured, "a prisoner in her own shadow kingdom to this day."
Jack did not find that as comforting a thought as he was perhaps meant to, but there was no time for more questions. Ethan was bent low over the neck of his mount, and he looked dangerously close to slipping from his saddle.
"We habe to go," he said as he reached out, hooking his fingers around Jack's horses bridle. He turned his mount and led them toward a bank of fog that was rising over the moors.
The swirling mists closed around them, and Jack felt the horse beneath him gradually stiffen and change - reverting back to the wooden carousel horse it had once been, what seemed like so very long ago.