Swallowing Darkness

Chapter Forty-Two

Ash swung me around so that i faced away from him, one hand on my throat, the other around my waist, pi

"Take us back," Ash hissed in my ear.

"I didn't bring us here."

"Liar," he whispered, and his fingers tightened just a little around my neck. That one flex of fingers, the firmness of his palm against my throat, made my pulse speed.

I spoke carefully, not wanting to do anything to make his fingers tighten any more. "I ca

His fingers squeezed just a little more, until swallowing was uncomfortable. "What do you mean, 'a different country'?"

I spoke even more carefully. "There are no standing stones in America, not like this."

His hand tightened until my breath wheezed under his grip.

"Then where are we?" he asked.

"A place between," a woman's voice answered.

Ash went very still beside me. His fingers didn't tighten, for which I was glad, but they didn't loosen either. My breath still wheezed out from between his fingers as he turned slowly toward that voice.

Holly said, "Who are you?"

The woman's voice said, "You know who I am."

Ash turned so that he saw her before I could, but I knew what we would see, or what I would see. She wore a hooded cloak that hid most of her face, but for an edge of chin or a glimpse of lips. She held a staff, and her hand would be pale one moment, dark the next; old and young; slender and not. She was the Goddess. She was all that was female, all that was woman, and all at once.

It was Ash who said, "Why have you brought us here?" Holly was still facing the figure with his sword out, as if he meant at any moment to attack.

She wasn't flesh and blood, I knew that. I didn't think his sword could hurt her, but it seemed wrong to be threatening her. I might have protested except that Ash's hand squeezed too tightly for words.

"Take us back or your chosen one dies."

"Harm her and you will never have the power you seek, Ash."

His hand eased a little so that I could breathe without fighting for it. "So if I let her go you'll give me power?"

"She is the key to your power. Without her there is nothing."

"I do not understand."

Holly lunged toward the figure. A sword clanged down the length of his blade, pushing it against the grass, and a body was on the other end of that sword. He was tall and short, muscled and not, dark and light, all men and none. He had thrown off the cloak that they wore to save our minds so that you simply had to see all the many forms at once. He stood bare in all his beauty and terror, for a long, muscled body can be just for pleasure, but that same muscled weight can thrust a sword and spill blood. He was the greatest of tenderness and the greatest of destruction all at once. The potential was all there in that swirl of images, shapes, scents, and sights.

He disarmed Holly, but he had to cut the goblin's hand to do it. It spoke of Holly's skill or the God's impatience. His voice was deep and rumbling as gravel, and the next light and airy as any, all men echoed in his voice. "Who am I?"

Holly went to his knees with the sword point at his neck. "You are the God."

"Who is my consort?"

"The Goddess," Holly answered.

The God stepped back to the cloaked Goddess, but the moment they touched hands her cloak was gone, and they stood side by side. I don't know what the goblins saw, but I saw a dizzying swirl of faces and bodies. They were all these beings at once, but my mind could not hold it all. I finally closed my eyes, for I could not take it all in.

Ash began to move, and I opened my eyes as I realized that he was moving us both to kneel on the summer grass. He'd stopped choking me somewhere during the revelation. In fact, now the arm that had been choking me was around my shoulders. What had been hurting me was holding me almost tenderly now.

"It has been long since the goblins saw the face of God," Ash said. "And Goddess," the Goddess said, and there was chiding in her voice. It was the voice of every mother, every big sister, every aunt, every teacher, all rolled into one echo.

"And longer still since the goblins saw the face of the Goddess," Ash said. If he resented the chiding, it didn't show in his voice.

"Are you goblins?" the God asked.

"Yes," Holly answered.

Ash was a little slower with "Yes."

"Are you sidhe?" the Goddess asked.

"No," Holly answered.

"We have no magic," Ash answered, as if that answered the question, and perhaps it did.

"What would you give to possess the magic of the sidhe?" she asked.

"Nothing," Holly said. "I am goblin, and that is enough."

"She did not say we had to become sidhe, brother," Ash said. "She spoke of the magic of the sidhe."

"Magic of the sidhe, but still goblin," Holly said. "That would be worth much."

"Once there were many courts, even among the goblins," the Goddess said.

"Once," the God said, "there was magic in every court of faerie."

"The sidhe stole our magic from us," Ash said, and his hand that had been tender tightened against my shoulder. He didn't hurt me, but his body was suddenly tense as it knelt beside me.

"Daughter," the Goddess said, "what say you to this?"

"The sidhe stripped the goblins of their magic to win the last Great War between our peoples."

"Do you think this was well done?" She asked.

I thought before I answered, because I could feel the magic begi

Ash's arm across my shoulders was almost trembling with tension. I had a moment to glance up at him, and he was staring as hard as he could straight ahead. I think he was afraid of what I might see in his eyes.

"I've been told that if we hadn't taken the magic from the goblins they would have won the war."

"But your two peoples are no longer at war, are they?" She asked. "No," I said. Ash had gone utterly still beside me. I could feel the tension along his muscles, as if he fought himself to be still.

"If you could undo the wrong done the goblins, would you?"

"Was it wrong?" I asked.

"What do you think?" She asked.

I thought again. Had we been wrong? I had seen what the sidhe had done with their magic. They had used the fact that only we had major offensive magic to be tyrants. We had won the wars, but in the end, it was the humans with their technology who had truly won.

"I think we won a battle, but not a war, by taking the goblins' magic."

Ash's hand spasmed against my shoulder.

"But was it right, the right thing to do?" the God asked.

I started to say yes, then said, "I don't know. I was told that our magic came from You. That would mean that we stole magic from the goblins that You had both given to them. Did you agree with what we did?"

"No one asked us," the Goddess said.

Ash startled beside me, and I just gaped at them. They had hooded themselves again, so my eyes and my mortal mind would be able to deal with them better. When had they hooded? Just now? Minutes ago? I couldn't remember.

"Taking the goblins' magic was the begi

"What if you, daughter, could undo that injustice?" the God asked.

"You mean give magic back to the goblins," I said. It was always good to be clear.

"Yes," they said together.

"You mean give Holly and Ash hands of power," I said. Ash had actually dropped his hand, as if it were all too much.

"Yes," they answered again. Were they begi

"They are sidhe as well as goblin," I said.

"Would you give them their sidhe-side powers, daughter?" Now I was answering voices.

If I said no, would the Goddess retreat from me, from all my people again? I looked at Ash, and he would not look at me. I glanced in front of us at Holly. He was glaring at me. His face showed plainly that he thought I would deny them. But it wasn't his anger that I saw, it was the reason behind the anger. Years of looking in the mirror, and seeing all that sidhe blood looking back at you, and knowing that you would forever be denied. It didn't matter how sidhe you looked. If you had no magic, then you weren't real to the sidhe. You were simply not one of them. I knew what that felt like, to be among them but not one of them. I looked less sidhe than the brothers did. At least they were tall, and until you saw their eyes they could have passed. I would never pass for pure-blooded sidhe, not with a thousand crowns on my head.

"Will you give them their birthright back?" the voices asked.

For politics, I should have said no. For the safety of my world, no. For the safety of everything we'd signed treaties for, no. But in the end, I gave the only answer that felt right. "I will."