FIC: Gathering Gloom, 2/16
Title: Gathering Gloom
Author: houses
Email: houses7177@gmail.com
Universes: Tir Alainn and Merry Gentry
Characters: Morag
Pairings: Morag/Sholto, Meredith/everyone else. No, I’m not kidding.
Narration: Morag, Merry, Taranis, Usna, Sholto
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Post Tir Alainn trilogy, Post book 4 MG.
Disclaimers: Tir Alainn belongs to Anne Bishop, Merry Gentry belongs to Laurel K Hamilton
Summary: Taranis uses forbidden magic to call an assassin he believes will finally settle his Maeve Reed problem. Only thing is, said assassin has a mind of her own and isn’t particularly pleased to be back from the dead.
Part 1
~~~ Part 2 ~~~
There was light unlike any she’d ever seen. Morag blinked hard, body shaking uncontrollably and tried to sit up. This was not the Summerlands, her resting place after death, nor was it any place she knew. The cold white stone beneath her fingers felt strange, hard in a way that things had not felt since she was last alive.
Last alive.
No, that was unthinkable. She could not be alive again.
With that, her body gave several wrenching coughs, shoulders trembling. Her hair slid forward, cascading over her arms, thick black tresses sliding across the sleeves of the dark overdress she had been wearing at the time of her death. With a groan, she sat back, eyes tightly closed against the lights.
The fae were reincarnated, but they didn’t retain memories of their previous lives-or their previous clothing. She had known she would leave the Summerlands one day, but not like this, not back into the same body-or as same as it had been before the Inquisitor had laid the touch of the Nighthunter’s twisted magic on her.
Before she could dwell on that thought, her mind curled itself away from the sharp pains on her skin, as if the pinprick sparks of illumination could burn through the thin covering cloth and into her flesh. The lights were overwhelming. Bright and splintered, like starlight gone mad. She rubbed her eyes with shaking fingers, and cleared her throat, croaking out something that probably sounded like, “Hello?”
“Ah yes, It wakes up, doesn’t It? Or should I say her? Yes, definitely a her.” The voice was strange, disconnected, as if the speaker spoke through mirrors. She looked up to see a man covered in that dreadful light, swirling and swooping, illusions of sunbursts resting like a cowl over his head.
She shrank back unconsciously. This was not happening. She was dead.
She’d been turned into that thing, that horrible thing, and then she’d been set free.
She was dead. She had to be.
The man leaned down--not man, she noticed, fae, like her, but different. He reached out a firm hand and pulled her to her feet. “I am King of the Seelie Sidhe, Taranis Thunderer, King of Light and Illusion. I have summoned you to my court, Gatherer, to perform a task.”
When she started to move away, flinching back from this monstrosity of luminescence, he gripped her upper arms tight. He looked down at her, the dizzying lights a wreath around them both now, and hissed out, “You are bound to me, creature from beyond. My blood, my magic, my will commands you. I have sealed your fate to mine until my task is done.”
Morag blinked, still disoriented from being ripped from the sanctuary of the Summerlands. This was irrational, illogical, and undeniably happening. Her muscles twitched from disuse and the part of her brain not tackling the problem of remaining upright wondered why she was whole again and not tainted by the beast she had become. Or why she could understand this fae when he sounded so strange. The Gatherer tried to focus enough to summon her powers and rip the offending creature’s soul from his body to protect herself, but the lights distracted her, gibbering in her ears, pushing on her newly remade synapses like an irrepressible tide.
It hurt.
So she tried to listen to his ramblings, tried to think around the illusions and to understand what happened, why she was back. She almost didn’t notice when that dreadful King gripped her wrist tight and stabbed her with a thin blade. The pain in her arm was just one more assault on her overwrought body.
The blood dripped into a golden chalice held below, mixing with something oily and viscous. Before she could ask what he’d done, the mad King tipped the cup to his waiting lips, too pink and shiny moist, and swallowed the contents down.
She felt a pull in her stomach, an intense pain she couldn’t escape, and the man laughed.
“It is done,” he said, wild eyes glinting reflections from his tinted halo. “Maeve Reed is your quest, Gatherer. Go and gather Conchenn’s life for me to earn you freedom. She dies and only then is your life your own. You attempt to harm me and I will imprison you here in a misery beyond your imagining.”
She shuddered, finally scraping together the presence of mind to pull away and stumble to the floor again. Knees hit hard, bruising pale flesh, but she didn’t dare move again. That feeling of pulling began in her torso, the reminder that she had a task to do whether she wished to or not, and it filled her with despair.
She glanced up at the scintillating horror in front of her as he laughed, licking his lips. Morag blinked, hiding her eyes, and waited until the lights and laughter faded out of the room before relaxing and slumping to the floor in exhaustion.
Women came for her after a time, ghostly creatures without substance. Souls of long dead fae, drawn to her for reasons they did not give. They didn’t speak, only looking down on her with shadows of pity in their translucent faces. The trio knelt beside her, touching her with wispy fingers as if she were something miraculous.
She knew she could snatch them away from this cold, bright place and take them to a peaceful afterlife, but they didn’t seem to want it. They had no desire to leave; the specters belonged here.
She thought about staying in that harsh room, waiting for her doom to overtake her, but the idea of facing Taranis and his light show again turned her stomach. So, when the spirits beckoned her to follow them away from that place, she went without protest. There would be time to deal with him later. She was too weak to do any sort of magic, Gathering or otherwise, until she’d built up strength.
She followed them through darkened corridors, sticking to shadows. She was in a castle of sorts, she thought, somewhere old and great, full of mysteries and wonders. It left her cold. Morag didn’t like this place, wherever it was. This world felt wrong. She knew she was far from home, far from the halls of Tir Alainn or the witch-tended gardens beneath.
Before this nightmare began, in her living days, she had felt the call to Gather all the time. It was in her blood, in her soul, and she knew she must perform her duty. It was not work, really, for she loved it, in a way. Showing the departed fae to the Summerlands, or wherever the humans went for the witches she’d buried. Far too many in those last days, and she’d been glad on some level for the respite granted in her own death. The anger had carried her through the autumn gate and beyond, but her death was something she accepted without fear.
But now, for the first time since she had been called to Gather, she felt no compulsion to release the waiting souls. All she felt was that sickening twist in her gut reminding her of the geas the dreadful King had set on her before he faded into spirals of sparkles. He had taken her death from her, but not given her true life, just this desperate thing that clung to her like cobwebs.
She wanted it gone and would do whatever it took to remove the geas.
Morag answered to no one
But for the time being, she had to be patient. There was no rhyme or reason here. She knew that the creatures surrounding her were fae, sidhe as he called them, because they resonated with the magic in her, those unseen creatures behind doors, the creatures that showed no interest in her passage. She wondered if those ghostly ladies kept them away or it was something else, a primal reaction to Death’s Mistress.
She questioned if they had their own Gatherer here, someone to strip life away and escort the dead. How similar were these new fae to her kin? Would there be a Huntress and Hunter, a Bard and a Muse, a Lightbringer? She glimpsed shapes in half-opened doorways, heard laughter echoing down hallways, but it was vague. Nothing was familiar, nothing called out to her.
She entertained the idea of asking the spirits what was happening, but one look at their mute faces discouraged her. They would help her for their own reasons, but she should not ask too much of them. A moment of impotent fury made her wish she could rip all the spirits from their earthy moorings -- but they were ghosts already and she could only show them onwards and cause them no distress.
One thing was becoming clear: the King, Taranis, didn’t want anyone to know about her or her task.
He abandoned her without direction, trusting in some broken logic of his own that she would accomplish her task and solve his problem. The problem, from her point of view, was that she had no course of action. Taranis obviously meant for her to begin in her task as soon as possible. Perhaps he didn’t think she’d attack him if she had the chance, bound to him as she was.
He’d find out soon enough he should never play her for a fool. She would Gather for him, and then she would return and do a bit of Gathering for herself.
The ladies pushed her ever onwards, through winding passageways, past more dusty corridors and empty rooms, and Morag knew deep in her bones that this was a dying place. This castle of the demented King was withering as surely as if she’d drawn its life away.
She felt no pity for this dominion of Taranis, and followed her escorts through a low stone doorway that appeared from nowhere. A non-committal motion from them and she was standing outside in snowfall, her worn, old traveling cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders. When she turned to ask them what to do now, how to find her quarry in this new place, she saw the rock door was closed, and there was nothing but a snow-covered hillside behind her.
A grove of trees stretched ahead, ghastly in the growing dark, naked twiggy fingers caressing the sharp wind. She looked around for a sign, any sign, of what to do next, but there was nothing but driven ice in her face, whipping her hair from the leather thong that held it back. She took a few steps in one direction, waiting for that dreaded pull in her stomach to stop her, but when nothing happened she broke into a run.
Newly reborn, entirely confused, and trapped alone in a world she didn’t understand, Morag screamed in fury. The trees were silent, no wings of birds beating the air, and eventually she slowed.
It was cold, so very cold, and she began to shiver. The snow crunched underfoot, deceptively soft. She rubbed her hands over her arms briskly but her body felt wrong, like it was made of brittle things. She felt her skin twist and looked upon her hands with horror, expecting to see the claws they had become. But they were just hands once more, nothing tainted by evil. Not on the outside.
But what about the parts she couldn’t see? Was the nightmare still there inside her, waiting? There was a hunger insider her skin, coiled deep in waiting sleep, but she would stamp it down. She would not become that thing again.
Not again.
Never again.
Alone and lost, Morag slumped to her knees and began to cry.
TBC...
Part 3
Author: houses
Email: houses7177@gmail.com
Universes: Tir Alainn and Merry Gentry
Characters: Morag
Pairings: Morag/Sholto, Meredith/everyone else. No, I’m not kidding.
Narration: Morag, Merry, Taranis, Usna, Sholto
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Post Tir Alainn trilogy, Post book 4 MG.
Disclaimers: Tir Alainn belongs to Anne Bishop, Merry Gentry belongs to Laurel K Hamilton
Summary: Taranis uses forbidden magic to call an assassin he believes will finally settle his Maeve Reed problem. Only thing is, said assassin has a mind of her own and isn’t particularly pleased to be back from the dead.
Part 1
~~~ Part 2 ~~~
There was light unlike any she’d ever seen. Morag blinked hard, body shaking uncontrollably and tried to sit up. This was not the Summerlands, her resting place after death, nor was it any place she knew. The cold white stone beneath her fingers felt strange, hard in a way that things had not felt since she was last alive.
Last alive.
No, that was unthinkable. She could not be alive again.
With that, her body gave several wrenching coughs, shoulders trembling. Her hair slid forward, cascading over her arms, thick black tresses sliding across the sleeves of the dark overdress she had been wearing at the time of her death. With a groan, she sat back, eyes tightly closed against the lights.
The fae were reincarnated, but they didn’t retain memories of their previous lives-or their previous clothing. She had known she would leave the Summerlands one day, but not like this, not back into the same body-or as same as it had been before the Inquisitor had laid the touch of the Nighthunter’s twisted magic on her.
Before she could dwell on that thought, her mind curled itself away from the sharp pains on her skin, as if the pinprick sparks of illumination could burn through the thin covering cloth and into her flesh. The lights were overwhelming. Bright and splintered, like starlight gone mad. She rubbed her eyes with shaking fingers, and cleared her throat, croaking out something that probably sounded like, “Hello?”
“Ah yes, It wakes up, doesn’t It? Or should I say her? Yes, definitely a her.” The voice was strange, disconnected, as if the speaker spoke through mirrors. She looked up to see a man covered in that dreadful light, swirling and swooping, illusions of sunbursts resting like a cowl over his head.
She shrank back unconsciously. This was not happening. She was dead.
She’d been turned into that thing, that horrible thing, and then she’d been set free.
She was dead. She had to be.
The man leaned down--not man, she noticed, fae, like her, but different. He reached out a firm hand and pulled her to her feet. “I am King of the Seelie Sidhe, Taranis Thunderer, King of Light and Illusion. I have summoned you to my court, Gatherer, to perform a task.”
When she started to move away, flinching back from this monstrosity of luminescence, he gripped her upper arms tight. He looked down at her, the dizzying lights a wreath around them both now, and hissed out, “You are bound to me, creature from beyond. My blood, my magic, my will commands you. I have sealed your fate to mine until my task is done.”
Morag blinked, still disoriented from being ripped from the sanctuary of the Summerlands. This was irrational, illogical, and undeniably happening. Her muscles twitched from disuse and the part of her brain not tackling the problem of remaining upright wondered why she was whole again and not tainted by the beast she had become. Or why she could understand this fae when he sounded so strange. The Gatherer tried to focus enough to summon her powers and rip the offending creature’s soul from his body to protect herself, but the lights distracted her, gibbering in her ears, pushing on her newly remade synapses like an irrepressible tide.
It hurt.
So she tried to listen to his ramblings, tried to think around the illusions and to understand what happened, why she was back. She almost didn’t notice when that dreadful King gripped her wrist tight and stabbed her with a thin blade. The pain in her arm was just one more assault on her overwrought body.
The blood dripped into a golden chalice held below, mixing with something oily and viscous. Before she could ask what he’d done, the mad King tipped the cup to his waiting lips, too pink and shiny moist, and swallowed the contents down.
She felt a pull in her stomach, an intense pain she couldn’t escape, and the man laughed.
“It is done,” he said, wild eyes glinting reflections from his tinted halo. “Maeve Reed is your quest, Gatherer. Go and gather Conchenn’s life for me to earn you freedom. She dies and only then is your life your own. You attempt to harm me and I will imprison you here in a misery beyond your imagining.”
She shuddered, finally scraping together the presence of mind to pull away and stumble to the floor again. Knees hit hard, bruising pale flesh, but she didn’t dare move again. That feeling of pulling began in her torso, the reminder that she had a task to do whether she wished to or not, and it filled her with despair.
She glanced up at the scintillating horror in front of her as he laughed, licking his lips. Morag blinked, hiding her eyes, and waited until the lights and laughter faded out of the room before relaxing and slumping to the floor in exhaustion.
Women came for her after a time, ghostly creatures without substance. Souls of long dead fae, drawn to her for reasons they did not give. They didn’t speak, only looking down on her with shadows of pity in their translucent faces. The trio knelt beside her, touching her with wispy fingers as if she were something miraculous.
She knew she could snatch them away from this cold, bright place and take them to a peaceful afterlife, but they didn’t seem to want it. They had no desire to leave; the specters belonged here.
She thought about staying in that harsh room, waiting for her doom to overtake her, but the idea of facing Taranis and his light show again turned her stomach. So, when the spirits beckoned her to follow them away from that place, she went without protest. There would be time to deal with him later. She was too weak to do any sort of magic, Gathering or otherwise, until she’d built up strength.
She followed them through darkened corridors, sticking to shadows. She was in a castle of sorts, she thought, somewhere old and great, full of mysteries and wonders. It left her cold. Morag didn’t like this place, wherever it was. This world felt wrong. She knew she was far from home, far from the halls of Tir Alainn or the witch-tended gardens beneath.
Before this nightmare began, in her living days, she had felt the call to Gather all the time. It was in her blood, in her soul, and she knew she must perform her duty. It was not work, really, for she loved it, in a way. Showing the departed fae to the Summerlands, or wherever the humans went for the witches she’d buried. Far too many in those last days, and she’d been glad on some level for the respite granted in her own death. The anger had carried her through the autumn gate and beyond, but her death was something she accepted without fear.
But now, for the first time since she had been called to Gather, she felt no compulsion to release the waiting souls. All she felt was that sickening twist in her gut reminding her of the geas the dreadful King had set on her before he faded into spirals of sparkles. He had taken her death from her, but not given her true life, just this desperate thing that clung to her like cobwebs.
She wanted it gone and would do whatever it took to remove the geas.
Morag answered to no one
But for the time being, she had to be patient. There was no rhyme or reason here. She knew that the creatures surrounding her were fae, sidhe as he called them, because they resonated with the magic in her, those unseen creatures behind doors, the creatures that showed no interest in her passage. She wondered if those ghostly ladies kept them away or it was something else, a primal reaction to Death’s Mistress.
She questioned if they had their own Gatherer here, someone to strip life away and escort the dead. How similar were these new fae to her kin? Would there be a Huntress and Hunter, a Bard and a Muse, a Lightbringer? She glimpsed shapes in half-opened doorways, heard laughter echoing down hallways, but it was vague. Nothing was familiar, nothing called out to her.
She entertained the idea of asking the spirits what was happening, but one look at their mute faces discouraged her. They would help her for their own reasons, but she should not ask too much of them. A moment of impotent fury made her wish she could rip all the spirits from their earthy moorings -- but they were ghosts already and she could only show them onwards and cause them no distress.
One thing was becoming clear: the King, Taranis, didn’t want anyone to know about her or her task.
He abandoned her without direction, trusting in some broken logic of his own that she would accomplish her task and solve his problem. The problem, from her point of view, was that she had no course of action. Taranis obviously meant for her to begin in her task as soon as possible. Perhaps he didn’t think she’d attack him if she had the chance, bound to him as she was.
He’d find out soon enough he should never play her for a fool. She would Gather for him, and then she would return and do a bit of Gathering for herself.
The ladies pushed her ever onwards, through winding passageways, past more dusty corridors and empty rooms, and Morag knew deep in her bones that this was a dying place. This castle of the demented King was withering as surely as if she’d drawn its life away.
She felt no pity for this dominion of Taranis, and followed her escorts through a low stone doorway that appeared from nowhere. A non-committal motion from them and she was standing outside in snowfall, her worn, old traveling cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders. When she turned to ask them what to do now, how to find her quarry in this new place, she saw the rock door was closed, and there was nothing but a snow-covered hillside behind her.
A grove of trees stretched ahead, ghastly in the growing dark, naked twiggy fingers caressing the sharp wind. She looked around for a sign, any sign, of what to do next, but there was nothing but driven ice in her face, whipping her hair from the leather thong that held it back. She took a few steps in one direction, waiting for that dreaded pull in her stomach to stop her, but when nothing happened she broke into a run.
Newly reborn, entirely confused, and trapped alone in a world she didn’t understand, Morag screamed in fury. The trees were silent, no wings of birds beating the air, and eventually she slowed.
It was cold, so very cold, and she began to shiver. The snow crunched underfoot, deceptively soft. She rubbed her hands over her arms briskly but her body felt wrong, like it was made of brittle things. She felt her skin twist and looked upon her hands with horror, expecting to see the claws they had become. But they were just hands once more, nothing tainted by evil. Not on the outside.
But what about the parts she couldn’t see? Was the nightmare still there inside her, waiting? There was a hunger insider her skin, coiled deep in waiting sleep, but she would stamp it down. She would not become that thing again.
Not again.
Never again.
Alone and lost, Morag slumped to her knees and began to cry.
TBC...
Part 3