No Dominion The Walker Papers - By CE Murphy Page 0,29
You have no power over me.”
Cernunnos straightened in his saddle, stripping away their intimacy and becoming the thing I’d seen him as first: a cold hard capricious bastard. “As well, then, that I do not do this only for you.”
He meant it to cut, and it did. Brigid’s chin came up, enough of a hit that I saw it clear as Cernunnos did. This time, though, her voice didn’t betray anything but cool curiosity: “Do you not?”
“I recall a far-future memory, a reckoning with your sister’s master. I have a score to settle, though in that future I have no recollection of such a mark made in my past. Perhaps we might change it all utterly, and you and I might yet pursue what we have lost.”
Brigid stood silent a couple seconds, the sparks she’d buried comin’ close to burning through. Then she said, “Time’s passage does not alter in such a way, Cernunnos.”
His voice softened the same way hers had a minute earlier. “Time’s passage rarely alters that way, cuisle mo chroí. But even a god must try, else the long passage of the years would be unbearable with their sameness. Nothing is immutable, not even the stars. Will you ride with me?”
“I will ride with the boy.”
“Of course you will.” Cernunnos turned his stallion away, and the kid on the golden mare came to help Brigid mount. She thanked him, then lifted her voice, like all of us hadn’t been hangin’ on every word she and Horns had been saying.
“I have searched these hills while I have waited for you to come. East and north of Knocknaree lies a cavern reaching deep into the earth. There lies the cauldron which has stolen the lives of aos sí kings, and which will take even yours should my sister’s master gain the strength he desires. Master Muldoon has come from the other end of time to help us bind it. It is a binding I know succeeds, for he also helps to destroy it, and barely a dozen undead warriors rise to protect it. Make no mistake: when the magic is made to bind the thing, my sister and her master will come to protect it. You are hunters, but I would lead you to war. Will you ride with me?”
I’d done my time in the Army. I knew how much noise a dozen men could make when they put their minds to it. The Hunt outdid that, thanks to the baying dogs and calling rooks and the horses stamping their feet and raising their voices too. The only one not shouting was Cernunnos, who looked kinda like a captain whose troops had decided to take that hill over there whether he thought they should or not. I figured we were all gonna get court-martialed in the end, but what the hell, even a soldier’s gotta do something crazy once in a while or they’ll all go nuts. The kid swept his mare around, Brigid’s braid bouncing down her spine like a beacon, and the whole damned Hunt rode after them, cheering and waving their swords.
For once Cernunnos took up the rear. I nudged Imelda up next to Cernunnos’s stallion. “You said somethin’ about ‘your line’, meanin’ Jo and Bridey there?”
He answered like a man who thought he wouldn’t get any rest ‘til he did. “Brigid and the Morrígan are sisters, and Joanne is the Morrígan’s granddaughter, many times removed.”
“You gotta be kiddin’ me.”
Cernunnos arched an eyebrow, wrinklin’ the flesh over his budding horns. I twitched, trying not to let it turn into a shudder. “All right, so you’re not kidding. Is that why you want Jo? ‘cause her great-aunt turned you down?”
In seventy-four years I’d never met anybody who could do disdain the way Horns could. His lip curled and he looked at me like I was somethin’ he mighta scraped off his shoe. “I hold her in higher esteem than that, and I would hope you do too.”
Smug with satisfaction, I let Imelda fall back from the stallion’s side. I didn’t mind a god being taken with my girl, just so long as it was her, and not some
cloud-chasing memory he was after.
After a couple minutes, the cloud-chased memory circled back around to me and let Cernunnos take the lead. I watched him ride forward, then gave Brigid a hairy eyeball. “Thought you were the one who knew where we were going.”
“There is no hole in the earth that doesn’t contain at least a few beasts, and he’s