On the Path to the Otherworld

The path to the Otherworld was very beautiful, paved with warmth, walled with comfort, lit with hope. For the first time in any of her lives Jane felt totally at peace.

She found this sense of enveloping peace bewildering, for she had not managed her freedom after all. She would never stand behind the throne of the Lord of the Faerie and carol in the dawn and the dusk.

Death had found her first, as she’d always feared.

It was just that the Troy Game had wielded the death, not Weyland.

How odd. The world gone topsy-turvy.

Death gone topsy-turvy.

The path to the Otherworld was strangely unpopulated, because she knew that tens of thousands were dying of plague, and there would surely be the usual elderly morbidities, and those women dead in childbirth, and the children run over by carts…

But perhaps everyone had their own path. Jane didn’t truly care. All she wanted was to walk forward, walk closer to the soft light ahead that radiated succour.

Escape from it all. Finally. Jane drew in a deep breath, and—

“Jane!”

She paused, frowning. The voice came from far behind her, and it aggravated her, for she wanted to maintain this sense of wellbeing, and the voice sounded like it—

“Jane!” The voice was far closer.

Curse it! jane put her hands to her ears.

“Jane.”

Now the voice was but a few paces behind her, and infinitely gentle.

Jane…

She turned around, weeping.

The Lord of the Faerie stood there, one of his hands outstretched.

“Come back, Jane.”

“No!” Jane pressed her hands more firmly against her ears.

“Jane, come home.”

“Home is waiting for me ahead.”

“No, Jane. Home is with me.”

“How is it that you can tread this path then, Coel? Are you dead as well?” She finally lowered her hands from her ears.

“I learned these paths in my last life. That is how I returned, and—”

“Murdered me.”

He laughed. “And murdered you, yes. But now I offer you life, Jane. Will you take it?”

Her mouth turned down. “My body is all ripped and broken.”

“Your body is whole and beautiful, Jane. Look.”

Jane looked down upon herself.

Her tears became sobs. Her body was indeed whole, and far more beautiful than she had ever known it in her life as Jane.

“Comb out your hair, Jane, and see that also,” the Lord of the Faerie said.

She put her hands to her hair, and discovered it long and thick. She drew her hands out, slowly, looking at the strands as they ran silken through her fingers.

They were golden, silvered and rosy, all in one.

She wore the hair of…of…

“You wear the hair of a Caroller, Jane—the colour of the dawn and dusk light. Dear gods, Jane, I need you to carol in the dawn and the dusk. How can you stand before me, and weep, and say you want only to walk away? How can you abandon the Faerie for the oblivion of the Otherworld?”

“I lied to you,” she said. “You know that now. I can feel it. You know how I deceived you, and—”

“I love you,” the Lord of the Faerie said very gently. “I know you lied to protect Noah.”

“You love me because I protected Noah?”

“I love you because I discovered a beautiful woman. I knew it for certain that day you stood before the Faerie on the summit of The Naked, and offered your throat for their revenge.”

“But you love Noah.”

“I will always love Noah. But that is a soft and gentle thing now, not the raging want that once it was. I am her overlord, and her companion on the road. I am not her lover. Not any more. Nevermore.”

She relaxed, as if for the first time in thousands of years. He did not want Noah as he had once wanted her.

He still loved her, but it was a quiet and quiescent thing now. Jane could understand that.

“I have a message for you from Noah,” she said.

“Yes?”

“She said to tell you that above all she is Noah and that she is for the land.”

He smiled, and Jane saw he was vastly relieved. “I am more than glad to hear that. Catling has been telling some nasty tales.”

“Catling murdered me,” said Jane. “She set her imps to me.”

The Lord of the Faerie went very still. “I know. But why?”

“In revenge, because I was the one who opened Noah’s eyes to Catling’s true nature.”

The Lord of the Faerie hissed, and Jane lowered her eyes, not wanting to see the anger there.

“It was a foul day,” he said, “when the Game concluded its alliance with the land.”

“Can it be stopped?”

“Do you want the Troy Game stopped, Jane?”

“I want nothing more to do with it!”

“Then take your place behind my throne, and take the place in my heart which I offer to you. Then you may deal only with the Faerie, and with my heart. A bargain…yes?”

Still she stood, too scared to take the step.

The Lord of the Faerie sighed, stepped forward, and took one of her hands. “Come with me,” he said, “and carol in the day and the night, and be my Faerie Queen.”

He pulled her close, and she was unresisting.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Yes,” she whispered.

And then she lifted her face to the light, and she began to carol.