The Faeries' Harp

30: Out of the Aether

Saoirse lifts herself from the ground and shakes herself off, wondering what just happened. It feels like a sledgehammer hit her brain, and as she looks around, she wonders if maybe that is exactly what happened. No longer is she in the Throne Room of the Faerie Queen; instead, she finds herself on uneven, barren ground, with sickly, twisted trees of muted grey-purple and half-withered olive green and ochre grasses. Some of the ground seems to be swampy, liquid in nature and emitting a ghastly, sulphuric stench.

“Where am I?” she mumbles, looking around. To her surprise, Magister Diarmaid is next to her, apparently having a similar experience.

Before Magister Diarmaid can make any attempt at answering Saoirse’s question, movement across the festering swamp catches both of their attention. An enormous creature, black as pitch, rises from the swamp. Saoirse has never seen anything like it before. The creature has the face of a vulture, which eyes them contemptuously, and vulture’s wings sprouting from the back of a body that looks to be mismatched from parts of both dog and cat. A scorpion’s tail arches menacingly over the creature’s back, poised to strike.

The creature’s mouth opens. Words Saoirse cannot understand pour forth from it in a deep, threatening voice characterized by puissant and unrelenting rage. Magister Diarmaid’s hand touches her shoulder, steadying her somewhat as she trembles in terror. Then the creature, having apparently finished its speech, roars, shaking the ground and prostrating the twisted trees. The odor of the creature’s breath is more unbearable even than that of the swamp from which it emerged. It surrounds them, suffocating them, and then for Saoirse, everything goes black.

***~O~***

Saoirse coughs herself awake. Through the coughing and her confusion and splitting headache, a pair of bottomless black eyes serve as an anchor, drawing her out of her mind and back into the Throne Room of the Faerie Queen.

“Are you all right?” Rhys asks Saoirse as her coughing starts to abate. He had rushed to her as soon as she and Magister Diarmaid collapsed, concern outweighing every other feeling, even his general unease and uncertainty as to how to behave in front of royalty. However, he has not dared to touch her, though it’s clear to him that she is profoundly disturbed and he would like to comfort her in some way. He does not know how his magic might affect her, and he knows he cannot control it the way he would like to.

“I…don’t know,” she manages before another violent coughing fit overtakes her. Peigi flies to her aid with a tulip cup of water, and together she and Rhys help Saoirse to sit up and drink.

On the other side of the Queen’s throne, another page and Duke Aonghus are attending to Magister Diarmaid, who is also coughing violently and quite obviously distressed.

“Parchment,” he croaks. The Queen snaps her fingers and one of her servants rushes to fill the High Mage’s request. Though the Queen has not moved from her royal seat, her eyes show great concern and perhaps even a small amount of panic, though she would never admit aloud to having such a feeling.

“What happened?” Rhys inquires of Saoirse, hesitantly offering her his hand to help her up. She gently takes it, then freezes. Rhys tries to withdraw, thinking his magic has harmed her in some way, but her grip on his hand tightens. Her eyes meet his, filled with understanding and alarm.

“Protect your mind,” she whispers, seeming to gaze into his soul. “Darkness preys first upon its own.”

“I don’t understand,” he responds as he helps her to her feet. “What does that have to do with what happened to you? What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know what happened, exactly. Magister Diarmaid was in the same place I was, saw the same things, heard the same things, I think. Perhaps he can explain. But there is something, dark and terrible and powerful, and it seeks to destroy.”

“Like my—”

“You must protect your mind.”

“But what does that mean?”

“Your Majesty,” Magister Diarmaid addresses the Queen, having pulled himself together enough to write down what he and Saoirse saw and heard and experienced on the piece of parchment brought to him by the Queen’s servant. “You will want to see this.”

He hands the Queen the parchment, and her eyes scan his elegant but spidery handwriting with growing alarm.

“So this prophecy you found. It is the right one,” she says with great reluctance.

“I fear that to be the case, Your Majesty.”

“And we do not have much time.”

“No. But we must make the most of the time we have. The Terror of Blackened Name comes. We must prepare.”