Great Queen's Hound Volume II of Tales of the Dearg-Sidhe

Table of Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

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Dedication

Once, long ago, in a small living room not far from the legendary Greek Theatre in Hollywood, California I had the privilege of being introduced to a thin, tall, blue-eyed, curly blondish haired young man whose music and words opened my mind and my soul. His stories and songs spoke of magic and mystical realms, of trees that did battle and Celtic heroes and wizards who interacted with their Gods, of cattle raids and Bards and history ancient and mediaeval, and his harp with the Green Man carved and affixed to it, his tin whistle, his pipes and his guitar rang out in accompaniment which stirred my heart and the memories of my far ancestors of the British Isles and made me whole.

This was the first of many nights I spent in wonder, listening as the Caliph had listened to Scheherazade, in rapt attention and seeking no more than to have my imagination stirred by words and music which bore me off to lands and times of the gloried past and set a fire in my head and in my soul.

Robin Williamson is the true spiritual descendant of Taliesin, whose words and music transformed for me the mundane into the miraculous and set my soul to wandering in the ways of the Bards of old.

And I will not forget.

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Prologue

Another thing about immortality: after a while time ceases to be relevant and the impact of certain events upon one’s life makes consequence more important than sequence. I have forgotten more of what today’s world refers to as history than what it sneers at as mythology, for the former is only the pale shadow of the latter, sucked dry of its life’s blood by the passionless intellect of scholars whose methods of extraction are more tortuous than mine; but then I must admit the world seems today only capable of assimilating expurgated truth.

I have moved throughout more than two millennia as a shadow myself, changing my name and appearance to conform with the time and place and to serve My Lady’s will. Oh there were times when we gloried, when we danced together as flames upon a great pyre — when Rome withdrew its legions from Britain’s shores, when Spain’s great fleet was scattered by the storms brought forth by My Lady’s power, when Great Napoleon went down in defeat at the hands of Nelson’s unsung minion who was also Hers. There were times also when even the Goddess wept in sorrow and in helpless fury, unable to speak to the minds of those who heard only the words spoken from Rome’s new Empire, one which fettered the spirits of those who were otherwise free.

At such times the people turned upon each other instead of outside threats and ripped out the heart of the Land I was sworn to serve.

At such times I found myself upon the back of the white mare, riding to whenever, wherever My Lady summoned me. From whence came the beast I do not know for certain; she appeared and disappeared as easily as hot breath upon the air of a wintry morn with never a trace of her comings or goings left behind. There was a time I could recall each of her appearances, but as I say, with disregard to their order. There were a few times in particular which come into my mind, though the emotion of time more than the motion is what I recall; if facts seem out of their linear progress I have naught but my own wonderment to blame.

How far, how long we had travelled on that instance I cannot say, for the white mare moved between time and space and carried me with her as she rode the back of the cold north wind, My Lady’s breath. The harder She blew against us, the smoother was the track we followed. Lightning struck from her hooves and thunder was their sound upon the earth, and I clung to her as a leaf to a tree when the tempest blows. In that world between the worlds we seemed surrounded by a grey-blue curtain whereupon shifting vertical waves of glistening white rolled on and on, dazzling and glistening in brilliant array, and all else faded above, below, and around us.

Morrigan, can you find me even here in this chasm between life and death, in this time that is not a time, in this place that is not a place?

The laughter was immediate, somewhat amused this time, not just sarcastic. It was almost warm and compassionate when She finally spoke, Her voice coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Did I not tell you We cannot be parted?

Then the world spun wildly and turned black about me, blacker than a raven’s wing, blacker than coal, blacker than a starless, moonless midnight. I was a mote of consciousness, ripped from my body and floating free.

Was this death? There was the dreamy, giddy sensation of drifting, yet at the same time the clarity of vision that has no eyes, the sensuousness without physical senses.

No, it could not be death. I was immortal.

Or I was supposed to be.

My Lady, where am I?

The voice was all around me, yet it was within me also, and I do not know if it was a voice I heard or felt.

Everywhere. Nowhere. At the centre of all things, at the place of beginnings, and of endings.

I could not speak, but thought my words to Her.

My Lady?

Listen to the stillness, Dubhghall. Everything moves, yet there is no motion. There is no breath, no heartbeat. This is the interval between, the silence which separates the notes, the suspended pause between the manifest and the unmanifest.

Why do you bring me here?

That you may learn. There is still doubt in you, and regret. I chose you because of your great capacity to bridge the gap between the world of mortals and immortals. You have lived as both, carried the blood of both within you. Light and darkness are as one to you in all but matters of the heart. I would not change that, for that love is the one human passion which is shared by the Gods. Yet you are a child no longer and must release your human pain as you release others from it. This is the place of that release.

I do not understand, My Lady.

That is why you are here, in Caer Sidi. This is the dark and peaceful side of the Caer, where those we take lose their pain and sorrow before they travel to the Blessed Isles. In this interval they sleep for a time, and all that has gone before becomes no more than a dream to them, a dream they forget upon waking. That is all.

Did my father sleep here, and Connlai?

Connlai and your mother slept well and were refreshed. Even Aoife gives up her dreams to the Caer. Cuchulainn, I’m afraid, refuses sleep. As you guard the rest of My lands here, his spirit walks elsewhere in penance to Me

Penance?

His own idea, not Mine. He will guard the Land until the other Sidhe return to claim Tara once more. His guilt for refusing Me and for allowing the madness of his uncle to destroy Uliadh was more than I could wrest from him. When the time comes you, your father, and his will together be the Triad of Heroes honoured by all. But that is for the future.

As much as I wanted to hear of my father, there were others I longed more to speak of.

Boudicca and her daughters?

They rest, Dubhghall. They have much pain to lose.

None that I gave.

No.

And Cait?

Ask her.

She was there. I knew the feeling of her instantly, before the white light surrounded me and brought with it vision as pure and clear as the light itself. It was her smile, but her face was youthful, younger than mine, and filled with a pure beauty I had only felt before as her life had passed through me. Her blue eyes sparkled with the joy of sight, and the pewter grey hair I had cut from her head had grown out again, waist length, unbound, and as red-gold as the leaves of autumn.

All my senses were flooded with the feeling of love beyond any I had ever known, save for my love of and with the Great Queen. I longed to hold her in my arms once more, not as one who released her from life, but as one who would quicken new life within her. I tried to reach out my arms to her, to touch her, but I had no body to reach with. Even as I strained to draw closer I felt it all retreat, and in the time it takes for a spear to be hurled downward from a mountain peak to the ground below I felt myself snap backward into the world of flesh, falling from the pale mare’s back as spirit and flesh once again collided.

I hit the cold and rocky ground hard enough to realise the harsh difference between the world in which I had been and the one in which I found myself, and I far preferred the former. The mare was gone once more, and I was on my own to walk aimlessly in the friendless night, seeking I knew not what for a reason only My Lady knew, and it seemed She had no wish to tell me.

No, I am not questioning you! I shouted to the stones and bracken at my feet, the hills around me, and the empty, lifeless air. There was no laughter, no night bird cawing, not even a breeze to let me know She had heard, yet within me the echo of Her words vibrated:

Did I not tell you We cannot be parted?

Yes, She had told me that, and more in the times before I left Scathach’s Isle, when She transformed me from an orphaned warrior of nineteen who had seen little of the world besides his grandmother’s fortress into an immortal minion of Her will who fought the enemies of the Sidhe and their followers, who never slept, and whose only sustenance was human blood. I was a Dearg Sidhe who had sucked from the Morrigan’s breast the red elixir of immortality, the blood of the Sidhe itself. My father, Cuchulainn, was half of that race of Gods, his father being Lugh and his mother the sister of Conchobhar mac Nessa, High King of Uliadh. My mother Uathach also carried the blood, for my grandmother Scathach was of the Sith. Thus was I, Dubhghall mac Cu, born of blood both mortal and immortal, drained of all by the Queen of Air and Darkness, and infused with Her own. Dubhghall mac Cu, Son of the Hound of Uliadh I had been born. Cumhorrigan, Hound of the Great Queen, I had become, the other eyes and ears She used to guard Her land until the other Sidhe arose once more to walk the Mound of Tara.

I had taken on Rome with Boudicca and almost won, taking more Roman lives in my feeding than with my sword over the course of it all, yet learning in the process that the colour of Roman blood and its taste are no different from those of a Celt. The world was my banquet table, and after my long ride to Lady-knew-where I was very hungry indeed.

Like the Hound of my father’s fame I sniffed the air for a trace of humanity, smoke, rotting flax, woad, even sheep, but only the scent of the nearby forest filled me.

As the sky cleared I took my position from the stars; the handle of the Plough was readily discernible, and from its foreparts a line traced to the star which hovered above My Lady’s throne in the North. From its angle I realised I had indeed travelled in that direction and westward, yet I did not know how far. Nothing about the place was familiar to me.

Where was I, and when?

I had heard that those who visited Caer Sidi and returned in the same flesh had found that what had seemed to them but minutes had been years. How far afield would My Lady allow me to roam? Who watched the world while The Great Queen’s Hound was elsewhere?

You will be led to when and where I need you.

It was all very reassuring, I thought, but still left me not a clue as to my whereabouts or whenabouts.

The moon was gibbous, almost the shade of barley in its ascendance. The light it gave was more than sufficient for my enhanced vision, and I made the choice to walk with it at my back. If I walked long enough and far enough in any direction I would reach the ocean, but if I walked to the east there was a remote chance I might recognise something of the scenery. I had been this way before, I was almost certain of it. The shape of the hills, the scent of the air, all were somewhat familiar to me. We had ridden north, at least for a portion of the journey. There was little doubt in me as to that. Other than that I was baffled, for although the area stirred my mind with vague recollections it was a mystery. Still, one piece of land was as good as another so long as it nourished those who would nourish me.

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Chapter One

Smoke. I could smell it in the air. Smoke, three elements in nature, the Fire of my Grandfather Lugh, the Air of the Great Queen who had fostered me, and the Earth of the physical being I wore. Smoke. In this green and misty clime a sure sign of human habitation.

I followed my senses over verdant lands and hillsides, scanning the sky for its telltale sign, but what I saw on the horizon was not the grey plume of a campfire, nor feathery white smoke drifting on the air from logs cut and kindled still green to warm the hearth. I saw instead the thick black smoke of burning huts and houses, of flesh seared and charred and given to the elements without consent, of village and villagers sacrificed not to the Gods but to the greed of those who were godless. It was upon this place She had set me to find my way, and upon this soil I knew my duty called me.

The year? I had no idea. The place? Somewhere within the lands I might have recognised as home. There was no one alive to speak with, no language to carry with it a clue, and one burning village looks quite like another; yet it was hither She had carried me, and upon this ground I must stand to do Her will and my duty.

What was the war and who were the enemies? What had fuelled the rage within the human heart that all before me lay a wasted ruin, years of toil and promise, of labour’s sweat and the brief rewards of life and love destroyed by those more powerful as if it had been a game?

Bodies strewn like straw upon the ground confronted me with dead eyes staring upward as if in prayer to be saved from the nightmare which had rampaged through all their lives and taken from them the very record of their being. Not a building stood, not a child nor bird nor beast stirred in this obliterated place.

In the presence of mankind I was still alone.

And then I heard it in the distance: a horn blowing its long sad note as the rider approached what had once been a village. Did he know? Had he been a part of these lives, or a part of their destruction? It mattered little to me, for his blood would quench my thirst. If he had been the destroyer it would be in reparation for his deeds. Had his place been here, I would end his grief. Either way he would join the recent dead here to be welcomed by them as family or left to take the low road to rejoin his own ancestors.

I counted the hoofbeats as the figure approached, the horse a shining crow-black, its gait quickening as it neared. Again the horn blared, though the note faltered as it reached the air, as the rider’s awareness of the fate of the village became more acute. It faltered and remained silent a moment, then in fierce defiance it rang out again, clear, pure, loud, arriving in the midst of ruin in a cloud of ashes kicked up by the horse’s hooves.

I bit my thumb as the rider dismounted, not far from where I stood, and then I saw the truth of it.

It was not a man at all, but a young woman dressed in black, tunic, breeks, cape and hood, sword at her side, but a woman to be certain by the shape of her and the fairness of her face. She came at me, sword drawn, hood pushed back to let the fire of her hair billow forth on the breeze which seemed to follow her.

Boudicca? Younger than I had known her. The Goddess whom I served? No, this was woman, flesh and blood, and at that moment I could not tell which I craved more, the sweetness of that body yielding to mine or the sweetness of the elixir which flowed within.

Perhaps both…

The memories of Boudicca’s last moments in the flesh flashed through my mind again, looking so much like this warrior woman, lying sweetly in my arms as I took her to pleasure and death, to a place the Romans would never find her. It was a passion unlike any I had ever known and would never know again; she had been unique.

Who are you? Why did you do this? she cried out in an accent to which I was not accustomed.

I am called Dubhghall, and I had nothing to do with this. I only arrived here moments ago myself.

Why should I believe you?

I had no answer for her. I had no answer for myself.

Your accent is odd, and your dress. Where do you come from, and what are you doing here? How did you get here? The King’s men must be everywhere.

The King’s men?

Stephen’s. You really don’t know?

I have been away.

That was the truth of it. I had been away to I did not know where for I did not know how long. My appetite would have to wait. Both appetites. There was much to learn and I seemed to have a teacher.

To where? she asked.

She stared into my eyes, then sheathed her sword at last. I had not drawn my own, knowing I could have overpowered her in a trice had I so wanted.

Rome, I lied.

The odds were Rome at least would still be there, and we, whoever we were, would still be under