The Phantom Queen Awakes (33 page)

Weapons thundered against wooden shields,
battle cries mingled with the calls of gathering crows. Skuld
soared above it all, choosing, choosing. Her knife scythed the air,
harvesting the souls of heroes. Their blood stained the rocks and
ran in rivulets toward the sea.

After a time, Skuld noted that some of the
ravens had taken human form. Her gaze went to a woman of middle
years standing near the battlefield. A red cloak draped her
shoulders, and the long spear in her hands seemed more support than
weapon. Gray threads dulled her black hair; lines etched her long,
pale face. Perhaps she’d once been beautiful. Now she was invisible
― not as a goddess might choose to be, but in the way of women who
were neither maidens nor crones.

Skuld’s lip curled as she beheld Medb of the
Friendly Thighs. Once, Medb had been the mortal queen of Connacht,
a temptress to rival tragic Deirdre and fabled Helen. But long
years had passed since men began seeking friendship elsewhere. What
immortality could Medb achieve, but to add her faded visage to the
Morrigan’s many faces?

The thunder of falling sail-cloth stole the
smirk from Skuld’s face and drew her gaze to one of the Danish
ships. The Danes had dropped the square red and white sail, and two
men hauled at the ropes that raised the great Raven
Banner.

White silk, it was, unmarked as new snow. If
the gods deigned to answer, Destiny would be written upon
it.

Skuld threw back her head and gave herself up
to joyful laughter. She was Death, she was Fate, and this choice
was hers to make!

Flinging her arms wide, she gathered the raven
to herself and prepared to give the Danes the answer they
sought.

A roar of triumph arose from the invaders, for
on the white silk appeared the silhouette of a great black bird,
wings spread wide and beak open in a silent screech of victory.
Fate had spoken; the battle was theirs.

But the men of Eire roared back, louder still,
and they fell upon the invaders with renewed frenzy.

And Medb?

The aging goddess dropped her cloak to free
arms still slim and hard with muscle. She lifted the spear high
over one shoulder and hurled it toward shore. It burst into flame
as it flew and tore through the banner, sizzling as it quenched its
fires in the raven’s silken flesh.

****

Skuld awoke on the shore, flat on her back,
her arms still flung wide in an attitude of triumph. Overhead the
Raven Banner still flew, but the silhouette had changed to a bird
with folded wings and downcast mien ― a sign that the invaders
would lose the battle. Strangely, the Danes fought on, paying no
more heed to the augury than had the men of Eire.

Skuld hauled herself up, using a broken oar
for support, and nearly stumbled over a new-bearded lad who
clutched the spear in his gut and in his agony called for his
mother.

A stout, gray-haired goddess gathered him into
her arms. She wrapped her red cloak around him and crooned softly
until he quieted. When his spirit pulled free, she rose with him
and gave him a mother’s blessing. And she stood smiling while he
strode off, as was fitting, without a backward glance.

Nearby a fallen man called his beloved’s name.
As Medb turned toward him, her face became as young and lovely as
Skuld’s own. She smiled and extended a hand to the dying warrior.
His spirit began to peel free of the battered flesh.

But a keening cry rose over the noise of
battle. A girl ran along the shore, heedless of danger, and fell to
her knees beside her lover. The spirit faltered, hesitated. Medb
nodded and turned away.

“He is yours,” Skuld protested.

“Perhaps.” The Morrigan shrugged. “He might
yet live. He has not chosen.”

She Who Is Becoming opened her mouth to
protest, but found she could not. She shrugged and tossed a glossy
black braid over her shoulder. The new color surprised her, but it
seemed fitting. Perhaps goddesses, like ravens, would do well to
watch and wait.

And so Death stood in silence, while all
around men raised their swords and carved their own destiny,
knowing in their blood and bones what gods sometimes
forgot.

****

Afterword

‘She Who Is Becoming’ grew from several seeds.
I started out writing a story about the Norse goddesses in conflict
with the Celtic Morrigan, but that story just didn’t want to
happen. Blending the Norns and the Celtic triple goddess made a lot
more sense to me on a number of levels ― the universality of
certain themes across cultures and belief systems, the blending of
Scandinavian and Celtic cultures in Ireland, the ever-shifting face
of the Morrigan herself.

Also, the question of personal choice was very
much on my mind at the time. My sons bought the book
13 Things
that Don’t Make Sense
(Michael Brooks) as a birthday gift for
their father. One of the essays in it deconstructed the concept of
“free will”. Their father and I grew up in a fundamentalist church,
and free will is a central pillar of that mindset. (How else to
reconcile the notion of a loving, omnipotent God and the existence
of suffering and evil?)

Religious background aside, free will is such
a widely accepted, deeply ingrained cultural assumption that
neither of us had ever thought to re-examine it. Our sons,
university students studying mathematics and philosophy, grew up
with a very different world view. There was much discussion around
the household about choice and determinism. Since I tend to think
about issues on two levels ― real world and implications for
fantasy ― this got me thinking about the roles of Destiny and
Choice in fantasy fiction. Admittedly, I’m not entirely sure how
this works in Real Life, but it seems to me that while the concept
of Destiny is powerful and enduring, what turns a character into a
hero is the choices he or she makes.

****

Biography

Elaine Cunningham is a former music and
history teacher with a lifelong fascination for mythology. She has
written twenty fantasy books, a couple dozen short stories, and a
graphic novel.

****

About the
Editors

Mark S. Deniz
is a novelist and short
fiction writer, who recently turned his hand to screenwriting for a
short film,
Silverudden
, which was screened at festivals
worldwide in 2007. His published short stories (under the
nom-de-plume Sin Deniz) can be found in the Big Finish anthologies:
A Life Worth Living
,
Something Changed
, and
Collected Works
. He also features in
FlashSpec: Volume
Two
, and the
Black Box
anthology, and will have poetry
published in
Doorways Magazine
in 2009.

After a successful year at Eneit Press, Mark
started his own dark fiction publishing company, Morrígan Books,
closely followed by its imprint Gilgamesh Press, which is to focus
on Assyrian topics. More can be found regarding Mark on his blog:
http://mark.deniz.wordpress.com
.

Mark S. Deniz lives in Norrköping, on the
south-east coast of Sweden, with his wife and their two
children.

Amanda Pillar
is a speculative fiction
author and editor who lives in Victoria, Australia, with her
partner and two children, Saxon and Lilith, Burmese
cats.

Amanda has had numerous short stories in print
and is also the co-editor of the anthologies,
Voices
(2008),
and
Grants Pass
(2009), both published by Morrígan Books.
She is currently editing
Scenes from the Second Storey
, due
out at Worldcon 2010.

Visit Amanda’s website at
http://www.amandapillar.com
or read about her adventures at:

http://amandapillar.livejournal.com
.

****

About the Artists

The Cover
Artist

Reece Notley
was born and lived in
Hawai’i until her late teens when her feet grew itchy, and she
wandered off to see the world. After chewing through a pile of
books, a lot of odd food and a stray boyfriend or two, she
eventually landed in Southern California which she believes to be a
very nice place but seriously needs more rain.

She has a day job herding pixels for the
marketing department of a nice company with a fantastic view of the
San Diego seashore and fits in editing
Three Crow Press
, a
sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction e-zine
http://www.threecrowpress.com
in her not-so-spare time.

As of this moment, she admits to sharing the
house with three cats, a black Pomeranian puffball, a bonsai
Wolfhound and a ginger Cairn terrorist and is enslaved to the
upkeep of a 1969 Ford Mustang Grand Coupe, a 1979 Pontiac Firebird
and a Toshiba laptop.

The
Illustrator

Cecily Webster
was born in London,
studied archaeology at Bristol and is now drawing things in Orkney.
She collects bones, feathers and shiny things, enjoys the company
of corvids and believes there's more to the world than can be seen
or current science accepts.

****

Where to find us
Online

Website:
http://www.morriganbooks.com

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/morriganbooks

Facebook:
http://facebook.com/pages/Morrigan-Books/59256739661