“I will never forgive myself for it,” she muttered, still staring at the ground. “I was mad with fear. I wish I could excuse myself by saying I didn’t know what I was doing but I doubt it would have made a difference.”
Arawn raised an eyebrow at me. I sighed.
“Mortals near death do desperate things. And I should not have intervened. I was in rather a rush.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that you have more than your fair share of the blame for this, Mallt. Now for your joint foolishness many will suffer. The souls of the lost will continue to wander the land, in torment and tormenting, and so death will pay for life, pain for indulgence.”
I shuffled my feet, unable to think of a good response to that. Arawn was so often jovial that his seriousness cut deep. He turned his dark eyes back to Belis.
“And that is not the worst of it. There are problems here thatyou do not understand; that I had hoped…” He paused and shook his head. “I cannot help you. You would have done better to forget your sister, to carry on with what remained of your life. As for you, Mallt, I have no power to return you to your form, nor can I permit you to leave.”
“What!” I said. “I’d like to see you try to stop us. We’re mortal, not dead. We could just go back through the tower.”
Arawn spread out his hands. “Believe me, it is not my choice. Annwn has changed, it has…” His voice petered out. “Let me start afresh.”
He squatted down in the dirt and began sketching a map.
“This is Annwn,” he said, tracing the lines through the soil. “Here is Caer Sidi, here is where we are now. All this land is under my rule, peaceful and ordered, where those who have passed can linger as they please until they are tired of even this final plane of existence and give themselves back to the world. This is what the living picture as the afterlife.”
Arawn rubbed his forehead. “For thousands of years it has been this way.” He marked out another set of lines. “Then, not twenty years ago, something began to change. A strange corruption took hold of the land. It started with dying plants, trees and crops choked by thorns, then the fields furthest from Caer Sidi fell under a shadow, the soil blew away into a dust that rose to block out the sun. I walked the damaged earth, trying to encourage new growth, but my power stuttered and I felt myself decaying.
“Then came the sickness; the inhabitants of the damaged areas grew malformed of body and soul, turning into twisted beasts that fell on their companions and passed on the infection.
“I gathered those souls who had been warriors in life and we marched on the shadowlands, intent on burning out the corruption even at the cost of the lost souls.”
“What happened?” I asked, horror-struck.
“My power is tied to my role as Lord of the Dead. When I tried to fight I discovered that I cannot harm those under my care even if they are changed beyond all reckoning. Worse still, the moreof them that become corrupted the more I am changed. I am an avatar of this land and as it sickens so do I.
“When we crossed into the darkness my sight grew dark and all those with us began to fall to the shadow. Our forces were thrown back, more becoming corrupted orshadowbittenevery day. The entirety of Annwn was on the brink of collapse until my seneschal, a powerful witch in life who has retained some of her power here, dragged me back from the brink and split the land in two.”
Arawn scratched a jagged gash through the map. “A vast schism now cuts across Annwn, a canyon border. Her magic was enough to weaken anyshadowbittenwho crossed over, but it could not keep out the wind which blew corrupted seeds into our lands. We have spent the last dozen years in constant fear, tearing out seedlings before they can take root. Last year my seneschal was lost in a dark forest that sprang up not fifty miles from here. Whenever I approach the trees I feel the corruption taking hold of me and none of the dead have been able to get her out. When her magic along the border fails, then we will be overrun.”
Belis crouched, reaching out a finger to touch the line of the canyon. Arawn fell silent, letting the sound of the wind whistling through the willow branches fill the silence.
“Why didn’t you ask for help?” I said. “Surely Gwyn or Arianrhod would have aided you if you asked for it. They may not be selfless but even they can see the damage will affect the whole of Britain.”
Arawn smiled, but there was no joy in his eyes. “I cannot contact the living world, and visitors here are few. Only one person comes to Annwn with any sort of regularity…”
It took me another heartbeat to take his understanding. “You were waiting for me?”
“I knew you would come. I prayed it would be before the situation was beyond repair.” He shook his head. “But you came as a mortal, unable to flit between worlds as you had before. You were our last hope, Mallt.”
“I don’t understand,” Belis said, standing up from where she had been staring at the map. “Mallt can still go back and tell the others. We can take Cati’s soul and go.”
Arawn dropped his gaze. He seemed to be struggling to find the words. I was shocked. I had never seen the Lord of Annwn so lost before. Finally, he lifted his head back up and met my eyes.
“The way is shut,” he said. “You cannot get out. I had to seal the passage back to the mortal world, to make it one way only. Your old self could have passed through, but as a human…” He shrugged. “I had to close Caer Sidi before one of theshadowbittenbroke through. It is only a matter of time.”
“So we are trapped here?” I said. Arawn nodded.
The realisation thudded inside my skull like clods of earth falling onto a coffin. A life of immortal freedom and I had thrown it all away in a moment of foolish impatience. I staggered backwards. It wasn’t fair. I deserved more after all my labours. I opened my mouth to complain but then my eyes fell on Belis.
There was a look on her face I had not seen there before. It took me a moment to place the expression. I recalled the face of a man I had seen years ago as I had visited the bedside of his dying wife. I had come to collect the soul of the stillborn babe that now lay in a carved cradle as the husband held the woman’s hand while midwives tried to staunch the bleeding below. That despair, the death of hope, was mirrored in Belis’s face now. I knew it was more than her own life she mourned; it was her sister’s.
As I stared, I felt the pain within her echoed in my own heart. I shoved it away. Arawn was right: he had done the only sensible thing. I could not let the emotions of this human body distract me from my task. I shut my eyes so I would not have to see her face but found that the image of her grief was still etched on my mind. There was still work to do. I ground my teeth and turned back.
“What can we do?” I asked. He frowned at me and Belis met my eyes. There was a fierceness in her now.
