‘They all have a purpose! Through me!’
‘Their purpose is their own, whatever they decide to do with their lives. It’s not and was never intended to be fodder for a thing like you.’ I point at Faolan, whose breathing seems even more laboured. A rib puncturing a lung? Some organ bleeding inside him unchecked. ‘He has a purpose separate to you.’
Its expression goes flat as the surface of the Black Lake, of a shew-stone covered by water before the visions come. ‘Do you know then, witch? What else do youthinkyou know?’
‘That once there was a horned god, who delighted in the hunt, but one day heedless, he rode off a cliff and broke asunder. Broke into two parts, man and ravening hunger. That the man forgot what he’d been, wandered the Great Forest until he found a home. That the other part, the worst part – the desire to hunt and kill unchecked – hid in the darkness until it could at last take on the semblance of a man once more, and then it began to hunt again. And I think with every life it took, it also took energy and force and future from its prey – and it still wasn’t enough to make it what it had been.’
I’ve been thinking about Faolan and his injuries when first we met. How it wasn’t a new hurt, but it was so comprehensive it was hard to believe he’d survived. How he could not remember anything but a blinding light and a blinding pain. How he’d wandered the forest until he stumbled into Berhta’sForge, found a home with the old Aldersons, learned the craft of the blacksmith, became their son. I think how no man could have survived that wounding, think how slowly he aged – and age he did but so very well – and how when I healed him all those years ago he feltdifferent.Nothing I could identify then, but nothing I had encountered either before or since.
‘I think you’re the worst of him. What was left over, the effluvium of a greater thing.’
The huntsman looks away from me, stares down at Faolan’s form sprawled on the stone floor beside it. ‘I have killed lesser gods at my whim. I have amassed such power that the forest trembles at my tread. And what has he done with his time? Tinkered away with metal. Laboured like amortal. What worthy thing has he done?’
‘Become better. Lived as a man. Loved as a man. Cared for those around him – even though he didn’t remember what he’d been. While you wasted your kill, when winter made food scarce in the village, he would hunt and share his game, leave offerings on the doorsteps of the poorest. What he’d done as god of the hunt he continued to do as a mortal.’
‘I sent offerings to your doorstep, but you weren’t grateful, were you? The boy said you burned it all.’
I ignore that, deprive him of a reaction. ‘Why, in all these years, have you never sought him out? Your other part?’
‘What? And be re-joined? Tethered to all that conscience? All those rules? When as I am I can do as I please?’
‘I think you didn’t know where he was, at first. I think it took a long time for you to look anything like a man, for you to pull your horse back together, for you to pull yourself togetherenough to stay in the saddle.’ I stop, turn, go back the other way. ‘I think you forgot yourself too. Perhaps as you ranged across the forest one day you got a sense of another thing, a part that chimed with your being. But you never entered the village until the first night Faolan was gone, the night you killed Anselm, then the morning when you—’
‘Did you enjoy watching what I did to the sons of the church?’
I don’t tell him I did.
‘I think you’re afraid of him, your other half. But you need him alive.’
‘And why do you think that is?’ It sneers and I begin pacing around the room, so its attention remains on me.
‘You found Orin, used him to get a foothold in Berhta’s Forge. To spy on Faolan, and to feed off the energy of these children, their families. You didn’t want Faolan to see you lest he know you – you didn’t realise he’d forgotten what he’d been. But you’re tired of being this way.’ The substance of him shifts as if in discomfort. ‘And while you don’t want to be rejoined, you do want a form that has strength. That you don’t have to continually hold together like a bride’s nightgown. But what do you think I can do?’
‘The boy told the tale of how you healed his father, how you’ve done it more than once. That you could remake broken things.’
‘But why the baby?’
‘It brought you here.’
And I realise that this creature hasn’t thought about her nature as a strange hybrid thing. Hasn’t actually thoughtto use her as raw material or paste or glue or part of some fermentation process, a greater piece of alchemy that will get him a new body. It just thinks I can remove whatever is Faolan in the body and then it can move in like a hermit crab. I change tack, trying to distract it while I’m furiously thinking. ‘How did you get him here?’
It laughs, nods towards the still form of Ari. ‘Sent her little mimic to tell him I had his boy and he came without hesitation.’
‘You’re a fool. I can fix things that are broken – bones, limbs, organs – but I can’t remove one soul from a body and put another in. I can’t hold death back, which is what needs to be done in order to do that.’
The silence is heavy, the shadow half suddenly less chatty.
I continue. ‘And if he’s dead? I can’t just stuff you into the meat sack – it’s not that simple.’
I’d swear that, if I didn’t know better, it’s breathing heavily, trying to control itself against my mocking tone. Better men have tried and failed.
‘You’re nothing but the shadow of him on a weak watery day. You’re the ferment he burps. The fart that creeps out at night. You’re the worst of him, and slaughter as many animals as you will, you still can’t stand without him.’
For long seconds it remains in place, but then I think my sheer obstinacy has worn through a creature already quitethin, its ego pierced if nothing else. It rises, hisses, and dives at me. Its hands go around my throat and, although I really didn’t want to get this close, really would have preferred the bow and arrows, I’m glad I rubbed the ward-mix on the blade of my iron dagger too. Just in case.
The grip is tight, tight, oh-so-tight for a thing that’s made of mist and smoke, but malice is a leaden weight. Doing this means it’s solid for however long and that’s all I need. I slip the knife from my belt and plunge it into the mass of the shadow half’s body. It screams, its claws loosen, but it’s shocked and slow – how long since it’s felt physical pain? – and the iron piercing its flesh has the effect of anchoring it. The nature of the metal is such that it forces ephemeral eldritch things to become “real” and I’m able to wrap a hand around the huntsman’s wrist and pull him with me to where Faolan lies, barely breathing now.
And I drag the struggling shadow half towards his fleshy counterpart. I remember the green woman shoving my soul back into me, and feel the crimson tithe trickle from the cut I made earlier in my forearm, as I place my other hand along Faolan’s scars – those ley lines that I laid down when I healed him all those years ago, and which I unpick now to press the shadow half back into the solidity of the blacksmith. Both halves now screaming as I put my magic to work in remaking a god from two halves.
