Desperately, he let his own thoughts quieten and allowed the knowledge of the Tapestry of Fate rush forth as he reached out towards Morrígan, hoping she would see, hoping she would understand, and all of those lives she had touched upon came forth and her life was laid bare before them If our ancestors claimed this land from the Simians, what use was an axe and a shield? thought a girl as she watched her mother’s coffin being carried through the chapel, and how untidy her hair was, if only her mother could have helped tidying it this morning, as she had done so many times, for Aoife Ní Branna loved nothing more than Morrígan, and her husband did too, despite knowing the child was not truly his.
“Stop!” said Morrígan, covering her ears, “Don’t show me this!”
But Fionn gave in more to the Tapestry, and it showed all those mornings that Aoife and Cormac Ní Branna had just stayed in bed together, letting the hours of the morning turn to the hours of noon and even into the evening, doing nothing but playing with the baby Morrígan, as Cormac would hold her under her arms bouncing her body over their laps, both parents taking so much joy in talking nonsense to her, and how Aoife would warmly grasp Morrígan’s foot saying, “that’s your foot!” and then her arm saying, “and that’s your arm!” and the two would take so much joy from the baby’s reaction for hours and for hours and for hours and they would smile as she would smile back, for despite the fights they had before, despite how deep down Cormac knew Aoife had sought Yarlaith’s bed, in this moment, and in many moments afterwards, everything was perfect was perfect was perfect was perfect and safe for surely if a child was to grow and develop surrounded by so much love, they could overcome every hardship and failure and disappointment life could throw at them, no matter what, and even though the love between Cormac and Aoife was to fade and turn to something worse, the love for that child was still there, and even if Morrígan was to grow, and fight with her parents, they could never bear anything close to hatred towards her, for how could any parent ever hate a child that once bounced upon their knee and responded to their funny faces and their silly voices with a wet gummy smiles and high-pitched giggles and gurgles and—
“No more,” said Morrígan, tears in her eyes. “I… I cannot remember this. I… I don’t believe this. The man who named himself my father was a drunkard, and—”
“And still he loved you,” said Fionn. “He knew you were not of his blood, but still he loved you, for despite where you came from, you were worthy of love.”
Fionn readied himself for another attack, but Morrígan reacted by falling to her knees. She held a hand to her head.
“You were his purpose,” said Fionn, stepping forward. “The circumstance of your birth had no bearing on his love for you.”
Then Fionn reached towards the Tapestry of Fate, and showed Morrígan more, so much more than either could have ever comprehended before, for there once was a captain of the Cruachan City Guard who loved a low-born woman, and they spent many hours lying together, eyes locked upon eyes, despite never telling another soul about the love they shared, because nothing else mattered to them but moments like that, and they longed to make more, and an innkeeper’s son, who once bore feelings he could not understand for a neighbour, but just when he was mature enough to understand what he felt, she was gone and he searched and he asked and he wanted nothing more but to speak to her and tell her all that he had ever felt, but she was gone, alone, in darkness, coping with her own grief in a terrible, profane way that left no room for growth, for strength, because the death of a parent is a terrible thing that befalls every living person fortunate enough to not die young, and one thing that makes Humans who they are is their ability to deal with grief with the help and the support and the love of those around them who have experienced the same, if through conversations or through relationships or through the rituals of their religious beliefs, every person who has ever lived has gone through that pain and has come through the other side, not stronger, not without that pain, for that pain never fades, but through the other side with the knowledge that they must cherish every coming moment with every other person they come upon even more than before, and this force named love must be appreciated and respected and sought no matter its form, no matter where it comes from, and perhaps that child who dissected bodies in the darkness of those caverns could have healed and learned to love again, stronger than she ever had before, if she confronted her grief instead of hiding away from it, fantasising about a reunion that would never come, for others around her did love her, if she did not see it, and Taigdh and Sorcha and Darragh had all lost things themselves, but each loved Morrígan enough to share their own pain to let her overcome her own, but she pushed them away, she pushed them away because she saw a chance to circumvent the cycle of life, to conquer death, but instead of conquering death, she conquered only her own humanity, and this is why she saw the life created by Seletoth as a mistake, not because He created life for His own selfish purpose, but because she denied herself a process of healing so ubiquitous, so commonplace, so Human that no one can ever live a life with any real purpose without having once gone through that loss, for to the parents who spent a day in bed playing with a child with so much tenderness and so much care and so much laughter, and the Simian who lay next to his love, unaware that she felt the same, with the same feelings hidden so deep within that he could not recognise them himself, and the regret he felt when they left that one place he could be himself, and the unspeakable pain he felt when she was taken away from him; if they were all to learn that the life they were given was never intended to have any meaning, would that even come close to nullifying any of those feelings? No, for if one were to interrupt any of those moments, between Aoife and Cormac or Farris and Nicole or Padraig and Aideen and tell them how their lives have no purpose because of Seletoth this or Seletoth that, they would not care, because they have found something else to care about, something that renders the Truth and their origin and the true nature of Seletoth and the vast black void from which He came irrelevant in comparison.
As if struck by a force stronger than Fionn could muster even now, Morrígan fell to the ground, whispering to herself as Fionn caused more images to pass through her mind; the quick glances Taigdh gave her in the inn, the way he clasped his hand into Sorcha’s, the way he pushed through the crowds at Sorcha’s mother’s funeral, desperately searching for Morrígan, for it had been so long since he had seen her.
“No,” Morrígan wept. “They… they didn’t understand what Yarlaith, what my father, sought to do. They feared the power they could not understand. They….”
“And out of fear they killed him,” said Fionn. “But from your own lust for revenge, you killed far, far more. You sought the power of the gods, but would you have done so if you knew the Truth of Seletoth’s nature? Would you still endeavour to become like Him?”
“No…” whispered Morrígan. “I… I just wanted to feel… something.”
“And you could have,” said Fionn. “If you had broken away from Yarlaith and embraced the love of your friends in Roseán, you would have felt far more than what you do now. You had a chance.”
Then Fionn conjured another image, the day Morrígan and Yarlaith succeeded in raising Aoife Ní Branna from the dead, but before Morrígan went downstairs to help, she tended to Darragh, who had injured his hand with a meat cleaver earlier that day, and Morrígan healed it and he thanked her and gave her a necklace, and from this gesture, Morrígan regained some humanity, a mote of compassion, for Darragh shared with her the loss of his own mother, and Morrígan recognised for a moment that circumstance of his loss may have been worse than her own and for a moment she forgot about the catacombs and the experiments and the Necromancy, but then she remembered, she remembered the sanctuary she sought from grief, and in seeking it she left Darragh alone, and later that night, Darragh took his mother’s necklace back from Morrígan with the last of his dying strength, as Morrígan’s undead horde burned the village and slew its villagers.
Morrígan looked up to Fionn. “Darragh… I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do now….”
“The Simians are sailing across the Eternal Sea,” said Fionn. “They seek a new world to the west. Two Humans are travelling south, far from here, there are creatures that someday may form a civilisation. If we want to give them a chance of ever flourishing, of ever doing better than we did… we must leave them.”
“Yes,” Morrígan said, standing. “I hold the souls of Meadhbh and King Diarmuid. And you, that of Seletoth. If we cannot die, how can we let these people live their lives without this terrible power?”
Abruptly, Fionn lunged forward, and embraced Morrígan. She buried her face into his shoulder, and he felt the dampness of her tears upon his skin. Fionn bent his knees and launched them both upwards.
“We keep going up,” he said. “As high as we can go. Until we can’t go any higher.”
Realisation dawned Morrígan’s face.
“To the firmament,” she said, aloud. “To the void from where Seletoth came from.”
Both of their wings unfurled, and both accelerated their ascent to the skies above. Wisps of clouds streaked past, and the air around them quickly grew thinner.
Once the last of the clouds vanished, Fionn turned around, to stare down at the land he was leaving behind.
He recognised Alabach straight away. Warped and broken, with a great crack in its surface from north to south, the kingdom he had once known well now seemed so tiny and insignificant amongst the rest of the world. To the west, the Eternal Sea did not go on forever, but ended at a landmass far larger than Alabach. To the south, unfamiliar lands stretched all the way to the far end of the earth. Grey ice covered the majority of the land, but further on, to the land that he had directed Padraig and Aislinn to, plains of gold and green prevailed.
“This is it,” whispered Morrígan to Fionn. As they went upwards, the air grew thin and colder than anything the Grey Plague had brought. “If we keep on going, we won’t be able to return. We’ll have no control of where we go. And like Seletoth, we’ll plummet blindly through Eternity.”
“I know,” said Fionn, as darkness surrounded them. The world now seemed so small; a tiny disk of blue surrounded by darkness. “But Seletoth eventually came upon a world, our world, which he brought life to.”
“And if we come across the same, will we do as He did?”
“No,” said Fionn, embracing Morrígan as the dim light of the world vanished behind them. “We’ll do so much better.”
***
As the two gods departed, They spoke to those who still lived. Both voices entwined boomed like a song from the heavens, and all who heard Them rejoiced. It brought encouragement to two Humans who were setting on a frightful journey south. It brought hope to the hearts of the Simians and Humans sailing westwards, and they cheered and prayed and sang along with words of their own.
Though one lone Simian did not open his heart to the music, for his eyes remained fixed eastwards, on the land he was leaving behind. He looked on at the smoking ruin that was once Mount Selyth, and he wept for all of those he lost.
As powerful as the Tapestry of Fate was, there was one who had always evaded its threads. And he did so even now. The departing gods assumed him dead, but who were They to assume anything, after all that had happened?
And the lone Simian who did not sing to Their song saw something even They could not see. Perhaps it was a secret magic of his people, or perhaps it was something stronger and more ancient than even Seletoth Himself. But this lone Simian saw something among the smoking ruins of that mountain. And he was sure of it.
He frantically called for help, and even as the others aboard let the melody of the gods fill their hearts with so much courage and so much joy, Argyll the Silverback hoped they still harboured some fear in there for him. For it would take the fear he used to wield in Penance to turn this ship around.
Because his friend still lived.
Epilogue:
Journal of Padraig Tuathil
Dearest Journal,
It has been far too long since I last put a pen to your pages. After all that has happened, I am still the same man that filled the space between your covers with complaints about the City Guard. About the love I had and lost for Aideen. About the night the horde came to Cruachan. And all the insanity that followed afterwards. When I last left an entry here, we had reached Rosca Umhír, but the Lady Carríga interrupted my entry. After this, we climbed Mount Selyth, but Nicole and Farris died in the ascent. As we tended to Farris’s injuries, Fionn went to Seletoth’s chamber to request the god’s help. But before he emerged, a great explosion tore through the chamber, and indeed the peak of the mountain was blown asunder.
Knocked unconscious, myself and Lady Carríga awoke to see Fionn appear as a god, who told us to travel far south to seek a new world. He did not answer our questions, and fled northwards instead.
