Free Worlds Without End by Caroline Spector

frightened look in his eye. “It would take more power than you or I possess, even combined, not to mention the time involved.”
    I smiled. “Of course I can’t call up the entire Hunt myself. No one could. But I can bring up the steeds. Come along. I’ll sleep while you drive. By the way, where are we?”

There is a barren plain. No grass grows here. No tree mars the vastness of land. Only the long unbroken earth stretching out beneath the sickly yellow sky.
    A moon hangs large and low. It casts a green glow and turns her skin the color of illness.
    Of death.
    12
    When I woke, it was getting near dark. The sun rested low on the horizon, showing its face for the first time since we’d come to the Tír. Caimbeul had turned the vid to some music station as he drove. The vid flickered and changed, turning his pale face a rainbow of colors.
    It took me a moment to orient myself. I felt groggy and irritated at the sensation. My scalp itched and my eyes felt gritty. A few hours of sleep to make up for the three days I’d missed weren’t enough.
    “Where are we?” I asked.
    “Just south of Galway City.” he replied.
    “Has it changed much?” I asked.
    “Has what changed?”
    “Galway City.”
    “Compared to what?”
    “Compared to what it was before the Awakening.”
    “A bit.” he said. “The old ways have taken hold pretty firmly there.”
    I pulled my bag out from under the front seat and began rummaging through it. Gum wrappers, cigarettes, shoelaces—then I found it: a small tin whistle. It rode on a thin copper necklace that I slipped over my head and nestled down between my breasts. I looked out at the passing countryside.
    It had gone wild here. No fences marked property lines. The roads were mostly unpaved, little more than dirt ruts. It reminded me of a time long ago, long before this world. Back when another world was young. No, it was me who was young then.
    I remembered what happened in that place so long ago. How could I ever forget? And now it seemed that the mistakes of the past would be repeated. This world would be torn apart unless I stopped them. Unless I stopped him.
    Just as the sun was setting, I saw the place. Stone tombs silhouetted against the red sky.
    “Pull over here.” I said.
    Caiinbeul slowed the car.
    “Are you sure?” he asked. “I can’t feel anything . .
    “It’ll do. This place is lousy with cairns. The whole area is Awakened.”
    A blast of cool air hit me when I opened the car door. The magic was heavy here. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Then I noticed a strange feeling I hadn’t had in a time out of mind: excitement. Things couldn’t be worse, yet I felt alive for the first time in years. Had the centuries finally worn me down? I knew they had for some of the others. Some until they resorted to terrible means to stop the emptiness.
    But I had a reason to live. I knew my purpose. It was a sacred task. To keep the world safe. To protect it. To protect the people in it. Or so I'd told myself.
    As I started for the tombs, Caimbeul grabbed my arm.
    “Are you certain this is the only way?” he asked.
    I turned and looked at him. In the flat red twilight his face looked like the very vision of Lucifer. A dark, yet beautiful, angel.
    “Why, Caimbeul, I almost think you care.” I said.
    He frowned. “Don’t be flip.” he said. “If Ysrthgrathe has found you . . . how can you be safe?”
    I reached up and touched his face. I can’t describe how it felt, only that it felt like him. Like Caimbeul. My flesh remembered his as surely as it might remember the smoothness of velvet or the scratch of sandpaper.
    “Nothing is safe anymore.” I replied. “Besides, I’ve been alive for so long, it might be good to rest. Don’t you ever want to just . . . stop?”
    “No.” he said. An angry look crossed his face, and he pulled away from me. “It’s always better to be alive. Life is better than death.”
    I wanted to stay and argue with him,