The Defiler Read Online Free PDF

there is no power in the earth here, there can be no residual or latent power in anything that resides here. He is, for the first time in his life, bereft." Caught suddenly in the moonlight Sláine saw its face was that of an enormous crow, its cloak fashioned from slick black feathers.
    "Ah," said Ukko, his face betraying the fact that he didn't have even the slightest inkling what the cloaked figure was talking about.
    Sláine knew: some called her the Great Queen, others the Queen of Phantoms. His mother, Macha, had called her the Spectre Queen; the Crone; Great Mother; Moon Goddess; Great White Goddess; Queen of the Fey. The Goddess of war, fate and death, the Morrigan.
    "We are in the el between realms," the crow-faced aspect of the divine cawed.
    She stank of death.
    "What? We're in hell?"
    "No," the Morrigan said, "We are in the space between worlds. You are in a doorway of sorts, a portal between today and tomorrow and yesterday. Or at least your spirit is. Your flesh lies on the floor beside a pile of rocks. When you leave this place you will return to it."
    "Er, can't we just go back there now then? I mean, I'm kind of attached to my body. At least I was."
    "When it is time, not before. From here you can go anywhere, anywhen. Tir-Nan-Og is not the only place of life. There are other realms. Being between them like this, in this place, means that nothing of Tir-Nan-Og is sustained here. Sláine is suffering because of his link to the Earth Goddess. She completes him just as he completes her."
    "Ah," Ukko said again. "Oh." The dwarf's eyes widened in fear as something, a phantom shape, rose up out of the sand at his feet. He backed up a step. "Shoo, get away from me, gah!" It would have been comic but for the fact that his panicked hand passed straight through the formless face of the phantom.
    The crow woman laughed callously. "Do my children frighten you, little man?"
    Ukko stumbled backwards, tripping over his feet and landing on his backside with a grunt.
    The rolling glass sands stirred as one by one, more silhouettes shimmered into dubious life. Sláine stared at them, trying to focus on the ever-shifting shapes but there was no substance or definition to the blurs beyond the most basic outline. It took him a moment to recognise the play of movement but when he did it was unmistakable: they were victims, half-dead, trapped in this place, re-enacting their deaths, or more accurately reliving them: thrust and parry, savage blows raining down, arms thrown up in defence, bodies crumpling . Sláine knew what they were - or rather what they represented. Ghosts of sound rang out, just above and just below the register of normal sounds so they came through both dull and blunted while simultaneously being sharp and insistent, clashing swords, screams, death rattles. These were the lost souls trapped between realms, unable to pass on into death as long as they were held here by the Morrigan.
    There were thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, more - their number beyond counting. The shadow-shapes stretched as far as the eye could see, coming to life in all directions. They were legion.
    Sláine struggled to stand.
    "We can go anywhere, Crone?" He fought to get the words out between fresh waves of agony that tore at his flesh.
    The crow's beady yellow eyes turned on the warrior, radiating sickness. "Anywhere, anywhen," she said.
    "I would travel to the land of the Sidhe, to find the Skinless Man."
    The Morrigan's laughter brayed out harshly. "You would, would you? And why should I aid you, son of the Sessair? Why should I not leave your soul here with the rest of my children to live and die through an infinite cycle of suffering?"
    Sláine had no answer for that.
    "What you would do is impossible - these are not the same things. One does not immediately facilitate the other. You cannot travel into the Sidhe and find the Skinless Man. He is not there. I am helping you already, warrior. For more, you must offer me something