A Cold Day Almost in Hell -OR- The Bards' Go On a Day Trip

We decided not to descend into the Underworld after all. As was eloquently pointed out by Master Vincenzo taking everyone into a realm of Nightmares would result in himself, Master Garret (both being immune to these things), and whoever was carrying Mr. Scruffy (incredible magical teddy bear) standing around, non-plussed, watching as everyone else starting screaming and clawing at their eyes. We would all then die horribly, eaten by nightmare beast things. It wouldn't have gone well. Not for us, at any rate.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Friday night was spent in one of the smaller bars of Hearth and Home, when we weren't celebrating Samhain. Our guests joined Kianan and Jessie, as presiding priests, at the sacred fire and it was gratifying to see them embrace the custom of sacrificing our previous year's griefs to the flames. I threw in my corn dolly of Caoilte. I was having a lot of fun menacing people with it, but it had a purpose (as well as a black cloak to show it was evil) and it fulfilled it nicely. Ellian caused his sole diplomatic incident at this point, and waited to go last just so everyone would be sure to notice it. This is probably to do with Drama.

There was much singing afterwards, and nice (in the words of one of our guests) not to be attacked by anything midway through it. We even (unsurprisingly really) managed to get a rite in. The singing and playing went on half the night, and eventually everyone went to bed.

Saturday had a slightly different atmosphere. We had met again on Caitlyn, near the location of the gates of hell that we were going to open later and I for one was starting to feel edgy. We were attacked by various minions of Caoilte (the bad guy that is) and they were given the absolute what-for by the various burly types who had obligingly come along.

Things were going along like this when Ciabhan, an Ancestral type in service to MacLir who had closed the gates the last time, informed us that it was time to open them again. He then said that once we did get it opened there would be three tests to pass. Fortunately, it was to be abundantly obvious when these tasks came along (it would have been galling to have missed them and thus be unable to continue on). Anyway, Team Guaranteed-To-Perform-Rites-As-Necessary-And-Even-When-Not-Strictly-Or-Even-Obviously-Necessary went off to oblige. So me, Jessie, Jenna, John, Ellian, Bloodthunk and others whose names I have shamefully forgotten went along to open the gates. We had decided, as referenced above, not to actually open the doors and wander in, but open the doors and invite our enemies to come out with whatever little bubble of hell they felt was necessary to make them feel comfortable. Kianan, helpfully, spent the rest of the afternoon trudging around said bubble doing a rite to stop it spreading any further. It must have been dreadfully boring.

After a fair amount of playing to the fact that our foe was in fact part of an unfinished story and thus unable to resist being a part of any story, and after a fair amount of blowing a conch and playing a harp, all wrapped up in an amount of yelling, we fell asleep. And had horrible nightmares. Then woke up. In hell. Except not. Because it was a bubble of hell extended onto Erdreja. The rite had at least worked and no one was clawing at their eyes or being eaten by nightmare beasts as yet.

Whilst not an ideal place for a picnic it was at least what we had intended.

Meantime, a big fight had been going on, but I don't know what with since I'd been haranguing hell, but when all was resolved the pub we'd been sitting in had taken on an ominous red glow. And a messy, bloody handprint had appeared on a window. And skulls had fetched up. Some of them were impaled on sticks and had dribbly bits dribbling down the sticks. The bases of various trees were luminescent with some sort of green fungus. It all seemed to me as if hell were Trying Too Hard, but then I don't run a hell so maybe they all act like this. The skull at the base of one of the trees was very helpful though as a landmark to negotiate the trip down the hill in the dark though.

Tempers did flare a few times, but I at least put it down to hellish influence and I think everyone is still friends.

Then three grey lads with blue wave marks on their faces (showing them to be on Team MacLir rather than Team Caoilte, who went for the same motif but in red) and announced that we had a hand, head and heart test to pass, which were to be simultaneous and we had to get two out of three. Being rubbish at riddles and no good in a fight, I joined team heart and we went off with the chap snuffling on black roses who draped himself louchely across some rocks and told us to bring a quarrelling couple back together. We heard the stories they had to tell about why they'd fought and it turned out that the man was ashamed of himself for not being a warrior when soldiers came to their farm and instead could only beg for his life and the safety of their farmhouse (where his wife was hiding) rather than kill them all mightily. When their son went off to join the army he had forbidden it, so obviously he'd gone. The woman blamed him for driving their son away. Obviously, they had communication issues. Ilsa cleverly melded the two stories into one, and dragged our couple into mutual apology and affection and - yay! - won our challenge. I never did get to the bottom of the head task (something to do with song lyrics at one point, apparently) but the hand challenge - naturally - involved fighting a combative golem. Apparently it had a different weakness for everyone who attacked it and they had to find that weakness. Garret never did discover what "his" weakness was because, apparently, he simply "mushed it into pieces" and it never became all that clear. Anyway, we won all three and received a token from each grey fella, who told us they were "the words" and that we should "give them to the voice".

Then the Ficti Fey showed up. For those not in the know, Ficti steal stories and songs and anything else creative you might happen to do at them. We were, obviously, very hostile towards them at first (but not to the extent of killing) but then someone had the bright idea of combining the tokens we'd won in the previous challenge and putting them into the mouth of a statue of MacLir. His voice started to speak from the statue saying a great many things, but not least that (I summarise) the Ficti were not as they should be and that we should return them to their previous state, serving him and not Caoilte. We passed the word around and became friendly (which in Keira's case involved not actually giving in to her urge to start the slaughter!). Jessie, Bliquis and I sang them the Jellyfish Song. It was, frankly, a bit surreal to get beyond the first, "Hurray!" without someone trying to kill me. At least one of the Ficti (male) very much enjoyed Jessie doing the actions, because it involved her jiggling up and down. It was an oddly liberating sensation to have "lost" the world's most annoying song from my brain; Jessie agreed.

Anyway, it was eventually worked out that they each really hated something, and that something had once been something that had inspired them. One hated flowers, and Ellian worked awfully hard to bring stories and poems back into her mind, based on things we had found written down about the place. Another had been something of a comedian, and Bliquis bad-joked him back into himself. Jessie tried her best to cheer up Erdreja's Most Maudlin Fey with happily-ever-after stories (I told him the Billy Goats Gruff story - he cracked a smile too!). Bloodthunk was giving his all in terms of tales of true heroes to another. Sylverant and Jackdaw had a duel-to-the-mending of one of them - but I have no idea at all why. I admit, I wasn't terribly helpful when it came to the Ficti, except in trying to work out what the bad handwriting (and it was truly bad) on the clues actually said.

Having eventually released the Ficti from their slavery to Caoilte they told us each a scrap of information about his history, which was extremely helpful since his story was essential to the rite we were going to have to do later on in order to end him.

I may have given the impression that this didn't take very long to accomplish, but in truth it took a lot of the afternoon and we were attacked a few times by hell minion types and took the time too to eat something (food did not taste good in hell) and sing some songs and occasionally, in my case, freak out about scared I actually was. You see, some time before midnight we had to do the rite to finish Caoilte off. He was bound to not take well to this and try and kill us all and, without a doubt, eat our patterns.

Then we found what we actually had to do in this rite. We had to tell Caoilte's story in poem, story and song, because he was all three and unfinished in each. I've had a song buzzing around in my head since before summer about the middle of Caoilte's story so that was easily done, we had the story part sorted because, well, Ellian, and Jenna rushed off to compose the beginning of Caoilte in poem. Knowing what to do, knowing that finally we actually had some direction for our rite, calmed me down immensely.

As it happens, Master Vincenzo (he who had realised that going into actual hell would not be good for anyone) decided that a distraction rite would be going on at the other end of the field from us, thus hopefully keeping Caoilte away from the important rite. Then, divine inspiration (MacLir told me) said that if we stayed in the Hell Pub (the one with the ominous glow) we would be protected providing no one but the rite team were in there. Okay then. I was still scared, but not as much as earlier in the day.

This is what happened. Bliquis and Sylverant did the distraction rite (and I'm sure I heard Bloodthunk joining in as well) to attract Caoilte to the vicinity (Bliquis says they called him names until he couldn't resist showing up). Whilst they were doing it, things fetched up to try and kill everyone but they succeeded in getting his attention finally and there he was. We started our rite.

I'd love to describe it in minute detail because Ellian was in full and epic flow, but for one I choose to respect his hate of people writing down his stories and for two, I can't remember exactly what he said anyway. Who can with his stories? You remember the salient details and how it made you feel and go on from there. Jenna recited her poem, I sang the song, Elthanin and Jessie talked about being lost. Ellian told the story, and chose the ending. And what an ending! Caoilte had been part of the Fianna, the original Fianna, and had been a great storyteller, but he stole the stories of the other members and twisted them around, and earned MacLir's great ire. He tore him apart, but because he is benevolent after the storms of his rage, he tried to sing him back. Caoilte broke his own song by trying to join in and became the unfinished story that we have fought for five long years. MacLir, Ellian noted, had no sons but his foster sons, Fionn and Lugh amongst them, and realised that when the Lord of the Sea had given Ellian a name it was not a name for Ellian but a name for Coilte. Ellian said it was no coincidence that I was there, heavy with child, pregnant not just with her but with symbolism and if he'd driven me into labour at that point I wouldn't have been surprised because he then announced that when MacLir was singing Caoilte back it was as a renewed person, a fey, a son - a son for himself. And that is how we ended the story, by finally giving him the name his father had chosen for him: Whalesong, the song that has no end. We didn't destroy Caoilte, we didn't diminish him - we remade him as a child, penitent and loved.

Thank the Ancestors that it worked. Thank them too that despite great danger, and only two healers amongst the crowd outside fighting (the rest of us - both of us - were in the rite) no one died. MacLir came amongst us (I was rather pleased to see him and he gave me his blessings in person anew) and, bless him! He brought a large amount of food. Including crumble and custard. He liberally distributed rewards, Ellian went back to Hearth and Home to tell them we'd won (he carried a note exempting him from paying for his drinks too) and the party went on into the night. Unfortunately, whilst returning lost stories that had been given to the Ficti, MacLir also returned the Jellyfish Song - apparently it was all or nothing. This made me sad, but I guess you can't have everything.

Having discussed the matter, Ellian and I have decided that we do well fighting a joint nemesis and will be auditioning for a new one at the Spring Moot. We want to at least have winter off.

 

All Works are © Original Author

(OC Author - Gillian Smart)