Page 111 of Queen of the Shadow

Cuchulainn had stopped beside her. He did not want to look down—but he did it. The cleft in the ground became narrower the deeper it went. Filling it were people. They looked as if they’d been driven down into the split like they were posts for a fence. Their arms were trapped at their sides. They were packed so tightly that the only part of their bodies they could still move were their heads, which were tilted up, mouths open grotesquely as they shrieked. Cuchulainn realized two things simultaneously. First, it wasn’t the wind that was wailing; it was the trapped people. Second, the crevice was closing. Horrified, he watched as the ground shuddered, squeezing those held within as it slowly—oh so slowly—entombed them.

Cuchulainn hooked his arm through Scáthach’s. “We should not look down,” he said grimly as he took a long stride forward. Scáthach came with him. He did not look down again. Scáthach did not look up until they were over the terrible crevice.

They continued on in silence. Even though they were fully concealed by the shadows, Cuchulainn’s eyes continually scanned the grayness around them. Not far off the side of their path a dozen or so warriors battled. They hurled insults at one another and cut their opponents down, slicing through armor like it was lard as they hacked off limbs and disemboweled one another—only to reanimate and begin fighting all over again. The frozen ground around them was almost knee-deep in blood and intestines, body parts and gore, yet they kept slicing away at one another as they shrieked insults and curses.

“I don’t understand. Why continue to fight on and on and on?” said Cuchulainn.

“Because they are filled with senseless anger and the violence that follows it is difficult to understand,” said Scáthach. “But it’s why they are held here. They refuse to learn, to grow, to become self-aware.”

Cuchulainn continued to glance back at the endlessly battling warriors. “There is still senseless violence in our mortal world.”

“That is very true, but it’s no longer perpetrated by any of the spirits we’ll see here.”

Cuchulainn felt a flutter of hope. “Does that mean someday there will be no more senseless violence in our world?”

When Scáthach met his gaze, he already knew the answer before she spoke it. He saw the sadness within her expressive eyes. “I asked the same of my mother and I shall give you her answer. The Goddess of the Underworld said,As long as man has free will, some will always choose violence and selfish delusion instead of growth and healing.”

Cuchulainn had no response. He often noticed groups of men fighting in the distance but he didn’t study them—didn’t continue to crane his neck around to watch. It was the same thing repeated over and over and over: violence, death, reanimation. He averted his gaze from yet another cluster of warriors endlessly hacking away at one another and noticed not far ahead of them one of the rocky hills was covered with clumps of plants—large plants that were the grayish green of sage, or maybe even...

“Thistles! Are there actually thistles here?” Cuchulainn shook his head disbelievingly. “Will they have purple flowers? I’m surprised that there are plants here at all.”

When Scáthach was silent, he turned his focus from the hill to the Queen of Shadow. Her face was expressionless except for the taut line of her lips. She glanced at the plants they were drawing closer and closer to and then looked hastily away.

“What is it?” he asked.

“They’re not really thistles. The only plants here mirror the abominations within the realm.” She met his gaze. “I don’t suppose it’ll do any good for me to tell you to look away as we pass them.”

Chills fingered down his spine. “I don’t understand.”

“They’re more of the dead being absorbed,” was all she said.

He wanted to look away. He really should have looked away. But he was too curious. Once he understood what they were, he was too revolted to tear away his gaze.

The hill wasn’t covered with huge thistles. It was covered with people who were becoming thistles—from the inside out. Their legs were fused to form bizarre stems. Needles, thick and dagger sharp, had been forced from the inside of their bodies outward so that long spikes bound their legs together. Similar spikes of different lengths protruded from all over their bodies, covering their skin as they burst out. Their arms were splayed wide, palms forward, as if to push away what was happening to them. Their fingers were curled to resemble spiked, leafed claws. The whipping wind caused them to sway like horrible branches.

Their faces were so grotesque that Cuchulainn actually felt ill. Their mouths and eyes were open wide. Needles sprouted from their mouths and protruding tongues and ruptured their staring eyes. Blood dripped steadily down their bodies, staining the ice and snow around them rust.

“I shouldn’t have looked,” said Cuchulainn when he could speak again. He glanced at her. “Did your mother actually allow you to see all of this when you were a child?”

“No!” Scáthach said quickly. “She only took me into the Autumnal Realm a few times when I was a young girl. It wasn’t until I’d become a woman that she offered me the choice of entering the Winterlands with her.” She paused before she added, “I chose to go with her. Once. We were wrapped in shadow, much like you and I are now. Mother warned me that the realm contained horrors without being specific.”

Cuchulainn blew out a long breath and then said, “I understand that now. Describing the awfulness... it’s impossible to fully comprehend unless you’ve seen it for yourself.”

Scáthach nodded. “Exactly.”

He took her hand as they continued along the path. “I don’t like that you’ve had to return here, had to witness all of this again, because of me.”

“It was my choice, just as it was my choice to come here with Mother. Yes, it is terrible, but it doesn’t frighten me. It saddens me. I have never wanted to believe that so many are unredeemable.” She shook her head. “Even though I know every dead person sent here has committed atrocities over more than one lifetime and feel no remorse for their deeds, it haunts me.”

“It is because you are decent and kind, and you cannot comprehend doing the things these dead have done,” said Cuchulainn.

She moved her shoulders in a restless shrug. “But that’s not completely true. Aife put a price on my head and tried to steal my castle. In return I ordered her entire army killed, even though I am difficult to kill and Dunscáith is impossible to take by force.”

“But did you want to order the army killed?” Cuchulainn asked.

“No, of course not,” she said.

“And that’s the difference between you and the spirits sentenced to eternity here,” he said. “Those sent to the Winterlands would have reveled in those deaths. It is certain they would have killed Aife, even though by doing so they would also have killed an innocent unborn.”