Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 231: Interlude - Answering the Huntsman's Call

Teigh was immersed in a conversation with an Ambassador from Derva, the discussion just getting interesting when my concentration was broken. It was the first time I had heard Gwyn ap Nudd since I had been a member of the Hunt.

'I summon the Wild Hunt, for the first time.'

Those words seemed to echo and reverberated; the calling so strong that there was no power in any Universe that could sever the connection that had been formed. I was used to being only an incorporeal voice that Teigh could hear, immune to the physical. But this proved that wouldn't always be the case. Our conversations conducted in the privacy of his mind, his experiences filtered through his mind, kept me isolated and protected.

We had become close over the years, my voice often articulating and organizing the thoughts that he was having.

'I summon the Wild Hunt, twice.'

I had sacrificed my freedom, not once but twice. When Teigh became Prince, when I had died, I had agreed to System's offer to become the guiding force behind his assimilation as he stepped into a new body and assumed a new life. I had never regretted that choice, even when I had to sacrifice myself for him a second time.

When errors in intelligence gathering and strategy had resulted in his death while the Wild Hunt was manifested. I had agreed to Gwyn ap Nudd's offer, to allow Teigh to use his System awarded respawn ability to live, while I fulfilled the duties his death demanded with the Wild Hunt.

I would be the Huntsman when the Wild Magics were called. Given form, a body made of flesh and magic, and I would answer the trumpet call when Gwyn ap Nudd sounded the horn. The only concession I was given was to keep my place as a guide and adviser for Teigh.

I wouldn't be banished to limbo, a sleeping ghost that only acted as part of the mindless legion that answered that call to battle. I could retain my identity and fulfill the bargain I had made with System. But I was bound tightly to those constraints. No amount of railing or fighting against the ties that bound me could alter my destiny.

The Goddess Boann had once attempted to circumvent fate, to ignore the strictures placed on her by her husband. She dared to challenge the power of the Well of Segais, the mystical source considered the fount of wisdom. She had removed the water's boundaries, unleashing a river that brought knowledge to all denizens of the earth, But for her hubris, she was forced to pay for that decision and her actions for all time.

She lost an arm, an eye, and a leg before she drowned in the waters she had released, battered, and destroyed by the power of all those mystical waters she worked to release. Each day, she would be reborn whole, but forced to again brave the waters of knowledge she had tampered with, only to drown.

Day after day for all eternity, she would lose an arm, an eye, and a leg, forever drowning, her life's blood mingling with the water that escaped from the well, expanding and becoming the rivers of the world.

The process of taking corporeal form for me wasn't painful, I hadn't felt pain since my death decades before. This would be my first time summoned to ride with the Hunt. Still, the times I had heard the call, a call that other members of the Hunt had answered could be counted on one hand. Although the number of Huntsmen was legion, not all were made manifest each time a summons was given.

Except for Gwyn ap Nudd, in his duty as Leader of the Hunt, no other rider woke from limbo each time the call was made. But ap Nudd was an anomaly, a primal force of nature. His duties gave him dominion, even the Tuatha de Danaan were forced to give way before his nature when he was summoned to perform his duties.

How and why a specific rider was selected remained a mystery to me, I hadn't been selected enough times to unravel the underlying pattern; the mechanics involved in the process of selection. My summons was guided by the Wild Magic, some underlying reason, a variable that explained why certain individuals were suited to certain events, why my unique talents suited to serve Gwyn ap Nudd.

This call was different, and I knew that I would be required to ride.

'I summon the Wild Hunt for the final time.'

The cosmic reverberations that accompanied the call were amplified each time the summons was made until the wrenching sensation, the vibration that attuned my spiritual energies with the Wild Hunt's was complete and I was pulled from the mindscape, that place within Teigh's mind that I existed.

The body that I would inhabit at the Wild Hunt's direction was predicated and based on the body I would have grown to occupy if Thom A'Kel had not had me murdered. I took comfort each time knowing that in this form, Caraid, the true Caraid would exist in some manner until the last flickering gasp of the final dying sun in any of the multiverse went out.

Even if Ragnarok came to this realm as the Asgardian and Olympians feared, I would remain. A constant warrior of the Hunt, riding when called, dispensing justice across the cosmos of every Universe where Sidhe had even the slightest presence.

The Hunt was as immutable as System, Eternity, and Death. And I, as a rider in the Hunt, was one of the legions that was gifted with true Immortality.

We could not die.

Although we could be slain in battle, we would always rise again, devoted to duty. Tied by the ropes of honor, honor so knotted, so tight that not even System could change our course once we were mounted and engaged in duty.