Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

had to replace you. Because you cared nothing for the future.”
    “Because you never got over what happened in the past,” said Oberon. “Will you risk the continuation of our race over the memory of one dead man?”
    “He loved me! He truly loved me!” Mab towered over us, radiant with rage. “The only one who ever did; and the elves killed him for it. Let them all suffer, as I have suffered.”
    “You could have children again, on this new Earth,” said Titania. “Have you forgotten how sweet it is, to bear a child?”
    “I would sacrifice any elf that ever was, or might be, before I will give up my righteous anger,” said Mab. “Nothing else matters.”
    “All this, for revenge?” said Oberon.
    “For honour!” Mab sneered at him openly. “I am the last of the first-born elves. All who came after were smaller things, with smaller emotions. You were never worthy of us. Let the war come. Those who survive will have been made pure again, through blood and sacrifice. And I will rule them.”
    “And risk this?” said Arthur, gesturing around him. “What point could there be in winning if all you inherit is this?”
    “I will do what I will do,” said Queen Mab. “Nothing else matters.”
    “There was a time when something else mattered,” said a cheerful, bright, and jaunty voice. “When someone else mattered, sweetest Mab.”
    We all looked round sharply at the new voice, and there, striding towards us, was a tall well-built young man, wrapped in a heavy bearskin cloak and simple cloth leggings. He had a broad, open face and an infectious smile, and a shock of red hair under a traditional Scottish cap. He came forward to join us, grinning widely, and Mab ... let out a single low, shocked sound. Arthur started forward, and Kae stopped him with a hand on his arm.
    “Is this your doing?” Suzie whispered in my ear. I shook my head.
    “Dear sweet God,” said Arthur. “How can this be? Tam ... Tam O’Shanter, as ever was. You died even before I did. Has some dear magic brought you back, too?”
    Tam O’Shanter laughed happily, his eyes fixed on Queen Mab. He stopped before her, cocked his head slightly to one side, and planted both fists on his hips. He looked so alive, so full of life, ready to take on the whole world and bend it to his wishes, for the fun of it.
    “Why, this is the land of the dead. Where else should I be? I was needed, so here I am, to see my sweet Mab again. Ah, my bonny lass, how fine you look. Even if I did have to stand on a stool to kiss you, in the old days. It is your need that brings me here, sweet lass, to this dark place. Are you still so mad at all who live because I died, and left you alone? Poor Mab, we could never have had long together, no matter how things worked out. Because it is the fate of every man to grow old and die, and you are an elf. That’s why our love was forbidden, among Men and elves.”
    “I would have found a way,” said Mab. “I would have kept you with me forever. I will never stop hating and hurting the world that took you from me.”
    “Then hold me, my love,” said Tam O’Shanter. “Hold me as you once did, when the world was young, and so were we.”
    He stepped forward and opened his arms, and Mab stepped into them without hesitation, and hugged him fiercely to her. For the first time, she looked happy. She kept on smiling, even when Tam’s hand came up with a long knife in it, slid it smoothly between her ribs, and twisted it. Golden blood ran down her side, but she never made a sound. She hung on to him, her eyes closed. He pulled the blade out, and golden blood coursed down her side and spattered on the ground. And then, as though only the blade had been holding her up, she fell suddenly to her knees. Still clinging to her dead love. Her head fell forward on his chest, and he patted her hair fondly before pushing her away from him. Queen Mab fell awkwardly to the ground and lay still. Tam O’Shanter looked down at her, the bloody knife still in his hand. And then he put aside the glamour he’d worn and was himself again.
    “Sorry, Mother,” said Puck. “But I did owe you that, for making me the way I am. And what better glamour to deceive you than the father I never knew? You should have died when he did and saved us all so much suffering.”
    He looked up and smiled into our shocked faces.
    “It’s what she would have wanted. She could never give up. She didn’t know how. So I have put her out of her misery,