Cinnie danced in the kitchen. Her long soft skirts twirled around her, an aura of patchwork colors.

Max averted his eyes, carrying the fresh milk straight to the table without speaking.

"Don't do that!" She admonished and he looked up, startled. He put the bucket of milk on the table every morning, part of a routine as repetitive as the rising and setting of the sun.

The girl took the bucket from him and grasped both of his hands in hers. The swollen globe of her pregnant belly stretched between them. "Don't you know what today is? Can't you feel the magic in the air? Can't you hear the fairies dancing? Behold! On this, of all days, there is magic all around us!"

Max blinked, trying to count days in his head. One blurred into another, an endless line of milking cows, splitting wood, harvesting the long lines of potatoes and cabbages.

Cinnie laughed at him, leaning in as if telling a secret. "Samhain, Max! Today the veil is thin and we rejoice and sing."

Samhain! His heart skipped a beat. Could it be so late in the season already? Winter was coming which meant tending sheep in the freezing rain and days that ended nearly before they'd begun while nights stretched on interminably. But first... Samhain! Feasts! Even a lowly servant like him would have the opportunity to fill his belly with hot stew and sweet pies. The mummers would perform and the whole village would dance around the bonfire until the cock crowed in the morning. A smile touched the corner of his mouth.

Cinnie released his hands. "That's more like it. Now. No more chores. Go wash and put on your best clothes. I want you to dance with me."

Dancing. Better than all the food in the world, there was nothing as free and wonderful as dancing in praise to the glory of all creation. He raced to the stream and washed in the icy water. When he'd scrubbed until his skin tingled, red and raw, he slipped his least-tattered shirt over his head and pulled on his too-small trousers. By the time he got back to the house, Cinnie's mother was laying a table with fresh fish, cheese, and warm bread. Max's stomach growled like a bear and Cinnie laughed at him.

"Max, you'll be lucky to tame that beast in your belly with this one around. She's likely to eat the feast herself and leave nothing at'll for the likes of you. I swear that child she's feeding wants more than a grown man."

"He'll be big and strong, like his papa," Cinnie said, patting her belly proudly.

"You'll be fat as the baker's wife when that boy comes home from that forsaken war he's fighting in."

The younger woman slathered a thick layer of butter on a steaming slice of bread. "More of me to love," she quipped.

Max frowned, suddenly certain that Cinnie's betrothed had been killed in battle. The young mother-to-be often worried it would happen and now it had. No doubt shadowed the thought. You can't possibly know that, he told himself, reaching for a piece of fish, but he did know, and it made him sad for her.

"Max," she chided. "If you don't stop frowning we won't let you come with us to the festival."

"Sorry," he mumbled, wanting to share his fear and knowing no good would come of that. Cinnie and her mother had taken him in when, as a toddler, he'd wandered out of the forest half dead and crawling with lice. Others whispered about him being a foundling, a child of the faeries, a haunting spirit, but they gave him a home and a warm place to sleep and asked only that he work as their farmboy in return. As such things went, it could have turned out much worse for him. He lived each day aware of his debt to them, determined to repay it before he left.

And the time for leaving drew nigh. He knew it in the same way he knew the soldier was dead.

He knew a lot of things. Names and things from the past. He knew the cities to the east were more vast than these sheltered villagers ever dreamed. He knew there were people with skin as black as night and others who lived naked under a sun that never left for winter.

He never spoke of those things.

Who would believe him if he did?

They finished their breakfast and followed the stream of people laughing, dancing, skipping, and running their way toward the center of town. Already the men busied themselves building the framework for the great fire that would be lit at sunset. A flute player sent up a quick tune in time with a drummer who Max had never seen before.

The young man, pale with a shock of dark hair, met his eye and grinned, a lopsided grin that displayed a split lip and several broken teeth.

Daniel, Max thought and, though he would swear he didn't know the man, great joy swelled in his heart at seeing him. He nodded and ran off past the old men playing Fidchell toward where the other farmboys would be getting ready to start some sort of races or contests. Max wouldn't join. They didn't trust him, but watching them play was fun. It was a sight better than shearing sheep anyway. And by lunchtime, the storytelling and puppet shows would begin.

It was an hour or so later when the drummer plopped down on the earth next to him. "Can I ask you something?"

Max glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. He had stood on the steps of a pyramid, shining sword in his hand. I don't know that. I remember it. Max looked away. "I suppose," he said aloud.

"That girl over there, the one serving up the mead. She married?"

Max's eyes sought out the red-haired beauty with the sparkling green eyes. "Yeah. Her husband is the blacksmith."

Daniel sighed. "Course he is. Lucky bastard." He held out a hand. "Daniel."

"Max," Max replied, shaking awkwardly.

"Do you remember me?"

Max's head snapped toward the newcomer. "Why would you ask me that?"

Daniel grinned at him, showing off unnaturally straight white teeth.

I know they were broken, earlier. I'm sure of it.

The grin melted into easy laughter. "You're always uptight but this life has put a stick all the way up your arse. Jumpy, are you?" He rolled his eyes upward and chewed on a straw.

This man had danced with a queen. Her easy laughter as she spun in his arms matched his own.

"I do remember you," Max said, casting a furtive glance. "But... not... I don't understand."

Daniel brushed his words off with a wave of his hand. "Don't strain yourself. It'll come to you. Just in time, too, I suspect."

"In time for what?"

The man leaned back and watched the fluffy white sheep-like clouds gallop across the cerulean sky. "I'm glad you're back, Max. It's been a rough coupla years. Go ahead and follow your feeling. It'll be OK. I promise."

Something pulled at Max's heart, something cold and empty and peaceful all at once and the village melted away. A long-haired giant stood before him, looking down with stern eyes. "Maximus, I am pleased that you are ready."

Max's blood ran cold. Darkness encroached from every side. He staggered backward and bumped into a table, knocking a stack of paper to the black floor.

"Next time, you meet him on his side of the veil," an old woman with a cap of short grey curls droned in a low raspy voice.

"Am I dead?" Max asked.

"No, son. You are very much alive, and normally, I would approach this with more care, but there is a breach and your help is badly needed this day."

Max's hands trembled as he pushed his hair away from his eyes. "You're my father. Azrael."

The man nodded.

"You're Death."

"I am. And you are Death's right hand."

"They were right about me."

"In part," the man agreed.

"They won't let me help them. They'll be too frightened of me."

"You'll be the devil they know and, trust me, that is a far sight better than the devil who comes for them. You bring them to me, Max, as many as you can as fast as you can. You won't be alone, but the harvest will be vast."

"I don't understand," Max told him. The words were so inadequate as to be absurd.

"You will."

A million needles, coming from every direction poked gently at Max and he once again sat on the grass next to the stranger.

Not a stranger. Daniel. An angel. A watcher. My best friend. The trickle of vague memories widened to a fast-moving stream.

Daniel grinned at him. "Welcome back, mate. Hope you're ready to hustle. They're coming."

"Who?" Max asked, even as he asked, a flickering light appeared on the distant horizon and the smell of smoke tickled his nose, though it was several hours too early for the fires to be lit.

"The Christians," Daniel said. "Led by the devil himself." He pushed himself to his feet and stretched. Light shimmered around him and burst into full flower. Powerful white wings stretched out behind him. "The irony is not lost on any of us," he said before launching himself into the sky.

Max frowned, bewildered, but there was no time for more questions. An army bore down on their village. The music of harvest and magic changed to screams of terror and death.

Max's breath came in short, panicked gasps. What was he supposed to do? How was he expected to know? Tears pricked his eyes.

"Max!" Cinnie raced toward him, her arms wrapped around her belly, pursued by a metal-covered giant on the largest horse Max had ever seen. The thundering hooves shook the ground.

Max ran toward her, thinking he could knock her to the ground before she was trampled, but the distance stretched nightmarishly between them and, as though time slowed to the speed of dripping sap in the dead grey midst of winter, he watched the giant pull a broadsword from its sheath and arc it downward toward the running girl.

"Take your heathen spawn to Hell!" he cried in a language Max had never spoken but understood perfectly.

The cruel edge of the sword sliced across her belly and her shriek rose up, the loudest sound in a world drenched in the cacophony of war.

The rider raced his horse past Max, his eyes glossing over him, unseeing.

Cinnie's body lay in a spreading puddle of blood. So much blood. A lake. An ocean of blood, soaking into the greedy earth. The baby's arm had fallen out of the gaping wound and the tiny hand twitched a few times before growing as still as his mother.

Max fell to his knees in the gore and took the shining hand of Cinnie's True Form. "Why?" she asked, meeting his eye. "I was dancing and singing praise and then..." she looked down and lifted the tiny bundle of light that was her child into her arms. The infant's pure, unsullied soul curled against her mother's breast. "Why?"

Max wanted to tell her he didn't know why. Couldn't begin to fathom a reason, but the words would not form over the painful lump in his throat. He reached out and lay his hand on her shoulder. The world dissolved and he passed her into the care of Death.

"Well done, Maximus. Make haste. Gather the rest to me."

Max returned to the blood-soaked earth.