Fantasy – Page 8 – The Word Worker

The Worldkeeper

FB_IMG_1589547926891 She was so small, a child really. The oversized case she lugged in her thin hand looked as if it could have pulled her to the ground like an anchor. Her hair draggled down her back, unbrushed dirty blonde, the remains of braids tangled at the base of her skull. Unlike other children, she stared at me rather than my balloons. “I am Lila,” she said, owl eyes boring into me, searching my depths for who knew what.

“What is in your case, Lila?” It was a strange question to ask a stray child, but she was strange. There was no air of the waif about her, despite the ancient undersized sundress that barely hid her frail body. And yet she didn’t seem to belong to any of the families playing on the sand below.

She blinked at me, head cocked to one side. “Oh, that’s my treasure,” she said, not a trace of a smile on her ghost of a face. “I carry them with me to keep them safe.”

My forehead creased between my eyes. “Them?” I asked. “What exactly do you have in there? Will you show me?” She seemed so innocent, but so disproportionately old. Prickles rose under my hairline when I looked at her, but I could not call my unease fear.

Lila laughed and shook her head, more strands of hair stringing from the leftover braids. “You wouldn’t be able to see anything!” she exclaimed, as if that should have been obvious. “Only I can see, because I am the keeper.”

“Does that mean someone gave you something to take care of?” I wondered. This unearthly girl was hardly a likely candidate for that, I thought. “Your mom or dad? Or maybe a grandparent?”

“Oh no,” she answered, her tone matter of fact. “I collected them.”

“From where?” I was beginning to feel suspicious, but I could not drag myself away. Her eyes, still fixed on me, held a fascination that I could neither explain or resist.

“Oh, wherever I find them,” she said thoughtfully. “I found one in a dandelion once.” She continued to stare at me.

“What exactly do you look for?” I stammered, fidgeting. I clenched and unclenched my empty hand behind my back, the other clutching sweat-slippery balloon strings.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just know when I see them that I have to keep them.” Her gaze finally shifted to the balloons, but unlike other children, she kept her solemn expression.

“Would you like a balloon?” I asked, feeling like it was my day for lame questions. Without hesitation she pointed to an entwined bunch of yellow, blue, and striped spheres. “Yes, I need those three,” she announced.

I carefully extricated them from my hand and gave them to her. Without a word she hefted her case and set off down the road away from the beach. “Wait!” I called after her. “What treasures do you keep? I have to know!”

She turned and smiled for the first time and glanced up at her bunch of balloons, then back at me. “Why, worlds, of course!” And as she walked away, the balloons aloft over her head, for a moment I actually saw them.

The Ghost

FB_IMG_1589074214619 The monk stood beneath the arch, staring down the endless corridor of archways. Once echoing with the sounds of prayers and sandals, once filled with the bounty of the fields waiting to be distributed where needed, the archways stood empty and silent. He was alone.

No one had foreseen the disaster. The unholy thing had slipped in so easily, feasting on the contentment of the people. There had seemed no need for guard; the peace of the community had been unbroken for centuries. The stranger was welcomed with open arms and generous kindness.

The monk barely remembered the first disappearance. An old man, he thought; or perhaps it was an old woman. The forgotten went first. The children were next, and with the first of those losses came the fear. By then it was too late.

One by one they were taken. One by one the community dwindled. When it came for the monks they were powerless. Their own fear and grief was their undoing. They fell to the unholy stranger like the last in a chain of dominoes.

The monk stood under the arch, staring down the endless corridor of archways. Here he would stand forever, the ghost of all those he had taken. With their deaths he had died, trapped forever in this empty hall of his own making.

The Aftermath

FB_IMG_1574886918099 I stared at the last piece of pie, barely seeing it. It had been on the plate in front of me long enough to be room temperature, and the dollop of whipping cream atop it was looking not quite so whipped anymore. Of course returning to Earth after a magical war would coincide with the Thanksgiving holiday.

All the happy families around us in the restaurant left me sick to my stomach. They had no idea what had just happened; they couldn’t feel the magic exploding from the collapsing barrier. I glanced over at Dagda, sitting across the table picking at his own pie with a pained expression. Brigid sat next to him, head down, eyes gazing into nothing. Casual passersby would probably just assume we were a dysfunctional family trying to make it through the holiday. If only that were true.

They would know soon enough. The worlds were uniting once again, just as had been prophesied. None of us had quite realized what that would mean. Fae peoples were being scattered around the globe in fits and spurts, in some cases plunged into a world of which they knew nothing, in others their own homes displacing Earth structures. Within an hour or two word of the increasing chaos would reach even the most oblivious of celebrators.

Suddenly furious, I snatched up my fork and plunged it viciously into the center of the slice of pie, smattering cream onto the tablecloth. My companions both started, their expressions deepening into worry. “It isn’t fair!” I snarled. “Is this what we fought Dracul for? To replace one chaos with another?” I shoved my chair back with enough force to rattle the glasses on the table and draw mildly curious glances from nearby diners, and stood up. “I hate magic! I hate it!”

I stalked away, my vision blurring. I took a deep breath. The last thing we needed now was for me to lose control. There was no telling what power would ignite before magic found its place here. Balhon and Kizi were waiting in the city park, unnoticed in the trees. That was where I needed to be. Their strength and hope would calm me. Maybe.

Dragon’s Ruin

FB_IMG_1572903609411 She crouched motionless at the parapet, wondering if the army could even see her from the mainland. The scale of this place was almost beyond belief. She could feel the deep warmth of the setting sun on her face, but closed her eyes in determined effort to resist turning towards it. Absolute stillness, she had been warned; the slightest movement could be her undoing.

A sound like leather being shaken out deafened her, and a hurricane force gust nearly dislodged her from her post. Her eyes snapped open, her heart pounding while at the same time blood seemed to drain from her head. The creature rising from beneath the ruin on the opposite spire dwarfed even the palace upon which she knelt. She saw her full reflection in the pupil of its amber eye as the beast passed her. As another and another followed the first and circled above the gate, she knew that it was time.

She slowly rose to her feet and spread her arms wide. The first dragon whipped around, attracted by the movement, it’s fearsome jaws widening in the feral grin of the predator. She clenched her jaw, forcing down the panic threatening to overwhelm her, and tilted her chin with determined focus. This time she was aware. This time she was in control.

A heat bubbled through her like magma rising to the mouth of a volcano, ripping a scream from her tortured throat. But it was no scream as it escaped powerful jaws in a stream of liquid fire. She spread black wings that hid the fire of the sunset and rose into the air with a force that crumbled the parapet upon which she had stood.

The dragons echoed her roar, circling warily. The first of them emitted his own fire, almost white in its heat. Her challenge was accepted; she only hoped she was strong enough to win. If she wasn’t… but there was no more time for hoping.

The Mor-Rhiogain

FB_IMG_1571453145156 Babh waited under the black branches of the dead oak. She preened her dark feathers in satisfaction at the fear she sensed from the forest denizens. In the shadows of the night, all that could be seen of her were her eyes, glowing flame red.

The harvest moon rose high above the castle she watched, bathing its white towers in soft light. Her claws curled, scraping unpleasantly against the stone upon which she perched. The light would save no one tonight. Soon, her sisters would return and her vigil would end.

As she gleefully imagined the coming reunion, the mist rose from the river below. Thick, like the hated smoke from the castle kitchens, it billowed up the sides of the mountain. When it reached the causeway, her sisters would call, and she would answer.

Macha and Anann appeared black against the mist, their wings morphing into long arms tipped with bloodred nails, dark hair flying around pale faces in the windless night. Babh spread her own wings and rose into the moonlight, her screech of joy freezing the blood of the humans awaiting their fate.

She heard their cries, tasted their terror, as her feathers lengthened and knit together, her power calling the mist to her as a great dragon covering her victims with its mighty wings. She opened her mouth as her sisters strode purposefully to the gate, their hands outstretched for blood. Her bain sidh wail echoed from the walls and shattered the gates.

The mist shattered with them, and an army of shadows descended upon the one who despised the Mor-Rhiogain. Driven by the bain sidh, the dead would collect, unhindered by sword or spear. Babh would have her revenge, and her sisters would feast upon the blood.

The Mor-Rhiogain had returned.

FB_IMG_1569933605615 Strange sounds disturbed the silence of her slumber. The rock trembled in rhythm with a thrumming roar. The air around her grew warm, and she stirred irritably, comfort destroyed.

The roaring finally ceased, and as the accompanying heat dissipated she relaxed and drifted back into slumber until new sounds startled her awake once again. Sharp taps grew in frequency and intensity, fevering her brain like water dripping from a stalactite. She shifted again and again, trying to block out the tapping, but it was joined by an unrhythmic metallic banging that jolted her consciousness intolerably.

The thrumming returned, but only briefly, as something sharp penetrated the wall and struck her hip. She jerked away from the painful intrusion, whirling to face the pinprick of light that appeared as the sharp tip was withdrawn. Other sounds reached her ears through the light, these maddeningly familiar. The shouts of men penetrated her memories, stirring her belly with hate and resentment.

She moved rapidly, fury giving strength to muscles long unused. Her head shattered the thin wall separating her from intruders. The pitch of the shouts rose satisfyingly, and she could see figures running toward a bright white archway at the far end of a carefully crafted tunnel. Her jaws parted in a feral grin; their fear could not save them. She heard their screams as liquid fire turned the walls of their tunnel to glass, smelled the satisfying scent of fresh meat as their cries gurgled into silence.

Her belly rumbled with a different need, and she salivated. The now steaming air stimulated her, and the urge to spread her wings drove her toward the white archway. She burst from darkness into light, her roar shattering glass, her wings darkening the sky. She would rule again.

The Time Cottage

It was the strangest hodgepodge of a house Jax had ever seen. The solid plank tower butting up against the back wall looked oddly out of place against the cobblestone and steeply pitched shingles. Placed where it was in the spray of a waterfall that seemed to feed nothing, it looked as if someone had snatched random bits from across time and space and pasted them together in homage to time itself.

The impression grew even stronger as the door opened and the occupant appeared. She was a wizened old woman, with incongruently red straggling strands of hair escaping a bonnet starched stiffer than the Magistrate. Her feet were clad in solid leather work boots, while a patchwork cloak barely hid a gown fit for the ballroom.

This dizzying figure rushed toward Jax, grinning widely. “Why, there you are!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him with a disconcerting familiarity that he was too thunderstruck to resist. “I was beginning to think you had lost your way and would never arrive after all!”

She released him only to grab his arms and hold him at arms length, surveying him with the critical eye of an aging aunt or fussing grandmother. “Well now, you could use some meat on your bones, but I can see there’s something going on behind that open mouth and those wide eyes. Yes, you’ll do.”

In an instant everything vanished, the house, waterfall, and woman together. Jax was left standing on the empty moor, staring into space like a daydreaming child, blinking in bewilderment. Feeling dazed, he turned around and headed back to the city as fast as his legs would take him, eager for the comfort of familiar surroundings. But as he topped a hill he stopped so suddenly he nearly lost his balance. The city was gone. FB_IMG_1569700668713