"Isolde?" the soft voice of a woman made her heart jolt. Isolde snapped around to the one door leading into the room. A beautiful woman was standing by it. Her white dress swept the floor and flowed up to her waist where it came in tight before clinging to her body and wrapping itself around her shoulders. Her skin was white as snow, and silvery blonde hair cascaded down her back like a crystal waterfall. The woman smiled, and her cheeks lit up.
"Who are you?" snapped Isolde, reaching for her sword and realising she was unarmed.
"Don't you recognise your own mother?" the woman's voice was so soothing, like honey on a raw throat.
The woman came across the room. Her body seemed to float, she was so delicate, so perfect, so graceful.
"Isolde, my baby." She took Isolde in with open arms. Her body was cool to the touch.
Isolde had no words. Her mind was at once blank and full of thought. Her eyes began to flood and she hardened her jaw to suck them back in. She thrust her mother back at arm's length and looked her over.
"Who are you?" Isolde demanded.
"Your mother," the woman replied, "I have waited so many years to see you."
Isolde kept the woman away, "No," she cried, the words barely a sigh from her lips, "you cannot be..."
"I am." The woman's soft red lips spread into a smile and her deep sky-blue eyes melted as she took her Isolde into another loving embrace.
"My Isolde..." she said.
Her mother led her to the table, sitting Isolde's back to the warm fire and took a seat opposite her. She couldn't stop smiling, her face as perfect as a porcelain doll. Tears streamed down Isolde's face.
"Don't cry, Isolde," she said, "you must be so hungry, eat, please."
"How?" Isolde stammered, "how is this real?"
Her mother sighed, "It's a long story. I will tell you all, but let's eat for now."
Isolde wiped her tears away and smiled. She took a long carving knife and sliced the chicken open. Food had never tasted so good. The meat was steaming hot, the juices running down the fork as she skewered each mouthful. She ate hungrily, filling her face before realising her mother hadn't touched her meal at all but sat smiling as she watched Isolde from across the table.
"Aren't you hungry?" Isolde asked.
"No darling, you eat."
The fire flickered and cast shadows across the room. Her mother's face lit up in the light and for a moment the skin looked like wax.
"What's wrong?" her mother asked as Isolde blinked, trying to get a grip on reality.
Her mother again looked like the perfect porcelain doll that had entered the room. "Nothing," Isolde replied.
Isolde looked past her mother at the tapestry story she hadn't finished. After the woman was burned was a black canvas. The next a spinster in the dark.
"What are you looking at, Isolde?" her mother asked following her gaze.
The next image was the old spinster wreathed in flame again, but this time it was as if she was being purged in the underworld.
"I think it is a story," Isolde said following the images.
The old spinster disappeared after the flames, now there was a black devil, the world around him in flame, at his feet a tiny figure the size of an ant.
"It's a tragedy," her mother said.
Isolde's eyes looked at her mother's grim face before flicking past her at the large image behind. There was a foul beast, it was a human, Isolde knew, but the skin was withered and thin and sagged against the bone. Sinews of black hair hung low across a bald scalp full of tiny incisions. As Isolde's eyes took in the image, she realised the cuts were runes... sigils... hundreds of them, thousands, covering the cruel creature from head to toe. Isolde shuddered and looked back at her mother who was staring at her with the same smile she had worn since she entered.
"Do you know how it feels?" her mother asked, her smile fading, her eyes following Isolde's.
"How what feels?" Isolde asked.
Slam! Her mother's fist crashed against the table shuddering the wood and plates.
"How it feels to have your own daughter split you apart?" she shrieked, "to have your own daughter leave you bloody and broken for the hell hounds to drag you to eternal pain and misery?"
Isolde couldn't breathe. Her mother sat at the table looking as calm as anything, screaming profanities at her.
"To watch her grow up to be nothing? To be a failure!"
"Stop!" Isolde cried out, and her mother stopped. Mid-sentence, her mouth still half open, her eyes glazed over as they still bore down at Isolde with burning hate.
A hollow cackle creaked out from behind her mother's frozen body. Isolde's eyes danced up to the image of the tattooed hag. Its eyes came alive, its bony arms and legs began to move like the rusted wheels of some forgotten machine. Slowly at first, they creaked, the joints cracking, the loose skin wobbling. The image cackled again and crawled out from the painting so that it stood before Isolde, alive. The lifeless tattoos began to glow an ice-blue, foul hag's eyes did the same. She twisted her head up and cracked her neck, click... click... click... and reached out her gnarly arms to crack the elbows. She drew her arm up and placed her ancient hand on the head of Isolde's frozen mother. With a rasping voice like wind rushing through dried leaves, the hag spoke,
"You didn't like your mother?" she asked.
Isolde was horrified, stuck to her seat. She couldn't move her eyes from the foul fiend's head. Deep canyons of wrinkles cut into the skin, the folds curving and creasing the sigils and signs. Isolde's eyes darted down. Her hand was still on her fork, but the chicken was black and rotten, maggots wriggling from it. She shrieked in horror and shot off her chair. The entire table had decayed, the pig hollowed out from within, fat black flies crawling from its eyes and mouth. The soup was covered in mould and the vegetables rotted and brown. The smell was overbearing, as though death itself had swept across the room. Isolde nearly wretched.
The beast lurched herself up onto the table, kicking away the spoiled food as she fell back down inches from Isolde's face. Isolde backed away, her eyes wide, her breath shallow. Her heel caught the hearth behind her and the hag stepped forward. She raised her weathered hand and took Isolde's face in a bony grasp, squeezing her fat cheeks painfully.
"Your mother does say hello," she hissed, "do you want to see?"
Isolde shoved the creature back with all her might but her hands seemed to slide off the loose skin. She screamed as the bony hand squeezed her face tighter, driving her down onto her knees. Isolde howled in pain as the hag thrust her other hand into Isolde's chest. It felt as though a claw was ripping into her skin, long sharp fingers plunging deep into her flesh. Isolde choked. The claw was ice cold and she could feel the ice spreading through her chest. As though her veins were freezing over. Her head wheeled back and the world went dark as the creature cackled. She was falling, endlessly dropping in the abyss, alone.
***
The darkness gave way to brilliant white light. She was falling, wind screaming through her ears. Suddenly the white gave way to clear sky, the world spread out far below her. Mountains ran down the landscape like a great spine, a forest, a river, the wind whistling. A town, her town. Snap.
She was in a dark room. A woman screaming. The smell of blood was heavy in the air. Her mother. A bed. Blood. Blood everywhere. Screaming. Snap.
Her father howling tears. He looked so young. A baby in his arms. Snap.
A woman riding out from a castle, her smile beaming in the fair weather. She's riding over green meadows. Snap.
Darkness. Night time, a fire sparked up. Screaming. It was the same woman. Snap.
Isolde was falling into the abyss again. The ground opened up before her and the earth swallowed her whole, she fell until the dark fires of hell could be seen. Thick smoke rose up below, dark crimson rock glowing violently. Screams in the night, the cracking of whips and the cackle of sharp voices. Snap.
The charred remains of some poor human knelt before a winged beast. It was huge,
its legs shaggy, its head horned. It lay a mammoth hand on the burnt flesh. Snap.
A woman cries out on a table of obsidian stone. The walls glow red. Was it a table or an altar? Faint markings throbbed in the jet black stone. Winged creatures tear away at the woman's blackened skin. Delicate knives slice into the flesh with astute attention to detail. Snap.
Isolde falls deeper into the earth, deeper and deeper. The wailing is horrendous, it fills the chasm thick with voices. One begins to stand out. A woman, shrieking for mercy. It is her mother. At the bottom of the pit. Bound in chains. Crying out as flames lick all around her. The ground smokes. Her feet are searing. The smell of burnt flesh fills the air. Her mother snaps her head up. Her eyes lock onto Isolde's. She twists her mouth into a cry that pierces Isolde's heart. Snap.
***
Skaldi. Heroth Nuir. Bezhaal. Skaldi. Heroth Nuir. Bezhaal... The words chased themselves in Isolde's head. They were the last thing she remembered. Her mother's cry. Isolde's body was flat against the ground, back into the abyss. Her shoulder throbbed. Her head was pounding. She scuttled in darkness along the ground, dust and bones. She lifted herself up. The walls, she could feel them, the cold slick wet. And a light like a faint star in the sky. A warm breath of wind picked up from behind her. She ran, the light growing brighter and brighter as she moved. Skaldi. Heroth Nuir. Bezhaal... the words swam in her mind as she raced toward the light. Erik!... she suddenly remembered... Wulfric! Harald!... I have to find Skaldi!...
THANKS FOR READING PART ONE
Isolde's saga is far from over. This is the first part of her story and is currently where I am up to in my writing. I intend to finish the saga but only if people actually like it. If you did, please let me know by signing up to my list or liking me on facebook or twitter. Everyone who signs up to my email-list before the next book is released will get a free advanced copy sent to them before it is published.
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Robert D. Jones
ABOUT ROBERT D. JONES
Hi, my name is Robert D. Jones and I write YA fantasy fiction. I love writing, to me it is as necessary to life as breathing. I guess I have always been an artist, I played in bands, wrote poetry, painted, and eventually turned my hand to my true calling in writing stories. You can read about my life HERE if you are interested.
At the moment I am working on a few projects, Isolde Saga is my first but I am also writing a 'Fallen Angel' Urban Fantasy called Hollow. Follow me on facebook and twitter or join up on my list for freebies and to stay up to date.
All the best,
Robert D. Jones
PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW
Reviews mean everything to me and I would so greatly appreciate it if you left me one on Amazon.
As an Indie Author I have to do everything myself which includes all the promo work and marketing. By leaving a review you add social proof to my book and basically say to everyone else that you enjoyed it.
This lets me focus less on marketing and more on writing! But I understand you might not want to and that's okay. On average only 1 out of every 100 readers leave reviews and I think that is because they think it is either unimportant or they dont know what is expected.
Honesty, even a one liner like, "this book was good..." helps so much in the long term and goes a long way to establishing me as a full-time writer.
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Robert D. Jones
The Black Witch: Isolde Saga Copyright © 2017 by Robert David Jones.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information contact; www.liberhistoriae.com
Book and Cover design by R. D. Jones
First Edition: May 2017
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