The Sorceress's Mask
CHAPTER NINE: AWAKING.
Mist swirls in the air, a darker swirl becomes more distinct, it grows bigger, darker. The ground vibrates, a muffled thumping is heard. As the dark swirl becomes more distinct, legs appear, four legs, galloping, a muffled snort is heard. A black horse emerges suddenly from the mist, it tosses its head, eyes wild, steam snorting from its nostrils. There is a man on its back, enveloped in a black cloak swirling out behind him; his face is hidden behind a black cloth wrapped around his head. Only his piercing blue eyes can be seen, which are boring into hers as horse and rider thunder straight towards her.
Violet awakes; her mind feels muffled from her dream and her body heavy on her bed. She opens her eyes, sunlight is starting to creep through her curtains, and alights on the mask on her bedroom wall. It triggers her memory of the strange dream from the night before, a confusing mix of masks, Elven princes, pirates, and an entourage of peculiar creatures. I suppose that’s what happens when you read so much with an overactive imagination she thinks getting out of bed and going into the kitchen to make herself breakfast.
She walks to work, still feeling a bit groggy from the strange night’s sleep she’d had. She arrives at the library and checks that everything is at it should be, unlocks the door and awaits her customers, going about her usual tasks on automatic. Anne comes in later. “How was your weekend?” she asks cheerfully.
“Fine, thank you,” she replies cheerfully. Although she only has a vague memory of what she did. Read too much fantasy probably she thinks. “How was yours?”
Just before she was due to leave Aliya came into the library.
“Violet,” she exclaims. “You’re back.”
“Oh hello, Aliya, how are you today? Is there anything I can help you with?”
Aliya peers at her curiously. “Hmm, you appear to be under a spell and it is too powerful a one for me to remove.”
“What are you talking about Aliya?” Violet laughs, shaking her head, Aliya always did say the most unusual things at times.
“Hmm,” Aliya looks at her thoughtfully, and then stares into her eyes, everything does blurry for a moment for Violet and when she blinks and clears her vision Aliya is still stood in front of her as if nothing has happened and says, “hopefully that’ll attract things to jog your memory.” She smiles and wanders off to a section of the library and is pouring over a number of books when Violet is due to leave.
Just as Violet is leaving, Anne says, “Oh Violet, I completely forgot to tell you, you know you were researching your family tree. Well I’ve found a photo in the archives, which I’m sure is your great grandparents.” She hands Violet an old faded photograph. Violet looks at it. She sees a fairly young couple, both stood side by side with their hands joined. He is very tall and handsome, with piercing eyes, dressed all in black with a black cloak, she is smartly dressed in a long skirt and jacket with a small hat with peacock feathers in it on top of her blonde hair.
“I think it’s probably their wedding photo you know, they usually did that you know, have a photo taken when they got married. It’s quite unusual for them both to be standing thou and holding hands, usually the woman was seated, with the man stood over her. You know, male hierarchy in the Victorian period. I think there’s a bit of a family resemblance there thou don’t you? Violet?”
“I’m sorry, I was miles away looking at that photo. They kind of seem so familiar, almost as if I’ve seen them somewhere before, but I can’t place where.”
“Try the mirror, Violet,” Anne smiled.
Violet left the library feeling puzzled, but she wasn’t sure why, she kept thinking of the photograph of her great grandparents, thinking she was missing something, but she wasn’t sure what.
She arrived home and sat down with the photograph in front of her, looking into the eyes of her great grandparents, she looked so long, the photograph started to blur in front of her.
Mist swirls. Out of the mist emerges a dark figure with a black cloak swirling around him as he raises a long sharp sword. The mist clears some more and two green-skinned creatures, fearsome weapons raised, can be seen either side of a heavy door. But they are no match for the black cloaked figure who despatches them both with two swings of his sword. He opens the door, the mist clears and a prison cell is revealed, Ayden jumps up from the cell floor and rushes towards the bars, love and adoration in his eyes, he calls a name. A blonde woman in a blue hat with peacock feathers in it comes towards the cell door and unlocks it. Ayden reaches to take her in his arms but she retreats with a sad shake of the head and a tear in her eye. She has such a sorry, apologetic expression in her eyes. Ayden’s hands drop to his sides and his face drops, devastated as she retreats to the man in the black cloak, who puts his hand in hers. They stand side by side with their hands joined, the woman in the peacock feather hat and the man in the black cloak. Mist swirls.
Violet blinks and sees she is still staring at the photograph, she must have dozed off, or had a waking dream or something, very peculiar. She shakes herself and goes and makes a cup of tea. She sits down again with her cup of tea and reaches for a book, Wuthering heights is the closest and she picks it up, no green-skinned monsters with Bronte. The book falls open at a page with a bookmark of a leaf in it. Violet picks up the leaf and stares at it. She feels it is vitally important, but she can’t put her finger on why, she tries to remember where it came from, what was she doing when she picked it up, was it her who had picked it up or had see been given it, or found it. She looks at the passage of the book that it marks.
“I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws; but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose.”
She looked at the leaf again and turned it around in her hands. She had an image of a stile in a lane in her mind, a specific stile, and as she turned the leaf in her hands the figure of the Elven prince from her dream was at the stile waiting for her. She somehow knew that it linked in with the picture of her grandparents. She remembered the image from her dream of the three of them. How could they be connected, Ayden wasn’t real he was from her dream, her grandparents had been real people, she had the faded photograph to prove it. How could she have dreamt about them without even knowing who they were or what they looked like? Many questions bounced around her head, she felt something was missing, a gap, some vital piece of information that she needed. She was distracted from her reverie by a sudden quiet thud at her window, she looked over to her open kitchen window, to see a large black cat had jumped through it and landed on her kitchen floor. She recognised the cat as Aliya’s Clovis and wondered what he was doing here.
“Is Aliya with you Clovis?” she asks him.
“You got your memory back then?” he asked.
Violet looked at him stunned. “You just spoke,” she gasps.
“Oh not this palaver again,” groans the cat looking at the ceiling.
Suddenly something in Violet’s head shifted, she looks at the leaf and turns it like she was turning a key and a door in her head suddenly opens and her dreams come back to her fresh in her memory. So fresh and recent that she realises that they weren’t a dream, they had been real. Then a heavy weight falls on her heart as she remembers Ayden’s last words to her, a weight so heavy it threatens to bow her down so she’ll never get out of bed again. She couldn’t believe his words, they weren’t his words, that was not how he felt about her she was sure, she could feel it in her heart.
“Clovis, where is Aliya, I need to speak to her?” she said urgently.
“She’s at home, she just sent me to keep an eye on you, although I wasn’t suppose to speak to you, unless your memory had returned. But its done now so whatever. Don’t tell her will you, she’ll give me cat food in a tin,” he said with some disgust.
Violet grabs her coat and with Clovis on her shoulders races round to Aliya’s cottage. She bangs at the door and rushes in
. Aliya is pouring over books and making notes when she bursts in, but looks up sharply at her guest.
“Aliya, I need your help,” she gasps. “I found Ayden, but he’s been put under a spell and I don’t know why. He said he didn’t love me.” She ends on a slight sob.”
“It’s about time you got your memory back,” she says briskly. “You found him and he said he didn’t love you anymore, perhaps he doesn’t.”
“No he does I’m sure. He seemed obsessed by the Sorceress, you should have seen the way he looked at her, it was a love born of madness almost. There was a teenager, human I’m sure, who was held captive too and he said she’d put some sort of spell on him.”
“Hmm,” Aliya considered. “Probably an allegiance spell, I would think, make him do whatever she wanted him to do, the subject doesn’t tend to last that long thou, that amount of mad devotion, either kills them or sends them mad, one or the other.”
“How can we stop that, how can we save Ayden this time?”
“The only way to break the allegiance spell isn’t with the victim, it’s with the caster. We will have to confront and defeat the Sorceress of Masks.”
“How do we do that? What weapons or spells can we use?”
“She is too powerful, no weapon or spell that I know of will harm her. She gets her power through her masks, she has a lot of them. Many of her masks are masks of power, she can command the elements of fire with a mask made from the feathers of a phoenix; the element of water with Neptune’s mask; of earth with a mask made from clay from the earth on which the garden of Eden stood. Masks are used to disguise, to mislead, to hide, to pretend something which is not true, to lie, even the innocent mask which is on your wall at home, has a certain power in it. She can see through any mask she chooses which is how she gains her knowledge; she will be watching you now. We cannot defeat her I do not have the power with my petty magics and you certainly don’t.”
“There must be a way for us to overcome her, to save Ayden.”
“I wish there was because her plans give me much misgiving. She has always hungered for power, she will not have cast such a difficult and complicated spell on Ayden, and a spell cast on such as Ayden would have demanded much sacrifice on her part. She would not have done this lightly, she must have some ultimate plan or reason for doing it,” Aliya pondered.
“What is she planning to do to him?” asked Violet quietly.
“I don’t think it necessarily what she is planning to do to him but what he can do under the allegiance spell for her. He is an Elven prince, in line to rule the elves and their concerns, he would be able to give her access to the elves that he rules.”
“So she needs to be stopped not just for Ayden himself but for his people?”
“Oh she has always needed to be stopped.”
“How was she stopped the last time, or at least banished?”
“That I don’t know exactly, but something I would very much like to know?” said Aliya ruefully.
“I might have an idea of who it was.” Violet said thoughtfully and told Aliya about her dream of her great grandparents and Ayden. “Do you think when my great grandparents rescued Ayden the last time, they might have defeated her?”
“It is possible, but how could they possibly do it, two humans? Was there any more to the dream, any hints, magically artefacts lying around?”
“No nothing, perhaps I’ll have another dream about how to defeat the Sorceress if it was them that banished her the first time.”
They both remained in thought for some time until Aliya said, “we might not know what she’s up to or how to defeat her, but I have a suspicion about where and when she might be planning to act.”
“Where.”
“Where could a Sorceress of Masks who always wears a mask herself, go without seeming out of place in this world?”
“I have no idea, a mask shop?”
“No,” Aliya laughs jubilantly. “The Venetian Masked Ball of course, held here every year and coincidentally tomorrow night.”
“Yes, no one would comment on her being there, unless she starts shooting lighting bolts out of her fingers, as everyone is masked. But why would she choose to go to an event arranged by humans for humans. Wouldn’t it be a bit tame for her, a fancy dress ball at which she wouldn’t stand out.”
“Did you ever wonder why the Ball was held on the date it is, on the anniversary of a pagan ritual and not a more convenient date like on the first Saturday of this month for example?”
“I thought it was just traditional thing.”
“Ha, of yes it’s traditional. A traditional which goes back hundreds of years. With what you know now, looking back at one of those balls. Didn’t it ever strike you how very well attended they are, and even though you know at least by sight most of the people in this town, and despite the masks you can guess who a lot of the people are, that a lot of the people at the ball, you have absolutely no idea who they are at all.”
“Well I presume a lot of people attend from out of town,” replies Violet confused.
“Oh they come from out of town alright, well out of town. Did it ever strike you how gracefully a lot of them moved?”
“No!” exclaimed Violet putting her hands to her mouth. “There is not elves at the Venetian Masked Ball?”
Aliya nodded.
“So I could have danced with an elf at the ball and not even known it. You don’t think I could have danced with Ayden before do you?”
“Very likely,” said Aliya dismissively. “Anyway Cinderella you are going to that ball. We need to see what she is up to and hope we’ve got some sort of idea about how to stop her.”
“Wow, elves and humans mingling together.”
“Anyway, I think you need to go and get some beauty sleep and hope your dear great grandparents did know how to banish her and are kind enough to let you know how.”