THE STOLEN BRIDE
October 2010
Many of the professors at Blessingston had taken the robe and were more than just ExtraOrdinary, some I speculated had OtherWorldly abilities. These people would acknowledge me with a nod of the head or a few whispered words, but for the most part I was kept separate just by being ignored. I now knew what it was like to sit in the cafeteria alone, not that I ate, but I knew what it’s like to be an outcast for the first time in my existence.
Other than an ongoing annoyance from Tristan, who’d find me in the Cathedral and pile books in front of me as if he was the professor tutoring my ExtraOrdinary education, I was left alone. The Cathedral was a library that housed every book ever written and making the Library of Congress look like a meager attempt to accumulate knowledge.
Tristan always had something that he wanted to teach me. He was rude and arrogant, but his beautiful voice was the only one directed at me for weeks at a time, so I listened. But every conversation ended with the same curt words of instruction. “This is not your place.”
Tonight Locke had again been summoned to the Colloquy Chamber, and Tristan insisted that I follow along. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could hear Locke shouting before he stormed through the double doors and right through me. The pain swept me off my feet. Tristan came out of the chamber behind Locke and helped me up, even as my eyes tracked Locke racing away down the length of the gallery.
Where is Locke going in such a huff?
“Lockhardt is being sent home.”
When? Why? What happened?
“Tonight. I don’t know why or what happened. He is going to say goodbye to the children. You will go back to your place.”
My place has always been with Locke.
Tristan picked up a wedge of my hair. It startled me because other than helping me to my feet just now he’d never touched me before. I felt no pain as he wound the strand of hair about his index finger pulling me so close to him that my tattered gown brushed against his robe. “No Lass, it isn’t, but you will learn that soon enough.”
Before I had the chance to grab onto him for an explanation he disappeared on a cloud of shimmery smoke that was a color somewhere between his golden eyes and sparkling skin. A sweet musky scent settled on my tongue that was dangling dangerously close to the edge of my open-mouthed expression. And I would swear I could hear his Gaelic laughter in the rafters.
I chased after Locke and found him in one of the younger children’s classrooms, he was already seated in a chair and the kids were jockeying for a position at his feet.
Steward, a little boy that I’d found as mischievous as Master Lockhardt ever dreamed of being spoke, “Will you no’ tell us one more tale afore you go?”
Locke smiled down at Steward’s small eager face. “It is the last tale I know but it’s one of wooing.”
Steward wiped the back of his scrunched up nose with the sleeve of his shirt. “There must be just a bit of blood in it or it ain’t a proper tale.”
Locke reached out and quieted the boy with a pat on the head. “There was a young druid, Kern of Querin, who returned home to his own people from his studies here at Blessingston. He was the high druid Goll Morna’s best student.” Locke’s voice took on a musical quality when he was telling tales as the expression at Blessingston goes. “When there was no work to be done, or spells to be cast, Kern passed his days hunting wild geese in the loch just beyond the walls of his home.”
“Did he live in a castle?” Bridget, a curly, red-headed girl took her thumb from her mouth to ask.
Locke smiled down at the little girl’s interruption. “Yes, the loch lay in the shadow of the castle. While Kern was readying his bow for the hunt he heard a thrashing through the rushes. He turned, bow drawn, expecting to see an animal, but instead he found four rough looking men carrying what appeared to be a corpse on a board. The men were unknown to Kern who was familiar with all the faces in the vicinity. When Kern asked the men to identify themselves they refused to answer him and insisted they were on a mission from the ShiningOnes themselves and would not be stopped.
“Kern told the men that they were on his families land and that they would obey him, as the ruffians continued to argue with Kern they jostled their burden and a ladies arm fell from the wrappings and dangled off the side. A graceful bare arm, with skin like the whitest of swans brushed against the green clover. Kern trained his bow on one of the men’s head, and released his arrow, tearing the cap from his bare scalp and carrying it though the woodland and planting itself into the nearest acorn tree. When that didn’t frighten the ruffians enough to lay down their burden and send them away as Kern instructed, he sent his next arrow into one of the men’s thigh. A bellow of pain sent all the wild geese to the sky as if they were pursuing warmer skies, and the rough men dropped the board with the body on it and scurried away.”
“But Master Lockhardt, what was on the board.” Bridget asked.
Steward elbowed Bridget in the side before speaking in a thick Irish brogue. “A corpse, ya ninny. Didn’ ya hear Lockhardt say it was a dead lady on the board?”
Bridget crossed her arms and wrinkled up her nose in Steward’s direction. “I’ll have you know Steward, I am no ninny, and it weren’t no corpse on the board but a princess under a fairy enchantment. Isn’t that so Master Lockhardt?”
Locke winked at the children sitting side by side. “When Kern approached the corpse to see what sort of foul deed the men were up too, he found not a decaying body, but a beautiful maiden with strawberry hair wrapped from head to toe in a golden veil. As Kern leaned over her to look at her more closely she sighed. Kern picked up the maidens hand and placed it over her heart but she was so deeply asleep that it didn’t awaken her.” A wry smile took Locke’s face. “Then Kern woke the maiden.”
“But, Master Lockhardt,” Bridget interrupted again. “How did master Kern of Querin wake her?”
Steward ran the cuff of his sleeve across his nose again. “He poked her with his bow.”
All the other boys sitting on the floor broke into a riotous laughter and the little girls eyes grew wide and round.
“There will be no more of that Steward.” Locke tried not to smile, but it erupted at the corners of his mouth. “Kern woke the maiden with a gentle kiss, but when she came awake she never spoke a word. To ensure her safety Kern took her home to his castle and she remained with his family for a year because she refused to tell them who she was. Kern sang sweet songs to her and wrote her ballads but she never uttered a reply, other than to smile at his attentions. Kern tried every sort of magic he’d ever learned to get the maiden to speak but she refused. Kern ventured back to the woods where he’d found her, hoping to find some clue to solve the mystery of both the maids appearance and her silence.
“While Kern hid in the woods waiting, he heard whispering voices speaking about the young maiden, the voices sang through the trees mocking Kern for not knowing the secret to unlock the girl’s silence. Kern cast a great spell from the back of his mind and it snatched one of the mocking birds from the trees and deposited at his feet. The mocking bird, terrified because Kern’s spell was powerful enough to capture him in the first place, revealed all to Kern. The mocking bird said that Kern had to make the maiden eat from the veil that she had been wrapped in when Kern first discovered her in the woods and she would speak again.
“Upon hearing this Kern rushed home and found the veil, he laid it over the table and placed pieces of the finest porcelain on the table with all the food he found on the sideboard. He asked the fair maiden to join him for a lavish supper. Once the first piece of food passed her lips her singsong voice startled Kern when she spoke, ‘The time has come for me to return to my own people, for I can no longer hide behind the veil.’
“The beautiful maiden’s musical voice explained that she had paid the motley crew of men to spirit her away on her wedding day. But somehow, upon wakening she found herself under the enchantment of silence, she told Kern how sh
e didn’t care to marry the high druid Moll Gorna, and that she had no desire to unite her house with the house of another, even if the match had been struck by the ShiningOnes.
“Kern set aside his own feelings for the maiden and told her of his teacher Moll Gorna’s great patience and kindness, insisting that Gorna would make her a very fine husband.”
“To which the maiden replied, ‘But my heart now belongs to another.’
“Kern refused the call of love from her melodious voice, he returned her to her rightful place and she was happily received by her family. Because of Kern’s honesty he grew in the favor of her people and even Moll Gorna knew the young people to be in love. Gorna was so honored by the respect that his young student Kern had shown him that he released the young woman from her vow to him.”
All the girls in the circle sighed, but Steward huffed, “I don’t like that tale, there was no’ enough warfare for me.”
Locke tousled Steward’s hair again. “Sometimes the battle is won with the gentlest of touches.”
Bridget pulled her thumb out of her mouth again to speak, “And to the victor goes the spoils.”
WORDS OF CAUTION
As Locke checked in at the counter for his journey home I flew around outside the airport terminal. I was happy to spread my wings a final time before they would be cramped inside the confines of a metal bird. Tristan didn’t leave when Locke stomped through the sliding glass doors, instead he watched me circle high over head, finally gesturing for me to come to him.
I landed alongside him with a flourish. I know, I know, this is not my place. I’m sure you’re happy to be rid of me.
“No Lass it is not.”
When he didn’t move to leave I projected, Did you wish to give me the kiss-off in person?
Tristan let his hood fall away and the piercing intensity of his eyes shot through me like sharpened golden knives through the finest delicacies at a Yuletide celebration.
“When I kiss you Lass, it won’t be to say goodbye.”
I hadn’t anticipated that comeback and so I didn’t have one of my own ready so I stuck out my tongue.
A slow smile was birthed from the corners of Tristan’s lips. “Oh lass, you will definitely want to keep that in that pretty little head of yours.” His voice deepened further, so that when he spoke the hair at the nape of my neck bristled. “This is for you, read it on the plane and it is no fairy tale.”
I took the neatly folded piece of parchment and I examined the coat of arms on the wax seal. Is this from the Elders?
“No lass, those are my words to you, heed them and you will tarry long enough in this realm to do what you were summoned to do.”
I picked at the edge of the seal with my fingernail but it refused to budge.
Tristan’s large hand closed over mine and a warm rush went through my wings as I looked down at how his hand enfolded mine. “Memorize it and you will know more than those around you.”
I wanted to search his eyes for answers but Tristan was gone, even as I felt the warmth of a familiar embrace enfolding me, before that too dissipated.
I was irritated with myself because of my reaction to Tristan. I chastised myself all the way through the terminal that his touch only meant something because it didn’t hurt me as when others came in contact with my ethereal self. I waited until I boarded the cargo area and was secured between a crate carrying a barking German Sheppard and a Louis Vuitton luggage the size of a car before I broke open the wax seal and read Tristan’s note.
Seer,
Before the dawn of Celtic civilization the ShiningOnes walked the grassy hills of Ireland, shrouding it in magic as thick as the mist. These gods and goddesses’ fashioned humankind, but the inferiority of their design perplexed the gods, who thought to improve their creation by interbreeding.
The ShiningOnes took human mates to their sacred groves and bore a new race of ExtraOrdinary humans, humans who would live and die without immortality but were blessed with the godly traits of sacred divination, mystical healing, and great strength. In thanks, these ExtraOrdinary people became druids, vates, and bards who constructed standing circles designed with sacred geography to worship their creators.
As both Ordinary and ExtraOrdinary mankind became more industrious, the ShiningOnes watched as invaders breached the shores of the Emerald Island. The gods aided the inhabitants, but sometimes they aided the invading forces. The ShiningOnes meddled in human affairs, wreaking havoc on humankind as if they were but rooks and pawns. While people still worshiped the gods, the ShiningOnes fell out of favor with many, and the gods felt the lack of worship keenly and withdrew to loftier places.
Through the dim mists of these ancient times the ShiningOnes continued to take the best and brightest among humankind as if to remind them of their godly prowess, until man tired of the ShiningOnes interference and banded together to overthrow them. It took seven tribes of invaders to defeat the ShiningOnes but when humankind finally did, they banished all the gods to the OtherWorld to be worshiped from afar. Until such time as the ShiningOnes can accumulate all of man’s knowledge, they will remain sequestered there.
Your young friends now hold most of man’s knowledge in the palm of their hands every time they send a text message.
And the ShiningOnes are coming for it!
Tristan
If you want to know what happens next read All’s Fair in Vanity’s War, The Seer’s 7 Deadly Fairy Tales, Book I. Happy Reading.
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