Tuesday, July 22 in The Matticus Kingdom, the gauntlet was thrown. Challenge accepted.

Prompt and Part 1

Part 2

~  ~  ~

Part 3: Faerie

Silence hung over the Grove when Rhys arrived. A few more minutes until midnight, but he could hardly wait another second for the reunion he had never even dared hope for. So complete was the break between them, so final was the taking of Gwenlyann’s memories – or so he’d thought. Time was when only the wizard who had cast a spell of Unremembrance would be able to undo it, and that at great cost to the caster. How had Gwenlyann remembered him? Rhys felt overwhelmed, like he was trying to catch up to events he didn’t know how to interpret.

Without sound or ceremony, she appeared in the moonlight at the edge of the Grove. As she stepped into the relative darkness of the trees Rhys saw that her flaming red hair was covered by the hood of a deep purple cloak. He chuckled involuntarily, remembering how many times his wife had implored her not to wear purple. “Gwenlyann, why must you insist on your clothes clashing with your hair? Green or even blue would serve to accent your flames rather than mock them!” Her exasperation was wasted on a girl who proved to be the most charming rebel in all Eldoran.

Her smile seemed to banish the darkness around them, as well as his uncertainty regarding her feelings about the lengths her parents had gone to for her protection. Would she ever be able to forgive him for stealing her childhood from her? By all accounts she had found a way to regain the memories, but how?

Gwenlyann walked slowly towards him, mist swirling around the hem of her cloak. Rhys reached towards her, intending an embrace, when her face shifted. Emerald eyes turned black like coal … purple cloak melted into gray tatters in his hand.

“NOOOOO!” he shouted in despair. Almost too late he realized his mistake. As the gray strips wound their tendrils over his mouth, establishing their grip on wrists and ankles, he had just enough time to whisper the spell of winking, the one that would transport him out of the ever-tightening grasp of Faerie wrappings and into Oblivion. It would be many years before he could return and continue the search, but return he would. Now he knew for a certainty the Faerie had her. They had tipped their hand for once.

One thought occupied his mind before the spell shattered his soul into fragments, “I will find you, Gwenlyann. Hang on, Daddy loves you and I will come for you!” Like mist vanishing before the rising sun, the man Rhys winked out of existence.

~  ~  ~

Note: This is the final part of a prologue to a much longer story. Stay tuned for more installments to come.

Tuesday, July 22 in The Matticus Kingdom, the gauntlet was thrown. Challenge accepted. Here’s the prompt and Part 1.

~  ~  ~

Part 2: Remembrance

The hamlet where he found her lay no short distance from the sea. He wondered at that. Gwenlyann had always talked about one day sailing away on a ship bound for nowhere. During his own voyage back to Eldoran, he had half expected to hear tell of a green-eyed piratess wreaking fiery havoc up and down the coast. He had been disappointed to find that not one sailor had even heard of her name. Those dreams belonged to a former life, he supposed. Rhys had done his work too well and knew she wouldn’t remember them.

5 months after escaping the Faerie Storm he found her – a barmaid in the largest pub in the region. Quite a lovely and successful barmaid, he thought with a smile. The flaming red hair would have been enough to attract attention had Gwenlyann’s melodic voice not carried over the din. He listened unobtrusively for a moment to the animated conversation she was having with an unsuspecting patron and smiled a little wider. She may have lost her memories, but her uncanny ability to convince a man he desperately wanted what 1 minute ago he clearly had not remained intact.

The pub, known as Flynn’s, had seven years earlier gained popularity by hiring the best cook on five continents, though how a remote town like Brevis managed to procure such exotic ingredients as saffron or wild Asian boar tusks baffled its more metropolitan neighbors. Flynn’s also impressed as an Inn, boasting several immaculate rooms upstairs and not a few lovely escorts. As to Gwenlyann’s position, he doubted any visitor here had ever ventured to invite her into the bedchamber unless it had been her idea.

Before leaving the forest, Rhys had assumed a more inconspicuous guise. He easily wove the spell that would make him less memorable to anyone who didn’t know how to look. Still tall, his now short golden hair, looking more brown than blond, curled out at intervals from under a worn, black cap. The plain, green woolen trousers tucked into long, tan riding boots were mostly hidden beneath a brown hunting coat reaching the knees. There were extra spells wrapped ’round the sword which hung from a scabbard at his waist. No one in the inn not practiced at seeing – excepting maybe Gwenlyann – would be able to remember his face or his height, hair color, or the prominent nose beneath his shining blue eyes. Fewer still, upon looking straight at him with sword drawn, would even suspect that he carried a weapon.

Rhys leaned down so as to be heard by the nearest patron and shouted, “What’s the occasion, friend? Seems a lively crowd tonight.” The noise from the pub could be heard several blocks away.

The man Rhys had taken the liberty to address looked up with a scowl. “If y’ain’t heard the news ya must not be from ’round these parts! Brevis don’t welcome strangers, y’know.”

“Since when?” Rhys asked with an easy smile. “I heard tell that Brevis welcomes travelers of all races and boasts at least 3 different native tongues. In fact, the sailors living in Shorr assured me that Flynn’s was the most hospitable Inn in all of Eldoran!”

“Aye, and so it is! Who’s sayin’ otherwise, tell me?” He would have known her voice even had he not been intimately acquainted with those flashing emerald eyes.

“This man seems intent on keeping a stranger in the dark. I was just inquiring about the seeming celebration going on tonight.” he said, sweeping his hand over the crowd to indicate the source of his inquiry and smiling slyly at Gwenlyann. For a moment her eyes faltered and she flushed, for once unable to produce an adequate retort.

Recovering quickly, she moved over to him and asked if there was something in particular he wanted from the kitchen. “We have a newly opened aged port which might satisfy even a world-traveler like you,” she said invitingly, though the charm was lost on him.

Before Rhys could whisper the spell that would set her free from unremembrance, Gwenlyann moved to intercept a waiter carrying trays laden with steaming bowls of spice soup, freshly-cut cheese, a plate piled high with fresh melon, and another filled with hot yeast rolls.

“Glin, find this man a table and be quick about it” she said sharply, but her lovely grin and kind eyes worked better than any magic spell she could ever hope to employ to bring compliance to her every request. In the midst of these observations Rhys felt a strange sensation come over him. Suddenly he heard Gwenlyann’s voice speak directly into his mind, “What took you so long? I’ve been looking to your coming for weeks.” Too shocked to respond, Rhys just stared at her wide-eyed, comprehension beginning to dawn. He realized in a rush why he had been hearing her voice in his dreams these past 3 months, and why he had felt such urgency to get here, to find her.

“You remember … ?” he breathed. The sharp look she gave him instantly recalled him to his surroundings. Now was not the time nor place for a reunion. Too many spies might be lurking in such a crowded room.

“Meet me tonight in the Grove. You know the one,” she spoke into his mind again. The men surrounding them heard her listing menu items and offering them more ale. He recalled a stand of trees about a mile south of the Inn. He had passed through it just today on his way into town. “Midnight” her voice echoed and was she was gone, disappeared into a crowd of happy patrons, the charming barmaid once more.

Today in The Matticus Kingdom, the gauntlet was thrown. Challenge accepted.

~  ~  ~

The Prompt:

The night howled, sucked at the windows, and rattled fences.  Trees, arched with the onslaught, whipped and branches reached out for anything to unleash their frustration and torment on.  The wind pushed against everything, a bully on a rampage, the world its victim.

The cloud shrouded darkness ate away at the edges of the dim pools of light cast by the street lamps.  The polka dot glows shimmered in the swaying black.  They seemed resigned to their fate, destined to be swallowed and complete the end of all things, but too stubborn to wink out quickly.  Fading, little by little, the long hours of the night stretched thin.

A single door on the block creaked open, straining against the arms of the storm, and then banged shut.  The hunched man winced in anticipation of the sound even though the echoes of the escape were lost below the fury of the wind.  His strained eyes swept the scoured landscape and saw nothing but the traces of lights ominously urging him forward.

The way is here.

It is not safe.

Follow the dancing lights.

If you dare…

And now for my part:

Part 1: Change Winds

At least the rain has stopped, Holden thought. The cloud cover made the darkness complete beyond the reach of the street’s dim lanterns. Holden’s imagination began to run wild into the shadowy depths around him. Fighting the wind and fears his own memories incited, he tried to get his bearings. He knew better than to stand still very long on a night like this. He also knew never to follow the winking lights.

He had been a young, arrogant fool the first time he had weathered a Faerie Storm. Laughing at the doom-laden tales warning against the lights, he had followed them into the chaotic mist. His folly had cost him more than his freedom. Time had ceased to exist through long years of agony at the Faerie’s hands. Holden was no longer young, nor was he particularly brave. He certainly wasn’t foolish. He was too smart to be easily caught again. Escaping his cage had been a long, difficult process, and he chafed at the decade lost in hiding, unable to protect his daughter or avenge his long-dead wife. But this storm sparked something buried deep inside him: a hunger for his old life had awakened. Aodhan help them, he would have his revenge!

A flash of lightning showed him the right path to take – away from the bobbing balls of fire strung out before him in the direction of swirling mists. He carefully turned, and as he began creeping soundlessly through the shadows around his hovel, he took the time to dismiss the spell protecting him these last 10 years. He could only hope the rest of the villagers believed he had ventured out and been lost to the storm’s rage.

Rhys stepped into the forest standing tall once more. His long, flaxen hair billowed behind him, seemingly against the winds. No one would recognize him as the stooped, old man the villagers knew as Holden. It had been so long since he had walked in his own skin, he forgot how good it felt to stand upright. As he strode through ancient trees, he worked the kinks out of his neck and questions began forming in his mind.

In the relative safety of Aldain’s canopy he could think freely, without fear, about what the storm’s coming could mean. Had he been betrayed? But who was left who knew him for what he was? Had someone in the village discovered his true identity? No, he had been there too long and was too careful for that. What then? There was only one who could answer that question, but how was he to find her? What would happen to her if he did? Part of her protection had been the severing of every tie between them – right down to her last memory of her former life. Despite years of separation, memories of her still filled him. If Aodhan willed it, she was now strong enough to weather any storm his coming to her might bring.

Muted rays of the rising sun began to stream through the trunks surrounding him as he outdistanced the Faerie winds. He could still barely hear the slam of shutters in the distance as the storm assaulting his former home continued unabated. He felt a pang of sorrow for the villagers he had abandoned to the Faerie lights. Perhaps they would remember his warnings and stay inside until it was over. Most of them thought that Faeries were the superstitious imaginings of the young or ignorant. Poor fools. Well, he had done what he could to bring truth to that one small corner of the Land – in nothing more than vague innuendo, of course. He had never ventured to risk exposing himself. Now exposure became inevitable.

The morning wore on and his stomach started to growl. He would need food and water soon. Turning Eastward, he decided to make for Bryndale. There were still a handful of outposts along the way where provisions could be found, and perhaps even a little news from the wider world might be gleaned. He realized with chagrin that he had spent too long in hiding. Aodhan forgive him; hopefully he was not too late!