Legend 4 - Free Falling (2 page)

Dedication

To all my readers with my heartfelt thanks for your amazing support!

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars—on stars, where no human race is.

—Robert Frost

~ Prologue ~

MY NAME IS Radzia MacDaun, and before I start telling you about what I am going through, and what I am about to face, I thought you might need to know something about where I came from—
about what I am …

You will need to know what danger is out there, and what that danger means to you.

The problem is—most of you don’t stand much of a chance.

How can you fight what you can’t even see? I can’t think of anything more terrifying than something coming at you full speed with death written all over it—and you can’t even detect it until it is too late.

And it is coming.

What danger—what threat, you ask
?

The answer to that question is simply
,
the
Dark
Fae
—more particularly, the Unseelie,
led by the traitor Gaiscioch.

* * *

UNSEELIE FAE:
Monsters!
Let me be clear
: e
very crawly, ugly, fatally dangerous thing you have ever had a nightmare about … UNSEELIE!

There is no other way to describe these creatures of the dark. They
enjoy
killing, maiming, and slaughtering. It relieves the agony of their pain.

Legend has it that the Dark King (a Seelie Fae), banished by his own pride to the Dark Realm, was lonely. Without the benefit of the
Wheel of Being
he created these life forms. So many mistakes begot more mistakes, and the Dark Realm filled to capacity. These creatures devoured everything alive in their Realm, in his world, until there was nothing, not a honeybee, not a plant, not one leaf on one tree.

They say (no one knows for sure) that the Dark King nearly went mad with frustration until he successfully created his own Four Royal Princes, perfect Unseelies. Like the Seelie Fae, they are stunningly beautiful, but unlike the Seelie Fae, these beings could feel no compassion, no pity, no friendship, no love, and no empathy for other beings. In essence one could call them each a sociopath with magical powers.
Trouble there …

Devoid of sensibilities, the four princes were like their deformed brethren Unseelie creatures—cold, bitter, and hungry.

Unseelies are venomous, bitter with unsatisfied needs. They want things they cannot have …
us!

Luckily the original Seelie Tuatha Dé queen imprisoned them long ago. It is a prison of magic. Now and then, a lower-caste creature escapes into our world. Lately, the Unseelie Drones have been escaping with specific instructions from their new leader.

A new leader, you ask? Where is the Dark King? Good question. No one knows.

Their new leader is a Seelie Fae traitor, and he is planning to invade the human world. He is not a Royal Fae, but he has accumulated enough power to accomplish his goals. You will learn more about Gaiscioch soon …

* * *

DAOINE Tuatha Dé:
They are Seelie Fae
.
In this war, they are the good guys. Okay, everyone knows (or thinks they do) about the little Faery with wings. Irish tales are full of them. The truth is—they are so not winged little beings.

Daoine are the most potent of the Fae,
and
it is important
you understand the difference between the Daoine and the Tuatha Dé. Although it isn’t physically discernable, there is a major difference.
The Daoine caste of Fae is the highest caste of
the Tuatha Dé.

The Fae came to Ireland thousands of years ago, well before the “official” date of the first of May, 1000 BC. Like their Tuatha Dé brethren, these beings are generally tall, golden-haired, and beyond anyone’s imagination of what is described as classical beauty.
They are a race of immortals
. They have a tremendous knowledge of science, the arts, and music, a love of nature, and wondrous magic. These magical powers are an integral part of their being.

The Daoine did not have any interest in Man—
they still don’t.

Daoine were considered the Keepers of Nature. Very soon after their arrival on Earth (Ireland), with the Tuatha Dé, they created their own Realm. They left Man and their own more volatile relatives (the Tuatha Dé) to their antics and went to live their intellectual and peaceful existence on isles hidden from Man’s curious eyes.

* * *

Tuatha Dé:
Now these immortals are the mischief-makers
!

They are the Fae of which myths have been forever told and retold. They are as stunningly lovely as their higher caste, the Daoine. However, their existence does not revolve around the forces of Nature, as does the Daoine. They enjoy (although are forbidden from) meddling with humans. They are immortal, and therefore boredom often sends them to watch humans and play their pranks on humans, thereby alleviating the ennui of having everything and all the time in the world. More often than not, a Fae finds and romances a particular human that catches the eye …

They (the Daoine and the Tuatha Dé—Seelie Fae all), came from their beloved Danu, which had been destroyed by bickering and war. They came and conquered Ireland and Scotland and swept these beloved countries up as their own.

Humans, however, eventually must be free and will fight to the death for that freedom, and so they did, led by the
Milesians.

Humans went to war with the Tuatha Dé, and in that last and final battle, so many were killed that Aaibhe, the new queen of the Tuatha Dé, put a stop to it. She and her Council drew up a treaty; when the humans were reluctant to sign it, she froze their crops, thus displaying the might she held in hands. The Treaty was signed and has been maintained ever since.
Sort of.

The Treaty promised non-interference in the human world.

The Tuatha Dé withdrew their rule as well as their protection from the human world. They reside on the Isles of Tir (a world of their own creation), which cannot be seen by the human eye, unless a Seelie Fae extends an invitation.

Their laws, their rules, and their standard of ethics are way different than humans because they live forever—humans don’t. For them, that changes the board!

One fatal remembrance—one sorrow that throws

Its bleak shade alike o’er our joys and our woes—

To which Life nothing darker nor brighter can bring,

For which joy hath no balm—and affliction no sting.

—Thomas Moore

~ One ~

YOU ALREADY KNOW that my name is Radzia MacDaun. My friends started calling me Z, and I found that I liked it very much, so I went with it. My mom still calls me Radzia, but Z worked for my dad.

In the last two weeks, my life has been turned inside out and upside down. All at once, a life full with hope for the future has tumbled into a universe where pain seems to rule, and life itself feels like a fitful fever.

Without warning I feel myself changing, evolving, leaving behind the girl I had been and becoming someone I don’t recognize. For many of us, that is a good thing—change, growing, opening up—but I am not so sure it is for me. I was all sunshine and light once—a butterfly flitting happily along. Now? Now, that butterfly is gone, probably never to return. No … no butterfly here.

My life has never been simple, but it has always been stupendously happy. I am twenty years old—almost twenty-one—and lucky enough to have my mom’s (who is pinch-me beautiful) golden, wonderfully thick, long hair and my dad’s deep green eyes. I am about five feet five, which isn’t tall compared to my parents.

I have always been surrounded by great friends and family—pampered, petted, and loved.

Can’t look at my friends and family now—don’t want to hear them trying to make each other laugh in the midst of our tragedy. Don’t want to see them smile. Something inside me has broken out of its shell, and it is
dark …

I have found too often that matters are rarely as simple as they seem. That is probably because I have never believed that morals, rules, and lives are absolutes. They are definitely not black and white things—to me. I have always thought that the shades of gray dominate the world we live in. I have always felt that some laws needed bending—some righteous morals were too high to attain, some ethics unreasonable for the average man or woman to hold onto and still make it through life.

My dad often told me that if I continued down such a lax and easy road, it would bring me into a world of confusion, heartache, and pain. So, for him, I tried to think in black and white. However, there are consequences to rigid beliefs, terrible consequences. Complications arise if you cannot bend …

My dad paid the ultimate price for doing what he believed was right, true, and ethical! He didn’t play dirty. It was black and white for him, but you see,
it wasn’t
black and white for his wicked, evil, and unethical opponent. You can’t be that upstanding do-gooder when you face down evil, not if you want to win.

My dad was a Druid high priest, but he was human. He was the best of all men that ever walked this earth, but being the best didn’t save him.

Seeing in black and white didn’t come to his rescue, and it won’t come to mine. I am not even sure I see shades of gray any longer. It seems everything is clouded in black.

I should tell you right up front:
I am not quite human.

I am Fae on my mother’s side, and the Fae in me alters my perception of human ethics.

Fae see things ringed in forever. Right there—it changes everything. One more thing: my mom is a Daoine princess, which makes me a Daoine Royal.

So, there you are. Not only am I Fae, but I am a Royal from the highest caste of Fae. That is what complicates matters for me now a whole lot. It never did before. My mom had been determined to keep us in the human world—to keep things simple. It was a good idea at the time, but no longer.

My dad—definitely all human, but just a tad more than human, as the MacDaun line dated all the way back to the beginning, to the Treaty between Fae and Man. They were all Druid high priests. When a woman was born to MacDaun instead of a son, she took the MacDaun name and trained as a priestess. The Druids like the Fae honor the female.

As unique as this tale may seem to you, I am here to tell you that it is not.
What is
unique is that I am telling you about it. These are secrets the Fae and Druids never disclose—but things have changed, and you need to know as much as you can.

There are children of Fae/human unions walking all over the Earth. Many of them are movie stars and rock stars you adore. However, none of them are immortal like their one immortal parent—usually the males of the Fae. And never before my mother and father was there a union (I am told) between a Daoine princess and a human.

Zilch, nada, none. Apparently I am the only half-Daoine/half-human child. My mom thinks this is a major thing. Fae are having trouble procreating. The
Wheel of Being
has waned over the ages. However, that is another story for another time.

As I have pointed out, there is a major difference between a Daoine Fae and a Tuatha Dé Fae. To keep it simple, I will explain that humans looked at the Tuatha Dé in ancient times and thought them gods. They were in fact, god-like in their form, their stance, and their immense abilities and magic.

Well, even the members of the four Royal Houses of the Tuatha Dé look at the Daoine Fae and think
them
god-like. Subtle, but a major difference in the Fae Realm.

The Daoine never mingle with Man. I mean it is almost a taboo. They are not interested in humans and find human habits deplorable. They consider themselves above the fray. They consider themselves the Keepers of Nature and are disgusted with what the human race has done to its planet. In addition to that, it is a rare thing for a female Fae, any Fae, let alone a Daoine Fae, to bear the child of a human. It is usually the other way around. Male Fae are very attracted to human women. They often seduce them with great relish. They find a female human’s passion bewitching. Now and then the human woman bears the child produced from that union.

Male Fae may lose interest in their human consort, but never do they lose interest in their children. Immortality has inhibited and reduced the ability in Fae to reproduce amongst themselves to any extent …

Given all this, my parents’ story is almost unimaginable, improbable, and one of those rare true-love stories.

My mother is
Princess Breith of the Daoine.

She was young for a Fae, perhaps the equivalent of nineteen in human years. She was trooping with her friends, what they thought of as
slumming
,
by taking a tour of the Highlands. (One of immortality’s ills is boredom.)

It was May first, and my father, Nemid MacDaun, was conducting the Ritual of Beltaine, as was his promised duty to the Tuatha Dé Fae.

My dad was not quite thirty at that time and had always been big and strong and quite a hotty, so the story goes (which my parents never tired of telling me). My mom was immediately struck by his presence and stopped to have a better look at him and the manner in which he conducted the ritual. She lingered and stepped out of her invisibility to speak with him. Long story short—that was it, done deal.

They were married and stayed for a time at my dad’s ancestral home in the Highlands. My mom found it amusing living amongst humans. However, my dad discovered my mom had a talent that she not only enjoyed but also excelled at. She knew how to move a pen and make it work on paper. She knew how to bring a story to life. He was so proud of her work that he shipped off one of her manuscripts to New York.

Bingo!

We moved to Long Island, and pretty soon she was working for a famous TV network as one of their lead writers for a soap. You likely know the one. We moved to Cold Spring Harbor, where we had a great home, but we spent our summers in Scotland.

Happy wasn’t enough of a word for what we were as a family. We laughed all the time. Love wasn’t a strong enough word for what my parents felt for each other. It was both inspirational and disgustingly romantic.

I used to want a love like that. I don’t anymore.

Now, you ask, what about my being a Daoine Fae?

I thought it was cool, even if I couldn’t tell my friends about it, even though it was a major secret. I was (in my mind) hot stuff, you know. I never, ever used my Fae powers when I was with my friends. Not even my closest friends had any inkling I was anything more than what they were … a somewhat nutsy teen.

Life was good. Summers were spent at our Highland castle in Scotland, and more often than not, many of my friends spent summer vacations with me there. So, you have the picture.

I wish I could tell you that we went on and on and lived happily ever …

I can’t tell you that, and I can’t help but feel that the reason for this awful dive into black waters is entirely
my fault
.

If I hadn’t decided to go to university in Edinburgh, my parents wouldn’t have returned to Scotland to take up residence there to be near me.

If they hadn’t returned to Scotland to live, my dad wouldn’t have been pulled into the conflict with the vicious Unseelies.

As I have laid it out for you, the Unseelie Fae is a race of potently deadly, most definitely evil monsters. They were a mistake that couldn’t be flushed away.

So the word ‘if’ made it into this equation. Words are powerful things.

How can such a small word have such a huge meaning?

If
is a word that can break your heart—
if
I hadn’t,
if
they hadn’t …
if
my dad hadn’t … he
wouldn’t have been killed by Gaiscioch!

Now my mom is
‘free falling’.

She isn’t looking to be saved. She isn’t trying to hold on—
not even for me.

I have always been so close to my mom. We are best friends—she has always been there for me, but now …

Her arms don’t reach for me. Her hands don’t try to clutch at something and hold on. She has let go—she wants to stop existing and be with my dad. She is just plunging into an abyss of darkness
.

She is using illusion like a drug. She is trapped in the illusion that my beautiful dad is still there with her. She is all balled up within herself. She can’t think. She can’t see. She can’t feel anything but loss. At first she couldn’t stop crying. Now she huddles and hugs herself, and I can’t reach her. I can’t make her pain go away. How can I? I am suffocating with the same pain. In human terms, she is catatonic, and it is my fault.

She has never experienced this level of grief. She had never expected it. Early in their marriage she had asked my mortal father to take the elixir only a princess may offer the human of her choice. It was an elixir of immortality. He did.

Fae are born immortal, but not the Fae born of human—even ones who’ve taken the elixir. So, when I turned eighteen, she asked me to take the elixir. I hesitated. I mean, it was a pretty heavy thing to think about. Still, my mom wasn’t taking no for an answer, and I caved, just to put the subject to rest, you know.

My mom had every expectation that we would always be together. After all, hadn’t she protected us with Fae immortality?

My dad was immortal.
How could he be killed?

There are only two, perhaps three, ways to kill a Fae. A Danu death weapon is the most widely known method.

He was killed with a weapon from the World of Danu from which the Fae had originated. My father had been drawn into this problem with the Fae traitor Gaiscioch when it first began, back in May. Dad wasn’t Fios (a seer who can see through Fae Glamour and magic). He couldn’t see the Fae if they were shielded in the Féth Fiada (cloak of invisibility), but over the years he had struck up a friendship with the chief of the Fae Trackers, Nuad, who had come to visit him during one of the rituals.

Evidently, all Druid priests were being put on the alert for the traitor Gais, for he’d found a way to escape the Dark Realm for short periods and had also been successful in sending lower-caste Unseelie creatures into our world to wreak havoc. My dad found a spell he thought would keep the portals at the MacDaun Dolmens closed. August and Lughnassa were only a few weeks away, and Dad was certain Gais would try and use our dolmens during the Lughnassa ritual.

Sure enough, Dad was right. Gaiscioch (who had been stuck in the Dark Realm, where he had taken refuge back in May) was able to access the portal at the MacDaun Standing Stones. His goal was to find a portal large enough and powerful enough to bring the worst of the Dark Fae through to our human world.

At home, my father suddenly felt the power surge at the MacDaun Dolmens and hurried there on horseback (it is not readily accessible even by Jeep), but he was not a seer and could not see anything but the lightning strike within the portal of the dolmens.
He couldn’t see what was coming
 …

My dad immediately used the signal he and Nuad had set up earlier that week. As he awaited Nuad, he paced with the Death Sword in his hands.

Evidently Gaiscioch had found a way to send through ten uglies! They were lower caste Unseelies and visible, still deadly all the same.