REALM'S END (BOOK OF FEY 1) (11 page)

     “So if I’m related, which I’m not saying I am, can I do magic?”

     “Yes, of course child, it is the only way you could have come here. Your mother must be a powerful Fey.”

     Gwenth hung her head, “My mother is dead.”

     Sephoria frowned but her voice grew even more kindly, “I am sorry child, I can see that a grief lies heavy upon your heart. I wish you had not had to learn the lesson of death, so soon, though it does make me wonder how you got here on your own.”

     Lillith meanwhile scooted her chair closer to Gwenth and put her arm around the young girl’s shoulder.

     “I have a step mother. I have always thought she was a witch, perhaps she is, but I do not think she would do anything to help me.”

     “Ah yes that would make some sense of all this. She must be a very powerful witch indeed.”

     “Grandmother, even if Gwenth came to help, how can she, if she doesn’t know magic? Won’t the elders just lock her away as well?”

     “That may happen of course, but innocence is its own kind of magic child, and it’s a strong magic at that. I can’t see how all this will unfold, but she is here and that means change is upon us. We must be ready when the time comes.”

     “Wait, what is it I am supposed to do? I think I’m just a girl and not any kind of magician or Fey either.”

    The old woman leaned down and carefully stroked Gwenth’s cheek, with her rough hand. “Don’t fear child, you will know what’s to be done when the time arrives. It is our way, and you are a Fey, never doubt that. Remember this: always be true to your heart, for that is why we all were given life, for each of us to live out our own great story. Now I think it is time to send you back to the cavern. Briok will be coming soon, and we don’t want him to miss you. Be strong little one, remember be true to your heart always Gwenth, it is your strength,” the old woman bent down and hugged Gwenth.

     “Wait, can’t you explain the magic to me?”

     “No child there isn’t time now, ask Briok to tell you the story of Lillith and of the cavern, it will help you. Now you must go! There is no more time.” Sephoria waved a hand and Gwenth was gone.

     “Will she be safe wise one?”

     “I don’t know child, but I think she might be. It’s all we can hope for now. I must go to the sisters now; they are waiting and there is much to do. Stay close in thought to your Rowan; she is your protector now.” Sephoria waved her hand again and Lillith sat once again alone at the table, inside the Great Rowan.

Singing Cavern

The next morning, Briok arrived early to the cavern.  Seating himself on the warm sand, he watched Gwenth sleep. How anyone could sleep while the crystal caverns sang out their songs was beyond him. Most Fey didn’t seem to hear the singing, but somehow he could. Not that anyone came here much anymore, not since the people of Giant tribe had died out from this world. The tragedy of the Giants’ death still hung like a pall over his people. Over time the Fey journeyed less and less to other timelines. Even the women of the college whose responsibilities it was to journey to fix time were gone rarely. The cavern had slowly fallen into disuse. Yet here was a member of a far off tribe, and she was sleeping through the singing with no trouble at all.

     Gwenth coughed and rolled over. Instantly she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up and knew she was being watched. Back home she had feigned sleep so often around her step mother, she felt especially adept at it. Gwenth carefully peeked through her thick lashes and looked slowly around the room. Gwenth saw only Briok. He was resting a little distance away, watching over her. She yawned and sat up stretching. “Sorry, I guess I was pretty tired.”

     Briok’s wings opened and lifted him a bit off the sand. He blushed, as he hurriedly stopped his ascent and forced himself back down. “That is one of the downsides of time travel, it wears you out if you don’t ward against it and even then it wears you out. I brought you food,” he said, flying forward with a webbed bag.

     Gwenth watched closely as Briok flew towards her. She kept her eyes on his wings. “I just keep staring at your wings; it’s so amazing to know some childhood stories are true.”

     “Here eat. Then after, I will let you see my wings up close. Oh and here is more of the water from the sacred well. The great Rowan sent it for you.”

     Gwenth reached into the bag and took out the many fruits, things she had never seen before. There was a bumpy orange colored fruit. She was just about to take a bite, when Briok swooped down and knocked it from her hand. “Hey Boga fruit will kill you if you try to eat the skin,” he said. Briok flew over and picked up the rough fruit where it had fallen in the warm sand. “Don’t you have Boga fruit in your world?”

     Gwenth shook her head. Suddenly she didn’t feel so hungry. It had never occurred to her that some of this place’s food could hurt her. “Maybe I better show you the ones I don’t know and you can tell me anything I need to know before I hurt myself,” she said, swallowing hard.

     “Ya that’s a good idea, why don’t you put the fruits you don’t recognize in a pile over here,” he gestured to Gwenth.

     Gwenth scanned the variety of plants, nuts, and berries and laid several over near the Boga fruit. Looking at the two piles she was pleased to find a good number of fruits and nuts were things she recognized.

     “So all these are things you have in your homeland,” Briok asked, gesturing to the larger pile of foodstuff?

     “Yes. I know these,” she said pointing at the strawberries and kelp. These are walnuts and this is potato and turnip.”

     “And these,” he said pointing at the thistle and lambs quarters.

     “Yes we eat those, but we usually cook the thistle.”

     “It’s funny the names you have for these things. The translator stones are slow to tell me what you call these foods.” Briok picked up Boga fruit from where it lay in the sand, “these have to be peeled and rinsed, but they are very nutritious and tasty,” he said as he quickly peeled the fruit and rinsed it in the water. Taking a section of the fruit he handed it to Gwenth.

     Gwenth stared at the fruit in her hand and then shyly looked up at Briok. “Maybe I shouldn’t eat it, I’m not Fey and maybe,” her voice trailed off.

     Briok reached out and took the fruit from where it lay in Gwenth’s hand. “I never thought of that, though I doubt the crystal chamber would allow you to eat anything that would poison you, but perhaps this is the chamber’s way of warning you off. If you don’t mind I will eat the foods you don’t recognize, and you can stick with the ones you do?”

     Gwenth took up the kelp which was cleaned and rinsed and began to eat it along with bites of the potato. The food tasted so flavorful and fresh, it was though she had never really tasted either of them before. “Oh.”

     “Is something wrong,” Briok said, as his wings lifted him slightly off the sand.

     Gwenth laughed. “Does everyone do that?”

     Briok hung his head as he settled down again into the warm sand. “No, only I do it when I get nervous.”

     Gwenth watched as Briok’s face began to turn a crimson color. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you?”

     Briok concentrated on eating the Boga fruit; he knew from experience, the crimson color would only intensify if he talked about it.

     Gwenth ate her fill and then quenched her thirst with the sacred water. Leaning back, she realized that she felt really good. She had no aches or pains, and then she realized she could hear a chanting quietly going on somewhere in the background. “What is that singing?”

     Briok stared at Gwenth. “You can hear the singing?”

     “Yes of course, it just started, though now that I think about it I heard that in my dreams. Where is it coming from,” Gwenth asked looking around the cavern?

     “I think it’s happening because you keep drinking the water, but it didn’t just start. It never stops. It’s the cavern, all the stones on the walls, they are called crystals. This is our sacred crystal cave.” he said gesturing to the crystal covered walls. “They are chanting. It drives me crazy most of the time.”

     “What? You mean the walls, the stones are doing that, but that can’t be, can it?”

     “The story goes that the cavern sings out the songs of life for all the chosen to hear. Most of the Fey don’t seem to know it’s happening when I have visited with others, but it drives me up the walls. I think it is one of the reasons I was picked to work with the Rowan and the well, because after I told my dad that I heard the singing, I started working with the Great Rowan the very next day.”

     “What do you mean the Great Rowan? We have Mountain Rowans back home, but,” Gwenth jumped to her feet, “Wait, is there a girl living in this Rowan of yours? Is her name, Lillith?”

     Briok’s mouth gaped open as he stared at Gwenth. “Yes, yes of course it’s the reason you’ve come here, to save Lillith. She is imprisoned in the great Rowan, but the Rowan loves her and sent for help. Gwenth you’re that help.”

     Now it was Gwenth’s turn to stare at Briok. “Briok I dreamt that I was in this tree of yours, and Lillith was there and there was an old woman who looked sort of like a tree too.  She told me the same thing that I was here to try to save the girl because your world was ending.”

In his excitement Briok’s wings carried him towards the ceiling. “You didn’t dream that, you were there! I heard the cave singing about it when I arrived. So you saw Lillith, tell me how was she? Did she seem ok? Was she happy?”

“Whoa slow down, not so fast; you’ll bust a wing flying about like that! Yes, to answer your question she seemed fine. She brought us tea and the three of us talked for a bit and then,” Gwenth’s voice petered out. Gwenth paused while she considered her next words. “I remember I went through the stone wall, but that can’t be, can it? Well then the lady called Sephoria sent me back here somehow. She told me to ask you about Lillith, and the cavern and she said you would help me,” Gwenth put her head in her hands and several loose strands of hair fell down covering her face. “God this can’t be real,” she groaned.

Briok forced himself to take a deep breath, and hold it so that his nerves would calm a bit. He took several more, each one causing his wings to slow. Finally, he was able to settle back on the cavern’s sandy floor next to Gwenth. Briok reached out and patted her hand. “Gwenth this is all real. You are here in the Realm of Time, and we did send for help. I’m just sorry you got mixed up in all of this. We need to try and find a way to get you home.”

“What? What do you mean get me home,” she said turning her tear streaked faced towards him?”

“Well you can’t save Lillith, you don’t have any magic. You must be here by mistake; we need to get you out of here before you get hurt.”

Gwenth used the back of her hand to wipe her eyes. “That’s not completely true. Sephoria says I have very strong magic.”

“You do? How can that be?”

“I don’t know exactly. She said I had very strong magic, but that I was innocent. She said, well, that Lillith and I are tied together, and she showed us both a blue string of energy that went between us. I’ve never seen anything like it before. She said we are related and that I should ask you to tell me about the cavern and Lillith.”

“Sephoria said all that? I usually only see her when I accompany my mother to the College, and I haven’t been there since I was a young boy, but if Sephoria says you are full of magic, well then you must be. Though I can’t imagine how innocence is going to help.”

“Briok, tell me the stories and maybe it will help somehow.”

Briok stared at the Gwenth. “Yes, I suppose you are right and if Sephoria said it, then it will help somehow. Let me think a minute on where to start.”

“That’s simple, start at the beginning, of course, and try to control yourself please, so that you won’t fly up at everything.”

Briok hung his head, his face began pinking up, but Gwenth relaxed for she saw a little smile, showing at the corner of his mouth.

“Alright enough pouting, tell me the story. I’m dying to find out about the people of Fey,” she said, reaching out and giving his leg a shake.

“Alright then, first I will tell you about the journeying cavern,” Briok said settling himself on the warm sand and hoping that the act of sitting would help him stay grounded. My Father is a historian and my mother is a futurist so I probably know as much as anyone I guess.”

“Wait,” Gwenth raised her pale freckled hand to stop him, “Your mother is a futurist? What is that?”

“What? Don’t you have futurists in your world?”

Gwenth snorted. “I don’t think so. We don’t even have Fey with wings, I’m pretty sure if my dad had ever come home from town and talked about futurists I would have remembered it.”

“I just can’t imagine your world. How strange it must be. No Fey, no way to control timelines, I just can’t understand how people live there.”

“Yah, I understand because I’m having a tough time understanding your world too,” Gwenth said, shaking her head. 

“Ok, let’s see… at the College the unmarried women of the Fey tribe study the past and use it to gauge where the future will go. They use the journeying cave and travel to other colonies to share information, so that they can best see where the timelines are all headed. It is a very dangerous job. Then while they don’t exactly control the outcome, they can influence the outcome by helping others decide their actions.”

“So how do they help others decide their actions?”

Briok stiffened, “I don’t really know much about that, just stories people tell each other,” he said, shaking his head.

“Ok, well what do you know?”

“Some say the cavern was always here, others say the cavern grew into being as the Rowan grew up, and my dad says most of the tribes believe that line of thinking, because the great Rowan is right above us. This cavern is held within her root system. People at different times in history have spent a lot of time studying that question, but no one has proven it one way or the other. My father has studied it all of his life. He thinks the cavern has always been here, but that it wasn’t visible before the last 10 thousand revolutions because people weren’t ready to see it. Very few people believe that theory, but Sephoria does.”

“Ok, wait, I don’t know if I can get my mind around all this. How could you not see the cavern, if it were here?”

Briok shrugged, “I don’t know. I don’t understand it either. I’m just telling you the stories about the cavern. Back 10 thousand revolutions ago…”

“Wait, what is a revolution?”

Briok stared at Gwenth, his mouth hanging open. He ran his hands roughly through his black hair, “You don’t know what a revolution is? Oh, Gods, even with the cavern and the water’s help, we can’t understand each other,” he said.

“Calm down ok, so we don’t speak the same language, we can figure this out. Back home we use years to measure long periods of time. One year is from one season all thru the next three seasons and back to the same day for us a year is 365 days. How many seasons do you have? How long is one year for you?”

Briok listened to Gwenth, and he began to understand what she meant by year. “Oh I see.” Briok said excitedly, “well a year for us is 964 days. So a revolution is 1000 of those years, but we don’t really see time like that.”

Wow that is a long year! Well if you are sure about that, then it takes a 100,000 to equal 10 revolutions. So before 100,000 years ago, the cavern either wasn’t here, or wasn’t noticed right?”

“Yes that’s right, but we don’t see time like that, it’s not something so linear for us.”

“So in your world time isn’t linear? I don’t understand. I don’t even understand any of this conversation. We don’t talk about time like this where I’m from. At home time is just a measurement.”