This post is a piece of my fiction writing, a story I’ve been working on for a few years that I can’t seem to get off the ground. Initially I intended it to be a full length novel, however, I’m rethinking its form. This is part one of the prologue. I’ll continue to post installments as I write them. I hope you enjoy.
“What you’re doing is wrong, Ramael. You know it is.” Rhiannon brushed her silken skirts with her hands unconsciously. She was agitated. Agitated and concerned. More than she was willing to admit to her brother.
“It’s power, Rhiannon. Raw power. Don’t tell me you’ve never been tempted.” Her brother’s dark eyes flashed at her.
A chill ran down Rhiannon’s spine. She didn’t like what she saw there. Hunger and arrogance. Her concern deepened. Never in all her years had she seen her brother like this.
To say Rhiannon was old would be an understatement, though exactly how old she was, was very difficult to say. Time didn’t exist in the Otherworld and sometimes she felt as old as time itself. She was a guardian, a protector of the human world. It was her job (and Ramael’s too) to see that the humans were protected from forces beyond their awareness: the things they couldn’t see or possibly know- forces only beings like her were capable of navigating. She had been a guardian since the beginning. What Ramael suggested threatened everything.
What is he thinking? She asked herself. She could barely maintain her composure. “We don’t touch that power. It’s not for us. It’s not for anyone.” She met her brother’s gaze levelly.
Ramael let out a hiss and began pacing in front of the hearth. The fire was dying. Rhiannon thought she should add another log, but she was frozen in place. Her mind raced, running through possible tactics that might nudge her brother in a different direction. Or at least to his senses! She fought the urge to launch into a tirade. Ramael would not be receptive to an argument. Not only was what he suggested wrong, it was completely insane! Telling him that would only anger him. She pursed her lips and took a deep breath.
“Why your sudden interest, brother?” she asked.
Ramael stopped pacing and pressed his hand against the marble mantle. “Sudden? Who says this is sudden? We’ve all thought about it. Don’t tell me you haven’t, Rhiannon. We’ve been here too long not to be curious.”
“I never said I wasn’t curious,” Rhiannon snapped. “We are bound, Ramael. Bound to the weaves of creation. The very threads that hold these worlds together. To touch the Source would be to unravel reality itself. Besides, we cannot touch it even if we wanted to.”
Ramael’s eyes flashed again. “Are you sure about that?”
Rhiannon’s hand trembled where she realized she held the fabric of her dress. “Yes, I am sure.” Though her voice betrayed none of the doubt she felt, an icy stone of fear dropped into her stomach, sending chills through her whole body.
“Then there is nothing more to talk about.”
Silenced stretched between them. All Rhiannon could hear was the pulse of blood in her ear and the distant crackle of the fire. “I suppose there isn’t,” she said at last, letting her hands fall.
“Goodnight sister.” Ramael bowed his head to Rhiannon and left her chamber.
Rhiannon collapsed in a chair. Her dark amber hair fell over her shoulders in ripples that caught the firelight. She dropped her head into her hands. One of her headaches was coming on, a stabbing pain behind her eyes that made her feel sick to her stomach. She closed her eyes and breathed. He can’t. He can’t have tried to touch it. We are bound by the Creator. We are guardians. He can’t have. He just can’t have. She repeated these words to herself over and over, but with every repetition she believed them less.
Well, there was nothing she could do about it tonight. She would sleep. That always helped. She undressed and wrapped her simple linen robe around herself. Her reflection looked gaunt as she peered at herself in the mirror. She took a silver comb to her long hair and brushed it absentmindedly. I’m beginning to look as old as I feel, she thought, or perhaps it was the dying firelight casting shadows under her eyes.
From the outside Rhiannon appeared human, but she was far from it. She was a guardian. One chosen of the Light to look over and protect the human world. That was her job. She existed for nothing else. It was her magic that protected the humans, a magic as old and as potent as the Creator. Her world- the Otherworld- was magic, just as she was. It was a land invisible to humans, but a land that held within its ancient bones the magic that kept humans human. This world was incomprehensible to the human mind. No human could touch it.
Rhiannon set her comb down and continued to examine herself in the mirror. She felt a pang of emotion as she studied her face. She was not human, yet in a way she was. As a guardian of the human world, the Creator had imbued her with human blood. She could bear children; she had born children, children that had lived and died in the human world. The Creator’s intent to make it this way was so that she knew what it meant to be human and that she had a blood connection to the human world. Yes, she knew what it was to be human. She knew how precious humans were. She knew their pain, their joy. She knew how fragile and precious a human life was. As she laid down in her bed, she wondered if Ramael still knew that too.
Rhiannon’s headache persisted into the next day. She ignored it. There was no time to see the Wisdom Healer about herbs, however much they might help. No. She’d woken with a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Ramael. He’d decided something; she could feel it. He was her twin brother after all, and they had a psychic connection. She couldn’t quite read his mind, but she could sense his energy and right now she knew something was going on in that thick head of his. After dressing and hastily plaiting her hair, she set off for the mountains.
The land rolled out in verdant emerald fields with a spattering of yellow and blue wildflowers that clung to the early morning mist. The light was the half-light of this world, not ever fully day or night as it was in the human world. Rhiannon had seen how the light was different there; not that she visited the human world very often. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t supposed to. Her place was here, in her world, but she had kin in the other world, and despite the rules, she snuck in to visit them occasionally. Does that make me like Ramael? She wondered. Defying the laws set of the Creator. The thought made her uneasy, but she pushed the feeling away. No, she decided. Checking up on her daughters in the human world was not the same thing. She wasn’t grabbing for power- a power that could destroy not only their world but the human world as well. What Ramael was doing was downright wrong. She, on the other hand had merely bent a rule and there were no dire consequences to her actions.
The feeling of uneasiness continued as she cut through the dense thicket at the mouth of the forest. Brambles tugged on her cloak. She cursed as the delicate fabric frayed in its sticky claws. Why hadn’t she donned her wool cloak? Because I was distracted, she thought angrily, examining the loose threads in her favorite silken cloak. It was a moss green material that shimmered when it caught the light just right and it set off the striking color of her hair. She loved that cloak and now it was ruined, thanks to Ramael.
The forest path was barely a path; it wove around massive oaks and nettle patches and Rhiannon had to watch her step for all the protruding roots and jagged rocks. Few ventured into these woods. It led to one place, a place few would choose to go. Rhiannon had almost forgotten that it was home to many wild creatures. For a moment, fear prickled through her. Not that anything in the woods could hurt her, let alone kill her. She laughed to herself- a musical sound somewhat dampened by the thick foliage all around her. Die, she mused. What a thought!
The dim half-light slanted through the foliage, a silvery, almost misty light. Dew clung to leaves and rocks on the ground and she was reminded of the forest her daughters lived in in the human world. Something rustled behind her. Rhiannon started, lost in thought about her human kin.
A tall, sleek, gray dog stood in the gooseberry patch. Its lips were curled back, teeth bared, and nostrils flared. Black eyes like pools of ink bored into her. Those eyes reminded her of the abyss. A devastating emptiness. Foreboding flooded her. Why should a creature unsettle me so? There’s nothing to fear, she told herself. The creatures here aren’t dangerous. It didn’t serve anything for them to be, couldn’t serve anything. There was nothing violent or evil in the world of the guardians, yet, staring into the dog’s eyes, Rhiannon felt an unsettling pang of intuition that told her otherwise. Her instinct was to back away. She remained still and looked the gray dog in its black eyes. “What do you want?” she asked it calmly.
The beast growled and took a step towards her. Ribbons of saliva flung through the air as it tossed its head wildly. Out of control, Rhiannon thought. Nothing in this world succumbed to such primal and beastly instincts: the creatures here were above such expressions. It was then that Rhiannon realized what had irked her about this creature’s eyes.
They were wrong.
Her heart felt as if it had been plunged into ice. “You are soulless,” she whispered. “The light of the Creator has fled you.”
She acted with pure primal instinct and reached for a potent protective magic. From her fingers, silver threads ripped through the air and wove around the beast. It howled. The threads expanded, some growing thick and bright, others thin and tight; they encircled the beast like a spider wrapping its pray in a cocoon. Soon the beast’s howls were muted. The threads of magic wove so tightly around the soulless dog that it looked like a silver orb and nothing more. You would never know upon looking at it that something evil were contained within. The magic she had used to contain the beast was divine and beautiful; it hung, suspended, like a brilliant moon. But what to do with it now? That question unsettled her almost as much as discovering a soulless creature in her world.