Mistfall (12 page)

“What about the invisible barrier?” I asked,
changing the subject. “Were you able to find anything out?

She shook her head in disappointment. “Abel
keeps an iron grip on his court and The Powers. Whatever magic he’s
exploiting, even the Master doesn’t know of it.”

“Damn, I was really hoping for some good news
on that,” I mumbled.

Hailz and I spent the next fifteen minutes
discussing a few last minute points of my escape. Though there were
no floor plans for the dungeons, I did have one for the rest of the
castle. We decided that I would rendezvous with Hailz at a cave
near the Fae village. Just in case Abel had other plans, she agreed
to check on my every few days to make sure I was still
breathing.

That settled, she left and I was on my own
again. Unfortunately, I had to wait to put my plan into action
until Hailz contacted her Fae friend. That left me with some time
on my hands.

I stood in the middle of the oubliette,
deciding how best to kill some time when everything went black. It
wasn’t the lights, but my vision. I was a healthy young woman with
no medical conditions that would cause this type of thing. It had
me a little freaked out.

I knew the couch was a short five steps to my
left. I carefully made my way over to it in order to orient myself.
When I reached for the couch, it wasn’t there. I felt around the
area, reaching for the coffee table. There was literally nothing
around me, not even the walls.

I tried to create a ball of light to no
avail.

A disembodied voice broke through the black
emptiness surrounding me. “You’re magic won’t work here. You’re in
my realm now, my rules.

“Hello? Who’s there?” I called out.

The voice didn’t come from any one direction,
but all around me when it spoke again. “The impossible child, you
shouldn’t exist.”

“Well here I am. Not quite so impossible.” I
turned in circles, trying to find the source of the voice. “Before
we discuss any more philosophical conundrums, would you mind
turning on the lights?” I asked the mysterious interloper.

“You’re trying to see with your eyes. Use
your mind,” I was told.

Sweet Goddess I had enough with Otherworld
beings. There’s a reason the myths make us all out to be
tricksters. I was going to take an extended vacation on the human
side of the Mistfall when this was all over. Some magical sensory
deprivation would be a welcomed respite.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

I was answered by silence. The only thing I
could think of was to try the voice’s suggestion the same way I use
my magic. Closing my eyes I pictured the dark void around me.
Slowly, I imagined light penetrating its pitch-black depths.

Little by little, objects soon came into
focus, objects I didn’t recognize or create. This wasn’t my cozy
oubliette I had imagined the light revealing. Oddest of all was the
creature that appeared next to me.

I was absolutely sure that I had used my mind
to see correctly. Never in a thousand years would I have created
the creature next to me. He towered over me and his face… Have you
ever seen one of those bone white, hooked nosed Venetian masks?
Picture that with empty eye sockets. Creepy.

I had never come across his kind before. I
knew every kind of Otherworlder there was, myth or real. This
wasn’t on either of those lists.

“Who are you?” I asked, wide eyed.

“We are the Dreamweavers. We require no other
name,” it informed me.

The scenery around us changed. The moonlight
illuminated the ground beneath me, the stars shining bright in the
clear night sky. The Dreamweaver and I stood in front of a
reflecting pool. The writing on the stones that enclosed the pool
was far more ancient than anything on Earth. Whatever the
Dreamweaver might be, they were old, far older than the Fae
themselves.

He ran his bony hand over the surface of the
water and told me to watch. I leaned over the stones and looked
into the pool.

As the surface stopped rippling, a picture
formed on is glassy surface. It was our world and it was burning.
Scene after scene, the story was the same. Fire raged, its deadly
tendrils destroying everything in its path. There was devastation
anywhere you looked. No survivors. There weren’t even bodies or
remnants of buildings. Everything had turned to ash.

I lifted my head to look at the Dreamweaver.
“What is this and why are you showing it to me?” I asked.

“This is what will happen to your world and
it’s because of you.” He wasn’t alarmed or vicious in the way he
said it. The Dreamweaver may as well have given me the weather
report.

I looked up from the pool and back to the
creepy stuff of nightmares next to me. My jaw dropped. How on Earth
could or would I cause such destruction?

I pointed to the water. “How am I responsible
for that?”

“The path you are on will lead you to destroy
the world,” he responded.

“What?” I shrieked. “There’s no way I would
ever do such a thing!”

“The Waters of Time do not lie. This is what
will be.”

“How do I stop it? I’ll do anything,” I
pleaded. “Just tell me what to do.”

“You cannot do anything. No matter what
choices you make, this will be the outcome,” the Dreamweaver told
me.

I could feel the salty wetness forming in the
corners of my eyes. How? How could I do something so horrible?

My throat constricted, making my voice raspy.
“There has to be something.”

“You could join us,” the Dreamweaver offered.
“The world would survive, but not as you know it.”

“Show me. Use the pool and show me what
changes if I join you,” I pleaded.

He ran his fingers over the dark pool of
water again. What I saw made me prefer the total destruction of the
world.

Terror, pain, and sorrow were behind door
number two. Otherworlders and humans were enslaved. The bodies of
the dead, in various states of decay were chained to the living.
One of the Aelfadl was slicing open a man’s neck, his blood
spurting all over the dress of the man’s daughter.

“Make it stop,” I whispered. Tears were now
freely falling down my face and into the pool, causing the painful
scene to deform in the ripples. The Dreamweaver once again ran his
hand over the pool, dispersing the painful images.

“So, no matter what I do, I will cause death
and destruction?” I asked in between sniffles.

“Yes.”

I stared at the evil pool of the apocalypse
and weighed my options. Neither option was acceptable. I wiped the
tears away with my sleeve.
No. I will not let a silly swimming
pool dictate my future. I make my own destiny.

The only fire that would burn was the one
sparking to life in the pit of my stomach. “I choose neither,” I
lashed out. “I will find a third option that doesn’t end up in the
world’s destruction or its enslavement.”

I was done. There was no way I was going to
stay here with Mr. Doom & Gloom. The papery thin fingers of the
Dreamweaver reached out to grab me, but I swatted his hand away. It
was time to go. I pictured my prison in my mind until every detail,
from the overstuffed sofa, to the linen and leather covers of my
books were crystal clear. When I opened my eyes again, I had
returned to the oubliette. There was no trace of the mental
hijacker left, but a soul sucking chill had crept its way into my
very bones.

Sleep failed to find me that night as
pictures of raging infernos and children being viciously murdered
appeared every time I closed my eyes.
There has to be another
option.

I barely slept over the next few days. Every
time I drifted off, horrifying images would jolt me awake
screaming. I knew I would eventually have to succumb, but I
intended to fight it as long as possible.

Staving off sleep for the fear of my dreams
wasn’t my most brilliant idea. A few more of Abel’s thugs had come
to play Winner and Loser’s with me. Exhaustion had slowed my
reaction time. I almost had my first and final loss when a troll
had swung at my head with its club. The club came so close I could
feel my hair move from the force of the swing. It was a sheer
miracle that my brains weren’t splattered on the walls, in a gooey,
bloody mess.

Do you know what you get when you mix sleep
deprivation with horrifying visions and the dreams I’ve been having
of the guy I’ve probably been in love with for the past five years?
One very po’d jinn.

I had to blink a few times as everything came
into focus. Looking around the room, I recognized the familiar
table I was sitting at. I was in the middle of John’s kitchen. I
stood up from my seat and took a look around.

The Spartan feel of the place was gone. He
had moved in ahead of schedule due to Willa’s death and didn’t have
time to furnish the place when I was here. A mocha sofa set now lay
in his living room. Potted plants of lavender, thyme, mugwort,
etc., lined the window sills, each vying for the golden sunlight
streaming through the crystal panes of glass.

Picture frames graced the mantle of the
fireplace. I looked at each photo. One was of his mother holding
him as a baby. Another was of Jack and John, stacking red rust
bricks on top of mortar, building the chimney to the fireplace I
was standing in front of. The one that grabbed my attention was the
one of me.
Me? Why would he have a picture of me on his mantle
after all these years?

I remember the day he took the picture. We
were having a rare day off from combative training. Per usual we
remained in the forest.

John owned quite a bit of land he had built
his house on and we were walking through a part he hadn’t been
through in some time. His lack of interest in cultivating his
property allowed a pixie garden to flourish. Pixie gardens were
rare to find and beautiful to walk through, if you were
invited.

The caretaker of the garden, a man named
Parson Persimmon, welcomed us to his pride and joy. He invited the
two of us to stay the day as well as the mid-summer feast that
night.

I know what you’re thinking. Parson
Persimmon? It sounds ridiculous, I know, but pixies love
alliteration. I have met: Rueful Rose, Cackling Carrot, Waning
Wisteria, and Libertine Lilly, just to name a few.

Parson Persimmon, or Perse as he liked to be
called, showed us to the main garden. He left us on our own to
explore for a short while to make sure there was no one underfoot,
as they were all of four inches tall.

I say garden because, for pixies, that’s what
it is. In terms of relative size though, it was a large farm. The
ornamental gardens, like the one John and I were in, were varied
with a myriad of plants. Creeping ivy snaked its way towards the
sky on any trellis or vertical support it could find. Creeping
phlox in pink and white covered the ground on either side of the
velvety moss covered path we were walking on. Flowers grew up from
the ground and hung down from planters in every imaginable hue.

Outside of the gardens laid fields of
singular plants. An acre to the right of us was nothing but
rosemary interspersed between trees and other naturally occurring
flora. Its aroma perfumed the air upon the breezes that carried it
with its evergreen spiciness. Above us, in the trees, grew canopies
of orchids in virgin white, lavender, and cotton candy pink. It was
a spectacular sight.

Perse returned and showed us around the
different display gardens. Pixies were unaccustomed to visitors so
Perce was chuffed as chips and relishing in his role of tour
guide.

Did you ever wonder how the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon were possible in a desert? It was because of these guys.
Pixies created and maintained them for just under a millennia. They
would still be there today too if a king hadn’t insulted the
garden’s pixie caretaker.

The prankster in Perse came out when he sent
us into a maze. Tall, green hedges formed the corridors. It was
simple enough at first; just follow it to the center. Things became
a bit more difficult when the hedges decided to walk off and
rearrange themselves.

John and I became separated when a new wall
grew up in between us like a shot. I could hear the tinkling chime
of pixie laughter when John swore and kicked at the hedges. Between
John’s frustration and the hilarity of the situation, I couldn’t
help but join in with the pixies.

Knowing that the pixies could keep their
sabotage going for days, I cheated. Only a little though. I
magicked up a variety of shiny objects for them. Gold and silver
for the boys and colorful sea glass for the girls. The pixies’
magic was relegated to the plant world, so any mineral based bauble
was highly coveted among them.

One of the pixies who went by the name of
Joyous Jasmine, Jaz for short, appeared from the sanctuary of the
hedge at my offering. Her hands were clasped over her mouth,
mid-giggle. She wore a lovely purple velvet dress, which upon
further inspection, was made out of flower petals. What I had
mistaken for velvet were really the very fine hairs of violet
petals.

She perched atop my shoulder, pleased with
the opaque aquamarine shard of sea glass, and showed me to the
center of the maze. On my entrance to its center, a dozen pixies
surrounded me, waiting to claim the prizes I had offered. I handed
them out freely, both as a bribe and a token of my appreciation for
being allowed to walk amongst their heavenly abode.

John must’ve given some of the pixies trouble
as Jaz and I waited on him for over twenty minutes. He finally
joined us when he gave up on trying to figure out the maze and
split the earth of the maze in half.

After he repaired the fissure and
subsequently calmed the pixies down, Perse brought us tea into the
clearing. He didn’t stay, but Jaz and some of her friends did.