~*~ 42 ~*~
"Let's go inside. It's cold out here."
"No, I'm waiting here."
Sighing she grabbed a blanket from the sleigh wrapping it around me. "There's nothing we can do Rowan. Standing here won't bring them back."
I nodded but kept staring off into the distance like I could see something.
"Rowan, they aren't here. Please? Trust me?"
I wouldn't be budged.
"Please come in child, tell me what happened? I don't know anything and I will not leave you out here alone."
I didn't answer her.
"Fine so we will both stand out here." she pulled down another blanket wrapping it around herself.
"What did you mean by they are not even here? They aren't here are they, they went—- over there right?"
She looked at me "Tell you what, I'll share what I know if you do the same, only inside the house. Deal?"
I knew she was right but I didn't want it to be true. I didn't want to believe that they'd all been here and now they were all gone. He'd been with me, and now, he was angry and gone. Again. It was beginning to feel like we were missing our chances in a game that was not only changing its rules, but speeding up towards an end that I couldn't even see, let alone understand. Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, it froze in a cloud as it left me. Grams was right. It was too cold out and whether I liked it or not, they were gone.
Resolutely I turned toward the house, Grams right beside me. My hand burned. Now that I was on the porch and the light was better I looked at the burn puzzled. "Grams?"
She had already gone inside. "What honey?" she was hanging up her coat and then briskly rubbing her arms.
I opened the screen door and came in. "Look at this. It's like, look—-" I held my hand out to her to see. The angry red burn was in the shape of an angel, perfectly formed with two very long wings that arched upward above the angel. Was it the shape that had angered Grayson and Archer? What did it mean?
"It's a burn Rowan!" Concernedly she reached for my hand "What happened out there?" and then she too saw the shape of it. Her mouth opened but she didn't say anything. Deep worry creased her brow. I forced down my own feelings.
"It's very," I struggled to find a word, "weird."
"Well, I don't believe in coincidences that's for sure, which makes me wonder who has marked you, and why?"
I looked at her and felt a bone chilling coldness deep inside me. "Who?"
"We need to talk."
In unison we went out into the front parlor toward the fireplace which I looked nervously at. I didn't want to see this one become animated as well. I don't know if I would ever be able to see a fireplace with a cheerful fire in it again without instantly recalling that thing that attacked us in the darkness. Turning away from the fire I saw the tree, the pile of presents yet under it that had been intended for the rest of the family after Christmas carols. A tear slid down my cheek.
"I know dear, believe me I know. I've been where you are now. Not quite the same way, but close enough where I can empathize with what you are feeling." She watched me for a moment. "I'll be right back Rowan. Let me get a few things so I can tend to that burn. I'll be right back, I promise."
I didn't want to be left alone. I moved further away from the fire and stood in the archway between the parlor and the foyer.
When she came back I followed her back into the parlor. She motioned me to sit at the couch and then sat down beside me and looked at my hand. "Let me see if there is anything I can do."
She inspected it closer. The burn covered nearly the whole back of my left hand. Holding her hand out to me she nodded towards my hand. "Give me your hand Rowan" Placing my hand on hers she held her other hand just above the burn closing her eyes. "What happened out there?" she murmured as she concentrated on healing my hand.
I told her everything, every word, all the pain, the heartache. I told her of the black thing I sensed inside of Grayson, of me yelling at him. I told her of the attack by whatever that black thing was that I could feel whenever it was near.
"The House of Lords" she whispered.
What was it that I had heard of them before? I struggled to remember. Something. And then I did. I gasped as I remembered all of my dream slips and also what Tina and Archer had told me. "Oh Grams—-" I shuddered. "What is going on?"
She sighed and struggled to get a handle on her own concerns. Healing my hand hadn't worked. She was now rubbing a salve onto the angry redness very gently. "You know, this is not how I intended to introduce you to your heritage and birthright. Not by a long shot." She inspected her handiwork and then looked at the tree winking brightly. For us, the cheer had vanished as our friends and loved ones had gone off to battle something dark and evil.
"Have you ever suspected that, I don't know maybe you didn't fit in? That you were—- different?" She was looking at me intently. I could tell she was weighing her words carefully.
I nodded my head. "I've known that for a little bit anyway, but before that, when I was little, I knew that I was not going to be like everyone else, that I was different somehow."
"That's because we are." she whispered. "You are the newest daughter of the forest, sister of the moon. To you goes my post when it is my time to go."
'Daughter of the forest, sister of the moon', I'd heard these words before. But the last thing I wanted to hear was talk of Grams dying. "Stop!"
"I mustn't. You have to know."
I stood up walking to the window staring out at the darkness. My heart wrenched with a foreboding sense of danger. Tentacles long and icy were reaching in, enmeshing it in a relentless grip, making it hard to breath without gasping for breath.
Grams insisted on the telling of it, putting aside my own feelings of horror. "You are the keeper of all this, the 'yard' as I've always called it. The heart of it is the forest that we were at tonight, that beckoned you the other night." She plucked at a couple lint balls on the blankets in a haphazard pile beside her, then idly smoothed out the wrinkles. "Don't fret so honey, my time is not for a very long time. Please? Come sit and let me tell you things that of necessity must be told now, rather than later, for you to understand what is going on."
I stood still watching a twinkling star and then finally turned back to her.
"I'm going to be blunt and just dive in okay. I'll tell you as much as I can right now."
I nodded my head for her to go ahead. Hard truths would be a refreshing novelty.
"You are," she took a deep breath steeling her own resolve. "You are not fully human Rowan."
I blinked stunned. "What?" I whispered. This was not even remotely like anything I could have conceived of coming from her.
"You are Otherkind as well."
"I've heard that word before. Which kind of Otherkind?"
"You are born of a long line of witches and elven, among others." she looked at me intently as if assessing my ability to handle this.
"I'm a witch?" I chuckled, a strangled unhappy sound. "And an elf?"
"You can heal yes?"
I suddenly understood about what she said about being different, "The diner!"
"What?"
"Nothing, I just—-yes. I can heal. With just a thought and a touch, except myself."
She nodded as if she knew what I was talking about.
Shaking my head and putting up my hands I needed to leave that alone for a moment, let it sink in. Whatever strange kind of family I came from, I wanted to know the dangers out there to us all first, before I found out who was born behind which woodshed.
Grams was watching me probably judging if she could tell me more or not. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear more. I swallowed hard trying to keep everything in place when my world felt as if it was slipping out of place. Finally I spoke and I'm sure from a completely different angle than Grams was expecting. "Why did it, whatever it is, attack us out there at that little place?"
"The original house?"
"Yes."
"Rowan, there is a war going on and it is about ready to spill out of Ber' Sador and into the city of Stu' Ari throughout the whole of the Meromi Nol. It could spill over here to Earth as well. They are moving out against those of us who can feel them first."
"Me? It attacked because of me?"
"No, you can feel him because of who you are, because of your very illegal bloodline. The others can only see the effects of it unless he sends one of his henchmen, one of which being Zale. Thomas, Archer, Bettina, they can see as well as feel. Grayson it would, appear cannot."
"That, was that Zale then?"
"I'm not certain. There is the Elderdark, the House of Lords, you've heard a bit of them."
I nodded my head that I had.
"One of the dark lords, the highest ranking one, is an angel like no other. He's one of the Elder Races. Arminius Paxtornum is pure evil" She held up her hand.
I shook my head it was too hard to keep up with all of this.
"Rowan." she lay her hand on my arm. "I didn't intend for it to turn out this way. I am sorry."
"It's not your fault Grams."
She nodded "I know but, I can still feel badly for you. You are coming into your knowledge smack in the middle of a war zone and unfortunately for you, you are part of the battlefield. And now there is just too much to learn and in such a short time."
Didn't I know that first hand!
"I will explain it all to you I promise but first let me tell you a story." Grams looked towards the fire then at me. "I'm not quite sure from which point to start with. This is rather complicated."
"No more than anything else I've been learning."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that. A very long time ago, in the before times there were the Anunnaki. Perhaps you've heard of them, read on some Sumerian Mythology perhaps?"
"Not much."
"Well, some call the Anunnaki the fallen ones but they are not. They are only one of the Elder Races. Of the Anunnaki there were those called the Utukku. Like any family some were good, some were bad. And then a squabble broke out amongst the Utukku which turned into a family feud that escalated into a horrific war destroying many things on Earth.
The Shedu, or the good ones, remained in a different realm off of the Meromi Nol. The evil ones now calling themselves the Lords of Darkness, or the Elderdark took over the realm of this dimensional Earth, they went underground. It is where the concept of Hell came from. It is a place that is continually shrouded in darkness to cloak their deeds from sight. Of the worst of them, as I already said, is Arminius Paxtornum, an evil and twisted being.
He created and then reigned over the Elderdark, with his ultimate goal of taking over the realm of Earth and its buffer zone the astral plane. Then he wants Meromi Nol, and from there, there is no place safe from his reach. The center of all that vile evil is the House of Lords."
"Now a bit of geography. Meromi Nol is a great expansive territory that belongs to all beings from all realms that border it. Meromi Nol is set up rather like an enormous land where there is peace and harmony, all races of all Otherkind can share goods, services, friendship. Inside this land called the Meromi Nol are many cities but none as great and beautiful as the city called Stu' Ari. It is the social hub, a place of gathering. It is also the seat of a very powerful government.
Now every realm has its own government, but each also sends a representative to have a seat on what is called the Guild located in Stu' Ari. The Guild is like a centralized government set up to make sure all have an equal voice. It was not set up to have any authority in any particular realm, unless called upon to act as an arbitrary voice. It was set up in order to cohesively bind everyone together and keep the peace between a great many, and wildly diverse beings. Thomas is a member of this Guild as well as a King in his own realm." she smiled a soft smile as if remembering something.
"Unfortunately even the Elderdark has a seat on the Guild. It seems logical to think that all the good out there, all of them could just remove that seat belonging to the Elderdark Lord and then eradicate the Underdark in its entirety."
I nodded my head. "Why haven't they done that?"
"Because Arminius and a lot of those in the House of Lords are part of one of the ancient Elder races, they have full rights by virtue of who they are. Long ago a race now no longer remembered set up something as a contingency plan in case there ever was a situation such as this. They set up something that no one could possibly know about and then left a prophecy as its marker.
That prophecy was a very peculiar one that has yet to be fully understood. This prophecy is supposed to come in to effect when the times get their darkest, a time this ancient race foresaw as a distinct possibility and took protective measures to move against it. We believe we are living in those times right now."
"The triplets—-"
"Yes. It does seem auspicious doesn't it? And with Arminius breathing so hard down everyone's neck now. I am certain that Victor, Seth and Grayson are the three sons. Thomas married their human mother Rami, the high joining with the low, the three sons—-" her voice drifted off.
"But what has this to do with me?"
"Besides it having the potential to demolish everything as we know it? Plenty. You see, as daughter of the woods you have the same job as I do. Protector of the forest. But it is not just any forest. Nestled within it that shelter of trees is the half gate. It is a second, or outer gate from the Meromi Nol. The guild controls it now. It is rather like a truce gate. It created a kind of buffer zone or as we call it, The Margins.
You might find it easier to call it the astral plane for it is very similar. Now this area lays like a demilitarized zone between the half gate or outer gate, and the full gate or inner-gate. The control of this half or outer gate really should have belonged to the Elderdark but they were not controlling it. So, the guild stepped in taking over control of it.
Its rules are set to protect not only those that would come to Earth to harm it, but those of Earth who would go there and create harm to others or themselves. Now it is in the hands of those of this realm working together with the Elementals. Beyond it across The Margins, is the full-gate, or inner gate to the Meromi Nol. That one is controlled by the Underdark. All must have their equal say in Meromi Nol. That means the Elderdark as well.
Arminius has always been upset that he lost control of the outer half gate and wanted more. He found a way to send his power upward and out of the Underdark. Certain of us can feel it. Most cannot. He has also set loose the Edimmu which are dark shadow specters that eat a soul from within. They have mutated somewhat from their original form, twisted by evil. We call them soul-eaters now. He is searching for a way in, one of them being the place you and I must protect" she paused a moment. "You and I have the job of protecting the forests and the land that it is on from all harm from any realm. No matter where the gate is placed."
"You mean it moves?"
"It can, but not very often. If the elemental guardian of the portal stone deems it has become too risky to be where it is, we all move to another more favorable place. We have been here for over a hundred years. Relatively a short time comparatively speaking. I will take you to meet the Elemental Guardian of it probably tomorrow.
But, getting back to this thing you can feel. It's what Arminius has only very recently learned to do. I'm guessing he'll try to use it to establish his first goal, to turn as many Otherkind as possible, including the ancient elder race of Angels. If he can make them become enamored with the dark." she grimaced "Turn them so they of their own free will plunge into the second death. Thus eradicating all bonds that tie souls together throughout eternity, and change to the dark side." she shuddered.
"Zale?"
"Yes. For a while now, Zale and anyone else he can turn, will have free access to both gates and can come and go as they please. Arminius' new trick is to send an astral push upwards so his sycophants can use it as a homing beacon to annihilate whomever he chooses.
The time is coming I feel, where Arminius will be able to send himself up directly into our third dimensional Earth and then look out. He'll be able to manipulate more than just the wind or his sycophants. Dark times are coming of the worst sort. He wants this realm and he's determined to get it."
"Why?"
"They want to take over everything. They have already been flexing their muscles in Ber' Sador and have killed off huge tracts of forested lands leaving behind a black sickness that once it worms in, eats away anything that has life."
"I think that is what I felt in Grayson. What did you call it? Edimmu? A soul-eater." I whispered fearfully. "I felt something in him like that and it wiggled away from me. I don't know how else to describe it. I saw it once before too, in an old gypsy woman who read my tea leaves last summer."
"You went to a— who was she?"
"It was an accident—"
"Rowan, you and I both know there is no such thing."
"Well, let me rephrase it then, I had them read without my real consent, I mean I gave consent but, oh drats!"
"What was her name?"
"I honestly don't know. I tripped in front of her wagon, she invited me in. I don't know why I did but I went in and she read my leaves and then called me a daughter of the moon. Told me that I had put everyone around me in danger and that I'd better watch out behind me. Anyway, she had those eyes too, only much worse than Grayson's."
Grams appeared to be thinking about what I had said. "A most unfortunate thing" she said after a while. "It may be what set off this really extraordinary chain of events."
"How so?"
"I'm not certain yet. But there is someone out there who knows about you and me, what and who we are."
"Sarah's aunt Mira also knew something. She said there was a wall around me, knew I called you Grams, told me to go back to you and she called me a Daughter of the Woods."
Grams looked up at me still trying to gauge what all of this meant.
"That black stuff in Grayson—"
She interrupted "You are a healer. You can sense things, probe into them." she paused thinking. "I wonder how Grayson has become infected." She looked worried. "I'll have to warn Thomas."
"So it was my fault, all of this, all along it's been my fault!" Standing up I turned toward the window my back to Grams.
"No Rowan, whether you could feel it or not, Arminius would whatever he could, however he could. It is just that he has found a way to use us like a homing beacon. A tiny pocket of power that he can focus on. And if Grayson has become infected he could be using that as a way to crawl in."
"He is going to change Grayson the way he did Zale?"
Grams spread her hands helplessly.
I recalled Archer's warning to me two weeks ago, 'Grayson's very life is going to depend on me' and that if not, 'all would be lost'. I could hear his words, all of them in my head. I felt so hopeless and lost. I turned and looked at Grams with forlorn and haunted eyes. "So the best thing to do then is for me to leave. Everyone is in danger because of me!" I looked back outside, past the front porch with the cheery garlands of greenery festooned around the rails and supports, out into the desolate darkness.
"No Rowan, you're not listening to me!" Grams stood up and walked toward me.
I held up my burned left hand "And this? He marked me. Arminius has put a mark on me. Why?"
Grams looked troubled. "That I do not know, but I do not know everything. I've never heard of a daughter of the woods having a mark of the highest dark lord on her. I cannot fathom its meaning. Probably just to taunt you. Test your mettle, see what you are made of."
"I should go before I endanger everyone."
"No! Because of what you can do Rowan, everyone has a chance!"
"You are confusing me Grams." I said softly to the black glass. "Wherever I am he can zero in on and that means I am the risk, I'm the weak link that can ruin everything." I whispered. That feeling of darkness was beginning to overshadow me again.
Grams moved so she was standing between me and the window. "Rowan. Rowan!" she touched my arm "Rowan honey, you must not take it in you, turn away from it. Pull in your power."
Grams sounded scared and there was no one here to help her, no one here to help me. No one out there to help the rest of my family fighting out there somewhere.
"Rowan! Do not let him in here!" Her voice cut through the dark miasma that was clouding my thinking. She was right. The last thing I wanted was to put my Grams in danger. I went back into the foyer, grabbing my coat as a reflex, and went storming out into the darkest night. I needed to get away from here so I didn't bring harm to her or my best friend sleeping upstairs.