At that moment, Jakob entered the cottage. When he saw they had a guest, he tried to straighten his jacket and brush his windswept hair from his face.
“You will have to excuse my appearance,” he grinned, “but I have just returned from a hunting expedition, and the woods aren’t kind to those who don’t dress the part.”
Ilanthia smiled. “Indeed they are not,” she said, standing to greet him. “My name is Ilanthia and it is a pleasure to meet both you and your lady wife.”
“It’s the first time I’ve been called that,” said Nemeila’s mother, smiling.
“Is there something we can do for you, Ilanthia?” asked Jakob.
Ilanthia glanced at Nemeila, then at the other two people in the room. She had thought a great deal about this moment, but now, all her carefully considered words seemed to vanish from her head.
“What I am going to now say,” Ilanthia began, taking a deep breath, “will seem like a fairy tale, but you must listen to me. Your daughter’s life may depend on it. Do you remember nine winters ago, when you went into the woods to chop logs and found a child carried by a wolf?”
Jakob’s mouth suddenly went dry, how could he ever forget. “Yes,” he whispered, “I remember very clearly.”
“You never found the parents of the child, did you?”
Nemeila’s mother clutched Jakob’s arm; a look of fear etched on her face.
“No,” said Jakob, “I asked everyone hereabouts and in the nearby towns if they knew of a baby that had gone missing, but no one did.”
“I am your daughter’s birth mother,” declared Ilanthia, solemnly.
“Then you are no mother, to leave a new born child in the forest,” spat Taliena.
“There was very little time and very little choice where I sent my child to prevent her death,” said Ilanthia. “What I ask of you now, may be the only thing that will stop your daughter from being sought out and killed by the man who has sworn vengeance upon me.”
“If any man dares try and harm my family,” said Jakob, forcefully, “I will kill him.”
“Is it true, father, that I am a foundling? And that you and mama are not my real parents?” asked Nemeila, almost in tears.
Ilanthia turned to look at her daughter and through her senses, felt all her daughter’s heartache. “In every sense of the word, they are your parents,” she said. “They have raised you to be the person you are today, and although I could only watch you from afar, I could not have wished for two finer people to have loved you.”
“Who is this man?” asked Jakob. “If necessary, I will seek him out and force him to leave Nemeila alone. As I have said, I will allow no one to harm her.” Ilanthia tried to be as truthful as possible without revealing her alien origins. But she knew if they were to allow her to help the young girl, who was now part of all their lives, she might have to trust them with at least some of that knowledge. “We were on a mission nine of your years ago, when our ship hit a cosmic storm and developed a fault in her guidance systems. Probes were sent out to find somewhere we could land and make repairs, and we crash-landed on the shoreline bordering Kallopia. Tobyn was one of nineteen prisoners we were taking back for rehabilitation. When we crashed the force fields that held the cells closed were compromised and it allowed them to escape. My entire crew and Nemeila’s true father were killed by some of the escaping prisoners. I was left alive by Tobyn to suffer the same way he had, a prisoner trapped inside my ship, unable to breathe the air of this world. “I was weak from childbirth and the fighting had reached the outer door to the control room, moments were all that we had to save you,” she said, facing Nemeila. “Your father, on my instructions, sent you to the forest, where you were found by the wolf. The amulet I placed upon your arm is there for your protection and it charged the wolf to seek out a human so that you might be cared for. The wolf you saw in my cabin was that very wolf. He is now your guardian, and for the duration of his life will always be there for you, should you need help.” Nemeila sat quietly, listening to Ilanthia’s story, but she now looked more intently at her real mother. Unsure of what to believe, she looked up at Ilanthia with a question burning in her eyes.
“Why did you allow the woodsman and his wife to find me? How did you know that they would welcome me into their home?”
Ilanthia reached out and took Nemeila’s hands into her own. “They are good people and the forest seemed to be a safe place to hide you, for Tobyn had all but succeeded in his bid for power.”
“Why didn’t my parents tell me who I was? They have never said that I was a foundling.”
“They were never told who you were. When Jakob failed to find your real mother, they wanted you to feel the love that any other child would have felt. To tell you that you were not their natural child would, I am sure, have broken your heart, as much as it would have broken theirs to have lost you.”
“You said that you were left as a prisoner on board your ship since you could not breathe the air around you?” asked Jakob, suspiciously. “Yet you are here and seem to be in no distress. The air upon the ocean is no different from that upon land.”
“The oceans my ship sailed through were those of the stars. When you look skyward that is where my ship might have been seen. I underwent special treatment in one of the chambers, which has enabled me to breathe your atmosphere, but only with a ward safeguarding my person. Should that ward be broken, I will suffocate. The cottage in the woods is just an illusion, created by my ship’s power source. In order to leave it, so that I might come here and speak with you, I had to create a ward around my body.”
“I do not believe in such magic,” scorned Jakob, “and as for ships that sail the heavens, you are talking rubbish. I have heard enough of this; I think you should leave now. What you say about being my daughter’s real mother might be true enough, and if so, then everything you have said about my searching the villages and towns could have been noted by you after you left the child. If there is such a man who wishes to harm Nemeila, then I will deal with him, should he ever come here.”
“I think not,” said Ilanthia, “for this man is even more powerful than me, and will destroy you and your wife both in order to kill this young girl. I had hoped not to have to prove myself to you, but you must understand exactly what you are dealing with. Come outside and I will show you some of the forces I can control.”
Outside the woodsman’s cottage, the weather was surprisingly warm with the azure sky peeking between the branches of the trees. Ilanthia raised her arms skywards and began to concentrate her thoughts. A breeze ruffled the leaves, gently at first then as it began to grow in strength the bright sky disappeared behind lowering thunderclouds. A mighty crack of thunder made them jump as jagged lightning stalked across the sudden darkness. Rain began to fall, heavy fat spots that drenched the area around them within a matter of moments. Jakob gazed around him, terrified to discover that the deluge only fell around the four of them; they were still bone dry.
Ilanthia lowered her arms and the rain ceased, the threatening clouds rolled away and the breeze died, leaving the calm clear day to return.
“I will give you one more proof of my veracity,” said Ilanthia.
She straightened her arm towards the uppermost branch of a nearby tree, and as she opened her fist, a bolt of sizzling golden energy shot from her fingertips. There was a stunning crack as the branch snapped in two and, awe-struck they watched it crash to the ground.
“If you think that is magic, then maybe you are right. Only know this, Tobyn’s powers are now far greater than mine. He can and will kill you all, and no matter how you try to fight him, you will not be able to stop him. You must let me take Nemeila back to my ship, where I can enhance the strengths she already possesses. Enough I hope to help her fight Tobyn should he ever find her.” “I don’t want to be any different from my friends, and I don’t want to leave here. And you can’t make me,” Nemi finished stubbornly. The suggestion of a pout formed, pulling at her usually smiling mou
th. Ilanthia looked into her daughter’s face with eyes containing all a mother’s love and concern, and cupping her face in her hands, answered her. “You are right. I cannot force you into a war that started before you were born. But the amulet you wear once belonged to me, and has been handed down from generation to generation. The runes etched inside the amulet accepted you when it was first placed upon your arm, and will allow me to help you should your life be threatened. Each of the stones has a different tone and a different power you can call upon. There is a rhyme to call them forth and contained within are wards to protect you and spells to enchant your enemies.” Nemeila looked with new insight at the three-inch wide gold band studded with multi-faceted glittering gemstones. It had always been the most beautiful thing she had ever seen; now it was also the most precious. There were twelve blue stones encircling the amulet, the depth of colour ranging from an almost black-blue of night to the light blue of early sunrise. Scattered around and between the blue stones were twelve other precious stones: diamond, agate, topaz, onyx, ruby, emerald, beryl, amethyst, jasper, sapphire and chalcedony. “No one’s will but your own can remove it from your arm,” said Ilanthia, “this amulet represents everything that is pure and good, but it will not protect you or aid you should you attempt to use it for evil. There is one other thing; the amulet is not the source of your power. All the magic you can perform is inherent of my race, and being my daughter, has passed down to you. ”
Nemeila hugged Ilanthia close, and she in turn held her daughter for the first time, feeling deep inside her all the love they shared.
Chapter 3
A New World – A New life
For a moment, Ilanthia felt like bursting into tears when she thought how lucky she had been to meet and love her daughter’s birth father, and for the wonderful daughter who had been born from their union. Her mind went back to the time when she had been forced to crash-land her ship on this alien world:
THE PEACE AND TRANQUILITY of the flight deck had been thrown into chaos as the ship suddenly lurched to port, almost as though it had flown into a solid wall. “What’s happened?” Ilanthia demanded as she gripped the COM to stay on her feet, she felt the violent shuddering jolt as it rattled its way throughout the spacecraft. The helmsman was fighting to hold their ship on course. “Don’t know captain, all sensors have gone off line.”
The second in command turned to face the crewman, and as he did, a second shock wave struck the ship, this time it was forced to starboard. Everyone standing was thrown to the floor, including Ilanthia. As she tried to sit upright, steadying herself to stand, her almost due baby kicked out as if in retaliation for being thrown about and being disturbed in its slumber.
She closed her eyes for a moment then took the hand offered by her husband. “You should be lying down,” he said, “not standing on the bridge.”
“When we are out of danger, I will go and rest,” she said, giving him a grim-faced smile she hoped would settle his fears.
“Captain, a cosmic storm has taken out the navigation, the controls are not responding,” said the helmsman. “Our sensors now show we have been thrown one hundred thousand light years from our original course.”
Before Ilanthia could answer him, the COM buzzed and a desperate voice sounded. “Captain, this is engineering, the reactor’s gone off line; we’ve lost all main power to the engines. It will also mean that the other systems will slowly fail including life support, if we cannot get it back up and running.”
Again the spacecraft shuddered violently as the elements battled. Bright cosmic flashes streaked the darkness with repeated explosions of colour, each crescendo brighter than the last. When finally the heavens’ savagery had exhausted itself, the ship’s crew found themselves marooned in the aftermath of the storm, their ship badly damaged and the life support severely crippled. In desperation, they sent probes to seek a safe harbour, a refuge where they could repair their only means of transport home. One of the probes detected a hitherto unknown planet, and under its guidance, the ship limped in to land.
As the ship spiralled on a downward path towards the planet’s surface, the second in command spoke out. “Short range sensors show this to be a Class A planet with a breathable atmosphere. The inhabitants are humanoid in appearance but are primitive. The data available shows them to be in what they call their fifteenth century, but the world is far older. I doubt the technology will allow the repairs needed to set a course for home.”
The craft crash-landed onto the shore of a small sea, sending vast volumes of water, together with shoals of fish, cascading into the sky. It careered, the impulse drive screaming as though it were tearing itself apart, through a small copse, pulverising trees to matchwood. It slid on out of control, carving a wide crater out of the evil-smelling mud and sand, until it finally came to rest against a massive boulder, which resisted the ship’s efforts at annihilation. The crew surprised and relieved to have survived the crash, anxiously attempted to secure the holds, but to their dismay, discovered that the power failure had damaged the locks and protective shields. Unfortunately for them, they weren’t the only ones to realise this. The prisoners were now free of their cages.
One of the inmates being escorted back to Baryllion, to stand trial for many horrendous crimes, was a man whose dark and dangerous power had caused chaos and destruction throughout his universe. Realising that he was no longer held captive behind Ilanthia’s force field he turned to challenge the other prisoners.
“I’m getting out of here, are you cowardly scum with me?” he sneered at their petrified expressions.
During the time they had been cooped up in his company, they had learned to fear the being who they knew could destroy their minds with insidious dreams, leaving them mad slavering fools, or turn them into hopping fleas to be crushed at his will. If he felt benevolent, he would kill his victims outright with a lazy snap of his fingers. At least that way they did not suffer the usual torment this being enjoyed inflicting.
His fellow prisoners looked nervously at one another, no one daring to speak up, until one braver than the rest, a thief from Qaa’antar, cautiously stepped forward. Podgy lips emerged from under his cavernous nostrils and quivered fearfully as his large bat-like ears flattened against the side of his hairless brown and green mottled head.
“Err mm…we’ll come with you Tobyn, we want to be free.”
Tobyn reached out a lightning quick hand and grabbed one of the twitching ears, yanking hard until the Qaa’antaran stood on tiptoe. Frozen in fear, his wildly rolling eyes an inch from Tobyn’s own. “Who said anything about freedom? If I allow you to live, you will leave this ship as my slaves, carry out my orders without question. And my name is Lord Tobyn. Is that clear?”
Five other prisoners eagerly stepped forward to join the Qaa’antaran, who was now crouched on his knees at Tobyn’s feet, gingerly massaging his bruised lobe. The remainder stayed where they were, each of them preferred captivity to siding with a being that had nothing but black hatred festering like rotten fruit in his heart; mainly for his captor. Tobyn had evaded capture for a long time, always able to use his dark powers to stay several steps ahead of Ilanthia. But she had tracked him down and chanced upon him a few moments after he had laid waste to an entire hamlet that had refused to acknowledge him as their Lord and Master, and pay taxes into his coffers accordingly. He had shown them his displeasure, leaving only sobbing frightened children inhabiting the smoking ruins of their homes, the streets suddenly alive with large numbers of squealing sows and bellowing rams. But the spell had cost him dearly: exhausted and with his magic depleted, Ilanthia had found him while he was unable to withstand or retaliate against her power. He was absorbed into the ship and caged behind a force field, created from the ship’s energy interwoven with Ilanthia’s magic, before he could regain his strength. But now he was free, and revenge was in the forefront of his mind.
“What about the rest of you? Are you going to stay here and allow that witch and her crew to re-
cage you?”
“We will escape as and when the opportunity arises,” said a tall cat-like creature, “hopefully, without any blood being shed.”
“Find the armoury,” ordered Tobyn, to the six who had stood by him, “then prepare yourselves for the fight of your lives. Our hosts will not give us our freedom without a fight.”
With the force field no longer in place, the six escapees left the confines of their cages, and made their way towards the upper decks where they knew the armoury to be. Slaughtering any member of the crew they saw who tried to apprehend them. The automatons, who carried out the most menial or dangerous tasks, were reduced to piles of shimmering metal and sparking wires, if they were unlucky enough to cross their paths or stupid enough to attempt to block their way. Having found the armoury, they waited for Tobyn to join them. It wasn’t long before the tall, dark blue clad figure strode towards them. As he passed by, he beckoned them to follow him. There was a room he needed to use before leaving the ship, a room that would ensure he would never be captured again. Finding what he was seeking, he erected force fields around the entrance to secure it before entering, ordering his six followers to remain outside guarding the corridor.
In the main control room, Ilanthia staggered against the master control panel, random flashing lights indicated that the ship was beyond navigation, as a particularly savage pain gripped her body. She gasped with the suddenness of the onslaught and wrapped her arms tightly around her distended stomach, trying to reassure her unborn child as much as to ease the pain. She knew she had little time before her baby arrived into this unknown land they had found. Before she had a chance to straighten up and issue any further commands to her crew, another pain burned deep in her belly and she swayed into the arms of her husband Timius, who had rushed to her side. He urged her, against loud protestation about duty, mingled with groans of agony, to allow them to help her into an antechamber, where she could safely give birth. His gentle concerned voice, coupled with pain, persuaded Ilanthia to hand over the ship to her second in command. No sooner had she stretched herself out on a marble topped table, than she started to cry out louder than ever as she felt as though her body was being torn apart. Luckily, she was young, fit and healthy, and these new waves of agony lasted only moments. With an ear-splitting yell, a baby girl announced her presence to the world. Relief and pleasure at his daughter’s safe delivery, was marred by anxiety over the situation on the ship. Stroking his wife’s sweat-streaked forehead and trying not to alarm the exhausted woman more than necessary, he murmured, “I’m not sure we can hold off an attack my love, if the prisoners decide to fight their way in here. And we can’t flee the ship, since the air outside is toxic for you.” “Yes it is for me, Timius, but you can breathe an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Take our child to safety; I know you both can survive out there.” “I will never leave you,” he vowed, lifting her hand and kissing her fingertips. “But even if I could bring myself to do it, Tobyn would hunt us down to kill our child. I do not possess your art of conjury to protect her,” he said, smiling down at the infant. “Are any of the life pods still functioning?” she asked, bringing her husband out of his reverie. “The damage report stated only one survived the landing,” he replied.
The Wolf and the Sorceress Page 5