Enchantress Awakening: Part One of the Book of Water (The Elemental Cycle 1)

by Whitmarsh, J. W.

  “I feel I should know more about the White Lady.”

  “As should we all, we can but strive to be worthy of that knowledge.”

  “That is true; I thank you for your answers. I should join my companions now.”

  Caleigh ate in silence and did not explain why to the others for fear of disappointing them. Though she had not shared her hopes she felt that in some way she had inadvertently deceived them nonetheless. All her dreams had made her certain that if she went to the Shrine of Lost Souls she would find the answers she sought and see the White Lady as clearly as Albion had done. She now felt this was a foolish and vain hope. How many others before her had thought likewise and journeyed such as she had only to be disappointed? In this monastery there were those who dedicated their lives for that same hope. If she did not reveal herself to them then why would she do so for someone who had never thought to ask about her until very recently?

  That night Caleigh did not dream of the White Lady. Instead her visions were of a castle of ancient design built amid high rocks above the still, dark waters of a murky sea. Upon the shore nestled the broken remnants of a great many ships surrounded by scattered dark shapes on the sand between. Before this scene became clear there was a great crack like thunder the sky flared red. The castle at once began to crumble where it stood as if many centuries of age attacked it at once, sending massive chunks of broken masonry tumbling down and sloshing into the sea below, fading away just as the dream faded into the waking world of the following morning.

  Caleigh insisted on an early start, determined to get to the shrine as soon as possible, less out of eagerness to get there than out of fear of wasting her companions time further if her fears since speaking to Brother Adam proved true. With a few grumbles the party set out ere their breakfast had settled and began the descent into the valley.

  Penric and Ellie led on a short way in front of Caleigh, who dropped back to speak to Dana unheard by the others. Neither seemed to notice, Penric was too absorbed in keeping a careful watch lest monsters or thieves should erupt from the bracken clinging to the slopes either side of them, while Ellie’s concentration was taken up with trying to distract him from this task. “Are you troubled?” Dana asked when the smile at their antics gave way to an expression of concern on Caleigh’s face.

  “I know not what to expect at the shrine. The urge to get there has been so strong I had not truly questioned what I thought to find when I got there.”

  “Maybe it’s not important what is there.” Dana suggested. Caleigh thought about this for a moment.

  “You think I need simply to leave Connlad behind?”

  “Maybe you do, maybe not. I come to the shrine because it is a peaceful place and I find I can think clearly there. With all the change that is happening to you having a place to quietly think is worth its while.”

  “Perhaps, yet I had hoped for more.”

  “Whatever happens here, you still have a gift and that is going to change your life one way or another. That’s worth taking a few moments to think about, is it not?”

  “Yes, you’re right.” The more she thought about it the better Caleigh felt about the whole journey. While it was true they had come some way for her sake it was not an evil experience. Dana had planned this pilgrimage anyway, Penric had been given a chance to assume a role he had trained for and Ellie got to flirt with him and escape the daily disapproval she earned in Connlad. Moreover, between the green climbs, alpine trees and rising mountains this valley was far from an unpleasant place to be.

  Ahead the brook than ran parallel to their path emerged from under tree cover and thence they went following the sound of trickling water all the way. The dirt track wound up into a series of steps leading over high boulders to where the sound of water grew louder as it fell from high onto the rocks. Here, beside a small pool that wound off from the main way the party paused to make decisions. This was as far as Caleigh had ever come previously and they could not go any farther with the ponies at their side.

  “I will wait here with the steeds.” Penric quickly volunteered. “I have no need to go on.”

  “Then I will stay with you. I did not come for the sake of pilgrimage.” Ellie added.

  “Why did you come then?” Penric asked in surprise.

  “I came because I wished to step outside Connlad for a while.” Ellie answered.

  “Very well, if you are both glad to stay here Dana and I will meet you back here as soon as we are done.”

  Leaving them where they were Caleigh and Dana made their way up the winding stairs, half covered by moss and dirt, and flanked either side by slender branches to a vine-covered archway standing alone and marking the entrance to the shrine proper. Here Dana came alongside her younger friend. “I go right at this point; there is a little spot in the shade that I always tend to. Where will you go?”

  “The left way seems more familiar.”

  “Then I will wait for you here when I am finished.” With that Dana walked on through a gap in a broken wall and out of sight. Caleigh turned left over the weed strewn white tiles searching for sight of the precipice that lay behind the shrine. After a few minutes she found the room she was looking for with its familiar two-thirds wall by the entrance broken pillars at the back and most of all the open side looking down over a sheer drop into darkness and a greenery-draped rising cliff face beyond. It was just as she pictured it in her dreams, right up to the diagonal crack that ran halfway along the centre of the floor. The same place she had seen Caerddyn and Albion standing together beholding a light and she had stood herself seeing the white robed lady of peerless beauty.

  Dana had not lied when she said it was peaceful in the shrine, even the sighing of the wind in the leaves and the incessant birdsong that had accompanied them on the climb faded into inaudibility. The scuffing of Caleigh’s travel boots and the thump of her heartbeat were the only sounds louder than her tentative breathing.

  Yet in all this tranquillity it was all the more noticeable that she was alone. Her footsteps had taken her to the very edge of the precipice and there she had stood for long moments and still she was alone. Two days ago, had she experienced this moment she might have felt despair. As it was, both Brother Adam’s words and the advice of Dana served to temper the fall of her heart. It did not mean her gift was not real, perhaps what she had seen was not a vision from these times at all but a flash of the past like she had seen after hearing of Albion from Cynric.

  Her thoughts turned to the future and what to do once she returned to Connlad. It was clear that no matter what had happened here if she wanted to explore her talents further she would need the advice of those who knew more of magic than she or, for that matter, Dana either. Dana had told her outright and Cynric had hinted further that Tovrik had known that she was gifted. It was he, after all, who had left her what she needed to become literate. The natural thing must then be to contact Tovrik, who was ultimately the only living wizard she had ever heard tale of, and find out what it all meant. It was that or let her talent lie undeveloped and return to her unremarkable life in Connlad.

  For a moment she contemplated doing this, resuming the simple life that until so recently had seemed good enough. Resting her foot over the crack in the floor she stopped her pacing and just focussed on that thought alone. The question was simple in the end, was she able, now this door had been opened to close it and accept that it was not to be or, moreover, did she want to? A smile broke across her face, at last she realised what it meant to be chosen. Destiny cared naught for comfort or the plans of men and women; it visited whether it was welcome or no.

  Ready to leave, Caleigh turned to the cliff face one last time in an act of goodbye and standing there where she had stood herself mere moments before was a woman, tall and slender robed from head to ankle in shimmering white. “You’re here!” Caleigh gasped. Slowly, tantalisingly so, the woman in white turned, the flesh of her upper arm visible in the slit of her sleeve twisting round to show the curve whe
re her robe rode up on her full and very firm left breast then sliding round further so that hairs of dark blonde and light brown fell in front of the opening of her hood. Again, as she had been the first time she had seen it in her dreams, Caleigh was stunned by the beauty of the face that turned to look at her. Regal and startling; like a goddess of ancient times, whose perfectly chiselled cheekbones sat below eyes of the most sparkling, pale blue. Unusually for one whose beauty was so stark there was no sense of aloofness in her face, rather warmness spread out from her delicate mouth shaped into a smile of pure serenity.

  Now standing full on Caleigh was also taken back by the sheerness of the robe that plunged from a wide opening around her neck all the way to below her naval, showing much of her ample cleavage on the way then parting again midway down her thigh. A slim golden choker was the only adornment upon her translucent skin and her feet were covered by silver sandals that wound up around her ankle and to the lower part of her shins.

  For all the seeming tranquillity and calmness of the woman in white this was no casual appearance. In her peripheral vision Caleigh was aware of leaves being shredded apart by unseen pressures and that the very stones around her were singing with reverberations. “Caleigh” the woman in white spoke with the same resonating, melodious voice she had heard in her dreams, “we meet at last.”

  “Who are you?” Caleigh blurted out.

  “I am Loreliath.”

  “What is it that you seek, from me, Loreliath?”

  “I seek thy ears and thy heart to listen for a while. I beg of you, quell thy questions of now, for more answers will come to thee in thy turn.”

  “But why me?” Caleigh pleaded, unable to hold back the words that had lived in her head ever since she had first beheld the woman who now spoke to her.

  “I come to thee because thou art the very best soul to bear my message. Caleigh, enchantress and spellsinger, as too once was I. I called out to a thousand ears and thine were those that heard my voice. Well that thou didst for time is fleeting at the last. One thousand years of corruption have been visited upon the world and so have carved in the hearts of men a hole, deep, dark and wide enough for the Beast to rise again. This doom is now inevitable, yet defeat itself is not. Know thou of what I speak? Why should thee? Young eyes should not be asked to see all woes. For this I beg thy forgiveness.

  One thousand years ago there was a sorcerer named Xyraxis; the most brilliant of us all in a time when we were at our zenith. The world could not contain his thoughts and so he looked into the darkness for deeper knowledge. The darkness looked back at him and in his soul the Beast made a dwelling. Xyraxis; all powerful saw all the world as his to rule and offered either domination or death to those that dwelt upon it. War erupted and consumed every known land until at last we that opposed him made a final union to attack him at the heart of his domain. The greatest heroes and mages of the age assaulted his stronghold and broke through to his inner chamber. There we vied with him until all our strength was sapped and all our power expended. Though only six of all our number remained at the end we cast the Beast into the void and as the great demon was borne from his body Xyraxis was rent asunder and so the tyrant was vanquished and there the darkness should have died.

  Alas, that Xyraxis did not take with him all traces of his evil and his power when he departed. In the ashes of his ruin there remained five relics of his making; the gauntlets that covered his clawed hands, the cursed sword with which he slew so many good and innocent, the staff by which he wrought his dark arts, and the grim horned helm that matched his visage to the demon inside. In folly my fellows with whom I had stood side-by-side as we destroyed the evil one, decided to take these relics and use their great power to undo the harm Xyraxis had visited upon the world.

  For a time their aim was noble and so were their ends and I joined them in their labours. From wreck and ruin we saw a new world take seed and did our best to aid its growth and steer it to more virtuous paths than had been trodden before. Then, when the work was done they found reasons anew to hold on to the power they had claimed at Xyraxis’ fall. Again and again I urged them to relent and finally we met together to discuss how to destroy these lingering works of darkness. At that meeting I was betrayed and together they bound me in a prison to which I remain to this day, tethered in all but spirit.” Loreliath was quiet at this, as though exhausted by the fitting such weight of history, events and emotions into so short a speech. Caleigh felt it too, for all the might and majesty at its heart there was a human being who had suffered greatly for the wrongs of others. “Wonders thou, why they did not kill me? They were not without foresight or completely bereft of pity. It was my power most of all that hurt the beast and I was part of the spell that banished him. As long as I live my power keeps the Beast at bay, or so they believed. For a very long time I believed that they did not kill me as they intended to release me some day. I am certain that was their original plan, but as with all their good intentions this notion has long since gone awry.

  They were mistaken in their beliefs though. They thought that if they kept me alive it would be enough to hold back the Beast forgetting that they too were part of the spell. As each of them has let themselves be corrupted and has let darkness fill their hearts, so has the gate they held been opened. Alone I have striven but no longer can I strive alone. So now I ask of thee, bear this warning so that the Beast may not go unopposed.”

  “I will.” Caleigh stated. Loreliath smiled and then just as quickly the smile faded to a pensive look.

  “I would ask of thee a second great favour, too. The relics of which I spoke both attract the Beast and bind me. Should their masters relinquish them the forces of Darkness will be much weakened in their cause and so too I will be freed. The latter I would not ask for were it not joined with the former.”

  “Why would you not ask for your freedom?”

  “The task is great and perilous to any who would undertake it. My liberty alone is not worth that.”

  “I will do all I can for you.”

  “Do all that thou feel is right in thy heart. More than this, I cannot ask. Protect thyself thou hast a great destiny before thee, if such is thy wish.” Loreliath’s eyes shot skyward as if she had caught sight of a storm cloud above. “My prison draws me back once more. Fare well, Caleigh. I have seen thy heart and in it I trust. It is for this you are chosen.” A shadow drifted over the shrine and very suddenly Loreliath’s robes billowed forward and she disappeared into thin air. By the time the shadow had passed there was no trace of her or the power that had been present with her. She had gone and now it was left to Caleigh what to do next.

  6. Aftermath

  Dana did not need to ask Caleigh if she had seen what she had hoped to see. The experience was etched on her face in an expression that contained bewilderment, excitement and determination all at once. Silently they descended the steps together and re-joined their companions at the waterside where they had left them. Words were exchanged and somehow Caleigh related what had happened and what it meant for her, though in a daze of which she would recall little later.

  One thought did strike her clearly and came into focus a while later as they sat about the rocks at the water’s edge and ate their lunch; her friends seemed less surprised about her personal revelations than she was. “Well, we’ve always known you were a bit special.” Explained Ellie when pressed, “You don’t know what it’s like to be around you because you are you; ‘tis the one way in which your powers of perception fail you.”

  “How are you to use your gift?” Penric questioned. “I know not what a wizard does afore they open their first leaf of spells.”

  “Nor I, which is why I must see Tovrik as soon as I can.”

  “Is he really a wizard though, I always thought his shows were made of clever tricks rather than real magic. I seem to recall him revealing the secret to some of them and it was merely a matter of fooling the eye; clever, as I say, but not magic.”

  “Who’s to say wh
at the difference between cleverness and magic is. All I know is that he saw this happening to me before anyone else and so he must be my best hope for answers. Dana agrees with me.”

  “Why so, Dana?”

  “Oh, I’ve known Tovrik awhile and believe me, the reason you think what he does is not magic is because that is exactly his intent.”

  “Why would a real wizard pretend to be pretending to be a wizard?” Ellie posed.

  “No doubt he has his reasons. It is not wise to let everyone know that you are different. You two should remember that and not tell anyone else what Caleigh has told you.”

  “Surely it is safe…”

  “I mean it! If you want to keep your friend safe you’ll say naught to any.”

  “They understand, Dana.” Caleigh interceded. “I wonder how I will find Tovrik. He travels so much it will not be easy to track him.”

  “Stay in Connlad for now, he’ll come to you I’m sure.”

  “Tell us more about Loreliath, Caleigh. What did she look like, other than being beautiful?”

  “She has the most perfect face, far prettier than mine.”

  “Come now, Caleigh, you are being modest I’m sure.” Penric interjected.

  “No, I’m not being modest. If I were not me I would describe my face as pretty but I would fairly say that hers is prettier still. She was tall as well, nearly as tall as you, Penric, with very long legs.” Penric’s eyes widened at the description. No woman in Connlad looked like Loreliath. Caleigh wondered if any other did anywhere.

  They talked on but when all the food was eaten and had settled enough the party pressed on for the return journey. Not long into their sojourn they were enveloped in a fine spray of summer rain, the kind that while not heavy can soak a person thoroughly in a short space of time. Seeing the monastery before them, it seemed wise to stop there and wait for it to pass than risk ailment by carrying on in damp clothes.