Prince, Prelude-Legend

by Claudy Conn

  It was driving Maxie crazy. What did it all mean? How could she dream about a perfect stranger? And that was not all of it. Maxie dissected the dream sequence, for unlike other dreams or nightmares she could recall perfectly the details of this dream. Each night she was allowed to view more of the story. That was exactly as she thought of it—a ‘story’…a true story…

  This morning she had awakened with a clear fact lodged in her mind. The woman in the dream was an ancestor of some sort. Right then, why dream about her now? What was the dream trying to convey to her? A warning? Yes. Of that she was sure. “Well, why not do some good and just tell me what the blazes I need to be warned about?” she asked out loud.

  Perhaps, as she had often teased her brother, fate is not predetermined. Fate is not an absolute. Perhaps one can alter the outcome of events …?

  Fine. A warning. Life or death warning? What? She railed at her dream in silent frustration, Tell me!

  How the devil was she going to protect Julian, her family, herself from an unknown? It wasn’t fair, and telling herself as Danny often did that “life wasn’t meant to be fair” was no help whatsoever!

  Was the dream trying to teach her something she needed to know? Yes. Maxie did think that might be so.

  Jehu was Julian’s double in many ways, and yet he was a stranger…

  She had watched their story unfold. It was Jehu and Madelyn. They were about to be blessed with their first child. The community they were a part of was prosperous. It was a thriving assembly of close-knit, amiable neighbors whose lives were highly structured around their religious beliefs…but it really wasn’t quite a religion. They were artists, musicians, healers…Druids…she rather thought they were Druids!

  An overshadowing threat hovered over them, and they were aware of the danger. Their existence was protected by more than physical force, and still they appeared to be in hiding. Yes, that was it. They kept to themselves, hiding their existence from the rest of …Scotland.

  She and Julian—or rather their souls—had been united in the past. It wasn’t physical, but spiritual. Their love had been carried through time to the moment their souls met again…to now.

  Their essence, their auras, were linked by love in spite of time. Somehow in the past, they had been separated. Something awful had happened to them. What? What had interrupted their time together in the past? Theirs had been a limitless, timeless love.

  She heard talk in her dream community, talk of the Romans—of Julius Caesar. Maxie knew her history, knew this meant that Jehu and Madelyn must have existed around the year AD 80. Even so, when she awoke she rushed to her father’s library to read by candlelight. She scanned through English and Scottish history texts to confirm what she already knew.

  These people, her people—Druids—had been forced into hiding by the early Christians, but they would then be nearly destroyed by the Romans…nearly, but not quite. They were the Druids. She was a Druid.

  It was not known how Druids came to be because they existed before the written word. However, it was strongly believed that the Tuatha Dé had created Druids by co-mingling with humans. This was believed because Druids had powers that came from the blood, passed on by blood. They had knowledge beyond all other humans. They served the Fae in many ways and yet retained their independence even when the Fae had walked and fought beside them.

  After breakfast she had needed to clear her head and so took her horse out for a ride, but once again she felt herself drift off into a vision. She pulled her horse to a stop and slowly dismounted, moving trance-like as she tethered the reins to a low, heavy branch of a large oak tree. Leaving her horse to graze contentedly on the rich grass, she sank slowly to the shaded turf.

  Mystery had always surrounded the Druids. Many theories, many stories, but very few facts. Did her father know? Of course. So did her mother. She realized this as soon as she asked herself the question. From which did her Druid blood come? From both. Yes, she knew this as well. It was as though rockets exploded and illuminated the answers in her mind. Would her parents tell her the truth if she confronted them?

  What were her parents so afraid of? Not fitting in. They needed to fit in with the world around them. They needed her to do the same.

  Her eyelids started to close, but she knew she was safe beneath the sacred oak. Its leaves seemed to caress her, envelop her within its huge, lush folds. Softly the breeze wafted through the thick green leaves. She felt its gentleness stroking away all fear as the familiar voice whispered in her ear, “Oak. All oak trees are sacred to the Druids. Remember this. The Realm binds all Druids. Come to the oak with your fears. We are bound by the Realm.”

  Even as Maxie lay her head down and fell into a deep sleep, she was conscious that this was a truth, one of many important truths she must learn about the Druids and this thing they called the Realm. All at once, she was with them again, her people—Madelyn’s people—and she heard herself call for her brother, “Danny…Danny, come with me this time, Danny … I need you …”

  * * *

  Danny Reigate’s shipbuilding business in New York was taking a great deal of his time. He had expanded the business to include a partner, Kennet Silbury, a school chum who had followed Danny to New York. Kennet was to take his crew to the port of New Orleans and continue to expand.

  Kennet was a third son, with little more than a small living. In London he would never have been able to continue the kind of lifestyle his family enjoyed, but he found that he loved America with all its wild possibilities. Thus, he decided to throw in with his best friend and make a royal go of it. Kennet had never before worked a day in his life, but he quickly learned that he had a knack for running a business. More than a knack really…he loved running a business. His expertise was in sales. He didn’t know how to design a ship, like Danny did, but he was a damn good captain at sailing them, which was also a great asset. He had already been to New Orleans and saw great opportunity waiting there to expand what Danny had started in New York. Thus, they set up the Reigate-Silbury Corporation in New Orleans.

  Danny’s skills lay chiefly in the architectural design of big ships. He was vigorously working on something new for the successful, broad-based industry. Designing ships was his passion, and he was thrilled with its results. He had never believed that his ships would be in such demand.

  Tonight, Danny was alone in his study, thinking of the son he believed would be born to them soon. A playful slap touched his face, and a familiar, beloved scent accompanied the touch. He turned to stare at the harbor. All at once, replacing all other thoughts, all other considerations, he saw his sister—vividly, as though she were only a few feet away.

  She was more than a vision. She was real. She was with him. They were near a field. She was lying down under a massive oak. He thought of it as a great oak tree.

  The sun was ablaze. He could smell lilac on the breeze and could see it growing wildly against the fence line. Everything was real. There was no doubt of it. This was all real. He was standing nearer now…nearer to his sleeping sister.

  She was curled up. A mist…some freakish mist was closing in. Sparkling lights, small—each light so small…yet brilliant. He hurried towards her. And then he heard the voice. It was authoritative, dominant, and yet kindly. There was no question of disobeying its command. He was told to wait.

  He waited and was content that Maxie was not in any immediate danger. He was sure of it, and so he waited. He heard her in her sleep call his name.

  He had been brought here to this familiar field, to a place he and Max had often raced across on their horses. A force had brought him here to her, an outside force, and it was then that words echoed in his ear: “The Realm.”

  He and Max were being pulled within the force of the Realm. He had no clear idea of what the Realm was, but the word reverberated in his brain. What did the Realm want with Max—with him? He had been brought to Maxie, so it appeared the Realm had great power … but power for what purpose?

  All at
once he knew he would be forever bound to heartache, heartache for his sister. If he did not do his part, all would be lost.

  “Daniel, you hold the outcome.” He had to help Max somehow, or they would never be free. Again, he heard the sound of Maxie calling him. She needed him.

  The command to wait was lifted. He felt himself drifting, gliding towards her. He reached for her outstretched hand. Brother and sister stared into one another’s green eyes, “Danny. You are finally here.” Maxie accepted immediately what she saw as fact. She got to her feet and into his arms. “Oh Danny, I have missed you so much.”

  “Am I losing my mind?” He asked her, “How is this possible?”

  All at once they were being swept away. She clung to his hand. He frowned as he held hers through the whirlwind of magic. “Well, that was a ride.” She laughed but found him staring and speechless. She got serious. “Danny, have you always known? Have you always known and kept me in the dark?” It was clear she was hurt. She had trusted him.

  “Known that there was this?” He was astounded and confused. This touching, traveling, spinning, was all new to him. “No.”

  “Not about this. Have you always known that we are Druids? That we are part of a whole, part of the hidden world of Druids?”

  His green eyes opened wide with surprise and then filled with sudden understanding. “So that is it?”

  Maxie laughed. “Well, that answers my question then.”

  His father had taken him into the attic and told him their family possessed certain powers and abilities. His father had shown him a jewel and had said it was always handed down to a son or a daughter…

  There was no time for more thought or conversation. They were hurtling once more through time. A soft voice filled the air. “Patience…”

  ~ Fifteen ~

  LAMIA LOOKED AT DuLaine Castle as it loomed a dark shadow in the moonlit night.

  Finally! She listened as her coachman called for her stable boys and watched as they came running. One lad hopped up to take a seat beside the coachman as he led the horses the remaining distance to the large, square courtyard. There the coachman blew on his horn, announcing the arrival of the castle’s mistress to the house staff.

  Shamon jumped from the coach and held his hand out to his lady. As Lamia stepped from her barouche she breathed a sigh of relief. She was home, and soon she would be rid of all her uncertainties, rid of the fatigue, and rid of that damnable voice in her head!

  She turned a smile to Shamon. “Wake Nell slowly. See to her needs. She is to be my maid for…a time.” She then swept past him up the stone steps and through the open doors the butler was sleepily holding open for her.

  Lamia moved hurriedly inside, dropping her fur-trimmed long velvet cape into her butler’s waiting arms. Her greeting was civil, and she silently applauded herself for remembering his name. “Neully…how nice. Have refreshments brought to me in the library.”

  “Right away, m’lady, right away.” He hurried off to see that this was immediately taken care of in the kitchen. Theirs was a full staff with very few demands even when their mysterious mistress was at home. None of the household had any complaints.

  Lamia moved into the library and went straight to one of the fully packed shelves of books and manuscripts that lined either side of the huge fireplace. There she drew down a deep and simply designed clay pot. She reached into its depth and clutched the loose, dry soil it contained. It was the earth of her ancestors, carefully stored and silently revered.

  A spark of something, a feeling long ago experienced, shot through her body, startling her into taking a step backwards. She dropped the soil back into its container. Carefully she returned the clay pot back to its resting place. She moved to another shelf where an ornately carved dark oak box resided. In its red velvet interior folds she found a selection of blue stone fragments and hurriedly put them to her forehead.

  She waited as moments ticked by. Nothing. She felt no relief. What the bloody hell was wrong? She was home with her earth, her stones. She was home amongst the most powerful of her stone fragments. These were the stones that had been originally used in her first sin—a sin that had taken her from the inner circle to a prison where she had been held, where her captors had demanded she recant.

  She still suffered the miserable haze. It permeated her brain and her body. A long-forgotten vision of her people floated through her mind’s eye. Her people? Her people were gone, wiped off the earth, banished from her sight. She was unto herself. Alone.

  “Not gone, not wiped off the earth…” The voice she had learned to hate whispered in her ear, “They are scattered, they live in secret, but they live still…”

  She moved away from the damnable sound. Why the hell was his voice so very familiar? It was a voice from her past; she was sure of it. A voice from the past…a past that included the Realm.

  How she now hated the sound of the word. She hated the way it made her feel. She hated what it made her remember. She had abandoned that life.

  “Still thou art Druid.” The voice persisted and then in soft accents repeated, “Thou art Druid.”

  “Noooooo!” Lamia screamed and stopped abruptly as the butler knocked at the library door. “Not now. Later! Later!” she shouted at the poor man.

  She rushed to the library door, locked it, and then turned to the invisible voice. “This is not happening to me. I am Lamia DuLaine. My blood is what I have made it.” She began pacing. “I will force this all away. I will think of the many transgressions I committed that the Druids despise. Does that not disgust you, Keeper? Yes, I see that it does. I feel your revulsion. Leave me then. Leave me with the evil world I have created for myself. I am Lamia DuLaine, and my power is unchallenged.”

  She did, in fact, focus her thoughts on the memory of both Shamon and Nell pleasing her in bed only hours before, hoping to turn the Keeper away.

  The voice interrupted her efforts. “Lamia DuLaine, banished yet always a part of the whole, joined by blood, divided by desire—”

  “Divided by hatred!” Lamia screamed. She spun around, looking for her tormentor.

  “Divided by desire. Think truth, know truth, Lamia DuLaine.”

  “Truth? You should remember the truth. The Realm murdered my mother and father!” Lamia spat out the words. She was nearly foaming at the mouth. Her head ached, and she blinked against the genuine pain.

  “You distort truth, and you know why you do it.”

  “No.”

  “Recall the truth, DuLaine.”

  “No.”

  “Cringe before its might. Thou art Druid. Thou art Lamia DuLaine, apart, and yet still thou are Druid and bound by our laws.”

  “No longer, no longer Druid. My blood has been altered, infected. I am what I have made myself. I am more than thee. I am immortal…Druids die—I do not. Even you, Keeper, you are but a lingering shadow!” She sneered. “Take that for truth!”

  “Thou art Druid,” the voice repeated sadly. “Thy soul is tainted, thy blood is tainted, but Druid thou art.”

  Before Lamia could whip out the snarling response that sprang to her lips, she felt herself yanked away by a force she could not shake. She felt hands—many hands—take her body and throw her into a vortex of swirling light. She was traveling through a space in time she had no power over. They took her back in time….and she cried out in utter despair, “Nooo….no…release me…you have no right…”

  And then she was theirs.

  * * *

  Danny and Maxie were immersed in light. They felt a presence all around them and knew that they walked with their ancestors. They moved unseen through the Berwick Temple, the Temple of the Berwick Druids.

  They watched their Druid ancestors dance with joy. They watched them converse with one another, appearing to hold one another with great affection. They were one of many hidden Druid sects, a self-sufficient community.

  They watched their people chant, kneeling before the high-rising blue sarsen boulders, performing rit
uals that had been agreed upon when the Tuatha Dé Danaan had first blessed them with their powers. One of those powers was the gift of mind linking, and it was there in that circle that Maxie and her brother began the journey to understanding. They were drawn into the circle.

  Scenes moved along quickly then with a blast of light and an explosion of static electricity in the air. Max and Danny stood in horror, for out of the light, the Romans arrived!

  It was not unexpected. The Druids had known the fierce conquerors would come and attack. The Druids had also been warriors, but their numbers were no match for the Romans. They could not dive into a bloodthirsty battle. They could not win in the conventional way.

  They looked to their Fae benefactors, but the Fae could not—or at least would not—interfere in the larger scope of things. The Fae did, however, endow the Druids with additional abilities and powers. After all, the Druids had been chosen to serve and protect the Fae, and that had to continue.

  And so the Berwick Druids prepared for the battle with the Romans, but in quite an unusual way, their way. They needed to join with other Druids throughout Scotland, England, and Ireland. They needed to survive.

  So it was that the Berwick priests met with the High Council. Most Dark sorcery had been forbidden, long ago. Its use was allowed only to protect the continuation of the community as a whole. Now was such a time, and long-unused skills of the elders would be once again implemented as they had been in the past.

  The Fae were immortal, but Druids were human and could be killed, slaughtered by the Romans. At one time the Fae had considered blessing some Druid lines with immortality, but that course had its consequences and was put aside as unwise. The Fae had not granted this boon to their precious Druids, but they did allow chosen Council elders something else.

  Chosen Druids could forsake their bodies, trusting that their souls would be re-united in the hereafter. The spirits of Council elders who chose to forsake their bodies would govern over the Realm forever. Such an elder would be known as the Keeper. It was an ancient ritual known only to the Fae, and it was the Fae who joined with the elders to enact it just before the Romans stormed.