Realm of Druids

by Mark Hogenelst

  After several years and showing promise, Strala was deemed ready to complete the final stages of her training in a gruelling magic program known as the ‘MaleficarumWitch Trials.’ The abandoned ruins of Blackmire Castle built over 2000 years ago were where the trials take place. This castle was built upon a mound in the southwest of the moors. It was unknown why the castle was built in that location, at that time, other than the high ground advantage within the surrounding West Marsh. What the witches’ do know however, that under the mound lay ancient catacombs with roots delving into corridors leading to the Dread-Realm, leftover from a millennium ago. A witch completing the trial is required to have attained a certain mental level. Numerous witches’ over the last 500 years have failed the trial and leave Blackmire to live a short mortal life as blithering non-cogs. Strala, like all initiates, performed the enchantment rite within dark chambers deep below Blackmire. The walls are covered in powerful glowing runes and glyphs, chosen due to the proximity of this realm and the Dread-Realm. Her mind was tested heavily when dark magic formulas flooded her thoughts, visions of a past and future world, alternate realities and creatures from the Dread-Realm whispered terrible but great secrets to her.

  Two months later Strala crawled out from the cellars of Blackmire, her body withered away, but her mental state heightened with magic knowledge. Her dull brown eyes now a vivid green, which indicated awareness of the black crafts. Emerging with a twisted and warped mind, she had managed to comprehend and retain the mental training. Strala was now officially a witch. After returning to the Bloodwood Coven, whatever kinship she may had felt towards Lady Cedonia was now gone. Like all witches’, Strala desired to become the coven leader. Thirty-five years later, she had her chance.

  13.

  SANIEL CARLOW

  After leaving the front of the Black Smith’s workshop, Saniel skipped through several streets. A mangy sausage-shaped looking dog with ears nearly as long as its legs and half its hair falling out ran across the road. Its brown ears flapped up and down comically in cadence with its steps. It paused on the far edge of the road and looked at Saniel briefly, then continued and disappeared behind a pile of firewood. The little brown village dog Saniel liked wasn’t anywhere to be seen, which was a shame. Saniel loved having this dog bumping his nose into Saniel’s heels as he walked along. It was nearly dark and if Saniel didn’t hurry, the night watchman would ring the curfew bell to clear the little village streets. He hurried around the corner into the main square and just managed to catch the seamstress as she began wheeling her small hand-drawn cart home. The ‘Mistress of Buttons’ as she is referred to, was not wealthy enough to own a pony.

  The cart bumped about over the uneven stone paving. ‘I’m after some cotton thread please miss. For my mother, you see.’ Saniel asked politely. ‘What colour does she want?’ replied the seamstress. ‘Saniel thought for a minute. ‘I don’t know, she never said.’ The seamstress looking down at the holes in Saniel’s brown trousers gave a little chuckle. ‘How about brown?’ Saniel following the seamstress’s eyes down to his pants where his two knobby knees protruded and replied, ‘Oh yes, of course, thank you.’ He gave the seamstress a coin from his mother and turned to leave. The seamstress looking up at the darkening night sky called to Saniel as he walked away. ‘You’d better hurry, lad. It has gotten dark quickly. Strange day, strange day.’ She muttered to herself as she wheeled her cart away.

  At least the stars and a full moon would come out; he thought to himself as he looked to the far end of the village square. Mrs. Henton was not there, nor was anyone else. They had already left. Saniel figured he probably had a half-hour of daylight left, as the large yellow sun had only its very tip showing above the horizon in the ocean to the far west. He knew that Mrs. Henton lived in her cottage on the far side of the village with her two small daughters Annabelle, Annalise, and about 20 chickens. He thought that he could run to her house pickup and pay for a half dozen eggs or whatever the small coin he clutched in his hand was worth, and then run home avoiding the night watchman before it got too late. He started at a jig jog rate. The wind had picked up a little and was coming in small gusts. It seemed to be westerly, coming straight off the moors and whistled through the woods into the village.

  A sudden flap of quick wings and a pinch to his ear frightened him. He darted sideways with a yell and looked up. A little yellow bird with blue wings was flying around his head a few feet away and just out of his reach. It was chirping noisily at him and darting down towards him and back up again out of reach. Saniel touched his ear and looked at his hand to see if there was any blood. ‘What do you want?’ He shouted to the bird. Bending down, he picked up a stone and made a gesture to throw it towards the bird. It chirped angrily at him and flew up into the air and eastwards to disappear over the rooftops into the woods. ‘I wasn’t really going to throw the stone at you!’ he yelled after it. Saniel soon forgot about the annoying ‘Blue Tat.’ and jogged down a quaint road lined by overgrown green and orange leafed hedges. Several little cottages sat tucked in behind these hedges and soon he darted up the front path of one and knocked on a faded red timber door. Mrs. Henton was confused to see Saniel out this late, knowing he lived on the far side of the village. Several pretty little brown and red hens worked busily in the front yard scratching and pecking at the ground. One stopped and stared curiously at Saniel for several moments as if studying him. After a brief pause, the hen continued its desperate search for bugs and seeds before being jostled off to the safety of its pen for the night by Annalise. It wasn’t long before Saniel was jogging back into the square on his way home with six eggs wrapped in some old linen and held tightly in his left hand. Sometimes it was an advantage to have six fingers he thought to himself. It was nearly dark and his mother no doubt would be getting worried about him. High clouds now raced across the sky but failed to conceal all the stars as enough light filtered down into the narrow streets.

  The full moon was rising over the tops of the woods to the east as if it had been waiting patiently for the sun to retire first. He was only a few minutes away from his cottage when he heard the curfew bell ring behind him back towards the centre of the village. He grinned to himself. Even if they saw him, those slow old watchmen would never catch him. He rounded the bend into Woodward Road. A few cottages sat quietly on his road and the odd candle in a window here, and there scarcely threw much light out. Some sheep were bleating frantically in the distance somewhere. ‘Sheep are silly creatures,’ thought Saniel. ‘They don’t need much of a reason to carry on like that.’ He laughed to himself. ‘If the moons out, they’ll cry at it. If it’s windy, they’ll make a huge fuss like crazy things.’ The mangy sausage dog he had sighted earlier suddenly appeared and ran across his path barking frantically and glancing behind as it wobbled quickly away. Saniel was startled somewhat, as he was buffeted by a strong cold wind. As he thought about the wind, it suddenly developed into large sporadic gusts that made him sidestep to keep his balance. He slowed down to a walk, holding the eggs tightly in his coat. He hunched his shoulders and faced his head down sideways trying to avoid the strong wind gusts and the stinging pieces of flying gravel that came with it.

  He was two doors down from his cottage when he walked into a strange cold pocket of still air. An overwhelming sensation then came over him. A deafening roar began inside his head, and a state of giddiness pulsed through him, causing him to shut his eyes tightly. The inside of his head felt like it was on fire and his left hand ached so severely, that he could hardly move his fingers. He stopped entirely and dropped the eggs, pushing both his hands hard against his ears and groaning. Several egg yolks ran from their broken shells along the ground and immediately froze. What was happening to him? The sixth sense of danger suddenly swept over him as he doubled over in pain. With his head still pounding, he managed to open his eyes and look up. A huge shaggy grey and white dog had appeared directly in front of him growling loudly. It's pale white eyes caught the sheen of the moon. Long fron
t legs spread wide with it's head low and top lips curled high, revealing great white teeth. It was looking directly at him and began to crouch lower as if preparing to leap. Saniel had never felt this terrified in all his life, he shook his head and instinctively turned to escape.

  If he had been frightened of the dog, it was nothing compared to what he saw when he turned to stagger the other way. Saniel forgetting about the dog’s appearance completely looked on in horror as a man-like figure with pale, almost glowing skin stood in his way. A blast of cold air battered Saniel’s face, forcing him to take a step backward. This thing that resembled a grown man was tall and thin and wore a black overcoat of sorts with the cowl pulled right back behind its head and revealing a thin pale face with long milky white hair. The white hair whipped about in the wind around this thing’s face. Through the wisps of hair, Saniel could make out a mouth with a wicked smile and then the thin lips parted in a silent laugh to reveal pointed white teeth. Bright icy blue eyes sparked for an instant in recognition as it stared unblinkingly at the boy. With a jerking motion, this thing took a step towards Saniel, reaching quickly towards him with long extended fingers. Saniel jumped sideways in an attempt to vault over the small stone wall into Mrs. Willoughby’s yard. With his head pounding, another spate of giddiness overcame him, and the valiant leap turned into an awkward trip. Saniel fell over the low wall, to land in the front yard and slipped into unconsciousness.

  Saniel opened his eyes after what felt like an eternity but was only a few seconds later. He was lying on his back in frosty wet grass. The grinning apparition was leaning over the low wall reaching towards him with both boney hands and only inches from his face. The wind continued to howl, as the full moon sat in the sky behind this thing. For a split second Saniel looked to the sky illuminated around the moon, and it appeared that the clouds had frozen in place. Then the roaring pounding sensation in his head subsided, and he no longer felt quite as giddy. He tried to crawl backwards on his hands and stared hard at this thing. As Saniel crawled back, five frigid fingers curled around his left ankle with a loud click and gripped hard. Instantly an intense cold biting ache speared into his ankle, and the thing hissed in satisfaction. Saniel could feel a freezing throb creep slowly up his leg. In pain, he reached out with both hands in an attempt to push the thing away. A comfortable, warm sensation then radiated down his left arm. Saniel’s eyes suddenly began to glow an intense bright clear blue, and in a split second, a long sharp gout of blue flame burst from Saniel’s fingertips directly into the face of the apparition. Screaming horribly, the apparition let go of Saniel’s ankle and fell back into the road.

  Draugens fear little, but what they do fear most of all is fire, particularly the blue arcane flame. It flayed about wildly on the ground emitting horrible cry’s as the blue fire engulfed first hair and face and then ate its way along the rest of the body of the thing turning it into a black curled shrivelled outline of a figure. Then finally becoming silent and still, the flames receded and disappeared. Saniel stood up, holding the stone wall with one hand as his legs were shaking badly. His head was clear, the pain from the cold grip in his ankle was fading fast and apart from confusion and fright, he was relatively unharmed. He cried and sniffed loudly as he stumbled backward across the lawn to Mrs. Willoughby’s front door. Eerily, the wind had now wholly disappeared, but the freezing chill still hung in the air. His eyes were on the charred, shrivelled lump that now had thin wisps of blue smoke rising out of it.

  He then noticed that the huge dog was still on the road; it had moved forward and was sniffing the charred remains of its companion. It was cautious, as fire had no place in the moorlands and it was unsure of what to do next as it had been following the commands of the Draugen witchling. It was confused, and continually sniffed the air attempting to discover the source of the fire. Saniel gathered his wits and looked across the green hedge over to his mother’s front yard. In his attempt to jump over the hedge, he elegantly crashed through it to land on the grass in front of his house. He scrambled to his feet and ran across his front yard to the open door. A soft knocking rhythmic noise seemed to be coming from upstairs inside the house.

  He could hear the beast panting heavily behind him and could almost feel its breath on the back of his neck as he slammed the wooden door shut with a loud crash. He could hear the hound breathing heavily behind the front door. He put the latch on the door and backed into the little sitting-room where a comfortable log fire was burning. Saniel screamed for his mother, but silence answered him. He quickly skipped up the steps to the small landing near his mother’s bedroom. Saniel looked through the open door into his mother’s room frantically calling her. A candle was lit, sitting on top of a small dresser. In the flickering shadows, he saw his mother. She lay on the edge of her small straw bed with her eyes open to seemingly stare at the ceiling of her little room. Her clothes had been torn, and blood covered her neck and upper body. Saniel howled and shook uncontrollably, as his cries turned into deep sobs. He stumbled towards his mother, his stomach wrenching. A loud crash downstairs saw the great hound hurdle over the broken front door and stand in the tiny hallway looking left then right and sniffing hard.

  Saniel jumped at the sound and stifled a scream. He looked around in desperation and again heard a soft knocking noise. With all feeling having returned to his left hand, he wriggled his fingers as his palm itched strangely still. However, he had much more pressing concerns on his mind at that moment. A blue string hung down in the corner of his mother’s room that accessed the attic. With nowhere else to go, Saniel tugged desperately on the string. A small trapdoor opened to release a brown rope ladder that unrolled and fell to the ground with a light bump. The hound let out a loud blood-curdling howl and in one large bound, leapt up the stairs to land outside his mother’s bedroom door. Unable to stop, it skidded across the small landing and into the wall, causing a picture to drop to the floor and smash. Saniel was at the top of the ladder by then and pulled it up quickly with him into the dusty attic. The trapdoor sprung closed into place with a quick click. Saniel sat on the ground sobbing quietly, huge tears dripped down his cheeks as he held his arms around his knees rocking back and forth.

  Large, heavy thumps could be heard and felt as the hound jumped up and hit against the floor of the attic, making the little room shake. The soft knocking noise ignored till now grew louder, and it was then in the near pitch-black attic that Saniel saw a glow. A pure bright strange light was coming from one corner of the room. Crawling on the floor towards it, he could make out the source of the light that appeared to be coming from a trunk sitting on the floor in front of some old wooden boxes and a large coil of rotting rope. Dust flew up off the floor as another crash underneath him caused the room to shake again. Some unknown object fell off a shelf and clattered along the floor next to him. The hound howled loudly and seemed to renew its efforts of crashing against the floor underneath. As he got closer, he could make out individual light beams shining out through cracks and gaps in the timber sides and lid of the trunk. Saniel paused for a second then flung open the lid of this trunk. A bright white light immediately flooded the entire attic, illuminating a great deal of it and showing the steep thatched underlining of the cottage roof.

  Saniel quickly shaded his eyes with the back of his hand until the light faded to a level where Saniel could look into the trunk. The source of the light appeared to be coming from a small oval gemstone sitting on top of a pile of old clothes. It was about the size of a Hazelnut and was of a hard-translucent substance covered with tiny strange engravings and blue whirling patterns throughout its centre. The gem was a Moonstone, which Saniel had heard were very rare. He had listened to his mother speak of these, how several were traded from mysterious travellers long before he was born. The stone seemed alive, and Saniel was unable to draw his eyes away from it. As he watched the blue whirling patterns seemed to move about inside this clear stone changing shape like wisps of thin smoke. A silver plate was moulded cleverly over
one end of the Moonstone and had a heavy linked silver chain attached to carry it. Without a second thought, he reached into the trunk and picked up the Moonstone with his left hand. It felt warm and comfortable in his hand and was surprisingly light. His six fingers automatically curled over and held it firmly. It gave off radiance of warmth and power, and Saniel felt immediately calmer and at ease. The silver chain swayed beneath the stone in a hypnotic type fashion. The hound in the room directly below him let out a deafening howl that Saniel did not hear. He had found the Moonstone Talisman hidden in his father’s trunk.