The King lowered his voice still further “If that was the case, she would ha’e done it by now. The Loch Nagar witch cinnae stop it. In fact, she made it worse. The power she used tae close the hole tae protect her land created a backlash. The holes began appearing more frequently and much bigger and stronger than before.”
“I dinnae understand….” Fergus stammered.
“The holes migrated across the country,” the King replied. “They began in the West Country, and as they gained strength, they moved here. They converged on Urlu, each time getting’ stronger and stronger and causin’ more destruction than ever. Do ye understand now, lad? The power causin’ these things tae appear is coming from Urlu. It’s the curse come back again, and it’s convergin’ on its source.”
Hazel froze. Fergus cast a sidelong glance at her, but she didn’t take her eyes off the King. Ever so slowly, he turned to meet her gaze, but he didn’t confront or accuse her. He gave her a kindly smile.
“Ye’re one o’ us, lass,” he told her. “Ye’ve more power in yer little finger than ye ken ought tae do wi’, and we can help ye, but ye mun’ help us, too. Do ye understand?”
Hazel’s chin fell to her chest. “I never meant to cause all this trouble with that spell. If there’s any way I can stop it, I’ll do it. I just don’t know how.”
“This power is movin’ toward ye, lass,” the King replied. “We dinnae ken what it’ll do when it finds ye. That’s all we ken aboot it. The witch’s power fed the thing and pushed it this way. Who can say what it would ha’e done if she hadnae used her power tae close it. Perhaps it would ha’e drifted out tae sea and become naught. We’ll ne’er ken. The holes ha’e come across the West and o’er the outer lands surrounding Urlu. It’s ainly a matter o’ time afore they come tae yer brother’s castle. Ye mun’ warn him.”
“There mun’ be a way tae stop ’em,” Fergus remarked.
“Ye ken that best o’ any,” the King replied. “Ye and yers ha’e fought the power o’ the curse a dozen times and won. Ye mun’ rally the Urlus tae fight this thing. The Faery’ll stand wi’ ye, but we’ll neither o’ us defeat it alone.”
“It’s no fightin’ that’ll defeat it,” Fergus told him. “Ainly the magic that caused it in the first place can stop it. We learned that last time.”
“All the more reason fer ye tae inform yer brothers. Dozens o’ people ha’e awready lost their lives tae this thing, and dozens more will do the same as it builds strength. Once it enters Urlu, it may be too strong tae stop at all. Ye mun’ act immediately.”
“We cinnae act when we dinnae ken how tae counter the thing,” Fergus pointed out. “The spell worked last time, but we dinnae ken if it’ll work this time. We may find it makes the thing stronger, the same way it did wi’ the witch.”
“We could ask her,” Hazel suggested. “We could find out what she did. Maybe she could help us adjust the spell to close the hole.”
“If we stop the curse from acting this way,” Fergus replied, “then ye and yer friends’ll go back tae yer own world.”
“Well, what’s the solution?” she asked. “I would rather go back than watch people die and the country laid waste. I’m sure Elle and Carmen would agree if they knew what was going on.”
Fergus bowed his head. He already knew it was true. This curse caused enough problems. No single person could put their own desires before the good of the whole country.
“Do as ye consider best,” the King told them. “I’ll leave the details tae ye, ainly inform yer brother immediately so the Urlus have time tae prepare. It’s no just a matter of the public safety any lainger. We mun’ find out where this thing has sucked all that stuff. We mun’ find the Stone o’ Destiny and return it tae Scone Abbey. The fate o’ the country depends on’t.”
“I dinnae kenned the Stone affected the Kingship of Faery, too,” Fergus remarked.
“It doesnae simply affect the Kingship of Faery,” the King replied. “It is Faery. Most people dinnae ken it, but the Stone harbors all the secret power separating Faery from the human world. If we dinnae recover the Stone, the border will disappear and Faery will cease tae be. The human world will occupy all known space, and all the magical world’ll fade away itnae naught.”
Fergus bowed. “I better go inform Angus, then.”
“Good lad. Off ye go, then.”
Fergus’s hand shot out. “Sir!”
The King and his retainers turned back in the act of leaving the clearing. “What is it, lad?”
“How shall I contact ye if Angus requires to send ye a message? How shall we call on ye when the time comes?”
“Ye can return tae the mound,” the King replied. “Ye’ll find summat tae pass the word.”
Chapter 4
Fergus passed his hand across his eyes for the second time, but he couldn’t clear his thoughts. The King’s message struck deep into his mind. So the curse was back and marauding the landscape with forces no one could stand.
When he checked Hazel’s reaction to the news, he couldn’t believe his eyes. She didn’t stand slumped and beaten at finding out. Whatever this latest scourge turned out to be, it converged on her. She acted as a focal point for the curse and all the forces emanating from it.
He scrutinized her face in the lamplight. She fixed her eyes on the spot where the King and his men disappeared. Her magic created this curse, so she must be the one who could defeat it. Fergus believed that now more than ever.
He spun away on his heel to leave. “Come alaing, lass. It’s late awready.”
She shook herself out of her reverie. “I guess it was too much to hope that it wouldn’t come back. At least we know we can defeat it. We just have to find out how.”
“Aye, that’s the spirit,” he replied. “Ye’ve done it once’t. Ye can do it again. The first step means embracin’ yer power. Ye’ll no master’t by shovin’ it down where it cinnae be seen.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Do you have the power to cast spells and stuff? Maybe we could work together.”
“I dinnae ha’e that kind o’ power. I ha’e the power o’ vision.”
“You’ve never tried. You might find out you did have it.”
He shook his head. “I tried it once’t. I tried once’t on the road wi’ Angus and the others. Rob asked me tae try, but it didnae do naught. The next time Ross came around, he told me no tae try’t again. He said tae stick tae me visions, that that’s where me power lay, and I believed him.”
She fell in at his side on their way back through the forest. “I wish we could find Ross now. It would be nice to have a wizard with his power around right about now.”
He stopped and faced her. “Dinnae wish fer Ros, lassie. We ha’e the most powerful wizard we could wish fer, and that’s ye. Ye’re the ainly person on God’s green Earth that can stop this ’ere thing, and ye mun’ bend all yer will tae do it.”
She cast her eyes to the ground. “I know. I just don’t want to believe it. Every time I have to fight this thing, I have to face the fact that I’m the one who caused it in the first place.”
“Ye’ve naught tae be sorry aboot that,” he returned. “Ye didnae ken ye were Faery at all, and ye didnae ken ye had the power tae cast that spell. Ye made a mistake. That’s all. Plenty of Faery people ha’e done the same thing.”
Her eyes popped open. “They have?”
“Do ye ha’e any idea how many Faery live in the human world wi’ no notion o’ who or what they are?” he asked her. “I cinnae tell ye how many o’ ’em ha’e cast spells withoot meaning tae. Most times, they pass it off as a coincidence, or a freak o’ the weather, or summat o’ that nature. No one thinks a thing aboot’t. Sometimes it comes to summat greater than that, but still the people pass it off as summat unexplained. No one e’er considers wee Jackie MacDougal might ha’e caused it.”
A hint of a smile crept over Hazel’s face. “I never thought of that.”
“Ye’re Faery, lass,” he told her. “Ye cast a spell�
�naught more than that. Now’s yer chance tae fix it. That’s all ye need tae ken aboot it.”
Hazel cast a glance over her shoulder. “It did seem like he didn’t really mind about…. you know, about me.”
Fergus took her hand automatically. “If any mon on Earth understands, it’s him. Ye’ve naught tae fear from him.”
She nodded. “I’m starting to realize that.”
They strolled through the moon-washed forest. Now that they moved out of the lantern light, a cold, frosty atmosphere descended over the woods. The wind picked up and bit colder. Fergus quickened his pace. He had to get back to the castle. His message prickled inside him to be told.
He pictured his brothers’ faces surrounding him. Angus. Robbie. Ewan. Callum. The Urlu Royal family would face this situation if anybody would. They could face anything together.
He skirted the mound where the party still rollick in full swing. The moonlight played over the grass while light and music and laughter disturbed the night. Fergus didn’t care. He didn’t want to go back to the party now.
The river snaked its glistening body through the woods beyond the mound. Just a few more steps, and he would cross the plains headed for the drawbridge. He tightened his grip on Hazel’s hand. He couldn’t let go of her. She held the key to this whole mystery.
He pushed through the trees to the gravel ford. Hazel strode at his side. She didn’t hesitate to face this, either. She wanted to. She always rose to the occasion when the hammer came down.
His heart skipped a beat in breathless anticipation. He entered the last trees and pressed forward when something groaned in the woods behind him. He cocked his ear once and heard the noise again, only louder this time. It creaked over the strains of music coming from the mound.
He didn’t stop walking. Did Hazel understand? He never knew and didn’t stop to consider. He made a dash for the river when a massive freezing wind struck him in the face. He squinted against it, but it ripped his hair away from his head and tore at his clothes.
He tried to push forward, but it forced him back. Leaves and dust stung his eyes. He turned his head to protect his face, and the wind forced him around the rest of the way. That’s when he saw it—a massive black hole ripped in space. It hung in space above the grass, blacker than the darkest night.
A gale-force wind sucked everything in sight into that hole. Screams tore across the mound. The lanterns bobbed on their strings between the branches. The ropes gave way, and the lanterns winked out in the gaping pit.
Fergus struggled to keep his footing, but the wind tugged him toward the hole against his will. He staggered, but he managed to keep hold of Hazel’s hand. Her red hair blew straight out from her head. She tried to steady herself, but the wind pushed her back, too.
The pair stumbled a few steps in the direction they just came. Fergus clenched Hazel’s fingers in a white-knuckle grip, but she yanked her hand free and made a dash for the nearest tree. She took shelter behind the trunk. The hole’s sucking force wedged her behind the tree so the hole couldn’t pull her to her doom.
The air beating against Fergus’s body wouldn’t let him stand still. He couldn’t get to her. He took a few more unwilling steps toward that greedy mouth before he caught hold of a different tree.
Chaos reigned all around him. People screamed and shouted. Tables overturned and glass smashed. Fergus peeked out to see Athol Menzies rush to the scene with several other men in Black Watch tartans. He pointed in every direction and shouted orders above the howling wind.
At that moment, four dark green tentacles whipped out of the hole. They lashed the air. One stuck a table lying on its side. It snatched it off the ground and pulled it into the hole. It caught a corner of tablecloth between its slimy skin and the table. When it lifted the table off the ground, the tablecloth dropped the rest of the refreshments on the ground.
Another tentacle flicked through the air. It struck Athol in the leg and knocked him to his knees. One of his men jumped in front of him and slashed the tentacle with his saber. The tentacle whipped back the other way and knocked the man hard in the head. Another tentacle circled a third man and lifted him screaming off the ground. In front of his horrified companions, the tentacle swallowed the man in its black maw.
Every nerve compelled Fergus to jump out and help defend these men, but he had to stay where he was. Nothing could stand against this force, and he wouldn’t try. It was suicide.
A white figure sailed out of the night behind Fergus’s back. He barely had time to turn around before he spotted a lady in a white dress. She flew five feet off the ground with her skirts flapping. She flailed her arms in all direction and screamed. She plummeted headfirst through the air on a headlong dive into that hole. In the blink of an eye, she disappeared, never to be seen again.
Fergus cast a glance at Hazel across the way. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the tree trunk where she hid in safety. In a few seconds, all the lamps that once lighted the Faery party vanished into the hole, along with the tables, food, wine, fountains, crystal glasses, and everything else.
In no time at all, nothing remained of the party and the scene fell into shadowy moonlight. The hole started to retract its tentacles down its throat when one tentacle extended farther than the others. It flapped around Fergus’s tree. The groping tip curled around Fergus’s waist and pinned him to the trunk.
Hazel stuck her foot out from behind her own trunk. “Fergus! No!”
It was too late. The tentacle cinched tight around the tree with Fergus caught in its iron fist. He grabbed the wicked tip, but he couldn’t unwind it. With one almighty yank, it ripped the tree out of the ground. The whole forest rocked when the massive root ball tore out of the Earth. Soil and sod flew in all directions. The tentacle hauled the tree toward the hole.
Fergus hung in mid-air and stared down that lightless hole. One part of him wished the thing would let him go while the other part of him wished it wouldn’t. Where would he end up if he fell down there?
The whole scene slowed to a surreal crawl. Individual grains of soil soared through the air and landed at a distance. The tentacle holding him waved the tree in the air. Menzies and the other men scurried around on the ground, but they couldn’t touch the thing—whatever it was.
All at once, one of the other flailing tentacles darted out. It cracked its whip-end through the air, and Hazel’s tree toppled backward. Her screams rent the night. The tree upended out of the ground. Its roots ripped up long swaths of sod. The tree teetered and hovered on its side for one eternal moment.
Fergus opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His mind screamed Hazel, but he could only dangle there in the sky and watch. She craned her head back to stare petrified at the huge tree leaning over her. One more instant, and it would crush her to death.
The next thing Fergus knew, she rocketed out from behind the tree into the open. The wind seized her and jerked her off her feet. In the last moments, the unstoppable sucking wind pulled her to safety as the tree crashed down where she just stood.
Fergus put out his hand, but he couldn’t reach her with that crushing tentacle around his waist. Hazel lifted off the ground. She pirouetted through the air. She sailed past Fergus’s face.
Now Fergus wanted the tentacle to drop him down the hole, and that’s what it did. It stuffed the tree, with him attached to it, down its throat. The window of moonlight closed over his head. The wind died, and silence descended around his ears.
Chapter 5
Something soft touched Hazel’s cheek. Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up into a clear white sky. A haze of high cloud obscured any sign of what time it might be. Into this window of white, a familiar face entered her field of view. “Are ye awright, lass?”
She tried to sit up, and splitting pain stabbed her in the head. She raised her hand to her brow and groaned. “What happened?”
“That thing mun’ ha’e dropped ye ’ere, the same as me,” Fergus replied. “Ye’ve taken
a knock tae the head.”
She hauled herself upright. “I’m all right. Where are we?”
A different voice answered her. Athol Menzies stood next to Fergus. “I dinnae ken, but we’re alive. That’s the main thing.”
Hazel took a closer look at her surroundings. The three of them perched on a high mountain in a long, sweeping mountain range spreading far into the distance. A bright lake gleamed far, far below.
No trees covered those mountains. Rocky slopes of tundra ran down the steep mountainsides to coal-grey valleys between. No trace remained of the tree the tentacle dropped into the hole along with Fergus.
“Where’s everybody else?” Hazel asked. “How can the three of us be here, and not everyone else that got sucked in?”
Fergus got to his feet and helped her up. “There ought tae be muckle great mounds o’ stuff ’ere besides us. There ought tae be lights and tables and tree branches. If it weren’t the curse at work, we ought tae be able tae pick the Stone o’ Scone offa the ground right ’ere. The hole mun’ ha’e dropped each thing in a different place.”
“Then we have no way of finding our way back,” Hazel remarked.
“Aye,” Fergus replied. “We’ve no notion where we are nor how tae find any way back.”
Athol frowned down at the lake. “I think I ken this place. I’ve been here afore, unless I miss me guess. I believe that’s Loch Nagar down there, which means we’re no far from the witch’s castle. I went there once wi’ the King, ainly it was on the other side, like. The loch looked a mite different then, but I believe it is the same loch.”
“Are ye sure?” Fergus asked.
“I cinnae be sure o’ naught at a time like this, lad,” Athol replied, “but it’s the best chance we got. We may as weel skirt the loch and see if the castle really is there. If it isnae, we ha’e lost naught in the tryin’.”
Destiny Stone_A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 3