The Lost Princess

Chapter Three

The Forest of Ellan

The Trinity felt no more burden than the flesh I wore as I carried it. It made a slight swishing noise, as with one hand, I swept it lazily along the dirt road as I walked. It was strange, but at times, I barely even noticed it was there: how utterly amazed was I to find how much lighter it seemed to me now, without the fatigue of yesterday to hold me back. Although, I still couldn’t help feeling slightly uneasy about how natural this felt, to have reclaimed it in the way I did.

You see, I cannot truly explain why I took it back, why I felt compelled to have it with me, as surely as if it were my own. How my hands had trembled, how easily it had slid out of the ground. How could I ever justify carrying this sacrilegious thing around with me after witnessing that; this horribly unnatural thing that it had seemed, its very presence there sickeningly eerie, the strangled blade plunged deep into the wound it had made. Such things as I had never seen outside of my world, stretched far beyond the talents of the court magician. Yet each and every time it ran through my mind, it was my hand that I saw resting upon the blade.

Such fantasies I had had, such illusions I had cherished. Immediately I saw my former self sat in the gargantuan palace library, pouring over tales of ghosts and goblins, dragons and adventure. The illusions I had had, the fun we had had, my dreams and I. Yet how distorted did it all seem now, now that I had found my miracles, the danger no longer fun beyond the childhood games. How frightening it all was, how amazed I had been when I realised that I was beyond belief; I knew it had happened. Everything was wrong, my attitude changed, thinking back upon it all. And how I had relished in such symbolic chaos.

*      *      *      *

Alexander

Unto thy hands O Lord,

Justice be thy saving grace,

Lest not the dead be challenged,

Always may the darkness light our way,

And give us hope,

And those to cherish,

A better man I may become,

Shall my sins fade clean away,

Before my nights pass to eternal day…

I whispered the prayers over and over again as I walked, letting my fingers fall through the reeds as I did. Follow the river: like walking along train tracks, without a clue where it would lead me. As it happened, all I found was more of that which I’d left behind: trees. Boundless forests, to the left of me, those I would not cross and with good reason if the myth was to be believed. If this was truly the Forest of Ellan, then it was best to avoid entering at all costs…

Ellan was a name I knew well, a name that I was told I should never forget. Ellan was a legend to all Felidae children, a ghost story to be told on all hallows eve. Even the bravest of the King’s knights would never dare to cross Ellan. That is, they wouldn’t if they valued their lives or so I was told. The legend itself was derived from the teachings of course, but I suppose there must have been some truth to the tale, or where would the stories have come?

I shuddered as story flitted through the imagination and tried my best not see it building around me, on either side of the riverbank. Instead I concentrated on the sky above, the pale tones of blue overlapping slightly. Yet soon, even this was gone, a mere memory whispering to me through a thicker canvas of willow and towering oak.

But it was okay…despite the claustrophobia of the surrounding woodland I would safe would I not? If I kept to the river?

My heart pounded and the legend flooded my mind, despite my best efforts. But instead of resisting it, when it began I simply listened to the story gathering in my head…

The legend of Ellan found me whilst I was a child; it was the reason why my people rarely left Delta. To get to Islia, one had to cross Ellan first, although those who had often set out had never returned. Some might say, that perhaps they found something better out there, if not for the sole survivor of one of the expeditions who returned home claiming to have spent the last two years with his dead wife in Ellan. Only the man still wore the same clothing and had some of the remaining rations with which he and his friends had taken with them. The man was amazed to find that such a long time had passed and insisted that they had only been gone for three days, before he had fled the wood, after seeing the wife standing over the dead body of one of his companions. The man said that she simply stood there, looking at him, whilst the forest disintegrated around them, becoming less the bounty that he had imagined he saw and more the decaying mess it had originally been. He had said the most incredible things, but everyone was even more surprised to learn that the young explorer incredulously believed that he saw the whole forest come alive and absorb the dead man’s body into itself.

It wasn’t long after he returned that the last of the troop died in his home, a mad man, driven to insanity by what he thought he saw, and what could, realistically, have never taken place.

Yet the church elders found that what he had said seemed to fit with what the Legend tells of Ellan.

Ellan was the seventh garden in the beginning, the first of many to die by the hands of man, created by what they called ‘God’ and revived by our Lord Alexander. It was the last of what they called ‘Eden’ and so became a tribute to new beginnings, and was named after the Lord’s human consort, Ellandril. In fact, it was this union, between the first Felidae and the human, that created those of us you see today. The union also forged a greater understanding between human and Felidae, when the Lord created this new species of person. The humans were spared in the aftermath of the Omega, in the hopes of beginning anew. Their God, if he ever truly existed, was gone and now they had only Alexander to turn to. So, as a symbol of this union, Ellan and the other six remaining plots of Eden were resurrected, each named after the first of the Felidae children: Nyadia, Bree, Lex, Grea, Ellenor and Kiah. Ellenor as the first-born bore Alexander’s chosen, those who would guard the gates of Yana, or ‘Hell’, as the humans called it and was the first city. Ellan, the youngest of the seven, was the City of the Fay and the most beautiful of the sister lands.

At a time when all species and races were annul there was only life. None from the Old World would call Felidae, human nor spirit by nature only by name, those with which they were christened. There was no one home and each belonged to Cretia in his own right, the four peoples living together on the same plane by choice; Fay, Felidae, Human, Spirit. Only Ellan truly bore the mark of inequality, and so was doomed from the beginning to script the battle that would forever mark our lives forever.

I could now see the whole of Ellan from here spanning from miles around. The land of the Fay were even I, a firm believer, was not welcome. They hated us, the Felidae being here, even now when Ellan was so desolate from both them and the rest of the world, ever since the execution of Gwendolyn Aria, the first witch.

If ever I had anyone to blame for this whole thing, it was Gwendolyn. She had stolen the magic from the Fay city, the first of many crimes, which were to break out after distrust diffused itself amongst the peoples of Cretia. Then the battles begun, the squabbling became more and more serious, the fighting more and more heated. It could be argued that it was through the distrust of the Fay that prejudice was born to Cretia, though I personally believe that is just a fallacy. If people were ever mature enough to handle magic, as Gwendolyn and her kind claimed, then why would they have still searched for scandal? Just like children, the lot of them.

As punishment for their crimes, the Fay allowed Gwendolyn and her followers the power they so desired, if not to prove a point, then to simply avoid taking responsibility for the consequences of the aftermath that was to come…

I gazed once more up at it, feeling ever more the claustrophobia within the dome I had created around myself, the forces that kept me ever safe from the songs of the redeemer, the requiem that as a child I was told would forever shield me from harm. The same torment used to bring me to justice.

It rang out amongst the trees, deeper into the woods, called out to me silently. The images began to waver as the mind played tricks and I prickled at the thought of touching a single one of those trunks to steady my balance, teetering on the edge of the dwindling river. No matter what I heard, no matter what I saw, I told myself, it would never be real, save only for those past.

And yet I heard screaming.

Found myself within a torrent of flame, those around me jeering, dancing torches in hand. The heat beat upon my face, melted the flesh at my feet, where corpses lain beside me served as crude kindling to seal my fiery fate. Pure blind panic, sweeping my hands up to the sides of my face, only to find that they were bound, all that had passed was the closing of my eyelids.

I cried out.

Bubbling, prickling, treacherous, seething, calamity tearing me up, an odour of burning plastic, the smell of burnt hair, the crackling of the pieces beneath the flames…

Scream.

I fell dead in my tracks. The Earth seemed to move but didn’t. The shadows shifted, and I stumbled beneath myself. The dream had passed, the second of the day, awakened the thirst within my being for fairytales, and mystery. Yet it was still there, an invasion of my body, cutting like a knife through butter. My cheeks were flushed and I pressed wet palms upon them, peeling the hair from the sides of my face as I did. The burning had passed yet the confusion remained and I was perfectly calm in waiting for the answer I was to give to myself. The Legend continued on amongst a flurry of dead memories and revived sensation…

Burned. Gone. Executed.

Gwendolyn inevitably became the tool of her own destruction, leading her clan, her ‘coven’ into oblivion. Amongst those protected from the magic of the Faye, the evils that could come of such power, Gwendolyn practised witchcraft openly, made enemies of her own people. She destroyed those who did not believe, made example through death took no exception to the scepticism of neighbour or relative. The tale dictates that it was she who first opened the eyes of her peers to such corruption, much as Eve corrupted Adam, reopened Pandora’s box through her sorcery; Signed her own death warrant.

People often destroy what they do not understand.

My mother’s words to me each and every time I returned with new revelations given to me ‘confidentially’ at confession. She warned me each and every time not to go, yet the more I was told, the more I did. Every month, every fortnight, every week, every day…until eventually I believed so much that I did not tell anymore and never would until the moment I eventually began to write such as I do now. I wondered now…I hoped that, no I wanted that Gwendolyn had been the evil I believed her to be. Anything to silence the doubt in the pit of my stomach that somehow her memory had been twisted as surely as my own would forever be in legend; as my Grandmother had been the ‘devil’s child’. Yet she who had bore God on Earth through some method of celestial intervention: My Father, Leonardo Halliway. Even when such little truth existed within these tales Delta still listened, and people still believed. So had Gwendolyn simply been misunderstood in this way…the wicked witch in the fairytale, my idol, and my dark heroine?

I shuddered, perished the thought knowing full well I could not believe such fantasy, if not simply for my own piece of mind.

Still my hazy dream began to gather shape and form within the tale, the similarity that would not go away, and the burden she and I shared, regardless of her orient…

And such a terrible way to die: so much so that not even the church of today favoured the method. The execution, the burning provoked by the need for cleansing. The need to eradicate the excremental filth that Gwendolyn had laid upon the land had been unforgivable for the otherwise peaceful people. So it was that both the Witch of Ellan and her realm were to be burnt to cinders, so that magic may never again rear its ugly head. The rest of the coven was released; Gwendolyn recognised as a living spell and so condemned alone.

A sudden sadness filtered through my adoring self, lapping up the tragedy as I had always done, as the tale came to a close.

Gwendolyn, bound to oldest oak within Ellan, the source of Ellan itself. The people around dancing, praising Alexander that his will was done: an eerie kind of peace descending upon the carnal destruction of the Last Paradise, whilst the Queen and her willing followers died in the flame, each by choice. Satanism. The heathen way.

Such as this world had become.

The thought occurred to me as I glimpsed the scorched remains of the woodland to my left. I gazed in silent awe at the treacherous colours: auburn, brown rot laced with delicate but stained ivory ran the trunk, towered above me and I lay both hands upon the wretched thing, rested my head upon it. Instinct took over and I saw it as a relic, a thing to be cherished, yet the parishioner in me wished to see it torn down. I revelled in the beauty of it, the tragedy, and the romance the whole thing set upon me, the same as I had felt for Gwendolyn. Somehow, some way, just my being here made me a part of it, made me legend too…

With all of the magic gone, so the forest had ceased to exist within the living world. It was nothing more but a mere dream now, it was said that it was little more than the remnants of an ancient past. Yet those like myself, those who still believed in what little magic there was left in this world, were always drawn here, enraptured. Devoured.

A sombre mist descended upon me now, and I fell into waking comatose within the depths of the forest. I don’t know where I was going, or why. All I remember is feeling the sweetest peace within the chaos around me. Seeing the most beautiful things amongst the debris, reaching out to touch anything and everything that I could. I saw the forest blossom and bloom around me, the branches of the trees embracing in webs across the sky. The light filtered in small streaks of perfection, gradually becoming darker, taking on a pale green hue. The sound of my boots silenced amongst the fallen leaves, the smell of composition wonderfully alluring. The sleepy drone of the outside world, the singing of the birds eventually shed in favour of the silence that drew to a close any sense of Delta I still felt.

Serenity.

The only word I could truly find to describe my feeling wholly: The darkness ever more comforting…strange, really. Strange that when, at any other time, I would have been afraid of this place, I could not now, imagine leaving.

It was only then, only when the fear echoed in the back of my mind, did I become aware of how much things were beginning to change. The touch of my hand, my footsteps upon the sodden ground, my breath upon the withered woodland…everything that I did transformed something, revived the smallest flower to the tallest tree. I wound my fingers around the dead vines, allowed them with the strangest sensation to crawl along my arms, blossom before my very eyes, watching carefully the seed plucked from the ripening stem bud and grow into flower. The pinks and reds it shone bled into one another from the centre, the stigma reaching for me, touching the end of my nose delicately. Still I could feel myself too far gone to care that this phenomenon could not be possible as I saw it now.

I continued amongst the thriving shrubbery, feeling the blue grass sprout anew beneath my feet, watching the colour emerge from the drudgery, spreading like wildfire. Not a care in the world had I now, and such was my ecstasy that I completely allowed myself to be drawn in completely…

*      *      *      *

Sing to the moon,

Show me the light of the sun,

And I’ll give you everything,

The world in the palms of your hands,

Sacred thing…

A song somewhere in the distance played. I knew it of old, the song my mother would sing to me when I was a little girl each night before bedtime. A lullaby I always associated with her and the night she went away. I knew it could not be here, that nobody else could sing it quite like that but…

Cry for the night,

Let the day drown your fears,

And I’ll give you everything,

Just to make you smile,

Sacred thing…sacred thing…

There it was and here I was, listening to it. The careful precision of the notes, the long drawn out pause between lines and sweet lengthy soulful tenor of her voice carried high above my head. So many years I had waited for that song, for her and never had she returned. Yet it could not be real and I came to my sense fast though after how long I don’t recall.

It must stop. I must stop.

The tears came to my eyes and I brushed them aside fiercely with the back of my hand. The Trinity returned to me though I was never aware that it was gone. The figure I could now see crouching behind the trees in the distance fled and I tore off angrily after it, without a thought given to what I supposed I was going to do even if I did catch it.

The whole world flew past me in a blur of green odyssey and pine scented brilliance, evading the obstacles, which seemed charge towards me as I ran with previously unfounded agility. The song flooded my senses and disappeared beneath my rapid breathing. The shadows seemed to leap out into my path yet I took no heed, following my quarry through the thicket. The world seemed darken once more and the land withered the more the anguish tightened in my chest, the more I felt for myself. I could see it; I knew it was dying around me, working in reverse. The figure disappeared between the shadows, the trees, the shrubbery…yet I knew each time where it would be. The madness hastened inside my head and I grew tired, yet did not slow. Flash of red.

Stop.

Breathe.

Aching pain to my forehead, back to the floor. Something had struck me. Scrambled to my feet, a familiar scent haunting me. Burning plastic, somewhere near…a distant hissing noise, crackling wood…

Suddenly I didn’t seem too eager to follow.

No dramatic music, no song, no violins, no dreams just burning. Somewhere.

The trinity drew nearer to my side. Sickly, deadly smell. A faint sound emitted all around me: a groan, a long mournful gasp for air.

My hands trembled, every ounce of courage drained from me. My body lost all substance, yet somehow stood alone.

A feint whisper was heard behind the trees, just to the fore of were I was rooted to the spot.

My heart skipped a beat.

“ Father…Lord forgive me…”

Oh Dear God.

“ Forgive me my sins…I am not evil…I-I just wanted to be like you…like them…!”

A piercing scream shattered my heart. I cautiously took a few steps forward, yet cowardly fell backward as another earth shattering groan flew at me.

“ Who…? Help me! Please!”

The crackling sound began to die down, yet the scent was stronger than ever, caught in the back of my throat and I choked on it, the smoky residue pouring in from the clearing. The voice came again, only much quieter this time, more resigned.

“ Mother! Mother…where are you…?”

The cries broke out in full force. The violent sobs shook me sending ripples of pure undiluted sorrow throughout, and I turned my head to the floor with pity.

It was then that I stumble upon the roots of the Great Oak, bathed in eerie blue light before my very eyes, beneath the toe of my boot. Woven into the ground, it seemed to flow as swiftly as the lucid waters of Delta, seemed to corrupt and spread like silken disease throughout. I could hear it closer now to me, rushing along the vines all around, shielded by the voice in the clearing: That which I could not ignore.

If somebody really was hurt through there, no matter how much I didn’t want to see I knew that I had to and the impulse plagued me in opposition to my petrified state. I had to help.

There.

Through the thicket, the glaze of the only living bounty left here, was the reality behind a thousand of my nightmares. All of the sounds, the scent, and the voice intermingled with the legend and nothing seemed beautiful anymore. The noises grew louder all at once, the whole thing dwarfing just one person in the thick of it all, whilst the twisted curling blackened branches reached out to the heavens in celestial plea, holding prisoner the dream weaver herself entwined in surrounding creepers, untouched by the blaze; The dream was alive.

Only there were no romanticisms, and there was no splendour to any of it. The martyr, the villain of the tale mounted against the great oak, a quivering charred mess of decay and sorrow, a multitude of burning corpses at her feet to light her way to death.

It was more curiosity than anything else, I suppose that provoked my next move, a thing of instinct.

Slowly I approached her.

Everything and nothing ran through my mind but fear itself and the insatiable urge to flee.

For a time, it seemed she did not see me, the eyes closed, the darkened body perfectly still and childlike against the might of Ellan, the pillaring towers surrounding her. But for a moment I thought she was finally free of her pain. Alas no, the eyes once again saw both the world and myself staring up at her, and the beautiful blue iris registered hope.

“ I did not do it.”

Those few simple words shattered the skin beneath the chin and she cried ever more freely. More than a little taken aback, I stood stock-still and listened.

“ I…did…not…kill!”

A few uneventful moments passed and the bare eyelids shunned me once more.

“ Why…how could I ever…do…”

 I took a step backwards on pure instinct. The eyes snapped open, and she threw her whole form towards me with all the strength that she could muster. 

“ Don’t…don’t go!”

The shoulders shook silently. Silence descended.

How are you still alive?

I could not help but wonder, and she seemed hear me without words and fell backwards, buried her head in the sodden wood and cried out forcefully.

“ The magic…it keeps me here…all the time, here!” Tears seared down her cheeks. I heard the hiss of the flame. “ The days pass… yet I cannot see the sun!”

The voice rose to fever pitch yet all I could say was her name. “ Gwendolyn…?”

She stopped for a moment, simply stared. The laughter shook her body gently.

“ My legend has travelled to even you…Child of Ellenor…to The City of the Dead!”

Shouted loudly. There was a rustling in the trees, I stumbled backwards yet again, and the Trinity rose protectively, foolishly to the forefront of my body and caught her gaze.

The pity was mine, as it was hers, and I felt the tremendous guilt of my own escape. Gwendolyn took in every measure of me and heard my cry profusely.

“ Do not be sorry…it is I who is sorry…” Through tinted veil of shedding ash, she closed her eyes, the vivid blue ocean to me.

I thought it was over, after a time. Yet when she could no more speak by word of mouth, the message echoed throughout my mind.

It must end…and so must we. I was the first, and you shall be the last.

That same chilling laughter came again, the cry of the child behind the horror.

“ The last…?” I repeated the words slowly, hastily trying to make sense of it all. “Then you…!”

Awakened it.

The Spirit raged within me and I knew immediately that she too had been a Weirdy, before it also left her for dead. The realisation struck me such a blow that I almost bolted there and then, but she kept me there, with that icy cold stare, which now began to soften as her eyes fell upon the sword in my hands. The thought lingered and the blame shifted, yet I could not feel angry when I saw the girl beneath the ashes, younger than I was now.

Finish this, finish Yana’s work young Ellenor.

Yet I could not do what she asked. No will under God could at that moment make me kill her and I fixed one hand over my mouth to stop the sickness and the silence that descended within bar the same sound of the wood burning. And there, beneath the light of the dying kindling, which so beautifully bathed her naked form, she whispered her final hope, her final promise to me. And I knew then I had to obey.

No more shall die here with me.

My whole body shook uncontrollably as I struggled to evade her gaze. The tears came thick and fast, my short breaths colliding with her own…the strength came from her as I rose up, evading the flames. The sword took control and the thing plunged deep into the heart of both she and I, in very different ways, as one is all and all is one, so were we, then and now and always the same forever. A fatal kiss to seal the passing as my lips burned upon the embers of her forehead and we stood together ablaze in the fire, though not a single part of me was truly damaged. I rested myself upon her and we cried our tears together, I for death, she for life. The fire grew cold and found the task complete at last.

 And so it was done, on her final breath. The fire died away and so did I, falling to the ground upon my knees where the sorrow took over completely and the sword fell soundlessly to my side as it all washed away with the coming of the sunlight and the clearing of the fog. I felt nothing for a moment as she disappeared and my twilight dreams fell to pieces. A whirl of fairy dust, upon my eyes fell and the forest was changed somehow, within the blink of an eye. Made me feel both happy and sad all at once and I found myself alone again, with only my thoughts to plague me.  

How long had she waited, how many had died in the lure…had they to die at all?

There was a faint whistle in the distance and the song from before played out as the magic drew away from the clearing. The creeping eerie blue retreated once more to the earth and the Spirits there began to shift and sail away on the winds out of Ellan and I wondered.

Could they have all been spared if people had just listened?

Now that I thought about it…

I just wanted to go home.