"Renaissance Magic" Ch 3 & 4

III
Wednesday, September 29, 1999

            Gwynabeth woke with a start and gasped.  For a moment she was disoriented and when she realized where she was and that Merlin had performed a spell on her she calmed down.  It was funny, though.  She couldn’t actually remember him performing the spell, but she was positive that he did.  When she took in her surroundings, she noticed Gerard asleep in a chair next to the couch she had slept on.
            As she sat up she moaned.  Her head was pounding.  She reached over to the coffee table and grabbed a bottle of pain relievers which had a note attached to it. ‘

‘Gwynabeth,

            Take two of these and come and find me once you have refreshed yourself.

            Merlin’

            When Gwyn got up to go get some water Gerard stirred.
            “Gerard, have you been watching over me all night?” Gwyn asked.
            “Yes, my Lady,” Gerard answered solemnly.  “I had not realized what a sacrifice you made by asking Merlin to perform his spell on you.  I submitted my vote in anger and I am ashamed of myself because of it.”  Gerard walked to stand facing Gwyn. He knelt on one knee and bowed his head.  “Please forgive an old fool, Princess Gwynabeth?”
            Gwyn laid her hand upon his head.  “Lord Diller, you are forgiven, but honestly, the fault is mine.  Merlin and I should have informed the Company of our plans, even if informally.”
            “Thank you, my lady,” Gerard said as he stood up.
            “Gerard, Princess Gwynabeth D’Avalon is the King’s daughter in the Realm on Sytheria.  Here, I am simply Gwynabeth Davidson, the tavern maid.  I do commend your nobility, however, and thank you for sitting vigil over me.  That was very thoughtful and kind,” Gwyn said before she downed the pair of pain relief pills with her glass of water.  “Now, I must find Merlin.  If you will please excuse me, I will let you tend your business.”
            Gwyn exited the meeting hall trailer and walked down the dirt road to the Royal Market Square.  Merlin would be at Christabel’s jewelry shop with the Talisman of Attraction to see to it’s placement on the sales racks.  On her way to the shop, she stopped by the Royal Market Square Inn.  The building was not a real inn, but it did have a few rooms for the merchants and workers to stay in.  She climbed the stairs at the rear of the building and went inside.  At the end of a hallway, she stopped in front of the last door on the left.  She pulled a key from the pocket of her blue jeans and unlocked it.
            Her room was small.  There was just enough room for her bed, a chest of drawers, a bookcase, and a desk which held her laptop computer.  She opened the chest of drawers and picked out some clean clothes to wear and entered her bathroom. After a quick shower, she got dressed and sat down at her desk.  She opened the top of her computer and waited for it to boot up.  She moved her mouse cursor over the Cynergy 4.0 icon and double-clicked.  She smiled when she saw Dain’s message, which she read again.  When she finished reading, she clicked on the ‘REPLY’ icon and started typing.

‘Dain, my Love,

            I’m glad that you don’t think that I am crazy.  I was so worried that you would not believe me and that I would never see you again.  That would surely break my heart.  I can not wait to see you again, either.  Just the sight of you makes me melt. All I want in the world is to feel your arms around me and to kiss you.  We only have two more days to wait, my heart.  I await your arrival patiently and longingly.  Until then, my love, know that my love for you grows daily.           
            Love,
            Gwynabeth’

            Gwyn clicked her mouse pad on the ‘SEND’ icon and exited the program.  She turned the computer off and closed the top. She walked out into the hallway and locked the door.  She could go find Merlin now.  Hopefully, everything would work out ass they planned and this would be the last time she would have to be away from her family.  Her father, King Alaric D’Avalon, had not wanted her to be a part of the Company and had tried to talk her out of going.  He could not find a sufficient enough reason, though, to sway her commitment.  In the end, he reluctantly granted her leave to go.
            He almost forbade her to come this year, however, when he found out about her love for Dain.  Gwyn had felt that she had to tell him about the man from Earth who had stolen the heart of his princess.  King Alaric had felt Gwyn drifting away from him as all children surely must when they grow into adulthood.  He had brought up the old argument about having to arrange her marriage soon.  Eventually, Gwyn had convinced him that arranged marriages between the nobility were a thing of the past and that it was her choice to make as to who she fell in love with.  Plus, she had reminded him, Dain was on Earth.  How could a relationship possibly work out under those circumstances?
            “Well, the Fates must have had an ace up their sleeves,” Gwyn told herself, “because Dain will be coming to the Realm after all.  Father is going to freak!”
            As she approached Christabel’s shop, she could hear Merlin ranting about something with her.  He was shaking his head, which made Gwyn laugh to herself, because his long white beard was wagging back and forth.
            “We need to have it out of the way in a hard to reach spot so we will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this person is the Warrior-Mage,” Merlin ranted.
            “No, we need to put it in the most obvious spot,” Christabel argued.  “You never see what’s right under your nose.”
            “Oh, that’s a bunch of bull and you know it,” replied Merlin.
            “You know what?” Gwyn intervened.  “Both of you are right.  The Talisman of Attraction needs to be in an out of the way spot right out in the open.”
            “What, child?” Merlin asked, perplexed.
            “Why not put it behind all of the other necklaces on the rack right there by the register over there?  That way it’s out of the way, but still easily seen by our watchers,” Gwyn explained.
            Merlin thought for a moment and said, “You are exactly right.  That is a wonderful idea.”           
“Problem solved,” said Christabel.
 
IV
Friday, October 1, 1999

            It was 7:00 AM and Justin clocked out from work.  It had been a very long night and he couldn’t get the Gwyn and the Warrior-Mage business out of his head.  He had to talk to Gwyn about this.  She would probably laugh at him and think that he was being silly for ever thinking that he could be this legendary figure.  She would probably think that it was a ploy to try and be with her on a more permanent basis.  Truth be told, he kind of hoped that he was the Warrior-Mage just for that possibility.  8:00 PM could not come soon enough, Justin thought to himself.
            When he got home, he took a quick shower and lay down to go to sleep.  He wanted to get at least a few hours of sleep before he started packing for the first weekend of the Faire.
            As he slept, Justin dreamed of meeting Gwyn at the Faire.  He ran up to her and swept her off of her feet, twirling her around and around, all the while kissing her and holding her close.  He could almost smell her lavender scented hair.  In the distance, storm clouds were gathering and lightning raced across the sky.  The air was still and close.  His dream self did not seem to notice, though.  A blurry figure stood menacingly on the horizon.  Black smoke swirled around them, as if alive, and a disembodied voice whispered:
           
‘The time is now close at hand
            For the Warrior-Mage and the Korath’ur to do battle
            Come to the Realm in the world of Sytheria
            To test your mortal mettle’

A black dragon with a torn wing swooped down from the sky toward the happy couple.  Justin tried to scream to them, but nothing happened.  The dragon roared and the couple looked up and screamed in terror as dragon fire engulfed them.
            Justin woke up and sat bolt upright in his bed.  Sweat poured down his face as he sat trembling.  Once he had calmed down a bit, he wrote this dream down before he forgot it into a dream journal that he kept on his nightstand.  He didn’t think that he would be forgetting this dream any time soon, though.
            That old familiar tickle in the back of his mind was in overdrive.  Something about this dream wasn’t right.  It felt almost like a premonition, but he had never seen himself in one before or heard any voices.  He honestly didn’t know how to react to it.  Maybe he should e-mail Gwyn and tell her about it, he thought.  That felt like the best thing to do, so he got up and went to his computer and booted it up.  He clicked on the Cynergy 4.0 icon and opened his e-mail program once it had connected to the internet.  He clicked on Gwyn’s e-mail address from the address book and started typing.

‘Gwyn, my love,

            I know that I am going to see you tonight, but I just had a dream that I felt you ought to know about.  I am at a loss as to how to deal with it, which is strange for me.  In my dream, we were together at the Faire.  We were so happy to finally be together.  Then the dream got weird.  There were storm clouds and lightning on the horizon and a blurry figure standing in swirling black smoke.  There was a voice which whispered:

                        ‘The time is now close at hand
                        For the Warrior-Mage and the Korath’ur to do battle
                        Come to the Realm in the world of Sytheria
                        To test your mortal mettle’

It was then that a great black dragon with a torn wing swooped out of the sky and engulfed us both in fire.
            Do you know what any of this means?  Do you know who this Korath’ur is?  Have you ever seen that dragon before?  I know that you probably won’t have time to e-mail me back, but I felt I had to tell you about this.  My ticklish spot has been driving me crazy ever since I had it.
            I love you and I will see you in a few hours, my Dove.  Be safe.
            Love,
            Dain’

            After sending Gwyn’s e-mail racing off through cyberspace, Justin lie back down to try and get a few more hours of sleep.  Sleep would not come, though.  He kept hearing those words from the dream over and over in his head.  He tried to come up with a rational explanation for the weirdness of the dream.  Gwyn had said that they were searching for this Warrior-Mage to battle an enemy who threatened their very existence and that figure on the horizon, the Korath’ur, looked very threatening.  If the Korath’ur was truly the enemy and he was having dreams that called him by name, then….
            Justin sat bolt upright in his bed yet again.  “Holy shit!  I am the Warrior-Mage!” he told himself aloud.  “If I know who the Korath’ur is, then it’s pretty good odds that he knows who I am too!”
            It was at that moment that the tickle in the back of his mind became a roaring torrent of pain.  A shockwave emanated from his body and decimated his bedroom.  Justin screamed, hands cradling his head.  Shockwaves of an unknown force throbbed in synch with the pounding in his head.  The remaining objects which were in his room, like his bed and chest of drawers, slammed into the walls.  Stressed beyond their limits, the walls of his bedroom exploded outwards.  Justin screamed over and over as the shockwaves pulsed from his body until finally, mercifully, he passed out.
            He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious when he awoke to water splashing on his face.
            “Justin, come on!  Please don’t be dead!” a voice said distantly, as if from the end of a long hallway.
            Justin groaned from beneath the rubble that was his bedroom.  As dust began to filter down through the debris, he coughed.
                      “Holy shit!  Justin, are you alright?  Are you hurt?  Where are you?” the familiar voice yelled.
            “Here,” Justin said weakly.  “I’m over here.”
            There was the sound of boards and sheetrock being tossed aside.  Finally, sunlight beamed down in his face and Mike’s frantic face peered down at him.
            “Holy Mary, Mother of God!  What the holy hell happened?” Mike asked as he reached down to pull Justin to his feet.  “Are you hurt?”
            Justin checked himself over and found, to his amazement, that he didn’t have a scratch on him.  “I - I’m fine.  I shouldn’t be, but I am,” he answered.
            For the first time since he regained consciousness, he took in his surroundings.  Not only his bedroom, but the entire house was gone.  He and Mike were standing in a smoking crater.  The pine trees that had surrounded the house were leveled with their tops pointing away from it as if a very powerful explosive device had been detonated from within.
            “Justin, what the hell happened here?” Mike asked again.
            “Mike, I don’t understand it myself, but somehow, I did this,” Justin replied in shock.
“You?  How?”
            “I don’t know if I should tell you, Mike.  My life is already in danger because of what I know and the lives of others hang in the balance as well,” Justin explained hesitantly.  “It’s not that I don’t trust you.  I trust you with my life.  I just don’t want to put you in danger too.”
            “Don’t you think that it my choice to make?” Mike said.  “My best friend is in danger and needs my help.  I need to know.”
            “Okay, Mike, but you are probably going to think I’m nuts.  What’s happening could have come straight out of one of my fantasy novels, which are now spread out over about forty acres.”
            Justin started explaining everything to Mike.  He started his tale at the tavern with Gwyn spilling the beer him and concluded with Mike’s daring rescue.  Mike sat down on one of the fallen pines and soaked it all in.
            “So, let me get this straight.  Gwyn’s from another dimension where this enemy, the Korath’ur, is threatening to take over, so she’s here in our dimension looking for this legendary champion, the Warrior-Mage, who turns out is you.  Does that about sum it up?” Mike asked.
            “Yep.  That’s about the skinny of it,” Justin answered.
            Mike thought about in silence for a few minutes.  “Yep, you’re nuts,” he said, finally, “but so am I for believing you. Justin, I know you about as well as you know yourself.  I know you well enough to know that you don’t tell lies.  I knew that girl, Gwyn, was different.  Not in a bad way, mind you, but just different.  It all kind of makes sense now.”
            “Mike, I have to get to the Faire,” Justin said as he looked around for his truck, Danielle.  “Uh, Mike?  Where’s my truck?”
            “Oh, yeah.  I think I saw her upside-down in the ditch about 500 yards down the driveway,” Mike answered gently.
            “Shit!”
            “Don’t fret about your truck right now, Justin,” Mike added.  “I’ll take you to the Faire.  Hey, where are your mom and sister?  Were they here, too?” Mike asked worriedly.
            “Fortunately, Denise took my mom to a doctor’s appointment at UTMB in Galveston,” Justin informed.  “How the hell am I going to explain this to them?  Everything they owned was in that house.”
            “When we get into town, we’ll call the fire department and report a gas explosion.  I’m sure that your mom had homeowner’s insurance.  If the insurance company doesn’t come through, House Morningstar will take care of things for you,” Mike said.
            “Mike, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come by today.  You’re a lifesaver.”
            “I knew you were leaving for the opening weekend of the Faire and I wanted to see you off,” explained Mike.
            “I’m going to see if I can salvage anything from this mess,” Justin said.  “Maybe some of my armor and stuff survived. I really wish I knew how this happened.  Hopefully, Gwyn will have some idea about it.”
            As Justin wandered around the debris searching for his belongings, he had a funny feeling that, somehow, Gwyn already knew about this incident.  Fifteen minutes later, Justin had found all of his armor, his sword blades for his rapier, and his wallet.  As he climbed into Mike’s truck, he took one last look at the devastation he had mysteriously caused.  Somehow, he felt it would be quite a while before he saw home again.
            “What a crazy notion.  Of course I’ll be back,” Justin thought to himself.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

            Gwyn awoke to someone knocking on her door.  Before answering the door she took a robe off of her desk chair and slipped it on.  She noticed that her Cynergy 4.0 mail icon was flashing on her computer, so she double-clicked her mouse cursor on it, saw the message from Dain, and clicked on it.  She walked over to the door, unlocked it, and opened it to reveal Merlin’s smiling face.
            “Good morning to you, Master Wizard.  I was just getting ready to read Dain’s latest e-mail message,” Gwyn greeted.
“I just came by to see if I left one of my books in here the other day,” Merlin explained.  “Sure.  Look around while I read Dain’s message.”
            Gwyn went and sat down at her desk and read Dain’s electronic letter.
            “By the Gods, it is him!” Gwyn said in a panic.  “He knows!  He knows the enemy’s name.  I never told him the name!  He has seen Scragthorn the Black!”
            “What is it?  What are you raving about, my lady?” Merlin asked worriedly.
            “Read the message and understand,” Gwyn replied, clearly shaken.
            Merlin pulled a pair of old wire-framed spectacles from his robes and sat down in Gwyn’s desk chair to read the message once she had gotten up.
            “Oh, dear,” Merlin sighed.  “We know now that Dain truly is the Warrior-Mage, but so does the enemy.  Dain is no longer safe, I fear.”
            Merlin all of a sudden looked faint and he cradled his head in his hands.  “May the Gods protect us all!  He is going through the Transition even now.  He has accepted his destiny and the magic is coursing through his entire being unchecked. My poor boy!  He is in so much pain.  I can see him.  Enough magic is pulsating from him for it to be affecting me even here. My sweet Fates!  Nothing remains of his home and he now stands in a great smoking hole in the earth.  Not even the surrounding trees withstood the magic’s onslaught!  I greatly fear what we are about to unleash upon Sytheria.  May the Gods protect us all!
            “Merlin, what can we do?  We must help him.  We must do something!” Gwyn pleaded.
            The elderly magister stood and embraced the frightened princess to comfort her even though the words he spoke to her were no comfort at all.
            “Lady Gwyn, I am sorry to say that, until he comes to the Faire, there is nothing that we can do for Dain.  He is on his own ‘til then,” Merlin said reluctantly.  “The Korath’ur can sense my power and, even though he knows that I cannot threaten him, he will be keeping a close watch on me hoping that I will lead him to the Warrior-Mage.  Untrained, Dain is not yet a threat to him, but he will still try to find and eliminate him before he does become a threat, especially after Dain’s Transition. The Korath’ur most assuredly has felt it, too, and now knows exactly where he is and how strong he is.  During the Transition a potential mage is only channeling the smallest fraction of his greatest potential.  From what I just felt, Dain would have no problem creating a smoking hole in the ground, as he just did, but the size of the entirety of the Realm on Sytheria once he has achieved his full potential.  You must trust in Dain’s extraordinary luck to see him safely into our midst.”
            “Is there nothing….anything….we can do?” Gwyn asked again as tears rolled down her cheeks.
            Merlin looked out of the window of Gwyn’s tiny room.  “Pray for him, my lady. Pray for us all.”