Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 23:03:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Corrinne S <mdaigle@prodigy.net>
Subject: Dark Wishes Installment 28: Part 5 Chapter One

This is a work of fiction, a work of magic and kings,
love and war.  It's the sequel to `Dark Wishes',
previously copyrighted under Nifty and the unopened
copy of the manuscript in my desk drawer now
recognized by the U.S. Postal service and
International Common Law.  I received a few requests
for this sequel, and I hope you will bear with me
because `Dark Wishes' took three years to write.
These chapters won't be posted as close together.

Unspoken Wishes

M.C. Gordon

Part One: Markel

     They sat amidst the ruins of toppled stones
overgrown by an encroaching forest.  This place,
sacred to many but known to few, was hallowed ground
to the old grandmothers who knew where it could be
found.  Their legends told that once it had been a
place of glory and majesty, now reduced to rubble.

     Ingraith, Belthanan, and Jacoberra, so ancient in
years that their skin barely clung to frail bones, sat
and waited until the first star of the evening made
herself known to them.  They chanted quietly, lest
they disturb some unknown spirit, summoning the star
to appear.

     Carinus ... Mother of Life, she was called and the
goddess of a cult so ancient that the beginnings were
lost in antiquity.  She was the mother of sons, brave
and bold ... kings and great lords of magic.  Her mate
was Cignus, father to her children and he from whom
all magic flowed.

     "Hear us, Mother," Ingraith intoned.

     "Heed our prayer," Belthanan said.

     "Succor and nurture us," Jacoberra added,
completing the beginning of the summoning.

     To the untrained eye the distant star seemed not
to hear the three aged women.  No one would have
believed that a distant object in the sky could
respond to whispered prayers and entreaties.  But in
the silence and darkness of this hidden place, in the
presence of three women whose clothing was worn and
tattered, a small light began to glow and the wind
rose.

     "Great Father, we honor you."

     "We hold the memory of your sons deep in our
hearts."

     "Have mercy on us and hear our plea."

     The three had recited the litany each night as
long as they could remember, from the time they had
joined their own mothers in the sacred place.  The
world needed both the mother and father of life and
magic ... for life had become tenuous, and the high
priestesses of the cult of Nelsfralaine knew that the
only hope left to mankind was the return of the High
King.

     For many years the sons and grandsons of Toran
had ruled Elanen through times of peace and
prosperity.  The basic laws created by Trelaine were
firm and fair, aiding the other ten kingdoms as well.
Trade between the kingdoms flourished and knowledge
continued.  But peace and prosperity cannot continue
unchallenged and, one by one, challenges occurred.

     During the reign of the fourth of Toran's line,
Petidel, the weather entered a dangerous cycle and
drought dried the once bountiful grain fields.
Starvation knocked at the doors of both rich and poor
and many died.  After four years of drought came
torrential rains and flooding.  The giant glaciers of
the far north began to melt and rivers changed course.


     The kingdoms were beginning to recover from the
vagaries of the weather when Petidel's son, Marlarnen,
was the king of Elanen.  In his eighth year as king an
illness struck the kingdoms that decimated the
remaining population.   The massive fortress citadels
were emptied as, one by one, those who survived the
plague left to claim vacant farmlands.

     Weather and neglect struck at all of the ancient
cities and, one by one, they crumbled.  Knowledge
almost ceased to exist and mankind struggled to
survive from one day to the next.  The magnificent
horses of the past, without man to care for them, ran
wild and free across the plains of the kingdoms.

     Year by painful year, the world began the decline
into darkness and ignorance.  Only the old forest
grandmothers carried on the spoken litany from
generation to generation of a time when the world
prospered.


 . . .

     Deep beneath the earth, deeper than the mind of
any mortal man could imagine, consciousness regained
itself.  Without shape or form, it gathered itself
together from fragments of memory.  Thoughts of magic
and battles filled the being that was beginning to
form.  Memories of love slowly returned: men with
bright eyes and quick minds ... strong bodies that gave
embrace and love beyond reckoning.

     It continued to grow, this thing that felt itself
being summoned.  The call had gone unheeded for
centuries for it had no desire to return to the world
of mankind.  Eight hundred years it had lived before
and was content deep within the bowels of the earth
where the loss of so many loved ones could not inflict
more pain.

     Now the call was stronger than ever before and it
could no longer ignore that which summoned.  Gathering
strength, the magic propelled itself upward and
erupted suddenly in the middle of a small graveyard ...
six graves to be exact.  The elements had toppled the
gravestones and worn away the names but the
grandmothers knew them all.

     Ingraith, Belthanan, and Jacoberra backed away
from the white fire that erupted in their presence,
frightened and unsure.

     "Are you Qell?"  Jacoberra finally asked timidly.

     "If I am, whom did you expect?" the sudden
apparition asked.

     "The last great Qell Lord was Trelaine.  It was
he whom we sought to summon," Ingraith answered.

     "Trelaine is no more," the figure answered as it
began to assume solid form.  "His time was before.  I
am Tynan, one of his brothers."

     Cowering before the figure that appeared before
them, the three women barely dared to glance at him.
He was taller than any man ever born with long black
hair that hung unbound to his hips.  His skin was
pale; like marble his veins showed beneath the skin.
Jacoberra dared to look at his eyes and was mesmerized
by the deep silver she saw. Qell.