The World of Myth Magazine

The year is 514, Vladimir the Young is Sage-King of the human kingdom of Thuraen.

The year is 5,297, Ulan is High Prince, Derek is Low Prince and Sienna Alknown is Mother Druid of the sylvan princedom of Greenwood Vale.

Aboard the ghoul-ship, The Picturesque Picaresque, the sisters of the Sacred Grove of Greenwood Vale stood idle. The wind that they had conjured had died down to a mere whisker of a breeze, the ship slowing to a snail’s pace. Paechra thought not of this, focused instead on the mystery of the strange cocoon that had formed about the mother druid, Sienna.

“Have you never seen anything like this happen before?” the younger Lightheart asked of her mother, Sarah.

“No, never daughter, Paechra,” admitted Sarah Lightheart. “This is the first I have witnessed such a strange phenomenon; I worry what will emerge when the cocoon breaks open.”

“None of you others have heard of such?” asked Paechra then, especially focused on catching the eye of the elder druids.

In turn each one shook their head, indicating that over the centuries they had lived such a strange sight had never been witnessed, nor recounted.

“This must be the work of the ship then,” decided Paechra. “Some form of revenge orchestrated by Captain Overtain, since he could not claim me for his crew, so he has instead found a way to claim someone close to my heart for his ship.”

“I am yet to be convinced that this is not some other such thing,” suggested Sarah, suddenly doubtful.

“Mother, do you question my logic?” replied Paechra, almond eyes narrowed. “Or is it your own courage that is in question?”

“Daughter, Paechra, I have taught you far better than that,” stated Sarah as the pair marched across the deck of the Picturesque Picaresque, the name given to the ghoul-ship.

Paechra stopped and looked deeply into her mother’s eyes.

“Daughter you speak of logic where there seems little to no evidence that such exists,” Sarah stated, calmly, not fazed by the look Paechra was giving her.

“Mother, you speak of lessons you have taught me, where both of us know much of my learning came from my father, not you Sienna, and of course my own exploration,” retorted the daughter.

Paechra expected her mother to bite back with her own retort, but instead Sarah Lightheart began to laugh. It was a laugh that was less full of mirth, more a dry chortle, an admission of failure, or the closest thing Sarah would offer of such an admission.

“What you accuse me of I cannot deny,” the elder Lightheart finally said.

To this Paechra nodded, but remained silent, listening.

“But as a child you were always in your father’s shadow, something that Mother Druid Sienna asked me to encourage,” Sarah continued. “I went against my instincts, not that I would have every considered myself as motherly anyway… We did have moments shared though when it could be confirmed we were mother and daughter, and sister druids…”

Again, the elder Lightheart smiled, and laughed. This time it was an honest sound, Sarah recalling fond memories.

“I guess you saw the beautiful relationship that had grown between me and my father…” said Paechra.

“You soaked up what he taught you, lessons of the world, tales of places beyond the forest, realms I had never considered, never thought about, not until you left us dear daughter,” Sarah explained.

Now it was Paechra’s turn to reflect, to reminisce.

“I thought of you, mother, of you and of Greenwood Vale,” Sarah’s daughter said. “The world of humans was a strange one, is a strange one, made stranger still when I befriended Raven.”

“And yet, you did not think of turning your back upon this strangeness and returning to the familiar?” asked Sarah. “Not even a message to ease my worries?”

“No,” replied Paechra. “What was before my very eyes took all of my focus and thought to understand, mother.”

Paechra and Sarah both wavered as the great ship lurched.

“Much as now, my daughter?” suggested Paechra’s mother.

“You believe me not, but your mind will change when we arrive in the land of the humankind,” replied Paechra. “You will see, as I did, I just know it.”

“Before we can arrive, we must go again,” said Sarah Lightheart, giving her daughter a look of urgency.

“Agreed, mother,” Paechra replied. “The cabin of Captain Overtain is just up ahead.”

“Why though does the wind remain so flat?” asked the elder Lightheart. “The sails have become so lifeless.”

“Mother Sienna was leading the song…” Paechra explained. “When the curse encased her it seems the song was forgot.”

“Nonsense, daughter,” snorted Sarah. “You and I and all of the other sisters of the druid’s belief, we all know the song to sing.”

“Then let the two of us sing it now,” laughed Paechra, suddenly the solution seeming so foolishly obvious.

“You begin, I shall follow your tone and harmonize,” urged Sarah.

Paechra took in a deep breath of pure sea air, but when she tried to find the words that the wind wanted to hear, her mind was empty, blank.

“Daughter, will you not sing?” asked Sarah of the younger Lightheart. “Know you not the words?”

“Nay mother,” said Paechra, a whisper. “I know not the spell, not in sylvan, nor human tongue, nor the natural tones of the song.”

“There is more to this mystery,” Sarah suggested. “We must find the captain and find him now.”

“Come, this way,” Paechra said, she beckoned to her mother, and without another word shared Sarah Lightheart followed.

Paechra searched frantically for the familiar cabin door. She passed by the place where she had previously resided, sharing a cabin with the human queen Catherine, her unborn child, and the butcher Thomas. This cabin had forced Paechra to answer some difficult questions, and Paechra considered where it was that all would reside during this voyage. That had all been arranged this time by Sienna and Sarah, and Sienna was unavailable to ask, while Paechra found her mother was less than open with those details. When she and her mother faced Captain Overtain, Paechra vowed to prise from the ghoul what information she sought.

There seemed to be a clear sky of blue in front and behind the ship, to the port and starboard also. Paechra began to realize that the mist she associated with travel aboard The Picturesque Picaresque was now all in her mind.

“Mother, Sarah, I understand now why the song has left us all,” exclaimed the younger Lightheart.

“Why then, Paechra,” asked Sarah. “What is the solution to this mystery?”

“Look inwards,” said the daughter. “Bring forth the magic, engage with the spirits.”

Paechra watched as her mother attempted to cast even the simplest of spells.

“I… I… I can’t,” murmured Sarah.

“In the past I have heard speak of the mist that shrouds this nightmare ship, I myself have experienced such when I did travel with the humans,” said Paechra, resting a calming hand upon her mother’s shoulder.

“I too have heard of such a mist, every mention of The Picaresque never fails to include the mist,” grumbled Sarah Lightheart.

“But now the sky is clear, it is as if we have outrun this mist,” Paechra continued.

“I had assumed that our spell had caused the ship to outpace the mist, to break free of the blanket, revealing all secrets as the sun beamed down upon us,” said Sarah. “You believe, daughter, that such is not the case?”

“I thought at first mother, that our combined power was far greater than captain and ship,” explained Paechra. “As did you, and in fact all of us believe, I thought we had broken the spell and removed the threat that ghoul and ship presented.”

“Daughter, Paechra, we are dead in the water, what you need say please say it now,” urged Sarah.

“I believe that the mist has entered our minds,” Paechra finally told her mother. “The minds of us all.”

Sarah shook her head in disbelief.

“No, such magics cannot be possible…” stated Sarah. “And yet… It would explain so much…”

“Feel what the ship is telling us mother,” suggested Paechra. “Not with your mind, not with your memory, just physically feel…”

“We are traveling backwards!” cried Sarah in alarm.

It was true. The breeze that was magically propelling the great ship towards Andrapaal as the druids sang had died down to nothingness. Now the wind had begun blowing the opposite way, the strange sails had billowed out against the mast and The Picturesque Picaresque had begun moving at a slow pace in reverse.

As if the magics that had frozen her to the deck, just like the mother druid, had suddenly become undone, Sarah broke into a run.

“Hurry daughter, to the cabin.”

“Mother slow, wait!” Paechra called, urgently. “You and I know not what to expect once we enter that cabin.”

“We can wait no longer, child,” called back Sarah.

The distance between mother and daughter seemed to grow exponentially. Finally, though Paechra was able to motivate her limbs to push against the fog that had invaded her thoughts. Step by step she made her way further up the deck of the ship. The distance between the two main masts seemed to take forever to cross.

“No, mother,” moaned Paechra as she witnessed Sarah Lightheart reach the cabin of Captain Overtain and seemingly without a moment of thought throw open the doorway and step inside.

As if chains were suddenly broken, with the door to the captain’s cabin closed again, Paechra felt herself released. Enveloping herself in blue and chanting the familiar words of a protection spell the younger Lightheart bounded along the ship’s deck, wolf-like, upon all fours.

“Release her!” demanded Paechra, snarling. “Release my mother, it is me you want.”

As usual, the cabin of Captain Overtain was dark, a true contrast to the glorious sunshine that poured warmly across the deck of The Picturesque Picaresque. As Paechra’s almond eyes adjusted to the change in light, she gasped. The captain, more deathly, diseased, and afflicted by the ghoul curse, sat again at the head of the table, but this time there was a figure nestled, comfortably within his lap.

“Isobella-Ann?” said Paechra in surprise.

“Indeed, Isobella-Ann,” growled Sarah.

Paechra’s mother was surrounded by a purplish glow, the shape of a falcon, a very angry falcon.

“Yes, Isobella-Ann,” laughed the other druid. “I am surprised that the Lightheart druids did not suspect me as being a traitor.”

The druid turned her head to reveal marks upon her neck resembling the disease that covered Captain Overtain.

Paechra took one look at those marks and her narrowed eyes opened, sympathy quickly replacing fury.

“How? When did this happen?” Paechra asked.

“We care not to know such trivial details,” growled the elder Lightheart. “Regardless of when and how, what remains and that we have been betrayed.”

“Come, come, Sister Sarah,” Isobella-Ann continued, her voice like tiny bells, melodic, slightly maniacal. “Let me explain…”

The shadow of the falcon flapped purple wings and exposed claws that wished to tear at Isobella-Ann’s throat, to wipe away that confident smile.

“Mother, please let her speak,” requested Paechra.

Sarah looked at her daughter in such a way that Paechra thought mayhaps her mother had forgot she was even there. Silence was created between the two of the Lightheart name, a silence that Isobella-Ann was more than happy to fill.

“You are not the only one who dreams, Paechra Lightheart,” Isobella-Ann began. “Though your dreams are of our enemies, the wolves who cast long shadows with arcana so dark that it shrivels their tiny hearts.”

“Such dreams have jeopardized our mission,” stated Paechra, carefully choosing her words. “But we have been able to refocus, and we have found a way to harness such dreaming in the end to our benefit.”

“Of whom do you dream?” Sarah asked of Isobella-Ann, though she asked in such a way that she suggested the answer was already known, known, and despised.

Isobella-Ann ignored Sarah’s tone.

“Thank you for your asking, sister Sarah,” Isobella-Ann replied with her smirk remaining. “I was dreaming of a darker power, a darker promise, a darker love.”

“My love,” said Captain Overtain, milky white eyes softened as he tilted his head and with a claw-like hand cupped Isobella-Ann’s cheek, drawing her towards him so their lips could embrace.

“So, you have sold out all of Greenwood Vale, that you may share in this monstrosity and his sickness?” asked Sarah in disbelief.

Paechra could understand though, seeing Isobella-Ann and Captain Overtain together brought on thoughts of Raven, the Truth Keeper Johannas Stormsong, Michael’s son. For a single moment Paechra wondered what fate had befallen her friend. That moment passed by swiftly though as her mother, Sarah, rushed forward.

“You should be punished for your foolery,” announced the elder Lightheart as the purple light that surrounded her glowed brightly.

As luck would have it the long table that Paechra was familiar with blocked her mother’s path. As Sarah came within a yard of striking, Isobella-Ann revealed just how far the transition of the ghoul disease had already progressed. A face that was partially melted, sliding from muscle and skull uncovered razor-sharp, elongated teeth that hungered to pierce through delicate, sylvan skin.

“I wish to eat, to feast!” announced Isobella-Ann, her lips that were only moments before caught up in the embrace of lust were then mere inches away from Sarah’s wrist as they snapped shut.

“Calm, my love, we will both enjoy the banquet that stands before us,” sedated the captain.

Paechra pulled back her mother as quickly as she could, before Sarah or Isobella-Ann could jump upon the table and bridge the tiny gap between them.

“You ooze of confidence, captain,” stated Paechra. “And yet I see that there are only two of you, and we are numbered the same.”

“Ah, young Paechra, sweet flesh and clever mind,” smiled Captain Overtain, revealing his own fangs, a tongue flicking out and running along cracked lips. “Once again you miss the point, the big picture, that which is hidden in plain sight.”

“Reveal your trickery, Overtain,” growled Sarah, the purple light growing stronger, brighter.

“Paechra, do you wish to see how the trick is done?” asked the captain, ignoring the elder Lightheart’s comments.

“Or would you rather remain as you always seem to enjoy being?” laughed Isobella-Ann. “In the darkness, unknowing, unsure, lost?”

“I am not lost,” stated Paechra, though her voice lacked its usual confidence. “I know exactly where I am.”

“You think you are aboard a ship, my ship,” said the ghoul, smiling wickedly. “But where is my ship?”

“Upon the sea of dreams,” Paechra stated, just realizing their potentially fatal mistake.

The captain’s cabin became darkness all around the edges, door, walls, ceiling, and floor, all vanished, replaced with nothingness. All that remained were the table, the chair, and the four figures. Then four became eight, twelve, twenty… From the darkness came the growl and howl of the vorsurk.

“You are not the only one who can dream, Paechra Lightheart,” laughed Captain Overtain, believing he had finally won. “And aboard this ship, I am master of the dreaming.”

In panic Paechra dug deeply inside and a brilliant light of pure white burst forth from out of her very core. The younger Lightheart heard her mother cry out her name, at the same time Isobella-Ann screeched in pain.

“You will not defeat me twice upon my own ship,” vowed Overtain. “Never have I been beaten once, I promise you, I shall claim my revenge, my prize, your soul shall be mine.”

Paechra sensed rather than saw the effects that her light had had upon the vorsurk, half of them stumbling back into the darkness to get away as their ghoulish hides bubbled and boiled. The remaining pushed forward to reach her, to distract her, to break the spell she had cast in an instant. Paechra’s mother bit, scratched, and clawed at the wolves that strove to bring down her daughter. And then where no door had been before, suddenly the cabin portal burst open.

“To my shoulder, boy!” cried the voice of Anton, heard by Paechra clear as a thundering gong.

“Here?” squeaked the voice of Thomas, obviously wanting to be anywhere else but there at that moment.

“I said, my left, boy, my left…” berated Anton. “Now strike!!”

Paechra saw Thomas’ aura waver from a sickly yellow to a pail blue. It was then and only then that she also noticed the black, shadowy aura that surrounded the ghoul captain, a similar shadow faintly enveloping Isobella-Ann and the vorsurk she could see.

As Thomas thrust clumsily with a ship’s spear and Anton struck one of the vorsurk with a broad-bladed blow, Paechra focused upon her hands. Two claws of bright white flew forward and grabbed hold of the black shadow that surrounded Overtain.

“You dare!” the captain cried in disbelief.

He slumped in his chair as all of the ghoul’s physical presence vanished, bolstering his arcane, his pitch-black soul.

Paechra found her spiritual hands that had attempted to rip the soul apart, suddenly faced a great struggle. Overtain pulled, Paechra pulled back. The two powers engaged in a tugging match that druid was not certain she could win. If the battle had taken place in the sacred grove it would have already been a victory for Paechra, aboard the ship in the realm of dreams, Overtain had the advantage. As the physical battle continued to play out around them Paechra and Overtain only focused upon each other. The dark aura syphoned off more and more of Paechra’s dazzling purity, the young Lightheart having need to draw more and more inwardly. All the while the darkness from outside seemed to squeeze Paechra tight, the fog in her mind threatened to become everything and then nothing. In a last-ditch effort, the daughter felt her mother’s presence; together they struck.

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