Gates of Eden: Starter Library

by Theophilus Monroe

  Once the nurse closed the door, I reached into my pocket and retrieved my staff. “Joni, when I was reborn it was like I was infused with a new awareness. My connection to the Tree of Life is stronger… much stronger than before. I’d like to do something for you… consider it a graduation present.”

  I willed my staff to its full size, gripping it with one hand and placing my other hand on Joni’s mother’s forehead. I could feel Annwn’s mystic springs within her… it was in her blood. I reached out the Spirit of the Tree of Life within me and connected it to hers. A green glow passed from my fingers into Joni’s mother… and she opened her eyes.

  “Mrs. Campbell, I’m Elijah Wadsworth. It’s a pleasure to meet you…”

  It would take some time before Joni’s mom was able to regain her full sensibilities. She had been in a coma for years. Still, I could sense her spirit. It was strong. She was going to be just fine. Joni, of course, was ecstatic—she couldn’t stop telling me how much she loved me after that… in between her tears, that is. I met Joni’s father, Jefferson Campbell, shortly thereafter. He seemed to be a nice guy—definitely old-fashioned. But he, too, was overcome by the emotion of the moment. We’d have to spend more time getting to know each other later. And at some point, we’d drop the baby news on them… but that could wait until another time.

  I left Joni with her parents—they had more than enough to celebrate today, and I wanted to give them their space.

  I drove back to the Harley residence; Gene and Lois had arranged a small party for Tyler, Emilie, and me. Of course, they were still perturbed that I had “taken off” to my “inheritance property” down in the Ozarks two weeks before graduation, and even more annoyed that I hadn’t answered their texts in the same span of time. Tyler told them that we had poor service down there, which only partially assuaged their worries.

  I tried to enjoy the celebration, but something about it felt empty. What was the point? Okay, we’d graduated high school. Whoop-dee-doo. And I’d just died and come back to life. After going through that, other things that most people make a big deal about don’t seem to matter as much. So after having a piece of bland celebration cake, I retreated from the party, went to my room, and started packing my things.

  This life… it wasn’t for me anymore. All I could think about was going back to the Shire.

  While I was packing my bags, someone knocked on the door. It was Emilie.

  “Hey Bear,” she said.

  “Hey Ems.”

  “You’re really not digging all this graduation stuff, huh?”

  “Nah… I’ve changed, Emilie. I can’t explain it, but I’m a Dryad—probably more Dryad than human—and I know my purpose now. The Tree of Life, it calls me, it speaks to me. I can’t explain it, but I feel compelled to go back to the Shire. It feels like home. Not to mention, graduation is sort of anticlimactic after being resurrected from the dead.”

  “Tell me about it…”

  “So, you get it?”

  “It’s the same for me too, Bear. I haven’t been the same ever since I was infected by the Wayward Tree. Yes, you saved me… and I’m glad you did. Still, there was so much inside me, so much I had been denying, so much I didn’t want to admit to myself…”

  “You mean, that you like girls?”

  “Um… Well… that’s not what I was thinking… but maybe. I don’t really know.”

  “It’s okay, Ems. You know I love you no matter what.”

  “It was more the sense of freedom, the feeling that I didn’t have to be bound to my situation at home. I think I have to move out. I think it’s time to trust that Sam can take care of himself. He’s older than I was when I first started doing it… and I feel for him, I do… but I can’t keep living like this.”

  “I suppose you could come stay with me down at the Shire for a while.”

  “No, I can’t do that, Bear.”

  “Why not?”

  “You and Joni… I couldn’t admit it at first, but you deserve each other. She’s really great, Bear. I’m happy for you. But if I stayed there, with you… you guys are going to have a little Merlin whizzing around that place before long. I can’t come between you two.”

  “So, then… what’s the plan?”

  “New York.”

  “New York?”

  “Yeah. I applied to the New York Conservatory of Music several months ago, just on a whim… just to see if they’d take me. Well, they did. And they offered me a scholarship. Full tuition.”

  “That’s great, Ems. I’m really happy for you.”

  “But Bear, don’t worry. I’ll always be your Bard. If you ever need me, I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”

  “I know, Emilie. And I’ll do the same. I’m always here for you.” We hugged, exchanging kisses on the cheek, and she left.

  In the meantime, I gathered my essentials. I tossed my father’s sigil stone and most of my clothes into a duffel bag. I shot Tyler a text to let him know I’d be leaving. He didn’t respond. Of all of us, he was the only one who seemed to be enjoying this whole graduation celebration. I looked at the Escort—I couldn’t take that. Tyler needed it. If I had to walk there, I would. But then I had another thought. I retrieved my staff and surveyed the sigils. I selected one… Somehow, I knew what it would do.

  “Fugol!” I felt my body change, growing larger but lighter. Feathers began to emerge from my skin… I looked at my arm as it transformed into a wing. I had become an eagle. Of course, I was much larger than any other eagle… I would have smiled, but beaks are rather inexpressive. I recalled Tyler’s explanation about how matter cannot be created nor destroyed, how my full mass had to be accommodated into the form. I grabbed my staff with my talons, sliding it through one of the straps of my bag. I gripped it tightly with one talon, snagging Indie by the scruff of his neck with the other. He meowed in protest. I enveloped him with my oversized talon, fluttered my wings… and I took off, soaring through the skies.

  I had never felt so free, seeing the lights of the city fade as I made my way toward the rolling hills of the Ozarks. The cool breeze against my face, fluttering my feathers, was refreshing. For the first time in my life, I felt like I knew who I was. Though as I flew, I couldn’t help but wonder what my future might behold. The Morrigan was still out there, still trying to wreak havoc in our world, and to spread the cursed blight throughout Annwn. I may have been reborn a Dryad… but I was still human—a Druid, too. There was still anger inside me, a desire for vengeance. She had destroyed my childhood, taken my family from me. Eventually I’d confront her, somehow. I pushed the thought out of my mind, resolving to enjoy my inaugural flight in eagle form. The sun had set, but in this form my vision was different. I could see clearly. I noticed a little mouse, undoubtedly more than a hundred yards beneath me, darting across the fields. My eagle instincts saw it as a meal; my humanity repelled the notion. Spotting the Shire, I landed at its steps. I simply relinquished the energies that held my shape together and naturally resumed my human form.

  It felt good to be home.

  I crashed in a hammock that my parents had most likely left hanging in one of the side-rooms years ago. Indie curled up beside me. I fell asleep.

  Then I was startled awake.

  Cold water, in my face.

  “What the hell.”

  I cleared my eyes, and Lily was standing over me.

  “Lily, it’s the middle of the night… did you have to use the cold water?”

  “Sorry, first thing that came to mind. Elijah, we need you, now. It’s the Tree of Life.”

  “What about it?”

  “Something happened to it, when you emerged from it… The Tree of Life is dying...”

  End of Book 1

  To be continued in…

  Bard’s Tale

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  Book 2 -Bard's Tale

  I CLUTCHED AT the wound in my gut as the minotaur flung my body like a rag doll halfway across Skinker Boulevard. Had it been any
other time of day, rather than the middle of the night, I probably would have flown headlong into someone’s windshield. Instead, my body struck the pavement, the grainy surface skinning my elbow. More than the ease with which the creature tossed me about, hooking me in the gut with its horn, it was the complete lack of pain that startled me the most. As soon as the minotaur pierced my mid-section, energies flowed from the Tree of Life into my broken flesh, healing me as quickly as the beast could rip me apart. It was the first time, splinters and paper cuts aside, that I’d incurred any sort of significant injury since becoming a Dryad. A moment of shocking pain, quickly assuaged by mystical salve…

  “Next time try to stick the landing, little brother,” Lily shouted from the park side of the boulevard, channeling a shroud of energies over all of us, concealing the minotaur and myself from the common person’s view.

  “You realize you're only older than me by like five minutes, right?” I shouted back as I returned to my feet, still touching where my wound should have been through the hole the minotaur’s horn had torn in my t-shirt. I looked up just in time to leap out of the way of an oncoming vehicle. Not that I couldn’t survive the hit—but I was pretty sure the motorist’s insurance didn’t cover collisions with invisible Druids and mystical beasts.

  The minotaur snorted like he was hocking up a massive loogie. He scuffed his hooves against the pavement. He was preparing to charge.

  I steadied my feet and aimed my staff, zapping the creature with a binding spell. I couldn’t help but be impressed by the beast. More than double my height when standing on his hindquarters, his massive body was packed with muscle—enough to dwarf the reigning Mr. Olympia—and was covered by a thin layer of black, stringy fur. It was dusted in a kind of ash, as if his fur had been singed by flames. He had the head and tail of a bull, horns spanning more than five feet, curved and, as I’d experienced, quite sharp on the ends. In spite of the creature’s impressive mass, however, his body buckled under my spell. He snorted repeatedly, struggling to no avail against the magical binds that held his giant frame in place.

  “Nice save,” Lily said in a loud voice, attempting to speak above the traffic noise.

  I nodded back at my sister, struggling to maintain my spell—I only wanted to constrain the creature, not suffocate him. Still, I could feel him resist, rattling my focus. The more I felt him fight my spell, the more I tried to compensate, pulling the chains tighter… but not too tight. He may have been a creature of Samhuinn, sent here somehow by the Morrigan—but he was just that, a creature, a beast acting according to his nature. He didn’t deserve to die.

  But something was wrong with my spell. My staff pulsed under my grip, not giving me the constant tingle it usually had when I channeled magic.

  Lily, I said to my sister through my thoughts—being twins with magic, we could connect via ESP provided we were in close proximity to one another—something is wrong… My connection to the Tree of Life… I’m losing my focus… Gate this thing out of here, now!

  Lily didn’t psychically respond, but I could sense her confusion. She wasn’t used to my magic failing. Since I was resurrected a Dryad, my connection to the Tree of Life had been profound, my powers had required little focus, and wielding magic had been as natural as moving an arm or leg. But the Tree of Life was ailing. At first its leaves started to wither, and then it started losing them entirely. Until now it hadn’t affected my abilities.

  Lily raised her gatekeeper’s staff overhead, twirling it on one hand and shooting a tornado of energies over the bound minotaur, gating him back to Samhuinn.

  “What took you so long?” I asked as I strolled back to Lily through traffic, narrowly dodging an oncoming minivan. “I thought girls were supposed to be good at multitasking.”

  Lily darted her eyes in my direction. Swinos!

  I tried to speak, but all that came out of my mouth was a snort. I noticed the ground was mere inches from my face and I stood on four hooves. I looked up at Lily, who slapped a hand over her mouth to suppress her laughter.

  “If you're going to talk like a pig, you might as well be one!” Lily said through her giggles. She released the energy and I quickly resumed my normal form.

  “Hey, unfair! You took me off guard.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, you have to be on guard all the time. You may be resilient to normal human injuries since your rebirth, but you’re still vulnerable to a well-cast hex. If It was the Morrigan…”

  “Yeah, I would probably be bacon by now,” I admitted. It had been almost five months since my rebirth. My sister, who I’d thought had died in a fire when I was twelve, had actually been kidnapped by the Morrigan, the queen of Samhuinn herself. The Morrigan had hoped to use my sister to lure me to her cause. Little did I know that the mysterious “girl in black” who’d been making random appearances, haunting me since my parents’ death, was actually my sister under the mind-warping influence of the Morrigan and the Wayward Tree. She’d come back when we were eighteen to kidnap my friend Emilie and lure me to the Wayward Tree in an effort to save her.

  While Lily’s mind was consumed by the cursed magic of the tree, she had hoped to convince me to join her. Instead, I channeled my entire spirit into a spell that cost my semi-normal human life but freed both Emilie and Lily from the sway of the Wayward Tree. My friends, including my pretentious pal Tyler and my newly impregnated Druidess girlfriend, Joni (I had no clue she was pregnant at the time) managed to resurrect me at the Tree of Life. Now I was the Tree of Life’s Dryad protector, and my sister had assumed the mantle of the gatekeeper, the only one who could channel gates between the immortal realms of Annwn (or the blighted side of Samhuinn) and Earth.

  But something had happened…

  After I was reborn in the heart of the Tree of Life, the tree fell ill. It was dying. It was getting weaker every day, and as it did, insidious creatures from Samhuinn—like this minotaur we had just sent back—were finding their way to Earth through old gateways, held open by the Morrigan. While the Morrigan herself remained confined to the Wayward Tree, her ability to wield power throughout the immortal realms grew stronger as the Tree of Life itself became weaker. And since the Tree of Life was the source of my power, as the tree weakened my own abilities were failing as well.

  “Enough horseplay,” Lily said, a look of concern covering her face.

  “Pig play, you mean?” I interrupted her with a poor attempt at a joke at my own expense.

  “Yes, enough of that, Elijah,” Lily said, serious now. “That was the third incursion this week. I'm not sure we can keep this up while also trying to find a cure for the Tree of Life. And if your powers are failing now…”

  I sighed. “The blight of Samhuinn continues to spread across the ley lines into Annwn’s groves. If the blight reaches the gateway wellspring…”

  “It won't,” Lily said matter-of-factly. “We can’t allow it. We’re going to have to focus on that. These incursions… The Morrigan is just trying to distract us. She's forcing us into a two-front war on both Earth and Annwn.”

  “That may be,” I said, “but we can’t ignore these things and allow an army of minotaurs to ransack St. Louis. What do you suggest we do?”

  “I don’t know,” Lily admitted. “I’m supposed to be the gatekeeper. I’m supposed to know these things, but I don’t know much. Most of my life I’ve been under the Wayward Tree’s influence… and Merlin handed me the gatekeeper’s mantle and staff without so much as a how-to manual.”

  Merlin. The legendary Arthurian wizard and St. Louis Cardinals’ fan who’d managed to traverse the fabrics of time and space through gates cast between Annwn and Earth. He was more than an ancient wizard. Before he left, he revealed in a letter that he was my son, the very child growing presently in Joni’s womb—and because the same soul cannot occupy the same time, he had to leave. At some point later in his life, we could only assume, he’d grow up to become the eccentric old wizard we came to know and love. Leaving a note and his sta
ff behind, he’d asked “Aunt Lily” to take over his role as gatekeeper. I knew where he’d gone—to Camelot. The rest, as the saying goes, would be history.

  “If only we could go to him… he’d know what to do,” I said, scratching my green-haired scalp.

  “It’s too risky,” Lily said without hesitation. “I know I can traverse time and space as gatekeeper, but going to Camelot… taking you with me… First, I’m not even sure I know how to get there. This stuff is all still new to me. Second, and more importantly, we’d leave Annwn and the Tree of Life unguarded, not to mention St. Louis.”

  “We’ve been fighting this two-front war for nearly six months,” I replied, “and we’re losing ground every day. We won’t be able to hold off Samhuinn’s blight forever. It’s only a matter of time before the wellspring and the Tree of Life are lost entirely. We need an answer… something to change the tide of this thing...”

  “Perhaps you can try contacting the Dryad Council again?”

  “It’s of no use,” I said. Ever since we realized that the Tree of Life was sick I’d been trying to reach Lugh, my mother, or any dormant Dryad to seek their advice. But try as I might, I couldn’t reach any of them. Something was off. Something was wrong, and my spells weren’t as powerful as they had been a few months before. The tree still healed me, it still allowed me to perform most of the spells my father had inscribed into my staff, but complex spells like shapeshifting had become more difficult. Without Joni, who was busy “nesting” with her mother’s aid back at the Shire, I lacked her ability to amplify and focus my spells. Still, I couldn’t risk exposing her and our unborn baby Merlin to the creatures of Samhuinn.

  At first, I’ll admit, I thought there was nothing to worry about. After all, I’d already met Merlin in old age. I thought I had every guarantee I needed to know he’d survive the perils of our time. Still, as Tyler warned, if multiverse theory was correct, it was possible that the baby could still be at risk—an alternate reality without Merlin could emerge, a separate timeline. The fact that Merlin lived into old age—at least the version of him we’d met—might have been precisely because I had protected him. I couldn’t take my responsibilities as a father-to-be for granted. Since none of us really know the rules of time travel, Tyler had urged me to exercise an excess of caution rather than throwing all care to the wind, as I was apt to do. The long and the short of it: we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. So we weren’t going to take any risks.