Fable, p.1
Fable, page 1
FABLE
Also by the author:
Realms of Shadowblood Trilogy
SHRILL
FABLE
FIRESTORM (coming soon)
First published in 2021 in Melbourne, Australia
Copyright © Troy M. Williams 2021
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.
This publication is a work of fiction. All characters and places, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Typeset by BookPOD
Edited by Dalida Boustead
Map art by Sylvie Blair
Cover art by E-Django
ISBN: 978-0-6489664-3-2 (pbk) eISBN: 978-0-6489664-4-9
For my ma, Karen, you truly are amazing.
In memory of my dad, Barry, you are missed always, mate.
With a special thank you to Sylvie and Dalida.
“Time is a game played beautifully by children.”
Heraclitus
PROLOGUE
PRE ZEYTAR CONTROL
Many cycles earlier
A RUMBLE RANG OUT OVER THE DARK LANDS as a powerful force broke the barriers and pushed through the dimensional portal, which was protected from outside intruders by the oldest magic. These were not amateurs, though. As the giant ship entered the atmosphere, cutting off the blurring blue and pink lights trailing behind it, another glow began emanating from the base of the saucer-shaped craft. It pointed directly down to the dark, barren dust below.
Three small Zeytars stepped from the blue and green lights before the ship disappeared. They set out on three different paths along the desert wastelands of what was once a lush valley of colors filling the landscape, with an abundance of life and creatures all living in harmony. That was until the dark lord Varzunnos took it and made it his barren land of destruction and evil. The forests became twisted with dark magic, and the once bustling, happy dwellers of the corner lands of Faelynn were taken, murdered, or used and changed to become part of his destructive armies, which would eventually start a war lasting an age.
After some time wandering and exploring, it was clear there was nothing there for the Zeytars. This was the first time they were scouting the realm of Faelynn, having found it by accident. They had unknowingly accessed the most barren part of the lands and decided it was nothing but a waste of time, not helpful to their agenda.
As the three approached the ship, they caught the attention of other dark creatures, those of this realm, all with a thirst for blood and in no way tricked by Zeytar mind control patterns or hallucinations. The three found out very quickly that their methods worked much better on humans and Draconians than they did on these monsters of shadows lurking at the edges of the dark, foreboding woods of Xarkynan.
They ran, barely making it to the ship before a wind swept the shadow spirits up and whirled them back into the darkness of the woods, as if they could not venture any farther. What these dark creatures were capable of was a question the Zeytars would not stick around to find out, as the blue and green lights pulled them up onto the large ship once again.
The gravity seemed stronger in this realm. It seemed to be hard to break into, and even harder to escape from. Soon the whirs of the ship finally opened another doorway out, but it took an unprecedented amount of power. This would be something the Zeytars would work on, as it would take them another century in Earth years to access this realm again. Not that the first introduction was of any benefit.
The ship burst through its portal at high speed, breaking time and space with an explosion of sound that would shatter all the glass from an entire city’s buildings, and with a pink and blue blast, the giant mother ship was gone.
But something wasn’t quite right. Something of the Zeytars’ excursion had remained—a force that had escaped the ship to explore for itself. Without realizing the stay would be so short, the visitor had now become a permanent resident of the outer realms of Faelynn, known as Xarkynan.
The visitor appeared only as a green electric mist that blended into the shadows of the edge of the great dark elm woods. It was one of the many mind essence Zeytars that had been awaiting a body for thousands of years. Having waited for so long, it had become twisted, hoping to find a host it could inhabit while the Leader and the masters went about their agenda in Earth’s realm.
This visit, though, would not be a welcome one. The entity floated through the dark elm woods, so quiet and invisible that it missed any encounters with the evil shadows that had hunted its organically clothed brethren just a little earlier. It made its way out of the most evil woods in all the realms of the Fae without even as much as a whisper, not even from the watchers of the woods, dark twisted elves that still held evil magic, awaiting the return of the dark one.
Sometime into its silent exploration, the entity suddenly became aware that the other Zeytars had left, disconnecting its link to the hive. The visitor knew that the Leader would leave it on that world forever, never to have a perfect body to inhabit when the Zeytars eventually figured out their essentially flawless cloning techniques.
It was now concentrating harder to try to re-establish a connection back to the hive and to commune with the Leader. Its green mist was becoming more prominent the harder it was thinking, as the green electrons circled around, bringing unwanted attention to the entity. Soon it gave up, reverting into shadow once more. But two dark elves had witnessed the unusual event.
Inspecting the area, the two gray-skinned beings with black hair and attired in dark, warlike forest garb looked at each other before one spoke in their native tongue, “Did you see that? It looked like the spirit of a tree dryad.”
The other one slid his bent blade back into the scabbard on his shoulder, saying, “No, I thought the same, but a dryad would not survive this far into the elms without the shadows alerting us somehow, by flame or by blood.”
They both nodded, agreeing, as the first dark elf also re-sheathed his stained sword into his scabbard, and both made their way back to their lookout in the twisted elms.
The bodiless Zeytar kept moving as that was taking place, gliding forward and up through the twisted trees, higher and higher, until it noticed the outer gates to an exceptionally large dwelling. It hovered over them and then made its way along the very long bridge which soon brought it to the larger main gates of an old, dark castle. The gates were ajar. In front of the huge entrance pillars, with basilisk dragons twirling down the monoliths, were the bones of many disturbing-looking creatures.
The entity floated past, not too concerned with the look of the place, as intent as it was on finding a creature it could inhabit. One of the previous elves would have been perfect, but with two of them there, and not knowing what the other might do, the visitor thought it wise to be more discreet in selecting a host.
As it flowed and billowed through large empty halls of the enormous castle, it found its way upstairs to a room with the large armor of the dark lord sitting atop his huge chair. A hooded figure stood next to the long-deceased leader, as if he were still watching over him, waiting for someone to enter and take the castle. The skin on the dark hooded watcher was old and leathery, and its eye sockets still filled, staring at nothing. Its fingers clutched a wood and bone staff, long, thin, and twisted. At the end of it was a tiny cut where a stone lay fixed in position. The entity realized at that moment that this place had a different energy, a different power to that which he was familiar with.
The Zeytars had always been a race of science, but now it seemed the game had changed. The rules were different here. It could still feel the energy around the place, from past battles and twisted, macabre events that had played out.
Looking over at the cloaked creature, the visitor noticed fresh saliva slowly dripping from the hooded figure’s seemingly lifeless corpse. The creature was probably stuck in a time vortex somewhere, fully preserved, awaiting release. The larger dark creature in the chair, however, was nothing but a skeleton underneath the enormous armor of a long-forgotten leader.
The drool continued to run down the dark, scaly face of the cloaked creature and the entity felt an urge to move closer. As it did, the calling became stronger and the green mist dissipated into the eyes of the hooded watcher. Then there was a moment of silence.
With a few blinks, the watcher drew back a loud breath. It clutched its arms tight and then thrust them back, before it faced the ceiling and howled a dreadful cry, which quickly turned into dark laughter. As the creature gathered its bearings and breathed noisily, it turned to the remains of the dark lord and whispered slowly in a twisted tongue, “I have found my new home. I will use this host to bring me up to speed with this world.”
Then he flopped to the ground on his knees and fell into a trance as his eyes stared into nothing, glowing purple then turning a dark red, awaiting a neuron data update from the long-forgotten host.
SINISTERS
IT WAS ANOTHER PERFECT DAY IN FAELYNN. The sun was high in the cloudless sky, shining through the trees at the edge of the realm, and illuminating an old toadstool next to a large ancient oak tree. Near it, three little forest gnomes, returning from a day’s work in the thick woods, were picking berries and gathering wo od for the evening’s meal.
“Watch it, fool, you stepped on my foot!” the older gnome snapped, as he picked up the spilled basket which was accidentally knocked out of his thick-fingered hands.
“Sorry, Grilif, I was looking at the birds acting weird in the sky. I didn’t mean it,” the slightly younger, burlier gnome, Darf, retorted.
“Well, look where you’re going next time,” Grilif said, venting his frustration.
Grilif was an angry gnome at the best of times, and the rest of them knew it, so they tried not to upset him any more than they had to by arguing back.
“Something is strange. Have a look, Grilif, in the sky, the birds seem to be squawking and flying in all different directions,” Melex said as they all looked up at the bizarre behavior.
It wasn’t the first time this had happened. There were many unusual events going on in the outer part of the Faelynn realm lately. And things were about to get a lot worse.
“Help! There’s something in the darkness near the giant mushroom fort,” a tiny tree sprite bellowed as she flew out of the dense forest in the direction of the three gnomes who were just about to enter their small hut next to the old oak.
“What are you talking about, Stella?” Grilif said, angry again that his meal prep had been delayed.
“It’s awful and scary and mean and—” Stella Rosegum exclaimed in desperation as Grilif interrupted her, saying, “Slow down, little one, there is nothing that bad in our forests. The dark ones have been gone for a thousand cycles.”
While Grilif tried to calm down the fluttering tree faery, another one appeared behind her, fluttering the same way with her tiny green wings. She, too, had leafy headwear and green limbs that seemed humanoid, although they were intertwined with leaves and twigs, as if made of both skin and nature—this was their perfectly made attire that helped them blend into the forest.
“Please, you must hurry, Grilif. I think they have taken Stixx and Mella,” the second sprite cried out.
They looked upon Grilif as the vigorous leader and protector of the area. Although grumpy, he was an excellent warrior and had a sense of leadership in keeping order around the place.
“Fine, fine, show me where this evil faery is, and I’ll put this nonsense to bed.” Grilif was not in the mood for any shenanigans. He had already fought off a spriggan who was trying to steal some of the gems attached to his satchel when he was taking a nap earlier in the day.
All five of them started making their way toward the darker part of the forest. It was usually home to the mysterious dryad Felvora, a benevolent mage of the faery oak who kept to herself most of the time. Although she reported to the other dryads every so often to help with protecting the realms, she had not been called upon for some time, so she was becoming more of a recluse these days.
“Not that way!” Stella screamed. “I’ve tried to find Felvora, but she won’t appear for me. We must continue this way through the light of glowing shrooms. The darkness is bad—that is where they lurk,” the sprite explained.
Grilif lit his lantern, which hung from the looped end of his bent tree staff. The forest had become unnaturally dark for the middle of the day, with Stella’s wings now glowing to help light the way.
“Something’s not right, fellas,” Grilif whispered, as the forest became silently still.
Crack.
“What was that?” Stella cried out as they all turned to the location of the only sound in the woods.
“I think we need Felvora now,” Grilif whispered. “Stella, try calling for her at once. Something is definitely not right. There is a dark magic here and I do not like this one bit.”
Stella closed her eyes and started whispering an old poem to call the ancient dryad oak mage. Only the tree sprites could call for her, as Felvora protected them more than the others because she was a long-lost descendant of the tree Fae.
Nothing.
In the distance they could just make out a blue light as a breeze whispered through the area, until it became silent once more. Soon afterward there was another sound, then another. There was enough light around the place with the lanterns, the two tree sprites, and the glowing mushrooms to see around the area, not that it made them feel any less concerned. They were only used to the standard tricksters and thieves like spriggans, hobgoblins, the angry dwarves when they passed through, and the standard mischievous faeries, but nothing evil that would make any of the free folk scared like this, a foreboding dark presence that seemed to have a grip on them somehow.
“Where are you going, Melex? Hey, get back here,” Grilif yelled as the gnome started walking to one side of a huge rock covered in rich green moss. Melex didn’t even bat an eyelid as he continued over to the giant mass. He lifted his lantern and noticed something shuffling in the long, thick grass next to the rock. The lantern was illuminating a small area, letting off a yellow-orange light that flickered from the candle inside.
As he cast another glance toward the grassed area, he saw two giant black eyes looking back at him, reflecting his lantern light like a mirror. He stood there stunned, staring at the large almond-shaped eyes as Grilif grabbed his shoulder and turned him around before saying, “Did you hear me, Melex, what are you doing?”
Grilif looked into Melex’s still staring eyes, seeing only fear in them, as if he had just seen the dark lord himself. He whispered to the others, “We need to go now. It bewitches Melex.”
As he spoke the last word, he too caught the glare of the dark, reflecting, almond-shaped eyes looking at him through the grass. Grilif scrambled and fell backward, which broke the gaze and the spell, as the creature made its way out of the grass and into the light of the lantern that had fallen to the ground.
“Grilif, are you OK?” Darf had rushed to Grilif’s side. His lantern added to Grilif’s, illuminating more of the area, and the gray creature came into full view, standing tall like an enormous giant to them.
As they all witnessed the huge creature, which was at least five feet tall, a loud rustle came from behind them and a growl that echoed throughout the entire forest. They froze in fright on seeing another monster before them, a beast that some of them would be spending a lot of time with soon.
“Stixx? Mella?” Stella screamed as she noticed several glowing faeries flying around the gigantic hairy beast’s head. She flew to the top where they were hovering but realized they did not look right. There was something very wrong with them. They looked evil and gray, as if the color had drained from their body tones. They had their weapons loaded and ready to fire, and had a snarly look about them, with sharp, monstrous teeth showing, which was not normal for the peaceful nature folk.
Stella quickly zoomed out of the way, only to be struck in the middle of the air by a stun ray being held by the tall gray creature. Grilif tried to attack it by striking its feet with his staff, before grabbing the still bewitched Melex’s ax and swinging widely at the sinister gray. All this was to no avail as it seemed to know his next movement, and with the blink of his eyes all three of the forest gnomes went flying into the dark of the woods.
The creature approached Stella and stared into her small eyes with its gigantic, evil black eyes, mesmerizing her and linking her up to the giant beast standing in front of her.
As this happened, Stella’s features changed. She was no longer the friendly, colorful-looking sprite she had been, but an opposite version of herself, much like her kin near the beast. As she was slowly freed of the stun ray, her tiny bright wings fluttered upwards and she took up her post with the rest of the faeries controlled by the giant Sasquatch.
Milfin Dugglebox sprang out from behind the large mushroom and screamed, “No! Stella, come back! What have you done, you evil thing?”
She climbed higher and higher as quickly as she could, with her bow and arrow aimed to take out the gray sinister creature’s eyes, all to no avail. Even though she had been hiding while this was all happening, the sinister gray creature knew exactly where she was. It stopped her mid-flight with a glare. Although the creature was recruiting sprites to serve its own agenda, it would not hire this one—as it intensified its stare, Milfin started screaming in pain, before she exploded into a trillion pieces. The magic of her essence dissipated into the air as the sinister creature sniffed it up like a rose’s scent in the garden, leaving nothing left of the tiny sprite.
