The journey to Gàradh Lien had been a long one. Two grueling weeks navigating land he’d never traversed before. He’d even been graciously gifted a horse by Ilvara before they parted north of Isenfell, and still the travel was hard. In the past, Alistair believed knights had it easier riding on horseback rather than a wagon. It turned out that traveling was uncomfortable no matter how one did it.
Alistair led his gelding down a series of rolling hills. He’d crossed the border just a few days ago from Isen into the central province of Alban. The Sight had told him so. This was the heart of the kingdom. Known for its rich farming soil and even richer nobles, the duchy of Alban served as not just a temperate breadbasket, but a center of culture and arts. Some of the most famous knights and paladins came from this place.
His destination, or at least what he believed it to be, rested up ahead. Down from these hills and in the center of a wide grassy plain sat a mystical wood. Fantastically tall trees, trunks as thick as stone walls, and vibrant overgrowth that seemed to cover any would-be entrance. It was clearly magical, an aura not so different from Celidon. Alistair felt drawn to this place. More pure, more foreign than anything he’d ever seen in his life. Just like in his dreams.
From where he was now, Alistair had a commanding view of the land. He couldn’t see a single sign of civilization in any direction. This place remained untouched, either by the Lady’s decree or from the people’s fear of the fae. Even the animals of the plains, of which there were a great variety, gave this strange forest a wide berth. He was thankful to have the horse with him otherwise he’d feel terribly alone.
“Well, best not to waste time,” he said to himself. Alistair clicked his tongue and urged his steed forward. The day waned, and he did not want to enter such a place at night.
Coille Draoidheil, the enchanted forest, soon loomed over him. This magical foliage acted as a protective barrier to the sacred grove located deeper within. Not just a barrier though, Alistair was sure something other than the Lady called this place home. He could only hope that the denizens were friendly, or at least that they would leave him be. Alistair had no interest in fighting today.
He saw the flora of this place move and shift in front of his eyes as if it were sapient. Thorny stems, thick as a man’s arms, slithered along the ground and up the tree bark. They locked together and formed twisted lattices of barbed walls that would keep all but the bravest or most foolhardy out. The treeline, aside from these ever-moving plants, was deathly silent. No bird calls, no wild animals, not even his gelding made a sound. For a moment he felt his nerves get the better of him, urging him to turn back.
No, he’d become braver than that.
Alistair dismounted and glanced about. There wasn’t a place for him to tie his horse off to. Unfortunate, though he shouldn’t have been surprised. Not many would travel to this place willingly, not even the most devout pilgrims. This was the Lady’s domain, a place meant only for her and those closest to her. An invite might allow an outsider to visit unscathed, and while Alistair had received a summons, he doubted it extended to his animal companion.
I’ll have to go it alone.
From the back of his horse, he removed his rucksack. He summoned the Aegis around him and soon the red giant became his form. The armored body was beginning to feel like a second skin at this point. He shouldered his pack and said a silent goodbye to the horse. With the Lady’s blessing perhaps he’ll stay, thought Alistair. Otherwise, he’d have quite a bit of walking to do later.
He approached the enchanted forest’s border, now on foot. Nothing reacted to his presence. The thorny greenery still obstructed his way. Alistair had thought a door might be summoned or the plants would shrivel away on his arrival. Now it seemed as though he’d have to make his own way through. He decided to have a look for a spot with the fewest protrusions.
There, a spot between two trees especially close to one another. A weak spot in the natural defenses with only a few thorns wrapped to the bark. He made to step forward and cross the threshold. A voice stopped him.
“I wouldn’t go that way,” said someone. A feminine voice, with a melodious lilt. It seemed to come from the forest itself.
Alistair yanked his hand back. “Who’s there?” he called out.
“Sheyla,” replied the voice. She hummed a cheerful tune to herself. “What’s your name?”
For a moment, Alistair hesitated, unsure whether to respond or not. "It's Alistair." Finally, he gave in, eager to move on.
“Oh, silly me. I forgot to show myself!” From the trunk of one of the trees stepped a woman of deep green skin. Her hair, like the Lady of the Lake, served as the sole cover of her otherwise nude form. The Sight told him that this Sheyla was a dryad, a forest spirit.
“Better now?” she asked. Sheyla found his silence to be a source of amusement and she laughed at his expense. “Never seen a dryad before, I take it?” When he shook his head, her smile widened. “Well, I’m happy to be your first.”
“Are you a messenger from the Lady?”
She shook her head. “No, just someone who lives here. I’ve never even met the Lady, she’s not really one for casual conversation.” The forest spirit looked bothered by this. “After all the work we dryads put in to keep her little grove looking prim and proper, you’d think even something small as a thanks might be warranted.”
“But you’ve seen the grove?” Alistair continued. “Gàradh Lien, you must know of it.”
“Of course,” she said with a shrug. “One of the Lady’s three summer homes as some of the other girls like to say. Each a portal in their own right to Avalon, the Lady’s realm.”
“Could you show me how to get there?” he asked. “The Lady has summoned me to this place. I mustn’t keep her waiting.”
The forest spirit left the safety of her tree and paced around Alistair. She came up only to his waist but was still tall compared to a human. Sheyla's fingers playfully traced along the grooves of his armor. Her humming continued with such a catchy rhythm he found himself getting distracted by it.
“Am I not enough to entertain you, dear Alistair?” said the dryad. She grasped his burly arms and thighs, cooing as she did. “My my, you’re a big boy. Much different than the last one.”
“Last one?”
“Oh yes,” she said, almost dismissively. Sheyla’s smile faltered as she remembered something unpleasant. “That one wasn’t as easy on the eyes. Made of fire. Not someone you’d want to get near, dryad or not.” She rolled her eyes. “A hotheaded little man, just like the rest of his body. He didn’t appreciate my company a bit.”
Not him again.
“Many of your kind have been visiting this place.” The dryad twirled a green finger through her long dark locks. She impishly pointed a finger at him. “There’s been an awful lot recently. It must be a new generation of you boys and girls.”
Alistair shook his head. “I’d love to hear more but—”
“Sheyla! Oh, there you are.”
“So this is what you’ve been up to. You flirt!”
From the treeline came two more dryads. Each one wore their hair in a complex style, held together not with pins but instead with branches woven together. For forest fae, they could have given a noble lady a run for their money. One a redhead, as sharp as the color of wild cherry. The other was raven-haired like Sheyla. Both were just as naked and unashamed as the first.
“Now now, girls!” Sheyla planted herself between Alistair and the other forest nymphs. “I saw him first. Minnie, you had the last nice boy. The one that offered to water your roots? My, what a charmer he was.” Alistair saw what a blush could look like on someone with green skin. Sheyla turned on the other girl. “And you, Fiz. Are we forgetting the lad from last year that let you ride his horse? Hmm?”
“Aw, but Shey, you always get them first!” Fiz said with a childish whine.
“Look at how tall he is. I want to ride his shoulders!” Minnie licked her lips as she looked Alistair up and down. Her eyes shimmered with unabashed lascivious desire.
“Minnie, think about what your tree might say if it heard you talk like that.” Sheyla suddenly thought to act like a prude. She wagged her finger at the excited dryad. “You’re losing your daintiness. It won’t matter how many wildflowers you put in your hair or how much you bat those lashes of yours. Men will smell your desperation a league away.”
“Ladies, this has been nice and all but I think it’s time I get going.” Alistair tried to step past, but the trio moved to block his way.
“I’m sorry, Alistair, but we can’t let you in,” Sheyla said, frowning as she did. He noticed their mood shift.
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“Why not?” he asked, guarded now. He thought them a sweet but distracted bunch up until now.
“The Lady will send for you when the time is right,” said Fiz. She seemed to consume him with her eyes, tilting her head coquettishly. “Meanwhile, you’ll just have to spend some time with us.”
“She’s with the other boy now.” Minnie came up to his side, embracing him as she did. Her hand grasped places it probably shouldn’t. “Only one goes in at a time. She likes her privacy, the Lady.”
“It will be a while,” continued Sheyla. Her hand pressed against his chest and slowly drifted down. The smile she wore grew into something more devilish. “You don’t need this armor on. Why don’t you change back into your human body? We can pamper you better.”
“Pamper me? You can’t mean—”
“Oh yes we do,” Minnie cut in. Her voice rippled with excitement. “Haven’t you heard the bedtime stories of handsome young men being lured into the forest? They’re found in the morning, naked from the waist down, nothing in their heads and a lecherous grin on their face?”
“Erm, no,” Alistair replied. He found himself surrounded by clingy women. Every time he would stare at one another would pull on him to grab his attention. “I’m from a place called Wyrdwood, I don’t think we have dryads there.”
“Oh, you’re missing out then,” said Fiz, giggling as she did. “We make gentle lovers. It’s for a good cause too, you see. It’s the only way for new dryads to be born.”
“Visitors are rare enough. You’d be doing us a favor, here look.” Sheyla made a show of rubbing her soft thighs and wiggling her human toes. “No fur, no hooves. We aren’t baobhan in disguise, we swear. Just a few lonely nymphs of the forest.”
“Well.” His cheeks grew red beneath the helm. He certainly wasn’t immune to female attention, fae or not. They were making a stellar argument to his hormone-addled brain. “If it’s for a good cause…”
The girls began to hoot and holler in celebration as his Aegis body turned white. Minnie began to clap and Fiz’s giggling intensified. Soon Alistair was back in his human form and the girls practically leaped onto him. The whole group fell to the ground together in a laughing mess of tangled limbs. Minnie and Fiz just about gave him whiplash as they pulled on his neck, forcing their lips onto his and fighting over him as they did.
Sheyla started to hum again as she worked quickly to remove his trousers. Either they were incredibly desperate or they felt short of time. Alistair found it impossible to keep up as their hands greedily grabbed and pulled on all the parts of him they could reach. The intimate touch of a woman was something he’d not experienced much yet in his life. He didn't mind the attention.
“Ahem!” Suddenly he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. A high-pitched, but clearly male voice. “Don’t you think you ladies are having a little too much fun?”
Minnie removed her lips from Alistair’s exposed collarbone, groaning as she did. “Shut it, Felnie.” She looked back toward the treeline, glaring as she did. “Don’t you have some seeds to count? Or maybe a report to write on the number of Bogles in the woods?”
“You heard her. Go on, shoo!” Fiz stopped her assault on Alistair’s lips to further insult whoever it was trying to interrupt them. “And don’t interrupt again.”
“Sheyla, I’m most disappointed in you,” said the voice. Alistair couldn’t spare a look as his head was forced into Minnie’s cleavage. She smelled like wet soil after morning rain. “You’re supposed to be the sensible one. It’s why we let you be the first to greet visitors!”
Sheyla reluctantly pulled herself off of Alistair, wiping her lips as she did. She threw her head back to look at the one interrupting their fun. The ‘sensible’ one adopted a more amenable tone than her companions.
“We’re just having a bit of fun, Felnie. The boy had to wait anyway. What’s the harm in us spending a little quality time with him?”
“Yes, well, ‘the boy’ is ready to be seen now.” Whoever it was sounded neither convinced nor amused. This ‘Felnie’ began to clap their hands. “Come on, up. Up with you harlots. You horny lot!”
Fiz shook her head. “I guess the game is up, girls.”
“A shame that.” Minnie gently pulled herself free of Alistair. She rustled his hair as she got to her knees. “Well, it was nice meeting you, handsome.”
Sheyla pulled his trousers back up and tied them off for him. “Can’t have you going to see the Lady looking like a mess, now can we?” She offered him a rueful wink and smoothed his clothes out into something more presentable. Alistair found himself stunned as she planted another kiss on him, straddling his waist as she did. “Don’t be a stranger, you hear?”
“Off I say, get off!” The voice of Felnie was louder now. He heard the soft crunch of grass and leaves underfoot as someone stomped over. “Worse than selkies and melusines combined, every one of you.”
The dryads gracefully extricated themselves from the ground and flitted away toward the treeline. They giggled and waved to Alistair, who remained stupefied on his back. In a blink they were gone, having become one with their trees again.
Replacing them was the short, bearded form of a fae steward of some description. In his stubby fingers, he kept a quill and parchment, though what was written on it only the creature knew, for it was written in a strange script. Felnie wore simple, bright-colored clothes with a conical hat atop his head and a pair of reading glasses over his eyes.
“You’re a pech?” Alistair said, surprised. Another kind of fae he’d only ever heard of, never seen.
“Pech?” echoed Felnie. He scratched his beard with the feather side of the quill. “You must be a southern boy. They just call us pixies around here.”
Pixie | Pech | Gnome
Diminutive servants of fae aligned with the Summer court. Their name varies by the region one comes from. Often bright, cheerful, and eager to work.
Each one has a mischievous side bred into them like the rest of the summer-aligned fae.
“Well, come on. Get up,” he said, urging Alistair up with a wave of his arm. The pech lacked some of those cheerful qualities and instead made up for them with an incessant urge to be punctual. “We mustn’t keep the Lady waiting.”
Alistair shuffled to his feet in a hurry, somewhat ashamed by his participation in the distraction. He hurried to clear his mind of lecherous thoughts when reminded of the Lady. For once he hoped she hadn’t been watching.
Felnie led Alistair over to the forest’s edge again. With a snap of his fingers, he willed away the flora blocking them. They were able to enter the Coille Draoidheil proper now. A path of raised stone became their walkway. It kept Alistair’s feet from touching the undisturbed, very much thriving mossy undergrowth that covered the depths of the forest.
“Is this the way to Gàradh Lien?” Alistair asked after a while of walking. He found the place to be eerily quiet still. It made him feel on edge. With every other step, he swore something would move from the corner of his eye.
“Hm? Oh, of course it is.” Felnie had been furiously scribbling onto the parchment something that seemed important. “Where else would I take you?”
“It’s just a little quiet here, is all.”
“Fae do like their privacy,” Felnie said, nodding as he did. “There’s something of an ecosystem, a hierarchy if you will. In a place as important as this, everyone has a job to do.”
“Even dryads?” he asked, much to Felnie’s chagrin. The pech let out a sigh laced with irritation.
“Especially dryads. My word, you’d think you were the last man alive the way they piled onto you.” It seemed Alistair got him started on a tirade. Felnie threw up his hands as he stomped along. “If I were a little larger I might have invested in a proper stick with which to beat them off of visitors. Though, I’d wager there’s a good chance they’d enjoy such a thing.”
Alistair thought Felnie’s rage somewhat amusing. He even began to smile, but his mood shifted when he felt the aegis token vibrate on his neck. Further along the stone path was some sort of clearing in the trees. He couldn’t see inside as thick hedges surrounded it. Alistair noticed a bright light illuminating the clearing, much different than the heavy shade of the forest around him.
As the two approached, Alistair noticed more movement around him. This time his eyes were not fooled by fey plants. At least a dozen creatures flanked him on either side of the woodland path. Some looked like men, as tall as his Aegis body, but with the skin of a tree and branches for fingers. Their eyes—glowing a familiar fey green—seemed locked in the narrowed shape of a glare. The Sight wrote to him.
Spriggan
Male nature spirits, denizens of Coille Draoidheil. They serve as arborists, gardeners, and protectors of the enchanted forest. A less social cousin to the dryad.
The other creatures looked almost like hunting dogs. They were the size of men and had shaggy green fur covered in flowers and grass. All of them looked alert, wary of the new arrival. Their tails stood on end, bodies ready to pounce. None of them so much as growled at him, but their unblinking eyes served to get their message across. No messing about.
Cu-Shey
Hunting dogs of the summer fae. A common companion of the Samshey elves. Intensely loyal, independent, and vicious. It is said that once they are set upon a target, they will chase them until the end of time.
If one hears them howl three times, it means they have become the next target.
“Are these the welcoming party?” Alistair didn’t take his eyes off the hounds even as they kept pace to the grove. He was afraid they might attack him with his guard down.
“Oh, don’t mind them.” Felnie ignored the interlopers. He seemed used to all this. “They just like to put on a good show for their mistress is all.”
“The Lady, you mean?” He heard one of the hounds snarling.
“Yes, though they prefer to use her fae name. Nimue,” said Felnie. “Erm, don’t go spreading that around though. She prefers to keep the names separate depending on who she’s talking to.”
“Of course.” He had no desire to earn the Lady’s ire, regardless of what name she went by.
In front of them, a door of vines served as the single entrance to the grove. One by one they pulled themselves free of each other and retracted into the hedges on either side. It was hard to make out but Alistair thought he saw something on the other side of the wall, a person maybe. The vines were too thick.
When the last one fell away, he got a better look. Alistair audibly gasped at the sight. It had been a person, though not a healthy looking one. He found them hard to describe other than to say they looked like a shell of their former self. Pale, sickly skin clung to clothes that now looked too big for them.
“Kevin,” he whispered. Alistair could hardly recognize him.
The Caldwell scion had been in something of a trance, just staring off into the distance. Now, the noble’s sunken eyes glanced at Alistair. Eyes that had once been full of expression and energy were now lifeless and dull. Most telling, however, was the fey green glimmer of a supplicant. A key trait that was endemic to the Lady’s chosen.
That light was now gone from Kevin’s eyes.