PROLOGUE

“Go on! Get!” Old Mae waved her arms and the bull bellowed his objections but turned aside and began moving. She cursed at the sight of the churned soil and damaged crops he left behind. Oh! She would take a switch to whoever had left his pen open this time.

“Get! You smelly - “, the old woman’s hearing had gone long ago but she could imagine the bull arguing with her. His eyes rolled, his horned head bobbed and the muzzle kept moving.

“Yeah, yeah, because I care what you have to say. Humph! GET!” The rest of the family was afraid of his bad temper and curving horns and he took advantage of that to get what he wanted. Old Mae was not afraid of his threats and she liked to let him know it.

“Look what you done! My poor turnips! You dirty old… Get!” she untied the filthy cloth around her waist that served as an apron and began waving it at him. Then she froze with her arms still in the air. In her silent world she had learned to ‘listen’ to other things… senses… feelings. People always said she knew things before anyone else did.

Old Mae knew something was terribly wrong. Her wrinkled skin tingled. All the hair on her body felt as if it stood out straight for a moment, then fell as a million tiny bee stings made her gasp. She dropped her arms, her toothless mouth fell open. Wide-eyed, she twisted her head to the side and turned a full circle scanning her surroundings. Nobody was there. Nothing seemed unusual. Still, Mae couldn’t quiet her feelings of unease and long experience had taught her never to ignore them. She rubbed her arms, as the tingling began again and, took a second look around, this time more calmly.

Beneath the rising sun, Mae saw the rows of ripening corn waving gently in the breeze. To the south, her turnips and potatoes stretched on and on until they blended with her neighbors and eventually blurred with the gray mist over the far-off ocean. With the sun behind her, she saw her family home, tiny in the distance and dwarfed by the mountain far behind it. Halfway between herself and the farmhouse was Annie. The young woman’s hair whipped around her face as she bent to pull weeds and rose to drop them in the sack over her shoulder, her skirts ballooning out in one direction, then another.

Mae found comfort in the familiar sight of home and family. When the bee stings began she told herself it wasn’t so frightening, but this time the intensity built until tears filled her eyes and she was left shaking. It seemed even the bull must have felt it because just then he began bellowing behind her.

Mae remembered her husband grabbing his chest and collapsing in the fields and she thought, “Is this dying? Lord, I’m not ready”. The air felt still and heavy around her as she began walking toward the house. She had only gone a few paces when the tingle came on in a painful surge. She stumbled and fell against one of the stone monoliths. Mae gasped as the shock passing through her body brought her to her knees.

When the pain released her she looked up to see Annie was further away now, walking toward the house, the sack on her shoulder full. Annie’s husband, Pate was closer than before, but his back was to her. Pate held his hat tightly to his head with one hand as the wind whipped around him. He struggled to pull an obstinate ox back onto the path before the cart that it was harnessed to tipped over.

“I’ll die here. They won’t even know”, Mae thought while watching Pate struggle. “If he can get the beast moving forward, he’ll pass by here in a minute. I know he will see me then.” She braced herself against the hot stone preparing to wave Pate down when he turned.

However, the ox had other plans. He stamped, tossing his head, pulling away, and trying to move backward. Pate grabbed the harness with both hands and fought to keep hold as the ox became increasingly more panicked. His hat blew away on the gusting wind. The animal bucked. Pate jumped out of the way of flailing horns as the ox twisted sideways and tried to leap away, falling hard. It was up in a moment, struggling to pull the over-turned cart through a planted field toward the farmhouse.

Although Mae’s body still felt as though lightning had struck close by, the pain had passed. Feeling stronger now, she stood up. She tried called Pate, but breath was hard to come by in the stagnant heavy air, and he was following after the crazed ox. Based on the way his arms were moving Mae could just imagine the language that must be coming out of his mouth. She chuckled and thought, “It is times like these that I am glad to be deaf.” Behind her, the bull she had forgotten still bellowed mournfully. “Oh shut up, bull. I don’t care about your complaints”, she said over her shoulder.

Suddenly, Mae realized she was feeling better… surprisingly better. The aching back that had been her constant companion for decades was gone. Her knees didn’t hurt even though she’d just been kneeling. And her hands felt – fine! She looked at her left hand, still braced against the monolith and gasped with awe. She lifted her right hand, “Oh Lord!” The fingers were straight. Joints that had been knotted and painful even when Annie was newly born, were suddenly – somehow – smooth and supple.

“I must be dreaming”, she thought. Old Mae turned and rested her back against the heat of the monolith. Admiring hands she had not seen since her youth. Clenching, then unclenching, massaging them together, all done pain free. She held her hands out toward the bull. “Look at that”, she said and realized she heard her own voice. Watching the bull’s body heave, his snout lift, she heard him bellow.

Mae screamed and covered her mouth with both hands. She had thought it was in her head, like always, but she actually heard him. She heard him. She heard herself!

“I can hear! I can. I can. I really can”, she said aloud and laughed. Mae’s heart was racing and she felt rivulets of sweat running down her skin. She straightened up and pushed away from the hot stone. A flash caught her eye, then another. It was the other stones.

It was only then that she realized where she was.

Her family had farmed these lands for so many years that she had come to ignore the great polished stones that stood like a circle of sentinels in the middle of the plains. A circle of monoliths surrounding a raised slab of stone, the Summoning Stones they were called. She was within the circle now, had been all along.

With a sick feeling all the horror stories she had heard as a child, all the horror stories she had told her own children and grandchildren flooded her mind. The stories about the ancient witch who had raised these stones when she tried to destroy the world, tried to kill every man woman and child to steal the power in the existence of every living thing. The Destroyer of Worlds they called her because no one remembered her name. No one needed to remember, “The Destroyer” was enough for everyone to recognize the story… the myth. The good elves keep watch over the Summoning Stones – over our farm, children… these very lands – looking for signs that The Destroyer is returning. While the evil elf wanders the plains looking for ways to help the Destroyer return. A magical place, an evil place where countless people died and no one knows what the witch tried to summon on the altar of her Summoning Stones.

Stories, myths, and we have grown turnips here for generations. Mae was the storyteller, not a member of the frightened audience. It was nonsense and, yet… her heart raced, she heard a low humming and the air seemed different… wrong. She couldn’t get enough inside her no matter how much she gasped. The bull snorted and bucked his head, suddenly running past her toward the farmhouse and the pen he had escaped from.

As the bull left the circle of stones, Mae moved to follow. But before she could there was another flash and a surge of power hit her with such force she landed on her back. A loud, deep humming made her jaw vibrate. The stagnant heavy air was a weight on her chest, that wouldn’t let her get up.

Laying there gasping, looking up at the sky, she realized it was pink above her. Above the summoning stones a column of pink air or haze, Mae couldn’t be sure, went up into the sky as far as she could see. She turned her head slightly and saw the rest of the sky that had been blue a moment ago, was now gray and the filled with churning clouds.

Now the heavy air inside the circle began to swirl independently from what was going on outside. There was a lightning flash from nearby and a moment later thunder shook the plains. Then there was another strike and roar and another, the lightning always touching down just beyond the Summoning Stones.

Mae struggled to her hands and knees and crawled toward the perimeter of the circle. The closer she got, the harder the swirling wind fought her. Suddenly, it seemed to be lifting her to her feet. Just as Mae felt weightless and thought she was seeing the birth of a tornado, the wind changed direction and pounded her onto the ground.

On her belly, Mae crept forward inching her way to the closest standing stone. She reached for the heat and surge of energy she had felt before. Instead she found ice cold. She tried to pull back feeling as though the cold burned her, but her hand wouldn’t move. She fought and watched in horror as her hand, supple and strong, wilted back into the gnarled form it had had earlier. As it continued to wither, Mae frantically twisted around and braced her feet against the other side of the triangular monolith. As the pain became nearly excruciating, her screams were lost in the churning wind and thunderous vibration of the stones. Mae arched backward, pulling with all her might as the ‘wilt’ moved further up her arm. Her head strained back further and further until she felt rain on her face. Opening her eyes she saw the grey stormy sky above her head.

Then the pink sky exploded and disappeared into the gray clouds surrounding it.

The stone she fought against flashed brightly, and she was free. The wind died for a moment and then began to swirl gently. Crawling backward Mae saw carvings on the monolith glowing as if a fire raged behind them, inside the rock. She looked at her withered arm and sobbed, cradling it against her breast. Rising, she turned back toward the farmhouse, stumbling over the crops as blindly as the bull had done.

That was when she heard it… the plaintive cry of a baby.

A baby that was more helpless and terrified than even she was. She saw Annie in the far distance, stumbling over the crops, running toward where Mae stood frozen with indecision. Mae had brought eight healthy children of her own in the world, and delivered countless others in her long life. She had always felt no experience was a sweet as looking into a new born baby’s eyes… so innocent and full of hope… and trust.

With a sob, Mae turned back toward the sound, heading toward the center of the stones. She heard Annie screaming her name but as Mae passed between the monoliths, all sound stopped, except the rhythmic thrum of the stones and the baby’s wails.

Frantically, Mae rushed forward, toward the crying, toward the altar. It had been whole, polished and smooth, when the bull had been grazing near it, she would swear that it had been. She paused when she saw it. A cracked ruin now, but beside one large slab, she found the source of the crying.

A baby girl lay there, naked, covered in dust and rubble, but seemingly unhurt. “Oh, my poor angel! Lords! Lords! How did you get here?” Mae crouched down and lifted the tiny baby with her one good arm. Cradling the child gently against her bosom, and letting her withered arm dangle at her side, Mae struggled to keep her balance as she rose on the scattered rock and rubble.

“Sweet baby, never made a sound,” Mae puffed as the exertion of the morning and her years caught up with her. “I didn’t even know you were there. Poor little angel.” Mae started back the way she had come, but swerved when she saw the monolith that had held her captive. It still pulsed. It still glowed, but now the inner fires seemed to have turned a sickly green. The thrumming emitted from this stone sounded different than the others. Mae veered off in fear.

As she passed between two other standing stones a wave of weakness hit her. She stumbled and her sight blurred for a moment but she kept to her feet. The baby was so quiet, Mae looked down to see if she was alright. Clear blue eyes stared up at her and Mae smiled in relief just before she fell to her knees. She lowered the baby to the ground before she dropped her. Gasping for air, Mae looked for the help that she did not have the strength to call out for.

Before her, Mae saw Pate’s ox still harnessed, but instead of the huge muscled animal that had pulled the flipped cart through uneven ground covered in crops, this thing was starved gaunt, trapped under its own meager weight, flailing its head and free leg weakly.

In the distance Pate held Annie as she screamed and fought against him. He stared like a statue at Mae and she lifted her withered arm in supplication. His face was a mask of terror.

“Help me… help me,” she thought and slide from her knees to her hip, still trying to keep her eyes on her family. Annie broke away from Pate and ran toward Mae. She was crying hysterically, tripping, falling. Then Pate was there, pulling her back. Annie’s head flailed and caught Pate in the face. The second his hands released her, Annie was running toward Mae again, only a hundred strides away.

Then Mae saw the haze that hung in the air before her, sickly green and getting thicker. It seemed to fall from the sky like heavy clouds. She tried to call out to Annie. “Go back!” she wanted to shout, “it is not safe!” but instead she fell limply to her side. She managed a weak, “No!” when she saw Annie fall with a look of disorientation on her face. Pate was there again, pulling Annie, trying to lift her, but she was limp in his arms. He dragged her for a few more paces until he stumbled weakly and Annie’s head lolled like a cloth doll with loose stitching. With a cry, Pate let her go and staggered back in the direction of the house.

The Summoning Stones pulsed behind Mae but she was too weak to turn and see the flash. She did see the baby beside her convulse several times and then… grow. With a moan the little face twisted and, in the next moment, it was a toddler’s innocent blue eyes that looked back at Mae.

Mae felt her bladder release. Pain stabbed through her stomach. She gasped for air as another flash and pulse came and the toddler convulsed again. Mae was too weak to run, to escape, to move at all as her legs withered. She was a captive witness as the child screamed and writhed and her body contorted.

Mae’s head rolled back on her arm to look up at what appeared to be a four year old girl. The child rose on unsteady feet to balance before the old woman as the green haze drifted over them both.

“What… are… you?” Mae whispered just before her cheeks hollowed and her eyes sunk in.