But she didn’t move, even when the light died and she was left in complete darkness.
She sat very still on the hard surface on which she had been deposited, smelling the air, listening for sounds. Her intuition hadn’t flared up in warning; apparently, no danger threatened her. Though she couldn’t be sure of that either—not after the way her instincts had failed her already during the past few weeks. Three times, at least, that she could count. She had been so sure of those instincts once. But that was a long time ago, and everything had changed. What was then so reliable was now tinged with uncertainty. Sometimes her instincts worked and sometimes they didn’t, and she no longer knew if they would react to warn her or remain dormant.
On this occasion, there were no sounds, smells, tastes, or hints of movement in the blackness. She had only herself for company in an impenetrable void.
She forced herself to breathe slowly and evenly, to keep quiet and wait for the light’s source to reveal itself. Sooner or later, she sensed, it would appear to her.
When it finally did, she was caught by surprise. A pinprick of light appeared in the distance, so impossibly far away that it felt to her as if it were miles off. Very slowly, it drew closer, working its way ahead steadily through the darkness, and her surroundings began to brighten in response. She saw that she was no longer in the fortress, but had been spirited away to somewhere else entirely. She was sitting on a patch of hard earth at the edge of gardens that spread away from her toward the approaching light, a vast rainbow of flowers that grew from bushes, beds, and vines amid carefully tended greenery of all shapes and sizes. The flowers seemed to bloom right in front of her as their petals were touched by the light, brightening as the intensity of the light grew, stretching out their slender stems in response.
She rose, wanting to be on her feet when whatever was coming reached her. She could feel her heart beating, and she felt oddly lightheaded. A sense of wonder enveloped her, and she sensed that this was a transformative moment, life altering and wondrous in a way she had never experienced. She couldn’t have said how she knew this, but it was irrefutable. Something important was about to happen, and she knew she would never again experience its like.
The light was very close now, and she could see that it emanated from one end of a strange metal cylinder gripped by the hand of its bearer. Yet even though the light was directed, it seemed diffuse and all-encompassing, spreading out in ways she had never witnessed, brightening a world that only moments before had been dark.
“Good day, Prue,” the bearer of the light greeted her.
It was a man of indeterminate age, neither young nor old, but some part of both. His features were unremarkable, his size and build and weight average, his voice quiet and soft around the edges. He was wearing robes that were white and silver, garments meant not for common use but ceremonial occasions. It did not seem wrong or unusual to find him wearing such garments; instead, it felt perfectly natural, although Prue could not have said why.
“Hello,” she said. And then added, “Are you the one who brought me here?”
“I am,” he replied. “Do you like my gardens?”
“I do,” she said. “They make me feel safe.”
It made him smile, which in turn caused her to smile in response. “They are my home,” he said. “I tend them, and in turn they tend me. Here, all is in balance, a harmony that is lacking in so many other places. Do you know who I am, Prue?”
Amazingly, she did. She knew it instinctively. “You’re the King of the Silver River,”
she said. “The legend of the Hawk speaks of you. You are an ally of the Word and a child of the Land, they say. My mother told me of you.”
“I am what they say, but mostly I am things that no one knows. Secret things. I was a Faerie creature once, in a time long ago. I was caretaker of the old world, of the world that disappeared when the Faerie folk gave way to the coming of Man and everything changed. My space has become much smaller since then, a fraction and no more of what once was given to me. I keep it hidden now from all, but it is still here, part of a better time and better world.”
She looked past him to the gardens. “Your flowers are beautiful. They seem to grow everywhere, as if the gardens never end.”
“In one sense, they don’t. When you walk within them, there are no boundaries. You cannot leave or become lost or reach a point where you can see what lies beyond them.