Chapter the Twenty-fourth: A Return of Service.

I still have trouble, trying to get to grips with what horrors flooded into me as I finally made contact with the talisman that Amy and Valerie had given to me. The illusion I had been forced into was so total that I can still hardly believe how I could have lived there. More than that, I realise how poorly I had underestimated the evil that Shaw was capable of. If it hadn't been for my own last-minute reprogramming, I believe I would have had an even worse time -- if that could be at all imaginable.

Shaw's original intent was for both of us to be cognisant of our plight and to live in torment with the things we were doing. It was all I could do as protection, to let our own minds slip right away before we were plunged into that place.

Sara fared very poorly when reality returned to us, and I had to take some drastic measures to force her back under my own influence. She spent the following weeks in a comparative heaven, with as much love as I could provide.

Every cliched image of hope and faith and comfort was provided for her in the world I created in her head. At night and especially when I was alone, I still had to battle constantly to avoid falling into the despair of the prison to which Shaw had led me. My beautiful Sara, took so long to recover and I felt then that I was going to lose her completely. It took all my capacities to ignore my own pain so that I could concentrate and give her the peace she needed in her own world to which she had retreated.

Shaw's wife Jacqueline, had apparently worn the lucky stone as a pleasant little trinket. She had found it on my body when I was captured and had stolen it, without even her husband's knowledge. I used to shudder to think what would have happened if the cloth band hadn't come apart whilst she was sat on that sofa.

Judging by our eventual physical condition, we were at death's door.

As my tongue had touched the only piece of the outside world that had been allowed into the hell that Shaw had made for the two of us, there was a sudden and complete dissolution of the prison's reality and we had found ourselves alone in the squalour of a derelict room. Surrounded by the filth and decay he had produced for us.

It took all my strength of will to move the two of us and the only coherent thought I had was to get my Sara, my beautiful, bleeding, starving Sara home to safety.

We stumbled thought the cold winter streets of the outskirts of town until we both fell unconscious into as safe a corner of an alleyway as I could manage to find.

The next day, after laying in rags until my mind managed to clear again, I forced myself to stand, gathered up the bundle of filth that was Sara and moved into the street once again. Our progress was understandably slow and it wasn't until I was surprised by a passer-by pressing a coin into my bloody hand, that I was able to utilise the phone.

Aiden could not hear what I was whispering at first, and it was only on the third attempt to tell him who I was that he suddenly ignited into a frenzy of questioning. Eventually he managed to piece together where we were and I was left with strict instructions to stay where we were until he arrived.

Aileen's keening sobs were enough to send me over the edge once we were in the van heading for home, and I lost sight of the new reality for several days.

The return to life was a pitiful thing. I had healed our physical scars quickly enough but the anguish was still there. Sara lay inert in her room as if she were laying in state. Shaw's spell on her was like a forest of thorns. My own protective bandages had to twine around each branch of his foul creation and could only act as a buffer to keep her safe, but locked away from me.

I cared not at all for what was happening to me. Moping about in my room or wandering in the fields around the house.

It was Bran who managed to intrude on my own wallowing self-pity enough to make me see sense. This time, he was real in my room, towering over me.

"You are a fool!" He began as I, feeling like as a hand-wringing wretch, lay stunned at his feet.

"You think the queen's champion is allowed the luxury of such behaviour?" His face grew dark with his temper. "Stand up! and begin what you have promised to do! The evil one is still at liberty and has almost come to his time. You must defeat him soon or all is for naught."

I didn't want to do anything, I wanted it all to just go away. But his face was suddenly so close to mine that I had to reel back in shock.

"You will stop this" he insisted, grabbing me under the armpits and hoisting me to stand. "You have been chosen by my beloved queen to do the right thing and that you must do!"

His piercing eyes darted back and forth across my face, looking for a sign that I was not yet defeated.

He softened his approach slightly and drew back. "You have tried too hard, it was an understandable reaction but your mind must be clear for you to draw upon your wits. You must marshal your powers and train yourself to find your inner peace. It is only there that you will best him."

He all but brushed off my shoulders, being brusque in his manner of dealing with my pain and sorrow, and then continued, looking me right in the eyes; "You must get back on track Daniel John, there is no time allowed in this 'game, ' if that is not a blasphemous use of the word. Everything you did before will be for naught, your loss will be even greater if you let the taking of Valerie Anne be another of his victories. Remember that there were two of you in that prison and only one escaped, you owe it to Sara to win now."

I began to realise that his argument was valid and he saw the resolve growing once more in my face; "I see the man in you is returning, and I have a responsibility to ensure you are well prepared, so I have brought an instructor from the ranks of the Sidhe to assist your training..."

He held his cupped hands in front of my face and drew them apart to reveal the pearlescent glow of a shining globe between them. It grew and grew until I could make out the tall slender form of a Faer woman. She stepped forward and stood in front of us both. After looking me over for a few seconds she raised her eyebrows at Bran, "He is in poor shape for my task, it will not be easy"

Bran dismissed her complaint with a brisk wave. "His training starts today, you have no other interest but to develop his skills and defeat the evil one; who is already prepared to finish you."

He turned to me and said "She comes from our world but is of the physical realm, she has the power to show you what can be done with your abilities, listen to her teachings."

She turned to look at me again and I stood up as straight and proud as I could and returned her stare.

Eventually she gave a curt nod and Bran left us with a swirl of his coat.

The woman came close to me, "Your training begins now"

I felt the tingle of the Faerie influence creep over me. My muscles relaxed and I was able, for the first time in many months, to feel pleasure in my body. The tall woman smiled and leaned close to me. The smell of Basil and Tarragon and other pungent herbs was strong about her. I felt myself drawing deep breaths of her scent as I dropped further into her thrall.

I could see the wonderous curves of her breasts as the grey and brown chiffon of her dress fell away before me. Her amazon body was firm and muscled with a tone that implied much physical training. Her olive tanned skin was smooth and she stood with her posture perfectly balanced. I couldn't stop my eyes following the flared curve of her hips down and around to the dark triangle of her lusciously dark and carefully trimmed pubic hair. The gleam of the skin on her thighs and the darkness of the shadows under her breasts served to make her figure almost stand out in bas relief. I realised how much I had missed the joy of seeing the beauty around me.

Suddenly, her hand flew up and slapped my face, just below the ear and stinging across my cheek. I yelped and jumped back; and then as my hand came up to return her blow, she deftly side stepped and caught my forearm into an entanglement that soon had me flat on my back with the wind knocked from my lungs.

"Do not allow sight to distract your vision. Do not retaliate without thought."

She said in a low calm voice close to my right ear. "With anger is always no direction, with peace is always power." She pulled me to my feet and let go of my arm. I had to rub the tight ache from my bicep and I glared at her. It was obvious that she was a physical being, sometimes later I found out that the shape-changing amorphals I had met before were only one species of the Sidhe.

"You must find a place to be at peace even during an attack. It is not enough to have power, with no place from which to command you have no strength. To let your mind wander away from your centre is to lose most control. See your enemy as you must, not as your enemy wishes you to see."

She began to walk around me and I found myself waiting for the next attack. The slap had not injured more than my pride but I wasn't about to let her have another crack at one.

The way she shifted her arms made it difficult to tell where the next entrance might be. I started to prepare mental images of where I would move when she next attacked. That, of course was my downfall.

She feinted a stab to my chest that had me turning to my left as I had planned, but that just put me where her leg was able to sweep up and I caught a knee to my kidneys. I was on my knees in the next second.

"Not thinking, staying in centre, that is best place." She again pulled me to my feet.

I nodded and gave her a sullen smile.

"Do you always teach this way?" I asked her ruefully, "I don't even know your name and you've already got physical."

"First time with Human. Have not even started yet." Was her terse reply. She didn't smile.

"Your name?" I asked again.

"Names give much power, you will find out when I believe you deserve it."

I was beginning to feel that reliance on my good looks and charm wasn't going to help much.

The first day was spent mostly on my knees. Sometimes, for a change, she let me fall on my arse and once, I managed to avoid both and used my face to break my fall. I don't think I even registered the fact she had left, late in the afternoon. There was simply a point where the pain stopped coming.

We continued like that for days and days. I began to feel I was not only getting weaker in my results but was pissing her off. She spent a lot of time shouting her teaching at me as she placed carefully painful blows on my body.

She was training (or abusing) me after dragging me from my bed one morning when I actually managed to retaliate, a little. I spun as she closed in from my left, and managed to flick a couple of fingers softly against her shoulder. It was my best result so far.

Her response came almost immediately after. I tried to move back out of the way but didn't have enough space between me and the bed. My ankles caught against the wooden frame and I lost balance again. The heavy fist to that swung down into my abdomen left me sprawled on the bed gasping.

"See the mountain, not the butterfly" she pronounced, almost mocking me.

"Staring at details will blind your eyes to the real sight."

"Listen you fucking bitch!" I began, in between gulping breaths. But she was on me directly, her arm snaking behind my head and the other forearm cutting across my windpipe as she slid behind me. The vice grip of her arms had me, totally. I attempted to pry her arm off my throat with my hands but it was futile. I tried to grab at her head, at her face, at her hair but to no avail.

I began to see the darkness creep in to the periphery of my vision and tried struggling even more. It was completely futile, I might as well have had my neck stuck in a brick wall.

The lack of oxygen to my brain suddenly caused the whole experience to spiral away from me. I ceased the struggling as my body began to shut down in an effort to preserve brain function. She increased the pressure. The blackness closed down on me and I suddenly found myself cut free. The fight was over and all struggle was gone.

That was when I saw the answer.

The thin stream of command that I cast out, before all my faculties closed down, snaked behind her and slipped around her head. The suffocation I was experiencing translated itself through the fabric of my spell and almost instantly she found herself in a cloying mask that stopped all input.

She hesitated only momentarily but within a few long seconds I felt the choke ease off and the air whistled into my lungs. With the oxygen, my consciousness returned. I rolled away from her and looked around to see her struggle.

She lay splayed across the bed, her head encased in a shining mask of oily blackness. She was not struggling but rather, lay calmly. I could see her ribcage making spasmodic attempts to draw in air but she did not try to scratch at the thing blocking her nose and mouth.

I stared a few seconds more and then called the thing back in.

Her gasps were deep, but controlled. "You did well, but you must be able to do it when you are in most peril and then every time. Did you see the place you must find?" her arms were still thrown above her head as she lay back on the coverlet. I could hardly believe that she would take such a risk just to prove a point. I sat down hard on the end of the bed and let my headache clear.

She rolled over and stood again. "We must go outside, there is more to be done.

You must explore further your physical as well as your spiritual power."

With that, she pulled me by the shoulder through the house and out into the morning sun outside the kitchen window, where the green lawn was still wet with dew. She picked up one of a group of large rocks that formed part of Aileen's rockery and hefted it towards me. Even though she showed very little sign of difficulty, when I took it I early ended up on my face with the weight.

"Things not always as they appear."

I was getting to be a little irritated with her and told her so. She just reached out and wound a cord, she had pulled from who knows where, around my hands and the heavy boulder between them. I found myself unable to let go of the damned thing.

I looked up at her in surprise, "What the... ?"

She just reacted by lunging at my midriff, I had to twist and turn away from her barrage of attacks to all parts of my body. The rock was causing my arms to almost go into spasm with the exertion and it made my avoidance slower. Every one of her blows caused a sharp pain that made me yelp but the effect was more annoying and embarrassing than anything else.