She listened to what the old man had to say, with rising incredulity at what he was telling her. It was simply unbelievable.
“You are from a bloodline of Royalty that has ruled this land for a millennia,” he started, what followed was nearly an hour of pure fantasy in Tammy’s mind. These guys were playing some kind of trick on her.
“Look,” she said to the younger guy, when the story had finished, “can you just show me how I can get back to the bar? I don't mean to be disrespectful to the old man, but that story is simple nonsense. Surely you don’t expect me to believe all this crap about me belonging to a Royal family and my brother’s gonna murder me if he discovers I’m in this fairy land. All because I can neutralize his magical powers. Hah!” she spat out her last word. “Are you two nuts?”
“I told you it was a waste of time, Father. She’s not worth the effort,” Niyol said, contemptuously. “My Father holds a lot of faith in you. I warned him not to bring more bad blood into these lands, we have enough with Vaclav. How do we know this sister will not side with her brother?” He turned to the old man as he asked this question.
The old man ignored his son, turning to Tammy, “Please Princess Tamara, sit back down and watch.”
Tammy did so. He pulled a small leather pouch out of his pocket, opened it, and poured some fine powder into his hand. Throwing the powder onto the fire, it caused it to flare up, brightly.
“Look,” she said, a little hesitantly as she didn’t want to upset the old man. “I’m sorry, but I don't need any parlor tricks, I need to get home.”
While she said this, she didn't take her eyes off the fire. It seemed, for a second or two, when the flames died back down, that nothing was going to happen. Tammy was just about to turn away, when something caught her eye. The flames were flaring up again, and this time, embedded in the flames was a moving image. It was hazy and distorted as the flames flickered, but it was clear to see. Tammy sat back down mesmerized by what she was viewing.
She saw a young boy in his teens, walking with two people, her parents. How she could know this she had no idea as she didn’t recognize them, but yet she did know. In her heart she felt a connection, a love and then a yearning. She watched on in horror as the boy murdered them in cold blood, but she was unsure how. He carried no weapon, yet kill them he did, and horribly. It was clear they died a painful death. The scene changed and she could see armed soldiers, terrorizing people. Killing some, and imprisoning others, but above all this, in a dark blood red sky, was the face of her brother. She knew him now, sensed who he was as he smiled evilly, amused by the bloodshed. The scene changed again and she could see the old man, but younger, carrying a baby into a swirling abyss. She recognized her home town. The face of a young boy changed, grew older with cruelty written into every line of its features. This was her brother, and he was the evil tyrant.
Everything was true. How she knew, was unclear, but it came to her as if it were her own memories. She was that baby, and this man had saved her from her murderous brother. Tammy was too shocked to say anything for a while, after the magic show. It was unbelievable, but deep down inside she knew it to be true. She had always felt an outsider in Baltimore, never feeling that she fitted in, always believing something was missing. Tammy had always thought it was because she had never known her parents, being brought up by her aunt, but now she realized, it was deeper than that.
Her head was full of questions, each vying to be the first to be asked.
“So, where am I from?” Starting with the obvious one.
“These are the lands of Ionia,” the young man said, proudly. “Your brother rules five of the seven provinces, if he takes the final two, our people will be lost, forever.”
Ionia? The name meant nothing to her.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t see how I can be this person that you think I am. I’m just an ordinary girl. I don’t have any destiny and I definitely don’t have any magic,” she was still trying to convince herself that they had the wrong person. Magic isn’t real, is it? She asked herself
Yet, she remembered the visions she had just witnessed in the flames. That was magic.
“In Ionia there is no technology,” the old man spoke to her, his head bowed forward, and he didn't lift it as he spoke, he looked in some sort of trance. “Technology is the art of science. Ionia rejects science, instead it relies on magic. Magic is much deeper and its source is from the mind. Science, for all its cleverness, does not understand the mind, and that is why you cannot use magic in a world of technology, science simply rejects it.” He paused, as if waiting for his words to sink in, before continuing. “In this land, magic comes from the spirit world and is channeled into certain individuals, you are one of those individuals. Your bloodline is borne of Royalty, which is a vessel of magic, in Ionia.”
The younger man looked upon the girl and could see confusion written on her face, confusion and fear, and for the first time he felt pity for her. Whilst her character was like an annoying thorn in his hand, this news was difficult for her to understand. In only moments she had been brought from her familiar surroundings, into an alien world. Shown her parent’s murder, and the murder of her people. Finally, they were now trying to convince her that her bloodline had been the cause of all this destruction. She looked wounded and broken.
Niyol passed her a blanket
“You should try and sleep, tomorrow we travel far and you will need your rest.”
Tammy wrapped herself in the blanket and curled up to keep warm. She was stunned by what she had learned today, but she knew it all to be true, this was her home. It was almost too much to take in, she had just seen her parents murdered by her brother, a tyrannical despot. She had been brought here to save this world. How could this happen to a barmaid, a simple small town girl who never did anything exciting? Many thoughts whizzed around in her head, and it seemed to take an eternity before she finally fell into a light sleep.
The old man was pleased that she slept because the next day, and many days to follow, would be difficult for her. He just hoped that he had made the right decision, all their hopes depended on this girl.