Read Strange Dominions: a collection of paranormal short stories (short story books) for Free Online Page A

his shoulder, lending a sense of menace to his medieval attire.
    Conner’s face betrayed his fear at the warrior Sidhe’s approach.
    “Finvarra’s beard! He does see us!” declared Rannith.
    “Please don’t leave me here, Áine!” Conner begged.
    Ignoring his plea, the masterful Sidhe again counselled abandonment.
    Áine‘s response was swift and vociferous, “Would that your wit was as quick as your tongue, quarrelsome troll!”
    The insult of being addressed as a ‘troll’ had the desired affect and he fell into a stunned silence.
    “Speakno more and heed my warning, for if the Great Council ever get wind of what takes place this night I will know how and will denounce you as a quisling.”
    Fianna defiance was legendary, but no match when pitted against the wiles of a banshee. She would indeed carry out her threat, to the destruction of them both should he inform the Council of her actions.
    Nevertheless, this latest humiliation could not go unchallenged and as he stomped off to a nearby hillock he also made a vow.
    Áine’s touch was as cool and as inviting as her lavender scent and a strange sensation began coursing through Conner’s broken body. His limbs twitched and tingled as life gradually retuned to them. After a few hesitant movements he felt strong enough to haul himself up against a nearby sycamore.
    So engrossed had Rannith been in the licking of his own wounds, he did not see what was taking place until it was too late. He leapt forward with an unbridled look of disbelief on his face.
    “Are you completely moonstruck? The Great Council will have our heads for this!” he cried, “It is forbidden to interfere in the life of a leveller.”
    Though wary of the enraged Rannith, Conner spoke out, “I won’t say nothin’ to nobody, so I won’t!”
    “How easily such oaths slip from the tongues of humans when it suits them,” Rannith told Áine.
    Pulling his broadsword from his shoulder and pointing it menacingly in Conner’s direction he said, “Now I too will make an oath, leveller: Though I am foresworn never to bring harm on your kind I pledge that if you should ever violate your promise it will be all the worse for you.” With that he strode off into the undergrowth, ruminating further on his great misfortune.
    Bewildered and afraid, Conner asked Áine, “How come he hates me so much?”
    “To know that you must know this: your stories tell how we were once the human tribe of the Tuatha De Danaan, of how we were defeated by the Milesians and retreated to the hill raths, the
sidhes
, to become what we are now. But your stories are false.
    “Between the dawning of the very first day and the first waning of the moon we fay of the Otherworld came into existence,” she said, staring thoughtfully into the distance, “For aeons we have been the guardians of this world, living by nature’s laws. With the dawning of man came change. At first they, like us, lived in harmony and revered nature’s order, but with the passing of time their hunger for power and wealth grew and they began plundering the earth. The great forests that were once our playing grounds and home to the sacred groves where we worshipped are now all but gone, levelled by your kind.”
    Conner understood now why the fearsome elf referred to him as ‘leveller’, but argued that as mankind was unaware of their existence they could hardly be held responsible for their actions.
    Áine smiled at his naivety as she slowly circled him, “It has not always been so,” she said, adding, “Once we were revered by your ancestors, but as time passed they spread out across the world like a plague. Their conquests took them far from their homeland. Soon they turned their backs on the ‘Old Ones’. They embraced new gods who had no place for such as us. New religions came into the world, and for countless generations we have lived in dark and uncertain times. We have become the stuff of myth and legend, a frightening travesty of