Merging the Real & the Unreal by Toni V. Sweeney

Merging the Real and the Unreal

By Toni V. Sweeney

The Harmonic Covergence mentioned in my fantasy novel Wizard’s Wife occurred August 16-24, 1987, a time when our planets aligned themselves with the sun.  This isn’t an unusual thing; there have been more harmonic convergences than you can shake a stick at. What was different about this one is that it involved all the planets, not just two or five or even seven.  At the time, newscasts made much of this, and as usual the doomsayers came out to make their dread pronouncements of what was to follow.  When nothing happened, they faded again into whatever shadowy depths from which they emerged, and the world went on, waiting for other dire predictions such as 2012 to raise their chaotic heads.

Perhaps I should say nothing obvious happened.  After the brouhaha died down, I found myself asking:  What if something did happen but we just don’t know about it?  Because it didn’t happen here on Earth…?

At the time, I was reading a book entitled An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Bogies, Brownies, and Other Supernatural Creatures (by Katherine Briggs), and what I read and that previous thought collided inside my head and ganged up on me and produced the germ becoming Wizard’s Wife.

It wasn’t an easy germination…  I had the concept, but unfortunately was about to undergo a tremendously difficult period in my life during which—in what I can only conclude was a minor fit of madness—I destroyed many of my manuscripts.  The fragment of Wizard’s Wife survived but was lost in a pile of papers only to emerge 20 years later to remind me it had never been completed.  So I decided to do just that.  Then—the tease!--it disappeared again, and I was left to start from scratch.

So scratch I did, and the story of Tavis (David) McMuir, Faery Wizard, Champion of White Fire, Defender of Ais Linn and the Earth, and his mortal wife, Megan, slowly took emerged.  I made David a nominal Irishman.  After all, he’s one of the Little People, although as wife Megan reminds him when she first discovers his secret—at 6’2”, there’s only one portion of his anatomy fitting the human hand.  In his dimension, he’s a Prince, a Wizard, and the champion of his half of the kingdom of Ais Linn.  His opposite number is Exeter Dubhtina, also a Wizard, and ruler of the other half of the kingdom.  Both drop-dead gorgeous, both magically equal in power.  Only trouble is, Exeter wants to rule everything, and he’s bored…so bored he decides to conquer the Earth so he can entertain himself by manipulating the puny mortals living on it.  It’s also an easy way to force the White Fire lords to surrender to his rule. 

Since the White Fire faeries are guarding the portals allowing entrance from one dimension to another, Exeter’s men have difficulty coming through, though on occasion they manage and soon after a war or some other human unpleasantness occurs.  David is sent to guard one of the main portals and his falling in love and marrying a mortal and producing a Halfling grandchild is definitely not in his father’s plans.  When David returns to Ais Linn to ready himself for the coming war and his wife follows, things take a deadly and unpredicted turn.

In depicting my two main characters, I had to make them compatible to each other while being different enough to matter.  David’s a Trooping Faery, a human-sized supernatural as attracted to mortal women as they are to him.  Fortunately, he’s also faithful and from the minute he meets Megan O’Connell, he’s doomed to love her forever; she’s bound his heart with gossamer and that stuff never lets go!  Megan, in turn, loves David just as passionately, but she has a bit of a struggle adjusting to being the only mortal in a houseful of faeries, especially when they reveal themselves as having 6-foot dragonfly wings dripping faery dust all over the furniture, pointed ears a la Spock, and vaporous antenna.  That they’re all to-die-for handsome—even the villains—doesn’t make it any easier.

Welcome to Ais Linn, where unicorns graze and werewolves prowl the Dark Forest in search of pixies to terrorize…where a faery wizard and hi04 mortal wife defend the Earth against  the Lord of Dark Fire … and the Harmonic Convergence nears…

EXCERPT: 

“Damn it, Megan!”  He made an angry gesture,  slapping his hands against his thighs.  “What can I do to make you believe me?”

            “Prove it.” Call his bluff.  There’s no way he can prove what he says is true. Perhaps that’ll snap him out of it.        

“What?”

            “You heard me.  Prove to me you’re a faery, I mean a wizard.  Go on. Show me how you look when you’re in Wizard-form, World-Champion-Defender-class.”

            “All right.”  He didn’t even pretend to think about it,  just stalked a few feet away and turned back to face her.  He thrust both hands in front of him, fingers outspread, palms toward his body.

            “You’re serious.”  Abruptly, Megan was frightened.  He really thinks he’s some type of extra-terrestrial  supernatural being.  Oh, David!

            “Damn right.”  The hands moved apart,  one above his head, the other hovering near his waist.  He brought them together.   They passed each other.  “There!  Would you be thinkin’ this better?”

            Now it was Megan’s turn to stare.

            Where David had been, there now stood an old man...a very old man...long snowy-white  hair,  longer snowy-white beard.

Merlin.  She had no doubt of it.  Wearing a black floor-sweeping robe spangled with  crescent moons and stars.  On the white hair perched a pointed cap,  its peak so tall it had creased and fallen over under its own weight, the tip touching his shoulder.

            “Who are you supposed to be?” She was out of the chair before she realized it, running toward him only to skid to a stop and approach a little more cautiously.  “And where’s David?”

            Merlin looked down at her.

            “I’m David,” he informed her with a dignified British accent.  “World-Champion-Defender-class wizard.”

            “Hah!”  Later,  she would marvel at her ability to be so sarcastic.  “You look more like the Wizard of Id.”

            “My apologies, my darlin’.”  Looking a little insulted, he swept her a bow that skimmed his sleeves across the carpet.  “But is this na your idea o’ how a wizard should look?”  He waggled a finger at her.  “I’ve lived with you long enough to know how that cute little mind o’ yours works,  Meggie.”

            “David.” Briefly, her voice held infinite patience.  I'll get angry later for that last remark.   “Show me how you look.  Really.”

            “Very well.”  The hands moved again, performing the same gesture.  Merlin disappeared.  David stood in his place.

            David.  But not David… Oh my God, this is definitely not my husband!

            It was the same handsome face, Megan admitted, but changed.  Thinner,  paler.  Copper brows winged above his eyes, not arching as they had before, but arrow-straight.  And the eyes themselves...  Green like David’s but...there’s no white in them.  They were like an animal’s, the entire eye a deep green iris.  That,  however, wasn’t the most disturbing thing.  Protruding from his forehead were antenna.  Not butterfly-like but smoky, feathery tendrils floating in the air above his head.  They wavered  back and forth, like seaweed drifting in a stream,  then stiffened and pointed in her direction.

            As if they’ve sensed me...homing in...

            He turned his head slightly, an ear twitching,  and Megan stared.  Nearly lobeless, peaked on top.  Hello, Mr. Spock!  The left one sported a small golden ring with an emerald set in it.  She recognized it.  It was her wedding present to him.

As he shifted his weight impatiently,  Megan allowed her gaze to move down the creature's body,  past a tanned chest dusted with coppery hair to a slim waist,  and—

“David!  Why are you naked?”

            And why am I shocked? She’d seen him naked from their wedding night on.  He always slept nude.  Because what I‘m looking at definitely does not belong to my husband!

            “’Twas going to be your next question, was it na?  Am I like a human male?  I thought I’d save you th’ trouble o’ askin’.”  The familiar voice coming from the creature’s mouth shook her slightly. 

“D-David.”  Her voice trembled and she wasn’t certain if it was laughter or a desire to cry.  She gestured sharply.  “You know damned well that is not normal...in any respect.”  She forced her eyes away from what lay below his waist and began walking around him.  She thought she saw a bit of a smirk cross the generous mouth.  Has he always been like this?  How could I not have noticed?  She started to think back to their wedding night.  Give it a frame-by-frame scrutiny.  Decided not to.

            She had to admit he certainly looked like David, aside from those little...uh...big... differences.  Same muscular body, same dark red hair.  The hair was so much longer, however,  falling past his waist in a tangle,  one large curl twisting to caress the division of his buttocks.  She nearly reached out and touched that curl,  clenched her fingers into a fist to prevent it.  There was a fast-growing desire to stroke her fingers down his skin.  See if it felt as satiny-smooth  as it looked.

            OK, so this is David… the real David... and I really don't have an argument with the way he looks, even with—   I guess the main problem is the wings.

            Dragonfly-like, they didn’t come from under his shoulder blades as she’d always suppose wings should, but grew on each side of his upper spine. Not the tiny things shown in drawings of fairies either,  but equaling David’s height.  Delicately translucent in  bronzes and golds, the colors of a Monarch's wings magnified.  When they began to flutter, Megan had to dodge to keep from being struck as the right one swept upward, shedding a fine dust which sifted gently onto the antique Persian carpet.  It glittered a moment before disappearing.        

Reaching out, she touched the wing,  running her fingers along the heavy mast-bone.  It was soft and furry, felt like a swatch of velvet,  and warm.  Megan pressed her fingers against it,  letting its heat flow into her hand.  She would swear she felt a pulse beating against her palm.

            The wing began to quiver.  It suffused crimson.

            “Meggie, please.”  David's voice trembled in unison with the wing’s movements,  quite a different sound from his previous belligerence.  “My wings are one huge erogenous zone.  If you do na stop touchin’ it, darlin’,  I’m after sportin’ an embarrassin’ woodie.  An’ I’m thinkin’ th’ parlor’s na th’ proper place for that.”

***

If you like stories of knights in armor battling it out with broadswords, with touches of leprechauns and faery glamour, a glib, feisty heroine, a sexy, brave hero,  and an equally sexy, non-repentant villain and villainess, Wizard’s Wife might be just up your alley.  It’ll be available from Class Act Books (www.classactbooks.com) in January, 2011.