Overcomer - The Battle - Judy Colella (best love novels of all time .TXT) 📗

few seconds later, the crate turned a shimmering golden color, dissolving into droplets of the same gold, the droplets themselves becoming a lovely golden mist. The Keeper lowered his hands and held them out by his sides; Katie took one, Celeste the other, and together they walked through the gold curtain.

They were immediately surrounded by a thick greyness. Katie looked behind them, but only a darker grey patch showed where the gold curtain had been. Ahead stretched a path that fit Cian’s description from his story told the day before of his own first entry into the Hub: soft ashen pathway, with tall curtains of some indefinable material reaching upward on either side. Since neither girl felt like speaking, they continued to cling to the Keeper’s hands and traveled in awed silence. It was, as they’d been told, impossible to tell how long they had been walking, but at some point the feeling of the air around them changed, and they sensed its source was music. Shortly after this, they saw in the distance a gleam of emerald which eventually clarified into the hill, atop which sat something made of blue-gold-white light.

Celeste glanced up at the Keeper and saw that he was smiling, then leaned forward to peer around him at Katie, who was doing the same thing, and met her gaze. They almost giggled, but somehow couldn’t. They were within shouting distance of the Hub of Time – a place not on Earth, but connected to it. And Celeste knew somehow that she’d been destined for this place her whole life.

TWO

 

Upon reaching the hill, they walked around to the front and climbed up, still holding the Keeper’s hands. As soon as they crested the top he stopped, but Celeste, releasing his hand, kept walking until she stood directly in front of the shimmering being sitting and playing her harp.

Celesta placed the harp on the grass beside her, a smile of brilliant joy on her already blindingly beautiful features. She leaned forward, gathering the girl into her arms.

“My Celeste,” she whispered happily. “At last.”

Celeste began to weep, but her tears were those of relief, joy, and cleansing of her heart as the peace this creature represented washed lovingly over her. Now, finally, she knew that what had been happening to her, like all those inexplicable visions that had snatched her out of reality throughout her life, was not only real, but good. In a long, incredible instant, she remembered every dream, every vision, every gem of knowledge that had been given to her over the span of her sixteen short years, but which had been forgotten the second they were over.

She saw the village where the Druids were holding their court of justice, and the lovely little town that had been the ancestral home of the Kelly clan. Magnificent vistas in parts of the world she’d not yet visited and perhaps never would, and the blue-clad young man who had told her about the silver string of the Harp, all returned to her memory. She knew, too, that if she so chose she could both think and speak in fluent Gaelic any time she needed or wanted.

And the music! It was all there, waiting deep in her heart for her hands to bring it forth on the strings of the Keeper’s instrument. She hugged the angel back and never wanted her to let go.

Since this was the Hub of Time, they could well have stayed that way virtually forever, but urgency had pulled the fabric of Time very tight indeed. With a great reluctance of her own, Celesta released the girl and looked deep into her eyes. “Are you prepared for your task, sweet child?” she asked tenderly. “Do you know what you must do, and why, and the dangers it may involve for you?”

Still dazzled but starting to think in more mortal terms once more, Celeste said, “I need to learn the music, kind angel. And while I think I know what I am to do, I still need to be told more about it before I can honestly say I’m prepared. As for the danger, the Keeper told me some of what happened to Cian, but please tell me the rest?”

Celesta looked past the girl to where the Keeper and Katie stood. She beckoned to Celeste’s friend, who walked slowly forward, awed beyond belief at what she was seeing. When she drew close, she looked up at Celesta, into her gleaming sapphire eyes, and her own filled with tears, but from what emotion she couldn’t have said.

“Lovely, loyal Katie,” whispered the angel, touching the girl’s cheek with one elegant finger. “How blessed is our Celeste to have such a friend. We had not planned for you to come here, but your heart knew better than our minds what was right, and I welcome you gratefully.” She gave Katie a slow, loving hug that filled the girl with an almost giddy sense of happiness, then pulled back and kissed her on the top of her head.

“Will I be able to help her?” Katie asked hoarsely, her voice seeming to have wandered off down one of the paths.

“As only you can. You shall be her Attendant, lovely child. And now – Keeper. Please sit with us. We have much to discuss.”

It was decided that Celeste would be taught the Songs of Light and the purpose of the silver harp string. For now, she would learn on another harp Croghan often used, but when the time came, she would use the Harp he had once carried in his travels and which he’d brought with them from Connecticut. This puzzled him, for he had thought the girl would play the one he normally used to keep back darkness. The other Harp was the instrument with which he’d been presented upon finishing the extremely difficult schooling that made him an official Bard so very, long ago. It was a magnificent instrument, but when he was appointed Keeper, the angels had made him a gift of the other one, so he’d assumed it was that harp which contained all the power.

Guessing the source of the man’s slight frown, Celesta asked all of them to make themselves comfortable on the soft grass while she told them a tale.

 

*******

 

“One cannot go farther back than the Beginning,” she began. “But since then, more things have been done and said, created and made, than any of you can possibly imagine. Yet weaving in and out of everything from that Beginning was music in some form or another. My Glorious Lord invented it and gave the knowledge of how to construct instruments that would bring forth its voice in different ways.

“Now, not all men understood the nature of my Creator, nor His power, nor the power of sounds. But some there were and always will be with a great love of music and how to produce it easily. Among them have been those who worshipped gods that were not alive, that simply did not exist. Still, these humans were inspired to write and perform astounding and beautiful works of music in praise of these gods. Some even began schools in which those of a quick mind and wit would learn to play and sing, to compose and to memorize hundreds of verses. It was in one of these schools that the Keeper was educated. His teacher was a man known as Taliesin, and it was Taliesin who made the Keeper’s Harp. In fact, Celeste, it was he who told you about the silver string.

“The Keeper himself came from a time much earlier than the days of Taliesin; he traveled from far away with a group of people to whom war gave joy, but even they needed their story-tellers so others and descendants would know of their victories. The Keeper was one of these. When they came to the place now known as Britain, and eventually Ireland, he was still relatively young and could yet be taught many things. My Lord saw his heart, saw that it was not filled with the joy of blood lust, that in fact, he longed to do only good for those around him and was deeply saddened by the knowledge that he could not.

“I was sent to him in his dreams and showed him where to find me, how to use his ability as a Druid to come through the wall at the place you call Newgrange and thus enter the Hub. Like you, he walked in silence until he found me here, waiting. I offered him what you would call a job, one like no other offered to a mortal before then. You see, the darkness and evil that has ever strained to possess this place had always been kept away by various of my kind, but now had been found one who might, of his own free will, choose to be the Keeper in our stead. To help him, we brought him forward in time to when Taliesin lived and made his music, and Croghan became his best student. He loved our Croghan and wanted to give him his own seat of authority at the head of the school when it was time for him, Taliesin, to leave this life. But Croghan told him the truth, and while saddened, Taliesin determined to help as much as he could. Because his heart, too, was open to the Glorious One, another like myself was sent to show Taliesin how best to serve Croghan in his mission. He was told to make him a harp, one with strings of purest gold, but the middle string had to be of the finest silver, tried seven times, and the wood to be strong ash stained dark to look like mahogany.

“Honored by this commission, Taliesin crafted this harp exactly as required, putting into it his love for Croghan; then, when he was done, he was told to leave it outside the door of his chambers until morning. During that night, the strings were given a special resonance; their vibrations became voices of eternity that could act like strong bars to hold back any and all that were evil.

“And what of the silver string? Ah, that was to be used at the very end of the greatest Song of Light – all but one of the Songs of Light were known by the angels, and were eventually taught to our new Keeper, but the most powerful has been reserved until now. It will be taught to me and I shall teach it to you, Celeste. You see, the golden strings contain the voices of the angels themselves, but the silver string resonates in perfect parallel harmony with the Voice of Glory. There is no creature in Heaven or Earth that can resist it; it melts darkness and banishes evil, while giving life and light to the one who plays the Song and to the one for whom it is sung.

“But now I must tell you the rest. Taliesin waited until Croghan had completed all the tests that would make him a true Bard, then presented him with the harp. We had told this man that once Croghan left, his name was never again to be spoken, for his identity had to be hidden for as long as