Rundimahair: A new hero for a new adventure by Larry Forkner (summer books .TXT) 📗

in homespun tan robes hurrying in and out at the main gate. By all appearances, this bustling community is as prosperous as it is peaceful and serene.

It is a beautiful sunny day in Ireland, and the sun’s rays warm Sean pleasantly, as he contemplates hiking down to the monastery and paying a visit to the good people living there. Just as he begins his decent from the hilltop, a grouping of thick, dark clouds rolls over the hills, across the valley and quickly cover the sun.

He is suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding moments before a thunderous noise reaches him. When he sees the first wave of riders charge over the hills above the monastery, Sean realizes the noise is the thunder of thousands of horse’s hooves. The riders are an embodiment of the apocalyptic destruction raining down on the peaceful valley below.

Without truly knowing how, Sean realizes the monastery was a source of pure light that was created by the Angels of the Sidhe. These angels were here on earth to protect humans from the demonic Tuatha race of immortals.

* * *

Sean awoke from a deep sleep to the sound of someone shouting in impotent rage. His heart is racing and pounding against his chest. He sits up abruptly and realizes that he was the source of the shouting. It feels like he just awakened from a long, deep slumber. As the memories of the monastery quickly faded, Sean felt a sense of kinship with those who’d called the ancient monastery home.

His eyes darted from one location to the next as his mind struggled to make sense of his surroundings. While images of the beautiful Irish valley still played through his mind, he wondered how he knew it was in Ireland.

Slowly, his mind began to catalog the items in his room. The fog and confusion continued to lift as he realized that he was sitting up in his own bed. The familiar, luxurious appointments of his master bedroom suite surrounded him. The comforting feeling of knowing he was safe in his own home began to push back the anxiety that had overwhelmed him moments before.

Sean threw back the bed covers and tried to stand up too quickly. A rush of dizziness almost caused him to fall back onto the bed. After taking a few deep breaths and shaking his head, the wooziness began to fade away.

After taking a long hot shower and munching down two of his favorite granola bars, Sean felt almost normal again. He reached for his cell phone, which was plugged in, charging on the kitchen counter. Something about the cell phone being there seemed off, but he refused to ponder the weirdness that lingered in the back of his mind. Surely it was only the after-effects of his strange dream.

By the time Sean arrived at his downtown office building, he was slowly getting back into his everyday groove. His mind was clear and alert when he walked into the suite of offices his company occupied on the top floor of a ten-story building. Sean owned the entire building.

“How was the weekend on the Oregon Coast?” his office manager, Jennie, asked cheerfully.

His first thought was that it seemed like he’d been gone much longer than a weekend. Sean shook off the strange feeling and said, “Uneventful.”

“Did you find anything worth pursuing at the real estate auction?” Jennie asked from the door to her spacious office, which was next to his.

There was that feeling again. It was like he’d just checked out for a few days with no real memory of where he’d been or what he’d done. He was fairly certain that he hadn’t been at any real estate auction. Where had he been? No answers were forthcoming.

“Earth to Sean,” Jennie said, laughing. “You seem a little bit out of it this morning.

Sean forced a smile and said, “The truth is I was feeling lousy by the time I got to the coast. I actually spent most of my time in bed trying to get over whatever was bugging me.”

“Well, maybe you should be at home resting up. I can handle things for a few days,” Jennie said.

Sean looked at her concerned smile and almost felt like he wasn’t being completely honest with Jennie. Unfortunately, what he’d told her felt like the truth, or as much of it as he could recall. He was coming to realize that he honestly couldn’t recall any details of what was apparently a lost weekend.

* * *

Ashling was feeling uneasy after completing visits with her patients today. The truth was that even though it had been several weeks since they’d sent Sean home, she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

She truly hoped he was back to his normal life by now. It would take time for the residual effects of the magic she’d had to use on him, to completely dissipate. After a month or so he shouldn’t have any lingering ill effects, even though she’d had been forced to use very powerful magic on his mind. Ashling had been very careful, but it wasn’t good to work such influential magic so often, especially in such a short period of time.

About a week after they’d sent him home, she’d linked minds with Sean during his sleep. It was clear that he was still troubled by vague dreams of his time in Rundimahair. It was nothing that could lead him back, but it troubled her that he still held on to even distant memories. All traces of his time there should have been washed away.

Even more troubling was the realization that he’d had several dreams about the distant past. The last time she’d touched his mind tracks, he was in the midst of a dream.

The dream was a shockingly accurate retelling of a long-ago tragedy among the humans, who were supposed to be protected by angels of the Sidhe. Instead of protecting the humans who worked and lived at the monastery, some of the angels