Legend of the Gypsy Queen Skull: The Devil's Triangle - Book 1 (7 page)

Though the girls were trained in all facets
of the magic, there was one secret Tilda had never revealed to
them. It was her most guarded one of all. She was a Dorian Gypsy
Queen and the secret keeper of an ancient mystical relic called the
Gypsy Queen Skull.

The skull itself was an object so powerful
that it could breach the very fabric of space and time itself.
According to its legend, it was fired in the furnace of the Sun and
was forged by a god’s hammer on Mercury. It was believed to have
been inhabited with the life force of a celestial being. Some even
said
it was the entrapped soul of a fallen Greek god
.

~*~

To know the story of Tilda’s Dorian
ancestors is to know the skull and the Gypsy Queen’s role.

Originally, the Dorians were a family coven
of witches in ancient Greece who wandered the rugged countryside
selling their esoteric services. They acted as healers, mediums,
seers, and even sorceresses, who practiced both white and black
magic.

As masters of spirit conjuring, spell
casting, fortune telling and communicating with the dead, they were
received with mixed feelings. To some, they were blessed shamanic
miracle workers, while others viewed them as doing the work of the
evil one.

As time passed, the Dorian coven grew weary
of
the Law of Three
. It was a phenomenon they’d come to
learn all too well. The law stated
whatever energy one puts into
the universe would eventually return to them threefold.
Many
Dorian witches and their patrons suffered unspeakable tragedies
until the coven forbade the use of their black magic
altogether.

Generations of Dorians thereafter worked
exclusively in the white light of their magic and became
exceptionally powerful. So great was their reputation that people
traveled from all corners of the ancient world to seek their help.
Word of their profound magical powers was so widespread that the
Dorians eventually even weaved their way into Greek lore
itself.

~*~

According to the legend, in the eighth
century BC, Zelia Dorian, who at the time was the coven’s
matriarch, was sitting against a pine tree when a crow began to
circle overhead. The ebony bird squawked as he lazily spiraled down
toward her, magically morphing into a black cat just as he landed
next to her.

“Oh my goodness!” Zelia blurted out,
recoiling some.

The cat, crouching down, swished his long
white-tipped tail back and forth as he intently watched her.

If it would have been anyone else sitting
there, they would’ve run away screaming, but not Zelia. A master
witch of her caliber knew better. She understood the mystical
creature was there for a reason. What that reason was would have to
wait though. For now the crouching cat never once broke eye contact
as he cautiously slinked his way over to her. Taking a deep breath,
she smiled and sweetly greeted him.

“Well hello there, my little friend.”

Upon hearing her soft tone, he blinked his
eyes and replied with a deep, throaty meow.

“Mrrrow.”

Taking a couple of more steps toward her,
the large black cat brushed up against her leg as she reached down
and stroked his back.

After a few more drive-by rubbings, he began
to purr loudly and flopped over onto his back, allowing her to
scratch his underbelly.

Soon, the two of them became fast
friends.

~*~

“Soooo, you hungry?” Zelia asked him, as she
dug around in her knapsack looking for a treat for him. He seemed
to want to help in the search by curiously poking his head into the
sack as well.

“Let’s see. Aw, here it is,” she said,
pulling out a bundle of cloth. Wrapped inside it was a wedge of
Muenster cheese, a rare delicacy given to her by a foreigner from
Gaul, whom she’d recently healed.

Breaking off a small chunk of it, she held
it in her fingers as her furry new companion inspected it with a
few discerning sniffs. Giving it a few good licks with his coarse
tongue, he then sunk his teeth into it and quickly devoured it.

“Mrrrow,” he said, looking up to Zelia for
more.

“Hmmmm, so what shall I call you?” she asked
herself, feeding him another couple of wedges as she pet him.

Much to her amusement, he lifted his head
and meowed for even more of the cheese. Seeing how it was smeared
all over his whiskers she giggled and snapped her fingers.

“That’s it! Muenster Cheese... How’s that
sound?”

Her new friend responded with a hearty purr
and licked his chops clean as she smiled and scratched his
head.

~*~

Afterwards, he groomed himself and then
curled up in her lap and soon they both drifted off into a peaceful
morning slumber.

~*~

A couple of hours later, Zelia awoke to see
Muenster sitting a few feet away, watching her with his intense
yellow eyes. Looking curiously at him for a moment, she then panned
down to her lap to see a dead mouse sitting there. Although a
little startled at first by his gift, she knew it was given with
good intentions and could only grin back at him.

“Why, thank you. But I was thinking more of
a pear for lunch,” she said kindly.

Delicately picking up the rodent by its
tail, she then laid it on the ground in front of him.

“Bon appétit,” she said to him as his eager
eyes grew wide.

~*~

After lunch, the two of them went for a
stroll in the forest when they happened upon a large rock
outcropping, where she stopped and sat down.

“So, just who exactly sent you?”

In response, Muenster simply stared up at
the sky for some time and then back down to her.

Moments later, a swirling gust of wind began
to blow as a storm cloud quickly rolled in overhead, darkening the
midday sky. The weather had turned bad so quickly Zelia didn’t have
time to seek shelter. Instead, all she could do was shield her eyes
from the flying dust and debris when a thunderous lightning bolt
struck a nearby tree.

“Oh My!” she screamed out and flinched
away.

Wiping the dirt out of her eyes, she turned
back to see Muenster sniffing a smoldering limb that had fallen out
of the tree. It was roughly five feet long and relatively straight
with a bristle of pine needles on one end. Making his way back to
its patch of needles, he began to carefully knead them with his
front paws into a sort of nest. Taking his perch on it, he meowed
and the limb slowly began to levitate.

“Oh my,” Zelia said, perking her eyebrows
up. “That’s not something you see every day,” she said, cocking her
head to the side as the branch and black cat pulled up next to
her.

“Mrrrow,” he meowed, inviting her onboard
for a ride.

Like before, most people would have run for
the hills, but not Zelia. She knew whoever had sent these two must
possess incredibly powerful magic. And that thought alone, only
intrigued her more.

“So where to?” she casually inquired,
mounting the branch.

~*~

Slowly rising up through the trees, she
looked around with her mouth open wide.

Reaching treetop level, the magical branch
suddenly took off, picking up speed as it zoomed over the forest.
The rush of wind in her face was so strong she had to squint to see
ahead.

As the minutes passed and they flew down
into a neighboring valley, her hands began to throb from holding
onto the branch so tightly. Loosening her grip some, she relaxed
her shoulders and looked all around.

“Amazing,” she said aloud with a smile.
“Simply amazing.”

~*~

As the day wore on, the wonder never ceased,
especially when they raced over a pond, stirring up a flock of
geese. Running across the water, the large birds took flight en
masse and flew up alongside them.

Minutes later, gliding over a steep
hillside, a shepherd minding his flock spotted them and dropped his
crook. Standing frozen with his mouth agape, Zelia could only smile
and wave back. Seeing a woman and a black cat flying on a stick
with a flock of geese in tow must have been a quite a shock to
him.

A few more miles and one by one the geese
eventually tipped their wings to them and trailed off into another
direction.

“See you, be safe!” the good witch
cheerfully said, waving goodbye to them.

The limb continued their journey, flying
high over the various mountain ranges and zooming over the many
open fields. Then, without warning, it took an unexpected sharp
turn and dove down into an unforeseen gorge.

“No, no, no!” she shrieked at the top of her
lungs.

“Pull up! … Pull up!” she screamed,
white-knuckling the branch.

Muenster, too, yowled out loud and dug his
claws into the limb as it spiraled down out of control, freefalling
toward a raging river at the bottom of the gorge.

Tightly squeezing her eyes shut, Zelia
grimaced, awaiting the imminent impact. But at the very last second
the branch seemed to defy gravity and pulled up, zipping down over
the roaring rapids instead.

So close were they to the river’s surface
that Zelia’s legs and Muenster’s tail actually dipped down into the
turbulent waters just beneath them.

Leveling out, Zelia let out a huge sigh of
relief, but Muenster was less forgiving. Angrily clawing into the
branch’s needles, he gnawed off some of its bark as payback for the
unwelcomed thrill ride.

~*~

A few miles further down the canyon, Zelia
spotted a beautiful waterfall in the distance. Its bottom was
obscured by a thick, lingering moisture cloud with a colorful
rainbow emanating up from it. Nearing it, she could hear the roar
of its cascading water growing louder by the moment.

“Oh dear…” Zelia said in a sinking tone,
when she realized the branch was flying them straight up into the
dense cloud. Climbing up through it, she couldn’t see her hand in
front of her face as Muenster howled with his displeasure behind
her.

Finally forging through it, they crested
over the top of the waterfall as Zelia flipped her wet hair back
and turned around.

“You okay?”

Soaking wet, Muenster looked up to her with
his ears pulled back as his tail swished back and forth.

Unacceptable,
he thought in his cat’s
mind.

None-too-happy, he shook and wiggled to
expel the unwanted water from his coat and quickly began to power
groom his fur.

~*~

As the flight wore on, and the further north
they headed, the more sense the journey began to make to Zelia.

We must be heading to the home of the gods,
Mt. Olympus.

It was said to be the heavenly place built
by Zeus, the father of all gods, and was home to not only him but
to a dozen other earthly gods. It was believed that no other human
had ever visited it, much less seen it, as the mountain’s peak had
always been hidden in the clouds.

For the gods who had once dominated ancient
Greek life, they had all but fallen out of favor with the last few
generations. Nowadays their temples were abandoned and people
rarely paid homage to them anymore. Mankind had grown tired of
their pettiness and their meddlings in human affairs.

~*~

Cresting over one last ridgeline, Zelia let
out a gasp of nervous excitement and said under her breath, “Mt.
Olympus.”

Panning her eyes up the mythical mountain
she noticed a cloud bank was obscuring the peak’s summit. Turning
around, she asked Muenster, “Is this where you came from?” but he
simply replied with a meow, and began to purr. He was taking it all
in stride, sitting with his ears perked up and his paws curled up
underneath him.

~*~

Minutes later, ascending ever higher up into
the dense cloud bank she cupped her hands together and blew warm
air into them and looked around. She couldn’t see a thing with the
visibility having now degraded down to only a few feet.

I hope he knows where we’re going
,
she thought rubbing her rosy cheeks, working the feeling back into
them, when suddenly they broke through and came face-to-face with
an enormous white-columned Greek structure.

“Temple of the Gods,” she mumbled to
herself.

~*~

The temple was the epitome of classical
Greek architecture with its rows of tall marbled columns; each
supporting a section of the gold-leafed roof pediment, which was
filled with various godly sculptures. Encircling the roofline was
an endless series of crafted gold inlaid friezes. Most interesting
of all, the closer they came to the temple the more radiant it
seemed to glow.

Entering into it, even the angelic music
score playing throughout the cavernous temple was enchantingly
tranquil. Its harmonious melody was so warm and rich it seemed to
soothe her very soul.

There was no doubt in her mind now, this
truly was a temple built for the gods.

But where were they?

The sanctuary appeared to be vacant.

Flying deeper into the heart of the temple,
they entered into an open-air courtyard and came to a stop. Panning
around, Zelia’s mouth dropped wide open. The grounds were rich with
lush green grass and perfectly manicured shrubs, while wispy vines
hung down from the many trees and lazily swayed in the crisp
breeze. All around were numerous marble statues of gods and
goddesses in various states of pose.

One was of the muscle bound Hercules
wielding a broadsword high over his head. While another was of
Athena, wearing an ornate battle helmet, stoically standing watch
over the grounds with a spear in one hand and a shield in the
other.

In the middle of the courtyard was a placid
pool of water filled with colorful Koi fish. Beside it, a man stood
wearing a white tunic. He was tossing some sort of feed into the
water as she and Muenster walked over to him.

“Hello, Zelia. Thank you for coming,” he
said, before turning around to face her.