Amos Daragon_ The Mask Wearer - Bryan Perro [31]
“Out of nowhere, a light came out of a flower and started to spin around him. Only many years later did the young boy understand that he had entered the realm of fairies. More lights came to join the first one, and marvelous music started. Imprisoned in a circle of fairies, the child danced and danced and danced with the lights until he dropped to the ground. He fell into a deep sleep under a tree.
“When he woke up, he was fifty years older. His hair had turned white and he had a long beard. He made his way home but the house was no longer here. There was a road now where his father’s large garden used to be. His parents, his dog, his house had disappeared.
“He walked on the road and reached a town named Berrion. It’s the town we’re in today. Totally helpless, he told his story to passersby, claiming that his childhood had been stolen from him. No one wanted to listen to him, and for a long time people thought that he was crazy. Finally, and with difficulty, he accepted his old age and began to tell stories to make a living. This child is still alive and is called Junos, like all the characters of my tales. It is Junos who is talking to you now. It’s my own story that I just told you. Could you be the first person to believe me at last?”
Flabbergasted, Amos remembered having heard this story before. It was the one his father had told him when they were leaving the realm of Omain. Urban claimed to have met this man years ago during his travels with Frilla.
Amos looked at the big tears that ran down the old man’s cheeks.
“I believe your story and I make a solemn promise to give you back the childhood that you’ve searched for all this time,” he said. “Take me to the woods of Tarkasis and I’ll repair the wrong that was done to you.”
—11—
THE WOODS OF TARKASIS
Amos spent the night with Junos in the small room the old man rented in a seedy inn. Junos apologized for the lack of comfort that he had to offer his guest. They kept talking for a long while, mostly about fairies, before going to sleep. Junos knew dozens of tales and legends about them.
The old man said that, at the beginning of time, most of the earth had been controlled by the fomors and the firbolgs, who were related to ogres, goblins, and trolls. Later, the fairies arrived from the west; no one knew why or how, probably carried by the ocean wind. They fought the goblins, then the trolls, and finally managed to weaken the ogres enough to force them into exile. These migrated north, to the land of barbarians and ice.
Then, from the east, men arrived. They were powerful warriors, riding big, beautiful horses. They took possession of the land, tilled it and forced the fairies to take refuge in the forest. Some of the fairies befriended the men, but most stayed in the woods and remained isolated. They found several ways to avoid being disturbed by humans. Their kingdoms were secret and often not accessible. They maintained a strict social hierarchy. Like the bees, the fairies had a queen, workers, and warriors.
However, some men worked together with the creatures of the forest. They were called druids. Their task was to protect nature, especially the animals and the forests—the realms of fairies. It was the fairies that decided which humans were capable of becoming druids. They stole babies from their cribs and replaced them with pieces of magic wood that took the shape of the real infants. Parents never suspected anything. These substitute babies seemed quite normal until they died suddenly, for no apparent reason.
Even today, there is a custom that villagers follow. Although most of them do not believe in supernatural beings, they suspend a pair of open scissors above their children’s beds for protection. Since fairies move quickly in the air, the blades will cut them if they try to come close to a crib. Small bells are attached to the clothing of newborn babies, as well as red ribbons and colorful and cumbersome garlands. The jingle of the bells is meant to warn parents if fairies ever try to kidnap a baby. The ribbons