Eriana looked away, collecting her thoughts as they waited with naked eagerness. “One thing at a time. You might find this hard to believe… okay, well, maybe not anymore.”
“There’s a lot we’d believe today that we would’ve laughed off a month ago,” observed Eric.
She sighed and helped herself to one beer. It was that kind of tale. “Magic is real on Earth. It is always has been. What you would call fantasy creatures like elves, dwarves, dragons, and more are also real.”
“Then why don’t we see them?” Jack asked. “Are they still here?”
“The quest that brought us to Earth has hidden them from view, you might say.”
“All four of you, right?” Eric asked. “Soliander, Andier, Korrin, and yourself were all here?”
“Yes. We were always summoned as a group and this was no exception.”
“Who summoned you?”
Eriana paused, wondering if they would recognize the name. “Morgana.”
She saw Matt cock an eyebrow before he asked, “As in Merlin and Morgana?”
“That’s the one,” she admitted, pleased that they knew some history.
Matt asked, “You’re saying they were real? That was a thousand years ago, I think.”
“Yes. Historical records are a little thin and people think they are a myth, but they were both real. We met them.” She paused, letting them absorb that. Too much too fast wouldn’t go well.
“So Morgana summoned you. What for?” Matt asked. “She was supposedly a, uh, good character, not evil, though modern TV shows make her out to be evil.”
Pleased with his remarks, she observed, “You seem to know some of this.”
“Yeah, I watch and read a lot of fantasy, even tried to write a book once. Sometimes I get curious about whether someone was real or not and google them. Now I’m really curious what’s real and what isn’t.”
She said, “Well, these modern shows may have been more accurate. We only know what she and Merlin told us. Morgana summoned us to get that pendant and return it to Stonehenge. She is the one ‘who lies’ from Merlin’s poem, the words inside the jewel.”
“I’m guessing there’s some backstory to the quest, like usual,” mused Ryan. He took a swig.
“Yes, and hopefully it isn’t too much to absorb.” She took a sip and dove into it. “The faerie world is where dragons, elves, dwarves, goblins, and more are from on Earth. Magic exists in that world more than on Earth. That world intersects this one at key points, like doorways, and it is at these locations that faerie beings can cross over into this world, and the people of Earth can sometimes, pass into the faerie world.”
“Are these doorways just opened all the time?” Eric asked.
“No. And they are sometimes guarded, and the character of the guardians can differ, of course, meaning obey laws, others not so much. The guards may exist on either side, Earth or there. There are times during the year when the openings are easier to pass through, as if the barriers between worlds are thinner. At other times, it is reversed. We celebrate some of these occasions as holidays, like May Day and Halloween.”
She took another sip, gauging their reactions, which didn’t seem skeptical, so that was good. Eriana continued.
“As you’re likely aware from stories, dwarves and elves are benevolent, despite any personality quirks, and trolls, dark elves, and others are more nefarious. Dragons can be either. There are many more. What the so-called evil ones have in common is that they are often aimless and with little purpose unless they have a leader who encourages cooperation. This is where Morgana comes in.
“Both she and Merlin were half-human, one parent being fae. It is the reason both were so strong in magic, the strongest among humans, anyway. Some saw them as belonging to both worlds. Others to neither. Most humans did not know the truth about them, but fae can tell. From what Merlin told us, he did not approve of Morgana’s growing influence among the so-called evil fae. They were like her, being interested in creating trouble for fun, some turning deadly. That turned humans against the fae world more.”
Matt remarked, “I guess all of it being real is where these stories have come from, and somehow it turned to myth.”
Eriana nodded. “Humans have always been fearful of what they do not understand, and making everything a myth might have eased fears. There were countless stories of humans attacking faerie folk of whatever kind, which caused some like goblins to decide humans are evil. Humans sometimes found these doorways between worlds and built barriers to keep anyone from entering Earth through one, or if the fae did, they would just find themselves imprisoned underground. This is what various mounds found around the world, especially in England, are really for. Each is over a known opening between the worlds. At other times, bolder humans would do a raid into the fae world, killing and even capturing those they found, bringing them back for evil purposes. This included making magic items from the remains after they killed the captured. A war was brewing.”
“I have a question,” began Eric. “You’re saying that faerie folk are from this alternate world, or whatever. Is this true on other worlds?”
“Sort of,” she answered. “It once was, but it appears that on other planets, integrating them was much more complete so that they effectively merged into one. There are sometimes what we think of as leftover magic doorways to supernatural places, or even between non-magical ones.”
“That’s incredible,” said Matt, eyes bright.
Eriana continued, “I’m not sure why, but this merging hadn’t taken place much on Earth when we were brought here, and the quest from our summoning ended it altogether, forcing near total separation of what appears like a natural process everywhere else. I guess that this separation is unnatural.”
Jack asked, “Why did it happen? Was that the quest? To cause this?”
“Basically, yes. At some point, Merlin aligned himself with the more benevolent faerie folk, but some among the elves, dwarves, and others who supported Merlin did not believe the lengths
