Master of Elements Ch. 03: Danger

Note: all characters are over 18, as set out in the story.

*****

Master of Elements: Chapter 3 - Danger

"And what he greatly thought, he nobly dared." - Homer, Odyssey

One advantage of northern Sweden, even compared to rural Ireland, was that there was plenty of space where it was possible to get away from people and for the girls to practice their skills. It helped too that Freya's abilities to manipulate air were somewhat less flashily obvious that Brigit's with fire. This did not mean they were less powerful; in fact, I thought potentially the opposite.

We did a lot of our practice in a pine forest outside of Skellefteå . Brigit could easily have started a fire that would have destroyed it in days, assuming that the local authorities didn't succeed in controlling it. On the other hand, Freya could summon a storm that would have flattened the forest in hours and no one could have stopped it. It also began to dawn on me that the pair working together could be much more devastating. If Brigit had started a fire but Freya had then fanned the flames with strong winds the result would have been a fire storm that might have taken out this entire region, forest and town alike.

Of course, we didn't do any of those dreadful things. The forest had done us no harm and we had no desire to get noticed; the exact opposite in fact. I had my theory that while the girls were separated they were hidden from our enemy, which is why it didn't simply find and kill them immediately, but once two were brought together the concentration of raw elemental power would be noticeable and the more so since the girls were actively using their powers. This was a risk but one that had to be taken if they were to be ready for the coming trials.

For a week all went well. Freya had a house she part rented, sharing with another girl of around her own age called Hanna Larsson. Freya's parents lived in Luleå, even further north and where Freya herself had been born. She had moved to Skellefteå to take her current job. Brigit and I moved out of our hotel and in with Freya. You might have thought this would cause Hanna some surprise, but she had merely rolled her eyes. It seemed Freya had had a long line of boyfriends and girlfriends and she was used to their coming and going. So long as we did our share of household chores Hanna just ignored us.

Actually, I found the presence of Ms Larsson a useful corrective to me. I was getting used to the attention - indeed adoration - I was getting from two beautiful young women. Hanna's complete indifference to me was a useful reminder to my ego that without any mystical forces involved I was the same Chris Ward who had enjoyed modest but mixed success with the ladies, no different from thousands of other ordinary guys.

Still, I had nothing to complain about on that front. Freya found, just as Brigit had, that the exercise of her powers filled her with tremendous levels of excited energy which needed an outlet. Both girls came back from our practice sessions in a heightened state of physical, mental and, as I soon found, sexual arousal.

This led to my getting my long-desired threesome pretty much automatically with no effort needed on my part. One day early in the week we came back from training to find Hanna had gone out for the evening to see friends. I went into the kitchen to make all three of us a cup of coffee and on returning to the living room found Brigit and Freya furiously making out on the sofa, hands roaming over each other's bodies - still clothed at this point - and mouths locked together in a passionate deep kiss. Suffice to say that the coffee never got drunk.

Almost before I knew what was happening all three of us were on Freya's bed, naked and I was sliding my cock first into Brigit's pussy and then Freya's and then alternating between them. Nor were the girls less active. As befitted someone who was bi-sexual Freya had an enviable collection of vibrators and dildos and much use was made of them.

And so we settled into a pattern. Sometimes I made love to Brigit one to one and sometimes to Freya and even more often the girls had their fun without me (well, I needed a rest sometimes) but more often than not it was the three of us together, having the best sex of any of our lives.

Enjoyable as this was, it also puzzled me. I was finding that at 28 I had the sort of stamina and sexual capacity I had enjoyed ten years earlier, only combined with more control and experience. Brigit and Freya were beautiful and sexy enough to explain my heightened libido, which they seemed to share, but I still felt something else was going on.

In the end I concluded that this was another effect of the quest we were on. Those who had set this up originally needed the team of the Seeker and the five Mistresses to bond together. What better way than to make them fall in love and what easier way to smooth that path than a lot of great sex? Well, it made some sort of sense and, to be honest, I was enjoying myself too much to overly worry about it.

*****

It was on the eighth day after we found Freya that everything changed. It had been a working day for the Swedish girl so we only met up for practice in late afternoon, but in these northern climes the light lingered into the evening despite it now being early Autumn, so we drove to one of our favourite locations and started the training routines.

It was Freya, familiar with this landscape since childhood who first noticed something strange, suddenly saying, "Listen. How quiet it is."

We did so and realised she was right. There was no bird song, no buzz of insects. Even the wind had dropped and fallen silent. It was as if everything was waiting for something to happen. The effect was eerie and all three of us found ourselves holding our breath, as if we too wanted to be silent. Then I felt something through my feet, a tremor as if from a small earthquake. I could see the others had felt it too.

"Somethings wrong," I said quietly. "Forget the training. Let's go back to the car."

We started in the direction where I had left the car and had reached the edge of a small clearing in the woods when something much more dramatic happened. The ground in the open space before us began to heave upward in two spots about a dozen metres apart. We stopped, open mouthed; none of us had seen anything like this before. Then before we could react, two creatures erupted from the ground.

They were around eight or nine feet tall and vaguely human shaped, with massive limbs and torsos and a reddish-brown coloured hide, if that is what it was. Whatever they were, they looked enormously strong and liable to be able to squish any of us to a bloodied pulp with one blow of their huge rock-like fists and I had no doubt that was their intention. These things were here to kill Brigit and Freya; me too presumably, although clearly I wasn't considered dangerous enough to merit a monster of my own.

"Trolls," Freya murmured in awe, her mind seized by Nordic folklore, but the emerald stone on my amulet was telling me something different. These things were not truly alive but animated from the very rock beneath our feet. They were creations from the earth element.

"Run," I said. I had no idea whether my charges were ready to fight such creatures or not but if there was another option this didn't seem the moment to find out. All three of us turned and fled back into the woods. Unfortunately, it became rapidly apparent that the earth creatures were almost as fast as us, had unlimited stamina and the advantage of not bothering to run around small trees, simply smashing them out of the way. If we continued to run we would be caught and obliterated; we would have to fight. And as I was the protector of the girls it was up to me to come up with a plan.

To my surprise, confronted with a crisis, I did. Ok, it was an insane plan but this was a mad situation. It was here that I first appreciated the wisdom of the ancients in giving me control over the women. Had I needed to explain my idea, achieve understanding and get agreement we would all have died. Instead I gave orders and was obeyed instantly. I waited until we reached the far edge of another small clearing that suited my purpose and then shouted "Stop."

The creatures were coming through the trees and approaching the opposite side of the clearing. "Brigit hit the one on our left with everything you've got. I want it white hot. Freya, do likewise with the right hand one but draw chilled air down from higher in the atmosphere."

They didn't argue but Brigit did glance at me and said, concern in her voice, "What are you going to do?"

"Something really, really stupid," I replied grimly. I assembled my own puny defences, using a little of each of the four elements and really wishing I knew what aether did.

As the rock monsters, or whatever they were, crashed through the last of the trees opposite and emerged into the clearing both girls let them have it with everything they had, holding nothing back just as I had ordered. It was an awesome sight and although not sufficient to stop our enemies it did at least slow them down.

On my left Brigit unleashed a stream of fire like a flame thrower at her earth creature. It waded slowly through this, only its titanic strength keeping it moving. I saw its rock-like body glow red, then orange and finally white hot, bits of it melting and dropping off like molten lava, but seemingly without doing it serious harm.

To my right Freya was throwing a gale of increasing strength at the other earth elemental, drawing air directly from the upper atmosphere. Even through my defences I could feel the brutal chill of the cold winds. The creature was head down plodding slowly but relentlessly through the hurricane despite ice forming on its rocky skin and its joints becoming increasingly rigid.

Impressive as these displays were, it was clear that neither girl's efforts were going to stop the creatures, which came on with the unrelenting determination of the mindless. However, I had not thought they would; my plan was much madder than that. When our enemies were about 100 metres away and separated by perhaps 20 metres I suddenly ordered the girls to stop and stand still.

They obeyed, albeit both turned toward me in surprise. Before they could speak I suddenly sprinted forward toward the gap between the two monsters. Freya gave a gasp of shock and Brigit actually screamed in horror, but I ignored them. I ran as fast as I could until I was between the creatures. Even through the elemental barriers I had erected I could feel the intense heat from one side and the freezing cold of the other.

The elementals were annoyingly slow to take any notice of me; my guess was that they were simply following programmed instructions and were devoid of any real intelligence. However, for my plan to work I needed them to, so I shot a weak bolt of water at the one to my right and a little extra fire at the one on the left and shouted, "I'm here you dumb fuckers, come and get me!"

It worked. Both turned toward me and lumbered in my direction, massive rock fists outstretched. I heard a distant wail of horror, this time from both girls. At the last possible moment I dived out of the way, moving all my mystic defences behind me. It was too late for the two monsters to avoid one another and they crunched together with a resounding crash.

There had to be at least 250 degrees of heat difference between their temperatures; one underwent sudden heating the other equally sudden cooling. The rock of which they were composed cracked and shattered under the shock and the creatures lost integrity and began to fall apart, until suddenly they were no longer monsters but just two irregularly shaped piles of boulders somehow dumped in the middle of the forest clearing.

I lay flat on the ground next to them, carefully flexing my limbs to see if anything was broken. I felt dazed and exhausted but everything vital seemed to still be in working order. Then with a pounding of feet I suddenly had two beautiful women, fussing around me and showing every sign of concern for my wellbeing, which was a considerable boost to my morale. It seemed I was the hero of the hour.

Gingerly I climbed to my feet. "You mad bastard," said Brigit, "you could have got yourself killed and I ... I couldn't have stood it," I looked and realised she was crying.

"Come here," I said to both of them and then pulled Brigit and Freya into a hug. We clung to each other, taking comfort in one another's presence. "I'm here to protect you and it was the only way I could think of to win. I had to try it."

Still alive but somewhat shaken, we returned to Freya's home. I had a feeling that having repelled the attack we were safe for the moment but that this wouldn't last indefinitely. I also knew that the time had come to tell Brigit and Freya everything I knew. With their lives in danger they deserved that much at least. So I told them the true story of how I had been told of my destiny - and theirs.

*****

The first communications had arrived at work - texts, emails, voice messages. That wasn't a total shock; my professional contact details were not secret, although these were not from any client I dealt with. However, the contents were personal to me and not work related and were decidedly odd, so I blocked them. There was even an attempt to visit me at work, but the caller didn't make it past security.

Then the same thing began to happen on my personal phone, email and social media accounts. It began to seem like I had acquired a stalker somehow and I was alarmed to see that this person seemed to know all my personal details. Again, I blocked them. The flats where I lived had front door access security and I asked my neighbours not to admit any strangers asking after me.

My stalker gave a name in his correspondence - Gwydion Jones. I searched for it on the net and found a small but still surprising number of people of that name, largely in Wales. However, I was convinced none of them was my man and eventually I concluded that the name was probably a fake and I subsequently found this was partly the case. The main thing I learnt from the internet was that Gwydion was the name of a mythical Welsh wizard.

Despite my best efforts, my stalker did not give up; he even wrote me an actual letter for god's sake! I will admit I did read this - well you would, who gets letters these days? But the contents were as bizarre as ever, so I put it in a drawer and tried to forget it. I thought about going to the police, but the guy had done nothing threatening and I suspected the matter would be dismissed as the work of a harmless crank, so I left it. This campaign of harassment (as I saw it) continued for almost three months before something happened that I could not ignore.

I had a job that paid decent enough money but living in London is ridiculously expensive, especially the rent on my flat. My ex-girlfriend Claire had moved out so she was no longer contributing to the household finances which didn't help. The result was that I possessed a modest sized savings account which was years away from building up enough deposit to buy a property of my own and a bank current account always teetering on the brink of being overdrawn. Or at least that was the case until someone deposited £200,000 in it.

Naturally enough my bank saw the transaction as suspicious and contacted me. I confirmed I wasn't expecting any sums of that size and the amount was frozen for the moment. However, it had certainly got my attention and I was pretty certain I knew where the money had come from. I unblocked Mr Jones on my phone and for the first time texted him back and eventually we agreed to meet.

I still didn't trust him, so I arranged to meet in a public place. Gwydion was not at all what I expected. He was smartly dressed in a good quality suit and tie, had dark black hair, just beginning to turn to grey and a neatly trimmed beard. He was short for a man, no more than 5'6" was my guess and I placed him at around 50 years of age, give or take a couple of years either way. I was immediately impressed by his sharp intelligence and quick wittedness. As I had guessed he was Welsh and spoke lyrically and, I found, persuasively.

What he had to tell me was just as weird as before but after three hours in his company I had stopped doubting him. It wasn't just that he was very convincing but what he said explained things about my own life, why I had always felt slightly out of place and dissatisfied. It seemed I had a destiny and would never be happy until it had worked itself out one way or another.

From then on, every evening and most of the weekends were spent with Gwydion while he gave me a crash course on esoteric knowledge and secret history. He admitted Jones was an assumed name, as it made things easier in modern society. He was really Gwydion ab Rhys ab Llewellyn ab Dafydd ab something else, all the way back to an original Gwydion in post-Roman Britain. I decided to settle for Jones.

More importantly we were apparently two of the Three and my role as Seeker and Protector was to find the Five, and aid them so they could defeat the One. The other two men making up the Three were Gwydion, who was the Hierophant, keeper of the ancient knowledge and duty bound to pass it on to me, and the Steward, a wealthy individual who would bankroll the enterprise and ensure that practical issues such as money did not get in the way. Gwydion knew who the Steward was but said it was better if I didn't for our mutual protection.

The Five were the Mistresses of the five elements, all traditionally beautiful young women. Gwydion gave me their rough descriptions and intrusted me with the box of five rings for them and the amulet for me. This would both help me find them and also give me limited powers of my own for their and my protection - powers that Gwydion taught me to use. He instructed me to carry the rings and amulet at all times and I did, which proved wise.

So three men, five women; but only One ... well, 'thing' really. Gwydion said the ancients who had first faced it had described it as a demon. His own view was that it was an extra-terrestrial entity of some kind; something not evolved on this world. But it hardly mattered. All we really needed to know was that it was malign in its intent toward humanity, determined on making the world its own playground and we needed to beat it.

The creature - I call it that although it was clearly possessed of high intelligence - had first manifested itself in the years prior to 250 BC in the eastern Mediterranean, one of the more civilised places on the planet at the time, which can hardly have been coincidence. It had run amok for a year or so, although it was not all about brute strength and violence and had demonstrated a talent for both seeking allies and subsequent treachery.

Aside from physical strength and high intelligence, legend had it that the One was a shapeshifter, able to assume any form, that it was often invisible and that it could control matter through thought alone. At this point I was not fancying our chances. However, Gwydion was quick to point out that it had been beaten and expelled before.

It had been brought low by the first Three and Five and, probably because they had taken it by surprise, they had banished it easily enough - for a time. It seemed that this could not be made permanent and the creature would return every 758 years to try again. So the ancients ensured that the Three and Five - or rather their spiritual descendants - would also gather to oppose it once more.

Twice it had come again and twice more it had lost, but the victories had grown more perilous. In 507 CE (or AD if you prefer) the Byzantine records indicated that half of the Three and Five had died. In 1265 they had won, but the Seeker and all five of the Mistresses had died in the final confrontation. The next battle was set for 2023 and if the pattern continued then this time we would lose.