Changelings: The Novelization (Book 1)

Miranda's Journal, Entry #6

Miranda’s Journal, Entry #6

As Europe fell into the Dark Ages, so did the Otherworld. After the death of the beloved Faerie Queene Titania, who was beloved by all except the Sylphs, the scepter was passed to her younger sister, Glorianna – my grandmother. Glorianna, however, was a strange girl who spent most of her time tending her flower gardens, a disciple of the deranged Woodwose guru known as Johnny Magory. She was obsessed with King Arthur, who spurned her advances, and caused her to settle for marrying one of his vassals, the Fae knight Gawain. During her husband's absence, the newfound power corrupted Glorianna's fragile mind, and sent her spiraling into a full-on psychosis.

She became obsessed with reflection – she thought that if she made a castle out of glass and filled it with enough mirrors, she could turn the scepter into an artificial sun that would shine rays of light throughout the dark world of Orbis Alia. She dubbed herself the Lady of Light, but became known to everyone else as ‘Mad Queene Glorianna’.

The Eldritch power was the closest match to Lilith’s own, and therefore it was the most powerful. But it was also the most dangerous. Eldritch power could create and destroy, but to do either one required fuel. Life-force. Trouble was, it did not have to be the life of the caster. Glorianna was vain, and did not enjoy the prospect of aging herself in order to accomplish her goal of lighting Orbis Alia. First she absorbed the will-o-wisps, introducing a horrible new form of death to the Fae... a second death, in which their soul could be snuffed out of existence.

Then, she began spying on her citizens through their household mirrors and capturing those she felt were ‘deviants and rebels’ – i.e., whoever she took a disliking to, which happened to include anyone with beauty to rival her own. Those arrested were used to fuel her spells. Of course, even the Mad Queene could see that this was not sustainable – she would soon have no subjects left if she kept killing them off at that rate – so she began to import humans into the Otherworld and absorb their life-force as well.

The world, ironically, became darker as a result. As Ellydan, the territory belonging to House Eldritch, became filled with trees and light, the others began to die. Their lands became fallow and barren, turning to dust, and spells became much more difficult to cast. Glorianna was literally sucking the life-force out of Orbis Alia itself.

The Salamanders had always been known as the most inherently destructive of the Houses, while Eldritch had been known as the most inherently constructive – but now, Sylph and Undine and Gnome were showing up on the Salamander’s doorstep, begging for the heat and light their fire produced. The Salamanders decided that enough was enough. They besieged Castle Eldritch, and Aillen used the power of his singing voice to lull all the soldiers and inhabitants therein to a deep, enchanted sleep. Without hardly any resistance, they put the entire Eldritch population to death in a frenzied, genocidal massacre. The ensuing destruction earned Aillen the epithet of ‘The Burner.’

One member of the Eldritch royal family survived – Una, my mother. The daughter which Glorianna, whose jealousy spared no one, imprisoned inside a mirror and placed on the wall of her highest tower. Every day, Glorianna would admire herself in the mirror, and Una would shower her with compliments and tell her anything she wanted to hear.

Taking part in the siege was the Salamander princess Morgan. She was an outcast and an alchemist, the illegitimate daughter of Aillen the Burner and a Undine warrior-princess named Vivien. Morgan found the mirror containing Una. Morgan took pity on the imprisoned girl, and claimed the mirror as part of her chosen spoils.

Thus rescued, Una was still in need of a champion. Morgan held conference with her fellow rebellious royals – her mother, Vivien the Undine, and Merlin the Sylph, a scholar. The three of them were bent on fighting the establishment and bringing peace to Orbis Alia.

Before the fall of Atlantis, the human Sigurd killed the powerful Salamander, Fafnir. The blood burned his finger, which he stuck in his mouth: afterward, he spoke Fae and was slightly flame-retardant. His kids were the same. Merlin related this tale, and it was agreed that the three of them would go to the human realm and track tracked down Sigurd's heir.

The heir was the old, childless Uther Pendragon. He wasn’t going to be of much help, so they got him laid - with his best friend's wife. Uther was glamoured to look like his friend Gorlois, and in this disguise he knocked up the unwitting Igerna.

This created Arthur, who proved he was the Chosen One by pulling Sigurd's sword out of a rock. But Arthur refused the mission - he wanted Merlin to help him build a 'human Atlantis', Camelot, instead. Merlin saw the boy as a son, and defended his young pupil. But Vivien and Morgan were pissed off. Vivien lured Merlin back to the Otherworld, and away from Arthur. Once he stepped through the portal, Una sealed him up in a magic tree.

Morgan seduced Arthur to conceive Mordred... the scourge of Camelot. Mordred and Arthur ended up killing each other over the throne of Camelot.

Meanwhile, Gorlois died of old age, allowing Uther to marry the widow Igerna. They had another son, a half-brother to Arthur named George. Vivien kidnapped George to train him in the Otherworld. He had become their 'plan B'.