Karen Wiesner Excerpt: The Amethyst Tower

WOODCUTTER’S GRIM SERIES—Classic Tales of Horror Retold
by Karen Wiesner
978-1-60313-256-5 (trade paperback); 978-1-60313-257-2 (electronic)
Available now from Whiskey Creek Press
Purchase Link: http://www.angelfire.com/stars4/kswiesner/fiction6.html
For more information, to read excerpts, and for giveaways, visit Karen’s website: http://www.karenwiesner.com

Award-winning author Karen Wiesner is the founder of Jewels of the Quill, an award-winning group of authors in all genres banded together to promote their books. The group also does anthologies together. Woodcutter’s Grim Series—Classic Tales of Horror Re-told is a compilation of the first two novellas in the series that Karen contributed to Jewels of the Quill anthologies, plus two bonus stories in the series never before published!

For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter’s Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenseless…and the terrors would escape to the world at large.


“The Amethyst Tower”
The Final Chapter
Romantic Horror
(Exclusive to this volume! Never before published!)

Loosely based on “Rapunzel”, the isolated maiden meets her knight in a time-traveler who’s come into the future to rescue her from the Warlock Lord holding her captive in the amethyst tower. Where else but in the fairy-tale-horror town of Woodcutter’s Grim?


Excerpt
© Karen Wiesner

1757, Prophecy: “There is but one born who can destroy the evil. Lo, even drive it back to the black hole whence it came. The chosen one is born and then born again, destined to take away the power of the evil. Destined to save what was for so long impossible to save. Destined to redeem the future for the past.”~History, Knowledge, Governing and Prophecy of the Protectorate

2008, Prophecy: “The redeemed child will die and will be reborn as many times as need be for the purpose of saving the Innocent in the Amethyst Tower, where the Great Evil lives. Only in time—when the chosen child lives, grows, and goes forth with courage in his hand to do the will of the Protectorate—will the barriers containing the evil be restored, its power weakened or even destroyed.”~History, Knowledge, Governing and Prophecy of the Protectorate

Woodcutter's Grim
October 31, 2007

“Amethyst!”
The cry came as though ripped from Prince’s own throat. His father, Gabe Reece, leapt into the Time Tunnel as moonlight seared the Guardian symbol on his chest. Failure seeped into his blood, as demoralizing as defeat. He couldn’t save Amethyst. Her old man had sold her to the evil taking over the town, breaking down the barriers they’d erected against it. The evil that had stalked her since she was a little girl.
A mad whirling of wind inside and out surrounded his entry into the tunnel. He knew what he would see when he got to the other side. The demon who’d claimed the soul of the woman he loved. He’d tear the beast to pieces—
But the fairy tale world he should have entered didn’t bring forth the manic, dancing creature or his bonfire of abomination. In this netherworld between reality and nightmare, the Protectorate symbol glowed within a wreath of flames looming in the night sky.
Hope…?
Gabe had come back to this place fully intending to commit the sin that had plagued the Guardian lineage for centuries. He’d come to bargain with the evil, to break his sacred vows. Out of selfishness. Out of love. He had been warned that any choice he made would bring about loss. He couldn’t win. His beloved Amethyst was dead, consumed by the evil he’d only wanted to protect her from to the exclusion of all else.
When the cry came, Gabe ran in the direction of the sound. He ran to the son Amethyst had bore him.

* * * *

Through the eyes of a newborn child, Prince saw his father emerge from the forest and kneel before the place his mother had hidden him. The medallion signaling the transfer of guardianship was now permanently marked on his young chest. He didn’t cry. He had been born for the purpose of living and dying until he saved the world.
At the last minute, his father Gabe had sacrificed his life to save his son, the next Guardian. He’d done it because he believed in a long-held prophecy. A prophecy Prince understood through the ages that he could never fulfill.

Chapter 1

October 28, 2043

Her eyes glowed silver as she looked up at him, trusting him to save her. He saw the fear behind her desperation.
“I’ve loved you through lifetimes, Rapunzel, even when I wouldn’t let myself believe…any of this. You have to leave the tower with me. Now.” He held her tightly against him, tight enough to make her gasp for breath.
“How can I, my prince?” she cried. “He will never let me go. And there is no way for both of us to leave the tower.”
He reached out and captured the five-inch thick braid that trailed behind her in a seemingly endless satin rope. “Same way I came up. I’ll cut through this and tie it to the bed. Your hair was strong enough to hold me before. We can both climb down it now. Just trust me.”
Abruptly, her gaze darted to the corner of the room, and she wailed, “He is coming! There is no escape for me.”
Prince sat up on the sound of her scream carrying over evil laughter. He could hear both and swore out loud to quiet them. Dizzy and weak, he fought the nausea that rose at the images, as real as the insane ones he saw every day and night in reality.
Sleep was never enjoyable. Not when only pain and evil greeted him—and the whisper of prophecies he alone could fulfill. Could. And couldn’t.
Hell.
Failure. It tasted of bitterness in his mouth while images filled the blackness behind his eyelids.
Eventually, always, he dreamed of the amethyst tower, his love Rapunzel, and the Warlock Lord. He faced his own failure each time he opened his eyes. He was only a man, yet he’d been born a savior. In all his lifetimes, he’d been unable to reconcile himself to either role.
And I have only three more days…three final days to succeed, my last chance or it begins again.
By habit, he reached for the more-than-half-empty bottle on the nightstand and drained it in one draught. Then, shoving himself to his feet, he ignored the sweat covering him from head to toe. In the bathroom, he turned on the water in the sink and cooled his face with handfuls of it. He didn’t dare look at himself in the mirror, knowing what he’d see. The unnatural health and strength given to the Guardian when, inside, the disease of his own defeat and disbelief ate at him, ravaging and sickening him by the hour. Constantly drunk, he could face going on though he no longer felt the full affects of the alcohol. Nothing could cover his pain, not even a numb haze.
He heard a sound when he straightened, ignoring the water dripping down his scruffy face to his bare chest. He followed it to the kitchen, where he saw his father in the soft glow of the stove light. A glass of water from the purifier sat in front of him on the table.
Gabriel Reece rarely slept any more. Not since he’d chosen his vows over love. He’d done the only thing he could to save the future. Yet it haunted him. For what? For a lifetime of loneliness, regret, uncertainty.
“It’s glowing,” his father said, pointing to the medallion around Prince’s neck. Always, it seared him. The anguish never ended. It wouldn’t, unless he succeeded. He’d lost hope—and not for the first time—that he ever would.
“The dreams again?” Gabe asked while Prince pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels out from under the kitchen sink. His father had long since stopped lecturing him about his drinking. He wasn’t an ordinary eighteen-year-old. No, he’d lived lifetimes. He’d seen the ages. He felt ancient.
“Always. She screams for me, but I can’t save her. Can’t even find her…” He broke the seal and drank from the bottle while his father looked at him with empathy and that perpetual damn pity. Gabe understood…yet he couldn’t know what it was like to have the burden of continued life, the burden of purity, the salvation of the present and future squarely on his shoulders. All his responsibility alone.
The vidphone buzzed, and Prince wanted to throw the bottle across the room and shatter it. Yet he growled the word to put the call through. Tanner Russell’s stocky form filled the screen.
Prince felt nothing but acceptance that everything was beyond control when Brother Tanner said, “We’ve got a situation.”

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Karen
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