It was unlike anything he could have imagined. He stood within a vast, subterranean hall, a magic, frozen realm that stretched in all directions. Spheres of light bobbed gently through the air, radiating a diffuse glow akin to predawn. The earthen roof curved far overhead, and the vast roots of Yggdrasil hung down low, entwined to form pillars that came down to the ground. Other roots wound around the sloping, distant walls, forming archways that led of into other halls, deep beneath the world.
The crust of snow crunched beneath Michael's heavy workboots as he turned around, gazing in wonder. There was a world here, self contained and apart from the one above, gently sloping hills rising to meet the walls all around, forming a natural valley in the center of the otherworldy hall. A wide, frozen lake spread out in the depression, it's surface mirror-like and gleaming, and in the center rose a small island.
Michael found himself drawn there. Sheathing his sword, he began to walk, trudging through the powdery snow. His eyes were locked on the island. It was lightly wooded, its trees leafless and barren, and a winding path led to a low rocky headland jutting out from the ice.
The snow was knee-deep, but Michael picked up the pace, urged on by some indefinable impulse alike those when God had called him away. His joint's ached with the cold, and his limp was growing more pronounced, yet Michael hurried down the powdery slope, passing through the icy woods. The land leveled out as he came to the land's edge, and without delay he stepped out upon it's frozen surface.
The air was cold and crisp and still as he reached the island. He climbed a twisting path through ice-shawled trees, and passed through a stone archway carved with ivy and spiraling runes. He walked slowly out onto the low rocky headland, the highest point on the little island.
A circular dais was situated there, and it was to this that Michael was drawn. He hardly dared breathe as he approached. An elegantly designed stone plinth was carved into the dais, and lying upon in was...
"You should see it in summer. When my King is wed to Titania flowers bloom, the air is heavy with the scent of milk and honey, and all is well. Yet the cold has a beauty of it's own, or so says Mab, and for now, she is queen." The voice is low and pleasant, the turn of phrase old fashioned and faintly sinister yet there is no feeling of darkness about it.
A tall, grim figure stood amongst the snow, built with the dangerous suppleness of a panther. His skin white as milk, as was his hair hair that hung down to his shoulders, and his features that of the elfin. He bears a scar extending from the topmost ridge of one cheek to the other and crossing the bridge of the nose, with several perpendicular lines etched along it as well, and his eyes were a tawny, golden color, like that of a wolf, yet his features were more foxlike, cunning and sly, though not without a strange and indefinable nobility. His right forearm was missing, shorn away in some ancient battle, but a silver hand had replaced it, and it seemed to suit him fine. He wore white, and a light coat of silvered mail beneath a plain surcoat, but despite the make of them he was without ornamentation.
"I am Nuada Airgetlám, king of the Tuatha Dé Danann and servant of The Hunter, who we shall not speak of lest his attention be drawn here." He lowers his head a moment, then raises his eyes beneath lowered brows, and sinks into the prelude to a fighting stance, his body like a loaded trap waiting to be sprung. "As well as Oberon's champion in these matters."
Michael faces him squarely, planting his body like a mountain that refuses to bend, his hand well away from his sword, though he knows he shall need it in a moment. "I know of you, and your king. I have no quarrel with either."
Nuada nods. Were he to encounter this man anywhere else, he would kill him the moment he saw him, but here he must serve his function. "No, though your people are in his debt." When Michael looked in askance, Nuada elaborated. "Oberon paid the Erlkings weregeld, did he not? When John Taylor was informed, he offered his thanks to the King. While he may have been ignorant of the meaning, the words are an offer to repay. A debt Oberon has not forgotten."
Michael frowned at that. And Taylor had no idea. He was in for a shock when they brought up that one. And they would, The fey always had their due. He fell silent, trying to think how to proceed.
It was a strange thing, in this age of rationality and fact, to be on a quest, but that's what he was doing. He'd left his family in the care of friends after the founding of the Order, and began his long journey, spurred on by the visions in his dreams, that had led, at long last, here.
Though he did not know why. All he knew was that perhaps the success of the secret fight he would now live hung on his success here.
"I do. It is you who is lost. I am the arbiter of the trials. The rite of passage."
"Which Trials?" Michael asked, but wasn't talking to the elf anymore. The cavern had faded away, and he stood in darkness.