CHAPTER 1
A beautiful young twenty two year old woman was leaving a big business building in New York City after having a good interview with the HR specialist. The woman walked across the lobby of the building and was going to go get her car down and across the street in the parking structure. She walked to the lobby front doors and saw the most attractive man she had ever seen in her life. He was getting out of a fancy black SUV and walking towards her in a dark gray Tom Ford suit. She gets to the door, as he goes to open the door and she holds it open for him as he steps inside with a panty dropping smile. Their eyes met and she knew it was only seconds but time froze for a moment. At least it felt like that. He had the most beautiful blue eyes and dark brown hair. He kept smiling at her and she smiled back. He stopped at the entry door.
He chuckled, "Hello, beautiful lady. My name is James. What have you been doing here today?"
She smiled at him and said, "I had a wonderful interview."
He said flirting, "I hope I get to see you around here. You will brighten up the place."
She said softly, "Trust me, everything works itself out. The universe has a way of making things just happen. It's a pleasure to meet you, James. I'm Lyra." She reached out to shake his hand and he kissed the back of it instead. An electrical charge was tingling up her arm. Lyra looked into his eyes alarmed and saw he felt it too. His eyebrows went up in surprise.
The man with him cleared his throat and said, "Sir, you have an appointment."
He looked annoyed and said, "Of course. I hope to see you again or run into you again, beautiful Lyra." He smiled and let go of her hand. She wondered, 'Was he holding it the whole time?'
She winked flirting and smiled saying, "Bye, bye, James." She left out the doors. It felt good to get into the cooler air. Lyra felt him watching her so she left to cross the street to go down to the city parking structure across the street and a block away. As she crossed the street and the walk sign came to walk, the midtown bus struck her, killing her instantly. The young CEO executive, James Fielding, ran outside to the sidewalk followed by his Security Chief as they stood there helpless watching the beautiful girl he had just talked to regrettably lay completely lifeless covered in blood in the middle of the street dead.
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Lyra was a kind and vibrant soul, she had met an untimely demise, her spirit was torn from its earthly shell on Earth. However, fate had a serendipitous plan in store for her.
As Lyra's essence dissipated into the ethereal void, a glimmering portal emerged before her. Its shimmering surface rippled with currents of cosmic energy, promising a passage to a new existence. Curiosity and a glimmer of hope propelled her towards it. An intense surge of electricity coursed through her body, and her vision blurred. A kaleidoscope of colors and shapes danced around her.
In her mind's eye, she heard a disembodied voice speaking to her. It said, "What is your destination of choice, child of man?"
Lyra thought inside her head, "I don't understand, what has happened?"
The voice said, "Your life was extinguished too soon and your destiny unfulfilled. You are to enter another realm and many different realms are accessible from here. Choose wisely."
She thought, "What has happened? Why am I here? I was crossing the street, I think and… I don't remember."
The voice said, "Your life was taken from you too quickly. You were about to encounter your destiny, but it was ripped from you prematurely. In exchange, you are being offered a second life in a different realm and reality. Where do you wish to go this time to find your path?"
She thought, "I guess where I can feel like I make a difference and am the most familiar with."
The voice said chuckling, "Always a strong spirit. You have made your choice. You must be given the attributes, abilities and skills to survive in your chosen destination as a strong capable woman to survive in this violent feudalistic realm. I give you the skills of weapons, history, prophecy. You must be wise and capable of violence to protect yourself and others. Beware of your surroundings at all times in this realm, child of man, for magic exists."
Lyra was aware of being tossed and turned inside pitch blackness. She punched through a strange tunnel of lights racing so fast it was streaking by her. She was getting nauseous and developing a vertigo like disorientation from the lights and swirling going by in shifting directions. Lyra's spirit started picking up speed and she was slammed down hard onto the ground.
Electricity crackled through the air as a rain pelting storm raging throughout the evening at dusk. Large booms of thunder vibrating the atmosphere violently around everywhere. In a bright electrical flash, a lone woman appears on a hill in the middle of nowhere completely wet and naked with soot and wisps of smoke rising from her skin in the flashes of light. She falls to the ground collapsing to her knees and then to the ground in a heap. In another flash of lightning a large black bag appeared beside her with the same wisps of smoke coming off the surface. The rain pelts down hard washing the mud from her and the bag. The hill is surrounded by dark heavy woods between flashes of light.
In the early morning hours before dawn, the woman moved barely one limb at a time to get up on her knees. She crawled to the bag and grabbed it heading naked off to the outskirts of the woods. There she was digging out clothes in the bag to wear for now. Lyra went to make a shelter for the moment.
She wandered around in the woods and came out at a farm. She snuck into the barn and up the latter into the loft hiding in the back of the hay. Lyra started going through the bag. She dried off her legs and feet. She put on a shirt, leather vest, leather pants and underwear. Lyra found a hard soled pair of leather shoes. There was a comb and leather pieces to tie her hair after she braided it. Her hair was a soft light brown color and her eyes were the deepest emerald green. In the big bag was a smaller bag of 300 gold coins with dragons on them. She put a few in the front pocket of the pants she had on. She had noticed they had no buttons or zippers. Lyra was in a very different world or time. She definitely needed information.
She climbed down the ladder and went to leave the barn and ran into a young man about fifteen years old. He stopped and stared at her carrying buckets in each hand to the barn. The boy sat them down on the ground and asked, "You ok?"
Lyra said, "Yes, I got caught in the storm last night and I hit my head and woke up not being able to remember anything. Can you let me ask you some questions to help me remember?" The boy nodded.
She asked, "Where are we?"
The boy said, "Ye be near Crofter's Village, in the Wolfwood by Winterfell." At that moment Lyra knew exactly where she was. She thought, while turning white as a ghost blanching, 'How in the hell is a different realm a fucking series of books and TV show?'
Lyra asked, "Do you know what year it is?"
The boy scratched his head and said, "Not good with numbers. 2 8 9 I think. Winter Town is a few miles in that direction." He pointed north east.
She said, "Thank you." The boy nodded and picked up the buckets as she left to let him do his chores.
She headed to Winter Town walking past the village and cutting through the woods to a road. Lyra figured it was Kingsroad and followed it north to the castle. The weather was dismal turning to feel like spring or fall and the town had some people running the inn and some of the shops.
She got lucky and got a room at the inn, bought leather goods and bought a pair of black boots, a horse with tack and a black full length gray wolf fur coat. She got a wide black belt with a big buckle with rings for attaching items, blankets, a tent, food and a waterskin. At the castle the blacksmith sold her a bow and quiver with arrows, a dagger, a boot knife and a longsword with a scabbard and baldric. Lyra stayed there for three days to get organized. A kind old man made her a detailed map of Westeros.
During the time she was there in the inn and the alehouse. She listened to the news and rumors going around of the beginning of the Greyjoy Rebellion. She decided to head south with a small wagon of provisions and her gear and two horses instead of just one. Lyra was going down the Kingsroad to the Crossroads Inn.
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Three weeks after she left and arrived at Moat Cailin she went into a small woods in curiosity because she was being drawn across from the ruin. There was a small old log house there alone in the woods. The door was open and off its hinges and some of the windows were exposed but the roof was solid and it had a fireplace. Why nobody lived in it was beyond Lyra's understanding even if it was torn up a bit. She walked around it and saw a good place for the horses in the back with a solid overhanging porch that was ground level. Lyra cleaned up the interior and the fireplace with an old broom she found. The back porch was cleared to make a comfortable place so the horses were safe and the wagon was sheltered once backed in under the roof. She used wood to block up the windows solidly and put the door back in its place. She set up her tent in front of the fireplace and found a grate and a kettle in the house with an old covered well on one side of it. Lyra was just checking around and found an old set of rickety stairs going to a cellar. She lit a candle with a flint and steel from her stuff she bought. She very carefully went down to investigate. Lyra thought maybe there might be something in this house for it to be as torn up as it looked to begin with and abandoned.
As she looked around, there was a dirt floor and as she walked until she found the floor creaked. She used her foot and swept away the layer of dirt and found a trap door with a ring under the dirt of some kind.
Lyra pulled the iron ring and inside was a bundle of rotted cloth, six bags of rotting leather and two boxes that looked like jewelry boxes. She went upstairs and got a couple empty burlap sacks for potatoes or vegetables and went down carefully emptied the hole of items which was heavy. Cut gemstones, coins and gold nuggets were falling out of the bags as she scooped them up into the burlap bag. She hauled the heavy bags up to the top floor.
Lyra set up camp inside and got the fire going in the fireplace. She had the horses setup with food and comfort. She got everything cleaned and warm inside. Lyra was cooking her dinner, roasting a rabbit on the fire she shot with an arrow earlier and cooked vegetables in her small pot with barley. She sat down on the floor and ate her dinner. She liked the little house because it came in handy at the moment.
After she ate, washed up everything and put it away, she started going through the bag looking at what was inside. There was very old gold and silver jewelry that had an odd glow about them, three large leather bags she redid of gold coins, an old fashioned brass oil lamp like something out of Aladdin's Lamp with no oil wrapped in crumbling layers of cloth like it shouldn't be touched, two bags of gold nuggets, and three small bags of cut gemstones. Lyra had it all newly bagged up.
She had in the jewelry a pendant necklace of a round 75mm or three inch gold Celtic scrollwork design on a long chain. It has an emerald about 1x1/2 inches set in the center. The odd thing about it was that it had a tiny keyhole to the door on the back that was two and a half inches square. She found a long chain with a tiny key on it.
When she unlocked it, there was nothing. It was pitch black inside. Lyra put her finger inside and it completely disappeared, not even coming out the other side. She took her finger out and turned it upside down and tons of coins and cut gemstones were flying out of the hole making a pile on the floor in front of her. She was smiling and shocked at how much was coming out of it. Lyra turned it back upright and put all of the items back in the necklace along with her own gold except for the purse of mixed coins she had.
She held up the lamp next to the handle to look at it and took a piece of cloth in her baggage to wrap it up so as not to accidentally rub the surface with her hand, just in case it was a genie/djinn lamp because it was wrapped up in cloth. Now, she knew why someone would tear this place apart looking for this damn genie. She dumped all of the gold coins, cut stones and nuggets into her necklace and put the old magical jewelry into one jewelry box. Lyra had the lamp wrapped up well and put in the bottom of one of her bags.
She got into her bedroll in her tent after taking off her boots and putting another log on the fire. She went to sleep.
Lyra dreamed…….
She was standing in the middle of a desert at twilight looking at the horizon in its subtle beauty glowing in a rich amber. The stars were becoming visible spreading out across the heavens like a blanket of diamonds twinkling and flashing. It was an incredibly beautiful sight to witness. She profoundly was in awe. Lyra looked down and noticed her feet were bare in the warm sand. She had a gossamer iridescent fabric skirt with layers of gold coins as a belt on her hips and a golden bra made of gold coins in layers. Her back and stomach were exposed.
A very handsome dark haired man dressed in a dark blue fancy Victorian era fancy gold brocade vest, waistcoat and short pants with a white high collar buttoned up shirt, white stockings and buckled black shoes walked towards her across the sand arrogantly. He had a brocade golden turban on his head. He said, "It has been centuries that I have been entombed in the cellar floor of that tiny building. Thank you for getting me out of there, my beauty."
Lyra realized who and what he was. The djinn or genie somehow communicates in her dreams with her. She asked, "You dare to pull me into a dream and invade my subconscious without my permission? What was your crime for being turned into a djinn? I am your mistress now, so do not lie to me, djinn."
He looked worried. He said, "I had a sexual encounter with the Emir's sister his magician turned me into a djinn after many nights of torture in his chamber. He claimed I was an evil sorcerer that seduced his sister to enslaver her."
Lyra said, "I wish this djinn had to tell me the real truth whenever I ask forever. Now tell me the unvarnished truth to my question?" The handsome genie flashed blue skin as he got angry. He had no defense against her being she made a wish on him.
He said trying to fight it but couldn't, "I was… a dark sorcerer that desired the Emir's sister and one night seduced her in her bed chamber to have my way with her for the night and I got carried away and cut her too deep in my sexual blood play and she died. The magician turned me into a djinn the next day. They knew it was me because I had been pressuring the Emir for his sister's hand in marriage."
She asked angrily, "Why did you kill her if you cared for her as a wife?"
He struggled to not answer, "B… Because she called me… v… vermin."
She said assuredly, "Ah, I see. So you thought you loved her but when she would not cooperate you raped her, tortured her and murdered her, because if you could not have her heart nobody would?"
He hung his head and said, "Yes."
Lyra said, "You are a selfish lustful man for power over everyone are you not?"
He said struggling, "Yes."
She said, "You have no power over me. You will never invade my mind for any dark purposes or you will live in a very deep hole in the ground for a home forever that will never be found. I do not need a cruel bastard like you in my life trying to harm me….." He looked terrified at the woman.
Lyra asked, "What is your real name?"
He struggled hard and said, "S… Simon… M… Magus." Lyra was in shock. He was the Samarian magician of the Christian Bible in her realm she came from. There were three different stories of what became of him. What the hell was he doing in this world?!
She asked, "How did you get to this world?"
He said, "I was brought by a man named Merlin who was a human magician in my lamp. What are you going to do, Mistress?" She couldn't believe it was Merlin who brought this creature with him here to this world. Merlin might have did it to get him out of her world, but it was dangerous to keep it here to be found. Lyra would have to think about it and what to do.
She said, "I will have to think about it. Live in fear. I wish to be released from this dream, this creature to never control any aspect of my life or of others but enable me to wish for things to be done at my discretion." The man pouted as the dream faded.