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The tragic story of the Duke and Duchess of Landers was never well known, but its relevance to history could never be denied. At its time it was of little importance to the world at large, but the events that spawned from such a simple problem moved through the ages like a ripple of water, ever expanding and growing more violent.
In 1560 PCE(Post Climactic Event), Darla Rolands, the beautiful daughter of the explorer Marcus Rolands, had just come of marrying age and was to be wed to Duke Hector of Landers the Third. This was an arranged marriage, one that was based on politics, money, and titles, rather than love. Not that Darla cared much.
The situation Darla was in was both common and expected for her, and it did not upset her in the least. She was in equal parts terrified and excited though, after all how could she not be? She could have the early summer wedding of her dreams, and to a duke no less! It was everything she could have wanted since she was a girl, but it was also such a big change in her life. This was a man she had never met before, and though she had heard that he was a kind and patient duke, rumors can be deceiving. The only way to know for sure was to meet him for herself.
The Duke’s home in Landers was not a terribly far place, at least it wasn’t further than Darla had ever traveled, but it was said that the trip would still be at least ten days. Her marriage wouldn’t be for another several months, so Darla decided that she should visit her husband-to-be and see what he was really like. They exchanged a few letters back and forth and soon Darla was having a carriage prepared for her departure.
The evening before departing, Darla looked over the map of the region and the route they were planning on taking. She knew how to read maps well, since she was the daughter of an explorer it would be silly for her not to know. The direction of the route seemed strange to her though, it was much longer than it needed to be. They were to travel north for two days, stop in the town of Krendensburg, then travel northeast so they could go all the way around the Stonetree Forest, stop in some backwater town called Kruck, before finally arriving in Duke Hector’s town of Hecton a few days later. This didn’t make much sense though, the time it took to travel around the Stonetree Forest was simply ridiculous. It nearly doubled the time it would take to reach their destination. Simply going through it would certainly be faster, and this way they could avoid stopping in Kruck.
Darla took this concern to her father, who had been the one to write up the route she would take. She pointed out on the map that there was a path through the forest, and it even passed through one of the thinner parts of it. They could be in and out of the forest in less than a day. Her father forbade it though. The Stonetree Forest was much too dangerous. She was to travel the route as it was written and that was the end of it.
Darla, being the daughter of an explorer, wasn’t about to take no for an answer even if it was coming from the explorer himself. She redrew the route on the map so that it would take the path through the forest without telling her father. The next morning, just before departing, she gave the map to the carriage driver and told him it was the route her father had written. Not knowing any better, the carriage driver simply accepted that that was the truth and they went on their way.
The trip towards Krendensburg was peaceful. Once there they stayed at a cozy little inn for the night. The next morning the weather took a slight turn for the worse with dark clouds rolling in. Regardless they had to proceed forth. They set off northeast like in the original route, but when they reached a fork in the road they turned towards the entrance of the Stonetree Forest. The trees there were notably not made of stone, but they were an unnatural grey color. Many of them were completely devoid of leaves and looked like they were on the verge of death. There wasn’t much movement that could be seen, not much more than the occasional rat or snake in the brush. For a long time the loudest sounds that could be heard were the hooves of the horse and the sound of the carriage’s wheels rolling on the dirt path. While the environment wasn’t pleasant, there did not seem to be any danger.
Eventually they neared the exit of the forest without any trouble… But no sooner had the exit come into view did something jump out of the trees and into the road in front of the carriage. The horses whinnied in surprise and the driver pulled back on the reins. Darla, who was inside the carriage at the time, looked out the window to see what the trouble was. When she did she saw a strange man in a cloak blocking the path in front of them.
The man had long dark hair and wrinkles all over his face. He claimed to be a sorcerer and that it was blasphemous to pass through his woods without paying him tribute. Darla, knowing not to trust the words of strange men, told him that that was ridiculous and she had no need to pay to use a road. She urged the driver to ignore the man and to keep on, but the driver did not respond. The sorcerer came to the side of the carriage and forced Darla out. If she would not pay tribute then he would take her for himself.
As he pulled her away Darla was able to see that there was an arrow sticking out of the carriage driver’s chest and that he wasn’t moving. She screamed and struggled and managed to break free from the sorcerer’s grasp. She rushed up to the driver’s seat and pushed the corpse onto the ground. She took the reins and ushered the horses to speed out of the forest. As she escaped Darla thought she could hear the sorcerer yell something behind her but couldn’t make it out. It didn’t matter though, she swore to herself that she’d never go near those woods again and she’d apologize to her father for disobeying him. That would surely be the end of her troubles.
Darla urged the horses to keep going for several hours. It wasn’t until they clearly couldn’t run anymore that she allowed them to stop and rest. By that time the sun had gone down and it was only by the light of the moon that she could set up some semblance of a camp by the side of the road. The next day Darla coincidentally ran into some traders who were traveling to Hecton as well. She traveled alongside them for the next day since they were going the same direction and it was dangerous to be alone. While with them she spoke of her encounter with the man in the forest which made the other travelers noticeably disconcerted. They muttered of bad luck and curses and that no trader who wanted to keep their wares and their life would ever step foot in those woods. Darla thought back on her father’s warnings and wished she had listened to him.
That afternoon they arrived at the city and went their separate ways. Darla was exhausted by then, and more than anything just wanted to sleep in a bed and put the whole ordeal with the man in the woods behind her.
She arrived at Duke Hector’s manor and was greeted with surprise, which she should have expected since she arrived several days earlier than planned. The first two days with Duke Hector were quite lovely. He showed her around the manor and the town, and she was able to familiarize herself with the servants who worked for him. He was accommodating and the room she stayed in had a comfortable bed and a beautiful view. All of it almost made her forget about the terrible experience she had in the fores. Until she was getting in bed on the second night she was there, that is.
As Darla got in bed that night she was suddenly shocked to attentiveness. Next to her bed some kind of apparition appeared and began speaking to her. She tried to scream but her voice wouldn’t come out. She tried to run but her body wouldn’t move. She prayed that she was having a nightmare. The apparition began to speak to her in a terrible voice, but it was one that sounded vaguely familiar. When the apparition came fully into view she understood why. It was the strange man she had met in the forest!
He greeted her with a polite and yet venomous tone. He introduced himself as Antonius, a dark sorcerer and the master of the Stonetree Woods. She refused to pay him his tribute for trespassing in his domain and he had come to punish her. The man she left behind, the carriage driver, was not quite dead and was eager to sell her out for throwing him away. That made it easy for Antonius to find her. It would be a waste to kill a beautiful flower such as her though, so he would take her as his bride. Controlling her mind would be too easy, he could do that to anyone. Instead he decided it would be better to make her come to him willingly, and put a powerful curse on her with several conditions.
First, she was destined to fall in love in her lifetime.
Second, she would not die so long as the one she loved was alive, but she would die shortly after her lover did.
Third, the person she loved would not live until old age, unless she loved Antonius who was immortal.
And fourth, if she loved someone else other than Antonius, she would give birth to a daughter and she would bear the curse as well.
He was threatening her in a roundabout way. Either she willingly would go to marry him, or she would die with her lover and burden her daughter with a curse. It was truly a losing scenario no matter what she did. Antonius disappeared with a sinister laugh and Darla suddenly felt extremely tired. She awoke the next day to morning sunlight pouring into her window.
Darla sat up in her bed and looked around. The window was open and there was no sign of this ‘Antonius’ fellow, and she wondered whether what she had experienced was a dream or not. When she left her room she tracked down who had been on guard duty for her the previous night. When she asked him if he had heard any sounds or voices from her room he told her that it was perfectly quiet. That confirmed it then. There was no Antonius, she had simply been overcome with fear and guilt from her encounter with the strange man in the woods. Upon thinking about it again the carriage driver that was killed had been shot by an arrow. If he had truly been a powerful sorcerer would he not have used a magic spell to kill him and stop her from escaping. It all seemed silly to think back on.
Darla soon put the thought of the man in the woods out of her mind and decided to move on with her life. Time went by, she married the Duke, and was quite happy for several years. Eventually Darla became pregnant and the two were overjoyed at the good news. She was to give birth in early autumn, but something was bothering Darla like she had forgotten something important. After giving birth they were told that their baby was a healthy baby girl, and everything came rushing back.
Darla didn’t know what to do. Was the curse real? Surely if it was she would have been contacted again by Antonius right? And the odds of her giving birth to a girl were always half anyway so it was just a coincidence… Right? A week after giving birth, Darla decided to speak to Hector about what happened that fateful day, and to see if there was anything that could be done. He seemed skeptical at first. All of the evidence she had could be written off with a logical explanation, but he too wanted to be sure. He decided that when they had to travel to the king’s palace the next month for the autumn ball they would speak to the court mages and find out if they were truly cursed. They would never make it to that ball.
Two weeks later Hector came down with a cold. It was just a cold though, and the doctor said he would be fine to travel soon enough. But his fever kept going up, and his body was pained and red. On the last night of his life, Duke Hector of Landers tried to get out of bed, hoping to see his beautiful wife and child one more time. He collapsed onto the floor and never got up again.
Darla was inconsolable. She spent the next day crying and crying, not only for her husband but for herself and for her child too. There was no doubt in her mind now. She was truly cursed, and she had passed that curse onto her daughter as well.
Over the next three days Darla felt her body begin to weaken, and she knew exactly what that meant. She was going to die too. The curse said she would not live much longer than her lover and now that he was dead it meant that her time had come as well.
Darla laid in her bed. Only mostly conscious, she called for her personal maid. In her pre-death stupor she somehow managed to recite all of what happened with perfect clarity. She spoke of the map and the woods, of the strange man and the curse. She told all of this in the way that a grandmother might tell her grandchildren of tales from her youth. That may as well have been what she was doing as she expected it would be the last thing she would ever do.
When she finished her tale she asked to hold her child one more time. She looked at her beautiful face and gave a sad smile knowing she too would grow to be beautiful but would not reach old age. Darla soon fell asleep. She dreamt of her husband, of dancing with him at the royal ball, and of growing old with him in their beautiful city. She dreamt of watching her husband walk her daughter down the aisle at her wedding, and of meeting her grandchild. She dreamt of the happy life that was stolen from her.
Two weeks later royal guards arrived at the Duke’s manor to investigate why both the Duke and Duchess died in such a short length of time. Darla’s personal maid explained everything that she was told. Of course they seemed skeptical of her but wrote it down in their report anyway. That was the first time the Darla’s story was ever recorded.
There has never been any doubt that these events transpired. But the exact details, the feeling, and the thoughts could never be entirely confirmed. After all Darla herself, the best source of information on it, never wrote down any of the events in a dairy. The story was told to a second party who then told it to a third party who only wrote down the general details. The rest was gleaned from context clues and other sources such as the journal of Duke Hector who only knew of the situation shortly before his untimely demise.
Whether Darla was truly happy, whether she insisted on going through the woods, whether she even wanted to get married in the first place, no one could ever know the full truth. Stories change over time. The get rewritten. They become lost and rediscovered. Names and places and times change and eventually they exist only in legend. It is a shame that poor Darla would never come to know what meaning her life would have in history.