by Lexi Ander
He understood the Mórrígan’s words, natheless in his mind’s eye he beheld the innocent gaze of the boy, felt the small hands grasping his fur with pure trust. Surely not all of mankind lived as the Mórrígan claimed. She was the Goddess of the Field of Battle, did she ever by chance enter the cities?
“To walk amongst the humans is what I want. To live as they do, see what they see, know what they know,” Fordel finally replied. He wished to determine for himself the manner in which men conducted themselves, be it for good or ill.
“As you wish, young one. I shall grant you the ability to cruth-atharrachadh, shapeshift into a human. Unlike the humans who bargain for the form of the wolf, thus becoming a wyrwolf, or those who desire to be the lion, becoming a wyrlion, you shall become a bearwyr for you are a mathan bartering for the form of a human. In return, if—no—when you be upon the field of battle you shall act as my incarnation.”
Fordel agreed, though he believed he would never need take a life. The Mórrígan grasped him about the neck, her strong fingers gripping his thick pelt, and began a low, haunting chant. His hide twitched and stung, rolling under her firm grip. He began to swell, his skin stretching overly tight about his body as if something was stuffed under his fur. The sense of being too full bordered upon an agony he barely endured until he could no longer stand to be silent. Fordel released a yowl, speaking of the pain he suffered.
When the Mórrígan’s song ceased, he knelt upon the forest floor, staring in wonder at large human hands, the pain of the change forgotten. Kernunnos and the Mórrígan helped Fordel to his human feet, and he stretched out his new legs. Never afore had he gazed down at someone. Always he had looked up.
“There, my child,” Kernunnos said. “Now you may wander amongst man and see what you would. Your mathan form is yours at any time you wish. It is as simple as calling to mind how it feels to walk upon four legs. The sanctuary and solace of the wildwood is still yours at any time you require. All you need is one tree and the desire, and you shall be brought to a grove.”
The Mórrígan and Kernunnos clothed and taught Fordel what they knew about the lives of men. Charged with their knowledge, he grabbed his packs and headed to the forest’s edge. Afore he stepped from the shadows, the call of a mathan made him glance back. Avory rocked to and fro upon his feet, bewailing piteously.
“I need to go, brother.” He clutched his twin to his chest. “I vow to return, and when I do, there shall be such stories to tell.”
A deep ache ate at Fordel’s heart. He wished Avory journeyed by his side, but his twin was content with the wildwood. After a fond farewell, he rose to his feet and strode from the forest, glancing back and waving as the boy-child had once waved to him afore beginning his journey.
Fordel traversed the continents; the seasons passing by. He knew both cruelty and kindness as he beheld many, many wonders, and came to know first-hand the toils of mankind. When he yearned for the haven of the grove, he found a tree and stepped through the shadow where all he loved welcomed him home. However, he continued to hunger for the world beyond the edge of the wildwood. In time he always left again.
Upon one such trip, Fordel crossed paths with a great and wise king known by all far and wide. At once he discerned the boy-child he had found lost in the wood years afore. King Allard bid Fordel sup with him. Not able to turn the boy— king down, he followed King Allard to where they dined alone.
The king asked many questions of his travels afore rolling out a scroll. Inscribed therein was a story about a prince who became lost in the forest to be saved by a mathan. There afore Fordel lay a drawing of himself, not as a black mathan but as the man-skin he now wore with a bear pelt upon his head. “Some say the forest be enchanted, making men to animals and animals to men. Yet I beheld your face, and clutched your fur in my hands. Tell me I am mad or call me brother. Natheless you look now as I have ever beheld you in my mind.” With great joy, Fordel caught up King Allard in a back-breaking embrace and named him friend.
He stayed with King Allard, swiftly becoming not only the king’s closest friend but his most trusted advisor. All who met Fordel thought highly of him, honouring him by seeking his counsel. He quickly became known as a man of upstanding character. His life in the kingdom was rich and full, and for the first time he knew peace.
Fordel stood by King Allard’s side when the news came the queen had given birth to a male child, who they named Prince Reginald. Together they rejoiced in the births of each of the king’s seven other children. And Fordel fought beside King Allard upon the field of battle, finally paying homage to the Mórrígan by becoming her incarnation when he raised weapon and shield in war, his very presence assuring victory for King Allard.
As Prince Reginald grew, he fought to garner the same high regard Fordel held— and failed. Pricked with jealousy over the people’s attentions to Fordel, Prince Reginald became full of rancour, yet upon the outward he laughed and grinned. The father-like affection Fordel held for Prince Reginald merely made the wound fester more as the years passed. The prince would rather the king’s fond regard than Fordel’s. For though Prince Reginald sensed his father loved him, he felt invisible when Fordel entered the room.
One day, in an envious fit, Prince Reginald slyly followed his father and Fordel on one of their outings to the forest. What he saw there made him question his soundness of mind, for afore his very eyes Fordel changed into a large mathan. The beast sat at his father’s feet, tolerantly accepting playful tugs upon his thick fur. Stung deeply by the lack of faith from his father and Fordel, Prince Reginald stumbled back to the castle and barred himself in his rooms.
He pondered all he knew of Fordel. His father had grown old, his skin lined by age, and his sword arm feeble. In spite of the passage of time, Fordel had aged not a day. Prince Reginald’s jealousy came to be a dark and twisted craving as he coveted Fordel’s wyr form. He had heard tell of the men who petitioned the gods to become wyrcreatures. A new ambition taking root within him, Prince Reginald plotted. For if he too became a wyrbear, the people would love him more than Fordel. The prince set out to prevail upon the gods to behold him with favour so that he could become a wyr. The gods answered not his pleas.
Incensed, the prince fell into a deep rage over the slight. Then King Allard sickened, and the royal physicians claimed naught could be done. Prince Reginald heard Fordel tell his father he would return home to his forest, mayhap never returning to the lands of mankind, and grew alarmed by the news. Fordel was the only one he knew who changed forms. If Fordel left, the only chance for the prince to become a wyrbear would go with him.
Working quickly, the prince had the kingdom scoured for those who wielded magick. Many buidsear—casters of lots, enchanters, and conjurers—were brought afore him. Yet when they learned what he planned, each declined to abet him. All who denied Prince Reginald were slain. Rumours of the buidsear’s deaths by his hand spread far and wide, causing the others to flee into hiding. However, one buidsear, Eryl Drake, was caught by the prince’s faithful men and, when brought forward, agreed to execute the prince’s plan, for he wished not to die.
The day King Allard passed, all the kingdom mourned for their belovèd sovereign. Fordel vowed he would stay until the prince’s coronation, but afterwards would head home to his own family. However, upon entering the new king’s quarters to bid his farewells, Fordel became trapped in the buidsear’s spell.
~
Ewen was… was… “Granda, tell me… No, swear Reginald would not do such a vile thing.” The promise, nay, the belief that a thing of wonder would happen to him upon the eve of his birth had been growing the entire trip. He would finally meet his mathan, whom he had felt under his skin all his life, and yet to know by what appalling means he came by this… what a horrible fate for their creatures!
Granda pursed his lips and gave upon Ewen a stern look. “Enough with your loose tongue, child. Pay attention.”
~
Three days Eryl the sorcerer laboured t
o remove the mathan from the human body. Throughout, Fordel fought and pleaded with the boy he loved as his own. He wanted only to return to his grove, and vowed he would never set foot in the kingdom again. In spite of the pained moans and cries for mercy, King Reginald turned a deaf ear to Fordel’s words and tears, the promise of rising to greatness, his need of power, blinding him.
Kernunnos and the Mórrígan sensed Fordel’s spirit being shredded and torn. With rising dread, they sought the bearwyr.
Knowing that none became a wyr without the blessèd touch of a god, Eryl had foreseen their meddling and set wards to hide Fordel and King Reginald. The God and Goddess paced beyond the city walls, denied entrance, as Fordel’s spirit was stolen from his body.
Yet what Eryl could not shield against was Fate. The Goddess Cerridwen found them as Eryl placed the spirit into King Reginald’s body. That night every man, woman, and child heard the tormented cry Fordel gave at the loss of his body. Yet as King Reginald ordered the death of the human shell left behind, Cerridwen stepped from the shadows. She claimed the human skin as her own, marking him with the sign of the crescent moon at the base of his spine. After placing him under her protection, she forbade King Reginald from harming Fordel’s body or any offspring of his loins thereafter.
“A scourge upon you! If you or someone by your decree takes the life of Fordel’s human shell then shall your own death be assured, causing early graves for all your children and their scions until the end of time,” Cerridwen warned. “Your blood now be cursèd, King Reginald. Those you father shall be bound to the forest, not able to leave for any length of time without going mad with longing. In time, they shall lose their regal birthright, becoming guardians of what you have sought to steal from Fordel. For he was not wyrbear, as you thought, born not human but mathan, the only one granted human form, the first bearwyr. Instead of robbing him of the essence of the mathan, that which would grant you the might and abilities of the mathan, you have stolen his very soul.
“Eryl Drake, for your wilful actions of deceit in this heinous crime, you too be cursèd. You be stripped of the power to influence magick and hereby bound by my words. Until you make aright the wrong you carried out this day, you shall walk the Earth all your long days yearning for what you no longer have. Your suffering shall be great each time you try to pass to yon Otherworld, three days you shall suffer as Fordel suffered afore you wake again on the fourth. All buidsear shall know your name, know your visage. You be shunned, and they shall bestow unto you a wide berth, afeard of being corrupted by your mere presence. This shall make your quest a twofold measure, for without the use of magick you need find another way to join Fordel with his body, his spirit to his flesh, afore you find peace.”
Cerridwen made her leave of the damned men, her warnings hanging heavy in the air. King Reginald promptly drew his sword and ran Eryl through, for he would not chance Eryl stealing the spirit of the mathan back to break his own curse. The lethargic body that had once belonged to Fordel, King Reginald commanded shipped across the sea to the north and sold into slavery.
King Reginald believed himself well rid of that which would threaten his new state as a wyrbear. Alas, not all was as he had foreseen. The mathan’s essence ever fought him for command of his body. Over the coming days, the meaning of Cerridwen’s words began to sink in. He had taken not the mathan from Fordel but taken Fordel from a human body. Thus Fordel’s spirit fully perceived who and what he was, understanding that King Reginald had stolen his soul. For the first time, King Reginald felt affright at what he had done. Grappling with Fordel—hearing the voice of the mathan in his mind, feeling a rage not his own—hindered his actions, and the struggle wearied him to the bone.
The first and only time he sought cruth-atharrachadh, to shift his shape into a mathan, Fordel made the ordeal so full of piercing torment that King Reginald took to his sickbed, swearing he would never seek the change again. What Fordel had no power over was the length of life King Reginald received, his very presence keeping the vile human young and strong, his movements quick. King Reginald’s prowess in bed became the stuff of lewd legends.
Soon after stealing Fordel’s soul, King Reginald married his betrothed. Natheless he continued to bring mistresses to his bed. Upon them he begot many sons and daughters. Every offspring born of his blood had a mathan spirit within their skin, yet they had a peace and balance as wyrbears that he lacked. Even so, the children sought out the confines of the wildwood, bound as they were by the curse, and were happy.
King Reginald and Fordel ever fought each other, neither giving quarter. As the years waxed and waned, King Reginald grew bitter, his mind fracturing under the weight of the feud waged within him until he went mad. Finally, he threw himself from the edge of a cliff to plummet to his death.
The human body that had once belonged to Fordel took another name as his own, and though he had been sold into slavery he thrived under Cerridwen’s guiding hand, fathering many children and growing the lineage of Fordel’s blood.
The once-buidsear, Eryl Drake, now cursèd by Cerridwen, died not as King Reginald had wished. Rather, he suffered for three long days, as Fordel had endured, afore coming awake and clawing his way out of a shallow grave in the dead of night. After that, Eryl soonest learned that every death, no matter from whence it came, was followed by three days of torment and pain afore a new quickening. And, as Cerridwen had decreed, Eryl was shunned by those he once called brothers, no longer able to work magick.
The descendants of King Reginald found that with the spirit of mathan they could not endure being away from the wildwood for long. Thus they became guardians of the forest, and eventually the siblings parted ways. The descendants of King Reginald’s eldest son, Prince Theodoric, crossed continents and broad waters, travelling ever north until they finally found a home, taken in by Clan Meinnear in Alba. In the line of the eldest, Fordel’s spirit was reborn every few generations, waiting for the buidsear to discover a way to join him with the body he had lost, thereby breaking the curse of the bearwyr.
~
“Granda, Fordel’s man-form be long gone. How shall he be made whole if there is no body to return to?” Ewen’s elation over the awakening of his mathan’s spirit had been tamped down by the contempt he held for the story’s ending. He was of the lineage of a man who had defied the gods for loathsome and greedy reasons, trapping Fordel in a place not meant to be his.
“As long as an offspring of Fordel’s human flesh lives, the buidsear can break the curse. Until then we can only await what Fate has in store for us.” Granda ruffled Ewen’s hair and gave upon him a fond grin. “Now, it be time for sleep. We have a long journey ahead, with cold days of travel afore we reach the cradle. There your name shall be listed as the next in line to rule the wyrbears. Take advantage of the warmth and rest whilst you can.”
Ewen crawled under the furs and watched the people move about the longhouse. Upon the morrow they would enter the Black Forest and travel to the gorge of the River Wutach. It was a long and dangerous journey from whence his family now called home.
An exclamation at the other end of the room drew his sleepy gaze, distracting him from his thoughts. A boy-child, no more than three or four, with hair the colour of the sun was rushed to the fire’s edge and swaddled in thick furs. His pale skin was blue-grey with cold.
“Pulled ’im from the water, floatin’ upon a slab of wood. All upon the boat drowned, sucked down into the murky waters by a dark spirit, I tell ye!” exclaimed the woman cradling the child. Her face was pale, pinched about her mouth with worry, yet she sought to soothe the lad with humming as she rubbed his skin dry.
When the boy sat up and glanced about the room, eyes the colour of the palest blue met Ewen’s. A savoury aroma that spoke of clouds and sea and winds and magick tickled Ewen’s nose. His mathan, who ought not wake for many more days, roused from his sleep, of a sudden alert. As one, they sniffed the air again. Not able to look away from those glowing eyes, Ewen became caught by
a sense of knowing as their gazes stayed locked.
Ewen’s mathan spirit gave a yowl of joyous tidings.
II
Some years later…
EBBA FOLLOWED THE foul men through the muddy streets, praying they noticed her not. They had come to town one by one, biding their time as they awaited for others to arrive. The stench of dark magick fouled the air. The smell of rot clinging to them spoke of an evil that could be smelled even if she beheld nothing with her eyes. Sneaking around corners, for she did not dare to be sighted, she kept a careful watch. The vile men came to the village oft, stealing the lives of the cleanhanded, leaving the bodies where they fell. The first time Ebba had thought the deaths unrelated to the buildsears—no, they were vile warloghes, not the benevolent sorcerers they would have people believe. They had fooled even Ebba, for she had believed their appearance and thought the death of the innocent to be only chance. But with the strangers’ second visit the burning itch betwixt her shoulders warned of danger. The last time she had felt thusly she had been small, and her village raided. She had heeded the tickle and hid, thus the only one spared whilst all others were slain or taken by the slavers.
Now the warloghes returned to the village and awaited the fifth man. He reeked not of dark magick, but his aura was stamped with the sign of an old curse. She recalled him well, for she first laid eyes upon him the same day sweet Iain came into her care by way of a crushing mishap.
That day, many twelvemonths ago, dark magick had hung in the air around the ship sinking offshore; the signs were there for anyone with a knowing eye to see. When the red-haired maiden surfaced with Iain, she waded through the water to Ebba as if the maiden knew Ebba would be there. She placed the boy in Ebba’s arms, pushed her to the edge of the shore, and when Ebba had glanced back the maiden was nowhere to be seen.
Ebba had carried Iain into the longhouse to warm the boy by the fire. That was the first time she noticed the cursèd man, though he had seemed to be alone then. Now, Ebba was hard pressed to believe it merely chance the boat had sunk the same day the cursèd man had arrived in the village. Since then, he continued to return, seemingly searching for someone. The bodies left in his wake were an indication of his purpose. It escaped not her notice that many of the victims had been in the longhouse with them that night. Every time he returned, worry lay heavy upon her breast over Iain’s well being.