by B G Denvil
It was chained. The chains were of enormous width, iron loops that would have held up a hundred straining people. The chains were padlocked to the wall of rock, and the creature stood there, unable to move. It was shaking, but I didn’t know whether that was for fear, for the cold, which was severe down here, or perhaps hunger, misery and desperation.
As I began to see this thing more clearly, it resembled a huge dog, but not a mastiff. It was wide, long bandy legs, enormous feet long clawed, and a muzzle of nostrils the size of ale cups, eyes the same and a mouth as wide as my shoulders. Its lips were black, its skin russet red, eyes scarlet and tears like rolling pearls. The beast and I stared at each other. Could evil suffer?
With the thing so large, so ugly, so brimming with fierce capacity and carrying the stench of evil, I could not pity it. Yet the chains and the tears struck me hard.
I whispered, “Are you hungry? Do you eat humans?”
Having no idea whether the thing could speak or not, I waited.
At first its voice was a haggard growl, indistinct and snuffled. The tongue flapped out, a wide red carpet of craters and saliva. I listened carefully and used magic to understand its words.
“I am Manic. I am made to stay and starve. I cannot run. I cannot eat. I cannot see. I cannot sleep. I cannot dream. I can do only whatever my master commands. My master is the Dom. I am the Manic.”
“What do you want to eat?” I asked.
And it said, “I have no memory of having eaten, so I do not know.”
So I conjured oats, figs, a carcass of some invented animal, and threw these at the creature’s feet. Then I pushed a bowl of cool water with magic and waited. The Manic leaned and sniffed hopefully at the foods I had given, first it sucked at the oats, drank the water, slopping it over its flat chin and massive legs, then grabbed the meat in its jaws, kept it still with one paw and began to tear the thing apart, munching on both flesh and bone.
I was watching when I heard a completely different voice behind me. “I decided yesterday,” said Dominic, “that a woman with your magical power must have come with an ulterior motive.”
“Naturally,” I said, turning to face him. “You alone were clearly not powerful enough to kill your uncle from a distance and send a poisoned curse to your cousin. But the stench of the shadow reeked from your house. So what is this thing? Where did you get it from? From Hell? And yet you cannot even bring kindness to the monster you use.”
He had shut the door behind him, and now Dominic leaned against the wall. “The black shadow needs no kindness,” he said, smiling as if enjoying himself. “But he loves to obey my orders.”
“How long have you kept him here?” I knew some of his answers would be lies, but I would be able to tell which was which.
“Forever.”
I found that a confusing, but true enough from Dominic’s point of view. “And have you ever fed him?”
“Perhaps not.” Dominic’s grin was now alarming. “You could maybe say I milk him. It is his food, in a sense.”
“That sounds more like your food,” I said. “That thing is ravenous. But why – and exactly how – did you kill your uncle and curse Fanny?”
I was surprised when Dominic answered, and I believed him. “My own parents were useless. Pathetic. Both had weak magic, but they pretended strength. Tried to rule me, change me, weaken me. I hated them and killed them both. But I loved my aunt. Fanny’s mother. She was strong and kind and looked after me. She explained the magic which my own parents refused to explain. I lived only because of my aunt. So beautiful. She promised to take me in. But then – my cousin murdered her.”
“By being born? You cannot possibly blame an infant for that.” I gazed at him with growing hatred as he stood calmly. Back in the corner I heard the monster gulp and rip at its food. At least it was somewhat content.
“I hated my uncle,” Dominic said, “because he refused to uphold my aunt’s promise and take me to live with him after she died. My beautiful Aunt Elizabeth should have been my mother. But in spite of her strong magic, my disgusting cousin killed her. I was only four, but I cried so much, it made me ill.” He stared at me. “I have never cried since.”
“So,” I said, “you found this terrible creature of dark power, and you used it to kill your uncle and poison your cousin – for something neither of them could help. It would have been too difficult for your uncle to look after you as well as his baby after his wife died. And as for blaming a baby for killing her own mother as she was born, that is perhaps the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. Monstrous. Ridiculous. Like that thing there.”
But as I spoke, Dominic raised both hands and shouted, “Chains – unchain.” And the chains that held the thing fell open. The beast was free. It looked up from the food.
I turned to face it. I’d guessed what Dominic intended, and I knew I’d have no chance against such a creature. I stood quietly and summoned my magic silently within, ready to protect myself. To fly higher than the animal might help, but I didn’t know what it could do. I turned back to Dominic. “What now?” I demanded. “You’ve already started to poison me.”
Ignoring my words, Dominic again raised both hands and pointed towards the thing. “Take her,” he ordered. “You will rip at her throat. You will kill her and then you may eat her.”
Clearly it amazed Dominic as much as it amazed me, but the monster stood absolutely still, shaking its head. The flecks of food spun out from around its mouth, and the loose flopping black lips. Then it took two cautious steps forward. I saw the terrible weeping scars on its sides where the chains had held it immovable. It seemed uncertain.
Dominic was furious and crossed his wrists in the air, cursing and shouting. The beast trembled and moved back, obviously recognising this move as one that would hurt it. It growled, very low in the back of its throat.
“I will whip you if you do not immediately obey me,” Dominic yelled. “You will be thrashed until your back is raw blood, and you will be chained tighter still.” Again, he called the words for the thing to kill me.
I was ready to fly, but I was also creating a haze of protective bubble around myself when I saw the monster leap forwards. It was so fast I had barely blinked. But it did not run at me. It ran at Dominic.
Suddenly I felt Edna’s hand on my arm, and Peg’s small warm body snuggled at my back. But in front of us, lying on the stone floor, was Dominic, his hands trying to cover his face, as this creature wrestled him onto his back, then pouncing on top, an extraordinary weight which made Dominic cry out. But the cry was cut short.
Panting, terrified and breathless, the creature staggered off and lay beside the corpse of his master.
But that, of course, was not enough.
As the monster lay close to Dominic’s wide-open mouth, it began to breathe hard into those open jaws. At first, I jumped forwards, thinking that the thing was attempting to breathe its master back to life. But then I saw otherwise. Edna, Peg and I rushed forwards. We realised that no change was occurring to Dominic, no renewed life or swelling chest, blinking eyes or the swallowing of the creature’s breath.
It was the opposite.
Edna, Peg and I all held our own torches, and we saw every detail. And it was those details that seemed utterly astonishing. For it was the monster that was changing, and not Dominic at all. The man lay dead. But the monster was no longer a vile or ugly thing. It was a bounding, joyful dog.
“Oh, pickle-brains and bottom-skrunchers,” I yelled. “What’s going on?”
The dog trotted over with a huge smile on it dark rolling mouth. It was a good deal smaller than it had been, thin, scrawny indeed, its legs were straight and tall, and it was a handsome mastiff-cross, with alert pointed ears, and bright open eyes no longer red but a pleasant dark brown. Its coat was tan and short haired, I could still see the wretched wounds on its side where it had been rubbed for months by those chains.
But the chains lay discarded, and so did Dominic. The hound was licking my fin
gers.
I supposed that I had been the donor of the only small act of kindness this creature had ever known in its life. Presumably it didn’t know I was a cat.
Having no real understanding of what had happened, and without any knowledge of whether it could talk or not, I knelt down beside it and asked, “Can you tell me anything about yourself? Can you explain what has just happened?”
I certainly knew one thing. All my aches and pains had stopped. No backache. No pounding head. Just a large dog in my arms.
Peg whispered, “This is such a horrid place. And that man lying there isn’t a pretty picture. Can we go upstairs?”
“In a minute,” I protested. “I want to understand the poor animal before I make him move.” And I put my arms around its neck, hoping desperately for some words.
And then the same sniffy voice came back again. “I am just a dog,” it said. “Once named Wolf. A boy dog. A happy dog. But with a little magic. Not much, but I can speak some words. But my lady got sick and went away to live with her daughter, and I was no longer happy anymore.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, scratching behind his ears, and hoping I’d get to understand one day.
“I went running,” said Wolf. “Food was hard to find, but I was still happy. Then this boy Dominic found me. I smelled his magic, and I followed him.”
Still puzzled, I stayed on the stone floor and cuddled him, probably still hungry. “So you found a home,” I said encouragingly.
“Yes,” he agreed. “At first I liked this boy and smelled his magic. He smelled mine and was excited. He fed me one day. Perhaps two days.”
Peg asked, “The boy was Dominic? And he lived here alone?”
Although he was sitting down, I could see his tail wagging madly. “Yes. He brought me to the cell. I did not like it, but I wanted to obey. But then I was chained so tightly. I could not even shake myself. Very tight. Very sore. Got sorer.”
“Go on,” I said with sympathy.
“I did not get food,” Wolf continued. “But I was fed magic. My master blew it into my mouth, day after day. He went to find wizards, and he killed them, took all their magic as they died. Then brought it back to me. I felt my chest fill with it. I did not like it. It made me nervous. I felt sick. I was very soon an unhappy dog full of awful magic. I felt it blowing up inside.”
“Poor darling,” said Peg, sitting down on the dog’s other side.
“More magic,” Wolf said. “And then more. And then more. I was full of dark magic, not my own, and too much to swallow. It made me bloated and ugly. I felt my tongue turn into a nasty thing. I had streams of red anger inside. I was fat, but I never had food. I was bloated with magic. It kept me alive. Each time my master killed a wizard or a witch, he took their strength and then came home to me and blew it in my mouth. I could feel it like.”
“Oh, poor wolf,” I said, hugging him even tighter. “So much wiccan power but of the wicked kind. It must have been a disgusting thing to swallow.”
“I had bones,” Wolf said, “and magic. Nothing more.”
“And all your magic turned bad?” I asked.
“My master made me bad. He made me a creature of hatred. There was no love in my life. I forgot about kindness so the hatred grew.”
Edna was still standing over us. “So Dominic made you create curses and poisons?” she said.
“Yes,” agreed Wolf. “But I will never do that again. I have blown every seed of magic back into my dead master. Soon he will explode with it.”
“In that case,” I said hurriedly, “I think we’d better go upstairs.”
“I am permitted upstairs?” asked Wolf in utter surprise. “I may leave this cell? I cannot imagine – a life – out of the closed dark with no chains.”
“Absolutely none,” I assured him. “You will come home with us, and live in a huge garden with friends.”
His eyes were brimming with love and excitement, but both Edna and Peg stared at me aghast. “The beast of curses, killings and poisons?” cried Peg. “How do we know he won’t do it again?”
I was in the middle of explaining, when Wolf spoke, “All the shadow magic is gone back into my master. I have none, I promise. I am able to speak, but that is all. I cannot and will not ever do magic again.”
It was Whistle who interrupted us. The dog looked at the squirrel with interest, but certainly did not seem about to jump and eat it. “Come along,” said Whistle. “I’ve been searching this house and have found many matters of considerable interest. But now I need to destroy it, as it reeks of shadow. Hurry up, bring the dog. I’ve already arranged for Fanny to be taken home, now do hurry.”
“How do you know about the dog?” I demanded.
“Because I am me,” announced Whistle. “I am ready to set fire to this place, so come along and fly home.”
I wasn’t a cat anymore, so I lifted Wolf, with a rather hefty magic spell that kept him lighter than he really was. Besides, he was pretty much empty. And then, just as we rose into the sky, high enough not to be seen by those below, we heard an explosion which echoed over and over. I hovered, Wolf in my arms, and saw the vast destruction of that dark power. The terrible stench that had been there was now floating, dispersed, seeking a new home. With a sense of urgency, we flew higher and faster, as the flames rushed up beneath us, and the village people came rushing. The most important to me was one magnificent assurance, for as the dreadful stench was flung wide, not one tiniest crumb remained attached to Wolf.
Seven
Fanny was sitting on the garden bench as we flew down. She looked just as excited as the large dog freed from many years of magical shadows and imprisonment. Wolf was still hanging on to my shoulders with his two huge front paws, so the snuffling and whuffling was rather loud in my ears, but I didn’t mind. It felt delightfully friendly. It was certainly a lovely feeling to discover that violent magical monsters could dissolve into delightful companions. Just how much magic was left remained to be seen.
I waved down to Fanny and landed at her feet. She jumped up at once. No tear marks on her cheeks this time. She waved both arms in the air and started to skip.
“Look,” she laughed, “I’m me again.” And she certainly was, for I could sense her magic and knew she had regained her original grade. To prove it, she fluttered up into the warm breezes and flew in a circle.
Then she threw her arms around my neck, and abruptly realised there was something rather large in the way. So I drew back and popped Wolf down on the grass. He bent, sniffing the daisies, buttercups and the grass itself; all such normal things that he hadn’t touched, seen or smelled for most of his life.
Then Wolf looked up at Fanny and raised one paw as though in supplication.
I pulled Fanny aside and began to explain the whole story, while Wolf danced off to explore our grounds. It was a long story, but Fanny was horrified. “You can’t bring the hound here,” she gasped.
“Sadly, he became a real monster of dark magic,” I admitted. “But that was the power of other wizards blown into him by your ghastly cousin. Dominic created that monster, and now the monster is gone. Just the original dog remains. There’s no more smell and that makes me certain. The force that killed your poor father and took your own power and all the rest of it – that came through Wolf. True. But it came from Dominic. He had the hatred, and he gave the orders, but he couldn’t hold onto such a huge amount of power, it would have killed him. So he stored it in the dog.”
Indeed, it took her a few weeks to discover the truth and accept Wolf as a friend. I wasn’t surprised, after all she’d been through. It was hard for her to forgive and forget, especially since she had liked her only cousin and sensed no evil in him.
It wasn’t me and my explanations that helped her get over the memories in the end. It was Harry Flash. I watched that romance blooming over the weeks. But Fanny wasn’t taking anything too quickly, which was probably wise.
I lay in the afternoon sun until supper time and then I crawled into
bed at ten of the clock, the earliest I had been to bed since I was a child. I felt almost ashamed of myself. But Wolf found me. I heard his little snuffle, and then suddenly he was on the bed beside me. I had fed him twice already, although he still felt quite skinny. There was also the small problem that as yet he didn’t know I was a cat. Oh well, everything would settle in time no doubt.
When I woke to sunshine the next morning and realised I had not only gone to bed early, but had awoken late, I couldn’t believe it. And there was Wolf, still snuggled beside me. So I jumped up and let him out into the garden where I fed him everything I could think of, not really having much idea of what dogs ate. He ate it all anyway.
It was that Northern accent that made me look up. Angdar was striding over to me, glancing without surprise at my new companion, he held up the great axe, its blade vibrant in the bright sunbeams.
“It is the work of Odin and Thor and my most skilled lady Butterfield,” he informed me, “here is my axe returned to me at the hour of most importance. I was called back to the fires of Valhalla, but my lady put the axe into my hands, and the call of death died. I am alive again, and I will live a better life this time, if I may stay with my lady?”
“If she’ll have you,” I grinned.
Both Edna and Peg had slipped up behind me, and I felt their arms around my waist. Wolf sat at our feet, and the tiny claws of Whistle were suddenly hooked onto my shoulder.
“She has already accepted me,” said Angdar. “And I think this is all going to work very well. It is the path to happiness.”
Hobb’s Henge
One
The new scullery boy came rushing in with his hat askew, one small hand plonked on top in case it tried to blow away, and his eyes wide. “In Tickwick on Lyme,” he said, words falling over themselves. “They got it. Everyone sick.”