Beastly

by Matt Khourie

  “May the North Star always brighten the darkest night,” he said quickly as though he may forget the greeting. “Lady Polaris, welcome to my humble vessel.”

  Polaris brushed her platinum blond hair over her shoulder. She smiled at the Beast and rested a hand on the pirate’s bowed head.

  “Thank you, captain. May the light always see you home.”

  Polaris invited the awestruck pirate to rise and then regarded the Beast. She stretched to the tips of her toes and stroked a slender hand from an ear to the tip of his snout. She levitated until their eyes met and gave him a quick peck on the forehead. A trail of sparkling light fell away from her lips. She wrapped her delicate arms around the Beast’s waist and buried a warm cheek into his chest. A tear fell from a crystal blue eye. Voice wavering, the North Star spoke. “It’s been too long, Donovan.”

  The Beast’s arms hung over Polaris like a pair of oaken branches. He looked uncomfortably to Poogs. “I, err--,” the Beast stammered. He knew he looked like an awkward fool holding his arms up, but he couldn’t help it. He hadn’t the faintest idea who was clutching at his waist. He twisted his mind, trying to force free the memory he wanted more than anything to believe was buried in inside. It had to be there. The woman’s obvious gentle affection indicated as much.

  Polaris pulled away from the mountain of muscle and fur and stroked the Beast’s face a second time. All the while her eyes were misted.

  “My sweet, sweet, boy,” Polaris sighed, “you do not remember.” She closed her eyes and whispered into the wind that was sweeping through the flapping sails. She swung her arms high, stretching a wavy dome of starlight between her fingertips. The waves climbed high over the Reaper’s Song, painting the sky in dark shades of violet. The enchantment blotted away the sun, leaving behind a tapestry of shimmering ripples.

  “I will help you remember.”

  The Beast grasped for a handhold, uneasy at being unable to see the deck. Moving too far in any given direction would send him plummeting to the World After. He heard only the thump of his heart beating. The whistling wind, the flapping sound of the sails... gone. His unseen footing lurched. He threw up a paw as he began to fall.

  And found the rough texture of cool, hewed stone that should not have been there. In between eye-blinks the world had filled itself back in. It was a world he hadn’t expected.

  The Beast stood alone in a wide corridor that stretched fifty yards in both directions. A pair of tall wooden doors stood guard at each end. Poogs and the woman in sapphire were nowhere to be found. Along the walls, incensed torches lit the dark with traces of myrrh.

  “Follow my voice, Donovan,” Polaris called. “Remember...”

  The Beast roared into the darkness. “That is not my name!” His head sunk.

  “I have no name.”

  Polaris’s voice charmed him forward. “Walk the path. Be so named once more.”

  The weight of too many lonely winters haunted his footsteps. Had his entire life since reawakening truly been no more than a cruel trick of fate? No. There had been no deception. Someone had stolen his name. Someone had stolen a father from an innocent child who needed him. Someone had stolen his life. He would see them returned.

  Now.

  The Beast dropped one paw in front of the other and trundled for doors emblazoned with a six-point star of solid gold. The Beast immediately recognized the icon: he had seen it dangling from Poogs’s neck. But how could that be?

  Between the flickering torches, framed portraits of a hundred sizes came to life as he passed by. They seem so real. He could not help himself. He reached a curious claw to a canvas. A swirl of memory coursed from the painting, up his arm and straight into his deepest of hearts.

  A young man with messy, chocolate hair proudly stood in a castle’s courtyard. He was clad head to toe in armor of polished chain. A magnificent sun effortlessly lit a perfect spring afternoon. Hushed murmurs circulated through an excited crowd. Atop a sprawling dais of white oak, a distinguished looking older man in formal military garb held a glistening sabre. He spoke in words the Beast could not, at first, decipher.

  The Beast walked through the crowd and approached the dais. He passed through the spectral image of commoners and nobility, reaching the stairs at the same moment as the young knight. The young man climbed three short stairs and knelt in front of his commander. The sabre flashed in the sun and then touched the knight’s shoulder.

  “Donovan, you have served your queen as a beacon of honor and defended justice throughout the distant reaches of the Once Kingdom. Rise, and join your brothers… Captain.”

  The Beast shook his head. The commander’s words had become crystal clear. He looked behind the grizzled veteran and saw a formation of knights extending from the flanks of a modest throne. The Beast blinked hard in disbelief when he saw the throne’s occupant. Polaris rose from the throne and invited Donovan to join her Guard. The Beast finally realized the truth. He rose and solemnly walked to the Queen he had forgotten, the Queen stolen from him, and took his place by her side.

  The Beast snapped out of the memory to a warming glow radiating from within. It felt like an eternity since Urda’s crystalline orbs had begun chipping away the prison of his memory. This was more potent. He could feel the elixir of memory seeping back into his blood.

  It would never be stolen from him again.

  The glow of the star-adorned door brightened. The Beast took anxious steps towards it, thoughts racing at the truth aligning in his mind’s eye. The portraits spoke in whispers, begging him to stop and listen. The door’s magnetic pull was too strong, allowing for only furtive glances as he neared the hall’s end. Each portrait told a story like a miniaturized theatre, chronicling his stolen life: a triumphant return from bloody battle, a muddy prank played on an old headmaster, the first time he took up a blade.

  The star now blazed in the dark hallway, illuminating all of the portraits at once. A storm of memories flooded the Beast all at once; the dam was finally broken and swept away.

  A daring jump on horseback over a burning, broken bridge...

  Celebration with his Knight brothers at autumn festival...

  A beautiful girl with shining obsidian hair. A secret kiss under a droopy willow...

  Out of habit, the Beast raised a meaty fist to knock on the door. Before he could strike, his eye caught one last portrait. He let his hand fall gently to his side, leaving the star temporarily undisturbed.

  The picture was framed in twisted vines of silvery ivy. The dark haired lass was of age now and featured prominently in the center. She was dressed in frilly white linens and sitting up in a luxurious poster bed, covered in thick emerald drapes. Though her hair was matted, tussled, her tears rang joyous. She was cradling something close to her breast.

  Someone.

  He did not need to touch the gleaming portrait of silver. The memory exploded all on its own.

  The Beast remembered that day, its traces now a solid stream of emotion. Warm globs swelled at his eyes. He had just walked into the sprawling bed chamber the first time he had heard the sound. In the corner, a fireplace crackled behind frantically scurrying hand maidens. One woman alone maintained her composure at the bedside. She was much older than the others and had presided over many such occasions.

  “Patience, Pandora, patience,” Urda said as she stroked the princess’s forehead. “Only moments and she will be back.” The gypsy delivered the hidden bundle to a hand maiden.

  Urda’s eyes twinkled. “Have you decided on a name?”

  “Lia,” Pandora replied, “Lia, after Donovan’s mother.” The princess stretched her hands to the midwives swaddling the infant. Her perfect smile warmed the room more sweetly than any fire could ever hope.

  The Beast bowed his head. Twin tears fell heavily to the floor. When he looked back up, the portraits were still and the great corridor restored to darkness. The only light came crawling from
underneath the door, inviting him in. He grasped one of the golden rings... and pushed.

  Chapter 24

  A second blast of searing energy slammed into Malachai’s pale abdomen. The former Wakeful captain collapsed to his hands and knees, eagerly greeted by the cold floor of the Garrison. His lungs were fiery sacks ready to burst. A river of ice cold terror dripped down his back. He spat up a glob of hot blood as pain’s forgotten sensation was restored. He stared at the clot, wondering how much of his blood the Liche Queen would exact as the price of failure. He shivered; another forgotten feature of humanity creeping back into his body.

  Dragon steps thundered in his chest, crushing his black heart. He could not recall the last time he felt the terrible growth spreading within, but its name was plastered vividly in his racing stream of thoughts. Terror.

  Tapping his fleeting strength, Malachai shoved himself away from the floor and onto a knee.

  Crack.

  A blast struck him squarely in the face, knocking him flat onto his back. Malachai’s vision blurred and doubled. The vaulted dome spanning the Barracks began a slow spin. Pandora paced back and forth. Icy venom bathed each word in fury. “If I wished for you to stand, slave, I would have commanded you so.”

  She nodded and a pair of Wakeful soldiers hauled their former captain upright. He had never before experienced the Liche Queen’s wrath so intimately. Three savage blows were all it had taken to sap his strength. Malachai knew the very minutes of his life were counting down. That blasted pirate had double crossed him, ruined his grand designed. Despite the betrayal, he had successfully delivered the little abomination as commanded. But the Beast of Briarburn had escaped.

  And that transgression Her Majesty would never allow to go unpunished.

  Malachai, Captain of the Wakeful, Her Majesty’s Highest Champion, the Black Rider himself was now stripped of title and armor, though his punishment did not end there. At the height of her rage, the Liche Queen had stripped away Malachai’s Wakeful curse, allowing the agonizing futility of mortality to reclaim his body. The crimson flames of his eyes were extinguished, replaced by a rotten bloodshot yellow.

  Now, his final punishment loomed. The Wakeful guards hooked Malachai under the arms and dragged him to the dark altar, his toes scraping the floor. Pandora playfully stroked the runic archway spanning the altar. One by one they came to glowing, lava colored life. Hungry.

  The guards bowed their heads in unison to their queen and then roughly shoved Malachai back to his knees. He fell into the altar’s stone basin with a grunt.

  “Rise, Malachai, and accept your fate.” The Liche Queen grasped the spiraled hilt of a ceremonial dagger edged with a sliver of obsidian. Pandora dragged the blade across the stone, charging the cruel weapon with the Garrison’s foul tension. The sickly dagger whispered Malachai’s name into the cavernous chamber. Malachai grasped at the altar and pulled himself up. His voice cracked and trembled, gone any sense of bravado. “Your Majesty, please! I have only ever wished to serve you!”

  “Turn and face your judgment.”

  Malachai pressed his back into the hard stone. His fingers clenched the jeering altar and he counted down his breaths, certain each was his last.

  “Highness--”

  Malachai’s words were severed by the flash of the slicing blade. He choked down a last gulp of air as the cool edge pressed into his throat’s alabaster lump. He gasped as blood trickled from under the blade. He closed his eyes, content to depart his wretched existence in darkness. An eon later, the dagger’s kiss was severed and Malachai dared to steal a breath. Pandora placed the weapon gently down on the altar and reached overhead to the arbour. A sneer crept over her mouth, curling back her lips, freeing two rows of gleaming porcelain teeth. A menacing silence deafened the Garrison. “Perhaps you can yet be of use to me.”

  Pandora touched the highest rune, siphoning out the powerful magic she had inscribed long ago. A surge of florid orange coiled down her cold fingertips like a serpent stalking prey. Drained, the rune went lifeless. Malachai stared long and hard at the magic crawling around the Liche Queen’s arm. He had no heart left to speak of, but had he, it would have sunk deep into the bedrock. The high-point rune was the thirteenth and final mark carved into the arbour. And Her Majesty’s favorite.

  Malachai sank to his knees. Life as he had known it as both man and Wakeful was over. He was to become something more. Something evil and twisted, born of the haunted depths of the Liche Queen’s own hateful dreams. Something never before seen in the waking world.

  Something wicked...

  “Resist and you will die,” Pandora cautioned. With no further warning she pressed her glowing palm into Malachai’s pale forehead. The blaze of the rune’s Wicked curse consumed Malachai like a wild-fire, spreading over his body in seconds. His muscles spasmed, contorting his limbs into a snapping tangle of flesh and bone. He tried to scream but the curse burned away the air from his ruined lungs.

  Pandora’s warning was Malachai’s sole thought as he burned. He spasmed again, severing the tip of his tongue and grinding teeth into bloody dust. Pungent sulfur mists wafted from Malachai’s writhing body. The Blight worked quickly, efficiently. The death force ate at Malachai’s corpse a layer at a time, rotting away skin and tissue. Soon, all that remained was a pile of trembling bones.

  “Arise, my dark champion,” Pandora whispered, “Your Queen has need of you.”

  The pile of bones began to shake and then exploded violently into a tempest of jagged, skeletal debris. Pandora snapped her fingers and the cloud collapsed, interlocking its broken pieces like a child’s puzzle. Malachai’s jaw stretched into an exaggerated equine shape. Two rows of empty eye sockets climbed the muzzle’s surface into its brow line. A mane of greasy black sprouted forth, covering the new face. Deep crimson light flickered in the vacant spaces until their blaze split the Garrison’s gloom. Veins and muscle covered the horrid new skeleton as the spine contorted and stretched. The morphing vertebra creaked like a crypt door as it split into two snapping tails covered in thorn-like barbs.

  The creature shook the slate grey fur covering the new born muscles of its rippled chest. It rocked on its haunches and licked the leathery scales of its hind quarters with a forked tongue. Malachai’s new jaws stretched into a yawn, revealing a maw filled with razor sharp teeth. The wicked thing trundled to the Liche Queen, its steps punctuated by clicking talons. Twin tails curled around her leg like a loving pet’s.

  Pandora scratched the behemoth under its jaw, when it suddenly reared back and howled, rattling the Garrison, shaking dust and splinters free from the dome. The cadre of Wakeful drew their blades but was halted by a girlish laugh and the stay of her hand.

  The Liche Queen admired her handiwork with an evil grin. “Now that’s more like it.”

  ***

  The door closed behind him with a satisfying thump. The throne room was exactly as the Beast remembered: regal but never an ivory tower. The familiar sound of trickling water invited him to approach the dais. The fearsome stallions of warm marble maintained their staunch posture, but happily received the overdue visitor.

  The Beast humbly trod the maroon stretch of carpet to the throne. The walls of the great chamber were still covered by thousands of tiny white candles. Their flames danced in cool breezes siphoned in by slit-like windows stretching from floor to ceiling. As a child he had felt like the windows were the tallest things in all the land. He regarded them once more as he reached the dais, happy to see they retained their grandeur.

  Polaris sat on the simple throne, beaming at the Beast’s timely arrival. He bowed respectfully and then bent to kneel. She gestured for the Beast to stand. “Welcome home, Captain. I’ve never understood the need for such formality.”

  The Beast kept his amber orbs affixed to the floor and shook his head. His knee remained firmly planted on carpet covered stone. “I kneel not of law or tradition.” He approached the thron
e and embraced the petite figure with the out-stretched arms.

  “I kneel of gratitude and love…” the Beast said softly, “Lady Adella.”

  Polaris squeezed tighter around the Beast’s broad neck. “You remember,” she whispered.

  “I am ashamed to have ever forgotten, my Queen.”

  “My son, you forgot nothing. The memory was stolen from you.”

  The Beast’s heart warmed. Despite the genuine love of their bond, Polaris had never before used the word ‘son’. As if reading his mind, Polaris tilted his chin up firmly meeting his sheepish gaze.

  “You are my son.”

  The Beast was grateful beyond measure to finally feel a semblance of belonging in the world. The revelations of the Corridor of Chronicles had restored the pieces of his forgotten memory; Polaris’s motherly love restored his forgotten heart. The Beast cocked his head. “Why did you never tell me? Surely, you could have confided in me you true name.”

  “The Aether used to walk with mortals with no pretense of disguise. Sadly, mankind has allowed its love for magic to fade and have turned their backs on the Once Ways. Having abandoned our guidance a cloak of anonymity became necessary,” The North Star sighed heavily. “How I wish it were not so.”

  The throne room vanished upon Polaris’s last word. The helm of the Reaper’s Song and a stunned Poogs filled itself in around them. A blustering wind tugged at Polaris’s sapphire dress, rippling it like one of the ship’s sails. The Beast moved to shield her; fearful the gusts may sweep her away, leaving him alone once more. The pirate did his best to collect himself. He fidgeted with his cuffs, hiked up his trousers. “You truly keep the highest of company, Beast of Briarburn. The light of the North Star has watched over my ship on many perilous nights.”

  He pumped an excited fist. “And now that she has joined our noble cause defeat will surely flee at the sight of our approach.”