by Heath Pfaff
"Tyvel, the letter from the king said that I was being watched. Do you have any idea how they could be doing that? It is far from easy to sneak up on Malice and I, so I do not believe that they've had scouts keeping tabs on us. We'd have discovered them by now." I hoped the ghost could provide answers.
The floating specter seemed lost in thought for a time before he answered. "If you left something personal behind, some object of importance, they could have obtained that item and may be employing the skills of a very powerful scryer. A scryer can use a fetish tied to an individual to see things far removed from their physical body. Once a connection is established, they can watch their target for hours on end with little effort."
I winced at that prospect. If it were true, that would mean that it was my fault they'd known how to find us. It was my fault that Wisp was dead, and that Kaylien was in hands of terrible men. I had never heard of a scryer before, but Tyvel was far more aware of the magic possessed by the king than I was. He had served as a researcher for the king longer than I had lived. His explanation made a lot of sense. What item, I wondered, had I left behind that was important to me? I could think of nothing, but certainly I had not taken much with me when I left my old life. That which I carried on my person was all that I owned as far as possessions were concerned.
"Tell him of the men . . . the creatures, which attacked the cabin. He needs to know." Malice spoke from where she ran, just ahead of me and the floating ghost.
Tyvel looked troubled. "When they first came, I thought they were Knights of Ethan, only dressed in black capes rather than ones of Lucidil fabric. They were something else though, something far more terrifying. . ."
"They appeared as the Knights of Ethan upon first inspection, with the familiar arms and legs born of the joining of Fell Beast and man, but there was more to them than that. They had the eyes of men, though dull and crazed looking, as though some part of their humanity had fled. The beast parts of their body extended beyond their arms and legs as well. I could not see much, but I watched as they fought with Wisp, and they seemed to be almost entirely Fell Beast but for their heads. What magic crafted them, I do not know."
"They could communicate with one another, but their language was rough, broken, as though their minds were too far changed to form complete thoughts. They were organized and fierce, but without the finesse of training one would expect from a Knight of Ethan . . . and their brutality was . . ." The ghost seemed to shimmer as if shivering. "I tried multiple times to stop them, but they ignored my presence entirely. Wisp fought bravely, killing six of their number before she was finally overwhelmed, but even as they held her down and began to. . . violate her, she broke free and tore the head from the first of them. They cut her claws from her then, and the battle was ended."
"It was the worst thing I've ever witnessed, Noble. They were feasting on her flesh as they forced themselves upon her, and they removed her head before they finished with their games. I screamed for them to quit, yelled and did all I could manage to distract them from their horrible undertaking, but it was as though I was not there. What was worse, they held poor Kay at the sidelines as they. . ."
"No more!" I yelled, gritting my teeth together. "I need hear no more. If you tell me one more thing I might not be able to stop myself from going after them right now, so please. . . no more." Indeed, I was at my wits end holding back the terrible rage that burned inside me. They had violated a friend I considered my sister, and forced my child to witness the foul acts they committed against the woman that was as close to a mother as Kay had ever known. I could not abide the thought.
"What do you think the monsters are?" I asked, once I'd managed to calm myself enough to speak again. It was no easy task. Fire burned just beneath the surface of the calm I was feigning.
Tyvel merely shrugged, but Malice spoke. "I believe they are what the king is using to replace the dwindling Knights of Ethan. They seem less capable than the Knights, but more powerful than any mere foot soldiers. They are some hybrid of man and monster, but without the restraints of our kind. That is my guess."
"So, the king has decided that one set of monsters is not enough to feed his desire for power." I nearly spat the words. The Knights of Ethan were a terrible creation, born of an unjust sacrifice of innocents, but the king had found some new way to create monsters. I wondered what, besides the humanity of those turned into these hybrids, was lost in the process. There was always a cost to magic.
As if in response to that thought, the inside of my Lucidil cloak seemed to grow cold for a second, almost icy against my skin. The mysterious fabric had never done anything like that before, and I wondered if it had actually been my cloak, or simply a chill I'd felt as a result of my dark line of thought. I put it from my mind for the moment.
"These kings go too far in the quest for a better world. He's crafting a land of nightmares and torment." I heard Malice say. It was the first time I'd heard her directly speak out against the king in the nearly three years that I'd known her. She had served as a Knight of Ethan for a long time, working for a cause that she had desperately wanted to believe in. It had been a cause we'd all wanted to believe in.
"All men who would change the world, must first be willing to destroy it." Tyvel said, hovering at my side, his substance almost completely impossible to see. I turned to look at the ghost, not sure what he implied with that statement.
"Perhaps the world doesn't need to change." I offered.
"Oh?" He replied, his form solidifying and becoming more consistent. He smiled, an inhuman expression on his ghostly features, but one tinged with some difficult to decipher emotion. "Perhaps it doesn't."
All men who would change the world, must first be willing to destroy it. Those words settled heavily upon me, and I thought of Lucidil for the first time in a great many years. He had opposed the king, and stood against the power that the human leader wielded over the land. He had done terrible thing in the name of his cause, but had he done anything worse than the king I'd served? Should I have worked harder to support his ideal? Silent, my dear lost friend, fallen to the icy seas years before, had believed in Lucidil's cause, and the eventual peace that it promised to bring. Had I been wrong to frown upon Lucidil for his methods, especially in light of the atrocities committed by the king against my family?
Any time I thought of Lucidil, and any time I questioned the legitimacy of his cause, I was always reminded of the screams that had issued from a crumbled storefront as the mighty Broken Sword, his wings spread wide casting a shadow of death below him, had entered that building. Those terrible screams, which had stopped so abruptly, leaving behind an even more terrible silence, still haunted my memories. Lucidil had a cause, but it was one he followed to the exception of all else. He held no compassion for those who stood in his way, and saw no obstacle he couldn't crush beneath him if it would help him reach his ends.
I thought of Lace, the slave I'd begged free of her servitude, and wondered what had become of her. Lucidil had used her life to bend me to his will, and I had, in the end, left the lands of men, and forsaken my quest for the lord of the Broken Swords. Did Lucidil, the man I'd first known as Weaver, simply let her go? I wanted to believe that he wouldn't have bothered tracking her down just to punish me, but at the same time, I feared to discover the truth. Had I given Lace her freedom, only to curse her to death by my inability to hold to my word? If I was to travel to the lands of the king once more, Weaver and I would have a reckoning. I did not doubt that. He would find me, and I wasn't sure what I would do when that time came.
"This world is a terrible place." I said beneath my breath, and I wondered for the first time, if perhaps it didn't need some change after all.
The woodlands broke and we found ourselves running across rocky plains until eventually the ground began to weave and bow, and we knew we had finally arrived at the foothills of Tuv'et. Beyond those hills lay the Tuv'et Mountains, and beyond them the Great Salt Seep, a stretch of cold salty water that
some said reached into forever. Ships that sailed too far from land were rarely seen again. Some believed they sailed endlessly, looking for land across the Seep, yet never finding it. Others thought that massive monsters lived in the depths of the salty waters, swallowing up ships foolish enough to sail into their reaches. I had been out to sea, and though I had seen no monsters large enough to swallow a ship, I had encountered a beast of a different kind. Those creatures that sailed aboard the dragon-ship still haunted my dreams at times. The sea was no friendly place.
It had taken us more than four days to make the run to the foothills, nearly five, and Malice and I were both tired from the journey. Deciding to rest, we took up shelter beneath a behemoth of a tree that stood alone at the bottom of a deep valley. A steady rain had settled in, cold and with the barest taste of winter on its chilly breath. Malice had spoken little on our trip, seeming to grow more and more uncomfortable the nearer our goal we came. I knew why, and I didn't need to ask her how much further we had to travel because I could tell by how pensive she became with each passing hour. We were close.
I built a small fire, and we used it to cook a stew from some of the meat we carried and a small amount of nearby vegetation we were able to scavenge. Neither of us had eaten much recently, so the food had a far greater restorative effect than it would have otherwise possessed. By the time we'd both finished our food, even Malice was looking somewhat less nervous, though the clouds of worry and doubt still cast their shadows on her features. Tyvel was quiet as well, seemingly lost in his own thoughts and worries. I wondered what so troubled a dead man, but did not feel it was my place to pry. I also wondered if my own face looked so haggard, and guessed that it did, for my own worries were as terrible and twisted as those of the others.
I held no fear at facing the Kaziem Wolves, or at the prospect of undergoing the changes that my meeting with the Kaziem Wolves would entail, but that did not mean I was untroubled. A minute did not pass when thoughts of Kay were not heavily upon me. I had failed the girl in many ways. I had been an authority figure without ever being a father to her. I had never once told my own daughter that I loved her, though I always had. In my grief at losing her mother, I had abandoned my daughter. Now that she was gone, I was forced to accept the fact that if I couldn't find a way to get her back safely, I would have failed her in every way possible. I was no father to her, and I had enabled the events that lead to whatever fate awaited her. If I could not save her, what right did I have to live? I was the greatest fool the world had ever chanced to know.
I lay back on the ground and looked up into the leaves of the tree above me. I couldn't let my daughter slip away from me. I would recover her at any cost, and make those who'd taken her, and killed Wisp, pay for what they'd done. I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep, knowing that I would need my rest for the days ahead. I had to take care of the troubles before me one at a time.
It seemed my eyes had only just closed, when I was opening them again. The first light of dawn was coming through the tree above, though it was dim and grayed out by the heavy hanging clouds above. It had, I judged by the suns position, been four hours or more since I'd fallen asleep, and my body felt rested. Thankfully, I had not dreamed. I sat up and looked to my right, where Malice was laying. Her eyes were open, and starring up into the tangle of branches overhead.
"It'll be today." She said. "They already know we're here. They came and watched us while we slept."
I frowned and stood up, walking about the fringes of our camp. Sure enough, there were wolf prints all about us, large and deeper than I had expected. Kaziem Wolves must weigh as much as a large man, I realized as I saw them. I had not heard the creatures at all during the night, even with my sensitive hearing. Nor had I sensed their approach. It was unsettling to think that they had come and walked amongst us so quietly that it had not woken me from my sleep. I noted that their paw prints had an extra pad at the back, a significant difference from any wolf print I'd seen before. I wondered why a pack of creatures, and indeed there had been many of them, at least six or possibly more, that had come so quietly to watch us, would be so careless as to leave sign of their passing.
"They wanted us to know they'd been here." Malice said, as she saw me studying the tracks.
"Why didn't they attack us in the night while they had the advantage?" I asked, and indeed I was curious to know why a wild animal, or a pack of wild animals, would pass up a chance at what they would surely perceive as easy prey.
"Because they know of our kind, and are willing to speak with us as equals." Malice said quietly, looking uneasy.
"Speak with us?" I was confused. I knew nothing of Kaziem wolves, but I had never heard of a wolf who spoke before.
"The Kaziem are intelligent, Lowin. They're crafty hunters that long ago learned the language of man, and have not forgotten its twists and turns. Most of mankind is no more than food to them, but they see the Knights of Ethan, those of us joined with Fell Beasts, as something like mortal-gods. They do not worship us, but they also do not attack us outright. It is difficult to explain. You will have to speak with them to fully understand." Malice attempted to clarify, but I was still at a loss. I had never anticipated that the Kaziem would be a creature I could speak with. I had pictured them like the Fell Beast, a monster I would have to face in combat, and defeat in order to form a bond with, so that I might take a piece of them into myself.
It was at that point that Tyvel coalesced a few feet away from Malice. He didn't sleep that I was aware of, but sometimes he disappeared into his box for a while before reemerging. I had asked him about it once, and he described it as a place of quiet rest that he could go when there was nothing else for him to be doing. I wondered why he had not thought to keep watch the night before, but I let it pass. We had not asked him, indeed, had not thought it was necessary at the time. With my acute hearing, I'd never had to worry about someone sneaking up on me in the past. Obviously, at least in the case of the Kaziem Wolves, I would need to be a little more cautious.
"Tyvel, you'll need to stay here. The business ahead is for only Malice and myself." I told the ghost, certain that what was to happen should be a private event between my green-eyed companion and myself. I wasn't sure why I felt that way, but it just didn't seem right for the ghost to be there.
Tyvel looked confused, and then angry. "I don't see why I must be left behind. I have traveled with you so far, what is it that you must do that I cannot have some part in? Has my knowledge not been of value to you over the years, and would I not continue to be asset in whatever business awaits?"
I opened my mouth to reply, but to my surprise, Malice spoke first. "You're right, Tyvel. Your knowledge is important, and you should come with us." She was standing up from where she'd been laying on ground. She slung her pack onto her back.
I shot a betrayed look at Malice, who looked back at me and shrugged. "He is a specialist in the magic involved in what we're about to attempt. While I would normally agree that this is a matter between us, in this case, Tyvel's help could be necessary. I have never done what we're about to try, I may need his insight."
"Insight into what?" Tyvel asked, obviously flustered that he was not privy to what we were discussing, and that we both seemed to have vastly differing opinions on how to proceed. I looked at the ghost and sighed, not wanting to give in to Malice, but understanding that she knew best what was needed to achieve our ends. It was an argument I didn't want to have, and didn't think I could win. On some level I knew that she was probably right. Tyvel could prove helpful. Though I meant no ill-will against our spirit friend, I still felt that he did not have a place in what was to transpire. He wasn't a Knight of Ethan, and even if he'd helped create the process through which the Knights were bonded, he didn't have a part to play in what I needed to do.
"Alright, if that is what you believe is best." I told Malice, unhappy about losing the point.
"'Believe is best,' for what?" Tyvel asked again, looking even more agitated
than he had been a moment before.
Malice turned to face our ghostly travel companion. "Noble is going to try and take the Kaziem Wolf Heart, and I may need help during the process, even if it's only your voice you can offer."
If it was possible for the ghost to go paler then he already was, he did. "Oh no, you mustn't do this!" He almost yelled, his form blurring as he turned to face me. "Noble, you'll probably die trying this, and that wouldn't do at all. Think of Kay, what would. . ."
"I am thinking of Kay." I said firmly, and I could feel the scowl on my face. "I'm thinking of Kay, and Wisp, and of Kyeia, and of the disregard the king has shown for those he's sworn to protect. There is nothing more to argue on this point, Tyvel. This decision has been made."
A look of pure rage passed over the ghosts face, and for a moment his image seemed to ripple from white to red. "You are an ignorant fool!" He yelled. His form broke apart and he vanished.