The Queen of Wolves

by Douglas Clegg

  It is something in the mind that can be tapped to re-create the form of another species, but it requires the strongest of minds not to lose one’s self in the creation. The molecules connected to the shifter also go, and become part of the new creation—so my cloak, the Nameless wrapped at my waist, my clothes, all became the skin and feathers and talons of the birds. The Chymer wolf-women were victims of a plague particular to them—and their shapeshifting was not within their conscious control at all, but came upon them from the will of Ghorien and his Myrrydanai. But my mind had become touched with the greater Asmodh sorcery, and I felt a great surge of life with each shift of my body.

  When I shifted into the birds, it felt no different to me than drawing my wings from my shoulders. It was a pleasure to do so, and I felt an utter freedom and a desire to leave the cares of the world of mortal and immortal behind me, and become the creatures to which I had changed my form. I descended—a flock—from the roiling clouds, and the snow felt fresh upon my being—for just a moment I felt the presence of that greater self within me—the Serpent.

  As I swooped the towers of the city, I heard the shrill cries of the Morns, and glanced downward to watch a mottled-skinned Morn, her head half-shaved, looking up at me, her eyes narrowing as she watched the flight of birds.

  Her milky eyes seemed to take me in, and although I only glanced at her for a second, I knew who it was from her shape and her face, despite the scarring and the absence of personality there: it was Kiya.

  She had been turned into one of the Myrrydanai slaves, slave to the staff, to the Queen of Taranis-Hir, to the will of the alchemist Artephius.

  I flew past her, wondering if she would follow me, but she did not. The Morns had no thought of their own, but were merely the hunting jackals of this city. In a whirl, I flew across the tombs of Taranis-Hir, and toward the towers of White-Horse itself, past the hundreds of soldiers who mounted great pots of boiling fire, and timber cut from the woodlands to be used to pummel those who came beneath the city battlements. In the loopholes of the castle walls, archers stood at the ready, and many lined up with bows between the crenel spurs above the gates themselves. At the conical spires of the towers, still other lookout guards watched the skies for vampyres; but none noticed the birds that flew just beneath them, as falcons might, though not on such a stormy evening.

  When I found again my daughter’s bedroom as I had seen it once before, I dropped through its narrow window and re-formed myself once I touched the floor.

  4

  It took a moment for my re-formation—I felt a shimmering of my body as the many birds came together. The staff drew from my fist, and I felt at my waist for the sword. I drew the hood of my cloak over my head, and brought the glamour to the cloth that it should resemble that of the White Robes.

  The chamber was empty, but when I went into the hall, I saw the servant Constantine there.

  “Do not be afraid,” I said. “I am here to find my children.”

  He looked at me, eyes wide, and would not speak. I saw a bandage at his right wrist, and his hand was missing—cut off, no doubt, as punishment for his part in my escape from the clutches of the Red Scorpion. He shook his head, his eyes downcast, and I understood from the gesture that my children were no longer in the tower.

  “Where then?” I asked.

  He tried to talk, but strange raspings came from him. His tongue. They had cut it.

  He pointed at me as I approached him, but I realized quickly that he pointed through me—to someone who had come out of one of the chambers down the hall.

  I heard a noise—a slight whistle of metal—a dagger, flung in the air? I turned swiftly, raising the staff, and the blade that had been aimed for my back broke against the Nahhashim.

  Behind me, the consort of the lady of the castle drew his sword.

  5

  “Corentin Falmouth,” I said to my half-brother. His face had grown gaunt over the past weeks, but he wore the look of royal smugness he had always cultivated. His hair was cut short, a fashion of the knights of the Disk, and he wore the robes of a king, though he’d been born—as was I—in the marshes at the edge of the trees and field. He reached for his sword, and I heard the whine of its blade as he drew it out. I pulled the Nameless swiftly—it formed a short sword with the flicker of fire upon it—and flung it at him and willed that the blade should find his sword-bearing wrist that he might feel the punishment meted out to the elderly servant.

  The blade struck bone, and seared his flesh, then was in my grip again, for I was its master. Corentin’s sword dropped to the floor, clattering. His hand was still wrapped tight around its hilt as it fell. He leaned forward, clutching his wrist, crying out in pain.

  “You’re fortunate,” I said. “You will not bleed as you have bled Constantine, for the fire of the Asmodh sword sealed your flesh and blood as it cut you.”

  Corentin looked up at me, fury in his eyes, sweat pouring from his face. “You bastard son of a whore! My wrist burns now, but you will burn in the sun eternally!” He shouted for guards, and I leapt upon him, wanting to drag him then and there out to the walls and drop him to his death. But I heard the whisking of cloaks and the sound of approaching guards and knew I had no time for him.

  Instead of soldiers, the Myrrydanai in their flesh garments arrived, though the skin had begun rotting as it hung from the shadows beneath their robes. A dozen White Robes moved swiftly along the corridor toward us, and several more came from the opposite direction. I lifted Corentin by the throat until his legs dangled. “Would you like to lose both hands? For your crimes, I should tear your heart out now.”

  He snarled and groaned in pain, but the White Robes moved closer, their capes and robes drifting across the floor as if they had no feet, their skin drawn and battered as if they had not changed the skins of the dead for many weeks.

  “Maz-Sherah,” they whispered, a hundred maddening locusts tickling my ear. “Come to us. We know you, and wish for your safety. Do not believe the lies of the Serpent, for it is the Dark Mother who seeks your blessing this night.”

  I tossed Corentin to the side and glanced at Constantine. The old man crouched on his knees in fear, covering his face and whimpering.

  The White Robes drew swords from their long, heavy sleeves, and their fleshly gloves held them tightly.

  “You fight as men now,” I said. “Your magick must be waning as the fire of the sun wanes at this time of year. I call to Ghorien to show himself to me.”

  “Maz-Sherah,” they whispered as one. “Come to us, and we will take you to our Dark Mother that she may delight in you.”

  The priests lunged at me, and I willed myself to shift into a burning swarm of wasps, swirling around them, and through them, feeling their thoughts as my wasp forms bit their flesh, while they swatted at me—I felt among them for Ghorien, for I sensed the winds of their minds, and moved through them to find their master. He was not among them. It pained me to be the small creatures, and I could not shift again to another form quickly. I found cracks in the walls, and went through them and in the courtyards flew down, and had to re-form swiftly into my own body again, for the cold would have killed the insects I had manifested in but a few moments.

  I shifted again, and brought much pain into myself as I sought out my new disguise. I had not expected to suffer from the shapeshifting, but I was sore as I re-formed myself, and my skin seemed to unravel as I did this. In seconds, I became the figure of a White Robe, feeling the slickness of rotting flesh on a form of shadow, and thus dressed, passed by many guards and the commotion raised by Corentin’s alarm. Within, I felt jabs and stings, as if I had abused this new sorcery and demanded too much of it.

  Many more guards had come to Taranis-Hir since the weeks of my journey had passed. Mortals were fooled by the false piety of the White Robes, and by the magnetism of the Nahhashim staff that Enora held close to her. Their sorcery blinded men, and tempted them with rewards. The courtyards and the tribunes and the steps up to the b
attlements teemed with soldiers at the ready, and hundreds of squires held horses for their knights, who sought blessing among the chapels of the Disk. Soon, a new alarm sounded as men shouted from the towers that there was an intruder within the city walls. Horsemen rode by, fully armored, their vigilance wasted as I walked by them in disguise. New blasts of horns sounded along the towers, and shrieks of the Morns pierced the night. I saw three of the creatures soar above, then a howling of the wolf-women began out beyond the castle walls.

  The streets were empty of all but guards, and each nodded to me as I passed, for they revered these foul White Robes as emissaries from the Virgin of Shadows. I pitied them in their ignorance at the doom they had brought upon their own kind. Many of these soldiers would fall in battle, and would serve as vessels to the Asyrr and their warriors. Many were young men from distant lands who had come because the plague of the Disk dream had taken them over. I saw the Disks hanging by thin straps about their throats or dangling from their wrists, or wrapped about their scabbards. Pitied them, yes, but I could not save them from what hell would come to them that night.

  They had willingly walked into shadows and abandoned their own kings and queens and lands and gods to follow a plague dream’s command. There had been those who did not love this city, and did not revere its baroness as a “Queen of Wastelands,” a blessed saint. But these soldiers and knights had come, as had the alchemists and foundrymen who worked the furnaces and the laboratorium, and assisted Artephius in his tortures and experiments.

  I would have hunted for Pythia among the white towers where she might be feted as a foreign princess for her grand betrayal...but I knew that it was to Artephius she would return.

  So, as a Myrrydanai priest, I sought out my father’s workshop.

  6

  Despite the noise and cry above, the Barrow-Depths of the city were nearly silent, interrupted only by the dripping and gurgling of the vaulted rooms between the canals that ran below the city itself.

  I followed the slender low corridors, through the vaults and passageways, across the laboratorium floor that had been abandoned by its workers. I closed my eyes, seeking the stream, for even Artephius existed within it, an immortal who did not have the breath of the Sacred Kiss within him. I followed along the niches and passed the foundries, and finally reached the study where I had been taken and bled one night during the arena games.

  I touched the arched wooden door, and in the stream’s vibration, I felt him, like a colony of termites in the wood of the door itself. Locked was the door, but as I brought the staff to its keyhole, I heard the click and turn of the mechanism, for no lock could keep out the one who held the Nahhashim.

  I entered the alchemist’s study with the Myrrydanai hood drawn down to conceal my features.

  At the room’s threshold, I shifted again to myself, the rotting skin and shadow giving way to the solid flesh, staff held beneath my robes, and hand on the grip of the Nameless should I need it.

  The armored man stood near a bellows and a fire, while two grimy assistants—one wearing the Phrygian cap that was popular among alchemists of the time, and the other a skullcap—worked the flames as red liquid shot through a clay trough, and spilled down into a fat round crucible that sat upon a wooden tripod. Skullcap turned and saw me first, and called out to his master. Phrygian Cap dropped his crucible full of green liquid, and as it crashed to the floor, a vapor came up from it that seemed nearly in the shape of a small beautiful woman—a spirit that dissolved in the air.

  Artephius turned from the high table where he pored over pages of his grimoire. I knew this book well, for its scrolls had once been buried in an urn, and when broken, the words had escaped and found Merod Al Kamr. I had no doubt that all of Artephius’s power was generated by this grimoire. If I had it in my possession, I would destroy it.

  His visor was closed, and I could not see his eyes through the slits of the metal of his helm. He dismissed his workers quickly, admonishing them to return to the furnaces for their continued labors. “You will tell no one of this,” he said to them brusquely. “Or you will be back in the foundries working with the ashlings again.”

  After they had passed by me at the door, he said, “You will want to shut the door behind you, my son. You risk much to come here.”

  7

  “I do not have much time, for many search the towers and streets,” I said, as I drew the staff out from beneath my cloak.

  “Ah,” he gasped, and reached his gloved hand forward as if he might touch it from across the room. He held his palm facing outward. “I feel the power of the gray priests of Nahhash in its warmth. This is fresh-cut, not the old staff Enora keeps at her side.”

  “It is from the earth of Myrryd, a place you know well,” I said.

  “How did you keep the swarms from tearing your flesh?” he asked. “For when I walked in that garden, I was much abused by the Akhnetur. They guard the bones of the gray Nahhashim with their lives. Yes, Maz-Sherah, I saw much in the red city.” He waved his hand toward the thick, rough-bound book. “But did not learn of its secret until I spent many years studying the scrolls. It has been too long since I visited the temples and palaces. The tombs of the Asyrr. The Asmodh Well.”

  “You have been in the Asmodh depths?” I asked, for I did not believe it. Artephius was someone who allowed others to suffer that he might find his knowledge. Though he himself had lost his youth and humanity over many centuries, still I did not believe he had suffered in the way that he had made others writhe in pain.

  He did not answer my question, but took a step toward me, his hands upraised as if feeling for some invisible field between us. “You have the Serpent in you now. I can smell him.” He seemed to take in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “You stink of the Asmodh, as if you still are there beneath the flood.”

  “From those depths to these, I have drawn great sorcery.”

  “Yes. Yes,” he said, as if confirming some suspicion. “For you were born to this. You are Maz-Sherah.” Again he pointed to the grimoire, and whispered a few words in a secret language, and the old book began to flip its pages, unfolding ragged edges of skinlike paper. “It is written on her flesh, the words of blood. If you would read what is there, you will understand much, little falcon. It is for you I have spent these years in study, seeking the marvels above the Earth, and the prophecies of the ancients. It tells of your future as well as your past.”

  A page ripped out of the book, its paper yellowed and veined, and stained with the brown of old blood. It flew on an invisible wind, as if carried by some unseen demon, to float between us. Upon it, a thin line of fire scorched words of the old language. When the fire went out, the blackened words became the image of the sword of fire, and around it, a hand gripped it, and from this hand, an arm grew, and from the arm, a body, and a face. I did not have much trouble recognizing myself in the art that he had conjured.

  Suddenly, the arm tore from the body. Almost instinctively, I clutched my arm as if it were mine that tore from its socket.

  The page burned away, dissolving in a flash of flame, becoming blackened bits that floated downward to the floor, and yet the torn bit with the arm and the sword remained intact and flew swiftly to Artephius’s hand.

  “I know of this sword,” he said as he glanced down at the bit of paper. “If you explored the Asmodh Well, it must have called to you. It has known your name since it was first thrust into the Serpent’s temple by Queen Medhya herself.”

  I drew my robe to the side, to show him the Nameless in its sheath. “It has found its master,” I said.

  “The treasure of the Asmodh, falcon. It has more than one master,” he said, but in his tone I detected a shift, as if he had not expected the sword to be in my possession. “Medhya once wielded this, and she will call to it if you do not grasp it tight. Have you read the words at its hilt?”

  “They are in the ancient languages, and I do not understand them,” I said.

  “Ba-yil-ir set-isil,” he
said, as if from memory. “It means ‘In Veil, I burn.’ For cursed is the one who grasps the Asmodh blade. Medhya was cursed, for she held it too long. How many nights have you kept it at your hip, little falcon? Has it brought you its dreams of the Asmodh terrors? For they were not benign sorcerers who delved and forged in the subterranean climes. They cursed the Great Serpent, and Medhya, and any to whom the blade calls. These ancient weapons were a damnation for the world above.”

  “Let me be damned to Hell then,” I said. “The Nameless has had few masters. But all have had great power.” I drew it out with my left hand, holding it in the air, parallel to the staff in my right. “If I were to thrust it into your plating, alchemist, no sorcery would keep it from burning your heart. Will it hurt, I wonder, as much as the Red Scorpion does? Or will this burn too fast, and will your suffering be too short?”

  “In the scrolls of Medhya, this Nameless is spoken of,” he said, no fear in his voice. Was he tempting me to attack him? I wondered. Did he wish for me to come closer that he might use some magick of the grimoire to trap me? Still, I stepped forward, the broken blade pointed at his chest.

  “Have you studied the art of the Nameless?” he asked.

  “Its art is in my blood,” I said.

  He laughed, and in scorn said, “It is not merely fire at its broken hilt. Do you understand what it can become?”