In The Shadow Of The Beast

by Harlan H Howard

  Isolde was quiet then, allowing Sigourd a moment to absorb what she was telling him. The expression of deep concern never left her face. slowly, she moved closer to him, bowed her head low to his, ‘What I did I did for my people. But you must not doubt the honesty of my feelings for you. At first my only interest was to gain your favor so that you would follow me here when if you believed I’d been kidnapped. But as time went on I grew to care deeply for the man I was coming to know. I allowed myself to fall in love with you Sigourd.’

  Sigourd regarded her coldly for a few moments, considering her words. Finally, she had his response, ‘Then you are as fool as I for allowing that to happen.’ His jaw was set hard as he delivered the line.

  Sigourd was surprised to see that genuine pain flashed behind Isolde’s eyes, but she retained her composure. She stood up from the bed where she had sat, ‘You’ve been through much, you should rest.’ With that she turned and left the chamber. Sigourd noticed that Isolde could barely bring herself to look at the man in the doorway. She slipped past him where he allowed her the slimmest of gaps to pass by, an amused smirk on his face. Isolde’s body language suggested that she would be more inclined to bite off her own tongue than engage that man in any sort of contact other than was strictly necessary.

  The man watched Isolde disappear around a corner, and then turned to regard Sigourd.

  He could feel the malice that this man held for him, but refused to be cowed by it. Instead he sat up a little straighter despite the ache in his bones, meeting the other man’s malignant gaze unflinchingly.

  ‘She clearly has a weakness for you. Such a waste,’ said the man. ‘I would show her the error of that given but half the chance.’

  A cruel smile creased his mouth just then as a thought occurred to him, ‘Perhaps one day such a chance will come my way. One simply has to twist fate’s arm and the possibilities are endless.’

  Just then, another voice, brazen and low like the rumble of an avalanche, sounded in the chamber, one that Sigourd recognized instantly.

  ‘Bael, you will leave us now.’

  Sigourd hadn’t even realized there was another person in the room with him.

  The man named Bael looked to a far corner of the chamber, his expression darkening even further. His thin lips tightened in annoyance, but he said nothing more before turning to stalk from the chamber, casting only the briefest of contemptuous glances in Sigourd’s direction.

  Sigourd turned to see who it was that had spoken from behind him, although he already knew full well to whom the voice belonged.

  Moving to stand before Sigourd was the large man who had confronted him in the clearing beneath the harsh light of the full moon. Here in the telling rays of the new day it appeared that the man’s harsh features had softened somewhat. But not so much that his appearance was not unusual in the classification of mortal men. As Sigourd studied that weatherworn face, he saw beneath the eyes the pain of one who had witnessed a lifetime of hardships, glimmering with the light of an unyielding spirit.

  ‘You should not judge Isolde too harshly for her part in your deception, Sigourd. Hers was a challenging part to play. More so for the fact that she has truly grown to love you.’

  Sigourd chastised himself mentally for the spark of joy that flared inside him to hear this man speak of Isolde’s love for him. She had deceived him, caused him to charge headlong foolishly into danger. He could not forgive that, and did not wish to allow himself the weakness of falling prey to his emotions for a second time.

  ‘Her part in what?’ Sigourd asked, ‘her part in this fantasy about wulfen and other mythic beasts?’

  The craggy faced man sighed deeply, ‘First, I believe I should introduce myself. My name is Arook, and I lead this tribe. It was my wish that you be enticed into finding us. You are intertwined with a particular destiny that will have far reaching repercussions Sigourd.

  ‘Fantasy and madness is all I’ve heard from any of you.You expect me to believe anything you tell me?’

  ‘I expect you to believe your own eyes. I expect you to believe the truth you know to be written in your heart,’ said Aook, ‘have you not been plagued by dreams the color of blood. Nightmares that see you fighting to return to the world of the waking? It’s all a part of your becoming. Your emergence into a new world. The wulfen experience this because it is what we are, and come to it naturally when we are mature enough. It precedes The Change, which you have finally experienced yourself. However, you are neither truly human or wulfen, but a unique merging of both.’

  ‘You have lured me here and vexed me with some dark magic,’ said Sigourd, ‘is that my destiny, to be a victim of your twisted conjuring?

  ‘The fact of your existence is not related to any sorcery. At least no more so than the flowering of the trees or the birth of the new day. You owe your life to an unusual pairing. One that has been forbidden by both of the races whose blood courses through your veins. But that is the extent of it.’

  ‘You accuse my parents of some sort of deviancy? My father is The Regent of the land of Atos, and my mother is a lady of the realm. What is so unusual about that!?’

  Arook hung his head as if the burden of some great sorrow had been laid across his shoulders.

  ‘It pains me to be the one to tell you this Sigourd. No man should come to mistrust his origins, but your father is not The Regent. Your true blood sire was a man named Ishtar, the former leader of this tribe, and my brother.

  Sigourd wanted to laugh out loud at the preposterous nature of this strangers suggestion. Another part of him wanted to strike out at the man before him for daring to accuse his mother of infidelity. But there was yet another feeling hidden amongst the conflicting emotions of Sigourd’s heart. A small kernel of understanding that what Arook spoke was somehow true. As much as Sigourd might try to deny it to himself, he knew that this revelation was something his life had been building towards.

  ‘More lies,’ uttered Sigourd. But the words crept out of his mouth as a feeble whisper. Without the conviction they should have resonated with.

  ‘No Sigourd. My brother and your mother lay together in secret. You were the product of that union. This truth has been hidden from you all these long years, but it is time you were made aware of the nature of your ancestry. You were brought into this world for a great purpose Sigourd, to unite the two tribes of human and wulfen.’

  ‘I was brought into this world by The Lord Horix Fellhammer and The Lady Veronique Mortaron. That is the only truth I will ascribe to,’ protested Sigourd, the vehemence once more rising within him.

  ‘As I have already said, you are half correct,’ continued Arook, ‘but as to the rest, do not try to deny the instincts lurking in the darker places of your heart. I can see it in your eyes that you already know that I speak honestly, even if you wish it were not so. Perhaps even, you’ve always known what you are, even if your heart was closed to it.’

  Sigourd thought back to the lunatic accusations of Brodus Klay. At first they had seemed like the ramblings of someone who had clearly lost touch with reality, and although that was certainly true, the madman’s ranting now rang with a note of great import.

  Sigourd could feel his soul darken and shrivel as the measure of Arook’s words took hold of him. Arook stepped forward and reached out a hand to place on Sigourd’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort, ‘It gives me no pleasure to see the pain that this knowledge must cause you. But you are my brother’s son, and someday the the ruler of not just this tribe, but of all our disparate peoples.’

  Sigourd looked up, the question in his expression easy to read.

  ‘We are a dying race, hounded since the beginning of time and unto the ends of the earth,’ continued Arook, ‘but in you there is the small hope that we might survive, flourish even. You are the bridge between two worlds, the one who will lead our people out of their perpetual darkness and into the light of a new dawn.’

  Sigourd sunk back onto the shimmering gauze, its firm comfort offe
ring the only point of stability in his world at this moment.

  ‘Walk amongst our people Sigourd. We all live in the shadow of the beast. It is our curse and our salvation. But you will see that we are a noble race, deserving of the chance to live as all men are entitled to, free of the shackles of persecution.

  ‘And if I should choose to leave?’

  ‘You are not a prisoner here Sigourd. It is true, we lured you here under false pretenses, but only with the hope of illuminating you. Now that that purpose has been served, the choice is yours to make.’

  Arook left then, leaving Sigourd with his thoughts. He had much to consider.

  The sun glittered upon the waters surface like diamonds spilled from a jewelers purse. Sigourd looked out at the rippling of the lake as it gently lapped at a narrow shore, around which wrapped the forests edge. The giant pods of the wulfen village seemed to grow as far as the water, hanging over the lake’s edge like oversized baubles. Near and far the strange bone like substance of the pods seemed to grow in and around the shore and the surrounding tree line in profusions of fused tissue that looked unnervingly like the cartilage of some giant flayed beast. Truly it was like nothing Sigourd had ever seen in his life.

  He looked out across that lake at children playing in the shallows on the far side. Splashing about and laughing without care as children ought to.

  So strange, Sigourd thought to himself, that such unrestrained joy could exist out here in the far flung reaches of this strange never land.

  Sigourd had considered taking his leave of this place. Despite everything he had been told, all he longed for at this moment was to return to his home. To see his mother and father and hug them close. He had never felt more confused or alone as he did at this moment. But he was so conflicted. A great battle of anger over affection was raging within him. All his life he had been brought up to believe a lie, formulated and perpetuated by those closest to him. He did not now know what to believe or whom to trust.

  He had come so very far from home and all he had to show for it was a handful of half truths and the knowledge that inside him lurked the terrible curse of the wulfen. A childhood myth now revealed to be shockingly real. Sigourd wanted to run, run for his life. So far and so fast that his heart would burst and spare him the agony of facing who he really was.

  But he had decided instead to take Arook’s advise. Despite whatever horrors were wrought into his physical form, Sigourd’s character had been forged by his upbringing under the aegis of the family Fellhammer. He would not shirk his responsibilities, or shy away from the challenge laid before him. He would uncover for himself the truth behind the veil of his past.

  He had walked amongst the people of this strange place and taken for himself the measure of their character. What he had seen had surprised and saddened him in equal measure.

  The wulfen were a noble people indeed. Fair of skin and measured of deed, they seemed to possesses a grace that far outshone many of the human settlements Sigourd had visited throughout the course of his life. They lived and laughed and loved as any collection of intelligent people were wont to do. But there was also a great sadness behind their eyes. As of a people long down trodden beneath history’s cruel boot step.

  As he had walked amongst them, the wulfen had regarded Sigourd with a weary deference. It seemed as if every one of them was only too aware of whom he was and the important function he was supposed to play in their futures. It was mad to Sigourd that people whom he had never met regarded him with with such respect. As he passed them by they would stop what they were doing and nod their heads in acknowledgement. There was none of the selfless groveling and self abasement that one might assume would follow in the wake of someone purported to be the messianic figure Arook claimed Sigourd to be. Instead, the wulfen met Sigourd with a dignified acceptance, allowing him to pass by unhindered by any sort of hero worship or craven adulation.

  It was as he stood by the waters edge, contemplating his uncertain future, that he heard footsteps approach on the soft ground behind him. He turned to see Isolde standing before him.

  She as as beautiful as he’d always known her to be. Her long dark hair flowed out behind her, catching in the occasional breeze. Her beautiful eyes, almost gold, were alive with that same light that had drawn him to her in the first place.

  For the first time since Sigourd had met Isolde nearly six months previously, he could see in the delicate lines of her face the traces of the wulfen that marked them out from their human counterparts.

  When the wulfen were in the grips of their post Change metamorphosis, they looked for all the world like wolves that had evolved to walk on their hind legs. Massive and terrifyingly bestial things from some feverish nightmare. But that was only a small fraction of how they spent their lives. For the most part they dwelt within a shell that very closely resembled that of their human cousins. The physical differences were subtle, but they were there. The elongated septum, the jawline perhaps a little to pronounced. The crest of brow more angular than that of most humans. Sigourd could see all of these things in Isolde. He wondered if, now that he understood what he was looking at, wether he wold see the same traces of the curse in his own face.

  ‘I can’t begin to imagine how painful this must be for you,’ she said. Her expression was one of great concern. Sigourd could see clearly enough that she truly regretted misleading him. But as to the honesty of her feelings for him, he was not so certain.

  ‘My whole life, a lie,’ said Sigourd. ‘My mother has willingly lived that lie beside me since the moment of my birth. And my fath--’ the word caught in Sigourd’s throat, ‘...does The Regent know too?’

  Isolde shook her head slowly, ‘I don’t believe he does.’

  ‘It seems the women in my life are full of surprises,’ said Sigourd, the thought heavy on his heart.

  Isolde stepped forward to take his face gently in her hands.

  ‘For deceiving you I am truly sorry. I have done what I must for the good of all. As it is your destiny to also do, Sigourd.’

  ‘I am not made to rule like my-- like The Regent.’

  ‘Indeed you are not. Fate has a far grander plan for you than the regency of Corrinth Vardis.’

  Isolde fixed her eyes upon his, and the inner light that suffused them seemed to glow even more brilliantly. Sigourd found that he was transfixed by it, unable to tear his gaze away even if he should want to.

  ‘Do you know what it means to be of our blood, Sigourd Fellhammer?’ Isolde continued. ‘It is to be of the earth, connected to the All-mother in ways humanity has long since forgotten. If you are unable to remind them of their link to all things, the we are doomed. Not just the wulfen, but humanity also. Their self imposed annihilation is foreseen.’

  Sigourd was still transfixed by Isolde as she leaned in closer to him. Their faces merely inches apart. ‘Let me show you Sigourd,’ was the last thing Isolde whispered before she kissed him tenderly upon the lips. There was a moment of electricity between them, as Isolde reached out with her free hand to take hold of a spur of the bone tissue that grew out of the lake near them.

  The effect of her connection to the earth through that spur of tissue was immediate and profound. In the time it takes for a heart to beat once Sigourd was--

  --gripped suddenly by a waking dream. He lost all sense of himself, of who he was or even what. Suddenly, Sigourd was pure and unfettered thought consciousness, trapped within the shell of his own physical form. He could see every cell and membrane and atom that comprised the being he was, he could see the collection of blood cells rushing through arteries like torrents, he understood the limitations of his flesh form, but also how it was intricately connected with every living thing around it. He was everything, and everything was him. Suddenly he was expanding like a cloud of steam at an incomprehensible rate. He was climbing, higher and faster, seeing things that defied mortal comprehension.

  He soared out of his body, out of the borders of the wulfen village, high above t
he forest canopy which was fast dwindling to become a green smear across the vast, empty wastes of the Eastern Fringes. He rushed headlong over the jagged peaks of the Ash’harad, thundering across mountain ranges so vast and so high as to break the soul of a man if he could but look upon their brutal magnificence.

  Higher and faster, higher and faster. Soon even the Ash’harad was dwindling away to nothing. Sigourd’s consciousness continued to expand. He raced through layers of cloud cover, up and beyond the ceiling of the sky.

  He was in a place of incomprehensible darkness, out amongst the stars which glowered at him like the eyes of malevolent gods near and far.

  Too much, too much! Sigourd could feel the seams of his mind coming undone as the speed of his ever expanding consciousness layered ever more pressure upon them. He must focus. Focus down, focus down!

  And just as suddenly as he began to rise, he was falling.

  Back through the impossible blackness of the realm above the sky. Down through cloud and black smoke and hellish flame.

  The land is a mass of burning cities and acrid smog that chokes the very sky. Sigourd is falling through a wall of sound so thick it slows his descent. It is the sound of civilizations screaming as they die, and the horrific braying of their murderers.

  It is some apocalyptic nightmare. Cities burn and nations crumble into the fires of destruction, brutal looking war barges unleash payloads of destruction as they crest the waves of bloody oceans, and the skies are filled with the acrid black smoke of funeral pyres a thousand feet high.

  Amongst the madness, the races of man fight the wulfen, armies many hundreds of thousands strong rise and fall on tides of crimson vitae as war horns bray a funeral dirge--

  Sigourd collapsed to the ground, gagging on black smoke that wasn’t there. The cool grass felt so alien between his fingers. The light breeze coming of the lake rustled his hair so softly. Isolde knelt beside him, and gently helped him into a sitting position.