by Greg Curtis
“Of an ancient device – a globe,” the major-domo answered her.
“A globe?” That didn't sound like food or anything else her mother would be interested in. But it did sound dangerous. Abylon like most of the realms was ancient. Or the lands at least were ancient. Civilizations had lived there for ten thousand or more years. Kingdoms had risen and fallen. New ones had been built on the remains of the old ones. And while much of the old civilisations had been destroyed and forgotten, some of it remained. Relics and artefacts, writings and works of art. Bits and pieces of architecture and the occasional ruin. And though so much had been lost and forgotten, one thing was known. Very often the most dangerous things, the deadliest spells and technology, were ancient.
“What does it do?”
“We don't know. The arcanists don't know. But she came for it specifically. Nearly killed an arcanist getting it. And once she had it she left.”
Julius was telling her the facts of the matter, but Elan realised that he was also subtly asking a question of her. Why would her mother want an ancient artefact? Did she know?
Of course she didn't. The last time she had seen her mother had been a decade earlier and she had been ten at the time. What she remembered from then was limited and mostly it came back to the sense of love and comfort she had always felt whenever she was near – before that accursed morph had cursed her.
Just thinking of that miserable creature brought the anger back, and she yearned to one day find him and run him through with her blade. The others thought she trained as a bardic warrior because she felt vulnerable without her family, and was frightened of the hand-fasting they were already trying to arrange. But the truth was that she was a woman with a mission. To kill the foul morph who had blighted her family. She needed to be able to fight to do that and as a woman a warrior poet was the only sort of warrior she could ever be accepted as – even to train. And she ached to kill the morph who had destroyed her family. She ached for it with a passion that outshone everything else in her life. She did not care for a husband, though she would agree to being hand-fasted as she had to. Clothes, arts, friends, crafts and all the other things that women of her station were supposed to enjoy meant nothing to her. Vengeance was her one true goal. Sometimes it was the only thing she could think of.
“There is more Princess.” Julius continued when she didn't answer his unspoken question.
“More?”
“There was a morph there.”
“A morph?!” Suddenly Elan was beside herself with excitement. Ten years before the morph had been seen. A huge giant dire wolf according to the witnesses, who had constantly shifted between his human and wolf forms. He had howled and roared and snarled with such power as to wake the entire Quarter. And when he had arrived in the Castle he had killed without mercy or thought before making his escape. The only description they had of the morph was of a man of brutish proportions and long, grey hair. A monster.
“It's unlikely Princess. He is too young, he acted against your mother, saved an arcanist from her pack, and had no wolf shape.”
Did that mean anything Elan wondered? He could be older than he looked. He could have a wolf shape that they simply hadn't seen. Who knew with morphs? They were a foul people and followed a foul goddess. He might have acted against her mother because they'd had some sort of falling out. And there were very few morphs in the city. They suspected three at most. There weren't probably that many more in the entire realm. It was a rare curse. But she had people out watching for signs of them. The accursed creatures had been in hiding long before one had attacked her family, and if she had her way, the last of them would all be dead soon. To her mind it was as much a curse as was necromancy. They followed a dark path in life that corrupted the soul. They were better off dead.
But Elan knew she could never say that out loud. It was alright for the common people to say such things but she was a princess and the last of her family. In less than a year they would find her a husband to take her father's place and she would be queen. She had to always appear to be considered and in control of her emotions. To be obedient to the law. That meant she had to use another, plausible excuse to hunt down the morph. If and when they caught him, she'd have to find an acceptable excuse to kill him.
“We should send out the inquisitors after him regardless.” She addressed the room. “He may be innocent of the crime but he still may know something useful. After all, it seems odd that he should be there just when she does something new. More than coincidence. And if they make their enquiries as if they are looking for the wolf mother, no one will be the wiser that he is their true target.”
“We should also have the arcanists tell us everything they know about this globe. Is it magical or technological? Could it have something to do with the curse placed on my family? They may not know precisely what it is or does, but they must know something.”
“And then there's the fact that the Arcanium is in the Imperial Quarter”, Elan continued. “She’s never been there before. How did she get in and leave? We need to find out and seal the entrances. I am sure that that is what my father will instruct.”
She had to add the last because it was vital to everyone that the fiction was maintained. The Court knew the king couldn't instruct anyone about anything, but they had to at least have an excuse for believing that he might have. So everyone pretended that she carried words from her father. And she pretended to carry them while knowing that everyone there knew it was a lie. Lies within lies.
Her suggestions were readily accepted by the others. At least they nodded in agreement with her. Fifteen aged heads bent in harmony almost as if she were the king. But the chances were that they had already come to those same decisions before she had even spoken. Often they just wanted her there to agree with them. To make it seem as though they weren't actually running the kingdom.
“Is there anything else to consider?” She asked because she knew there was. She could see the questions in their eyes.
“We were debating the wisdom of sending soldiers after her.”
Lord Idan broached the idea, and heads immediately started turning away. It was a bad idea and everyone knew it including Lord Idan, but it was also perhaps a desperate one. After ten years of failing to catch the wolf mother, they were out of ideas. And now she was changing her attacks? Turning her hand to robbery. Moving into the Imperial Quarter. What did that mean? Because they were all worried that it signalled something. It was the reason why they had met so early this morning. And why they were now all looking so worried. Though no one said anything, every one of them feared that this was the start of something.
This terrible winter refused to leave the realm, and people were beginning to say it was unnatural. That it was dark wizardry. Her mother was changing her violent but simple habits of a decade. And once again a morph had been seen. The last time that had happened was ten years ago and the realm had lost its entire royal family. For a time the kingdom had teetered on the edge of disaster. Now they feared it might be about to happen again. They were scared. Scared enough to suggest desperate measures. Even foolish ones.
“After however many brave dead souls we've already sent after her? Ten years of dead soldiers? Not just scouts but entire brigades? I suggest to you that there is no point. Whoever was sent would not return. Not from the sewers. We would learn nothing and lose more good men.”
“I will speak with my father, but really I know that that will be his thought.” Elan was careful to maintain the fiction of a king who was sometimes lucid. She was also careful not to actually forbid the action even though it was a foolish idea. The Court might agree with her. Or they might not. But if they didn't then they would be formally acknowledging that Abylon had no ruler. And if that happened things would fall apart. This whole charade was a power struggle unlike any other. The Court held the power but were desperate not to admit that they did, since if they did they would lose it. She had no power but had to act as though she did and the Court had
to pretend she did. And the entire charade had to continue until they could finally have a new ruler. Abylon desperately needed a king.
Some days she wished she had the power to simply give orders. But that would not happen until she was married and her father could finally be removed from the throne. Her brothers from their princely stations. Then she would be queen and she could give the commands she ached to – as long as her husband let her of course. Until that day the best she could do was to suggest things and hope that the Court agreed with her.
Of course she could do one thing more – train. She could continue to prepare herself for the day when they finally caught the morph who had caused this. And then she could kill him.
Chapter Three
Crosses and blood. They stood in front of him; silent, still and terrifying. Perhaps even horrifying. Briagh didn't know quite how he felt about them. All he really knew was that they were there in front of him once again – just as they had always been – and that they called to him.
He thought he hated them. But he also feared them. And trapped as he was in the dream, he couldn't turn and run as he wanted to. All he could do was stand there and stare at them, waiting for what he knew came next.
Soon he found himself walking towards them. Walking across the blood soaked grass, his feet turning red as it bathed in the blood, his skin crawling at its touch. The smell of the blood filling his nostrils, choking him, making him want to retch. But his eyes refused to shut.
Because he had to see. He always had to see. The crosses and the blood. The bodies hanging upside down on the crosses. The jagged and torn flesh that opened up to reveal the bones of the deceased. Bellies slashed open so that the guts hung out. Throats slit and rivulets of blood flowing down their cheeks and hair to the grass to form pools beneath them.
But worst of all he had to see the accusation in their sightless eyes.
Because as they silently accused him, this was his doing. It was his fault. He loved them, and he had done this to them.
The horror in his heart grew as he did the other thing he always did. The one thing he wished he would never do. He reached out and touched them. He could see his hand stretching out to his father's cheek. He could feel his finger, touching it, finding it cold and hard. And in that moment he knew. He knew and he screamed.
He had killed his parents!
Briagh woke up, a scream trying desperately to burst from his throat. Tears leaked from his eyes. He could feel his heart beating like thunder. His hands were bone white and shaking and his brow was covered with cold sweat. And while he knew even as he took in the sight of his home, that it had only been a dream, he also knew that the dream was real. It revealed the truth. It was a memory.
Briagh choked back on his scream as he always did. Because he knew that should he ever let it out, it would not end. He would scream for eternity. And as the seconds and minutes ticked by, somehow he let the rest of the world return and pushed the remnants of the dream away. He let the crackle of the fire fill his ears while its light drove away the darkness and its warmth sent the chill of his heart to the underworld. Yet still he was cold. Covered in thick furs, lying only a few short feet away from the fire, he simply couldn't get warm.
In time he managed to wipe the sweat off his brow, take in the fact that light was peeking in through the cracks in the window slats and understand that he had fallen asleep on the sofa in front of the fire. He even remembered lighting the fire shortly after returning from the Arcanium, desperately trying to bring some warmth into his frozen home.
Slowly the rest of his memories of the previous night returned. Memories that reminded him that he had things to do. Or one thing anyway. He had to find out if he was still safe. It was the only thing that mattered. He had learned on the importance of safety on the day he had returned home to find his parents hanging there on those makeshift crosses, slaughtered. And he had never forgotten that single truth of his life.
He had to be safe.
Briagh could have chosen to grow angry. To scream against the injustice and unfairness of it all. To protest his innocence. To give into his anger. But it would not have helped him. He could have chosen to take a philosophical view of life. To simply accept that bad things happened. He could have simply pointed out that there were after all, so many others out there who were far more dangerous than morphs. Far more frightening. There were the wildred, the inhuman dark wizards who lived far away from the towns and cities but still struck terror into the hearts of most. Or the wraith lords who he thought truly terrifying with their almost invisible servants running freely around the cities causing mischief and mayhem. Even an elementalist could kill hundreds with just a few blasts of lightning or fire.
But anger was pointless and philosophy did not offer him any comfort. Knowing that there were others who were worse off did not make him feel better about being a cursed morph – one of the so called “great threats” to Abysynth.
There was always only one thing that would help him. A lifetime of experience in running and hiding. Remembering the rules that had served him so well all these years. Making sure he was safe. That always had to be his first thought. His only thought. And so later in the morning he would start checking the streets for any signs of guards or others looking for a morph. He would listen out for the news from the criers. And he would keep a wary eye out for strangers in the district. In short, he would do all the things he needed to do to make sure that he saw any trouble heading his way before it arrived.
But as Briagh got up and tended to the fire which was by then burning low, he found himself wondering what had happened to bring the dream on once again. For the longest time it had been a distant, occasional thing. His fear and shame and guilt had all but faded. Now all of a sudden it was back. Back and stronger than ever. It was almost as soul destroying as it had been on that terrible day he had discovered his parents hanging from those crosses. Why?
Was it the wolves and the wolf mother? It was all he could think of. But in truth while he had been nervous the previous night, he hadn't been terrified of her and her pack. He had always believed he could get away. Or was it the revelation of his nature to the arcanist? Because revealing his nature was the one thing he could never afford to do.
Could the dream be a warning? A reminder that he had failed to keep his secret hidden. Even though he was surely safe for the moment and would not return to the Arcanium, it should still never have happened.
Or was it something else that had awakened his bitter past? Something he couldn't quite put his finger on? A voice maybe. A smell. A message. As if someone had been with him. A mother perhaps. Waking him up. Telling him it was time to get out of bed. That he had thing to do. And no matter how many times he tried to tell himself that that was madness, he couldn't shake the feeling that a woman had been there with him, doing just that.
Of course, there was no answer. There was never any answer to why he had the dream. All it ever did was to make him feel the need to run and hide. And that he decided as he poked the fire and finally managed to bring it back to life, was what he was going to do.
Run and hide. He was a morph. That was always his life. His survival. And just as he had been comfortable in the Arcanium he realised, he had been becoming comfortable in Abysynth. Too comfortable. He had started learning how to live with people. To share a little of his life with them. Even to consider them as friends. It had been a mistake. He wasn't like other people. He was a morph and they would all cheerfully murder him in his sleep if they ever found out. The dream he was certain, was a reminder of that.
Chapter Four
Windford Street was not one of the pretty streets of the Imperial Quarter. It was instead part of the docks as the area was known. It was long and straight and lined with small stone houses that ran nearly all the way down the gently sloping incline to the docks themselves. There were no domed roofs and sweeping turrets here. No towers and elegant fences. The cobbles weren't neat and tidy. The lamp posts weren'
t covered in ornate wrought iron filigree. They weren't clean either, covered instead in soot. As for the houses themselves, someone less charitable might have called them shacks. And further down towards the docks end of the street where the stevedores lived, they were worse.
But just then it did have one saving grace that made it seem prettier than normal. Everything was covered in crisp white snow. Briagh always thought there was something about the snow that seemed to make everything seem clean and fresh.
Unfortunately, while snow might look pretty and the children loved playing in it, it was freezing cold. By the god's it was cold!
Briagh stood there on the street, listening to the crier's news, and stamped his feet to shake the cold out. He didn't want to be there, especially when the snow had started falling in the early hours of the morning and was now a foot thick or more, but he had to know what was happening in the realm. Actually he had to know what had happened in the city, and more particularly what was being said about what had happened in the Arcanium the previous night. He needed to know if anyone was coming after him. “Anyone” meaning the city guard of course. Or worse, the imperial guard. The Arcanium was after all, in the Imperial Quarter.