by Greg Curtis
The poet warrior wasn't so restrained. She spat at him and called him names. She even tried to leap at him, but stopped in a hurry and sat back down. He guessed that was Careyn's doing. She was somewhere in the darkness behind the walls of bars. Still, the look of unabated hatred in in the Princess' eyes was enough to have curdled milk.
Then again she had two black eyes and her nose looked badly bruised. She had reason to be angry with him. Those injuries however, weren’t the cause of her ire. He abruptly realised that when she started accusing him of crimes he had never heard of. Crimes he didn't even understand. She accused him of cursing her family.
“I'm a morph, lady. I can't curse anyone.”
He didn't understand why she was accusing him of such a thing. Even the bards wouldn't say something so fanciful. Magic was a simple affair in the end. There were two types of magical people in the world. Those who had magic and those who were magic. Morphs were the latter. Their gifts were part of their nature. As such what they could do was fairly much determined by what they were.
But cursing – that was an ability that only someone with magic could do. Wizards, wildred, enchanters and the like. They had all sorts of abilities. And curses were the province of dark wizards. Of the wildred.
“With the machine!” She all but screeched the words out as she shouted at him, her voice as twisted up with hatred as her face. And then she carried on, yelling and screaming at him about some ancient globe in the Arcanium that had been stolen.
Briagh tried to defend himself for a while, but swiftly gave up. There was no point. He didn't understand half of what she was accusing him of, and the other half was nonsense. But he did understand that she wasn't going to listen to anything he said. She was just going to shout and scream and if she got the chance, try and kill him again. He was better off ignoring her.
But then she said something that she shouldn't have, and his anger exploded.
“Victim?! You think you're the victim here?!” Briagh almost couldn't believe that she'd made the claim. It was beyond belief.
“You're not the victim! You're the criminal! You’re murderous scum! And if you are the Princess as you claim then you're the leader of the murderous scum!” It was his turn to shout and scream. For the blood to drain from his face and the hatred to burst free.
“Do you have the slightest idea what it's like for a child to come home to find his family slaughtered?! Butchered?! Simply because they had a child who was a morph and someone found out?! Do you know what it's like to have to run and hide your entire life simply because you were born with the ability to change form?! To have to lie about everything you are because if anyone ever found out you'd be hung or burnt at the stake?!”
“I don't know what happened to your family. I don't know anything about this relic. Or about a curse. Or some morph having hurt you. But I do know one thing. You deserve it!” Briagh shouted the last at her with all the strength he had. At that moment he felt the overwhelming urge to leap on her and tear her apart. Only the manacles and the knowledge that he would be stopped held him back. Even so, it was close. The fury inside him burned hotter than anything he had ever known.
Of course his outburst only made things worse and Elan started screaming again. Most of it was unintelligible and the rest would have been better if it had been. But then Briagh was no better, and they shouted and screamed at one another like two children having a tantrum.
A part of him was appalled with himself for his actions. But he couldn't seem to control himself. The anger and pain from so long ago had suddenly welled up and the normally quiet and civilised man he usually tried to be simply couldn't contain it. How could she possibly imagine she was the victim!
It ended finally, but only because he grew tired. Tired of shouting and screaming. Tired of even seeing her face. Now, all he wanted to do was to go back to his cell and lie down. But when he called for Careyn to take him back she didn't appear. So instead he remained seated and resorted to glaring at the woman angrily while she slowly wound down herself.
Eventually she did. Which left both of them sitting there in silence, and sending the occasional dark glares at each other.
“Well children, now that we have that out of the way.” A new voice sounded from out of the darkness. And then the bars opened up and a figure appeared.
“Father Argen?!” Briagh recognised the priest immediately, though he wasn't quite sure what he was doing there. He unlike them, didn't seem to be wearing manacles.
“Briagh.” The priest managed a perfunctory smile as he placed a wooden chair on the side of the table and sat down facing them both. “I'm sorry for your pain.”
“His pain! He –.” Elan's outburst was suddenly cut off and she sat there, her face contorting strangely as she tried to speak. Careyn had finally decided that enough was enough.
“But now I'm going to have to ask you to put that aside and help me in my work.”
“Father.” Briagh tried his best to make what he needed to tell him, sound good. But there was no way. “I'm a morph. I run and hide. I don't get involved.”
“I know. And I understand that child. But sometimes we have to. And this unfortunately is one of those times. I'm going to need your help in tracking down and speaking with another morph. And I hope you will want to help me.”
“Hunt down another of my people? For some imagined crime?” Briagh was horrified by the very idea.
“I said speak with!” The priest raised his voice a little in what sounded like consternation. “And he is not accused of any crime. Rather we need his help and if I'm right, he needs ours. More importantly Abylon needs it.”
“I don't understand.”
“Put simply, about ten years ago the royal family went mad. All of them save the Princess here. We think it was the result of some experiment. The royal family wanted to gain some magical powers. The Divine Right of Kings. Their technologist found a way to give them that, using an ancient device and the blood of a morph. The royal family tried it. Unfortunately, things went horribly wrong. The entire family began believing they were dogs and wolves, leaving Abylon with no king and no heirs. The morph lost a part of his magic. He got stuck in some sort of shift between shapes and can no longer morph. And the kingdom began slowly falling apart.”
“Then, about six weeks ago the wolf mother stole the device from the Arcanium, and I began to put together what must have happened all those years ago. Unfortunately, it was about that point that Abylon fell apart.”
“The wolf mother? What does she have to do with any of this?”
Briagh also wondered if the priest was mad. Because what he was saying sounded like the talk of on who saddled geese. Everyone knew the king was crazed. But his sons too? Then again, he suddenly realised that it would explain why no one had stepped forward to take control of the city after the attack. All that had been seen of the royal family after the attack had been the royal carriage racing madly around the city. But no one had ever got out.
“The wolf mother is the queen. And all I can think is that some flicker of sanity finally returned to her. A fleeting memory of how everything went wrong perhaps. I am guessing that she stole the ancient device in the hope that it could put things right.”
“The wolf mother is the queen?”
That caught Briagh by complete surprise. Ignoring the fact that he had thought the queen was dead, he'd seen the wolf mother. He couldn't imagine anyone less queenly than her. She was a true maniac. Meanwhile, he could see that the poet warrior was struggling desperately to say something. She was clearly fighting against Careyn's magic with all she had – fighting it and failing. It was probably for the best since he assumed she would only want to curse him some more. A very unprincess like thing to do if the priest was telling the truth.
“In the flesh.”
Briagh said nothing for a little after that, instead thinking about what Argen had said. And it was a shocking revelation. But he realised that one thing remained true above all else.
He didn't want to get involved.
“No.”
“No?” Father Argen sounded surprised.
Which Briagh thought was a little naïve. Did the priest really think that he would leap to help once he had been given this explanation? That he would even betray another of his kind for them? Why would he do that?
“No! The people of Abylon butchered my family and have forced me to spend my entire life in hiding. They have called me and my kind monsters. This one, Princess or bardic warrior or whatever she is, has tried to kill me – twice! – in cold blood and for no reason. And you want me not only to help you, but to deliver another of my people in to her hands? So she can kill him too? No! I won't do it.”
“She” did not seem impressed by his refusal, and struggled even harder against Careyn's magical hold. But it was no use. She could not get up and leap at him as she no doubt ached to do. And she could not yell and scream at him. He thought though that she would probably be sore in the morning from trying.
“I do not want to get you to deliver anyone to anyone else!” Father Argen raised his voice once more. “All I want is for you to try and talk to Endorian Long. You're a morph like him. From Abylon. You understand his pain. If he's going to speak to anyone it'll be to you. All you have to do is make the introduction. I will do the talking.”
“And the Princess will not be involved at any point. She's proven herself to be too angry to make good decisions. She did the one smart thing she's done in years by coming here – even if she did it for the wrong reasons. She needs to stay here, under lock and key. If she's locked up here she can't be hand-fasted to Vel Moran in Abylon. That leaves the barbarian Prince with no legitimate claim to the throne and no way of gaining one. He's not strong enough yet to wrest power from the Court. Even if Abylon falls into anarchy. But Princess Elan can never return. Not unless her brothers are finally recovered. All in all, I think it's best if she remains here until this is ended one way or another.”
“Abysynth will of course fall if we fail. The wolf mother grows stronger again. But though tens – maybe hundreds of thousands – will die, her armies will not spread far beyond the remains of the city. And eventually she herself will die and things will return to how they should be. The kingdom will survive in some fashion.”
“I'm not asking you to save the world. I'm not even asking you to do anything brave or heroic or risk your life. I'm just asking you to talk to someone. To make an introduction. To try and help save some lives and not let a kingdom fall into anarchy. And to save some of the lives of those who may even be your friends.”
It sounded better when he put it like that. And the priest was right. He did have friends, even if he hid his secret from them. Even if they would have run screaming from him if they knew what he was. But Briagh still didn't quite believe him. He couldn't. And he wasn't going to allow another morph to be killed because of him. He shook his head.
“I'm sorry Father. I can't. It's a betrayal of everything I am.”
“Very well then, you leave me no choice.” The priest hung his head as if he was ashamed of something. “Lord Daelyn!”
Perfectly on cue the elven lord stepped through the bars and into the circle of light, looking no happier than the last time Briagh had seen him. In fact, he looked angry.
“You came to our land Briagh of no last name, in peace. But you brought trouble. And now when you have a chance to help repair things, you refuse.”
“I did not cause this Lord Daelyn! And I had no idea that she would follow me or even that she was a princess.” Briagh desperately tried to defend himself, sensing that things were about to go badly for him. You did not deny the nobles. Ever. They had a habit of hanging people.
“No. But you came here seeking our shelter, while failing to tell us you were a thief and a wanted man. Now we have been left with a mess on our doorstep, whether it be of your doing or not and you refuse to help even when you ask for ours. We do not need or want a kingdom next door to us in anarchy. It's bad for business and it may lead to strife. We absolutely do not want a barbarian kingdom next door to us. Vel Moran is just about crazy enough to start a war. And we will not have it said even for an instant that we did not at least try to help our neighbours when help was asked for. That would be a stain on our honour. But where is yours? You who sought the shelter of our land?”
“So your property is seized forthwith. All of it. And you will begin your sentence. Five years of hard labour. And at the end of it you will be sent from our lands with nothing. Is that understood?”
Briagh stared back at the lord grimly. He was angry with him but not so stupid as to let his anger loose. Not when he was already staring at five years of hard labour for nothing. The fae had all the power and he had none. And really, he knew, he had no choice. Accepting it though was that was hard to swallow.
“Fine! I'll help with the introduction. But after that I'm gone.” Of course even as he said it, Briagh knew he was not in a strong position to make a deal. Least of all with a lord. He'd been crazed to even try. And despite his impassive expression he guessed Lord Daelyn was upset with him. He had been even before he had refused to do as he had wanted.
It would have been smart Briagh realised, to have apologised. To have agreed instantly to what the Lord wanted. To have explained that he had never intended to go against the wishes of the lords of Wynde Par. But anger had controlled his tongue, not wisdom. As a result he had no idea as to whether his deal had been agreed to. Not when the Lord simply nodded to him and left, heading back into the darkness.
Briagh suspected he was far from free of this mess.
Chapter Twenty Two
Briagh didn't like riding. It was strange because he had always thought he did. He had some fond childhood memories of being on horseback. But then he'd been a child at the time and the horses had surely been ponies; his parents had also been with him, there to encourage him and catch him if he fell. As an adult who hadn't sat on the back of a horse for nearly twenty years, it was an entirely different thing. And it was disturbing just how far below him the ground was.
The horse didn't like having him on her back either. He guessed it was why she made so many unexpected moves. Once she'd even tried to bite him. He didn't remember hearing that horses bit. On the other hand, he'd never ridden a verdan horse before. Maybe they were naturally more difficult.
Still, after three days in the saddle he hadn't yet fallen off – too often. Although the first day he'd mounted up and promptly slid off the other side of the beast to a rousing chorus of laughter. Even the horse had seemed to laugh at him. These accursed verdan horses weren't just smart, they were mean! But he hadn't made that mistake twice, as much as he suspected the horse might like to see him try. Now their journey was nearly at an end. He knew that when the Captain called for a halt and stopped to study the instructions he'd been given at the last town.
“It's almost time,” Careyn quietly told him as she sat on her horse beside him. “You think you're ready for this?”
“I'll be fine.” Briagh was annoyed that she asked, and that she kept asking. He still didn't know why she had come with them. Was she there just to keep the strange morph in line? Or to keep him in line? Very possibly. After all, without her gift he could probably have escaped from this mission. He truly hated that she had such power over him.
Then again he still wasn’t sure why he was here. What exactly was it that made them believe that he would have any more luck speaking with this man Endorian Long than anyone else? Because the simple fact that they were both morphs didn't mean much. There were apparently other morphs in the realm. In the settlement known as Ahston that he’d heard of. One of them could have come instead. And the fact that they were both from Abysynth didn't add anything to his chances in Briagh's view. But he didn't have much choice in the matter – that had been made very clear to him. It was this or the work gangs.
He hated that the fae now controlled his life. In hindsight, he thought that they had done so al
most from the moment he'd crossed the bridge over Ellys Gorge. He was used to being free – but there was no freedom in Wynde Par. No privacy either.
That was another of the lessons he had learned over the previous few days. Not only did most of them recognise his gift on sight, but they also kept close watch on strangers. Princess Elan had found him so quickly because she'd simply gone to Lord Daelyn and asked if he knew of a human morph who had just arrived in the region. Lord Daelyn had gone to his rangers, and they in turn had spoken with the magistrates in each town. From what he had been told he had been found within a matter of hours, even though he was living rough.