by Greg Curtis
“How do you know who we are?” She decided to get straight to the point.
“I've been watching you Princess.” The wildred raised a skeletal hand and immediately an image appeared in the air between them. A vision of another part of the forest a few hundred yards away where their horses were grazing. “Little escapes me.”
“Why?”
“Because we all follow the same morph who in turn heads to T'illshar Ree in search of Master Barachalla and my former student whether he knows it or not. I failed my student once and Callum became as I. I cannot restore him to health. That is beyond my ability. But I must still try and help him. If you meet him as you are it will result in one of two outcomes. Both terrible. He will kill you or you will kill him.”
“I do not want either of those things to happen. I do not want to fail him again. He must not fall further.”
“Fail him?! He has killed a great many innocent people. Murdered them!”
“And he must answer for his crimes. I cannot protect him from that. I would not try. But his crimes are against mortals and must be heard and judged by mortals. And when judgement is passed it must be with the knowledge that Callum was driven to them by desperation and pain such as you can never truly know. That he already suffers as you cannot understand.”
“For now though he seeks to make a far worse mistake. To commit a sin against a goddess. For the second time. I must stop him from doing that if I can.” The fire crackled and spat a few sparks as he said that, making everyone jump.
“A sin against a goddess?”
“He seeks to steal her kiss.”
“Morphia's Kiss?” Father Argen jumped in, his voice filled with curiosity.
“As you say Father.” The wildred nodded. “He seeks to use the kiss again to restore his form. To end his suffering. But it will not work. It could never work. And he should know this. Unfortunately his suffering has blinded him to this simple truth. He cannot see past his pain.” The wildred's voice sounded even more sorrowful.
“And how do you know this?”
“Simply by being as him. If I were lied to by a technologist as he has been and fell for those sweet lies, perhaps I would do the same. Despite nearly eighty years in this form, I still dream of walking as I once did. It is a powerful dream for some of us. It is a desire that rules our lives and also a rod with which we beat ourselves. For Callum who was my best and brightest, and young at the time he made his first and most terrible mistake, it is all consuming. He clings to hope where there is none. And Barachalla offers it when he has none to give.”
“It is a cruel thing to offer. Like throwing a flask of salt water to a man dying of thirst in a desert. The man will do anything to drink the brine, but will only end up knowing greater thirst. I suspect even Barachalla knows no better. He truly believes he can offer what he says. For a clever man he plays the role of fool exceedingly well.” Zo'or sighed, a sound that was more like the rustle of leaves in a tree when a gentle breeze hit. A sad breeze.
“Master Barachalla is a cruel and selfish man.”
“Yes.” The wildred agreed with Father Argen. “But he too is under the spell of his dreams. He dreams of some sort of greatness – I do not know what – and he will do anything, sacrifice anybody to achieve it. He cannot accept that Morphia's kiss cannot bring him what he dreams of. That it never could. Instead, he believes that all of us who tried to use the artefact before him were fools. Saddle-geese. That we did not understand how it should work. And that when he failed the first time, it was because of a mistake in his calculations. He didn’t understand that there was no right calculation. That it could never do what he wanted.”
“And how do you know this?” Elan decided she'd had enough of sitting there listening.
“Because Morphia's kiss is like the kiss of any pretty woman Princess. A lure, a trap and a lie.” The wildred leaned back further into the trunk of the tree, the hood falling even lower so that the only part of his face that could be seen was the glint of the fire reflected in his eyes. He looked better that way. “You are a pretty woman Princess. You should know this.”
“Father?” She didn't understand, but it sounded like a slur so she turned to the priest.
“He means it is a seduction. When a pretty woman offers a kiss to a simple and plain man, she offers only a kiss. But when such a man receives that kiss he believes she offers more. Her truth is not his. He wants more and so is lured. And he is prepared to pay the price to get more. That is the trap.” He stared evenly at the wildred. “Though I think Master Zo’or that that is a somewhat jaundiced view of the world.”
“Perhaps. But one well-earned Father. And for a wildred the orb is the prettiest woman you have ever seen. The sweetest lie. And we who seek that kiss are in our hearts the plainest and simplest of men.”
“Pray, continue.” Elan wasn't completely sure she wanted to hear the rest of what the wildred had to say. But she knew she had to.
“Consider Princess that I have used my magic to heal many injuries. But young Abel here walks with a limp and all I have offered him is a salve for the pain and some exercises. No more do I attempt to restore my own health. Why?”
“Because the injuries are too great for your magic to heal?”
“No. Because Abel like me has no injury. He is not damaged in any way. He has no illness. His limp is a part of him. It is his nature. To heal him as you would have it, would be to change his nature in some way. That is a far more profound thing. And that is the seduction of the orb.”
Elan wanted to object. To tell him that what he was saying was foolishness. That they should always help people. But she realised that he was not talking about anything as simple as a mere limp. So she held her peace and waited for him to continue while the fire crackled between them.
“The orb is old. Older perhaps than can be known. And despite what is written and spoken in legend about it, it is not technological. It is not magical either. It has both of course built into its nature. But at its heart it is Divine. In its very centre it contains a piece of Morphia herself. A scale so they say, from when she flew the skies as a dragon. So in a very real way it is a part of her. Connected to the Goddess.”
“It was originally constructed so that those who had experienced the wonder of knowing the Goddess directly, could once again be renewed in those memories. It had no other purpose. And therein lies much of the irony of the situation we now face.”
“Because in time it was discovered that it could be used to achieve a different effect. It was believed that for those who had not known the Goddess it could show them their true form. But that was a lie. What was shown to those who held the orb was not their true form. They already wore that. It was the form that they wanted to believe should be theirs.”
“A humble man kisses a beautiful woman, and for that moment he wants to believe that he is a prince. Her prince. But if he is wise he lets that foolish belief go. He accepts himself for what he is and prays that she will too.”
“Unfortunately wizards are not wise.”
“So over the centuries the most knowledgeable of wizards and a few others sought the orb out. We held it in our hands. And we believed we were shown a vision of who we should truly be. And then those of us who were particularly unwise, went further. We cut ourselves. Allowed a few drops of our blood to touch the scale inside the orb, and prayed that it would make us great.”
“As you can see, it did not.” He raised his arms as if to show her himself.
“Our natures were changed. But it is not the nature of a man to become something else. Something that is not a man. That is not even what we know as ourselves. So as the orb changed us and we realised what was happening we fought it. And in the end we were twisted by the battle. Twisted in physical form. Twisted in our magic. Twisted in our very essence. And so we became the wild wizards. The wildred as you call us. Condemned to live out our lives in solitude. In part this is because we are so twisted in form that people fear us. But it is al
so because our magic is so twisted that it takes decades to relearn how to use it safely.”
“Not a one of us has ever avoided this fate. Not a one has ever found a way to undo what was done. Not those who came before me. Not me. Not my student Callum who now walks with Barachalla. It is eternally beyond us as it is beyond a rock to become a tree.”
“But it gave you power. You are the most powerful magical casters in the world.” Elan thought she'd better say something, because what he was saying didn't make a lot of sense. There was no creature more dangerous than a wildred. Everyone knew that.
“No Princess. It took away much of my magic in truth. We were already the most powerful and knowledgeable casters in the world long before we touched the orb. No others would ever have learned of the orb's existence. After that everything we are said to be is the mindless chatter of peasants and the fabulous tales the bards have spun for gold.”
“When I first became as I am, I was crippled and broken. I still am. I lost much of my ability to speak. It took me six years to get to a point where I could speak as I can today. No spell I cast went as it should. A simple shape to light a fire turned the ground beneath me into swamp. A gesture to bring light, summoned ants instead. It has taken me eighty years to regain as much of my mastery of my gift as I have. But eighty thousand years would not return it all to me.”
“But had I not fought the orb, I would not be Zo'or any longer. I would be something else completely, with not even the memories of who I had been. Zo'or would be dead and something else would have stood in his place. That is what the orb does. It does not allow a man to become a greater man. It changes him into something else. Something that is not that man at all. That is the lesson that Callum has refused to learn.”
Did she believe him, Elan wondered? On the one hand the glimpses she had gained of his face and hands beneath his cloak had revealed something that looked very far from human. And his voice sounded like the breathless gasps of someone who had run too far for too long. Yet on the other hand he was a wildred. The most terrifying of all the magical.
“But why do you not at least try to fix what was done?” She still didn't understand that.
“Because this is what I am. I am in pain and crippled. But it is no more a defect for me than it is for frogs not to have wings. I am not injured or diseased. This is not a canker or a pox. Rather, this is now my true form. To change what doesn't work for good or ill, is to change who and what I am. Instead I learn to live with what I am. Abel learns to live and walk more easily with his limp. I learn to speak and cast and move more easily with what the new body I have allows.”
“And Barachalla and your student?” Father Argen spoke up suddenly, startling them all. He had been quiet for a good while.
“The royal technologist is true to his nature – clever – but like the rest of us who seek to use the orb, unwise. He obviously understood the dangers of using the orb. But he did not heed the lessons. He still yearned to find his true shape, never understanding that he already wears it. And now he thinks he has found another way. Cleverness and foolishness in equal and terrible measure.”
“He used the blood of a morph instead of his own, thinking that the magic contained within such a person would allow Endorian to absorb the wild changes in form for him. And he used the will and probably some of the blood of the royal family as well, thinking that their combined will would absorb the wild changes in mind for him. Also, I suspect he knew the experiment would end badly for them and he had been using them to fund his research. If the royal family had died, no one would know of his debts. In the end he would be transformed into his true shape, and they would all have absorbed whatever harm might have threatened him.”
“He used my family's blood?” Elan hadn't guessed that, and it changed things a little. At the very least it meant that they must have volunteered for the experiment, because he could not have simply stolen their blood.
“Yes Princess. They gave their blood as did Endorian. Though he probably lied to them. Told them a grand tale of what would happen. What they would receive in exchange.”
“Do not say it Priest!” Elan interrupted the wildred's story before the priest could mention the divine right of kings again. She would never accept that her own family had been so corrupt as to want such an evil power. Perhaps some of her anger at his accusations got through to Father Argen? At least he kept his silence. For once. The wildred continued his tale.
“It did not work. At the end the royal family had lost some of their minds, and gained some of the instincts of the creatures Endorian could take the form of. Endorian had lost his ability to shift forms and ended up stuck in the middle. His ability to shift meanwhile, was somehow transferred into the guards who in time became the first of the wolves of the wolf mother's pack. Meanwhile Barachalla remained himself, his true form as he thought of it, still not achieved.”
“After that I assume he fled. Frightened that someone would connect what had happened to the royal family to him.”
“But even in hiding, he kept working. Trying to work out what went wrong. Never understanding that his plan was always doomed from the start. At some point he must have decided he’d found a solution. Callum meanwhile, must have believed him. He thought Barachalla had found a way to undo what was done. It is the only reason he would be helping him. The hope that he could return to his old form.”
“He has been helping him for some time I imagine. I suspect Callum provided Master Barachalla with the means to become young again for a time. Callum was always capable with a potion. Of course, no potion can work forever. Especially not one so complex. And there is a price for crafting such a potion. It would have drained much of Callum's strength.”
“Meanwhile Barachalla has done something to the orb. Something that amplifies its power. Until it was stolen its effect was limited. A very few were transformed into wolves. Only those who were bitten within a certain distance of the orb were affected. Now that distance seems to have increased vastly and the curse spreads like a disease.”
“And Briagh’s role in this?”
“Directed by the Goddess herself I think. The gods, so they say, are slow to anger. But they do get angry if you offend them. And I suspect she is unhappy with what has been done. She feels its wrongness directly. It’s a bit like how you would feel if someone took control of your fist and punched another with it. Because just as the scale is connected to her, she is connected to it. She feels violated. I suspect she has asked one of her children to help. But it's only a guess. His dream may have nothing to do with Barachalla and the orb.”
“All we know is that Briagh heads to T'illshar Ree, and that that may be also where the technologist travels. And since we cannot follow Barachalla – Callum's ability in disguising his tracks prevents it – and the only idea we have as to where the technologist heads is Briagh's dream, we must follow the morph.”
“Time will tell us if we are wise or foolish in our path.”
Silence took hold of the party after that, broken only by the sound of the fire crackling away in the night, and the soft nicker of the verdan. Elan pondered over the wildred’s words. Could he be right? Or was he as deluded as he claimed Barachalla and his former student were? Because a lot of what he was saying didn't make sense.
“Morphs change form though, don’t they?” Elan finally broke the silence, realising that he had to be wrong.
“No. The shape they can wear is variable, but they are always the same no matter which shape they wear. Their true form, their essence is always the same. So if Briagh becomes a dog or a panther, he is still always Briagh. He thinks and acts as Briagh. In the same way Princess, if you were to cut your hair you would still be you. The orb by contrast, changes the essence, the very soul as well as the shape of those who use it. The orb does not allow one thing to take the shape of another. It makes it another. So this shape, as crippled and withered as it is, is now my true form. I would not dare change it.”
That made sen
se in a way to Elan. But she still wasn't entirely sure she believed it. Until the wildred finally did something she had never expected. He lowered his hood. Then looking at the ruin of his face, the lack of symmetry and unity, Elan finally understood. He wasn't like Long. The morph was trapped between forms, a strange and frightening creature. But he was understandable. Zo'or was not. His features were misshapen, out of alignment. His skin was thick in some places, stretched thin over the bones in others. He was not of one complexion either. Piebald would have been too flattering a term for the mixture of different colours and thicknesses of leather that passed for skin. And the changes went beyond the skin. His throat was twisted, his skull lopsided. Bones were uneven.
It took some time to fully understand what she was seeing. To accept that it was real. And when he finally raised his hood again to hide what was underneath, she knew relief. Both because she didn't have to see such pain any longer, and for Zo’or in that he didn't have to see her reaction to it.