by Ben Galley
Framed by the light of the window, his face and body were dark and obscured, but somehow Elessi could tell that he was old, ancient even, as if the years he had witnessed leaked from his body in some way. His hands had not been wrinkled or frail like Durnus’s, quite the opposite in fact. Like a leathery tome that only hints at its antiqueness with the faintest of yellow at the corners, they were strong and as tough as bark, backed up by the very tall and muscular silhouette that held them. His dark hair was short and shaved close to his scalp, which was ridged and swollen as though he had suffered a terrible blow to the skull sometime in his long past. His clothes looked odd and unusual, like they had been stolen from a smaller man, and the arms bursting their way out of his short sleeves rippled with muscles and veins like tree roots. His legs were the same; they barely fitted the tight trousers he had somehow managed to squeeze into. The man’s shoulders were equally large, and powerful. The shadow he cast in the light of the window was huge, and strangely shaped, as though it had wings.
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the man. His voice was deep, deeper than a dragon’s even, yet calm and authoritative. Even though he spoke quietly his voice easily matched the rain and wind in volume. So easily, in fact, it felt like he was whispering in her ear.
Elessi shook her head, scared. ‘Does what hurt?’
‘To cry?’
The maid sobbed, and looking up to the furrowed brows of the clouds racing overhead, she closed her eyes and nodded.
‘Is that why you were screaming?’
Elessi put her forehead to the cold metal railing and wiped her tears on her sodden apron, as if it would make a difference. ‘I was angry at someone.’
The calm voice spoke again. The man had barely moved. ‘What did this person do to make you angry?’
Elessi shivered. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she cried. ‘I wanted to tell him something, and then he left, and then…’ Here she faltered, unsure why she was telling these things to a stranger. ‘He’s not the man I thought he was!’ she sobbed.
The strange man nodded as if he understood. ‘They rarely ever are. They rarely ever find out either, unless they are forced into it.’ Elessi wished she could see his face.
‘Who are you?’ she yelled above the wind.
But he ignored her question. ‘Is it the child?’ he said.
Elessi looked up. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘There are many things that I know,’ said the man. He lifted a hand, a gnarled and scaly hand and rubbed his chin. ‘I wonder, what did they say about this child?’
‘That it has to die, that this is what the war is about, and that it’s Farden’s baby,’ sobbed the maid. ‘Though I don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand anything.’
The man nodded again. ‘Understanding, in this case, is not required.’ He looked behind him to the door, as if considering something, and Elessi almost caught a glimpse of his face. ‘I wonder,’ he murmured.
‘Who are you?!’ yelled the maid once again. The man turned back.
‘I wonder if you have what is required. The courage.’
‘What are you talking about? What do you want from me?’
The man cocked his head to one side, and leant forward. ‘Not I, maid, but the world and its gods, and we are in dire need of a saviour. Will you help us?’
Elessi looked down at the rocks that waited beneath her. She sniffed, and swallowed her tears. She suddenly saw the opportunity hung in front of her like ripe fruit dangling from a tree, tantalising. She could teach them all a lesson. She would surprise them all. Every closed door, every snide comment, every mop bucket and broom, every bandage, every worry-drowned night and morning, every moment spent staring through cracks in doors, every secret she had kept for that gods-forsaken mage, every night she had laid alone in her cot conjuring up meaningful moments, every glance she had ever craved, everything would be wiped away like a stain on a window. For once they would sit up and notice. Farden’s head would turn so fast he would get whiplash.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’
‘Would you kill this child? Kill it to save more than you can possibly know?’
Elessi nodded. Her instant certainty scared her.
‘Yes.’
Blinding lightning flashed again and in that moment Elessi saw the man’s face, and it shone in the darkness. His skin glittered with countless white scales streaked with rain. His eyes were like dying embers, red pupils flecked with orange and yellow grains. His expression was grave yet kind, and there again was the ageless quality that Elessi would never understand. She knew in that moment that the man’s face would stay with her until she died. Staring at a god, even a shadow of a god, was like suddenly finding out that she had been given her very own set of wings long ago, and had only just remembered, so that the joy and guilt swirled about her and bubbled up in strange stew of emotions.
From behind his back he drew a dagger, short, sharp, and bejewelled with raindrops. It was simple and deadly-looking, and its brass-coloured blade seemed to glow with a bluish light. Elessi panicked for a moment, fearing the man was going to use the dagger on her, but instead he placed it in his open palm, and held out his other hand, beckoning to her. ‘Take my hand, and I will give you that chance, Elessi.’
Shaking, she climbed over the railing and walked, feet aching with the cold, towards him. She looked at the knife, and then at the man, and then without a further thought, took his hand. It was coarse like old leather, unexpectedly warm. ‘Who are you?’ she asked again.
‘I am a god,’ replied the man. Elessi simply nodded. She wasn’t confused, or scared, merely accepting. What else was there to do? she thought. ‘Take the dagger,’ he said, and Elessi did, surprised by its deceptive heaviness. It was as heavy as a rock. She had never held a weapon like this before. The man, the god, almost seemed relieved to be free of its weight.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, but the god did not answer. ‘What’s your name?’ she tried again.
‘Thron,’ he whispered, so quietly she thought it was the wind. He took a step forward and pulled her after him, and the stormy night began to dissolve around them, melting and warping like a whirlpool. Elessi shivered. The strange man seemed unafraid. He walked confidently towards the twisting tunnel of darkness that was swiftly opening up before them. Walking hand in hand, they stepped into the whirlpool of rock and rain, and vanished.
Far away to south, something similar was happening.
The Dornoch hills were barren at the best of times, but that night, with a storm ravaging the countryside, nothing dare braved the wilderness, save for a small hovel cowering in a shallow valley between two hills, miles and miles from the nearest town. Shaking violently in the howling gale, its makeshift walls looked as though they would crumble at any moment. Nail-infested and rust-riddled, the little structure creaked and groaned with every gust. On one of its crooked faces hung a door, askew and trembling with fear, and by its side was a small cracked window, shielding a tiny tallow candle that seemed to stare, horrified, at the weather gnashing at it from behind the glass. The hovel was a shaking derelict, nothing more, and whomever it belonged to was oblivious to the sudden whip-crack that shook the earth, and the abrupt flash of light that illuminated the windswept hill. There was a storm overhead; a little thunder and lightning were to be expected. Only the little candle saw it happen, and even if it had a voice with which to warn its owner, it would have probably been too scared to speak.
But this was far from ordinary thunder and lightning. A stone’s throw up the hill from the hovel the air split and cracked. Light broke the darkness. Suddenly a man stood on the horizon. He stumbled and then steadied himself, dizzy after the jump. The man put one hand to his head and another to his stomach and waited for the nausea to pass before he went on. The man slid something circular and golden into his cloak and muttered something under his breath. That was last time he would use that, he thought. He would go on foot for now.
Soaked to
the bone and on the brink of exhaustion, Durnus looked around, peering into the dark night ahead him. Still nothing. The vampyre cursed and wiped rain from his frozen face. He turned around, and for a moment he didn’t notice it: the faint glimmer of candlelight peeping out from behind a broken pane of glass. Durnus stared and squinted, and when the next bolt of lightning ripped through the clouds he saw the little shack in all of its tumbledown glory, leaky roof and splintered door and all. That must have been it, he told himself, just like Farden had described.
For a few minutes the vampyre just stood there, hand on his heart, wishing it to be calm. But he couldn’t help it; his heart pounded nervously in his chest, and the all-too-familiar sick feeling of anxiety gathered at the bottom of his stomach. Durnus took a breath and forced his feet to move.
And move they did. The vampyre strode forward, knowing that if he stopped now he would dig the Weight back out of his pocket and leave. He couldn’t do that. Not now. ‘You’ve put this off for long enough,’ he chided himself.
Durnus marched up to the door of the hovel and promptly kicked it in, breaking it in half as he did so. Pushing his way through the splintered wood, he stormed inside. A dishevelled man jumped up from his pile of patchwork blankets with a hoarse shout, still half asleep, and blearily reached for a metal pole that was propping up a section of wall. He grabbed it and swung it wildly at Durnus. The vampyre dodged the pole with ease and backhanded the old man in the face. He landed hard on the floor. Durnus snarled and put the heel of his boot on the man’s throat.
‘Go ahead then, kill me, mount my head on your wall, see if I care,’ spat the man. His eyes were a shade of dull purple and wide with a mixture of fear and hate. ‘It takes a brave man to butcher a helpless old fool.’
Durnus ignored his snivelling. ‘You are exactly what I expected, Jergan,’ said the vampyre, baring his teeth. Jergan stared at the fangs and then into the pale eyes of the man standing on his throat. He hissed.
‘How do you know that name?’
‘We have a mutual friend, now get up,’ ordered Durnus. He grabbed the man by his collar and pulled him upright. The man teetered on his feet and rubbed his scaly throat. Durnus looked at him. The years had ravaged his skin. There were deep hollows beneath his purple eyes, and his long white hair hung lankly over his shoulders. His old scales flaked away from his sharp cheekbones. Jergan’s clothes were shreds and tatters, and barely covered his skeleton frame. He shook constantly, like a withered leaf clinging to an autumn branch. The old Siren was the definition of pathetic. Jergan had been once been a learned man and a historian, and now here he was, a ragged sack of bones, more animal than man. Was this Durnus’s future? His destiny, staring him in the eyes? He had strived for decades to avoid the wild beast inside him, and for decades, he had succeeded. Now looking at Jergan, he realised that they were no different from each other. That realisation made Durnus burn with hatred.
‘What do you want from me then, stranger, if you aren’t going to kill me?’ he rasped. ‘If you know who I am, then you know what I am. You are lucky it’s not a full moon.’
Durnus sniffed. ‘That’s exactly why I’m here,’ he said, trying to hide his anxiety behind confidence and authority.
Jergan shook his head. ‘No, no moon. Not possible,’ he said with a cough. As he spoke, his shaking stopped and his expression changed slightly. His eyes took on a different hue and he smiled through teeth that resembled a broken fence. ‘Anyway, I’d rip your throat out,’ he whispered, and then, as quickly as his personality had changed, it went back to its normal whimpering self again.
Durnus took a step forward and looked into the man’s eyes. ‘That would be the lycan talking would it?’
Jergan nodded. ‘Why are you here? All I want is to be left alone.’
The vampyre took a deep breath. ‘You have something I want,’ he said.
Jergan looked around his shack. It smelled of festering meat and human waste. ‘And what would that be? Hmm? What do I have that you would want? The last man who came here wanting something was a mage, asking about a book. He left me alone, like you should.’
‘I did not come here for you, I came here for the other half.’ Durnus stared at Jergan until it dawned on him. Jergan shook his head violently, as if he were trying to shake it loose.
‘No! You can’t want that! The wolf-curse is worse than death!’ he cried.
‘Don’t you think I know that?!’ hissed Durnus, pointing to his fangs. Reaching behind him and under his cloak, he pulled out something square and heavy and tossed it at Jergan, who caught it awkwardly. He read the cover and instantly threw it back.
‘Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought. That book is nonsense. A pile of tripe written by a fame-hungry time-waster. I’ve seen a plethora like it.’
Durnus jabbed Jergan hard in the chest with his finger. ‘Well I disagree, and I don’t care, you will bite me whether you like it or not.’
The old Siren grimaced. ‘Why?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘Then there’s no deal.’
Durnus grabbed the man’s throat and squeezed. Jergan only chuckled. ‘Kill me then. I already told you I don’t care. Apparently you need me,’ said the man, knowing full well he was right. The vampyre relaxed his grip and snarled. His heart was still pounding. Even as he said the words, he felt the fear and the sick feeling swell in his stomach. ‘People are depending on me to kill someone they can’t kill, and I can’t do that as this, as this cursed old creature.’
‘So you need me,’ said Jergan.
‘Yes.’
‘To do what?’
‘To turn me back,’ replied the vampyre.
‘Nonsense! Even if that book was telling the truth, no man could survive it,’ spat Jergan. Durnus clenched his fists and ground his teeth. Time was hurtling by like a flash flood. He just wanted the waiting to be over. He could almost feel death breathing down his neck, praying for an opportunity. The only time death ever prayed, thought Durnus, a sliver of nonsense bubbling up from nowhere.
‘And who can’t you kill as a vampyre that you can as a human…’ Jergan trailed off. He narrowed his eyes and sniffed the vampyre’s hand that was still encircling his neck. ‘Unless you weren’t human in the first place, unless you were… something altogether different.’ Jergan looked to the book, lying half-open and face down on the stained floor. Treatises on Shapeshifting, said the cover in mock-gold leaf. He reached out with his spare hand and turned it over. His tired purple eyes wandered over the page. ‘Something entwined with both vampyres and lycans,’ he mumbled, and then his eyes grew wide and he began to flail his arms frantically. ‘It’s impossible.’
Durnus shook him viciously. ‘Be quiet!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you dare say it!’ Jergan opened his mouth and Durnus squeezed tighter. ‘Don’t say it!’ bellowed the vampyre.
‘Nefalim!’ croaked Jergan. Durnus snarled and threw him to the floor. He hit him hard in the face, and then again, and again, and again, harder and harder, until the old dishevelled Siren coughed blood and wheezed. Durnus stopped as suddenly as he had started, blood-covered fist frozen in mid-air, suddenly appalled at the sight of the broken man lying on the floor, a mess of split lips and yellow teeth and a crumpled nose oozing black blood. Which of them was the animal now? Durnus asked himself. He looked at the blood on his hands. This was not him, Durnus whispered under his breath, this was not who he was at all. This man was scared, and hateful, and desperate, a coward clothed in his own skin. Durnus felt painfully pathetic then, and it shamed him. Questions that Tyrfing and Farfallen had constantly hounded him with he now asked himself. Was it death he feared? Was it the ferocious jaws of the lycan? Did he not believe them? Was that what had stalled him? Or was it the fear of unleashing an even fouler beast, in the form of his true self? What had he been before the vampyre’s bite? Was this creature with blood painting his fists his true self, already bubbling eagerly to the surface? The prospect of truth put the prospect of death t
o shame. It paled in comparison.
Durnus could feel the fear welling up inside him like the springs of Hjaussfen, bubbling and boiling. He felt like running away, turning his back on everything, and giving up. If Jergan could do it, then so could he.
Durnus began to panic then, but before he could do anything, Jergan reached up to push the vampyre’s bloody fist away and gasp for air. ‘Wait! Wait,’ he rasped. ‘I will do it! But on one condition!’
‘What is that?’ Durnus whispered, breathing hard.
Jergan swallowed blood. ‘I want you to kill me,’ he said. ‘End it. I’ve lived too long like this. I can’t escape like you can.’
Durnus shook his head. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Do it yourself.’
But Jergan shook his head, and bared his wrists for the vampyre to see. They were ridged and knotted with countless scars, some red and fresh, other milky-white or grey. ‘I’ve tried so many times but the lycan never lets me go! He’s too strong.’
‘Fine,’ said Durnus, abruptly filled with pity and shame. If this pathetic man could face death and the unknown then so could he. ‘I will.’
‘Promise!’ gasped the old Siren. ‘Promise you will!’
‘I promise,’ vowed the vampyre. He hauled the bloody-faced man upright and took a deep breath. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked.
Jergan closed his eyes and held his shaking hands by his side. ‘Do what you have to do,’ he replied. Durnus bravely swallowed his fear and reached for the book. He turned to the page he had turned to so many times before, and found the keys, the unlocking words to begin the spell, at the corners of the page. Speaking the words aloud, he began, shakily at first, but then stronger as the air began to hum with magick.