The territories between Central and Eastern Europe have strange histories and are inhabited by even stranger peoples and beings. It is this characteristic oddness that attracted me to the area from London decades ago. A history of werewolf and vampire occupation changed these territories, and the regional magical practices are of the sort that legends and folklore are made of. Especially during the centuries prior to my lifetime, traveling outsiders spoke of the lands along the Rhine and in the most inaccessible depths of the Transylvanian Alps in the same way they spoke of the uncharted seas—as the dwelling place of monsters.
The Schwarzer Mond clan has roots in much older clans, one of which is the Helvetian Clan in Wallachia. Since about 1150 werewolves have slowly spread into Central and Western Europe from their ancestral homelands in Eastern Europe. The first werewolves, as I have said, originated in Siberia and the Siberian arctic. The most modern incarnation of Helvetian werewolf culture is that of the Paris Clan, who practice the spiritual traditions of typical Eastern European clans. Helvetian, or “Moondown”, religion, which can only loosely be defined as such, is a natural religion which revolves around the moon and its phases. It references a system of symbols relating to lunar activity, such as the tides and moonbloom—a flower that blooms only at night under the moon and folds up during the day, revealing red spots on the underside of its petals. The symbol for the Order of the Blood Moon references this trait of the flower. The symbol is easily recognized as three spots surrounded by a fanged, crescent moon.
Helvetian custom and cultural influence can be seen in many modern clans, though modern clans do not consciously follow older werewolf traditions. There is an obvious disconnect between Eastern European clans and clans that have cultivated in the West in recent centuries. This is because Helvetian religion does not agree with dominant religions, whose propagators do not tolerate it. Werewolves who follow the Helvetian spiritual code are marked as heathen, because their texts do not mention a god, though the werewolves themselves believe in a paternal force that governs the natural world. Instead of acknowledging this, Western religions point to the figure werewolves call “Luna Mater” (Mother Moon), the maternal counterpart, and mistake this for a god. The moon is important to Helvetii because “She” commands the fluctuations of the werewolf curse, just as she commands the tides.
My personal interest in the Helvetii lies in their contributions to magic. Magical practices are crucial to daily life in the East. The werewolves living in Wallachia rely upon the Helvetian Stone for healthy growing seasons and harvests, as well as protection from plague. In addition, Manus Magia was born in the same region. In monastic fashion, the martial art was developed as an answer to outside aggression, but specifically in response to the Crusades between 1095 and 1291.
Geoffrey Mylus,
July 7, 1833
****
It had taken a great effort on the horses’ part to get Molly and Leon as far as they had. France was far behind them, and they had stopped on the side of the road to rest. Molly filled the meantime with attempts to call out to Tom, sensing that he might be within earshot if she could only call to him loudly enough. The countryside carried her voice for miles, but she heard no reply. Leon had been quiet for most of the journey. Even when they had stopped for the night for lodging, Leon would disappear and return in the morning. Molly could tell he was preoccupied, but she knew not whether it was his brush with Jack Darcy or his bodily needs that kept him awake. She did not ask.
On the sixth day of riding, in the middle of the morning, Tom and Geoffrey slowed to a trot on Geoffrey’s command. Ahead of them a dark forest overlapped the road, which degraded in quality and became unfriendly to hooves.
“We’ll continue on this way for an hour or two, and then we must leave the horses. They will not be able to assist us after that,” said Geoffrey.
The sky, which had been bright and clear at first sunlight, was now dark, cloudy and misty green. Their line of sight had shrunk and a light drizzle had pestered the horses for a few hours. The forest, deep and cool, robbed them of even more daylight and visibility. Neither Tom nor Geoffrey trusted the woods, and they decided it was best to travel at just under a gallop.
The world around them was different now, thought Tom. The line distinguishing Eastern Europe from West lay behind them, and familiarity would be scarce. The last time Tom had come to Eastern Europe, his family was still whole and happy. He and Harlan had laughed and played for hours in the back of their father’s wagon as their mother told them folktales all the way to Wallachia. The dark, cold nights were terrifying, because the things their mother spoke of came to life after the sun went down. The songs of spirits and the rustling of monsters in the trees were always enough to keep Tom and Harlan’s curiosity from coaxing them outside the wagon.
On one of their family’s first trips Tom heard the call of a werewolf clan for the first time. The region was safe for travelers back then, when the magic trade was better, but even John Crowe would have admitted his discomfort at the sound of fifteen to twenty werewolves crying out to Luna Mater during the autumn harvest season under a yellow moon. Another time the horses broke free from the wagon hitch in the middle of the night. Something had spooked them, and for the rest of the night John Crowe sat awake, because other caravans had reported seeing moroi, spirits, wandering the forests that season. What should have been an entirely unsuitable lifestyle for two young boys to grow up in was the exact opposite. John and Piroska Crowe wouldn’t have had it any other way, and there were no two better qualified parents than they for the job—he, a fit and experienced traveler and she, a native of Eastern Europe with a knack for natural medicine and folk magic.
Always observant and a keen learner, Thomas absorbed much of his parents’ self-taught knowledge before the accident. Not exactly a healer or a clairvoyant like his mother, he did retain an eye for herbal remedies. Even far from Europe and on the high seas, Thomas’s superstitions kept him sharp and on the lookout for subtle omens and the presence of environmental anomalies. From his father, no one would argue, Thomas took his courage and cunning, and a fair dash of navigational sense, as well as his vagabond’s charm. Now, as he followed Geoffrey, going once more into that realm of his childhood, the forest recognized him and paid close attention to his every step.
“My mother,” Tom said in a hushed voice, “told me once of a witch, Fritzi, who is supposed to live in this country.” The forest was quiet, save for the light drizzle that wet the ground and made the air chilly. “People who are unwise and travel the roads during winter may happen upon her in the forests after a new snow.”
Geoffrey listened quietly, patting his horse on the shoulder to calm it.
“She appears to different people in different forms,” Tom continued. “To young girls, she appears as a lost kitten, mewing for their pity so they will give her food and warmth. To young men, she appears as an alluring woman. To others, she may be merely the enticing smell of warm food, or the sound of a violin, or whatever she believes will coax you into her forest and away from the safety of the mountain roads.”
The misty sky peeked through the tops of the trees here and there. The rain wouldn’t let up for hours, Tom was sure. Reciting his mother’s folktales at least did something to stave off the silence of the woods. “Fritzi Grun was a young woman from a mountain village. She was a beautiful seamstress with dark eyes, and she was in love with a young man named Klaus, who had become well known and rich by selling his beautiful wooden furniture. The two came from families that were long dependent upon one another, and their parents were more than happy to allow them to marry. Another young woman, Greta, from a family that despised Fritzi’s, tried to win over Klaus by telling him that Fritzi wanted to marry him only for his wealth. Greta was a lazy, stubbornly proud girl who ate more of the pies her family’s bakery made than she actually sold. She was as young as Fritzi, with light hair, blue eyes, small lips and a small round nose. She could have been as pretty as Fritzi if only sh
e weren’t guilty of idleness, gluttony and envy. The older men of the village fancied her more than the younger, eligible ones.”
Tom seemed to peer into the mist as he strained to recall his mother’s story. “Greta clung to Klaus when the two were in the presence of others and pretended to be as great an artisan of baked goods as Klaus was of beautiful woodcrafts. Greta looked down upon other girls and gossiped about everyone with anyone, even her closest friends. Her tales included lies about Fritzi. Greta was an actress, and even Klaus, though usually a good judge of character, was fooled into thinking she was the reasonable, modest girl she convinced everyone she was. When Fritzi and Klaus began to spend time with one another, Greta would not stand for it, and her lies became more vicious. Fritzi, morbidly upset by the lies Greta had spread about her, left the village one winter day. Klaus went after her, but he searched in vain. By nightfall, Fritzi was lost in a snowstorm. Klaus had to turn back.” Tom surveyed the woods with distrust, dramatizing the tale for Geoffrey, who sat uncomfortably in his saddle and looked over his shoulder at every change in the rain.
Ahead, the path tightened and lost definition. The leaf litter obscured what once had been a footpath for a goatherd or woodsman. Geoffrey paused a moment to make sure they were still headed in the right direction. “We turn here,” he said, glad he hadn’t forgotten the way.
“That night, Greta left her shop early as she always did,” Tom continued once they had turned. “She had cleaned as little as she had to, deciding she deserved a rest because of all the errands her mother had burdened her with that day. In addition, she wanted to treat herself by spending more than she could afford on a new dress. To her great disappointment, the seamstress Fritzi was not home. Greta could not have her dress and, even more frustrating, she couldn’t torment the girl she so hated.”
“The road should appear again if we go this way.” Geoffrey expressed his thoughts aloud, distracted by the story and becoming more and more anxious to see Castle Hainburg.
“Beyond the Grun family’s shop, Greta saw Klaus heading out into the forest. Now, remember, Klaus had come back by that time and was home, telling his family of Fritzi’s disappearance. But Greta did not know this, and she hurried after whom she believed was Klaus. It did not take long for her to lose her way in the snow, and soon she was too far from the village for anyone to hear her cry for help.” Tom yawned and stretched his neck before going on. “The next day, Klaus went out again after learning that Fritzi had not come home the night before. He never found Fritzi, but he did find Greta, lying in the snow, her heart missing from her chest. Forever after, people have been careful when traveling around winter time through the Transylvanian Alps.”
“Ah, the Alps,” Geoffrey muttered, sounding relieved. That range was far from their current location.
Tom nodded, and then ended his tale the same way his mother had always done: “They say if it snows and you travel alone, Fritzi will tempt you with something you want and take something from you that you do not deserve to keep.”
Molly could sense Thomas with greater and greater strength. After leaving France, she somehow was able to keep the horses moving for longer periods during the day. They galloped with fervor even when they should have had no energy left. Molly realized that when her hopes were highest, she and Leon traveled the fastest and the lightest. The animals responded to her and even gave off a faint glow, as she did. The radiance made Leon irritable, but he did not complain, having also picked up on the unusual phenomenon. Riding for twice as long each day did not matter to him anyway. Sleep was unnecessary, and when he needed to stop for what he called “personal rejuvenation,” he didn’t take long, and he promised Molly that he would borrow only what he needed immediately and nothing more. With some ingenuity, Leon had devised a way to replenish his spent blood without taking a life. Finding some humanity in his heart, he burdened himself to gradually replenish himself by taking a part of the total blood he required each night along the trip from different sources. His targets would suffer from fatigue, but they would not die, and the chance of passing the curse to them was less likely if he took less and less from each one. There was still a risk, but Leon had to take it, lest he waste away and forfeit his life. Molly did not excuse Leon either way, but if Tom could remove a demon, she thought, maybe Leon could be made human again. Yes, it sounded farfetched, even to Molly, but if she had learned anything since meeting Tom, it was to wean herself from the expectation that anything was impossible.
The slow, stop-and-start ride through the forest consumed many an hour. By evening Tom and Geoffrey saw the fringes of mapped territory again. Geoffrey had been correct, and his shortcut put them on the road to the saw mill. Just as Henriette had said, there was no other sign of life, past or present, other than the road and the mill itself, which was decaying alone in an overgrown field by the edge of the woods. To the north, beyond the forest and perched atop a small mountain, was Castle Hainburg, with beautiful white stone walls and turrets capped by green shingle cone roofs. Under the dreary grey skies it looked older than it truly was. Tom did not expect it to appear as welcoming as it did, but he withheld his presumptions.
“There it is,” said Geoffrey, turning to look at Tom for a gesture of approval. He received a modest grin.
“Where exactly are we?” Tom asked, uncertain after their earlier deviation.
“The shortcut took us northward through the archduchy of Austria, and once we reach Castle Hainburg, we’ll be to the east of Vienna. A short ride from there lies the Danube, a hair’s distance from the Hungarian border, but still within the Habsburgs’ domain.”
“Why is it that clan populations are so sparse in these parts?” Tom’s question put Geoffrey in a dour mood rather quickly. “It would seem that with no cult presence, werewolves would flock to the east and take to a castle like the Schwarzer Mond.”
“The relative absence of vampires is a great benefit to life in the east,” Geoffrey agreed. “However, during the past six or so years, lupomorphs have moved out of the region due to violence.” Geoffrey rubbed the rain from his glasses and waited for Tom to catch up.
“Violence? On whose account? And what word was that you used? Lupo—” Tom’s mare shook the moisture from its mane and snorted.
“Lupomorph,” finished Geoffrey. “It’s a proper term I use for ‘werewolf.’ And yes, violence has driven several major clans from the region. An outside group has muscled its way east, as far as India, as I understand it. They wear white uniforms and strike out against immortals. They arm themselves with magic, but strictly with autocasts and other prepared magical weaponry. I doubt any among them are magesmiths or sorcerers. They must belong to a government or religious authority …”
“White uniforms, you said?” Tom asked, remembering hearing a similar story from someone at the Hallows Eve Ball in London. The coincidence bothered him, but at the moment, he let it go and focused on getting to Hainburg before dark. “Geoffrey, we’ll stop here a moment. Help me find a saw. Henriette instructed me to fell a tree in order to signal the watch.”
The men hopped down from the horses’ backs and let them roam around at a tether’s end while they explored the saw mill’s guts. The two-man saw they found was rusted, a little loose at the handles and missing teeth, but it would have to do. Tom chose a tree at the forest’s edge that was large and heavy enough to make a decent racket when it toppled over. Each man taking one end, they shoved the saw forth and drew it back for several minutes, Tom getting carried away with his strength and yanking Geoffrey into the trunk twice. When the tall tree began to complain, Tom gave it a swift kick and sent it reeling over into its fellows, whereupon it crashed with a great calamity, throwing up twigs, leaves and a number of offended quail.
“They heard us knocking,” said Geoffrey a moment later, watching the movement of little lights along the outer walls of the castle. A round of howls rang out, faint, but unmistakable. Tom again remembered the first night he’d heard such noise as a boy, s
omewhere not too far from Austria. The memory kept his mind occupied as the sun set, somewhere beyond the thick grey clouds. Cold rain collected on his skin and gave him shivers while he and Geoffrey waited for the welcoming party.
In shorter time than expected, several bodies approached from within the woods. Moving swiftly and cautiously, they became human in shape before walking out to meet Tom and Geoffrey. One of the Schwarzer Mond recognized Geoffrey, spoke to him in German and clapped him on the back while shaking his hand. Tom received a similar greeting, though he couldn’t converse with whomever it was that was jabbering away at him. The stranger did not mind, so Tom made no effort to apologize. The werewolves were eager to get back to Hainburg and urged Tom and Geoffrey to tie up the horses inside the mill and leave them for the night. Purposefully, whoever had come by last had left a decent amount of feed.
“Felix is waiting for us at Hainburg,” explained Geoffrey, huffing and sweating as he kept pace with Tom and the werewolves, who led the troupe transformed, smelling the air and talking to each other in old, one-word Gresh commands. Tom had never heard the language used extensively or completely, but it was fascinating to see that the werewolf language was not dead and gone. To anyone else, their chattering would have sounded like the indistinct guttural bickering of dogs. “Do you speak any Gresh?” asked Geoffrey, having noticed that Tom was listening to the guides.
“No, but I recognize the speech pattern. It’s used in some forms of spell casting,” admitted Tom. He grinned the way he always did on the rare occasion he met a subject of which he was an amateur, intrigued and eager to understand.
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