Once Were Men

by Marin Landis

  “Smashing yer own abode will do ye no good, and also we could all do with some of yer apple beer.”

  “Aye, ye’re right,” growled Ushatr. “Grab three bottles from the shelf outside.”

  Mikael did, unstoppered his and drank a fair amount of the cloudy pale liquid in one mouthful. The two giant men made no more effort to be polite than he.

  Ushatr wiped his face with the back of his hand and sat down on the bed.

  “Sure. That’s all ye get. Tell me how and why ye’ve perpetrated this falsehood.” Ushatr demanded. “I have a hatred of being deceived.”

  “It was all necessary, I assure you,” Mikael responded. “Now will ye both hear me out and if you think, at the end of my tale, that I deserve it, send me back to Mithras in box.” He nodded at each of them in turn.

  They both returned the nod, both looking extremely serious.

  “Ye both were brought here to further the aims of Mithras, at the height of his despair. He fought Apset and lost and was contained, but not before he cast down the Troge and ye were both born or released, I know not which. Know ye, either of ye, why he fought with Apset or what happened before that?”

  “Aye, Apset was a most foul traitor and what happened before that is contained in the Maru.” Hestallr answered simply. The Maru was the holy book of Mithras and written by Him. The modern Mithraic dogma was penned by Hestallr, supposedly inspired by Mithras, but Mikael believed otherwise. Mithras was quite insane, but the Church was healthy, more so now than it had even been and this was due to Hestallr. His teachings of compassion and honor, while stricter, were certainly more sound and intelligent than the Maru which was often the ranting of an unhinged mind. Anything created by the God now would be worthless, so far did Mikael suspect He had fallen into madness.

  “Ye knew Him not as a man. Great He was and wise, if impetuous. When a God He became, His failures became too much for him. He could not save humanity nor could he dissuade the other beings who lived on and within the earth to co-operate. ‘He saw their iniquity and was wroth,’” Mikael quoted from the Maru. “The more He saw, the angrier He became. Then He stopped noticing all of the wonderful things. I took him a plan, a way to enhance the lives of all the beings in our world. It was a lot of effort and would take hundreds, thousands, of years, but it was possible and it was my greatest work. He struck it from me in a fit of pique. ‘The time for progress has passed, Mikael. The time for vengeance is upon us.’”

  He stopped and looked at the two giant men. Cramped in this small hut, it barely able to contain Hestallr, on his knees, resting back, impassive. Ushatr, now looking less angry, sitting on his bed, waiting. Mikael stood and shifted his stool slightly, there was a splinter poking into his backside.

  If they don’t believe me, I might have to fight, or flee, he mused to himself. Probably flee.

  “He then revealed his plan to me. Cauterization. It’s a ridiculous word, it means…”

  “I know what it means, Varalus!” snapped Ushatar. “It’s also impossible and He would not dare. Garm…”

  “Garm what?” It was Mikael’s turn to interrupt. “Garm hasn’t moved for millennia. The others have no inkling and only the Primitives would try to stop him and as you may know, that would cause as much devastation. I have not told them for that reason.

  Ushatr laughed, a scornful laugh. Hestallr even had a look on his face that might have been a wry grin on a human, but could have indicated anything on such a being.

  “Garm isn’t as still as you might think, Mikael,” Ushatr spoke. “It was he that caused us to be released by the Troge. Mithras threw that to slay Apset but it was insufficient and it struck Garm’s mountain with enough force to release us and Gravandr. We knew what needed to be done. Apset’s actions were too destructive. Sehar would have eventually fallen under his depredations and that would be catastrophic. One of them must survive until a way can be found to return the Aur they hold.”

  “Enough!” boomed Hestallr, causing the hut to shake. “That is not for him to know.”

  Mikael didn’t truly understand Ushatr’s words but took a lot from that exchange. These Jotnar-kin were more than they seemed, more than anyone, including Mithras knew. Mikael did not react. He hadn’t survived countless centuries by showing his hand at every opportunity.

  “Aye,” returned the Silver Bear. “I believe you, Mikael. Nevertheless, Mithras’s way is the preferred path of humanity. Though it may not reflect Him, nor He it, this dogma is the way we shall take the world forward. “

  This was news to Mikael. “On who’s authority?” he demanded aggressively.

  He didn’t see it coming. One moment he was sitting, his jaw jutting, all sorts of thoughts rushing through his head, the next he lay on his back in the open air, struggling for breath, the figure of Ushatr looming above him. “You think yourself above all, Varalus. Mithras in his arrogance believes Himself the pre-eminent of all in the Heavenly abode when his home is but a palace on a mountain. He has never experienced true Ascension, merely a taste of divinity, that much which Garm allowed. We will ensure his worship continues, thrives, but he must cease all interference. He must become a silent partner in this deal. Tell Him that when He finds ye.”

  Mikael laughed, he laughed like he hadn’t laughed for centuries. Since all of his happiness had been drained away by his ‘Ascension’, the simple joys had been conspicuously, to him, absent. There was little to look forward to, or strive towards. Serving an increasingly mad God became his life’s work and it frustrated him. When the time came to choose between flight and certain destruction, he chose flight.

  He often rued the day that he and the Calimerta, the elite secret society to which they all had belonged, had decided to seek out Garm's mountain. They were bored and disinterested in politics. They were wealthy, apart from Tiriel, and had time on their hands. Most dangerously, they were all superior and they knew it. He started wheezing, the laughing starting to hurt and he struggled to catch his breath. It was all so obvious now that he thought about it. They weren't that special. They didn't evolve to what they were after the Ascension, they rapidly and suddenly mutated into something greater than what they were. It was true, Mithras was, as a mortal, an extremely powerful person who could harness the power of the Sun and his lover Sehar was able to channel that power into something more subtle, but they were merely a small step above the common man, nothing as to what they were now. Sehar literally controlled the circuit of the Sun through the Heavens and Mithras was the Sun Itself, so he and they had thought.

  Their ascension was a ruse then. He stopped laughing, remembering what Ushatr had just told him to do.

  Mikael sat up Ushatr had stepped back and was looking amused. If a swarm of angry wasps could look amused that would describe him adequately at that moment. Hestallr still kneeled in the, now, three walled hut. The wall through which Ushatr had struck him now in splinters. It was dark and chilly, the ground slightly wet, so he stood and marched past the Silver Bear into the hut and upended the stool on which he had been previously sitting and waited until Ushatr returned.

  "It was long past falling down anyway," he muttered as he walked through the smashed side of his hut. "Are ye planning to stay here, Varalus? What more do ye need?"

  Mikael knew that was the giant's way of dismissing him, but he wasn't ready. "I am not going to contact Mithras to pass yer message. Much as I would like to gaze upon His countenance when He heard the news, I'll gladly miss the opportunity in order to stay alive. We spoiled His plan remember?"

  "Well, get yerself off then," snapped Ushatr, Hestallr not responding. In some sort of trance no doubt.

  "Can I be counting on yer discretion?"

  "Aye. Hestallr is recoverin' from making ye anew and now I'll be makin' a new home for my cider. Ye wen't get yer man in order and I can't see what else ye be needing here. Fer my part, ye've lied and deceived us all, including yer son, and I understand why." He wasn't looking at Mikael while he spoke, he was running his hands acr
oss the edges of his missing wall, knocking out any remains of planks that hadn't been smashed totally away.

  Mikael didn't feel it prudent to say that he and Hestallr had deceived everyone as well, so he merely nodded and walked into the night.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Target

  “To tale a life needlessly is wasteful. To spare one from a place of pity, suicidal.” - Surakoita

  Her back hurt as she limped south down the road towards Uth-Magnar. She prayed that someone would stop her. Some band of men looking for an easy target, a patrol of the King's men, anyone to satisfy her desire for sudden, lethal violence.

  She couldn't recall ever being so angry. That knight, that cursed boy, Melvekior, had treated her with contempt. Thrown her to the ground! She had never been treated in that fashion. People respected her, men desired her and he had just tossed her to the earth like she was an unwanted crust of bread. For no more reason than he didn't want his precious friend harmed. He obviously didn't know how dangerous she was or he wouldn't have dared manhandle her. Nor that she could be a much better friend than Accus, that feeble wretch. A much closer friend.

  She smiled despite herself. He was very handsome, that young noble, and a Chosen of Mithras at that. A holy crusader, like the ones she had dreamed might carry her away one day. Before she had given up the foolish dreams of childhood. She shook her head.

  Have you lost your thrice-damned mind?, she thought.

  Tiriel would have to wait. She would need to take care of Melvekior first. She couldn't think where he might be headed. Surely he had no business at the Necropolis of Ain-Ordra, nor the Caverns of the Moon. He certainly wasn't a follower of Kehenre so he wouldn't be welcome on the grasslands further to the south. Had Mithras an outpost somewhere in Fallset that she did not know about?

  Regardless, she would have no chance of beating him in an open confrontation. Not that she should. It would have to be an accident. He was the Prince of Maresh-Kar and was an extremely visible figure, it shouldn't be difficult to find out his schedule and orchestrate some sort of strange accident.

  The thought of that didn't make her feel good and she waved that aside, but couldn't shake the thought of Melvekior sweeping her up onto his big brown horse and taking her away somewhere where nobody had ever heard of Ain-Ordra or Mithras.

  The rest of the bookish, studious lot at the Grand Library in Uth-Magnar didn’t pay much attention to Runild. For some reason she was the Chief Librarian; the reason widely believed to be her either a mistress of King Alpre or the offspring of such a relationship. She knew little about books, though surprised everyone with her often acute grasp of certain occult and esoteric subjects. Her people skills were poor but she knew how to put on the charm when necessary, which was not often; she cared little about the opinions of those she considered below her.

  For this reason, she was utterly ignored when she stalked through the library door, not keeping to customary silence of the building. Her quarters were at the back of the building which was itself built into the city walls. Those walls erected against the forbidding backdrop of the Truthsedge Mountains. Runild had co-opted the space reserved for ancient artifacts and documents and relegated them to an upper floor, her rooms now completely inaccessible to any but her. The consternation and outrage this caused from some of the traditionalists in the library was ineffectual, in fact she found it quite gratifying. As much as she loved Calra, she would be at no man’s mercy and needed an escape and happily there was one in the suite of rooms she built from the old repository. The passageway had been there for years, probably since the construction of the walls and of Magnar itself. She would never have known of its existence but for her relationship with Samarkus. He seemed to know more than he should have been able to, even with the arts he commanded, so she suspected him to be involved with Calra more than either let on. She kept her suspicions to herself though for there was never a need to show your hand unnecessarily.

  She maintained the highest levels of secrecy when it came to her private chambers. Only she had ever set foot in them in the last six years, though Samarkus might well have done using his powers of appearing anywhere he wanted, but she understood that he had no normal desires so nothing would have interested him therein. The door from the main library was locked, the corridor behind it unlit and untrod. She brushed cobwebs away from her face, disgusted by crawling things and secretly hating the dark, she would let no fear show though there be nobody to witness it if she did.

  The corridor end was blank, the door hidden even to her until she spoke the command phrase.

  Behind the door was a different world.

  Permanently and softly lit, her rooms were scented with vanilla and rose, the former part of her security precautions. The first room she walked into was a lounging room cum library. She did little reading herself but she had gathered some impressive tomes she felt were valuable. One didn’t pretend to be a librarian all day without picking up some knowledge of the occupation. Other than that a writing desk with a hard backed chair, a large leather bound and stuffed chair, alongside two single armed couches were the main items in the room. The plushness of the chaise-lounges were extravagant and that’s how she wanted it. Decorating the walls were drapes of a soft rose color, broken up by a statue of a nude here and there or a wall mural of some pastoral hunting scene or nymph or valiant knight. This last one made her think of Melvekior, but she pushed that away almost the moment it arose. There were more important, urgent matters for her instant consideration.

  There were exits from this room, aside from the concealed door from the main body of the main building. One that lead to her sleeping chambers and the other that lead to the wine cellar and subsequently to the underground escape route built centuries ago by someone as careful as her.

  The intruder would be behind one of them.

  She knew there was an intruder because the magical cantrip she had imprinted on her chambers had been disturbed. Even one with the ability to understand such workings would believe merely that its purpose was to make the room smell sweetly, but the depth of the vanilla essence wasn’t as it should be. Some person, cleverly exuding no odors of his or her own, had upset the delicate equilibrium of the careful balance Runild had created in her rooms. To one who didn’t know her, this would seem the most outrageous paranoia and folly. None could have such a heightened sense, but so it was. A master of spycraft herself, primarily with different techniques than this entity who was now, she was sure, within her chambers, she had such senses and more.

  She surmised that he, for she was sure it would be that repulsive dark elf she had encountered at the crossroads, would be in her personal sanctum for the door to the underground was far too well secured to be an easy breach. She had the upper hand here though, for she knew he was here and he felt her ignorant. Suppressing a smile she casually opened her bed chamber door.

  Too late she caught a glimpse of a terrible blackness above her head, a void in the world wherefrom fell a shadow. Caught between unthinking panic and a revulsion towards such fathomless darkness, she froze in place, her mind reeling and confused. She felt as though she were seeing her first night after a lifetime of day, as though she were struck blind. None of which prepared her for being struck heavily, yet precisely, low on the back of her head. Runild spun to the ground, insensate.

  The agony that accompanies the rise of consciousness after having that state removed with a head blow is a pain one never forgets. Runild would certainly never forget the moment that she realized she was bound, not too tightly, but extremely efficiently, to her reading chair. Her arms, legs and neck were tied in a complex binding, ingenuously causing light strangulation should any swift movement be made. She hadn’t yet opened her eyes, but learned not to struggle after a couple of such minor episodes of choking and gagging. Eventually opening her eyes she noticed that her suspicions were correct. That horrid dark elf was reclining on one of her couches watching her with his impenetrable black eyes. His was as
expressionless as his being was soulless, though she could feel the waves of smugness rolling from his revolting person. She started to mentally prepare herself for a beating, a raping, even her own death. She would not go with fear in her heart.

  “What do you want?” she croaked. She tried to keep steady as she spoke, not least to ensure the words came out coherently.

  “An explanation.” His voice was soft and hardly accented. Only her training allowed her to notice the subtle differences.

  “For what? Why I left you alive when I could have gutted you? Maybe I foresaw a time when I would need you.” Such a time being now.

  “I’ll provide a short list. Start with who you work for, then continue with your purpose and then a benefit to me and mine for leaving you alive.”

  There it was. The cadence of the speech, the odd little flecks of accent. She knew something about him now. It made her feel sick, but all of her training and her ruthlessness served her well yet again. She did not display her dismay.

  Dropping into Kehan, she spoke “I work for the Faceless One.” She noticed that he inclined his head ever so slightly, noticing the change in her. Did he wonder if he had tied her bonds too harshly and she needed pain relief or did he realize that she moved into the waking trance to heighten her senses to judge more accurately his reaction to her answer?

  “The speed with which you raise your awareness is impressive, lady. Who is the Faceless One?” Either he really didn’t know or his lying ability was beyond her own. Could it be that he did not know? She could not ask him questions? Unless…

  “She is one of your own, boy,” she hit back, disliking being referred to as ‘lady’.

  “You work for a Talvar? Nay! They did your bidding, unwittingly. You used their lust for knowledge and desire for growth as a tool against them.”