red thirst

by ich du

  The man-thing put its rubbery lips to her ear. "Pain, Katarina," it commanded. "Pain." The words sank into her mind as if they had been arrows. Her nerves were suddenly alight. Every part of her body had been put to the torch. She screamed.

  "A sample, Katarina, of what I could teach you if only we had a little time to ourselves again." The voice in her ear was a hoarse murmur, unmistakably Anton's. "All the magic you could ever wish to learn about."

  In desperation, the pain threatening to wipe out all rational thought, her eyes rolled upwards, towards the city above.

  "No," the creature whispered as it shifted on top of her. "There's no help there. My Kislevans will fight on until they die."

  It reached for something behind her, tugged at it, grunting with the effort, until it came free, then brought it forward so that she could see it. It was the skull from Anton's body.

  The creature's head came back into her field of vision; its eyes were glossy. "Death." It shuddered. Then, slowly, its features contorted into a caricature of a smile. "The Graf and those Guild bumpkins thought that it would stop me. Instead, it has given me one more component to add to my ring of power."

  The skull rose from the creature's hand, beginning to glow as it did so, and floated across the room towards the ghostly chandelier of skulls, its jaw already moving in the same soundless chant.

  Through the agony that was burning its way through her body she heard the creature continue. "With six skulls I can charge it to a new level of strength, an order of magnitude greater than was possible before."

  Surely, Katarina thought in desperation, this new addition would disturb the delicate balance of the structure. If it would only distract Anton, for as much as a second, then she might have a chance.

  The skull joined the ring, the others shifting smoothly to make a place for it. At once the glow from the eye-sockets sharpened, and the jaws began to move with even greater vigour.

  "Not Chaos, Katarina," the creature whispered. "That is a snare - the fool's road to destruction. No, my path is slower, spread across many lifetimes. My magic is merely a little darker-hued than most." It leaned closer again, whispered confidentially into her ear. "The skulls will come with me, of course. To a new city, a new life. I wish I could take you too, Katarina. But - your talent makes that too dangerous. No, I'll have to kill you. But quickly. I promise you that. First, though - my grimoire."

  The creature reached out for the book. As its attention left her, the pain diminished fractionally. Her right hand was trapped, still held in the creature's grasp. With her left, she fumbled for something - anything - to strike at it with.

  Her fingers found the body behind her head and felt along the soft fabric of the wizard's robe; the outline of the skeleton stood out plainly beneath it. Then they touched something sharp-edged: the assassin's blade.

  Her hand reached for the hilt. Too far. She stretched her arm as much as she could. Still could not grasp it.

  As the creature's pale hand closed on the book, Katarina closed her eyes, murmured the words of a fetch-spell. The knife slid free with a scrape of steel against bone, rose into the air, spun slowly around. Then drifted towards her extended hand.

  The creature had the grimoire now, was grunting in satisfaction.

  Katarina's hand closed around the hilt. She brought the knife up above the man-thing on top of her and, jerking her right hand free with a sudden effort, clasped the knife in both hands.

  As the creature swivelled its head back towards her, she brought the blade down with all her strength, driving it into the creature's back.

  "No," the man-thing called out, furious, as the blade pierced it. Its eyes glittered, brimming with anger but empty of pain, as if the half-formed body still lacked the capacity to feel any. It swung the grimoire at her like a club, and its empty hand came around to fend off the knife. The lips moved again, chanting the pain-spell.

  Katarina shut her mind to the pain. It was not real, she would not allow herself to feel it. Nothing was real to her but her rage and her hate. Those feelings - and the knife she held in her hand.

  Katarina wrenched it free, raised it, brought it down again, sensing it sink into the body above her. Then another time, and another, repeating the cycle over and over, ignoring the pain burning at the edges of her personal universe, the hands clutching at her arms.

  "No." Suddenly there was fear in the voice. And Katarina knew why: This time there was no homunculus prepared and waiting to take up the wizard's life. This time there would be no resurrection.

  "Die, gods damn you! Die!" Again and again she struck, until she had lost count of the number of times she had driven the blade into the creature's body, until her hands were sticky with its blood. Its arms thrashed feebly; the mouth opened and closed,but no further sound came out.

  Finally, long after the creature had stopped moving, Katarina pushed its body off her and got to her feet. The ring of skulls was slowing once again, its light dwindling. Breathing hard, her tunic ripped, and streaked with blood and dust, she stared down at the body on the floor.

  It was quite dead. And this death, she thought with grim satisfaction, was the wizard's final one.

  With the grimoire in one hand and the dagger in the other, Katarina Kraeber went into the tunnel that led upwards to freedom.

  THE LIGHT OF TRANSFIGURATION

  by Brian Craig

  Of all the stories I know, said Orfeo, with an unaccustomed softness in his voice, the ones I love best are those set in the region where I lived as a child, which is the Loren Forest. I wish that all the tales which I could tell of Loren were as happy as my memories of it, but alas it is not so. You will know the forest by repute as the abode of the virtuous wood elves, and it was by those elves that I was found and raised when I was abandoned there, but the forest is vast and there are many others who have sought solace and shelter in its wilder parts, among them bad and dangerous men who have increased the burden of evil and suffering which lies upon the world we love.

  Most of the men who live on the fringes of the forest are honest worshippers of Taal, and many of those who live closer to its heart still follow caring traditions of the old religion, but there are parts of the forest which are host to the worshippers of darker gods, and to those who make treaty with daemons. One such tainted area is to be found in the lower reaches of the steep mountains called the Vaults, which I was taught in my youth to avoid. Because the wood elves do not teach without explanation, they told me all that the wisdom of lore and legend had to say about the place, and it is one tale from that legacy which I will tell you now. It is one of that sad multitude of tales which warn us to beware of the wiles of those daemons which are sent by wicked gods to seduce and torment us.

  On one of the lesser crags of this region, near a town called Selindre, there once stood a fortified manse, which was a centre of forbidden worship until the king who was great-grandfather to our own beloved Charles appointed his favourite knight Lanval de Valancourt to lead a crusade against the daemon-kin.

  All good Bretonnians have heard the story of that great adventure, and you will know already that Lanval's courage prevailed at last against the evil magic of the sorcerer Khemis Kezula - but the versions of the tale you have heard from other tellers undoubtedly ended with the moment of Lanval's victory, and with the implication that all has been well in Selindre's demesnes since it was achieved. Alas, it is a truth which we too often forget that the shadows of evil cast by dark magic often linger long after the destruction of the magicians themselves.

  It was because he knew this that Lanval de Valancourt, having acquired the estates of Khemis Kezula by right of lawful conquest, caused the fortress to be razed to the ground and its stones scattered about the mountainsides by his men-at-arms. Lanval never set foot among the ruins again, and when the time came for him to die - which he did in his bed, as all heroes deserve to do, though few achieve it - he advised his son Guillaume to leave it alone also. Guillaume, being a wise man as well as a
dutiful son, did as he was instructed.

  Guillaume lived ten years less than his father, departing this life at the age of fifty-two, and was misfortunate enough to die far from home, while fighting a campaign for his liege-lord the king. In consequence of this, his own son and heir, Jehan de Valancourt, acquired the lands around Selindre without receiving any solemn warning in regard to his use of them.

  All his knowledge of them, in fact, was drawn from the tales of his grandfather's glorious victory, which many story-tellers less scrupulous than myself had altered somewhat for the purposes of prettification and flattery.

  Jehan so loved to bask in the reflected glory of his ancestor's heroic exploits that he took an early opportunity to visit Selindre, and was somewhat surprised to discover that the people of the town were less than grateful for the privilege of receiving him. He was a young man still, and had not quite understood how happy men can be when their liege-lords live distantly and do not put them to the trouble of providing obligatory hospitality.

  When Jehan proudly rode up the slope to Khemis Kezula's blasted fortress to inspect the scene of his grandfather's victory he was unlucky enough to be thrown from his horse. He fell awkwardly, splitting his head upon a square-edged stone. Though his skull was not broken the wound never healed, and for the remainder of his life Jehan was tormented by evil dreams and periodic bouts of madness, during which the ordinary light of day seemed to him to be eclipsed by a brighter and more colourful light whose constant changes made him dizzy with anxiety.

  Jehan became convinced that the ruins of Khemis Kezula's citadel were accursed - though whether he was mad or sane at the moment when he was persuaded of it, none can tell. For this reason, he inserted a clause into his will which said that the hill on which the fallen fortress stood should be set aside from the demesnes of Selindre, and should not be handed down to his own eldest son, who was called Lanfranc. Instead, the hill was given to the Sisters of Shallya, the goddess of healing and mercy, in order that they should raise in that wild and tempestuous region a shrine of their own. By means of this device Jehan de Valancourt sought to employ the power of the best and kindest of the gods to erase the memory and the legacy of wicked Khemis Kezula, whose prayers had undoubtedly been offered to a very different deity.

  The Sisters of Shallya were not entirely delighted to receive Jehan de Valancourt's legacy after his death. It was not that they feared any curse which might lie upon the land, but simply that the region was remote, and was home to very few followers of the goddess. The Council of Couronne, after much deliberation, sent envoys to Lanfranc de Valancourt to say that the gift of land would not be useful unless he could also provide for the hire of a company of masons and carpenters to build a temple and a house upon the site.

  Lanfranc, despite that he harboured some slight resentment that the Sisters should inherit land which might have been his, agreed to assemble such a crew from those in his service, provided that the Sisters would go to the hill with them, so that their prayers and their magic could provide protection against the effects of any curse which might lie upon the land. This was agreed.

  In consequence of these decisions, a company of Sisters was dispatched from Quenelles, travelling up the River Brienne to the limit of its navigability, where they met the Valancourt builders whose task it would be to build the stones of Khemis Kezula's ruined manse into a residence and a temple.

  The nine Sisters who were appointed to this mission accepted their lot, as they were bound by their vows to do, unquestioningly. Some, indeed, were pleased by the prospect. For Mother Thelinda, who was appointed Superior of the company, there was a welcome increase in authority to compensate for the disruption of her former life; and for the likes of Sister Penelope and Sister Myrica - neither of whom had ever taken to city life - there was the lure of the forest and the fresh mountain air. But there were also those whose uncomplaining acceptance masked a certain unease, and one of these was Sister Adalia.

  Adalia was twenty-two years old, having served Shallya for eight years. She was the daughter of a craftsman glassworker in the service of the governor of Quenelles, who had attracted the attention of a priestess of Shallya by virtue of an unusual aptitude for spellcasting which she had shown as an adolescent.

  Alas, her aptitude had failed to mature with her body, so that her cultivated skills proved to be nothing out of the ordinary.

  This disappointment had not detracted from Adalia's loyalty towards the goddess while she remained in her native town, where she was close to her relatives and where all the best houses boasted at least one window made by her father. She was stern in her determination to avoid curiosity about what might have become of her had she taken a different path in life. She never asked herself whether it was right and fair that the dull woman she now was should inherit the consequences of decisions made by the over-eager and falsely-promising girl she once had been. When she was commanded to leave Quenelles, though, she soon became conscious of a certain emptiness in the secret chambers of her heart, which her prayers and acts of charity could not begin to fill.

  The hardship of the early days on the slopes above Selindre could not help but magnify any unease which the Sisters felt. Although it was summer the weather was often chilly and damp, and though the builders worked as fast as they could to erect two big houses - one for themselves and one for the Sisters - their progress was slow. The huge black stones which had formed the walls of Khemis Kezula's citadel were very difficult to shift and raise, even with block-and-tackle; and the tall trees which had to be felled for timber had hard, dark wood which blunted the carpenters' drills and saws. In the meantime, the whole company shivered in their tents.

  Adalia, though she was far from being the tallest or the strongest of the Sisters, was instructed to help the workmen in their lighter tasks, fetching and carrying for them or mixing mortar. The work was so hard that her back always ached and her hands often bled, and though her magic won her some relief from such sufferings there was always more work to renew them. Myrica, seeing her distress, told her gently that the sunlight and the fresh air would soon bring colour to her cheeks and more strength to her limbs, but Adalia could discover no such change in herself as the long days went by.

  The sisters and the workmen moved into the two houses as soon as the roofs were in place, though they were by no means entirely finished. Each of the sisters was alotted a room, bare-floored and bare-walled, with a pallet on which to sleep and two candle-brackets set on either side of a slit-window. So black was the stone of which the walls were made, so narrow were the windows, and so poor were the candles manufactured in Selindre, that these rooms seemed at first to be dreadfully gloomy.

  Adalia's room was in the second storey, beneath the eaves. It faced north, so that the sun never shone directly through the narrow window, and it overlooked a stand of uncommonly twisted trees whose tattered crowns seemed to mutter arcane imprecations when stirred by the wind. It was by no means as comfortable as the room which she had occupied in Quenelles, whose walls had been hung with tapestries depicting flocks of flying doves, and whose latticed window had faced the rising sun - but she was resolved that she must not hate it, and it was certainly a relief to possess some space that was all her own after weeks of sharing a tent.

  Mother Thelinda instructed that each of the Sisters must make her room a fit place for prayer, first by staining the dark walls white and then by inscribing on their surface the sacred symbols of Shallya: a heart of gold, a white dove in flight, and a tear-shaped drop of blood. Though none complained, all found difficulty in executing this task, for the black stones which had once protected Khemis Kezula were resistant to the stain of purity, and whitewash had to be applied several times over before the walls would condescend to be lightened.

  Adalia found the task particularly frustrating, but in the end achieved a shade of grey which did not seem intolerably grimy. By this time, the white habit which she wore seemed to have lost its crisp cleanness forever, and no matt
er how she scrubbed it she could only bring it to the same shade of grey which she had contrived to impart to the walls of her room. It was little comfort to her that all the other sisters had the same difficulties to afflict them.

  The people of Selindre were not ungrateful for the Sisters' presence, for they had heard what power the devoted followers of Shallya had to cure the sick and ease pain. Mother Thelinda received a steady stream of pleas for aid, which never went unanswered. Though no price was asked for such assistance, the villagers began to send gifts of food and livestock - and by this means the Sisters acquired a flock of chickens and a milking-goat. They also became inheritors of the rich tradition of cautionary tales and rumours which had been handed down to the people from the times when Khemis Kezula had been their oppressor.

  Among these stories there were the usual horrific accounts of cannibalism and child-sacrifice which inevitably accumulate about those of sorcerous inclination, and the usual flights of fancy regarding storm-riding daemons and monsters of the night. But there were other items too, more unusual and idiosyncratic, some of which were contained in sayings and warnings whose import was no longer properly understood. One apparently-pointless tale alleged that Khemis Kezula had made alliance with a tribe of dwarfs which had forsaken the worship of Grungni in order that another god might teach them the secret arts of crystal-making; and one mysterious instruction, known to every child in Selindre - though none knew what it meant - bade all who dared to walk upon the mountain slopes to Beware the Glorious Light which floods the hidden valleys of the soul.

  The Sisters of Shallya were no ordinary women, but they shared the delight which all women have (which men also share, if the truth be admitted) in fearful fancies and ominous whispers. They repeated these tales avidly to one another while they worked, and though they laughed to show what little fear they had of the daemons with which long-dead Khemis Kezula had once made pacts there was always a tiny thrill of anxiety in their laughter.